Sunday, October 16, 2016

The Cost of (lack of) Free Speech

A recent article from the Washington Post nailed one (and possibly more) topic when it quoted an anonymous source saying:

“Ethiopia is more vulnerable to the rumor, misinformation and provocation coming out of the diaspora because it has prevented an independent, professional and ethical media from growing inside the country .... I actually think they are beginning to realize that.”


Let's hope that assessment in the last sentence is right.

The lack of an independent and credible authority that can assess whether what the government or the people says is true or not is a loss for the the people and the government.

Another quote that had me chuckle was:

“The government doesn’t have a clue for using alternative voices even to support their own policies,” he said. “They can’t tolerate even a 1 percent deviation from their own view.”

The only shame about this article is in the fact that nobody in Ethiopia would have the guts to write it. 

2 comments:

Fezzzzzzzzzzz said...

Hey, you still alive.. lol You may not remember me ... but I checked out my old blog and fav blogs linked to it. Yours is one of the few that is still up. selam

tobian said...

Yup, do remember! How goes :) I also stopped writing for a while there. It took me a long time and self re-examination (wey sira maTat!) to bother to come back.

I don't think anybody reads my blog anymore, which actually works very well for me. One of my reasons for deciding to restart was a personal one -- looking back, I was amused by how I used to think 10+ yrs back and how my thinking has evolved. I could keep this private ... but meh!

:)