Debretsion’s ህዋሐት vs. Getachew’s TPLF in Bullet Points

Yonas Biru, PhD

Dear honorable ታዳሚዎች of this esteemed discussion forum. It is with humility and respectful submission that I share my views on a thorny political issue. I am tight with time and feel depleted of energy to write a full-blown article. I am limiting my thoughts and views to a bullet point presentation.

From Ethiopia’s and Amhara’s perspectives the choice between Debretsion’s ህዋሐት and Getachew’s TPLF is a choice between two evils. Politics at its finest is the art of navigating through a web of entangled evils. The purpose of these bullet points is to push the hermitized Ethiopian political class out of its comfort zone and force it to see the issue from a new perspective.

Getachew can win if the PM puts his support behind him in terms of staying in office as an interim administrator for the foreseeable future. The PM has interest in this and Getachew’s political life depends on it.

If Getachew wins, he will be beholden to the diabolical psychopathic PM and TPLF will become a junior partner to Oromo-PP, more like Amhara-PP.

With Getachew’s win, the Amhara-Tigray land conflict will be in a limbo for the foreseeable future until the PM figures out who is less dispensable between Amhara-PP and Tigray-PP. It also depends on the political dynamic in the Oromo tribal land.

The PM may help Getachew’s TPLF to hang on to power. However, Debretsion’s ህዋሐት will lurk in the Tigryan political, social and economic life. Tigray’s political ዘጭ እንቦጭ will be for survival not reconstruction, peace, stability and prosperity.

Debretsion’s ህዋሐት understands Fano has weakened the Federal government and the PM will not have power to start a new war against Debretsion’s ህዋሐት. The only way the PM can allow Debretsion’s ህዋሐት is if it feels it is losing the war against Fano.

In any case, if Debretsion’s ህዋሐት gets its way and take the helm of Tigray’s politics, the party will continue its destructive path. Its inability to admit defeat and reconcile with humiliation makes it impossible to reform itself.

Remember what allowed Japan and Germany to prosper after WWII was their ability to reconcile with defeat, unequivocally abandon their misguided beliefs in their respective social exceptionalism that caused them harm, accept humiliation as a driving energy for transformation, and chart a new chapter in their nation building.

Debretsion’s ህዋሐት is a victim of tribalized and hermitized intellectual class that confuses old dogma with a new political paradigm because it sees its hallucinatory ideology and unmitigated fantasies about Tigrayan exceptionalism as inviolate truths.

Debretsion’s ህዋሐት is preoccupied in salvaging the past rather than in building the future. The aim is to turbo its political engine with the social psychology of the ወያኔ of the 19th century rather than with a new paradigm fit for the 21st century.

No matter how you slice and dice it, TPLF is weaker today than it used to be before the war. Militarily, it is diminished, psychologically, it’s invincibility has dissipated like a morning dew, though its empty bravado is still on display. This is more like a psychological propensity to the Tigrayan political culture of አልሞትኩም ብየ አልዋሽም to salvage the past rather than a propensity to chart the future.

Nonetheless, if Debretsion’s ህዋሐት wins, it will be like a sharp bone in the PM’s throat – a source of continuing annoyance and hindrance.

If Debretsion’s ህዋሐት wins, the Amhara-Tigray conflict will be determined by accident and force rather than by reasoned decision and a win-win strategy that aims to find a mutually beneficial long-lasting outcome.

Unfortunately, neither Tigray nor Amhara has an intellectual class in the true sense of the term. What they have is a hermitized idiotic class stuck in yestercentury’s frame of mind. The two obsolete forces are elbowing each other to claim the 21st century for which neither has the means to survive in.

This is where the art of navigating through a web of entangled evils and choosing the least destructive path become necessary. This is where the all too familiar bumper sticker political wisdom “The Best Should Not be the Enemy of the Good” becomes an indispensable political imperative.

Ethiopia needs TPLF to survive to contain the Psychopathic PM who is more dangerous for the survival of Ethiopia than Egypt and Somalia combined.

Now you understand why my proposal in 2021 and 2022 insisted TPLF should not be politically abolished, and it should not be forced to disarm small weapons. Any Ethiopian who wished for TPLF’s defeat at this stage is naïve or an unreformable hermit sleepwalking in the 21st century.

You may now rant like you did when in November 2020 I argued the ENDF should not enter Mekele. Rant again like you did in 2021 and 2022 when I wrote “as a political entity TPLF should not be abolished and it should not be fully disarmed.” I was right in 2020. I was right in 2021 and 2022 and I am right now.

You can go rant until your face turns yellowish ውሃ ሰማያዊ. Go start another round of petition or vote to deplatform me from Ethiopian social media.