Solomon Dawit Woldessye
In contemporary Ethiopia, the state run media has ceased to be a platform for public information and has instead become a tool for the government’s state sponsored distraction campaign. By obsessively promoting foreign “TikTokers” and “content creators” while the nation teeters on the brink of collapse, the government is not merely failing its people, it is actively gaslighting them.
The Policy of Deliberate Distraction
The government’s decision to prioritize the trivial vlogs of foreign visitors over the existential struggles of the citizenry is a calculated policy. Faced with unprecedented inflation and an economic crisis that is crushing the dignity of every household, the state prefers to orchestrate a “feel-good” narrative. This is not an accidental oversight; it is a deliberate attempt to redirect public rage toward irrelevant, performative content. By doing so, the government is signaling that it prefers a manufactured image of success over the grueling work of economic reform.
Complicity in the Crisis of Security
The most egregious failure of the government is its cynical silence on national security. While innocent citizens are being abducted and slaughtered, the state media remains fixated on showcasing the “wonders of Ethiopia” through the eyes of foreign influencers. This is a blatant moral failure. When a government uses its media machinery to project a “business as usual” image while its own people are dying, it is demonstrating a profound contempt for human life. This is not journalism; it is the active construction of a false reality meant to protect the regime’s image at the expense of the lives it is sworn to protect.
The Desperate Thirst for External Approval
The government’s obsession with “external validation” reveals a deep seated insecurity and a fundamental lack of legitimacy at home. It is a pathetic admission that the government cares more about what a foreign influencer says on social media than it does about the safety, justice, and prosperity of the Ethiopian people. True national pride is built through internal governance by ensuring that no citizen goes hungry and that no citizen lives in fear of kidnapping. Instead, this government chooses the cheap path of buying foreign praise, hoping it will blind the world and its own people to the rot within.
A Call for Accountability
The media in Ethiopia has been stripped of its integrity and subordinated to the regime’s survival tactics. By choosing to hide the truth of our national misery behind a curtain of superficial propaganda, the government has proven it is incapable of serving the people. It is time to reject this state led deception. A country cannot be built on slogans and influencers; it is built on accountability, the protection of the innocent, and the honest acknowledgment of our crises. Until the government abandons this strategy of distraction and faces the reality of our suffering, it will continue to lose what remains of the public’s trust.
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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