Revolution and Discipline in Egypt; A lesson for Ethiopians
By Teodros Kiros

The peoples revolution in Egypt must succeed, otherwise tyrants in the region are going to feast and sharpen their military apparatus and jail thousands of those who camped out on the streets of the great Cairo, home to the pyramids and the great MAAT, queen of Justice.

I can imagine MAAT the queen of Truth praying for the protesters to hold on to the last human being and fight for their rights, die for the sake of creating a genuine moral economy that the Egyptian people have not seen for the last thirty years; I imagine in own my home land, the historic Ethiopia, the ruling regime strategizing in smoke filled rooms, on how to squelch an eminent Ethiopian uprising before it takes root; I imagine the tyranny�s think tanks laughing at writings such as this and defaming any outputs from the Diaspora as infective and idle.

We Ethiopians, however, must stand with the aspirations of the heroic Egyptian people and support them in body and spirit. Their struggles are our very own.
Let us learn from their passions and work for their success.

The revolution must succeed, as we too plan our own very soon, with the backbone of our youth, our country dwellers, and those millions of round Ethiopian eyes, impregnated with unshed tears of poverty and hopelessness.

Our peaceful marches will drink from the winds of change and the emergence of a genuine democracy for which millions of Ethiopians are waiting.


Do not let the counter violence of a desperate Egyptian tyrant intimidate you as you are thinking and planning to stage the peoples uprising in our historic Ethiopia

In the mean time work on your souls and embark on a cultural transformation, so that you can lead the people�s revolt, when it unravels right in front of your eyes.

Pray that the Egyptian revolution succeeds.

--
Teodros Kiros
Professor of Philosophy and English (Liberal Arts) Berklee College of Music


The Fire this time
By Teodros Kiros

George Katsificas, the renowned thinker on Social movements writes:

Without international connections, even the best of uprisings returns to the status quo ante. Nelson Mandela emerged from decades of prison to an awakened and free South Africa, only to implement neoliberal policies.
Vietnam's reunification after victory over the US was soon followed by their headlong rush to gain WTO membership and invite the World Bank to "assist"
them.

In Ethiopia's case, a Horn of Africa liberated zone uniting them with Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, and others in the region could possibly break the stranglehold of militarized nation-states. In place of national elites which siphon off people's wealth into unnecessary and wasteful state programs, activated grassroots movements could provide new structures within which people's needs, not elite profits, are the overriding criterion for allocating precious resources.

Indeed this time the people�s fire will not be put down. Once the uprisings begin the fire will keep on burning, until the Tyrannical system is dismantled.
The people will come to the streets of Addis and beyond to the lush and green of the south in millions- motivated by anger and disciplined by vision. They will stay on the streets peacefully marching and living on the streets, along with the organizers. Youth, country dwellers, intellectuals and others will have to join on the march of freedom. Their organizers will see to it this time that the regime does not call them looters and hooligans. This is a march of revolutionary freedom propelled by a commitment to the people, that this time they are not going to be promised revolutionary democracy and be given oligarchy combined with tyranny.

We must sing with Bob Marley that we cannot full the people all the time.
The fire this time wants to put an end to class privileges. This time poor people are going to be promised the good life, and we must make sure that they get it, through alliances in the people�s movement in the Horn of Africa and North Africa.

The fire this time is going to consume class privileges and Ethiopianity must attend to international class forces and build genuine democracy, the people�s democracy. Active intellectuals can direct the movement, which belongs to the people; the people alone can and must lead the movement. The movement belongs to the people, since it will originate in their passions and instinctive love of freedom and prosperity.

Central to the success of this movement is the establishment of international connections with the people of the north and the east whose lives have long been deemed by the darkness of oligarchy and tyranny.

The material conditions of the wretched of the earth must determine the content of the fire this time, the fire that will consume the forces of tyranny and oligarchy.


--
Teodros Kiros
Professor of Philosophy and English (Liberal Arts) Berklee College of Music