by Ainao Freda Sanbato
There is not a single organization without an Ethiopian-related project. If those donors truly want to see a change in the Ethiopian community's situation, they must demand answers as to what is being done with the money and whether it has produced results.
For members of the
Ethiopian community, the time has come for introspection. It is painful
to say, but we have made ourselves charity cases. Over the years, we
have not done self-examination and delved into where we went wrong as a
community or what part we ourselves played in our failed absorption and
integration into Israeli society. There is not and cannot be only one
side to this coin. We have a role in this and we need to address it.
People who could barely
lead themselves, let alone other people, openly declared themselves
heads of the Ethiopian community, even though they lack a basic
understanding of leadership, planning or taking responsibility for
failures.
There have been
countless demonstrations by the Ethiopian community and in each one we
ended up beaten and exploited by spineless wheeler-dealers serving their
own interests.
In the past couple of
days, the media has been desperately searching Ethiopian neighborhoods
in the hope of finding independent personal initiatives and learning
what is keeping them from succeeding. But there are not enough such
initiatives, and the ones that do exist are not the work of the people
currently being covered by the media.
It seems that these
people simply found an opportunity to receive media exposure, with the
hope that those planning to form yet another new trendy party would see
them and recruit them as decoration for their party's list.
It pains me that these
wheeler-dealers are doing huge damage to the young people who took to
the streets out of genuine distress and despair. These young people want
real change and integration and have had enough of the cynical
profiteering.
Jewish communities in
the U.S. and Canada have been donating a great deal of money to
organizations that deal with the development of the Ethiopian community.
There is not a single organization without an Ethiopian-related
project. If those donors truly want to see a change in the Ethiopian
community's situation, they must demand answers as to what is being done
with the money and whether it has produced results. We were not born
poor and deprived, these groups have made us so.
Instead of issuing
empty promises, the government needs to take an active stand and do
something. And we as a community have the responsibility to demonstrate
cautiously and not be used as a tool by haters of this country. Israel's
image is our image; we are Israelis, we belong to no other people and
nowhere else.
There is absolutely no
connection between the African-American protests in the U.S. and the
ones taking place here. They suffered slavery and entered America
through the cotton fields. We arrived in Israel due to religious,
Zionist and ideological reasons -- we must not blur these differences.
We have been suffering
discrimination and racism, but the policies in Israel are not racist. We
are not subservient here. This is our country as well.
The government should
close the Steering Center for Ethiopian Immigrants, which is a center
for suppressing independent thought and an agent of barriers and limited
integration of Ethiopian-Israeli children in the school system. It is a
body that receives public funds only to create social lethargy and
segregation. We need unifying structures and the school system is the
right place to heal the rifts in our society.
We do not need to raise
the community's head in the city square, but rather in our
neighborhoods, where we need to be proactive and get involved by
initiating various programs, instead of shooting ourselves in the foot.
It is time to face
reality, without letting ignorant people incite our community. It is
time to take responsibility for ourselves.
Ainao Freda Sanbato is an Israel Radio reporter.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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