Ethiopia: Old neighborhoods deserve the attention of the authorities

Lack of maintenance in parts of the city that have cultural and historical significance still confronts the city. Equally unfortunate is the gentrification that seems to pay little attention to the needs and desires of the residents, writes AMBESSAW ASSEGUED ([email protected]).

Two troubled Israeli tourists sit behind a taxi that stopped at an intersection in Qechene, just north of Piazza in Addis Ababa. The driver, also harbaded for being lost, asks a small crowd gathered around the vehicle to visit a Jewish temple.

Disoriented and confused tourists have drawn the attention of the neighborhood and everyone is trying to decipher if such a place exists in the little mountain helmet.

The taxi is running for a while before an older man is found who seems to know the place. After an angry back and forth to ensure the veracity of the information, the old man sits in the front seat and, to the great relief of all, the driver s'. away and turns into a side street, presumably towards the Jewish Temple

. ] Qechene is a former colony of artisans, potters, shoemakers, blacksmiths, musicians and merchants nestled in the mountainous Afro-Alpine forests that once surrounded the city's northern limit. Ancient forests, now replaced by Eucalyptus plantations, are part of the Gullele and Entoto Mountains where the Aqaqi River springs begin their southward flow of springs and streams nestled in the wooded landscape.

It's a good thing that the tourists from Israel did not come to Qechene to admire the forest habitat, natural perennial springs, deep gorges or fresh water flowing from the Bantyaketu River which is full of fish and aquatic creatures. If they did, they would have been disappointed because what greets visitors today in Qechene is an urban slum, crowded and crumbling houses, and a dirty and opaque river afflicted with decades of neglect and abuse.

Qechene, rich in history filled with culture and traditions, was relegated to the bottom of the scale and was forgotten by the city administration.

The government has introduced the lease as a land lease system since 1993 and technically owns land under the feet of citizens. Since the mid-1970s, for nearly 50 years, entire neighborhoods like Qechene have become government buildings occupied by landless tenants. In this period of time, homes, shops and streets have been barely maintained, repaired or improved.

As a result, living conditions in these buildings, such as municipal houses, are deteriorating and constantly deteriorating. In Qechene, the neighborhoods are as if they had remained frozen in the interval between the Middle Ages and today.

Like a scene in London in the 16th century, there are muddy, paved, slippery, congested and narrow streets crisscrossing the village; ragged galleries of linen shops and houses rub shoulders in wild forms; and cracked, cracked, and viscous walls lean precariously to uncomfortable angles.

Broken, dilapidated and patched roofs overlap in a confused picture of deterioration; the fenced enclosures harbor untold misery; and decaying neighborhoods are overflowing with rotting, garbage and garbage.

"Not only is the nose, but the stomach is badaulted," a 15th century diarist recorded about 15th century London, with the foul odor that emanates from open trenches and oozing contents of septic tanks stranded and pit latrines.

Along the streets, piles of rotting vegetables, meat and fish are mixed with garbage and mud. The occasionally spotted carcbad of a dog that is about to explode adds to the confusion and confusion in Qechene.

After decades of failures to ensure the maintenance and necessary repairs of these government properties, the solution of the administration has created by its own negligence, is to send bulldozers and demolish entire sections of the city in a sweep.

This is usually done regardless of history, tradition, culture, or social values. There are barely public hearings, community commitments or appropriate advice. Essentially, the fading of homes and badociated intrinsic and cultural attributes of the city is done by fiat.

In the process, citizens, never consulted in the first place, are continually impoverished by being pushed to the margins, and being denied their irreplaceable heritage. Entire neighborhoods are devastated as happened in Kzanchese, Piazza, Lideta, Dejazmach, Webe Sefer and Arat Kilo.

In a July 2017 article, Reuters clearly explained the current situation in Ethiopia: "In 2011, the municipality decided to extend the nationalization of urban land and eliminated all residual forms of transferable private property. and inherited from the city.

"Renovation programs intensified in the following years, often with the demolition of whole neighborhoods. From 2009 to 2015, the city expropriated approximately 400 hectares of downtown land and destroyed a total of 23,151 dilapidated houses, according to UN-Habitat. "

The cultural and historical heritage of the city, indeed the country, under the attack by negligence and a misunderstanding of the values ​​that these old communities represent.

In the midst of the distress of this city, it is important to read about the recent announcement of the Administration to build a new city hall

.] A question should be addressed to the municipality – how the current city hall has-

The city is also planning to renovate the lower Bantyaketu River with riverine landscaping and a recreational project along the riverbanks, wait to see what the Administration is doing. planning for this important but degraded river

Good governance requires that the municipal administration instead use the money to repair the infrastructure of the city that has completely collapsed. It's an inconvenience for citizens to praise a project and spend public treasures in a new building while garbage carts are still being used, as if we were still in the middle age, to transport trash from neighborhoods.

a Jewish temple in Qechene, part of the mysticism of the hamlet that spawned a whole tale about the followers of Judaism, known as Beta Israel. They have made a pilgrimage of some Israelis who want to visit the temple.

The conservation and protection of what remains of our historic neighborhoods like Qechene must be a concern for all of us and an important aspect of our new awakening.