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I was invited to an event at Meskel Square last Saturday
where a 100m painting, done by 30 artists was
inaugurated to fight early marriage. The event that
took place on March 8, International Women’s Day,
was a culmination of two days of painting. To launch
the largest canvas ever painted in the country,
there was an array of public and international
dignitaries as well as the head of the Ethiopian
Orthodox Church along with his usual entourage.
Although the focus of the ceremony were rural families that
subject their young daughters to early marriage, and
the social upheaval that the young women who have
been forced into this situation have been forced to
deal with at extremely young ages, it conducted
entirely in English.
The stratum of society that has to deal with this sort of
life situation are young women in non-urban areas
and their families. Even the two young ladies that
made speeches about their experiences did so in
Amharic and had no comprehension of what was being
said by all the other speakers. Were the event to
take place at the Sheraton or some other upscale
location, where the hundreds of pedestrians that
were there to see the event were not present, I
would have understood the choice of language.
In a location where there are hundreds of people interested
in finding out what is going on, where some of the
participants of the event were not English speakers,
and the affected people are neither, this was not
the ideal choice of language. This struck me as
entirely odd, considering where we were and the sort
of people that this message was suppose to be
getting to.
But this is just the straw that breaks the camel’s back, so
to speak, the use of English and the gradual
elimination of Amharic, seem to be a growing trend,
particularly in the capital, Addis Abeba.
If you take a ride down Africa Avenue (Bole Road), you
would be hard pressed not to notice the rise in
advertising and the innovative manner in which
companies are now presenting their products to the
public. Funnily enough, most of these billboards are
in English and do not offer a single letter of
Amharic. The banners that were put up to advertise
the event that I mentioned earlier were also done in
English, although I have to admit, that there were a
few versions in Amharic.
Just to mention a few, Deluxe Furniture has come up with an
excellent advertising campaign, though in English,
all the major airliners flying out of the Bole
International Airport, including Ethiopian,
all use English to advertise in a non-English
speaking nation. Don’t even get me started on the
sodas, Pepsi and Coca Cola that use the same
international advertising campaign, and don’t even
bother to come up with a local version, where all
their products are being sold.
Although the advertising campaigns that are being launched
are being focused on a certain minute group of
people that are able to afford the products that are
being advertised, this only considers about
10-15percent of the population of the city.
Urbanites, especially those living in Addis Abeba, do not
represent the majority of the population. As a
matter of fact, we are the minority of what are
considered Ethiopians.
What about the rest of the population? Or better yet, what
about the significant majority of the country?
We have to be honest and admit the fact that people in
rural areas have increased their purchasing power
significantly over the last two decades. The people
in the rural areas are the ones that are propping up
not only the economy, but the stomachs of the entire
nation. In essence they are the nation.
Why is it that advertisers choose to ignore them when they
are offering new products?
This is not to say to go and advertise the I-Phone in Showa
Robit. It is entirely viable to spread these
campaigns to those areas, but it would not make any
sense if they remain in English. Their remaining in
English really does not make any sense at all,
because speaking of that international language is
not a requirement. Disregarding the non-English
speaking majority is a bit crass, in my humble
opinion.
Perhaps a little more consideration on the part of the
advertisers when they are launching their new
campaigns would surely mean more business because
they would be reaching many more people.
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