Anonymous Bail

I never thought that war could bring life rather than slay life away. In 1974, the Ethiopian civil war began between two revolutionary groups called EPRDF and GERD  against the emperor Haile Selassie. This war had lasted seventeen years. The war lasted that long was because after EPRDF and GERD overthrew the emperor Haile Selassie from his monarchy, and those two groups had a huge conflict and split apart. This caused the bloodbath to start all over again. Moreover, the majority of people that had died when those two groups started to fight each other to take the monarch that they had taken from the emperor. This war had left more than 1.4 million people dead, and led numerous people into misery. The civil war have had affected me and my family in positive and negative ways.

In addition, the Ethiopian civil caused  civilians to suffer, lose their home, and die. However, that was not the case for my parents at the time. My father is an entrepreneur businessman, so he and his family had enough money to survive this weight. On the other hand, my mother came from a poor family, so she and her family were affected by this war. Nonetheless, My mother's father was involved in this revolutionary group. At that time, people that were involved in any kind of political activity were being arrested or even killed. Therefore, one day my mother's father got arrested, and my mother's family did not have enough money to bail him out. My mother and father lived in the same area, so my father heard about this tragic arrest. Since he was wealthy enough to pay the amount of the bail on my grandfather's head, he immediately stepped in and bailed him out anonymously. After the curiosity of knowing who bailed her father out eventually my mother figured who it was, and met my father for the very first time. Then they subsequently fell in love.

Furthermore, this war has drove away most of my relatives out of Ethiopia. Emperor Haile Selassie was losing a lot of soldiers at that time, so he would take whatever young men he could find, and prepare them to be soldiers to fight against the revolutionaries. For that reason, a majority of young men that could possibly be taken by the emperor abandoned their motherland, and went to live in neighboring nations and everywhere throughout the Western world, creating an Ethiopian diasporas all of a sudden. Moreover, my father had four brothers and one sister, but he lost one of this brother to this bloodbath. After, his brother’s death everybody but my father and one of his brother left Ethiopia to the United States. Unlike my father's family, my mother's family went through an identical situation as well. She had five brothers and three sisters. Unfortunately, she is the only one that did not leave her country because of my father. My father did not want to abandon his country, so my mother stayed with him. Therefore, I grew up with one uncle around me and two people that I can call cousins. Most of the time we did things by ourselves that  suppose to be done by a group of a family such as celebrating holidays, and all things family related. When I think about my upbringing, it feels empty when I compare it to others.

Furthermore, this war had also affected my family and me financially. After the war, it was not only human lives that had passed away. People lost their homes, money, and their businesses as well. It caused general deficiency of sustenance and cash crops. Also, it led several thousands to flee bankruptcy. Moreover, one of the thousands that had lost their  money was my father. Since he was an entrepreneur, he switched multiple businesses depending on the economy of the country. Therefore, a year or less before the war broke out my father was in the business of importing and exporting coffee beans. Before the war the coffee business was booming at that time, so my father made a lot of money from it. However, after the war my father almost lost everything because of the economic depression. As a result, my father had to sale his big house that he owned, and everything that he owed at the time to maintain himself and to support his family. For this reason, if the war had never taken place, I would have had a better chance to grow up in a big fancy house with a lot of cars, or without any financial struggle in my entire life.

In conclusion, the Ethiopian Civil War possesses the advantage and disadvantage to impact my life through my parents. After the war ended, the EPRDF( Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front) became the government of Ethiopia. These days, there are few monuments standing all over the Ethiopian cities to commemorate the fallen people from the war. By any means, this war represents and expresses me. Initially, if it was not for this war my father and mother would never have met to bring me to this world. In fact, only God knows where I would be at this time if the event had not occurred. While other Ethiopians remember the war as a tragedy, I remember the anonymous bail as a reason for who I am today.