Awra Amba RJ 300612 EN - Contacter un comité local d'Attac

3. Values and principles
Any society has a system of values – a set of ideas, concepts and behaviours in relation – to which it
is strongly committed. The term of culture refers rather to a set of knowledge allowing individuals
and groups to assert and interpret the values, beliefs, customs and behaviours, which distinguish
them from other groups or societies (Ndura, 2004/10). The values or the culture of a society are
never unchanging, but evolve over generations, especially to adapt to a new environment.
Yassin (2008/78) considers the Ethiopian society rigid and few open to new ideas and new
behaviours likely enriching it. For Awra Amba, the Amhara rural society is static and does not leave
any freedom to individuals whose role is defined very precisely, while the freedom of each
individual enriches all (Ya08/69-70).
Awra Amba is a village strongly united by a culture and ideals, which make them very different from
the Amhara society and the surrounding villages. It is firstly a community sharing values: to live in
Awra Amba means to share and to defend these values (At05/48). The community does recognise
explicitly the notion of value, considered as a rule, an idea, a standard, or a guiding principle in life
(Ya08/83). Thus, to be allowed to be member of the community, one must complete a probationary
observation period and respect an ethic and a life style fully in agreement with the values and
principles of the community (Crespo, 2011).
The community members feel themselves different from other and better, because of a determination
to build a new life (At05/58); according to their parents, the children have a high opinion of
themselves and of their own ability to improve their situation. They are always asked to come with
new ideas and to make concrete proposals, to learn only reading and writing being considered a
waste of time (Ya08/76 & 92).
Prestige is acquired by who works consciously and applies in daily life the values of the community.
The daily behaviour is therefore the criterion of each one's status (At05/9).
Atnafu (2005/57-58), Yassin (2008/83) and Mekonnen (2009/5) address each first of all the Awra
Amba values in a specific section: the list is given in Table 2. These three attempts to structure the
community values are not very coherent between them. We tried, however, to synthesize them into
four main values: honesty, solidarity (or brotherhood), human rights (or equality), and reason
reduced to refusal of dependence (or addiction) and of festivities.
Furthermore, all authors list community values along their texts, which is much richer than the above
structuring attempts. For a better understanding of these values, it is useful to look at the questions of
the founder when he was teenager, as reported by Ya08/65 & 78:
- Why don’t women have rights to choose their partners as men do?
- Why don’t women equally participate and decide on issues that concern their family and their
life?
- Why don’t women have equal access to education, health and other opportunities?
- Why don’t mothers get proper respect?
- Why are people creating differences in religion by giving different names to God while God
is one irrespective of names given to him by different languages?
- Why are people considering differences of colour among human beings while we are of the
same stock and the difference is the same as difference between white and black cats?
- Why are ostracized skin scraper, weavers, and blacksmiths, amongst other, regardless of the
importance of their professions?
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