As many Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia have repeatedly stated, only the TPLF leadership and its cadres have persisted in telling God-fearing, honest, innocent and starving Ethiopians – and the international community – that the tireless efforts and wisely crafted policies and strategies of the TPLF leadership have assured continued production in the various economic, educational and health sectors of Ethiopia, as well as incalculable amounts of agricultural and industrial products and goods, and that this has allowed the country not only to feed its entire population but also to realize a huge profit of billions of dollars in foreign exchange. This unsubstantiated news is transmitted on a daily basis by the poorly trained, unprofessionally organized staff of the TPLF-controlled media. For example, they have said that educational outputs in 2005 increased by millions of Ethiopian graduates compared to 2004, and their employment figures suggest that the percentage of unemployed Ethiopians is the lowest in the history of Ethiopia. The health conditions of all Ethiopians too have improved in a most dramatic fashion, due to great increases in the number of hospitals and clinics of all sizes located all over Ethiopia. If the current development trend continues in the coming half decades concurrently with the process of democratization, the Meles-controlled media says blatantly, Ethiopia will undoubtedly be able to help feed not just Ethiopians, but also the people of many other African countries. Such are the astonishingly creative stories invented by the TPLF trained cadres, well-paid foreign lobbyists and personal foreign friends of the TPLF leadership. Saddest of all, these totally fabricated stories are expanded and widely transmitted by the newly created friends who are being cultivated, the Chinese and Reuters websites.
The TPLF’s repressive leadership employs an extreme policy of stifling long-running internal conflicts and differences among its members, as well as the voices and deep-seated grievances of the general population of Ethiopia. This regime has never allowed Ethiopians to know the actual daily events taking place in their country, including the imprisonment and killing of their own family members. But also the repressive, stifling nature of Meles Zenawi’s regime is clear, even against its own core members and ministers: for example, neither Ethiopians in Ethiopia nor those residing in the western world have ever heard or read a single statement of disagreement or criticism from any of the core members of TPLF against any TPLF policy, or against the views, measures undertaken or proposals made by the TPLF leader – Meles Zenawi – before the results of the policy explode and become known to the general public. Yes, it is indeed true that even though many dramatic events have resulted from bad, harsh policies over the past fifteen years, we have never heard a word or statement from a single top member of the TPLF leadership saying “with due respect, I disagree with you, Mr. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, because .…†Never. Ethiopians discover the long-existing disagreements and conflicts among TPLF core members only after one of them has managed to defect to a foreign country and directly or indirectly join the Ethiopian resistance.
The Rationale Behind the Persistent Lies of the TPLF Leadership
Since many may wonder about the rationale behind the blatant and persistent lies of the TPLF leadership, it is probably important to briefly explain, and in particular to address the reason the TPLF leadership attaches so much value to such methods, and has employed lies as an indispensable part of its short and long term policy since it came into being.
As historical records clearly show, the founders of the TPLF took up arms to fight against the political and economic system of the time with the sole objective, at least according to the original goals stated by the founders, of demanding an equal and balanced distribution of the country’s resources from the central government of Ethiopia and freeing the people of Tigray from their socio-economic backwardness. Over time, however, and due to the incalculable crimes committed by the regime of Mengistu Hailemariam, Ethiopia was gradually made a fertile land, ready to be ruled by the enemy of the people – the TPLF, under the leadership of Meles Zenawi. The endless killings of innocent Ethiopians, including members of the Ethiopian armed forces, and the continuous humiliation of a good number of high-ranking officers and generals, were the main forces that drove a disproportionately high number of Ethiopian soldiers into the camps of the TPLF and EPLF. This became a decisive factor in the weakening of the entire power structure and the eventual disintegration of Mengistu’s regime. It is further true that since the very inception of the TPLF, which coincided with Ethiopia’s bloody and most cruel revolution of 1974, the entire political programme and socio-economic policies of the TPLF have been and are still hostile to the unity of Ethiopia and to certain sections of Ethiopian society. The TPLF leadership still considers the bulk of Ethiopian society – which has in fact been responsible for defending Ethiopia’s territorial integrity for centuries, and for shaping and maintaining its social and political fabric – to be the historical and potential future enemy of the TPLF, which deserves to be marginalized and to gradually evaporate from the land of Ethiopia.
It is also to be remembered that when the TPLF leadership, with the full supervision and military leadership of the EPLF, entered Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi and his followers did not come empty handed. They were carrying many variegated bags, each one full of historical and newly minted animosities and hostilities directed at the very people that the TPLF leaders intended to rule. Consequently, for fifteen years now the TPLF leadership has ruled Ethiopians with maximum cruelty and with the barrel of the gun – separating family members from each other and killing Ethiopian youth, the future assets of Ethiopia, every day. Meles Zenewi and his cadres have never shown the slightest respect to the people of Ethiopia – even to well-known or aged Ethiopians. Therefore, it appears that both the immediate and long-term policies of Meles Zenawi and his cadres is simply to find a way to be accepted by countries willing to provide tools to help strengthen the power structures of the TPLF so that it can continue to silence the people of Ethiopia and continue to rule. Lies have thus become the cardinal foundation of the TPLF leadership, a foundation that is rational, given the aim of defeating its enemies and winning the sympathy, the hearts and minds, and the financial and military assistance of donor countries, upon whom the very existence and survival of Meles and his cadres are almost exclusively dependent. The rationale behind the daily transmissions, the postings and presentations on the TPLF-controlled media about the dramatic expansion of various economic, health and educational sectors should be seen in this framework – a concerted effort to win the hearts and minds of those willing to help the TPLF leadership survive and prolong its life span.
Does the Opposition need to employ the Methods of the TPLF Leadership?
What is much more difficult to understand is the recent appearance in the opposition camp of something similar to what has been described above: the repeated transmission of unsubstantiated events and “news†by pro-democracy media outlets, such as Tensae radio and various websites. Every concerned Ethiopian must wonder what the rationale can be, and whether this can possibly be effective. Why are conflicting views, misunderstandings and confusions circulating at this very early stage of our resistance? Why is it that we have become so increasingly dependent upon the brutal killings and measures undertaken by the TPLF leadership against our people at home for the bells of our resistance to ring loudly? Why was, or is it necessary for people within the resistance camp, or for the “Chapters†or “Support Groups of Kinijit†– whose target groups are you and I – to submit unsubstantiated, one-man produced reports and resolutions from small get-together meetings and events and often extremely exaggerated or inflated, to pro-democracy media outlets for transmission and posting – to the point of contributing to a loss of interest and confidence in Kinijit itself among many CUDP or Kinijit supporters and sympathizers? How come critical issues, difficulties and problems within Kinijit and facing Kinijit are not raised, openly and publicly debated, analyzed and resolved? Or, does this silence mean that everything within Kinijit is all right? Do we really believe deep in our hearts and minds that we ourselves are democrats and free from self-imposed or culturally-imposed censorship and dictatorial behaviours, simply because most of us have been living for so long in the western world and continuously shout for the implementation of democracy and the rule of law in our country? Again, the question is: is there a need for Kinijit – a political party that we all consider to be the spirit of all Ethiopians – to follow in the footsteps of the TPLF leadership if what we want to do is to engage, progressively attack and intensify our resistance? Do we really need to feed ourselves with lies? For what reason and toward what purpose? What factors might be considered responsible for the changing face of Kinijit today, compared to some months back? The TPLF leadership’s rationale for telling lies to Ethiopians and the international community have been explained above and are clear. What would be the rationale for Kinijit to employ the same methods and techniques? I sincerely hope some of you will respond to my concerns and worries as stated above and as reflected in following pages.
Missing Elements in Ethiopian Opposition Camps
It has been argued repeatedly and agreed by all actively involved Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia that the participation of Ethiopian opposition political parties in the 15 May 2005 general election occurred without the necessary preparation, and indeed without establishing the necessary power bases both inside Ethiopia and outside, where the opposition parties enjoy a disproportionately high number of supporters and financiers. It is also true that on the eve of the election, very few of the Ethiopians in the Diaspora were physically in Ethiopia, whether for their own businesses or helping and encouraging the opposition party leaders and their supporters. The rest, an estimated 99 percent or more of the total Ethiopian Diaspora, were in essence still in bed – they did not even know that an important election day was to take place in the land of Ethiopia on the following day – and that some 26 million eligible and registered Ethiopians were ready to show the tyrannical TPLF leadership their red cards: to tell Melles Zenawi in clear language that “enough is enough.†In my recollection, it was the day after the election, to be precise, after the declaration of the state of emergency by the leader of the tyrants, Meles Zenawi, on 16 May 2005, that most of the Ethiopian Diaspora began to spring up and show their unlimited support for the opposition and to the people of Ethiopia, and promised to do everything in their power, to sacrifice their energy, time, money, skill and even their lives in support of respect for the vote, voice and freedom of all Ethiopians. Indeed, as promised, Ethiopians at home and those living abroad reacted massively with a collective voice, protesting the brutal killings of innocent Ethiopians and attempting to force a return of their stolen votes to the people of Ethiopia by the TPLF leadership. It is also a fact that all this concerted effort and resistance by the Ethiopian Diaspora was waged spontaneously, depending only upon events and developments – killings and arrests taking place at home – but without any sort of organizational structure and strategy, and without the development of an effective leadership that could support our elected leaders or even take their places if they are arrested or killed, and a leadership that could serve as the voice of the entire Ethiopian people.
Much to the disappointment and regret of many Kinijit members, financial contributors, devoted supporters and authors of articles, however, this did not happen. Even serious suggestions made in the early summer of 2005 by actively involved and concerned Ethiopians to reorganize, restructure and strengthen Kinijit’s power base in exile – before our leaders were snatched from the people by the tyrannical leadership of TPLF – did not receive the required attention they deserved; instead, these serious and repeated suggestions were put aside by the leadership of Kinijit and the Ethiopian pro-democracy media outlets. It may also be remembered that in addition to the suggestion to create a shadow cabinet, whether in Ethiopia or elsewhere, the issues of effective strategy and leadership were again raised directly to the CUD leader, Engineer Hailu Shawel, I believe by Mr. Elias Kifle, publisher of the Ethiopian Review. During that telephone interview in the summer of 2005, Engineer Hailu Shawel’s strong, firm responses and statements suggested to all of us that he and the rest of Kinijit leadership had already prepared something unknown to us – something he did not want clarify at that time. But I have come to believe Engineer Hailu Shawel was talking about some kind of alternative Kinijit leadership or popular force that would take responsibility and operate clandestinely in the event that he himself and his colleagues are arrested or silenced by the tyrants. As we listened attentively to the interview, the responses and statements of Engineer Hailu Shawel seemed to many of us to be powerful and convincing. In the course of time, however, the reality appeared to be not only different but disappointing. That is, when Meles Zenawi’s tyrannical leadership wasted no time in carrying out its usual heinous crimes, jailing our elected leaders – our worst nightmare – there was no sign of the clandestine organization we had expected to begin to operate clandestinely in the place of jailed Kinijit leadership.
What about measures undertaken by the Ethiopian Diaspora in response to the atrocious crimes being inflicted on our people by Meles Zenawi and his cadres? Yes, demonstrations have been staged; a huge number of letters have been written to US and European officials, and to other institutions concerned; many articles have been produced by active and concerned Ethiopians; candlelight vigils have been organized; a good number of Ethiopians were and are still engaged in lobbying activities, all directed at expressing our outrage at the brutal killings of our people and the jailing of our leaders and with the overall objective of freeing our people from the yoke of TPLF’s repressive regime. Much to my sadness and disappointment, however, there have been no important, boldly formulated initiatives directed at structural, long-term engagement of our resistance. For example, an international gathering could be convened for five days or a week: this could involve all Ethiopians and aim at assessing current political events at home, including the views, attitudes and policies of major donor nations towards the people of Ethiopia and the TPLF leadership; debating the responsibilities, roles and contributions of the Ethiopian Diaspora and friends of Ethiopia with respect to the political stability and instability in our country; devising a future strategy for Kinijit; and officially electing leaders among those in Ethiopia and in the Diaspora to temporarily replace the jailed Kinijit leaders. This would also be an opportunity to officially and publicly announce Kinijit’s official headquarters and branch offices in exile, and to assess and debate other options, such as possible strategies for supporting and assisting the military struggle inside Ethiopia. These three words – “strategy†and “effective leadership†are the essential missing elements within today’s Kinijit. In my view by supplying those missing, most indispensable elements we can also supply the potential sources for change in the current and future face of Kinijit, including the direction for our resistance. The lack of these elements is directly responsible for the conflicting views that are current among active Kinijit members, supporters, sympathizers and the Ethiopian Diaspora at large. This has become a source of misunderstandings, confusion and fingers pointing at each other. The resulting worrisome disagreements and conflicts both between Kinijit and UEDF and within Kinijit itself probably explain why the bells of our resistance do not ring as loudly as they did prior to the first two or three months of 2006. The lack of an elected and accepted leadership, of common strategies and common rules, has also led to the problems seen recently, such as transmitting and posting unsubstantiated, individually produced reports and resolutions from small events, presenting them to the general public of Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Diaspora in an exaggerated way. Each Kinijit Chapter or Support Group wants to be able to say that it has done something meaningful; not knowing what to say to other Kinijit members and the Diaspora, some Support Groups have portrayed what were actually get together meetings as if they had been attended by hundreds of public participants, with reports and resolutions discussed, agreed and produced collectively by conference participants. We have also heard repeated announcements on Tensae radio and various pro-democracy websites of “major international conferences†that are actually small meetings, planned for twenty or thirty participants and one or two speakers. This creates expectations among interested Ethiopians regarding the activities of Kinijit, expectations they will later learn are false. This means transmissions and postings on pro-democracy websites that inflate small get-together meetings may not only be detrimental to the activities of Kinijit within Ethiopian communities in a given country, but can also lead to the eventual destruction of Kinijit itself, as most listeners to Tensae radio and most readers of pro-democracy websites are also themselves involved as participants and observers in the activities of Kinijit Support Groups everywhere in the western world – in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Stockholm, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Oslo, Geneva or other cities or countries.
It should be abundantly clear that without reorganizing ourselves, without crafting meaningful and workable strategies to be carried out by the Ethiopian Diaspora in cooperation with clandestine Kinijit leaders and supporters at home, without effective leadership and professionally-functioning office staff outside Ethiopia, the future of Kinijit as an effective and viable political organization will be short lived. And unless each of us takes the bold decision to free ourselves from secretiveness, from self-imposed or culturally-imposed self- censorship, and to democratize ourselves and our organizations, there is no way we will be justified in imagining that we will be able to help our people and free our country from the repressive chains of the unelected regime of Meles Zenawi. And continuously crying, imploring major donor countries to stand at our side without showing our firm determination and unity, with no carrots and sticks in our hands, are not just unhelpful; they are obvious signs of our own powerlessness and inability to agree and work together.
Dr. Maru Gubena, from Ethiopia, is a political economist, writer and publisher
Readers who wish to contact the author can reach me at [email protected]
The poet and dramatist Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin, who has died aged 69, was considered Ethiopia’s poet laureate. He was one of the most important literary figures that country has produced in the last hundred years, and certainly the best known, both within and outside it; his 1960s decision to write about the common man, rather than religion and royalty, marked the beginning of modern Ethiopian theatre. He wrote in English and was a translator of Shakespeare, but his real gift and achievement was to harness the considerable lyrical powers of his own, Ethiopian, languages.
This was often achieved under trying circumstances. His career spanned three regimes: Emperor Haile Selassie I’s feudal rule, Mengistu Hailemariam’s Marxist dictatorship (under which he was briefly imprisoned), and the putative democracy of Meles Zenawi. All three banned his plays; he once estimated that of 49 works, 36 had at one time or another been censored.
Tsegaye was born in Boda, a village some 120km from the capital, to an Oromo father, who was away fighting the Italians, and an Amhara mother. (The two groups speak languages from entirely different linguistic groups, Cushitic and Semitic respectively; the latter has an alphabet of some 300 letters.) As many Ethiopian boys do, he also learned Ge’ez, the ancient language of the church, an Ethiopian equivalent to Latin; he also helped the family by caring for cattle. He was more unusual in beginning to write plays when at the local elementary school. At 16 he transferred to the Wingate school in Addis Ababa, where he developed an interest in pantomime; this was followed, in 1959, by a degree from the Blackstone School of Law in Chicago. He had not forgotten his first love, however; the following year he used a Unesco scholarship to do an educational tour that included visits to the Royal Court Theatre in London and the Comédie Française, Paris.
The 1960s were an important decade. He returned to Ethiopia in 1960 to run the Municipality Company at the National Theatre and establish a school which produced a number of leading Ethiopian actors. Realising the usefulness of Shakespeare in the making of dangerous political points, he translated Macbeth and King Lear. He also translated Molière’s Tartuffe, and wrote a play in English called Oda Oak Oracle, which was performed in theatres in Ethiopia, Britain, Denmark, Italy, Romania, Nigeria, Tanzania and the US, and still appears on reading lists in black studies departments. But it was Yekermew Sew (Tomorrow’s Man) which established his place in Ethiopian theatre.”Drawing from Ge’ez and Amharic and Orominya, he was able to coin phrases which, in normal Amharic language, don’t exist, but are powerful and expressive,” says Tamrat Gebeyehu, author of the Ethiopian entry in the World Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Theatre. Thus it was “a pleasure to hear his characters talk, even though chances were you did not understand 50% of what they were saying.” In 1966, aged 29, he became the youngest person ever to receive the Haile Selassie I Prize for Amharic Literature.
Briefly, he was appointed minister of culture, but Haile Selassie was deposed by Mengistu Hailemariam and, during the Red Terror in 1975, Tsegaye and the playwright Ayalneh Mulatu spent months together in a prison cell. Ayalneh, who remained friends with Tsegaye for the rest of his life, remembers a daily 11am roll call of men to be killed, and the day his own name came up. It was mispronounced, and Tsegaye seized on the mispronunciation to argue they had the wrong man, thus saving Ayalneh’s life. They wrote poems and plays on the paper bags their food came in.
Agit-prop came into its own under the Marxist regime, as did Tsegaye’s own brand of declamatory nationalism. He wrote Inat Alem Tenu (or Mother Cour- age, though he borrowed only the title) and Ha Hu be Sidist Wer (ABC in Six Months), which referred to the period of the emperor’s deposition. In 1979 he helped to establish the theatre arts department at Addis Ababa University where he is remembered as being very strict and aloof. In the 1980s he also wrote historical plays about Ethiopian kings, one of which, Tewodros, was performed at the Arts Theatre in London in 1986. In 1993, after Mengistu Hailemariam was in turn deposed, he wrote a companion piece to Ha Hu be Sidist Wer. This was Ha Hu Weynis Pe Pu – A or Z, a play about peace, which the current regime banned.
There are persistent reports that the actors were beaten while on tour. Despite this, “I like to go out and communicate with the common folk of Ethiopia,” Tsegaye wrote in 1999. “The peasant, the patriot, the soldier, the traitor, the housewife, the priest, the sheikh … It is from them that I learn about my country and people. And generally their comments are accompanied by tears; their stories are mostly melancholy; their memories are bitter and tragic. It is that which I reflect in my writings. That is why my plays dwell on tragedy.”
In 1998 he moved to New York to undergo dialysis, virtually unavailable in Ethiopia, and to be near his children. He remained active, promoting Ethiopian culture, until the end. In 2002 the African Union took one of his poems as its anthem. He is survived by his wife Lakech Bitew, three daughters, Yodit, Mahlet and Adey, and three sons, Ayenew, Estifanos and Hailu. Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin, poet and dramatist, born August 17 1936; died February 25 2006
1. The Ethiopian polity was transformed from a one-party state to a multi-party democracy. I am trying to think of one other polity where such a transformation took place with the same party leaders staying on in power. Of course there were severe bumps along the way, and injustices whose pain will linger for a long time.
2. Political elements competitive with the EPRDF regime transformed themselves from a vast number of splinter groups into a system of three major parties. In Adama (Nazret) in 1992 I found two political party offices side by side, both saying they stood for Ethiopian national unity. “Wow! That is great!” I thought. “But why aren’t you two together?” There was no difference at all in what they stood for, the staffers explained–only a clash between the personalities of the party heads. It seemed that those who favored genuine Ethiopian unity could never get united. But now most of them have.
3. Hapte-Selassie Tafesse was offered the site of the Jubilee Palace in which to create a national museum of Ethiopian paintings and other treasures. Same old jovial Haptos. We reconnected joyously after forty-five years. When I mentioned my visit to prisoners at Kaliti, he quipped: “Well, I was in prison for eight years and you didn’t even visit me once!”
4. Much new housing appears to have sprung up in and around Addis Ababa. It gives the impression of a burgeoning if not booming economy, a picture that contrasts with the image of dreary depressed Addis one sometimes gets from abroad. Critics note that the housing was constructed hastily and contains functional flaws.
5. Universities were expanded and plans to erect enlarge the system of higher education to twenty-two universities were announced. The expansions are coming at the expense both of quality of the universities and the health of the secondary school system, and with no resources in sight to move toward realization of the more ambitious plans.
6. In Gawls, Afar region, the skull of a small human ancestor, which could be a missing link between extinct Homo erectus and modern man, was discovered along with several stone tools and fossilized animals. Sileshi Semaw of Indiana University, director of the Gona Paleoanthropo-logical Research Project, reports that the hominid cranium “is very close to the appearance of the anatomically modern human.”
7. The world’s first multi-disciplinary peace center was established in Awassa, offering regular training in aikido, the martial art of peace; workshops in conflict resolution; training in nonviolent communication; and a library of literature in Amharic and English on peace studies. Story to come.
8. Two million Ethiopian infants were added to the population of the poorest country on the planet–thereby guaranteeing continued misery for vast numbers in a largely agricultural economy affected by massive deforestation, soil erosion, erratic rainfall, diminished land per person, and epidemic diseases. As Sahlu Haile, Packard Foundation senior program advisor, wrote in a prize-winning report, population growth will drive Ethiopia’s future: infrastructure and agricultural land cannot support its growing numbers, so huge numbers are trapped in vicious cycles of poverty, disease, and hunger. The government developed a policy to educate girls to avoid early marriage and early childbearing and to support family planning, but inaction, disinterest, and ambivalence of senior officials has stood in the way of implementing it. And United States agencies have been inhibited by rules against the promotion of family planning.
9. Following protracted antagonism, leaders of Government and opposition parties met on October 2, 2005 for a series of talks that could pave the way for elected members of the latter to enter Parliament. They met every day for some five days and were approaching agreement, then the talks broke down.
It’s amazing to think how close they were to a solution that could have averted the November killings and all the subsequent turmoil. Still, it shows the potential for reconciliation and Ethiopia’s resurrection.
There is rumor of mass civil disobedience in Ethiopia. Over the past month, the U.S. Embassy has been reminding and urging Americans in Ethiopia to “avoid demonstrations intended to be peaceful [which] can turn confrontational.†On April 22, Sudan Tribune online published a press release purportedly issued by Tegbar League Addis Ababa announcing the initiation of a “peaceful civil disobedience campaign against the Meles dictatorship.†The campaign is aimed at pressuring the “government to respect the people’s vote and to demand the release of all political prisoners.†According to the press release, the objective of the concerted nonviolent acts of civil disobedience is to “systematically make the country ungovernable and choke the Meles regime by drying up its sources of revenue.â€Â
In a three-part series, we shall attempt to present an overview of the history, practice and philosophy of civil disobedience and nonviolence, and the unique contributions of Henry David Thoreau, Mahatama Ghandi and Martin Luther King to the global nonviolence movement.
Henry David Thoreau
Is there a moral duty for men and women to nonviolently resist oppressive and unjust laws, and the commands and demands of a despotic government? If there is such a duty, what is the best method of resistance? If civil disobedience and nonviolence are morally justified methods of resistance, what are the foreseeable consequences of such resistance for the individual and society?
Henry David Thoreau, the 19th Century American philosopher, was the first modern thinker to systematically consider the moral dimensions of disobeying unjust laws and oppressive civil government. He concluded that nonviolent civil disobedience was justified, because in a democracy government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed and by delegation from free individuals. If government abuses or perverts the will of the people, Thoreau argued, any individual has the moral right, indeed a higher moral duty, to stand apart from the laws of that government and actively and nonviolently resist it.
Thoreau, an ardent abolitionist and pacifist, condemned the practice of slavery in America, and railed against the federal fugitive laws which allowed slave masters to recapture and repossess slaves who had escaped to the free states. He also opposed the westward territorial expansion of the United States and annexation of what is now western United States by President James Polk in the Mexican-American War (1846-48 ) under a general doctrine known as “Manifest Destiny,†which was based on a belief that God had given America a mission to expand its borders from “sea to shining sea.â€Â
In his book, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience(1), Thoreau explained his philosophical justifications for civil disobedience and the moral duty of individuals to engage in it to preserve their individual integrity and advance the common good.
Thoreau had little confidence in elected leaders or governmental institutions. He believed that “government is best which governs least,†but such government he did not find in his day. He acknowledged government was necessary, but only in so far as it is the “mode which the people have chosen to execute their will.†He believed the leaders of his day, entrusted with the people’s will, were “liable to abuse and pervert [that will] before the people can act through it.â€Â
The inevitable “perversion and abuse†of the people’s will presented Thoreau two problematic issues in the functioning of democratic government: 1) the tendency for majority rule to degenerate into tyranny of the majority, and 2) the tendency for citizens in a democracy to abdicate their moral responsibilities in favor of blind obedience to the law. Thoreau questioned: “Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then?â€Â
For Thoreau, men could be distinguished by their demonstrated abilities to act their conscience and convictions. He felt most citizens — out of ignorance, indifference, or cowardice– would rather show blind respect for the law than disobeying it even when they are convinced the law is oppressive and unjust. He believed government had reduced ordinary citizens to “serve not as men, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables.†He felt these citizens had no “moral sense, but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones. Such [men] command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs.â€Â
Thoreau had an equally dim view of the “esteemed good citizens†of society — legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, scholars, businessmen and office-holders — who have compromised their capacity to make moral distinctions and judgment to advance their self-interest and were “as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God.â€Â
Thoreau saw social redemption in a third and much smaller group of citizens — heroes, patriots, martyrs and reformers — whose chief distinction is that they “serve the state with their consciences, and necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.â€Â
In his day, Thoreau saw his civil disobedience as a proper response to the evil institution of slavery and the unjust expansionist war in Mexico. He thought the American government of his day was a “disgrace,†and declared: “I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also.†Thoreau refused to accept a government that kept a sixth of the American population in bondage, yet piously claimed to be the land of liberty. He found it necessary to oppose an unjust war against Mexico resulting in the destruction of indigenous populations in a shameless land grab.
Thoreau demonstrated his civil disobedience by becoming part of the antiwar movement of the day and refusing to pay poll tax which he felt was used to support an unjust war and extend slavery into the western territories, which proved true when Texas became a slave state upon joining the union in 1861.
The greatest source of frustration for Thoreau was the inertness of the thousands of his countrymen who were opposed to slavery and the Mexican War, yet did nothing to put an end to them. Thoreau complained that these citizens will “sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing…. They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man; but it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.â€Â
The impact of Thoreau’s advocacy of civil disobedience has been wide-ranging, inspiring notably Ghandi to mount a passive resistance independence movement in India and Martin Luther King to lead a nonviolent civil rights movement in the in the United States.
If there is a lesson to be drawn from Thoreau’s philosophical discourses, it is that civil disobedience is both an act of uncommon virtue and valor, and an extraordinary act of patriotism by an individual in a given society. As to the “ninety nine patrons,†they have a choice of not acting, and continuing to practice their well-worn virtues: ignorance in the face of manifest injustice, indifference in the face of suffering, deprivation and oppression, and cowardice in the reflective mirror of their own conscience.
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Al Mariam, Ph.D., J.D. (Esq.) is professor of political science and a defense attorney in California : [email protected]
Given the image that major western leaders, financial institutions and NGO communities have had of Meles Zenawi as a progressive leader, and given the massive moral, financial and military support he has received from donor nations over the past fifteen years, the measures actively undertaken taken against him by the Ethiopian Diaspora-–staging demonstrations, writing letters and articles, organizing candlelight vigils, engaging in lobbying activities as well as waging this war on the diplomatic front – are indispensable tools and forces towards achieving the intended goals: public awareness, helping to show the ugly face of the repressive regime of Meles Zenawi to western governments and the international community at large. While completely believing that the progression of current engagements of the Ethiopian Diaspora are a crucial element of our broader resistance to help free our people from prolonged economic poverty, political repression by successive regimes and uninterrupted, multiple tragedies, it is also vitally important to realize that the challenges to our struggle are many and complex, and the path we must travel may be painfully long and hard. The disappointments and frustrations experienced and expressed by some compatriots in articles recently posted on various pro-democracy websites in connection with the persistent refusal of the US administration to stop supporting, financing and protecting the enemy of both Ethiopia and its people are therefore unfortunate and untimely. This is especially true given the historical record of the United States itself as the most violent nation on the globe, and given its historical record – which continues into the present – of supporting, financing and working hand in glove with unelected and undemocratic leaders, including both civil and military regimes and world dictators, as part of its own geo-political and military strategies and economic interests. This will be clearly shown in the following pages: [… read more]
March 10 Frezer has been released today after languishing in jail for 41 days!
March 8
A judge ordered yesterday that Ethiopian Review correspondent in Addis Ababa Firezer Negash should be released as there is no evidence to keep her in jail, but the lawless regime, as expected, refused to let her go home.
Feb 23
Frezer continues to languish in jail without charges. When she appeared in court last Monday she appeared to be in good spirit. She is accused of terrorism, even though she is 4-month pregnant and has been sick for a few weeks prior to her arrest. We have learned that she was interrogated by Federal Police Commissioner Gebeyehu Workneh last week.
Feb 20
Frezer appeared in court today and sent back to jail without any charge filed against her. The judged asked her to come back next week.
Feb 9
A pregnant reporter has been jailed in Ethiopia for more than two weeks, and Ethiopia’s Information Ministry said on Thursday she had not been legally accredited … Reuters, Feb 9
The propaganda minister is not telling the truth. Frezer is an accredited reporter of Ethiopian Review since May 2005. Even if she is not, does that justify beating and detaining a 3-month pregnant woman in a disease infested jail? As an American -based company licensed to operate in the State of Virginia, Ethiopian Review is consulting with lawyers to file lawsuit in Virginia against Meles Zenawi, Federal Police Commissioner Workneh Gebeyehu and others for violating the civil rights of its employee, Frezer Negash. Frezer has been illegally detained for the past 14 days.
Feb 7
The International Women’s Media Foundation has expressed alarm regarding the detainment without charge of an Ethiopian journalist Frezer Negash … IWMF Feb 7
Frezer went to court today, but was told to return to her prison cell after the police told the judge that they don’t have enough evidence to charge her yet.
Feb 2
Frezer had to be hospitalized after being beaten up by the Federal Police when she was arrested last Friday. She is in good spirit today, but bitter about the way she is being treated.
Jan 31
Ethiopian reporter Frezer Negash had become the latest journalist in that country to be arrested… AP/CNN Jan 31
Jan 30
The Committee to Protect Journaliss writes on behalf of Frezer
… CPJ Jan 30
Jan 30
Firezer Negash appeared in court today and was told to come back in 14 days so that the investigators gather more information. Federal Police investigators ransacked her home, searching every where including under beds. They confiscated a computer, camera, recorder, all documents, and photos. A lawyer who tried to see her in prison was denied access today.
Jan 29
Ethiopian Review reporter in Addis Ababa Frezer (also spelled Firezer) Negash is being detained in Maikelawi police station. She is detained in inhumane condition as tens of thousands of other journalists, students, and opposition partymembers. Frezer is three-month pregnant and have been sick for the past few weeks. We are deeply worried for her safety knowing the brutal treatment she may be facing in the hands of the Federal Police.
