As a second generation Ethiopian citizen who lives in Europe I am astonished by the negative articles on Ethiopia. If you Google Ethiopian children you will get a list of websites dedicated to the saving and feeding of Ethiopian children. Then you will get 20 pages full of my new Ethiopian child I adopted or how to comb your Ethiopian orphan’s hair? You then google Ethiopian women and you get lots of articles on Ethiopian women being raped in arab countries and committing suicide. Now I know that there is an element of truth to it but it is as if the negative stereotype of Ethiopia and Ethiopians is blown out of proportion. Every body has something to say about Ethiopia but the Ethiopians never have a say why is that? Ethiopian people are generally conservative closed people who do not let foreigners in their circle, so I think the mystery of them makes a lot of people assume things about them. We as Ethiopian people must fight back at their ridicules exaggeration that all Ethiopians were starving at one point in their lives or are all victims of child brides. People just give their opinion on cultural practices without seeing it from an objective view. I don’t condone child brides but most of the people in the countryside have been living that kind of way since biblical times, people cannot expect them to change overnight.
Ethiopia was late to modernize due to centuries of wars on several fronts. Why can’t people allow Ethiopia to modernize in its own time without constant scrutinies from modern countries who watch write countless degrading shameful negative articles? Everybody seems to want to save Ethiopia from all sorts of famine if there happens to be no famine then they create the image of a famine so people could donate to their nonprofit organization. It seems that if there is a positive article written about Ethiopia the NGO and charities rally and dismiss it by bringing a negative article to light. These organizations cannot promote any positive views of Ethiopia as they know that Ethiopia will get tourists and then no longer need no more aid and handouts which the charities are very happy to handle as it means they also get paid large sums of money to. The charities create negative bad stories on Ethiopia to continue to get large donations from unsuspecting donors who think Ethiopia is a pit of hell riddled with disease and poverty and children who want to be adopted.
This couldn’t be far from the truth, Ethiopians are patriotic people who love their country and are working hard to shake off the hunger label attached to their country. Ethiopians are excelling in setting up businesses abroad with the intention of going back to their country to re-build. Ethiopians pay a big attention to their families and fathers play a big role in families. The women are independent and strive for a better life which is why they emigrate to countries study or work for a couple of years and save enough money to set up their own business in Ethiopia.
Instead the media views these women going to Arab countries as helpless women trafficked to work as slaves and prostitutes. It’s very easy to stigmatize women and call them prostitutes, especially if they are black but to call a whole race a prostitute is quite shocking and racist and must be challenged. These women seek their fortune abroad like every other immigrant in history for a better life, most economic migrants have always been men but when they see women economic migrants they assume the worst and call them prostitutes. I am not denying there is no prostitution, prostitution exists in all societies but you cannot call a whole sector of immigrants’ prostitutes.
I think people should challenge stereotypes and views that are written about certain members of the community, as people write such assumptions because those people who it is written about do not have the guts or resources to make a stand against such views. This is why certain people drill it into peoples head that Ethiopia is poor the people are poor a million times, at least we need to give people something new and interesting to read about and challenge this dated stereotype.
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