Science is good at discovering facts, but the Arts are more efficient at finding the truth. 

To test this, let’s take something we all know to be absolutely true and then ask scientists and artists for their take on it.  Something simple like: men with deeper, low-pitch voice have more influence than, and are preferred to, men with high-pitch voice.  Now let’s see how the scientists and the artists deal with this. 

Three scientists went to a remote tribe in Tanzania, the hunter-gatherer clan of Hadza, who live the way humanity did in pre-modern times.  After a lot of data gathering, and double blind studies, the scientists concluded  (in a paper with 50 footnotes) that men with deeper voices fathered more children than men with high-pitched voices.  Then, good scientists that they are, they discouraged everyone from drawing any conclusions from this.  As they told the New York Times last year:    "Deep-voiced men might have more mates, healthier mates or shorter intervals between births; perhaps they start reproducing at an earlier age.” And, besides, this may be something totally unique to the tribes of Hadza, so no conclusions please.  Further studies are needed. 

There is no such equivocation with artists.  Broadcasters know to what extent we human beings associate deep voice with power and influence.  25% of the success of the Arabic Service of Radio Monte Carlo was due to the Deep Voiced male DJs.  (75% was due to its cynical selection of sexy-voiced female DJs to tease the hell out of the sex-starved Arab audience.  Huna, giggle giggle, Radio Monte Carlo.  purrrr.) The EPLF (in the field, or now) really never believed in the Deep Voice broadcaster.  Dimtsi Hafash had, and still has, the fast-talking guy whose voice excudes the required familiarity and dread. Meanwhile, the opposition radio has created one Deep Voiced superstar: Mnase from meselna delina.  

Film-makers know the power of audio depth to human psychology.  As anyone who has seen any religiously-tinged movie knows, deity, and the words of deity, are always represented in deep, echoy word.  I think Charlton Heston was selected to be a spokesman for the National Rifle Association because he spoke regularly with a deep-voiced God —in the movies.  If you wanted a middle man between The Maker, and the tools that can send people to Their Maker, there was Heston. 

And remember: CNN hired James Earl Jones (the voice of Darth Vader), and not Mike Tyson (the voice behind the bit ear), to intone “this is CNN.” 

Scientists are not ready to draw conclusions, but artists and businessmen are.  The people who invented movie trailers, those who create the link between art and commerce, certainly understand the power of the Deep Voice.  “In a world, where one man…” would have been dismissed as a hopeless cliché had it not been uttered by Mr. Deep Voice.  The comedian Pablo Francisco  has a killer bit about how Hollywood can convince us to watch anything—“the same crap you’ve seen over and over again”--as long as the salesman has a deep voice.   

And what happens in Hollywood never stays in Hollywood: it is copied in every wood, including Addiswood. Now an Ethiopian movie-maker is selling the same crap, with a new approach:  

There is a movie about how Ethiopia needs a sea outlet, a port, and it is called Sea Outlet. “yebahr ber”.  The trailer   employs many of the tricks Hollywood uses to manufacture drama: a suspenseful film score, quick edits, and, of course, a voiceover by Deep Voice.  It is drama squared when the voiceover and the text on the screen are synchronized—especially when the text is white on black, one word command, followed by dramatic sound.  

“yemaytaseb”, swoosh.  

“yemaymoker”.  Swoosh.  

“yemaydefer”  swoosh. 

gn… “yemichal.” 

It is so good, by the time the trailer ended I was rooting for the poor guy to get his sea outlet.  Somebody, please give this guy his sea outlet.

Until I remembered it is my sea outlet.   

I can't watch the movie, because it is nowhere in my neighborhood,  but I have a new catchphrase, now.  I was talking to a friend, and I kept interrupting whatever he was saying with “yemaymoker”—swoosh.  Finally, he was annoyed enough to ask, so I had to tell him the story. 

“I don’t know why this is news to you: but Ethiopians even use the same Deep Voice guy to sell bottled water.  Haven't I shown you the commercials?” he says.

“yemaytamen!” I say in a deep voice.

“Believe me, I have heard the commercials. Deep Voice is also…”

“No, I mean I can’t believe that they advertise and sell bottled water in Ethiopia,” I say, “Yemaytaseb!”

Joking aside, I am sympathetic to the angry movie maker.  I understand those who grieve over the loss of the ports and are angry over it better than those who claim it makes no difference at all, like this dude did in this interview with S(G)J: 

Port service is a service like hotel service, like tourism service like any other service….If you are poor, the ports won’t make any difference to begin with.  

Ports make a lot of difference specially to poor landlocked countries who import even basic necessities, a fact so basic that they have even created a special right and an acronym for it (LLDCS: LandLocked Developing CountrieS.)  It would make a great deal of difference to poor Ethiopia if Djibouti was to raise its tariffs and fees —a fact made abundantly clear just this week  when Ethiopia protested Djibouti’s unilateral fee increase proposals.

It is a great time we live in, isn't it?  The official Ethiopian position is that they have many port choices; the official Eritrean position is that not having Ethiopia use the ports is no big loss.  The only ones that make sense are the angry people with their crazy movies.

Wait a minute, I am making assumptions.  Maybe Yebaher Ber is not about Eritrea, but about Djibouti.  Maybe it is about an Entebbe-like operation, where the Ethiopians take over Djibouti in 15 minutes.   We don't want another senseless Internet war based on a misunderstanding...so could somebody watch the movie and then write a review? I have already written my Deep Voice voiceover.  My preview to your review:

"In a town, where millions have much to worry about, one Ethiopian filmmamaker has made a movie about Ethiopia's "right" to a sea-port...

"wey gud". swoosh
"anta entay meAt iyu." swoosh.  

"yigermena alo." swoosh

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