I’d never heard the word cult used positively until today.
Perhaps I’m a particularly cynical person, but to me, the idea of a small, closed society
is just a breeding ground for bad behaviour.
There are few things that set off more alarm bells in me than a splinter society
with its own religion, its own laws, and its own way of being.
And yet, standing in this town, I can see the charms.
The average Ethiopian villager must view this place as having all the answers.
It is a project forty years in the making.
The utopian town of Awra Amba.
A cult by any other name.
Just a little over forty years ago, and a man named Zumra Nuru was dissatisfied with his society.
His childhood had been filled with divisions.
Christians and Muslims could not be friends.
Men and women were not treated as equal.
The rich looked down on the poor and the educated on those without.
It was not a society that he respected.
But as Twitter had not been invented yet, he decided to actually do something about it.
In the hills of Northern Ethiopia, Zumra Nuru was going to found a cult.
Or, in his words, a society.
And just like any true society leader, his backstory is littered with feats of incredible skill.
When we talked to his followers, the only thing they’d remind us more than that he was an ordinary man
was just how extraordinary he actually was.
And yet, all his feats somehow seemed believable.
Not that I believed them necessarily, but they were incredibly modest as cultist claims go.
Which I think says a great deal about the audience that he was trying to convince.
His followers bragged to me about how he could read and write at an incredibly young age.
To them, it was near Messianic, but to me it was just a year older than my brother.
Looking back, as well, he clearly went well out of his way to show me that he could read.
I suspect it’s a display that he’s mastered.
And I can only imagine that this comes from the fact that where he grew up,
with no books and no formal education, that would have been a big show.
The priests could read, but few people else.
For a boy to pick it up on his own before he was five, would be divinely inspired.
As a child, it was said, he spoke many languages, almost as well as a full-fledged adult.
It's said that he saw his entire religious philosophy in visions at the age of four.
No matter how much they stated he was just an average man, there was always the prophetic undertone.
In fact, now that I think about it, it seems like every story we were told by Zumra started with “as a child”.
As a child, his mother had beaten him for eating meat that was butchered by a Christian.
Their family was Muslim, and in Ethiopia there’s a strong self-segregation of religions.
But to young Zumra, they were all the same basic animal.
What did it matter who butchered them?
He decided that in his society, there would be no differences of religion.
As a child, Zumra lamented his lack of education.
How can you learn to read when there are no books?
How educated can you possibly become if you work in the fields all day?
In his society, education would be first priority for all people.
As a child he felt pity for the plight of his mother, who was forced to manage the house with no support from her husband.
What difference was gender to working a loom?
In his society, men would do the housework equally, and women would work jobs
that gave them financial independence equal to their husbands.
As a child, Zumra watched as his friends were forced into marriages with older men.
Married because their family needed the meat of the dowry.
In his society, marriages would only happen after people were old enough to decide for themselves.
With these basic tenets, he set out looking for disciples.
And he was immediately met with hostility.
In a land where religion is the foundation of all communities,
where education is secondary to food security, and where history has led to intensely violent ethic divisions,
Zumra was more than just a man working against the grain.
He was a revolutionary.
For years, he was forced to live in the forest, away from society.
If people saw him, they’d attack him.
Maybe even kill him.
He told us that since then, he wears a little green hat to remind himself of those times.
I can’t say that it provides him much in the way of gravitas, but it certainly sets him apart.
Yet, despite the hardships, by the 1980’s he’d found a dozen people who saw the world the way he did,
and together they set up what is now the community of Awra Amba.
Today, when you walk the streets, there are hundreds of families living in nearly identical wattle and daub homes.
They're living a life virtually identical to the way it was intended in the beginning.
And they have become wildly successful.
In modern Awra Amba, life is good.
At least, much better than it was.
Despite oppression from the state and their surrounding communities, despite having been kicked out of their original land
and only having a small pittance returned to them,
the people of this town are thriving.
Citizens of Awra Amba are twice as wealthy as their neighbours.
Everyone is clothed.
Everyone is fed.
The elderly are cared for and new mothers are given a three month maternity leave.
Forced marriages are forbidden.
There are no churches or mosques, but there is a library.
Children who want it are given an education all the way through to university.
There are no communities like this anywhere else in the country.
It's truly self-sufficient, and undeniably prosperous.
But it's also undeniably unique.
And because of that, Awra Amba has received a great deal of attention.
Dozens of journalists have come here to see the miracle.
They call it a utopia in almost every article I've read.
The World Bank sent a research team to find out how this model might be applied to other struggling regions around the globe.
Sheiks, priests, and government officials of all stripes have come through here hoping to witness the miracle.
Hundreds of tourists stream through every week.
The fame of success is somewhat coincidentally becoming the foundation stone of their further success.
But their neighbours aren’t so convinced.
What type of community doesn’t have a church, they ask.
How can these heathens be trusted when they work on religious holidays?
They claim all Gods are the same.
Why are they trying to disrupt the system that everyone knows?
Violence against the citizens of Awra Amba is not uncommon.
They've had residents shot and killed by their neighbours.
They've had their fields destroyed and harvests taken.
They’ve even had a hand grenade thrown into the centre of town.
But the people of this village are not deterred.
They believe that if they continue to act well, and honourably,
the surrounding communities will eventually come to accept them.
To this end, they’ve helped repair local bridges, run low-cost grain mills for nearby farms,
and have even constructed schools that children from the neighbouring region can attend.
For a cultish collective standing at odds with society, the people here are certainly putting in a great deal of effort
to be accepted by their neighbours.
The underlying issue here is the same around the world.
A group that defies local customs, dismisses local gods and centralizes around the idealism of a single person
will always come across to others as, in a sense, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
While researching this episode, it was virtually all I could think about.
When visiting the town, it was the first thing my eyes were looking for.
But standing there, nothing seemed amiss.
Under all the rocks I lifted and the carpets I unswept, there seemed to be nothing there
except normal people looking to lift themselves out of poverty.
Everyday Ethiopians living everyday Ethiopian life.
Despite living at odds with the world around them, these are not a people hiding from it.
They are doing their utmost to grow, thrive, and inspire the next generation of like-minded Ethiopians.
It’s hard not to see this as inspiring.
Awra Amba is a clear model for success, there’s no question about that.
But even now, at the end of this episode, after lathering on minute after minute of praise,
it’s hard for me to truly feel comfortable seeing this place as its presented.
Communes rarely last for long, and deep down, in my heart, I know there are no utopias.
Even when I’m staring one in the face.
But my real question here today is, is Awra Amba a cult?
Or is it a paradise?
I honestly don’t know.
Maybe it’s both.
But as cynical as I may be, there is no denying that it is better here than it has ever been before.
And I, for one, sincerely hope it stays that way.
This is Rare Earth.
[Evan] ...I appreciate it. And thank you for inviting us to your community. [Zumra Nuru] Thank you!