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Obituary: Berhanu Gebyehu (1964-2010)
By Jon Abbink
It is with the deepest sadness that we announce the sudden and premature death of Berhanu Gebeyehu in Addis Ababa on Monday 19 July 2010. Berhanu was an Ethiopian scholar of literature, an Assistant Professor at Addis Ababa University and a PhD student at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He was also based at the African Studies Centre in Leiden and was in the process of finalizing his PhD thesis at the time of his death.
Berhanu received a WOTRO PhD grant in 2006 on the basis of an excellent and original anthropological-literary research proposal on interfaith relationships and social consensus mechanisms among Christians and Muslims in Wollo, an important region in north-central Ethiopia. His project was entitled ‘Trajectories of Tolerance: A Comparative Study of Religious Discourse and Social Consensus in Wallo (Ethiopia)’ and had a wider relevance for the understanding of religious-communal relations in Africa. I was his PhD supervisor and we were looking forward to a final round of editing in August 2010 before his defence in Amsterdam in early 2011. This was not to be.
On 19 July Berhanu had lunch with friends and was in good spirits. At home afterwards, he felt unwell and sought medical treatment, but passed away suddenly later that afternoon. The exact cause of his death is not yet known. He was buried at St Joseph’s Church in Addis Ababa on 20 July in the presence of hundreds of mourners. An unforgettable friend to so many people, he also leaves behind his beloved wife Menen and his 8-year -old son Tewodros (Tedy), to whom he was devoted. We extend our deepest sympathy to them both.
Berhanu was an exceptionally bright and hardworking scholar. He had two Master degrees: one in Ethiopian Languages and Literature, and the other in Applied ICT, which he had completed just before starting his PhD. He was a well-respected literature scholar at Addis Ababa University and a popular and gifted teacher. His knowledge of Islam and Ethiopia’s Muslim communities was remarkable, and he had established good contacts with various important Muslim scholars and literary figures. Berhanu wrote many papers and articles in local magazines in Amharic, and in 2007 published YäAmarenya Sinegit’im, a beautiful book on Amharic poetry that he finished during the first year of his PhD contract. It is a well-written, sensitive work on a complex subject and proved so popular that is was reprinted soon afterwards. With a colleague, he also translated a book on women in Ethiopia – Candace, by the Ethiopian-Dutch writer Alem Desta – from English to Amharic, and did so in record time.
In another burst of energy in early 2009, he drafted the text of a book on the religious media in Ethiopia that we were planning to work on together. And all this without falling behind schedule with his PhD thesis. His academic profile was growing steadily and he was on the road to becoming a very prominent scholar at Addis Ababa University.
Berhanu was a very sociable and likeable man. He had a wide variety of acquaintances and friends in Ethiopia, from traders, farmers and craftsmen in Addis Ababa and elsewhere to politicians, administrators, a multitude of university staff and members of the cultural elite. And everyone liked him because he was genuine and tolerant, and had a good sense of humour. His ability to extract information about anything from anybody was uncanny and he was one of the most dynamic and well-informed people I have ever known. All this went with a great and deep love of Ethiopia and its people, and a concern for its problems and predicaments. People loved to be with him and he could talk knowledgeably on so many subjects. I will always remember our conversations, be they about his research and his discoveries of manuscripts and his much-valued informants in Wollo, about the future of Ethiopia or about world and Ethiopian literature. He could talk just as easily about Thomas Mann’s great novel Buddenbrooks as about Goethe and his relationship with Islam or about the themes of Dostojewski’s novels: he had read them all. The next day he would come up with an interesting book he had found on American foreign policy or on religious history. We will miss Berhanu’s intellectual dynamism, his way of playing with ideas, his generosity and his great humanity and breadth of vision.
Berhanu’s work on Wollo, a society characterized by social and religious diversity but also mutual tolerance and accommodation, has to be completed and his book will be a major new study of this Ethiopian region. He originally came from there and had developed an inordinate depth of knowledge on the area, having done fieldwork there on oral traditions, poetry, the folklore and narratives of Wollo since 1996. His study is pioneering and will set a new standard for multidisciplinary work on Ethiopian society and culture. We hope that we can finalize Berhanu’s two book manuscripts in the near future. They will be in memory of his creative powers and will serve as a fitting legacy to this admirable person, great colleague and dear personal friend.
I am afraid, he is poisoned by Woyane. Woyane does not like religious or ethnic tolerance and a bright Amhara scientist or politician is what Woyane dislikes. Please do not hurry to bury someone without an autopsy although all the Medical facilities are under Woyane control and can produce any false certificate.
Ethiopians particularly Amharas, Oromos and those who are not clearly supporting the tyrant regime of MELES should be very carefull. Unlike Mengistu, Meles is killing secretely by poisoning, car accident or he will assign his gungs to kill anybody who is not infavor of the regime.
I knew Berhanu some fifteen years ago when he was a student at Addis Ababa University and I was a lecturer at the same institution. We were friends and I am very saddened to hear his sudden death. I still have a poem he casually wrote on my notebook about a girl I was in love with and I kept because it beautifully captured my feeling at the time. I knew at the time he was a gifted poet and was glad to see him branch out into other fields. Unfortunately, he is now taken away from us before he can reach his full potential. My condolence to his family and friends, and I would always miss him.
TPLF has set up so that when they are threatened by prominent figures, these prominent figures silently pass away of heart attack, sudden death, etc. TPLF wants to be the only group out in a spot light based on what they favor. Whenever someone works hard for Ethiopia, they act quickly. Now they have come in a style to silently kill (poison or whatever means) and they die. Many have died because of this and is not coincidnece: there was Kinijit’s leader rallying group about 2 years ago in South of Ethiopia, he died with out no known reason. Many business men: news said they committed suicide but they were killed, also the main industrialist known called Duguma, many many more. TPLF is not a fool, is not Mengistu who kills in front of you except that incidence, in 2005. The danger is they kill silently, heck they are killing Ethiopia slow death. Their wish is coming true, they said Meles and Isayas said they will give Ethiopia 100 years of suffering, they are doing it. Don’t forget people that are disappearing and getting killed after being kidnapped. Don’t forget the mass migration of Ethioopians out of the country is so that it is forcing the people out so that TPLF is not threatened. It is a blessing for them when people leave. The question is, who is going to stay there or come back to take them out?