Response to the Readers of "Ethiopia Needs a Spiritual Leader"

Response to the Readers of “Ethiopia Needs a
Spiritual Leader”

27 November, 2010 | By Teodros Kiros (Ph.D)

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I would like to begin by thanking
Abugida for its professional attention
to my recent controversial writings on
reconciliation; my thanks also to all
those readers for engaging the articles
and giving heart felt responses.

Let me now address the concerns of
the readers. All my readers agree that
although they appreciate the well
wishing, they do not see the practicality
of searching for a spiritual warrior who
will put the nation on the road of
reconciliation. A certain reader drew
a distinction between the silent majority that is already engaged in
peaceful struggle against the military apparatus of the existing
regime, and the regime itself, which is in combat against the silent
majority, and that the reader rightly points out that, it is the regime,
which must ask for reconciliation, and not the peaceful silent
majority.

In normal circumstances, it is the dominant victor, had he been
spiritually comported, who must ask for forgiveness, but the
Ethiopian situation is not normal, in several ways. To begin with, all
those, who unnecessarily lost their children and their loved ones in
the peaceful fight for freedom, and who are forced to hate anything
Tigrean are deeply traumatized, and I for one is appealing for their
spiritual healing, for their forgiveness without forgetting. At the
same time, I am also seeking a Third Way, the way of reconciliation,
and the possibility of establishing a reconciliation group, perhaps to
be headed by Birtukan, and peacefully confront the regime to think
about the Ethiopian Common Good, and avert the possibility of a
civil war, if the silent majority’s quest for prosperity with liberty is
ignored and intimidated by military might.

The spiritual warrior then is not simply a pacifist but a strategic
thinker who seeks peace by peaceful means but is also fully ready to
die if her spiritual quests are ignored.

These are some of my brief thoughts, which I would like to refine
with input from my intelligent readers.

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Teodros Kiros Professor of Philosophy and English (Liberal
Arts) Berklee College of Music is also a Senior Editor at Ethio
Quest News. His weekly column appears here