By Ghirmai Zemichael
Stalin Gebreselassie – an unlikely media personality with obvious speech impediment – became a household name in Tigrai and Ethiopia at large during the two-year bloody war. Stalin cannot be classified as a journalist per se, but rather a propagandist who disseminates real, exaggerated or fabricated news, and offers partisan political analysis.
Considered as one of the primary voices for people victimized by the Ethiopian as well as Eritrean armies, Stalin was trusted by many Tegaru. However, lately his infatuation with Shabia / a party in power in Eritrea, as well as his admiration for Eritrean dictator Issaias Afeworki, has raised eyebrows among his fans and angered his critics.
But, mulling over it, Stalin’s new political stance shouldn’t come as a surprise as he simply is following a pattern. There is a Ge’ez “ስም ይመርሆ ለግብር” proverb – contextually translated: one’s name leads to one’s character, while the reverse appears to be the case with Stalin: ግብር ይመርሆ ለስም, i.e. character leads to one’s name. After all, his birth name wasn’t Stalin, but rather Welai. Oddly, of all the names out there – including Yohannes, Alula & Hayelom that are associated with heroism in Tigrai – the self-proclaimed Tigrayan nationalist picked the name Stalin.
Joseph Stalin was “responsible for the deaths of at least 7 million people or about 4.2% of USSRs total population”. He is believed to have killed more people than Hitler. Stalin, which means man of steel, was not the late soviet dictator’s family name, and his children didn’t take up the name. Stalin’s last surviving daughter Svetlana Alliuyeva, who fled to the United States in 1967, “used her mother’s last name, and spent a lifetime trying to escape the shadow of her father”.
Yet, Welai from Tigrai stepped up to the plate to be the “Stalin” name bearer, which is preposterous to say the least. During the communist ideology’s supremacy in Ethiopia under the Dergue regime, some revolution enthusiast parents gave names such as Abyout (revolution), Tagel (struggle), Mao, Lenin, etc. But what makes Welai’s case different is that he gave the name Stalin to himself. And not as an adolescent for which he could be forgiven for not knowing any better, but rather as a man who had already completed his college studies and was already in the workforce when he made the name change.
Thus, Welai’s fascination with Issaias Afeworki shouldn’t come as a surprise at all. Sure enough, Issaias is as brutal as Joseph Stalin was. The only difference is that – unlike the late Soviet dictator – the living Eritrean tyrant doesn’t have access to kill millions of people. Besides persecuting, arresting, torturing and killing his own citizens for three decades, Issaias has cold-bloodedly killed countless Tegru – including defenseless civilians, women and children during the last war. Yet, similar to commemorating Joseph Stalin, Welai Gebreselassie is now exalting Issaias, and advocating Tigrai’s unholy alliance with Shabia.
Freudian psychologists would possibly look into Welai’s “childhood experiences and development that may have had a significant impact on [his] adult personality and behavior”. In that case, may I offer my unsolicited advice to Stalin Gebreselassie to consider psychotherapy to get to the root of his problem thereby overcoming his love of dictators and murderers? At the same time, fans and critics of Stalin should perhaps try to see that the man’s troubles go above and beyond the political realm.
Editor’s note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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Maybe he should start by changing his name. His name is an offense to the few remaining survivors and to the millions of the descendants of those who suffered or died in Stalin’s gulags.
The whole Tigrai population have been devastated by war ,drought,political manipulation by so called “Tigrai liberation front “.Where are the majority elites and their families who espoused liberation for Tigrai ? You are not find them in Tigrai. In general the “Tigrai elites “ are peddlers instead of cvil activists. Why do I bother to read Who is Stalin is or was .Stay away attacking personalities.It is not a political issues.
“”an unlikely media personality with an obvious speech impediment”” Those last couple of words makes the author of this article an unprofessional and rude person who deserves emotional therapy for himself. You, dear author, should use your experience to unite Ethiopians and speak up in defense of those who suffer under the brutal regime of the Prosperity Party leader. Please don’t waste your time in tarnishing individuals names. This is not going to help Ethiopians. Peace is now an urgent fundamental need for Ethiopians. However, proposing someone to change names like this is laudable. You can’t degrade people like this and mock someone by how he looks or speaks. Physical or speech impediments are possibilities for everyone, even if they appear to be realities to certain people around you.