I feel sad for young people in Ethiopia who become activists in politics with little experience or training about it. I don't blame anyone for becoming a political activist. However, I think that they would be well advised to do reality check if their ideology is farsighted to take them far enough. I think that even a government would benefit if it encourages them to do this kind of reality check in order to minimize unnecessary disturbances by young activists.
I had to ask myself this question having fed up with a friend about political outlooks in Ethiopia. We went to the same high school but in different years. Ideologically, I don't know if I can say that we are on the same page. After so many years, I wanted to ask him simple questions when we talked recently.
I couldn't stop asking myself the same questions over and over ever since. The simple questions are first if he remembers who the Valedictorian was at the high school the year that he graduated from there. The second question is if he knows who the Valedictorian was the year that I graduated from the same high school. The answer for the first question would be from him. My answer for him for the second question is he is talking to you.
Such personal stories that many of us wish to stay personal can be a simple bench mark for reality check for so many young Ethiopian political activists. If you are a high school graduate and is involved in political activism, can you check if your political ideology is resonant with the ideology of the Valedictorian of your high school when you graduated from there? If yes, it is less likely that both of you are on a wrong path than if it is no, which means it is more likely that one of you is on a wrong path.
Doesn't such simple bench mark help many young people as well as their parents for a reality check in political activism? I think it does.
It is definitely likely that looking at such more or less objective reference has not become customary in a traditionally religious society like ours. How much it mattered almost didn't officially come to me the year I graduated from my high school. The registrar of the high school and I lived in the same neighborhood. I don't remember us ever talking to each other before the ESLCE results for the year came back from Addis Ababa. We had passed by each other on many occasions since we lived in the same neighborhood. One day after the results came back, he decided to talk to me as I was passing by him. He asked me a simple question: Is it you? I said yes. He said I was first. I had heard there was another student who had got a higher point, a perfect standardized score. He responded the other student had no track record of achievement in the high school and that I was first. I said thank you and that was the end of the brief talk. I don't remember ever talking to him again because I had moved on.
As much as such stories are personal and better left personal, at least from the perspective of the individual, can high school graduates that are involved in political activism use such personal stories for a reality check? Again, if they are resonant, well and good. If they differ, they can ask a simple question, which is that if someone who performed better in high school happens to have a different ideology, what makes them think that they are on the right track?