Cupping coffees without having any origin info, would be nonsense, right? We can't understand a coffee if we do not know its origin and to really know an origin, we must first try to understand its culture, read its history, listen to its music and observe the state of its political system. There's no other way.
It is the same with many other situations in life, everything is a consequence of something anterior, a reaction of a previous action. This "Newtonian" plot is everywhere, and no matter how hard we try to untangle it, hits our unsophisticated sense of perception like an apple falling on one’s head, preventing us from understanding its full scope and impact.
The elections that took place last Monday in Ethiopia are an example of this, on the one hand, they show an ethnically fractured country, the consequence of a rough history that has been developing for years, decades and perhaps centuries. On the other hand, a country that has undergone a rapid economic transformation, from the famine of the 1980s and through the drought of 2003, GDP per capita has grown 600% since then (World Bank 2019).
Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, but the following year he began a civil war against the TPLF. The TPLF (Tigray People's Liberation Front) has been the ruling party in Ethiopia for more than 20 years, until 2015 when it was overthrown by popular outcry through street protests that included serious acts of ethnic violence.
Abiy Ahmed's civil war against the TPLF, is a sign of the failing democracy in Ethiopia, which has cost thousands of lives, more than 2 million displaced people, 350,000 at risk of famine and countless women accusing sexual violence by the Ethiopian and Eritrean militia. It's the appalling present of an appalling past.
The future holds many challenges for Ethiopia, it's to be hoped that Ethiopians will be able to seek the mechanisms of dialogue and understanding to finally find peace.
Our new Ethiopian crop is arriving soon in Barcelona, stay put and enjoy your Ethiopian coffee!
Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, but the following year he began a civil war against the TPLF. The TPLF (Tigray People's Liberation Front) has been the ruling party in Ethiopia for more than 20 years, until 2015 when it was overthrown by popular outcry through street protests that included serious acts of ethnic violence.
Abiy Ahmed's civil war against the TPLF, is a sign of the failing democracy in Ethiopia, which has cost thousands of lives, more than 2 million displaced people, 350,000 at risk of famine and countless women accusing sexual violence by the Ethiopian and Eritrean militia. It's the appalling present of an appalling past.
The future holds many challenges for Ethiopia, it's to be hoped that Ethiopians will be able to seek the mechanisms of dialogue and understanding to finally find peace.
Our new Ethiopian crop is arriving soon in Barcelona, stay put and enjoy your Ethiopian coffee!
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