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21st
Century Ethiopian Politics should be Reoriented
Toward National Reconciliation and a Home Grown
Ideology
Ghelawdewos
Araia, PhD
June
28, 2017
This article intends to address the current complex and complicated
Ethiopian politics in Ethiopia and the Diaspora by
way of infusing theoretical explanations and
furnishing some ideological tenets for the sake of
clarity and for overcoming the dearth of political
culture amongst the Ethiopian political groupings
at home and the Diaspora. Furthermore, this
article will attempt to diagnose the prosaic and
disillusioning realities that have now afflicted
much of the Ethiopian Diaspora and some opposition
groups in Ethiopia.
I will begin with the so-called Ethiopian Diaspora opposition and
move on to the home opposition parties and the
Ethiopian government.
I say the ‘so-called’ not to look down
unto these groupings but to depict them as
entities that were unable to come together and
find one unified organization, as they themselves
admitted in the Seattle conference of May 27-28,
2017. These groupings were unable to promote a
pan-Ethiopian agenda, let alone articulate a
unified synthesis in the context of current
Ethiopian politics. The only one ingredient that
has united the Diaspora group is their one common
target the “Woyane” regime (the present
government) as it wants to portray it. Other than
the unifying “Woyane” element, they are
divided at theoretical and organizational levels;
they range from Oromo, Amhara, Tigray, Gambella
etc organizations to Arbegnoch/Ginbot 7 armed
squads based in Eritrea.
All the above mentioned groups were engaged in incessant talks in
the last two decades without producing anything
substantive and tangible, let alone constructive
initiatives for Ethiopia. However, a section of
these groups have successfully managed to find a
propaganda machine by the name the Ethiopian
Satellite Television (ESAT), an effective media
outlet in innuendo and lies. They have been
holding meetings after meetings as if they want to
revel in ego massaging at venues for talks devoid
of action; by this, I mean practical engagement in
educating and enlightening the Ethiopian people
and meaningfully reorient the present ethnocentric
politics toward a pan-Ethiopian movement.
Moreover, one other problem that the Ethiopian Diaspora opposition
countenanced was geographic distance and
detachment from Ethiopia and lack of mass base in
Ethiopia; it is too far from Ethiopia and it could
hardly enjoy a mass support from the Ethiopian
people, although from time to time it attempted to
establish connection with the home opposition
parties like Andinet and Semayawi parties; and
also managed to create some kind of networking
with the recalcitrant elements in the Gondar and
Oromia areas; the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and
Arbegnoch/Ginbot 7 leaders have even claimed that
they were behind the uprisings in parts of the
Amhara and Oromia regions. Their claims, however,
need to be critically examined and carefully
analyzed. There is no doubt that there were
uprisings in parts of the two regions mentioned
above, but they were not mass insurrections as
some of the speakers in the Seattle conference
contended; they were in fact confined to parts of
Gondar and parts of Oromia and there weren’t any
uprisings in Shewa, Wollo, Gojjam (except for
Bahir Dar), which are parts of the Amhara region;
and no upheavals in much of the Oromia region
either. The only mass uprising that turned into a
nation-wide popular revolution (though hijacked by
the military) in modern Ethiopian history is that
of 1974 people’s upheaval.
Therefore, in terms of analyzing the present Ethiopian society,
Ethiopian politics, and the nature and
characteristics of the EPRDF (the ruling party),
the Ethiopian Diaspora has exhibited
incompatibility of relevant knowledge in relation
to the intriguing Ethiopian phenomenon as a whole.
Quite obviously a group that lacks relevant
knowledge of the larger Ethiopian society, its
dialectical engagement with Ethiopian politics
could be questionable, and because of the latter
missing link, thus, the Diaspora was unable to
fathom Ethiopian politics in depth, let alone
critically examine the nature of the EPRDF.
The Diaspora should have known from day one that the TPLF (Woynae)
is the dominant party in the EPRDF but it is not
alone in governing Ethiopia; the Amhara National
Democratic Movement (ANDM); the Oromo People’s
Democratic Organization (OPDO), and the Southern
Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement (SEPDM)
share power with the TPLF and they play a major
role in the decision making process. The Diaspora
is distracted by ethnocentric analyses of
Ethiopian society and was unable to see the class
dimension of the composition of the ruling party,
that is to say people of like mind and mutual
interests of the EPRDF leaders who consolidate
power in unison. On top of this, unlike the old
Marxian tenet where it is taken for granted that
power resides in a ruling clique (or ruling
class), it is better to attribute Michel
Foucault’s paradigm of the power nexus exercised
at many sites and that it is not lodged in only
one distinct social group (or ruling class). In
other words, Foucault’s analysis of power helps
us understand the extent of power in a given
political system or regime. He argues that the
power dividend follows the top-bottom ladder in a
hierarchy, and it logically follows that the TPLF
alone could not monopolize power, and restrict or
restrain other stakeholders as standby spectators.
The power brokers are not the leaders at the top
echelon only; they are also found elsewhere in the
government hierarchy and bureaucracy. I will
further elaborate Foucault’s useful methodology
at the end of this essay.
The Diaspora opposition defines the TPLF/EPRDF as ethnocentric,
without ever studying the way Ethiopians are
organized in the Diaspora. The Diaspora opposition
has become like the proverbial monkey that sees
other monkeys’ hind parts but not hers, and
under this kind of Diaspora thinking, It has now
become fashionable that Ethiopians are organized
along ethnic lines and an all-Ethiopia inclusive
organization (notwithstanding those one ethnic
group organizations bearing an Ethiopian name) is
now a rare commodity, and the pan-Ethiopian
patriots of yesteryear have slid into deep-comma
and their Ethiopian agenda into oblivion. For
instance, at the Seattle conference while Major
Dawit emphasized the necessity of Amhara
organization, the Oromo representative by the name
Lencho told his audience in no uncertain terms
that they must recognize Oromo identity while at
the same time endeavor to reconcile the Ethiopian
identity with that of Oromo. Major Dawit
additionally said, “If the Amharas are not
organized, the Oromo will be attacked.” At the
other end of the spectrum, Getachew Begashaw
appealed to the Oromo-Amhara solidarity and made a
lip service to what he calls Ethiopian national
movement that includes the Afar, Sidama, Gambella
and other ethnic groups, without mentioning Tigray
despite the fact that Aregawi Berhe is also a part
of these Seattle groupings. In an interview with
ESAT, Getachew said that “Tigray is benefiting
more than any other region in Ethiopia and that
Tigray became number one in agriculture in all
Ethiopia”, which of course is far from the
truth.
Ethnocentric politics undermines the unity of the Ethiopian people
and the Ethiopian nation-state, and some of the
speakers like Beyan Asoba have entertained
sentimental and quixotic ideas such as “if
Ethiopia is dismembered, they [the Oromo] are the
ones who would suffer”; Beyan could be sincere
in his evaluation of Ethiopian unity but he may
not have realized that there are elements in his
neighborhood who could care less about the
instability and destruction of Ethiopia. At this
juncture, the ill-defined political program of the
ethno-centrists is to forge an Oromo-Amhara unity
against Tigray, because initially they were anti-Woyane
but now they have embraced an anti-Tigrayan
nascent politics. This starry-eyed politics
Diaspora-style, of course, is too narrow to
mobilize and unite the Ethiopian people and it
will end up in more fragmentation of the
opposition groups.
As far as I am concerned, any movement leveled against the people
of Tigray, will fail ignominiously not because
Tigray is the quintessential core of the Ethiopian
nation, but also because ethnic hatred in all its
forms is anti-Ethiopian. Any grouping that foments
hatred against any nationality in Ethiopia,
including the Amhara, Oromo, and other
nationalities, is anti-Ethiopian. By the same
token any grouping that desecrates or defiles the
Ethiopian flag is anti-Ethiopian and/or
treasonous. On May 26, while celebrating their
independence day, Eritreans trampled over the
Ethiopian flag in a public square in Asmara and
the Arbegnoch/Ginbot 7 so-called fighters were
among the spectators watching.
In the final analysis, thus, if the
ethno-nationalists of the Diaspora and their
counterparts in Ethiopia do not emancipate
themselves from the shackles of ethnic politics,
they will encounter a self-perpetuating cycle of
dysfunction and ultimately lose ground.
The current Ethiopian Diaspora opposition groupings are constant
reminders of the vanishing Ethiopian organic
intellectuals that I have dealt with once in one
of my articles entitled “Saluting the Wonderful
Ethiopian Intellectuals.”1 It was
Antonio Gramsci who first used the phrase
‘organic intellectual’ but my definition of
the concept is completely different from his.
Gramsci’s ‘organic intellectuals’ are the
byproducts of the political system and/or a regime
who facilitate consent among the populace so that
the status quo governs without challenge. My
‘organic intellectuals’, on the contrary, are
the high caliber educated intellectuals who are
patriotic and who are engaged in the promotion of
the welfare of the Ethiopian people and the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ethiopia.
They are also known as public intellectuals or
public advocates, and sadly for Ethiopia a
significant number of this type of organic
intellectuals were eradicated by the Derg regime
when it launched the Red Terror against the
revolutionary parties and the youth of Ethiopia.
A significant number of the Derg remnant
officials and functionaries are now active members
in the Diaspora Ethiopian opposition, and most of
them are in the United States.
The lack of organic intellectuals amongst the Diaspora opposition
and the opposition parties in Ethiopia has
negatively impacted the Ethiopian political
discourse, and it is not surprising that the
opposition is bedeviled by lack of ideological and
political clarity, an important problem that I
will address later.
If we now carefully examine the resolution of the Ethiopian
opposition groups in Seattle, we can easily detect
the defects of the various items within the
resolution. For instance, Item # 5 states, “that
the gate for peaceful resolution is immediately
opened so that there could be a genuine dialogue,
and [we] seriously call upon [the Government] for
peaceful democratic transition.” This indeed is
a great idea, but the Seattle group includes
organizations like Arbegnoch/Ginbot 7 and OLF
whose political programs advocate the violent
overthrow of the Ethiopian government, and it is
doubtful whether the haphazardly organized
panelists of the Seattle conference are ready for
a genuine dialogue with the government of
Ethiopia. However, it is never too late for
reconciliation, but I am afraid that the Seattle
groups need to make another extra mile to catch up
with the Ethiopian reality on the ground; they are
lagging behind in light of the initiative the
Ethiopian government took in conducting dialogue
with the opposition parties in Ethiopia.
With respect to the dialogue that was conducted between the EPRDF
and the opposition parties, Ethiopia has scored a
wonderful achievement in contemporary Ethiopian
politics, but on the opposition side, Medrek or
Forum leaders were unable to understand the
complexity of politics and the dynamism of
history, and they decided to discontinue the
negotiation process in the middle of the dialogue
and opted rather to remain aloof, and I suspect
they will regret their action in the future. They
have underestimated the power of dialogue and
negotiation on a round table and as a result they
have missed one historic opportunity in Ethiopian
politics. The Medrek leaders must reorient their
outlooks if indeed they can be part of the energy
that will make a marked difference in Ethiopian
politics.
Seven years ago, I contributed an article entitled “National
Reconciliation and National Development in
Ethiopia” and the following idea is incorporated
in what I have entertained then:
This essay intends to reach out the
Ethiopian Government and the opposition by way of
suggesting to both parties so that they can and
should make efforts to iron out their differences
and create a political climate, conducive enough,
to enable the two blocs to sit in a round table
for dialogue and for the peaceful smooth
development and transformation of Ethiopia.
…reconciliation, negotiation, and dialogue are
designed to bring together opposing or opposite
forces and not birds of the same feather that
flock together.2
As pointed out above, though a little late in terms of conducting
dialogue for national reconciliation, the EPRDF at
least held series of discussions and consultations
toward reconciliation with the legally operating
opposition parties and the ruling party was
successful in this regard.
But the Diaspora Ethiopian opposition groupings were unable to
initiate dialogue with the EPRDF, and on the
contrary they have been clamoring and evoking the
psychopathology of dissociation from the
Government of Ethiopia; they thought that talking
to the EPRDF would give the ruling party
unwarranted legitimacy, but they are wrong for two
reasons:- 1) talking to the EPRDF actually would
give the opposition a huge leverage in promoting
its own agenda; 2) whether the Diaspora opposition
talks to the EPRDF or not, the government in power
is recognized by the global diplomats and by
governments of the Western democracies and China,
not to mention African countries that view
Ethiopia as an exemplar nation in the African
context.
On top of the above weaknesses, the Ethiopian Diaspora opposition
(except for EPRP and EPRP/Andinet (formerly EPRP/Democracy),
who still maintain an all-Ethiopia agenda, though
their multi-ethnic membership has shrunk
considerably) have degenerated into exclusive
ethno-national entities (Amhara, Oromo, Tigray
etc). There is nothing wrong in organizing along
ethnic lines if the purpose is self-help and
cooperative, but it would not be viable if the
objective is to translate a political program into
an all-Ethiopia inclusive membership of the
respective opposition parties and to promote a
pan-Ethiopian agenda. The latter requires a
pan-Ethiopian ideology that serves as an
overarching blueprint.
The Ethiopian Diaspora opposition can learn a lesson from the Sudan
People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A)
before the new nation of South Sudan was born. The
SPLM/A under the leadership of John Garang
entertained a pan-Sudan program with
self-determination for South Sudan, but after his
death in 2005 his successor Salva Kiir inclined
toward total independence for South Sudan. Now we
know what is going on in South Sudan; the more
people become ethnocentric, the more likelihood
that they will engage in fratricidal civil war. If
the latter phenomenon hovers over Ethiopia, it is
the ethno-centrists that will be held responsible.
How about the EPRDF-led Ethiopian Government? I would be remiss if
I don’t critically evaluate the EPRDF as I have
done in regards to the opposition. Like any
organization or political party, the EPRDF has
strengths and weaknesses, and as always I like to
begin with strengths that are attributable to the
ruling party. The strengths
of the EPRDF include the following:
1.
Establishing a federal system that subsequently
liberated hitherto oppressed and forgotten
nationalities in the periphery of Ethiopian
geopolitics.
2.
Allowing, to some extent, opposition parties to
register and operate legally.
3.
Promoting a development agenda with a vision
and guiding principle surrounding the
developmental state (DS), and more specifically
the growth and transformation plans (GTPs).
4.
Within
the framework of the GTPs, establishing higher
institutions of learning including 35
universities; constructing remarkable all-weather
roads, bridges, and railroads.
5.
Within the framework of the GTPs, enabling
Ethiopia to make a transition from a relatively
backward agrarian mode of production to an
industrial society; constructing plethora of dams
including the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)
for electrification and ultimately serving homes
and industries; expansion of rural primary health
care all over Ethiopia.
6.
EPRDF-style DS has attracted global investors
from all over the world, but mainly from China,
Turkey, Italy, the United States, Indonesia, the
Scandinavian countries, and Nigeria. Because of
the fast economic growth accompanied by investors,
major cities like Addis Ababa, Adama, Bahir Dar,
Debre Berhan, Dire Dawa, Hawassa, and Mekelle have
witnessed qualitative changes in urban
development.
7.
One
other strength of the EPRDF is its ability to
render effective security measures that brought
about relative peace and stability in Ethiopia
and, in turn, kept the terrorists and negative
forces of destruction at bay.
Weaknesses
of the EPRDF:-
1.
Establishing federal structure based on
language and ethnicity that inadvertently promoted
ethnic and local/regional consciousness and that
undermined the pan-Ethiopian identity.
2.
While the EPRDF did very well in economic
development parameters, it did not allow broad
democracy to flourish as it should in the last two
and half decades. Incidentally, the
‘revolutionary democracy’ ideology that the
EPRDF adopted as its guiding principle is neither
tenable nor credible given the essence of
democracy as government by the people.
3.
Come elections every five years, the EPRDF
proved to be the sole and dominant actor in the
electoral process, and as a result the opposition
parties were side tracked and were unable to enjoy
seats and hence voice in the parliament.
4.
The EPRDF did not allow freedom of the press to
flourish in Ethiopia as it is enshrined in the
constitution. In this context, the ruling party
was not tolerant to some journalists who are now
behind bars. However, the failure in the freedom
of press is not entirely an EPRDF problem. The
freely published newspapers and magazines along
with online blogs, for instance, do not seem to
understand the essence of freedom of press and
they resort for the most part to scatology and
strings of curses.
5.
By default or by design, the EPRDF installed a
giant patron-client network for the purpose of
political consolidation, and this kind of
political patronage alienated (perhaps
inadvertently) a significant number of Ethiopian
intellectuals and professionals who could have
immensely contributed to the development of
Ethiopia.
6.
The EPRDF is presiding over an extremely
corrupt system. Corruption, of course, is not
unique to Ethiopia; it is in fact a universal
socioeconomic and political ailment, and to be
sure corruption has become part of the Ethiopian
culture; it was prevalent during the reign of the
Emperor, during the rule of the Derg, and it
continues to permeate the Ethiopian social fabric
now, during the EPRDF. There is no doubt that the
EPRDF has attempted several times to get rid of
the corrupt officials, but it was not successful.
It seems to me even the most assiduous purges
won’t clean the massive corruption unless the
EPRDF takes revolutionary measures to weed out the
corrupt officials; so far, the EPRDF has been
taking reformist measures and these measures are
not radical enough to combat corruption. For
instance, after the second broad-based Hidase
(renewal) government initiative aimed at
restructuring the government and combating
corruption, the scum of the earth are still
bewitching the inflated Ethiopian bureaucratic
machine.
7.
Last but not least the EPRDF did not correctly
handled the issue surrounding the right of the
Ethiopia-born citizens who sought the so-called
“yellow card” for dual citizenship and a huge
number of Ethiopians were unjustly denied this
right.
By way of concluding, I like to address the
significance and importance of political ideology
and theoretical framework that are presently
scarce amongst the opposition parties and the
Ethiopian social milieu in general. By political
ideology I did not mean the old ideologies of
liberal and/or radical schools; I meant rather a
variety of modalities that could serve as
alternative narratives that Ethiopians need to
uphold in order to correctly analyze emergent
contours and challenges. More specifically, I
meant, Ethiopians must establish articulated
roadmaps for a guide to action in addressing
outstanding issues.
Once Ethiopians garner alternative narratives
(e.g. mixed economy of market and state-run
enterprises) they can easily embrace political
clarity that in turn permits them to forge a
refined policy; and once they accomplish this
level of consciousness, they will begin to
understand that “historical change involves
change in discursive formations” as Michel
Foucault aptly puts it. According to Foucault,
discursive formations are designed to explain the
nature of society and human beings; it is also a
system of knowledge to study prevailing cultural
frameworks.
Ethiopians, therefore, must no longer be guided
by the old ideologies of the liberal and the
radical, which are alien and irrelevant to the
larger Ethiopian society, and begin rather to
formulate a new theoretical framework of what I
call ‘social constructivist’ and begin to
study their history and culture, and ultimately
establish policies of their own, independent of
foreign influences. This does not mean, of course,
to reject anything foreign; Ethiopians must indeed
receive anything foreign, including technology
that benefits them; it is only to underscore the
importance of independence that could altogether
lead to creativity and a home grown ideology. The
social constructivist theory recognizes the
potential of individuals and groups as game
changers in society, not only by receiving ideas
from outside influences but also by methodically
and creatively evolving their own distinct
ideology that in turn sustains an independent
national mode of thinking.
Unless Ethiopians forge a constructivist world
outlook, they will remain dependent on foreign
dominant ideas for a long time to come and as a
result their government policies, development
strategies, and curricula in the schools will
reflect foreign and not Ethiopian. In this
context, it should be known the revolutionary
parties in Ethiopia were influenced by foreign
ideology; and because the Derg dogmatically
asserted the latter ideology, it blindly adopted
the policies of the old Soviet Union and massacred
the government high ranking officials of Haile
Selassie and subsequently murdered thousands and
upon thousands of Ethiopians from 1974-1991. The
foreign influencing ideology is still around in
Ethiopian circles if one critically examines the
Gramsci-type intellectuals that are currently
serving in Ethiopian bureaucracies. The latter is
a little modified under the EPRDF because the
ruling party allowed pre-election debates and town
meetings in which people have freely directed
their criticism and complaints to respective
officials at all levels. However, even the latter
gain could be compromised if it is not
consistently carried out; in fact, it could be
like what Noam Chomsky once said: “The smart way
to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly
limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but
allow very lively debate within the spectrum.”3
Notes
1.
Ghelwadewos Araia, “Saluting the Wonderful
Ethiopian Intellectuals,” www.africanidea.org/saluting_wonderful.html
June 27, 2011
2.
Ghelawdewos Araia, “National Reconciliation
and National Development in Ethiopia”, www.africanidea.org/national_reconciliation.html
October 22, 2010
3.
I do not quite recall the source of Noam
Chomsky’s penetrating perspective
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Institute of Development and Education for Africa
(IDEA) 2017. Dr. Ghelawdewos Araia can be
contacted for educational and constructive
feedback via dr.garaia@africanidea.org
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