Welcome to Your Hadiya Media Network Site!
Maintained by volunteers, this site will host information; news; ideas; & entertainment produced by volunteers that are knowledgeable and passionate about issues of concern for Hadiya people of Ethiopia and the country in general.
Our target audience is anyone who seeks to learn something about Hadiya people of Ethiopia – their culture, language, history, current situation, their news, and more.
By engaging community in discussion, we hope to contribute to the knowledge available about Hadiya ethnic group of Ethiopia – to the Hadiya themselves (yes, there is a lack of information here too), other Ethiopians, and the global community. Note that our definition of Hadiya people is inclusive of persons who live or grew up in Hadiya areas and who identify themselves as ethnically Hadiya regardless of their ancestry.
In some instances, by chatting about selected news cycle-driven, and transient issues, we will attempt to provide analysis of events and news by our own staff or invited guests. We aim to stay clear of party politics and focus on the survival of Hadiya culture, language, and its identity as people regardless of which party may be willing to take affirmative actions to achieve this goal.
Among other functions, culture is a source of dignity and identity for the people. It encompasses people’s shared beliefs, moral codes, value systems, art, law, customs, habits, wisdom, skills, and more. People would not voluntarily lose their culture, but they certainly get complacent and fail to preserve good cultural assets. The losing community may not even be aware of the erosion due to its slow nature spanning generations.
It is a concern for the country as well. A country like Ethiopia would not want to lose the richness of its divers cultural assets. Majority of Ethiopians at home and in the diaspora seem to be proud of the country’s diversity. That is a positive new-found consciousness.
The nation would want to preserve its cultures and languages assets. But this requires hard policy choices in practical terms in a country with the history like ours. In Ethiopia, many formerly marginalized cultures, identities, and languages, have to be seen as already-damaged assets needing repair and revival. We know for instance, that many Hadiya youth have never heard that Hadiya was once one of the most powerful kingdoms of its time in the Horn of Africa. Is it any wonder then, that they show no inclination for learning their heritage language, Hadiyya (Hadiyyisa)? (An article here argues that Hadiyya language is heading for extinction in a generation or two due to this and other factors.)
But this is not a problem of young people alone. Older people too are not aware of what has been lost to external acculturation forces – as manifested, such as, by their use of words borrowed from dominant Amharic language when a perfectly valid Hadiyyisa equivalent exists. Requisite part of any cultural and language reinvigorating effort at the national level and at the level of formerly marginalized ethnic groups themselves building a vibrant media in those languages. Hadiya Media Network is established in that spirit.
Hadiya Media Network aims to:
- By using Hadiyyisa in media, to help the language and its associated orally transmitted narratives, oral poetry, chants, songs, and recitals are nearing extinction due to variety of forces at play (hegemonic power of dominant language, Amharic, modernization/globalization/urbanization, legacy of social stigma associated with historically marginalized language, lack of institutional preservation efforts, etc…)
- Contribute towards preservation of Hadiya culture from unintended, but powerful forces that are destroying it.
- Create opportunity to older Hadiya to pass the traditions, culture, heritage elements, and language to the younger generation.
- Encourage scholarly work on Hadiya history, culture, and language.
- Expose to our audience studies, papers, and books about Hadiya.
- Expose scholars and their work to our audience. pioneering scholars of Hadiya history and culture, such as Ulrich Braukamper, remain unknown and underutilized.
- Expose to our audience the scholarly resources & collections of institutions pioneering Hadiya studies, such as Frobenius Institute of Germany, remain underutilized.
- Help fight the observed acceleration in the pace of loss of Hadiya culture and that of Hadiyissa language seemingly due to globalization (e.g., the Internet, increasing contact with the outside world), and pressures of pop culture (e.g, affecting the youth).
By bringing out less known traditions, history, artifacts, pictures, videos, blogs, and news of Hadiya people of Ethiopia we hope to help our audience acquire knowledge and understanding of Hadiya people and possibly even collaborate with each other on cultural and language preservation and revival projects. Our focus will not be on the ethnic politics of the day. Instead, we focus on discussions that have long-term impact on Hadiya, linguistically, culturally, socially, and economically by using objective facts, data, and scholarly products where possible and our editorial opinions are clearly distinguishable. We hope you enjoy our contents.
In the future, our home page is a good starting spot to start exploring the site. For now; enjoy great posts, articles, pictures, video about Hadiya from our team at hadiyajourney.com website.
Thank you for stopping by, but keep checking back for more!
