Freedom loving Palestinians in the past & Syrians recently bury victims of crackdown with flag draped coffins and turnout in mass to bid farewell to their fallen heroes. The world have also seen in the 1970s & 80s how black South Africans & ANC activists chant liberation songs & dance carrying the coffins of their fallen comrades to burial place. For parents or family members of the fallen, nothing would wash away the sense of loss and deep grief when their loved ones are no longer with them. However, the fact that their children or family member were given such heroic farewell and the respect they have as mother or father of a martyr is consolation to these Palestinian, South African or recently to Syrian parents.
Victims of crackdowns in Ethiopia were not privileged to have such heroic farewells & their family members have not been accorded such kind of societal status. Ethiopians may turnout for burials but would show support to parents of victims rather tacitly in some cases openly but rarely in defiant manner. The way it is in Ethiopian society it is relatively harder for Ethiopian mothers or fathers of crackdown victims. I am not talking about the hardship they face from the cadres or officials of the repressive regime who killed their loved ones. I am talking about the sorrow coming from the realization that the larger community seem to forget about their sacrifice and moved on with their life while they had to endure the sense of loss, void and the hardship that often follow of losing loved ones. Let alone the massive crackdown of the mid-to-late 1970s, Ethiopians seem to forget victims of the 2005 crackdown. What makes more heart-breaking to mothers & fathers of the 2005 crackdown is unlike freedom loving Palestinians or South Africans, Ethiopians seem to like their oppressor and turnout in big number for the burial of the man who ordered his troops to shoot on their children. What a pathetic time we live in.
Unlike my friends in the opposition, I did not wish or pray for the death our late tyrant. Expecting this kind of reaction from our society I did not want him to go while he is in his prime. I wanted to see his demise and his day in Ethiopian or international court with mothers & fathers of his crackdown victims facing him. Now he is escaping such destiny, my sadness is for the mothers & fathers of his crackdown victims who have to endure troubling scenes in the coming days. I pray one day, Ethiopians would be free from yokes of tyranny, live without fear and pay due respect to those young martyrs who were shot on the streets of Addis Ababa or other cities by covering their coffins with flags to rebury them in a ceremony which gives their parents consolation & pride. Who knows, same people who are seen mourning publicly for Legesse Zenawi would dare to show up again that time. In a time we live in, some people have no shame flipping with the wind.