"Dr Dereje Gerefa Tullu": When Education Turns Against Humanity
Excerpt
When a PhD-educated public figure like "Dereje Gerefa Tullu" employs dehumanizing, eliminationist rhetoric, the issue is not political disagreement but moral collapse. Education is meant to civilize power, not aestheticize violence. When learning is repurposed to normalize threats and glorify force, it ceases to be enlightenment and becomes an accessory. The danger lies not only in the words spoken, but in how confidently they are spoken—revealing how ordinary cruelty can sound when dressed in educated language.
Editorial Note: On the side of caution, OROMIA TODAY has removed the photograph of the real “Dr. Dereje Gerefa Tullu” that originally appeared in the header of this article. It has come to our attention that the X account used to publish the post that prompted this essay may not belong to the real Dr. Dereje Gerefa Tullu and appears without the academic title.
Closer inspection indicates that the account’s name has been changed three times, most recently in October 2025. There is therefore a possibility that the account in question is not authentic. While the possibility of it being a namesake cannot be entirely ruled out, this is considered unlikely.
Should it be established that the account does not belong to the real Dr. Dereje Gerefa Tullu, OROMIA TODAY will issue a full apology. Pending clarification, the name is placed in quotation marks.
Please note that the analysis itself remains unchanged. The sole issue under review concerns the attribution to the presumed Dr. Dereje Gerefa Tullu. Regardless of whether an individual holds a PhD or any other credential, the use of such vile language—particularly language that glorifies threats or employs eliminationist rhetoric—is wholly unacceptable, which is the core issue of the article.
A Moral Failure, Not a Political Opinion
Education is supposed to civilize power, not aestheticize violence. When it does the opposite, something has gone profoundly wrong.
... but, I have long believed that education and the passage of time were meant to move humanity forward ...
That was the unavoidable thought upon encountering a X (Twitter) post by "Dereje Gerefa Tullu" [1]—a PhD holder and public media personality—circulated alongside images of drones, fighter jets, tanks, and missile convoys. The language of the post, calling for the eradication of alleged “traitors,” was not simply heated political speech. It was dehumanizing, eliminationist rhetoric, delivered calmly, confidently, and in public.
ኢትዮጵያ በሰሜኑ የሀገሪቱ ክፍል የሚገኙ የግብፅና ሻዕቢያ ተላላኪ ባንዳዎችን የማፅዳት ኦፕሬሽን ትጀምራለች። በኦፕረሽኑ ዋነኛ ሀገር ሻጭ ባንዳዎችን ታርጌት ተደርገዋል። ኢትዮጵያን ለዘመናት ስያደሙ የነበሩትም በዚህ ኦፕሬሽን ኢላማ ተደርገዋል።
— "Dereje Gerefa Tullu"
This is what makes it unsettling. Such language is not born of ignorance. It is chosen. Someone trained in scholarship understands how words frame reality, how metaphors mobilize violence, and how history remembers those who make entire groups speakable only in terms of removal. When that knowledge is set aside, education stops acting as a moral brake and becomes a technical skill serving raw power.
The post was not an argument; it was a performance. Violence was not reasoned—it was displayed. Military hardware stood in for ideas. Spectacle replaced thought. This is how brutality is normalized: not through chaotic rage, but through composed voices that make destruction sound procedural, even necessary.
Why would someone with a PhD speak this way? Often, it is not ideological depth that drives such speech, but fear—fear of irrelevance in moments when political power hardens and rewards obedience over reflection. In such climates, restraint is read as disloyalty, and intellectuals sometimes rush to prove alignment by speaking more harshly than required. Loyalty is performed through excess.
History reminds us that the most dangerous rhetoric does not come from the uneducated fringe. It comes when educated individuals decide that some people no longer merit moral consideration. When human beings are reduced to categories—“traitors,” “agents,” “enemies”—violence no longer appears as a crime, but as a duty.
When Evil Sounds Ordinary
The most troubling aspect of this episode is not the extremity of the language alone, but its ordinariness. It is delivered without visible hatred, without emotional strain, almost as a statement of policy.
This is where the philosophical insight of Hannah Arendt [2]—The Banality of Evil— becomes unavoidable: evil does not always announce itself with fury; sometimes it arrives dressed as normality, spoken in educated tones, convinced of its own reasonableness.
That is the banality of evil—not monsters acting monstrously, but ordinary, credentialed individuals abandoning moral judgment while believing they are merely stating the obvious.
And when that happens, education has not failed quietly. It has failed catastrophically.
On Believing We Would Be Better
Call me naïve or idealistic, but I have long believed that education and the passage of time were meant to move humanity forward—to soften our language, restrain our instincts, and narrow the space in which cruelty can operate.
Education, I assumed, was meant to help us unlearn brutality, not refine it. Encounters like this force a painful reckoning.
When someone as educated as "Dereje Gerefa Tullu" deploys his learning not as a shield for humanity but as a justification for its erosion, it becomes clear that education alone is not enough. Without moral grounding, education can be misplaced—capable not only of failing to improve us, but of making our darkest impulses sound informed, reasonable, and alarmingly normal.
Worse still, education can be used to perfect narratives against humanity itself—as this episode so clearly demonstrates.
Appendix: Translation of "Dereje Gerefa Tullu"'s X (Twitter) Post
Ethiopia shall begin the eradication of pro Egypt and "Shabiya" (Eritrea) traitors in its northern part. In the operation it will mainly target traitors that sell out the country. Those who let Ethiopia bleed for years are also the target of this operation. [End]
Pictures below in quadrants [no doubt intended to signal the eliminationist message].
1. Drones
2. Fighter jets
3. Missile convoys
4. A matrix of parked tanks in a wide field
References
- Dereje Gerefa Tullu, X post that prompted this essay, 16 February 2026, X Inc.
- Hannah Arendt - Wikipedia
- Olii Boran and Ed Chapman, Digital Serfdom in Ethiopia: Faarseebulaa, Propaganda, and the Politics of Praise, 22 May 2025, OROMIA TODAY.
- More hint on Facebook that the X account may not be that of Dr Dereje Gerefa Tullu.
