The Third Revolution

June 12, 2025

A Personal Dossier of Ethiopia’s Wounded Hope is both a testimony and a confession at the heart of The Third Revolution. It begins with a simple but devastating realization: Ethiopians often pray with sincere hearts but without full understanding of what they are asking for. Rooted in the author’s rural upbringing in the Ethiopian highlands, the book traces a life shaped by hardship, humility, service, and an unbroken love for country. From herding cattle as a child to serving vulnerable communities through NGO work, the author presents himself not as a scholar or politician, but as a witness whose deepest motivation is a burning desire for truth, justice, and the end of poverty in a world of abundance. The narrative deepens through a spiritual journey centered on Entoto Maryam, a sacred refuge overlooking Addis Ababa. As a university student and later a professional, the author climbed Entoto in moments of personal pain and national crisis, turning prayer into an act of both resistance and hope. These moments of solitude and intercession form the spiritual backbone of the book, revealing how faith once provided clarity, endurance, and a sense of divine nearness amid Ethiopia’s recurring turmoil. At the center of the dossier lies a painful national memory: the crisis of 2018 and the prayer for a leader who could heal Ethiopia. The author recounts, with solemn honesty, how he personally prayed for Abiy Ahmed’s rise, believing it to be an answer from God. The nationwide euphoria that followed—rallies, songs, banners, and hope-filled faces—appeared to confirm that prayer had been heard. This period is presented not as naïveté, but as collective longing: a wounded nation desperate for order, unity, and peace. The book then turns sharply toward reckoning. What once seemed like divine deliverance is reinterpreted as a tragic lesson in discernment. Drawing on biblical warnings about deception and false light, the author confronts the devastating consequences that followed—especially the violence, displacement, and suffering in the Amhara region. This realization transforms the book into an act of repentance: a confession of a “dangerous prayer” and a warning about mistaking charisma, spectacle, and political promise for true redemption. Ultimately, The Third Revolution redefines revolution itself. It rejects political salvation, rallies, slogans, and personalities, calling instead for a spiritual uprising marked by repentance, fasting, prayer, and moral cleansing. Ethiopia’s rebirth, the author insists, will not be a festival but a furnace—painful, purifying, and holy. The book closes as a manifesto and a prayer: not for another leader, but for God’s will; not for comfort, but for cleansing; not for power, but for a return to sacred purpose. It is a cry from ashes, still holding hope, but now tempered by humility, discernment, and faith refined by fire.