Here is why advocating for sanctions on Ethiopia is wrong !

These days it seems like that every time there is a grievance with some members of the Ethiopian diaspora, everybody starts calling for sanctions, withholding aid money, and the like. First of all, forget the fact that most of these people will not be affected personally if such measures were actually put in place. Secondly, a member of the diaspora can help alleviate a country's problems. But a country’s core problems have rarely been solved by people who live thousands of miles away from the center of the debate. So if anybody living abroad thinks the fate of this country in any way or form depends on them, they are fooling themselves and ,hence, are on a goose chase. They should get rid of that "saviour mentality" and help contribute to the good of the country. May be you can help me but there is some Winston Chruchill quote that seems to hit the nail on this issue but I can't seem to remember it.
There won't be any 'Libya-style' campaign against Ethiopia; no fancy air strikes or anything. So I think the wisest thing would be drop the silly act and find ways to contribute positively to the society. The people here, especially the young ones, are pragmatic about the conditions in Ethiopia. They don't try to go against the wall or do things in the hopes of scoring an interview with some major international news outlets. I think a sizable portion of the diaspora opposition has a "savior complex" and that if they looked pitiful and sad enough for foreigners, may be they will lend them a helping hand in whatever they are doing. Well that is not the mentality great nations are made of. This topic is a typical case of fight-or-flight response scenario. Either stand strong in your homeland and the face the music, or fly to some foreign land and do everything in your power to sabotage the country. I think the choice is obivious.

First Account on #AddisTaxiStrike and My Take on It

I was a victim of the recent #AddisTaxiStrike last Monday. I tried to use the light Railway system but that was overloaded with non-regular customers like me. And if it wasn’t for some generous lift from an acquaintance, my work day would have been ruined. I sympathize with the drivers whose livelihood is being put in jeopardy, not because of the proposed traffic law but because of some predatory traffic police officers who cut them a ticket whenever they feel like it. I have come across some of these traffic police officers on more than one occasion. And under these circumstances, the traffic law doesn’t necessarily play in their favor.

Personally, I don’t have anything against the law. If my memory serves me right, along with countless statistics, Ethiopia has one of the highest traffic casualties in the world. And I have lost my fair share of close relatives to traffic accidents. So anything being done to curb this epidemic is fine by me. In a city where cutting corners and “Hustling” is becoming or has already become the new normal, anything being done to return a sense of normalcy and civility to the society is okay with me. The government, in turn, should focus on cleaning those corrupt officers from the traffic force.

Another thing I witnessed during the strike was that everybody was trying to turn it into something else. “Opportunist Syndrome” was in full display by some ‘tweeps’. The strike had nothing political in its nature but there they were drooling over it like they really cared. Check out the #AddisTaxiStrike hashtag on twitter and you will know what I am talking about. The response from people, especially on twitter, was to try tie this to something political or whatever; trying to tie every grievance the society has with their personal or group narrative. One thing that separates the taxi drivers from those self-righteous tweeps is that the drivers didn’t go on strike to score an interview with some major news channel; they did it out of fear for their daily livelihood.