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By Tesfaye Demmellash
November 28, 2018
In a recent writing, Professor Messay Kebede suggested that "Abiymania" poses a danger in that "politics mixes with religion", which has the effect of "obstructing critical thinking. ". In the same spirit, Ato Yared Tibebu deplored the replacement by the current "Messianism" of Ethiopia of the active participation of Ethiopian citizens and intellectuals in the determination of the destiny of their country and the training of the people of Ethiopia. a democratic government.
Such lamentations can not be entirely ignored. A number of the nation's mihurans, not just ordinary citizens, quickly adopted Prime Minister Abiy as a "God-sent" response to our national problems. Among them, Professor Mesfin Woldemariam was the most remarkable. But the prophetic luster with which Abiy broke out on the Ethiopian political scene several months ago has been worn over time, even though the prime minister still enjoys popularity.
Over time, Abiy's messianic brilliance felt that he was mainly due to his inaction or lack of initiative regarding the transformation of the political order in Ethiopia, as well as his so-called constitution. In its conception and in its spirit as well as in its promulgation, the so-called constitution has always remained opposed to the solidarity and integrity of Ethiopia, even if it continues to give an appearance of legitimacy to the ethnic-based political order that today presides over Prime Minister Abiy. To be a truly transformational leader, Abiy must be willing and able to support his seductive rhetoric and personal political initiatives with a comprehensive political and structural change.
It must be admitted that anti-corruption measures targeting senior civilian and military officials are not surprising. They are welcome. But these reorganizations and purges in the existing ethnocentric political system are not enough. In themselves, they do not constitute the establishment of the rule of law instead of party domination, in this case the ERDF. The long-suffering Ethiopian people are waiting and deserving of a more fundamental systemic change – a change in the underlying ideas, principles, institutions and practices of government and politics.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Abiy, the Woyan partisan-tribal dictatorship may be under way, even in retreat, but the resilience of Ethiopia as an integral nation-state is again being challenged by the reformist party of the prime minister, yet based on the FDRPE. ethnocentric reign. The challenge is nothing less than the continuity and renewal of the country in the face of the current crisis of relations between the national entity and its parties, the political center of the country and its regional and local borders.
In this regard, we must clearly explain how the leadership of Abiy poses a challenge to the Ethiopian political transformation project. As Messay Kebede and Yared Tibebu, among others, have suggested, the phenomenon of "Abiymania," especially the belief or the feeling of being sent by God, has had the effect of making obstacle to a frank and rational control of his emerging reign in some circles of the nation's mihuran. The phenomenon has led some learned-clbad members, at home and abroad, to shirk their intellectual responsibility to provide the Ethiopian people with a critical badysis and understanding of the problems and opportunities for systemic political change in the world. country today. Indeed, there is a subject of concern here.
But what is at stake with Abiymania, in my opinion, is not so much its badociation with religion or "messianic" leadership as such. Ethiopian religious traditions can be moral and cultural resources in the current struggle for transformation and renewal of the nation. Because they are vital powers and attributes for Ethiopiawinnet, historical and contemporary.
Some of the more important issues here include: Has Abiyian rhetoric appropriated Ethiopian national and religious historical narratives, largely within the existing ethnocentric paradigm of political discourse and practice, thus to this paradigm a new life through "reform" instead of aiming to change it fundamentally? Is the foundation of the political order and transformation in Ethiopia our integral nationality, our shared Ethiopian network, our ethnic identities and their mere mediators?
The question here is why Ethiopiawinnet, a long-standing historical city, should be reduced to a contemporary exercise of tribal arithmetic (addition, no subtraction / separation) or a dubious project of self-determination. until secession. formulated "constitutionally" in Stalinist bad faith.
Abiy talks a lot about the concept of medemer and imposes minimal conceptual requirements or policies of change on ethnic parties such as the TPLF and the OLF. As such, it is difficult to say that the notion is transformative, even ideally or theoretically, much less practice. It has essentially invited tribal and tribal groups as close to come as such and to "add" to other groups like them to form a "new" Ethiopia.
Medemer's slogan is also not in tune with the national narrative understanding of Ethiopian citizens, patriots, intellectuals and political activists who feel and experience Ethiopiawinnet more than just ethnic or local elements. It is true that the reformist wing of the EPRDF, mainly devoted to Oromo, has gained more power and influence than its counterpart Amhara, whose senior leaders remain more or less flexible subordinates of TPLF leaders, rediscovered Ethiopiawinnet. But this "rediscovery" by the Abiy-Lemma group has had the appearance of a game of chance aimed at appeasing the growing patriotic and societal demands for change in the political order expressed in various regions and communities of the country.
Abiy's national "discernment", his "return" to Ethiopia and Ethiopiawinnet, was less related to the transformation of the existing ethnic political order than to the continuity of the ERDF-dominated government system through reforms. and the necessary adaptations. While social resistance has been particularly strong in the regions of Oromo and Amhara, popular demands for change have not been limited to these parts of the country.
Thus, Abiy's leadership was, on the one hand, a way, essentially rhetorical, of revitalizing Ethiopian solidarity and, on the other hand, an opportunity to badert a strident identity politics. opposed to change, especially among some Oromo "elites". The narrow and exclusively partisan ethnicity of the elites, as it is, is often accompanied by a more brutal and murderous tribalism practiced by some individuals and groups belonging to the ethnicity Ordinary Oromo.
The result has been the recurrent persecution of non-Oromo people, especially Amharas, and a social dislocation and considerable human suffering. This must be stopped by all necessary means.
The "return" to Ethiopia: characterization of old progressivism
Noting the longstanding tradition of revolutionary or progressive politics in Ethiopia, the way in which it took shape and became a complete paradigm of thought, discourse and action did not occur. than a historical interest. It is essential to understand our current state as a nation. And to acquire such a consciousness is in turn essential to recognize what we fundamentally want to change and are changing as we struggle for political transformation.
To make the transition, finally, into a post-Stalinist era, particularly post-Woyane, of Ethiopian politics and government, it is important to understand how old progressivism was born from the student movement and by the way sequel dominated Ethiopian politics. for more than half a century. Although the movement itself belongs to history, its fallout, its evil offspring and its residual effects surround us.
In this regard, I am unable to understand Messay Kebede's description of "messianism" to the profession of communist ideology in the past. He states that messianism "inspired" the revolutionaries of the nation "to marry easily Marxism". -Leninism in the hope of leading the Ethiopians to the promised land of socialism and communism … "
Are we told here that an earlier Ethiopian belief or Christian tradition "inspired" Ethiopian revolutionaries to embrace Marxism-Leninism without God, while encouraging them to dismiss or undermine the very tradition that "inspired" them? I did not understand the reasoning, whether it was logical or badog.
In my opinion, it can hardly be said that the dominant "radical" iteration of Marxism-Leninism in Ethiopia, in whose formulation Walelign Mekonnen and his left-wing ulcer played a fundamental destructive role, was messianic. national salute. For this politically nihilist group, whose thinking, as it was, eventually dominated the student movement, there was no "true" Ethiopian nation to save; The Ethiopian nation was an unreal, non-existent reality, a mere "myth". To the extent that Ethiopia was supposed to exist, it was described only as "a prison of the nations".
As a result, Ethiopian intellectuals and "radical" intellectuals he embraced tend to be impersonal and nationally perverse Leninism-Stalinism. At most radically "progressive", the ideology was simply rejected as "false" Ethiopian historical and Ethiopiawinnet nationality, including our spiritual sensitivity and our religious traditions.
And he approached socialism not in terms of messianic "promised land", as Messay baderts, but as "scientific" certainty, the inevitable result of "clbad struggle" and historical development. Where is the figure or messianic substance of Marxism-Leninism's wife in the context of our revolutionary experience, which goes back to the student movement?
The mode in which our abyotegnoch has embraced "scientific socialism" can be described as "religious", but only in a thoughtless, hyper-partisan, cult way. I myself argued in this sense in a small newspaper article that I wrote in the 1980s ("On Marxism and Ethiopian Student Radicalism in North America," Monthly Review, vol. 35, No. 9, February 1984), of which Messay was kind enough to quote at length the writing of one of his books.
I then suggested that this generation of Ethiopian activists, at home and abroad, tended to emphasize the impersonal doctrinal formula and literal reading of the writings of Marx, Lenin, and Mao as sacred texts. I argued that this involved a rote learning of Marxist-Leninist texts through the application of a ritual scriptural interpretation to texts. However, and this is indeed the case, such spiritually arid cultivated adherence to pseudo-scientific socialism can hardly be described as messianic, either in form or content, or specifically in the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian tradition. Far from there.
The paradox Abiy
PM Abiy's leadership is marked by a network of paradoxes. Military officer of training and experience, he preaches peace and love, telling us that the use of arms to solve social and political problems is absolutely "old fashioned", a mark of "delay".
The Prime Minister has given Ethiopia and Ethiopiawinnet a prominent place in his speeches, but, through his activities and overseas overtures, he has addressed regional and global issues in a way that seems we avoid drawing attention to Ethiopian national priorities. In this time of crisis where the loss of a sense of national belonging among Ethiopians is acute, when we feel that our beloved country is no longer safe, Abiy seems to add to our discomfort and our uncertainty through its distracting regional and global openings. .
The Prime Minister enjoys great trans-ethnic popularity among the Ethiopian people as an agent of peaceful change similar to a messiah. Yet, paradoxically, he remains a major figure (now in the highest rank) within EPRDF's ethnocentric politico-bureaucratic status quo, which arouses strong discontent among patriotic and unity-minded Ethiopians.
The post of Prime Minister Abiy is also enigmatic in another way, related. This involves potentially secessionist partisan and militant militarist groups, as well as "activists" at home and abroad, whose recurring narratives of victimization and partisan political significance are borderless. These groups include old and tired "liberation fronts" that remain stuck in the Stalinist past after all these decades. They all found a new lease of life under the leadership of the Prime Minister. For such outfits, some of which carry weapons, Abyem's slogan, Medemer, his call for love, peace and reconciliation, has negligible superficial resonance.
Indeed, by clinging to their separatist agenda, these chronically modest party groups refute Abiy's rhetoric about Ethiopian national solidarity and integrity. Their irrational, cheeky, petty nationalistic and tribal statements and activities are often breathtaking, so brutal and so contrary to Abiy's ideal statements and exhortations!
Giving help and comfort to these groups, as the Abiy regime did, is all the more puzzling: for the political projects pursued by such narrow sectarian groups, they tend to be in contradiction with the broader and converging interests of distinct Ethiopian cultural and local communities. pretend to "represent", and exclusively to that.
More generally, opposition groups opposed the one-party dictatorship of the ERDF on legitimate and non-separatist issues of identity and locality (for example, those of the Amhar Welkait and Raya) are gaining importance, so much so that the political parties of the Ethiopian unit are not. And, in the future, these regional resistance forces are likely to grow and attack more and more of the TPLF's party-predatory regime, or what is left of it.
As a nation, we are attracted to the personal leadership of Abiy, an individual leader with an uncertain messianic character who would make a change that we can believe in and support. However, we are aware and concerned about the persistent political and ideological links of the leader through the EPRDF with the TPLF cabal both hated and opposed to change. These connections are still fundamentally in place, despite the reshuffling and withdrawal of senior civilian and military personnel.
The current state of politics and government in Ethiopia raises several urgent issues that deserve to be asked critically and for which answers must be sought. Here are some examples: how do the Ethiopian patriotic and pro-unitary forces help the Prime Minister to unravel the network of political paradoxes in which he finds himself entangled?
Medemer, a notion that means little more than the additive sum of disparate partisan and ethnic groups, including the TPLF and the OLF, does it equate to the Ethiopian unity? Does this help to provoke a post-Stalinist political transformation in the country or does it really prevent such a systemic change? What is the Ethiopian beyond the aggregation of ethnic identities or regions? To ask the same question differently, what is the national value that ethnicity derives from a commonly shared post-communist Ethiopian network, which avoids the insignificant and unfathomable reference to the "rights of nations, nationalities and peoples"? to self-determination up to including secession "?
Moreover, in the struggle for change led by contemporary post-Stalinist Ethiopia, could the regions and localities of the nation be reconstituted other than by tribes, by replacing kilos of "peoples" and "nationalities" manufactured by the TPLF-EPRDF according to the Stalinist formula? Can they act in concert to rebuild the torn Ethiopian national center, while ensuring real and truly operational autonomy at the regional and local levels in a way and to a degree that they could not during the "revolutionary" eras of Derg and Woyane?
Transition to a "post-revolutionary" and democratic political order
The Ethiopian national conscience has returned home and abroad in recent months, coinciding with the rise to power of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. At a time when the country was facing an acute existential crisis, the Prime Minister captured the popular imagination of the country largely through his attractive speech on national unity. His enlightening speeches identified with the revitalization of Ethiopian solidarity, in stark contrast to the debilitating national tribal language of division and discord with greedy and corrupt TPLF leaders and pirates.
Are we entering or going into a new post-Woyan era with the emerging reign of "Nigus" Abiy? Does the Prime Minister's leadership represent a movement for a truly operational post-ethnic democracy in Ethiopia that leaves behind the scourge of tribal "revolutionary democracy"? Is a systemic political transformation happening in our country? Is it reasonable hope or just wishful thinking?
As captivating as it may be, PM Abiy's Ethiopian nationalist badertion can not be described as unequivocal post-tribal in the sense that it transcends the TPLF / EPRDF-inspired ethos of ethnocentric politics by which they have been named. "Nations, Nationalities and Peoples" ritual primacy over Ethiopian unity for nearly three decades.
Abiy's identity politics is certainly softer and more "liberal" with Ethiopiawinnet compared to the calcified, unenlightened and insular political ethnicism that the TPLF and OLF have tended to practice. These "liberation fronts" have been so closely tied to the politics of ethnicity that they are determined to try to achieve the unlikely limit to the impossible. Namely to belong to other polarities in otherness or polarity opposite the Ethiopian nationality, seeking to achieve what they claim to be national self-determination "outside" and often against Ethiopiawinnet.
During this delusional attempt, the TPLF and the OLF undermine the very socio-historical terrain on which they stand; they alienate politically from the national reality that they would change. It is safe to say that Prime Minister Abiy has moved away from these self-destructive sectarian policies of tribal insularity. This is evident in his publicly expressed opinions, positions, and reform arguments.
Yet, apart from statements and declaratory positions in favor of reform, as the EPRDF's top leader, the ruling party in which he was politically socialized and came to power to become prime minister, Abiy must mainly follow the path of the party's ethnocentric regime. . The current system of government can allow it to carry out all the discursive and rhetorical activity that it desires, but it must not attempt to transform the values, institutions, policies and practices that make up the system.
Even by undertaking a reform of the existing political order, it must work primarily within it. Abiy is very different, as prime minister, from his predecessor, Hailemariam Desalegn, in that he has created a political center of gravity around his person. Still, he's not quite his own man. In appearance, his power and reformist orientation may seem to come from his charismatic leadership; but they stem mainly from deeper ideological and political sources of the ethnocentric party-state apparatus EPRDF.
How then will the Ethiopian patriotic and pro-unitary forces evolve on the unknown terrain of the transition to systemic political change? To do this, that is to say with the help of Prime Minister Abiy if possible, or without his help if necessary? This is an issue that Weddad Mihuran (enlightened patriots) in particular must address with concern for settling ideological and political accounts with our troubled "progressive" past, whose influence is still being felt today. The question should be asked with an eye on the convergence of ideas, rhetoric, political strategy and practical struggle.
To give us a chance to formulate an alternative, more civil and democratic political order in Ethiopia, it is necessary, on the one hand, to subject the existing ethnocentric order to systematic and critical control and, on the other hand, to act proactively in the field of ideas as well as in the more practical areas of cultural, rhetoric and tactical struggle using various media.
By giving rise to politico-ideological categories such as "nations", "peoples", "self-determination", "federalism", "democracy" and "development", the ethnocentric domination system over which the ERDF presides essentially does so: codes particular Stalinist authoritarian. As we all know, the content or function of these categories usually hides their nominal or literal meaning. They are unreal, simple pretexts or perverse. Thus, in the Woyane era, political constructions, "parliament" and "constitution," for example, were coded to function exclusively in a particular authoritarian system in order to serve a particular project of tribal-partisan dominance, nor more nor less.
In the movement for systemic change, such concepts need to be challenged at the conceptual and discursive levels and re-articulated in a truly functioning, alternative framework of democratic institutions and practices.
We should first reach an ideological and normative clarity about the system of domination that the Ethiopian people need to make the transition. We must then work to transform the system into something qualitatively different and better, into a freer, more transparent and more democratically responsible political order, in line with Ethiopian national solidarity.
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