𝙏𝒊𝙜𝒓𝙖𝙮 𝑾𝙚𝒆𝙠𝒍𝙮 𝘿𝒊𝙜𝒆𝙨𝒕 | September 20 – September 26, 2025

1. Happy Meskel Celebration to All

Today marks the celebration of Meskel, and yesterday was its eve. Across Ethiopia, from the countryside of Tigray to the heart of the nation, bonfires—both large and small—are lit amid traditional chants and church dances. The atmosphere is ecstatic, filled with food, drink, and song. Perhaps Meskel is the most widely celebrated public holiday in Ethiopia, observed across communities regardless of religion or ethnicity. For some, it is a deeply religious occasion; for others, a celebration of tradition and custom; and for yet others, it marks the beginning of a new year. It is a day when hopes are rekindled and families and kin are reunited. No wonder that Meskel has been voted in as one of the non-tangible heritages of humanity by UNESCO.

Agame and many areas in the Gurage region offer vivid examples of these festivities. People from both Agame and Gurage—entrepreneurial communities to a similar degree, despite their geographical differences—return to their homesteads, joining rural kin to celebrate together.

This year, it is heartening to see the boundaries of celebration in Tigray expand slightly. Alietina, in Agame—the heart of Erob—is now open for festivities to other Tegaru. With the Eritrean forces’ occupation receding to the north and northwest, Alietiena is once again governed by Tigray. General Tadese Worede went there to mingle with the people, a welcome and noteworthy gesture.

As I often observe, it is natural for politicians, administrators, or heads of government to attend religious and traditional celebrations. Yet discomfort arises when they take center stage, overshadowing the occasion. Their presence can create tension: waiting for their arrival, adjusting the schedule and rituals to suit security protocols, or conveying political messages. There are even moments of unsettling spectacle—such as Debretsion in 2019, sitting in a horse carriage, donning royal attire and a crown, a display meant only for the popes or nobility. Such acts are, frankly, distasteful.

All the same, the celebrations have proceeded joyfully. Both Chomea, the mountain east of Mekele, and Adigrat held their festivities in the traditional spirit. Each city has its own heritage, and pilgrims can enjoy both, as they are only two hours apart.

Happy Meskel Celebration to all once again!

2. Getachew Reda: Between Legacy and Contradiction

 

I did not want to write about Getachew Reda for a long time. His ordeals are still fresh, as are his moments of glory and the epic story he once embodied. I needed time to recuperate, to come to terms with the new reality of his shifting position and language.

The shift left me so baffled that I preferred silence over commentary. Yet true balance demands that I not be selective in my reflections. Out of respect for history, for my readers, and above all for my own conscience, I cannot withhold what needs to be said.

Specifically, the ongoing debate sparked by his remarks at the launch of the Prime Minister’s book Medemer has drawn me back to the subject. Perhaps it is worth offering a few reflections.

For all his flaws, Getachew remained a significant personality. I once hoped to see him take a different path—immersed in scholarship, contributing to knowledge, and engaging in rigorous discourse—rather than serving a premier so absorbed in self-adulation.

Many remember Getachew as the voice of resistance: the articulate spokesman of the anti-genocidal war, the politician whose sharp wit and pleasant sarcasm resonated with the youth, and the figure who symbolized a hopeful generational shift. In those days, he projected confidence when others faltered; where Debretsion was hesitant and halting, Getachew struck hard and spoke with clarity. His incisive tweets became more than commentary—they were threads of history, a gateway for both Tigray’s youth and the international community to grasp the scale of extermination under blockade.

That is why his trajectory has been so disheartening. From the heights of resistance, he has slid into compliance, pandering to the very authority he once denounced. His recent praise for the prime minister, coupled with his self-effacing admission—“I was not part of a knowledge-based discussion so far. After a long time, I am for the first time coming to a forum where knowledge and critical thinking count,”—felt like a betrayal of the spirit he himself once embodied. It was, metaphorically speaking, like shooting at one’s own feet. His rubbing shoulders and blending in with genociders is dismaying to watch.

Until recently, public sympathy for him remained strong. People were outraged by the way the military-political oligarchy sidelined him earlier this year—ostracized from power, forced him into retreat, and eventually pushed him to seek refuge in Addis Ababa. Many sympathized not only because of his personal ordeal, but also because, during his brief tenure in Tigray’s leadership, he introduced notable reforms. He liberalized the media, giving people room to speak freely, and openly acknowledged the failures of the TPLF, calling for collective and individual reckoning. Together with allies such as Tsadkan, he spoke of democracy as an essential path for Tigray. I remember that I wrote a small piece then, titled Getachew: Too Gentle for the Storm, after his running away to Addis Ababa, both as a tribute to his contribution and a mourning over his victimhood in the hands of the oligarchy.

To give a full picture, it is also to be noted that Getachew had limitations. He struggled to rally broad support within Tigray, could not break new ground by forging the alliances needed to strengthen his position, and often moved too slowly to translate his ideas into political momentum. These weaknesses, though overshadowed by his eloquence, eventually left him vulnerable.

Today, his position as an appointee of the federal government—special adviser to the prime minister on East African Affairs—has clouded that earlier legacy. Some hoped he might still wield the role for Tigray’s benefit, and his candid interviews, even when tinged with hearsay, were tolerated as a form of transparency. After all, without insiders like him, how else would the opaque politics in Mekelle be exposed? Yet his more recent posture, especially the effusive tribute to the prime minister through Medemer, has eroded that goodwill.

So where does Getachew stand now? Among Tigray’s youth, the disillusionment is palpable. Among Ethiopia’s broader elite, his wit may still entertain, but it no longer commands respect—nor fear. He risks becoming a figure remembered less for his courage in resistance than for the contradictions that followed.

Still, in this country, we have learned to expect the unexpected. Surprises, both bitter and strange, seem to arrive with unsettling regularity. Perhaps Getachew’s story is not yet finished. We shall see.

3. Monjorino: Power, Contradictions, and Tigray’s Fractured Path

 

Recently, Monjorino gathered media personnel in Tigray and issued a stern warning: her party would no longer tolerate reporting that “divides people” or is “toxic to relations among people.” Yet who has truly divided the people? It was her faction, which enlisted the army’s support and spread the message that Getachew’s group was unacceptable. More on this below, but first, a bit about Monjorino and her actions.

Monjorino was among the first to engage in battles of words in Addis Ababa. At the 2019 Yekatit 11 commemoration, marking the start of the armed struggle in Tigray, she criticized the premier and his supporters while still serving as trade minister. A year and a half later, the devastating war erupted.

What is Madame Fetlework, also known as Monjorino, saying? Stern, well-spoken, and one of the last batches of TPLF women fighters who joined early on, she entered the struggle at a young age, in high school in 1978. That long history of sacrifice cannot be denied and deserves recognition. But what about now? Is she acting in the best interests of Tigray at a time when leadership, wisdom, patience, and selflessness are crucial—when Tigray needs accountability and truthfulness from its leaders?

In the last couple of years, her words have often been sarcastic and insensitive, particularly regarding displaced people. She claimed that the displaced are opposed to relocation unless the TPLF is guiding them home. Instead of focusing on the sovereignty of the people and their liberation from cycles of deprivation, she continues to exalt the TPLF’s omnipotence.

Worse, Monjorino is widely reported to have orchestrated the January 23, 2025, coup, in which army commanders in Tigray openly supported her faction while disowning the group led by Getachew, which opposed the conduct of the TPLF congress. Her actions, rather than narrowing divisions, have widened them, leaving Tigray split between factions. Moreover, her rumored engagement with the EPLF—the very group many Tigrayans reject—has further deepened these divisions.

When a political figure gathers media personnel in a hall and declares “zero tolerance,” the act carries meaning far beyond the words themselves. It is a symbolic assertion of control over free speech, an implicit attempt to intimidate and influence. If it were truly beyond the acceptable bounds, legal recourse would suffice. There are sufficient laws to hold transgressors accountable; public warnings in this context are unnecessary and troubling. The significance lies not merely in what is said, but in who says it, under what circumstances, and in what context.

In any case, her attempt to control the press is concerning. She holds no government office, and as a party leader, she has no legal authority to regulate reporting. This is a repeated pattern in the TPLF: conflating party and government, exercising power where none should exist. If the speaker has no formal authority to enforce such a warning, the act becomes a clear overreach—blurring the lines between party and government power. When paired with a history of suppressing media freedom, the warning takes on an even more menacing tone, as the audience cannot easily separate rhetoric from threat.

Publicly issuing such cautions, rather than following established legal channels, frames the media as a target, implying that critical reporting will not be tolerated. Even a statement intended as guidance or discipline is perceived as coercion, eroding trust and undermining the fundamental principle of freedom of expression.

Moreover, in today’s digital age, information flows are decentralized; social media allows anyone to report any incident. Even if Monjorino could warn those under her payroll (at least that is what she thinks, given that the government and the party are the same), countless others can and will report on multiple platforms.

The lesson is clear: politicians today must remain principled and conscientious at all times. Speaking differently in Adigrat and Mekele, or in public versus private settings, exposes inconsistency and erodes trust. By failing to adhere to this principle, Monjorino has truly undermined her credibility further and eroded the fledgling democracy further. What she spoke to the media personnel and journalists is open for everyone to interpret, and to interpret it from a moral, constitutional, and pragmatic angle. And the digital world never forgets; it will be stored for generations to come.

4. Between Vigilance and Weariness: Tigray’s Uneasy Talk of War

There is a growing speculation in Tigray — a sensitization to a war that TPLF cadres and some TDF commanders appear to see as likely. A few generals have publicly urged people to prepare for a possible eventuality. As I noted in last week’s blog, TPLF cadres and members of its Central Committee have been conducting a spree of town-hall meetings, pressing citizens to ready themselves. They say this push is a response to the constant spectre of intimidation and bellicose language from Arat Kilo — a message that, in their view, “the unfinished job of exterminating the people of Tigray is only on hold and could be unleashed at any time.”

But listen to people in the towns and you hear something different. Ordinary citizens are not in the mood for war; many do not believe one is imminent, and they fear that talking about it openly can only make it more likely. People are still tending their wounds and mourning loved ones — the martyrs whose numbers run into the hundreds of thousands. For many, talk of fresh conflict is anathema. In Adwa and Abi-Adi, meeting participants even walked out in droves in protest to the call for preparations. Maybe the same thing happened in other areas.

The leadership couches its message carefully: they insist they are not calling for war, only refusing to sit idle should danger return. That framing, however, creates a Catch‑22. If the public is convinced war is not coming — or refuses even to think about it — political and military exhortations to prepare can feel like pressure, coercing young people into a readiness they do not want. Conversely, the calls for preparedness can stoke anxiety and deepen divisions.

Sharper voices are asking tougher questions. Should Tigray prepare under the current TPLF leadership — a cohort critics call moribund and past its usefulness? Some argue that the mere presence of the TPLF in power invites conflict. And, its ability to mobilize efforts to defend the nation and the people is already dulled by internal factionalism inherent in it, and by its myopic approach to situations. The same people say that if survival is the issue, success would require a new generation of leaders: effective, competent strategists able to lead a complex theatre of war. That argument is not easily dismissed; I find myself agreeing with it.

In short, the debate is between vigilance and weariness. Leaders urge readiness; ordinary people ask for peace and recovery. Until Tigray reconciles those tensions — and until credible leadership emerges that can persuade the public without coercion — the uneasy preparation will continue to cast a shadow over a population still recovering from immense loss.

Happy Week for You All!