Introduction:
I will present the strongest argument for antu (the formal way of speaking in Amharic), then break its knees and decapitate it. The strongest argument for antu is that antu is a form of respect. Nobody really believes this. They may think they do, and say that they do, but their actions say otherwise. This is a simple to understand concept, but will be difficult for you to grasp if you have a superstitious attachment to Ethiopian tradition that permits no flexibility in what to accept and what to eschew. To use the antu form in Amharic is to sin (miss the mark).

God:
Igzeeabheyr amlake abeweene (the God of our forefathers) is not called antu. The common retort to this observation, is that the God of our forefathers is our father and fathers don’t get called antu. Okay. That is a recent phenomenon with fathers, but okay. Let’s say I bite. Are priests not our fathers? If not, why do you call them Abune (father), Abba (father), and Abew Kahinat (our fathers the priests)? To call a priest antu, but not God antu, means one of two things. Either you hold priests in higher esteem than God, or you do not believe that priests are fathers. If you respect priests more than God, that’s a problem. If you do not believe that priests are fathers, that’s a problem.

Gi-iz:
Lisane Gi-iz (the language of the free) predates Amharic. Lisane Gi-iz is held in higher esteem, by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Beyta Israeyl communities, than Amharic, even though both communities speak Amharic well. Lisane Gi-iz is a pure language, that is bursting at the seems with worship words for the God of our foremothers. Notably, there is no antu form in Lisane Gi-iz. If nothing else, this means we should question the antu in Amharic if we respect Gi-iz.

This is best illustrated by excerpts from the divine liturgy (qidasay) translated into the Amharic language, and prayed regularly. I shall list, in order (you’ll know if you go to Church early enough) three parts of qidasay where antu is purposely omitted, because it would be improper in the holy house of God.
1) Before the beloved ahadu prayer, the assistant priest turns to the lead priest and says “remember me with your holy prayer” in Gi-iz. Depending on the mood of the assistant priest, this prayer is switched into Amharic. The assistant priest is almost always younger than the lead priest, if not, then he is likely of higher rank, perhaps a bishop or archbishop, either way he would be someone ‘deserving’ of antu treatment. In Amharic he says “ቅድስት (or ክብርት) ፡ በሆነች ፡ በጸሎትህ ፡ አስበይኝ ። No antu here.

2)After glory and thanksgiving have been presented to God, the deacon says for the first time “arise for prayer”, the believers respond “Lord have mercy on us”, the priest responds “may the grace of God be with you all” and the believers tell him “and with your Spirit”. And with your spirit in Amharic is “ከመንፈስህ ጋር”. This is an antu-free response from believers to the priest, and outside of the holy house of God, believers don’t dare to speak in an antu-free manner with priests.

3)When the deacon calls upon the names of the patriarch and the archbishops (in Amharic), and asks you to pray for them, he refers to them in the ante, or antu-free way. Deacons can be as young as 10, and patriarchs as hold as 100. There are many ranks betwixt deacon and patriarch that would normally dictate antu treatment. Thankfully, during the qidasay, we are not subjected to antu. We are free.

The American Solution
The history of thy, thine, thou may trouble recent Habesha immigrants, all nonnative English speakers and indeed even select native speakers of the American language. We see it in poetry and the King James Version of the Bible. In America, people eschewed the ante (informal) form and now use only the antu form of speaking. That is, the formal form. But, they use the formal form for everyone, thus treating all peoples as one.

The Amharic Solution
My parents refer to their mother in laws with antu, but their fathers with ante. Their parents refer to their fathers with antu. Priests, regardless of age, used to be antu. Even if you were older than them, some older habeshas still do this. Now younger married priests (qeysoch) are frequently called ante, but monks (monokosat) are still reverently called antu. People older than us in the recent past are called irsachew (formal), but the people from hundreds of years ago in the past are called irswa (informal). Huh?

The usage of the formal form in modern Amharic is used in an utterly inconsistent manner. The antu form is dying out anyway, but I still feel like talking about it for purposes of clarity and quickening its death. Below you can find a six minute video I made on this subject, from a scriptural perspective. No matter which way you look at it, antu should immediately be abolished by every Amharic speaker.

Further listening:

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A little over a year ago, I befriended an IT expert, writer and activist. His name is Befeqadu Hailu. He is based in Addis Ababa and has a passion for Ethiopian socio-politics, especially pertaining to women’s issues.

Through twitter and his personal blog, he’d post charts and stats of girls’ education, early marriage and FGM (female gentitial mulitaltion) rates in Ethiopia. He also notably categorized by the different regions in Ethiopia the percentages and vulnerability of women emigrating to Gulf states as domestic workers. (He was advocating against the vile abuses and deaths of Ethiopian labourers prior to the social media campaign, #SomeoneTellSaudi.) Anytime I had a question regarding Ethiopia or Amharic literature, he was patient and resourceful.

Then there was that one time I scroll through my twitter timeline to learn of his arrest…Awkward…I read the headline Ethiopia detains bloggers and journalist and was confusingly disheartened. To my knowledge, he was a harmless IT nerd advocating equality for all–his twitter bio headline: “an Ethiopian dreamer.” I then learned of the Zone9 blog–a collective of bloggers protesting human rights violations in the country, stressing freedom of expression. (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House and Committee to Protect Journalists, have all reported Ethiopia to having one of the worst records of suppressing free speech and dissent voices.) Their motto, “we blog because we care.”

I followed updates of their court appearances (mainly to learn of Befeqadu’s whereabouts) on twitter which got exhausting due to delayed trial dates and no official charges announced. Now I’m able to track their trial and court hearings (as the rest of you) here. After several weeks of being detained arbitrarily, arrested zone9ners (and three journalists arrested with them) were charged with “terrorism” under Ethiopia’s ‘Anti-terrorism Proclamation.’ According to Reuters, the Ethiopian ATP law is vague and anyone found guilty publishing information that “incites readers to commit acts of terrorism” can be jailed for 10–20 years.

As for Befeqe, he has reportedly continued to write; he sent his friends and family in Ethiopia postcards from prison (as I read through twitter.) Also, in what I like to refer to as “the Ethiopian version” of MLK’s famous ‘A letter from Birmingham Jail’ he writes in Amharic then translated in English, ‘Dear Hyena no need for excuses just eat me’….I’m honestly weary of his fate but wish for his health and to see him appear in my newsfeeds again. (All his social media accounts as well as his blog have been suspended.) More importantly, I no longer want to read of reports of him being tortured in prison believed to be attempts to force false confessions. (Ill-treatment and torture tactics have also been documented in Ethiopia in reference to Maekelawi Police Station located in Addis Ababa.)

#FreeZone9bloggers is the social media campaign to raise awareness and encourage Befeqe’s and his colleagues release. To find out more ways to get involved, read here.

Lemlem loves to get messy with different traditional media. She’s obsessed with all forms of the arts & innovative creativity (& corny jokes). Follow her on twitter @LemGeek ​ ​for her quirky updates.

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We are big fans of GDNA’s latest project, the “Bedroom Sessions” where he performs visually captivating performances off his forthcoming EP, “Quadrants”. Here is the first installment of the series featuring the single “Floating”.
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