Long Live the Spirit

Early on September 11, two friends who met at Wollo Sefer on Bole road were greeting each other.
That they had spent the whole night celebrating the New Year and the Ethiopian Millennium was very obvious. One of them was draped in the Ethiopian flag and the other had it wrapped around his head.
“Happy millennium my friend! Insh Allah, our country will have another blessed two thousand years,” one of them said as they hugged each other.
Beginning Tuesday, Addis truly was the “new flower”.
All over the city the red, gold and green national flag was placed on most of its buildings. The streets were adorned with lights of the same color.
“This is a special day. Imagine, it comes once in a thousand years. I have not only put up our flag on the gates of my company but I have also put it up outside my home and on my car,” one resident of the capital told The Reporter.
Beginning late Tuesday afternoon, people flocked to the three concert areas in the city - the national stadium, Jan Meda, and the 10 million birr Millennium Concert Hall on Bole road specifically built for the occasion by the Saudi-Ethiopian tycoon, Mohamed Al-Amoudi.
Mesqel Square was packed with revelers who came from all over the country to follow the celebrations in the Millennium Concert Hall as it was being televised on an LED screen.
By 9:00 in the evening the city was filled with the sound of music; fireworks began well before midnight.
But this was not just a mere celebration to welcome the third Ethiopian millennium which is based on the country’s unique calendar that is approximately seven years and four months behind the rest of the world.
Officials as well as organizers of the millennium celebration had been making deliberate efforts to stress the point that this was to be an occasion marking an important milestone in the history of this country as well as the whole continent.
“Beyond just a new year and a century's end, the year 2000 will also be a millennium's end and as a threshold, it will be significant because it marks our entry into the third millennium. It would also compel us to re-examine our values, our institutions and us. Our vision is to celebrate the new millennium as the millennium of Love, Peace and Prosperity by promoting it through our unity in diversity. We have dedicated the Ethiopian millennium celebration to create an urge and a common platform among our future generation and the general public on the importance of peace and development by innovating new thinking patterns suitable to each segment of the society based on their needs and desires,” Mulugeta Asrate, Director General of the Millennium Secretariat, said during Africa Day on May 25 this year.
Mulugeta, who was addressing African heads of state and other senior officials added, “An integral element of our millennium celebration is that we should feel the greater need, now more than ever, to educate ourselves and the world about what amalgam of historical events has given birth to our collective African experience.”
A week before the celebrations Prime Minister Meles, who gave an interview to the Time Magazine, touched on the point saying that he hoped that the coming millennium would be one “as good as the first and not as bad as the second.”
Meles spoke of this in more detail during his speech at the openin
g of the Ethiopian Millennium Celebrations on Tuesday.
“After centuries of repeatedly aroused and dashed hopes, this generation of Ethiopians is turning a new page. A glorious new page of our history where poverty will merely be a footnote in our long history is being written with the sweat and toil of millions of farmers and pastoralist, businesspersons - both small and big - and workers and the intelligentsia, a glorious new page of our history where our diversity becomes a source of strength through tolerance and democracy rather than a source of problems, through the patient and methodical efforts of all our nationalities, followers of all the great religions of our country, men and women, young and old,” Meles said.
“A thousand year from now, when Ethiopians gather to welcome the fourth millennium, they shall say that the eve of the third millennium was the beginning of the end of the dark ages in Ethiopia. They shall say that the eve of the third millennium was the beginning of Ethiopian renaissance.”
Special on the occasion was also the attendance of heads of state from neighboring countries.
Present on the occasion were Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, Djibouti's Ismael Guelle, Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki, Paul Kagame of Rwanda and President Abdullahi Yusuf of Somalia.
Addressing the gathering on Tuesday, Secretary of General of the African Union Alfa Oumar Konare also spoke of the importance that the Ethiopian Millennium had for the rest of Africa.
“Today, dear brothers and sisters, there is reason for hope, if despite the difficulties, democracy, a guarantor of pluralism, and good governance are implemented in non violence, but we need peace. We need peace at home, peace with our neighbors, peace in Somalia, peace in Darfur, Sudan, peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea. We need to fight violence and terrorism. We need to renew this commitment on this September 11- a September 11 for life.”
The concert hall resounded with applause as Konare continued: “We thank Ethiopia for Adwa, for 1932, for the symbol of the independence of Africa. We thank Ethiopia for keeping up the flame of African Unity. We thank Ethiopia for being the home of all Africans in Africa and the Diaspora. Thank you Ethiopia for resting us and giving us a home.”
Konare closed his remark by expressing his wish that the Ethiopian millennium would be the millennium for African renaissance, and of the United States of Africa.
“The new Ethiopia is moving ahead. Long live Ethiopia, long live Ethiopia. Africa for Africans!” Konare said.
The spirit of the Ethiopian millennium is not only shared by Ethiopians and Africans but also foreigners who came to celebrate it here.
“My sister and I have come to realize that Ethiopia is different. Where would you find people who run after you when you have forgotten your expensive property somewhere? And this actually did happen to us when we forgot a camera in a taxi here. In Ethiopia, there is the spirit of aliveness, the spirit of kindness and compassion to others,” a visitor from Switzerland told The Reporter.
Despite some events being cancelled for security reasons the millennium festivities were held without any disturbances.By Namrud Berhane