Millennium; is a true Harari history, but not the ultimate one. The sensitivity surrounding the millennium must be understood within the context of “Time in History”. Hararis have made significant milestones in their social development history for over a thousand years, each milestone with its distinct historical significance, including the most recent Harari pride of self governance in 120 years.
The discussion about the Millennium Celebration must not be whether we reduced our history to just a thousand years or not, but, whether we made an intelligent choice to celebrate the “most significant event” in our history.
The beauty of taking pride in history goes hand in hand with distant past in time. History does lend itself for no further explanation when told as ancient. In other words, the older a nation’s history, the more it becomes self explanatory.
Those nations, who claim rich history, as much as they feel proud about their recent ones, take pride in celebrating the older ones, partly to satisfy the psychological desires of their people.
In our case, the understanding of our history, as told, has been the oldest and richest amongst the region’s people. Perhaps, that’s the reason why some decline to settle for just a millennium.
source @ Khairiwer.com
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROPOSAL (COUNCIL OF ELDERS)
INTRODUCTION:
The HCO, as it exists today, lacks a "Balance of Power" between its individual members and its leadership. This is manifested by the fact that the constitution has no safeguard clause or mechanism to prevent the abuse of power. The constitution grants the Board a broad mandate to maintain and exercise total control of the office and allows the Board to dictate its agenda.Read more
Our Great Leader, Mohammed Ismail
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
Our great leader, Mahammed Yusuf Ismail
BY Afendi Ziad
“A country must change and these changes must be guided by principles. Mahammed Yusuf Ismael, Cairo, Egypt”.
Our people had greeted, our great leader, Ustaaz Mahammed Yusuf Ismael in this historic event of Harari Sport and Cultural Festival and (Millennium) a thousand years of Hararghey renaissance or revival. By the time of renaissance, the country, Hararghey had already enjoyed over two thousands –years heritage of advanced civilization.
On this historic occasion our people look back with warm hearts upon the tireless efforts and the great achievements of the respected leader, Ustaaz Mahammed had made for the liberation of our country ever since he felted our sufferings caused by the Abyssinian colonial forces. He took all the pains and put his heart and soul into the cause for national liberation and unification of this great country.
The question of nationalism and national liberation movement in our country was a question of putting an end to the foreign colonial domination and establishing national sovereignty throughout the country. It was our leader who developed the national struggle movement by convening the historic joint conference among the representatives of the nationalities of the region. The great leader, who had immeasurably noble love for the country and nation, passed not a day without being concerned over the question of our national unification.
The courageous political reveals concerns for the welfare of all people without exception. He would not do any thing knowingly that would make innocent people suffer and die unnecessarily. Ustaaz Mahammed is such a leader, thinker who characterized by spiritual oriented qualities and is referred by people in general as being humble, modest, determined, trustworthy, reliable and truthful, in addition to other positive and constructive qualities.
Our national unity is the cornerstone of our nation, which manifested the fundamental standpoint and fundamental way of solving the problem. Thanks to the great meritorious services rendered by the respected regional government of our people who continued to develop our national unification steadily.
reporting various incidents and happenings in Ethiopian educational institutions, to be specific the continued problems Muslim students are facing, Negashi OJ referred often to a document the Ministy of Education drafted and about to implement. It has been awhile since I received the first draft but have been waiting to get on the revised edition of the document so that I could provide my readers with the latest update. I have finally hold on this latest and revised document. It might be important to have a look at the first draft as well. For this I have uploaded both documents, PDF.
Revised Draft Document (Nov., 2007), 3,77 MB - The document was scanned at high resolution, thus so big size. Patience when in downloads.
The documents are in Amharic. For the benefit of my rearders who don’t understand Amharic, the English and Arabic translation of the document will soon be available. In the mean time let me add here a summery of the message contained in the document:
Principal Points in the Document
The latest document does not differ much from the first draft. In fact it made various items clearer and some of the provisions that we have seen in the first draft are now abrogated leaving no room for students to practice their religion. The following are specific alert points especially for Muslims.
GENERAL
The law is to be applied in all government and private institutions from the very kindergarten to Universities;
The initiative is claimed to stem from the need to implement in these institutions the constitutional provisions with regard to religious equality (Art. 25), religious Freedom (Art. 27) and independence of education from such factors as religion and politics (Art. 90)
Religious equality and independence of education is to be realised by “denying students the rights of religious freedom”, the very basic provision of the constitution.
SPECIFIC ISSUES
Dressing Code:
Muslim female students in schools where there is school uniform may wear “Hijab” - headscarf - but the law forbid them from wearing Jilbab (the dress itself) and Niqab.
In institutions where there is no school uniform, the law does not provide any clear guarantee that Muslim students may dress themselves as per their religious prescription.
Salat:
Congregational prayer is forbidden, even in dormitories.
Islamic prayer, which involves both voice (laud recitation) and physical movement - is forbidden even on individual basis (art. 7.4 and 7.5).
The possibility for Muslim students to celebrate their various Islamic celebrations is left at the mercy of their administration.
It forbids the student community from receiving and circulating religious materials.
Food
There is no provision for the month of Ramadhan.
Students may not take food out from the restaurant (Art. 8.3) . Given no provision is made for Ramadhan, the law put the very obligatory fast in danger, though no clear restriction is put. (here we see one important diffference in the two documents).
Time
The document envisages the 30 min pauze to be between 3u45 and 4:15 for certain schools but provide for others the permission to determine the suitable time by themselves. Hereby no provision is made for students to observe the weekly Friday prayer. (This is another important differnence one comes across in the two documents).
Scope of Application
The law is applicable on all the communities of Ethiopian educational institutions across the country - campus resident Muslim staff and administrative members are bound to be held by this law and regulation.
Miscellaneous
The law endorses and provide protection to religious houses that so far are serving the university community. As no institution has a recognised praying place for Muslims (only in AAU-Sidist Kilo and Arba Minch Civil Cervice Collage Muslim students are provided with small rooms to use for offering their prayer), by this provision, the demand of only a section of the university community (the Orthodox Christian community to be specific) may partly be fulfilled.
