Yonas Biru
August 27, 2024
I just returned from a two-day conference on the problem of intern-ethnic hate in Ethiopian politics. The meeting was organized and chaired by Professor Ephraim Issac, Director of the Institute of Semitic Studies at Princeton and founder and first professor of the Department of African and Afro-American Studies at Harvard.
The meeting was funded by an Interfaith Organization Fellowship in Prayer and held at Chauncey Hotel and Conference Center in Princeton. It was attended by 12 Ethiopians of different ethnic heritages, primarily (but not exclusively) from the Amhara, Oromo and Tigray regions. Attendants partook in their personal capacities, not as representatives of any political or ethnic group.
In attendance were such household names as Professors Bekele Gerba and Ezekiel Gebissa and Ato Lidetu Ayalew. Ms. Maebel Gebremedhin (Women & Children rights activist and President of Tigray Action Committee) and Professor Beyene Tilahun (a peace activist) were also part of the conversation. Some of the participants of Ethiopians of Amhara, Tigray and Southern Peoples heritages chose their names are not disclosed in this article.
Let me start by saying that it was without a doubt the most productive meeting that I have attended in Ethiopian politics over the last decade or so. In the past, I have written many pessimistic articles with such titles as “The Unmaking of Ethiopia’s Thinking Class and the Dumbing Down of a Nation” and “Ethiopia Needs Pragmatic Solutions, But Its Political Class is Stuck in an Emotional Entropy.” I attended the meeting with my long-held reservation about the Ethiopian diaspora of which I am a part but came out of it with a glimmer of hope for a barrier-breaking political engagement.
In my opinion there are two reasons behind the change in the discussion environment that inspired my optimism. First, Professor Ephraim depoliticized the meeting by stressing that it was not a political meeting but a gathering to decipher the source of Ethiopia’s inter-ethnic hate politics. I believe the depoliticization and as a result the de-ethnicization of the engagement not only intellectualized but also humanized the discussion environment.
Second, there was a realization that politics in a hate-free environment is the art of transforming the seemingly impossible into the column of the possible. But hate in Ethiopian politics has made the plausibly achievable win-win political engagement practically impossible. The fact that the Amhara, Oromo and Tigray regions are locked in a lose-lose spiral with no sign of an exit ramp lent itself to the reckoning of a creeping phenomenon of self-destruction that hate politics entails.
It appears to me that the depoliticization of the meeting’s agenda and the human instinct for self-preservation helped the meeting to break away from the spiraling inertia of controversy-centric political culture. There were still vibrant debates, including on whether the current constitution is the womb that bore and the breast that nursed ethnic hatred. The aspiration of ethnic federalists for equal rights and the concerns of unitarists who fear the erosion of the tapestry of the nation’s unifying social fabric were discussed with tone and tenor tempered by the depoliticization and de-ethnicization of the meeting’s agenda.
Coffee time, lunch and dinner and even a night out to have drinks also allowed completely unguarded casual conversations with no trace of adversarial sentiments. We agreed to expand the team by inviting people with differing political views. We ended the meeting over a friendly coffee chat at Professor Ephraim’s house that can pass for a specialized library of Ethiopian books. We parted with hugs and handshakes, looking forward to the follow-up meeting.
Great news! Hate-politics can only destroy us. Given a country endowed with huge material and human resources, we can build together to relieve our innocent countrymen and women from the protracted pain and suffering brought about by selfish politicians and short-sighted political elite since the 1960s. Let us avoid the ethnic divide created in the 1960s and consolidated in the 1990s by those who were partly mad and selfish and rebuild our country together into one that can truly be a leader in Africa and beyond.
Derg started the decline out of sheer ignorance, EPRDF masterminded the destruction and here we are today with widespread destruction, suffering and thousands of innocent deaths in Tigray and Oromia, among others, on account of the blind and short-sighted policies and political structures authored by Meles Zenawi and OLF’s Lencho. Perhaps, Meles and Lencho lost no relatives, and amassed great wealth, but the fire they set alight has consumed hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens and brought our country to its knees.
This is the making of our elite and it requires urgent correction to do away with a demonic constitution and create a political environment much like that in multi-ethnic US where you all live in great comfort and security. Surely, if South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa and Nelson Mandela can create a democratic federal South Africa almost overnight, Ethiopians are not so very dumb as to continuously fall into the hands of petty ethnic dictators who have nothing positive to offer but poverty, death, destruction and civil war, and pose serious challenges to our existence. Glad to learn that the elite are waking up at last !
Let us follow Nelson Mandela and create a democratic federal Ethiopia where every ethnic group is equal before the law and all of us are free to live and work anywhere in Ethiopia. The current constitution should go since it has handed over our country to at most 9 ethnic groups and has condemned the remaining 74 ethnic groups to be subservient to the select 9 politically, socially and economically. Ethnicization has served only dictators and mafia groups; the broad masses everywhere in Ethiopia have gained nothing but poverty and death since the 1960s.
One can never prevent ethnically biased politics from political specrums. Ethnic politics, of course, is more pronounced in politically and economically underdeveloped countries than it is in the west, for example. People vote their ethnicity and their color all the time.
In constitutional, legal and political terms emphasis should be not to tolerate any and all inflammatory actions that cause harm to life, property and freedom of movement among others. The present constitution has not even served its own architects and remains a drag on attempts to solve political deadlocks and ethnic conflicts that it was supposed to mitigate. It’s needs to be edited heavily and by competent scholars from all walks of life.
This is a good start. The old country was always protected by the united struggle, fight and sacrifice of its citizens from multi ethnic backgrounds. It was not Oromos only that did that and it was not Amharas or Tigres, Somalis, Afars, Sidamas, Gambelas or any other ethnic group that sustained the country alone. During foreign invasions and other trying times, they had each other’s back. I’m not making this up. If I am pressed to present an alibi, I have The Battle of Adwa where a pompous Baratieri was forced to cut and run like a terrified rabbit. I can also confidently call the Battles Gundet and Gura as my defense witnesses. Even el-Sisi will be very happy to tell you about these two battles in which his ancestors had hired Swiss and battle tested Confederate army officers from America to wipe out those ‘abids(niggers)’. Werner Munzinger William Wing Loring and Henry Hopkins Sibley are also my defense witnesses. The blood that flowed on all those three fateful battlefields was not of the Amhara or Oromo, Tigre, Afar only. Their blood flowed rolled into one and saved the country from predator and merciless foreign enemies.
But a century or so later, something had befallen that gem of the colored. The demonic scriptures started seeping into the tender brains of the youth of the country thanks to foreigner professors. It was the devil’s hell book of Marxism/Leninism/Maoism. It turned young men and women who were born to harmonious families into bigots. They were bigots because they turned into hateful of certain ‘classes’ and ethnic groups. Even the middle class was not spared. They had and still a pejorative Marxist term for it and call this group the most dangerous one in the society. That gem of the colored has not been the same harmonious country since then. The influence of that demonic philosophy is still lurking around out there. They ran that country beginning 1974 and ran it to the ground. But such fruitful pow wow among our educated folks tells me all is not lost yet.
I commend Professor Ephraim Issac for organizing the dialogue. As Reverend Purlie once said it is only what you learn in college but it is how you talk when you come back. I don’t wanna hear any more of ‘Oromummaa’ this ‘Neftegna or Woyane’ that. I also don’t wanna be told what a foreign agent in missionary garb wrote about Oromo this and Amhara or Tigre that more than 150 or so years ago. That country does not deserve to lose another century of opportunity because of its educated children with minds twisted by the sermons of Marx, Lenin and Mao. Enough, enough, enough is enough.
Make that:
I commend Professor Ephraim Issac for organizing the dialogue. As Reverend Purlie once said it is not only what you learn in college but it is how you talk when you come back.
why do the americans court TPLF with such intensity that they have now regard Tigrai as a separate entity from Ethiopia,? the american foreign minister Anthony Blinken even likes to talk a lot about ‘western tigray ‘, even more than TPLF does.what is the motivation for him to do that .
My friends ,American policy towards ethiopia is cast in tablet and cannot or will not change what ever colour the government in the white house has. This policy was set by none othrer than Henery kISSINGER , and the little known Lord Macauly before him who was the policy advisor to the British government. Almost all British as well as American foreign policy is based on what was written by these two people decades ago.
Advice given by Henry Kissinger in 1972 and Lord Macaulay in 1835 to their respective governments in the U.S and U.K regarding foreign policy issues concerning Ethiopia and Africa are remarkably still relevant to the present and future Ethiopia.
Lord Macaulay’s observations of Africa as and India reflected overriding 18th century European perspectives. He remarked that during his travels, he did not encounter any beggars or thieves. He praised the wealth and high moral values he witnessed in India as and Africa, as well as the caliber of its people. As head of education in British India, Macaulay proposed, ‘to conquer the country, the British should undermine its spiritual and cultural heritage by replacing its old education system and culture.’ He believed the same principal applied in Africa. The assumption being,English influence as superior will compel Africans to lose their self-esteem, native culture, and become a dominated nation. Lord Macaulay’s proposal aimed to diminish the self-esteem and native culture of India and Africa.
In the epilogue of Theodore M. Vestal’s book, on page 188, it is suggested that Henry Kissinger, while heading the National Security Council in 1972, wrote a confidential report on the future of Ethiopia. Kissinger recommended that the United States should exploit internal tensions in Ethiopia by taking advantage of vulnerabilities that include ethnic, religious, and other divisions. Furthermore, National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSS200) discussed ‘the necessary threshold for industrial development in Africa should be curtailed’. This establishes best way to preserve the status quo control of the Red Sea as well to counter transnational Pan-Africanism from rising in the Horn of Africa.
Henry Kissinger’s proposal centered around exploiting ethnic, religious, and other differences to maintain perpetual tension as well as conflicts in Ethiopia. Before delving into the relevance of their policy advice, it is important to provide some background information on these two individuals.
ወንድም ኢቱ፦
ትክክል ብለሀል ! አፍሪቃ፣ ደቡብ አሜሪካና አብዛኛው እስያ በቅኝ ገዢ ወራሪ ሲወሰድ፣ በጀግኖች ልጆቿ ደምና አጥንት ነፃነቷን ያስከበረችው ኢትዮጵያ ዛሬ የተዋረደችው ሳያውቁ አወቅን ባሉ በራሷ የዘመኑ ደንቆሮ ልጆቿ ነው። ከተባበርን፣ አብረን ከሠራን፣ እኩልነታችንን በማንም ካላስነካን፣ ሰፊ ለም አገር፣ሰፊ የውሀ ሀብት፣ መጠነ ሰፊ የማዕድን ሀብት፣ ታታሪና ጀግና ሠራተኛ ሕዝብ ያላት አገራችን ነገ ከዓለም መሪዎች ጎን የማትሰለፍበት አንድም ምክንያት የለም። የዘር ክፍፍሉና የዘር ሕገ መንግሥቱ የጠላቶቻችን ማዳከሚያ ፈጠራ ነው።
የዛሬው ውርደታችን መሠረቱ ባለፉት 50 ዓመታት በግራ ዘመም ወጣት መሪዎች የተጎነጎነው፣ ከፊሎቻችንን ገዢ፣ የቀረነውን ተገዢ ያደረገው ደንቆሮ ሕገ መንግሥት ነው። እነ ኔልሰን ማንዴላ ከእሥር ቤት እንደወጡ ከ 1982 እስክ 1986 እንዳደረጉት፣ ኢትዮጵያውያን ሁሉ ተሰባስበን፣ ተመካክረን፣ አብረን ለመበልጸግ ወስነን፣ የጎሣ ሥርዓትን ከፋፋይነት አስወግደን፣ በጎሳ ላይ ተንጠላጥለው የሚያፋጁንን ሴረኞች አባርረን፣ እንደ ደቡብ አፍሪቃ በእርግጥ ዲሞክራሲያዊና ፌደራል መንግሥት ከመሠረትን፣ ኢትዮጵያችን በነጋታው ማበቧና ኃያል መሆኗ፣ ወጣቶቻችንም በስደት እንደማያልቁ፣ ረሀብና ችጋር አጥፍተን ኢትዮጵያችን ለሌሎች ተስፋ እንደምትሆንም አይቀሬ ነው።
መንግሥቱ ኃይለማርያም፣ መለስ ዜናዊ፣ ሌንጮ ለታና አቢይ አህመድ አገርና ወገን ወዳድ ቢሆኑማ ኖሮ፣ በጠባቡም አስበው ለሚያጋድሉትና በጦርነት ለሚማግዱት ለራሳቸውም ዘር ሲሉ፣ ከፍ ሲሉም እንደ እነ ማንዴላ ዲሞክራሲያዊት ኢትዮጵያን የመመሥረት ዕድላቸውን ወርውረው ለግልና ቡድን ጥቅም፣ ለዝናም ብቻ ቅድሚያ መስጠታቸው፣ ከነማንዴላና ሲሪል ራማፖዛ እጅግ ያነሱ ድኩማን እንደነበሩ ሲመሰክር፣ ለሀቀኛ ኢትዮጵያውያን ሁሉ ከፍተኛ ሀዘን ብቻ ሳይሆን ውርደትም ነው። ከ 1966 ዓ.ም. ወዲህ ቃላት እያሳመረ በጓዳችን የተፈለፈለውን ሴረኛና ከፋፋይ ጠላታችንን እየለየን የመጣን ይመስላል። እንኳን ደስ አለን ! በሕብረት እንግፋበት !
This is a good start and hopefully will motivate other stakeholders to join the conversation . My fear is that there has been similar efforts in the past which failed because they were either infiltrated by individuals of extreme political views or wanted to use the platform to promote themselves. It is time for Ethiopians of all ethnic backgrounds to come to their senses and bring to an end the half a century old self destructive politics and hatred to one another. Can we envision a country in which all citizens of all ethnicities live peacefully without the superiority of one over the other ? Yes we can , but first, we need to detoxify ourselves from all divisive rhetorics.