Against historical amnesia

Ethiopians will be commemorating the Victory of Adwa on March 1st. For many, the commemoration of Adwa is a celebration of Ethiopian unity and history. But not for the TPLF. One of its weapons for fragmenting Ethiopians is its politics of historical amnesia, best exemplified by the petulant remark of our late Prime Minister who claimed in 1993 that Ethiopia is no more than one hundred years old. The TPLF dogma is that the Ethiopia we know now did not exist before Menelik created it “by force”.

Unfortunately, many admirers of Emperor Menelik are also entrapped in a similar historical amnesia. They claim that Menelik created the unity that made the Adwa victory possible. But a “longue durée” view of Ethiopian history shows the inaccuracy of this claim. Menelik is not the creator but the beneficiary of an Ethiopian unity that was conceived centuries before him.

The historical figure who sowed the seeds that eventually led to the emergence of the enlarged new Ethiopia out of the old one is none other than Imam Aḥmad Ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ghāzī, commonly known as Grañ. Until the 16th century, Ethiopia was a medieval state more or less limited to the northern and central areas of what we now call Ethiopia. Grañ changed this dramatically. If Grañ had not existed, it is doubtful that contemporary Ethiopia would have its present geographic and demographic characteristics.

From Shimbra Kure to Chelenko to Adwa

Grañ’s war (1529-1543) is not an invasion by an external force. It is a sequel of the internal conflicts between the rulers of Christian Ethiopia and the periphery of Muslim chiefdoms since at least the fourteenth century. Much is made of the fact that Grañ received military assistance from the Turks. But this does not make him less Ethiopian than the Christian Emperors who received military assistance from the Portuguese in the war that pitted them against him.

Imperial history claims that Grañ brought war and destruction to Northern Ethiopia. He did, but he was not the only one. The armies of the medieval nobles and kings of Northern Ethiopia, who often engaged in wars, descended on the peasantry like “locusts”, to quote Marcus, devastating everything in their path. But there is a difference between the destructive wars of the medieval nobles and kings and those of Grañ. The wars of the former did not open a new chapter in Ethiopian history. Those of Grañ did.

One could say that Menelik’s victory over Emir Abdullahi of Harrar at the battle of Chelenko on January 1887 completed the chapter of the new Ethiopia that Grañ opened 358 years ago with his victory over Emperor Libne Dingel at the battle of Shimbra Kure in 1529. Grañ sowed at Shimbra Kure the seeds that eventually made possible the unity and victory of Adwa.

Grañ: The catalyst of Ethiopian unity

The medieval Ethiopian emperors (Amdë Tsion, 1313-44; Zara Yacob, 1434-68; Dawit, 1382-1411; or Yishaq; 1414-29, Libne Dingel 1508-1540…) were interested primarily in unifying Christian Ethiopians, and in controlling the Muslim peripheries mainly for commercial purposes. Grañ’s historical novelty lies in that, first, he is from the periphery, and second, he is the first leader of the region who had the project of transforming Northern, Central and Southern Ethiopia into a single political entity.

True, Grañ’s pursuit of unity presupposed the Islamization of Christian Ethiopia. One may thus object that the unity that he envisioned passed through the elimination of Ethiopian Christianity. This may be true if we limit ourselves to a key-hole view of Ethiopian history. However, if we take a longue durée view of Grañ’s wars, we see that they are historically transformative in an unexpected and lasting manner.

Grañ’s conquest of central and northern Ethiopia weakened political, cultural and ethnic frontiers between the North and the South and rendered them porous. It opened the door to wide-ranging demographic movements from the South to the North, which eventually led to the establishment of the Oromo in Tigray (Raya and Azebo), to the rise of powerful Oromo Muslim chiefdoms in Wallo, and the emergence of powerful Oromo princes in Gondar (1769-1855), making multi-ethnicity and trans-ethnicity indelible features of Ethiopia. Ultimately, the demographic movement from the South to the North triggered by Grañ’s wars paved the way for reverse demographic movements from the North to the South, expanding the multi-ethnicity and the trans-ethnicity that Grañ’s wars initiated. Gran’s actions led to the transformation of fixed ethnicity into liquid ethnicity—ethnicity whose meaning boundaries are in continuous flux.

Moreover, Grañ’s wars allowed the spread of Islam, a universal religion, already present in Ethiopia since the 7th century. Like Ethiopian Christianity, Ethiopian Islam transcends ethnic, linguistic, and cultural barriers. For both, ethnicity is a fluid and not a closed identity.

As Hussein Ahmed shows in his study of Islam in Nineteenth-Century Wallo, Christianity and Islam have forged trans-ethnic social practices and meanings that are now part of the common reference world that Ethiopians inhabit. One finds among Ethiopian Christians and Muslims shared practices such as recognition of holy men, veneration and supplication of saints, Muslim and Christian pilgrimages to the same shrines, (e.g., St Gabriel’s church in Qulubi or the Muslim shrine of Faraqasa in Arssi), exorcism, and so on. Consider also the musical sensibilities that manzuma and tizita share. Both originated in Wollo and in Amharic, and both transcend ethnic differences and are sung now in various Ethiopian languages.

The Ethiopian unity that these two universal religions forged gave rise to two unique phenomena, as Jon Abbink notes, namely, “oscillation” of many Ethiopians between the two beliefs, and “religious tolerance”. Historically, Ethiopian Islam and Christianity have become, in many respects, expressive of Ethiopia’s multi-ethnicity and trans-ethnicity, of its unity and identity. Consequently, we could say, Grañ laid the ground for the emergence of the new heterogeneous Ethiopia from the old homogeneous Ethiopia: territorially larger, more diverse, with a richer common reference world, and with more potential for unity than before, as Adwa demonstrated.

That which in Adwa is more than Adwa

One may object that the unity of Ethiopia that emerges from the aftereffects of Grañ’s actions is the result of unintended consequences and cannot be attributed to him. But were we to eliminate the unintended consequences of human actions from history, there would not be much history left to talk about. It is retroactively that events appear as necessary conditions to what follows them.

In this sense, Ethiopian history has emancipatory surplus meanings—witness the development of multi-ethnicity and trans-ethnicity—that enable us to embrace our history in all its complexities and our future as a shared collective task. An Oromo aphorism expresses this idea forcefully: “By remembering the past, the future is remembered” (Kan darbe yaadatani, isa gara fuula dura itti yaaddui). What the aphorism tells us is that without a sense of history, we cannot build a better future. Let’s remember that the absence of a sense of history was a contributing reason for the failure of the 1974 Revolution and for the rise of the politics of ethnicity as destiny in 1991. To quote Churchill, “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”

This means that we have to historicize Adwa and see it as a work-in-progress in order to elicit that which in Adwa is more than Adwa: its surplus meaning of the rejection of internal domination, incubating in its rejection of external (Italian) domination. We could indeed find the seeds of this surplus meaning in the cracks of Ethiopian history if we go beyond nationalist and ethnic narratives and unpack it as the history of a people engaged for centuries in direct and indirect struggles for a better life. Read against the grain, Adwa is one of these struggles.

Rescuing Adwa from hero-worship

Celebrating Adwa means liberating it from its current existence as an event frozen in time and place and interpreting it from a longue durée perspective that discloses it as one of the manifestations of our long historical struggles for a better Ethiopia. Such an approach allows us to see the multi & trans-ethnicity that has progressed since Grañ and that manifested itself in Adwa, and to enucleate from it the non-group criteria we need to articulate individual freedoms and ethnic rights as democratic mirrors of each other. Only then would we be able to answer “yes” to the 2015 question of Obang Metho, one of the sincere voices of Ethiopian unity and democracy: “Look at the lessons of Adwa. Are we free?”

Otherwise, our celebration of Adwa is just a yearly ritual of hero-worship. True, Menelik is a great emperor, but the Adwa victory is greater than him for it is the victory of a people that history has united. To forget this and indulge in hero-worship is to lose our sense of history. It is to suffer from historical amnesia. Isn’t the unwillingness of other Ethiopians to join the Oromo protestors a symptom of the virus of historical amnesia with which the TPLF has infected Ethiopians? Historical amnesia is an obstacle to Ethiopian unity and democracy.

Adwa teaches us that it is necessary that we recover our sense of history for it is the only effective antidote to the historical amnesia on which thrives the poison of ethnic politics. And when we retrieve our sense of history, we recognize, as Adwa has shown, that our differences become the cement of our unity. Thus speaks to us Adwa when we historicize and understood it as a historical work-in-progress.

Americans are busy voting for Presidential candidates. Have you asked yourself the parameters they use to choose one candidate over the other? Not just in the US, in those countries where there is true democracy, people tend to vote for those candidates with whom they share key values. That is why the same candidate is loved by some and hated by other voters depending on his values. For instance, on February 2 2016, Fox News Channel reported, “According to entrance polling of Republican caucus-goers conducted by Fox News, Cruz won by garnering the support of evangelical Christians and those who wanted a candidate who shares their values.” The majority of voters, conscious or unconscious, rally for a candidate that shares their highly held values. And Caucus-goers weren’t exceptional.

The same news also observed, “Sanders overwhelmed Clinton among caucus-goers under 30, a group that he won 84 percent to 14 percent.” Similarly in New Hampshire, many polls showed that 85% of young people under 30 voted for Sanders. Why do you think Bernie overwhelmed Hilary in that age group? Do you remember the Occupy Wall Street movement in the late 2011? I still picture in my mind those youngsters wearing the “99%” t-shirts occupying the Zuccotti park in New York City, Wall Street financial district, to protest the economic inequality in the US. When they were cleared from the park, they moved to occupy major banks, corporate HQs, and college and university campuses. The initial key players of that group were young guys in their 20’s. Of course, later, these youngsters inspired older people to join the movement. The dominant value that attracted and bonded the group together was fairness. The movement, slowly but surely, died because of so many reasons, one of which was leadership gap. Now, it seems that those young guys who felt their cause was crushed found Sanders who has been a unique candidate that positioned himself as a fighter against the one percent billionaires and bankers. I’m not here to talk about US politics or to predict who is going to win. We’re at the early stage of this year’s Presidential election. We don’t know who is going to win in November. Whoever wins, however, it is because enough Americans share him/her values.

Unfortunately, we Ethiopians have never been lucky to elect our own leaders. They were imposed on us. Haileselassie claimed that God anointed him; Mengistu reasoned that the revolution called upon him to lead; and Meles took upon himself to assume a righteous judge position to bring ethnic equality. It’s true; we cannot have the opportunity Americans have right now, any time soon. We’re under tyranny. However, we shouldn’t wait until we are free to pay closer attention to the kinds of leaders we need now, during the transition, and post TPLF Ethiopia.

What so ever anger, frustration, and emotion run high among our people, removing TPLF and bringing democracy, justice, and the rule of law demands extraordinary leaders from top to bottom. Facilitating a smooth transition from apartheid style leadership to a more democratic and inclusive leadership demands smart, far-sighted, and wise decision makers. Having a comprehensive constitution, meticulously crafted development programs, state of the art technologies, highly trained human capital, and rich natural resources cannot transfer our nation in a million years from where she is now to where we all aspire to take her during post TPLF era. The glue to these all, and the catalysts that can lead us from bondage to our ‘Canaan’ are farsighted, visionary, and competent leaders, not just any kinds of leaders, values-based leaders. I’m fully aware that we cannot exercise our right to choose values-based leaders back home. But those of us in the Diaspora, we have the freedom to start practicing this important approach beginning now.

First, let’s talk about the three foremost parameters that we’ve been using to choose our leaders: a) Identity, b) Qualification, and c) Likeability. I found it common in our diaspora politics for many people choosing and supporting their leaders based on their identities such as their ethnicity, gender, and religious affiliation. In my view, these are flawed parameters. Yes, it’s tempting to favor a leader with whom we share the same ethnic (geographic) identity- a leader who demonstrates loyalty to our particular ethnic group, region, and religion. But Ethiopia is a diverse nation. We need leaders who embrace diversity and value inclusiveness, not just loyal to one ethnic group or region or religion.

It’s also alluring to take side with a leader with whom we share similar gender. That was what the former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, just did recently when she declared: “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” As you might have already heard, her effort to take away women supporters from Bernie Sanders’ campaign backfired.

Likewise, we Ethiopians have an extreme bias when it comes to educated people. There is a well know saying in Amharic “Yetemare Yegdelegn”. Its English equivalence is “I’m okay if a learned kills me”. We all know that this is a flawed saying. Terminal degrees, masters, and professional degrees cannot make someone a leader. By now, the majority of TPLF leaders have all kinds of purchased degrees. They understood the prejudice that exists in our culture, and thought that they can mask their leadership incompetency using some fake qualifications.

Likeability is a globally admired trait. The heroism, charm, and/or down to earth humility of some likeable persons attract almost all of us. Many of these personalities are skillful to make us feel important, respected, and loved. This in turn entices many of us to put them in charge. Haile Gebreselasie knows that he is likeable because of his sport heroism. Haile expressed his interest to run for a higher office so many times, I presume, solely based on his likeability. Will he succeed when he runs for office? Will enough people vote for him because they like him? We’ll see. The small number of friends that I’ve talked so far disagreed. They argued that Haile doesn’t seriously value freedom and democracy. He never spoke against so many brutalities committed by the regime in Addis against unarmed demonstrators. Quoting his recent interview where he undermined the importance of democracy in countries like ours, they doubted whether Ethiopians are in desperate need of a sport hero to lead them. One of them was fair when he predicted: Maybe some years from now, once we have democracy, justice, and the rule of law in place, merely likeable individuals like Haile may get elected. Right now and until we reach that dream state, we need leaders who have more than just charm and friendliness.

Don’t misunderstand me. It’s great if our leaders are educated and likeable. Nonetheless, these parameters should not be used alone. What we Ethiopians need, in my humble opinion and considering the intrinsic distrust we harbor against leaders, and the amount of challenges that we face, we need values-based leaders. Below are the three values that I propose we should employ to select and back our leaders. This is just a proposal. Otherwise, we may subtract, or add some more to create shared values. Hope, we’ll have opportune times to do so in the near future.

1.Integrity. What we need is leaders whose words mean something. Leaders who are ready to die in order to keep their promises. The White South African Minority regime trusted Mandela to lead a smooth transition because they found him, for decades, as a man of his words. They risked it all, released him from prison, and ‘put him in charge’ since he was a man of integrity. Here’re some of the questions we should ask as we choose our leaders: Can we predict this leader? Can she deliver what she promises? Does he walk the talk? And more…

2.Excellence. Integrity without the quest for excellence is toothless. Why we need a leader who says what he means unless he delivers it with excellence? I’m not saying we need perfectionists. Excellence can be achieved only through continuous learning. We need leaders who read, study, and grow on a consistent basis to perform their duties and deliver what they promise with excellence. Mandela used his underground moments to grow. When he was given an assignment for which he didn’t have the knowledge or experience, he studied and also asked those who knew. For example, when he was assigned to form and lead the military wing of ANC, he started the duty by reading, consulting experts, and by reading lots of books. He also reviewed some case studies on guerilla fight from Cuba to Algeria to Ethiopia. Mandela also read and reflected a lot while in prison that contributed to his success in statesmanship.

3.Service. What is the motive for a leader to seek leadership? To serve or served? So far, many of our leaders sought leadership to be served and exploit. What we need is leaders with servant heart, who believe that servicing others is their calling. We need leaders who walk away when their term is over. Mandela vowed only to lead as a President for one term, and when it was over, he walked out of office unlike other African dictators who cling to power until they either killed or jailed or ran away to exile. We need leaders who have talent, career, or business to turn to when they are done leading us. Not those who most probably cling to power till they retire or die.

In conclusion, we need values-based leadership. But that doesn’t mean we need to look for perfect and flawless leaders. That cannot happen; no one is perfect. It should be enough if they’ve decent values for which they’re committed. As we choose and support our leaders, let’s pay closer attention more to their values than their identity, qualification, and likeability. We should be enlightened followers with clear parameters on how we choose our leaders. When our leaders know that we have expectations like that and values-based leadership matters to us, they change and do their homework.

As a result of the popular unrest engulfed the Oromia kilil, it appears an interesting debate resurfaced among Ethiopian intellectuals of late. The long held consensus among the mainstream intellectuals that TPLF instituted ethnic based politics disintegrates the country, deprives the citizens to exercise individual freedom, restricts citizens movements to enclosed ethnic enclave, and encourages ethnic discrimination is challenged. What makes the current debate interesting is that it didn’t come from the usual quarter of ill wishers of Ethiopia. It came from good wishing intellectuals, notably Dr. Messay Kebede and Dr. Minga Negash (Unity Overrides Everything! – Messay Kebede January 20, 2016; Ethiopia Understanding the current protests in Ethiopia: A rejoinder By Minga Negash, February 24, 2016). In their articles the two advocated to consider ethnic based resistance as means of democratizing Ethiopia. We now found ourselves back to square one, the ways and means to create a just and fair society in Ethiopia have not drawn consensus among intellectuals.

Dr. Messay argued that ethnicity is already institutionalized in the last twenty-five years and will be difficult to go back to the ‘liberal’ type democratic systems. While, Dr. Minga argued that ethnic parties can serve as one of the civic-like institutions for safe guarding democracy as in liberal democracy civic institutions. Neither of them explained in any detail what mechanism will be implemented to shape the state of Ethiopia, if the country decided to institutionalize ethnic based administration. Without a suggested mechanism to democratically implement the recommendation, peaceful coexistence can only be assumed not assured. Drs Messay and Minga grossly underestimated the transformative power of democratic process. Both have ignored the fact that the current structural systems is a consequence of dictatorship not a process of democratization. They also ignored the fact that the Ethiopians struggle is not limited to removing TPLF but also includes removing the destructive institutions TPLF created to subvert democracy.

Ethiopia is a country with over 80 ethnic groups in varying population sizes and geographic settlements. To create the current ethnic administrative kilil, it has taken the brutal dictatorship of TPLF that would not have been created in democratic process. Without their consents, some ethnic groups have been lumped together and others have been split. To make the matter worst, resources have been unfairly divided among the killils. When ethnic killil have been created, a time bomb has been planted. By embracing the process that planted the time bomb and keeping the ethnic administrative structure that keeps the time bomb ticking will even more threatens the existence of Ethiopia.

Modern democracy has been around for long time. We should not be confused what democracy is and what it is not. Similarly, we know what democratic countries have accomplished and could accomplish. For properly functioning democracy, free civil institutions, the rule of law and democratic government are essential ingredients. All these institutions are grounded on individual rights. A step out of these principles, a democratic system simply ceases to exist and function. What Drs Messay and Minga offered Ethiopians for choices are false choices among dictatorships of one ethnic group over the other, not a true choice between democracy and dictatorship. Choosing among various dictatorships is far from reaching peaceful coexistence among ethnic groups.

For the very few who have access to the Internet, it is easy to notice that the Ethiopian social media has been manipulated by the few who mastered to exaggerate and deceive segment of population with less information supply. The few fanatics who dominated the social media solicited public support with multi-tiered of falsehood and coordinated deceit. Even the learned citizens are victims of misinformation. To counter this misinformation, the public has to liberate itself from manipulation and perversion. The capacity of various independent media outlets for collecting information from the ground is yet to be developed. The mobilization of ethnicity for taking social and political action has been effective among few ethnic groups. By any imagination, these few incidences should not have president to turn the struggle to democratize Ethiopia to different direction.

From the experience of other countries who established long term peace, the lessons to learn is that the long process of educating and rousing the public to the truth will provide the people knowledge of the true liberty and expose the myths and illusions spread by ethnic demagogues. Ethiopians should not forget, for a moment, the timelessness of liberal democracy and espouse to create institutions that protect the rights of all citizens and make them available for future generations of Ethiopia. At this critical period, what Ethiopians need is far-sighted leaders who will deliver the country from TPLF evil hands.

e-mail: ethio_nation@yahoo.com

History shows that when different ethnic groups live together in a region, as has happened in Ethiopia for centuries, the close social interaction promotes mutual understanding, respect, and tolerance. The long history of co-existence explains the relatively low level of ethnic conflict in Ethiopia, in spite of a hyper-ethnicized political atmosphere over the last 25 years. The mutual tolerance that the Ethiopian people have exhibited for one another bodes well for national unity, but one should not underestimate the damage inflicted on the Ethiopian body politic by the introduction of ethnic federalism. Ethnic federalism, as I have argued in my previous instalments, has created ethnic cleavage, discord, and hostility unprecedented in Ethiopian history. In this section, I will demonstrate how it has prevented lasting cooperation between political parties.

Attempts at Explaining Non-cooperation

Ever since the unrest in Oromia exploded, some commentators have lamented the dearth of solidarity with the Oromo people. They attribute it to three main factors: the lack of information, fear of repression, or the lack of moral courage. The lack-of-information argument is untenable. Surely, non-Oromo students at Jimma University do not lack information about what is happening in Oromia. When Oromo students at the university express their solidarity with Oromo farmers by not eating their meals and the non-Oromo students refuse to cooperate, it is not because the latter are unware of what is taking place. (When I was a student at Haile Selassie University, we sent our meals to the victims of famine in Tigray and Wollo, without any distinction to ethnicity. How far have we regressed!)
When a society’s youth, the conveyers of idealism, the paragons of dedication, the models of self-sacrifice, appears indifferent to the injustice committed in front its eyes, we have cause for concern. Indeed, it is a tragedy.

It may appear that the regime’s repression may have discouraged people in the other killils from expressing their solidarity with the Oromo people, but if the Ethiopian people are so frightened of the regime, how do we explain the current strike by owners and operators of commercial vehicles in many cities, across different killils? Nor does fear explain the low level of participation by non-Oromos in the Diaspora in the demonstration against the killings in Oromia. Fear is not the factor.

Other commentators have attributed the lack of solidarity to the absence of moral fortitude among non-Oromos, especially among the Amharas, but this argument suffers from at least two defects. First, it is wrong to blame an entire ethnic group for moral failing; if there is any moral culpability, it should be directed at the system and the political leadership. Second, it is not moral ineptitude that has prevented people from expressing their solidarity.

Some people have assigned a selfish motive to expressing solidarity with the Oromo people. They argue that non-Oromos should express their moral indignation out of sheer self-interest. Today, the victims are the Oromos; tomorrow, it may be your ethnic group. Solidarity is thus seen as a transactional activity, a form of self-defence mechanism. However, the self-interest argument lacks moral foundation. We should oppose injustice, wherever it occurs because it is morally wrong. Period.

The Killilization of the Ethiopian Mind

The absence of widespread solidarity with the Oromo people does not reflect the lack of information, courage, or moral fortitude. Rather, it reveals the emotional distance from, the feeling of indifference to, and the fear of the “other” created by killil. A killilized administrative division of Ethiopians has created an equally killilized mindset. For example, when a prominent member of the Oromo Diaspora leads a demonstration demanding “Ethiopia out of Oromia”, the slogan reflects a killilized mind and feeds the concerns, fears, and anxieties of the killilized mind of the ethnic “other”, a tragedy manufactured by ethnicized politics. A killilized mind tragically hinders unity of purpose.

The lack of cooperation among the various political groups is a serious obstacle to achieving a common national goal. Below, I will outline the theoretical framework for explaining non-participation for attaining a common objective.

The Problem of Collective Action

Economists and other social scientists have studied the problem of collective action, the non-participation of some individuals in attaining a common goal. The discussions on the collective-action problem provide useful insights into understanding the absence of widespread support for the Oromo people.
It is hypothesized that the chances of cooperation for collective action improve when individuals face the same conditions and share the same objectives. If, on the other hand, individuals face different circumstances or have different goals, the chances of cooperation diminish. Or if individuals believe that the costs of participating are too high, they will refrain from participating.

Or if people are convinced that they can enjoy the benefits of the outcome without incurring any costs—the free-rider argument—they will refrain from participating. Lastly, if individuals have antagonistic goals, then there is no room for cooperation. The collective-action problem framework best explains the lack of widespread support for the Oromo people among members of the other ethnic groups.

Differentiated Repression and Differentiated Responses

Not all ethnic groups face the same level of repression in Ethiopia, as befits divisive ethnic politics. The regime imposes differentiated repression on different ethnic groups, resulting in differentiated responses. Second, ethnic federalism has created differentiated goals for the political elite. It has empowered ethnic political leaders who comfortably inhabit the killils, physically or ideologically, to spawn differentiated objectives, varying from advancing personal interests, to harbouring an ambiguous stance on democracy, to entertaining lukewarm attitude toward national unity, to advocating secession overtly and covertly.

Third, the spread of ethnicism has differentiated the Ethiopian people along ethnic lines. As a result, empathy, sympathy, solidarity, and cooperation have become bifurcated along ethnic lines, sometimes even along regions within the same ethnic group. This is tragic.

Thus, the combination of differentiated repression, resulting in differentiated responses, differentiated goals, and differentiated political actors; a killilized political framework and pervasive ethnicism explain the non-cooperation of opposition political groups over the last 25 years. The Ethiopian people have been sufficiently heterogenized by these factors that cooperation has been severely undermined. The realization of this fact is paramount when formulating a common objective, defining tactical and strategic modalities, and forming principled alliances.

Thinking beyond the Killils: A United and Democratic Ethiopia

From the analysis above, it is tempting to conclude that cooperation among political parties for a common national goal is unattainable. That is the wrong conclusion. The obstacles to cooperation for the common objective of advancing democracy in a united Ethiopia are daunting, but they are not insurmountable. Any tactical alliance without an agreement on the common objective will fail, as will atomized ethnic-based struggles.

Some people have argued that it is impossible to reform ethnic federalism, to discard ethnic politics, to abolish ethnicism, or to change ethnic political parties. This is a fatalistic position. They argue that we have to be careful not to upset the status quo, but political transformation is exactly what Ethiopia needs today. The question is not whether political change will occur or not; Ethiopia is already on the cusp of a major political change because of systemic contradictions. The question is what kind of change.

No political system is immune from change, least of all an authoritarian system. Ethnic federalism is not immutable. There is nothing natural, inexorable, or permanent about it. It was established by politicians and it can be transformed by politicians. Just as it was created to serve the political interests of the EPLF, OLF, and TPLF, it can be replaced by democratic federalism to serve the interests of all Ethiopians.

To effect the needed politically change, political parties, both within the EPRDF and the opposition, need to de-killilize their political platforms to encompass the larger killil: Ethiopia. This may not be an easy task, but that is the only solution to the political conundrum facing Ethiopia today. The opposition parties should recognize that the struggle for equality, justice, and peace calls for principled cooperation on advancing democracy in a united Ethiopia. It is only then that the particular demands of the Oromo farmers can be satisfactorily addressed peacefully.

Worku Aberra (PhD) is a professor of economics at Dawson College, Montreal,

In the last couple of decades, people around the world fought and toppled dictators. Courageous Africans removed dictators from Benin, Zambia, and Ghana in the 90’s and early 2000. The Arab Spring that took place in the northern African countries such as in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya ousted despots. Likewise, successful revolutions in Asia like the one in Philippines (Yellow Revolution) that took place in 1986 overthrew President Ferdinand Marcos. In the beginning of the new century, Rose, Orange, and Tulip revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, respectively, made successful transitions to democracy. Time doesn’t allow us to cover the detail accounts of these revolutions, and the contributions of leadership toward their success. However, it’s noteworthy to pick one of the success stories from our own continent- Ghana, and expand a little bit and show you the critical roles leadership played.

The leaders of the Ghanaian revolution were wise when they decided to setup a formidable coalition called Alliance For Change (AFC) in 1995 to lead the movement. The alliance was composed of ten influential leaders who gained a wider array of support. They forced the government, its international donors, and finally succeeded to carryout a democratic transition. For instance, they put all donors and creditors on notice that any loan given to the dictatorial regime in Ghana will not be paid back. They also demanded that a free press and media be established in Ghana before the grant of any aid. These and many other strategic choices by the leadership finally brought democracy in Ghana.

On the other hand, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) could be considered as one of the latest unsuccessful revolutions. By all accounts, OWS met the most important criteria of a successful people based movement. It had millions of committed, and passionate (sometimes violent) followers. Sadly, it failed but why? There could be all kinds of other reasons why it was broken but there is no one single factor like leadership gap that contributed toward its demise. OWS left its indelible mark on human history as a futile movement that initially attracted millions to its cause. Because of lack of leadership, all the efforts, and sacrifices of those courageous young people ended up fruitless.

What about our own movements? In the past couple of decades, we Ethiopian tried our best to topple dictators. Initially, we were successful. The students’ movement in the late 60’s and early 70’s deposed the Haileselasie feudal regime. Wait! That isn’t accurate. It weakened the regime but the revolution was hijacked by the military regime at the 11th hour. Regrettably, since our country took that wrong turn, she went from worse to worst, and we never recovered from that fatal misstep because of lack of leadership that failed to finish the job.

No one forgets the movement led by Kinijit (CUD). Initially, it was promising. It inspired Ethiopians in the country and around the world. People for the first time in our history witnessed extraordinary leaders on Televised debates making fool out of EPRDF leaders. But, it finally went to ashes. Why? Don’t tell me that the revolution was crushed because TPLF was undefeatable. It was a leadership gap! No question. Most of the leaders of CUD were competent, capable, and courageous to face off against the brutal regime. The majority of them were genuine and smarter than the leaders of EPRDF. CUD leaders obliterated the latter in the majority of the debates. Don’t misread me here. Not all members of the leadership were equally responsible for CUD’s dysfunctional leadership. No need for name-calling. What is important to note here is that, at the end of the day, not only the movement was quashed, as much as it aroused the hope of millions of Ethiopians, it caused Ethiopians to never trust or depend on political coalitions.

It may be too early to make any conclusion concerning the ongoing movements that are currently challenging TPLF: The Muslim communities demand for religious autonomy, the Oromo people’s revolt against TPLF’s rule, and other revolts in Somali, Amhara, and Southern regions that are going on right now. Like other successful people-based movements, some of these movements have thousands of committed, courageous, and passionate followers. Some of their leaders died while others injured, and still many jailed but they are still in the fight. Regardless, though we don’t need to make any conclusion about the future outcomes at this stage, we should be honest with ourselves and ask this question: Why these movements unable to go to the next level, and achieve their goals? It’s okay if we don’t agree on who the culprits that are responsible. One thing I’m hoping you may agree with me as one of the challenges facing these revolutions could be a leadership gap. The goal of this article isn’t to put blame on any one person or group. This gap was created by all of us, both the people and leaders- Muslim and Christian leaders, and leaders from all ethnic groups. Let’s take collective responsibility and begin playing our share to bridge the leadership gap and topple the dictatorial regime in Ethiopia. Let’s quickly review some of the characteristics of AFC leadership and learn some lessons (we don’t need to duplicate every thing) to address the leadership gap that faces our community. AFC’s leadership was:

1.Visionary. AFC leadership showed a clear picture of the future Ghana. People were committed and stayed in the fight regardless of temporary setbacks because they saw the light at the end of the tunnel. That in turn caused them to withstand any challenge they faced before they entered into that bright future. Now, let’s ask ourselves. Do we have a shared vision? Do we have visionary leadership? If not, what should we do to bridge this gap?

2.Trustworthy. The ten leaders of AFC renounced any political ambition from the onset. They came out in public and announced that they don’t run for political offices, and seek ministerial positions and/or any other rewards for their leadership involvement during the transition. And they kept their words. Their preoccupation was the future of their motherland. This decision generated the trust of all parties- oppositions and supporters of the ruling party alike. By the way, Mandela didn’t have a political ambition. He refused to take the presidency. They literally begged him to become the president of South Africa. Since he was humble, he gave in, and agreed to lead just for one term. When are we going to be lucky? When will we beg our leaders to lead us? From our experience, this is a long shot. Let them have ambition but can we trust our leaders? Is the future of Ethiopia their preoccupation? Or do they just intend to exploit, manipulate, and trick the public for their own hidden ambition and agendas? Leadership that aims at making a huge national transformation of that magnitude should be trustworthy. Unfortunately, there is no short cut. The leadership should earn the people’s trust. Talking, promising, please trust me, and so on don’t cut it.

3.Inclusive. The leaders of AFC came from diverse backgrounds. You see in the group a lawyer, an educator, an activist, a journalist, a woman, etc. This allowed them to garner the backing of wide range of supporters. Why our movements couldn’t garner a broader support? What is missing? Why cannot we establish a leadership consists of diverse individuals from diverse backgrounds? This is especially important to our country, as she is more diverse than Ghana or, for that matter any other country that experienced successful people based movement.

4.Charismatic and transformational. The leadership of AFC was filled with charismatic and transformational leaders. As charismatic leaders they inspired the populace and created a fierce urgency of NOW. As transformational leaders, they went beyond just motivating the people. They empowered the people and transformed them into leaders. They gave opportunities to their people to take leadership at all levels and play their share. Accordingly, they established some groups to coordinate the efforts between the main group back in Ghana and Ghanaians in the Diaspora, rally the youth, engage the media, and so on. Strategically employed diplomatic efforts to deprive the dictatorial regime any external support. Not just in the case of AFC, if you closely observe, you could be able to witness that charismatic and transformational leaders were at the center of other successful movements worldwide such as the resistance movement that liberated India (Gandhi), the African Americans civil right movement (Martin Luther King Jr.), and South Africans struggle against Apartheid (Mandela). What about our case? Do we have capable leaders at the center? Yes, we have some, but are they enough is the question. These great leaders, are they both charismatic and transformational? Our deep and chronic problems and challenges demand many charismatic and transformational leaders at all levels.

In conclusion, we have seen how leadership played critical roles toward the success or failure of many movements around the world. We have also quickly revisited our history and acknowledged why past revolutions failed. We also drew some lessons from others’ experience. Now, this is time to learn from our past failures and make changes to bridge the leadership gap that has been denying us from toppling dictators. George Santayana said, “Those who cannot learn from the past are condemned to repeat it”. Here are some questions we should ask and get answers: What do our current leaders learn from our past leaders such as Haileselassie, Mengistu, and Meles? What were their strengths that our contemporary and future leaders should adopt, and weaknesses that they should not repeat? What kinds of leaders do we need in the fight against a brutal regime that has already divided us? What types of leaders do we need during transition from dictatorship to democracy? And who would be fit to lead us during post conflict Ethiopia? What are the leadership qualities and styles we should expect from our leaders considering our objective conditions on the ground and the immense challenges that we face? In an effort to contribute my little share toward bridging the leadership gap, I’ll write a few articles in the coming weeks and months, and look forward to hear your feedbacks. These articles will attempt to answer some of the above and other similar questions. Stay tuned.

Introduction
As advocated by neo-liberal entities, the agenda of good governance is grounded on democratic principles that create on-going interaction processes that are supposed to solidify, governmental structures, functions and practices of the state and its people. As the a key driver to economic growth to alleviate poverty in developing countries, the interaction process of good governance embeds core guidelines that include, the rule of law, citizen participation, transparency, accountability, and elimination of corruption.
Given that the democratization process and the components of good governance are central to the achievement of development goals for the twenty-first century (Punyaratabandhu, 2004), it is either naïveté or arrogance not to defend the concept of good governance. On the other hand, it is wishful thinking to accept good governance as a guide for all developing countries because it is based on abstract concepts beyond the capability of some developing countries for them to create a better public life. Moreover, because good governance requires a decision-making process, its agenda of cannot be imposed from the outside. Rather, it has to be accepted and practiced according to the needs of its stakeholders from the inside. Otherwise, they remain dependent on the existing capitalist order that requires hegemony based on apatron-client relationship.

A review of the literature indicates that protagonists strongly claim that the agenda of good governance has worthy goals not only in itself but also as a means through which it would enable economic growth and development in less developed countries. As discussed by Sachs (2015) the three pillars of sustainable development are economic development, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability. They require good governance with rules of behavior to play a central role in order to achieve sustainable development goals. Similarly, studying 17 emerging countries in Africa, Radelet (2010) demonstrates that a shift toward democracy in African countries has been accompanied by a measureable improvement in the quality of governance.

Based on theoretical arguments, opponents of good governance critically argue that the underlying theoretical basis of good governance is based on Western social order. Good governance establishes a bondage system between administrators and citizens. Based on the bondage system that exists between donors and recipients of aid, pessimists strongly argue that government officials of developing countries cannot use their own institutions to formulate pro-poor policies because they are not accountable to their citizens. In addition, opponents assert that corrupt officials in some developing countries have the tendency to badly hinder development efforts by stealing aid contributions or misdirecting the aid money into unproductive activities (Gisselquist, 2012). Grindle (2010) also argues that the “…the elites who dominate such governments are not always interested in improving governance, as this could easily limit their power and access to rents and resources.”

Interestingly enough, even the USAID (2013) that asserts good governance is the cardinal underlying basis for development, claims that development goals of a number of developing countries are undermined by the corrosive impact of corruption. Pursing further this kind of argument, the USAID (2013) claims that corrupt elites in some developing countries not only capture state benefits and indulge in unaccountable governance, but also divert the scarce national resources from development projects to their private gain because of the lack of a transparent governance system that does not require accountability to local citizens.

From a methodological standpoint, the opponents of good governance argue that the concept of good governance is not applicable to sustainable development because its indicators are formulated in such away to make that the recipients willingly or unwillingly subscribe to the donors’ normative or value judgments. Going one step further they claim that neoliberal models introduce political conditions based on Western liberal values of democracy tailored to deepen the dependency of the aid recipient countries (Nanda,2006; Kofi and Desta; 2008; and NEPAD,2007).

Based on the assumption that aid donors generally create long lasting dependence of the borrowing countries, the opponents of good governance argue that when developing countries borrow or receive assistance from aid-giving agencies, they are given no choice but to follow the lead of the neo-liberal Washington Consensus Model (Adetula, 2011). In addition, opponents argue that without understanding what good governance is because of the lack of clarity and what it means to different organizations and participants, and how good governance is measured, developing countries are destined to pursue the ideals of liberal democracy depicted for them by the strategies of good governance. Actually, when developing countries attempt to navigate through good governance, they could outpace their limited resources and eventually sink into dependency (Gisselquist, 2012; Grindle, 2008; Schmitz, 2007).

The purpose of this case study is to show that since the agenda of good governance is designed as ‘one size fits all,’ it is not contextualor compatible with Ethiopia’s cultural realities. The second part of the paper presents a brief historical review of current Ethiopian history. The third section of paper presents the theoretical underpinnings of the model of good governance as set by donors and the adherents of neo-liberal democratic ideology. Grounded on African communal consensus–building approaches, section four of the paper develops the applicability of grass roots democracy or democratic autonomous self-rule federalism as an alternative to the agenda of good governance for Ethiopia’s ethno-federal system. The last part of the paper suggests some desirable and feasible policies for untangling ethno-federal Ethiopia from some of the malaise of mal-administration and the developmental problems that it is currently facing.

Contemporary Ethiopia

After the collapse of the Military Government in 1991, Ethiopia has undergone three challenging transformations: ethnic federalism with the right of self-determination, including the right to secession; a developmental democratic state system of governance; and a democratic devolution, each to become the governance system at the grassroots level (woreda) of its administration structure.
To ensure national consolidation, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) vigorously redefined Ethiopia’s political landscape into ethnic federalism and restructured the state into the contemporary Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.The EPRDF subdivided the Ethiopian polity into nine asymmetrical, ethnic-based regional states and two federal city-states that included the city of Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa. To further assure self-rule and ascertain confidence in the nation and in the people of Ethiopia, each regional state was assured the unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to secession.
Following the examples of Taiwan and South Korea’s strategy of mapping industrial policy, Ethiopia established the ground work necessary for a developmental state with a government planning policy, or designating the intervention of the government in designing the country’s economic system. However, realizing that multilateral, bilateral, and donor countries would not lend aid unless the aid recipient countries agreed to abide by the blueprints of good governance, the Ethiopian government slowly revised its socialistic orientation and undertook a tactical view by openly propagating the idea that it was possible to achieve developmental state, and the country could transition into democracy, accepting the agenda of “good governance” in order to receive assistance from bilateral and multilateral agencies.

In 2001, the EPRDF further embarked on the devolution of powers and responsibilities of the woreda, or lower level of administration. As highlighted by Assefa (2015), the 1991 manifestation of decentralization was aimed at creating and empowering national and regional states of governments, whereas as the second phase of decentralization extended the devolution of powers to the woreda.

A cursory look at the state affairs now clearly indicates that Ethiopian politicians and bureaucrats seem to be ‘playing with the rules rather than playing by the rules.’As a result, more recently, a number of regional governments in Ethiopia have been stepping up the assessment of their management strategies. To curtail some of the mal-administrative practices riddled with dramatically flourishing corruption for instance, the Tigraye Regional States summoned a regional conference towards the end of 2015 to assess the serious administrative challenges and systematically evaluate the implementation of the agendas for good governance. Citing various upheavals that occurred in the Oromia Region and in particular the eviction of the Oromio farmers from their farm lands, Prime Minister Haile Mariam Desalgne has straight-forwardly stated that Ethiopia was suffering from the problems of governance, and that by evicting the helpless Oromio tenants from their land has alienated the social base of the EPRDF Party (The Guardian, March 9, 2016). To expedite the processes of good governance that it had previously accepted, Ethiopia has declared the Year 2015/16 as the “Year of Good Governance.”

Literature Review

Over the years, a number of donor institutions and countries have conceptualized “good governance” as a catchy phrase designed to achieve their own goals and at the same time, improve the quality of the recipient countries. As shown in Table 1, there is no consensus among donors of a working definition of good governance that could help to classify which countries should be classified as well-governed or poorly governed. Actually, as it stand now, the working definitions and components of a good governance agenda set by donors may mean different things to aid-bestowing institutions and the aid-receiving countries.

For example, after having studied the economic and political crisis in Sub-Saharan African countries in 1989, the World Bank suggested that the conditions of good governance need to be established for bestowing assistance to African countries. As a means to explore the Sub-Saharan Africa’s economic and political conditions, the Bank used the country Policy and Institutional Assessments (CIPA) index. The CIPA Index was composed of four clusters (economic management, structural policies, policies for social inclusions/equity, and the public sector management and institutions), which was further divided into 20 items. That is, the CIPA indicator included: economic management (four items); structural policies (six items); policies for social inclusions/equity (five items); and public sector management and institutions (five items). However, as argued by Punyaratabandhu (2004), since good governance is a floating concept, “New items may be added to the CPIA index, and old ones removed, from time to time, but the total number always remains 20 items.” The major weakness of the CPIA methodology is that the index was based on assessment by the World Bank staff rather than by impartial external professionals (Punyaratabandhu, 2004). As noted above, the quality of the policy was based on staff assessments, and the assessment technique lacked validity. Three of the four clusters were related to creating favorable conditions for the private sector, rather than measuring governance in the sense of the state’s relationship with civil society. For example, developmental states were not objectively measured (Schmitz, 2007, Punyaratabandhu, 2004).

In addition, the World Bank assessment tools seemed to be based on moral value judgments. The agenda of good governance tries to distinguish between the good, the bad and the evil. As stated by Shivji (2003), the good governance concept as used by the World Bank rests on political conditionality. Its technical tools are generally administered by global hegemonies which undermine the sovereignty of African nations. Being the major donor organization, the World Bank has used its financial leverage to reduce the role of African states to become functionaries. The result is that it has made Africa’s struggle for democracy rely on the whims of the donor states and donations given.

In general, instead of identifying and mapping out where the aid recipient country is currently now and where it is going, the good governance indices and assessments tools are designed to closely indicate the interest of the aid donor agencies. That is, the good governance assessment techniques are not contextually located and are not made country specific. For example, though China has been demonstrating a very robust economy for more two decades, it is likely to be evaluated as having a weak governance system. Furthermore, the indicators are not operationally defined in order to ascertain who would decide what the outcomes would be. That is, it would it be left up to the donor or the recipient to assess the outcomes of good governance.

In short, since the good governance indicators are not derived from a theoretical framework, the indicators don’t systematically demonstrate that the underlying processes, mechanisms, institutions, and the end state of a nation, suggest an appropriate time frame over which the agenda of good governance needs to be evaluated. For example, the United Nations strongly argues that good governance deepens democracy in a fragmented world and assumes that good governance eradicates poverty and promotes development. Based on this assumption, the United Nations relies on using seven complex and disjointed indicators to assess the application of good governance by the aid receiving countries (UNDP, 2002). At the same time, it is difficult and too absurd to implement good governance because the directions set for the recipient countries are too vague in their instructions and don’t elaborate what goals can actually be achieved, and when.

As said by Grindle (2010), maybe good governance is as important as many other good ideas but it is not a magic bullet. For instance, as set by the donor countries, the obligations of good governance call for: a) the institutions in the recipient countries to set the rules for economic and political interaction; b) decision-making structures in the recipient countries to determine priorities among public problems and allocate resources to respond to them; c) recipient countries to have organizations, administrative management systems, and deliver goods and services to their citizens; and d) human resources that staff government bureaucracies in the recipient countries to handle effective interface of officials and citizens in political and bureaucratic arenas ( Grindle 2010).

Realizing the limited resources that developing countries have, a branch of the United Nations, the United Nation Development Programs (UNDP) focuses on differentiating between objective indicators, such as economic performance, and the subjective indicators that reflect respondent opinions and perceptions (Punyaratabandhu, 2004). The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) uses five indicators that pertain to good governance, and also forwards goals that need to be accomplished in the future. Given its ideological orientation, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on the other hand gives support to a number of developing countries that are going through transitional democracy, cherishing the rule of law, respecting human rights and individual freedom, as well as abiding by the rules of the free market to achieve their socioeconomic development (USAID, 2013).

Table 1: Components of Good Governance

Democracy, inclusive political participation, pluralism Human rights Promotes Rules of law Governing systems that can combat corruption, price systems. Capable, Effective & efficient management Transparency &, accountability Reform public institutions/
Representative legislation, independent judiciary
Achieve, process, outcomes economic development Visionary or look forward, Social, responsive, equity to its people
World Bank X X X X
United Nations X X X X X X X
UNDP X X X X
AFDB X X X X
ASDB X X X X X
Inter-ADB) X X X X
European Commission
X
X
X
X
IMF X X X
OECD
X X X X X
USAID X X X X

Source: Compiled from Rachel M. Gisselquist, “Good Governance as a Concept,and Why this Matters for Development Policy”. United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economic Research. March 2012.

Based on their specialty, the African Development Bank (ADB), the Asian Development Bank, (ADB), and Inter-American Bank (IAB) stress accountability, transparency, combating corruption, achieving social policy for equity, assistance for infrastructure, economic development, and the manner in which a country exercises the management and implementation of a just, legal and judicial framework, to bestow the necessary financial aid. In short, as stated by Parhasarathy (2005), the ADBs and IAB seem to be more interested in economic governance or a sound development management system to assess good governance.

To summarize, the “good governance” concept has been evolving for many years. The donor institutions generally assume that promoting good governance in developing countries is the primary focus of their agendas (Gisselquist, 2012). Nevertheless, as mentioned before, their stance of good governance is based on normative value judgments. It epitomizes Western thinking and is based on Western history and culture. Not only does good governance as a concept epitomize Western values but knowingly or unknowingly it is financed to spread neoliberal ideas that might prolong dependency. Conceptually, good governance is a list that lacks coherence among its components. As a result, it has created methodological problems. That is, unless development practitioners can “… develop valid measurements, they cannot know that the empirical relationships they observe between variables are meaningful.” (Gisselquist, 2012).
As argued by Parthasarathy (2005), rather than dismissing non-Western cultures as anti-democratic and not suitable for good governance, by hiding their beliefs it seems that the aid donor entities have been engaged to work with existing institutions, practicing to promote development, and enhancing choice and freedom for individuals and groups. Just by ascertaining the fulfillment of political conditionality, the donor agencies have been busy donating funds and capital to the recipient countries. With little or no understanding of the establishment of local cultures necessary for a democratic governance system, nevertheless the agendas of good governance have been implanted in a number of developing countries. Given the intolerable conditions imposed on the developing countries, it needs to be stated at this juncture that the recipient countries have been accepting funds from the donor agencies instead of internally generating the funds themselves.

More specifically, when giving assistance to Ethiopia, the donor entities should have known in advance that the political culture of the Ethiopian people is by and large based on communal orientation. Given this, the neo-liberal Western values couldn’t coexist with Ethiopian values. Instead of attempting to build a synergy between the developmental states of the Ethiopian states and the donor agencies, in the name of good governance the donor agencies have imposed their own cultural values on the recipient countries (Adetula,2011).

Therefore, if Ethiopia is to accept Western assistance, it needs to examine critically the Western capitalist economic theories, because they were developed for a different social order. Ethiopian policy makers need to modify the ‘one size fits all’ in order to adapt and use only the most relevant aspects for Ethiopian culture and its way of living. In the section that would follow in the future, an attempt will be made to explore the suitability and feasibility of Democratic autonomous self-rule Federalism or as it is known in political science jargon, the Consociationalism type of democracy for the Federal Republic of Ethiopia.

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Desta, Asayehgn- Sarlo Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Economic Development, Barowsky School of Business, Dominican University of California

Most Ethiopians agree that a pragmatic solution to the existing political impasse is important to prevent disintegration. Whether we choose to believe it or not many Ethiopians seem to be so terrified of the floating indication that the country will be disintegrated from statehood to tribal-hood, if the hovering potential ethnic conflict is unabated. When the regime supporters exploit the fear to justify for TPLF dictatorship indefinite rule, even well-wishers seem to see a variant of dictatorship as an alternative for keeping Ethiopia’s integrity. One can speculate both sides may have been forced to favor dictatorship out of sense of hopelessness of the stifled democratic struggle in Ethiopia. However, be it for pragmatic or other reasons dictatorship should by no means be viewed as better alternative to democratic governance. For positive traits of dictatorship a handful of Asian countries may be cited, but hundreds of other countries can be cited for its negative traits.

The jobs that dictators are championed to do better, the democratic governance had done the same jobs best. The TPLF propagandist often championed dictatorship for keeping territorial integrity and advancing economic development. The argument to favor dictatorship is its ability for swift decision it can make because of the military and security power Dictators control. Dictators are capable of implementing practically any policy they initiated without seeking public consent. However, the argument neglects to consider the policies dictators initiate are sources of economic stagnation and risks territorial integrity. Most importantly, they neglect the fact that dictatorship resulted long-term societal decay of a nation. What we see in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa is deep hopelessness among citizens and unprecedented brutality by dictators towards fellow human being, which rarely had seen in any of democratic countries. It is ironic to think that the same entity that caused the instability and insignificant economic development are expected to give solution for the same problems they caused.

Ethiopians have experienced decades of oppression. Thus, the problem of dictatorships is so wide in scope and lengthy in time. Unquestioning submission to authority figures and rulers has been part and parcel of the culture. From the modern history of Emperor Haile Selassie to the current Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) tribal regime, all three consecutive governments created and used state institutions to subordinate society. However ineffective, during the Emperor’s time few independent civic and societal institutions initiated. The “derg” junta destroyed the few. Other than those initiated to advance socialist ideology, “derg” never attempted to create independent civic institutions or allowed the public to create one. The TPLF tightened the noose more than ever before, and weakened and subordinated primarily the judicial systems to destroy, incarcerate and legally torture any opponent. The little independence the judicial institutions enjoyed in the past withered away. Ethiopians witnessed unprecedented mockery of legal system. Over the phone and under-the-table directives, the ghost of security officials and brutal cadres presided on the respected chambers and rendered unlawful judgments on defendants.

Most of all, TPLF had set the condition for breakdown of Ethiopia by enforced ethnic administrative systems and encouraged toxic ethnic relationship. For a moment, let’s admit the truth what Ethiopia got out of current dictatorship. Forgetting insidious racism that are driven by extreme hate, in the last 25-years, TPLF produced ethnic administrative “killils” if a fellow Ethiopian citizen go to these ethnic “killils” will be ethnically stereotyped and likely be discriminated. In these ethnic “killils”, Ethiopians are discriminated in various ways. One, the fellow Ethiopian citizen is discriminated for not speaking their language and not knowing their culture. Two, they simply assume that he/she has no right to come or live in their “killil” and forcefully displaced. Three, the administrators including police force most likely stands against the fellow citizen in official places. Four, the property the fellow citizen owned do not actually belong to the fellow citizen and see his/her success with resentment. To say the least, the university campuses are challenging to ethnic groups that came from elsewhere. To tell the gravitas of the problem in the simplest term possible, TPLF produced a lot of regressive ethnic advocates and politicians who argues in straight-face that discriminatory action against other ethnic groups is heroic, progressive, and shows the love of their ethnic group. Among these crowds, a fair minded person who welcome all Ethiopians as citizens and sees things in broader and inclusive ways is often branded as an ethnic traitor. All such societal ills, including ethnic discrimination, corruption, nepotism, brain drain, migration, eliciting money, poverty, reached unprecedented level during TPLF dictatorship.

Ethiopians became under control by merciless tribal dictatorship of Tigre brethren. Currently, fear, not laws and regulations, controlled Ethiopians. What Ethiopia produced out of the various dictatorships is a terrified society. Professionals and commoners alike are too frightened to share their resentments to dictatorship. Political parties are divided along ethnic lines and unable to work together to achieve freedom. Even those political parties organized by political philosophy are divided by security official manipulation or intimidation. Trust among citizens eroded to not believe in each other even to not do anything at individual’s own initiative. Notice the close down of organization initiated by individuals such as commonly known EHRCO (Ethiopian Human Rights Council).

What Ethiopians need is freedom to revive societal spirit and morale integrity, which are going down to the drain. Perhaps societal spirits soared temporarily because of the short-lived resistance of the near past of “kinijit”. The resistance turned out to be insufficient to overcome fear and change the dictatorial regime. Sadly, those resistances may even have brought more fear and suffering. Out of these gloomy mist, the wide spread protest broke in Oromia killil. Obviously, with the suspicions and disdains inculcated in citizens other Ethiopians are watching from sideline. The same way as kinijit fall, the protest in Oromia killil might fall short to get the much-needed freedom. In the mean time, Ethiopians continue suffering under TPLF dictatorship without future hope and with widespread societal ills.

When people propose dictatorship over democracy, clear thinking is needed because of the dangers and negative societal traits described above involved. It should be clear there is no real peace under dictatorship. No matter how much well-intended submission of citizens to cruel oppression by ruthless dictators who inflict atrocities on millions of people is no real peace. As has been seen in Ethiopia for the past several decades, there is no freedom and justice or development in dictatorship, but long-term societal moral decay.

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Following my presentation entitled “Bridging The Leadership Gap: For smooth transition and successful post conflict Ethiopia” on March 26, 2016 at Georgetown Marriott Hotel in Washington DC, some audience members chatted with me afterwards, and gave me some feedbacks. While many of them recognized the gap and glad that it was discussed at this conference, some of them challenged whether the elephant in the room is a leadership gap after all. Since the time allotted to each speech was 20 minutes max, it wasn’t possible to provide enough background information. Last year, PRO Leadership Global conducted its annual conference, which was held at Prince George’s Community College. The conference recognized the 3G (Geographic, Generational, & Gender) Leadership Gaps. No one disputes the existence of leadership gap in the Southern and Eastern Hemispheres than in the West. There’s a huge generational gap globally. Research shows that, in just the US alone, 33 million baby boomer leaders are going to retire by the year 2020. The same is true in our case. Who are leading both in Ethiopia and here in the Diaspora? The Ethiopian version baby boomer leaders  are in charge everywhere. Whether it’s within the ruling party or in the opposition camp; whether it’s in the NGOs or in the religious institutions, the dominant decision makers are members of the older generation. There’s nothing wrong with this as far as the contemporary leaders are conscious about the existence of the generational gap and proactively raising their successors. Unfortunately, that is not what has been happening. Likewise, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we’re plagued by gender leadership gap. Regardless of their number, which is more 50% and their lion share contributions at family, community, and national levels, enough women aren’t at the front and leading.

Once you have the context, please note that this past Saturday, I specifically talked about bridging the leadership gap that hasn’t allowed us to topple dictatorship. If you’re interested, you may consider reading my recent article entitled “Leadership Gap: The main reason why we keep failing to topple dictatorship” that briefly pointed out how our past and contemporary struggles to remove dictatorship and usher our country to a bright future- where there’ll be peace, stability, freedom, democracy, and the rule of law- have been sabotaged because of leadership gap. Some of the audience members who talked to me looked unconvinced. I don’t blame them because the familiar culprits many point their fingers at for our inability to carryout a smooth transition from dictatorship to democracy are TPLF, Derge, America and the Western Countries, even God (many think that we’re cursed), and still others believe that the devil has been messing us up  and the only way out is fasting and prayer. Sorry to spoil their pity parties. We’re the authors of our own failing. It’s not the strength of TPLF. Or the lack of diplomatic supports we haven’t got from TPLF’s allies. These may have some negative contributions toward our quest to make a smooth transition. If we have had competent leaders, we wouldn’t have kept failing. Of course, I’m not talking about leadership gap in numbers. The gap the presentation attempted to show was a quality gap- the lack of leadership competency, not just at the top, at all levels.

Some people think that the problem we’ve had is the lack of committed, patriotic, and active followers. These are mainly leaders who’re trying to escape responsibility. Whose responsibility is to attract followers, organize, inspire, & develop them? This is a job primarily of the leadership though it’d be great if the followers become proactive and take initiatives. When people have confidence in their leadership, they’re willing to commit their time, talent, resources, and even their lives. Still others argue that they have the leadership in place. Their problem is the lack of organizational capacity. Again, whose responsibility is to design the right organizational design, recruit the right people to fill the structure, and engage the public at grass root level? The leadership. There are also some who complain that their leadership is constrained by lack of resources; otherwise, they’d have succeeded in realizing their vision and meeting their goals. Whose responsibility is to be resourceful? The leadership. Of course, there’re also some who specifically point out that our trouble is none other than the constitution, the ethnic federalism, some other faulty policies, and therefore, they shy away from acknowledging the leadership gap as a serious issue. It’s true we need a relevant, timely, and comprehensive constitution that must gain the support of the majority of Ethiopians. We also need appropriate policies and programs, democratic institutions, well-trained human capital to implement these policies and run the institutions, respectively. With the right and competent leadership, these and many other specific, technical, and policy issues would have been resolved easily. However, without the former, having the latter is useless, to say the least.

Still others grumble about our culture. They say: It’s the culture that is stupid, not us the leaders. It’s true that status quo is the problem but whose responsibility is to reform the culture if it is a roadblock? Great leaders are those who challenge the status quo even if it means offending the public. China is now heading to be a superpower country. That journey began with a cultural revolution led by Mao Zedong. Though I don’t condone his method, which was violent in the majority of the cases, Cultural Revolution transformed the country, setting China up to enjoy her present state of success. Another example. Research shows that South Korea and Ghana were on the same footing in the 60’s; having almost the same GDP, receiving equal amount of aid, producing similar products and services, etc. Unlike Ghanaian, South Korean leaders employed Cultural Revolution by substituting some of their counter productive cultural values with some powerful values, which in turn enabled them to transform their country from one of the developing countries into one of the developed within a few decades. We have a hope to transform our country but that journey must begin with Cultural Revolution! We need to identify those cultural attributes that are golden, and those that are limiting. And, we need courageous and bold leaders to help us disown the latter, and substitute them with some important values that could empower us to become tolerant, inclusive, hard working, innovative, and so on.

Unfortunately, many of our leaders, like the general public, are blind loyal to our culture. Of course, as in the case of all other cultures, there are great cultural attributes and some cultural values we must eradicate if our desire is to make lasting and enduring change. That is why we need transformational leaders. Leaders who are bold enough to poke around our culture, and force us change for good. During the question and answer session, almost all of the participants who stood to comment and ask complained about some of our cultural shortcomings (of course, they didn’t mention the word culture). They criticized our failure to come together, questioned why we divide ourselves along ethnic, region, and religion lines? They wondered why we do this and that. Unlike the Chinese and South Koreans, who overcame insurmountable challenges in unison, we failed to do so because we’re unable to reform our culture courageously. Very few of our problems require advanced technologies, highly trained manpower, intensive resources, and so on. Ethiopia won’t be able to see unity, democracy, stability, prosperity, and freedom until we open our eyes and acknowledge that we are victims of our own culture. Unless we are brave enough to reconfigure our culture, we keep toiling in vain. Blaming one another, pointing our fingers somewhere, and barking at the wrong trees doesn’t cut it. Unfortunately, the task of reforming our culture too desperately needs courageous, selfless, visionary, far-sighted, and transformational leaders. This is the kind of leadership gap I was talking about, not a mere number gap.

I had the same challenge following my presentation on March 20 2016 at Resident Inn Marriott Hotel in DC. The theme of my presentation was “The Necessity of Women’s Role in Leadership Positions in Ethiopia”. Some contended that we don’t have a lack of women leaders. They reasoned that a few women leaders should be enough to lead us bridge the gender inequality. I stand with my position. Without having enough and, most importantly, competent women leaders at all levels, it’s impossible to bridge the gender inequality, and gender leadership gap.

When I say we have a leadership gap, I’m talking about in terms of their competence. Do they have both hard and soft skills? Are they articulate enough to clearly spell out the mission, motto, brand, goals, and objectives of their organizations? Are they visionary, and most importantly, do they know how to impart the vision to all stakeholders? Do they have the right values and character? Can they strategize and also put in place contingencies (or at least willing to get help)? Do they have detailed long and short term plans to execute the strategies and meet their goals? Can they set up an organizational design that fits the mission of their respective organization? There’s no one design fits all. We need different types of designs for different kinds of organizations- NGOs, parties, businesses, government agencies, religious institutions, and so on. By the way, I’m not saying that we need to have perfect and readily available leaders. As far as they are humble and willing to learn, we should be okay. These kinds of leaders go ahead of their flock, continue to feed themselves and grow. In his classic Habitudes, Tim Elmore used the starving baker as a metaphor to show how leaders must feed themselves before feeding others. Leaders should first change their inside through the things they take in before they try to change others, and the world outside of them.

Last but not least, we- the public- should also take some responsibilities for creating the leadership gap. The 19th C philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville said, “The people get the government they deserve.” Do we deserve the leaders we have had? If the answer is NO, then, let’s show it by playing a proactive role in selecting and developing leaders we deserve. Of course, that journey should begin with us. Each one of us should become leaders in the area of our passion. Leadership is the birthright of all. If we’ve great leaders everywhere, only the best of us take the top leadership at national, community, party, and organizational levels. Our country cannot become greater and better than its own people and leaders. We also need to learn from our past leaders (adopt and improve their strengths, avoid their mistakes), and the experiences of other leaders around the world. Let’s try our best to play our share in bridging the leadership gaps. In this regard and to play my little share, I’ll share with you a couple of articles in the coming weeks and months, and look forward to hear your feedbacks.

In the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has everoccurred in any independent democratic country with a relatively free press (Amartya Sen, 1999).

The assumptions, the nature and possible challenges of good governance may be better appreciated considering the Lijphart’s paradigm of consensus democracy. Over the years, the British system of government, a majoritarian democracy or the Westminster type of governance, has been criticized because it is constitutionally biased toward quick decision-making and its actions are based on a democratically elected majority in the government.

Unlike the tenets of a majoritarian democracy, according to Lijphart (1977), a consensus democratic federal nation needs to be governed by the existence of: 1) a grand coalition (includingthe ruling elites of each unit to rule in the interest of their constituencies in elections, cabinets, parliament, civil service, etc); 2) a mutual veto (requiring consensus rather than majority rule); 3) proportionality (representation based on the population of each unit); and 4) segmental autonomy (each federal unit is autonomous and has its own sphere of authority, either territorially or functionally). As paraphrased by Shah. “…in the context of deeply divided places, this would appear to be a rather pleasant outcome whereby political parties representing different ethnicities would come together to form coalition governments, hence, ensuring broader representation of interests and minimal exclusion.” (2013).

To alleviate the “tyranny of the majority” in a democratic set up and to avoid the likelihood of turmoil due to deep linguistic, religious, and ethnic ruptures in the future, Lijphart suggests that nations need to emphasize and practice a consensus democratization process to create a manageable self-rule of communal constituents, so that all citizens fully enjoy equal partnership in the system (Howe, Philp J, 2015; Clark. P and Foweraker, J. 2001). As reported by Vatter (2007), consensus democracy is supposed to “…represent as many citizens as possible and that there are multiple checks and balances, thus limiting the power of the central government while providing for the representation of a broader array of interests.”

In short, as summarized by Lijphart, consensus democracies are composed of “kinder and gentler” units because they are likely to 1) be composed of welfare units, 2) be environmentally sensitive, 3) incarcerate fewer people, 4) eschew the death penalty, 5) elect more women, 6) reduce economic disparity, 7) have higher electoral turnout, 8) select leaders with opinions that correspond more closely with those of the citizens, 9) enhance accountability, and 10) minimize corruption, etc ( 1999).

According to Lijphart (1991), if democracy is defined as “government of the people by the people,” it behooves us to ask “who will do the governing and to whose interests should the government be responsive when the people are in disagreement and have divergent preferences?” Moreover, as argued by Aerts (2005) as defined by Lijphart “Consensus decision-making is a higher ethical standard, because it is based on the principle that every voice is worth hearing, and that every concern is justified.” “The pursuit of consensus not only aims to achieve better solutions but it also fosters a sense of community and trust.” Empirical observations by Bormann (2010) also indicate that the Netherlands had a deeply segmented society. But, due to the absence of Westminster-like rules and norms, it is one of Europe’s most stable and flourishing democracies because it abides within the procedural consensus decision system. Similarly, like the Netherlands, “the European Commission follows the simplest decision procedures of all, namely if no consensus is reached no decision is taken” (Bormann, 2010).

Relevant to the federal systems of governments are the attributes of the consensus democracy system that include the existence of reciprocal relationships between central and local governments. For example, through the transfer of authority, responsibility, and accountability from the central to local governments, the consensus democratic political decentralization system extends the democratic processes to lower levels of government (Barnett , C. et al., December 1997and Araia, 2013).That is, the process of consensus democratic political devolution allows local governments to have clear and legally recognized geographic boundaries over which they exercise authority and within which they perform public functions. That is, municipalities can elect their own mayors and councils, raise their own revenues, and have independent authority to make investment decisions. Therefore, a political devolution that operates through consensus inevitably changes the allocation of power and jobs.

In light of the experience of Switzerland (cantons) and India (states), the advocates of consensus democratic self-rule argue that a federal system is only viable and manageable if the existing emotionally charged ethnic group feelings are further sub-divided into manageable geographic regions. Following the viable concrete examples from the well managed federated nations and believing that the formation of an ethnic community contributes to the formation of a shared space that could provide individuals with a cultural context in which to establish relationships, Spain, for example, is in the process of entertaining the formation of multi-ethnic federal states for its inhabitants. Belgium on the other hand is now relying on voluntary agreements to reorganize itself into a manageable ethnic federation because it is convinced that as membership in a community flourishes, so does the member’s well-being and life chances.

In theory, Lijphart’s idea that political decisions of democratic regimes need to be taken through procedures for creating or verifying consensus seems to be convincing and is enjoying widespread support in a number of European countries. Nonetheless,empirical studies that were conducted by Lijphart (1999) himself seem to indicate that consensus democracies are not superior to majority democracies in managing the economy and in maintaining civil peace. Also it is possible that a single-party government placed by consensus may not pass a requisite reform because in a one-party system there is no conflict of parties and it may not take tough decisions that might disrupt its comfortable control of power (Shah, 2013). Thus, given the major incompatibility of good governance and Lijphart’s consensus democracy, with African political mores and history another possible option needs to be considered for Ethiopia’s Federal Republic, the traditional non-party consensus,or the African communitarian approach of agrassroots democratic system of government.

Non-Party Consensual Democracy: The African Way

As stated by Wiredu (2000), compared to the Westminster majoritarian rule that is based on consent without consensus, theAfrican Non-Party Consensual Democratic system relies on consent and is subject to the control of the people as expressed through their representatives. In other words, compared to the multi-party system imposed by the West, Africa’s traditional system of government is relatively better as a form of governance because it is based on consensual democracy, arrived at through negotiation. As it existed in the Ashanti government in Ghana, though it didn’t last long, the residents of Warilu, Wello, Ethiopia, also were forced to form neighborhood associations in 1962-63. The neighborhood association subscribed to the African “communal ethos” because it incorporated the communities’ traditional values of consensus or consultative democracy and was set up to liberate the local people from various debilitating atrocities, corruption, and maladministration that the bureaucrats of Emperor Hailes Selassie’s feudal regime were imposing on the locality.

More specifically, non-party polity featuring traditional African politics could be a viable alternative to ease political tensions and divisions that have torn the African continent for many years. However, as advised by Wiredu (2000),we have to be aware that traditional African decision-making differed from the supreme right of the majority because in the African non-party system, “…no party lost because all the parties were natural partners in power or, more strictly, because there were no parties. In the one-party situation, the reason why no party loses is because murdered parties do not compete.” As succinctly stated by Kimbuku (2007), the African style of consensus works as an indirect democracy because there are no formal votes won by the majority. Opinions are shared and discussions are taken into consideration and the final decision reflects the common interest. That is, setting up the rules of consensus demands that each constituency represented in the deliberation process make his/her opinion heard (Kimbuku 2008).

As stated above, the African consensual polity assumes that traditional African polity was harmonious, and the conditions of traditional African political life were handled, by and large, by homogenous councils that were made of clans or lineages from the same group. Given this premise, it was assumed that the conditions of traditional political life would remain static and less complicated than those of the present. However, the kinship networks that provided the stability for consensual politics in traditional African times don’t seem capable of serving the same purpose in modern Africa. The system decreases political efficiency in the sense that it takes a long time to deliberate drafted laws either in the local, regional, or federal parliament. More particularly, in urban industrialized African areas, the fact that a number of socioeconomic cleavages and new ingredients in ideological politics have been mushrooming makes a non-party system inefficient to operate. Moreover, since some Western thinking has been adopted, some traditional cultures may no longer be attractive to western scholars, i.e. the non-party polity that gave vitality to traditional Africa may not survive in a globalized African political scene. As observed by Kimbuku (2007), it is difficult to accommodate the traditional non-party polity in current African settings because urbanization, industrialization, socioeconomic cleavage, and ideological politics characterize the new Africa.

Actually, reversing this line of thinking, Wiredu (2005) warns us not to be nostalgic by imagining that the ground is now fertile for the breeding of a non-party system of governance. He stresses the need to be cognizant that:

It might seem, therefore, that neither in the past nor in the present nor in the foreseeable future can consensus be seen to have been, or to promote, a realistic basis for politics in any African State that is a composite of distinct ethnic units. On the contrary, so it might appear, the more pluralistic approach of a multi-party system, provided it incorporates reasonable safeguards against tyranny of majority, offers the more practical option.

Following Wiredu’s suggestion that instead of relying on borrowed liberal democratic principles that are based on the principle of majoritarian rule, and being cognizant not whole-heartedly to revisit the non-party consensual democracy that existed in traditional Africa in its entirety for the current period, the most viable option for the salvation of contemporary Ethiopia from its political challenges rests on establishing a multi-party consensus democratic political system.

Multi-Party Consensus Democracy: For Grassroots Governance

Citizens in stable democracies possess a relatively common set of understanding about the appropriate boundaries of government, the sanctity of political rights, and the duties of citizens to preserve them. If there is no consensus within society, there can be little potentiality for peaceful resolution of political differences that is associated with the democratic process (Almond and Verba, 1963).

In a way, non-party consensus reminds us of the nominal elections that used to occur under autocratic feudal rule and the Derg’s inhuman era. Therefore, to advocate the applicability of a non-party system of governance to current federal Ethiopia that subscribes to some elements of democracy, seems to be irrelevant and is likely to be unacceptable to the Ethiopian population because of the inhuman atrocities of those eras. In addition, since there cannot be a conflict of parties advocating for a non-party system, advocating for a non-party system more or less amounts to leaning toward a one-party system. .

As some type of constitutional engineering for devolution occurred in contemporary Ethiopia in 2001, in name, it encouraged local units to have a say in selecting their own rulers which contributed to political stability. Also, it empowered local residents to select leaders that would be held accountable for their decisions. Theoretically, the Ethiopian Parliament enacted the devolution of powers to allow the lower levels of the administration (woreda) to be held responsible for pursuing a grassroots type of local self-governance. Around 2005, just for a few months, before the May election of 2005, the Ethiopian Government showed some signs of transparency and political openness, and demonstrated a type of rudimentary democracy. As stated by the Carter Center, “…the May elections marked an historic event in the country, as Ethiopia witnessed its first genuinely competitive campaign period with multiple parties fielding strong candidates” (2009). Unfortunately, what began with a comparatively open period of campaigning and an orderly voting process in a fragmented democracy, uncertainty about electoral outcomes provoked mutual suspicion among the political actors. As result, the fragmentary type of democracy evaporated as the political parties entered into a skirmish resulting in an overblown system of checks and balances by the ruling party.

To minimize the social unrest that is crippling the country and to ensure the exercise of political rights and freedoms for a genuine consensus democratic system, the Ethiopian Federal polity needs to start democratic institution-building and then encourage active participation by the woredas citizens, involving them in discussions eventually to lead to the transition of multi-party democratic consensus federalism. That is, organized into three political levels, Federal, woreda, and neighborhood, each woreda should have the right to autonomy and be allowed to maximize its political self-determination, as stated in Ethiopia’s Federal Constitution. However, if decisions cannot be reached unanimously, both the majority and minority could attempt to synthesize the same issue by making adjustments in their respective viewpoints.

Therefore, it needs to be stressed once again that a multi-party autonomous consensus type of democracy is worthy of entertaining in contemporary Ethiopia because it excludes the possibility that the majority will impose its views on the minorities. Functioning in an integrated plural society, it provides a system of checks and balances between ethnic, regional and national levels, and ultimately reduces the fears of minorities. Finally, as stated by Agh (2001), it needs to be underlined that the decision-making rule of unanimous consent through deliberations depends in large-part on the willingness of the protagonists to encourage a culture of compromise and accommodation, and the executive needs to run this by five to seven elected officials. In short, as suggested by Lijpahart (1999), each woredain federal Ethiopia, needs to be autonomous, with minimum exclusion, administered proportionally by a grand coalition, and subscribing to consensus democracy.

It was enacted in 2001 in the Ethiopian constitution that the local administration in Ethiopia be autonomous and that each woreda be given nominal self-rule. However, a cursory look indicates that the local people living in the Ethiopian woredas have rarely been allowed to participate in political and social decision-making processes through their representatives. Though it is claimed that Ethiopia follows a federal system in which each constituent unit is autonomous and is able to select and recall their administrators, it is surprising to note that the governors and administrators for each woreda are selected by the macro-political participants who occupy central places in Ethiopian politics. By and large, the local governors of woredas and municipalities are not selected by local people but are political cadres, or extensions of the ruling party. Thus, they are sent from regional states (Kililes) and zones to administer the woredas and municipalities.

Summary and Policy Implications

Since the inhuman and authoritarian Derg was routed from power in1991, Ethiopia has shown a dramatic transformation in its economy. Based on rapid public infrastructure investment as the key structural drive of growth, the World Bank (2015) indicates that Ethiopia has decreased poverty levels from 60% to 29%. Furthermore, a forecast by the World Bank indicates that Ethiopia will become a middle income country by 2025. For instance, “In an analysis of 124 countries over four decades, though having the third largest infrastructure deficit in Africa, Ethiopia was ranked to be among the fastest 20% in infrastructure growth in the past decades” (World Bank, 2015).

In tandem with economic growth, Ethiopia has been facing massive social unrest, corruption, unaccountability, and because the governance style is heavy handed, it has undermined the country’s economic growth that has been recorded for the last two decades. For example, the most glaring and politically sensitive issues that were sparked in Oromo land, Wolkait Tsegede, Qemant etc. have created political instability in all of Ethiopia. Moreover, much of the disruption has been caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon. El Niño has not only disrupted normal conditions, but the unexpected drought has also threatened Ethiopia’s agriculture which, as a result , has contributed to mass starvation of more than 10 million people.

Despite of these challenges, and given Ethiopia’s resilience, there is no doubt that Ethiopia’s economic growth will recover from these shocks provided the existing political structure is carefully revised to adapt to current needs. For instance, initially, the formation of federalism was a landmark in Ethiopian history. Federal Ethiopia was demarcated based on ethnicity to reflectthe ideological orientation of freedom fighters -who need to be thanked for liberating the Ethiopian people from the dictatorship of the Derg and bringing about stability, economic growth, and in a way, minimizing rural poverty.

Nevertheless, since they live in a dynamic environment now, the Ethiopian people are constantly demanding the exercise of genuine self-rule, as epitomized in the Ethiopian constitution. This demand needs to be appreciated because the demand of the Ethiopian people is in line with their fundamental human rights. Thus, the Ethiopian people deserve to be empowered to rule themselves, with the existing nine asymmetrical ethnic-based regional states subdivided into manageable autonomous woreda.

As operating now, this new type of strategy will not undermine the existing ethnic demarcation. Instead, it will help save homogenous groups within geographical units or woreda. Stated differently, the proposed formation of autonomous woredas will ascertain self-rule. Also, each constituent unit would have direct contact with the federal office. Thereby, giving veto power to each woreda and a consensus decision-making process for issues that might need negotiating between the legislators and the prime minister of the country.

In short, in line with the current demands arising in Ethiopia, it is time that the form of multi-party consensus democratic self-rule federalism must be allowed to emerge. The federated state of Ethiopia could be divided into equally-sized autonomous woreda units to ensure equity. . That is, by doing away with demarcating each region by ethnicity, a three-layered type of federalism is created. That is, the governing power in Ethiopia could be divided into: federal government, woredas ,and municipalities. If needed, woredasin the same geographical regionscould collaborate and support each other to pursue their economic and social endeavors. It needs to be underlined that eachautonomous federal unit or a woreda unit has to be managed with recognition and accommodation among the representatives of each of its major social groups so that the created federal unit remains stable and abides by the power-sharing provisions. As it is successfully practiced in Switzerland, for example, a woreda executive in Ethiopia could have five to seven members and the executives elected by the local people. Power is vested in the committee not an individual. This type of unanimous consent decision-making process would provide an institutional basis for democracy and stability. Furthermore, it is likely possible to give every parliamentary player from the woredas an equal opportunity to express the interest of the locality (woreda) that he/she represents. In short, as it is practiced in Switzerland, as a principle, Ethiopian woredas could be made sovereign “…to have the right for self-determination with respect to their internal structure, the organization of the governmental branches and the contents of democratic rights of their citizens (Federalism in Switzerland, 2000).”

In order to implement self-rule in the Ethiopian woredas, therefore, it would be a genuine option for Ethiopia to follow and strictly implement multi-party (actors) grassroots types of autonomous democratic federal system, whereby decisions are based on consensus– without alienating minority groups or those who disagree. It is assumed that if Ethiopia is to move gradually from the creation of formal democratic structures (the ‘minimalist’ approach) to the establishment of a broad-based democratic culture (‘maximalist’ approach), it needs to envision an autonomous self-rule type of governance to assure democracy, with a stable form of management, promoting harmonious relationships among ethnic and religious factions in the Ethiopian political space. Though modest, this proposal is a briefing for tomorrow’s Ethiopia. It is intended to serve as an agenda for a discussion on how to enable the existing woredas in Ethiopia to become sovereign (autonomous entities), managed by a legitimate government that bases its decision-making process on consensus democracy. It is hoped that this briefing will serve to facilitatea culture of civic discussion, compromise, and accommodation within the future architecture of Ethiopia’s polity. Therefore, either modifying it or designing an alternative to this briefing would collectively empower all concerned Ethiopians to design a long-lasting and visionary statement that Ethiopia needs, and to articulate strategic plans for achieving Ethiopia’s sustainability. Given the various challenges that Ethiopia is facing, we can simply ignore or accept the obligation to act. For those who want to act, it is not too late to buckle up!

After reading my recent articles, a colleague thought that writing about the leadership gaps and accusing of our culture as the root cause for our major troubles at this very critical moment is a distraction from the main thing. For him, the main thing is removing TPLF by all means with a sense of urgency. After a thorough discussion, we finally reached a common understanding. We agreed that these articles aren’t diversions but rather alarms and necessities if our desire is to quicken our struggle in bringing a regime change, and most importantly to enjoy a lasting peace, democracy, and the rule of law in post TPLF Ethiopia. Yet, it occurred to me that many other readers might have felt the same. So, I decided to write a couple of articles to clarify the need to reform our culture, and develop the capacity of our contemporary & future leaders before releasing my articles on bridging the leadership gaps, which I promised at the end of my last article. We all may agree that, while TPLF is in power and continuing to implement its faulty policies, it’s unlikely to bring true democracy and freedom in Ethiopia. Thus, in principle, I concurred with my critic that removing TPLF must be the first priority. But, it’s possible that we can carryout multiple synergetic efforts simultaneously toward the main thing. While some of us engage in fighting at the political battlefronts, the rest of us should participate in the change process in the areas of our passion and using our talents and experiences at multiple other fronts. When we engage in such a coordinated manner, that is when TPLF is unable to stand the pressures, and then give way to the change whose time has long overdue. Hence, we don’t necessarily need to abandon everything else and put all of our eggs in one basket, especially knowing that TPLF has been working hard day and night in changing our centuries old culture in order to divide and conquer, overcome resistance against its ethnic-apartheid style rule, corrupt our productive citizens, and effectively promote its own other sinister agendas.

TPLF has been waging wars at multiple fronts since its jungle days. Once it took power, it has been using state machineries such as the police, military, security apparatuses, economy, media, and the education system to maintain its dominance at every front. It invests hundreds of millions of dollars per year toward lobbying so as to silence international pressures. It wholesales not only our lands but also give away our national interests to appease, and in turn put neighboring countries in its pocket. It squashes its opponents mercilessly using every available means, and also do so many additional ugly things while busy reforming our culture to make it susceptible, and then, unable to withstand its menacing plots against Ethiopia and its people. Why then should we disregard all other facades and focus on one front? This approach is faulty at many levels. For one, it has been tried for decades and didn’t bring satisfactory results, and why then should we do it again and again and expect a different result? As Albert Einstein put it beautifully, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome is insanity”. Second, TPLF continues to have a field day since it could easily squash our ‘one basket filled with multitudes of eggs’. Third, the problems we face are deep and multifaceted that requires manifold synergetic moves.

Thus, we should discontinue our insanity, self-examine, evaluate our past, learn some lessons, drop those things that haven’t delivered, and come up with new ones that could bring lasting transformation. The latter, however, cannot happen without reforming our culture. Culture is the god of its inhabitants. The ways we think, behave, communicate, decide, act, and interact are molded by our culture. So far, these couldn’t help us get ride of tyranny, bring lasting peace, stability, cooperation, economic and technology advancements. We continue to experience conflict, further disintegration, chronic famine, and corruption. We’re known worldwide as one of the poorest countries in the world regardless of our abundant natural resources, great people, and rich history and so many golden cultural attributes. Unfortunately, we keep doing the same things again and again that failed us overcome these dire situations. Shouldn’t we stop and ask ourselves why these vicious circles continue to exist regardless of our continuous efforts to change them?

Let me share with you one of the vicious circles that I shared with my colleague. Many patriotic Ethiopians in the Diaspora have done their best to contribute their share in bringing democracy in Ethiopia since the late 60’s. Some of them sacrificed so many things toward this cause and died without witnessing the realization of their dream. Many others are still fighting one regime after another in the past several years without any meaningful outcomes- one tyranny replaces another, and the struggle continues against the latest and worst tyrant. These patriots fought the feudal regime boldly hoping that its downfall would bring a lasting change including going back to their native country. Their dream cut short when Derg took power. They didn’t have any choice except to continue fighting. Their frustration turned into a nightmare when a racist and divisive- a more repressive junta- substituted the military regime. The fight is still on with a sense of urgency; more of our people are leaving the motherland and going to very volatile places, let alone those of us who are already in exile to return. The question is: what has been missing? Rather, first, what has been the constant? Fighting one dictatorial regime after another with laser-focused attention has been there but without any significant outcome. What has been missing was the ability to invest our talent, time, and resources to carryout other background things at multiple fronts so that dictatorship wouldn’t have any room after a regime change.

It shouldn’t be our destiny to continue fighting one tyrannical government after another throughout our life. We need to reform our culture so that it repels, starves, and punishes tyrants. The present-day matured democracies inherited a stable culture that doesn’t entertain dictatorship because they had configured their culture by adopting the right constitution and designing a governing system that has checks and balances at various levels. They made sure their education system nurtures the culture; their arts, music, and media promote those values that are pillars to their culture such as individual liberty, freedom of expression, and the rule of law. They formulated their legal system to protect these values. They also built their armies and law enforcement bodies in such a way that their loyalty is to the constitution, which is the embodiment of these values. We may not need to copy and paste everything from them but one thing we must learn, if our desire is to enjoy the freedom, liberty, and democracy they have been enjoying is to reform our culture one step at a time the way it fits our objective conditions on the ground. But, culture cannot easily be reformed overnight. It takes years, sometimes decades. The right place to begin the reform is raising leaders (rather, change agents), at all levels, in different industries (politics, business, NGO, religion, academics, art, media, etc.). We should raise, promote, encourage, and reward those that detest dictatorship; those who won’t be tempted to promote the domination of one group over the others; and those whose preoccupation is serving, not becoming parasites.

That is why, as much as the political front is important and urgent, so is working on our culture and leadership capacity building. Abraham Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Bridging the leadership gaps, reforming our culture, and other background works are like sharpening the axe, and are critical to chop down the bad tree- TPLF, and some elements in our culture that allow tyrants to flourish. After TPLF, we should make sure that another generation wouldn’t go to the jungle to bring regime change, migrate to save their lives, and pursue their freedom somewhere on foreign lands. This vicious circle must stop in this generation. As intelligent, hardworking, and God fearing people, we must reflect, learn from our past, take some lessons, continue to implement those approaches that worked and change those that failed us, and project into the future and make sure that the next change won’t be the same. While fighting at the political battlefronts, we must raise the capacity of, first, our leaders, and then our people. We need capable, empowered, and extraordinary change agents to lead the cultural reform. It’s possible but it takes humility, open heart, ready minds, and committed souls. Are you one of them?

We must stop doing things haphazardly (BeZemecha). Let’s also stop acting like a fire brigade . We’re good at coming out to tackle a problem once it reaches a tipping point. Once the threat subsides, we go back to our routine, and hibernate until another emergency situation awakens us. We need to wage deliberate, calculated, effective battles at multiple fronts, and measure our progress frequently and if necessary make amends quickly. Let’s have continuous, civilized, and inclusive discussions to have a shared vision, and a culture that is conducive to realize this vision. Let’s continue to engage in informative, participatory, and productive debates to shape the future of Ethiopia NOW. Let’s be open and entertain diverse ideas about the kinds of constitution, federal system, and development policies we need so that the shared vision may come to fruition. These and many other activities at multiple fronts should begin NOW. We don’t need to wait until TPLF is gone to do these things. Lastly, as Albert Einstein said, we must know that “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Whatever thinking, approaches, and systems we have had in the past brought us here. If we don’t like where we are NOW, we must change the former. If our genuine desire is to experience different kinds of results than what we have had so far, let’s stop doing the same things again and again. Most importantly, let’s stop the restlessness, and begin anew. Some of the activities that are running in the Diaspora are genuine. But, many of these are limited in scope while the rest are without wide array of support. Still others are staged and for the purpose of creating sound bites. What we need is broader, coordinated, and unscripted approaches led by change agents from various industries. That is when we begin to experience lasting transformation through cultural reform and leadership development. As promised, I’ll continue to write articles on these themes. My articles are aimed at provoking our thoughts, and igniting further debates (not to distract). My hope is that our community organizations may take these two things (reforming our culture, and raising change agents) seriously, establish institutions, design programs, recruit and train the trainers, arrange conferences, workshops, mentoring programs, and organize practical volunteer opportunities, and so on. Stay tuned!

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, introduced a resolution with 11 other Senators today condemning the lethal violence used by the government of Ethiopia against protestors, journalists, and others in civil society for exercising their rights under Ethiopia’s constitution.

The resolution calls for the Secretary of State to conduct a review of U.S. security assistance to Ethiopia in light of allegations that Ethiopian security forces have killed civilians. It also calls upon the government of Ethiopia to halt violent crackdowns, conduct a credible investigation into the killing of protesters, and hold perpetrators of such violence accountable.

“I am shocked by the brutal actions of the Ethiopian security forces, and offer condolences to the families of those who have been killed. The Ethiopian constitution affords its citizens the right to peaceful assembly and such actions by Ethiopian government forces are unacceptable,” Senator Cardin said. “The government’s heavy-handed tactics against journalists and use of the 2009 Anti-Terrorism and Charities and Societies Proclamations to stifle free speech and legitimate political dissent demonstrate a troubling lack of respect for democratic freedoms and human rights.”

“Peaceful protestors and activists have been arrested, tortured and killed in Ethiopia for simply exercising their basic rights,” Senator Rubio said. “I condemn these abuses and the Ethiopian government’s stunning disregard for the fundamental rights of the Ethiopian people. I urge the Obama Administration to prioritize respect for human rights and political reforms in the U.S. relationship with Ethiopia.”

Joining Cardin and Rubio as cosponsors of the resolution are Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Christopher Coons (D-Del.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

The United States works closely with Ethiopia on signature Administration initiatives including Feed the Future and the African Peacekeeping Rapid Response Partnership. It also provides funding for Ethiopia’s participation in the African Union Mission in Somalia.

“Given the challenges posed by the devastating drought and border insecurity, it is more important than ever that the government take actions to unify rather than alienate its people. It is critical that the government of Ethiopia respect fundamental human rights if it is to meet those challenges,” Cardin added.

The current government in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), often claims the multi-national constitutional federalism that it introduced a quarter century ago answered the country’s age-old question – famously known as the ‘national question’ – once and for all.

Ethiopia’s constitution, the government further claims, is multi-foundational by its nature and adequately addresses the politics of recognition and inclusion for Ethiopia’s long marginalized nations; better yet it guarantees the right to self-determination up to secession. States are now autonomous and free from the yolk of a centralized state and the notion of “one country, one people, and one language”, a notion that had violently governed Ethiopia’s oppressed mass for at least a century.

Today’s Ethiopia is a ‘federal democratic republic’ of nine autonomous national regional states: Afar, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella, Harari, Oromiya, Somali, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) and Tigray. All of them home to an incredibly diverse and free people, so the story goes.

For the last two decades, therefore, anyone who questions the accuracy of these narratives is labeled as an outright enemy of this unique polity, a polity born out of its people’s age-old grievances where “unity in diversity” is the order of the day.

Trouble in paradise

But a five month persistent protest by the Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, for whom the inaugural of a multi-national constitutional federalism was a long awaited victory, which started in Nov. 2015 has laid bare the otherwise flawless narrative Ethiopians have believed in for more than two decades. What began as an opposition against a The Addis Abeba Master Plan, which was, by any legal standard, prepared in a clear violation of the fundamental principles of federalism, led to historical questions that the Oromo of a federated Ethiopia continued demanding an answer for, including the questions of national identity, of economic injustice and land ownership as well as a genuine political representation.

However, a look back at just the last eighteen months alone reveals that the Oromo are not the only ones that seem to be haunted by the re-opening of the old wounds that Ethiopians thought were treated two decades ago.

Incidents that resulted in the killings of hundreds, mass arrests and disappearances as well as displacements of thousands of Ethiopians in the hands of the state security apparatus show that the questions of national identity, the urge for self-administration and equitable use of resources (mainly land) and lack of adequate political representation have re-emerged afresh in five out of the nine independent regional states in the federated Ethiopia.

The ever restive Gambella

Home to around 200, 000 people, the Nuer, Agnuak, Apana, Mezhenger, and Komo are the main indigenous peoples of Gambella. But it is also home to other ethnic groups from the country such as the Amhara, Oromo and Tigray. According to a 2007 census, of the total ethnic composition in Gambella the Nuer consists 40%, followed by the Agnuak who make up 27%, Amhara 8%, Oromo 6%, Mezhenger 5.8%, Keffa 4.1%, Mocha 2%, and Tigray 1.6%, as well as other ethnic groups mainly from various regions in Southern Ethiopia who constitute 5.5%.

Unlike the triumphant declaration of a constitutional federalism however, Amharic, which is the mother tongue of neither the Nuers, nor the Agnuaks, is the working language of the State.

Historically, Gambella is a region prone to ethnic conflicts. The 2003 unprecedented massacre of more than 400 Agnuaks in the hands of government security forces and ‘highlanders’, according to the HRW, left Gambella stuck in crisis watch list of several international organizations including the United Nations.

What happened at the end of January 2016 can therefore be easily taken for the usual sporadic skirmishes between the two dominant ethnic groups; it involved both and covered vast areas in the region, touching villages from Abobo to Itang, Gog to Jor, and a refugee camp in Pugindo, as well as a prison cell in the capital, Gamebella town. By the government’s account 14 people, including Gatdet Gony, Deputy Head of the Transport and Road Development Office, were killed in the clash. Several other accounts put the number as high as 50.

The federal government quickly dismissed the cause as a simple confrontation between two men from both tribes, but the cumulative fear by the Agnuaks about the Nuer’s political dominance (which is often alleged to be supported by the federal government) and near absolute control over resources by the Nuer plays a significant role in instigating these conflicts.

Gambella’s small nuisances

While the rest of Ethiopia was welcoming the Ethiopian New Year of 2007 on Sept 11, 2014 with jubilant festivities, Meti, a small town in Godere District in Mezhenger Zone of Gambella was struggling to contain a chaos that besieged the villagers. Around 8 AM that morning a group of men broke into a prison located in Kebele 01 and released several inmates who then went door to door to residences of the ethnic Mezhengers, killing many including women and children, according to charges brought against the perpetrators.
The Mezhenger consider people who came from various parts of the country, mostly from the highland areas of the North and Central Ethiopia and had settled there as ‘highlanders.’ Some of these ‘highlanders’ had lived in the district for decades.
Although the flare ups of many of these conflicts always come in the form of petty individual confrontations between the ethnic Mezhengers and these ‘highlanders’, the fundamental problem is one that Ethiopia’s two decades old constitutional federal dispensation failed to address effectively.

The Mezhenger zone is one of the three zones in Gambella bordering in its southeastern part the Sheka and Bench Maji zones of SNNPR, as well as the Agnuak of Gambella and Illubabor of Oromiya to the north. Endowed with abundant natural resources it is a region where the long arms of the federal government easily tampers with. The area is home to large scale tea plantations owned by foreign companies and fertile lands contracted to both local and foreign companies without much say from the Gambella regional state.
A recent report by Fortune newspaper, a private weekly, revealed that “Nearly 100 commercial farming investors in Gambella are losing thousands of hectares of land because the region leased by mistake lands under federal jurisdiction.” When asked to comment on the issue, Gatluak Tut Kon, president of the Gambella regional state, told the newspaper, “You should talk to the federal government. I wish to give no comment on the case.” For many who believed in the principles of constitutional federalism that Ethiopian officials claim to have instilled, this was no ordinary news headline.

Critics also lament that the demands of the Mezhenger people to want to forcefully evict “highlanders” from their native land comes from the insecurity of resource distribution and a sense of political exclusion. They were always Ethiopia’s marginalized periphery.

Konso, Qucha, Wolkait, Qimant and all that demand

Following the creation by the SNNPR regional state of the Segen Area Peoples Zone in March 2011, the Konso community in the south was staging peaceful protests for the last 10 months. The Konso people fear the creation of the new zone forces them to lose their “right to self-administration and their right to advance their culture, language and national identity, enshrined in the constitution.”
The response from the regional government was similar to the response the federal government often avails to contain similar demands elsewhere: deploying the region’s Special Forces who asnwered the community’s constitutionally legitimate demands with violence.
Although to a lesser extent, the Qucha people, who also reside in the SNNPR regional state, are demanding a similar question: the right to self-administration. Forty elected representatives of the community have come to Addis Abeba at the end of 2014 and have raised the question of national identity and self-rule with the House of Federation.

In the north of Ethiopia the Qimant people in the Amhara regional state, north of Gondar, also demand what the Konsos and Quchas were demanding for years. A recent conflict that flared up in Nov. 2015 between the Qimant people and the regional administration is believed to have resulted in the death of several community members of the Qimant people.

However, contrary to the people of Konso and Qucha, (and rather uncharacteristic of the regime), the Qimant peoples’ demand for self-administration was addressed in March 2015 when the Amhara Regional state granted them a status of nationality and ruled that they can exercise self-administration. According to the ruling, the Qimant have a right for self-administration in 42 Kebeles in the adjacent Armachiho and Chilga Districts. They can also enjoy the full rights of developing their language as well as their culture.

In north western Ethiopia, the simmering question of national identity by the Wolkayit community has recently reached a new peak. In what’s largely believed to be a forceful decision by the federal government, the Wolkayit people are to stay under the Humera Zone of the Tigray regional state. It is a decision that quashed the community’s two decades old demand to join the Amhara regional state, as they identify themselves as Amharas. A few weeks into the protest the people of Wolkayit were paraded in front of the national TV carrying placards that declared all their questions, including their questions of identity, as have been answered once and for all.
But as the bumpy road continues to stretch from the North to the South to the West (and seem to grow by frequency as well as magnitude) the first – and perhaps most uncomfortable – step would be to probe if Ethiopia, where the concept of “unity in diversity” avails itself for all to indulge on an equal footing, was ever born in the first place.
Worry or not worry?

Ezekiel Gebissa, a Professor of History and African Studies at Kettering University, argues that the constitutional federalism the incumbent introduced doesn’t originally belong to it; it dates back to “the Ethiopian student movement” of the early seventies.

Prof. Ezekiel Gebissa

At the pinnacle of the student movement the question of national identity took center stage, especially among the movement’s leaders such as Walelign Mekonnen. Walelign’s prescription of self-administration up to cessation for the politically marginalized became the rallying factor for the would-be guerrilla fighters, who later defeated the Marxist Derg regime, Prof. Ezekiel explains.
Although the Derge tried self-administration based on different regions called ‘autonomous provinces’, it was a system that didn’t save the center from an eventual collapse. With the coming to power in 1991 of the ruling EPRDF, therefore, having constitutional federalism was not an option but a necessity, according to Ezekiel.

Tamrat Kebede, Executive Director of InterAfrica Group, a think tank, agrees. In addition, he sees the country’s journey from an absolute monarchy through military dictatorship to a constitutional federalism as “a quantum jump”. He believes that with the coming into power of the EPRDF questions of national identity and self-determination were put to the test for the first time. Himself a former member of the seventies’ student movement, Tamrat argues that as much as the questions were debated and discussed, the approach was purely theoretical.

Tamrat Kebede

Both Tamrat and Ezekiel find the government’s claims that the current constitutional federalism has answered Ethiopia’s age-old questions as exaggerated.

A careful look at the lingering cases of the Konso, Qucha, Wolkait and Qimant reveal the uncanny similarity each community’s approaches share to put their constitutionally guaranteed demands to the attention of the federal government; they all invoked legal mechanisms enshrined in the structures of the constitutional federalism. “The skeleton of the structure is in place. But putting it into policy is one thing, implementing it is another,” Ezekiel says.

When the Konso people began to protest the demotion of their administrative area from the status of Special District to a mere District, they formed a representative committee to advance their demand for self-administration and managed to collect signatures from more than 5% of the community, well above the constitution’s requirement. The committee then appealed to the Federal House of Federation here in Addis Abeba but the House sent the people (and their questions) back to the regional government.
Similarly the Qucha people, who are currently administered under the Gamo Gofa zone of the SNNPR, say that they are not ethnic Gamos, as the current arrangement dictates; they are their own nationality – Qucha. Qucha District, which is home to the Qucha people, has close to 150, 000 people, according to the 2007 national census.

And a committee gathered to address the question by the Wolkait people has written a letter on December 2015 to the House of Federation demanding proper response to their question of identity. The committee says that the Wolkait’s right to work and learn in their own language as well as their right to promote and advance their culture have been suppressed in the past, including the 20 plus years of the rule by the EPRDF.

But these glitches do not make Tamrat of InterAfrica Group lose faith in the constitutional federalism Ethiopia is following. In his interview with this magazine Tamrat says practicing a complex federal system such as that of Ethiopia’s will “inevitably run into enormous constraints and challenges.” “[such a system] entails decentralization; it is sensitive; it requires capacity, both in human terms and resource terms, which are not all readily available when you launch into such a complex arrangement,” Tamrat said.
Prof Ezekiel shares Tamrat’s view: adjusting the system itself as needed, “requires a careful, thoughtful, deeply concerned implementation” he says. But Ezekiel is critical because that never happened in the last two decades. “The question that brought the very existence of Ethiopia into a country was never fully answered”.

The reason for this, according to Ezekiel, lies in the undemocratic nature of the incumbent. Once in power the EPRDF “thought that they could do whatever they want; they could engineer any outcome; they could muzzle dissent; they could decimate opposition and tell the politically marginalized nationalities on the highland and on the lowland that ‘you have a constitution, your questions have been answered and you have no other question’”.

He believes that the questions raised now in different parts of the country are indeed not “new questions”. “They are the same questions” he told this magazine. However he doesn’t “believe for one minute that questioning the very foundation of the federal arrangement is the answer. It is whether it should be implemented or not.”
Darkness before dawn?

Analysts who follow Ethiopia closely argue that recent incidents happening in all corners of the country: the demands for economic justice, self-administration and national identity are symptoms of a disease far deeper than the current government dares to admit. Tamrat is one of them.

“These signs should force us to question what it is that we are not doing right,” he says, “or why is this structure we have created to precisely avoid these kinds of problems creating these problems? Could it be that we issued rights that are not being exercised? Have we not prepared ourselves for the manner in which they are to be exercised? That could very well be,” he says.
For him the recognitions of the identity and equality of nationalities as well as the rights to exercise self-administration up to the level of cessation manifests “strong rights which demand fair resource sharing, fair political participatory process, needless to say a democratic culture, in the absence of [which] they are bound to erupt.”

Ethiopians’ questions of national identity and the demand for self-rule are re-emerging frequently because they have never been answered in the right way, argues Ezekiel. “Ethiopia is still a one party state” in which not only its marginalized but also a great many are simply excluded from the political process. And it is not just a theoretical exclusion, he said, “it is a totalitarian control of the assets of the state to give permanency to the exclusionary politics that the regime has put in place.”

The ruling party, Ezekiel further said, “uses the state resources to co-opt the military, the security apparatus and the business class” to “create a total hegemony of structure and discourse” and to “emasculate the very constitution it celebrates.” The ruling party also puts an executive manned by “ill-educated party cadres that simply parrot the leaders’ pronouncements without any understanding of the complexities of implementing [federalism] policies.” The trajectory of this direction is one that’s “leading to calamity.”

Ezekiel believes that the disastrous handling by the federal government of almost all of these incidents (such as disarming regional police, intervention without due parliamentary process, committing crimes with an absolute sense of impunity and several other signs showing excessive control of the federal government against these national regional states) show that the party that likes to take total credit for creating Ethiopia’s constitutional federalism is becoming the system’s enemy number one.
Tamrat too shares Ezekiel’s concerns. The government’s ways of handling public resentments, which include the application of excessive force, does not manifest proper and competent handlings.

Campaigners and activists say the recent widespread public protest in Oromiya, which saw the federal army being quickly deployed, left more than 400 killed, twice that number injured, and thousands incarcerated. The federal army roamed many of the streets where protests broke out; and the whereabouts of hundreds of people remains unknown.
Members of the Konso community said that several of their people, including their leader, are incarcerated or have unjustly lost their jobs following their demand for self-rule, although many of them were released since the writing of this story.
According to a December 2015 letter addressed to the House of Federation by a committee gathered to discuss the question of the Wolkait people, there were about 116 people whose whereabouts were unknown because they raised “a question of identity.”
Going to the Qucha community in the South, in January 2015 the Gamo Area High Court has sentenced 27 members of the community to up to 16 years imprisonment for allegedly instigating violence and causing damage on people and properties fourteen months earlier. According to the charges presented against them, they were trying to operate illegally to forcefully obtain a status of nationality for the Qucha community. And to advance their cause, the charges add, they attacked residences of Kebele officials.
For Tamrat, some of the challenges the country is struggling with currently require an expanded political space, “to be debated, to be discussed, to [bring forth] appropriate responses. I see a deficit in that regard,” he says.
The government’s dogmatic obsession with the constitution is another “often overlooked” aspect for Tamrat. For the incumbent, the Constitution is non-debatable, fixed entity, probably because it mistakenly equates “the Constitution for law and order. So whenever it says the constitution [is beyond any discussion], it is actually saying that law and order are [beyond any discussion].”
Yet, the Constitution is an embodiment of a document that entails the compromise of different views and it is not static, argues Tamrat; it could be and should be amended when issues demand so. In fact “there is a provision that stipulates its own amendment” because amendment was “an envisaged process.” Article 104 clearly states the legality of “initiation of Amendments.”
“Any proposal for constitutional amendment, if supported by two-thirds majority vote in the House of Peoples’ Representatives, or by a two-thirds majority vote in the House of the Federation or when one-third of the State Councils of the member States of the Federation (by a majority vote in each Council) have supported it, shall be submitted for discussion and decision to the general public and to those whom the amendment of the Constitution concerns,” the Article reads.
A change towards democracy is a must if the country is to avoid regrettable tragedy, Ezekiel says. “People at the top of the government must know that the status quo is not sustainable”, he argues, “because there is too much discontent, too much dissatisfaction, a lot of desperation, a lot of deprivation,” Ezekiel said, adding that the government must stop listening to the reverberation of its own voices and understand that this is not a sustainable path.
“It should begin by decriminalizing dissent, open up the political space, expunge the draconian laws that are muzzling the press, start from the freedom of the press, release political prisoners. These are the measures the government could take in order to win the good will of the public,” Ezekiel said. “This is not an option, this is an imperative. The window will close sooner or later. But, would the government be able to see that? Well, I always say absolute power dements more than it corrupts.”
No turning back
Several Ethiopian critics of the government assert that the fundamental problem of the recent conflicts that besieged several areas is the constitutional federalism itself. According to these critics, it focuses more on differences than unity. Some fear it may even lead to an eventual disintegration of the country. A return to the old unitary system of administration is an idea whose appeal seems to gain increasing popularity among many Ethiopians. But it is an idea both Tamrat and Ezekiel strongly disagree with.
“The [current] federal arrangement was a response to a historic question of nationalities,” Ezekiel says, “to deny that there is a question of nationalities is to deny the sun rises in the East.” The country, according to him, has tried the unitarists as well as the assimilationists track for decades and it actually led to “proliferation of centrifugal forces”. Thus, “the claim that says we need a unitary state is a flight of fancy that collides with reality.”

Tamrat adds “a unitary government has not yielded the desired, harmonious and peaceful relationship. We can’t go back to a unitary system that’s held by force. We have travelled enough distance in this federal system in which national senses of identities have taken a right recognition and it is this right recognition which is manifesting itself as demands of right.”

But back in the power corridors of the government in Ethiopia exhausting propaganda is being relentlessly produced and aired through state affiliated media claiming that the federal arrangement not only answered the ‘national question’ but also put the burning question of land ownership, and the nation’s quest for self-rule, which saw the previous two regimes toppled by the will of the people, to their final resting place.

But to put Ezekiel’s words in this context, this one too seems “a flight of fancy that collides with reality.”

Source: http://addisstandard.com/analysis-ethiopias-simmering-sores-and-the-re-opening-of-old-wounds/

Amnesty International on Friday urged Ethiopian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release a prominent opposition politician who remain arrested for posting anti-government comments on Facebook.

Yonatan Tesfaye, the spokesman of the opposition Semayawi (Blue) party, was jailed in December 2015 and is facing a possible death sentence on trumped-up terrorism charges, according to Amnesty.

In his Facebook comments, Yonatan accused the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) of using “force against the people instead of using peaceful discussion with the public”

The opposition politician was referring to government’s response to the deadly protests that have rocked larger parts of the Oromia region.

The anti-government protests in Oromia where Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the Oromos, inhabit were triggered in protest to government plan to expand boundary of the capital, Addis Ababa, to parts of the Oromia region.

The government says his posts regarding the governments master Plan were in pursuit of the objectives of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a an opposition movement long designated as terrorist entity.

He was charged with “incitement, planning, preparation, conspiracy and attempt” to commit a terrorist act.

An Opposition official who preferred anonymity told Sudan Tribune that Yonatan was charged on Wednesday with 11 counts including inciting violence “to disrupt the social, economic and political stability of the country”

He added that Yonatan was also accused of collaborating with the banned OLF group to inflame the protests which according to Human Rights Watch has killed at least 140 people and injured hundreds. Tesfaye was arbitrarily arrested.

“The Ethiopian authorities have increasingly labelled all opposition to them as terrorism. Yonatan Tesfaye spoke up against a possible land grab in Oromia, which is not a crime and is certainly not terrorism” said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International’s Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.

Amnesty said the opposition politician is facing a possible death sentence on trumped-up terrorism charges.

“He and many others held under similar circumstances should be immediately and unconditionally released”

“Yonatan Tesfaye has no demonstrated links to the OLF. His arrest is just another example of government overreach in the application of its seriously flawed anti-terrorism law. This law is once again being used as a pretext to quash dissent” said Wanyeki.

Amnesty said Ethiopian authorities should also promptly, impartially, thoroughly and transparently investigate claims that he may have been tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention at the Maekelawi Prison, a jail notorious for its widespread use of torture.

The Oromo protesters argue that expansion plan will lead to land grabbing and large scale evictions to tens of thousands of people from their ancestral lands.

The government however says the expansion plan aims to provide a number of services to remote areas of the region.

The Ethiopian government has previously accused the protesters of having direct connection with forces that have taken missions from foreign terrorist groups.

Human Rights Watch spokesman Felix Horne then described government’s response to the protests as “a dangerous trajectory that could put Ethiopia’s long-term stability at risk”

The government has finally scrapped the expansion plan after the Oromo Peoples’ Democratic Organization (OPDO) party which is the regional ally of the ruling EPRDF party decided to withdraw its support to the expansion plan.

The Oromos, who reside at Oromia region surrounding Addis Ababa, make up 40% of the country’s total population.

With population of around 95 million, the horn of Africa’s nation is the continent’s second most populace nation.

A year of drought has left 10.2 million Ethiopians, almost a tenth of the population, without enough food. Now, heavy rains are flooding the country, displacing thousands and killing already weakened livestock needed to feed Africa’s second most populous country.
Ethiopia, one of the most promising economic stories on the continent over the past decade, is now facing a humanitarian and economic crisis reminiscent of the famine that hit the country in the 1980s after a similar drought. It’s an image the country has tried to distance itself from as it has transformed into one of Africa’s few hubs for manufacturing.

Floods could displace 200,000 people as well as worsen food insecurity caused by the country’s worst drought in half a century, according to aid workers. “Roads are turning into raging rivers and our trucks carrying food assistance are unable to reach many communities,” the Norwegian Refugee Council said this month. Cows and other livestock, weak after months of drought, are dying in heavy rains that are expected to continue for at least a few more weeks.

The government and international donors have pledged over $700 million in emergency aid but experts say the country still needs $600 million more. Emergency supplies for flood-hit communities are running low, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ethiopia. Now, the IMF predicts economic growth of just 4.5% this year, down from a previous projection of 7%.
With attention focused on the refugee crisis in Syria, some fear Ethiopia is being ignored. “The Middle East and the migrant crisis has diverted attention from our partners,” said Mitiku Kassa, Ethiopia’s minister for food security.

Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, Op-ed on May 8 on the online version of` NY times titled: Is the Era of great famines over?

A month ago he travelled through the northern and central regions of Ethiopia and was overwhelmed by the effort of the Ethiopian government in dealing with the famine that affected about a fifth of the country’s population. He claimed that Ethiopia has been transformed from a symbol of a country plagued by a recurring famine which saw 600,000 people perish in the 1984 draught that “turned the name Ethiopia synonym for shriveled, glazed-eyed children on saline drips….” to a country that is effectively dealing with a famine that affected about 20 million people. Quite a remarkable progress!

He went in detail how peace, greater transparency and prudent planning helped the regime fend off starvation. The narration seems to have been copied right out of the regime’s image building and deceptive propaganda that fostered humanitarian assistance and development funds keep on pouring into the coffers of the government in an unprecedented scale for the past quarter of a century.

The prevailing famine, for him, affecting close to 20 million people only dealt a dent to the miraculous growth of GDP, by slowing the growth down to a mere 8.5% for 2015 and 2016 from a high of more than 10% growth of 2014. This rosy growth rate –concocted from tortured numbers by the government and echoed by IMF and other donor countries –is a facade retched up by the regime as part of the image building scheme, corroborated by donners. A growth, no doubt, created a few lords of poverty who have enriched themselves at the cost of a vast swath of the population visibly suffering from the corrosive anxiety of poverty.

A polarized growth which can be palpably felt in Addis by mere observation of a flock of beggars that conspicuously swarm the modern buildings mushrooming in the city.

One couldn’t agree more with the writer’s conclusion that “there is no record of people dying of famine in a democracy.” And also with the assertion that “politics creates famine, and politics can stop it.”

An assertion copied from the experience of other countries and pasted to the Ethiopian situation where neither democracy nor a political system capable of stopping famine exist. Experts closely monitoring the situation assert to the contrary: Ethiopia has a totalitarian government lacking the will and the capacity to mitigate the impact of recurring famine endemic to the country.

Ethiopia is not a democracy. Unless, of course, Alex believes the bizarre claim that the regime won the election by a 100% in the last sham election, 96.6% in the previous one, where journalists and opposition politicians have been summarily imprisoned and some brutally tortured and/or murdered. The writer conveniently misses to mention the annual country reports of gross human rights violation by the US state department, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty international.

In today’s Ethiopia, a handful of ethnocentric freaks hailing from a minority ethnic group obscenely possess power and wealth running the country with a bandit system. I fail to see how the very undemocratic system where transparency and accountability are missing could effectively help stave off the dire situation of famine that is killing children at worst, or permanently damaging their life by malnourishment, at best.

All the factors mentioned by the writer to have contributed for the government to fend off starvation miserably fail to apply to the Ethiopian situation. Undoubtedly, prevalence of peace and political stability significantly contribute to growth and development, having a cascading effect of augmenting the living standard of the people. However, unless one defines peace to mean solely an absence of war with bordering countries, warranting internal peace has never been the hall mark of the government of Ethiopia. Even border skirmishes continually happen on virtually every corner of the country.

Lasting peace only prevails where freedom exists.

In the absence of freedom to speak, write, organize, and of genuine elections peace would only be a mirage –as is the case in Ethiopia. Obviously, the movement of people to look for a better livelihood is also severely curtailed in the absence of freedom. History tells us that there has never been true peace in a totalitarian government and the regime in Ethiopia is no exception! In today’s Ethiopia the government can only be equated to an apartheid system where a minority from one small ethnic group entirely controls the government. Peace may seem to prevail for those powerful oligarchs who are protected by all the might of the government with full support of the western world –who are blindsided by the service they are getting to fight terrorism in the neighboring Somalia. The case is not true to 90% of the population, though.

Unlike Alex’s claim, the system of government in Ethiopia today is neither accountable nor transparent. The staggering amount of funds that have been pouring to the country to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars have never been put to the full use of their intended targets. Sadly, this has been going on with a full knowledge of the donners and the so called development partners. Despite their awareness of how development funds and of aid money that have been rampantly siphoned off by a corrupt system, donner countries have carried on applying the same policy of catering for dictators –turning a blind eye dovetailed with being part of the corrupt system.

To make matters worse, the Ethiopian government use these abundant funds to hire a lobbyist group like D.L. Piper to project a presentable image through some bought out politicians and experts, including academicians here in the US whose real concern is the exorbitant amount of money that is rolling into their bank accounts, and warranting a constant flow of funding for some academicians to run projects. The writer in question definitely fits in the above category.

Alex has probably been driven to feeding and distribution sites set by the government to show case their best case scenario of providing services to the victims. Upon his return, he wrote on a venerated newspaper editorial exactly what the government of Ethiopia provided him to write. He showed no care at all to do any fact checking from other sources to substantiate what the authorities are claiming to be a fact in the ground. I was dismayed to read an article taken right from the TPLF deception manual, sugar coated by some universally accepted notion that hardly apply to the Ethiopian situation.

In sharp contrast to Alex’s op-ed page in the NYT where he absurdly toyed with a question of the era of famine being over, based on the Ethiopian experience –not quite fitting the caption of the article; another reporter named Christiabel Ligami, visiting Ethiopia probably at the same time has reported ten days ago on equaltimes.org about the emerging hunger stories to the world. Unlike Alex, Ligami wrote unfavorably about the ludicrous effort of the government to censor starvation, lest not to project an image incapable of containing the impending disaster.

How could the two reports be dramatically different after visiting the same country almost at the same time? Where Alex flirted with the idea of the era of famine being over praising the efforts of the government to control the damages of starvation; the other article talked about the glaring drought compounded by the censorship imposed on NGOs and journalists who were forbidden by the government not to report the severity of the situation and the ensuing loss of lives in the affected areas. Ligami stated that journalists were imprisoned for talking to foreigners about the drought.

The variation in the two reports could easily be explained by the sources they used to write the report. While Alex entirely based his observation on the visits he made of food distribution sites that government officials showed him, Ligami gathered his information from journalists and actual victims of the drought.

BBC, The daily Telegraph, NPR, Grham Pebble, the Auckland Institute all seem to concur with Ligami as they have reported that the government has imposed censorship on foreigners, local journalists and even organizations tasked to help the drought victims not to reveal the egregious situation in Ethiopia to the world. In addition, the government’s intransigency, at the onset of the draught, not to accept the advice of UN, FAO and other similar organizations’ request to timely mobilize resources might have also dramatically worsen the situation.

In a BBC interview, one mother was narrating how she lost a son who died of hunger. Immediately after the story surfaced, the regime officials tracked her and forced her to recant her story in the Ethiopian media and said that her son died of an illness, instead. Far from controlling the dire effects of the prevailing calamity and alleviating the deplorable situation from taking a turn to the worse, the government of Ethiopia was obsessively concerned about the image of the country whose economy they have been absurdly claiming to have grown in double digits.

As much as Alex’s extensive dwelling on the prudence of the government in meeting the challenges, he never mentioned the impact of the land policy of the government that has uprooted the indigenous people from their land (without proper compensation commensurate to their loss of a source of livelihood and a sea change in life style) by leasing it at a dirt-cheap price to foreign investors from India and Saudi Arabia. The local people became landless over night without a grazing land for their live stocks or a plot of land to farm, either. Basically, the land was used as a ‘surrogate mother’ where the locals never benefited from such ventures obtained by leasing the womb of their land while Indians and Saudis ship out the produce to their respective country.

Op-eding on influential newspapers like NYT no doubt builds an image that could sway the minds of policy makers by building a false image of facts on the ground. On the flip side, the victims of tyranny lack the financial wherewithal to lobby in the American congress or write the truth on the front pages of those newspapers. But thanks to the pervasive presence of the social media and its wider reach, the conspiracy to silence who are silently dying of hanger has not been successful.

It is a colossal travesty that the writer claims to be the executive director of a world peace organization. My trajectory barely misses its mark, if I predicted the world to remain in turmoil (not at peace) as long as the likes of Alex de Waal continue to do such a shoddy work –warranting the longevity of totalitarian regimes and their own stay at the helm of an organization with no accountability.

Shewarega Assefa

For years, the Ethiopian government has been accused of using its anti-terrorism law to crack down on internal political dissent. Now, bloggers and political activists worry freedom of expression could be limited even further by a proposed new law.

Critics of the new legislation, called the Computer Crime Proclamation, say it would widen the door for the Ethiopian government to punish individuals voicing their opinions on the Internet.government to punish individuals voicing their opinions on the Internet.

Daniel Berhane, a prominent blogger who also runs his own website, believes the provisions against cybercrime in the bill could be used against anyone expressing an opinion online.

“This computer crime proclamation denies me the defenses, the safeguards already provided in the criminal code and the mass media law,” he said. “So it’s simply more prohibitive than the existing laws and it does that with just one sentence.”

The new bill mostly focuses on cybercrime and security; but, the proclamation also allows the imprisonment for those who distribute mass emails and it gives the national intelligence service the power to conduct virtual investigations without approval from a judge.

Belayhun Yirga of Ethiopia’s Ministry of Justice said nothing will change for those who are expressing their views on the Internet.

“If that person is just explaining his opinions or his view, he will not be liable for crime; but, the target of this law is just on the intention of the activity of the people concerning defamation,” he said. “If their purpose and general goal is for defaming, they will be liable because defamation, it is a crime.”

Ethiopia is often criticized for detaining, arresting and imprisoning individuals who voice their opinions online.

Journalist and blogger Eskinder Nega is currently serving an 18-year sentence. A group of young bloggers known as Zone 9 was detained for over a year.

And Yonathan Tesfaye, the spokesperson of an opposition group, has been in detention for nearly six months over comments he made on Facebook.

Haben Fecadu of human rights group Amnesty International says the Ethiopian government is currently using the 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation to crack down on criticism.

“The precedent set by Yonathan’s charges are disturbing because it allows for the government to go after someone for expressing their views over social media,” he said. “Yonathan was also charged under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, and evidence against him was allowed to be presented and heard by the court without him knowing what that evidence was.”

The new Computer Crime Proclamation likely will be enacted in the next few weeks.

We live in a world where of the 80,000 edible plants used for food, only about 150 are being cultivated, and just eight are traded globally. In a world where we produce food for 12 billion people when there are only 6.3 billion living, 800 million suffer from malnutrition.

Vandana Shiva. World-renowned environmental leader (Manifesto on the Future of Food & Seed, 2007).

Abstract

The causal linkage between food security and economic growth hasn’t been fully resolved. That is, does food security contribute to economic growth or does economic growth result in food security; or is there a two-way causal relationship between economic growth and food security? The causality has not yet been ascertained. Drawing on previous research and insights, this study attempted to find and understand the relationship between food availability and economic growth. A review of existing secondary studies indicates that food insecurity, low food intake and the variable access to food endemic in Ethiopia, is not due to the lack of economic growth and income distribution. Rather, excluding transitory food insecurity, chronic food insecurity in Ethiopia seems to derive directly from inflationary pressures, resulting from excess in the money supply, population growth, budgetary deficits, imprudently addressing the “supply side” of food production during favorable seasons, the lack of adequate storage systems for stocking food items that could be used to tackle food insecurity during shocking periods, a fragile natural resource base, and weak institutions. Particularly for policy makers, the study’s findings contribute to an understanding of some of the crucial factors that could lead to a reduction of food insecurity and help to design advance strategies to alleviate food insecurity in Ethiopia.
Keywords: food security, economic growth, income distribution, inflationary pressure, population growth rate, budgetary deficits, supply side

Introduction

Despite the fact that enough food exists for the entire world’s population, “…almost one in seven people around the world are chronically hungry, lacking enough food to be healthy and lead active lives” (World Bank, 2007). More specifically, an authoritative estimate by the Food Agricultural Organization (2010) indicates that there are more than 925 million people in the world who are food insecure. Nevertheless, what is amazing is that Ethiopia with 100 million people has attained constant economic growth and recorded an income distribution index (based on data obtained from Ethiopian government statistical agencies and World Bank country departments) stands at 0.29.Interestingly enough, Ethiopia’s Gini-coefficient index of 0.29 is far below the Gini-coefficient of newly industrialized nations, indicating that the income attained from economic growth in Ethiopia has been fairly distributed (World Bank, 2010 and Desta 2011). More specifically, it is stated by Teshome of the World Bank (2016) that:

Since 2000, when Ethiopia had one of the highest poverty rates in the world, households have experienced a decade of remarkable progress in well-being and the country has seen a 33 percent reduction in the share of the population living in poverty. Agricultural growth drove reductions in poverty, bolstered by pro-poor spending on basic services and effective rural safety nets. This progress has been underpinned by strong and sustained economic growth averaging 10.9 percent annually.

Nonetheless, before the recent adverse climate conditions caused by El Nino that contributed to drought, Ethiopia’s dramatic economic growth in tandem with a more or less equitable income distribution seems to camouflage the fact that a staggering number of people are experiencing malnutrition and outright starvation. That is, the impact of the impressive economic growth has been negligible on food security. For instance, the average number of food insecure people in Ethiopia was about 7 million from1991 to 2003, 4 million between 2003 and 2014, 8.5 million in 2008, and is more than 10 million between 2015 and 2016 (See for example, Adugan, 2016).

Puzzled by this paradoxical (asymmetrical) connection between economic growth and food security needs, a number of scholars have questioned and seriously challenged the Ethiopian Government. As stated by Adugan (2016), because of the food insecurity that has developed recently because of El Nino, some scholars have tried to question the so called economic growth achieved in Ethiopia during the last twelve years. According to the “Aid for Africa” publication of February 5th, for example, they have questioned how millions of Ethiopians could be at risk of starvation “…when in recent years Ethiopia was lauded as a country on the rise—one of the bright spots in Sub-Saharan Africa?” Some critics go one step further and loudly argue that unless the data were “cooked” to portray an impressive image of Ethiopia to the outside world, it is not possible for the Ethiopian economy to grow at more than 10 percent per year for the last decade when so many of Ethiopia’s poor are facing chronic starvation as a persistent characteristic of their life.
In partial agreement with what the critics have been saying about food insecurity in Ethiopia, Teshome somehow seems to have changed his mind and argues that, “… poverty remains widespread in Ethiopia. The poorest households have become poorer than they were in 2005; high food prices that improve incomes for many poor farmers make buying food more challenging for the poorest” (2016).

Contesting the argument that economic growth contributes to food security, Torero (2014) argues that rather than economic growth contributing to food security, it is food security that induces economic growth. Actually, Torero persuasively argues that economic growth is only sustainable if developed countries try to achieve food security as a base for their citizens. In his empirical findings, Torero establishes that “… a 10 percent increase in economic growth only reduces chronic malnutrition by 6 percent” (2014). After establishing that there is no linear correlation between economic growth and food security, Torero asserts that this asymmetrical relationship between economic growth and food security indicates that economic growth by itself won’t resolve the problem of chronic malnutrition but needs to be taken as one of the key variables in any food security strategy (Torero, 2014).
This study, therefore, draws on previous research and insights to develop an eclectic framework that could drive or determine the relationship between food insecurity and economic growth. Exploring the linkages between economic growth and food security, the study attempts to find and understand other eclectic perspectives that could have an impact on food availability. Particularly for policy makers, finding and understanding some of the cardinal factors that contribute to chronic food insecurity could help them to design strategies to create the conditions necessary to alleviate chronic food insecurity.

Literature Review

Economic growth in less developed countries is highly dependent on food production. To measure economic growth, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or the market value of goods and services produced by a country in a given period of time is used. While producing agricultural products, since less developed countries are dependent on natural resources, less developed countries contribute to resource scarcity, ecosystem degradation, and climatic challenges. In order to assess the status of food security, the estimation of GDP needs to integrate income distribution, investment in human capital, non-marketable products, and other positive and negative externalities.

Historically, the concept of food security originated as a result of the international global food crisis that occurred during the mid-1970s and 1980s. During these decades, food security mainly focused on the status of the supply of food availability and attempted to incorporate the effect of price stability with food security. A case in point is, among the food insecurity that emerged globally, the famine, hunger and food crisis in 1974 contributed to the downfall of the Haile Selassie regime in Ethiopia. In addition, the drought of 1984 during the authoritarian Derg regime contributed to the death of more than one million and left many Ethiopians destitute.

As a result of the famine that became rampant globally, the concept of food security was elaborated by a number of scholars. For example, while operationalizing food insecurity, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) focused on securing access to food, necessary for an active, healthy life by the most vulnerable people. Around, 1994, a broader perspective of food security was adopted by the United Nations Development Program to include food security as a necessary element of human rights. Starting In 2001, the concept of food security was further expanded to include food and nutrition status (food availability, food access, food utilization) and stability (vulnerability and resilience), and food security was expected to exist “when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO 1996 and DFID, 2003).

As shown in Table 1, the operational definition of food security was designed to include: 1) availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, mainly supplied through domestic production at prices that the poor can afford, 2) access by households and individuals to adequate resources or jobs and income that give poor people the means to acquire appropriate foods for a nutritious diet, and 3) utilization of food through adequate diet, water sanitation, and health care (United States Department of Agriculture, 1996).

Table 1: Four main Dimensions of Food Security

Physical availability of food Food availability addresses the “supply side” of food security and is determined by the level of food production, stock levels and net trade (Export-Import)
Economic and Physical Access to food An adequate supply of food at the national or international level does not in itself guarantee household level food security. Concerns about insufficient food have resulted in a greater policy focus on incomes, expenditure, markets and prices in achieving food security objectives.

Food Utilization Utilization is commonly understood as the way the body makes the most of various nutrients in the food. Sufficient energy and nutrient intake by individuals is the result of good care and feeding practices, food preparation, and diversity of the diet and intra-household distribution of food. Combined with good biological utilization of food consumed, this determines the nutritional status of individuals.

Stability of the other three dimensions over time Even if food intake is adequate today, it is still considered to be food insecure if there is inadequate access to food on a periodic basis due to adverse weather conditions, political instability or economic factors (unemployment, rising food prices).

SOURCE: The EC-FAO Food Security Programme (2008). “Food Security Information for action: Practical Guides.”
Grounding their argument on the human rights clause but stressing more on the “Pro-poor growth” strategy, Dreze and Sen (1989), forcefully argue that economic growth in itself is not sufficient enough to ensure individual food security and nutrition.” Growth, of course can be very helpful in achieving development, but this requires active public policies to ensure that the fruits of economic growth are widely shared, and also requires—and this is very important –making good use of the public revenues generated by fast economic growth for social services…” (Dreze and Sen, 2011).

To explain the seeming paradoxical dilemma that exists between food security needs and economic growth, routes by which this dilemma could be resolved, along with other factors that contribute to hunger and food insecurity, need to be explored in detail. As a result, food consumption in Ethiopia is seen as a function of income distribution, inflation, population growth, and supply of food production. In addition to the possible linkages that exist between food security and economic growth, the distinction between chronic and acute insecurity needs to be elaborated. While chronic food insecurity is likely to originate because of a lack of assets, acute food insecurity on the other hand, emanates from unusual shocks, such as drought. Furthermore, a combination of short-term and long term strategies is needed to form policies to tackle food insecurity needs.

A) Income distribution: Food security is to a great extent affected by economic growth and income distribution. For example, Timmer (2004) persuasively argues that “improved food security stems directly from a set of government policies that integrates the food economy into a development strategy that seeks rapid economic growth with improved income distribution.” With the income distribution policies that Timmer portrays, economic growth and food security mutually reinforce each other, because poor countries in East and Southeast Asia have addressed these steps concurrently for about two decades to increase the production and distribution of food and have escaped from hunger (2004).

Given Timmer’s point of view, we could stress that though the Ethiopian economy has performed strongly and the income gap between the lower and upper households has been narrowing, then, the deplorable food insecurity that Ethiopia’s poor have been facing for the centuries before the havoc of El Nino, could be attributed to a substantial decline in the purchasing power of the Ethiopian currency known as the birr.

B) Inflation: As documented in the Pigou’s wealth effect theory, a higher price level contributes to lower real wealth thereby inducing to lower consumption spending (see Mankiw, G. and Scarth, W, 2011). As stated by Durevall and Sjo (2012), the Ethiopian Real Gross Domestic product has experienced strong economic growth, for example from in 5.9% in 2000 to 7.5 % in 2011. Along with higher economic growth, Ethiopia has been facing an overheated economy due to inflation volatility. For example, the inflation rate in Ethiopia increased from 0.3 percent in 2000 to 36 percent in 2011. Since the financial global crisis in 2008, Ethiopia has been faced with an average inflation rate of 17.65 percent from 2006 until 2016. Therefore the “… High and volatile, inflation is a threat to good economic performance and has negative effects on many of the poor” (Durevall and Sjo (2012). After the 2008 global crisis and the soaring price of oil and food items, inflation in Ethiopia has become rampant. At the peak of the global food crisis, in July 2008, “…annual food price inflation surpassed 90 percent” (Durevall and Sjo, 2012).

As a result of this unprecedented rise in inflation starting in 2006, in Ethiopia many people, more particularly, those with low incomes and retirees have lacked enough to buy the food needed for survival (See Desta, 2014). As stated by Durevall, D. Loening, abdJ. Birru, Y, (2010), with the exception of Zimbabwe and some small island economies that had the strongest acceleration in food price inflation in Sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopia had the strongest acceleration in food price inflation.

A caveat needs to be added that though there is no consensus on the causes of the rise in inflation, an empirical study by Desta (2014) indicates that Ethiopia’s inflationary situation is the result of an expansionary monetary policy, primarily due to large government expenditures on infrastructure and budget deficits. Rising food prices led to devaluations and feedback effects on consumer prices in general. At the same time, it is possible to argue that government budget deficits caused by an increase in large-scale capital projects and military spending might also have contributed to the extreme inflationary conditions in Ethiopia.

C) Population Growth: Another dimension of food insecurity popularized by Thomas Malthus that contributes to food insecurity is population growth. The Malthusian “approach is focused on the (dis)equilibrium between population and food. In order to maintain equilibrium, the rate of growth of food availability should not be lower than the rate of growth of the population” (Burchi and DeMuro (2012). Stated differently, on the demand side, the reason why a number of countries with the highest numbers of people face food insecurity is because they have high fertility rates and rapid population growth. Given this, it is possible to assert that an increasing population growth rate has a substantial negative impact on economic growth.

Based on the latest estimates, the current population of Ethiopia is 101,481, 000 and the annual rate of growth rate is close to 2.53percent (Countrymeters, 2016). Given this possible projection, the Ethiopian population would double in about 28 years and its effect on food security would be insurmountable. The density of population impacts the productive capacity of Ethiopia and will continue to affect the demand for food for decades to come. That is, “population increase reduces landholdings further and places intolerable stress on an already fragile natural resource base.”(Devereux, 2000).Therefore, it is vital that Ethiopia’s demographic projections be incorporated in the developmental plans of the country to help policy makers design strategies to improve agricultural production and attempt to help Ethiopia achieve greater food security (See for example, Population Action, 2015).

D) Sufficiency of Supply: As stated by Torero (2014), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization assume that high rates of malnutrition can lead to a loss in gross domestic product (GDP) of as much as 4 to 5 percent per year. Therefore, to achieve food security for its productive citizens, a nation needs to increase agricultural production through research and innovative technology. Furthermore, as a means of optimizing their food production, developing countries must use drought –resistant crops and soils and invest in rural infrastructure by building roads, irrigation, and storage facilities (Pieters, Guariso, and Vandeplas, 2013).

Although attempted, the Ethiopian government needs to take further steps to amass food stocks and create early warning systems to handle an unexpected drought. For instance, in 2015-16, experts estimated that Ethiopia would need up to $1.4 billion to cope with the El Nino drought. However, much more was needed because the Ethiopian Government only committed about $200 million and another $170 million was delivered by philanthropic international communities or NGOs (Africaaid, 2016).

Given that the majority of Ethiopian households are engaged in agriculture and live in rural areas, additional drivers of poverty reduction, more particularly, those that encourage some type of structural transformation of the Ethiopian agricultural system is worthwhile (2016). Without stable and long lasting food security that contributes to physical and mental wellbeing, the economic growth of Ethiopia cannot be sustained. Though food production in Ethiopia is unpredictable, it is persuasively argued by Torero (2014) that “strategically designed, food security is central to both short and long-term economic growth.”

In agreement with the argument that agriculture is the driving force for the economy and a means of ensuring household food security, the Ethiopian Government initiated Agriculture Development Led Industrialization (ADLI) in 1994. The components of ADLI included: a) input provision to peasants, b) promotion of small-scale irrigation, c) improved livestock herds, d)environmental protection and natural resource management, e) grain marketing efficiency, e)women’s participation in agriculture, and f) expanding rural and feeder roads (Devereux, 2000). However, since the ADLI was very low in details, it was never fully implemented (Rahmato, 1994).

It has become debatable whether those who participated in the programs were: 1) poor and chronically food insecure, 2) forced to resettle in other areas, 3) getting sufficient resources and wages in exchange for their services, and 4) productive and sustainable. Since 2003, the Ethiopian Government in close collaboration with development partners (i.e., United Nations organizations such as the office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, NGOs, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), US international aid Program, etc.), to prepare a new Coalition for food Security in Ethiopia.

The foreign donated food security assistance package included providing fertile farm lands to settlers, seed, oxen, hand tools, access to clean water, heath facilities, feeder roads and other capacity building facilities. The food Security program (FSP) was targeted to give assistance to more than 6million beneficiaries located in 319 chronically food insecure districts (woredas).As outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO), the most vital components of the Food Security Program (FSP) resettlement programs in Ethiopia include: 1) Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), 2) Household Asset Building Program (HABP), and 3) Complimentary Community Investment (CCI).

1)Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP): Established in 2005, the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) is “one of the largest safety net programs in the world” (USAID, 2016). It was established by the Ethiopian Government to build the resilience capacity of chronically food insecure communities to protect them from shocks and climate changes and to give assistance to food-insecure households for six months of the year for up to five years, to prevent depletion of resources in farm activities such as crops and livestock at the household level (i.e., the beneficiaries were chronically food-insecure households). More specifically, in addition to direct sustenance given to the elderly, the disabled (handicapped), sick, pregnant women etc. the chronically food- insecure able-bodied participants were required to engage in labor intensive public works projects (such as water harvesting, irrigation, feeder roads) in-exchange for food-for-work programs or cash-for-work, possibly financed by monetizing food aid (Devereux, 2000).

2)Household Asset Building Program (HABP): Officially it was started in June 2013 by the Ethiopian Government, and the USAID Ethiopia mission in collaboration with nine other donor partners (USAID, 2016). Its objectives were to improve natural resources and food security by providing inputs to increase livestock and crop production, and by establishing training and market information for food insecure households.

3)Complimentary Community Investment program (CCI): This program was mainly tailored to create community assets and complement household investment through ecosystem rehabilitation strategies. Among other things, such programs included soil and water management, plant nutrient generation and recycling, planting drought and pest resistant crops etc.

The donors who gave food to Ethiopia may have had gracious intentions. However, it has become debatable whether the participants were actually chronically food insecure, or were getting sufficient resources and wages in exchange for their services. Therefore, Ethiopia, as an aid recipient country, needs to be aware that external sources of food donations at times can lead to disruption of the local food market and might even become a disincentive by discouraging local farmers from attempting to produce their crops and to store the excess for bad seasons. As stated by Devereux (2000), “…while safety nets risk perpetuating dependency on two levels: beneficiaries will remain trapped in unviable livelihoods and be dependent on relief indefinitely, and governments and donors will have little incentive to invest in agriculture and other sectors.” Moreover, unlike the current top-down methods that are used to design safety net programs for chronically food insecure peasants, it would be better to use a bottom-up strategy because the starving poor people “…know best for themselves what they need, and will be motivated most thoroughly to productive effort if they participate actively in decisions regarding their development” (Pausewang, S. et al, 1990).

Summary and Conclusions

The causal linkage between food security and economic growth is not yet fully resolved. That is, whether food security contributes to economic growth or economic growth induces food security or whether there is a two-way causal relationship between the two variables is not yet causally ascertained. However, a review of existing studies seems to ascertain that food insecurity in Ethiopia is not due to the lack of economic growth and income distribution. Rather it seems to be originating because Ethiopia has failed to properly ground itself with the necessary financial infrastructure to tackle the increase in inflation, resulting from an excess in the money supply. The sustained budget deficits, increase in population, and not stocking food production (supply side), necessaryduring favorable seasons as a means of mitigating of unanticipated natural disasters during unfavorable seasons, are not addressed sufficiently.

Though not fully borne out by rigorous empirical studies, proponents of a neoliberal trade theory propagate the idea that an increase in trade and decrease in government regulations, would decrease food insecurity and alleviate rural poverty. Without designing adequate methods for solving the food crisis, it is sad that this type of unwarranted assumption has been hijacking the global food supply. Taking these assumptions for granted, it is an irony to notice that poor countries are faced with the dilemma of whether they should deny their citizens their fundamental right to eat or rather concentrate on exporting their products to accumulate foreign exchanges, essential for importing unnecessary gadgets.

To sustain food security in tandem with economic growth, Ethiopian policy makers need to focus on well-orchestrated defensive stabilization policies such as making food accessible or establishing food stocks as a means of mitigating the increase in food prices or establishing food entitlementto tackle food hunger. As suggested by Dreze and Sen (2011), governments could save the poor from vulnerability to food insecurity arising from negative shocks or resulting from the disjuncture between soaring prices and the availability of food items. Based on Newbery and Stiglitz’s (1979) theory that focuses on the high cost of national price stabilization schemes, Anderson and Roumasset, (1996) empirically demonstrate that to tackle food insecurity, government efforts need to be tailored to: a) enhancing private markets, b) increasing the availability of food products for the poor through social services (i.e., food, health, education etc), c) giving entitlements through transfers , d) using intensive technology-based methods that could propel improvements in productivity, e) improving transportation, enforcing standards and measures in intensive grain transactions, and f) implementing small-scale storage facilities.

It must be stressed that property rights and land tenure might influence the food security status at the household level. Given that the Ethiopian government has full ownership of the country’s land, it has achieved socially equitable outcomes because land in rural Ethiopia is distributed fairly. However, the radical egalitarian measures of distributing land in rural Ethiopia has “…generated insecurity practiced by fears of further redistribution and a consequent unwillingness to invest effort in measures to improve soil conservation and enhance fertility’ (Quan, 2000).

It needs to be underlined here that in patriarchal Ethiopia, since women by and large are excluded from owning land, reforming the use and ownership of land by women is vital in Ethiopia (Pieters, Guariso, and Vandeplas2013). Therefore, given the important role of women in Africa’s agricultural sector and “… in all the different dimensions of food and nutrition security, policies that support and stimulate productive activities of women in general, especially in agriculture, have great potential in terms of improving food security.” In addition, as stated by Hull (2009), growth in the agricultural sector of the economy cannot be translated into benefits for the poor because benefiting the poor needs an identification of the location of the poor. If culturally acceptable, people who are volunteering to move to settlements in ethnically sensitive regions, the needs of food security in Ethiopia could be accomplished by designing the mobilityof the poor across sectors of the economy. However, not to repeat the mistakes of the Derg, the basic infrastructures need to be in place before the chronically food insecure are encouraged to move. Furthermore, in order to participate in productive and sustainable food production activities, participation in the programs needs to be for chronically food insecure poor and who are given sufficient resources and wages (instead of food for work) in exchange for their services.

Finally, various donors with gracious intentions need to be appreciated for their humanity-based food donations. However, as an aid recipient country, Ethiopian policy-makers, need to be aware that external sources of food donations at times can lead to disruption of local food markets and might even become a disincentive. They might even discourage local farmers from attempting to produce their crops and to store the excess from good periods for seasons of emergency.

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“Our Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different outcomes”- my latest commentary, addressed the importance of carrying out cultural reforms to defeat dictatorship, lawlessness, and poverty that have been plaguing our country for so long. When it comes to reforming our culture, we have two big tasks ahead: To undo the counterproductive cultural reforms TPLF has already carried out (The theme of this article), and To implement additional cultural reforms that may enable our country to advance in the 21st C (Next article’s theme).

TPLF carried out many counterproductive reforms to advance its sinister agendas that must be reversed. Using state sponsored corruption, state owned media, and other state machineries, TPLF succeeded in inculcating corruption, fabricating false information to mislead the public, and planting hatred in our culture. No question. There had been isolated incidents of corruptions, and state sponsored misinformation here and there by the previous regimes. Some discords among some ethnic groups and regions had been there too. The issue of ethnic strife had existed in certain parts of the country except that TPLF magnified it and used it and still is using it for its own advantage. Though there had been ethnic grievances before the reign of TPLF, at no point in our history, we were disintegrated like we are now. Never in our past these things were espoused as formal policies by former governments.

The current regime had recognized the need to circumvent the conscience of our people who were loyal to those cultural attributes that weren’t favorable to TPLF’s agendas. The regime was very clear from the onset that if it doesn’t get the critical mass support it desperately needs to carryout its schemes; it fails miserably and therefore losses power and influence to bring changes that were aimed at benefiting the regime and its inner circles. That was why soon after they took power, they waged attacks against prominent individuals, community organizations, and religious denominations they considered threats. TPLF understood that it couldn’t easily gain support for its divisive, shortsighted, and misguided policies without disarming our culture and in turn making what they say and do normal and acceptable by reasonably enough people. They had figured that out early on before they even took power. They were convinced that it’s unlikely to avenge, amass wealth, gain the cooperation of some key players, and stay in power long enough without using the state machineries to misinform the public, create division, and plant hatred in the soul of the nation. They knew that they must invest millions of dollars to break our societal fabric that detests these things.

In this article, however, I’d like to talk about just one of the unproductive cultural reforms TPLF successfully carrier out- resentment, mistrust, and hatred among ethnic groups (and regions within the same ethnic group). I’d also like to suggest for us to do something to reverse this perilous reform beginning now. It shouldn’t wait another day, let alone until TPLF is removed. Undoing this cultural reform isn’t only beneficiary in the long run and for the holistic health of our country; it’s mandatory for our current struggle to succeed in removing TPLF and undoing so many other misfortunate things that have happened against our great country. Using the state owned media, the ethnic based apartheid style federalism, the education system, corruption, and also brute, TPLF finally won this battle, and disarmed one aspect of our culture that had been promoting harmony, unity, and cooperation among the peace loving diverse people of Ethiopia. Regardless of sharp criticisms from global figures including the former Secretary General of UN- Kofi Annan, TPLF executed ethnic politics. TPLF knew the risk. They were warned that it would one-day backfire in their face if they take this road. They took the risk any ways, and went ahead to create ethnic strife as a means to survive, divide, and conquer.

Those few initial state sponsored ethnic frictions had led to more conflicts, and finally drove individuals in one ethnic group (and regions within the same ethnic group) resenting- even hating- other people from other ethnic groups (and regions). Though this radical change in our culture began small scale with few people, slowly but surely, it reached a tipping point and has become part of our culture. Sad! In his classic book, ‘The Tipping Point: How little things can make a big difference’, Malcolm Gladwell wrote, “…Rain had become something entirely different. Snow! We are all, at heart, gradualists, our expectations set by the steady passage of time. But the world of the Tipping Point is a place where the unexpected becomes expected, where radical change is more than possibility. It is- contrary to all our expectations- a certainty.” One of the signs that show you there exists a reform in a culture is when a thing, which was once a taboo in that culture, becomes a norm- when a thing that was once despised becomes the standard. The reverse is also true. Talking against the new cultural attribute also becomes a taboo. I posit, many of my readers may feel uncomfortable, and even some may get irritated as I challenge the new normal.
Recently, I had a chat with a colleague about this unproductive reform that passed the tipping point. In that discussion, I found out that my colleague wasn’t surprised at all. He had noticed many people leaving the existing diverse groups to join organizations, associations, and parties formed (or led) by people from their ethnic group (or region). He further pointed out, “In today’s Ethiopia, it’s common to witness one’s ethnicity and where he/she (their parents) was born is scrutinized as someone seeks friendship, love, and partnership.” Of course, if people opt to check someone’s bloodline before they make decisions, it’s their right. Nevertheless, the new reality we should understand is that if many individuals identify and align themselves with their respective ethnicity and region publicly, and without fearing other people’s opinion for taking this approach tells us that the issue is no more a taboo. It got acceptance by the majority. It’s now the norm and part of the culture. As we grew up in Harar, for instance, such things like one’s ethnic background had no place to form friendship. Unfortunately, I recently came to realize that this aspect of our subculture in Harar has changed. I was shocked when I found out some of the people that I knew, when I was there more than 2 decades ago, forming alliances with people who share their ethnicity and/or where their parents were born. It’s saddening to witness the old fabric that held our friendship severely broken, and new ties are formed based on bloodlines. My colleague too, though he isn’t from Harar, noticed: “You are right, some years back, I looked around and those friends I’ve had from diverse ethnic groups and regions were gone one by one.” He then mentioned some Ethiopian institutions by name (community organizations, churches, and parties) that we both know very well and asked me if I know the bloodline of the core leaders. I couldn’t! I learned the bitter truth from him. The core leadership (the real decision makers) of these institutions is consisted of people from the same region. What is more? The core supporters of these organizations are from the same region. It was an eye opener exercise but, at the same time, embarrassing since I was unaware while the ground under my feet was shifting. My colleague was generous. He helped me stop beating myself too hard. He pointed out that since I didn’t care about my own bloodline, it was okay if I didn’t know the people I fellowshipped with and the organizations that I joined had some forms of ethnic and region biases. He’s right! This had been one of my blind spots…

For your info, I came to know the origin of my parents as late as end of last year when I was required to fill the last names of my parents on a form. I sought help from my relatives to fill the form. In the process, I came to realize that my bloodline is a mix of Amharas and Oromos from diverse regions. My colleague was wondering whether this new discovery has changed me. It hasn’t! I may be old school. I don’t define myself, and also seek alliances and partnerships based on the blood that runs in my veins. I strongly believe in the oneness of humanity. There are many things that unite us than divide us. It’s counterproductive to beg for what differentiate us and build wall around it, especially in the 21st C where the world is shrinking, thanks to technology and globalization, and becoming a small village. We cannot survive, thrive, and advance as a society unless we downplay our differences and capitalize on what unite us. I admitted to my colleague that I had been too slow to notice the changes in our culture. Though I knew that TPLF had been working hard to reform our culture to introduce hatred, mistrust, and discord, I never for the life of me expected the damage has reached such a tipping point where many Ethiopians align with their ethnic group or the region of their parents to form friendships, partnerships, and alliances. Once we were on the same page about this unproductive cultural change TPLF succeeded implementing, we talked about its implications. We finally concluded that this division along ethnic and region lines created mistrust and is sabotaging our efforts to unite against the big elephant in the room- TPLF.

I don’t enjoy sharing the above negative stories. But I have to show you how culture is powerful- both positively and negatively. There is no way that we can succeed in any endeavor that requires major transformation without taking into account the roles of our culture. If our goal is to defeat tyranny, we need to deny it the environment that allows it to flourish. If our desire is to be where we have never been, a place where each and every Ethiopian regardless of their ethnic, religious, and political view points are treated equal, we need to work on our culture and create the environment. The first place to begin is with our leaders from diverse industries. Unfortunately, we’ve very few leaders who are trying their best to stick out their head above the overwhelming water (culture) that attempts to drown them. My colleague, who is an insider in Ethiopian politics, shared with me a shocking comment he heard a prominent party leader said about another party. The leader said, “We prefer TPLF to stay in power forever, if necessary, than these people to come to power.” While we have this kind of deep mistrust and hatred at the top level, it’ll remain the main roadblock why we keep failing to defeat tyranny. Of course, we all should play our part but our efforts won’t bear fruits if our leaders don’t buy into it. Undoing the hatred sowed by TPLF should be the principal responsibility of our contemporary and future leaders. They should embrace harmonious co-existence among our diverse population. We need our leaders at all levels to refrain from promoting the dominance of one ethnic group and/or region over others both in private and publicly.

One quick disclaimer: It’s a reality. Some ethnic groups think that they should have their own advocacy exclusive groups and parties. That is their right. Nonetheless, leaders of these exclusive organizations should discourage some elements within their groups that promote hatred towards other groups both internally and publicly. These leaders should begin reaching out to other groups to protect the house from falling on all of us. Abraham Lincoln is known for his classic speech, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” We’re divided gravely! If there are people out there who pretend as if everything is going to be okay, they’re kidding themselves. However, the house (Ethiopia) must equally be for all of its citizens to save it from falling. Unfortunately, in our history, some mistakes were done by the past regimes that created some frictions. These must have been addressed. Unfortunately, not only TPLF failed to tackle past grievances appropriately, but also it shrewdly used past incidents to create further divisions, resentments, and animosity among our diverse people. TPLF had a chance to create a more perfect union but it squandered it. TPLF made a historic mistake. It created state-sponsored classes of citizens, and allowed one group to dominate others. In current Ethiopia, a few (TPLF leaders) are first class who control almost every major sector in the country while some (supporters and sympathizers of TPLF’s rule) are second-class citizens. The majority Ethiopians is third class citizens, rather, slaves. Ethiopia cannot stand while we’re divided like this. We need a country where no one ethnic group, region, or religion dominates others. We cannot correct past mistakes by similar other mistakes. Thus, we must untangle this anomaly from our culture beginning NOW. This task cannot wait. Those who are organized along side ethnic and/or region lines should stop trying to maneuver, upstage, and outsmart one another. What we need is a true, genuine, and unadulterated unity in diversity. That is our competitive advantage, and a win-win scenario for all of us.

The authors themselves or leaders in the opposition camp can undo this counterproductive cultural reform. But, I presume, it is unlikely that the leaders of TPLF to show genuine remorse, and begin undoing their own mess. Due to their built-in nature (molded by the kinds of books they were reading, books that were written by the cunning Italian diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, to just name one), the chance of current TPLF leaders changing their minds and exterminating the artificially created classes of citizenship, and promoting unity in diversity is remote. It’s also implausible to expect the rise of new blood rank and file TPLFites that could renounce the current faulty policy. Mathematically speaking, it’s improbable for such members to survive, flourish, influence, and lead reform within this secretive organization. The second option is to have Mandela like leaders from the alternative forces. Mandela was black and his party was ANC. His preoccupation was fighting for the rights of blacks in South Africa. However, he was a values-based leader whose hatred against apartheid didn’t blind him to seek the domination of blacks over the minority whites. Here is his famous statement that shows how Mandela was a principle-centered leader: “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal, which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” We need principle-centered leaders like Mandela. Regrettably, there’re some elements in the opposition camp that work hard so that their exclusive group to dominate once TPLF is gone. This is unhealthy. It has created mistrust and the lack of cooperation within the opposition camp. We shouldn’t follow the example of TPLF. We must work together to create a shared vision where all citizens are treated equal. Without having this shared vision, we cannot genuinely come together and defeat dictatorship, and in turn reverse the rifts, resentments, and mistrusts it created.

In conclusion, TPLF introduced into our culture ethnic politics to divide and conquer. It cracked down our native culture that had been promoting unity, tolerance, and harmonious co-existence among diverse ethnic groups and regions. TPLF scrupulously reconfigured our culture in order it to favor its evil plans. It allowed the formation of ethnic political parties (discouraged and dismantled multiethnic parties), crafted a constitution without involving the public, designed an ethnic federalism, forged our history, and used the state’s resources and deployed its cadres to create division and hatred among ethnic groups (& regions). It also incentivized and rewarded individuals and groups, which joined TPLF in promoting ethnic mistrust and hatred. What is more, many in the opposition camp joined the ride- not immediately, slowly but surely. As never before, at this juncture in our history, we are divided, not only just along ethnic lines alone, but also along regions within the same ethnic groups. What a low place to find our proud and once the flagship country in Africa that inspired the oppressed people of the world against colonization by coming together as one people. Yes, it took TPLF more than two decades to dismantle our culture and introduce a damning cultural attribute that further disintegrates and divides us. That is why we cannot wait any longer. Reforming a culture takes time. We have to admit defeat, and do something about it and begin inversing the damages beginning NOW. The best place to begin is raising, empowering, and supporting leaders (including those who fight for the rights of their respective ethnic group and region) who won’t promote the domination of one group over others; leaders who believe in unity in diversity; leaders who unite and bring us together; leaders who are principle-centered; leaders we all can trust and follow regardless of whether their bloodline aligns with ours or not; leaders who are visionary. We should also encourage and incentivize the already existing leaders who are promoting unity in diversity both publicly and in private. Even if their number is small, with our support, like a single drop falls into the ocean creates ripples; these few leaders could influence others. And in turn, we could be able to reverse this damning cultural plague TPLF infected our people with. It’s possible, and we can do it!

The defeat of the Italian forces by Ethiopian patriots at the Battle of Adwa on March 1, 1896, became a mountain of pride and inspiration to millions who cherish black heritage. Later, in 1914 and 1917in Jamaica and in the United States, Marcus Garvey, a well-known African nationalist, ignited his supporters against white racism by stressing emphatically the way the Ethiopian patriotic forces dismantled Italian aggression at the Battle of Adwa. Using phrases such as “Ethiopia thou land of our fathers,” Garvey further galvanized his followers to adopt his “Back to Africa Movement” slogans. To arouse passion against colonial aggression and racism, Benito Sylvian of Haiti, Joseph Vitalien of the West Indies, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, and W.E. B. Du Bois, all represented Ethiopia as a tower of independence , and the Battle of Adwa gave hope that European colonization could be resisted with dignity.

As a result, the Ethiopian victory at the Battle of Adwa, symbolized the possibility of future emancipation and inspired known figures like NnamdiAzikiwe in Nigeria, Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya , and George Padmore in Trinidad, etc to use the bravery of Ethiopian forces manifested at the Battle of Adwa to create awareness and motivate their followers to fight and stand in solidarity against foreign domination. Japan artfully utilized Ethiopia’s strategy from the Battle of Adwa to fight against the invading Russia Army in 1904 (See For example, Levine, 2014; and Desta, 2014). The Battle of Adwa secured united Ethiopia’s stewardship for Africa’s future independence. As a result, it could be said that the modern era for Africa’s sovereignty started with victory at the Battle of Adwa.
After 120 years from the unprecedented triumph achieved against Italian aggression at the Battle of Adwa, today we see nothing but decay and ruins in the once vibrant town of Adwa (Kinfe, 1996). More specifically, except for a few posts mounted at base of Mount Soleda, with worn and torn flags remaining to commemorate the Battle, it is disturbing for students of African history to see the total absence of a museum, or a library, or even paved pathways to show visitors where the heroic Battle of Adwa was fought. Though a number of philanthropists have attempted to build new vocational schools and millions of birr were raised for the purpose of creating world-class secondary schools and a historical site, nothing significant has occurred to rebuild the town of Adwa.
Buried for a century and two decades, the importance of the Battle of Adwa that once gave hope to colonized people of the world, is in the process of being revitalized. A spark of life has been ignited. Following the guidance of African Heads of State and Governments of the African Union, it is quite tantalizing to notice that some African scholars are in the process of considering the establishment of a new tertiary Pan-African University in the town of Adwa.

There are five thematic institutes which were launched in 2011, and hosted by existing Universities of excellence across African’s five geographically demarcated regions. These address: 1) Basic Sciences, Technology and Innovation (Kenya in Eastern Africa); 2) Life and Earth Sciences, including Health and Agriculture (Nigerian Western Africa; 3) Governance, Humanities and Social Sciences, (Cameroon in Central Africa); 4) Water, Energy Sciences, and Climate Change (Algeria in Northern Africa); and 5) Space Sciences, (Southern Africa). The University’s Statute was adopted in 2013 to provide the “opportunity for advanced graduate and postgraduate research to high-performing African students.” Stated differently, comprehensive Master and PhD programs were established in the five thematic regions to prepare African scholars to use their education for the development of a prosperous, integrated and peaceful Africa (See, Pan-African University, 2016).

To bring about unity and uplift the people of African descent, the five above mentioned Pan-African Universities were instructed to reflect lofty standards in reflective teaching, development oriented research programs, and regional community service programs. Furthermore, the thematic institutes were expected to be furnished with “world-class equipment” that would incorporate “best practices and standards.” In addition, when the five thematic institutes were fully developed, it was planned that they would be linked to ten Satellite Centers with complementary thematic specializations, interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary programs. At full operational capacity, the PAU was expected to incorporate 50 centers of excellence under its five academic hubs that have been already established across Africa (Pan African University, 2016).

In the two consultative meetings that occurred in March and May 2016in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as made crystal clear by Berhe (May 2016), the Adwa Pan-African University was going to be launched around 2063 (?). However, since the five regional academic hubs were chosen at a competition organized by the African Union’s (AU) Pan-African University, it needs to be understood that the Adwa Pan-African University was chosen not to operate as a separate thematic institute, but instead, as a sub-unit of the ten Satellite Centers. Instead of duplicating the programs of the other centers, the Adwa Pan-African University would operate as part of the already established “complimentary thematic specialization.”

As said by Salmi, “Achieving the ambitious goals of launching a new, high quality, university is easier said than done” (Salmi, 2010). Thus, as expected, if the physical infrastructure of the Adwa Pan-African is expected to be impressive with state-of-the-art facilities, the current consultants in Addis Ababa need to establish a sub-committee to investigate the source of funds necessary to build the physical aspect of the Adwa Pan-African University. After establishing the buildings however, the necessary operational budget to run this sub-thematic center could emerge from the host nation (Ethiopia), the African Union, and other international aid donors. A case in point is, the leading thematic supporter of the Yaounde II, Pan-African University (PAU), Soa, Cameroon, was funded by the Swedish Government. The initial seed money of $5 million was however donated by the World Bank. The Kenyan Pan-African University was funded by the Chinese Government. While Germany supported the Pan University in Algeria, India and Japan were the leading thematic partners with the Pan-African University in Nigeria (Pan-African University, 2016). It needs to born in mind at this juncture that given a large portion of the funding of the Adwa Pan-African University is likely to originate from international resources, over the years these linkages might create dependency not only on the funds but might also run the risk of academic and pedagogic dependence from outside sources (Woods, et al, 2012).

As stated before, since a large portion of the operational funds originate from international donors, it could be difficult to challenge the citadel of Eurocentric paradigms and western “scientific epistemologies of knowledge” (Nabudere, 2003). However, as suggested by Salami (2010), the promoters of a new university should refrain from launching into the architectural design of their institution until they have established not only a clear definition of the vision and mission of the new institutions but have also determined some of the specific content of teaching and research. At the very least, However, “… the academic staff should be given the opportunity to influence the design of the pedagogical and research spaces of the new institution.”

As a center for higher education, however, the Adwa Pan-African University needs to respect and be prepared to face the some key tenets. These are: 1) as a tertiary level educational center, the Adwa Pan-African University needs to be guided by the principles of academic freedom, autonomy, accountability and international partnerships; 2) as the hub of a global pool, the Adwa Pan-African University needs to contribute constructively to the emancipation and reactivation of the indigenous knowledge of Africa, reflecting innovative ways of researching and teaching African History and Strategy, and 3) marshaling its capacity-building ventures.

Concerning its name, it should be made clear that without having any established university in site, it is challenging for the town of Adwa to be chosen to serve as one of the sub centers of the five Pan-African Universities. This happens because the Battle of Adwa represents a beacon for independence and self-actualization. It was in 1896, at the Battle of Adwa that the Italians colonialists were annihilated by the Ethiopian patriotic forces. Since, the Battle of Adwa encourages and inspires millions who cherish the black heritage. Therefore, the designers of the Adwa Pan-African University need to respond to the historic challenge to correct the historical distortion and theft of African heritage that has occurred over the years. Its architects need to provide a deeply thought-out, well-conceived vision and mission, in their attempt to design a well-articulated strategy that achieves the objectives of the University (Nabudere, 2003). Undertaking through the triple agenda of deconstruction, reconstruction, and regeneration (See for instance, Odora, 2002), the Pan-African University located in Adwa needs to be named Ethio-Adwa Pan-African University because the University was carefully chosen to be located in the town of Adwa. It was at the Battle of Adwa that Ethiopia’s united patriotic force guaranteed that Ethiopia was the only African country that resisted European colonization. So, to polish, flourish, reshape and cherish the history of the Battle of Adwa, Ethio-Adwa should be used as a prefix to the name the Pan-African University that will be established in the town of Adwa.

In conclusion, launching a new thematic Pan-African University at Adwa, is long overdue. However, today is better than never if the center is tailored to ensure full alignment with the historical context of the battle of Adwa, and demonstrates Ethiopian pride in its characteristic of bravery. Among other things, the curriculum (See Table 1) needs to ensure that students achieve a balanced view of military history by designing alternative strategies and tactics. Since Ethiopia has already achieved a competitive advantage in these areas, focusing on these courses must not duplicate courses or specializations of the other thematic centers. However, the pedagogy addressed by the Ethio-Adwa Pan-African University needs to be dynamic. That is, the Ethio-Adwa Pan University center needs to go beyond dealing with Ethio-centric studies of the past, but has to move to the present, and transform its courses for the future. This is the way that learning and research at the Ethio-Adwa Pan-African University will reach out to a wider student body.

I hope these suggestions will facilitate further discussion on the project. It is worthwhile to congratulate the movers and shakers of this noble idea. Mapping the road going forward will be challenging. Nonetheless, if the designers stay committed to the mission of the Pan-African University, there is no doubt they will be able to achieve their intended purposes, including tactics to make adjustments along the way.

Table 1: Pan-African Universities’ Plan for a Prosperous & Integrated Africa

Ethio-Adwa Pan-African University (Proposed) Juja, Kenya Ibadan, Nigeria Soa, Cameroon Tlemcen Algeria South Africa
Military History Basic Sciences Life Sciences Governance Water Space Sciences
Strategy and tactics Agriculture Earth science Humanities Energy Sciences
Technology Health Social Sciences Climate change
Innovation Agriculture
References:
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Desta, A. (2014). The Battle of Adwa, African Victory in the Age of Empire: A Reflection.

Levine, D.“ Ethio Politics: The Battle of Adwa as a Historic Event .” http://www.ethiopolitics.com/Adowa/Adwa.htlm . Cited, 25 March, 2014.

Gebresellasie, Y. ( March 2016). COMMEMORATING MOUNT SOLODA AND THE VICTORY OF ADWA WITH WORLD CLASS PAN-AFRICAN UNIVERSITY.

Nabudere, D. (2003). “Towards the Establishment of a Pan-African University: A Strategic Concept Paper.” African Association of Political Science.Vol. 8.No. 1.

Odora, H.C.A (2002). Indigenous Knowledge and the Integration of Knowledge Systems: Towards an Articulation. Claremont : South Africa, New African Books.

Salmi, J. (2010).“ Ten Common Errors When Building a New World-Class University.”

Sunday, S. (2016).“ How University of Ibadan Won PAU’s Hub for West Africa” University of Ibadan.

Woods, D. Chaine, P. Padayachee, A. and Olsson, Asa (2012).“Programme on Innovation, Higher Education and Research for development, Background Document” Case Study on the Pan-African University.