By: Fistum Getachew
‘Lassibibet’ (‘let me think over it’ in Amharic,) is a thought-provoking book of one hundred thirty pages written by Frealem Shibabaw. Frealem is what one would call a sort of ‘social entrepreneur’ and an educator before being writer. Her book is a sort of account of many of the social engagements in which she got involved and how she faced them overcoming the obstacles along the road. Her disappointment must have compelled her to write this particular book which could serve for the creation of awareness on a host of societal day to day events that are neglected and yet negatively affect certain vulnerable categories of the society.
The book focuses a lot on the situation of disadvantaged children hailing from generally low-income families and women in more or less similar plight. The children often lack access to proper education. The women may struggle in asserting their fundamental rights as citizens. They find it difficult to overcome a certain mentality that is bent to keeping them almost marginalized, oppressed and discriminated.
The writer’s narration shows that she has always been engaged in one way or another in ‘social activism’ trying to create awareness among apathetic people, mainly influential ones, apparently lacking the will to act and help rectify ‘social wrongs’. Evidently, they may lack initiative and commitment. Or they may feel helpless and that derives from the conviction that they can do little to change things even when they may have the authority to take an effective measure that could change things for the better.
Frealem underlines the negative consequences of neglecting or abandoning our children not only by depriving them of decent food but also by denying them access to decent education. She feels the rights of children and women are not given the necessary attention to fight certain negative societal attitudes that have been rolling over across the years being a part of our culture. She argues that women and children are often taken for granted by our society. This has a huge negative impact not only on them but on the country as a whole. They are part of the fundamental fabric of our society and we need to take care of them for our own good. Prejudicial attitudes must be fought and changed; she underlines.
In her activism for the rights of vulnerable categories of people she narrates incidents that actually happened to her in her own personal life. Her family background has enabled her to appreciate many things she has grown with. Others may lack the same occasions. Coming from a well-off background, she had the opportunity to go to the US and follow her studies. Her sisters happen to be renowned personalities for their musical exploit both in the worldly category as well as in the spiritual genre.
Frealem is clearly a very committed and socially engaged person who does not tolerate social injustices and prejudices mostly inherited from the past and taken for granted. She does not refrain from making her voice heard and this book narrates her experiences in life. She is convinced that in our society women are often treated unfairly as are children, particularly those who hail from poor family backgrounds. She writes she has often seen their rights neglected or violated mainly due to indifference or lack of enough awareness by the society. The same is true with women who for a number of reasons find themselves facing discrimination and negligence because of long established malpractices.
One can conclude after reading ‘Lassibibet’ that Frealem has been actively taking part in community endeavours aimed at changing the mentality of people through persistent social activism. She is a teacher, director of school and officer in philanthropist NGOs. She tries to use her knowledge and influence to challenge and change certain negative attitudes in our society.
Her book is basically a kind of biographic account which narrates her social commitments and how she had to overcome several obstacles and reject bad habits and practices as well as inefficiencies in certain local administrative circles. Her actions have often driven her to achieve certain objectives such as assisting women and children in difficult conditions.
Frealem describes our characteristics as a community, a society and our values and practices in life. Not challenging them has led us to be complicit in creating a stagnant society with little improvement along the years. Deep rooted malpractices and unfair established norms have been allowed to roll across generations in apathy. The book describes her actual experience in several social activities that relate to children, women and the society in general. The writer aims to bring to the attention of the relevant bodies on certain thought-provoking issues. She acts as a voice for categories of people who deserve more attention, be listened to and get better treatment.
Our culture does not allow for too many questions to be posed by children, she observes, especially if the questions seem difficult to answer or any response would be far away from their ability to appreciate the answers. It is natural that children be curious as they get exposed to a new reality with life and want to know why things are the way they are or why we do what we do. The writer narrates clearly and illustratively based on her own personal experience and incidents she passed through.
She argues adults usually do not find it palatable to be asked questions by kids. This may be because certain adults do not consider well the curiosity of kids. Children ask questions because of their natural desire to explore the world and satisfy their innate curiosity. Adults often dismiss their questions impatiently by even scolding them for their insistence. She says in our society, there is often a biased general tendency of a feeling of being challenged when people pose questions. Frustrating children who ask questions is very bad because it can affect their confidence and their desire to know more, to learn going forward. This could also bring negative impact on their pursuit of academic knowledge.
Many times, when Frealem faces such challenges, she does not pretend to have prompt answers to every question and her immediate answer would be a cautious, ‘let me think over it’ and I will be back to you later on. ‘Lassibibet’ is the word she is often fond of using. She narrates several episodes in which she was actually presented by challenging questions to which she could not give an immediate answer. She had to be cautious in answering not to transmit her bias or doubtful thoughts to the children. She realizes her answer could affect them in their future life. She writes that she often faced many questions from her students and even from her daughter.
She goes on to narrate that once she was confronted with the question by one boy in her school: ‘what is democracy?’ and ‘is there democracy in our country?’ and ‘is our government democratic?’ She was surprised and amazed by the desire of the kid to know about such a concept. She was impressed by his candid and bold questions. Her immediate answer was to stop for a while and look for a proper answer, but she says she was not sure in what way to answer. She said she did not feel comfortable to dismiss the question nor to give him an immediate and easy answer as she thought her answer could affect the mentality of the student. Hence, she needed to take some time and reflect on the best answer possible that would not transmit her own bias or prejudices to the boy.
So, what she did was not to scold the student for posing such a ‘complicated’ question but to encourage him to pose any question for which he felt he needed an answer and explanation. But in this particular case what she immediately told the student was hold on, “let me think about it’ and ‘I will come back with the answer tomorrow’. So, she refrained from disappointing the kid by dismissing his question. Frealem is convinced that students should be encouraged to ask questions actively because that stimulates their desire to learn more. It is only ‘sluggish’ or frightened students who have no questions to ask. They lack the courage to do so because they have often been dismissed or discouraged.
Meanwhile, adults should not pretend to have answers to every question, Frealem writes. They should also be careful not to give wrong answers or transmit their personal bias to their kids. They should be honest enough to also admit that they do not always have the right answer and ask for more time to find one, just as what Frealem would do. Answers given to children should be considered well not to give them the wrong impression. That answer could get deep into the shaping of the future personality of the child. Frealem says she would not want to instill her personal beliefs or assessments or bias in the mind of the curious children. She tries to be as objective as possible.
In family when her daughter would ask her to allow her to do something such as playing outside for an extended period of time, her immediate response was ‘Lassibibet’ which meant let me calculate the risks her daughter may run due to such freedom, distant from her watch. ‘Lassibibet’ was to become a catch word in the family and this did not please or satisfy the needs of the kids who would often want immediate answers to their queries and desires.
The writer goes on to state no one is required to have readymade answers for every question asked. If we do not have the answers, we might as well admit it, independently of what the one who posed the question might expect or feel. One can say ‘give me time to think about it’ and ‘we can try to answer it together’ encouraging the one who asked to think for themselves as well.
The title of the book ‘Lassibibet’ itself is an invitation that whenever there are difficult questions we should not rush to give an immediate and dismissive answer if we are not sure of it. It is not scandalous not to be able to answer every question under the sun! And there is nothing to be embarrassed about such reality. No one has magic answers to every question unless they are accustomed to lying and do not care that their answers could mislead children or create in them life long bias about certain things.
We should not forget that children’s minds are white papers and they tend to absorb what adults tell them, particularly if they rely on them or trust them or consider them as an ‘authority’. That is why the author recommends that people should take the time to consider the implications of any answer that could generate lifelong impact.