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The Potential Sources of Change in Ethiopia

Contact information:
Girma Berhanu
Department of Education and Special Education (Professor) University of Gothenburg
Box 300, SE 405 30
Göteborg, Sweden
E-mail: girma.berhanu@ped.gu.se

The new status quo Abiy Ahmed, the Prime minister of Ethiopia, is trying to establish in Ethiopia is unsustainable for the following reasons:

1. There are no racial differences in Ethiopia but only non-basic language and religious differences which can easily be resolved through technical and political solutions.
2. Abiy is trying to establish ethnic hegemony and therefore ethnic inequality by population size.
3. Ethiopian territory is apportioned by ethnicity which aims to carve up the country into two or three bigger sovereign states leaving some 80 ethnic groups stateless with the fate of being incorporated into the bigger states which is totally unacceptable in the context of ethnicism.
4. The ethnic political arrangement has already caused ethnic genocide, ethnic cleansing and a bloody civil war which is still ranging at the time of writing.
5. The economy is crumbling, and inflation, unemployment and currency depreciation are at an all-time high.
6.Abiy is trying to mask the underlying political and economic chaos and mayhem by displaying fake megaprojects on TV; only the other day he was seen playing football on a medium-size Premier League type artificial turf pitch he ordered built even as hundreds of Ethiopians are perishing in the civil war his OPDO/OLF and Tplf deliberately created.

The potential sources of change as usual are the following:
1.The national military.
2. A splinter group within the government.
3. A Fano-like armed opposition group.
4. A spontaneous or organized popular uprising.
5. A foreign-orchestrated operation.
6. A combination of two or more of the above.

If corrective measures are not taken through the above-mentioned ways, Ethiopia will enter a period of permanent chaos and instability marked by civil war, genocide, ethnic cleansing, mass emigration, dislocation and untold economic suffering in which death may be preferred over life as a final solution!

4 thoughts on “The Potential Sources of Change in Ethiopia”

  1. This writer is a bigot. He must be one of those individuals that my warra Chiro(Ciro) once told me as someone who never had the chance to live with or among Oromos. All he had heard during he was growing up was biased made up stories about Oromos. You take someone like this man and made him a professor he would make every iota of his ignorance to spew around poison among upright citizens. It is so sad we have individuals who should have known better among us. Very saddening indeed!!!

  2. Is this another form of bigotry orchestrated by Ato Girma? What an amazing education???!!! The writer claims to be a professor and none of his writing shows a shred of evidence or proof on what he is trying to convey except declaring dooms and glooms of situation in Ethiopia. As an educated person if you think that there are list of problems, you didn’t even try to show solutions for a better outcome. But you act like a politician running to throw mud on your opponent and complain by sitting idle far and sadly got a courage to bad mouth the hard-working prime minister who is toiling under difficult internal and external pressures. Come on professor, any layman can utter what you are saying and complaining all day about any issue, big and small alike. Ethiopia had many of those so please don’t jam the traffic. What citizens are expecting from the bright minds like yourself is a solution oriented analysis. I think, you know this from your higher educational experience and no lecturer would give you a pass unless you come up with solutions. That is a core principle of identifying the educated ones from the others. So, where are you?

  3. ITTU ABA FARDA.
    What made you think the opinion of this man is bigoted?
    I live in Addis Ababa where the administration is unashamedly promoting ethnic bias and systematically pushing aside the native
    population that established the city.
    People call the oromo ethnocentric mob “Teregna” since they are practicing what TPLF has left with even more vigor.
    The opinion of the OP is ,in my opinion , true representation of what is happening on the ground.
    I think Oromos must stop playing the victim game and start self-questioning themselves.

  4. HAMID:
    You just made a big booboo yourself by presupposing the entire ethnic group. What do you think your utterance accusing all Oromos means with this: ‘I think Oromos must stop playing the victim game and start self-questioning themselves.’ How do you know that? How do you know every Oromo is crying blood murder playing victim? Have you talked to every Oromo in the entire country there and everywhere they live in the world? How do you come up with such bold conclusion? You are stereotyping and accusing entire noble people. The writer is 100% sure PM Abiy is a member/diehard supporter of OLF just because he is partially of Oromo heritage. It is the same notion that has gripped many among us that everyone from Tigray region is a TPLF member or supporter. It is the same generalization that once he opens his mouth to talk every Amhara is that boogeyman neftegna(Fano these days). This wholesale incrimination has been a malignant cancer eating at the heart of centuries old social fabric. Meanwhile my long held dream is still alive and kicking. One day your and my children/grandchildren will be stricken and go ethnic blind and hold hands with children and grandchildren of current ethnic groups and march toward the Promised Land where no one will be above the law and the rights with responsibility of the individual are protected by the law of the land. That is what I dream every day. Insha’Allah!!! Beyond that, have a nice day and blessings to you and your family.

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