No single generation does it all

Behailu Shiferaw

Thank you Halelujah for letting me be part of something I would, after years, look back to and be proud of. At this age, you know, God has been generous enough to help me do things that would make me smile through my grey hairs; if, God Willing, I ever live to see that.

As a journalist, while we were doing the tree-planting, I couldn’t help drawing analogies between what we were doing by the river and what it is to be doing our share in this country’s development.

Perhaps, it would be rewarding for me to start off by talking about those people who helped hugely in making this happen. When we, after a short drive from Romina, got off at Kebena, there were a few people waiting for us; full of grateful smiles. One of them was on a crutch. The other guy had a self-admitted neurological issue that compelled him to lose control over his vocabulary. It was encouraging to find such people with so much integrity left in their veins. After all these are people whom we tease for something they didn’t bring upon themselves. Also credit be to those who were with them in the process. Adding to my surprise was the personality of the coordinator from the Rotract’s side. He was a gentle man who chose to listen to others talking about what he actually did. If you brought someone new like myself, who was not involved the process, the chance of him/her picking those people as the heroes behind the event would be next to zero. How blinded we are by our stereotypes.

This, I thought, is a simple manifestation of two things. The first is the paradoxical fact that heroic deeds usually come from ‘unlikely’ sources. The second and what is more irking is how such heroes go unnoticed. Bravo Hale for finally persuading them to the ‘stage’ and bringing to light their heroic deeds. It is what leadership is all about, crediting right-doers so that no-so-right-doers would follow suit. Please note that there are people who have done so much for this nation but whose names we do not even know, leave alone praise them.

The second rather interesting analogy came to form between the ants and the government bureaucracy that has always stood on our way to doing our share to the development of our country. I was fascinated to note that our reactions to the ants were as diverse as are our reactions to the bureaucracy. Some kept distance; some walked in but were complaining about the ants; while others didn’t even believe the ants were worth their attention. Our engagement in the development process of this country has obviously never been bed of roses. It has been marred by ants whose magnitude and unconstructive role is as varied in scale as is the level of bureaucracy that discourages Ethiopians from contributing their share to the development of their motherland.

I and a newly-made-friend, Selam, were discussing/rather complaining about the bites when a guy whose name, I later learned, is Sami, chipped in a very good theory of why these ants bite. He said, “Don’t tamper with these ants. Just don’t mind them even if they trek under clothes. They don’t harm you if you don’t trouble them. Otherwise, they become defensive and keep bothering you.” Isn’t it what we witness everyday with our politics? I am not arguing that we should keep our distance from politics, I am just suggesting that there is so much more to helping one’s motherland than being immersed in the politics. We can do important things (such as tree planting) without having to anger the short-tempered ants. Don’t get me wrong, by ants I mean ants. Hope you understand.

The other interesting analogy formed between the plastic bottles and bags that lay scattered all over the place and the various problems that have always haunted our nation.  With Hale’s pragmatic leadership, we did some picking up of the litters after the planting. But we didn’t clean it all. When we left the area, there were still some litters that were left here and there. It was not because we didn’t know the area was not clean enough; it was just that we didn’t have enough energy to do more. The litters, for me, are nothing but a metaphoric representation of our problems as a nation; and we represent the generations who come and go through time. Therefore, the fact that we didn’t clean the area sufficiently, was a manifestation of one truth. No single generation does it all. When people say that “Rome was not built in a day”, they mean that it takes generations to build what we envision our country to be. There is no one generation that did everything to bring about what we see today; but there is always a generation that inspires the next; and our job is to be ones; to inspire the next.

I am, thus, not disheartened with the fact that we left some litters unpicked. I hope that others will do the rest. It is how nations change. It is like a relay race; you take the baton as far as you can and then you hand it over to the next who takes it forward. Probably it is not a good comparison in a sense that the race has an end while a country doesn’t. Same holds true with this piece of writing, I have documented a part of what I observed; let you add yours to make it whole enough to be passed onto the generations to come.

PS> Credit to Keroggie for facilitating the tree planting event. It could not have been better timed than now- when, probably for the first time in our history, we are having to wear gloves.

God Bless Ethiopia and Its People(s)!

Advertisement