All the great crimes of history, lest we forget, have their genesis in the moral wilderness of their times.

Wont to unlearn from history, we aptly repeat even its most brazen mistakes.

In the long march of history, at least two poles of attraction and antagonism have been the norm in world politics. Rarely has only one nation carried the burden of leadership. The unipolar world of the 21st century, dominated for the past two decades by the United States, is a historical anomaly.

Under the previous regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, I was detained. So was my wife, Serkalem Fasil. She gave birth to our son in prison in 2005.

I was arrested in September 2011 and detained for nine months before I was found guilty in June 2012 under Ethiopia's overly broad Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, which ostensibly covers the 'planning, preparation, conspiracy, incitement and attempt' of terrorist acts.

I distinctly remember the vivacious optimism that inundated the United States when the Soviet Union imploded in the early 1990s. This was not glee generated by the doom of an implacable enemy, but thrill germinated by the real possibilities that the future held for freedom.