---Ethiopians scorn eating while walking or moving about. However, Ethiopians freely urinate in public places openly without so much as a second thought (or decent concealment).
---Drivers are afraid of pedestrians while pedestrians are afraid of......rain? (as the saying suggests).
---People live securely behind gated, guarded walls while animals roam the streets freely.
---Ethiopians are more likely to pay for multiple shoe shines per week while foregoing all but the cheapest food available.
---Look down the street and you will see men holding hands with men while women are carrying backbreaking loads.
I often wonder about the dynamics of Ethiopian development since it was never colonized. Obviously, its something to be proud of, but what I would like to know--has its independence been more fruitful than the seemingly positive by-products of colonization like infrastructure and civilized drivers? What do you think?DC
2 comments:
Most people who comment on the lack of development fail to recognise the fact that major interuption took place in Ethiopia in 1974 and the effect of it is still haunting us.All these slums you see in the cities of Ethiopia are the results of consication by the derg and still not corrected by the current regiem,as you might know by now, housing is a major carrot for the political elites to find and keep cadres,all these EPRDF officials ,from the prime minister to the lowest clerk in your kebele live in this subdised houses ranging from places worth way above 4 million birr and the corner shack.Snce this duelings have no owners, they are decaying giving the center of the city a major look of a wasetland.
All the land confisication in the rural area cauesd the progress that was made in the shift from subsistance farming to commercial farming ,causing the country to remain aid dependent.The communist desruption of Ethiopas progress and the continuing presence of communist sympetizers in the regiem in Ethiopia is the cause of underdevelopment ,not the fact that Ethiopia was never colonised TOTALY.I consider Ethiopia to have been partialy colonised, ie. ERITREA.Post colonial political and economic policies have more to do with progress than clolonialism,look at GUIENIE, mali,and all the other African nations that followed leftist ideologies and see where they are now comparing to those who didn't.You need to go back and do some reaserch before you conclude what made us what we are today.
Would you consider to be an oppressed, looked-down upon, discriminated against second-class citizen in your own country in exchange for some infrastructure or skyscraper building by a more 'civilized' country?
Not sure what your answer is but I am going on a limb and assume that you'd prefer to maintain your freedom.
We Ethiopians too, chose that - as the rest of Africa would have if they had the choice.
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