Hand-tied: pulse of the horn

13 June, 2008 | 7 comments | Category: peace & conflict, thinking...

and the list goes on…

I feel completely hand-tied sometimes! Like that time there was this group activity thingie where everyone had their eyes blinded or hands tied to test drive a disability.

Sometimes I feel rage, this bubbling anger at the brutality people allow for their luxurious, ridiculous pleasures. I want to screammm, yell at them! Harass them into submission! Something!

Sometimes the corners of my eyes sparkle with unshed tears, my heart so freaking heavy and jaws clenched that it hurts below my ears… some other time I just can’t help it and I chuckle at the heartbreaking predictability and absurdness of the events in the horn!

The horn of Africa is in flames (ha!…who knew keratin could be so flammable? hu?! lol) the Horn is an incomprehensible, unfathomable mess beyond all limits I knew! It is such a hot, smoking mess that it mad sitting and contemplating it, especially chatting along with others about ‘ohhh this freaking government!!’ or some other forsaken issue we try to solve…!

So then I decide I won’t talk. I will act instead.

After all, I’d rather pick something and do something about it than yap about it all day, dammit!

I realize even the tiny darn bit would help! The horn is desperate!… so why not get my azz and take action…? I do! I get up. Then I get so freaking burnt, discouraged, disillusioned. It irks me to make a generalization that the ethiopian diaspora community is more about having a grand old fiesta than any other past-time (where drought relief efforts happen, of course!)… ahem… so I won’t make such a generalization!

…phshhh oh enough already with these abstractions here’s the brutal truth:

It is so easy to turn one’s back, get swept away by the tandem of life’s events in the US, minutes ticking away…despite how disheartening that is; it really is very easy to obtain nonchalance and complacency living in the Godforsaken first world!

…then I can’t help thinking… Really, Is a life within the horn of Africa worth least in this world, today? There really is not much of an opt-out as minutes tick away …

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7 comments to “Hand-tied: pulse of the horn”

Dr. Ethiopia, June 13th, 2008 at 1:58 pm:

• Why is it there isn’t even a headline News showing a piece of that debacl goin’ on in The Horn? I mean what happened to all the Journalists with Chutzpah?

  They don’t make them anymore or what?

  Just utter craziness.

tpeace, June 13th, 2008 at 2:41 pm:

• lol, maybe aljazeera kiddnapped all of them and amnesty international is nursing all the others hehehe…

  or maybe, old news is old news? …sadly? I’m more petrified by Djibouti going to war than anything else…frankly, that was one thing I didn’t predict at all..”In a letter to the UN, Djibouti alleged Eritrea had published new maps showing Doumeira as Eritrean territory.” – BBC
  that’s just plain scary!

Dr. Ethiopia, June 15th, 2008 at 2:39 pm:

• Whoa! didn’t know anything abut that. Well, as for Djibouti, i don’t think there will be anything going down anytime soon.

  Isayyas would have to be an absolute nut-head to dare Djibouti. What, you got the Americans and the French using Djibouti as a base for their so-many Middle East and African agenda?

  Shoot, forget about it. And if i was Djibouti, i wouldn’t lose sleep, especially when i have the latest weaponary sitting on a carrier ship, courtousey of the U.S.

nyalasmoke, June 17th, 2008 at 10:02 am:

• u vividly portrayed the utterly incapacitating dilemma faced in the horn. We can go further and include the problems of the world and overwhelm ourselves to absolute catatonia. But a defeated and resigned fatalistic existence would be the easy way out. If you think about it, we are in a much better place when compared to the much more overwhelming odds faced by say… manacled slaves on the way to the new world, the abolitionists , the maroons or Menilik and his forces at the battle of Adowa. Despite all of that they didn’t give up and the little bit of luxury and freedom we have today, we owe it to their persistence. And in that spirit we have to continue the tradition. So anger can be good if it is exploited right. but the resignation and defeatism we should reject no matter the odds.

  I think the thing we should mostly dwell on how best to move forward even if it is an inch at a time. What tactics and strategies will be most effective? What can we do as individuals and as a ppl? How does our struggle relate to the rest of the world? Most of all how do we achieve foresight so at least we can choose to be on the right side of history… In the mean time we should try our best to never get discouraged or disillusioned. We should try and try again and maybe something will catch on. And like some said… “Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. That’s just dumb. Persistence is having the same goal over and over.” So we got to stay positive, aydel?

  peace

tpeace, June 17th, 2008 at 5:26 pm:

• Dr. that’s an interesting insight, surely the war on terror is gonna be huge! But since Djibouti is an ‘Arab League of Nations’ country. It’s going to get really interesting if they get back-up from the west, wouldn’t it? I mean Eritrea is vying for cred amongst the other Arab nations too!

  thanks that was a great comment nyala. I’m with you all the way!
  The article is simply capturing the amount of helplessness the situation in the horn of africa provokes. Don’t worry about it being a symptom of resignation or disillusionment. Oh no! We shall overcome! (no joke!)

nyalasmoke, June 18th, 2008 at 1:48 pm:

• we shall overcome indeed…

Alpha, July 1st, 2008 at 10:36 am:

• Like Turtle….I sometimes peak my head out, extend my arms and legs and start my journey. The sloowwww journey towards a better day. To only find myself retreating back in my shell, to hide myself and protect myself from all of it.

  But I’m only at peace for a while, for inside my shell it is pitch dark and cold.

  In other words, i fell you sista!

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