[bjeds]

Without much planning, I happened to end up in Ethiopia in 2018, just a few months after Abiy was elected prime minister. It was an unusual experience.

In Addis Ababa the feeling was.. electric. People were so hopeful and happy. Everyone was talking to me about Abiy and how everything was changing.

Then I traveled around the country, further and further north. I visited Tigray - not the place where the massacre happened, but very close by. Not the church in the articles, but many like it.

And then (long story) I had an opportunity to visit a military camp at the Ethiopia/Eritrea border... and then you start to realize how complicated everything is. Ethiopia has a border on Google Maps, but that doesn't mean the people in the north see things the same was as in Addis Ababa.

What is a national border anyway if you define yourself more by your tribe than your so called nation?

The people in Ethiopia are fantastic and I hope some peace can come eventually.

[boogies]

(offtopic)

> Ethiopia has a border on Google Maps

IIUC Google Maps has more than version of some contested borders, displaying one or the other depending on where you view it from (eg. India or China). I’m curious how OSM handles this.

[kilroy123]

I was in Ethiopia this time last year, before COVID hit the world.

There were some tense moments with huge city wide protests and this was down south not far from Addis. To me things were not feeling so stable...

The North and even the Tigray region seemed fine and normal to me. I heard a lot of complaints from people about government back in Addis.

So sad to see what's happening there. I agree, the people are fantastic and it's a very unique country.

[vmception]

> What is a national border anyway if you define yourself more by your tribe than your so called nation?

Largely irrelevant.

The nation state concept was rolled out worldwide over the last 300 years.

It introduces some opportunities like compartmentalizing laws to your advantage but it isn't really relevant to the land.

[vinceguidry]

The problem with nation-states is that if you want a nation to have just one people, you need to cleanse it of all the others. The old empires could be more humane in ways.

[vmception]

Yeah, sadly it works too.