Over the last couple of weeks, particularly following news that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) foiled an
assassination plot against Ato Abebe Gellaw, a journalist and political
activist who heckled Meles Zenawi at a heads of states meeting in
Washington DC last year, a completely misguided and unhelpful ethnic
politicking is raging on the internet, Ethiopian social media and
community radio stations. While I was nursing a terrible flue last
weekend, I had some time to surf through several Ethiopian paltalk rooms
and internet sites.
By and large, the discussions, if you can call
them that, are ugly , savage and most importantly unhelpful . It is sad
that such a wonderful technology that can bring people from different
corners of the world on a spot and can be used for meaningful
discussions and problem solving actions is being abused so flagrantly.
My
objective here is not making accusations but to point out how dangerous
and counterproductive the prevailing discussions and views that I
observed are. I am in no way trying to discourage discussion on the
subject of ethnic politics in Ethiopia. On the contrary, the reason I
am writing this is because I favor even more reasoned and civilized
discussions on the subject of ethnic nationalism and conflicting ethnic
interests that I believe are growing dangerously in our country. We
have to discuss this issue even if some parts of it can make us
uncomfortable. We can cover the fire with the ash and convince
ourselves that there is no fire in there but some wind someday is bound
to blow it on our faces.
We are compounding the problem by not putting
it to reasoned discussion and articulate with evidence and data along
with the solutions and with a level of dispassionateness.
Followers
of ethicized politics often get their history education from the worst
writers of history, ethnocentric politicians. I have once met some nice
Ethiopian who told me that Menilik killed 5 million Oromos while
expanding to South and East Ethiopia and referred me to an article
written by someone as evidence. I was stunned to find out that he
believes the story. I asked this person if he was willing to sit with
me for less than half an hour so that I can use a mathematical model
from the science of demography to show him that there were no 5 million
Oromos in Ethiopia at the time and that even the total population of
Ethiopia at the time hovered only around 10 million people. It did not
take him a minute after I showed him to understand that the person who
educated him wanted to make maximum impact in his mind than convey the
truth. The narrative of our ethnic political discourse is replete with
these kinds of fabrications and lies made by politicians who masquerade
as historians. They have a mission of making maximum impact for their
cause.
I am not raising this example to diminish the fact that
there has always been ethnic marginalization, injustice and inequality
in Ethiopia. I am simply trying to show how some people want to convert
a legitimate cause into some form of a sickness. It is hard to argue
that this maximum impact seeking historiographers have not succeeded in
many cases. Consider, for example, the case of what I came across in an
Ethiopian pal talk room ironically named “Room for Political Civility”.
I had a chance to listen to one individual nicknamed “Dejena”, who
said he logged on to the room from Addis Ababa. The guy, an ethnic
Tigrean, was so furious about the accusations of TPLF involvement in the
Abebe Gellaw assassination plot (which he magically translated as
accusation against all Tigreans) told the audience that he knows the
origin of ethnic hatred in Ethiopia very well with an air of authority
on the subject. He said the origin of ethnic hatred in Ethiopia is
what he called “Ankoberism”. I am quoting him verbatim. As
evidence, he quoted some writer who lived over a hundred years ago
during the time of Emperor Menilik and who wrote pejorative phrases
about ethnic Tigreans as his proof. He then went on raging against the
Amhara using the usual code words like “Timkihegnoch”, “neftegnoch”
etc. His hate mongering made me wonder if these are the kind of
people that are capable of committing the kind of savagery we witnessed
in Rwanda. Mind you, like the people who committed the savage carnage
in Rwanda, this man is on the side of a powerful government that is
being led by the TPLF and he is still raging as a victim. Then came an
eloquent, self declared Oromo under a nickname “True Democracy”
responding to “Dejena” and others who were repeating the fabricated
“Tigrean cause”. He said that the enemies of his people today are no
more the Ankoberites but the “Neftegna from Adwa”. He
said it is the Tigrean elite led by the TPLF who are persecuting and
looting his people bare. He quoted researches made by Ginbot 7 to show
how, what he referred to as “the Tigrean elite”, is taking over the
country in an apartheid system. His limited attempt to make a
distinction between the people of Tigrai and the TPLF could not help
stop the rants of the speakers that came after him.
None of what was
presented and the tone with which it was presented was helpful to
stimulate any reasoned discussion or educate anybody. Nor were there
any mature people that showed up in the room to strike some middle
ground or balance. There were over four hundred people logged on to the
site. It looks like everybody was speaking and writing to make the
other side angry. It was like the Wild West. The whole thing was so
disgusting that I turned it off. In most other Ethiopian pal talk rooms
that I stopped by, individuals accuse the TPLF of sending assassins to
the US to kill its critics and opponents starting with Abebe Gellaw.
Nearly all of them play victim and call for a vigilant response. Yet
the ongoing investigation on the assassination plot against Abebe Gellaw
has not so far made any definitive conclusion.
For the record let
me once again make this clear. I am not one of those who want to
dismiss or wish away questions and discussions related to ethnic
nationalism from Ethiopia’s political discourse. I believe those who do
are not dealing with reality. Ethnic nationalist questions with
serious potentials for ugly and totally destabilizing conflicts exist in
Ethiopia and are growing faster than many of us may want to admit. We
cannot blame anybody for the existence of ethnic nationalist politics in
Ethiopia. We can’t accuse the TPLF of creating ethnic identity politics
in Ethiopia. It existed in Ethiopia before TPLF. We can debate whether
the TPLF had made it worse or better. I believe it has made it worse.
But believe it or not, it is not going to go away even if the TPLF goes
away. The Ethiopian political landscape has changed irreversibly with
regard to identity politics. The best we can do now is to think hard
through the problem and come up with ideas that are acceptable to all
sides in the contention. This may even mean going to the left of the
TPLF and Meles Zenawi if we can find solutions. There are useless
suggestions that I hear coming even from very educated Ethiopians. They
say substituting individual rights for group rights would solve the
problem. This in my view is a false distinction. Group rights and
individual rights can coexist without a problem. Individual rights also
include the rights of individuals to form groups if they so choose to
help themselves as individuals. But neither group rights nor individual
rights are guaranteed in Ethiopia today and whatever rights written in
the constitution are fast eroding. In any case, the ethnic question
will not go away even if we hate it. These days, I see that even some
Amharas are trying to create a non-existent Amhara nationalism from the
scratch.
The authorities ruling Ethiopia are not trying to solve
the ethnic or national question, whichever you want to call it. They are
trying to use it for a short term political end. Accusations that the
TPLF has disproportionate representation in decisive positions of
government particularly the army, the security forces and key government
positions is a public secret and many including many ethnic Tigreans
are resenting it. Even the choice of a Prime Minister from Wolayta has
not helped diminish the question. It probably made it worse.
The
officials are neither justifying nor denying or addressing the
accusations that are mounting by the day in any form. But the backlash
is very palpable.
The Ethiopian authorities should stop that
patronizing ethnic groups and ethnic elites is a substitute for
addressing the serious question of inequality in the country. Look at
what happened at Addis Ababa University only two weeks after that huge,
wasteful and useless patronizing farce held at Baher Dar – the so called
“Nations and Nationalities and Peoples Day”. There was an ugly ethnic
war between Oromo and Tigrean students where many were hurt, and many
are still in prison. I am told such conflicts have become perennial and
frequent in nearly all schools of higher education in the country. How
can sane people expect to have a better, more united, stable and
prosperous country while we watch the future leaders already at war?
Ethnic groups dancing their cultural dances and showing their
traditional garbs and parading together doesn’t move us an inch closer
to equality or solve our problems. The officials know this. If that
were the case senior officials including Ato Hailemariam Desalegn who
addressed the crowd would have come to the celebration in their ethnic
dresses instead of their western suits.
Conclusion:
Ethiopia
is a very poor country inhabited by people who suffer abject poverty.
Alleviating this poverty requires a level of stability and hopeful
future where every citizen believes that they have equal shot at
accessing opportunities. There is also a serious need for a political
environment that encourages all of us to believe in our country and
participate in helping solve this problem. Many of us outside of
Ethiopia have a lot to give given this environment. I for one consider
myself as someone marginalized by the regime from helping my country.
For example, whatever the motive for the initiation, I believe the
building of the dam on the Abbay is a good idea that must not fail. I
am denied the opportunity to make contributions. I know many who are in
my situation.
Ethiopia’s various ethnic groups or call them
nations, nationalities and peoples, will be appreciating their equality
only when they have equal access to everything the country offers and
feel that they are not treated as second class citizens, and when the
historically disadvantaged, particularly the small ethnic groups in the
peripheral areas of Ethiopia, are given a little extra help.
The
predominance of Ethnic Tigreans in key decision making positions is a
central issue of discussion among Ethiopians. In my view this dominance
could be reasonably explained perhaps up until about 15 years ago. If
there are good explanations justifying this dominance today from the
side of the TPLF, I haven’t heard one yet. Some are already calling it
TPLF apartheid and this in my view is a serious accusation. I have
even heard some non Ethiopian Ethiopia observers use the term. The
government cannot dismiss these accusations which are increasingly being
shown with the support of figures and objects by its opponents.
Attacking the people who raise the issue does not answer the question.
Certainly the kinds of discussions we are having about it currently
are not helping.
Ethiopian authorities should let students at
higher education centers exercise and experience multiethnic student
governments by collectively and freely electing their leaders. They
should be allowed to discuss everything under the Ethiopian sky. That
was how we did it when I and Meles Zenawi and a lot of the current
leaders were students at Hailessilassie University. The Ethiopian
authorities should be ashamed that the way they handle academic freedom
in universities and colleges is far inferior from the one we enjoyed
under Emperor Hailesilassie’s Ethiopia. This is not to mention the
disastrous quality of education they are providing at all levels. I
had hard time believing news that there are students in colleges who
have a hard time reading and writing until I heard it from the mouths of
respected educationists such as Professors Habtamu Wondimu and Baye
Yimam on the Voice of America a few weeks ago from.
The freakish obsession with control by the authorities from small local “idir”
to every civic and religious institution is not only unsustainable but
also dangerously counterproductive. It can only give you an illusion of
control until it explodes on your face.
Both supporters and
opponents of the government should not play with this issue as a
political football and use it to bully one another. Knowledgeable
Ethiopians, professional historians and responsible political leaders
should not leave the discussion of this subject to narrow and single
minded people who approach the issue only from hatred, anger or sheer
ignorance. It is much better to discuss these things in public civilly
and confront the reality than trying to push it under the rug and let
it simmer. Debating it with an open mind will not kill anybody; shoving
it under the rug and denying the reality will. We will all lose finally
if it goes wrong.
Fekadeshewakena@yahoo.com
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