Dear Dr. Messay:

I am sure you have done it again. I have not read it yet, but from the reviews I can tell you have written a great book again. I am talking about your latest book, RADICALISM AND CULTURAL DISLOCATION IN ETHIOPIA, 1960-1974.

It seems you have touched the exposed nerve�endings of the Confused Generation. I have read the reviews of your book by Tecola Hagos, and some others. I would like to associate myself with accolades by Tecola Hagos. As to his disagreements, I have different views. In this short note, I will touch on some of his objections.

• Towards the end of his review Professor Tecola Hagos argues that Ethiopian students were not as isolated or dislocated as, as he thought, you suggested. It is impossible to talk about total isolation and dislocation because students live in the society we are talking about. Total isolation cannot lead to the formation of an idea about some thing. It is because they lived in the society we are talking about they could form an idea about it. The point being made here is that these students thought they knew the society they were living in and rejected it without knowing much about it and without studying it. The new is incubated in the womb of the old. The problem with the Generation we are talking about is the absence of the synthesis, although the thesis and the antithesis are glaringly obvious. They rejected it a priori, and fell for any thing Western, which they could not and did not understand as much as they thought they did.
  

• I remember students groaning and scoffing at classes and teachers whenever the subject was about any thing to do with Ethiopia. Ethiopian history was not taught because it could lead to the unraveling of the claim to the throne. Ethiopian literature was not taught because it would be crediting some individuals, which was unwelcome during Haile Sellasie�s reign because it would dim the light radiating from the Emperor.
  

• Professor Tecola Hagos argues that there are good things we learned from the West as if there is anyone who advocated total rejection of Western ideas. Nobody argues that societies should not borrow from each other. The point here is that Ethiopian students did not try to filter whatever they copied through the prism of their own history and culture. I am sure Professor Tecola Hagos agrees that the generation which preceded the one we are talking about did exactly that without trying to demolish the foundation their own. Their spectacular success and exemplary work and nationalism are testimony to the need, and indeed, wisdom, of anchoring whatever we borrow on the basis of our own. 
  

• The generation we are talking about rejected every thing Ethiopian, at least in thought, and tried to immerse itself in foreign culture, which it did not and could not understand. In this vacuum and emptiness, a very simplistic and seemingly logical ideology swept through the student body. It was also attractive because it proclaimed class warfare, satisfying the Oedipus complex urge on one hand, and harking back to the warrior tradition of Ethiopian history on the other. It is fascinating to watch a student wager because he has read or recited a poem, acted a famous leader in Ethiopian history. I am told that Walellign became what he turned out to be after playing the role Tewodros in Dessie theatre when he was a student there.
  

• Professor Tecola Hagos courageously raises the problem of the lack of hygiene in Ethiopia. This is a very serious problem in our society, and it is not getting the attention it deserves. I remember at one time what Mengistu Haile Mariam visiting one of the northern Kifle Hagers remarked. The people were out in great numbers to greet him. He liked the adulation and great welcome, whatever the source of it was. At the end of his visit he wanted to address and thank the people for the warm welcome accorded to him. But he asked the officials of the Kifle Hager whether he should mention the need for cleanness and hygiene. It was agreed that he should not mention the subject because that would offend the people. 
  

• I have seen a number poor people in a number of African countries, and what impressed me most was the cleanness and hygiene of these poor people. No matter how poor a person may be, at the end of the day�s work he or she makes sure that they take bath before they go home. In Ethiopia people may know that they are not as clean as they should be, but they do not know what to do about it. One may see beautiful girl carrying big Insira of water, but a look on their faces shows that they have not washed their faces. As recently as two years ago I saw a footage where children were lined up to greet former President Jimmy Carter and his wife in one of the northern kifle hagers of the country. The children did not wash their faces, and a swarm of flies were all over them. The president�s wife was visibly uneasy. I could not understand why the local officials did not try to tell the parents of the children, or the children themselves, to be prepared for the occasion. I think the answer lies in the fact that many Ethiopians do not and cannot relate cleanness with water. The problem and the solution may be co-existing side by side, but the leap to connect the two is a huge mental challenge. A person may know he or she is not as clean as they should be, but to realize that they can use water to solve the problem is not a given. 
  

• Tecola Hagos, by sharing his revulsion with the dirty students, was trying to make the point that Ethiopian students were not swept away by the Western culture, and they were always immersed in their own culture. The Ethiopians we are talking about here were selective in the aspects of Western culture they were seduced by. They were seduced by one aspect, and overlooked other aspects. Nobody is arguing that they were carried away by all the aspects of the Western culture. Nor does this mean that they were not carried away by some aspects of Western culture so much so that they neglected, indeed, scorned their history and culture.
  

• Professor Tecola Hagos attacks also the passivity, or the stoic acceptance of the crippling poverty among Ethiopians. He goes to the extent of preferring hooliganism to silence and beginning, which are the hall mark of the Ethiopian poor. For this national phenomenon, attacks the church for example it set for the general public. I do not have much to disagree with him in this regard. But it seems to me that he forgot to include the way children are brought up in Ethiopia. In other wards he forgot the role of the family in this tragic cultural trait among Ethiopians. To be fair to Professor Tecola Hagos, he raised this point in another context, and attacked the cruelty of parents and teachers. Professor Tecola Hagos has not been critical of parents as he has been of teachers may be because the question has been too personal and painful, or perhaps his parents were not as bad as the teachers he encountered in his life. 
  

• In most Ethiopian families, children not only eat last but also what was left over. Children are not allowed to talk and ask questions of parents. Such audacity would lead to severe punishment. Many are the children who do not know the names of their grand parents because they could not dare ask such questions, not because the questions were inappropriate but because asking questions was frowned upon. Seating on the chair of a father was considered so bad and unacceptable that it was unthinkable. Most parents do not care to know what their children ate but also whether or not they ate at all. To be frank, Ethiopian parents, particularly fathers treat their children in the same way Ethiopians treat domestic animals. This way of bringing children is not conducive to free thinking and adventure; and creates a bent-up resentment and hatred in the minds of children. In short Ethiopians should be unshackled from such numbing burdens before they become what Professor Tecola Hagos wants them to be. As Donald Levine observed in his seminal work, Wax and Gold, such an up-bridging leads to two diametrically opposed behavior patterns: total submission, or violent reaction. I think our much taunted bravery in war springs from this convoluted condition in our up- bringing.
  
  Wondwossen Hailu
  January 28, 2009