Toothpick Inventors to Reclaim Ethiopia

13 August, 2007 | 4 comments | Category: ethnicity, I.dentity, madness!, peace & conflict

2.6 million years ago,
Stone tools, Gona, Ethiopia

2.0 million years ago,
Oldest Toothpick use, Ethiopia

1.7 million years ago,
Human compassion, E. Africa

600 thousand years ago,
Scalping Bodo, Ethiopia

I wonder why people needed toothpicks so early?… and which language in Ethiopia has the most names for toothpicks? maybe we can call the people using that language: the people of toothsan-pick! (son of the toothpick-inventor)!

…yawwwzer! + we can do mitochondrial DNA research to find which people correspond to the old toothpick inventors (employing diverse methods of research- aheeeem!)… And then once and for all the dilemma of who owns Ethiopia shall be resolved! mu-hahahahahaa!

raises voice: “… I hereby hold paleontology evidence that proves the inventors of toothpicks to have had the oldest known presence in Ethiopia! by the power vested in me by science as common person Abebech Jiregna, i declare DebreSinTir (Gona, Ethiopia renamed) the capital of the true “ethiopians”!”
…………………..

Almost any state plagued by ethnic conflict has raging arguments about ‘who came first?’, ‘who is a settler?’ this was the case for some of the most brutal genocides (Rwanda) and the raging conflicts of the Kurds, Tamil, Catalonians, Irish, Serbian and the former Yugoslav nations…tis also is the case with topialand…seems ludicrous and fruitless in my humble opinion.

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i.counterstance fighter

5 August, 2007 | No comments | Category: I.dentity, thinking...

i want to be a biker; regularly ride, at least several times a week, and swoosh up slopes that would normally puff me out. That would get my joy buds pumping up a little jig… and I want to be an avid music listener – an explorer that finds soulful musicians and unique style; the kind that tease the soul strings without needing to be rambunctiously playing every 20mins on the radio, i want to compile a soundtrack to life from many cultures. from one world. i want to live and read. read thoughts of others that nourish my soul.

The other day I read a piece by Gloria Anzaldúa, “toward a new consciousness”. Such a rich read! Her description of the “mixed” experience parallels mine as an immigrant. *cough|cough*

ah! Words are such chokers! piercing connotations buzz behind phonetic words as fingers or vocal cords utter them. yes.

Yes, as an immigrant in a bountiful country with many opportunities, I have experienced the “counterstance”, of standing at the angry side of the border. reprimanding! shouting, without being loud. I have become a fighter so much so, I can’t stop fighting: I pick fights if need be. Its a niche my experience has carved for me. And then I am utterly perplexed and transfixed by the unwavering injustice and unfairness of the world order now and before. I exist with thoroughly jarring contradictions. I inhale and ingest them daily. Because of this, I love reading the piece; Gloria’s exquisite articulations word out how i feel! she hears me, tho she’s passed…

She walked in shoes that caused the same blisters.

her head reverberated with the same unsettling clash of ‘I am ME!’ but, but….’how can i exist viewing the world through a lens of aperture injustice… the past-present of ‘the other’ benefiting on ‘my kind’s’ expense?’. A world with a western pallet dis-acknowledging my people’s contribution, exploiting our resources in neocolonialism, in cultural colonialism, the powerlessness of my people perpetuated by the hunger of the west’s fangs….!

Anger vibrating from my counterstance!

I’m worn out with thoughts from the counterstance

What to DO?

As a writer she defiantly raises her voice and says to me: “you can be complicated. choose to be so, choose to live with contradictions that buzz and channel you toward a journey, an indeterminacy paving way for peace, for the crossroads, the common ground.”

you choose who you become…

the first step is to want, then u act

…I want to be a Francophone to a point where my momentary sentence construction of “Voila! c’est le monde!” is grammatically correct.

… choosing daily… I choose not to want to become a fighter without actions

Wanting with constancy, with perseverance…I choose to become a doer.

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