Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
By Mamo
Ethiopians often walk with a certain ancestral swagger; not because of what we are building now, but because of what someone dug up on our behalf.
You see, we are the origin of Lucy…
“The Mother of Humanity!”
“The First Walker!”
“Proof that we’ve been here longer than anyone!”
And from that one fossilized hip bone, we have built an empire of pride so grand one would think Lucy was our grandmother and left us land in her will.
But here is the part we skip:
We didn’t discover Lucy.
We didn’t even know she was there.
It was foreign archaeologists; with sunburns, grant money, and dust-covered notebooks; who told us we were special.
Ever since, we have romanticized the dirt, while refusing to grow from it.
Yes, we may be the cradle of mankind, but the world politely wonders why the cradle is still rocking while others have learned to walk upright into modernity.
Because claiming to be the origin of humanity is bold. But doing so while your youth flee, your institutions rot, and your neighbors kill one another?
That makes the world tilt its head and ask:
“If this is where humanity took its first steps… why does it keep tripping over itself here?
We have turned Lucy into a national trophy, not because we understand her story, but because she gives us something to point to; so we don’t have to point inward.
And while we celebrate Lucy, perhaps we should ask how we treat her fellow walkers today:
– The brutality we unleash on our animals, despite depending on them.
– The way we mock our own, while glorifying anyone who lives abroad.
– The divide between Addis and the village, between the accented and the fluent, between the “modern” and the “traditional.”
– The way we fragment north from south, old from young, one ethnicity from another; as if Lucy walked just for us to crawl back into tribal corners.
So, what would Lucy say about this?
Would she beam with pride…or quietly wish she had walked a few miles farther before settling here?
Let’s not stay stuck in the past. Lucy shined a light on our beginnings; but that light wasn’t meant for nostalgia. It was meant to show us how far we’ve fallen behind.
It’s time to stop walking in circles around her bones and start walking forward; before we fossilize too.
The writer can be reached at : proudlystuck@gmail.com
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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A view like yours is malicious to the core. Perhaps that explains why you withheld your identity while bashing the Ethiopian Identity. The reason Ethiopia was unable to advance is to a great extent because of the foreign powers intervention which are breeding “liberation groups after liberation groups” …and these groups denigrate the Ethiopian Identity the way you do now. If Ethiopia was able to demonstrate stellar engineering (for the time!) like Aksum and Lalibela, there is no question that it was capable of making advances in other areas too. It was made busy with wars and to consistently defend itself. Finally, they got egocentric entities like OLF and TPLF and EPLF to demolish the identity. Who is benefiting?
The advances in the west is basically an outcome of business venture and to a great extent linked to capital expansion… oddly enough it is also increasingly being used the power of what is now turning out to be plutocrats. Ethiopia was truly civilized for the time but we failed to see it for what it is … as we ridicule it with the “sociological” and “political” theories from the west… I have groups like OLF and TPLF — literally stupid but yet they think they know it all … They are all thieves !
Mr/Mrs./Miss “tree”, The reason Ethiopia was unable to advance is mainly because of those primitive religions. And now, those of you who are uninformed, empty, and bogus intellects added “ethnic” cuff to the chain. …. ” …why you withheld your identity…” – can’t you guys think without it?
Thank you Oda Tree for your passionate comment. I genuinely appreciate the time and conviction it reflects. Conversations like this—especially when they stir discomfort; are not a threat to our identity but an invitation to examine it.
My intention is not to destroy Ethiopia’s heritage, but to ask how we carry it forward without freezing it in nostalgia. I write not out of disdain, but from a deep longing to see us evolve with courage, not just memory. Because every time one rattles the comfort of myth, one is doing the work this generation desperately needs. Not to destroy identity rather to renovate it.
Not to dismiss the past but to stop pretending we still live in it.
Thanks again
Mamo Birru at proudlystuck @gmail.com
You are not doing anything special. The pattern of attacking Ethiopian identity and by “Ethiopians” – has been there for a long time – at least since the “Ethiopian Revolution.” Dozens of books have been published. What you are doing is ruminating the same old view to attack the society. The Japanese did not develop by hating themselves – they reconciled traditions and patriotism with advancement. Ethiopian intellectuals are mostly half-baked. In fact it is rare they criticize out of honest passion to see the country’s development. They are either mercenaries with vested in interest in foreign powers agenda to demolish Ethiopia or they are stooges of the ruling ethnic elites – chances are you are in that category who just brand yourself as one “caring for Ethiopia.” You do not cut out your past or ridicule and develop. Where do you start it from after that? dishonesty is what they are known for. They should not be allowed to offer “advice.”
Why do we Ethiopians highly obsessed about “ Lucy “ as being the mother of modern man as “Adam and Eve “ wandering in Ethiopia’s jungles . Lucy by paleontologists standard and description is an ApE of the 3rd backward ancestral generations of hominoid . Let us stop barging about it indiscriminately.
Yes Abdul, “Lucy” is not solely ours. She was a wandering ape that died millions of years ago around the area her bones were found by others, not us. Could that mean she was living there? Even if that whole lot of ape was roaming the area, could that make them our (Ethiopian) ancestors? …. I’m afraid we might eventually label an ethnic identity to Lucy..