Ethiopia

Last week, there was a great deal of teeth-gnashing, knuckle-cracking and gut-wrenching by Ethiopia’s dictators over Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) 2010 report. The dictators belched out much sound and fury that signified nothing.

Aristotle wrote that ‘man is a political animal’ to suggest that the defining characteristic of human beings is involvement in the civic life of their communities. Today, many Ethiopians across the board are strangely disengaged and alienated from Ethiopian politics.

'Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,' said Sir Walter Scott, the novelist and poet. Is there 'famine' in Ethiopia, or not? Are large numbers of people 'starving' there, or not? Is convulsive hunger a daily reality for the majority of Ethiopians, or not?