By Alethia

In my previous article, Truth Is Stranger than Fiction, I attempted to diagnose, in a brief and general manner, some of the root causes with respect to the current political leadership in Ethiopia that could well account for the deep-rooted ills that plague us as a society and as a nation. My focus in the present article is on the leading opposition party leadership wherever they are, mostly in jail, and elsewhere. Whenever I say opposition party leadership I do not want to be specific and leave out all those Ethiopians who stand for the same values and principles that the leading opposition party leaders stand for. I’m not focusing on individual leaders either, for that was not the focus of my first article nor is it the focus of this article. My focus is on some distinctive values we observe that these respective leaders embody and exemplify.

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Some general thoughts before I share my reflections on the opposition party leadership’s distinctive values and principles vis-à-vis the current Ethiopian government’s values and principles that I’ve shared in the previous article.

These three articles are very brief attempts to understand the root causes of why we Ethiopians suffer from multiple problems that have been with us for centuries, and given the scope and the nature of the writing I’m undertaking, these articles are by no means definitive and unassailable by any standard. Therefore, it’d be far better to consider such thoughts with careful reflections on the part of my readers. I’m one of you, who’s embodied questions that plagued me for most of my adult life, and this is an opportunity for me to share some of such reflections with an intention to contribute, even in a very small way, to the ongoing dialogue and intense and relentless search for the deeper causes for our own ailment and suffering and perpetual paralysis as a nation.

I’ll be in your debt if you take some of the ideas in these three articles and develop them further if there’s anything worth developing in them. Otherwise, I hope that some of us will refute them and come up with something better, more realistic, and hence true, and beneficial to us all. We, Ethiopians, are all suffering from a common illness and let’s continue to search for a remedy, a solution that will address the root causes for our ailment. This is one of those opportunities to work together, to cooperate on a search for a common cause for a nation’s ills. I do hope that at least some of you, among the readers, will join hands.

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Now I move to some of the key points that I want us to think about and reflect on together as one people, one nation, and one society. I finished the previous article by saying, among other things, that “It’s a sober and sad fact that our leaders are the products of the values and principles that they have inherited from the larger society they derive their origins from; they are us writ large but then the worst incarnations of us.” I tried to point out the fact that we all as human beings hold values and principles by which we live whether such values are intrinsically or inherently good or bad, and also the fact of the matter is that we acquire most of such values naturally and obviously from our own family, community, and larger society. I said most, not all, of the values we hold to.

What we value changes over time, for us as individuals and collectively as a community and a society as well. That seems to be obvious when we just pause to reflect on what we valued as children and as adolescents and what we value as adults, etc. I did not say values change without qualification and I’m not arguing for that now. What I’m saying is that the way we value certain things changes over time. To make a simple distinction: personal integrity or honesty or truthfulness is valuable, intrinsically valuable, whether we’re little children or adults. You can now pick any one of those things you valued as children which you no longer value. I hope you see the point.

And also what most children and young adults and even mature adults value these days are different from what the previous generation or two valued in Ethiopia and also elsewhere. That means some values are subject to change over time in an individual’s life time and/or a community’s or a society’s. But that does not mean that all values are subject to change over time for an individual or a community or a society. That way we would lose our objective moral values that are neither creations of an individual, a community, or a society. If moral values such as “murder is wrong” change from time to time, from generation to generation, we’d not have, for example, an objective moral and/or legal ground to hold the current Ethiopian government accountable for murdering innocent people as many of us believe and say. If moral values change it’s possible for the current Ethiopian government to say that “we in the government no longer believe that murder is wrong”. Period. But we all know that that way only madness reigns and all of us will be without a moral compass. [An aside: I’m not equating morality and legality. These are separate issues but then they can come together as well. I’ll not treat these issues in the present article. I might consider doing that another time].

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Let’s take some values in general again. Truthfulness and honesty are good things in and of themselves, they’re desirable things, and that means they’re inherently good things. That does not mean, however, that we, humans, always value truthfulness, and hence are truthful; alas, that is not the truth about us, humans, in general. I’m not saying that Ethiopians in general are more prone to lies and pervert truth. But some of us are. That is also an undeniable truth. Please read the previous article to see how perversion of truth and embodiment of lies have decimated our nation’s history for years now.

Mind you that I did not say, once again, that all Ethiopians are liars, while myself being an Ethiopian. You see, if all Ethiopians are liars, and if I am an Ethiopian, which I’m, that means I’m also a liar! But be careful here, please: If I said that, what I’m writing will probably be a lie too, and hence there is no point for you to read it! Why spend your time reading lies anyways? The good thing, on the other hand, is that we can know what truth is under normal circumstances. If what I say, or whoever says, corresponds to or matches with reality, then, that means what is being said is true. For example, if I say that there is a country called Ethiopia and if there is such a country in the world, as it’s the case that there is, what I say is true because it matches with the reality, that’s Ethiopia’s existing as a country; otherwise, it’d be false. Therefore, there is no need to worry about what I say here for you can know whether it’s true or false just as I showed you how we can know truth. But do not forget, once again, that we, Ethiopians, have been exposed to innumerable lies at times, especially, from those who’ve become, in the past and nowadays, our political leaders and it’s possible for some of us to have a difficulty in distinguishing lies from truth. Part of the reason why so many people in Ethiopia have been deceived by the current government’s promise about democratic processes in Ethiopia is largely due to, I think, our failure to tell lies from truth.

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Why am I talking about such apparently abstract things such as truth, honesty, and personal integrity, etc? What such a talk does have anything to do with the opposition party leadership in Ethiopia today? Some might want to ask, are you trying to say that the opposition party leaders are truthful, always honest, people of personal integrity, and simply leaders with characters and virtues that leaders need to embody? What are you trying to communicate? Here are some of the key values that we’ve been able to witness in the current opposition party leadership that distinguish them from the current government and the values I point out are not hidden values that I’ve been able to decipher or discern while others failed to see them for themselves. Absolutely not! They are too obvious for anyone who cares to see them for what they are. Who can change these truths? Truth never changes.

Here are some examples of values the current opposition party leadership exemplifies:

Belief in promoting peace and non-violence as an inherently better and valuable form of resistance to all forms of injustice;
Belief in human freedom and dignity and partnership with the Ethiopian people in the leadership of the country; that is, belief in fellow Ethiopians as worthy of respect;
Taking up leadership responsibility, with all its prices, bestowed upon them by the people of Ethiopia and for the people of Ethiopia even in the most painful form of human existence, while having been denied freedom to exercise basic human rights; or, willingness, while embodying so much suffering, to be accountable to the people who elected them to lead them in freedom, liberty, and history that flourishes in human dignity never seen before in Ethiopia;
Being courageous in the face of brutality, while receiving ultimate human cruelty, and denial of fundamental political and civil rights;
Answering to multiple forms of inhumane treatment to them and their political leadership in humane and civilized and noble manners that cry for emulation and hence worthy of respect;
Suffering injustice and all kinds of evil for the sake of visions embodied and dreams dreamed with the people of Ethiopia and for the people of Ethiopia about their dignity as fellow human beings and for their final freedom as fellows of a nation that they desire to build and uphold together;
Belief in one Ethiopia, one people, with common and shared identity and history as it’s being made right now with the people of Ethiopia as active participants in their own nation’s present and future history and destiny; belief in the Ethiopian people as the ones who choose the course of their own history and destiny together with their leaders as fellow citizens for the collective future they mean to usher in together.
Now we’ve observed the above values and principles as exemplified by the leading opposition party leadership in Ethiopia today, the above being some of the values, and we’d wonder as to where some or all of such values have come from if “…our leaders are the products of the values and principles that they have inherited from the larger society they derive their origins from”. A crucial point worth keeping in mind: these opposition party leaders could have chosen all the inherently destructive values that the current Ethiopian government embodies and as a result they could have been partakers in “the glory” that political power brings to them as individuals and they would have never spent a day in jail or in exile. They chose otherwise, they’ve freely chosen to stand for inherently desirable and good values of which some have been enumerated above. There lies the crucial difference in values that are inherently good and hence constructive or inherently bad and hence destructive.

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If you remember from my previous article I did not say that all the decisions and actions of all our political leaders at all times, always, deterministically, reflect their values. What I said there was rather the following: “Even if our values do not consistently determine our decisions and actions in an explicit way they do largely shapethem”. There is a subtle difference between having been determined to do certain things, without any choice about the fact of the matter, and having one’s decisions and actions influenced and hence shaped by something such as one’s culture, one’s community, and society at large. We’re all aware of what it means for our community and the larger society to influence and hence shape our decisions and actions; yet we also know some people, some among us, who transcend the prevailing influences in the community and the society at large to be able to say no to some of the values and principles by which others lead their lives and even impose and dictate some of those values on others. Remember where dictators come from and how they are made?

What we all observe and witness in the political leadership of the current opposition party in Ethiopia is what I’m trying to get at, that is, these fellow citizens have shown us, friends and foes, that it’s possible and even doable to transcend, that is, stand above the inherently destructive values and principles exemplified by the current Ethiopian government thereby freely choosing and embracing values that are inherently good and desirable. These leaders embody such values as promoting peace and non-violence in the midst of violence against them, belief in human freedom and human dignity while having been denied their own freedom and dignity as human beings, taking up leadership responsibility and accountability, being courageous in the face of extreme adversity, and also acting in civility and noble ways in the face of inhumane treatment, suffering injustice for visions and dreams embodied, and also becoming living sacrifices for one people, one nation, and one Ethiopia in the face of fabricated accusations of treason and betrayal of their people and their country. Who can change these truths? Truth never changes.

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The above values embodied and exemplified by the opposition party leadership in the present day Ethiopia have not come about overnight. These leaders who represent the voice of those who elected them to lead them into a future with hope and freedom and human dignity have been in the making as voices of a new generation for the Ethiopia today and for Ethiopia tomorrow and for posterity. These leaders who are in jail today and in exile or wherever are representations or tokens of the emerging Ethiopian voice and cry for freedom and human dignity and for a better future of the country and these leaders symbolize as yet our best incarnations that we’ve observed and witnessed in Ethiopia’s recent history. In the opposition party leadership that represents us today, we, Ethiopians, have seen the beginning of a change in values and principles for the political leadership of Ethiopia and a hope for a better future tomorrow and a good and desirable legacy to leave behind for a generation to come.

It’d be understandable if some of us wonder as to how that would be possible. How is such a talk different from an unrealistic dream? Part III will provide a wider context for a more detailed answer to such legitimate worries. But then, in the meantime, a short answer to those of us who ask such questions is that we are witnesses to the values and principles the opposition party leadership embodies and stands for and exemplifies. If and when they fail to live up to their promises and distinctive values and principles that they’re known for, we, those of us who elected them to be our leaders tell them in crystal clear terms, the way they tell the present Ethiopian government, that we do not want them to represent us for they then have fallen short of delivering what they’ve promised. The opposition party leadership has been steadfast and firm and unmoved in what they hold to be representations of values that the majority of the Ethiopian people clearly expressed when they elected them to uphold such values as enumerated above (1-7) and their leadership deserves our support in all ways possible as they finally mean to lead us into the future that we’ve all, in one way or the other, conceived together and dreamed together and mean to usher in together.

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Saying whatever I’ve said above is easier than doing the practical things that need to be done. Granted. But then we should not miss the value of having a clear vision and direction of where we want to go and why and how to get there too. Addressing only the “how”–only the practical– aspect of a journey will not guarantee that we’ll get to our desired destination. We might get there by any means but all means are not inherently right and desirable and good. Mind you that the current government has arrived at where it’s envisioned to have arrived, alas, but then the fact of the matter is that it has, but do not forget that the means by which it has gotten there is NOT all right, desirable, or good. If the means did/does not matter to arrive at or achieve the end we’d not have been protesting against the current Ethiopian government in the ways we’ve been doing. Yes, we need a clear vision and direction as to how we should get where we want to get as a society. The opposition party leadership faces a daunting task in playing a key role in leading a nation which has been suffering too much and hence paralyzed at the hands of its “leaders” who have never been called upon to lead the nation by anyone except themselves.

The hope of the Ethiopian people both in the country and elsewhere is to see a chance for its opposition party leaders to be in a position to lead their people as they promised and have been willing to do so. We do not know the future; we’re human beings, though, we, the people of Ethiopia, know for certain who can and would, given a chance, lead this nation into a better future and to its desired destiny. As people we hope for something better and desire to see something desirable for ourselves individually and for our nation collectively. At the end of the day, even if we lose some of our leaders as martyrs, we also know that in the spirit of martyrs is the sowing of seeds that will spring into life many more who are much more like the martyrs than their murderers. One can see that from history that the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one such powerful piece of evidence. Those who thought killing him would do away with his legacy, unbeknownst to them, were only multiplying countless others more like him to uphold his legacy for thousands of years to come.

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In Part III of this series I’ll address the people of Ethiopia, including myself, as to what we should do to bring about a desirable change for ourselves as a society. Political leaders can accomplish only so much. If the value of the society is conducive or fertile for the leadership of those in various leadership responsibilities, that way, we, all of us in leadership positions and otherwise, can usher in a better future for a future generation of Ethiopians. A forward looking generation now can give birth to a generation that will flourish in the good things, the good legacy that it receives from its previous generations, that is us. I do hope that we can become a forward looking generation while focusing on the present for without the present there will not be a future.

The writer can be reached for comments at [email protected]