From Apologist to Critic: The Dilemma of Bealu Girma

From Apologist to Critic: The Dilemma ofBealu Girma Taddesse Adera Mary Washington College Is there such a thing as freedom? Do we have choices? Do we know why we choose one thing over another? Do we choose to die or live? We live for reasons we don't know, and we die without knowing the time and the cause of our death. The short time we have between life and death does not give us any choice at all. Oh! how life is so meaningless! * {Derasiw 128) If Sirak, the protagonist in Bealu Girma's novel Derasiw (which literally means "the writer") is not a self-portrait, the author certainly speaks to his readers through this character. Sirak enunciates the ideals, values, philosophy of life, and even the political stance of his creator. Both character and creator are writers who have a bleak outlook on life, both profess that "writing is [their] life" {Derasiw 99), and both realize that the bureaucracy and the censors have strong grips on artists in Ethiopia. However, while Sirak still lives in the pages of his author, the whereabouts of his creator have been unknown since April 1984 ("Writers in Prison" 23). When the author, who in many ways is similar to his character, says he believes that "we live life on credit" {Derasiw 142) and adds that he cannot understand "why one is so anxious to live in this world" {Detasiw 46), he might seem to be predicting his own disappearance or *A11 translations in this article are the author's.«Northeast African Studies (ISSN 0740-9133) Vol. 2, No. 1 (New Series) 1995, pp. 135-144 135 136 laddesse Adera death. Perhaps not surprisingly then, one Thursday evening in 1984, not long after his novel Oromai was published, Bealu Girma was seen for the last time while socializing with friends. Derasiw, published in 1980, is a novel that suggests things to come in Bealu Girma's writing, but it is Oromai that secured his reputation and probably sealed his fate. Oromai shook Ethiopia and caught it by surprise like a massive explosive thrown into the middle of a busy street. Oromai, which loosely translated means c'est la vie (some translate it as "Enough," or "Gone are the Good Old Days"), was published in 1983 in Addis Ababa by Kuraz publishers. "After 500 copies were sold in 24 hours, it was taken out of the bookstores and suspended from circulation . People caught reading it were arrested. Still 'Xeroxed' copies circulated in all major cities" (Wolde-Giorgis HO). Ironically, the book even made its way to the maximum security prison in Addis Ababa where many political prisoners had been held for years. After its banning, the novel was reportedly sold for 1020 Birr (roughly about 500 U.S. dollars) on the black market by those same government officials ("Be hulet Dingiawotch" 3). Girma was, of course, "immediately removed from his post with a letter that disgraced him. Mengistu [the head of state] refused to give him permission to be employed anywhere else" (WoldeGiorgis 110). Girma's fall is a grimly intriguing matter, for he was not only a writer but also a political appointee of the same government that rejected him. At one time, he was editor of the state-owned daily newspaper Addis Zemen; another time, the director-general of the Ministry of Information; and later, not long before he was removed from his post, he was the chief of propaganda of the Red Star Campaign in Eritrea. Moreover, one of his books, Ye Kei Kokeb Tiri (The Call ofRed Star), is a partisan novel that seems to condone Mengistu's venomous attack on the youth of Ethiopia during the infamous "Red Terror." So Girma's Oromai was, in the government's view, an act of treason. It led to end his career and his life. Girma's quarrel with Mengistu's government started soon after he was appointed chief of propaganda for the Red Star Campaign. Mengistu had hoped that Girma's new novel would praise his government's handling of the war in Eritrea. According to Asreji, an Amhariclanguage magazine published in Los Angeles, Mengistu personally en- From Apologist to Critic...