The other day I was listening to one of the ‘sanitized’ hot TV stations-a.k.a. Fana et Walta- and found myself asking an apparently simple question but failed to come up with any measure of concise and meaningful answer. What had happened a year ago? Why are we in such a hurry to ‘drag’ the Reform to the gallows? In the course of mulling over the subject, Maxim Gorky’s epic categorical denunciation of post Imperial Russian politics as a rude and crude experiment being conducted on the tender, sensitive and living flesh of Mother Russia kept recurring on my mind’s canvas-hence the title of this private reflection. Much as I detest signing up for seasonal fashionable words in vogue, this time around I am gonna use one- “Terek”

1-TEREK NUMBER ONE-the Nation is on the brink of total disintegration.

Actually, nothing is far from the truth.

On assignment, recently I had travelled to one of the presumed “trouble hot spots” in the South and against the friendly tips not to use the road I did choose to drive down there. For a country going through a difficult course of primordial transformation, everything was really “cool”. No road blocks, no gangs of hoodlums wielding machetes,no frisking by the police. The one time our car was flagged down around Koka, the officer on duty hurried to the cabin window and offered us the regular greeting ‘Selam new?”. Contrary to the deafening monotonous drum beats of the doomsday ‘activists and political commentators’, as is always the case the ‘free spirit of the Rift Valley’ had been my constant companion for the whole duration of my entire stay. Hawassa is yet the Paradise Lodge it has always been-Green, Clean, Welcoming and Happy. A friend and colleague did the same. Only his itinerary happened to be longer and took him all the way to Wollo, Tigray, Gondar, Gojjam and back to Addis. I was curious-how come you are yet in one piece and smiling being an Oromo who had been to Mekelle and stuff? You did travel to Tigrai National Regional State, didn’t ya? His answer? ‘Like you hadn’t been to Tigrai! The common folks are still kind to a fault, ever hospitable and courteous! The only sign of trouble I encountered was rounds of gun shots I heard on my way to Dabat from Shire and even that happened to be that of Amhara police trainees’ on practice field-sharp shooting the buy eyes- painted on card boards that is. Then why do the cable news networks and those ‘erudite’ politicos keep repeating doomsday is just around the corner? For one Team Lemma’s Reform has given birth to multiple of accidental phony journalists and ‘fire licking’ pundits. Dinkem! Being shallow witted and skin deep, they can’t write a readable single paragraph in the absence of bloody chaos in the background. So they need the blood to flow for their pathetic brand of journalism to stay relevant. Here is a simple example. In their wildest dream, some journalist cum pundits at ESAT didn’t expect TPLF would be kicked out of Addis just like that. When it did, they were wounded deep. Their livelihood was killed on midair. They lost much more than TPLF did. (I will have to underscore the word “SOME” as a good number of the team are well grounded, well informed, and least sensational and taught us quite a lot.) They couldn’t believe their ears and eyes when instantly as it is EBC became more ‘esat’ than ESAT. So how in God’s good name are they going to stay relevant?  As Merchants of Chaos, they need a mortal enemy to bash to stay alive. Now they have found one Dr.Abiy and Lemma! If you ask me, it is all the fault of EBC. They stole ESAT’s Terek and turned a good friend in to a mortal enemy over night!

2- TEREK NUMBER TWO-The Reform Displaced the Gedeos

The Gedeos are Vocal advocates of the Reform as almost all Ethiopians are.

To begin with I would rather say a section of innocent Ethiopians from Western Gujii were cruelly displaced. I have my doubts if all the 400,000 displaced are from one single ethnic group.They might as well be Oromos, Sidamas, Walaytas, Borenas,Amharas etc…Coming to think of it, if you ask me Lemma Megeresa must have had people in the Southern part of the country when he delivered that speech about Ethiopia being the melting pot of nationalities. You know what I mean? Like the seregegna teff. I believe that explains why we find some of Team Lemma’s vocal advocate’s from that part of the country than his own home town. But the proponents of the ‘Terek’ stand to benefit by singularly defining the displaced as Gedeos and those do the ‘dirty job’ as Oromos. They never had such a field day as the day Al Jazeera flashed those haunting pictures. Question is how in God’s good name is the Reform to be blamed for the crime perpetrated by a bunch of greedy free riders? And how could a reasonable person in his right mind put the blame on the entire Gujji Oromo?