By Maru Gubena
As may be recalled, the issue of the Ethiopian Diaspora, its origin, and more particularly its potential role in and contribution to the process of political stabilization and democratization in Ethiopia, has been discussed relatively widely, if not as deeply as the community’s role and the extent of its involvement deserves. Some of my compatriots and others interested and involved in the subject matter have written and published their views related to the issues in question, and I personally have published a good number of articles, both prior to and in the aftermath of the 2005 Ethiopian parliamentary election. My most recent articles are cases in point: “Revisiting the Events, Sights and Sounds of the Aftermath of the 2005 Ethiopian Election,” which was widely published on the 4th of December 2010 and subsequent days, and “Reviewing the Damaging Effects of Ethiopian Diaspora Politics on the Wider Community and its Future Initiatives: The Search for Alternative Mechanisms,” published in February–May 2009 (also in four parts). In addition, I understand that a degree of interest in the subject matter has been planted in a few college and university circles, including international NGOs and even Ministries for Development Cooperation. Also financial resources continue to be allocated for study and research on the topic, especially in socio-economic and health-related fields. Further, given the widespread diversity of readers’ views in areas of political associations and ideology, it is somehow difficult to determine the genuineness of their opinions and judgments based just on brief and unelaborated responses and comments to published articles. It is nevertheless good and even a cause for rejoicing to observe that some of our articles are being incorporated in and used as discussion topics, teaching and research materials by some institutions and universities, which can also be seen as a direct contribution to students, teaching communities and societies in general.
Coming back to the main topic of this rather short paper, let me briefly reiterate the potential role and contributions of Ethiopian Diaspora politics to the process of democratization, and more particularly, to freeing Ethiopia and its people from the yokes and chains of the autocratic and divisive regime of Meles Zenawi. As stated repeatedly, loudly and unambiguously in my previously published articles, there were and still are multiple opportunities and choices that could allow Ethiopian Diaspora political activists to have an influence that is substantial and commanding, and therefore meaningful; and to be actors and factors in shaping both the politics and the future face of Ethiopia. To make this possible, political activists and their supporters must be willing to redirect their current disoriented convictions and approaches, such as “who is not with us is our enemy” and “go it alone,” which are unproductive. It is necessary to be prepared to speak with one firm voice. Even more essentially, we must all be able and willing to cultivate and spread a sense of confidence in each other, along with a collective courage to establish institutions that operate professionally and within legal frameworks, remaining neutral with respect to associations or affiliations with political groupings and political parties. My stance is even that those establishing and working in such institutions, in whatever positions, should be barred from any form of association with or membership in political parties, and in the event of regime change in our homeland should abstain from political ambition. Within maturely structured and established institutions of this sort, Ethiopian professionals trained in law and diplomacy can work together, design policies conducive to reviving and/or restoring the diminished morale and confidence of fellow Ethiopians, and engage tirelessly and responsibly in political and peace-oriented activities and peace building, including planting the seeds of credibility and integrity – not just in the land of Ethiopia and in our Diaspora community, but more fundamentally, within the global community, and its political and diplomatic circles in particular.
Institutions of the sort described will provide tools and opportunities that well trained, professional Ethiopians can seize to craft peace-oriented strategies that are careful and wise, and which will help to move towards engagement in various educational fields, to wage political and diplomatic wars directed at conflict resolution, and to work against our common enemies of family or group orientation and regionalism that have plagued us in relation to Ethiopian politics. Thus this institution can provide the most appropriate place for us to seriously engage in heartfelt reconciliation processes, bringing together Ethiopian political activists and working to resolve both long smoldering historical animosities and newly conceived resentments among various cultural, social and political groups.
Since the complex events of Ethiopia’s historical and recent past, including its multifaceted cultural heritage, remain unknown and unrecorded – not just for the international community at large, but also for Ethiopians – the institution to be established should also enable Ethiopians and others who work there to actively engage in this most fascinating research and data collection, chronicling and analyzing forgotten aspects of Ethiopia’s history and culture.
The paragraphs below, quoted from one of my previously published articles about two tragic events that have hardly been documented – the resignation of Prime Minster Aklilu Habte-Wold’s cabinet and the sudden murder of 60 civil and army officials by the brutal Dergue regime – are illustrations that make evident the extent to which we Ethiopians don’t mind, don’t seem to care, if we live in complete darkness about the actions and measures undertaken by our own ancestors, parents and even ourselves. These quotations clearly point up the urgent need to establish the repeatedly suggested institution, which I have referred to as the Ethiopian Diaspora House.
Even worse and more painful, in addition to these unhealed wounds and unforgettable scars in our recent history, we also know so little about the sources and causes that contributed to the abrupt resignation of Prime Minster Aklilu Habte-Wold’s entire cabinet on the 26 or 27 (embarrassingly, no exact date of resignation is to be found anywhere) of February 1974. Although this became a fertile ground for the emergence of the people’s enemy, the Dergue, and the subsequent structural crisis within Ethiopian society, this has not been explored and written up. Except through verbal stories and jokes told in family get-togethers and around coffee tables, most, if not all, Ethiopians have had no factual account – for example, based on meeting reports or recorded videos showing when, at which date and time, or indeed the exact reasons that led to the resignation of the late Prime Minister Aklilu Habte-Wold’s cabinet. And who was or were precisely responsible for this resignation of then Prime Minister Aklilu Habte-Wold and his ministers? Many Ethiopians say it was the Dergue that forced the entire cabinet to resign. But surely there was no Dergue or military committee at that time of their resignation? There was not someone in Addis Ababa at that time by the name of Mengistu Hailemariam.”
The second quotation states that:
The story surrounding the tragic, untimely and sudden murder of ministers, together with their compatriot army generals and civil servants, by the power hungry and power intoxicated Dergue members under the leadership of the most inhumane, cruel, anti-social animal called Mengistu Hailemariam, has remained buried, in exactly the same way as the story of the resignation of Aklilu Habte-Wold’s cabinet. No books, no films or video recordings based on facts seem to have been produced. It is probably due to our resulting ignorance that most Ethiopians of my generation often feel uncomfortable, even embarrassed, to talk or engage in debates involving these two tragic events. Yes, since there are no written meeting reports or video records that might indicate why and how the members of the Dergue reached their extremely cruel conclusions and decided to murder their own compatriots, most of us know little or nothing about the precise facts behind the killing of those 60 Ethiopian citizens in just a few minutes on the 23rd of November 1974 – we only know that they never faced due process in a court of law for the crimes of which they were accused.”
As time passes, later generations, including that of my daughter, will know even less. What is most remarkable of all is the lack of concern and the disinterest of Ethiopians in boldly confronting, exploring and writing about these painful events, the history of our own crises, which are also our own creations. Isn’t it tragic, even shameful, to realize that we Ethiopians still live without books, professionally produced films or video records of such important, fascinating but painful historical events?” — Maru Gubena in “Looking at Forgotten Recent Events and Future Strategies Conducive to a Mature Political Culture for Ethiopia: Putting the Cart Before the Horse?” published July 2006.
In conclusion, I will boldly and unambiguously assert that an Ethiopian Diaspora House, if it were to be established and take root, would unquestionably be not just a place that would begin to revive our dysfunctional social relations, networks and diminishing confidence and trust in each other; would help us to educate ourselves; would be a place of diplomacy and reconciliation; but also would serve as a source of pride in ourselves, pride in being Ethiopians – indeed an undisputed source of strength and new unity.
(Readers who wish to contact the author can reach me at [email protected])
7 thoughts on “The Ethiopian Diaspora House”
That dark history of ours is still breeding sub humans…
Diaspora first and most important we must embrace the given name. We have gona a long way from political refugees, economicial refugees ,and now dispora. The next step we must find a way to feed, educate, cloth, the neediest. Then we can talk about politics.
When I see the Diaspora acting like a spoiled child, trying to declare once freedom of expressing on the expense of other’s freedom, racial hatred and giving names to those who oppose us, then I am ashamed to be part of the so-called “Ethiopian Diaspora”.
I can’t wait to detach myself from such confused and suicidal group of people who learn everything but respecting other’s right from their adoptive country. I can’t wait to leave this group and that is why I am going back HOME for good soon.
Ethiopian diaspora is totally divided on ethnich lines if we want or not. All talk and cries about his/her ethnic groups as victims av everything. Ethiopian diaspora is the most weakest creature, the diaspora could save Ethiopia by getting rid of the banda woyanes. But lack unity and fuctioning united organizaton.
Unles the Ethiopian diaspora is united beyond the ethnic lines their chances av saving is ver little. The Ethiopiaspora and Ethiopians could learn from many countries, the latest from Tunisians, the brave people.
January 15, 2011 The New York Times
Nigeria’s Promise, Africa’s Hope
By CHINUA ACHEBE
AFRICA has endured a tortured history of political instability and religious, racial and ethnic strife. In order to understand this bewildering, beautiful continent — and to grasp the complexity that is my home country, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation — I think it is absolutely important that we examine the story of African people. In my mind, there are two parts to the story of the African peoples … the rain beating us obviously goes back at least half a millennium. And what is happening in Africa today is a result of what has been going on for 400 or 500 years, from the “discovery” of Africa by Europe, through the period of darkness that engulfed the continent during the trans-Atlantic slave trade and through the Berlin Conference of 1885. That controversial gathering of the leading European powers, which precipitated the “scramble for Africa,” we all know took place without African consultation or representation. It created new boundaries in ancient kingdoms, and nation-states resulting in disjointed, inexplicable, tension-prone countries today. During the colonial period, struggles were fought, exhaustingly, on so many fronts — for equality, for justice, for freedom — by politicians, intellectuals and common folk alike. At the end of the day, when the liberty was won, we found that we had not sufficiently reckoned with one incredibly important fact: If you take someone who has not really been in charge of himself for 300 years and tell him, “O.K., you are now free,” he will not know where to begin. This is how I see the chaos in Africa today and the absence of logic in what we’re doing. Africa’s postcolonial disposition is the result of a people who have lost the habit of ruling themselves, forgotten their traditional way of thinking, embracing and engaging the world without sufficient preparation. We have also had difficulty running the systems foisted upon us at the dawn of independence by our colonial masters. We are like the man in the Igbo proverb who does not know where the rain began to beat him and so cannot say where he dried his body. People don’t like this particular analysis, because it looks as if we want to place the blame on someone else. Let me be clear, because I have inadvertently developed a reputation (some of my friends say one I relish) as a provocateur: because the West has had a long but uneven engagement with Africa, it is imperative that it also play an important role in forging solutions to Africa’s myriad problems. This will require good will and concerted effort on the part of all those who share the weight of Africa’s historical albatross. In Nigeria, in the years before we finally gained independence in 1960, we had no doubt about where we were going: we were going to inherit freedom; that was all that mattered. The possibilities for us were endless, or so it seemed. Nigeria was enveloped by a certain assurance of an unbridled destiny, by an overwhelming excitement about life’s promise, without any knowledge of providence’s intended destination. While the much-vaunted day of independence arrived to much fanfare, it rapidly became a faded memory. The years flew past. By 1966, Nigeria was called a cesspool of corruption and misrule. Public servants helped themselves freely to the nation’s wealth. Elections were blatantly rigged. The national census was outrageously stage-managed to give certain ethnic groups more power; judges and magistrates were manipulated by the politicians in power. The politicians themselves were corrupted by foreign business interests. The political situation deteriorated rapidly and Nigeria was quickly consumed by civil war. The belligerents were an aggrieved people in the southeast of the nation, the Biafrans, who found themselves fleeing pogroms and persecution at the hands of the determined government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which had been armed to the teeth by some of the major international powers. My fellow Biafrans spent nearly three years fighting for a cause, fighting for freedom. But all that collapsed and Biafra stood defeated. It had been a very bitter experience that led to the hostilities in the first place. And the big powers got involved in prolonging it. You see, we, the little people of the world, are constantly expendable. The big powers can play their games, even if millions perish in the process. And perish they did. In the end, more than a million people (and possibly as many as three million), mainly children, died either in the fighting or from starvation because of the Nigerian government’s economic blockade. After the civil war, we saw a “unified” Nigeria saddled with an even more insidious reality. We were plagued by a home-grown enemy: the political ineptitude, mediocrity, indiscipline, ethnic bigotry and corruption of the ruling class. Compounding the situation was the fact that Nigeria was now awash in oil boom petrodollars. The country’s young, affable head of state, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, ever so cocksure following his civil war victory, was proclaiming to the entire planet that Nigeria had more money than it knew what to do with. A new era of great decadence and decline was born. It continues to this day. What can Nigeria do to live up the promise of its postcolonial dream? First, we will have to find a way to do away with the present system of political godfatherism. This archaic practice allows a relative handful of wealthy men — many of them half-baked, poorly educated thugs — to sponsor their chosen candidates and push them right through to the desired political position, bribing, threatening and, on occasion, murdering any opposition in the process. We will have to make sure that the electoral body overseeing elections is run by widely respected and competent officials, chosen by a nonpartisan group free of governmental influence or interference. And we have to find a way to open up the political process to every Nigerian. Today, we have a system where only those individuals who can pay an exorbitant application fee and finance a political campaign can vie for the presidency. It would not surprise any close observer to discover that in this inane system, the same unsavory characters who have destroyed the country and looted the treasury are the ones able to run for the presidency. But we must also remember that restoring democratic systems alone will not, overnight, make the country a success. Let me borrow from the history of the Igbo ethnic group. The Igbo have long been a very democratic people. They express a strong anti-monarchy sentiment with the common name Ezebuilo, which translates to “a king is an enemy.” There is no doubt that they experienced the highhandedness of kings, so they decided that a king cannot be a trusted friend of the people without checks and balances. And they tried all kinds of arrangements to whittle down the menace of those with the will to power, because such people exist in large numbers in every society. So the Igbo created all kinds of titles which cost very much to acquire. In the end, the aspirant to titles becomes impoverished in the process and ends up with very little. So that individual begins again, and by the time his life is over, he has a lot of prestige, but very little power. This is not a time to bemoan all the challenges ahead. It is a time to work at developing, nurturing and sustaining democracy. But we also must realize that we need patience and cannot expect instant miracles. Building a nation is not something a people do in one regime, in a few years, even. The Chinese had their chance to emerge as the leading nation in the world in the Middle Ages, but were consumed by interethnic political posturing and wars, and had to wait another 500 years for another chance. America did not arrive at its much admired democracy overnight. When President Abraham Lincoln famously defined democracy as “the government of the people, by the people, for the people” he was drawing upon classical thought and at least 100 years of American rigorous intellectual reflection on the matter. Sustaining democracy in Nigeria will require more than just free elections. It will also mean ending a system in which corruption is not just tolerated, but widely encouraged and hugely profitable. It is estimated that about $400 billion has been pilfered from Nigeria’s treasury since independence. One needs to stop for a moment to wrap one’s mind around that incredible figure. It is larger than the annual gross domestic products of Norway and Sweden. This theft of national funds is one of the factors essentially making it impossible for Nigeria to succeed. Nigerians alone are not responsible. We all know that the corrupt cabal of Nigerians has friends abroad who not only help it move the billions abroad but also shield the perpetrators from persecution. Many analysts see a direct link between crude oil and the corruption in Nigeria, that creating a system to prevent politicians from having access to petrodollars is needed to reduce large-scale corruption. For most people, the solution is straightforward: if you commit a crime, you should be brought to book. But in a country like Nigeria, where there are no easy fixes, one must examine the issue of accountability, which has to be a strong component of the fight against corruption. Some feel that a strong executive should be the one to hold people accountable. But if the president has all the power and resources of the country in his control, and he is also the one who selects who should be probed or not, clearly we will have an uneven system where those who are favored by the emperor have free rein to loot the treasury. Nigeria’s story has not been, entirely, one long, unrelieved history of despair. At the midcentury mark of the state’s existence, Nigerians have begun to ask themselves the hard questions. How does the state of anarchy become reversed? What measures can be taken to prevent corrupt candidates from recycling themselves into positions of leadership? Young Nigerians have often come to me desperately seeking solutions to several conundrums: How do we begin to solve these problems in Nigeria where the structures are present but there is no accountability? ONE initial step is to change the nation’s Official Secrets Act. Incredible as it may seem, it is illegal in Nigeria to publish official government data and statistics — including accounts spent by or accruing to the government. This, simply, is inconsistent with the spirit and practice of democracy. There is now a freedom of information bill before the National Assembly that would end this unacceptable state of affairs. It should be passed, free from any modifications that would render it ineffectual, and assented to by President Goodluck Jonathan. This can and should be achieved before the presidential election in April. In the end, I foresee that the Nigerian solution will come in stages. First we have to nurture and strengthen our democratic institutions — and strive for the freest and fairest elections possible. That will place the true candidates of the people in office. Within the fabric of a democracy, a free press can thrive and a strong justice system can flourish. The checks and balances we have spoken about and the laws needed to curb corruption will then naturally find a footing. And there has to be the development of a new patriotic consciousness, not one simply based on the well-worn notions of the “Unity of Nigeria” or “Faith in Nigeria” often touted by our corrupt leaders; but one based on an awareness of the responsibility of leaders to the led and disseminated by civil society, schools and intellectuals. It is from this kind of environment that a leader, humbled by the trust placed upon him by the people, will emerge, willing to use the power given to him for the good of the people.
Chinua Achebe, a professor at Brown University, is the author of “Things Fall Apart.”
Nigeria\’s Promise, Africa\’s Hope
Mr. Gubena, what is this constant obsession with the ministers that were killed by the Dergue? Thousands, if not millions of innocent Ethiopians perished as a result of the Dergue’s policy and you have nothing else to write about except the fate of the handful of ministers who ended up being the victims of Mengistu? It might satisfy your intellectual curiosity to find out the nature of their death, but right now, it is only a topic that interests maybe a handful of people such as yourself. The vast majority of the Ethiopians rose up to get rid of not only Haile Selassie, but all that supported his regime including the same ministers you are obsessing for. And these same ministers who were serving their feudal masters did not give a hoot about the plight of their people while in position of power, and why should we care about their fate now? I wish the millions of innocent Ethiopians had their day in court before being arbitrarily massacred by the Dergue, and I wish more of their history is recorded and passed for future generations to remember the dark days of the Dergue. I believe your care and concern is totally misplaced and useless. Mr. Gubena, don’t beat a dead horse; get a life!
CHINUA ACHEBE
Thanx for your comment. I read it through and I really loved it wonderful. I have learned alot. It is the same problem most if not all Africans have.