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

Awra Amba, a current experiment of utopian socialism
Atnafu (2005/57-­‐58) Yassin (2008/83) Mekonnen (2009/5) Synthesis
Intellectual honesty
(/ lying)
Loyalty to his people
Purity of thought, words and deeds
Brotherhood
Solidarity
Courage
Honesty
(/ theft, lying)
Human rights
Peace
Solidarity
Non dependence
(/addiction)
Reason
(/ emotions not base on
reasons)
Rigorist
(/ civil and religious
festivities)
Gender equality
Dignity
Individual rights
Tolerance
Honesty
Human rights
Solidarity
Rationalism
Table 2:
Essential values of Awra Amba as defined by three authors, categorized in four groups,
with antonyms between brackets.
- Why are people envying each other, disliking each other on the pretext of religion or other
differences, while the essence of all religions is the value of humanity?
- Why attach so much importance to the world after the death nobody can’t be sure, at the
expense of the practical world, whose fate could undoubtedly be shaped by the cumulative
effort of human beings?
- Why are people fighting to have a comfortable world after the death? Can’t we create a
heaven in this world?
- Why to build mosques and churches, which are the field of God, while God is everywhere, in
heart, soul, eyes, etc?
- Why are old people not given due regard regardless of their considerable contribution to the
society?
- Why is the culture of the society rigid and conservative without allowing individuals and
especially children to think freely and to go in their own to the extent that it is reasonable?
- Why do religions define days to work and days on which people of that particular religion
should not work? Why do the latter eat in these days? Do people suffering from poverty and
hunger should take rest and abandon fields and other activities?
This author proposes finally a new list of the fundamental values of Awra Amba: peace, love and
respect between human beings (men, women, children and aged) (Ya08/130).
These values are either explicit – claimed by the community, or implicit – not claimed as such but
we can deduce from the analysis of the behaviours. We describe in detail in the following paragraphs
what we define as the main values, from Table 2, from explicit values presented solely in the
literature on Awra Amba, and from values implicit to behaviours. They are finally honesty, equality,
solidarity and rationalism.
The explicit rules are written in a document in Amharic of about twenty pages, the Communal
Statute, a version of which was signed in 2007 (Me09/40). Even if Zumra is without doubt their
inspirer, they were chosen by the community: Zumra believes that the decisions cannot and must not
be imposed by a person or a structure, but discussed in depth and taken by those who are concerned,
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