I gladly give in to Zena Mewal’s response.

By: Dilwenberu Nega

27^th June 2009

Dear Zena Mewal

Thank you for your prompt response to my Open Letter to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Glad to learn that you and I are in agreement on the need for Meles to retain his dual post of Prime Minister of FDRE and Chairman of EPDRF until 2015.

I could not agree more, nor could I have expressed the sitting on the fence by what I described on my Open Letter as the “silent majority” more potently than you did. Your calibrated answer and with the benefit of hindsight, I have come to realise that it was an inappropriate of me to have cling to what has now become a somewhat worn-out cliché in the first instance.

Your appellation of the behaviour of that section of the Diaspora, which is woefully silent in their appreciations of the breath taking changes that continues to take place in Ethiopia as “opportunists,” does indeed hit the nail on the head. However, you and I can travel half way and reach a consensus on the reasons why the opportunists want to remain in their respective comfort zones by rocking the boat.

I don’t know about you, but speaking from my own experience, it took me more than a decade to extricate myself from a herd-mentality of the Diaspora which still is in hoc to you name it: the politics of hate and envy, parochialism, lies, fabrications, etc. This is the real world any Ethiopian is confronted with 24/7. And, let’s face it, it does not matter how well- educated or well- exposed to Western culture one happens to be, courage – raw courage – is something that doesn’t come by easily. You and I are well aware that courage is something that you need to dig-out from within oneself and not something that one can buy on prescription or over the counter at a chemist near you.

The good thing is I sense a real determination by at least the Ethiopian in Great Britain not to take the anti-EPDRF/Meles rumpus at its face value. This, like it or not, is a clear sign, yet, that the days of hoodwinking the Diaspora en masse is numbered for the avatars of the politics of hate.

Meanwhile, however, you and I must be seen to be exercising patience and grace when we see these opportunists hobnobbing with visiting Ethiopian officials. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to either nurse or pacify the opportunists. You see Zena Mewal; don’t forget that there is time for everything: time to call a spade a spade, and time to believe that discretion is the better part of valour.

This brings with it my thanks for your constructive criticism.

With kind regards

Dilwenberu Nega