We
(ETHIOPIANS) GET THE GOVERNMENT WE DESERVE?
By
Tecola W Hagos
Introduction
In
a couple of weeks, Ethiopia’s national election
is upon us in the middle of a year full of
unprecedented cruelty and barbarism against
defenseless Ethiopian migrants in Libya and South
Africa. We have individually and collectively
suffered the barbarism of some Arabs in Libya and
the savagery of some Zulus in South Africa. This
is only the tip of the iceberg, for things will
turn out even worse unless we make some
fundamental and profound changes in the leadership
of the Ethiopian Government and in each of us
Citizens of Ethiopia.
Elections
are supposed to be periods of excitement of
precious moments for people to evaluate their
political leaders and either affirm or dismiss
them from elected offices. Under all that fanfare
the process is as old as mankind. I am quite sure
if the caveman of tens of thousands of years ago
is somehow relocated to our “modern” era, he
will understand our political game perfectly, and
might even want to get involved in the process
stone-axe and antelope horn tipped spear and all.
In other words, elections need not be mystified,
but be observed as a political process ever
manipulated and corrupted even under the best of
circumstances. There can be neither a pure form
nor incorruptible processes of elections. It is
simply a matter of degrees and intensity.
The
Government We Deserve?
The
current Ethiopian national election has all the
signs of highly manipulated and micro-managed
set-up of a single-party getting its way to
national power. Despite such clear sham of an
election, I think of the process as a learning
experience, and I insist that Ethiopians must
participate. At the very least, it is an
acknowledgement that the votes of the Ethiopian
people are legitimizing necessities. This
acceptance of the right to vote even if corrupted
is just a step behind a process of a legitimate
democratic election. Now with full awareness of
the organic defectiveness of the election process,
we can still ask about the critical issues whether
we get the government we deserve or the government
we aspire for. There is a famous saying: “Toute
nation a le gouvernement qu’elle merite.”
It is often rendered in translation as
"Every nation has the government it
deserves."
The
statement I quoted above is, in fact, attributed
to Joseph-Marie,
comte de Maistre (1753
– 1821),
a cynical worn-out Sardinian subject and a
Sardinian Government functionary from the
Nineteenth Century, living soon after the
devastating Napoleonic war that engulfed France
and the rest of Europe. Let us note that the
statement by de
Maistre was made within a striking distance, fresh in
memory, of the atrocities committed in the name of
the French people’s revolution by absolutely
depraved individuals like Georges Cauthon,
Jean-Fran
ois
Delacroix, Maximilien de Robespierre,
Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just, and Marie-Jean
Hérault de Séchelles
et cetera, whose equivalents we find also
in our time and in our two revolutions. Thus, de
Maistre’s cynicism and his ultra-conservative
outlook is very understandable. However, I
question how such broad-stroke political
brush-work is binding on every generation that
comes after, and how the outcome of any election
and the reality of any government is fateful and
invariant.
I
challenge emphatically the notions of
inevitability, fatefulness and defeatist state of
mind that accept our existential reality as the
one and only single incident that is invariant and
permanent. Nothing is invariant, for the future is
determined by the individual moment by moment
without the confine or dictate of the past.
Neither the past nor the future is real, what is
eternal is the present. Even more so in human
affaires that it is impossible to show the single
causal nexus of events in any situation that
involves thinking and rationality as is the case
with almost all actions involving human beings. We
did not deserve Emperor Haile Selassie; we did not
deserve Mengistu Haile Mariam; we did not deserve
Meles Zenawi; we did not deserve Hailemariam
Desalegn either. Those characters are simply
incidents of history. They just happened. There is
nothing inevitable about any one of them ruling in
Ethiopia. If we look into how they started out
their individual lives, assuming for argument sake
the reality of causal nexus, none of them was a
likely candidate to become a leader. So much for
epistemology and metaphysics.
Solution
requiring courage and fortitude.
The
recent “Ethiopia and Horn of Africa
Conference” was an experiment in futilities
where I heard on video some “drum beating and
saber rattling” by ageing scholars who could
hardly swing their table knives. It is absolutely
irresponsible to stock the fire of violence in
Ethiopia while living at safe distance in the Good
Old USA. I am not criticizing those individuals
for ideas of taking action, but for their
unrealistic fantasies. I wish they have learned a
thing or two from ancient wisdom about “right”
and “wrong” actions. There is this recently
posted wonderful article of great wisdom that I
wish people would read before making statements
about belling the cat: Read
“ኢትዮጵያ
የአይበገሬዎችና
የቆራጥ ልጆቿ
እናት ነች ኢትዮጵያውያን
ከጀግንነት
ውጭ የፈሪነት
ታሪክ
የላቸውም!”
posted in Ethiomedia, 14 May 2015.
Pointing
out problems is not enough. No matter how clumsy a
solution, it is better to act than being paralyzed
with fear and trepidations. In the Mahabharata (Bhagavad
Gita),
on the great battlefield of Kurukshetra,
Arjuna, who was hesitant to attack the vast army
assembled against him, was advised by his
charioteer (actually Krishna in disguise) that
positive action is better than non-action. We are
mostly at war of some sort throughout our lives
and we need to take appropriate actions at such
moments. I refer to the Gita because it has the
earliest documented statement on the philosophy of
“action” in the face of difficulties, with
rich text of discussion of the distinctions
between the right action and hubris and fantasies
like those of our Ethiopian scholars drum beating
and saber rattling.
In
numerous essays and commentaries, I have expressed
my skepticism about any opposition leadership
capable of leading Ethiopia intact without leading
it into an accelerated disintegration. I still
maintain that skepticism especially after watching
the participants and hearing some of their
speeches. They are exclusively organized and a
fringe population in the Diaspora from Addis Ababa
and Gondar areas with a few Gurages and even fewer
Oromos. It is a disturbing divisive faction that
was thus assembled probably financed by Issayas
Afeworki. They projected as a whole hate of
Tygreans, not just the individuals in Power in
Ethiopia, but all people “different” from them
by their esoteric measurements. Why should anyone
support such polarized group? I would sacrifice
such a divisive and polarizing group if they are
real treat to the continued existence of Ethiopia,
my Motherland that we created from scratch and
built and maintained with our blood for thousands
of years.
After
watching in the video on the “Ethiopia
and Horn of Africa Conference” such degree of
exclusivity, narrowness of purpose, and
association with a known enemy of Ethiopia, and
naked unabashed hunger for power, I have now a
different perspective in that we, who love
Ethiopia warts and all, must rethink our attitude
toward the current Ethiopian Government. I am
suggesting that we need to approach the Parties in
power in order to work with them improve their
leadership and correct some of the harms they
caused on Ethiopian citizens that we see and read
about in the media. Better to correct the defects
in the current Ethiopian Government leadership and
maintain the integrity and continued existence of
Ethiopia than allow to create disastrous conflicts
and rebellion by such power hungry fantasy ridden,
hateful bunch of over-educated, and
over-experienced, deteriorating and ageing
politicians represented arrogantly in the
“Ethiopia and Horn of Africa Conference.”
In
order to preserve Ethiopia from fracturing across
Kilil lines and ultimately disintegrate into
several ungovernable mini states, I offer here my
alternative solution to use the Turkish Government
model in changing the Ethiopian government
structure and political divisions of the country
into administrative small scale regions after the
May 2015 National Elections. These forms of
structural changes will be provisional systems to
get us time to get our house in order.
The
first step is to establish by the new
Representatives a central independent military
command consisting of five senior commanders from
the Army, the Air Force, and the Police. Once
established the military command becomes a
self-perpetuating command board with a
Chief-of-Staff as its chairman, revolving every
year within the members of the command board. The
command is free of all direct civilian oversight
and is not directly answerable to the
Representatives or the head of State or the head
of government, except the scrutiny and auditing of
the Ethiopian Auditor General. The command will
have as its sole duty the national security of the
country against foreign aggression and internal
insurrections. The Representatives would choose
the national executive leadership, and the
national judiciary. They will not have any direct
command relationship with the Ethiopian defense
and security forces.
The
next step is to open all land for ownership by
individual farmers to develop with some
governmental assistance. And also promote
enterprising individuals through liberal loan
systems and governmental agencies set up for such
promotions. There will be tremendous corruption in
such process. The best remedy against such
corruption is to have truly free press and
publication system. This means the immediate
release of imprisoned journalists, such as
Eskinder Nega, Reeyot Alemu, the nine Bloggers et
cetera.
This
model of decoupling the Ethiopian Military from
civilian command might remind some of you as a
remote model similar to that which exists as a
military culture to this day in Turkey. Egypt is
also another such nation where the military has
played the role of national guardian and stepped
in to avert national disaster by civilian rule. I
often feel that “I am a weight-lifting
Snowman” [I heard that on Shark
Tank, (2012)] meaning the more I exert my
energy into lifting heavy weights (read
Ethiopia’s problems), I melt down by that much
too; another way of saying a lighted candle
consumes itself too. .
Blame
the “Devil” foremost, least the Ethiopian
Government
I
read Graham Peebles’s sanctimonious article
“Suppressed at home, neglected abroad: Ethiopian
migrants,” (in CounterPunch, 9 May 2015)
wherein he heaps all the blames on the Ethiopian
Government for not looking after the welfare of
Ethiopian citizens migrants in hostile communities
with minimal criticism of the atrocity itself. I
find ironic that Peebles writes with such passion
blaming the Ethiopian Government and yet simply
mentioned as an aside-information the vicious Zulu
culprits, the devilish perpetuators of the
atrocities against innocent Ethiopians.
Peebles’s article sounds more like blaming the
parents of a young lady for being raped because
she is pretty.
Certainly,
the Ethiopian Government has the singular duty to
protect its Citizens wherever they may be residing
legally or illegally. If Ethiopians are illegally
residing in a community, they may be properly
prosecuted not persecuted for violation of local
laws, but never dehumanized and savagely murdered
by mobs without proper protection of the local
government. I do not see any action by the
Ethiopian Leaders pursuing with zeal the criminals
who committed such atrocities against Ethiopians.
What I learnt from the Ethiopian Government Media
was that the Ethiopian Government was rounding up
allegedly members of the Blue Party and charging
them for some criminal offences for protesting
disturbing mourners. What an irony.
It
is sad to me to watch the obvious nonchalant
attitude of the Ethiopian Government officials in
the face of atrocities being committed by foreign
governments directly or indirectly against
Ethiopian citizens in Saudi Arabia, South Africa,
Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Turkey, Kenya, et cetera,
and in some instances to the point of slamming the
doors of Ethiopia’s foreign mission headquarters
in the face of Ethiopian citizens who were seeking
protection from violent mobs and those fleeing
even from individual attackers. We saw it happen
in Saudi Arabia. This are matters that can be
easily fixed, but because of inefficient
Government officials, such problems become major
items of criticism in the hands of opposition
politicians.
Conclusion
I
see no follow-up action of removing Ethiopians
from dangerous places. What I witnessed in videos
is Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
stepping in and rescuing Ethiopian young men from
another barbaric slaughter in Libya. I had long
ago written my appreciation of el-Sisi, and now
his courageous and generous action saving
Ethiopian lives confirms my faith in the
leadership of el-Sisi. I have quoted below what I
wrote in an article “Declaration of Principles: Ethiopia got a loaf and a half,” 30
March 2015.
“I
heard President el-Sisi’s speech addressing the
Ethiopian Parliament with great hope and
anticipation. I heard him with the simultaneous
translation of his speech into Amharic—probably
the most authentic before it is reconstructed to
reflect the special interests of diverse groups. I
am more than satisfied in the content of his
speech and even more watching on video his genuine
reaction to the way the Ethiopian Parliamentarians
received him. I admit that I liked el-Sisi from
the day he toppled the terrorist Mohammad Morsi
and his fanatical Muslim Brotherhood spread havoc
in the short time they were in power. “
The
President of Egypt el-Sisi, after having rescued
young Ethiopians from a gruesome murder, welcomed
them with red-carpet treatment personally
receiving them when they disembarked from an
Egyptian plan, in a truly moving formal ceremony.
By contrast, the Ethiopian President Mulatu and
the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam were
nowhere in sight when that same group of
Ethiopians arrived home. Only the Foreign Minister
Tewodros and some Senior Advisors and lower level
officials were at Bole Airport to welcome them
home.
May
be the President and the Prime Minister thought
that such battered Ethiopians rescued from the
gate of Hell were not valuable enough to be
welcomed by them. Forget humanism and kinship, the
Ethiopian President and the Ethiopian Prime
Minister could not even see the great political
mileage they could get out of such gesture. Such
are errors that should not stain the political
administrative life of the Ethiopian Government.
I
suggest that all concerned Ethiopians take a
second look at the programs of all opposition
groups. Are the programs of such groups doable and
their goals achievable? By contrast consider what
I am suggesting to be pragmatic and influence in a
constructive engagement the current Ethiopian
Government to minimize divisiveness, and remove
the negative impact of the Kilil system by changing the States and redrawing viable
administrative provinces. At all time, we should
be acutely aware of the fact that we are living in
a rough neighborhood. If we show any degree of
weakness or fracture, our neighbors will not
hesitate to tear us up into hundreds of strips and
transform our Motherland into a place that will be
Hell on Earth. .
Tecola
W Hagos
May
14, 2015
|