The Ethiopian Muslim Civil Rights Movement: Implications for Democracy in Ethiopia

1) Forced a deceptive government show its true nature more than any other time

Many 20th and 21th century dictators pose a modicum of conundrum to anyone who studies the
nature of their power. They belie any traditional categorization of regime type. On the one hand,
they style themselves as democratic and constitutional. They conduct elections, draft
democratic constitutions, establish “human rights” institutions, and tirelessly speak of the need
for and their commitment to democracy. On the other hand, they rig elections, embezzle public
funds and intimidate, round up, torture and kill their opponents unconstrained by any notion of
the rule of law. Such governments strive to have it both ways at the same time: they wish to get
the benefits of holding two apparently opposite faces.

The EPRDF has been akin to this type of rule, a master of this Janus-faced game (it isn’t a
game for the victims, of course). On its “democratic” face, it has deafened us with its rant of the
need for the rule of law; enshrined a more or less democratic constitution; conducted several
elections, and installed a parliamentary system. On its autocratic face, however, it defiled the
constitutional system and the rule of law by violating the basic political and natural rights of
citizens with impunity. By any standards, it has never been serving the law and the state. In fact,
it has been the state and the law.

How have the two faces of the EPRDF gone along together? They have been meant to deliver
certain political functions internal and external to the state. And in principle, they are supposed
to be exploited in their proper places, times, and context, and hence are not expected to be
contradictory. But in practice, their relationship has usually been precarious, and tense at times.
The democratic face has been used to garner “democratic” legitimacy from those who have
been expected to have had any voluntary reason to side by the government. Moreover, this face
has also helped these supporters to gratify themselves about the “democratic” cause they have
been helping being fulfilled in Ethiopia. Finally, it has helped these same people to self-boost
their moral status while engaging in a heated debate with the detractors of the regime.

But the most important function of the democratic face has had to do with the international
community (to be precise, major international powers). For the sake of obtaining either
diplomatic or economic or military assistance or all, building such an image has always been
crucial for any regime in the world that has grabbed state power since 1991. The EPRDF has
not been an exception, and it has maximally used—and in many cases succeeded—in styling
itself as a pioneer of democracy in this otherwise troubled region of the world we call the Horn of
Africa.

But democracy and “EPRDF-cracy” do not by nature go well with each other. As a minority –
based party, the EPRDF can’t afford to genuinely liberalize the country and still stay in power.
Here comes the need for the second face, which has been at the heart of the persistence of the
party’s reign since 1991 well into the 2010s. It has to mortify the psyche, inflict fear in the mind,
torment the body, and take life in order to ensure its survival. These mechanisms have been
pushed through on those who have refused to be socialized into the regime’s propaganda. The
same mechanism has also been applied to those who trusted the regime’s propaganda and,
taking it at its words, plunged themselves into public contestation with it. When they appeared
threatening, they received the strong message–physical or otherwise–that they should back
down.

But the crucial thing in assessing the Janus-faced political order of things is the one related to
the balance of the two faces. The balance is very delicate, and with any disturbance, it may lead
to either near regime collapse or full-blown regime brutality. When the democratic side is
allowed to thrive more than the autocratic one, the EPRDF regime is bound to lose power.
However, if the autocratic tactics are put in place with more severity or duration, then the
benefits of appearing to be democratic withers away. Hence, striking a balance between those
two apparently contradictory aspects of the regime’s image has been of phenomenal
significance for ensuring its political longevity.

The regime’s capacity in maintaining this balance has been put to test many times. It has
emerged successful few times, but failed in many others. Especially at the international level,
the EPRDF has managed, at least in the first couple of years after its cling on to state power, to
make an effective use of its “democratic” credentials in order to get multi-faceted support from
the major powers of the world. But the internal dimension has quite frequently oscillated from
one extreme to another.

The challenge from the numerous oppositions has largely forced the regime to emerge more
brutal than democratic, although the trend has not been quite linear. The regime has expectedly
turned more autocratic as challenges have mounted and gotten threatening, and it has resumed
its democratic discourse when they have subsided. As a minority-based party, the ruling party
could not defeat the ethnic or the Ethiopian nationalist oppositions on a peaceful political stage.
The need to secure its regime at all odds has repeatedly led the party to use force or the threat
of using it to silence its oppositions, something that has seriously damaged its democratic
credentials. But at least in one occasion, the ruling party also oscillated in the opposite direction.
In 2005, it opened up the political system, and wished to stage a more credible democracy-like
contestation from which the new rulers could emerge. The results went rather disastrous to the
political life of the EPRDF. It learned the lesson—which it had assumed for long—that
democracy is its nemesis. Exposing too much of the democratic face might lead to the
replacement of the very body of which the face is a part. As a result, the reversion to brutality
has been effected once again in the aftermath of the election.

But this brutality had to wait for yet another—undoubtedly the most significant –phenomenon to
emerge as the only pillar of regime survival and to appear in its darkest, most unambiguous,
form than ever before. This most significant challenge that has impacted most on the image of
the government is the Muslim civil rights movement that has been going on since December
2011. All the developments leading up to the challenge and the form of government response to
it have most severely weakened the democratic status of the regime, and laid bare its true
unbridled authoritarian nature. The rights movement has altogether shattered the ever-strong
desire of the government to be seen as democratic and forced it to discard its hypocritical
behaviour. With the looming danger of a critical mass awakening, and the speed at which it has
been spreading, the ruling party could not help but throw away its “nicey” grab and take up its
most merciless stick.

True, this is not the first time the EPRDF is being challenged, and it is not the first time it
responds to challenges with impunity. Right from its contentions with the Oromo Liberation
Front, to the most recent threat it sensed from Ethiopian nationalist forces, the government has
responded violently. Tons of innocent people—including journalists– have been unfairly
victimized, according to a plenty of independent sources. But the regime had never been, I
argue, so much involved in the amount of hooliganism that it has been involved in for the last
one or so year. Hence, I submit that the rights movement’s one great achievement is that it has
brought to a serious end the little possibility that the EPRDF had had of running the politics of
hypocrisy.

In the first few responses to the simmering Muslim opposition to its anti-secularist policies, the
government tried to play it legal. It acknowledged that the Majlis (Ethiopian Islamic Supreme
Council) problem was a legitimate concern and also was willing to negotiate with the committee
that was representing the angry crowd. It praised the demands of the representatives, and
declared that an election would be held to form a new Majlis. It was true, however, that genuine
democracy and the full realization of any kind of right is against the controlling behavior of the
EPRDF. Hence, the apparent opening needed to be neutralized by other means. Accordingly, it
was soon announced that the Majlis election was to be held in an obviously highly controlled
environment (the ulama council, a Majlis affiliate, in charge of the elections, which in turn were
to be conducted in the government-controlled kebeles—both contrary to the demands of the
protesting masses).

These were the kinds of government responses we’ve been used to since 1991, and there is
nothing surprising about them. There have been, however, some other turn of events—some
happening quite early, others very recently– that would seal the record of the ruling party as a
democracy-free, totalitarian-to-the-core, group of gangs. It all had begun shortly before the
Muslim activism set in and actually had led to its break out. A new chapter in the history of
Ethiopian state repression began with the state-orchestrated religious indoctrination and forceful
imposition of a highly controversial, arguably foreign, religious doctrine on Ethiopian Muslims. A
deliberate state imposition of religious outlook on its people was I think the first of its kind
among the many anti-democratic deeds of the EPRDF. It was not only deeply anti-democratic,
anti-secular and totalitarian, but also incredibly rude, unintelligibly ambitious and utterly
perplexing. It was an unprecedentedly bizarre experiment.

But the emergence of the unique forms of totalitarianism of the EPRDF never stopped there.
Some of its reactions to the attendant activism have been most strikingly brutal as well. That
some people in Harar and Asasa were shot and killed; that people in the thousands have been
constantly intimidated, detained and tortured; that the whole movement is denigrated as terrorist
and Islamist etc—all these are not quite staggering. But unprecedentedly staggering are, for
example, the most recent developments like the state-devised night-time house break-ins and
blatant robbery. Many Muslims have by now confirmed that masked thugs accompanied by
security officers have broken into their houses without search warrants, intimidating them,
searching for materials and taking away some of their valuables. Unconfirmed but numerous
reports of highway robbery by government-sponsored thugs especially targeting Muslims with
laptops have also been reported.

It is also quite odd for security officers to break into places of worship and desecrate them
beyond imagination. Although this is not without precedent (think of the first Anwar incident in
the early 90’s, for example), the scale of what has happened this time around and the severity
with which it has happened is quite unique. It has been reported by different sources, for
instance, that people were preparing food for a Sadaqa session when tons of security officers
barged into the Awoliya compound in one night of July 2012, fired tear gas on the people who
took refuge in the mosque, rushed into the mosque shoe clad, and deliberately messed up the
praying precinct and hurled the Holy scriptures inside it. Since then, other similar incidents have
been reliably reported to have occurred in other Addis Ababa mosques, too.

Moreover, security officers have also forcefully prevented the Sadaqa gatherings– that brought
together people from diverse backgrounds (and sometimes even faith groups) for sharing food
and sending across messages of peace, unity and the protection of citizens’ rights– from taking
place. Some of the measures taken by the Police to this end have been both simply outrageous
and/or ludicrous. In some occasions, they have confiscated the animal to be slaughtered, and
the food ingredients to be used, for cooking. In other occasions, commercial cooks have been
impeded from conducting their daily business of selling food items to the Sadaqa organizers.
Still in other instances, grand mosques have been unusually closed in the morning hours for
fear that Sadaqa sessions would be conducted in them. Finally, and perhaps most
outrageously, many intercity busses have been stopped and “Muslim-looking” people have been
forced out of the busses by security officers. The reason given: they might be travelling to attend
a Sadaqa session in another town!

Also, unprecedentedly, the government, in perhaps the most glaring instance of the breach of
the rule of law, has unilaterally revoked a court-issued decree to ban the broadcast of a
documentary on the government-owned Ethiopian Television (ETV). The lawyers of the
detained Muslim committee members had demanded that the documentary that would allegedly
violate the presumption of innocence of the defendants be taken off the air, a demand that the
court endorsed and issued a ban on the broadcast. According to the lawyers, however, soon
after the letter from the court reached the ETV, the President of the Supreme Court unilaterally
reversed the court injunction and the documentary was accordingly released at prime time on
Feb 5, 2013. With utter shock and disgust, the lawyers then demanded that the ETV
representatives appear in court and expound their decision to release the film in contravention
to the court-issued ban. The TV station officials have never felt obliged to appear in court,
though.

What do all these examples tell us about the capability of the regime in maintaining a two-
forked, ambivalent image (of the kind mentioned above)? They tell us that in this particular
sense, the government has been getting remarkably weak in the face of the impending Muslim
opposition to its policies. It has failed—and miserably so– to put an end to it without losing the
delicate, albeit much-needed, balance between its two faces. The challenge has been so strong
and so persistent that it has been forcing the government to come out in what is left of its hither-
to hidden authoritarian skin—all naked. The ever-flimsy attempt at justifying the EPRDF’s rule
from the point of all those rosy stuffs we have been deafened with—group rights, individual
rights, democracy, equality —has now been permanently laid to rest. In short, although we have
always known the ruling party to be brutal, the Muslim movement (its immediate causes as well
as the government reactions to it) has helped us know what the brutality looks like when it
reaches its limit—completely deprived of its “humane” cover.

2) Introduced an alternative path towards democracy

The political culture of Ethiopia has been deeply beset by the politics of exclusion and the
psychology of rebellion. On the one hand, the successive governments of Ethiopia have
uncompromisingly held the belief that their political survival largely depends on the political
death of those they see as their opponents. The exclusion of a significant portion of the voices
from the mainstream political system has been at the hallmark of the governments’ power. The
excluded might have been earmarked in ethnic, gender, religious, regional or personal terms.
This has been an exclusion that bases itself on the self-identification and the political and
economic interests of the ruling class, as well as on the personal idiosyncrasies of its members.
Opposition, even more than difference, has needed to be “solved”, rather than incorporated and
managed. Unflinching on their grip on the bar of certainty, they have never swallowed the virtue
of plunging oneself into the unknown that inclusion brings with it. Bent on saving the regime
from a lurking threat, exclusion has been the normal and first procedure that has been applied
to disagreement.

Exclusion usually breeds rebellion, and persistent and absolute exclusion breeds persistent and
absolute rebellion. This has been largely true throughout the political history of this country.
Different reformers might have started out to air their critical views in moderate terms, but many
of the organized movements in much of modern Ethiopian history have been radical. They have
been radical in the sense that they have been anti-system and mostly violent. This system that
they have targeted has ranged from the existing political order with all its traces and affiliates to
the very entity we call Ethiopia. In other words, while some have violently rebelled against the
regime and everything associated with it, and demanded its complete displacement, others
have fiercely demanded nothing short of the dismemberment of Ethiopia itself. In either case,
the movements haven’t just looked for change, but a radical change supposedly wrought about
in a radical way.

The politics of exclusion paradoxically married to the psychology of rebellion has had disastrous
consequences for the democratic record of the country. Democracy both as a historical process
and as a theory is about compromise, inclusion, diversity, and toleration. In a society, on the
one hand, where the balance of power between the rulers and the ruled is highly skewed
against the latter; where the rulers feel insecure to hear dissent from the ruled; where the usual
mechanism of regime stability is not pulling up, but pushing out, as many voices as possible;
and on the other hand, where the ruled do not aspire to bring about a culture of loyal opposition
in the country but one of unbounded rebellion; where they refuse to see a possibility for change
coming with the least cost, but with the excesses of violence; where being an anti-system is
seen as the only way of making the system work better; where the anti-regime movement itself
becomes exclusivist and narrow—in a society where these are the noted manifestations of its
political culture, democratic culture will have really hard times to foster. Such has been the
problem with the political culture of Ethiopia. I hasten to add here that I’m not necessarily and
generally blaming the anti-government forces in Ethiopia or elsewhere for operating as
rebellious folks, as radicalism may be justifiable in some senses and in certain cases. What I’m
offering here is a general tool for understanding the elements of a political culture that is
unfavorable to the flourishing of sustainable democracy. It can also help us to question the
“natural-ness” of human endeavors (reactions to oppression, for example) by putting things in a
cultural context. Finally, in the specific Ethiopian case, it can slightly account for the never-
ending replacement of political exclusion by itself.

It is my belief that the current Muslim rights movement has gone an unprecedented distance in
transcending this dichotomy. Under fire from a highly exclusivist regime much frequently and for
so long, neither the leaders of the movement nor the major actors in it have (yet) developed a (n
ultra) radical consciousness or behavior. It is simply surprising—but perhaps explicable– for any
seasoned observer of Ethiopian politics that people in their millions, from so diverse
backgrounds, consistently demonstrating so loudly every week for over a year, and receiving all
sorts of brutal reactions from government forces, would be so consistent in their demands and
conduct. There has so far been no evidence of radicalism, disorganization, or confusion in the
ranks of the protestors. The unflinching obedience they have showed to their leaders’
injunctions before the latter’s arrest, and the unwavering commitment to their last words after
their arrest should appear as something baffling to those who have always witnessed the
opposite in the political history of Ethiopia. The movement has been consistently demanding for
the protection of democratic and constitutional rights and nothing more or less. It has couched
its demands in the most legal and legitimate manner, and has staged perfectly non-violent
rallies. It has never, on the one hand, asked for, or worked towards, the realization of religious
interests beyond or independent of the constitutional framework, nor, on the other hand, has it
demanded, or sought, the displacement of that framework by a new secular system. This is very
significant for the development of an inclusive and non-violent democratic culture in the country,
as I will further elaborate later.

The government, just like its predecessors would, has responded to the opposition in an
exclusivist manner, trying to relegate the voices of dissent to the margins. The voices, however,
refused to be marginalized. The barrage of formal and informal, overt and covert, physical and
verbal pressures that have been put on the protestors to keep them silent and endure all that
comes from the government have been blatantly rejected. The movement has kept going—
unabated—for so long despite the cravings of an otherwise highly repressive regime.

But the fact that it has rejected the call to be silenced is just the first instance of saying no to
marginalization. The movement has also refused to be plunged into the margins by taking a
radical turn. Radicalization is a gamble with very high stakes. It might succeed to bring on board
many people, or end up alienating many. It is something uncontrollable especially during its
early stages, and might not have the stability or the sustainability that proper mass recruitment
requires. It is also liable to be defeated as government violence is usually more refined, more
disciplined, and more brutal than that of its opponents. The Muslims’ movement in this sense
refused to commit suicide by transforming itself into what the government wants it to become: a
supra-constitutional “pariah”. It has been very critical of the government, but very respectful of
the constitutional order at the same time. This doesn’t mean that it has been supportive of the
ruling party or of its policies in other areas. It simply means that its aim has been the full
realization of democratic and secular order with the minimum cost that may come along
constructive change, but with the maximum effort that such a change requires. This is a very
economic use of mass power against the state.

In echoing a loud and critical, but non-radical, voice, the movement has contributed a lot to the
development of a new stream of culture in the politics of this country. First, it has helped us to
assess the possibilities and potential outcomes of a non-violent democratic struggle for
constructive change in Ethiopia. Bearing the brunt of a set of violent responses from the
government, the Muslims’ movement has taught us that at least a strong public sphere that
aspires to change the status quo can be established with or without the existence of a
repressive state structure. Part of this contribution is that it has widened our horizons to, and
raised our hopes in, finding solace in peaceful struggle against dictatorship. Yes, a very unique
Ethiopian non-violent struggle is unfolding before our eyes, and we’re being forced to re-think
some of our assumptions about the way we understand the mechanisms of effecting political
change in Ethiopia.

Secondly, it has also helped us to understand the vulnerability of authoritarian rule. Apart from
its vulnerability in the sense I mentioned towards the beginning of this paper (forced to shed its
“democratic” face), the regime in Ethiopia has also failed in keeping under control the
momentum of the opposition it has been facing for about fourteen months. Contradicting the
academic assertions that accord undue historic value to state power against the people, the
Muslim struggle has proven to us that state violence is not always effective in putting an end to
opposition. This won’t really be congratulated as new information for those of us living in the age
of the Arab Spring, but I think it is quite unique in Ethiopian land. Someone might pose the
disagreement that counter-regime movements have succeeded in Ethioipia’s past, too. My
rejoinder is that, yes, they have succeeded in ending regimes, but they have done so only by
either carrying arms or getting the military on their side or both. Nothing of these things have
been happening in Ethiopia for over a year now. There hasn’t been a violent Muslim– anti-
regime or even rights’ –struggle in Ethiopia, nor has the security apparatus of the state showed
any sign of siding with the civil rights movement. Be that as it may, the quest for freedom has
been loud and rampant, frustrating the wishes of the government from coming into fruition.

The maintenance of a loud quest for freedom at the face of state repression also means
something else. The Muslim activism, by demonstrating authoritarian vulnerability, has taught us
that all marginalization is self-marginalization. Many structuralist accounts on this topic have
contributed a lot to our understanding of the wider forces in play on our societies, but some of
them have been unfairly neglectful of subjective and agential forces that are otherwise very
important in explaining political outcomes. As already mentioned, the Ethiopian government has
always required that no opposition “disturbs” its “proper” functioning, and its response to the
Muslim demands has been underpinned by the same logic. But all the efforts at silencing people
have failed to bear fruits. While the power of the state should indeed be considered in
accounting for the muting of opposition, we need to consider as well the will of the receiving end
of that power. Power resides not just in the state, but also in the subjectivities of the individuals
whom the state targets. In other words, the locus of power is not to be sought just in the
material, mundane objects of repression, but also in the minds and souls of the forces of anti-
oppression. If an opposition (in this case, in the form of mass movement) to a state rule
becomes silent, it may not only mean that it has been silenced by the government; it may also
mean that it has silenced itself. The will power of individuals comes in between the repression of
the state and the act of being silent. State-centric accounts of power mislead us from this very
important fact.

The Muslim activism is therefore very significant in affecting the political culture of the country. It
has brought about a strong, consistent and yet moderate opposition to dictatorship. Most
importantly, it has relocated our focus of the paraphernalia for building a democratic state. We
have been, in the past, fixated on changing exclusivist systems, but ended up
bringing/witnessing other exclusivist ones. This time around, perhaps we need to be fixated on
democracy itself—the idea, the culture, the way of life. When the ultimate and major goal of
activism is changing regimes or changing territorial borders—however much democratically
couched the discourses for those ends could be– there is no guarantee that the new regime or
the new country will adopt a democratic system. But I think when the ultimate goal, and the way
towards that goal, is democracy, equality, inclusion and freedom; and when the masses behind
such a massive change are thoroughly democratized in mind and spirit; and when retaliation
has no place in the minds of the wider public, I think we are a step closer to bringing about the
system we have cherished for long. I think Ethiopian Muslims have offered us a lesson in this
regard by democratizing their discourse and behavior, in remaining steadfast in both aspects for
so long, and saying no to radicalization. At the same time, they have effectively morally
defeated the Ethiopian regime by forcing it to become the darkest it can be. By volunteering to
risk their precious lives, they have experimented (and are experimenting) the different
alternative paths to democracy—alternatives we Ethiopians are not very much used to.
Ethiopian Muslims have charted for all of us a new path towards a new Ethiopia.

3) Became an the alternative location of democracy

I have already discussed the implications of the Muslim struggle in both exposing the nature of
the Ethiopian government, and in showing an alternative way towards building a culture of
democracy, or, more strictly, an alternative way towards setting up a democratic framework
through the establishment of a culture of democracy. In the following lines, I will take the second
point further, and argue that the Muslim rights movement has not just demonstrated a different
way towards democracy, but it has itself become perhaps the most reliable venue for
democratic outburst in Ethiopia. At this rather bleakest moment of the EPRDF’s era, the civil
rights movement has remained to be the foremost locus of democracy.

Struggle for freedom and democracy has not been new for Ethiopians; many have been doing it
at least since the second half of the 20th century. But the struggles, among other things, have
felt short of developing a critical mass and sustainable Ethiopia-wide public that can act as
dependable reservoir of democratic crucible in the society. They have been either non-pan-
Ethiopian, or unsustainable and/or authoritarian, or any combination of those. Some freedom
fighters have fought just to save their ethnic groups from government brutality; some Ethiopia-
wide movements couldn’t succeed in their peaceful struggle, and hence have had to go
underground, thereby (usually) developing clandestine non-transparent, centralized, structures
that have rendered them authoritarian themselves. Or when they have escaped the
establishment of a clandestine centralized rule, they have faded away from the public and
couldn’t remain strong refuges of democracy. The fact that nothing of this sort has yet
developed with regards to the Muslim activism is worth-noting. By its very nature, the Muslim
activism has been trans-ethnic and trans-regional, and hence it has had a modicum of pan-
Ethiopian trait (despite the obvious limitation of its being religion-based). But it has been not
only pan-Ethiopian, but also “Ethiopia-centred” in the sense that its discourse-framing, its actors,
its visions etc have been very Ethiopian, not international or regional. The government’s
accusations notwithstanding (which are not to be taken seriously by any sober observer), there
hasn’t been any trace of foreign involvement in the struggle.

The democratic activism has not only been Ethiopia-centred, but, as already mentioned
elsewhere, also has been sustainable for so long. This is indeed an indication that in a country
where NGO’s have been severely crippled, press freedom dying out, religious institutions tightly
controlled, and professional associations effectively co-opted– in short, where civil society is in
grave danger of extinction, there has been one starkly different arena of visible democracy: the
arena of the protesting Muslims. They have been the last –but interestingly the most vibrant–
bastion of democracy in the country. Their voice has been the only remaining dependable,
independent and loud voice of liberation–uncontrolled and uncontrollable by the government.
Their unsubduable behavior has created an immensely empowering political climate in the
country. Their unshattarable unity has given many a good reason to imagine a post-divided
Ethiopia. Their freedom-induced fury and chaos-phobic discipline are the very marrows of
democracy. The Ethiopian Muslims are coming out of this year-long journey as a new brand of
strong, assertive, post-violent, and unified locations of anti-authoritarian force.

Conclusion: A Plea

I have raised a few, but broad, points by way of showing the democratic implications of the
fourteen-month old civil rights movement of Ethiopian Muslims. I have considered it to be of
phenomenal significance in the socio-political history of Ethiopia. But I also believe that it will
play its full potential only when two actors join it wholeheartedly: the rest of Ethiopians, and the
international community. By the former, I specifically have in mind Ethiopian Christians in
Ethiopia. It is true that many of them have disclosed their support for the Muslim rights
movement, and have helped in sheltering, feeding and morally supporting the elements therein.
But total democratic transformation requires more than this. The struggle for democracy in that
country has gone through several stages, and has now reached one of its most promising ones.
As such, I don’t see it wise at all to leave this struggle just to Muslims, and by doing so,
deliberately limit the fruits of a potentially far-reaching and holistic transformative experience.
Christians should join the movement bringing with them their own demands for freedom from
government interference in religious matters (that they have a lot to complain about), and later
on jointly escalate the democratic demands, chanting for those great ideals that all self-
respecting humans have always called for throughout history. I think most of us who have
supported the Muslim struggle should from now on expand on this proposal—the need for it, the
challenges to it and the mechanisms of doing it.

Another proposal is to the big players on the world stage. My message here is deliberately short
since I prefer to reserve the elaboration for another piece of mine and others’ to come. I’d now
say, paraphrasing Condoleezza Rice, many of you have dreamt of and at times have sought to
help (create) what you thought were forces of stability even at the expense of democracy, and
as a result have failed on both accounts. One path towards realizing both valuables is to stand
by and protect non-radical, massive, persistent and daring forces of unity and anti-
authoritarianism from below. Start with the protesting Ethiopian Muslims!