PARALLELS IN TIMES

Blogger's Note: The following piece is a reflection on current state of affairs in the United States and draws parallel to similar situation in Ethiopia around the final years of Emperor Haile Selassie's rule citing in both instances the insensitivity of politicians to the suffering of their fellow citizens. The piece is written by Ambassador Imru Zelleke and is posted here with his kind permission. Ambassador Imru has served at various diplomatic posts under Haile Selassie's government. He was the first Ethiopian Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to the German Federal Republic and opening the first Ethiopian Embassy to the German Federal Republic in 1954.He also served as Ethiopia's Ambassador to France in later years. Since retirement he has been living in the United States for many decades now.
PARALLELS IN TIMES
[By] Ambassador Imru Zelleke.
January 2013.
Watching TV last night I saw the Governor of New Jersey (R) and politicians of New York protesting vehemently over the delay to provide disaster relief for the victims of the storm that occurred two months ago. The Republican dominated House, busy haggling over the fiscal cliff, had forgotten or delayed voting for the appropriation. Eventually it did so at the last minute by voting for a small portion of it, leaving the matter for future bickering. Thousands of people are homeless and with no power, no water and without help in this bitter winter. In fact a few days after the storm the matter was set aside, the media had stopped talking about it. The game of outguessing each other by pundits and alike about who would jump over the cliff was in vogue, while human suffering was not forgotten but neglected.

This reminded me of the famine that occurred in Ethiopia forty years ago. The foreign press went wild about it, a gamut of artists, entertainers, organizations were mobilized, and songs were written for it. In the domestic scene the Emperor and his government were blamed and accused for it. Like the present “cliff” in the US, the government was suffering from an internal crisis of enfeebled leadership. There was sufficient food and resources in the country to meet the crisis and quell the famine. Unfortunately, the government had become dysfunctional and subject to intrigues and power struggle amongst individuals and groups. The famine added to the general public dissatisfaction became a catalyst for the revolution; that ended up with most violent loss of life and breakup of the nation’s spirit that has lasted to present days. The parallel comes when considering the conditions and times that such crisis happens. On one side we have a poor and backward country Ethiopia that could not handle a famine, although it had the means to do so, because of politics. On the other hand forty years later we have the most powerful, the richest and most advanced nation in the world failing to help its own citizens, because of politics. However disproportionate the comparison, the common denominator being the failure of politics and of human society. Happy New Year.