B. Mezgebu
24 July 2008
opinion
Addis Ababa — Arguably, a few Asian countries could claim top place in the list, but all the same, a huge number of Ethiopians, followers of the Coptic Christian faith, take their holy waters more seriously than other people do their doctors when it comes to healing their sicknesses. In fact, for many people in ill health, holy waters are a place of last resort.
But for some time now, the holy waters have been sick and are in need of restoring their own health. These sacred sites have become victims of pollution and overuse by other human activities. The water in these holy places is as unclean, as polluted and the volume down to a trickle as the next river.
The conditions of the Jordan River in the Middle East, as reported this week by Time magazine, metaphorically and physically paint a picture that wouldn't be unfamiliar here and I quote: "For centuries, the children of Abraham .Jews, Christians and Muslims, have venerated the Jordan River. So much so that 'Crossing the Jordan' has been a mystical metaphor for liberation and resurrection. These days, it is the river itself that could use some resurrecting. Instead of might torrent "deep and wide" as the gospel songs proclaim, much of the river is a thin rivulet of brown slime largely obscured by reeds. Most of what now flows in between the Jordan's banks is human sewage, almost all of it untreated. The river where John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah, a river so sacred it doesn't need a priest's blessing to be considered holy water, is today, for all intents and purposes, full of crap." Once a year, come Baptism time, followers of the Christian faith in our country repeat this important ritual of the Jordan River in their hamlets and towns. Rivers flowing through the neighborhood are the preferred venues or used to be till some years back. Not any more. Why is that? Mainly because most rivers are deemed polluted and unhealthy enough these days to warrant the plunge. What fool would wade and bathe in a river whose filth is too in your face?
It is said about the Jordan River that if had been allowed to remain robust, healthy, attractive and its waters undiverted for other uses, it would have been more beneficial to all communities concerned than it does today. Christian pilgrims and other tourists from all over the world could bring in more money than growing vegetables and flowers. The strife that follows between the vying communities of the river to out-grab and out-hoard as much water as they can, could have been minimized too.
In much of Ethiopia, the holy waters, be they streams, springs or ponds are facing the same sort of pollutions and degradations that other rivers in the country do. Their watersheds are being desecrated for one reason or another and are exposed to two defacements: One is the despoliation of their plant cover that comes with the deforestation of their forests, overgrazing of their grasslands and the degradation of the natural vegetations, including wetlands. These assaults expose the watershed to heavy runoff or even floods and soil erosion. The other critical despoliation is pollution of the water. Rivers in rural areas are polluted by human sewage and those that make their way through cities and towns are subjected to both industrial pollution and human sewage.
In these pages of the Daily Monitor, a lot has been written about the sad state of our rivers. River environment is deteriorating faster and faster as the years pass. As population numbers rise, the pressure on rivers increases from all angles. There is no responsible organization for the rivers.
Impoverished watersheds are mainly characterized by heavy runoff and silt in rivers. So what we see in the rivers especially during the dry seasons is more silt and less water. The deposited soil and the fine silt in the water kill aquatic life; the reason perhaps why one hardly finds fish in many of the rivers and streams.
In the middle of the dry season, the volume of the water in the rivers is reduced to such an extent that the question, "Is that all", is the typical reaction when crossing some of the supposedly major rivers.
But it is not only rivers that are being degraded. Many of the country's lakes are subjected to the same dangers that our rivers are. Saving our rivers and lakes from degradation should perhaps be a serious challenge to all of us. Save the holy waters by saving the vegetation.
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