We owe it to them!

June 25, 2013

It is said
that if one is between the ages of 18 and 30 and is not revolutionary, of the
socialist/communist type, something is wrong with him. However, the maxim goes
on that if one is over the age of 35 and is still revolutionary, then,
obviously something is still wrong with him.

The
essence of this saying is that those years, between 18 and 30, are years when
we humans are motivated by emotions and idealism. We do not heed rational
advices nor are we governed by empirical evidences for they may conflict with our
emotions and idealism. Ergo, we decide to take the bull by the horns and
grapple with it.   

This
maxim, I dare say, to a large extent, describes the evolution of the political activities
of the generation of Ethiopian students, now between the ages of 60 and 75, that
is unfortunately responsible for the sad state of affairs our beloved Ethiopia
and its people have been embroiled in over the last 40 years. The intention of
this writing is not, by any means, to blame and condemn that generation. It is
however to appeal to our rational senses and come out, however difficult that
may be, and eat crow. Unfortunately, we seem to have decided to leave the
political scene quietly and tight-lipped. Yes many may not be alive to express
their sincere apology. Though our intentions and activities were motivated by
the love we all have for our country and the desire to see the lives of our
downtrodden improve, the result has been cataclysmic and disastrous.

We decided
to choose Marxism-Leninism as the only method and ideology that would
solve and cure   Ethiopia’s age-old problems
i.e., national, ethnic and class oppression. We surmised therefore that
if we founded or established a socialist/communist society and worked towards
eradicating class and national oppression, then we would resolve our problems
for good.

  However, to be fair to Marx and truthful
to ourselves, Marx’s theory was not meant for countries like Russia,
China and of course Ethiopia whose socio-economic development had not yet
passed the stage of feudalism. That is where these countries were at the time
they decided to establish a socialist/communist society. Marx had clearly
spelled out and identified the capitalist stage to be the one that is ripe for
a socialist revolution. He reasoned that, since the socio-economic development
will have reached its apogee in a capitalist society, the contradiction between
the proletariat and the bourgeoisie would not be reconciled by peaceful means
but through violent struggle. This thesis of Marx was subverted by Lenin when
he not only argued that the capitalist stage could be skipped and then moved to
building socialism in Russia. However, to make a long story short, one can
argue that it is the failure of the Soviet Union, and of course Lenin and his coteries
to skip that critical and very important stage of development, capitalism,
that would have helped address the needs and aspirations of its people
that finally caught up with it leading to its demise in 1989. Gorbachev’s
intention of building “socialism with a human face” was
intended to accelerate industrialization and redress that failure of the
country. That was not meant to be.

Had Mao
been alive or had he eliminated Deng
Xiaoping during the so-called Cultural Revolution, the economy of
the People’s Republic of China would have stagnated and would have faced
the same predicament as the Soviet Union and therefore wouldn’t have become
the second largest economy in the world as it is now. China has, since
the 1980s, been a socialist/communist country only in name. It took sixty four
years only for China to achieve that economic standing from the time when Mao
Zedong declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China on October
1, 1949. In the process China has managed to move three hundred million people
from poverty to middle class. Fortunately for China Mao departed the political
scene in 1976 leaving the pragmatist Deng to marshal China’s future. Deng
is popularly known for having said “it does not matter whether a cat is white or
black, as long as it catches mice…” That is, it does not
matter whether the policy we adopt is capitalist as long as it serves our
purpose– develop China’s economy.    

Our
generation of students not only ignored Marx’s dictum but also decided to
dogmatically follow Lenin’s path to building socialism and resolve the
“national question” using his and Stalin’s works on
the national question. As I have clearly argued in my recent article entitled
“The Federal Democratic Republic
of Ethiopia: Liberal Democratic or Authoritarian Regime,” published
in African Social Science Review, Volume 5, Number1, Spring 2012, Kennesaw
State University, among the core of Ethiopian Marxist-Leninists (EMLs),
that Wallelign was one of them. He was not only the
first to define what a nation is, in the Ethiopian context, but also the first
to articulate and categorically state that Ethiopia is composed of many
nationalities. He asserted that Ethiopia is, contrary to traditional belief,
composed of many national groupings with their own peculiarities and
idiosyncrasies. He contended that these nations should be given not only the
right to participate in state affairs, but also the right to develop their
language, music, and history and secede if they so desire provided they are led
by peasants and workers who are conscious of their historic internationalist
obligations…. Following Wallelign’s
daring contention, many scholars, Marxist Leninists and otherwise, began not
only to echo and amplify his call but also to use it as a paradigm in their
study of Ethiopian politics. This became the norm both in the 1960s student
movement and in the works and speeches of several Ethiopian political
observers.

An
objective assessment and analysis of Ethiopia’s socio-political situation
would have shown that a large majority of Ethiopians were proud of being
Ethiopians. A 1992 survey conducted among 650 university and high school
students from eight different regions of the country: Addis Ababa, Bale, Gojjam, Gidole, Kembata, Arsi, Wolaita, and Gamu Gofa (Terfa, 1993,5-21) not only illustrates this but also contradicts the
late Prime Minister’s contention that ethnic federalism is “the
only solution to the century old oppression under centralist government and one
ethnic domination of culture, language, politics and economy”(Zenawi, 2009,6).

Eighty
percent of the respondents consider themselves primarily Ethiopians and seventy
five percent of them clearly expressed their opposition to using language as a
criterion to delineating the provinces of the federal state. In addition, sixty
five percent of the respondents thought the absence of democracy and the
political domination of the country by authoritarian leaders were the premier
problems in Ethiopia rather than the national question as the drafters of the
constitution asserted (Terfa, 1993,13).
Hence, one could say that the problem of nationalities or “the national
question” was only a hypothesis or a theoretical construct that had not
been proven in the case of Ethiopia. It saddens me to say that the EMLs blindly adopted
Lenin’s and Stalin’s method of resolving the “national
question” to Ethiopia’s situation. (For more read my article
mentioned above.)

I argue
that the following sad history of the Ethiopian student movement serves as a
prelude to the darkest forty year period in Ethiopian history. It occurred between
1974 and 1976 when the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and the
All Ethiopian Socialist Movement, MEISON, failed to iron out their political
differences and forge a united front against the much threatening and menacing Derg led by Mengistu Haile
Mariam. By this time the Derg was laying the
foundation for a military dictatorship. MEISON then decided not only to ally
with the Derg but also give ideological and
theoretical legitimacy to the military junta. It in effect took the position
that the Derg was led by revolutionaries and communists
and therefore needed the support of all progressive forces in the country. The
EPRP on the other hand took the position that the Derg
was a military junta that had usurped political power from the Ethiopian
people. These irreconcilable and antagonistic positions sparked the violent
engagement between MEISON and the Derg on one side
and the EPRP on the other. Mengistu then declared the
mini civil war, the Red Terror,
which claimed the lives of thousands of dedicated, committed and determined
Ethiopians on both sides.

Most of
those who founded the Tigrean People’s
Liberation Front (TPLF), a Marxist-Leninist political organization of the
Albanian sort were, while students, sympathizers and/or members of the EPRP.
They therefore adopted Lenin’s and Stalin’s methodology for
resolving “Ethiopia’s national question.”

The very fact
that they still call themselves a Liberation Front is a clear indication of
that. This is because the nuclei of the Tigray
People’s Liberation Front were members of the Marxist Leninist League of Tigray, an exclusive club dominated by Meles
and his close friends. Upon their triumph over the Derg
in 1991, this group was the one that dominated not only the Transitional
Government but also the constituent assembly that drafted the Constitution. Aregawi Berhe, a former member of
the leadership of the TPLF, succinctly put it this way:

In 1985 a
party, officially known as the Marxist-Leninist League of Tigray
(MLLT) was established within the TPLF, with Meles Zenawi as its chief ideologue. In its constitution, this
party declared that…MLLT, as the   core of the future of the
Ethiopian Marxist Leninist Party, is the only correct party free from all sort
of revision (Trotskyism, Maoism…) that could constitute a proletarian-peasant
dictatorship to liberate the Ethiopian People (Berhe,
2009, 5).

But, still
Meles continued to deny this historical fact about
his party. In his April 3 and 5, 1990, interview with the late Paul Henze, Meles Zenawi,
tried to allay the fears of this former American government official and
through him the then American administration and the Congress of the United
States by saying the following:

“We
are not a Marxist-Leninist movement. We do not apply Marxism-Leninism in Tigray. The name of our organization does not include any
reference to Marxism-Leninism. We do have Marxists in our movement. I
acknowledge that. I myself was a convinced Marxist when I was a student at
[Haile Selassie 1st
University] HSIU in the early 1970s and our movement was
inspired by Marxism. But we have learned that dogmatic Marxism-Leninism is not
applicable in the field. We do not believe that any foreign system can be
imposed on a country (Henze1990, 3).

On looking
at the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE), one
would learn that Meles had married two diametrically
opposed philosophies, Marxism-Leninism and liberal democracy. It should be
stated that these two philosophies provide different approaches to solving
problems between people and also between the people and their governments.

For
liberal democracy, the right of the individual is paramount and, therefore,
should not be subordinated to the right of a group or a collective. In liberal
democracy, the problem of the individual or groups of individuals will be
solved within the framework of democratic governance where the rights,
privileges, responsibilities and obligations of the individual are enshrined in
the Constitution. If and when there are discrepancies or inconsistencies or
even contradictions between what the Constitution promises or offers and how
the government of the time interprets the Constitution, designs and implements
its policies to favor one person over another or one group of people over the
other, then the aggrieved person or groups of persons can address their
grievances to the courts.

In this
connection, the dialectical development of the political history of African
Americans in the United States is an eloquent testimony of how far they have
come within the framework of a liberal democracy—however slow that
progress has been. It is a vivid and painful memory that the Constitution of
the United States had once regarded them as slaves, and therefore property.
(For more see my article mentioned above.) I hasten to add that the passage of
the various Civil Rights Acts and Voting Rights Acts of the 1950s and 1960s,
have contributed either to consolidating and/or expanding the gains that had
been made. It is also a historical fact that the drafters of the Constitution
did not initially allow suffrage to women (Nineteenth Amendment to the US
Constitution) and property-less white men or Native Americans. All these have
been corrected and rectified by amending the Constitution and/or taking these
issues to the courts for their rulings.

Marxism-Leninism,
on the other hand, is a philosophy or an ideology that gives primacy to groups
or classes in Marxist parlance. The rights and demands of the individual have
to be subordinated to the interest of the class. Hence the division of society
into classes. In the slave society, the contradiction is between the slaves and
the slave owners. In a feudal society, it is between feudal lords and the
serfs. In the capitalist society, it is between the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat or the working class. In a multinational empire, it is between the
oppressor nation and the oppressed nations and/or nationalities. All these
contradictions are resolved through class struggle with the proletariat as the
vanguard.

It is this
approach to solving the “national question” in
Ethiopia that is contained in Article 39 of the Constitution of the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. It is to be remembered that Meles had claimed that he was no longer a communist or a
Marxist. He had also asserted that the leadership did not apply
Marxism-Leninism in Tigray. So where did article 39
come from? The Article did not somehow some inexplicable miracle or divine
intervention, incorporate itself into the Constitution. It is in Lenin’s
thesis that one will find not only the application of the concept of
“self-determination that includes secession” but also the
delineation of boundaries respecting national composition. It was also Lenin
who coined the concept of “prison house of nations” when
he described Czarist Russia. It is this method that Meles
and his comrades used to address and resolve the “national question in
Ethiopia”.  

Meles, having created the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia believes that all of those who harbor
secessionist intentions need to be happy, settle down and embark on developing
their ethnic fiefdom. He seemed to suggest that “the prison house of nation”
as Lenin used to refer to Czarist Russia, and Meles
himself used it to amplify and describe Haile Selassie’s and Megistu’s Ethiopia, has been destroyed. The hitherto “prisoners”
had all been liberated and were allowed to live within their geographically
defined territories. This liberation has allowed them to establish their
respective government, develop their culture, and speak, teach, learn, and
conduct their courts in their respective languages. Consistent with this, he
would argue, they have come together and established a federal government that
has given them equal voice in how it is run. Then he would conclude by encouraging
them to seize the moment and forge ahead.

How
sincere was the late Prime Minister when he used to claim that Ethiopia is a genuinely
a Federal Democratic Republic where the Parliament is vibrant and justice
prevails? How sincere was his claim that the judiciary is independent and that
the checks and balances between the three branches of government are working
smoothly? How independent is the National Election Board? How much freedom and
democracy is there in Ethiopia?

The
Executive Summary of the BTI 2012 Ethiopia Country Report crisply draws the
following picture.

Ethiopia’s
political performance in 2009 and 2010 was characterized by contradiction with
the government politics….The bitter result of the 2005 and 2010
elections, indirectly manipulated by the government, and the subsequent
authoritarian backlash have frustrated nearly all relevant political actors
outside the  government camp.
Opposition parties have been undermined to the extent that they no longer pose
a threat; the media and civil society have been leashed by oppressive laws
trade unions and professional associations have been forced either to toe the
line or, like the Teachers Union, be dismissed…. A separation of powers
is formally in place, but does not exist de facto. The EPRDF is the source of
all power. The relationship between the executive and the legislative is wholly
asymmetrical….The Judiciary and the legislature are under the full
control of the ruling party. The power to interpret the constitutionality of
laws rests not with the judiciary, but rather with a state organ that draws on
the legal expertise of the Council of Constitutional inquiry….The
independence of the judiciary is heavily impaired by political interference and
high levels of corruption. Indeed, Ethiopia’s judiciary has never had an
independent existence as a separate institution. It has been subject to all
kinds of pressure from other governmental branches….There have been no
free and fair elections in the country since the establishment of the new political
regime under the  constitution of
1995. Between the parliamentary multiparty elections of 2005 and those of 2010,
the situation with regard to political participation has worsened
dramatically….Ethiopia is not an “electoral democracy.” The
National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) is staffed with Ethiopian
People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) members and is not
autonomous. Though the board is supposed to be neutral, it in fact often
aggressively attacks opposition parties and clearly demonstrates support for
the EPRDF. The board has lost credibility with the majority of voters….The
freedom of assembly and associations are also severely limited for interest
groups and civil society. The work of civil society organizations (CSOs) in the
areas of democracy, human rights and political participation has been curtailed
through intimidation and a tightening of the legal space….Although the
constitution guarantees freedom of expression, several journalists have been
sentenced to prison on the basis of “incorrect reporting.” The
press and other media have continued to face serious restrictions with
journalists subject to arrest and prosecution for alleged defamation….Ethnic
politics and the fear of potential civil war have led many voters to give up hope
for a democratic society. Many citizens have lost belief in the democratic
process, considering elections to be merely a ritual….(emphasis
mine) (The quotation, while correctly and directly taken from the BTI 2012
Ethiopia Country Report, has been reorganized and rearranged to maintain the
flow.)

Now then,
what? The reason why I took the audacity to title this article “We Owe to Them” is because I have
this sincere and genuine feeling that, if those idealists who sacrificed their
lives to better the livelihood of their people at a very young age were alive, they
would dare to join me in urging us to learn from the evolution of the political
history of the United States. That is overcoming a predicament of holding
together and staying as one.

Yes, many
of the people may have originated from Britain. They took risks and came to
America and established “self governing colonies” in the 1620s. Brigid Callahan Harrison et al in their book American Democracy Now, 2009, remind us that ….
“Before the Pilgrims reached shore in 1620, they drew up the Mayflower
Compact, an example of a social
contract—an agreement between
people and their leaders, whereby the people give up some liberties so that
their other liberties will be protected. In the Mayflower Compact, the pilgrims
agreed to be governed by the structure of government they formed thereby
establishing consent of the governed. (My emphasis. P.14).
An agreement between people and their leader and the
consent of the governed is a very radical and novel concept to Ethiopia for we
had never had it nor dreamt about it.

The
composition of the people who decided to move to the new world was as diverse
as it got. Some had connection to the king of England, others were indentured
servants and still others came for religious liberties.  Added to these were many Africans who
were forcefully brought as slaves. 
By the early 18^th century, the colonies began to revolt
against what they consider an excess of government by British parliament that
enacted laws and imposed these laws on them without their input or consent.

To skip
ahead, in the middle of the 1770s, the colonies decided to wage a war of
independence. To that end George Washington was appointed to command the
continental army. They also established a committee of five led by Thomas
Jefferson to articulate the dreams and aspirations of the people of the
colonies in declaration form. The future president to be, Jefferson, drawing
invaluable ideas from the works of British philosopher John Locke (1632-1704)
and French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) drafted the
declaration. In part it reads as follows:

   We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness.

-That to
secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed,- That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such
form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence,
indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed
for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a
long train of abuses and usurpation, pursuing invariably the same Object
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for
their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies;
and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former
Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a
history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let
Facts be submitted to a candid world….

We,
therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General
Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the
rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good
People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united
Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they
are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political
connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be
totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full
power to levy War, conclude Peace contract 
Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which
Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration,
with a firm   reliance on the
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge
to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.        

These
words, pronouncements and declarations laid the very foundation upon which the
present day United States is founded. The thirteen Colonies, after having
fought for their independence and liberated their country could have gone their
separate ways. They could have established their separate states. But they did
not. They initially formed a very loose association joined together by the
Articles of Confederation (1781-1789). Article II of the Articles of
Confederation reads “each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and
independence.” This was so because people did not want to trust and
entrust their life, development, and security to a faraway institution over
which they felt they would have little control. Their colonial experience was
deeply engraved in their memory. The government was so weak that it could not
put down an uprising led by independence war veteran Daniel Shay and
debt-ridden farmers.  These
compelled concerned political leaders to call for a conference of some sort to
deal with the Articles of Confederation. 
To that end 12 states agreed to send delegates giving them clear
instruction: to   strengthen
the weak provisions of the Article of Confederation and not to draft a new
constitution.  Fifty five delegates,
with Ivy League education i.e., Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, the University
of Pennsylvania, Columbia College, and others were selected for this onerous
responsibility.  Though these people
were perceived to have progressive views for that time, many of them were
owners of slaves. In addition, their contempt for women and their fear and disdain
for the downtrodden was beyond the pale. That is why they commonly known as “racist,
sexist and elitist.”

On
positive note however, Thomas Dye and Harmon Zeigler in their book the Irony of Democracy point out that the ”Fathers of the Constitution” had
the paramount objective of not only protecting  property  but also the right to life and liberty.
Dye and Zeigler noted that “….The Founding Fathers agreed that the
origin of government is an implied contract among people. They believed people
pledge allegiance and obedience to government in return for protection of their
persons and property. They felt the ultimate legitimacy of
government—sovereignty—rests with the people and the
basis of government is the consent of the governed.”(P.29). The
55 chose a “republican form of government” because they were
vehemently opposed to hereditary monarchy, which was prevalent in most of the
countries of the world at the time. They were all convinced that representative
government was representative, responsible, and nonhereditary. Because they
viewed power “as a corrupting influence and the concentration of elite
power as dangerous”(Dye, P.30) they divided
government into three branches i.e., the executive, the legislative, and the
judiciary with each having the power to check each other.

The
fathers of the constitution then forwarded the finished document to New York
where the Congress of the Article of Confederation was operating from to be
then sent to the various states for ratification by a convention of delegates.
The authors of the document also suggested  positive approval by 9 of the 13
states to be sufficient enough for it to be operative. While James Madison,
Alexander Hamilton and John Jay took the onerous responsibility of getting the
newly drafted constitution approved, 
 George Washington, the most
popular person in the country, promised to help. However their work was not
going to be easy for a group that called itself the Anti Federalists
began to challenge the undemocratic features of the new Constitution.  This group argued that since all of the
States’ constitutions had the bill of rights, there should not be,
the group argued, any reason why the federal constitution shouldn’t.
(Chadwick P. 54). They wanted to protect the rights of the individual in
various areas from arbitrary decisions and/or policies of tyrannical
government. Bruce Chadwick in his book entitled Triumvirate summarizes
the concerns of the Anti-Federalists as follows. They “demanded freedom
of the press, religious worship, speech, and the right to assemble in public.
The people should be allowed to keep and bear arms, suffer no unreasonable
searches of homes, obtain due process of law, grand jury charges for trials,
speedy trials with juries, and representation by a lawyer with no high bills or
cruel punishment if found guilty. The opponents, wary of a powerful national
government, also insisted that any of the rights not specifically given to the
national government must be turned over to the states so that the federal
government and state governments shared power.”(P.54) 

To make a
long story short, since the Anti-Federalists had the support and sympathy of
many people for their cause the Federalists had no option but to acquiesce and
particularly when they learned that the call was joined by the peoples of New
York, Massachusetts, and Virginia who made their support for the constitution contingent
upon the Federalists’ promise to add the bills of rights as amendments. The
constitution was ratified in 1788 and the bills of rights were ratified in 1791
and became effective.

Arguably
this constitution is the oldest written constitution that has been a model for
many countries. Though it had a history of legalized slavery, disfranchising
white women, until 1920, and white male without property until 1812, it still
was considered “revolutionary” by many countries in Europe for many
of them were being ruled by an hereditary monarchy. In
time that very constitution has managed to   correct itself,
and freeing the slaves, enfranchising women and Native Americans and property-less
white men and in fact allowing an African American to be the president of the
country. It does this because of its inbuilt mechanism that allows amendments
to the constitution. So far it has been amended 27 times, of course, not
including the ten amendments of the bill of rights.

When the
constitution was drafted and ratified the population of America was barely four
million. Two hundred twenty five years later, in the year 2013, the population
has grown to 315 million. The United States is a country of immigrant and most
came in search of freedom and opportunity. To this we add, a conservative
estimation of about 460,000 Ethiopians, most of whom
emigrated between the years of 1980s and 2000. This was the period when Mengistu and then Meles gave
Ethiopians hell on earth.