where
refugee children sing and dance inside a tent run by UNICEF in Umm Rakouba
refugee camp. The Amhara wrong, as they always are, about Tegaru have this
proverb intended to belittle: "When God desires to hear songs, He fills
the Tegaru belly". Tegaru like gold shine brighter with burning. They are
like red-hot charcoal that continues to fume after it is deeply buried by pile
of ash. Meles Zenawi, the great Tigrayan sage and political leader has once
described the Tigrayan character in time of adversity. He recalled the 1984-85
drought and the dignified manner the hungry Tigrayans behaved on the relief
food distribution queues.
Whether or not Tegaru are poorly or heavily armed the
biggest weapon in their arsenal is what they call "habo or nihh" (h has
a guttural sound). Number one in the priority list of targets for the enemies
of Tigray is this; but it is never hit and never dies before the bearer.
Throughout the centuries, 19th to 21st, Menilik, Haileselassie and Mengistu
have done their best to kill the moral of Tegaru because they knew that is
where the impregnable fortress of Tegaru, in their war of self defence, is
located. They have succeeded to kill them, starve them, displace them,
impoverish them, but failed to deny them their potential to rise again and
again. The afore mentioned enemies and the current Tripartite invaders as well,
have thought Tigray is dead everytime they claim military victory by an unequal
force. They are oblivious to the survival instinct that is in every Tigrayan
DNA.
Coming back to the Tigrayan songs, what is not much known
to non-Tigrayans is that the songs have a magical power of tranquilizing you in
time of pain, energize you during battle, and exhilarate you in time of joy.
That is the reason why, unlike the Amhara, Tegaru do not have special war songs
or war dances of any significance. The master key to Tegaru moral is their
song. Songs cannot be killed!! A final reminder to enemies of Tegaru is the
songs do the magic only when sung by real Tegaru. Tigrigna songs used by the
enemy to influence Tegaru to its side lose their potency and become like crying
with a drum. Those children who are singing in the Umm Rakouba camps are the
future generation of Tegaru who are aware of who sent them there. They are
singing to tell their enemy that they will never be broken and will return home
in triumph however much it takes. And nothing will ever be the same!
