|
||
|
||
Hiwot Teffera has produced a very powerful, scintillating,
and captivating book on the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party EPRP and
the Ethiopian Revolution. It all began with the author’s exposure to the
uncharted waters of political philosophy and ideology when one time student
leader and revolutionary, Getachew Maru, whom she affectionately calls “my
hero”, baptized her. Tower In The Sky is an enduring literary power,
especially for the Ethiopian generation that was engaged in protracted wars
against the feudo-bourgeois regime of Haile Selassie and the most brutal Derg
regime in Ethiopian history. Tower In The Sky
wholly and thoroughly examines the struggles of the EPRP in a very lucid and
cogent way, but not only in terms of narrating the complex Ethiopian politics
of the time and praising the fallen heroes in due course of the struggle, but
also in criticizing the shortcomings and failures of the Party. Hiwot Teffera
eloquently captures in a dramatic fashion EPRP’s clandestine operations from
the outburst of the Ethiopian Revolution in 1974 to her incarceration and her
release in 1986. On top of documenting the chronology of the unfolding events
surrounding the political performance of the EPRP, Tower In The Sky is
also very much a literary work that could be classified as a non-fiction genre.
Hiwot successfully blended non-fiction literature with authentic political
discourse that virtually affected the entire social fabric of Ethiopia. Though
for the most part Hiwot narrates the experience of the EPRP vis-à-vis the Derg
and other contending forces, she also utilizes metaphorical language that goes
into recreating allusions. She uses verbal patterns, including cadence, to
dramatically depict some frightening scenarios that, in turn, capture, the
horrendous torture and killings of Ethiopian youth in general and her own
comrades in particular at the hands of the Derg murderers. With a conscious manipulation of form and language, she
echoes the gallantry of the Ethiopian Student Movement ESM and the combatants
of the EPRP. In relation to the latter, thus, I am tempted to claim that Tower
In The Sky is one book that represents the decades of indomitable spirit by
the Ethiopian fallen heroes and of some comrades who survived to tell the tale.
Hiwot is one of the latter. The book is beautifully written and easy to read because the
author has exhibited extensive creativity and meticulous craftsmanship in
putting the pieces including the enigmatic encounters of the complex and
intricate Ethiopian politics of the 1970s and 1980s in one quilt. For this
reason alone, I would like to attribute ‘virtuoso in political literature’ to Tower
In The Sky. Each chapter in the book opens up with a relevant parable or
maxim, but all the quoted people, except for Zara Yacob, are non-Africans or
non-Ethiopians. Quoting Africans in general or Ethiopians in particular would
have given authenticity to the Ethiopian resistance led by the EPRP and
rendered additional flavor to the struggle. However, the apparent dearth in
Afrocentric thought in no way diminishes the import of this great book. As we shall see in some detail later, however, Hiwot would
become disillusioned with the Party not only because the latter committed
egregious and series of mistakes and as a result encountered significant
challenges, but also due to the murder of Getachew Maru by his own party that
she never expected and suspected. Once the author met Getachew, she would slowly and gradually
delve into the world of ideology and theoretical framework that would, in turn,
enable her grasp the essence of class and class struggle and beyond. She would
first learn, thanks to her mentor Getachew, the elementary notions of class
relations. “I learned that one population in eastern, western, and southern
parts of the country,” says Hiwot, “owned over ninety percent of the land.” “I
was incensed when Getachew explained to me that these people lived off the
sweat of the majority of the people…” But at this stage, Hiwot was not polished
yet in terms of class analysis her perception of class was individual feudal
lords who could be nice human beings until Getachew made an eye-opening
statement. He tells her, “We are talking about a social system…In any case, he
[the feudal lord that Hiwot knew] might be good as a person but remember that
he is part of the system, a system that oppresses and exploits people. Once an
egg is rotten…it is rotten. You cannot crack it and separate the good from the
bad. You have no use of it once it is rotten.”  
There is no doubt that Getachew’s paradigmatic class
analysis in very simple terms “was so overpowering” as Hiwot herself
admits.  However, Hiwot was not only overpowered
by the spoken word emanating from Getachew she would also be in love with him
because she “had never met anyone who talked like him.” “I was taken by his
timidity, humility, and decency,” says Hiwot. Who would not be in love with
Getachew Maru? He was two years ahead of me in campus and after reading Tower
In the Sky and sensed the time line I gathered that Hiwot could have been
two years behind me at Haile Selassie I University now Addis Ababa
University. I have known Getachew very well especially during the USUAA
presidential campaigns. I vividly remember when one day in 1971 the Interest
Group met at the New Arts Building, Sidist Kilo campus to campaign for Tariku
Debretsion president and Getachew Maru secretary general in the USUAA electoral
proceedings. In the middle of the meeting Getachew came and rendered a passing
remark before he departed he said, “We must make this a historic campaign not
simply for the sake of holding office but also for elevating the consciousness
of the people and mobilizing the masses.” We were listening to him while at the
same time looking on his eyes he, on the contrary, was looking down as if he
was communicating with our planet earth. The more I knew Getachew Maru, the
more I sensed that he was a brilliant thinker and an electrifying speaker on
stage and/or public platforms, but he was very shy on one-to-one encounters. What started out as a political orientation between the
tutor Getachew and the tutored Hiwot would galvanize in romantic ventures when
Getachew, after much hesitation, broke his silence and told Hiwot, “I don’t
know how to put this…I am desperately in love with you.” “I was speechless” “I
almost fainted with trepidation,” says Hiwot, “When he held my right hand.” Romantic relationships, though beautiful and natural, were
secondary in a political movement poised to bring about social change. In light
of the latter reality, thus, the author continues to narrate student
restlessness in all campuses and the role played by student vanguards such as
Meles Tecle. Incidentally, many of the student militants mentioned in the book
such as Meles Tecle, Agerie Mihret, Getachew Kumsa, and Girmachew Lemma were
either my classmates or compatriots at the university. On pages 86 to 116, Hiwot superbly documents the student
movement, how Marxism-Leninism was used “for trashing dissenting voice,” the
schism and internal strife among student groupings radical seniors vs. radical
juniors, reconciliation amongst these groupings, imprisonment of student leaders
at Gibe, and the outbreak of the 1974 Ethiopian revolution. While Hiwot is
right of Gibe Boter where USUAA leaders were detained, she forgot to mention
that other students were also detained at Chinagsen, Hararghe during the same
period. I was in the latter group and we were detained at the 33rd
Battalion in Chinagsen for 53 days although initially we were sentenced to
three months hard labor. On the question of fascism in Ethiopia discussed on page 118
of the book, it is interesting to know that Getachew had the same view like
mine although we were worlds apart during this time and we had no connection at
all. I have discussed it in my debut book, Ethiopia: The Political Economy
of Transition 1995. While Democracia, the official organ of the
EPRP, declared the Derg as fascist regime, Getachew had reservations on the
definition of fascism and he did not view the Derg as a fascist regime. In my
book mentioned above, I have argued, “the Derg could best be characterized as a
state of exception regime of the military dictatorship variety and a populist
one.” I still uphold this idea and I believe that Getachew was right and the
EPRP was wrong in viewing the Derg as a fascist regime. My argument, of course,
is substantiated by the political economy definition of fascism and the unique
historical circumstance that played a role as a catalyst for the emergence of
this type of regime and not in the adjective connotation that some people use
to depict brutal dictators. On page 119, Hiwot states, “Meles Tecle took Azeb and me to
a place where Struggle, organ of the students’ union, was duplicated. We
helped out with stapling in the pamphlet.” If Hiwot and her friend were helping
in stapling Struggle, we were then in the same loop. I remember stapling
the USUAA organ along with many other colleagues. The edition of Struggle that
Hiwot is making reference to be the last USUAA publication of 1974 and Meles
Tecle was the editor-in-chief English editor was Abay Tsehaye, the current
EPRDF leader Girmachew Alemu was the Amharic editor Getachew Begashaw was the
president of USUAA and Aboma Mitiku, the secretary-general and I contributed
an article entitled New Democratic Revolution in Ethiopia in this last
edition. Meles Tecle and I went to the Commercial Printing Press for printing
the red banner of the front page of the organ before the printing and
duplication process began. On the same page, Hiwot recalls the altercation she had with
Meles because he screamed on her friend Azeb: “You contradicted Abebech on the
national question last night. How dare you? Don’t you know that she is your
mastermind?” And Hiwot retorted by saying, “How can you talk to her like that?
Who do you think you are? And who do you think Abebech is? She is not our
mastermind!” Irrespective of Hiwot’s reaction to Meles’ condescending
attitude, despite his brilliance and his many qualities and unparalleled
commitment to the Ethiopian cause, Meles was too rough in his dealings with
people. I vividly remember one day when Meles, myself, the late Meles Zenawi,
and a female student I can’t remember her name, were going to dine somewhere
near Nazareth School, and when we were about to cross the street from Sidist
Kilo campus toward the then Haile Selassie Hospital, Dean Akalu was walking by
with his wife on the other side of the street. All of a sudden, Meles verbally
attacked the Dean by saying “Dean Akalu CIA” and the Dean furiously jumped on
Meles and fistfight was about to usher in earnest if it where not for the good
wife who managed to restrain her husband. We were all embarrassed and we
directed serious criticism against Meles. On page 148, the author mentions the “sizzling debates”
between the EPRP and Meisone that were published, according to Hiwot, on “the
government-owned Amharic daily Addis Zemen – New Era – and Goh –
Dawn – magazine over the kind of democracy needed at that particular point in
time.” I don’t quite recall the publication of these debates on Addis Zemen but
I remember very well the series of debates published on both Goh EPRP-controlled
and Tseday Meisone-controlled magazines. The debates were short-lived
but magnificent, and it was then rumored that the main actors in the debate
were Yohannes Berhane for EPRP and Haile Fida for Meisone. After reading 150 pages of the book, the reader would begin
to get the flavor of Hiwot’s full-fledged revolutionary engagement including
developing study materials, thanks to Getachew Maru. At this point, a new Hiwot
would be born, a transformed Hiwot, so to speak. The early Hiwot Teffera would
undergo metamorphic changes akin to a caterpillar that would become a
butterfly a revolutionary transformation from virtually a crawling creature on
the ground to a flying and floating airborne being, and looking down from a
knowledge-based vantage point. All these transformation took place when Hiwot
became a member of the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Youth League EPRYL or
simply League, EPRP’s youth organization. “Having plunged into the League,” Hiwot declares, “I now saw
the texture of my existence changing rapidly and completely. I had peeled off
the layers of my former self and felt like a new person was emerging out of the
old skin. Life became imbued with meaning. It seemed that I was leading a
conscious, purpose-driven, value-laden, fuller and richer existence.” The author continues with her elegant literally virtuoso in
depicting her newly found person and I personally found pages 157 to 162 quite
moving, and in reading these powerful statements I have come to conclude that
Hiwot indeed is a gifted writer. Short sentences that go between prose and poem
elegantly depict the very feelings of the new Hiwot and here is how she puts
them: “A Feeling of plentitude ascended in me” “Almost before I knew it, I had
been tossed into a solemn but fascinating and fulfilling adulthood” “My Afro
shrank. I descended from my platform shoes” “My wandering soul finally found
an abode” “The struggle was my present, my future, my life.” Hiwot continues describing her relatively polished new
person and says, “Revolutionary songs rekindled in me a sense of sacrifice,
altruism, justice and human dignity,” but even at this level of transformation
her love to Getachew would intermittently visit her conscious being. “Even from
the beginning, I had seen something in him that I had not seen in other men,”
recalls Hiwot, “As I got closer to him, I knew I was destined to be with him.
He represented to me not only the Party but also what is best in it. The love I
had for him was meshed with the love I had for the Party.” The Icarus analogy made in regards to EPRP on page 170 is a
sharp depiction of the roller coaster that the Party had encountered and it is
right and palatable to me because I have written about the strengths and
weaknesses of the Party in a similar vein and tone and here is how Hiwot puts
it: “EPRP reached its zenith of popularity in 1976. Its fame crossed land and
water. Everybody whispered its name. It appeared mighty and invincible. It
soared into the sky. The clouds and the moon seem to fall under its dominion.
But, like Icarus, who flew too close to the sun and got the wings of his
chariot burned, it came too close to the “sun” for its own good, too.” To be sure, the EPRP’s rise and fall is complex and
complicated. The EPRP was one sole political organization that shook the
foundations of the Derg and became a nightmare to Mengistu Hailemariam and
Mieosne alike. It was also the only party of its kind that had successfully
recruited members from virtually all Ethiopian ethnic groups. But its main weakness
was the urban guerrilla warfare it conducted instead of strengthening the EPRA,
its armed wing. On top of this major weakness, schism hit the EPRP and it
cracked itself as in self-inflicted wound it had confronted too many enemies
that fought the Party from without but also some that had infiltrated the
organization and began to undermine it from within. The objective conditions
surrounding the EPRP inevitably escalated its downfall. One other thing I like about the book is the fact that the
author accompanies the many anecdotal incidents with a piece of history, as for
instance “Dessie as home to Negus Michael, Lij Eyasu, and Weizero Sihen…It had
also produced students of revolutionary credentials such as the famous
Berhanemeskel Redda and Walelign Mekonnen.” Perhaps Hiwot is not aware of the
fact that even Meles Tecle was educated at Weizero Sihen. By the same token,
some pieces of history and personalities like Zerai Deres p. 176, Abune
Petros p.181, Enda Iyesus p. 193, and Maichew p.196 etc. are mentioned. On top of a touch of history in giving flavor to her
description of events, the author also does appreciate the beauty of nature
while at the same time engaged in her Party assignments. On page 193, for
example, Hiwot poetically explains the splendor of the Alamata, and this is how
she presents it to the reader: “I marveled at the beauty of the magnificent and
rugged Alamata mountain chains, particularly Amba Algahe. It was
breathtaking…It was a hair-raising experience riding through those majestic
mountains. I thought it was soaring into the sky. I covered my face with my netela
to avoid looking below but, unable to resist the temptation, I would now and
then look down and tremble like a leaf when I saw buses and cars slowly
climbing the formidable mountains. …The seemingly bottomless pit would send a
chill up my spine every time I looked down.” Hiwot, the born-again butterfly that was soaring on the air
would soon find herself with wounded wings and unable to fly no more when she
learned that Berhanemeskel Redda Ha and Getachew Maru Le were expelled from
the Party central committee. She was in “disbelief and confusion.” “I was
profoundly disturbed,” she says, “not just by the shocking news but also by the
very idea of confusion creeping into my heart…In fact the very fabric of my
being was shaken.” Getachew Maru’s testimonials with respect to the expulsion
of Berhanemeskel and himself from the Party and their difference with other
central committee members of the EPRP is clearly stated on pages 208-09.
Apparently, according to Hiwot, the two Party leaders that officially confided
the expulsion of Ha and Le to the rank-and-file members of the Party were
Tselote Hezkias and Girmachew Lemma. In relation to the former, Hiwot says,
“One of his own comrades would later kill Tselote in Assimba.” It is true that
his own “comrade” killed Tselote but the so-called comrade at the time of the
homicide act was acting insane, but an intriguing mystery followed soon after
Tselote was killed. When Tselote was shot and killed, Tsegay Gebremedhin
Debteraw and Dawit Seyoum were passing by, as it was rumored then and as it
became public knowledge later on. Coincidence? Perhaps! And they shot and
killed the murderer. Why couldn’t they apprehend the assassin, investigate the
case, and bring him before justice? At that time I was very far away from the
crime scene but upon hearing of the tragedy, I wrote a letter to one of the
leaders and requested an explanation on the incident but I did not get any
answer. Mysteries abound within the EPRP!   
As I have pointed out earlier in regards to multiple enemies
of the EPRP, Hiwot correctly documents the Derg-allied forces against the Party
on page 223: “On March 23, 1977, the Derg launched a five-day assessa –
search. The Dreg, Meison, Nebelebal, Abyot Tebaki, the army, and Marxist
groups such as Woz League Workers League and Malerid Amharic
acronym for Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary Organization all rolled their
sleeves up to crack down on the common enemy – the EPRP. All the Marxist groups
around the Derg, including Meisone, had their own differences and were in one
another’s way, but what united them was hatred of the EPRP.”    The search and destroy policy initiated by the Derg and its
allies was designed to liquidate EPRP members by wantonly and indiscriminately
killing Ethiopian youth and professionals suspected for being EPRP
sympathizers. Despite the senseless mass killings of Ethiopians and in spite of
“the streets of Addis Ababa and other major cities turned red with blood,”
however, Hiwot believes that “there was nothing enigmatic or mysterious about
death, it was simply a sacrifice.” “As far as we were concerned, the fear of
death had long been vanquished” because the comrades have “died so that the
Party could shine” “death was the least price we could pay for the noble
cause for the people…It was a sublime, even a holy act.” Hiwot’s defiance and negation of death reminds me of Amiri
Baraka’s ‘Malcolm as Ideology’, in which the writer claims that the revolutionary
Malcolm X was made after their house was burned to the ground by racist tugs,
followed by the murder of his father by unknown people, and subsequent nervous
breakdown of his mother. For Amiri Baraka, the young Malcolm was a “conscious
victim” and I truly believe the fearless men and women of the EPRP were also
conscious victims. Consciousness comes with price and the Ethiopian conscious
victims, in fact, will be killed one by one or in groups and readers of this
book should brace with the loss of Getachew Maru, Girmachew Lemma, Tesfay
Debessai, Berhanemeskel Redda and hundreds other Party leaders and thousands of
rank-and-file members, as it is fully documented on pages 268 to 281. After the
murder of Getachew Maru, understandably but sadly, Hiwot would countenance the
most heart wrenching sorrow: “I saw the world I had built in the last four and
half years crumbling in front of me…the world suddenly turned opaque…I felt
life had closed on me.” These are Blues Ethiopian style, Engurguro
songs of sorrow or expressions of sadness and gloom.      Poor Hiwot “wanted to hope in spite of doubt and confusion
clouding” her world, but “Getachew’s brutal death had left an indelible scar in
[her] soul.” At this point, the flying butterfly had not only lost her flying
ability but she had gone back to square one because her being “was shattered to
the core” and “revolution, change and progress became tainted with cynicism.”
Moreover, during these trying times Hiwot could have abandoned the Party but
she admits that she had no choice but to stay with the Party for her own
survival. I think the author is trying to be modest here she could in fact
have betrayed the Party, as some did, and find herself in the camp of the Derg,
but it seems to me she was very much caught in a major dilemma like the
Ethiopian proverbial cow that gave birth to a fire and could not lick it
because it burned, and could not abandon it because it was her only child. Adding insult to injury, the reign of terror consumed
Ethiopian youth and devoured Hiwot’s comrades. Mengistu Hailemariam, the devil
incarnate or Satan in uniform and his henchmen like Melaku Tefera, were out in
full force to decimate the generation that was pride of Ethiopia, and for this
apparent reason Hiwot says, “Hopes were dashed. Euphoria turned to despair. The
rainbow, cast on Ethiopian skies during those revolutionary times, was rolled
up.” The author gives credit to her comrades who paid the
ultimate price, and she believes and I concur that “they were genuine
revolutionaries who wished their country the best…they were indeed tragic
heroes. No matter what their flaws, they were the ‘golden generation’- a
generation of ‘shameless idealists’ with a great vision and altruism. …
Ethiopia will always remember them with weeping eyes for their selflessness and
vision and with a forgiving heart for their follies. Alas! She was orphaned of
her children in the twinkling of an eye.” By the time I have read three hundred pages, I have come to
conclude that Hiwot Teffera is brave, brilliant, and broken heart the three
Bs and yet steadfast, staunch, and solemn the three Ss in her observations
and down to earth evaluations of circumstances and phenomena much bigger than
herself. In spite of the double trilogy that I have accorded to Hiwot, I also
am compelled to fathom her inability “to come to terms with his Getachew’s
death.” She is after all human! Unfortunately, however, not only will the
flying butterfly lose her ability to fly and reverse her metamorphic journey,
but she will in fact would become a caterpillar again and find herself in a
dungeon known as Keftegna and later at Kerchele. These are two prison houses
but it is in the latter that Hiwot will meet many of her comrades including
Tadelech Hailemichael, the widow of Berhanemeskel Redda. She would be delighted
to see Tadelech but she would also witness the most horrific torture at
Kerchele. The Keftegna and Kerchele prisons, by default, would propel
Hiwot’s psychological makeup to a completely different angle, but it is going
to be for the better because, oddly enough, it is at Kerchele that Hiwot will
explore her third new personality. In fact, the imprisoned new Hiwot reminds me
of Gwendolyn Brook’s ‘Poetic Realism’, especially her poem entitled ‘To
Disembark’, the message of which could easily be attributed to Hiwot’s
disengagement from her routine party assignments. “Slowly, I felt a new person
surging in me,” says Hiwot, and “I gained confidence in the knowledge that can
define and redefine myself. I could determine who I wanted to be and where I
wanted to go. I did not need a Party or a group of people to tell me who I am
or where I am going. I tasted the beauty of freedom. I embraced it and vowed to
stand by it no matter what the ramifications.” Despite the pleasure of ‘the taste of freedom’, however,
“life did not make sense,” and at times Hiwot had nightmares associated with
the continuous death of her comrades and she even thought that death was
hovering over her as well. It goes without saying that the death of Getachew
was most devastating to Hiwot but the death of Berhanemeskel also “felt like an
end of an era” to her. Hiwot is a sensible revolutionary who had not lost her
humanity in spite of her exposure to dehumanizing practices perpetrated by the
Derg murderers. She even took care of a tortured and helpless prison-mate by
the name Emebet who happened to be the wife of a Meisone central committee
member. Irrespective of ideological differences and mutual destruction between
EPRP and Meisone, Hiwot thought it would have been “the ultimate betrayal of
[her] humanity” to stand by idly while Emebet suffers.    I wish the EPRP leaders could have emulated Hiwot’s
conscience and moral imperative and extend it to their comrades who entertained
different ideas other than theirs. I wish the EPRP leadership had extended some
humanity and camaraderie respect to Berhanemeskel Redda after the Derg executed
him. On the contrary, as I have stated in my debut book, “Upon his death,
instead of mourning, the EPRP celebrated and officially declared ‘Death of A
Renegade’ in Abyot.” Berhanemeskel Redda could have made a mistake and
to err is human, but to condemn the one time legendary and selfless leader of
the Ethiopian Student Movement and one of the founders of the EPRP is
tantamount to trashing Ethiopian history and betraying the very cause that the
EPRP stood and fought for.   As indicated on pages 391 to 402, prison life after all was
not a completely shattering ambience. Thanks to the many political prisoners,
schooling, self-reliant initiatives, social interactions, debates, sense of
humor, and stores such as Hebret Souk flourished. The political prisoners
contributed to human dignity especially in humanizing convicts of all sorts.
Prison life was a blessing in disguise, and as Hiwot correctly puts it, the
prison experience reflected, “proof of the triumphal power of the human
spirit.”  After page 406, the reader would be forced to enter dialogue
with Hiwot in her quest for human nature. The author has physically encountered
convicts and murderers like Zinash, Zergi, Bogeye, and Biri. One of the crimes
committed by one of the convicts that comes as a revelation and a surprise to
me is that of Biri, who murdered her husband and buried him in the same house
she lived with her “life partner” when he was still alive I thought this kind
of crime was only palpable in Western societies and I never thought it would
occur in relatively puritan and religious societies like Ethiopia. At any rate,
these kind of crimes could have served as impetus behind Hiwot’s attempt to
explore “the mystery of the human mind.” Interestingly, however, the very
person who presides over mass killings was Mengistu Hailemariam who also
murdered Emperor Haile Selassie and buried him beneath his office. So what is
the difference between Biri and Mengistu? The answer could be one small devil
that commits homicide and another giant Satan who is responsible for the death
of thousands and upon thousands of Ethiopians, although I must admit that
Mengistu was not a lone actor and there were his henchmen who were known to the
public and there were also some invisible hands whom history has yet to
expose.    Human nature is complex, but it seems to me humans for the
most part are good in spite of the tinge of monstrosity embedded in all of us.
Martin Luther King, Jr., in one of his sermons, ‘Love, Law, and Civil
Disobedience’, once said, “there is within human nature an amazing potential
for goodness. There is with human nature something that can respond to
goodness…there is a strange dichotomy of disturbing dualism within human
nature.” The ‘potential for goodness’ in humans is what I already have stated
above, and the ‘disturbing dualism’ is what Hiwot encountered and observed
among the convicts at Kerchele. In point of fact, on page 423, Hiwot says, “I
learned in Kerchele that I could still believe in the beauty of life and the
fundamental goodness of people.” There is some soul that defies death in all of us, and it is
this very soul that kept Hiwot moving with full vigor and stamina, and above
all with gratitude. “I am grateful for all the good things I learned in the
Party,” says Hiwot, “It helped me tone up with discipline, commitment, hard
work, composure in the face of hardship, and detachment from material
possession.” In regards to the cholera outbreak at Kerchele that claimed
many lives, Hiwot believes it was an “existential threat” that, in turn, was
unacceptable to her. Death had become a common occurrence and second nature and
Hiwot was not afraid of death, but dying of cholera could be quite astounding
to her. She says, “It had me thinking that it would be a tragedy to die of dysentery
in prison after surviving the Derg’s bullet and after being there for eight
years.” I can perfectly understand Hiwot’s frightened soul
desperately trying to grapple with the etiology of death associated with
cholera, and that reminds me of what I have read to my students in class two
decades ago. It was Claude McKay’s ‘If We Must Die’ and here I offer to the
reader so that s/he appreciates the contradiction between our wish and the
conundrum of death. I truly believe that ‘If We Must Die’ written a long time
ago during the Harlem Renaissance is very much relevant to the fallen heroes of
the EPRP:                                     If
We Must Die If we must die, let us not be like
hogs I am delighted to have read and reviewed Tower In The Sky.
I am grateful to the unspoken embodiment of the universe that enabled Hiwot to
overcome the pain of existence, the prosaic disillusionment of realities, the
political engagement fraught with frustration, and the endless nightmare that
engulfed Ethiopia during the Derg rule. Tower In The Sky, in fact, is a
monument on earth for the fallen heroes. Tower In The Sky is not only a
vibrant sophisticated synthesis of the Ethiopian revolutionary period and
experience, but it is also the repository of hopes and aspirations. I would be
remiss and unqualified if I recommend Tower In The Sky only for
accolades and a ‘must read book’, without suggesting a grand literary prize for
Hiwot Teffera.  Dr. Ghelawdewos Araia can be contacted for educational and constructive feedback via dr.garaia@africanidea.org     |
||
Institute of Development and Education for Africa IDEA, Inc. 2013 |