Ethiopia's begging tradition

[dama978]

The ritual of beging is routine this time every year. Christmas carol of begging before Christmas to catch people around the world in their spirit of generosity to donoate money int the bottomless pit that is Ethiopia.

First, estimated number of people affected by food shortage are released by the government. UN bodies follow to support it with estimates plus or minus. NGOs, such as Oxfam follow suite with their own estimates, around the government fgures. By now the public feels that the drought affected estimate of people is fairly solid verified by the above UN and NGos who swear to have acted independent of the governmemt estimates.

Freelance journalist jump into the fray for "love" of country. Some by lamenting over the Sahara desert encroachment, others explaining the cause of drought by lack of rainfall but attention seekers and ethnic chauvinists explain the drought as the making of bad governance. But all in the spirit of begging. Ths is their time of greatness. this their time they bend their heads and look down with lw self-esteem. Not for long though. As soon as they notice money is has gone to Ethiopia and securly held in the hands of the federal and regional Ethiopian governments, they start accusing the federal Ethiopian government of dis-honoring a proud country of 3000 year history by causing it to beg. This behavior continues until the next Christmas approaches, when they will all over again start begging anew in tandem with Ethiopian government an, UN bodies and NGOs.