Beniam 🍓 👑

Father.Husband. Bookworm. Programmer. Art maker.
Believer.

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

🌈Forecast:
☁️Heavy clouds of Ethiopiawenet gathering along Semien Mountains to Omo valley. 🌧️Heavy rain falls of unity expected in Gambella through to Tigray, while strong winds🌪️ of love expected all across Ethiopia. Its a great day to be Ethiopian, so take a smile with you😃!

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

@AbiyAhmedAli I think Ethiopia will play a key role in helping France redefine its relations to Africa. France is looking for a new model of cooperation with Africa and Ethiopia is very well positioned to give just that. It looks like a win-win.

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

Nobody knows what secret promises, deals and memorandum of understanding were made in this room.
What we know is that in 1991 Derg fought everyone in this room.
35 years later Prosperity Party is fighting everyone in this room... again.
It seems whenever there is the smell of Ethiopiawenet in the air...the people in the room assemble.

[Cameron Hudson @_hudsonc]

🚨 As I have been predicting for weeks, Washington has jumped into the hornets nest of Red Sea politics, holding secret meetings with Isaias in Cairo in a bid to increase its influence in the region by lifting sanctions on Eritrea. What will Eritrea do in return? How will Addis react? What does this mean for Trump's promise to restart GERD talks? How will this a US-Eritrea rapprochement affect the SAF and Sudan's war? And what will UAE and Saudi make of the US effort to enter Red Sea political debates, seemingly aligning itself against Ethiopia? Too many questions to answer. But what I can say is that the US is doing it all without a strategy with a used truck salesman at the helm. What could possibly go wrong?? https://t.co/ztA7gLPxH7

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

Bravo for the visible leap forward—the modernization of Ethiopia’s physical infrastructure, and ambitious development projects that now define Ethiopia’s physical transformation. Even more remarkable, though invisible to the casual eye, is the quiet digital revolution reshaping how we connect, trade, and dream. These are genuine achievements worth celebrating.

Yet no nation—least of all one as ancient, layered, and magnificent as ours—can be built on concrete and code alone. A country is not merely infrastructure; it is a people bound by a living identity. Before anything else, Ethiopia must be rebuilt on Ethiopiawenet—that profound, shared sense of being Habesha.

We stand at a dangerous crossroads. For three decades, the EPRDF-era ideology deliberately fragmented us, institutionalizing ethnic division and grievance as the organizing principle of political life. If we fail to consciously confront and uproot this toxic legacy, we must ask ourselves a sobering question: Who exactly are we building this new Ethiopia for?

We do not just live in buildings. We live with one another. True nation-building, therefore, must take precedence over every other project.

The proliferation of armed ethnic militias—TPLF, OLF, Fano, and others—is not simply a security problem. These groups are symptoms of a deeper sickness: a radical ethnic consciousness deliberately nurtured by a political system that made tribal identity the currency of power. While the government has shown impressive resolve in restoring material progress, there remains a deafening silence on the systematic erosion of our shared Ethiopian consciousness.

This crisis runs far deeper than rebel factions in the hills. It is woven into the very architecture of our constitution and institutions. By organizing political life primarily along ethnic lines, the current federal arrangement continues to reward division at the expense of national cohesion.

Look across Africa: every nation except South Africa has deliberately banned ethnic and religious mobilization in politics precisely to protect unity and stability. Ethiopia cannot afford to ignore this hard-won continental wisdom.

Concepts like Medemer offer a beautiful philosophy of cooperation and synergy, but they are not enough by themselves. Medemer is a method, not a destination. What we need is a solid foundation—and that foundation must be Ethiopiawenet, understood as the deeper civilizational identity of being Habesha.

One can proudly be Habesha Tigray, Habesha Konso, Habesha Gambella, or Habesha from any corner of the land. Local identities and cultures remain cherished, but they must live harmoniously within a greater, unifying civilizational bond. Our strength must come from what we share, not from the competing grievances that pull us apart.

Our forefathers understood this truth with crystalline clarity.
They did not bequeath us a map of ethnic territories or a catalog of tribal hierarchies. Instead, they left us one sacred, unifying text: the Kebra Nagast—the Glory of Kings. In its pages, they declared with majestic simplicity: “This is the history and the birth of our country.”
How many nations on Earth possess such a definitive, shared foundation?
The Kebra Nagast does not speak of Amhara, Tigray, or Oromo as rival identities, it makes no mention of them. It tells the story of a Sabean Queen and her union with King Solomon, forging a royal and spiritual lineage that transcends tribe and region. It binds us through a sacred Covenant, not through bloodlines drawn on colonial maps. Our ancestors identified themselves not by narrow ethnic labels, but by their shared heritage, culture, history, and civilizational continuity—what we today recognize as the proud identity of being Habesha.

We have slowly surrendered our own authentic narrative — the proud, indigenous story of being Ethiopian and, above all, Habesha. In its place, we have adopted external labels like “Cushitic” and “Semitic,” categories that our ancestors never used to define themselves. These were 19th-century European scholarly inventions — convenient tools for academic classification, but utterly foreign to how our people actually saw and named their own identity.

True the Jews referred to us as Cush, and the ancient Greeks as Aethiopia, yet we called ourselves HBSH — Habesha — long before outsiders drew their maps. Even the term “Semite” itself was only coined in the early 1770s (widely cited as 1781) by German historians August Ludwig von Schlözer and Johann Gottfried Eichhorn. By elevating these imported frameworks into primary identities, we have unwittingly allowed foreign lenses to redefine us, fragment us, and weaken the very bonds that once made us one people.

What Ethiopia urgently needs is a bold, systematic “Corridor Project” for the national soul.

Just as we have cleared slums and built modern highways, we must now construct deliberate pathways in education, civil service, state media, and public life to restore and cultivate Ethiopiawenet—rooted firmly in the shared identity of being Habesha. This cannot remain beautiful rhetoric. It must be taught, reinforced, celebrated, and lived by every generation.

The same iron will that demolished shantytowns and laid asphalt across the nation must now be turned toward dismantling institutionalized ethnic division. We have proven what is possible when the state commits fully to physical modernization. The time has come to apply that same urgency, courage, and discipline to healing and strengthening our national identity.

We must decisively clear the lingering “EPRDF poison” from our institutions, our constitution, and our children’s curriculum.

True modernization is not measured only by the height of our buildings or the speed of our internet. It is measured by the strength of the invisible glue that allows us to walk those beautiful new streets together—in peace, as one people, with pride in who we are.
If we build a world-class nation yet remain strangers to one another, then for whom, exactly, have we built it?

Long Live the Habesha People from every corner of Ethiopia.

[Abiy Ahmed Ali 🇪🇹 @AbiyAhmedAli]

Addis Ababa is more than a capital. It is a vision in motion, a gateway to Ethiopia’s future!

As the beating heart of a rapidly transforming nation, Addis Ababa embodies our bold ambition for inclusive and forward-looking urbanisation. We are building not only for today, but for generations to come by expanding modern infrastructure, advancing smart city solutions, creating inclusive housing, and championing sustainable growth. Across Ethiopia, our cities are being shaped to empower people, unlock potential, and secure lasting prosperity.

Ours is a nation where progress and heritage stand side by side. Where ancient civilisations inspire modern achievement. Where investors discover vast, untapped opportunity across diverse sectors and regions. From the streets of Addis Ababa to the farthest reaches of our country, Ethiopia stands ready, resilient, dynamic, and open for business. As the diplomatic capital of Africa, Addis Ababa connects the world to a rising continent. It positions Ethiopia as a strategic gateway to African markets and a hub for global partnership. Yet Ethiopia offers more than opportunity. It offers discovery.

The future is being built here.
Invest in Ethiopia.
Explore Ethiopia.
Grow with Ethiopia.

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

First order of business is to sue the 1991 Transitional Government of Ethiopia.

The TGE decision to strip Ethiopia of its coastline was an act of extreme impudence. No "temporary" body has the authority to cripple a nation's future. The consequences were too obvious to be accidental; this was a calculated move against the Ethiopian people that demands legal recourse.

Eritrea is a "State," not a "People." It is composed of 9+ distinct nationalities (Tigrinya, Afar, Saho, etc.). Under the 1991 Transitional Charter, there is no such thing as an "Eritrean Nation" that has a unified right to secede. By allowing a single referendum for a multi-ethnic territory, the TGE used a collective fiction to bypass the individual rights of the actual "Peoples" (like the Afar) who may have wanted to remain with Ethiopia.

The 1991 Charter (Article 2b): "[Each nation/people is guaranteed the right to] Administer its own affairs within its own defined territory..."

The Afar People inhabited a "defined territory" that includes the Assab coastline. By handing this territory to the EPLF, the TGE stripped the Ethiopian Afar of their right to "administer their own affairs." They were traded away like property between two rebel groups, violating the "unconditional right" the Charter supposedly protected.

The architects of the 1991 Charter used two different legal definitions simultaneously to ensure Ethiopia lost the sea:

- Inside Ethiopia: They used Ethnic Identity (Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples) to fragment the country into regions. This ensured the central state remained weak and divided.

- At the Coast (Eritrea): They suddenly switched to Colonial Identity. If they had applied the same "Ethnic" rule to Eritrea, the Afar (who occupy the coastline) would have been recognized as a separate "People" with the right to stay with their kin in Ethiopia.

By forcing the Afar—a distinct "Nation" under Article 17—into a referendum defined by 1890s Italian colonial borders, the TGE and EPLF executed a masterclass in geopolitical gerrymandering. They stripped the Afar of their specific right to self-determination as a "contiguous people" just to ensure the new "State" of Eritrea could claim the Port of Assab. In doing so, they "crushed" the Afar voice: a people who should have been the sovereign masters of their own coastline were instead reduced to a marginalized 4–5% minority within a newly created multi-ethnic state.

The scale of this "spatial fraud" is staggering. While the total population of Eritrea is estimated at approximately 3.8 million, the Afar people—who number over 3 million across the Horn—saw their ancestral maritime territory annexed by a colonial-border logic that ignored their ethnic and cultural unity. The TGE’s decision to follow the map of an old European empire rather than the "settlement patterns" of the people (as required by Article 46) was not an oversight; it was a deliberate strategy to ensure the Afar could never exercise their right to remain with Ethiopia, thereby finalizing the economic "decapitation" of the nation.

[Getachew K Reda @reda_getachew]

Congratulations, brother @Jawar_Mohammed Your persistent conflation of personal opposition to the Prime Minister with a coherent critique of Ethiopia’s long-term strategic interests is remarkable. Disliking the ruling party does not free you from having to distinguish between regime politics and state/national interests.

Over the past few days, you — once an ally of the Prime Minister but now a vocal critic — have repeatedly attacked Ethiopia for seeking to protect its strategic interests in the context of the Sudanese conflict. Some of the reports you circulate or the ideas you share may be factually accurate in isolation. Yet, you present them without reference to the broader strategic context shaping Ethiopia’s calculations. Facts, detached from structure and strategy, can easily be marshaled into a misleading narrative. 

Do you genuinely believe Ethiopia should behave as a passive bystander in a region defined by intense geopolitical competition? The tragedy unfolding in Sudan is indeed exacerbated by foreign intervention. But Ethiopia is hardly unique in pursuing its interests. In fact, Ethiopia, more than any other country in the region and beyond, stands to lose more as a result of Sudan’s instability. It has a real skin in the game, as it were. Egypt and other regional actors are not neutral mediators; they are actively shaping the trajectory of the conflict to favor their preferred belligerents.

You position yourself as a politician–activist, but your posture suggests an aversion to the very language of national security and strategic interest. In a region marked by proxy competition, transboundary security threats, and zero-sum maneuvering among rival states, such discomfort is not a virtue. It is a liability. States do not have the luxury of moral abstraction when core national interests are at stake.

Moral posturing in such an environment may be emotionally satisfying, but it is not strategy. Critiquing policy is legitimate. However, presenting every move as evidence of strategic folly simply because it originates from Prime Minister Abiy’s government risks substituting partisan grievance for analysis.

More importantly, anyone with aspirations for higher office should be cautious about adopting a scorched-earth posture toward the state itself. While governments change, strategic geography is stubborn. Ethiopia’s long-term national interests are distinct from — and larger than — the party temporarily in power. A credible alternative must demonstrate an ability to separate those two. Thus far, however, you have shown a near-pathological inability to make that distinction.

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

We are so cooked.
We are witnessing the end of an era: Video based evidence is terminal and will not make it through 2026. The consequence for humanity cannot be fully captured in words.

[Charles Curran @charliebcurran]

Seedance 2.0

Prompt: Punch the Monkey punches back. Make the girls proud.

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

Amazing statement by the Ethiopian Government!

The Ethiopian Government’s bold statement is a critical, long-overdue intellectual course correction.

This is truly the high road: a path that finally compels all stakeholders to the negotiating table for the serious discussion that should have happened 30 years ago, but was systematically suppressed.

We can now, rightfully, challenge the legal validity of consequential decisions made by an unelected Transitional Government—a body composed entirely of guerrilla fighters who secured their power through unknown deals and arms from foreign nations. This regime, lacking any popular mandate, unilaterally determined the fate of the Ethiopian people.

After thirty years since the forceful and illegal removal of Eritrea from Ethiopia, we are finally empowered to ask the foundational, unforgivable questions:

- Who was at the table representing whom?

- Were any foreign powers involved, especially those that armed EPLF, TPLF and OLF?

- What debt did EPRDF hold towards those that armed them and put them in power, did they settle their debt for weapons and power by offering Eritrea as payment?

- And, most critically, were all legitimate stakeholders part of that pivotal decision?

This reckoning is not an endpoint; it is merely the beginning. The very powers that intentionally engineered the catastrophic land locking of a nation are the same forces that architected the deeply flawed ethnic federal system—a system that has tragically brought a whole nation to the altar of genocide.

This conversation is now unavoidable. Had those initial forces not been so short-sighted and greedy as to take Assab also, they might have maintained control over western Eritrea. This pivotal discussion is now underway, and it holds the potential to legally end Eritrea’s independence... in its entirety.

[The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia 🇪🇹 @MFAEthiopia]

𝗙𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗷𝗼𝗿 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗿𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗧𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗕𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗘𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗮 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗘𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮, 𝗘𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗜𝘁𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺.

𝗣𝗦: An excerpt (clip) from the Address by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gedion Timothewos Hessebon @GHessebon , at the Foreign Policy Forum on Developments in the Horn of Africa co-organised by Horn Review and Addis Ababa University at 6 Kilo Campus of the University on Thursday, 13 November 2025.

𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗮𝘁: https://t.co/WuFpeAWXX8

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

@Sharronyemane Why do you use our calendar?
Why do you use our 13 months and their names?
Why do you use our Christmas celebration date?
Why do you use our incredibly unique Meskel celebration?

Either accept you are Ethiopian...or stop pretending to be one.

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

Ras Alula was Governor of the whole region, I am pretty sure they went for coffee in a port that was under his command. The question you should be asking is why there are no Eritrean history books that speak of Ras Alula?

As for the Egyptians, they were expelled from Eritrea, Sudan and even Harar and Ogaden.

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

Ethiopia rejects Egypts rejection.

Remember Ethiopia, in 1971 President Mengistu signed a treaty with President Abdul Fattah Ismail of Yemen that declared in Article 8 that both countries, Ethiopia and Yemen, are protectors of the Red Sea.

The treaty also states "THE TREATY IS VALID FOR 20 YEARS AND AUTOMATICALLY RENEWABLE FOR FIVE YEAR PERIODS UNLESS EITHER SIDE GIVES WRITTTEN NOTICE TO TERMINATE SIX MONTHS PRIOR TO ITS EXPIRATION"

Given that neither sides has give a written notice, this treaty is still in effect.

source: https://t.co/hTT1syGU2M

[Ghideon Musa @GhideonMusa]

Egypt rejects Ethiopian involvement in Red Sea governance: Minister affirms https://t.co/4hVA4FqQYq

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

1. Before 1896 Emperor Yohannes IV expelled Egypt from "Eritrea" in some very famous battles:
The Battle of Gundet, 1875
The Battle of Gura, 1876 (South of Asmara)

October 9, 1876 Emperor Yohannes IV appoints Ras Alula as govenor of Mereb Mellash, what is called Eritrea today (not including Assab).

Emperor Yohannes IV also fought off the Italians
The Battle of Dogali, 1887 (Near Massawa).

2. Ogaden is part of the restoration of Ethiopia from the "Zemene Mesafint", the area was always loosely paying tribute to Ethiopian kings. When the Brits and Italian came, Menelik was quick to sign treaties to keep the Brits and Italians as far as possible.

3. Ethiopia was a founding member of UN. Ethiopia is one among the 50 signatories, and only independent African nation, represented by its delegation under Emperor Haile Selassie I...that brought the UN into existence. Not the other way around.

4. Ethiopia and Abyssinia are the same thing. Abyssinia is portugese for "Habesha". If you are Habesha, well you are Abyssinian. locally Ethiopians use "Tobia"

5.Axumite kingdom is the source our Geez language, the oblisks, the ancient temples, our adoption of the greek name "Ethiopia", I know its not taught in Eritrea or even in Tigray, but you can check out the Ezana stone. It is a trilingual stele (found in Aksum) is inscribed in:
Geʽez, Greek, Sabaean

If you read the inscriptions King Ezana clearly calls himself king of Ethiopia. The stones are estimated to be 1700 years old.

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

@EritreaNay Ok, who did we steal it from? What was the name of the king we deposed or name me the battle we fought and whom we fought? Or let's just make it simple, name one historical king or ruler of the Eritrea we know today. Just curious, maybe I don't know and you can educate me.

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

@Sharronyemane I remember when Eritrea seceded 1993. There was just grown ups talking.

But when Eritreans were thrown out of Ethiopia in 1998, the whole city wailed as if our own mother died. There were screams in the streets and people putting dust on their head.

We never cried for a port

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

In the picture — 1991, London Conference.
Left to right:

Herman J. Cohen, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Meles Zenawi, leader of the Tigray secessionist rebels (TPLF)
Lencho Leta, leader of the Oromo secessionist rebels (OLF)
Isaias Afwerki, leader of the Eritrean secessionist rebels (EPLF)

Together, under the anointing of the United States, they redesigned Ethiopia — creating a new state modeled after Yugoslavia’s ethnic federation, dividing one of the world’s oldest nations along ethnic fault lines.

Thirty years later — in an irony of truly epic proportions — Ethiopia finds itself once again at war with those very same forces:
the TPLF, the OLF, and the EPLF (now Eritrea).

What was created in 1991 was not a democratic rebirth.
It takes a special kind of audacity to believe that secessionists would ever defend Ethiopiawenet —
our very essence of unity and nationhood.
What they built instead was a Frankenstein of ethnic hatred and division,
and today, that monster has turned on its makers.

So we must ask:
Do we keep this ethnic federal Frankenstein, gifted to us by secessionist warlords who hate Ethiopia, a creature that has begun devouring its own creators —

or do we end this monstrosity once and for all
and reclaim our historical heritage as a Kingdom of Kings, a melting pot of nations — who answer to the name Ethiopia, and march under the banner of Green, Yellow, and Red?

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

On 22 July 1991 in Addis Ababa,
TPLF, a secessionist rebel group with the intent of ejecting Tigray from Ethiopia collaborates with EPLF another secessionist rebel group whose stated mission is to eject Eritrea from Ethiopia, together with OLF another secessionist rebel group whose mission is to eject Oromo hold a meeting a meeting defining a new Ethiopian charter with a mechanism to collapse the country and collectively reject Ethiopia's access to the sea.

Today Ethiopia is fighting TPLF to the north, OLF to the south, and has been fighting EPLF almost since independence.

At what point can we reject TPLF/EPLF/OLF idea of Ethiopia?

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

Japan unlocking new society levels I didn't even know existed 🤩

[Tarun Gautam @TARUNspeakss]

Man walks in white socks to show how clean the streets of Japan are.
Why can't we have such streets in India?

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

On Ethiopias flag day, lets celebrate the flag our African legends say was not inspired by man but was shown in the rainbow. A flag of Gods promise and a banner under which all Ethiopians find a home. A flag that inspired over a dozen African countries to celebrate these colors.

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

🔥 ETHIOPIA — the Land of Kings and Righteousness.

⚡ The Iliad tells that even the Greek gods crossed the heavens to feast in Ethiopia — eating injera, a sacred bread born of a flower that grows nowhere else on Earth.
👑 The Portuguese sought out our emperors for they knew them to be the Sons of David — heirs of the slayer of Goliath.
🕊️ When the Prophet Muhammad followers fled death, he said, “Go to Abyssinia — there is a king there who wrongs no one.”
✝️ Before Rome built a single church, an Ethiopian was already baptized by Philip, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ.
🏛️ Our kings dreamed of a New Jerusalem — and carved it into the mountains, temples rising from living stone.
👑 Our Queen heard of Solomon’s wisdom and declared, “I will test him myself.” Her legacy remembered in scripture.
🌊 From our highlands is born the Nile for which Herodotus calls it the river that births Egypt.
📜 To comfort the Israelites the prophet Amos proclaimed the words of the Almighty: “Are you not as the Ethiopians unto Me, O children of Israel?” making us a standard of Gods love.
🌟 Even in ancient China, it was written that the King of Ethiopia would send wise men to follow a star and bow before the Light of the world to be born.
🌈 And our flag — red, yellow, and green — is immortalized in legend: given by God Himself and seen in the clouds as a rainbow.
📖 From the rivers of the Garden of Eden the Almighty saw fit that Ghion should run through Ethiopia.
🌠 The Greeks themselves bear witness — for in their constellations, our daughter Andromeda was set among the stars. She crowns the night sky as a sign that Ethiopia’s story is written in heaven.

These are not my boasts. These are the words the world wrote about me in their own languages.

I am not claiming glory — I am remembering it.

🔥 I am Ethiopian. #BeEthiopian

[Beniam 🍓 👑 @dbeniam]

The official name of the new Italian colony was “Nuova Etiopia” meaning "New Ethiopia"

but it was changed in 1890:
"...that has never ceased to intrigue me when I think of Carlo Dossi's Colonia felice (Happy Colony): that its author is the inventor, in 1890, of the name Eritrea (red land, or land on the Red Sea), which is the name of the first Italian colony on African soil."
~ Il regno dei cieli ; La colonia felice, 1985

His full name is Alberto Carlo Pisani Dossi, he named Eritrea.

You may believe you are not not Ethiopian today, but you cannot deny you never were Ethiopian.