Addis Tribune, Ethiopia
Sept 17 2004
Cosmetic Change
OPINION
The spectre of a permanence of impermanence has been haunting our
land for generations on end. It is thus only true to say that
cosmetic – and not meaningful – change in the economic destiny of the
Ethiopian people has been an ineluctable fact of life in this country
since the death of Menelik in 1913. Even today – in the third
millennium – we continue to witness change in its most chimerical
form.
Only last week, for instance, the government was telling the
Ethiopian people through its mass media that a new passport was
coming into existence as of September 11. Passports – like other
documents – have been, of course, changing form much like the amoeba
in Ethiopia since 1974. Even during the 13-year-long life of the
incumbent government, we must have had no less than two versions of
passports.
Since 1889 – when Menelik was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia – four
flags have been flying in this country, one of them Italian between
1936 and 1941, not counting, of course, the Union Jack during the
brief war of liberation. The Ethiopian tricolour was superseded in
1974 by a flag with a de-crowned Ethiopian lion – and in 1991 by a
tricolour with an emblem on it very much reminiscent of the Star of
David.
A plethora of notes and coins had come and gone since the days of
Menelik. Many of us are still alive who are fortunate enough to
remember Menelik’s Maria Theresa silver thaler and copper and nickel
coins like the beza and temun, Haile-Selassie’s pre-1936 alad( a
fifty-cent nickel coin) and the notes and coins that were replaced by
ones that had carried images of peasants and workers by the beginning
of 1977.
This is to say nothing of the three national anthems that were being
sung in this country since the time of the regency of Emperor
Haile-Selassie – the first of them composed as a rousing military
march by Ethiopians of Armenian origin. It is, indeed, a pity that
impermanence has been becoming an inevitable feature of the national
life of the Ethiopian people for over one hundred years now. n
Cost of Living
There were days in the not-too-distant past when the pressure of the
cost of living was not being felt to be an insufferable burden even
on a poor people like Ethiopians. Before the fuel crisis of 1973, all
commodities were very cheap here. One kilogram of meat was worth one
birr; one chicken could be bought for less than two birr; a big
ceremonial ram had cost no more than sixty birr; and a litre of
petrol had sold for only 45 cents.
Those were, of course, in the good old days when Ethiopians of
middle-income were collecting between 300 and 700 birr a month. No
useful purpose could be, certainly, served by crying over spilt milk,
as the old English saying goes. However, to adapt a Shakespearean
saying, the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in the
interminable wars that were being conducted by Bush père and Bush
fils in Iraq since 1991.
Ethiopian governments are absolutely blameless for periodically
raising the prices of petrol. In fact, these governments have been
subsidizing the prices of petroleum products in order to make life
more tolerable for the generality of the Ethiopian people. Ethiopians
are now finding the cost of living – or even dying – to be very high.
Let us only hope and pray that a congenital warmonger in the US would
lose the November election for alleviating our seemingly perpetual
misery.