Meskal Madness
Yesterday was the Meskal celebration here. The story goes that Queen Helen, Emperor Constantine’s mother (Constantine introduced Christianity as the state religion in the 4th century in the Byzantine Empire, successor to Rome) when touring the Holy Land, found the cross that Jesus had been crucified on in Golan Heights. She unearthed it and held a ceremony where she burned it—sacrificial offering, perhaps? Thus, on Meskal Eve, Ethiopians turn out to the streets to build large pyramids of firewood and greenery, topped with crosses, which they light at dusk. (Here I will reiterate that the Christianity practiced here originated in the 5th century…it’s been around here longer than in, say, Britain.)Stacey and I decided to follow the crowds to Meskal Square, a huge semicircle facing the largest artery in Addis, build especially for the purpose of addressing the people of Addis. The crowd was overwhelming. The surging mass of humanity was overseen by the military, the ones in the blue camouflage, who are to put it bluntly very scary human beings. I’ve tried to ask these young, taut-faced men questions a few times—you know, where am I supposed to go, etc.—and they refuse to make eye contact and appear to only know the word “no.” Apparently the government brought them in from the Front—up north, where the skirmishes with Eritrea tend to erupt—and they are Tigrayan trained commandos, survivors of what everyone here calls “The Conflict,” the ten years of war with Eritrea, post-Derg. They do not mingle well with the Addis natives, to put it gently.
We pushed our way up the steps of the Square and arranged ourselves, standing, in one of the back rows, sandwiched among the tens of thousands of what appeared to be mostly young, drunk, teenaged boys. There was a light structure behind us that a group of them had draped themselves over, dangling 7, 8 feet from the ground, catcalling into the crowd. More disturbing was a kid of no more than 12 years of age, belligerently drunk, hanging out with his older bros whom he leaned against when it all got to be too much for him.
The ceremony started, and down in the barricaded square, the girls marched, the choir sang, the musicians played, and cross glowed, and eventually The Patriarch came out to bless and light the cross, which was arranged about 30 feet high in the center. At this point, the young men started shouting “Yeudah! Yeudah!” which we eventually figured out meant Judah—and far from being a Biblical reference, it was directed at The Patriarch. They were calling him a traitor; many Ethiopians swear fealty to another Patriarch, a man who lives in the States amidst the many other exiles. The boys flung their first two fingers on their right hand in the air—like, Peace, Dude—only it means Go Opposition Party. Hardly the same message. Stacey, who has a better head on her shoulders about this sort of thing, looked around and said, “Um, we should go soon. Really.” “After they light the cross!” “OK.”
They lit the cross and the crowd got increasingly agitated. The boys on the fixture behind us actually fell off onto the ground, generating much merriment and swearing. We started to edge our way out of the crowd, and I noticed several other faranji in the crowd doing the same thing…they knew there would be trouble.
We got out before darkness fell, and chilled at home for the evening, witnessing our own neighborhood Meskal celebration, one that felt a lot safer, with the children clapping and singing under the watchful eyes of their parents. I found out the next day that there had been a riot of sorts; rocks littered the square that weren’t there before, and there were reports of several men in the hospital, police and civilians alike.
This is not random violence. I do not want to bore you over in the States with what might seem like yet another violent African setting; but please allow me to explain as briefly as possible on the assumption that you will find this interesting because I’m here and you are reading this. :-)
The elections in May did not go well, despite much effort on all sides to make them as legitimate as possible (in the government’s case, without actually losing them, of course.) Both the opposition and the government were surprised by the results, and both overreacted in the worst ways possible. The government clamped down on security, shot and killed 40 student protestors, “disappeared” a few thousand people, claimed victory and is clearly not going to let go of power, although it is willing to allow the opposition to claim its 35-40% of Parliament seats it won (from about 5% previous) and allowed re-elections in certain districts where it was impossible to ignore the fraud happening. The opposition, somewhat hysterically, claims the overall elections were stolen from them and they will take an alternative path to power, refuse to take their seats, and try to de-legitimize the current government, which could of course mean civil war. This is not a new story in so-called “emergent” democracies, but it’s new to Ethiopia. These elections, which were initially lauded as transparent and fair from the UN and Carter Center election overseers, were the first of their kind in Ethiopia, a country which has not had riots in the streets in decades, given that the Derg wouldn’t have allowed them anyway, and are a turning point for the country. This is the first time Ethiopia has entertained two-party politics. And it doesn’t look like they are turning out well.
Interestingly, the government somewhat blames foreign NGOs for the election hassles through raising awareness around voting rights and opposition parties, and has in fact named an umbrella organization of faith-based NGOs as guilty of inciting the public violence. Government mouthpieces and the Prime Minister have publicly and personally attacked Ana Gomes, the EU rep to Ethiopia in charge of reporting on the fairness of these elections (one of the accusations was that she is sleeping with a major leader of the opposition. Before you scoff at this as adolescent politics, do you remember Monica Lewinsky?) Recently, I found out that UNOFFICIALLY since the election debacle started to spiral out of control, a certain Embassy has been compiling a human rights record on the process, which is apparently pretty dismal, and has come to the conclusion that, in fact, that opposition party DID win, but this will never be publicly stated nor supported. So if this is true, you can bet the opposition party knows it won, and knows it’s not being supported by the outside guys, and well—this just doesn’t look good for anyone.
I’ve been warned several times not to go out at all this coming Sunday; there is to be a public protest/march that is expected to encounter, ah, "Official Resistance." Monday is the first day of Parliament, when we find out if the opposition electees will take their seats, or not; if the situation will get worse, or smooth out. The PM has vowed to use violence to contain the protestors, and 40 opposition leaders were just arrested. Walking around today I noticed crowds of khaki-clad police patrolling my quiet neighborhood. I think I’m going to the field this weekend to write a brief on our work in preventing early marriage, and I won’t be back in time for the protest, which I suppose could be a good thing.
posted by Margot @ 1:08 AM
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