Ethiopia: National Affirmation and Renewal through Resistance

June 1, 2013

Newly emerging fronts and movements, namely, the Oromo
Democratic Front (ODF) and the Tigray People’s Democratic Movement (TPDM) as
well as longer established parties and coalitions wage struggle against the
Woyane regime in various ethnocentric and partisan ways. The real challenge for
opposition forces in the country, however, is to affirm a common Ethiopian
nationality in a broader, more integrated and effective resistance against the
regime. Meeting this challenge is a strategic necessity as well as a matter of
principle in the resistance. And the nation’s dissident literati and political
groups need to confront it squarely.

But these are trying times for the renewal of Ethiopian
national solidarity. We seek unity in opposition to TPLF dictatorship in a
political and cultural environment whose dominant feature is ethnic, sectarian,
and religious division, the biggest divider being the Woyane regime itself. In
striving for national wholeness in the struggle, we run up against a tide of
partisan and tribal fractionation. Hindrances to Ethiopian unity permeate the
nation’s entire body politic, including opposition groups and coalitions at
home and in the Diaspora as well as the TPLF-EPRDF state itself.

In the face of this daunting reality, the Ethiopian
intelligentsia is oddly reserved. Hardly bold and assertive in opposition to
the forces of division and dictatorship, we have in general been politically recessive
and quiet. Indeed, we are immobilized by acquiescence and submission born
largely of what I would call progressive correctness and related national
self-doubt, both legacies of our troubled revolutionary experience going back
to the Student Movement.

Consequently, it is worthwhile to consider problems of
national affirmation in Ethiopia today as they relate to the intelligentsia and
to opposition groups. The issues involved here are vast and complex and I can
only touch on some of them here.  As I
see it, we can hardly begin to develop our struggle against Woyane domination
unless we overcome the staggering deficit of national solidarity we face today
as Ethiopians. Before we can effectively refuse to be divided and dominated by
the Woyanes, before we can say no to
their colonially inspired divide-and-rule, we should affirm, say yes to, our common Ethiopian nationality.

National Affirmation and the Intelligentsia

The general disengagement from Ethiopian national
affairs, intellectual as well as political, that has afflicted the nation’s
educated strata in the post-revolutionary period is difficult to explain. The
apathy of the revolutionary generation in particular is all the more baffling
since that generation played a major part, either by design or unwittingly, in
the massive national dislocation and loss we suffered in the course of the
Revolution and in its wake. I had hoped that we will atone for the political
sins we committed against our own country, for our disastrous mistakes and
excesses, by reflecting candidly and critically on what we have done, asking
questions like: Where did we go wrong? What can we do today to help our
battered and bruised country heal and renew itself? I still believe such an
undertaking would help us embark on a new course of national affirmation and
healing.

In trying to explain why members of the revolutionary
generation have generally not stepped out to engage publicly in soul-searching
retrospection, Dr. Assefa Negash notes that “the huge sacrifice and pain of
exile and destabilization that followed in [the Revolution’s]…wake, coupled
with the stressful life in the Diasporic space…have prevented the emergence of
critical thinkers.” This is a point well taken. Still, couldn’t experiences of
dislocation, loss, and exile also motivate Ethiopian intellectuals, writers,
artists, and spiritual figures to produce questioning, reflective, and creative
works? Hasn’t national suffering in fact been a spur to literary,
philosophical, and political expression elsewhere? What happened in our case?
The Ethiopian people deserve answers.

In further explaining the inability or disinclination of our
literati to vigorously affirm themselves nationally, Dr. Assefa, along with
Professor Messay Kebede, observes the radicalization and cultural uprooting
that followed the advent of Western education in Ethiopia beginning in the
early 1900s. There is indeed a connection between the two developments, but the
link is not so simple or necessarily causal. Whatever limited influence
emergent Ethiopian intelligentsia experienced through Western or colonial
education need not have resulted in the kind of nationally rootless and mindless
left-wing extremism that came to dominate the learning and learned classes in
the country through the Student Movement in the 1960s and ‘70s.

I say this from a comparative perspective, looking at the
experiences of intellectual and political elites in other historic non-Western
countries. Japan and China readily come to mind. The literati in these
countries have also been exposed to the formative influences of Western
education and ideas, including Marxism-Leninism in the case of China. But they
accepted the influences without undergoing the kind of wholesale, nihilistic
cultural and national self-denial or self-negation of Ethiopian
revolutionaries.

So we can say that it was not Western modernity or
education as such that explains the relative incapacity of Ethiopian “progressive”
intelligentsia for national affirmation, even under revolutionary conditions.
The explanation lies instead in the deeply flawed, historically artless, abstract
form in which our educated strata have tried to receive, reconstitute, and
enact Western ideas, including Marxism. Rather than blaming the intervention of
foreign influences for our national troubles in the pre-revolutionary and
post-revolutionary eras, I would argue that Ethiopian intellectual and political
elites failed the nation in the way they
accepted and embraced the influences.

Now, putting these issues aside, let us consider the
matter of national affirmation as it relates to the task of forward-looking,
patriotic intellectuals in the resistance against Woyane tyranny today. What is
the underlying challenge here?

In the broad sense, we affirm our common nationality in
various overlapping ways, ranging from the historical through the cultural and
intellectual, to the political and the psychological. National affirmation
involves a level of consciousness that is felt and experienced. Its significance
lies not in conceptual thought, but in the immediacy of sentiments and the
clarity of symbols, images and cultural forms and values. It speaks to us powerfully
without using so many words.

 At play here are
historical events, facts, myths and narratives, in short, collective memory
handed down from generation to generation. These elements constitute themselves
and rise up as active national spirit, especially when attacked and oppressed
by a hostile foreign or internal power. The Woyanes now sit precariously atop simmering
Ethiopian national consciousness which they can’t entirely and indefinitely suppress.
In fact, they are pushing it to the boiling point. The nationality we
experience and affirm today in this historical sense is not any less meaningful
than, or necessarily in conflict with, the nationalism we embrace as a set of modern
political ideas, like democracy and self-determination.

However, the fundamental challenge concerned Ethiopian
intelligentsia face today in helping patriotic and progressive forces overcome
deficits of national unity in the resistance against Woyane dictatorship is the
polarization of these distinct forms of national affirmation or orientation.
Since the days of the Student Movement, nationalism as a political ideal, as a
conception of modern (more often, pseudo-modern) ideas has tended to operate outside and against our national spirit, our deeply felt and experienced sense
of ourselves as Ethiopians. Contemporary ideology has been out of gear with
historic tradition. Woyane tribal domination of Ethiopian affairs today starkly
embodies this polarization and conflict of nationalisms in the country.

Recognizing the underlying contradiction is a necessary
step in resolving it and affirming Ethiopian solidarity anew in the struggle
against TPLF dictatorship. Concerned Ethiopian intellectuals can help
opposition forces develop ideas, plans, and strategies for reaching or
preparing broad, informed, trans-ethnic constituencies across the traditional-modern
national divide. In so doing, the intelligentsia also generally assists in
advancing the resistance beyond the limits of our ordinary experience of
opposition.

That experience is dominated by the immediately political
and the psychological. We commonly rail against this or that action of the hated
Woyane regime, often in a defensive patriotic mode, using mainly polemical and
tactical means and with understandable resentment. Under these circumstances,
little reflective and strategic attention is paid to broad national solidarity
in the struggle. The opposition to Woyane tribal tyranny gets neither the
benefit of motive force through sensuous, historically rooted Ethiopian experience
of patriotic resistance nor the critical understanding of vital issues through
progressive conceptual thought. The opposition thereby not only becomes
incapable of sustained intellectual engagement, but also loses common political
sense and effectiveness.

It is not that we should be without feelings of rage and
resentment toward Woyane colonial-like dictatorial rule. It is rather that, while
we are discharging emotions, we are at the same time not clinging to them to
the point of not being able to think and act wisely in resisting the
dictatorship. The point is not simply to release emotions, but to express them
with lasting strategic and practical effect and to gain motive force from them.
It is to attain superior political mindfulness in part by learning not to
worsen objective problems of opposition through our own responses, through fits
of hatred, anger and anxiety. In the resistance, we can achieve an affirmative
consciousness of our historic national being while at the same time embracing
universal progressive ideas, but only when we go beyond our ordinary, mainly
negative, tactical or immediate experiences of opposition.

Yet, we cannot do this merely intellectually or
politically, just by changing our thinking and our positions on Ethiopian
issues. We cannot simply reason our way out of the crisis we find ourselves in
as a nation. Nor is Ethiopia’s renewal going to be achieved through our sense
of pathos. It will have to be fought for and won with our whole being, with our
hearts and our minds, on a broad range of fronts, fields, and stages. In short,
the mutual exclusions of our conceptual thought, intuition, and feelings as
well as of our fractionated ethnic self-identifications will have to be transcended
within the wholeness of our renewed national affirmation.

Oromo Opposition Groups: In Dire Need of National
Affirmation

In the opposition camp, individuals, groups and parties of
Oromo origin have a decisive role to play in the growth of the Ethiopian
national resistance against Woyane domination, should they choose to be an
integral part of the resistance. Certainly, they are historically in a position
to play such a trans-ethnic national role. The Oromo community is central to
Ethiopian nationhood, not only in terms of its size as one of the two largest
communities in the country, but also in being broadly interspersed with Amharas
and other distinct groups in the country geographically, culturally and socio-economically.

But, as an actual opposition force, the Oromo Liberation
Front (OLF) has clearly performed below its demographic and political potential.
Two basic reasons may be noted quickly for the political underperformance of
the organization, particularly in the broader Ethiopian context. First, it
defined Oromo identity politically bearing Ethiopia extreme resentment and
grudge. In the bitter, resentful and self-righteous revolutionary narrative of
the OLF, Ethiopia, seen as an evil colonial empire, has represented nothing but
a foil to the goodness of Oromo nationalism. Second, the political form and
ideological substance through which the OLF imagined not only Oromo national
liberation but also the very category of “nationality” itself are largely derived
from Leninist-Stalinist authoritarian dogma, first popularized in Ethiopia
through the Student Movement. The front used exclusively partisan “radical,” global
ideological materials as if they were indigenous to Oromo society and culture. 

The radical vocabulary of our revolutionary past dies
hard, even in the face of fatal historical, intellectual and political flaws.
It continues to weigh heavily on the present. A current example of the specter
of the past haunting the present is the “manifesto” of the recently formed ODF.
An offshoot of old OLF, this new political organization brings more promise of
Oromo solidarity with the aspirations of other ethnic groups in the country for
justice, freedom and equality.

But, following in the tradition of the OLF, the ODF
speaks of the Ethiopian polity as such, not just the Woyane regime, as “a
prison of nations” and an “empire,” presumably to be broken up and replaced by
a new “federation” of freed nations. These terms first gained currency within
the Student Movement nearly half a century ago and have been generally used by
revolutionary groups and tribal fronts, including the TPLF and OLF, to deny the
historical reality and validity of the Ethiopian nation-state.

While the ODF may be an improvement on the old OLF in its
potential for solidarity with other opposition groups, it remains an ethnic
political organization which seeks, it says, to consolidate and build on what
the OLF has already achieved.  It wants to
establish its own brand of “ethnic federalism,” essentially a variant of the Woyane
model of authoritarian identity politics and government, not really an
alternative to it. It is doubtful if the ODF even recognizes Ethiopia as
anything other than the mere sum of disparate “peoples” or “nationalities.” This
has to be clearly understood and reckoned with by patriotic and progressive opposition
parties that are encouraged by the emergence of the ODF and want to do
political business with it.  

Oromos may have suffered injustice and repression under
various Ethiopian regimes, but does this give license to the ODF to keep
reading “empire” or “prison of nations” into the historical accomplishment of
Ethiopian nationhood, in which the Oromos have played a significant part? It is
hard to argue that the inequality and injustice Oromos have experienced under
any Ethiopian government comes even close to what Zulus and other black
communities in South Africa suffered under Apartheid,
under a state which, unlike the Ethiopian polity, came into being as an actual
colonial regime, and a European one at that. Yet black South Africans,
particularly Zulus managed to get over historical setbacks and lead their
country’s integral democratic
transformation. They were able to affirm a common South African nationality in their
resistance to, and victory over the Apartheid
regime.

Surely, there is a vital lesson to be learned here by
emergent opposition groups in Ethiopia that characterize themselves as
democratic, like the ODF and the TPDM, groups that still cling to identity politics.
The trouble with the ethnocentric political project of the OLF/ODF and that of
the TPLF has been not so much the claim of the right to Oromo or Tigre self-determination,
as the willful alienation from the Ethiopian
nation-state of the community for which the right is claimed.

What are Dissident Intellectuals and Groups to do?

What is to be done in the resistance against Woyane
tyranny to end the seemingly endless obsession with divisive, authoritarian
identity politics which remains antagonistic or indifferent to our national
spirit? Part of the answer is that those of us who dissent fundamentally from
the Woyane regime and its ethnonationalist fellow travelers in the opposition,
but are not affiliated with any political party, group, or coalition have the
responsibility to open a broad intellectual front and help multi-ethnic Ethiopian
resistance forces develop newer and better ideas of freedom, democracy,
federalism, and local self-government. We can give free reign to our critical
reflection and discussion in a way that is practically fruitful, even if we are
not engaged in actual political work ourselves.  

In this connection, the matter of how we think about and
approach opposition parties and groups at home and in the Diaspora arises. Why
should we direct our attention to these political entities? Whom shall we
address in our thoughts and views on the Ethiopian resistance against Woyane
tribal tyranny, and why?

Our discontents with existing opposition groups are numerous
and far-reaching. An imperfect lot, the groups have so far been, for reasons of
their own as well as of the Woyanes’ making, weak and ineffective, yet are often
quick to pick fights among themselves. Some of them, including the ruling
Woyane party and the OLF, have operated on the basis of “progressive” ideas
which are not only inimical to Ethiopian solidarity, but actually represent fixation
on old, mind-numbing Stalinist dogma. The revolutionary orthodoxy is apparently
impervious to conceptual and practical innovation. In short, we are tempted to
write off existing opposition parties and coalitions across the board.

However, if we hope to get real intellectual and
political work done in the resistance against Woyane dictatorship, we would do
well not to adopt a rejectionist attitude toward actually existing opposition
groups and their ideas, such as they are. As forms of active engagement in the resistance,
our thoughts and views have to contend with the myths and realities of
dissident struggle. The terrain of opposition struggle is not an ideal space
apart from the beliefs, goals, and activities of actual groups and
organizations, with all their flaws and limitations.

Consequently, patriotic resistance forces cannot stand in
national purity or ideality, isolating or distancing themselves from the rough
and tumble of partisan and tribal politics. For the path out of the thicket of
political problems we face in the opposition camp can only be the path we are
able to clear through it. Patriotic
and progressive forces in the country can get ahead in the resistance against
the Woyane regime only by responding in varying ways to shortcomings, problems
and contradictions in the opposition as well as in the regime itself.

So the challenge for concerned Ethiopian intellectuals is
not to make things easy for ourselves by preaching only to the already
converted or by speaking to sympathetic constituents alone. Certainly, we must help
strengthen, reclaim really, our national base for the struggle, since it has
been under siege over the last twenty years by hostile internal forces led by the
Woyanes and supported by their Amhara stooges. And we must also hold the
opposition – in all its partisan and ethnonationalist variants – to critical
account for its ideological and political claims. But we also need to enter
into civil dialogue, whenever possible, with skeptical and even downright
antagonistic groups and audiences as well.

The point here is not to win debate points or to gain
partisan and tactical political advantage. It is to identify and pursue the
shared as well as distinctive interests of the Ethiopian people, to come
together on common national ground in resisting Woyane tribal domination. The
intent is to bring about the democratic-national rebirth of Ethiopia.

In this sense, practically productive intellectual effort
in the resistance today can take inspiration from the protracted work of our
ancestors in building and defending the multi-ethnic Ethiopian nation with the
limited political knowledge and resources at their disposal. The effort today
involves not only producing new ideas, values, and institutions that will be
backed by patriotic fellow travelers and allies in and around the national
center, but also moving into diverse, outlying areas of the country and seeking
or cultivating broad cultural, social and political support for the liberation
of Ethiopia from the divisive tribal dictatorship of the TPLF.

The challenge present opposition groups pose for this
effort is that, singly or collectively, they hardly represent unequivocally affirmed
commitment to common Ethiopian nationality. This is so in part because, in form
or substance, the political outlook of much of the opposition is generally a
variation on the Woyane ethnic-based model, not a clear alternative to that
model. Regardless of their differences, existing opposition parties and
coalitions commonly put ethnicity to tactical political account in one way or
another. There is also a general tendency within dissident groups at home and
in the Diaspora to bow down to the dominance of identity politics over
Ethiopian national affairs.

It should not be very hard for existing opposition
groups, particularly those which do not identify themselves solely or primarily
in terms of identity politics, to recognize and systematically expose the lies
and misrepresentations of the Woyane regime. Surely, they must know that what
is formally called a federal democratic republic is in fact a partisan-tribal
dictatorship. They must be aware that national self-determination actually
signifies the unlimited power of the TPLF to impose kilil identity and difference on others. They realize, don’t they,
that supposedly self-determining ethnic and cultural communities in the country
are in reality reduced to extensions and objects of the authoritarian power of
a small minority of partisans, namely, TPLF bosses, cadres, bureaucrats, and
armed forces.  It is also no secret that,
as the top operators of the TPLF-EPRDF state machinery, these partisans enlist
junior partners and functionaries from non-Tigre ethnic groups, yet make major policy
choices and decisions affecting the nation exclusively or primarily among
themselves.

However, it is also a known fact that identity politics
has long occupied a central position in Ethiopian progressive politics
generally. With some revisions and modifications, this vexed Leninist-Stalinist
issue continues to hold sway among many individuals, groups and factions within
the opposition as well within the TPLF. Operating under the influence of the
old and tired “national question,” these dissident elements betray an
ideologically acquired taste for the kind of partisan identity politics the
Woyanes practice. So they have a trained incapacity to recognize fully the
federal and democratic pretenses of the Woyane regime. The upshot is that we
cannot expect these elements and groups in the opposition to hold the regime to
systematic and critical account for its lies and misrepresentations.

As long as opposition groups are unable or unwilling to
confront these underlying problems, far from constituting themselves into a
powerful national resistance force against Woyane domination and, in the
process, bringing about a renewed affirmation of Ethiopian nationality, they
will remain weak and ineffective. Opposing TPLF hegemony cannot be conceived as
simple or absolute negation of Woyane politics and ideology. If it is to be
consequential, the opposition must distinguish clearly the particular way in
which the ruling party uses key ideas, like democracy, equality, and national
liberation from the ideas as such. There are alternative ways to understand and
realize universal concepts like national self-determination and federalism.

So a fundamental defect to overcome in oppositional
struggle has to do with the tendency to divest broad and complex categories,
such as nation, history and the people, of any autonomous significance,
reducing the rich, involved meaning such categories carry to a set of crude
formulaic notions tied to grossly partisan political agendas. On a related
note, it has to be recognized that the multiplicity of social, economic,
political, and cultural issues affecting diverse Ethiopian communities and
their intersections cannot be reduced to a generic “national question,” a
standard ethnonationalist equation that can be solved by a single authoritarian
party or front, such as the TPLF and the OLF. To believe otherwise is sheer
political fantasy. Creating insular, bureaucratically rigid tribal kilils is the work of Woyane state
ethnicism; actual Ethiopian communities are flexible and mutually open and
accommodating in their identities and cultures as Amharas, Oromos, Tigres,
Gurages, Afars, and so on.  

Closing Notes

How shall we affirm our common Ethiopian nationality
today, how are we to embrace our national heritage moving forward? Since the
days of the Student Movement, this vital matter has often been suppressed or ignored.
Progressive ideology has generally presented itself as something indifferent,
indeed, hostile to our affirmed national values and sentiments. The ideology
has impelled us to use the political vocabulary of modern, mainly Western
nationalism (“democracy,” “self-determination,” and so on) in a way that
devalues and negates our own historic multi-ethnic national tradition. This has
gone on too long. We have to put an end to it.

We readily acknowledge that, in its growth and
development, the Ethiopian nation-state has not been perfect. No nation-state
ever is. Not South Africa, not Russia, not the United States, to note three
random examples in three continents. So, while we recognize the limitations of
our national union and seek to transform it integrally into a freer, more open
and democratic one for the benefit of all Ethiopians, we should embrace our
renowned national heritage without apology – in fact, with appreciation and a
sense of pride. We can and should do this without chauvinist overtones. We can
do it without overreaching in emotional patriotic rhetoric and polemic – making
every issue of ethnic identity and difference into a problem for Ethiopian
unity. Instead, we should accept and celebrate diversity as an integral feature
of our common nationality.

We want to be clear, finally, about what affirming our
common Ethiopian nationality signifies. It is not simply about preserving geography
or territorial expanse. Nor does it mean settling for a polity made up merely
of an aggregation of disparate tribal kilils,
as if Ethiopia were nothing but an arithmetic sum of such ethnic enclaves. Like
any other long-lived integral tradition, Ethiopian nationhood must be
understood and valued, not as a fixed or finished product, a static entity to
be protected defensively, but a dynamic formation which is ever open to reform,
growth and improvement, one which can absorb progressive ideas and thrive on
social and cultural diversity.

Ethiopian national affirmation today, then, is not merely
about ensuring the survival of the country; it is also about our national
renewal. It involves not only the nation regaining its bearings, but becoming
stronger, embracing all round development. In this way, our common nationality
evolves through generations, adapting and changing, but a recognizable heritage
endures.

The writer can be reached at [email protected]