H o u s e c l e a n i n g

Putting the old wine in a new bottle, though keeping still the old taste, it is unethical as long as people take it for a new drink. Likewise, to continue working with the same stereotype practices in the guise of the millennium’s renovation is self-defeating. To put the same thing differently, old and untidy clothing on a new born child is either a sign of destitution or ignorance.
Our millennium is to be likened to a new born-child. We have welcomed the third millennium with a cleanmind and jubilation with the intent of certainty to change our lot through meaningful and vigorous will and hard work by planting milestones on the road of our achievements in the long thorough-fare of the third millennium.
Is it then in untidy houses, that we usher in the new millennium that we have welcomed with delight, great pomp and ceremony? Something crosses my mind as it does everyone’s; that is to say, marching through such a thorough-fare demands satisfying the requirements of the take-off point. Hence, our primary objective in the light of this perception would be to take stock of the particularities of our present situation. We have to be able to say where exactly we exactly stand now. For most of us, house cleaning would be a primary task in setting foot on a new path of thinking.
We cannot simply gamble with the new opportunities that the times have given us with the advent of the third millennium. One of the requirements of strategic planning then would be making a SWOT analysis. We have to pin-point precisely where our strengths and weaknesses are, and what opportunities are available, and what possible threats are in view.
When we do that, house cleaning takes place in the process, particularly, in the areas of weaknesses, endemic problems of individual and corporate bodies may be found to be at a critical stage of needing over-hauling. Once the dirty houses are cleaned, the strong individual and corporate variables may need reinforcing to be potent enough to exploit the new opportunities released through the inertia of the millennium years.
While individual and corporate bodies are quick take advantage of the opportunities so unleashed, chances are that in the concentric circle of life, internal and external destructive variables, influences, and environmental hazards may directly or indirectly antagonize the system to disrupt the actual processes of development by way of negative threats. So, it is natural for everybody to see to it that the field of development is free from any barriers.
It is in the nature of human beings, however, to live in an ocean of contradictions. So, it is these contradictions that give the way to the insufficiently unexplored faculty of the thinking animal, the power of motion, and the stimulus to resist the negative elements of development.
Le us redo our houses in order first to embark upon the onerous responsibility of nation-building with a new spirit and vigor to reach at the perceived land-mark of growth in the time span allotted to it. However, the house cleaning should include, perforce, attitudinal changes of individual and corporate bodies. These entities should admit that somewhere, there is a gap that requires change in approach and in discipline, change in set-up, and also in the configuration of things generically.
Besides, changes in the day to day leadership style, management practices, economic life, standard of living, etc. are important. Change of attitude and change in the style of life for the better should be mandatory. We should come out of our stereotype mentality of evil life. I cannot verify what it looks like, but those who know the negative elements or the variables that hide modernity, variables that contradict with normal psychological make up of an ordinary citizen should be cleaned. The ground should be smoothened.
When we say change of attitude and practice, it involves all private, government, and individual entities and personalities. Therefore, change for the better, in the process of our strenuous struggle for fast development in the initial years of our third millennium should be all embracing. Therefore, house cleaning in respect of bringing fast development should not be left only to a few institutions.
The diplomat should search his mind if there could be faster ways of launching an economic offensive abroad. Those who are concerned with protocol issues in the movement of important personalities should ask if there could be covert approaches to manage in modern and sophisticated ways their responsibilities with less tension and without sometimes interrupting the business hustle of city life, as a result of the limited roads we have, particularly, as Addis Ababa has become the hub of international and continental activities and a host city of important global and continental personages. In this respect, thanks should go to those institutions, who are really concerned with the expansion and modernization effects of our capital city.
In addition, we should get rid of unnecessary habits and customs in our moments of ordeal for fast progress. Some should take showers to clean themselves from vice and gambling habits. If these and many more of our problems are tackled in the nick of time, our responsibility to shoulder the heavy tasks of transformational nation building will be smoother and certain through transparency, honesty, and togetherness. The initial concern in embracing the third millennium’s noble task is to march forward hand in glove to clean and put our houses in order.