Towards a Cohesive Culture

In the immediate aftermath of the news breaking out about 17 year-old Hana Lalango’s kidnapping, gang rape and related death, citizens began to engage in much needed conversations about individual and collective roles and contributions in curbing the conditions for similar actions. Despite all the conversation, I still felt voiceless.

I felt unheard, especially as I think being heard is one of the many basic rights as a citizen of my country. I also felt angry that, despite our conversations, our concern and our pain brought about by this case, there was a painful silence from above that made the following words ring loud in my head – “you don’t matter!”

This stirred the feelings and emotions that I felt too often during my years as a refugee. But those years of feeling like I did not have a voice and not being heard became forgettable because I was in foreign lands.

But fast forward to 2014, in the country of my birth, my present and my future, growth and development are the key buzz words that we read in the newspapers, hear on the radio and television, and observe in the display of cement and steel sprawling all around us. In between these words and buildings are people – a citizenry involved in building the present and future of this country and making noteworthy progress in economic terms.

But can economic growth be the only evidence of development in the system? Does the state of the prevalent social consciousness also factor into our development agenda?

Where the emphasis of a growth-focused development agenda is on building a strong economy that provides jobs for the masses and creates prosperity, of equal and parallel importance must be the creation and sustenance of “internal cohesion consciousness”among citizenry. Richard Barrett – Founder and Chairperson of the Barrett Values Center and an internationally recognised thought leader on values, culture and leadership – notes that a culture of fairness, openness, transparency and trust are building blocks for an internally cohesive and resilient society.

He further elaborates that “trust can only occur when people operate with a shared set of values. There must be willingness on the part of the community or national leaders to hold new conversations with its citizens about the values that are currently present in the community or nation, and the values that citizens would like to see given more prominence.”

In my perspective of a sustainable development agenda, there must be a strong effort to co-create and nurture positive social values that become one of the key pillars supporting the national transformation we seek. Sustainable development is dependent on the institutions we build. And the institutions we build are reflective of the values we hold as builders and members of this society.

If, unconsciously or consciously, we are creating a society that is silent, accepting and passive in the face of the types of violence experienced by Hanna Lalango and similar victims, then, we must really stand still and observe the state of our communities and the track we are running on. Regardless of the strength and novelty of policies that are drawn and institutions created, if the collective psyche is one of disengagement, passivity, fearfulness and mistrust, then, the services to be delivered in the institutions we create will be reflective of the collective psyche.

Whatever institutions we build are made up of people who comprise our society and the values they hold will have an impact on the strength and delivery of services and impact the face of our development.

I remember not long ago, during the Ethio-Eritrean war, the collective sense of belongingness and unity that we had experienced as Ethiopians.

Is it always responding to “others” or “outsiders” that brings us together? If not, then, what else does?

What are the collective values that we stand strongly by as a society irrespective of our religious and political identities? Have we asked this of ourselves?

Are there spaces that allow us to engage in these kinds of discussions and challenge each other’s assumptions? And through what actions do we exhibit the values we claim to hold at an individual, family, community and national level?

The continued manifestation of violence puts into question where we stand as a society. It requires both citizens and policy makers to examine why the violence continues to happen.

What do perpetrators want us to hear as they continue with their actions? Is it in our collective silence they have found a loophole to endure their malicious acts? Or is it in our legal response?

Has the lack of acknowledgement by government in support of the few who speak up to these crimes given perpetrators the confidence that impunity or a minor slap on the hand prevails in this country?

As women whose rights to safety are safeguarded in the constitution; as advocates and activists of women’s and human rights; as members of a community and as concerned citizens, our distress remains unacknowledged and we continue to feel unheard. Such a lack of acknowledgement perpetuates cynicism and gives birth to many an individual comprising a society that disbelieves its capacity to effect change and that begins to stop caring.

The lack of acknowledgement to this distress breeds indifference, thereby, negatively affecting the deepening of societal consciousness around positive values like trust, ethics, shared vision of the future, openness, commitment and excellence.

We are at a critical stage in our collective evolution where the cost of silence and “business as usual” far outweighs the risk of creating spaces and opportunities for open conversations to take shape collectively. If we are wholeheartedly invested in creating a strong and healthy Ethiopia in which poverty of basic necessities and poverty of ideas ceases to exist, making way for an engaged and committed citizenry, then, we need to individually and collectively begin reflecting on our values and openly discuss them.

The government must take a strong lead on this and set an example by enabling a listening environment and the will to really hear the call of half the population that comprise this nation. Supporting the country’s economic development agenda is a workforce of which 50pc are female. The level of security, safety and overall wellbeing that this workforce experiences is directly linked to its productivity and has an impact on national goals.

The time is upon us to acknowledge that our old social fabric is worn out. What we are replacing it with requires all of us to reflect on our collective values and come together to discuss, really listen to each other and co-create lasting solutions to our undeniable problems. In the absence of this option, we resort to being a society that stays dormant and continuously explodes in the need to be heard only when violence surfaces.


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