Tseggai Mebrahtu has posted a follow-up essay continuing his raving and ranting with an avalanche of new vulgarity and insults pouring out unabated. He seems to be a cesspool for such trash language and peculiar lexicon. He seems to believe that if he keeps on misrepresenting a piece of "trash"  as "gold"  long enough that it might indeed change into one--a child's fantasy of adulthood. In an Editorial of a couple of Weeks ago I had characterized Tseggai's raving and ranting essay as "nothing more than the tantrum of a boy trying to be a man in a hurry." The second part of that essay (never mind it has no first part) is now posted in a kind of a follow-up. From my observation surfing the Internet and talking with friends around the world and in Ethiopia, what Tseggai and his fellow conspirators wished for did not happen: they were expecting a floodgate of supporting letters with overwhelming force. Tseggai and his fellow conspirators are now stuck with three lonely letters, and even then, only one of the letter writers seems to have supported Tseggai's vulgarity, the other two expressed their appreciation with the legendary Ethiopian courtesy without having to repeat Tseggai's vulgarity. I have always admired the great sensibility of Ethiopians; that Ethiopians have such great sophisticated sense of smelling out a rat.

I do not have to be a contortionist for Ethiopians. They know me well enough to read my heart-felt pain for Ethiopia and our predicament. Unlike Tseggai, I am not a fire brand demagogue. I reason, and I try to seek out the truth. And most importantly, I am not beholden to any one, nor am I seeking acceptance as an intellectual by the "Ethiopian elite" whosoever they are. It is quite comical, call it a caricature, worth its weight in gold, for a number of Ethiopians that Tseggai Mebrahtu, a Tygrean, who actually has expressed a low opinion of Menilik is now casting himself as the great champion and defender of Menilik II!! This ought to be crowned as the joke of the decade. "Abatuwan satawke bayatwa temlalech."

At any rate, why are we so much interested in revising a history that we can easily establish with facts. The issue is now being shifted by Tseggai and collaborators to a question of interpretation of the 19th Century traumatic experience of the non-western people of the world in their relationships with the three major colonial powers: Britain, France, and Spain. Nevertheless, no matter how one may try to distort or misrepresent the facts showing how Menilik betrayed Ethiopia, it is not so easily explainable through interpretation. In time, I will present my sober analysis supported with documentary evidence, with out throwing a tantrum!

Tecola