VISION 2020: WHITHER ETHIOPIA
MESFIN W0LDEMARIAM
Economics Association
November 2003


I. INTRODUCTION

It may perhaps be necessary to understand the global situation in which we
currently find ourselves. The horrible and barbaric attack of September 11,
2001 on America; America's comparable military response for that against
Afghanistan and, then, against Iraq; its threats against North Korea, Syria,
and Iran; and the actions of those that are called terrorists in Kenya,
Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan all have contributed to disturb the already
fragile world peace. Perhaps, the principal cause of all this is the endless,
and mindless strife between the Israelis and the Palestinians. On the one hand,
while oppression that employs incomparably superior force is transforming
Palestinian nationalism into Arab nationalism, and into Islamism, on the other
hand, it is changing Israeli nationalism into Westernism or Americanism. As a
consequence, the targets of the conflict are as varied as are the type of the
weapons used. On the part of the Palestinians and their supporters, the target
in this conflict is everyone on the side America; everything considered as
American property; everything considered as American interest. America and
Israel, for their part, have as targets all those they call terrorists. The
choice, however, both sides give to the rest of the world amounts to nothing
more than: 'if you are not with me, you are against us.' The type of conflict
is such as has never been heretofore witnessed in the world. The battlefield is
borderless and practically covers the whole world. The type of weapons used is
extremely varied. The weapons used by America and Israel are the products of
modern technology, which, crush and burn effectively. The weapon employed by
their adversaries is human life. Every week many lives are lost and much
property destroyed on both sides. It is quite clear that on both sides evil
spirit has prevailed over good.

The principles that enjoyed universal respect in the preceding century
(Gregorian calendar) are now being violated.. The sovereignty of states has now
become something contingent upon the consent of the superpowers. We are all
familiar with what happened in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq in this regard.
The threats directed to North Korea and Iran as well as against Syria by
America and the consequent climate of uncertainty is an indication of
superpower dominance. The American demand to replace an elected leader is now
followed by Al Qa'ida. Looking at the state of affairs today, mass slaughter of
human beings and the destruction of property and development infrastructures
have become the standard practice and a matter of right not only for the
powerful but also for the weak. Moral rectitude has reached the bottom in the
realm of the spiritual, let alone in the secular sphere. The time is such that
people are ready and willing to sell not only their bodies but also their
souls. Human dignity and honor have no longer any value. This is how the world
we live in today appears to me. And it is in such a world that we [Ethiopians]
live in utter destitution and helplessness.

Although the general climate in the world we live in appears to be unfavourable
to oppressive regimes, the superpowers, nevertheless, show a tendency to use
oppressive regimes as instruments of their interest and policy. As far as
terrorism is concerned the principal problem of the Western powers is their
failure to comprehend that terrorism is a consequence of Western relations with
oppressive regimes. As long as oppressive regimes continue to exist and
peaceful political struggles are suppressed, there will always be rebellion and
terrorism. It is, consequently, inevitable that the target of rebellion and
terrorism will be the destruction not only the oppressive regimes but also the
powers behind them. I do not believe there is any other reason than this for
America to be targeted as an enemy by terrorists. In spite of the fact that the
American ideals of freedom, democracy, justice and property rights are of great
benefit to all humanity, the American government has not demonstrated
unshakeable faith in them and made them instruments of its foreign policy. On
the contrary, the American government, for various reasons, becomes the
supporter and defender of oppressive regimes. I think that is the problem.

The gap between the Western nations and the rest of the world is growing ever
wider. The Western nations have achieved in a mere span of four hundred years
what we have not been able to do in four thousand years. Because our planet has
become too small for them, they are now moving further into the wide world of
outer space. While we are still dragging ourselves behind our donkeys to cover
a mere seven kilometers a day, they cruise comfortably through thousands of
kilometers in a matter of hours. Whereas we fail to observe what is obvious and
tangible, they persistently investigate and probe into the microscopic. While
we purchase arms and weapons manufactured by the West to wreak havoc among
ourselves, as if in celebration of death, they are relishing every bit of joy
that life provides. While we have found it almost impossible to live peacefully
together in the small space we have in our country, they are turning the whole
world into their own country, whether we like it or not. We, for our part, hate
the country that we have destroyed, and make a culture of going into exile in
the West. For those of us who have not yet gone into exile, our lives, whether
in the realm of the state or non-governmental organizations, are at the mercy
of Western generosity. Our very survival has no security outside such
generosity. The question, therefore, for me is not what we have, but what we are.


II. The Impact of the Global Situation on Our Life

The factors that pose challenges to the issue of Ethiopianness and its survival
have their sources not only in the internal administrative setup, but also in
external relations. History leaves behind its own scars. Various European
colonial forces have been embarrassed by Ethiopia's impregnability; America,
too, has experienced this impregnability; Turkey, Egypt and some Arab countries
have seen, each in its own way, the impregnability f Ethiopianness. But it is
an indubitable fact that there is an imprint, both biological and cultural,
which history has left behind, shared by our neighbors and ourselves. And one
such imprint [in the cultural-religious sphere] is Islam. Islam, as a
religion, is as much Ethiopian as it is Arab. Before the advent both of
Christianity and Islam in Ethiopia, Ethiopianness had a link with Bete Israel
or Judaism. In my view, Judaism, Christianity and Islam had each attempted at
various times to replace Ethiopianness; all failed. Instead, each became
Ethiopian. To the same extent that Jerusalem became a sacred place of worship
for all three religions, so also has Ethiopianness partaken of the history of
this Holy place.

All three religions have adherents outside of Ethiopia. Because these religions
have for long served as bridges between Ethiopia and other countries, mutual
interactions among people, ideas and cultures have taken place, resulting in
varying kinds and degrees of lasting relationships. Today, however, Ethiopian
Judaism has shorn itself of its Ethiopian identity and has put on Israeli garb.
Together with other forms of exile currently taking place, I think we can
consider this particular exodus as the beginning of stripping of our sense of
Ethiopianness of its potency. On top of this, we are still in the dark as to
what the impact of the Israelization of the Bete Israel would be on Muslim
Ethiopianness. Christianity’s Ethiopianness is in tatters as a result of
commotion and strife generated by tribalism. It is only Islam that has
courageously managed to resist the outrages of tribalism. It is possible that
there are some who might try to involve Ethiopian Islam in the conflict the
Western powers have with Islam, or, as it is generally referred to, Islamic
fundamentalism. Consequently, there is fear among some circles that Ethiopian
Islam will, through some kind of external influence, indeed get involved in the
conflict and contribute to the weakening of the sense of Ethiopianness and
expose the country to danger. The regime’s conflict with Somalia's Al Ittihad
is rationalized on that basis. We should be careful not to let such conflicts
poison the Ethiopianness of Islam. I have no doubt whatsoever that, at a time
when the Ethiopianness of Christianity is being undermined by an inept internal
administration, the additional weakening of the Ethiopianness of Islam as a
result of external interference would certainly aggravate the erosion of
Ethiopianness. While serving the interests of the Western powers lured by the
power of their money may have its short-term advantages, the damage it inflicts
on the country in the long term will have adverse consequences.

III. Where Did We Start to Get Where We Are Now?

The regime of Atse Haile Sillase represented, for those of us who were young at
the time, a system tangled up in an outdated cultural traits, a regime in which
an unjust land tenure system prevailed, in short, a system that was backward
and too slow to respond to the exigencies of the time. It may be unbecoming of
me to reproach a regime that has now been dead thirty years. Yet, because it
could not move along with the changing times and, moreover, could not even
learn from and pay heed to the lessons of the 1960 attempt of a coup d'etat
instigated and led by the Atse’s own Body Guard, its downfall eventually proved
to be unsightly and humiliating. The Derg regime that followed was, with all
its baseness and ruthlessness, a child of the intransigence of the Atse’s
regime.

The achievements of the Atse’s regime are quite substantial and cannot even be
compared with those of the regimes that succeeded it. Let me briefly point out
the major achievements of the regime in only three areas:

§ First of all, regarding the issue of Ethiopian unity, we have come to learn
of the efforts made to unite Eritrea with its motherland, thanks to a recent
publication by Ambassador Zewde Retta; we have also learned from the same
source that the current problems surrounding Ethio-Eritrean relations had their
origin in that period;

§ Secondly, leaving aside for the moment the land tenure system that prevailed
at the time, it is my belief that Ethiopia, over and above being
self-sufficient, would have been able to provide different agricultural
products to the global market if only the progress started in agriculture had
been allowed to continue;

§ That the regime had taken Ethiopia to a point of self-sufficiency in the
area of education is something that we are all familiar with.

I would like to deal with the issue of education at the time in more detail.
Atse Haile Sillase habitually handpicked young people from wherever he went
and have them enrolled in boarding schools. If such opportunity had not come
our way, most of us could not even have been able to get anywhere near modern
educational institutions, let alone get enrolled in any one of them. I
remember, in Teferi Mekonnin School, for instance, there were Somalis from the
Ogaden, Hararis from Harer, youngsters from Gojam, Gondar, Tigray, Sidamo,
Arsi, Eritrea, Wellega and from around Addis Abeba itself enrolled as boarding
students. Atse Haile Sillase was well aware of the legal concept in the Fitiha
Neghest: The son cannot be held accountable for the crimes of his father;
neither can a father be held accountable because of his son's crime.
Accordingly, even the son of the infamous traitor, Haile Sillase Gugsa, and
that of the rebellious patriot Belay Zelleqe were among those enrolled in the
school at that time. When this medley of students rebelled in the school, he
angrily uttered ?this is what happens after bringing them together from
nothing!? Although what he said at the time was true as far as facts go, we
felt hurt. And that is why a student, Matewos Tiggineh, retorted: "Your
Majesty, our fathers, after all, pay their taxes!"

This traditional regime, however, had its controllers in the form of
'conscience' from within and God and fear of public opinion from without. There
also was the pressure from the elderly. Moreover, not only Atse Haile Sillase,
but also those in his service were sensitive about their honor. Accordingly,
there were voices that they heard and listened to both from within themselves
and from without. However, because dictatorial regimes cannot learn and
correct themselves, the 1960 attempted coup failed to change it.

In my opinion, Atse Haile Sillase's regime has shown incomparably good progress
by way of introducing and expanding modern education in Ethiopia. Education in
general, and higher education in particular, were both open to any poor
Ethiopian who was able to prove his/her worth. Children of the aristocracy and
the nobility went to school alongside those of the poor. I still remember how,
in 1951 Gregorian calendar, a report in Life magazine, stating that Ethiopia
did not have even a single engineer, incensed me. The saving grace, however,
came that same year when institutions of higher education were inaugurated.
Without any doubt, the regime of the Atse had indeed launched Ethiopia into the
twentieth century in the realm of modern education. This also was true in the
military field. The military academy in Harer, the Ethiopian Air Force at Debre
Zeit and the Naval Academy at Massawa provided all-round, high quality
training. Ethiopia was even able to provide scholarships to young men from
other African countries, some among which had become ministers and ambassadors
of their respective countries.

There were institutions, however few, that gave concrete testimony to the
advances made in the area of education. These were: Ethiopian Air Lines;
Ethiopian Telecommunications; Ethiopian Electric Light and Power Authority;
Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, and the University College of Addis Abeba (later
Haile Sillase I University). At the time, these institutions that had
comparable standards with similar institutions elsewhere in the world were the
country's pride. I do not think you have any desire to hear from me as to where
these institutions stand today.

Although the Atse?s regime gave much attention to the expansion of education in
Ethiopia, it failed to grasp the nature of education: it failed to realize that
education meant change. People change to the same extent as their exposure to
education. And by change I mean genuine change in depth, not superficial and
half-baked change through wholesale imitation of what went on elsewhere. People
want to change their social environment to the same degree they themselves have
changed. But the regime at that time did not prove a willing partner to the
efforts made to change the environment and take it one notch up on the quality
scale. Consequently, the educated manpower of the time could not have the
desired impact on the country's progress in administrative reforms and on
economic development. As a consequence of this, the contradiction between the
regime and the educated sector kept on increasing both in scope and magnitude.
Because Ethiopia at that time was in a relatively better position in Africa, it
was the desire of the youth then to see it not only sustaining its level of
development but also emerge as capable of advancing even further and becoming a
model for other African countries to emulate. Just as much as Ethiopia was a
beacon of freedom and hope not only for Africa but for the rest of the black
world, there was a strong desire to see it prosper economically and become one
among the wealthy nations of the world. But the youth then was disappointed to
see that progress made was proceeding at a snail’s pace. So the main failure
of the regime was its inability or refusal to accept the consequences of
education when compared with the efforts it made to expand education in the
country.

When eventually that traditional regime fell, it was hoped that Ethiopia would
open new vistas for progress and development. But because the regime had
concentrated power in one man and had, consequently, not allowed people to
assemble and freely express their ideas and to organize, the regime as well
as the people were outmaneuvered by street smart officers, so that the reigns
of power went into the hands of majors and other junior officers in a country
that had managed to produce generals that graduated from such esteemed
institutions as Sand Hurst and San Cir military academies. As a result, the
country fell under the rule of a regime worse than that it replaced and one, in
fact, that was so ruthless as to have no iota of respect for human life
whatsoever. Consequently, going to exile became the culture of Ethiopians. The
quality of education degenerated under the pressure of superficial belief of
Marxist-Leninism. The progress made in the area of agricultural development was
curbed, indeed stifled. Arbitrary arrest and killing of people by political
fiat became the fashion of the day.

During the Derg regime, power, as in the past, was concentrated in the hands of
one person, as a result of which people were ruthlessly suppressed and suffered
the agony of persecution until they could take it no more. Ironically, those
who followed the slogan of the Derg eventually toppled that regime, "those that
are conscious, organized and armed shall be victorious!" The Weyyane that
replaced the Derg consisted of guerilla forces from the jungle. Just as Haile
Sillase's generals were outsmarted by their juniors, so also was the Derg
outsmarted by the ragtag forces of Weyyane. The downward motion inaugurated by
the downfall of the Atse?s regime still continues, which is not difficult to
realize when we look into the situation we currently find ourselves in.

IV. What is Our Current Predicament?

Briefly put we live in a world where evil reigns. And this evil spirit is not
that far away from us. Our abject poverty, our propensity to be slaves of
unrealizable wishes, and the cracks within our body politic attract forces of
evil from everywhere. The people of Ethiopia are peaceful and have the capacity
to endure suffering. There is no people that is as innocent and as patient
as we are. We do not get angered when robbed; we do not complain about the
injustices we suffer; we do not lose our temper over the violation of laws; we
are insensitive to the agonies and the cries of the poor and the unemployed.
We are all governed by the day-to-day necessities for survival without being
engaged in the pain of thinking. We live in a situation in which the educated
and the uneducated mutually denigrate each other; a situation in which the
youth and the elderly, the rich and the poor, the rural dweller and the
urbanite each blames the other for its predicament; a situation in which those
with a rifle slinging on their shoulders order the unarmed around; a situation
in which we disparage those that we once worshipped and respect those that we
are going to deprecate come tomorrow. In short, we live in a situation in which
our sole aim in life has become surviving and making it to the next day. We do
not worry about what will happen tomorrow, because it is our masters that plan
and fashion our tomorrow. Not worrying about tomorrow is a characteristic of
the slave. Consequently, when tomorrow visits us with all its baggage of
problems, we have neither the propensity nor the desire to think of what we
should do, save preparing ourselves to accept the problems with equanimity.
Tomorrow brings with it and ensuring that our individual interests alone have
been met. Our motto is: "Why should I worry when I cannot ward off what
Providence has predetermined." This has become the principle by which we guide
our existence.

How can the people of any given country succeed in life unless they struggle
and act to ensure that the country and the sovereignty is theirs as a matter of
right. For almost two thousand years we have been doing nothing more than
blaming everything on the different regimes and supplicating God, the angels,
and all the saints for solutions to our problems. Yet, we do not have the
purity of heart to achieve the objectives of our prayers. Because our hearts
are full of evil and hatred, grudges and envy, it appears to me that God who
knows our hearts does not have the ears to listen to our insincere prayers. All
those who say several times a day "as we would forgive those who trespass
against us" shake with rage and spit fiery words of vengeance on those
occasions when the issues of mercy and forgiveness are raised. Let alone the
recent past, they go back for centuries looking for excuses for wielding their
spears of vengeance. So, we lack the one prerequisite -- purity of heart --
even for our prayers to be heard. Our country has gone spiritually bankrupt. We
should not limit the meaning of spirituality only to its religious, theological
sense. I use it to embrace such concepts as truthfulness, freedom, justice,
equality, and, in general, all those functions of conscience by which we
discriminate the good from the bad.

On top of all this, we have been inflicted with a limping philosophy of life
expressed in Amharic as "gommen betena," which basically implies a choice of
misery with peace. Fear has paralyzed our courage. If what we call Ethiopians
were only those who are the proprietors of knowledge and of wealth then I
would have no problem proclaiming that they deserved the regime they are under.
But over ninety per cent of the Ethiopian people live in abject poverty and
famine. These Ethiopians who are born in poverty and live and die in poverty do
not deserve dictatorial regimes. The options of those who are proprietors of
wealth and knowledge are many. If they could only recognize it , their
responsibilities increase in proportion to what they own. The fact that they
have failed to accept their responsibilities, coupled with the options
available to them, makes it difficult to sympathize with their subjugation or
oppression. Their society has not acquired the expected contributions in
generosity, protection and leadership. One of the manifestations of the moral
and spiritual degeneration of our society is the irresponsibility of those
possessing wealth and knowledge. This sector of our society is such that, if it
finds living in Ethiopia comfortable but without any responsibility, it is
fine. But if it finds it impossible to live in Ethiopia with the comfort it
seeks, then it has the a ready option of going abroad and living there. In
other words, this social group lives astride two options -- with one foot in
Ethiopia and the other in the country of its choice abroad. As a nation, we
have not yet recognized our moral responsibility to feel the pain and suffering
of the majority and to accept the fact that Ethiopia is not only the source of
wealth and comfort, but that we, too, are Ethiopia’s source of wealth and
comfort. There simply is no point in pointing our fingers at the regime when
we ourselves have failed to meet our obligations..

Because we suffer from moral poverty, we are still living, as per usual, under
a regime that is completely outside of our control. It is in the nature of the
existing regime to bring everything under its monopolistic control: political
power, urban and rural land, the only source of wealth, and the public media.
Although the regime is heavily dependent on foreign assistance, both
politically and economically it appears to me that its attempt to inhibit
businessmen by labeling them dependents on foreign capital may be its way of
telling us that it wants to monopolize dependency, too. Moreover, the regime,
at least indirectly owns news media, news agencies, commercial and industrial
enterprises, entertainment places, information and publishing agencies, all of
which have at least privileges and support that other businesses do not have.
Through such a stratagem it puts private investors out of competition. In
Maoist parlance this is known as bureaucratic capitalism.

Although Atse Haile Sillase's favourite phrase, "for our beloved people," may
not be applicable today, but there is a constitution provided in almost similar
fashion to our subjects?. It can serve as a starting point to move forward.
The question on the table today is not whether the said constitution is good or
bad. Rather, it is whether the constitution is a live document. We see today
that the regime itself is publicly and brazenly rendering the constitution
ineffective. Never was there a regime, which had total control over the
judicial system. Under the present regime, how many poor people, and boys and
girls, have been rounded up at night from the streets of Addis Abeba and
abandoned in the outskirts of the city for hyenas to feast upon? Only recently
a journalist was beaten and thrown over a bridge onto the riverbed below. The
rule of law has no meaning today. How many thousands of persons have been
incarcerated for over ten years without even a day in court? How many hundreds
of persons were arbitrarily killed without any legal remedy? How many persons
are languishing in prison on mere charges of suspicion? How many thousand
persons, expelled and dislocated from Eritrea, are still forced to move from
one temporary shelter to another for over ten years? And how many children are
born in the various shelters and now growing up in the streets of Addis Abeba?
How many thousands of persons were displaced from their homes due to the
Ethio-Eritrean war? How many thousands of persons have been dislocated as a
result of tribal conflict and now live in destitution? And now, how many
thousands of persons have been deported from DJibouti? We also hear that
Yemen, too, is deporting Ethiopians. Do all these persons have a country and a
government that they can call their own? Does anyone claim them as one's own
fellow-citizens?

The present regime is the natural follower of the Derg regime in both behavior
and action. The only difference between the two is the difference between their
patrons: As much as the Derg regime was superficially socialist, so also is the
Weyyane regime superficially democrat. Although the forms of the regimes is
different the suffering of the Ethiopian people continues to be the same. Those
who are hungry and greedy replace those who are satiated. In both cases, what
was and is lacking is a healthy doubt about themselves, good will and moral
courage. What was and is glaringly visible in both cases is the lack of
willingness to accommodate others who happen to excel them in various fields.
It is because these regimes could not bear highly educated persons that going
into exile, in Europe, America, Australia, and the Arab countries became an
Ethiopian culture.

V. Where Will the Present Path Take Us?

As different as their professional qualifications may be, those who spoke at
this forum before me all agree on one important point: that we cannot continue
treading the same beaten path if we are to make any progress at all within the
next twenty-five years. It has been repeatedly asserted that the trend that we
have been following so far will only lead us into further 'misfortune', into
'calamity', into total 'breakdown' or 'collapse'. My perception of the path
leading to the abyss we are headed to [unless we change our ways] is as
follows: I see a speeding train with its passengers, ethnic groups divided by
bamboo fences, and all in commotion. The driver of the train, armed with a
machine gun, is seated facing the passengers and his back in the direction of
the train’s movement. The passengers are looking forward while the driver is
looking at the passengers. Because the driver cannot see the abyss ahead of
the moving train, what scares him most is the commotion of the passengers. By
contrast, what scares the passengers is the machine-gun held by the driver and
the abyss ahead. The passengers in the train have no control over the speed or
the direction of the train. The driver of the train does not see what the
passengers see; neither does he have the desire to know from the passengers
about what they see. The passengers and the conductor are on different
wavelengths. There is no communication between them. The passengers have
decided to go down the abyss in silence. If they warn the driver about the
abyss and ask him to stop the train, they know his only answer will come in the
form a volley of machine gun bullets. So the only way left is to fall into the
abyss together -- passengers and driver alike. We are in the grip of such a
dilemma and fear. If we can imagine the driver’s situation, we may realize
that he, too, is in the grip of the same dilemma and fear. Unless passengers
and driver somehow manage to communicate, train, passengers and driver cannot
escape the grim fate of being hurled into the abyss

Paradoxically enough both the armed and the unarmed are in the grip of fear.
Their common enemies are mistrust and the weapon. It is impossible to get rid
of the weapon before we get rid of the mistrust. It is impossible to get rid of
the mistrust if we cannot communicate. We cannot communicate and come to an
understanding if we do not clear our hearts from grudges and vengeance. That is
precisely why the run-away train goes over the cliff into the abyss. I do not
believe that the falling of the train over the cliff is the end but the
beginning of our predicament. The fall of the train will create a condition
that will trigger tribal commotion, strife and opportunities for vengeance. We
will go back centuries in order to place ourselves on the same level as the new
countries of Africa. the path we are following now will certainly lead us to
this. If anybody is in doubt about this, I urge that person to stop and think
twice. The fact that the venom of tribalism meant for others twisted and turned
to take an unexpected route to show its ugly face between Eritreans and Tigres,
vicious and tragic as it is, shows how insidious and tortuous tribal conflict
can be. Its consequence has gone so far as creating division even among Tigres.
Although the concern is focused on the actions of the Oromo Liberation Front,
tribalism is blossoming in various parts of Ethiopia is clear to all who follow
developments in the country. Youngsters nurtured on tribalism are growing into
adulthood, almost constituting a generation by themselves. What worries most of
us are the issues of poverty and famine. Although we may not be oblivious of
it, we seem to block our minds on the greater issue of the survival of
Ethiopia. Burying our head in the sand, like the proverbial ostrich, and
wishing to see only what we want to see does not in any way alter the direction
we are headed to. Part of the Ethiopia that I knew and that I call my country
is not there now. It is my opinion that, if we continue to trail the path we
have been following so far, even the present Ethiopia may not make it to the
year 2020. If we persist on following this path, it is inevitable that our fate
would be like many other African countries. The very survival of Ethiopia shall
be thrown into doubt. I am not sure we can avoid a situation even worse than
that of the Zemene Mesafint [the Era of the Princes, 1769-1855) to engage in
mutual destruction.

The future conflict will be different from past conflicts. The conflicts we
witnessed in the past were in the main between rebels and the regime in power.
The downfall of the Derg occurred, as I said earlier, in accordance with its
slogan: "A conscious, organized and armed group will emerge victorious!" The
conflict resulting from the tribal policy that the Weyyane introduced and
legalized will differ from those of the past in that it will involve not only
the ruling party and opposition groups but also the different tribal groups
inhabiting the country. In other words, the future conflict will not be only
vertical, but also horizontal. I have already mentioned that a generation
nurtured in tribalism is emerging. The feeling of animosity between the people
of Eritrea and those of Tigray will proliferate among the other groups of the
country. The repressed anger of the people of Wello and Gonder, which is a
result of the expropriation of their land to enlarge Tigray is serious. The
Afars are not willing to live divided and suppressed. The Oromo Liberation
Front is up in arms and fighting. The Ogaden has been given signs that it can
secede. The other ethnic groups may be wondering along similar lines, each in
its own way. Once tribal conflict starts, it will accelerate through its own
momentum and it will be difficult to stop it. That is why I do not assume there
will be peace. The downfall will be vicious and unprecedented, fuelled by
abject poverty and famine, driven by tribalism, cruelty blinded by hatred and
vengeance will be the order of the day ? resulting in mutual annihilation.

Factors that will help intensify this mutual annihilation abound all around us.
The bloody conflicts that took place between Ethiopia and Somalia, and between
Ethiopia and Eritrea in the past few years, the misunderstanding created
between Jibouti and Ethiopia, the political romance and courting carried out
between Ethiopia and America, on the one hand, and that between Ethiopia and
the Sudan on the other are not portents of a comfortable existence for Ethiopia
in the coming years. It seems to me that we will get to the edge of that
dangerous cliff, which everyone seems to have predicted, at the end of 1997
[Ethiopian calendar, or 2005 Gregorian, an election year]. A new Ethiopia will
be born only out of the collective pain and anguish that everyone from Eritrea
to Borana and from Gambella to Jijiga will feel and experience all at once. The
law of the jungle will only carry us to this point. At a time when the rest of
humanity is busy rationally solving complex and interwoven problems, we are
still at that low stage where intimidation and the use of force are the rule of
the day. In a situation where the minds of the oppressor as well as the
oppressed have been numbed by this practice of intimidation, in which our soul
has become sick to the core, we can do nothing sensible or significant whether
for ourselves individually or for our community as a whole, because all we have
is a brain numbed and a soul inflicted with sickness to the core.

As you might very well know, it has not been easy for me to say all this. So
far, I have seen three regimes coming to a disgraceful end. I had foreseen the
downfall of the two and publicly expressed my opinions and feelings before the
fact. The present regime is of an altogether different nature. Unless it takes
time to think and rectify its ways in due time, its downfall will be quite
different from those of the past, because it may also ruin the country. But,
as Bahru had said, Ethiopia is a country of miracles; it has such resilience
that it revives and survives in spite of all odds. If that will be the case, it
shall be the joy of all of us. Although I believe in miracles, I certainly do
not think that we will emerge unscathed from the impending disaster by simply
sitting with our hands folded and doing nothing.

VI. What Should We Do to Thwart the Disaster?

At the time I was preparing this presentation I had received a manuscript from
Professor Getachew Haile. The document is about what happened at Deqlqe
Istifanos at the beginning of the fifteenth century and which Professor
Getachew translated from the Ge'ez original. Everything that was happening six
hundred years ago, as recounted in the document, is still happening today. It
is both tragic and surprising. The fact that those in power cannot accept
differences of opinion, and that they persecute those with different opinions
with different methods and the variety of methods of persecution have not
changed to this day.

Unless it appears as a simplification, it seems to me our historical problems
have always been two. First, we have been guided by the law of the jungle
throughout the course of our long history. We have failed to develop any other
alternative to the use of force for administration. We differentiated ourselves
between those who are superior and inferior, between those who have rights and
those who have obligations as masters and servants in an uncomfortable
relationships. We failed to devise a system based on equality. We are now in
1996 (2003 Gregorian) without learning to institutionalize power.
Institutionalizing power is the mark of a civilized community. We have been
successively suffering under regimes that rule with jungle law. One of the
secrets of growth and development lies in the capacity to institutionalize
power, it is to found power on equality through the rule of law.

It is because we have made jungle law our guiding principle that in general our
culture has become chauvinist and militarist. In the days of old, the person
who had armed servants singing his praises and behaving like watchdogs for him,
and now those in power have gangs of muggers and killers. Now the word servant
is replaced by cadre, but the function remains the same. In the past, because
there were numerous contending members of the aristocracy, servants had the
opportunity to choose their masters. Now there is only one master and no choice
is available to cadres. This is the extent of our modernization. What we still
see and hear is the same blind rigidity. President Gouled of DJibouti, made a
statement stripped off the usual diplomatic language to say that "the people of
Ethiopian and Eritrea are excessively quick-tempered and belligerent" is
proves that the fact that the regime’s is based on the law of the jungle and
that it is recognized beyond our borders.

Our second problem is that power and rationality are alien to each other. This
is not because rationality is a alien to Ethiopia; it is only that it has been
dominated and suppressed by the law of the jungle. As anyone who has read the
works of the Ethiopian philosophers Zar'a Ya'iqob and his disciple, Wolde
Hiywot, can very well understand, and, also, as the documents that Professor
Getachew has been translating from Ge'ez and making available to the public
demonstrate, we see that the law of reason has been constantly suppressed by
the law of force. There have always been. However, Ethiopians who came up with
new and innovative ideas, but new ideas were not allowed to flourish. The fact
that wherever whenever new ideas surfaced by chance the generators of those
ideas were exposed to danger is something we know of since at least the
beginning of the fifteenth century. And what we are witnessing today is
provides sufficient evidence that we have not made any progress in six hundred
years in that respect. If the people of Ethiopia could as zealously
demonstrate their unity for a peaceful struggle to change things as they would
rise up in unison in times of war, it would have been possible to rid Ethiopia
of its historical problems.

The great contribution those Ethiopians with the wealth and with knowledge made
during the Ethio-Eritrean war ?between brothers is amazing. In that war young
Ethiopians numbering in the thousands laid their lives for Badime. But when
Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia nobody, save the students of Addis Ababa
University, even tried to express their anger. We are easily goaded into war,
but we are scared when it comes to peacefully struggling for life. Those who
are still smarting from the fate of Badime are many; so also are those who are
still angered over the port of Aseb. But all those concerned about the fate of
both Badime are not sensitive to those concerned about Aseb. It is true also of
those whose attention is focused of Aseb with respect to Badime. We do not
seem to have a proper balance for either our anger or for our patience. All
this goes to show the dominance of the law of the jungle over that of reason.
This simply has to change. We have to change ourselves, for without changing
ourselves we can never hope to change anything else.

We are not capable of demonstrating our zeal for a peaceful struggle as much as
we do for war. We still seem not to have understood the meaning and importance
of peaceful struggle or political combat. The Derg transformed the then
budding peaceful struggle into a socialist class struggle, and this, where
there were no classes. Weyyane for its part, in its childlike wisdom,
transformed the peaceful struggle into a non-negotiable ethnic struggle, based
on ethnicity and one that contradicts the unity of humankind. The socialist
struggle spearheaded by the Derg could have solved the country's problem by
leveling everybody down to poverty?until, at least, it could have made
everybody wealthy. When it comes to Weyyane's intransigence, however, there
seems to be no solution except that of dismembering the country into its ethnic
components. What is surprising in this ethnic policy is that the Weyyane does
not seem to realize that its effects have reached each person in the top
leadership. Let alone those ethnic groups that have no close affinity to each
other, the situation is creating confusion even between the peoples of Eritrea
and Tigray that have closer affinity with each other. That the balkanization of
the country is not going to be peaceful and orderly is the one lesson we could
draw from the case of Badime(It was Abraham Lincoln who said: Is it possible,
then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory, after
separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make
laws? ) The periodic conflicts that we witness taking place in the southern
parts of the country are solid pointers to what is awaiting us in the future.
Even if we were to agree to separate, I am worried that the process would not
be a peaceful one.

If we were guided in our efforts by the law of reason, we would not have found
it difficult to understand that the empowerment of the people, or what we call
democracy, is crucial to any kind of growth and development. The stifled
physical, mental and spiritual potential will be released only when the people
are liberated and become a sovereign power with confidence in themselves and in
the law; it is only then that they can become true agents of their own lives.
The repressive and stifling influences on the Confederation of Ethiopian Labour
Union, The Ethiopian Teachers Association, The Ethiopian Free Journalists
Association, and on the urban dwellers associations and peasant associations
will not help the development of democracy in Ethiopia. Democracy can be
established and cherished only by citizens who have confidence in themselves
and in the law, and where all struggle for power will be peaceful and in
accordance with law, without intimidation. In addition the benefit of democracy
is that each citizen and the people as a whole will assume responsibility for
their own lives and for the progress of the country. People in a state of
subjugation have neither freedom nor responsibility.

I think there are people who believe that the issue of the people's sovereignty
and that of the supremacy of the law, which will save coming generations from
poverty, famine, war and self-annihilation, will be favorably resolved in the
coming election (2005). I align myself with such people, whether in terms of
wishes or aspirations. However, I still have my doubts. Twelve years earlier,
I had, when I think of it now, rather naively said something: if the Weyyane
group were to run in the elections then and were to win legitimately, I would
have had no problem; if, however, it did not win, then it would have at least
opened a new chapter for a democratic Ethiopia and give itself another chance
at the next round of elections. But this wish of mine, on second thought,
reminds me of the proverbial peasant who went looking for dung where no cattle
were supposed to go grazing. What I learned since is that the winners would
never give up the reigns of power. Leaving aside all other issues for the
moment, after the Ethio-Eritrean war anyone who has the good of the people and
the country at heart could have rectified the many mistakes committed in the
past years and resolved many issues. It may also have been possible to resolve
the border issue between the two countries in a new and different way.

Underestimating or belittling the impending disaster hovering over Ethiopia's
horizon and the serious challenges facing the country serves no purpose other
than putting all sides into a state of indecisiveness. To bring out problems
into the open, shocking as it may be, will help us prepare ourselves with
resolve and determination for any impending danger. It is incumbent on us to
equip ourselves with intellectual, psychological and emotional readiness for
any eventuality. We need to cleanse our minds and hearts of all that is
undesirable and to develop mutual trust. The conflict between us is not one of
opinions but one of mutual mistrust and fear of each other. We have to seek a
way that would enable us to trust each other. Let us, as individuals or groups,
respect each other and let our ideas clash and jostle, in the process taking it
upon ourselves to build our country with the spark from the clash of our ideas
as the blaze that lights the trail we follow. Aleqa [Master] Ayalew Tammiru has
the following to say about irq [conciliation], one of the good aspects of our
culture:

Let us assume that two brothers come to a clash due to differing opinions and
fail to come to an understanding on their own, and matters go so much out of
hand that the two brothers may either have to go to a court of law, or, even
worse, each may be pushed to a point of doing something harmful to the other.
In such a situation, if neighbors, friends or elders, who are neutral come in
between and chastise both parties to the conflict in a friendly manner and
convince them with neighborly love and manage to reconcile them, a home that
was near total destruction may be rebuilt; blood that is spilt may dry up;
grudges and vengeance may be forgotten. .

If we could muster the moral courage to follow such a course, not only will we
be able to save Ethiopia from any impending danger but we can also transform it
into a reliable country of which we can be proud. It has been my long held
conviction that, when Ethiopia gets a just and equitable governance, it can
become the Japan of Africa in just one generation. But time is running out. We
must, therefore, begin to act right away.