The first time I met Natnael, a very decent, vibrant and collected virtual friend of mine and one of the Zone9 bloggers currently in jail, I was ready to subdue his emotion for a moment and urge him to reappraise his view or at least understand my desperation, if asked to contribute my part and be part of their bloghood, a collective of nine people armed with utmost energy, creativity and uplifting curiosity. I refrained to join them or frankly speaking I was frightened to be part in experiment of failure with inevitable consequence. Zone9 is a prominent and, I assume, pioneer in bringing collective blog with a reflective motto "we blog because we care" about us. It was also a groundbreaking experiment in that the blog has been aided by reality checks to protect readers from cyber delusion.
In addition to publishing well-articulated socio economic and political concerns on their official blog site and social media pages, particularly facebook and twitter, they have carried out three consecutive online campaigns (on fb and twitter marathon) that received overwhelming applaud. What could come next was pretty much predictable.
On April 25 and 26, six of the nine bloggers and three other journalists arrested; and those who escaped the tragedy too accused of terrorism. Understandably the blog is now shifting gradually its contents from socioeconomic and political platform to a medium dedicated to update court trials and uploading and publishing documents related to Zone9 more accessible. Where it’s heading? Well, like mountains of similar experiments conducted before, Zone9 is ceasing steadily. What is left?
Before arrested, I met Natnael in person. He is exceptionally tall, good looking and friendly young man. Agreed to have spicy kuanta-firfir, Ethiopian cousin- dried stripe of beef cooked with spicy sauce and assorted with injera (Ethiopian pancake) followed by macchiato for dessert in a moderately cozy café & restaurant. After spending quality time on so much interesting talks randomly, jumping from about life, business, education, cost of living, girls, and to some of our common virtual friends and of course our common favorite Addis Neger, he went off on a tangent and asked me if I can join zone9 blog. I celebrated the continuity of failure doesn’t mean I had the orientation to contribute. I was admirer of the braves, not the one. I had no the courage to take part and fail.
I was indebted to the braves mainly because I had implicit remorse manifested after termination of Addis Neger when all my ignorance vaporized and left naked, demeaning those braves based on farfetched conception of institution was inexcusable mistake. I have always been on the safest frontier of history and always wanted to be. Devoid of inspiration, I asked myself: If the last twenty years of journalistic experiments were all short and sad, where was the inspiration emanated from for one like Natnael and his friends when the entire legacy is misery? I was puzzling the paradox while processing what to respond to Natnael. Quivering my hands up and down, I strived to articulate my concern and varnish my mambo-jumbo to disguise my weakness. Started briefing him with counting people forgotten in prisons, reminded him countless nameless suffering in gulag, how the authoritarian party politics is engulfing the land and made freedom of speech impossible, how every single nonpartisan journalistic experiments destined to disappear or compromise its very principles, … and so much excuses [in fact facts]. He was silently nodding his head. Doesn’t it mean I had convinced him? Before he got packed up in a minivan and drove home, he posed and explained me his deep concern.
“Tamrat, I do agree with everything you said” he calmly noted me. “But what would we tell our children for living shoddier?” He left me broken. So much noise I made, yet, he had all the truth which I never thought of for a moment. I was puzzled for long with figuring out how chain of failed experiments in face of intolerable landscape could deliver inspiration for guys like Natnael to try one. Nati with disarming moral integrity decoded me the puzzle, the glue behind chains of failures. It ain’t inspiration; it was burning desire to see a better place and legacy to leave for generations to come. Natnael Feleke, Wish you back home so soon.
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