By Alethia
This article attempts to trace the origin of some of the values and principles the current Ethiopian government holds and compares the origin of such values and principles with that of the leadership of the leading opposition party in current Ethiopian political context, wherever that leadership is, both in jail and otherwise. Though very brief, in the present article, I want to diagnose and bring out, at least, some of the possible root causes that plague the current political leadership in Ethiopia.
I believe dealing with the root causes of any problem has more lasting values, and, on the other hand, if we continue to treat the symptoms while failing to diagnose and treat the ultimate sources of the ills that have befallen us as a nation, it’s obvious that whatever solutions that we come up with are not going to be lasting solutions. Part I focuses on the values and principles of the current Ethiopian government. Part II will look at the values and principles that shape the visions of the leading opposition party in current Ethiopia. Part III will examine values that we seem to have lost (or, we never or barely had) and proposes a solution for our societal ills that plague us as a nation.
The present article has some audacity to it and it’s intentional. What I mean by that is that it calls fellow Ethiopians to face our own current political ills as a society and as a nation collectively, even beginning with a confession by ourselves that much of the ills that permeate the leadership of the current government in Ethiopia could be traced back to the values and principles that originate in us as a society; both the current government and Ethiopia as a nation, share some degree of blame for what is happening and what we’re going through. What I mean to share here, I believe, is some truth about us, Ethiopians and the current Ethiopian government, which is stranger than fiction.
That is true at times and what I’m sharing with you, my readers, confirms the truth of what I’m arguing about here in a strange way, at least for some of us. Now I want us to bear in mind the following points: When I refer to the current Ethiopian government I mean the government in power in exactly the way it is . When I refer to the leading opposition party leadership I mean those who are in prison, and wherever, who are part of the leading opposition party in Ethiopia today. When I refer to the government with a pronoun “it†I mean to speak of the institution that symbolizes and exemplifies the values and visions and principles of the individuals that constitute the current Ethiopian government and hence my usage of “itâ€Â.
Now, given the historical origin of the current Ethiopian government, in virtue of what are we seeking and hoping that such a government would think and act in such radically, diametrically opposite ways, with diametrically opposite principles and values and vision? Are we, Ethiopians, being realistic to think and hope and believe that such a government would start thinking and acting in such a way that all the values and principles which constitute its true nature, its identity, would disappear overnight in the face of the heroic protestations of the nation, the Ethiopian society at the present moment in history? I hope the preceding questions are sufficient for us to reflect on what I mean to share with fellow Ethiopians, including the current government and its opposition party leaders, wherever they are.
Here’s what I thought and believed way before the historic May 2005 election and in those tragic days that followed it, the tragedy being the loss of too many human lives and the fact that all of those in the leadership of the leading opposition party have been deprived of their rights as human beings to express their political disagreement and suffer so much injustice. Given the deeply ingrained values and principles that the current Ethiopian government embodies over the years (mind you that such values and principles have been partly inherited from the previous generation of leaders and also in the current government’s struggle to take power from the leadership of its immediate predecessor), I did not think for a moment that the current government would concede defeat in the May 2005 election and smoothly hand power over to its opposition party leadership. I was not being pessimistic then and even now I’ve not changed my mind about what is happening and will continue to happen in Ethiopia unless some radical though gradual change of leadership takes place. Part II will explore that aspect of radical and gradual change in the right and desirable direction.
Given all that has gone into the making of the current government’s historically shaped identity and also given our knowledge of how values and principles that we embody shape our thoughts, decisions, and actions, I did not have any good reason to believe (ca May 2005) that Ethiopia was at a stage to experience the ideally desired and desirable changes in the political leadership of our nation. I admit this is somehow depressing as a reality to take and swallow but then it’s a reality we’ve faced and we’re facing and we’ve got to admit it. Reality bites, as they say, and it’s for our own good in the long run that it’s good for us to realize why we’re suffering what at the moment and how we can overcome the morass and the nightmare that the current Ethiopian government and its political leadership has been exemplifying before our own eyes.
Here’s a little argument that will help us capture what I’m arguing about:
* All human beings hold values and principles that shape their decisions and actions.
* The Ethiopian government is made up of individual human beings.
* Therefore, the Ethiopian government holds values and principles that shape its decisions and actions.
Now in order for our little argument’s conclusion– (3) above– to be true both our argument should be valid, which it is, and its premises must be true. Premise (1) seems to be true. One can take issues with premise (1) but then I do not see how the truth of premise (1) could be disputed in a plausible way for it’s obvious that all human beings value one thing over the other (hence they hold values in even multiple forms) and their decisions and actions, under normal circumstances, reflect the values they hold. Even if our values do not consistently determine our decisions and actions in an explicit way they do largely shape them. It’s difficult to dispute the truth of premise (1) in that sense.
Premise (2) simply says that the current Ethiopian government, obviously, is made up of individual human beings, and hence is a particular example of the universal statement that premise (1) states, and, therefore, it’s true, because it’s entailed by premise (1). For premise (2) to be false, the only possible way is if the current Ethiopian government does not consist of human beings, which is simply false. Therefore, our conclusion (3) above is true and it follows from the two premises (1) & (2), which are true, respectively.
Now, let’s take concrete examples of what kind of values and principles the current Ethiopian government holds to bring out the fact what this little argument means to show us.
Here are some examples that the current government values and exemplifies:
1. Ruling a nation with an absolute power of gun is acceptable and even desirable in the face of any opposition;
2. Killing, intimidation, and terror of even innocent lives is acceptable, desirable, and expedient in the face of opposition;
3. Fabricating lies, perverting justice, and taking the rule of law into one’s hand is a desirable and acceptable and expedient thing to do in the face of opposition;
4. The value of human life, in the face of challenges to one’s political power, is inferior to one’s long-term political goal, whatever that is; human beings could serve as means to achieve an end which is not necessarily human flourishing;
5. Opportunities like being in political power, with all its accompanying glories, come only once, and, therefore, whatever it takes, it’s a good and even desirable thing to maintain one’s grip in power;
6. There is superiority among humans based on one’s ethnic origin and the best way to demonstrate such superiority is by way of systematic, ethnically based politics that decimates the nation and thereby proves the superiority of one ethnic group;
7. Arrogance, pride, stubbornness, overconfidence in one’s native power are “virtues†that must be demonstrated in the face of all who challenge and oppose.
These are examples of concrete values that shape the decisions and actions of the current Ethiopian government and it’s very difficult to doubt that the above (1)-(7) are examples of values that define the true identity of the current Ethiopian government. Mind you, these examples are some of the core values in action that we, along with the whole world, consistently observe and you can add others to the list to have a clear picture of what moves such a government to action that is tragically shaping the history and destiny of Ethiopia as a nation if such a government is left to its own devious devices.
Truth is stranger than fiction. Now, where do such values, that the current Ethiopian government exemplifies, come from? I believe part of an answer to this question could be found in what I’ve meant above when I said, “…much of the ills that permeate the leadership of the current government in Ethiopia could be traced back to the values and principles that originate in us as a society; both the current government, and Ethiopia as a nation, share some degree of blame for what is happening and what we’re going throughâ€Â. I believe such a thought seems to be too harsh to even be considered true for, perhaps, most of my fellow Ethiopians. Some might ask, are you saying that the Ethiopian people are to blame for what the current Ethiopian government is doing? Are you trying to defend the legitimacy of the present government in power by any means? Absolutely not! Are you trying to explain away the reality of all the evil that our government has brought about upon the people of Ethiopia? Absolutely not! What are you after then? Good and pointed questions. I agree.
I’ve said above that this article is an attempt, no matter how fallible, at a possible diagnosis of the root causes of our current political crisis especially as exemplified in the way the current Ethiopian government rules the country. Now I propose the following as a possible, even as a plausible, solution for the ills that have befallen our nation: Ethiopia as a nation and the course of its history and its destiny will take a desirable and positive direction only if those in the leadership will start to replace those values that have defined them as leaders and have been driving them into all tragic decisions and actions by some radically opposing, intrinsically good, and desirable values that are conducive for the development and flourishing of any society, including the Ethiopian society.
Now proposing such an idea is easier than showing how that can be accomplished. I’ll say more about that in another article, Part III, but for now, in the meantime, here’s something to think about: any country’s leaders, be in politics or otherwise, largely acquire the values that shape them for good or for bad as leaders from the society that they originate and eventually belong to and even rule over. Most of the values that we observe in the current Ethiopian government have their origins (as it was the case in the lives and actions of our past leaders too) in the society that they come from. Mind you that these leaders are, given a chance as they have been, some of us in the worst shape or form possible. Truth is stranger than fiction, indeed.
We, Ethiopians, as a society, I’ll argue in Part III, have lost virtues/ values that shape the characters of our leaders in a desirable way for many years. We claim to be a very religious society with profoundly religious and moral values that could have shaped Ethiopian history in a much desirable direction for centuries but then we’ve been what we claimed to be who we are largely in name, i.e., nominally. We, as a society, are paying a heavy price today because we’ve failed to live up to what we claim to be what defines us as a society and as a nation. Sounds judgmental, right? Part III will be an attempt to bring out what is not self-evidently true about what I’m after at the moment.
Let’s return to our true identity if we had one before or embrace a desirable identity that shapes our society and its leaders in such a way that we shall prevail. My next article will look at the values and principles of the opposition political party and its leadership. The third article, as I said, will look deeper into the values that define us as a nation and a society and how our destiny and that of posterity’s is partly in our hands. 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. Truth is stranger than fiction, indeed.
The writer can be reached for comments at [email protected]