A Letter Sent Directly to Mr. Doyer – General Manager of Heineken Ethiopia

By Malkaa Guutuu*

To:
Johan Doyer, General Manager of Heineken Ethiopia
Email: johan.doyer@heineken.com

12/27/2013

Dear Mr. Doyer:

I understand that the enterprise you are currently running – Bedele Brewery – is a sole sponsor of the planned concert tour of Ethiopia by Tewodros Kassahun, a famous Ethiopian singer, who through his art, glorifies the legacy of Menelik the II – an emperor who had brutalized my people – the Oromo, setting in motion a system that has reduced us into second-class citizens in our own homeland. I am also aware that your esteemed company has been advised of the negative implications (for the Oromo and other oppressed nations in the country) of your exclusive sponsorship of this concert, but it appears that you might still be going ahead with the project anyway.

It is not my responsibility to convince you that the country in which you are currently doing business has a complicated and tortured history, largely because of the barbaric deeds of the former king that “your business partner” considers a hero. Based on your actions and lack of actions, I am led to believe the following: You either lack a rudimentary understanding of the history and current socio-political landscape of the market in which you are operating; or, you are one careless Ferenji, who thinks he/she can get away with a deeply offensive approach to marketing your products. It is likely that your crash course on Ethiopia did not take into account what we – the Oromo people – think of king Menelik and those who venerate him; we regard them with contempt! It is also possible that your Ethiopian handlers might have fed you an increasingly untenable and largely discredited, Amhara-centric view of the country.

Whatever might have caused your decision, to inject yourself in a hot political issue that divides the country in a significant way, will prove to be a foolish business undertaking that will, sooner or later, hurt your brewery’s bottom line. It is an unforced error unworthy of a business leader of your caliber, and here are some of the main reasons why.

The Oromo are the largest national group constituting anywhere between 35% and 45% of the country’s population, depending on who does the counting.  I find it incredible that you would engage in a business practice that will potentially alienate up to 40% of your customer base, since (you can take my word for it) anything that remotely glorifies Menelik’s colonial undertaking is beyond toxic among the Oromo people. Additionally, as a group, we have the highest disposable income of the dominant national groups in the country. According to the 2005 and 2010 Ethiopian Income and Expenditure Survey, the Oromia region has one of the highest per-capita incomes in the country, which is not surprising since the Oromo country is the most economically viable region in the empire. I suspect that proximity-to-market might have been one of the factors among many pertinent considerations that justified the setting up of the Brewery in Oromia in the first place. It thus does not surprise me if it turned out that the majority of your customers hail from this region, with the overwhelming majority being Oromo nationals.

Even if we are temporarily a politically marginalized group in Ethiopia, we are engaged in a struggle on multiple fronts to reclaim our natural rights, as you just might be beginning to learn the hard way. I assure you that we will rise to the occasion and take our rightful place in the community of nations sooner than many are expecting. Neither you nor your company would want to be remembered as among those who aided and abetted groups that have earned our disdain through their callous actions.

Tewodros Kassahun is no doubt exploiting your ignorance of the country’s political environment, or your negligence, to make a few bucks. He is certainly rational when judged on a purely hedonistic criterion. He sings almost exclusively in Amharic with his fan base consisting largely, if not entirely, of those nostalgic for the dying Ethiopia in which the non-Amharic speaking populations are assimilated into the Amhara culture. His art never spoke to the plight of the Oromo and other oppressed peoples in Ethiopia. He never had a foothold in the Oromo music market, which (I might add) is currently flourishing phenomenally, after a century of being subjected to systematic suppression of one form or another. He could not lose the Oromo, because he never had them to begin with.

What I find flabbergasting is your decision to enter into a deal with Tewodros, who is lionizing a figure that the Oromo public (your loyal customers, I deduce) find reprehensible. For the institution you are running, it makes no economic sense whatsoever. By aligning yourself with Tewodros Kassahun, who at most caters to a third of Ethiopia’s population and is in a crusade to re-invent Menelik’s Ethiopia, you have betrayed an astounding lack of business sense required to compete in an increasingly pluralistic world. If I were you I would admit the mistake, and sever any and all ties with *Afro* effective immediately. That is the only prudent approach I see out of this mess.

Sincerely,

Malkaa Guutuu

Cc:

- Ms. Marnie Kontovraki, Brands and Consumer PR, email: pressoffice@heineken.com

- Mr. George Toulantas, Director of Investor Relations, email: investors@heineken.com

- Ms. Sonya Ghobria, Senior Investor Relations Manager, email: ghobrial@heineken.com.

- Mr. Hans-Sjouke Koopal, Heineken Netherlands, email: persinfo@heineken.nl

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