I Dare You to Answer
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…Is there to be found, expounded by youa sublime element that exists in natureever with bitterness, that beings fight over?Does there exist in something in that world of the deadwhose appellation can freedom be aptly dubbed?What does its face look like, how about its demeanoris it only by name or by events that occurit is known to you as you make your home there?Is your freedom nothing more than empty chatternot expressed through action, diluted not purehas it grown with you from the beginning?So its value is known, its methods refinedwhat is done in earnest, so you know about itso this freedom of yours is properly enriched?Is your sense of freedom fending off enemiesor does it mean, in real terms, something other than this?What of freedom at home, freedom within youits scheme unknown, allowed to rot in vaindue to profuse silence o'er extended timenot inquired into, or analyzed with care [End Page 43a] has it lost its value, due to your own neglectdue to your own silenceor, else, is it alive, abundantly robust?Are the people aware that freedom pure is thereto both the heart and mind its meaning all clearor is it show and tell, to fashion to defera mere platitude "I am free!" to declare?What underlies this thing that you call freedomdoes one know what it means with due clarityhow about when blinded in the name of freedomone's heart is hollowed out and the body witheredone's eyes all shuttered shielding one from the truthbelieving in freedom based only on hear-saythat a leech clings to him emaciating himhis bones wearing away across his lifetimethat he should waste away for the sake of othershaving no real design no meaningful cluemaligned and abused like an odd aliendenuded, thirsty, tormented, hungryever without success short of satisfactionreceiving all this ill as though it were all boonaccepting without doubt without any questiontold to be this and that, to produce this and thatliving ever so proud under freedom so shamto dutifully fetch some water in a sieve and fire over strawto tame the wild wolf much more quickly than sheepthat all this should be done in the name of freedom [End Page 44a] that freedom be destroyed for sheer utilityis this as it should be you people of the cryptthis type of trickery, this type of shrewdness?What underlies this thing that you call freedom?Is it sitting idle not uttering a wordor is it something else, freedom of choice, embodied in your laws?Is based on the law, as determined thereinto speak and write at will that freedom is aboutere the freedom of choice is encoded in a clause?Stifling one's faith professing otherwiseremaining in silence while knowing betterwitnessing as if notis the philosophy of the world of the deadthat passes as freedom, enviable indeed.… [End Page 45]
Yohannes Admassu (1927-1975) was a poet, literary critic, short story writer, and academic. He contributed literary criticism to Menen and other newspapers on the craft of Amharic literature and on the novel as a literary genre. His research on the life and work of Yoftahe Negussie is the centerpiece of his academic writing. The political and social critique in his own poetry, fiction, and nonfiction prose, along with his activism, made governmental and university officials very uneasy, causing him to be expelled as a student and to transfer as a faculty member.
Bahrnegash Bellete was born in Asmara, Eritrea, then an Ethiopian province, and grew up in four different parts of the country. He attended Haile Selassie I University in Addis Ababa for one semester and in 1972 left for the United States to continue his education. What was initially intended to be a brief sojourn in pursuit of higher education turned out to be an extended, thirty-three-year...
