By Teodros Kiros
Jean Jacques Rousseau, the extraordinary political philosopher, famously argued:
Sovereignty is purely and simply the exercise of the general will, and can in no circumstances therefore be alienated. And I affirm further that the sovereign is purely and simply a collective being, and can be represented therefore only by itself… (Social Contract, Ed Willmore Kendall, pp33-34)
Furthermore,
The general will is always well intentioned, i.e., that it always looks to the public good… It often happens that the will of everybody, because it is looking to private interest and is thus merely a sum of particular wills, is something quite different from the general will, which looks exclusively to the common interest. But if you shake out from those particular wills those that are most so and those that are least so, in so far as they destroy each other, the general will is the sum of the remaining differences (pp, 38-39)
When measured by this classical yardstick, the general will of the Ethiopian people, has been alienated, which is a violation of the indivisibility of the general as the exercise of the will of the people, and flagrant denial of the use of their public reason.
Eskinder Nega writes in the letter to the prime minister,
With the attainment of status and privilege dominating the thoughts of your subordinates, here is what you are hearing from them: a grateful populace enthralled by fast economic growth; political stability; a happy, hopeful youth; and content farmers. In other words, a nation on the verge of take-off, boldly united under Meles’ indispensable leadership.
Here is the gist of this letter, the real message from the grassroots: a nation outraged by high soaring inflation; a public scandalized by unprecedented corruption; rampant unemployment; political oppression; chronic shortage of land in rural areas. In sum, the nation is desperate for change.
You have essentially wasted the two decades with which you were blessed to affect change. In place of pragmatism dogma has prevailed, in place of transparency secrecy has taken root, in place of democracy oppression has intensified, and in place of merit patronage has been rewarded.
Ato Meles Zenawi: the people want—no, need—you to leave office. The people are closely watching events in North Africa as I write this letter. They are debating the implications for Africa, including Ethiopia. And they have been inspired by the heroism of ordinary Libyans. (Abudgida, March 4,2011)
For the past twenty years, and many years before that the right of the Ethiopian people to formulate their own wills have been systematically closed. Many decisions have been taken without their participation. Their voices have been silenced. Policies have been passed without their input.
That is why they are now silently observing the results of the revolutions in the Arab World, before they decide to take their cases to the ruling regimes doors and ask for a conversation at Meskel Square peacefully-as the fora in which they are going to demand for a regime change, as an exercise of sovereignty, the voice of public reason.