“Gash” Barrack Obama

I’ve always found my fellow countrymen’s [sometimes indignant] support for Obama fascinating, as my previous post entitled Kentiba Barrack Obama bears witness for. Because I can make neither head nor tail to it! Can it be the “Netsa awchi sinelibona”, the prime minister accused my generation as having (sometimes in the absence of one to be redeemed)!? Or the “black” and “white” thing? You know, like football spectators do! Rooting for whoever is playing against Italy on World Cup, because “these bastards” tried to colonize us. And favoring a West African national team over a North African one, because “they” “said” they represent the Arab world, and not Africa, zillions of years ago. Or simply because we do not have better things to do with our time & money for our own, “poorest of the poor” I might add, country?!

Whichever the case maybe, Ethiopians have been rallying after Obama and I ofcourse wanted to know why. Having most of my offline questions answered with threats or judgmental looks, I was confident “here an answer would be” when I saw an advertisement on Fortune’s Sunday issue (Vol. 8, # 412) of a website for those Ethiopians interested in supporting Obama (ethiopiansforobama.com).

The website doesn’t seem to be working, however! So I decided to google-search it and actually managed to find another, an actually unblocked one :-), with the words “Ethiopian American” and “Obama” on it.

It’s description, posted on 25 March 2008, was encouraging. It read “My listing of sites about Ethiopians and barack obama: Particulary I like the first site but other sites are informative as well, so if you have interest in Ethiopians and barack obama you should check all those links. I hope you’ll like them.”

Following the suggested link, however, automatically took me NOT to finding my “key to Rebecca” (so to say) but to an adult friendfinder (but you know what type of “friend” they are talking about :-)) with a pretty gross picture on the right side of the bar that turned my stomach. The realization that the photo was nothing more hedious than a woman’s tongue sporting a bar of ice came a little too late. After taking my lunch, and my hopes of ever understanding the “Ethiopians for Obama” mystery, with it. So if there is one Ethiopian out there who can enlighten me on the matter, I’d be grateful. If not, you can kiss this sister’s donation goodbye … sucker! 🙂

Will the real “First Lady” please stand up?

We’ve all heard & and been upset with it (perhaps for various reasons). The Amharic equivalent of the word “First Lady”, (“Qedamawit Emebet”) being applied to P.M. Meles Zenawi’s wife. However, is Azeb Mesfin really a first lady?According to Wikipedia, a reliable and dear friend of mine, the word “First Lady” is a term applied to the wife of an elected male head of state. And Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, although the real leader behind the crown, ISN’T ‘head of state’… yet, anyway. There is a man he is supposed to report to and bow before the signature of. This dude is real, alive and well. Well.. maybe not that well but alive enough to embarass those shallow Ethiopians (like me) who like to have their president good and functional. It’s not known if this man has a wife, but if he does, the good lady would definitely go by a different name. So you’d think, atleast for appearances sake, the ENA people not to refer to his 2nd in command’s wife as “Qedamawit Emebet”. Don’t you? Unless they are trying their hands on political satire. Which is very unlike them.*Azeb Mesfin is an Ethiopian women’s right activist, businesswoman, member of parliament, and political spouse. She is also the vice President of Organisation of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA).[1]Azeb is the wife of Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi and the mother of three children, Semhal, Marda and Senay Meles.*