The Power of Stories to Shape Perspectives: A Braided Essay

Throughout my younger years my dad Ephrem would tell me stories at all times whenever he felt like. He would grab my arm, take the borrowed phone from my hands and start speaking. These tall tales were always about the place he grew up – a country I thought of as a strange land filled with holy men, ancient ruins, and ferocious beasts of forests and hills. Of course, I ate this all up as a kid who couldn’t distinguish what was true from what was fantasy. His stories made my head fill with imagination, and wonder. I never once questioned the legitimacy of the ways my dad would entertain me with stories of my ancestors – how my great uncle was a war hero that wasn’t given the proper honor he deserved, and that my great grandfather was a wise man that adjudicated agreements between warring clans, or that my great great grandfather was a man that owned many horses, cattle, and much land, so much in fact that his descendants are all named Nejo in his honor. These legends contradicted the stories I heard my classmates tell me in lower school. Many of them believed that Africa was a giant desert filled with lions, elephants, and cheetahs, or that the people lived in wooden huts and hunted gazelle with spears. My peers got these misconceptions from the American culture and shows they watched. I reconciled these two viewpoints by choosing to believe only the things my dad said. As time went on and I got older and older, I started to realize that both these perspectives were equally untrue. The stories my dad told me were glorifications of a home he left and the uninformed thoughts of people here were both perversions of the truth.

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The country of Ethiopia is a place with an incredibly complicated history. The Oromo and other ethnic groups were oppressed through crushed revolution, and long-running imperialism going back to the late 1800s, and as I reached young adulthood, my dad started to tell me different stories. He would tell of freedom fighters and a villainous authoritarian government, and at this point I realized that the stories he told me were grayer than he let on. In some ways he was right and in others he was wrong. The group that warred against the government also entangled civilians in the war while the horrible government tried its best to mitigate damages and at the same time keep people under its thumb. I disagreed with him, but also couldn’t bring myself to say a word against him. The trust I held since childhood overpowered my fragile ideals of fairness and objectivity. All I could do was listen and watch just like I had when I heard his stories for the first time.

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[The story of an unnamed wise man]

“As two enemy clans were at war for land rights after years they decided to negotiate for peace. They consulted a Nejo Yubba (an advisor to large families). As the Yubba was riding his donkey with one of the clan leaders, a vicious storm struck the meeting place. The Yubba and the clan leaders reached the spot, the bank of a large river in the middle of the disputed area.  They both discussed how they could cross without falling in and drowning. The Yubba interjected and in his great wisdom said, “ This river will be the divider of your lands,” and so the two clans had no further quarrels.”

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Historical  Myths of American Idealism

America throughout its history has always been a country of ideals – and myths. History textbooks often display a squeaky-clean aesthetic of American history lacking the depth and nuance of real history, avoiding attempts to show the deeper parts of history involving race and gender. The idealized view of the “founding fathers” continues on in the minds of Americans that are unable to reconcile what they believe are bastions of freedom that owned slaves, or that the glorifications that the Americans used as propaganda were mostly false. The Boston Massacre wasn’t an example of the British systematically eliminating a group of unruly protesters. The Boston tea party was not an example of the British getting justice for oppressing the common men, because these tax increases affected the rich, and the revolutionary war was not an underdog story where the Americans through craftiness and ideals defeated the tyranny of the British. These myths often overcrowd the reality leading to people thinking that fabrications are more important than the truth. A great example of this is the story of Rosa Parks, a civil rights activist who sparked a boycott by refusing to give up her seat after a day of work on the bus. In truth, Ms. Park's civil disobedience was a plan by Civil Rights leaders of Alabama. The spark wasn’t spontaneous, it was deliberate. “Americans are convinced they know this civil rights hero. In textbooks and documentaries, she is the meek seamstress gazing quietly out of a bus window — a symbol of progress and how far we’ve come” (Jeanne Theoharis). This civil rights story was changed to be more palatable to a wider public and led to people discounting the agency and rebellious life of an incredible civil rights activist.

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[The Story of Margaa Nejo]

“Margaa was a farmer turned fighter. He warred against the Italians in their second attempt to conquer Ethiopia. After he became well-known as an enemy of the Italians, two officers came to his quaint house next to his farm. He invited them in and asked for them to leave their shoes and weapons at the door as is tradition. When they sat, two Oromo warriors subdued the now unarmed soldiers. And the hero Margaa fights another day.”

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In Hernan Diaz’s book, In the Distance, the protagonist Håkon’s journey through the Americas is centered around his stories. After he defends himself from the brotherhood, he spends his time constantly reminded of the crimes he deeply regrets. At first, people laude him as a hero, a defender of the weak, and Håkon pushes them away as he feels like his crimes are unforgivable even in self-defense. He walks his path alone until he reaches lands where the brotherhood has twisted the story to absolve themselves of guilt, and Håkon in his solitude fails to realize the ways his legends are told until the sheriff comes and reveals the rumors that will overshadow his life for the rest of his days. As the sheriff parades him through the towns, he announces this: “‘That’s right!’ proclaimed the sheriff, standing on a crate. ‘That’s him!’ The giant sinner! Like I said, caught him myself! The giant murderer!’ Insults, hisses, boos. Someone threw a rock” (Diaz 170). In this scene, the people around him are being fed a doctored legend created to make Håkon appear inhuman and beastly. After he escapes his bondage Håkon abhors his persecution and lives in solitude until he is an old man. As Håkon ages along, he rides his way back to a transformed Clangston where his journey began. He rides until he witnesses a stage with two, beaten and bloodied women “Håkan saw a gigantic man wearing a lion skin, his head is lost in the shade of the hood, but is lost in the shade of the hood,…Out of nowhere, a couple of men rolled out two screens and hid the two women from sight. A man in a bright red suit followed them and, standing in front of the screen, addressed the onlookers. ‘We’ll be right back in an eye blink my friends.’ Håkon shrunk in his saddle and gently touched his horse” (Diaz 237). When Hãkon stumbles into a play based on what people think of his life he realizes that the legends stayed fresh in the minds of the people even though Hãkon himself has withered. Through Hãkon’s adventures, he sees the ways a story can leave the control of its protagonist until it’s unrecognizable.

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Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris is a stage drama about four families and modernity’s battle with tradition. The inciting incident for the entire plot is the death of Kenneth, a veteran of the Korean war whose involvement with murder and bloodshed leads to a greatly troubled life. Much like Håkon in an attempt to do what he is told to do, he is ostracized. Even if what he was ordered to do was necessary. “[Jim] People were frightened, Russ. [Russ] Ahh of what? He was gonna snap? Gonna go kill another bunch of people? Send him off to defend the goddamn country, he does like he’s told only to find out the kinda sons-of-bitches he’s defending?” (Norris 88). Kenneth’s actions create a gap with him and the people around him. Since he is unable to run to solitude, he is forced to see the faces of his neighbors as a constant reminder of the crimes he committed. This leads to Kenneth taking his own life leaving a suicide note for the people who cared for him. Stories and assumptions lead to unavoidable pain.

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[The Story of Abiy Ahmed]

“Abiy. Even though he is not related to us, he is Oromo. The first person like us to become prime minister of Ethiopia. He is a sign of change, a Nobel peace prize winner, and a good man. We will see equality in not too long.”

“Abiy is a man who is all those things, but he is again a complicated man. He won an award for stopping a war, but he has started many more. He imprisons his opposition whether Oromo or not. He is power-hungry and represses his own citizens. We went to his rally I saw how you were blinded with hope,  but it is all lead-up to this great letdown and years of pain.”

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I sat there in my desk chair contemplating what I just finished reading, the story of Håkon Söderström. A story I enjoyed, but it ending on such an odd note left me unsatisfied. His journey felt empty with so many unanswered questions: Where was his brother? what life would he live in Sweden? and why did Diaz write a tale with so little joy? Every joy Håkon had had in life was gone, his journey and life made infinitely more difficult because of one case of self-defense and a myth perpetuated by liars and profiteers. I started to think about the stories I was told as a child about sanitized history and false glories. I started to relate the sadness of not being in control of a major part of someone’s life the way they are perceived, until the idea for this essay came into mind. Even though the legends people tell each other are often false, they entertain and inspire as they did to me as a kid, but once a story falls into cruel nonsense and rumors, it can destroy lives.