We all have moral obligations to be kind and courteous to one another. And we also have moral and legal obligations to pay back our debts. The difference between the two is however, the latter is quantifiable where the medium of exchange is money. Nonetheless, both are debts. Can we safely say then, human relationship is tied and expressed in debts. That is not of course to say that, once the debt is settled, human relationship ceases to exist for the end of one is the beginning of another.
Here, I introduce five Tegaru from Mekele: ኣይተ ዑመር: ወይዘሮ እዝግሃርያ: ወይዘሮ ፋጥማ: ኣይተ ገረቻኣል: ወይዘሮ ሃንሱ:: As it happened, ኣይተ ዑመር was short of tomatoes and he goes to ኣይተ ገረቻኣል and he asks him for five pieces of tomatoes and ኣይተ ገረቻኣል gives it to him readily. And ኣይተ ዑመር asks ኣይተ ገረቻኣል if there was something he needs in exchange for the tomatoes and ኣይተ ገረቻኣል says, there was nothing he needs in return. ኣይተ ዑመር takes out a piece of paper of his pocket and he writes down that he has taken five pieces of tomatoes from ኣይተ ገረቻኣል and he gives it to him. In two days or so, ኣይተ ገረቻኣል needed a cup of oil and he goes to ወይዘሮ ፋጥማ and he asks her if she has some and she complied. And he asks her if she needs something in return and she says, there was none she needs in return. He takes out the piece of paper he received from ኣይተ ዑመር and he gives it to her.
And the next day, ወይዘሮ ፋጥማ goes to ወይዘሮ ሃንሱ to ask her for two cups of sugar and ወይዘሮ ሃንሱ gives it to her and ወይዘሮ ፋጥማ asks her if she needs anything in return and ወይዘሮ ሃንሱ says, there was nothing she needs in return. ወይዘሮ ፋጥማ takes out the piece of paper she got from ኣይተ ገረቻኣል and gives it to her. After a week or so, ወይዘሮ ሃንሱ goes to ወይዘሮ እዝጊሃርያ to ask her for a bar of soap and ወይዘሮ እዝግሃርያ gives it to her and ወይዘሮ ሃንሱ asks her if she needs something in return and ወይዘሮ እዝግሃርያ says, there was nothing she needs in return….and ወይዘሮ ሃንሱ takes out the piece of paper she got from ወይዘሮ ፋጥማ and gives it to ወይዘሮ እዝጊሃርያ…..
The hypothetical scenario is befitting within the dire situation in Tigray and it is “convenient” to assume that money as a medium of exchange is practically none-existent. If that piece of paper is, say, to circulate with in the city-Mekele, it functions as a medium of exchange—money if you will. That is not the main point, however. The point is that, if ኣይተ ገረቻኣል needed something in return for the tomatoes, ኣይተ ዑመር wouldn’t have given him the piece of paper and that piece of paper would have ceased to function as a medium of exchange. In that case, one can conclude that, the origin of money is debt! If the first debt was paid, there wouldn’t be any money at all.
Here is another significant insight one can glean from the hypothetical scenario of the interactions of the five Tegaru: the value of a unit of currency is not the measure of the value of an object but the measure of one’s trust in other people. This great insight is according to the late anthropologist David Graeber—cited in his brilliant book, “Debt: The First 5000 Years.” Graeber goes on to illustrate that, the first successful central bank in history was the Bank of England which was founded in 1694. And the reason it was successful when others faltered was because, the bank was founded on the “logic of debt.” The rationale goes, “…..In 1694, a consortium of English bankers made a loan of 1.2 million pounds to the king. In return, they received a royal monopoly on the issuance of bank notes. That means, they had the right to advance IOUs [I Owe You—a certificate or a paper that acknowledges the existence of a debt] for the portion of the money the king now owed them to any inhabitant of the kingdom willing to borrow from them….while they got interest on the money they had already lent the king…”
The strange thing is that, the money in pounds that is being transacted in UK today originated in unpaid debt. So is any money being used around the world.
How about Tigray? As part of the “dry the sea to kill the fish” outdated use of starvation as a means of war, Abiy Ahmed has also dried up the money flow into Tigray when the banks are rendered defunct as a result. When that is in the open, on the other hand, allegedly, greedy and selfish Tegaru are hoarding millions if not billions of Birr somewhere in Tigray when shortage of money is taking its dire toll on the people.
One can only appreciate the positive impact if the super wealthy Tegaru lend their money to the government and the later establishes a Central Bank where the money owed can be paid back with reasonable interest when the dust is settled so to speak. It is true that, it is a hard earned money but what is the use of money if it is sitting idle stashed away under mattresses and pillows—the measure of the value of their stashed money is their trust in the Tigrean people—their own people.
Most of all, the moral dimension is too strong to resist when practically every Tigrean is mobilized to dig Tigray out of the quagmire once and for all. It is also symbolic when Tigray is morphing onto a statehood where having her own Central Bank with her own bank-notes that comes with it spares her not only from dependence on the whims of the central government but can manage her fiscal and monetary policies according to her political economy and political philosophy as well.