Ethiopia: What is Beautiful and What is not Beautiful?

The crowning of a 22-year old college student from Gambella as Miss Ethiopia 2009 has generated a buzz on the Internet. For about a week now none-stop all Ethiopian through out the world are talking about Chuna Okok. In every Ethiopian website you go to, tens of thousands of readers viewed the article and more than 130 comments were posted on the topic. Some readers reacted with cynicism about the crowning of Chuna Okok, while others posted congratulatory messages. It is the week's most popular story, in fact getting crazy out there about her.

Winner of the title of Miss Ethiopia 2009 Chuna Okok (C) poses with the first runner-up Meron Getachew (L) and the second runner-up Samrawit (R) during the Miss Ethiopia 2009 Beauty Pageant in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, Jan. 18, 2009.(Xinhua Photo)

First and foremost, let me congratulate Ms. Chuna Okok for her natural beauty and for winning the contest in Ethiopia.

Nevertheless, I have the following burning questions in my chest in regards to this so-called beauty contests such as the Ms Ethiopia or Ms South Africa or Ms Africa or Ms Asia or Ms Europe or Ms World:

Ever heard of Cultural Genocide?

Beauty and Beauty contest on what standards?

Is the beauty measured and based on the modern Western Standards, the only most beautiful anywhere?

What about our cultural and traditional African Standards of measuring beauty? Is not beautiful too?

And how can one say with a straight face that a young, blossoming, beautiful, promising and hopeful young Boran girl,

or a Toposa girl
or an Ogadeni girl
or a Tigray girl
or an Amhara girl
or an Afar girl
or a Sidama girl
or Hareri girl
or an Eritrean Girl
or a Masai girl
or a kikuyu girl
or a Dinka girl
or a Zulu girl
or a Tutsi girl, etc.,

who is also fresh and elegant, physically fit, with clean white teeth, and dresses in her traditional gear, etc. that she is not really beautiful? Is that justice?

Miss South Sudan 2005

Aren't these two little Masai girls cute?

And can't they in the future win the Ms Kenya beauty contest as they are in their own cultural gear?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKKSqooIPaU

And after listening keenly to their sharp voices and melodious song, wouldn't you just wish to give them a hug?

On the other hand, I would like to inform the ignorant trabalists or racists on this forum that every tribe, ethnic group and race on this planet considers themselves as superior than, every other humans.

Short story:

A Masai Elder once told me that, you see these inferior Kikuyu tribe who now dress in European clothes, rules the country and boasts around to all other ethnic groups as superiors since Jomo Kenyatta, the founding father of Kenya hails from them had before independence been:

1.) Primitive, backward, dirty, and poor people, and

2.) They are natural cowards to this day.

Elder: After all, they have a poor culture and traditions and customs.

I asked how is this so?

The Elder told me that they are farmers who toil hard and depend on the soil. That is why they are dirty and poor, while we are free, proud and in abundance with livestock and drink milk and eat meat.

He further said, we used to raid their villages and they used to all flee without defending themselves, while screaming and crying loudly with fear like little girls. And we used to loot all their grains for the season, which they have stored in their granaries; We even used to take away their little girl children after selection of their beauty to be brought up as Masai Girls for future marriage.

The Elder further told me that at times they used to give them some temporary peace and do battering trade with them i.e. exchanging our goats for their maize and beans grains and sometimes cheat them because they are naturally primitive, inferior and stupid!!

I asked how do you cheat them?

The Elder told me that sometimes they used to travel to the furthest Kikuyu hamlets whose people have never seen a goat, but heard that some other Kikuyus are trading with the Masai and do exchange their grains for goats from the Masai. And we used to sometimes trade dogs to them as goats and they wouldn't know the difference between a goat and a goat!

The Elder went on to say that one day there was a Kikuyu villager whom we sold a dog. We tied the dog on a trunk of a tree in front of his house and we took the grains away. After three days, we heard that the Kikuyu have slaughtered and ate the dog. And this came about after the dog refused to eat the grass the Kikuyu placed in front of it and the dog began to starve then, this Kikuyu complained to his neighbour that the Masai has sold him a very bad and untamed goat who also have a long thin tail and it wouldn't eat grass. And that when you go near it, it will fiercely snarl at you and expose white sharp teeth. What can I do my dear friend? And the neighbour advised him to slaughter the goat (dog) rather than seeing it die of starvation and further insisted to his neighbour to be generous and give a leg of the goat (dog) as a loan, which he did.

So you see they are primitive, backward, dirty, and poor people ate the dog. But see them today wearing suits and claiming to be the ruling class or even the royal family!! Isn't that amazing?

And I replied, Yes, it is indeed amazing! END OF STORY.

Nevertheless, the now powerful and rich Kikuyus still respect and fear the Masai to this day. And the Masai continue to despise them along with many other Bantu tribes in Kenya.

But what about the perception the Kikuyu has on the Masai ethnic group? I am sure they too probably despise the Masai as being uncivilized, primitive, backward, and dirty, etc.

This denotes that every ethnic group or race believe that they are the best or the most superior and that all others are inferior or even outcasts.

Therefore, let us all go along here and begin to end on this forum idiotic tribalism and racial slurs. And please keep your perceived "good culture and traditions and racial superiority" to yourselves.