E T H I O P I A

E T H I O P I A
E T H I O P I A

Derartu
Tadesse Gebre-Kidan

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I was fortunate enough to have met the great Ethiopian athletes, including
Haile, Derartu, Fita, Assefa, Gete, Kuture, Ayelech and Brhane in Capetown,
South Africa, in April 1996 when they came here to compete in the world cross
country championship race. At the time, I was working for a think-tank institute
in Capetown after life’s imperatives, in Ethiopian parlance enjera flega (the
search for bread), had forced me to travel from my home base in Canada to this
troubled land to assist black South Africans empower themselves economically.
My assignment included reviewing research papers submitted by consultants to
the institute. This brought me in contact with some of the famous names in
Stellenbosch University. I could not fail to fathom the depth of the odds stacked
against my fellow Africans.

Stellenbosch, near Capetown, was the venue for the cross country race.
The town has been reputedly the mecca for proponents of the apartheid system.
Nestled in the comfort of one of the most beautiful sceneries in the world
consciously oblivious to the needs of black South Africans, the University of
Stellenbosch bred and propagated on the body politic of South African society
theoreticians and apologists for the much maligned and satanic apartheid system.
When one sees places like Stellenbosch and the entire Cape region, it is not hard
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to understand why defenders of the apartheid system fought nail and tooth to
hold onto their loot and hold Africans at bay and keep them out of sight.
Stellenbosch was off limit to blacks and foreign “agitators,” that is, until Derartu
and her comrades descended in full force to force the rewriting of white
supremacist scripts about stuffs blacks are made of.

The cross country meet was a much anticipated event, not least for the
opportunity the occasion has been expected to provide for witnessing the great
rivalry between Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes. It is conceivable that Ethiopia
and Kenya may never opt for a shoot out war, as they may wish to leave any
dispute to be settled on sports fields. The war has already been going on for some
time now. Stellenbosch was bracing for the latest encounter.

In my Capetown office, this white South African colleague had heard me

complain about Ethiopians being tired of playing second fiddle to the Kenyans
when it comes to cross country races. Her response was South Africans would be
too delighted to play third or fourth fiddle.

Sports enthusiasts gathered at Stellenbosch to witness the legendary rivalry

between these great athletes of the two neighboring nations were not to be
disappointed. The racing athletes followed each other doggedly; no one dared to
break away from the pack for fear of burning out too early. Hence, the tactic of
breathing on each other’s neck either for its intimidation effect or to leave the
leader to dictate the pace at his/her own peril for want of knowing the physical
conditions or overtaking intentions of his/her adversaries. It is not, therefore,
surprising that many race leaders or front runners end up becoming little more
than pace setters and rarely manage to win races; they are eventually chewed up
by their pouncers-on-the-wait. These leaders of yester-minutes soon become to
their chagrin mere spectators on the run.

On that fateful day, Derartu was kicked on the heel by one of the Kenyans
after being sandwiched and boxed in. Whether the incident was an accident or a
deliberate mischief is an open question. I have heard people say it is not
uncommon for some athletes to take out the competition using the “tactic.” In
this respect, I was a spectator when the great Kip Keno came down crashing on
the track in the stadium in Addis after one of the Ethiopians tripped him,
whether by accident or design is again an open question. The Ethiopian athletes
accelerated their pace, leaving the crown jewel of the event behind, to win a
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hollow victory. Kip got up and jogged to the finish line to a thunderous applause.
If my memory serves me right, Keino accused the Ethiopians of tripping him
deliberately and vowed to never return to Addis for a competition. To atone for
these trippings and to stoke the fire of competition alive, an annual athletics
competition between the two nations would be a welcome development. That
would be great for middle and long distance running as other countries would be
induced to take appropriate measures to measure up to the two nations. And the
greatest winners will be sports enthusiasts and lovers of athletics. That will be
the day! This, by the way, was the slogan that was popularly used in my
university days in Addis whenever someone wanted to express a deep longing for
some change for the better. If someone has not yet carried the slogan to the
patent office in the guise of an intellectual property, I venture to bequeath it to all
Africans on condition that everyone will have dedicated a notebook for inscribing
his/her “that-will-be-the-day”s as a reminder of the stock of things that have gone
awry around us, with a vow to do something about them.

The tripping caused Derartu to lose one of her shoes and came down
crashing like Kip did in Addis. If Keino were around in Stellenbosch, an old hand
like me who had witnessed what happened to him in Addis before Derartu and
company were born would have said “there goes the payback time!” Fortunately,
was neither Keino around nor the warrior athletes had the time to live in the past,
as their responsibility devolved around dealing with their adversaries of the day
in real time as measured in minutes and seconds. I kept my dark contemplation
to myself and concentrated on guessing the next step Derartu was likely to take. I
had expected her to throw up her arm in the air and scream at and curse the
Kenyans, ask her patron saint to sprinkle body rash on her tripper, bury her
head between her hardened laps and shed a couple of tears in self-pity, walk to
the dressing room with a sullen face still cursing the Kenyans for her predicament
only to resume the tear shedding in the dressing room. Oh boy! how wrong could
I be!?

When a running athlete’s shoe falls out, the normal reaction is said to be to
throw away the other one and continue running barefoot or withdraw from the
competition altogether. Derartu’s immediate reaction to the loss of her shoe was
to go back and retrieve it. In the process, the fleet footed women almost trampled
her. By the same token, they were fortunate that she did not bring some of them
down in the scramble. At that juncture, the spectators thought what Derartu had
in mind was dropping out of the race and proceed to the dressing room. To
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everyone’s astonishment, Derartu hurriedly wore her shoe and started running
like a possessed person. The fall must have energized her. It was truly a
remarkable spectacle. She sped at an incredible speed to catch the leading pack.
But time run out and she had to settle for an incredible 4th place when everyone
had expected her to finish dead last. Her extraordinary effort wowed and awed
the spectators and live television audience. The homegrown favorite was
relegated to 5th place right on the finishing line by non other than the black
phoenix. Derartu became the talk of South Africa and an instant legend.

South Africans were treated to a glimpse of the determination and will

power that made Ethiopia a powerhouse of long distance runners. South
Africans may have reflected on the nature of the psychological and sociological
factors that made Ethiopians fierce and jealous guardians of their independence
for thousands of years. In Derartu they saw the stuffs an Ethiopian is made of.

I have no idea whether the event may have induced my Capetown landlord
to reflect on his initial reluctance to let me rent one of his flats merely on account
of the color of my skin. Speaking of skin color and my lack of sensitization to it
and all this implies, when I arrived in the USA for the first time in 1971, I
declared “chocolate brown” in reference to “skin color” on the immigration form,
not having been “educated” that I was expected to write black, yellow or white.
Apparently, the entry did not catch the immigration officer’s eyes; and I was
allowed to enter the USA as a member of a fourth race. My friends found the
stated self-description too hilarious; and I found it a cheap source of generating
laughter whenever I ran out of ammunition in idling sessions devoted to
wisecracks and jokes trading.

Conventional wisdom states “once beaten twice shy”; but yegnayitu (our)
Derartu has caused the rewriting of the script. The degree of one’s determination
to rise up and soar can be directly proportional to the severity of one’s fall. True
heroes and heroines are governed by this rule. Derartu Tulu is definitely our
heroine. She is our chocolate brown Achilles chasing Hector of Stellenbosch who
had the temerity to kick her on the heel. She will remain our heroine for all ages.
The young, downtrodden and those who are temporarily down but not out will
draw inspiration from her exploit.
As soon as the race was over, she could barely walk due to the severity of
the pain on her heel. When the race was in progress she had completely overcome
the pain and pushed it out of the realm of her conscious mind. In other words,
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she must have triumphed over pain in a way that is beyond the reach of most
humans.

Her male colleagues carried her literally into the bus. For that day I had
become an honorary ajabi (escort) of the team and this had conferred on me the
right to ride the bus. Once the athletes were duly ensconced, I had expected the
legendary Ethiopian lip smacking (kenfer memtet) and a mood of despondency to
reign supreme. What I witnessed was as amazing as what I saw on the battlefield.
Instead of becoming sorry for herself and retreating into negative territory,
Derartu sounded like a cheer leader. She was joking and laughing and did not for
a single moment go back to the unfortunate incident, which was discarded as a
thing of the past that should not be allowed to interfere with the future. In fact
the athletes started discussing the next big meet. I was so impressed and amazed
by what I was witnessing. I said to myself “if the athletes are representative of
the younger generation, then Ethiopia truly has a brighter future.”

The female athletes fell on each other to take precedence to be on her side
and to assuage her physical pain with their delicate fingers. A couple of the
female athletes lay at her feet massaging her pained heel. Others sat behind her
as props to comfort her. The men perched around watching her intently and
caringly as a lion would watch over his lioness. To distract her mind off the pain,
they started bantering at each other. All this time, Derartu was laughing and was
in an excellent mood. I loved them more and felt proud that they were mine. I
was thus initiated into their secret domain and permitted to have an inner
glimpse behind their success: determination, positivism, camaraderie spirit,
looking forward, and transforming adversity into an opportunity. It also dawned
on me as to why whiners end up being losers.

In the office on Monday, South Africans of all hues came to me to express

their admiration for the heroic performance of Derartu. Had they also watched
the spectacle in the bus, the legend would have grown immensely taller.

At the hotel, she was carried out of the bus by the male athletes to her room
only to hobble, after a few minutes rest, back to the bus on their way to the
airport.

As soon as I returned to my flat, I wrote a long letter to my children in

Ottawa describing the miracle I had witnessed and asked them to spread the
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word among friends. Gentiles could wait for the second coming in Sydney 2000.

Derartu came to South Africa, showed the real meaning of determination

and will power, conquered prejudices, left food for thought and returned to her
homeland victorious.

I, a warrior in my own right who was summoned to South Africa to join in

the fight against the injustices of apartheid, had to leave South Africa with
mission unaccomplished, after being declared “too radical” by the black head of
the institute. His assessment was based on the complaint of a University of
Stellenbosch professor whose submissions I had criticized severely but whom the
institute head had elected to consider untouchable and beyond reproach. The
professor was earmarked to act as a link between white South African business
establishments and the institute in the effort to round up financial resources to
underwrite black empowerment projects.

So, I was compelled to return to my country of asylum whose prospective

employers had already certified me “over qualified” to be employable. Whenever
I reminded them that my family is no phantom and requires food for survival,
they were more than willing to give me the address of the nearest welfare office.

Thanks to warrior athlete Derartu, my resolve to not give up on myself or

on Africa has been strengthened. I am back in the warm embrace of the Mother
Continent dabbling in another upliftment project. Whether I will succeed this
time is another open question.

Monrovia, Liberia
October 2000