why we care so much more about ethnicity than before

The strength of all Ethiopia is our oneness—our unity—our love—our respect for each other! Our oneness should represent the protection for us from more years of misery, from the image of our country of death, famine, skinny children, prostitutes, beggars, of hopelessness, injustice, inequality, ethnic hatred, revenge, envy, division—all symbols of evil that have come as a result of ethnic apartheid policy and our wrongful attitudes towards each other. If we look at it all honestly, we are worse off today than we were a hundred years ago.

We are more divided, more filled with hatred and tribalism than our ancestors were. We have become a nation of strangers—like a family standing together inside elevators where no one talks to anyone else—as if it were a social rule that applied to us! This lack of reaching out to others and making meaningful relationships, across ethnic boundaries, is why the TPLF is control our country and we are where we are today—all suffering!

We Ethiopians really need to wonder why we care so much more about ethnicity than before—what has happened? Why do we devalue others? My answer is that the TPLF ethnic apartheid policy and our narrow-minded ethnic politicians or leaders have inflamed these feelings. They carry banners of hatred, division, revenge for the benefit of their own agendas to gain power, wealth, oil and land. The deaths that result from these agendas do not resolve our conflicts, but deepen them.

Right now we,the people have been seduced into this kind of poison thinking that must be rejected individually if we ever are going to see all of us sit down together. If we do not change our thinking, we will end up a nation and a people in ruin. We will be responsible for increased suffering across every ethnic line even if we just sit by and do nothing.

Obang.