«Respect the right to women’s equality». It is the number one rule, the cardinal principle that animates the 500 inhabitants of the Awra Amba community in Ethiopia. None of them knows what #metoo means, who are Asia Argento or Catherine Deneuve. Far from the spotlight, for almost fifty years this community has rewritten the history of Ethiopia and its women. Because here, talking about gender equality means being taken for insane. Or much worse. The first to pay the price was the founder of the community, Zumra Nuru. His sad and visionary eyes are impressed, surmounted by a green hat. It is said that at six months he walked, at two years he discussed religion, at four he had formulated the principles of his future community.
A community built on the Ethiopian plateau, a three-hour drive from the sources of the Blue Nile, halfway between a sort of Gandhian romanticism and the most practical kibbutz ideology. Its foundations are substantial equality between men and women, respect for the rights of the child, help for the weakest and universal brotherhood. Ideas that, in the early years of Awra Amba, triggered the hostility of the local population, the allegations under the fierce socialist dictatorship of Mengistu Hailemariam, the isolation during the famines that cyclically hit the country. Yet today, among these few houses perched on a wooded hill, surrounded by fields of vegetables and pastures, those princes continue to live and multiply.
Among all the Ethiopian villages, here and only here it is possible to see the men taking care of the children, drawing water from the well or spinning the cotton. Here only women handle the money, participate in the work in the fields and the village’s political administration. And above all, they weave to the loom. A revolutionary gesture, so symbolic that it has become the heart of the local economy. It is dedicated to the largest building in the village, the structure where a dozen of hand looms are kept. And it is here, absorbed on one of these old machines of Dutch manufacture, that I find Mulié.
His features are the features of a warrior: they tell the hardness of life and the pride of having faced her head high. The last battle, at the age of 32, was the one for the salvation of his 3 children, the oldest just sixteen. Ad Awra Amba arrived a short time ago, after divorcing her husband. “Out there men are kings and women serve them,” he recalls. “We are aware of this, but tradition and family create bonds that are too strong to break. When I left my husband, I was criticized by my friends. Only now they understood. And for this they respect me ». He works seven days a week, partly in the village cooperative, partly privately. “Here I have the job and the help I need to grow my children alone,” he adds seriously, “here I have the right to do it.” It’s his #metoo.
Women like Malkeneish Said, she too arrived in the community after divorcing her husband. She lived long enough to remember her life under the scepter of Haile Selassie and the terrible one under her husband’s wishes. “He used to beat me whenever I refused to wash his feet when he returned from the fields,” he murmured, recalling those years. “Tradition does not allow divorce for domestic violence. When I left him I had no where to go, with me I was wearing only a dress and my 3 children. Nobody offered to help me. It was the meeting with a man from Awra Amba who put an end to those 10 months of desperation.”
Birtucan, which in Amharic means “orange”, was born here, 38 years ago. She never suffered the conditions her friends tell about, the former schoolmates in the surrounding villages. “I see her holding her children by holding a container on her head and a bundle of wood on her back. The husbands follow her holding their staff. Even my family was like that, before the meeting with Zumra Nuru ». The revolution is all here. And he does not stop spreading his message: “They are envious of equality”, continues Bertucan, “a wealth that allows to divide the work and maximize the time to devote to the family. Unfortunately, the economy of the community is not yet attractive enough, the courage to leave behind their world is not compensated by the promise of a more comfortable life ». It’s one of the painful keys of Awra Amba. The economy based on the sale of cotton products, organized according to the strict rules of the local cooperative, is not able to satisfy all needs. Growth has been constant in recent years, but not enough to achieve full sustainability. It is read on the faces of the men and women of the village, marked by the frustration of a dream that struggles to consolidate. Yet, in their voices one also perceives pride: that of belonging to a humble legend, a Utopia that, despite everything, remains the place “where women and men are equal”. but not enough to achieve full sustainability. It is read on the faces of the men and women of the village, marked by the frustration of a dream that struggles to consolidate. Yet, in their voices one also perceives pride: that of belonging to a humble legend, a Utopia that, despite everything, remains the place “where women and men are equal”. but not enough to achieve full sustainability. It is read on the faces of the men and women of the village, marked by the frustration of a dream that struggles to consolidate. Yet, in their voices one also perceives pride: that of belonging to a humble legend, a Utopia that, despite everything, remains the place “where women and men are equal.”
By Carlo Marsilli