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I
hardly read “Life Matters”, one of your columns by Lulit
Amdemariam. That was until two weeks when I noticed her
article headlined, “Cult of the Celebrity” [Volume 9 Number
419, May 11, 2008]. I was compelled to respond, rather
impatiently and without losing my sense of reason, to her
warning to all fans of Tewodros Kassahun (Teddy Afro), and
by analogy to all other people who adore popular Ethiopian
men or women of fame and honour.
Celebrities are individuals that have not only shown talent,
but also possess extraordinary accomplishments in their
respective field and have earned the support, love, esteem
and sympathy of the public. Celebrities attain their status
and position in a society through hard work, sacrifices and
courage of their trade. All these qualities are not achieved
by pretension, treachery, hypocrisy or slavish obedience to
their own selfish ego or to the will of others, neither is
celebrity status achieved through royal edict or official
decoration.
We
Ethiopians have been endowed, throughout our long history,
with hundreds and thousands of celebrities from all walks of
life; our contemporaries, as well as preceding generations,
have given due credit, recognition and respect to these
people. Hopefully, this will continue in the future despite
the frequent and all too embarrassing attempts to eclipse
enterprising personal or individual endeavours lately. This
may have been a tendency rooted in the communist doctrine or
teachings that attribute any success in any field to the
“masses”, thus disguising even reprehensible acts of some
individuals within the “masses”.
It is
certainly premature and legally not permissible to comment
on pending criminal trials as to what should be done or
ought to have been done, or what the law granted but unduly
denied, as Teddy Afro’s case has just only begun and has not
yet been concluded. However, Teddy deserves the attention of
the media not merely because he is a pop star, but also
because he has been portrayed as a very controversial
personality in local literature that has imparted labels on
him ranging from “a racist” to “a venerated icon”.
In his
book titled, The people of Tigray and the Conspiracy of
Chauvinists, from Yesterday to Today, (1998 E.C)
Gebrekidan Desta (Memihir) quoted a line from one of Teddy’s
lyrics and described him as a racist against the whole of
Tigraway, even though the line was actually referring only
to former TPLF fighters. In sharp contrast, another writer,
Abayneh Zewdu, authored pamphlet sized poetry titled, “Teddy
Shall Die Not”: he goes as far as idolizing him somewhat as
almost a spiritual force, notwithstanding Teddy’s human and
some times boisterous personality.
I do
not agree with any of these extreme descriptions of Teddy
Afro; nonetheless, I consider him as an accomplished
metropolitan super star of my generation. Most importantly,
though, Teddy’s criminal case has brought our much talked
about judiciary into the spotlight of increasingly
mistrustful Ethiopians.
Our
courts have always experienced the scrutiny and suspicious
attentions of the public whenever celebrities are charged,
prosecuted, convicted or acquitted. The trails of the famous
patriots, Belay Zeleke (Deja Zmatch) et al and
Mengistu Neway (General), commander of the Imperial Guard
et al during the rule of Emperor Hailesellasie, as well
as the trials of Asrat Woldeyes (Prof.) of our time, have
been some of the most important court cases. I remember that
the trial of Asrat, an experienced surgeon, led to the
detention and even prosecution of several of his supporters
for disturbing court businesses.
In
fact, our courts entertain countless cases every day, almost
non-stop; never did they attract the interest of the general
public or the doubtful scrutiny of the media, which
apparently are overly tolerant even when a very innocent
person is charged and prosecuted as a matter of personal
vendetta, unless celebrities of some sort are dragged in to
it willy-nilly.
The
fact that the media lend serious attention to celebrities
who find themselves in a criminal court, for one reason or
another, though it may be argued to be partly commercially
motivated, cannot be simply disregarded, from the
perspective of the public, as a complete lack of any
interest or sense about other pressing issues and priorities
as Lulit would like us to believe. In fact, the wide
coverage of the media on the trial of Teddy Afro, in lieu of
the numerous current economic and other plights in the
country, may be understood as an open defiance on matters
that cannot be equated with the supreme conceptions of legal
justice by our society, past and present.
Indeed,
the administration of justice, in accordance with the law,
is as crucial as the food we eat and the fresh air we
breathe. The bulwark of any democratic society is the rule
of law that guarantees the right to life, liberty, property,
security and the pursuit of happiness. Any breach against
the rule of law can only be remedied by an impartial, free
and fair court system that sticks to nothing but law and
equity.
That we
are well fed, or that the prices of farm products have
allegedly doubled or tripled, or that education has expanded
are not answers to the lack of justice and the rule of law.
Most of the problems that Lulit described are so serious and
deeply entrenched that they cannot be easily solved by
short-term industriousness at work, or prayer of our
respective religion, let alone by the publication, knowledge
and reading of “serious newspapers of the city.”
It
would certainly amount to a virtual contempt of our
society’s sense of justice to advise it to focus its
attention on its short-term, but recurrent, problems on
which it has unsurpassed knowledge and experiences to
shoulder it since the medieval period, as suggested by
Richard Pankhurst (Prof.) in “Famine and Epidemics in
Ethiopia”. This advice would certainty be at the expense of
society’s quest for justice in accordance with the law.
As
concerns the alleged crimes Teddy is accused of having
perpetrated against an innocent Ethiopian victim, the law he
is said to have violated must be fairly and impartially
administered as a matter of legal requirement and justice.
Teddy cannot be above the law, or enjoy impunity, if there
is sufficient evidence to justify his conviction. By the
same token, it is in the interest of law and justice that
his case is objectively and carefully considered, that the
evidence be weighed and that he be freed if the court finds
that the prosecution does not a case against him that is
strong enough to warrant a conviction. All this should be
done regardless of the conflicting perceptions by the
society of his celebrity status.
And as
much media exposure as possible about his trial should
continue. The media should also report on the
accomplishments of other celebrities, as we must continue to
give due credit to them so long as they have been, and
continue to be, the driving force and inspiration in their
field of work.
We
cannot afford to obscure enterprising, individual heroes and
heroines - whether during times of war or peace - by
dwarfing their valuable contributions in favour of
worthlessly praising the unsubstantiated role of demeaning
individuals under the guise of obsequious collectivism.
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