Yechalal! ...... Awoooooooo .....Yechalal! - Amxambe

I want to respectfully invite us all to have great conversations. Conversations that are powerful and life-giving. Conversations that stimulate our brains, warm our hearts and point to endless possibilities and opportunities. As we interact through language and words, we shape our culture through our conservations.


We can have conversations that entrench our assumptions and trap us in a deficit mode which in turn reinforce our culture of acrimony, adversity and polarity. Or, we can have conversations that give life, that value different perspectives and promote norms of tolerance and mutual understanding.


I want to invite us to move away from argumentative conversations that aim at scoring points or imposing one's will on others. I would like to see us shift towards conversations that invite opinions and appreciate differences as sources of energy and dynamism.


When we engage in conversations, I want us to think of the words and ideas in terms of giving and receiving gifts. Often, when we receive a gift wrapped in a box, we are excited and eager to unwrap and unpack the box and marvel at its content. Conversely, we take pains to pick the best gift item that the intended recipient of our offer would most appreciate.


What will be different if we display the same concern and carefully choose the words we employ in our conversation and take the time to unpack what others are saying to us and listen to their words in the way that they would like to be heard?


The result, I think, would be that we will have a great conversation. I think we would move away from the "I win; you lose!" state of mind to a 'both-gain' scenario. This will allow us to engage with one another with curiosity and foster in us a willingness to listen to those that hold different views, opinions and ideas.


Listening to those with different perspective does not always mean we have to agree with them or endorse their perspective. It only means that if we happen to disagree with them it would be in a way that does not silence or stamp a label on them. Invariably, labelling creates a dichotomous psyche of "us and them" that forces one to be judgmental with no space for exploring a common ground.


I hope that you will agree with me that, if unenviable, we have done a great job in embedding the habit of labelling in our pattern of public conversation. Over the years we have cultivated a culture in which the courage of one's conviction is measured by how harshly one demolishes and dismisses the beliefs that others hold. In this culture, any effort aimed at reaching a common ground is labelled as weakness, reflective of infirmness in one's convictions and beliefs.


The interesting challenge, it seems to me, is how we can remain true and committed to what we believe in and create an atmosphere to work with others without demanding them to abandon theirs beliefs; and without feeling threatened by the differences that others bring into the equation. An atmosphere, as it were, where no one is shut out on account of their opinion but where each concerned individual can contribute for a life-giving outcome based on a consciously built common ground.


We are a nation of written and unwritten history that is traceable to ancient times that features periods and legacies that we must honour and build on as we journey into the future. We are also a nation of profound articulation skilled in communicating our ideas not only in plain words but through the trope of 'Wax and Gold'.


I want us to build on this heritage, but not as a devise to hide what one means that leads to suspicion that there is always a secret meaning to everything - the stuff that that makes one vulnerable to conspiracy theory - but as a potential tool that allows us to express the plurality of meaning and multiplicity of reality.


Indeed, we must come to recognise that there is no one unchanging reality but layers of realties that are shaped by the language we use and recreated by our conversations. Such a light-touch approach to what we perceive as hard and frozen will allow us to listen to one another to reach a common ground without negating our beliefs and repudiating the views of our partners in conversation. Cheers to great conversations!




I want to invite us to move away from argumentative conversations that aim at scoring points or imposing one's will on others. I would like to see us shift towards conversations that invite opinions and appreciate differences as sources of energy and dynamism.

I love selome with no particular reason, when I read about her I found the above, it was my dream too... make it your also...

Peace to Ethiopia.