Ethiopia’s Resurgence: Integrating Patriotic and Progressive Movements

August 2, 2013

In the
course of the Revolution and in its wake and over the last two decades of
ethnic feudalism, being an Ethiopian patriot and a progressive at the same time
has been difficult. True, many of our revolutionaries were patriots, and
identity politics may not always be unpatriotic. But our political culture of
progressivism as a whole has been marked, be it in effect or in intent, by
indifference, hostility even, toward Ethiopian nationalism. As teramajoch, we have often embraced
modern political ideas like democracy, self-determination, and equality in a
way that is incongruent with old-fashioned love of country, seeing political
modernity as the simple reverse or negation of the Ethiopian national
tradition. We have generally not carried patriotism with us in our
revolutionary consciousness.

On the
other side, as patriots, we are inclined to stress historic Ethiopian
nationality or identity in a manner that does not always resonate with the
contemporary, ideas-based, development of Ethiopiawinnet
in the context of social and cultural diversity and globalization. This is
particularly true today in that we find ourselves in a defensive patriotic
position in the face of an externally assisted systematic assault of Woyane state
ethnicism on our national being and on our sense of ourselves as Ethiopians. In
giving free rein to the immediacies of our patriotic passion, we tend to limit
our ability to practice longer-term, strategically attuned politics and to function
on a broader, more enlightened level of national engagement.

I have personally
felt a tension between critical, forward-looking conceptual thought on the
Ethiopian tradition and on its transformation and development, on the one hand,
and the lived experience and joy of simply being Ethiopiawi, on the other. Ever since the Student Movement, I have
been troubled by the mutual exclusions and oppositions of politics based on
progressive theory and Ethiopian national sentiments and values rooted in
history.

I believe
this incongruity between sensuous Ethiopian nationality and progressive
intellectual and political socialization to restraint of patriotism is not
merely an issue that I personally have grappled with. I am convinced that it is
a problem many Ethiopians of the revolutionary generation have had to wrestle
with as well, although many others of that generation have simply and
unaccountably walked away from the problem. More importantly, I see the tension
between a firm patriotic heart and an equally firm progressive mind as a
dialectic which will figure centrally in the realization of Ethiopia’s
resurgence.

Imperative
of Patriotic-Progressive Ties

Connections
between historically rooted national allegiance and pride and contemporary
articulate ideas and goals of teramaj
politics are crucial in the Ethiopian struggle against TPLF partisan-tribal
dictatorship and for a more just and democratic political order in the
post-Woyane era. The meeting between real, experienced Ethiopiawinnet – manifested in meaningful sentiments, values,
images, symbols, and cultural practices – and forward-looking political
conceptualization, agenda, and action is a vital encounter which has great
promise for Ethiopia’s comeback.

Now,
whatever its past achievements or present potential, teramaj politica has created a lot of disenchantment among
Ethiopians. We are hesitant today to identify ourselves as “teramajoch” because the label has had
such troubled and troubling association with hostility toward Ethiopian
nationalism. We now know painfully well how far over the top the old model of
progressive politics has gone in criticizing and opposing the Ethiopian
national tradition. A follower of the model in its own narrow ethnonationalist
way, the TPLF party-state machine is the last and uniquely most anti-Ethiopian
link in the chain of “radical” teramaj
political forces that stretches back to ultra-left dogmatic factions within the
Student Movement. This chain of political forces has kept Ethiopia in shackles for
decades now.

To note
the deep flaws of the supposedly radical form of our progressive experience as
I do here, to be fully aware of its excesses and limitations, is not to
discount entirely the ideas and goals which inspired the experience. The ideas
and goals as such still have wide appeal in the country today – among
opposition parties and coalitions, intellectual strata, activists, civic
organizations, and media groups. So any political force that seeks to galvanize
the Ethiopian people and lead the country’s resurgence must develop a broad
national consensus that blends patriotic and progressive movements. But, as a
condition of possibility of their dynamic, mutually energizing integration,
patriotism and the progressive way must be understood and approached anew,
distinctly and in their ties and relations.

Patriotism

Love of
country is an ideal or emotion that makes progressives and liberals anywhere
uneasy. They generally associate it with jingoistic nationalism, xenophobia,
and unthinking loyalty to the nation-state. Separatist ethnic fronts in
Ethiopia have imagined and portrayed Ethiopian nationalism simply as Amhara
chauvinism and oppression of other ethnic groups. Some of the most repulsive
actual features of nationalism include colonialism, fascism, racism, and
certain forms of tribalism.

However,
we cannot equate patriotism as such with its abhorrent variants or features. We
cannot say it is the sum of its flaws and problems, nothing more. The fact is
that patriotism, as a set of attitudes, values, sentiments, and dispositions
makes itself felt in different contexts and modalities of activity, including
varying forms of civic and political engagement. There are alternative, more or
less desirable styles of national allegiance and loyalty, ranging from the least
informed, most emotional and exclusive to highly enlightened, disciplined, and
accommodative forms. Love of country can assume progressive or reactionary
shape, democratic or authoritarian style.

Thus ethnicism
or chauvinism is not a necessary feature of Ethiopian nationalism, just as
separatism or kililism is not a
necessary part or condition of the self-determination of distinct ethnic and
cultural communities in Ethiopia. Alternatively, patriotism need not be
associated exclusively with a particular ideology or religion, say, liberalism,
socialism, Christianity or Islam. It could instead be based on a common national
culture which integrally accommodates pluralism and difference. Seen in this
light, the separatist tribal grudges the TPLF and OLF bear Ethiopia spring from
two sources. One source is a politically oversimplified, obsessively
anti-Amhara, resentful misapprehension or willful distortion of Ethiopian
national experience and accomplishment. The other is underestimation of the
potential of the ethnically diverse Ethiopian people for a more perfect union.

For many
citizens of Ethiopia, the deep historical origins and development of national
identity may not be as significant as its more contemporary form and validity.
And for many other citizens of the country, Ethiopiawinnet
may be less a modern, Western-inspired political achievement and more an
indigenous heritage sedimented over centuries and generations. Given these
distinct strands of Ethiopian national sensibility, traditional patriots have
to be careful not to aggravate, rather than lessen, the difference by overly stressing
narrative sources of national identity to the neglect or near exclusion of
present issues, themes, aspirations, and agenda of Ethiopian nationality.

On the
other hand, more liberal or moderate Ethiopian patriots need to avoid receding
from  affirmation of their national
heritage, recognizing as a matter of both principle and strategic necessity in
the struggle for Ethiopia’s democratic renewal, that love of country can be a
motive force, a source of uplifting energy, passion, and commitment. This is
particularly important when the survival of the nation is at stake, as has been
the case over the last two decades under the divisive dictatorship of the TPLF.
If we suppress or neutralize our patriotism, we lose our national vitality,
inspiration, and purpose. We become passive or weakly connected to Ethiopian
affairs and to the Ethiopian people themselves for whose betterment the
revolutionary generation shed so much blood, sweat, and tears.

Granted,
patriotic passion is not without its pitfalls. If not tempered with reason it
can get out of control and become counter-productive. The point is that the
remedy for Ethiopia’s ills lies within us as a people, in our rekindled
national energy and spirit. We must come to terms with, and value, who we are
as a nation and act accordingly. This does not mean that we lessen our
commitment to progressive change and development, that we detach our national
interests and values from the outside world, globalization and all, which is
neither possible nor desirable. Rather, it means we carry progressive change
and the experience of the world within
our national being. It means we look and move forward as one people, one
nation, diverse but united and indivisible.

In short,
love of country can signify deeply felt and experienced national consciousness
capable of galvanizing the Ethiopian people across ethnic, cultural, and
regional lines. It can be a vital part of not only our resistance against the tyranny
of Woyane tribal feudalism but also our democratically inspired national
affirmation. Yet we should not expect patriotic feelings and values to relieve
the resistance from the burden of strategically attuned progressive thought, commitment,
and struggle.

Change of
Progressive Culture

If we as
“progressives” want to change Ethiopia for the better, we must first change
ourselves. From the Student Movement through the brutal tyranny of the Derg to the tribal dictatorship of the
Woyanes today, charting a progressive path for Ethiopia has been problematic.
We embrace democratic and egalitarian ideas as simple and ready formulas instead
of developing them through open argument, dialogue, and discussion. We
subscribe to global values in a way that does not resonate with our own national
experience and context. We confuse intellectually inert ideological positions
and sectarian discourses of self-definition, propaganda and polemic with
broad-based, reflective and critical thought, speech and debate. We equate
dogma with principle. We use imperious partisan-cum-authoritarian politics to simulate civil society, fabricating a
multiplicity of constituencies, groups, and institutions that are not
self-organized and so do not have the look and feel of true agency or real autonomy.
This, sadly, has been the tradition of progressivism in Ethiopia for nearly
half a century.

And so the
questions arise: what shall we do about it? How shall we change it? Without
attempting to address these complex questions adequately here, let me make a
few general observations. It seems to me that doing something about our
troubled progressive inheritance entails first understanding it clearly, in all
its flaws, excesses and limitations. We should recognize that far from being a
ready solution to our national problems, the legacy has itself become
problematic, an unbearable contemporary burden on the Ethiopian people
regardless of their ethnic backgrounds. We need national consensus on this or
some such diagnosis, since many of us who cut our intellectual and political
teeth on the Student Movement still cling to assumptions and perspectives of old-school
teramaj politica in some form or
other. And ethnonationalist offshoots of the old and tired tradition of progressivism
are still operative among groups like the TPLF and OLF factions and spinoffs,
specifically the ODF.

I have
argued in an earlier piece that, as a necessary condition of a new Ethiopian
national consensus, the existing model of forward-looking, transformative
politics has to be rethought.  Here, I
just want to add that critical rethinking begins by deconstructing the terms,
categories, and values of the old model, before the arrival of alternative
ideas and answers, or in the process of working out such ideas and answers. It
begins on the ground, in our lived experience, beneath universal theoretical
abstractions and ruling or partisan ideological formulas, in what we see and
feel as well as in observable reality generally.

The point
of this effort is to prepare the Ethiopian political ground so that the seeds
of a new, more open and democratic progressive culture can be planted, take
root, grow, and thrive. It is to come into contact with Ethiopian realities
that are not pre-emptively and one-sidedly politicized, “theorized”, and
ethnicized, to wrest the realities from the suffocating grip of supposedly
progressive categories in all their sectarian and tribal forms. The point,
finally, is to approach Ethiopian issues and problems by restraining our
limited partisan and ideological impulses and engaging ideas nationally as sources
and tools of broad-based enlightenment and development.     

All the
conceptual and political renovation effort we exert here is worthwhile because,
notwithstanding the flaws and limitations of the particular form of teramaj politics which gained dominance
over the Revolution, progressive ideas as such remain central to contemporary
Ethiopian political culture. It is undeniable that any national opposition
force in Ethiopia that wants to keep pace with current socio-economic,
political, and cultural developments in the country and around the world and
hopes to influence the course of Ethiopian events must regard the progressive
ethos a valuable ally.

In a broad
sense, the new progressive Ethiopian political ethos can be said to represent
willful, ever forward national movement in thought and action towards definite
aims, a movement centered on the universal ideas of freedom, justice, democracy
and equality, and on real concern for the working poor and the most disadvantaged
and vulnerable strata in Ethiopian society . In advancing these ideas in various
sectors of social life in the country – the economy, government, culture,
education, and so on – specific goals and policies are formulated and enacted
in a spiral form that allows them to “escalate” into one another, cumulatively
resulting in the all-round development of the country. The new-fashioned
progressive path is to be distinguished from the old way not in its professed
universal ideas and values, but in the way it approaches and handles them.
Instead of confining the circulation of the ideas within exclusive or dominant
partisan and authoritarian intentions, terms, and formulas, it would allow and
facilitate their broad understanding through unfettered public discussion and
debate. The alternative forward-looking political way would empower citizens to
freely and actively engage universal values. In short, the new way, would
permit progressive ideas to gain relatively autonomous currency in various
sectors of Ethiopian social and public life, to convey meaning in part in their
own terms.

This means
we recognize that the substantive or practical significance for Ethiopian citizens
of ideas like democracy, the rule of law, federalism, and civil and political
rights is more important than the limited organizational or tactical
serviceability of the ideas for particular parties and tribal fronts. For
example, we would gain greater awareness that the ideals of democracy, self-determination,
peace, and stability in Ethiopia are indivisible – they cannot be realized by
particular ethnic groups while their realization is denied to the nation as a
whole.

And so to
be a good ally or partner of Ethiopian patriotism, our progressive vision today
must “address” the nation as an integral self or whole. In the old and still
operative tradition of teramaj
politics, applying the idea of a national self to particular ethnic communities
is a commonplace. Attributing national identity or subjectivity to Ethiopia,
however, has generally been problematic for the tradition. The problem issues
from the “radicalism” of the tradition itself, particularly its concern or that
of its more extreme ultra-left founding members and ethnonationalist elements
today, to delegitimize the very idea of Ethiopian nationality, characterizing
the country entirely negatively as “a prison of nations,” hardly anything more.

Addressing
Ethiopia integrally from a new progressive perspective does not necessarily
entail a prior elaboration of democratic ideas and values or constitutional
principles and arrangements. Instead, it means first listening well to the
Ethiopian people, being truly attentive to their diverse and common concerns to
the greatest extent possible, allowing the people to express their perceived  interests in a way they have never been allowed
to express them before.

This means
letting the nation “speak,” revealing in its own voice its massive social
dislocation, the degradation of its cultural, spiritual and intellectual life, its
unmet basic needs, the systematic violation of the human and civil rights of
its citizens, its colonial-like domination by a sectarian regime which inhabits
its own parallel “national” universe, and its reduction to a collection of
insular tribal kilils, all in the
name of “revolution,” “democracy,” and “development.” Only then can we
transform our troubled progressive legacy and credibly begin to create a new, more
democratic political order attuned to the Ethiopian national experience.

Symbiosis
of Patriotism and the Progressive Ethos

Does the
heat of patriotic emotion coalesce with the light of cool progressive reason?
The problem with this question is that it sets up an unwarranted dichotomy
between sensuous national experience and ideas-based politics. It assumes that
patriotism excludes political engagement informed by conceptual thought, that
it is not susceptible to alternative interpretation and enactment. This
assumption is mistaken.

Political
ideas like freedom, democracy, and self-determination have an impact on the
Ethiopian patriotic sensibility. And the meanings of such progressive ideas in
turn cannot gain effective currency in Ethiopia in isolation from our
historically specific common national culture, in contradistinction to our
national allegiance and loyalty. The meaningful contents of the ideas cannot
exist or come into play in Ethiopia merely as universal abstractions or tribal
constructs, but must take concrete Ethiopian form. It is the function of
progressive reason to place our immediate patriotic sentiments and localized community
activities in the context of broader national ideas, goals, and movements. Yet
it is in being politically attentive to the immediate and the local that
larger, relatively distant and more abstract goals and tasks of Ethiopian national-democratic
struggle are most effectively set and accomplished.

However,
as amply demonstrated in the troubled Ethiopian revolutionary experience,
particularly in the unforeseen dominance of its separatist ethnonationalist spinoffs
under TPLF hegemony, patriotism and progressivism can be mutually undermining
rather than supportive. The latter can be overly partisan, self-conscious and
controlling, bent on denying or neutralizing the broad-based cultural contents
and social bases of Ethiopian nationality while making “radical” identity
politics the sole source of national meaning and value. The former, when not
able to avoid an overreaction to the ethnonationalist excess, can be
politically artless and engage in a counter-denial of difference and pluralism,
specifically the relative autonomy of ethnic, cultural, and religious
communities in the country which may realize
Ethiopiawinnet in their own distinct styles as well as in commonly shared
ways.

The new
progressive ethos would take shape and come into play in part by overcoming the
mutual exclusions and oppositions of patriotism lacking in broad
national-political influence and “revolutionary-democratic” identity politics
inimical toward integral Ethiopian wholeness.

Reckoning
with Ethnonational “Others”

Like
national traditions everywhere in the world whose formation has involved
military conquest and expansion and is marked by a structure of historical
events, facts, myths and narratives and cultural growth and political
development, the Ethiopian experience has its native dissenters and detractors.
We can here distinguish between progressive objectors, who engage the Ethiopian national tradition, seeking to transform it
and realize ideas of freedom, justice, democracy and equality, and more
“radical” critics and opponents, mainly the Woyanes and other practitioners of
separatist identity politics, that have willfully alienated themselves from the
Ethiopian experience as such and are bent on undoing it. It is the latter that
I refer to as “ethnonational ‘others.’”

The
distinction has implications for the development of broad-based national
agreement in the resistance against TPLF dictatorship. Ethiopian consensus can
be developed among and through progressive objectors who operate within the
parameters of common Ethiopian nationality and whose dissent may be variously
centered on matters of public policy, ideology, ethnicity, religion, region, economic
interest or some other concern. It is helpful to recognize that criticism based
on difference and diversity is not a problem for Ethiopian
patriotic-progressive solidarity – it reflects the fact that the interpretive
understanding of a common national tradition is variously influenced by the situational
needs, interests, and grievances of particular communities and social groups
within it. In supplying their own identities and forms of life, their own
issues, concerns and questions, particular communities and groups in Ethiopia
enrich our national experience.

This means
coalitions of patriotic and progressive forces gain national resonance and
validity mainly in proportion to the range of social and cultural bases to
which they can appeal and by which they can be supported without sacrificing
their principled consensus and coherence. The broader the socio-cultural range
of their appeal and support, the greater their national resonance and validity.
We recognize here that Ethiopian solidarity is gained and secured not by
denying or suppressing difference and pluralism or by silencing voices of
dissent, but through their mediation
and regulation by means of progressive
ideas, principles, and institutional practices. We understand that broad Ethiopian
agreement could arise from the contingencies of local and particular needs,
issues, and interests instead of being “precooked” through an ideological
agenda elaborated ahead by an authoritarian regime, party, or front behind the
backs of the Ethiopian people.

What are
well-nigh impossible to accommodate within an Ethiopian patriotic-progressive
consensus are separatist political entities, ethnonational “others” bent on the
undoing or emasculation of the nation’s integral wholeness. This impossibility
is most evident both in the ruling ethnonationalism of the TPLF and in its
oppositional variants within OLF factions, though the two ethnic political
fronts have their own irreconcilable differences and conflicts. Operating from
antagonistic governing and opposing positions, the TPLF and OLF have commonly
adopted an external inimical attitude toward Ethiopian nationality. As
colonial-like rulers of the country, the Woyanes in particular are parasitic on
the Ethiopian body politic, eating away at their national “host” without
killing it, taking advantage of the political and material benefits it affords
while undermining its vitality from within.

We may not
categorically say that the TPLF is incapable of reforms which will entail a
lessening of its monopoly of effective power, but there is no reasonable hope
that the Woyanes will significantly change the nature of their rule if left to
their own devices. The Woyane tribal regime cannot realistically be expected to
enter willingly into good faith talks with opposition forces in search of national
reconciliation and compromise. Nor can we be optimistic about hard-core
separatist OLF groups leaving behind their ethnonationalist self-alienation
from Ethiopia and moving in a new, more conciliatory and democratic,
trans-ethnic national direction.  

But why is
there little or no prospect of patriotic and progressive Ethiopian opposition
coalitions even reasoning with TPLF and OLF ethnonationalist elites, engaging
them in principled, ideas-based dialogue, discussion, and debate? Aren’t the
“revolutionary” partisans that run these ethnic political organizations
themselves supposed to be practitioners of teramaj
politica committed to big, universal ideas like freedom, justice,
democracy, development, and so on?

Part of
the explanation lies in the fact that the universal ideas which the TPLF and
OLF formally profess cannot be opened up for fruitful debate, discussion, and
negotiation since they are deployed instrumentally as ideological weapons used
by the fronts for separatist ethnonational self-definition and self-assertion.
The ideas cannot be articulated meaningfully outside the dominant party
hierarchy or front itself, beyond its authoritarian, separatist intentions, dogma
and maneuvers. And the narrow, exclusively partisan formulation of the ideas
within the hierarchy assumes a false formulaic exactness because it is isolated
from broad, varying social-historical contents, forms and interpretations.

Hence,
ideas like democracy and federalism formally espoused by the Woyane party-state
machine cannot be understood as relatively open, communicative and debatable
signifiers whose meanings can be discursively established through discussion, negotiation
and compromise. Their articulation and workings are better grasped as the
exclusive operations of the dominant party-state machine itself. So TPLF and
OLF political theory doesn’t need the minds of learned elites or ordinary citizens
to engage it actively. More to the point, its logical questioning or probing from
outside is unlikely to produce any reasoned response from the TPLF and OLF,
since critical questioning affords no purchase on the authoritarian,
exclusively partisan structures of power within which the fonts’ theory of “national
liberation” has taken shape, mainly in an immediately instrumental and tactical
mode.

At a
deeper level, the explanation for the aversion of TPLF and OLF ethnonationalism
to consensus-seeking reasoning with patriotic and progressive opposition coalitions
has less to do with political philosophy or ideology than political psychology.
Though given ideological impetus by the Ethiopian Revolution, separatist
ethnonationalism began in resentment and hatred toward Amharas in particular
and Ethiopia generally, which it simply and falsely equated with the oppression
of other ethnic communities in the country by Amharas.

The
antipathy and bitterness in certain Tigre and Oromo elite circles toward Ethiopiawinnet then became increasingly
political in the course of the Revolution and in the post-revolutionary period.
The resentment has now become the form, substance, and horizon of ethnonational
self-identification within the TPLF and OLF. Consumed by negativity, such
self-identification says no to all that is not immediately and narrowly “itself,”
to what is integrally Ethiopian about the Tigre and Oromo communities. It says
no to Ethiopian nationality. As a result, TPLF and OLF political ethnicism gets
neither added national value through sensuous Ethiopian experience nor the benefit
of broad, forward-looking political thought. Tigre and Oromo partisans of
“radical” identity politics are simply too consumed by raw tribal resentment
and hatred to be moved by trans-ethnic Ethiopian patriotism or to be adequately
enlightened by progressive reason and ideas.  

It is for
this reason that TPLF and OLF partisans approach political issues and problems
in the country in disproportionately psychological terms, ever looking
backward, obsessing about being victims of historical injustices, resenting
those who are supposed to be victimizers, and striving against Ethiopia toward
an exclusive, insular ideal of “national liberation” that cannot be realized.
Under these circumstances, the attention of separatist ethnonationalists groups
is nearly wholly focused on partisan identity politics. The terms of TPLF and
OLF intellectual and political discourse are so focused in this way that the
fronts don’t have political vocabulary to express  truly national issues and concerns, not only
in the context of Ethiopia generally, but also in relations to the Tigre and
Oromo communities in particular. This, then, more fundamentally explains why
separatist ethnonationalist groups in Ethiopia are impervious to dialogue,
discussion, and negotiation with opposition forces that could lead to sorely
needed national reconciliation and consensus.

So a
broad-based coalition of patriotic and progressive opposition movements has no
alternative but to do battle with these groups on various fields and fronts and
by various means and actions in the most critical, systematic and sustained
manner it can. Opposition forces should call the TPLF regime, the primary
adversary, on its lies and pretenses, pressing its political and structural
flaws, contrasting its rhetoric and ideal promises with its actual performance,
capitalizing on the shallowness of its social bases and tribal alliances throughout
the country, and circumventing its coercive and intelligence capabilities and maneuvers.

The
struggle requires serious commitment in thought and action and will exact
sacrifice in a variety of ways. But the coalition of Ethiopian patriotic and
progressive opposition forces engaged in the resistance against TPLF tyranny should
learn a vital lesson from the ancient Chinese warrior-philosopher, Sun Tzu. To
paraphrase one of his maxims, “knowledge and strategy” are most effective to the
extent they make combat, particularly violent conflict “altogether
unnecessary.” In so far as the ideas, goals, organization, and planning of
movements of Ethiopian resistance forces are well thought out and enacted, they
discredit the enemy’s ideology, weaken its alliances, and neutralize increasing
parts of its armed forces. When the strategy of the resistance is “deep and
far-reaching, then what [it] gains by [its] calculations is much, so [it] can
win before [it] even fight[s]…” And the enemy loses before it goes to war, or
goes to war already a loser.

In sum, as
patriots, we can best defend Ethiopia and facilitate her resurgence not by
treating her national tradition merely as a museum-like repository of cultural
heritage and treasures, but also a vital site of contemporary development of Ethiopiawinnet which is capable of
integrally accommodating progressive ideas, social and cultural diversity, and political
pluralism. We should more fully understand that the country has evolved over
the ages, undergoing continual shaping and reshaping of its internal forms and
its relations to the outside world while enduring as a recognizable national
entity.

As
progressives, we should avoid slavish translation of Western revolutionary or
liberal modernism that is hardly resonant with or workable in the Ethiopian historical
context. We must adequately recognize that Ethiopia’s national being is the
horizon of our entire progressive thought and project. Moreover, Ethiopian
national consciousness cannot be reduced to contemporary political ideas,
beliefs, and aspirations, for it makes itself felt not merely in articulate
concepts and values but also, and primarily, in sense-forming lived experience
and culture, in the clarity of historical events and deeds, in the immediacy of
sentiments, symbols, and images, and in the power of collective memory.

—
The writer can be reached at [email protected]