In this third millennium Ethiopia needs and deserves to create a nation-wide broad and deep democratic movement for making sure that all the forces that wish to enter into politics and seek power abide by these two principles of demilitarising or’ deviolencising’ politics to couple political transitions with political transformations, balance democratic freedoms with rules, norms, institutions, shared values, procedures and the social order, and try to manage the intricate and complex transactions that will ensue once the rules of the game have been laid down and all the relevant agents are willing to undertake an evolutionary democratic transformative practice based on a shared understanding of supporting the duly and legitimately elected representatives whilst peacefully disagreeing and positioning themselves to win elections and implement the policies and programmes they wish to see.
The necessary condition (though not sufficient!) is to deepen and broaden a nation-wide democratic movement by the pursuit of the democratisations of politics and public life at all levels. Getting the ruling parties, various oppositions and alienated parties and fronts to work together for creating and sustaining a democratic state, economy and society in Ethiopia by following these two principles of elected majority rule and the right of the minority to dissent with peaceful and non-violent methods- should be in the interest of all concerned, and ideally should be the urgent demand of the current array of protagonists and antagonists filling the Ethiopian political landscape often with diverse and at times hostile propaganda and even drawing arms often against each other.
Indeed no greater challenge confronts Ethiopia than turning our politics from its brutal, trust deficit and violent mode of existence to a civilised and peaceful mode of existence where armed violence, visceral mistrust and deception have no place, and where open debate, learning by engaging in productive controversy in a cordial atmosphere has everything to play for.
In this millennium nothing assures the survival of Ethiopia more than the creation and embedding of this democratic culture as a way of life to undertake, deal with and respond to as the case may be with all the major issues confronting Ethiopia.
Those who harm the crystallisation of a democratic situation are indeed playing with the very life of Ethiopia. Democracy is not easy and it is often messy and not so straight forward to manage, but it is better to be governed by those persons elected by the people however disagreeable one may find them than by those who come through their command of the military means of death and threats to kill and who very often end up corrupt and self-seeking and unwilling to change, often by relying more on a patron-
clientele connection system based on loyalty to them and their longevity than service to people, nation and country. In Ethiopia it is even more worrying as the patron- clientele connection is contaminated with ethnic selection that has infuriated those who are not selected whilst making those selected to fear that they may be attacked if through fair democratic election the majorities that come decide to redress any ethnic bias and injustice… continued on next page