I don't know how soon or who might be willing to do it, but I believe those innocent Ethiopian citizens gunned down shouldn't be allowed to become mere statistics. What I mean by this is that either Ethiopian Review online or others should at least attemtp to create a website dedicated to remembering the citizens whose lives were ended at the govermment's hand in the last few days. I'm sure residents of Addis would be more than happy to share what they know about these brave but unfortunate souls how have lost their lives.
Staying "twenty killed" or "fifty killed" is not as powerful as presenting well-written obituaries to the world. Including pictures of the victims taken in the past, if possible, would make it even more powerful.
If this can be done, I believe it would help in countering what I'm sure will be an effort by the government to present the victims of its own thuggery as criminals, anarchists, rioters or would-be looters who got what was coming to them.
I wish I had the technical skills to undertake the project myself. But I would be more than happy to help with the writing of the stories provided others would assist in providing me with the necessary biographical information of the victims.
My fear is that once the outrage dies down most of us will forget the government's decision to respond the way it did has cut short the lives of many young Ethiopians. The victims of this brutal heavy-handedness should never be forgotten. In fact, without exploiting their memory, we should make sure that we always remember so that this or future Ethiopian governments realize that their actions, especially those actions that end human lives, are closely monitored and never forgotten.
Over the weekend I met a couple of friends and naturally we talked about what's been happening in Ethiopia. I brought up the idea I mentioned here of putting biographical stories of the victims of the government's brutal reaction of the protests in Addis. The common argument of my friends was that it won't make any difference whether the victims' story is told in detail. Obviously, I disagreed with this conclusion. In Western culture, where the plights of individual victims are featured prominently in stories after news stories, this is a route that gets the attention of the mass media. I think human rights group understand this well and tend to make violations of human rights principle come to life by focusing on individual victims.
I'm probably pursing a losing cause for now. But I just want to state that we do a great disservice to our cause when we exclusively focus on themes and issues at the expense of the individuals human beings.
Casual Observer and Arat Kilo, this is an excellent idea and a practical one as well. We have so many smart ethiopian teenagers who are wiz in developing web sites. Let us try to that.
