It was quite a trip (no pun intended - LOL).
I started with Beshir about a year ago, reluctantly, since I didn't like the theme of her work, and I don't personally like her.
But, she forced herself into the film and political scene, with the ultimate aim to harm Ethiopia.
I think I successfully provided an alternate to her "narrative," and possibly thwarted more mainstream international recognition (possibly an Oscar).
I am sure she has other works up her sleeve, but nothing as dramatic as her Faya Dayi.
There is something that protects and looks over Ethiopia. Perhaps I was put in place with my particular talents and connections: my family's Harar connections, my Mexico years, knowing about her through her own family in Mexico, my rupture from that family through my intuitive understanding that they wished to harm a capable representative of the Ethiopian Embassy while I was there in Mexico, who became my friend along with his wife and young son, and my own artistic and film background in practice, as a writer and as a critic.
Beshir appears innocent and naive, but she is, as I wrote recently to a Mexican friend, important and dangerous.
Important because in this time of the world's (the United States's current government, and the various European leaders') alignment against Ethiopia - an independent and leading country in Africa, Beshir came out as a voice against Ethiopia, and whose film could be a source of reference.
Dangerous because several West-based secessionist groups, who wish the Oromo region to secede from the rest of Ethiopia - the Oromo region being where Beshir filmed her "docudrama" - have associated with her, although she cleverly avoids direct association with them. But, in my analysis, whether she publicly declares this or not, she is part of the secessionists.
All my articles on Beshir can be accessed through the search box at the top of my website, using Faya Dayi or Beshir.
So, in this world of volatile politics and latent, potential, regional battles, Beshir, and her associates, could well ignite these flames. Although, I don't think this is possible anymore, after PM Abiy's successful eradication of old guard rebels from the Tigray region, and similarly from the Oromo region.
Ordinary Ethiopians do not want a splintered country, whether Tigray, Oromo, Amhara, Afari, Somali, etc., etc. They trust their new leader, and showed their solidarity by confirming his second term through a national election with record voter turn-out.
Ethiopia is here to stay.
Beshir can remain in her Brooklyn apartment, and cook up her next project. But anything that she does to malign Ethiopia, I will be the first to find it, and to report it.