Responding to Sultan S. Al Qassemi:

First thing first. I find your attitude (in the opinion piece you wrote) about Mr. Hari’s article is kind of a tit-for-tat and coming from a self-described journalist totally childish. Mr. Hari wrote about his experience in Dubai and his piece was just that. The people he interviewed and the places he visited are not made up, but that was his experience. If you can refute any part of his writing, you can do so based on facts. But if your line of argument is London is much worse than Dubai, then you miss the whole point of the article because Mr. Hari was not comparing Dubai with any other place but documenting his experience. If you feel that you have something to write about London, you can do that but you need not compare it with any other place unless you are doing a comparative piece.

You did not mention any specifics in Mr. Haris’ article that you find objectionable but condemned it in its totality because sometimes that is the best of course of action when you are short of credible argument. I can go over every example that you mentioned about London and give you a comparison with Dubai but I will give you a glimpse of what you failed to comprehend in Mr. Haris’ piece. For your information, I have lived in Dubai for more than a year and visited the place several times over the span of two decades; and I have been in London many times for a very short period of time.

Your first negative example about London is the number of homeless people and let me take the figure at its face value because it is not even relevant. I live in America and I know first hand that almost every major city has a problem with homeless people. And among the homeless, a good percentage of them are mentally sick and need immediate care. The government and welfare agencies are constantly trying to address the problem so far with little success. But the point I am trying to make is you don’t even have the right to be homeless in a city such as Dubai or all of the Gulf States because they will ship anyone who is staying in the land if they are unemployed. This is not like comparing apples to oranges; this is something like comparing apples to a rotten, insect infested orange. The sad fact of the matter is human rights violations are rampant across the region and if you really need to write about anything, do not be offended because someone find the will to write about the land of your ancestors, but try to tell us about a great deal of injustice that Mr. Hari did not find the time to document.

And then you mentioned about the awful nature of women prisoners in Britain (I thought we were talking about London) and by implication you tried to tell us that any journalist who comes from a nation of such atrocity should have no business writing about other places. Again, it all comes down to the issue of human rights and the places where it is respected. Not only in London or England, but almost all industrialized countries have their share of social problems be it in the form of drug and alcohol problems, ethnic issues, gender issues, economic hardship, gang problems, homelessness, lack of medical care, etc. But unlike any of the Gulf States or Middle Eastern countries, these and many others societal problems are constantly debated among the population and the lawmakers to find a solution. Some countries are getting better in managing the problems and others are having a difficult time dealing with them. But the point is, unlike much of the Arab states, the problems are not shunned or ignored but are discussed openly in an effort to find a solution. Because of the system of governance, sometimes governments are changed because of these issues. I wish I could say the same about the city you tried to defend needlessly.

In your zeal to defend the honor of your region, you dug deeper to find examples of injustices that Britain did against other than its own people and you brought us the example of the millions of Indians who served the Queen during World War II. I agree with you that we should learn a great deal from the history of injustices and suffering that Britain, America or the western world had brought against the third world countries. Thousandths of books have been written about the unjust nature of colonialism and its aftermath. And I am quite confident that many more will be written by future historians to enlighten us and guide us not to repeat those mistakes. But Mr. Qassemi, I am sure that you will be the first one to admit that Britain of today is not the place you knew a decade or two ago. And I have to admit that America of today is the not the nation that I saw when I landed the first time more than two decades ago. America is not proud of the way it treated the native Indians, African Americans and many other ethnic groups throughout the centuries. We have also to admit that nothing is static; we are all witnesses to the dynamic changes that is taking places all around us which is also changing us as result. No one is immune and everything is changing. We are living in an interesting time that let us see changes immediately. But unfortunately, all of the Gulf States are intentionally missing this dynamic human revolution. They are good at importing and adopting the western technology while at the same time ignoring the suffering of the immigrant population who are doing all the work to bring material modernity to the region.

The point is human rights group can raise the issue of the suffering of army conscript of Indian origin and demand just compensation for their suffering; I have seen first hand America discussed and addressed, thought not adequately, the issue of Japanese-American prisoners during World War II after a number of decades. The same could happen in Britain and all the colonial powers. Can we say the same thing about millions of slave labor conscripts who are suffering in the desert heat of Gulf States right at this moment? Most of the Arab states have forgotten that these are human being after all, with the same blood running through their veins as those who employ them. Mr. Qassemi, it is not only Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Pilipino, etc, but many of my fellow Ethiopians are suffering because of slave labor conditions throughout the Gulf States. I personally heard numerous examples of abuse of domestic workers who work from the time they wake up early in the morning until they go to bed late at night without any rest in between. Sometimes, the wages of these “slaves” are held for months and at times it is totally forfeited when the employer gets rid of them or if and when they escape from their captivity.

Mr. Qassemi, we are all thankful that we are living in a democracy and have the right to address any wrong that is done to us. Sometimes, we get the short end of the law and we do not get everything that should be ours by right. But no one can doubt that we live in a much better condition that our immigrant brothers and sisters in the Gulf States. Granted, we have so many social issues that we need to address to become a fair and just community, but don’t you dare to compare us with the unfortunate human beings in the deserts of Arabia who have no way out. I think you should be ashamed of yourself in trying to defend the indefensible just because someone wrote not so nice things about your region. You are no better than the people who are putting these people under such terrible conditions because you are trying to tell the world that it is no worse than Britain. You know that is not true and that is a shame.

Responding to Mr. Shewakena

I appreciate the analysis given by Mr. Shewakena in regards to the plight of Ethiopian Muslims and the general political climate and how to deal with it. To be fair, I have heard similar sentiment from some of my Christian brothers and I never thought for a moment that most of the Ethiopian Christians were as extreme in their views as we have seen from some elements lately. But there are major issues that are perplexing the Muslim community when it comes to the overall attitude of the Christian community when the rights of Muslims are trampled upon. Ethiopian Muslims have raised their voices whenever their rights were wantenly abused by the government and other extremist groups but we have never heard a word of support from those who are opposing the government for any number of reasons. None of the popular media and the pundits ever raised their voice when our rights were trashed time and again. When the opposition finds a cause to fight for, they will not hesitate to march on the streets of western nations, but, when human right issues of the Muslims are presented, they become a non-issue for most of our Christian counterparts.


I have to disagree with Mr. Shewakena’s point that both Christians and Muslims are equally oppressed and discriminated in Ethiopia. That was never the case and it is still not today. Historically, a big chunk of the nation used to belong to the Church until the end of Haile Selassie’s reign. The Church accumulated huge amount of property throughout the decades partly because of its favorable position with the monarchy and partly by taking much of the earnings from the Ethiopian peasantry. And Ethiopian Muslims contributed their tax dollars for the building of many churches because they had no other choices. The government in power gave back much of the property that was confiscated by the military junta to the church and as a result it gained much of the influence it had throughout the Solomonic dynasty. If we really need to straighten our house, we should start by calling a spade a spade.


Most of the mosques that we see in the nation now are built after the last monarchy was removed from power. Up until that time, the existence of Ethiopian Muslims was a mere footnote in the nation’s history and their suffering was unknown to the rest of the world. But, we know for a fact that Christianity was the official religion of the nation and all the kings and the emperors were crowned by the Abuna to tell the world that Ethiopia was a Christian nation. This does not in any way negate the fact that Christians suffered under successive feudal rulers but it needs to be mentioned that the sufferings of the Muslims was much worse. For instance, we can all basically agree that, except for the ruling class, Ethiopians across the board suffered because of the undemocratic nature of the system of rule throughout the centuries, but, we can safely single out the severity of the oppression women had to endure in a male dominated society. In a similar fashion, it is not that difficult to observe what Ethiopian Muslims had to go through in their own homeland. My contention with Mr. Shewakena is that we cannot just gloss over the nature of the oppression and paint everyone with the same brush and declare that we all suffered equally. Although I really understand the positive message that he wants to pass to the Muslims, it needs to be pointed out that there are some real issues that we are trying to straighten with our Christian counterparts so that we can bring real peace, equality and fairness to all our lives.


I share Mr. Shewakena’s view that unless a real democratic government is established in our country, we will never be free and equal. And, of course, Ethiopian Muslims repeatedly condemned the actions of the government during the 2005 election that ended up claiming more that two hundred lives and the sufferings of many others. And we are well aware of the magnitude of the government’s interference in the Muslim’s Council to the point that it became its own apparatus to effectively control our actions. We have seen governments come and go and we have learned a thing or two on how each one tries to change its tactics to control us so that we become docile and obedient. We have known the role of government in our lives for some time now and we are learning how to fight the ever changing nature of the oppression, but we have become more aware of the second force that is trying to hold us back in our just struggle to achieve our proper place in the nation. Let me jot down a few examples of this force to give you some idea of what we are dealing with.


• The way it is established, the Ethiopian Muslims Supreme Council is no better that any other non-governmental entity because it is required to renew its operating license every two years from non-other than the World Council of Churches. You might argue that the government might have its hand on this but what about the role of the church? For an organization that was supposed to represent more than half the population, what kind of arrangement is that either by the government or the church? Even thought we have voiced our grievances as to the unfairness of this issue many times with the authorities, we raised it again during the DC demonstration to tell our story to everyone. The church is helping the government to contain the struggle of the Muslims and both of them have found an area of common interest that they see eye to eye. Mr. Shewakena, we are demanding the respect of our rights both from the government as we as the church because the lines are too blurry for us to tell the difference.
• Yes, we have seen the establishment of many mosques across the nation since the time of the dergue but most of the time the process of getting permit and building mosques in Ethiopia is a challenge all by itself. In mixed neighborhoods of Muslims and Christians, most of the time permits for building are routinely denied and it has become a custom to go through the courts. The church plays a leading role at every level of local government to enforce the denial of permits.

• Muslims students are denied their basic rights of worship (praying) in higher institutions of learning by non-other than those who area administering the colleges. Most of these authorities make no apologies for their discriminatory acts by falsely trying to hide under the constitution. What kind of constitution denies the basic rights of an individual? And we all know that a higher learning institution, let alone deny ones’ fundamental rights, is a place to experiment new ideas without regard to the actions of the government. It just happens that most of the intelligentsia in these higher institutions belong to institution called Mahbere Kudusan which is strongly affiliated with the church.

• Right now, there is an air of hostility among the followers of the two major religions as a result of destructive policies followed by both the government and the church. Finally, it came into the open and in some areas, Muslims are told to get out of the country because some believe they have overstayed their welcome. I wish it would have been easy to dismiss these and threats as a work of a lunatic fringe group. But, Mr. Shewakena, major social catastrophes are hardly noticed during the inception and once they get momentum, it is difficult to stop, and if so, at a terrible price both in human lives and property as well.


Mr. Shewkena, these and many similar examples are the reason we wanted to take our struggle in the open and let everyone know what we are dealing with. Although I wan not a part of the body that organized the DC event to speak on their behalf, I can tell you that a call was made for all Ethiopian to join their hands in a show of solidarity. Unfortunately, I learned that very few members of the Christian community participated, perhaps, they were not properly informed of our message.


Mr. Shewakena, we are all in agreement that the Ethiopian Muslims have a lot in common with their Christian counterparts and they have to bring their collective effort together to bring a lasting peace, freedom and equality to all the people. But somehow along our struggle, it seems to me that we are parting in different directions because we failed to see each others’ particular problems and concerns. We have been voicing our concern in the open for some time now but we are not hearing anything from democratic minded elements within the larger Ethiopian community. The peace loving Ethiopian Christian community has to raise its voice against the extreme elements and try to extinguish the hate propaganda that is spoiling the friendship and respectful relationship that has existed for centuries.


Surat S.

Sweetness in the Belly, by Camilla Gibb - book review

I just finished reading Camilla Gibb’s book “Sweetness in the belly” with sort of mixed reaction. As most of you are aware by now, the author lived in Harar for one year (1994-1995) to do her post-graduate work in social anthropology focusing on the Harari way of life. For those of you who have read the book and are moderately familiar with Harar, I am quite sure you will find a lot that is common, intimate and brings so many memories about the life we left behind. But there are certain points that are mentioned in the book about Hararis that I was not either aware of, or to be blunt, not true, if memory and history serves me right. But a word of caution here about the nature of the book is warranted; the book is categorized as a novel which the English dictionary describes as “A fictitious tale or narrative, professing to be conformed to real life; esp.” Another sub-category of a novel, namely romans a clef is defined as a “ novel in which actual persons, places, or events are depicted in fictional guise.” And from the experience I had in reading the book, I believe the latter definition is a fitting description. Having said that, at times, I find it difficult to differentiate which part is fiction and which part is the real because Gibbs made the lines blurry in an effort to tell the story.

For the most part, the book is a good narrative of the lives of Hararis and to smaller extent Oromos in the early 1970’s. It is not hard for most Hararis who came of age in that era to identify with some of the fictional characters depicted in the novel. The author did a good job of intermingling reality and fiction to make the book an interesting read. There are bits and pieces of data scattered throughout the book that made me think and question its truthfulness. In the epilog of the book, the author thanks so many Hararis and non-Hararis by name and that led me to believe that the book was adequately researched. And I am sure it is wrong on my part to assume that most of the people who assisted Gibb on her book knew beforehand the final version.

The part of the book that I had difficulty to believe is the relationship the Hararis have with their immediate neighbor, the Oromos, as portrayed by Gibb. She repeatedly tried to depict it in a narrow and somehow far from what the reality is. Gibb’s portrayal of Hararis as the oppressor and the Oromos as the oppressed people is a very simplistic and a very easy definition which does not take into account the fact that the two ethnic groups are intertwined in more than one ways and their history runs both in conjunction with each other and parallel to each other. I will site the following three passages from the book to drive my point home. These references summarize Gibb’s understanding of the relationship of the two peoples which is not how Hararis perceive the facts to be. The first quotation is a conversation between Dr. Aziz, a leading character in the book, whose father is a Sudanese and his mother a Harari, and the main protagonist in the book, Lily, whose parents are Irish but who has adopted Islam and the Harari way of life by way of upbringing.

“ … Hararis have enjoyed centuries of privilege – their wealth comes from the exploitation of peasants. Harar was one of the biggest slave trading markets in East Africa. The Hararis would trade black people like me for goods from the Orient. A black man for a bolt of silk from China. My father was bought for a vat of gunpowder.”P299

In the second quotation, the author took the liberty in explaining the role of one of the characters in the book who is an Oromo striving to be a Harari.

“Gishta began life as a servant in a Harari household like most Oromo girls in the vicinity of the city.”

And the final quotation in this category comes from the mouth of Lily during the Ethiopian revolution of 1974. She is expressing her fear to what the future holds for the Hararis and her own life.

“ … That would mean taking away land from the Hararis,” I realized aloud. The Hararis thrived under feudalism; it was the basis of their economy, though to admit this would be to indict themselves as beneficiaries of the emperor’s corrupt system.”

If we dig a little deeper as to the truthfullness of the first quotation, it is obvious that for Hararis that is an absurd assertion. It is just a simple matter of history that Hararis were basically and equally involved in farming and trading throughout their history until just recently. The farming part was a means of survival for a part of those Hararis who used to live in Harar and its surrounding and the trading part of livelihood was extended wherever Hararis went beyond the borders of their homeland. And up until recently, it was the Hararis themselves that were tilling the land with marginal help from their Oromo neighbors. As Hararis started to leave their homeland in search of modernity and better fortunes elsewhere, the number of Hararis who were involved in farming eventually decreased and those who stayed on the farm sought the help of the Oromos on an equal footing to share the bounty. To boldly assert that the Harari wealth came from the exploitation of the Oromo peasants is not only baseless, but laughable at best because the income generated from the farming was very negligible and barely sustained the Harari farmers let alone make them wealthy.

It would be very easy to fault Gibb for her interpretation of these relationships, but we have to remember that she went there to further her studies and she obtained all the information from those who helped her on her book. I can not for a moment believe that Hararis will be the source of such distortion of history, but it will not surprise me if such notions are entertained by other ethnic groups who have a beef to grind..

The second part of the quotation is the role of Harar as a slave trading center. There are anecdotal evidences that Harari nobles were in way or another involved in slave trade. I have read instances of Arab slave traders coming to the shores of Zeila in early nineteenth century, which was part of Imam Ahmed’s empire. Other than that, little is known about the slave trade in Harar as illustrated by the following quotation:

“When Burton arrived here in Absynnia, the city was at its peak as an important center of commerce and a way station for caravan routes, particularly in gun-running and the slave trade. (Up until the mid-19th century Western Arabs exported women and men even for the small price of rice and dates.

Little is known of the slave trade of Harar, but Burton in 1855 calls it “the half-way house for slaves.” The Amir himself took an active part in the slave trade and received some slaves in lieu of tribute and taxation. A slave caravan from Harar to Berbera in the 1850’s was said to contain about 500 slaves, However slave trade was not the most decisive factor in Harar’s economy.

The Egyptians embarked on a building program in Harar and erected a number of fine stone buildings, including a mosque and the city’s first hospital. The walls of the town were both heightened and strengthened and a new wall was erected a short distance to the northwest. The slave trade was officially abolished, and in practice at least greatly reduced.” Angie Eng.

Except for this anecdotal example such as the above quotation and Richard Burton’s personal observation, which was quite biased to say the least, I could not find any evidence to suggest that Harar was one of the largest slave trading centers in East Africa and to assert that Hararis “…would trade black people like Lily for goods from the Orient. A black man for a bolt of silk from China.” I am not quite sure where Gibb collected her information from, but since she had ample time to do her research in her Harar, she would have been surprised by evidences that would have contradicted her assertion if she really did a thorough research rather than regurgitate statements that have not been tested for historical accuracy.

The second quotation in reference for Gishta’s role as a servant in a Harari home is not something that is routine in a Harari household. Again, there might be some Hararis that employ Oromo children for household help in Harar, but that is not one experience in almost all Harari households as Gibb would like us to believe. If she had said the same thing about Hararis in Addis who overwhelmingly hire domestic servants of other ethnic groups, I am sure that would make sense because it is true. I am not sure the number of households Gibb had visited in Harar during her stay, but she would have noticed easily that the majority of Harari household could not even afford to hire housemaids unless she is telling us that the service is provided for free. And of course, that would not be a service, but a form of slavery. And my question to Gibb is did she encounter any Oromo slaves in a Harari household during her stay? I am quite certain that she can see the absurdity in all this. The few Hararis who remained in their farms have partnered with Oromos to work on their fields sharing equally the profits of their labor, but that is the extent of the service. Unless Gibb wants to advance the theory that Hararis indeed oppressed the Oromos in all aspects of their lives, as it was common to hear such phrases in the aftermath of the 1974 revolution, she would have noticed that there is no substance to her assertion if she really did her research properly.

The last quotation I chose from her book asserts that we Hararis thrived under feudalism because it was the basis of our economy. And the very question that comes to mind is, “what is the source of your information? And how do you substantiate that?” Of course, Gibb is just trying to establish the assertion that Hararis oppressed the Oromos in their neighborhood by telling the readers that Hararis were the beneficiaries of the emperor’s feudal system. I am sure that is real music to many Harari ears. We are told that we Hararis benefitted with the feudal system at the expense of the Oromos. As a matter of fact, Hararis were the ones who were burdened with feudalism and suffered together with the other Ethnic groups. All Hararis vividly remember their history and it was just a little more than a century since Hararis lost their empire to Abyssinian highlanders and started the tortuous journey of oppression under feudalism, fighting it every chance they get. But turning history on its head, Gibb is telling us that we were in cahoots with the emperor in oppressing the Oromos and getting wealthier as a result. Even a very short stay in Harar and around Hararis would not lead anyone to such conclusion, but Gibb stayed in Harar for more than a year and such is the result of her adventure.

I understand that I was a bit harsh with the author with some contents that are depicted in the book as real, but the book is part Harari history and way of life and I am afraid that people should not take the wrong message from reading it. As a bestseller in North America, the book gained a wider audience, and hence, the greater the chance for the misinformation. If she was really interested to tell the truth, Gibb should have provided her completed work to get a feedback before publication from Hararis, Oromos and others that have a stake in the story. Maybe she did that and no one saw anything disagreeable and, if that is the case, that is the greater shame.

Although I started with some factual errors in the book that should have been corrected, I would like to congratulate Gibb for venturing into a world that is rarely given any chance to be noticed and we should all be thankful for that. I would like to believe that she did her best to be sensitive to the subject matter covered in her book and did a superb job for someone who is an outsider. I noticed that Gibb had a talent to make the reader be a part of the story and live the life of the characters even for a short while. Reading the book feels like I could see vivid images of the places and events she was describing with minute detail. And as a Harari, it feels like the events in the book mimicked the life story of so many people most of us are familiar with. And I hope that many Hararis will take the time to read the book and make observations and learn a little bit of their history that is fading away as time goes by.

Surat