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I would like to thank Lulit Amedemariam for her
article headlined, “Change from Within” [Volume 8,
Number 379, August 5, 2007].
I have lived in the United States (US) for over 20
years, and I am very sad to say that the discourse
among fellow Ethiopians in the Diaspora has been
hijacked by a very vocal minority who many years ago
werte disciples of Marxism-Leninism working very
hard to establish “the dictatorship of the
proletariat”. Today that same generation, a little
grayer and a lot older but not much wiser, has a new
found religion in “liberal democracy”.
Sadly, it is a troubled generation that never
bothered to learn and understand the various
Ethiopian cultures then as is the case now now. If
you think about it, almost all of us in the Diaspora
communicate with our children in English or some
other Western language; we are detached from the
realities in Ethiopia. Only a few of us will return;
I wonder why we spend so much time and energy
meddling in the affairs of a country that we see for
a couple of weeks every other year.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Ephraim
Isaac (Professor) was the first President of the
Ethiopian Student Association in North America some
45 years ago. At its inception, it was a
non-political association pushing for literacy in
Ethiopia, among other things.
Unfortunately, that Association with a noble
beginning was hijacked by politicians determined to
establish “the dictatorship of the proletariat”. As
the saying goes “they became more catholic than the
pope”; some went back home, some stayed behind, but
directly or indirectly, all are responsible for the
death of thousands.
Ephraim was right then as he is today. He
reintroduced the culture of forgiveness to a
confused Diaspora who has yet again a lot to learn
about our country, peoples and various cultures. Let
us stop subscribing to half baked imported foreign
theories and learn about each other.
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