Elites’ Power Grab Contra People’s Empowerment

Messay Kebede
December 26, 2024

The great irony of the 1995 Ethiopian constitution is that it is blamed for all the deep cracks dividing Ethiopians when its glaring handicap is that it has been, and still is, so selectively implemented that it turned against itself. In particular, all the articles guaranteeing the rule of law and safeguarding against human rights abuses have been either ignored or arbitrarily interpreted by a police force and a judiciary system serving the political ends of existing regimes. Yet, when considering the regimes that preceded the TPLF’s takeover of power in 1992, nobody thinks that ascribing their wrongdoings to their constitutions is analytically sound. Rightly, studies attribute their violations to their undemocratic nature. However, in the case of the 1995 constitution, it is argued that the huge difference is that, unlike the previous ones, it enforces the creation of ethnic enclaves whose major effect is to tear apart national unity and set ethnic groups against each other. So that, to the extent that the major issues dividing Ethiopians can be attributed to the creation of the enclaves, the right approach is to expose the constitution and mobilize to throw it in the dustbin of history. This paper asks whether blaming the constitution is a rational line of analysis and whether, in doing so, one is not overlooking the real underlying issue, regardless of the nature of the constitution.

The Real Motive behind the Constitution

For quite some time now, I have been sending the same message in various ways to the Ethiopian intellectual community, which is that the dominant analyses of the problems of Ethiopia and the solutions devised to overcome them are all fundamentally skewed. Regardless of the major splits dividing the analyses and the proposed solutions or the nuances differentiating them, they all come down to two basic stands: they all pin the problems on either ethnic federalism or on its distorted application. Those who blame ethnic federalism advocate nothing else than its removal and replacement by a more integrating new system; those who denounce distortion want the existing system to conform rigorously to the written constitution. While the first ones tie most of the problems to the weakening of unity and the sense of nationhood because of the divisive effect of the ethnic constitution, their opponents argue that ethnic conflicts have their source in various shortcomings that hamper the sovereignty of ethnic groups and perturb the functioning of their right to self-rule.

In reality, we all know that another factor is in play in the actual practice of the constitution. If we go back to the deep intention of those who designed the constitution in the first place, namely, the leaders of the TPLF and, in a secondary capacity, their coopted OLF allies, we find that the primary purpose was not the installation of a system implementing and effectively guaranteeing the equality of ethnic groups and their rights to self-rule. True, the officially declared purpose was the achievement of equality; in actual fact, however, the TPLF leaders were attending to the breakup of the national unity constructed under the aegis of Ethiopianism.

According to the leaders of the TPLF and OLF, the central flaw of the imperial state, as built by Emperor Menilik’s southern expansion, consolidated by Haile Selassie, and continued by the Derg, is that it is constructed on the legacies of Orthodox Christianity and premodern Abyssinian history and culture. The legacies accord a central role and prominence to the Amhara ethnic group. On top of peripheralizing other ethnic groups, the system in place added, in the name of modernization, a centralized form of national and local governments that could not but promote an assimilationist policy practically equating Ethiopianism with Amharization.

While the implementation of justice and the democratic spirit would certainly advocate decentralization and de-peripheralization, that is, a reform that democratizes the system in the direction of equality, internal autonomy, and cultural rehabilitation, those who wrote and put into effect the constitution had something else in mind, something transgressing the democratic spirit. They targeted the ethnic fragmentation of the Ethiopian state, not to pave the way for democratization, but to undermine the Amhara legacy and remove the Amhara elites from positions of power. The intent reveals that resentment against the Amhara motivated them rather than the concern for democracy. This is so true that we can confidently say that one of the defining features of the post-Derg Ethiopian state is its anti-Amhara inspiration. Admittedly, the pursuit of equality and the changes it involves does not require the adoption of the official policy of not only bashing the Amhara culture with such terms as expansionist, repressive, colonialist, etc., but also of ignoring, even encouraging displacements and mass killings of Amhara in various places of the country.

TPLF’s Minority Handicap

Once the Derg was militarily defeated, the main problem for the TPLF was not so much the seizure of power per se, since it had by far unmatched military ascendancy over other competing forces, as the issue of holding on to power even as it represented an ethnic minority. Given the minority handicap, its main problem was the transition from a provisional government to a lasting rule. One thing is sure: the imperative of keeping power despite the minority status rules out the democratic principle of majority rule as well as the various aspects of a consensual form of government.

The usual dictatorial way of prolonging the tenancy of power is to firmly retain the command of the military and suppressive apparatuses of the government at the national and regional levels and to be able to use them at will to squash internal opposition. However, the method is crude and unreliable in the long run because it is insufficient to overcome the minority handicap. That is why it has to be backed by a political system befitting the implementation of the old practice of “divide-and-rule,” but with the proviso that it has an extended reach, so that it goes beyond the circle of elites and erodes the core of the country’s sense of national unity.

It so happens that a country like Ethiopia is perfectly suitable for the implementation of a policy of divide-and-rule since it is composed of more than 90 ethnic groups that speak more than 80 different languages. Add to this the fact that most of these groups were conquered recently so that their Ethiopian identity remains fragile. The memory of being conquered combined with the submission to a system that imposed a centralized form of government pursuing a policy of assimilation, as was the norm prior to the fall of the Derg, make the Ethiopian identity easily shakable.

What makes Ethiopian identity even more fragile is that both Ethiopianism and Ethiopia’s national unity revolve, as already indicated, around the Amhara political and cultural ligature. As a result, the narrative of blaming the Amhara for their unequal and marginalizing treatment of non-Amhara ethnic groups as well as for their diminishing assimilationist practice is like killing two birds with one stone. The more you criticize and undermine the Amhara legacy, the more you expose Ethiopianism’s demeaning impact on non-Amhara ethnic groups, and the more you damage its foundations. By laying out grievances against Amhara rule, you mobilize non-Amhara ethnic groups, and better still, you also turn them into allies.

We recognize here the spirit that animated those who devised the 1995 Ethiopian constitution. Under the leadership of the TPLF and some OLF allies, the new constitution establishes a federal system solely operating on the basis of ethnic criteria. Clearly distancing itself from the usual affirmation of national unity, its preamble opens with the statement “We, the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia.” The adoption of the constitution consecrates the predominance of a state policy founded on narratives of grievance against the past singling out the Amhara legacy, and on the shit from an integrating national vision to a cooperative association. Short of union, the best that can be done is, to use Prime Minister Abiy’s expression, “medemer,” that is, a synergic relation between ethnic groups, with the understanding that synergy means distinct entities cooperating to produce a better outcome benefitting them. In a word, the constitution advocates partnership rather than union.

Another element that the constitution does not supply is a structure conducive to democratic governance despite the highly touted assertion that the pursuit of democracy is its inspiring vision. Indeed, without a unitary frame of mind, a consensus on majority rule cannot be worked out, since in a federation with divided sovereignties, each ethnic group acquires the status of a nation and behaves as such, so that it is out for itself. Article 39 of the constitution stating that each ethnic group “has an unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to secession,” does not have a different meaning. It grants the right to leave the federation if an ethnic group is dissatisfied with the partnership. Nothing could better confirm the purely cooperative nature of the federal system than the recognition of the right to secede. If the federation seems to hold until now, it is because 1) people are somehow still attached to their Ethiopian identity; 2) the system always produces a dominant group that uses force to keep, without integrating them, ethnic groups under one political rule.

It is only when a country sees itself as forming one indivisible body that majority rule becomes legitimate, for only then, as John Locke writes, “it becomes necessary the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority” (Two Treaties of Government, p. 198). If the parts composing the country do not constitute one body, they cannot deliver a majority, since different and unintegrated groups simply coexist in the same geographical space. By contrast, when ethnic groups are so integrated that they form one body, they become fit for majority rule. The underlying principle of oneness is that the minority accepts the legitimacy of majority rule because it acknowledges that the majority and the minority belong to the same unit. As a result, where the majority goes is also where the unit goes.

The Impact of Resentment

Another related missing element blocking the democratic process is that relations involving grievances have difficulty in hatching up consensus-based policies. Grievances generate anger that is often effective in mobilizing ethnic groups, but not in initiating an honest dialogue with other ethnic groups, the reason being that a political vision nourishing grievances has nothing to offer outside the pursuit of revenge. It is indeed good for mobilization, but not for the institution of a common participatory governance. The inability to reach consensus through the democratic process of give and take entails, in turn, that the installed government, whatever its nature, has to be imposed. The repudiation of the democratic process plunges the country nowhere than into an elite-driven political system.

Moreover, the erection of revenge as a state policy can only trigger the same resentment among those who are now the victims, with the consequence that the country goes round and round in the same cycle of grief and revenge. Is there a better example of this cycle than the case of Ethiopia? The rise of Fano and the spread of the Amhara rebellion in today’s Ethiopia is just a fallout of the combined resentments of Tigrayan and Oromo elites, which are themselves handed down from the past. So long as resentfulness continues to dominate the relations between ethnic groups, it will stand in the way of the reconciliation that is necessary to put in place a shared government.

There was nothing inherently opposed to the launching of a democratic system when the TPLF captured power. True, the system would have been far from meeting democratic standards; it would have also been fraught with difficult issues. Even so, it would have been a start that could be progressively improved with enough determination from all those concerned. Unfortunately, the TPLF did not follow this road because it was more impelled by resentment than democratic commitment. As we saw, instead of fortifying national unity, the leaders opted for the decomposition of Ethiopia into various and inimical ethnic groups.

To make sense of such an option, I suggested that one must refer to the revengeful motivation of resentment and the need to implement a divide-and-rule policy. Needless to say, these two pursuits cannot but install an elite-driven regime that, alas, invariably brings about the absolute rule of one person. What else can they produce when the goal is not the sharing of power but the use of power to settle old scores? Moreover, being neither inclusive nor entrepreneurial, some such regime is bound to be predatory. Indeed, it functions to serve the exclusive privileges of a small group and so possesses all the characteristics making it into a regime propelled by an undemocratic and exclusionary elite group, which is often composed of a coalition with exponents of the same ethnicized ideology from other ethnic groups.

To paint an accurate picture of Ethiopia’s derailment, we must deal with the difference that is now in the open between Tigrayan and Oromo elites. We have already indicated that they have a shared resentment against the Amhara and, by extension, against Ethiopia. Nonetheless, the major difference separating them is that the Oromo consider themselves the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia. As a result, Oromo elites do not see the ethnic divisions of the country with the same eye as Tigrayan elites, now that they are in charge of the country. Not that they oppose the divisions, but because they, as representing the largest ethnic group, want to drop the policy of divide-and-rule in favor of more centralized control.

Yet, seeing that Oromo elites are not handicapped by minority status, one would think that they would advocate democratic changes. Some such expectation forgets the input of resentment: change towards democratization and power-sharing would not allow the execution of a revengeful policy; nor would it provide the essential ingredient that Oromo elites considered necessary to rehabilitate the Oromo people, namely, the cleansing of the humiliation inflicted by Amhara rule. In their eyes, revenge is how those who were humiliated rehabilitate themselves by humiliating the humiliators. What is most unfortunate with this wrong-headed stand is that those who used to condemn vehemently, if not exaggeratedly, the Amhara treatment of other ethnic groups now resort to the same treatment, and the country goes round and round. While advanced countries follow a progressive course of history, Ethiopian elites have succeeded in placing themselves in a back-and-forth moving history.

The Suspended Constitution

The above criticism of the constitution, no doubt major, derives from a partial view leaving out all the articles pertaining to the recognition and defense of individual and democratic rights of Ethiopian citizens. The articles are grouped under Chapter 3, titled “Fundamentals rights and freedoms,” and extend from articles 13 to 44. They unquestionably meet internationally accepted standards. To confirm it, the constitution specifies that “the fundamental rights and freedoms specified in this Chapter shall be interpreted in a manner conforming to the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenants on Human Rights and international instruments adopted by Ethiopia.” What is more, to ensure that the provisions must be implemented all over Ethiopia, the constitution expressly adds that “all Federal and State legislative, executive and judicial organs at all levels shall have the responsibility and duty to respect and enforce the provisions of this Chapter.”

Besides the fundamental rights of individuals to life and security, the constitution upholds the rights of individuals to equal treatment and all forms of freedom without restrictions. A person whose knowledge of Ethiopia would be limited to the sole reading of the constitution would certainly conclude that there are no political tortures, imprisonments, or assassinations in the country and that all Ethiopians fully enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of association and movement. The only discordant article under Chapter 3 seems to be article 39: it recognizes the right to secede from the federation with, it is true, conditions that make implementation difficult. I say “discordant” because all the other articles deal with individual rights and often begin with the expression “every Ethiopian” except article 39, which uses the expression “every nation, nationality and people in Ethiopia” in relation to the right to secede.

Unfortunately, the hard truth about Ethiopia is that not a single article protecting individual rights has been enforced under the TPLF or the present rule of Prime Minister Abiy. What needs to be underlined here is that the displacements, mass killings, and evil deeds for which the constitution is blamed would have been curtailed, if not avoided, if the articles granting and protecting individual rights were put to use. For instance, the blame for the forced displacements, often preceded by mass massacres, of Amhara peasants from Oromia is attributed to the constitution. Yet, article 41, no. 1 of the said constitution states unequivocally that “every Ethiopian has the right to engage freely in economic activity and to pursue a livelihood of his choice anywhere within the national territory” (my emphasis).

Because articles defining the structure, composition, and power relations of the various branches of government at the federal and state levels were more or less applied, while the parapets guaranteeing the respect of human rights were ignored, the constitution seems to allow mistreatments and abuses, notably of minority ethnic groups as well as of the Amhara people. In a word, all the wrongs done to people on the pretext that the constitution permits them are all infringements of the very rights that the constitution protects.

I even venture to say that, had the clauses on the rights of individuals been enforced, they would have fortified the sense of citizenship among all Ethiopians, thereby reducing the impact of the ethnic fragmentation of the country. We find good examples of such an effect in the cases of Canada, Switzerland, and India: the established ethnic divisions in these countries are not undermining national unity because the protection of democratic rights forges a sense of oneness and solidarity among citizens. It is my belief that many Ethiopians shelter behind ethnic identity because they are convinced that only ethnic solidarity can save them from mistreatment and abuse of all sorts.

For those who advocate the abrogation pure and simple of the constitution, the divisive impact of ethnicity and the numerous problems that it is causing demonstrate that campaigning for the complete implementation of the constitution or its reform in this or that way is a mistaken cause. For them, it is high time to admit that the adoption of ethnic criteria as an organizing principle was a colossal mistake. Obviously, those who crusade for the termination of the constitution refuse to acknowledge that their position champions an unrealistic reversal of history. The ethnic regions and the rights that come with them are now part of our social fabric and political alignments as well as of the self-awareness of ethnic groups. We can say in theory that the turn towards identity politics was a mistake, but we cannot ignore the fact that it has become the reality we have to deal with, whether we like it or not.

Besides, the fact that Ethiopia is composed of numerous ethnic groups compels us to acknowledge that decentralization in one form or another was bound to happen at one point or another, and this would have opened the door to identity politics. The long fight for liberation in Eritrea, the uninterrupted rebellions in the Somali region under the imperial and the Derg’s rules, and the Woyane uprising of 1943 in Tigray were unmistakable indications that the policy of centralization and assimilation was not working. Add to this the radicalization of the student movement in the late 60s and early 70s. One of the compelling motives for radicalization was the belief that the Marxist-Leninist ideology provided the right solution to Ethiopia’s ethnic diversity.

True, had decentralization happened as a political resolution, the direction of Ethiopian history would have taken a less disruptive turn than the institution of ethnic federalism. However, this was not meant to happen because of the complete victory of the TPLF. The regime change came through the medium of violence and war, which made one side a loser and one side a winner. Had it been the result of dialogue and consent, it would have been more accommodating to the unity of the country, not to mention that it would have inaugurated a democratic path. The centralized form of government lasted the time it lasted because the regimes that promoted centralization and assimilation did so by blocking democracy. If, in the near future, another centralizing government were to come to power, it would have to stifle democracy.

Let me make one point clear: I am not saying that the constitution should not be reformed. It should and must be reformed but with a democratic mind. Such an approach halts the precipitation of getting rid of the constitution in favor of democratic dialogue among all these concerned as to the desirability and feasibility of maintaining the ethnic regions. Given that the democratic process of give and take does not allow the pure rejection of the ethnic demarcations, the settlement of the issue should be decided based on majoritarian consent. If Ethiopian elites follow the democratic path, I doubt that a consensus to either simply abolish the constitution or to agree to keep it as is will emerge. I strongly advise Ethiopians to avoid the trap of choosing between democracy and national unity, for they will end up losing both. Instead, they should seize the opportunity to rebuild national unity by following democratic principles, and this essentially means abandoning the past practices of centralization and ascendancy of an ethnic group, class, or party.

Focusing on Empowering the Ethiopian people

Handling the politicization of ethnicity with a democratic spirit takes us to the core issue, which is to find the real culprit repeatedly preventing Ethiopia from making real changes. Blaming the constitution or this or that party simply hides the real cause of the failures. Precisely, the whole purpose of this critical review was to show that the attribution of the suffering of Ethiopians to the constitution makes little sense as long as we fail to address the crucial issue of its implementation. Let no one brandish the argument that those in power did all the evil things they did because the constitution permits them. As we saw, Chapter 3 of the constitution contains extensive ordinances that protect individual rights. That they were ignored definitively tells us that blaming the constitution does not take us very far.

Moreover, based on what we know about Ethiopia so far, can we mention a single moment in its modern history when the leadership refrained from doing wrong because of the constitution or any other consideration? “Modern” Ethiopian leaders, including the present leaders, were all dictators: constitutions do not constrain them. They did what they wanted to do regardless of anything else except perhaps the diktats of their external sponsors.  As I attempted to explain, the constitution became objectionable, not because it was devoid of merit as regards the rights of ethnic groups, but because it was implemented selectively. The selection sidelined the rights of citizens to give unchecked power to dictatorial rulers and their supporters at the federal and regional levels.

The preconditions of modern dictatorial rule can be traced back to the introduction of colonizing modernity in Ethiopia, as in the rest of what became known as the Third World. The intent of engineering peripheries harnessed to European colonial powers required that indigenous societies be politically and culturally modeled in line with the interests of Western powers. Politically, it meant the formation of “Western-educated” local elites and the erection of political systems ensuring their unquestionable control so that they could carry out the task of liaison between centers and peripheries. The cultural aspect was a necessary component of the engineering: the externally induced change will not encounter resistance if native people are brought to think that their values and social norms are backward, if not primitive. As such, they are obstacles to progress so that their hope of achieving a level of civilization approaching that of Europe passes through acculturation, otherwise known as Westernization.

Though Ethiopia was not directly colonized, it did not escape the corrosive effect of colonization. Parents were strongly urged to send their children to modern schools with their Eurocentric system of education. The whole purpose was to create a “modernized” elite that could handle the task of yoking the country to the interests of the West. This meant, among other things, the training of technicians who could operate imported technology, the creation of a bureaucracy to handle the functions of a modernizing state apparatus, and the formation of military personnel able to use modern weapons. In addition, the civilizing mission of modern education required a centralized and authoritarian political system that could wrest the country from its traditional values and methods of doing things. The net result of all this was that the West became the tutor and Ethiopia the tutee.

Is it then surprising that Ethiopian educated elites, raised in the spirit of being torchbearers of modernity, convinced themselves that their main role is to liberate the people from ignorance and that whatever they say should be unquestionably accepted by the people? I find no better translation of this conviction than the Ethiopian saying: “የተማረ ይግደለኝ.” It explains why elite politics in Ethiopia is always about liberating the people; it is never about empowering the Ethiopian people. It also clarifies why the pioneer of modernity, albeit in a skewed form, and the champion of modern education, namely, Emperor Haile Selassie, used the expression “light and peace” (ብርሃንና ሰላም) to define his regime.

Once the belief of being enlighteners of the people rather than their representatives takes hold of elites, a political system that could be other than a dictatorship becomes unlikely. Indeed, to accomplish their enlightening mission and eradicate traditionality, elites need absolute control of state power. In other words, politics in retarded countries is not about governing; it is about tutelage and its postulation of absolute authority. Naturally, to the extent that the imposition of a dictatorial authority cannot tolerate any dissent, nor does it accommodate diversity and power sharing among the elites. The inability to make room for dissent unfailingly triggers violent forms of power struggle among them. This is what we have been observing in Ethiopia with successive and mutually destructive “modernizing” regimes, all claiming exclusive entitlement to power.

The paradox of Ethiopian modernization is thus unmistakable. While the true sense of modernity means above all the curtailing of state power and the institution of a political system materializing a government of the people, the enthronement in Ethiopia and elsewhere in the Third World of elite-driven regimes soaring above the people, because they see them as their tutees, moves in the opposite direction of modernity. The belief that they should operate without accountability and the supervision of the people means that democratic rules do not apply to them. Accordingly, as part of their tutorial responsibility, they show the path of democracy but add that it is in the distant future. They thus craft or order, partially to satisfy Western donors, appealing constitutions without the slightest intent to honor them.

Ethiopians should move away from the belief that the state grants rights to the people; instead, they should follow the democratic norm that its role is to protect and facilitate the exercise of rights identified as natural to human beings. They should equally abandon the assumption that people are the objects of elites’ projects. In the modern history of Ethiopia, people alternatively became the subjects of a modernizing imperial rule, of socialism under the Derg, of identity politics with the TPLF, and of a synergetic gathering under the present regime. What in all this seems to be forgotten or ignored, even though the various regimes liked to invoke its injunction, is the modern idea that the people are the source of power.

For Ethiopian elites, political power has no legitimate owner: it is something you fight for and, once you grab it, you hold on to it by any means. They do mention the people, but adjoin the condition that, to empower them, they first need to seize power. Unfortunately, once they conquer power, it is already too late: not only do they cease to be accountable to the people, but they also turn against them. This is what experience shows again and again: no matter the declared good intention of elites towards the people, once in power, the intention disappears. The mighty reason for this repeated reversal is that people have only those rights they can effectively defend. If they cannot assert them, whatever the good projects and promises of elites are, they literally have no rights at all. It is useless, nay, deceitful to enumerate high-flown rights if the people are deprived of the means to defend them. In this regard, I must say that a leader like Isaias shows at least more honesty with his claim that Eritrea does not need a constitution. He means by this that he would not enforce it if Eritrea were to have one.

In sum, Ethiopia will never solve its problems and be in control of its destiny if it waits for coming saviors. The best that elites committed to democracy can do is to dissipate the expectation and assist the Ethiopian people to take matters into their own hands. Helping people to organize themselves in various capacities, from neighborhoods to workplaces, from religious groups to civic associations, etc., and creating political organizations that fight for the empowerment of the people rather than for the conquest of power should then be the major goal of these elites. The spreading through various means of ideas demystifying elites and promoting the people’s sovereignty should accompany organizational work. Ethiopian regimes ignore the rights of people because they know that they have pushed them to the verge of complete defenselessness, more so now than ever before as the consecutive disappointments over governmental promises have finally taken a toll on them.

A question that comes to mind here is whether the ethnic divisions of the country allow organizational work focusing on empowering the people. I answer by saying that elite groups should first work in their respective ethnic areas to build local and regional bases of people’s empowerment. Unless these bases are formed, the power of the people will be devoid of groundwork from which to start. Thanks to this organizational scheme, people would have the final say in regional and national matters, which would go a long way in overcoming the divisive impact of ethnicity. In this regard, there is a lot to learn from Fano’s organizational stratagem of building from the ground up. Given the present predominant alignment around the ethnic criterion, no wonder that political movements prioritizing Ethiopianism remain weak while a movement like Fano, which centers on Amhara identity, proved to be so successful.