Move On?

Donald levine

"HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME"

The Waste Land lends me words, all I can think today

 As sweet Ethiopia wades through swamps that choked it so long.

"If you don't like it you can get on with it."

 Please don't say that to me.  For I have watched,

While the best and brightest of ten generations

Have bled, screamed, groaned, died.  My friends, my brothers and sisters.

I have tried, these fifty years, to show the patterns.

Albezabinem wey?

So, here you go again. So, one more call.

                                              I

Negusu claims respect. So give it to him! with love!

Tell him you understand�shifta from Qwara, Lalo Midir, Dedebit�

How he and comrades battled their way

Up from qola, night after sleepless night, fight qunitcha and tchewa,

Hunger pains and cold, burns and bruises, cruelest dysentery

Watched Comrades die��enn�Agazi, Mussie, Meles�

Driven to triumph, all opponents killable or worse.

And felt arashotchu surging, their mountain homeland all about them:

Bahrina ta hafash hizbin/ Eerdian gobotat Eerdina!

                                             II

Gwadotchu had big dreams and lived them out.

Schools built�count them! Clinics made�count them!

Industries stoked! Roads laid! Universities established!

"And when we suffered in the bush,

One thought, one dream, kept me going:

To see the common people of my

Country going to the polls and voting, freely."

Free of the oppressions of the past. Free from victimization by tililiq sewotch.

Free from hunger, disease, enslavement. Free to express themselves with the

Tongues of their birthright.

                                   III

And all should cheer. Why then the fear?

WHOM can he trust? Whom can he TRUST?

Not, surely, those who sat comfortable in the big city

And plied their lives and fortunes while we suffered.

Not those who call us names and belittle our provenance.

Not those who kept arms and plotted more battlefields.

Not those who miss feudal times or ply rentier games.

Not those of the previous Ethno-Hegemon!

And surely, not those who want the throne instead !! Mogn negusan.

Think righteous Yostos, after two regicides in two years, attacked instanter.

So what to do? Send �em to amba, the Amba named Weheni.

Tewodros for Menelik. Tafari for Iyasu. A fate sweeter than

Nailing to wood or sawing limbs for petty crimes, aydelem?

And hey! Reward your loyals, shum repentant shifta.

Hold a biggest digis,

                                   IV

It is the heat of battle, the Warring with Words, that moves

Players to abandon their voiced adherence to the best.

Is that not the way of all campaigns? Yes, surely, at least in that

Dubious idol America. But young-old Ethiopia can afford no more

The luxury of hating. She must throw out those noxious words and build afresh.

Who supplies words so destructive to dignity, of the ruler!  Of his party! Of his country!

Breathing archaic fears, distrust, scheming counsel move in to advise him poorly:

Make the joyous Election of 2010 an Age of Anxiety.

Can this Opportunity yet be saved?  What a question.

Let him and ex-comrades-in-arms who held a liberating vision

Let them hold fast now to a benign global future

Empower the land with Clean Energy. (Let the rest of the Continent follow.)

Green the environment. (Make the rest of the world listen.)

Let entrepreneurs flourish. (But not without regulation, as in America.)

Let a hundred voices sound. (But not arrest different tunesters, as in China.)

Let the Voice of Amharic be heard around the land, as well as voices of Tigrinya,

Oromiffa, and all the others.

End threats, lawless arrests, harassments,

Investigate lavishly all allegations of violations.

Tell agazis to stop the bloody torture. (If they won�t confess what they do, consult

Forensic physicians.)

Shout your orders: stop to using aid for political purposes!

Stop scaring the world with phony digs at Interhamwe, a tactic renounced after 2005!

And please: let dissidents offer solutions to problems instead of attacks on authorities.

Let dissidents offer solutions to problems instead of boring attacks on authorities.

Let EVERYONE defer to the Law and show Respect.

Let the liberation election be truly free.

If the rulers are returned, let it be Win-Win, a victory all around.

If not, let them rejoice in all they have done and let their Head move on

Make Ethiopia proud as he becomes an admired world leader.

It is time for all to follow the Higa Mengest, Be-demb

It is time to Move On. Oh yes

HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME

Can it be done in time?

                                                Awo yechalal!!!