Fresh from our return after feting the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange in Addis, we decided to spend a night enjoying our favorite activity of “Mar Ena Whehtet” (Milk & Honey). For those of you with a less active and wildly extraordinary imagination than ours, this is also known as “checking the Mitmita Girls’ Mailbags!” We get cozy with pajamas on, Macs in our laps, in the rocking chairs of our library and with a cup of Milk & Honey, we delve into greeting and salutations from the blogosphere.
From the start, we are reeling from all of the attention that our little innocent piece on the commodity exchange has garnered from those who find Mitmita’s humor so attractive and from those who are well…our detractors. It seems everyone has an opinion on the exchange.
One surly gentleman whose correct and fantastic use of a semicolon was practically orgasmic, vehemently defended the architect of the exchange and demanded that we answer for our selves: “When you look at the mirror what do you have to say you have done for your country?” oooohhhhhh snarky!
Well. Generally we like to think that our existence as simply gorgeous creatures with an out of this world brilliance is enough…mais parceque our fans demand so much more, we take the time to regale you with our thoughts on this blog whenever we can.
So now for our contribution: we want to say a la Dante that in these times of great moral crisis, we did NOT maintain our neutrality; rather that we stood firmly on the side of the oppressed; that we were among the throngs screaming that the Prime Minister has no clothes and a commodity exchange in Ethiopia is not only beyond the pale—it is an affront to our people. And if that doesn’t justify our completely glib position in life, while the rest of the sheep have been oowing and aahhing over the shiny piece of distraction known as ECX, we have been working on behalf of Birtukan Mideska. Remember her? Yes. The political prisoner and prisoner of conscience, who is now entering her seventh month in her reinstated life sentence? She is still there. Languishing in Kaliti…
How about reading up on her Ethiopian story?
When you are done gawking at the Exchange and you realize that we are still not saved from the awful reality that is Meles Zenawi (but Madame architect you swore that the Exchange will feed everyone and make you...err...Ethiopia rich!), maybe you can go to this website http://www.freebirtukan.org/ and read this article and perhaps, if you are feeling particularly like a good citizen, even contact your elected officials and demand that Birtukan be released.
From the start, we are reeling from all of the attention that our little innocent piece on the commodity exchange has garnered from those who find Mitmita’s humor so attractive and from those who are well…our detractors. It seems everyone has an opinion on the exchange.
One surly gentleman whose correct and fantastic use of a semicolon was practically orgasmic, vehemently defended the architect of the exchange and demanded that we answer for our selves: “When you look at the mirror what do you have to say you have done for your country?” oooohhhhhh snarky!
Well. Generally we like to think that our existence as simply gorgeous creatures with an out of this world brilliance is enough…mais parceque our fans demand so much more, we take the time to regale you with our thoughts on this blog whenever we can.
So now for our contribution: we want to say a la Dante that in these times of great moral crisis, we did NOT maintain our neutrality; rather that we stood firmly on the side of the oppressed; that we were among the throngs screaming that the Prime Minister has no clothes and a commodity exchange in Ethiopia is not only beyond the pale—it is an affront to our people. And if that doesn’t justify our completely glib position in life, while the rest of the sheep have been oowing and aahhing over the shiny piece of distraction known as ECX, we have been working on behalf of Birtukan Mideska. Remember her? Yes. The political prisoner and prisoner of conscience, who is now entering her seventh month in her reinstated life sentence? She is still there. Languishing in Kaliti…
How about reading up on her Ethiopian story?
When you are done gawking at the Exchange and you realize that we are still not saved from the awful reality that is Meles Zenawi (but Madame architect you swore that the Exchange will feed everyone and make you...err...Ethiopia rich!), maybe you can go to this website http://www.freebirtukan.org/ and read this article and perhaps, if you are feeling particularly like a good citizen, even contact your elected officials and demand that Birtukan be released.
On our end, we are just through, through with the sham trials, the endless Shemagele process and reverse pardons. We have decided that we will opt for a different approach: we are organizing a prison break. So we have begun our recruitment drive for planners, connoisseurs of Ethiopian prison layouts and descendants of those men who broke out of Alcatraz prison. To top it off, we are holding study sessions on the most famous escape by a woman prisoner in history. Send us mail should you have ideas or if you want to join us as we search for couture black cat suits with alligator boots suitable for traversing the eucalyptus trees surrounding Kaliti prison.
But we digress…
Back to our Milk & Honey session…Not all is negative in our mailbox. We do adore our fans: Ethiopian Recycler —we are sooooo crushing!
Several other mail items were spam…Mr. Whittington is a barrister from London and he wants us to confirm our bank account number…Ms. Lucille wants a bone marrow/a green card/to claim the millions left by her husband and could we help her….
Then of course there was that where-did-that-come-from awkward apologia from the architect of the ECX. We were laughing so hard that we almost spit out our mar ena whehtet. All of a sudden the woman is laying out a veritable DNA sequence of her lineage… there was this bishop, that ras mekonen and some dude who did something with Menelik (we admit we fell asleep mid-read) and without a doubt, one must always, ALWAYS for legitimacy’s sake throw in some European connection—hence the reference to Rimbaud. Mais c’est trop! It’s all a bit too much!
One can always tell when privileged Ethiopians have spent too much time in the West—the poor little rich girl syndrome is never too far behind…we are betting that the next set of mea culpa writings she blasts through the blogospehere will be a denunciation of her class status… “oh I’m just a poor misunderstood girl from Harrar who just stumbled upon this theory of a commodity exchange and blah blah blah…”
Not to be outdone by Madame Financier, the Mitmita Girls have decided to trace our lineage just a little bit further. On our Christian side, we have pinned down our history, through His Imperial Majesty, Janhoi, King of King, our fellow Harrar royalty to the Mother of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That’s right! Mary, mother of Jesus, Qiddist Dingil Mariam herself, the most bless-ed among women, is our ancestor.
On our Muslim side—we are Harrar town girls after all and the walled city has a long history with Islam—our blood extends through various Caliphates right down to Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
Finally, for our Beta Israel bona fides, we claim the original Jews through Mak’eda’s journey to see King Solomon and from him right down to Moses.
Isn’t our pedigree much more impressive? And we didn’t even have to bring up Empress Taitu and her anti-colonial battle!
And while we enjoyed our little jaunt and hers though the genealogy pool, we are marveling at this diversionary tactic. Or rather an attempt at a diversionary tactic! What the heck does a Frenchman being holed up in some house in Harrar where her relatives lived have to do with the price of coffee on the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange? (Come now! While we know a PhD doesn't necessarily mean you are a genius, darling, don't you go assuming that the rest of us are idiots.) Because despite Madame Financier’s attempts to shroud herself in the proud green of our earth, the gold of our future and the red of our roses grown only to be exported, this is not a discussion of her lineage (or even sadly enough about our impressive ancestors) or identity politics. This concerns the wholesale trickery perpetrated by the Ethiopian government with the assistance of the likes of Madame Financier on the rest of us.
There are plenty of Ethiopians of the various ethnic groups that have conspired with the current regime against the rest of us for their own benefit. Whether you are oromo, tigrai, welaita, amhara or one of the myriad of other groups which makes up the colorful tapestry that is beautiful Ethiopia, complicity with the Prime Minister’s junta renders you an enemy of the Ethiopian people.
And so for the record, the Mitmita Girls could truly care less if Madame Financier was raised by a pack of wolves or if it turns out that her hairs were spun out of silk and placed on her head by angels. It is her choice to align herself with a dictatorial regime that we find completely repugnant.
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