Ethiopian premier league champions Saint George came from a goal down to book a place in Total Energies CAF Champions league second round qualifications while debutant Bahirdar Ketema qualified for Confederation Cup second round after a penalty shootout victory over Tanzanian heavy weight Azam.
Though Saint George returned home after a 2:1 first leg victory courtesy of the goals from Biniam Belay and Natnael Zeleke, the second leg home match was almost turned advantage to visitors KMKM for their shocking opening goal just ten minutes in to the game.
But a surprising come back in the second half Saint George came out victorious with a marveling 3-1 victory with goals from Dawit Tefera, Natnael Zeleke and newly signed Amanuel Arebo. Saint George got through the preliminary first round 5-2 aggregate result thus facing Egyptian giants Al-Ahly.
“We were taken by shocking surprise early in the game. But a determined second half performance, we managed to getaway with clear victory” remarked Head Coach Zerihoun Shenegeta after the game.
Meanwhile premier league runner up and international match debutant Baherdar Ketema got past Tanzania’s Azam after a second leg penalty shootout 4-3 victory.
It was not an easy ride to the second round qualifications for Bahirdar was seriously challenged by their adversary Azam. Ali Suleiman and Prince Dube’s first half two goals almost handed the home side a sheer passage to the second round. But Habetamu Tadesse’s second half goal levelled the score line to all-three thus a penalty shootout to decide the winner.
Degarege’Yigzaw’s side sailed into the second round qualifications showdown against Tunisian side Club Africa.
Saint George, Bahirdar Ketema progressed into CAF second round
THE NEW COLONIALISM
Since we are suckers for new ideas, the latest and somewhat broader definition of colonialism has captivated our imagination for the day. This new conceptualization is also throwing some light on our traditional understanding of colonialism. Here the focus is on newly emerging forms of domination. These came about, by and large, as a result of robotics, automation and informatics. If truth be told, the preponderance of the new ICT (Information and Communication Technology) or the colonialism it ushered, is much more overbearing than the directives of the overenthusiastic district commissioner of the mighty British Empire straddling the anthills of Africa’s dry land; even when ‘the sun doesn’t set on the British Empire’ was still an impressive factuality!
The latest version of colonialism is a bit different. It leverages products of modern technology to subjugate people in a protracted manner. Moreover, analyzing modern colonialism, oppressive as it is, might not be so straightforward if we are only to adhere to old methodologies. To start with, the received wisdom has effectively quarantined emerging analysis within the confines of old parameters as applied to traditional colonialism. At the dawn of the 21st century, where hypermodernity is the order of the day, such classic approaches might not be all that useful or even relevant. Ancient or old fashion colonialism was based, mostly, on specific coordinates of physical geography, constrained people’s (indigenous) movement, economic/social/cultural/religious discrimination and outright subjugation of natives by the conquering powers, etc. These were the features that informed our understanding of earlier versions of colonialism. To be sure, ‘neocolonialism’, which is derived from old brutal colonialism by emphasizing soft approaches, i.e., employing more pacified forms of domination, is not what we will be dealing with today. We consider neocolonialism as the harmonization of old colonialism with the expediency of ‘flag independence’!
The informatics revolution that has drastically reconfigured the world economy, particularly since the advent of the Internet, has expanded its domain of dominion across the breadth and depth of the human universe, just like the old colonialists. Our old friend Charles Hugh Smith, in his characteristic perceptiveness and baldness, to say nothing about his extemporary coherence, has fired the first salvo. He defined the new colonialism as a state of being that is overwhelmingly disempowering. It is, he says, a condition where the natives have no power, hence no choice! Certainly, one can work within this descriptive general framework to validate even the old form of colonialism as well as its newer offshoot-neocolonialism! For instance, the overwhelming information (information overload) the average sheeple (human mass) is bombarded with is beyond imagination, literally! From the receiving end of this immense trash, the human animal blocks, rather instinctively, what is not immediately needed. This time honored and honed survival mechanism, both biological and social, is what keeps us going preserving our relative sanity! From the dispensing end, the production of the massive information on the global scale, incessantly simulated by non-human operators, (entities of the computer world increasingly leveraging ascendant artificial intelligence) seem to have gone way beyond the absorption capacity of the dominant species. Nonetheless, all these spell domination!
Unless our infatuation with overabundant information is tempered, mostly by refusing to comply with prevailing unhealthy fixation on anything automata, human oppression of all kinds will become the dominant feature of modern life! The effort to liberate the human soul from the increasingly evolving social formations that are inherently dehumanizing requires the untangling of prevailing narrative imposed on us by the new colonizers. The ‘techno-sphere’, to use Orlov’s apt characterization, must be subjected to the whims of the human animal and not vice versa. There will be visible large-scale battles between life preserving tendencies and life destroying trajectories taking place in the near future. As it stands, destructive trends are winning the current day-to-day battles hands down. Whether this side is destined to win the totality of the war in the long run, is something that remains to be seen! Nonetheless, we should have no illusion; the techno-sphere is not driven by the logic of reproduction-the reproduction of lives. Its logic doesn’t even take into account the most obvious fact of resource limitation, let alone understand the refined societal values of human civilizations. In its essence, the ‘techno-sphere’ is an exploitative system driven by its own logic of reproduction, amongst which, the neglect of all lives and the larger ecosystem form its core principle!
This was first published in September 2017
Gudaf Tsegaye brought Ethiopia’s first Budapest gold
It was a head-to-head battle that many may have predicted, but the closing drama came as a shock.
Gudaf Tsegay and Sifan Hassan – shoulder to shoulder with their arms pumping and their eyes fixed on the finish – both chasing 10,000m gold in a thrilling first track final of the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23.
Two of the fastest ever women over 25 laps of the track, locked in a fierce fight. Until suddenly, they weren’t. Just metres from the finish line, after both had used their 1500m speed to superb effect over the final lap, Hassan fell – the Olympic champion’s dreams of another global medal treble going crashing down with her.
As Hassan stumbled, Tsegay remained resolute. The world 5000m champion from Oregon last year gritted her teeth and ended up adding a maiden 10,000m title to her burgeoning global medal haul, clocking 31:27.18 to lead an Ethiopian medal sweep ahead of world record-holder and defending champion Letesenbet Gidey, and world indoor medallist Ejgayehu Taye.
How Haile G/Selasse friendly Kenyan rivalries fuelled the fire
Haile Gebrselassie likes to remind people that, when it comes to athletics, Kenya and Ethiopia are in a co-dependent relationship. He sees the historic growth of the distance-running dominance of these two countries as deeply imbricated.
In a year that celebrates 40 years of the World Athletics Championships, Gebrselassie reflects on the 1993 edition in Stuttgart, Germany, where this first became clear to him.
By the time the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games came around, Gebrselassie was the clear favorite in the men’s 10,000m, but in 1993 his potential was unknown. He was established for winning at U20 level, but the expectation that he would win every race he entered was not yet the norm.
After finishing second in the 5000m, he faced what many thought would be an even bigger challenge in the 10,000m, where he would need to dethrone the 1991 Kenyan world champion, Moses Tanui.
The field strung out fairly early in the race, with Chelimo being the one to hold on to Tanui and Gebrselassie the longest. The two continuously exchanged glances as Gebrselassie stuck on Tanui’s heels.
The last lap of the race was dramatic. Gebrselassie clipped Tanui; he angrily flailed, kicked his shoe off, and attempted to storm away from Gebrselassie. But over the final 100 meters, Gebrselassie passed him on the inside lane to take the win – his first ever global championship gold at senior level – in a tie of 27:46.02.
Up until that point, Gebrselassie’s father thought he was wasting his time pursuing a career in the sport. But when he returned home from the World Championships with a new Mercedes – the first car Gebrselassie’s family ever owned – his father changed his mind.
Meanwhile, Tanui and Kenyan fans viewed the win as a theft. Tanui even told Kenyan paper years later that he was robbed, and that his federation should have filed a protest. While he holds no ill will towards Gebrselassie, the dispute helped charge a healthy rivalry between the two countries that Gebrselassie considers the most fundamental part of his own career.
In 1994 and 1995, Gebrselassie was on a tear, setting world records in both the 5000m and 10,000m. Over the next decade, he and Paul Tergat established an iconic rivalry, with Gebrselassie outkicking the much taller Kenyan by a healthy margin at the 1996 Olympics, and by just a hair in 2000.
But much like Tanui, Gebrselassie credits Tergat for his own greatness.
Now it seems obvious that Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes will vie for medals in the distance events at World Championships and Olympic Games, but this history, and rivalry, had to start somewhere. It predated Gebrselassie’s time, but his longstanding relationships with a few top Kenyans fueled a mutual growth and respect.
