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Open letter to Birtukan, the fruit of EPRDF’s success |
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By Samuel T
Dear Birtukan Medeksa, As I watch the video of your recent speech about your apology to Tigreans, I was thinking about something else. Even though you are in an opposition front against Meles Zenawi’s EPRDF party, do you know you are also one of the fruits of EPRDF’s achievements? Do you know you are a walking witness to EPRDF’s success? You may be confused at what I mean, but let me explain. Birtukan, you may not be old enough to remember what has been happening in Ethiopia for many decades before EPRDF arrived. But a brief flashback will tell us the suffering of thousands of Evangelical Christians in Ethiopia who were as illegal to live as evangelicals are today under Dictator Isaias Afewerki’s state. But the treatment was worse. Unfortunately, evangelicals living in pre-1991 Ethiopia would gladly take the place of Eritrean evangelicals in metal box containers today, because in Ethiopia before, imprisonment was a luxury for Ethiopian evangelicals. The pre-1991 governments practiced state terrorism where evangelicals were tortured and randomly killed, after being labeled traitors and imperialist agents of the west. Evangelicals or rather “Pentay” as they are called in Amharic, were one of the worst affected religions during Mengistu’s anti-religion military state and they were also the targets if they seemed a challenge for the Emperors' “native” and “national” religion. Such persecution by the state was daily life for evangelicals for many decades until EPRDF arrived. Maybe you don’t notice it. But dear Birtukan, our evangelical sister, let me remind you that you are the fruit of the religious freedom championed by our EPRDF-led government. EPRDF also added religious equality as we now see the empowerment of Muslims who are treated equal to Christians in Ethiopia. You even admitted on your recent speech about the Orthodox identity of CUD vis a vis the ethnically/religiously diverse EPRDF. But the importance of EPRDF can also be understood when we look back at the state terrorism against Ethiopian evangelicals and Pentecostals. Dear Birtukan,..but look around your country. To the right is Yemen and Djibouti. These countries’ governments are known to violate religious freedom. To the left is the Sudan and to the south is Somalia, a place where being Muslim is synonymous with being Somali and as you know international jihadists have made it their home as documented by Al-Jazeera network and UN Security Council. To the north is Eritrea and Saudi Arabia. While it is know that in all these countries Evangelicals are not free, if at all they are allowed to exist, in Eritrea, it is almost pre-1991 system of anti-evangelical regime, where international condemnation has been focused on the killing & persecution of Evangelicals. In Saudi Arabia, well, there is no humane description for the status of on the abuse of religious freedom in that country. That status is the law. All around and outside Ethiopia is a region where evangelicals are almost illegal to breathe air. But inside Ethiopia, it is a symbol of religious freedom and equality, a place that has produced Evangelicals and Pentecostals like you. However, it is not just religious freedom for minorities that EPRDF has championed, but EPRDF is also improving the status for women’s equality led by our first lady Azeb Mesfin. If you remember Azeb was also rewarded with Martin Luther King Jr. Award for her hard work in Ethiopia. The amount of women’s organizations and societies in Ethiopia is over 40 times more than ever before. The ratio of female to males who graduate from schools in Ethiopia have doubled and at times tripled. And the empowerment is witnessed in the current Ethiopian parliament, which is almost 1/3rd represented by women– an achievement even better than many western countries! So, the next time you walk out to show women’s strength and speak in a podium for your CUD opposition party, please remember the increasing women empowerment campaign waged by EPRDF as well as the freedom to minority religions championed by EPRDF. In a strange way, even if you deny it, you are a walking advertisement to the achievements of EPRDF. |
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