For whatever reason�and I am completely incapable of predicting readers� responses�the last Alnahda: Cross-Eyed View of Languages evoked a lot of responses.  I am not at the point of complete laziness where I will just re-package readers� e-mails as an Alnahda column.  But I will mention a summary, and then move on to Bush�s Japanese Maple Tree.

A few reminded me that my translation for cross-road (meraKbo) is just as bad as PFDJ�s mesqelawi mengedi when the actual word is Qerana mengedi.   I tried to argue lamely that Qerana is translation for fork-on-the-road (�two roads converged as one�.�) not cross-road, but I think I am losing that argument.   Some had fun with PFDJ�s cross-word puzzle.   Mesqelawi hager for cross-country; and diribmesqel for double-cross.  Others reminded me of a case that clearly demonstrates that language in the hands of politicians does not seek clarity but differentiation: during the armed struggle, �national democratic program� was a mandatory revolutionary phrase.  When it came to translating the phrase, the ELF coined Hagerawi medeb Eyo; the EPLF, which, incidentally, used to attack ELF for belittling Tigrigna, came up with Hagerawi democraciwi program. Come on, from a three word phrase, translate at least two.   In the words of Jack Nicholson (from a very forgettable movie that I refuse to google): �two out of three ain�t bad!�

But my favorite letter on this topic is from an Ethiopian. His criticism deals with Meles Zenawi whose motto in life seems to be, �I can screw up anything even more than Isaias Afwerki.�  At least one of his mottos; the other one is: �my only constituencies are the EU and US ambassadors.�  Yeah, the Higdefites� literalism is funny, the writer reminds me.  As in Eti Seregella kedmiti Feres (the cart before the horse) and Ab Etsuw maESo beSiHna (we are in a deadlock.)  You may snicker; but at least you understand what the Higdefites are saying.  But, reminds me the correspondent, Amharic speakers sometimes have absolutely no clue what Meles is saying because his literalism is even more severe.  Two examples:

Egrachuh afachu batiketu True new. (Don�t put your foot in your mouth.)

genzebachen afachen benaskemetew yeshalenal.  (We should put our money where our mouth is.)

The writer does not say how Meles would say: "Instead of constantly putting our feet in our mouth, we should put our money where our mouth is."

Finally, to those who criticized me for criticizing without providing a solution, here�s one: I think updating the Tigrigna dictionary is a project that cries for a Wiki�if you are not familiar with the term, look it up at, where else? Wikipedia:

A wiki (IPA: [ˈwɪ.kiː] <WICK-ee> or [ˈwiː.kiː] <WEE-kee>[1]) is a type of website that allows visitors easily to add, remove, or otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring.

Call it wikirina.  Or Tigriwiki.  The point is the wikis, and this was a shock to the elitists everywhere (including Encyclopedia Britannica), have an accuracy rate as good as the one compiled by the learned doctors.  As long as there is a learned authority (as is the case with Wikipedia) who has the final say on what the masses write.  This is a great reassurance to somebody who once (10 years ago) wrote admiringly of a little book called In Defense of Elitism.   My guess is a wikirina would be as reliable as anything put out by any fancy Hasabat Etro, which is Higdefism for think tank. 

I am kidding; you considered it for a moment, didn�t you?   A wikirina would certainly be better than the PFDJ encyclopedia which, I was shocked to learn, is being authored by one individual. Anyway, enough about that subject�neti muwut feres ketkitnayo�ko!

Bush�s Japanese Maple Tree

A couple of weeks ago, I finished Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq, by Washington Post reporter Thomas Ricks. Fiasco is a chronicle of the Bush administration�s disastrous decisions�one after another�that have created the US�s present quagmire in Iraq.  And my book is now unreadable. 

When you are reading a book and there is a page you want to return to, how do you bookmark it?  My approach is to dog-ear it (don�t even think of translating that!) �fold the top corner of the book for reference material; bottom corner for �I am not sure I understand�gotta go back to re-read it� and highlights for �this is unbelievable!� Every page  of my book has dog-ears, highlights, triple folds, exclamation points� 

Examples?  The whole book is an endless list of examples.  There is the unintentionally vulgar, like calling the newly formed Iraq defense forces National Iraq Corps whose acronym in English forms a word in Arabic which is not fit for a family column like Alnahda.  The rest is abominable.   The military leadership (Tommy Franks) lived by the motto of �speed kills� and had no post-war plan.  A country full of weapon depots was unguarded�bypassed in search of illusive nuclear weapons.   Once he left and retired (and won a medal of freedom from Bush, along with the CIA�s Tenet, the guy who wrongly predicted there were nuclear weapons), his replacement had no plan for waging counter-insurgency.  And he didn�t get along with the civilian leadership.  The civilian leadership, Coalitional Provisional Authority, or CPA, which everybody insisted meant Can�t Produce Anything had a boss, Bremmer that nobody knew whom he reported to: Bush? Rumsfeld? Rice?  As a result, when he disbanded Saddam�s army, nobody knew who had authorized him to do so. (he, too, got a medal of freedom from Bush.)  The CPA was staffed by political hacks who kept being rotated.  The prisons were overcrowded and manned by untrained guards.   It goes on and on like this, with one unbelievable page after another. 

Readers of Alnahda remember�oh boy, do they!�that this column was a strong supporter of democracy-from-the-barrel-of-a-gun policy of George W. Bush.  So, how did I react to the book?  A little parable...

Consider my beautiful Japanese maple tree whose lush ever-red foliage is a garden for the soul and will eventually spread 3 feet in all directions and provide me a shade during the Wia season of my city.  The leaves are ever red, rich and healthy, they breathe out life.   It is planted right in front of my window, making it visible and easy to admire.  When the leaves fall, they provide a rich textured carpeting, with an exotic smell, heavenly, a soup for the soul that�.

Snap!  All that is in my head.   A more accurate description of what I have is what looks like a scrawny twig.  Friends who visit me, people who claim to be my friends, insist that the plant is dead.  Dead?  What do you mean it is dead?  Here�s a clue, said one �friend�, as he bent a helpless branch and had me listen to a crunch.  This has been going on for 5 months now.  Usually, my friends and I go through a scene reminiscent of the funniest comedy bit ever written, Monty Python�s dead parrot sketch  where a pet shop owner sells his customer a dead parrot, and when the customer tries to return it, the store owner says the parrot is not dead; he is resting.   I maintain that my Japanese maple tree is resting�and I will do so until the fire department gives me a ticket citing me for the fire hazard that it is. At some point, I will face up to the facts, but for now, I am �staying the course.�

Looking back� Was it a mistake to import a Japanese plant to California and try to grow it?  The city that I live is not called �City of Trees� by accident�it is the international home of imported plants.  (It is also the home of allergies, but ignore that trivia for a second.)   Did they sell me a defective plant? No, everything else I bought from the store works.  Did I plant it in a defective location?  No, everything else around it, inches from it, is growing one thing or another.  The idea was good; the location is good; the salesman is reputable.  So what is the problem? 

Execution. Either I over-watered it; or under-watered it; or under-fertilized it, or damaged it when planting it, or it is getting too little/too much sun.  In the lingo of PFDJ, gegatat aytegebren malet aykonen. In any case, it has something to do with the caretaker�not the plant, not the land, not the seller.  

I feel the same way about the US in Iraq.  It was a great idea to go; you can�t find a better salesperson for democracy than the US; democracy at the barrel of a gun is not ideal but it works (Japan, Phillipines, Germany are good examples.)  The problem here was not in the idea; but the execution.

And so?  I can�t fix Bush�s maple tree; I am barely trying to fix mine.  What I know is that both ideas were, in principle, good ones.  Just a case of bad execution.   Many moons ago, in a presidential debate, the elder Bush and the quadrennial Democratic sacrificial lamb dispatched to lose (aka presidential candidate) Dukakis had a debate on which is one is more important: ideology or competence.  The elder Bush argued ideology and won; Dukakis argued competence and lost.

George W must have internalized this false choice. In reality, you need both: his dad won because he had enough competence to argue that ideology was more important than competence.   Here�s hoping Bush tends to his maple tree.  Because the other guys will just watch the tree wither from a very safe distance.

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