Report
Rebutting Kevin Myers' distasteful slanders
By Debru Negash Afrasa (M.D.) | July 16, 2008
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Editor of Ethiomedia,
Of late, Ethiomedia's publication of banal and bizarre articles that have nothing to do with Ethiopian or African affairs must have baffled many. As if that is not enough, it published a vulgar, contemptuous and outrageously racist piece directed at Africans in general and Ethiopians in particular.
By so doing, its editors have willfully injured the dignities and sensibilities of Ethiopians and Africans across the whole world. That the appallingly insolent article, "Africa is giving nothing to anyone, apart from AIDS," saw the light of day on Ethiomedia on the 11th of July, should enrage even the most unpatriotic and servile Ethiopian.
One wonders how Ethiopian editors could allow this otherwise wonderful medium to be used as a launch pad for a ferocious racist to unleash such an unprovoked assault on us and our motherland. It is an act of outright treason. On that score, Ethiopians must demand an unconditional apology.
Ethiomedia’s duplicity
Ethiomedia's other folly is duplicity. It failed for instance to reprint a balanced article on the causes of Zimbabwe's predicaments authored by a well- informed and conscientious South African scholar recently. Instead, it has been publishing a barrage of anti-Zimbabwe propaganda aimed at misrepresenting the realities of that country. None of ethhiomedia’s reprints from the partisan tabloid press on Zimbabwe ever made any reference to that country's remarkable achievements in the past.
All those who are in the know admire the leadership of the small African country that in just 2 decades of independence has shamed the oldest nation states in African in terms of achieving the highest literacy rates and widest health service coverage.
Zimbabwe's woes began when its government decided to ensure equitable distribution of the country’s resources to all its citizens. The wrath of the man who so revoltingly insulted us and vilified the Zimbabwean leadership in passing , emanate from his primal racist world view that is premised on the belief that Africans have no rights to redress historical injustices. Racist bigotry after all, is the domain of the primitive mind.
This writer abhors any violations of the rights of man irrespective of who by such crimes are perpetrated. However, ethiomedia's selective morality is bemusing. Not once has this reader ever glimpsed at the pages of Ethiomedia to find anything about the mind-boggling atrocities some nations commit with impunity against those they deem inferior.
Robert Mugabe, like many mortals may have his failings. Over 100 people have allegedly lost their lives so far in connection with land restitution exercise including 12 Zimbabweans of European descent. Certainly, any life unjustly lost is one life too many. However, over half a million Ethiopians were killed during the so called 1974 revolution and its aftermath. Equitable land distribution was also at the heart of the upheaval. India too underwent an even grander convulsion over land after its independence. Why then such a frenzy over Zimbabwe? Why such a virulent attack on its leader? Is it not because of the belief of those constitutionally perverted racists who wish to also preserve their monopoly over everything in Zimbabwe?
Ethiopia’s lessons to Europe and humanity at large
Let the ill-informed and dare I say narcissistic Kevin Meyer, browse through the archives of famines in Europe. He will embarrassingly discover that Ethiopia, the very country that he so brutally insulted had come to the rescue of Europe after the second European War. Indeed, Ethiopia fed much of Europe from Greece, Germany, and the Netherlands to Britain.
The survivors of the Irish 'potato famine' must have as well been beneficiaries of Ethiopian charity. Truly civilized Ethiopians never brag about it. It is not in them to parade the good deeds of their forebears committed in the demands of their conscience.
Let those Eurocentric zealots like Meyer, who have no sense of history take note. For the record, Ethiopia gave refuge to thousands of Armenian survivors of the Turkish genocide. Several thousand Greeks who have been savaged by unjust Ottoman rule were also given refuge by Ethiopia when Europe abandoned them.
Ethiopians protected, sheltered and fed several thousand Fascist Italian soldiers after their ignominious defeat. And thousands, who preferred Ethiopia to Italy, were magnanimously granted permission to live in freedom and dignity in the country they came to colonise. The list of Ethiopia's lesson to humanity and Europe in particular, is long.
Islam was worshiped for the first time in freedom in Christian Ethiopia over 13 centuries ago. It was to the country of the pious Ethiopians and their equally pious Christian emperor that Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him) directed his followers, to seek refuge. Hundreds of his followers who fled the violent persecution in Arabia were welcomed by their Christian hosts in our great country.
Compare this with what used to happen a thousand years later in Europe where people were quartered or burned alive for alleged heresy or for belonging to the wrong Christian denomination or for being Jews.
'Civilized' Europe has a lesson or two to learn from Ethiopia's characteristic altruism, the one peculiar human trait that distinguishes man from beast. In this regard, this writer is acutely reminded of the tragedy that befell women in Nazi-occupied European countries simply for having had carnal relations with Nazi officers.
After the end of the war, many such women were either forcefully deported to Germany to join their consorts while others were stripped of their rights as citizens on their own home turf. The innocent children who did not choose to be born to the Nazi fathers were not spared the physical and emotional battering either.
If Meyer had a mind and some decency he would have looked into the various underlying factors that have created Ethiopia’s dire socioeconomic situation over the last three and half decades. The long civil strife and wars along with bad governance have weakened the country profoundly. The land tenure system that denies ownership and title deed, without which no credit facilities can be accessed, is another very important economic bottleneck in Ethiopia’s agriculture that Meyer and his ilk seemingly never wish addressed.
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The writer is Dr. Debru Negash Afrasa: negash@ilo.org
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Editor's note - Dear Dr. Debru: Like other fellow Ethiopians, we too were outraged when we read Kevin Myers' slanderous article on such big-name media like the Independent.
Particularly striking is that we are the center of his attack ('We' being Ethiopians and other fellow Africans). We wanted to evade, act like the world hasn't read any Myers' story. But evasion is no good defense. Like the proverbial ostrich, we didn't want to bury our head in the sand, and send Mr. Myers on a field day.
We wanted to bring the article to the attention of patriotic Ethiopians like yourself. By posting indignant but truthful letters from you and other concerned folks, we wanted Mr. Myers to pick up a lesson or two that may humanize his cruel and cold heart. If there is one point we differ with you hugely, it is how you defend Robert Mugabe, the tyrant who has reduced once vibrant Zimbabwe to tatters. We found your reasoning very bizarre, but again, you are entitled to your own opinion. - Ed.
Letter to Kevin Meyers
I read your insensitive article on the Irish Independent newsletter posted online on 10 July 2008 by you, kmyers@independent.ie entitled -Africa is giving nothing to anyone -apart from AIDS, with total disbelief. It never crossed my mind nor did I ever imagined that there are people like yourself in Ireland today with such myopic political vision and miniscule brains.
You are obviously trying to dismiss or deny your Irish background, a history of abject poverty and political subjugation of epic proportions under a white colonial master which makes you at parity with that of the African stoke that you love to despise.
It is apparent that you have been traveling to Africa with a mission of dubious and mischievous nature in mind under the pretext/guise of a humanitarian worker. The crux of the matter is that you have now decided to exposed yourself unashamedly that you are and always have been one of the most venomous enemies of the peoples of Africa.
Your missions were not based on the love of humanity but an evil errand of hate and resentment that attempt to disseminate and promote a state of warfare by inciting fratricidal wars among the African peoples. A great and valiant people whom you should have acknowledged and given due respect.
The so called Western help that you selfishly mesmerize about and which you deliberately failed to mention in your disgusting letter is the fact that, -that it is only a meagre 5% out of the total outlay that reaches the begging bowel of an African child. The rest of it goes back to the donor bank accounts of your likes in Dublin, London, Paris, Rome, Zurich etc.
Your article also exposes the deep racial hatred that you foster of all the black races of the world in general and that of Africa in particular. Clearly, this must have originated from the utter desperation and shear frustration of failing to come into terms with the absolute reality of realizing that the black race whom you detest to the bone will eventually emerge victorious and inherit the earth including your I-Land.
awshumay@btinternet.com
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