How arrogant! Does she have a stuborn Eritrean boyfriend, who can not be turned on unless she write something 'so Eritrean'?

How old is this girl? I always see some immaturity in this girl. I am not being offensive but is she just dropping out from highschool? Just because some body refused to give her a visa in any way they like, should that imply any thing to the whole of the society? Where is she from? Who is she? She has the right name - that i am very sure of. I am happy she is not able to land on habesha soil - what for? To write another offensive story on Ethiopia and Eritrea based on hearsays and the stereotypes she heard in a bar and a taxi! We have enough history books and experts Mrs. Wrrrong, stay where you are. And please take a moment and listen to what you are saying - I think you need more Disco's!

Thanks, Andrew - funny article!

Michela Wrong may write truth-based fiction like Kapuscinski, but she's just a journalist (no offence, Andrew). She does however, make valid points, often humourously.

So folks, let's enjoy the good and ignore the bad. And this was a good, entertaining article.

I am an Ethiopian with a green card in the US.
My experiences trying to get a visa to some European (especially Italy) counties for a visit makes WRONG'S story mine.
I have jumped through hoops and visited their embassies 5 or 6 times before I was granted the stinking entry stamp. And I am not hater of their governments nor have i written offensive stuff about them. If the excuse is I would go to X country and stay there....my god, I live legally in the US. Why would anyone want to live in Europe when they already have a very comfy life in the US of America?

Mrs. Wrong, you are no exception, so shut up!
I wish I could directly send her this comment!

Mrs. Wrong: I thought you know a lot about us (Ethiopians) and did you say "It's the way an embassy turns down your visa request that tells you everything you need to know about the country in question"...hmm...let me rephrase it, incase it makes more sense..."It's the way a person from Europe is denied to get a VISA to enter an African country that tells you everything you need to know about the person in question"...I think it's better now. Anyway, let me give you a hint as how you can try to get a visa. I see two options...
1. Try changing your last name ... it may be itchy for the officer to happily offer you a VISA.
2. If the VISA officer had read your articles about Ethiopia, may be she/he thinks you're a minor, hence going to the Embassy with your parents will definately help.
Good Luck and let me know if it work, since I intend to charge you for the advice.

Typical comments from Ethiopians and Eritreans... you guys are so proud of yourself that you're not able to think a second about what you might represent for others and accept critics. What will make the world eventually change would take people to challenge themselves and be a bit more flexible. Others certainly have their own stupid sides but why systematically deny ours and feel so agressed ? No surprise that one of the most stupid war in the world- again, based on pure proudness - might go on there for nothing once again.

I can't beleive this woman's stupidity, and arrogance.
"staff who must wake each morning thanking God they escaped a nation in which, since the civil war, nearly four million people have died of malnutrition and preventable diseases"

Congolese diplomats would have died of hunger or diseases had they been in their country, so in some sense they should be grateful to the europeans?

then she says: "I should have remembered the words of the late John Spencer, Haile Selassie's legal adviser... "

whom she described in the new york times as:
"John Spencer, the shrewd American lawyer whose dirty tricks helped Selassie annex Eritrea in 1962"

And then, "To just say "no" would be not only rude, it would be to descend to the level of the crass "ferenji" (foreigner).

She obviously hasn't been to countries like Japan, where saying "no" just as she claims "would be to descend to the level of the crass" "gaijin" (foreigner in Japanese)

http://www.windowontheworldinc.com/countryprofile/japan.html

http://www.japan-101.com/culture/gaijin_japanese_term_foreigners.htm

Who would want to admit in their country someone like that?!?! An ignorant, disrespectful apologist of colonial rule.

I actually thought the Congoleses' rejection of her visa application was so appropriate in that it sent her back into her world full of stereotypes and disdain for Africa.

How did we manage to attract so many nitwits to meskelsquare.com ? I hope meskeklsquare.com keeps on going and not be discouraged by ignoramuses who come to visit and comment.

Mrs.Wrong, There must be a good reason for the embassies to refuse you a visa. A very good reason in fact! Why should they grant you when you are reporting by hearsay in many cases.

When your country Gov.refuses a Congolese or an Ethiopian, your governement reasoning might be a national security issues. Don't you think that an Ethiopian or a Conglese government has the same right to national security?

Get real, if you can not ride an African country for free as you wish, it must be wrong!

When European country fought a sense-less war like European war I (aka WW I) and European war II (aka WW II) were wars of pride.

While, an African wars were a wars of stupidity! How bizzare that can get?
...............................
In fact most war in Europe named as world wars! Only to give them legitmacy. Whose stupidity were all those wars in Europe including the recent war in Kosovo?

May God bless this world from such corrupted thinking!

For once Ms. Wong (also referred to as Ms. Wrong by Dagmawi, and I often concur) said something right. Well done, Ms. Wrong. Clap! Clap!

I think this woman has good talent for writing .... fiction, travel journals, etc. Something fun. I'm just not too impressed by her journalist-wanna-be writings so far, which draw too much on psychology (or something!), and too little on history and facts. She tries pass gossip as a news item. Not cool.

Lighten up, people. That particular article was funny. Don't know much about Congo, but that sure was stereotypical Ethiopian/Eritrean.

Havin said that, I would be curious to hear what Ms. Wong's comment would be on the dismissive manner in which western embassies, notably American, Canadian and British embassies treat Africans/South Asians, before eventually rejecting the majority of visa applications.

The latest LIE and another attempt to deginerate Ethiopians by Michela WRONG. Even a well crafed LIE has a hole in it and Michela WRONG's is no different.

Unknown to Michela WRONG, Ethiopian government did away the requirement of getting a visa at its foreign missions starting January 2002 for nationals of 33 countries. It was done in a bid to foster tourism and business by making it easier to enter the country. Citizens of those countries could obtain their visa upon arrival and both UK and Italy are in the list (She is Italian on her mother's side). Here is the list.

http://www.mfa.gov.et/Consular_Affair_Diplomatic/Visa_Issuance.php?Page=Visa_Issuance_5.htm

Lie Buster, I think we can assume she was going for a work visa with press credentials attached. Not something you can pick up at the airport.

Mrs.Wrong, Welcome to the real part of the planet. I think you are just experiencing the taste of intimidation and humiliation most Ethiopians always encounter whenever and wherever they attempt to cross a boarder.
How was the feeling?

The comparison between Wrong's case and that of African applicants to Western countries shouldn't be pushed too far. If you look at, say, the trouble legitimate Ethiopian applicants have getting visas to the US, I agree some of it is due to ignorance and racism. But I believe some of it is due to a justified worry that they may not leave.

At least three acquaintances of mine have used visas to illegally emigrate to Western countries. And good luck to them - who knows what I'd have done in their shoes? I strongly believe that Western countries should open themselves to more immigration, but meanwhile cases like these don't make it any easier for other Ethiopians to get visas.

No one pretends Eritrea refused Wrong because they were afraid she wouldn't leave. My own experience as a Canadian applying for Ethiopian visas has been very smooth, so I'm guessing some of her problems were due to governments like Eritrea's and, now, Ethiopia's which do their best to arrest or obstruct critical journalists, especially their own. This is a terrible injustice and disservice to their own citizens (much more so than to Ms Wrong) and is much, much rarer in Western countries, and she was right to criticize it.

I support both freer immigration and a free press - but they're not the same thing.

Hi Jacob, I respect your views, but can only lough at your failed attempts to be fair with Mrs. Wrong. It think the issue with immigration is a "dark room" you have never entered. Can you please, tell me why your three acquaintances used illegal visas to imigrate to Western countries? The answer is simple, bcs no one would give them a visa to travel legally!

Wrong's experience seemed mainly with bureaucracy. How about spending a day at the American, British and Canadian and pretty much all western embassies in Addis and witness the humiliating questions asked by the officers? Not only the questions, the attitude and manner of questioning. I doubt they will survive a day in the corporate world of their respective countries with that.

Jacob- it is not that she criticizes that matters -it is the way she criticizes. I donot know if this girl is aware of it but i think she has some sort of negative thinking on Ethiopia.(I am subject for correction if i am wrong). The people in eritrean embassy said NO right away and the people in ethiopian embassy were ... so if the first is very eritrean, then what is very ethiopian? or even very congolese? What is wrong with Ms. Wrong? This nation has so many people with a great deal of hospitality and respect for people - then should we be offended categorically just because some person elsewhere didnot seem to like her or happened to be so beaurocratic? I wouldn't say it is right she was denied a visa but I am just happy personally.
This is a woman who was quick to write about how people in eritrea were proud of being under italian rule (I doubt this!) but didnot care at all to write how proud ethiopians were and still are to kick the invading italians away - well atleast it was not there in the bbc review.
The funny thing about the review was it was full of offenses on particular people and was posted on a Global News Service website!

I think as somebody commented, i think she should be a gossip columnist some where in London or NY. Because you donot have to be very careful when you write gossips - you just write what you hear in a bar, DISCO, taxi or even when you are on a camel! Who cares? After all it is a gossip! But I have a good title for her book - 'Gossiping taboos between brothers in ethiopia and eritrea.' By Ms.Right!

Andrew,
So the lady wants to visit the same people she once indirectly called ignorants. Hold on how did she write those articles and that book?
Without even visiting and evaluating the facts by visitng the countries? She reminds me of those European philosphers that wrote about Africa from Europe and gave a plat form for todays
institutionalised racism.

Here is one of her stubborn comments:
Congo
It's a nation where the thug who mugs you is probably a policemen, where soldiers are paid less each month than the price of a London
cinema ticket, ministries are staffed by thousands of ghost workers and fashion-obsessed locals would rather starve than sport last year's
haircut.

Ferenjis so now you know how it feels like being dehumanised at foreign embassies. Mrs/Miss Wrong got to taste something so right, hmmm.

I wonder what Mrs. "Wrong" would have said if she was sitting next to me in the American Embassy in Ethiopia a few years ago when the couple before me were being asked what color was their bed sheet and how many times they had a roll in the sack the night before. Thank goodness that I didn't make my decision about the U.S.A. on how nasty the immigration officers were at the Embassy in Addis, unlike Mrs. "Wrong" 'cause not all Americans are as bad as those guys in the Embassy.

Hi Folks,
Undoubtedly many Ethiopians have very disturbing stories, dehumanizing treatments and painful experiences with the arrogant Western Immigration Authorities, particularly with the American "embassy staff from the hell". Yet, this is not the right place to release that anger. After all the journalist is entitled to express her own views, even a wrong one. Let us get back to our business. Cheers!

So is this the lady who wrote a book? Funny how every ignorant western journalist who spends a few years in Africa feels that they are now smart enough to write a book. This is child game and someone needs to point this to people like Ms. Wrong.

I am glad she was refused a visa to Ethiopia. Section 221.g should have been given as an excuse. Maybe to the 'sem ina worq', that will add dry English humor.

hi
My visa was put on hold from 15-dec 2005 till now, as I was going for studying in US for MS in Computer Science