Mereja.Forum

[DefendTheTruth]

Ethiopia has already joined in the club of the number of many countries where the gap between the Haves and Have Nots have already been a haunting social and economic crisis.

Compared to many other countries where some level of segregation based on social status could be tolerated to some level (based on some cultural forbearance, possibly), Ethiopia is intrinsically at odd with such a division in its culture. This could in turn spell a far much reaching side effect, in case this may stike back. But no one can deny today that some of the challanging social problems in the country arise from such social ills.

Go to the capital, there are those who can afford to live a very luxurious life style and those who are fighting to the end to just earn means of minimum subsistence. This is not limitted to just the capital, but gets replicated to many of the smaller towns around the country and even the rural areas of the country, specially on the downside end of it, are not spared.

Now many towns around the country have become places of no-go once the sun has set and free movement of the residents is curtailed, this in turn hampering the effort to bring the country economically forward.

In my view this will be a very challenging if not tackled and contained before it gets out of control. It is not an exaguration to assume the scenes of some ghettos of well developed cities around the world, like that of New-York, Beunos Aires, New-Dehli, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, perhaps also Hongkong and many more, may nock at our own door-steps sooner than we thought. The wakeup bell has already been rung.

If someone wish to guess the side-effects of a persistent social segregation of the residents of many affluent cities around the world it could be just sufficient to mention the recent memories of Paris before just a number of years and that of still on-going reality in Hongkong.

If you care about Ethiopia, it is time that we start to care about its future. This is my two cents for today.