It is gratifying to note that, notwithstanding the extent of their further successes, the Egyptian people, have helped us reaffirm our trust in the valour of the ordinary man and woman in defying entrenched oligarchs buttressed by foreign aid and in overcoming their wily machinations. In an age where information delivery and processing has reached unprecedented levels and the ruling elites could marshal their resources (including advice and strategies) from across the globe to suppress popular rebellions, the same transformation in communications has enabled the man and woman in the street to scupper such designs. In the end, sheer numbers, indomitable will and the refusal to give in to state terror and machinations have won the day in Egypt, as they have done so in Tunisia, and no doubt they will continue in Yemen, Jordan and beyond.
Amidst the global attention to the debacle of the Mubark regime, other sitting ducks in the Arab world have been singled out as targets of ongoing or forthcoming movements. No one seems to think that the new wave of mass uprisings to reclaim the state and democratise society applies to non-Arab states and peoples. But that is the folly of the Western media and commentators. The genie is not out of the bottle in Arab north Africa or the Middle East alone. The fact that the news of the Tunisian revolt was suppressed in Ethiopia, for one, suggests that the regime in power believe they might be next in line. In the typical Byzantine manner of the TPLF, they sought to avoid any repeat of the successive lessons of the Tunisian and Egyptian ‘revolutions’ by simply stamping out the news!
Yet, even before the recent events in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan and the like riveted democratic public opinion globally, the TPLF regime in Ethiopia has been preparing its denouement in many ways, particularly after the sham 2010 elections.
The total shutdown and complete usurpation of the political space in Ethiopia by the incumbent power bloc (masterminded by the TPLF or what is left of it) has started to spawn strange developments that point towards a slow dislocation of, or disarray in, the state political machine. All told, just as during the final hours of the Dergue military regime, no one seems to know, or care, who is doing what and why: the primordial rationale for the existence of the state seems to be disappearing in the wake of the decimation of the political opposition that had apparently served to keep it alive.
To the foreign patrons and protégés of the TPLF and its local hangers on, the Ethiopian ‘federal’ state is under the control of a well-oiled, centrally organised apparatchik. They take their cues from the visible presence of the security forces, the intelligence corps, the tax and customs authorities in the daily life of the nation. The receipts that are thrown at customers in bars and hotels, the police that patrol back streets and the spies that make their presence felt everywhere might suggest that the state is undertaking its regular chores without let up. Moreover, from the point of view of the foreigners, notwithstanding the ideological trappings that the TPLF flaunt, the latter are expected to keep the country together and maintain law and order—activities they consider to be crucial for the ongoing rebuilding of the country’s infrastructure, the distribution of humanitarian assistance and food aid. These remain the demands of the foreign backers of the powers that be, despite the ups and downs of the fledgling political opposition and their hit and miss tactics over the last 10 years. Unable to understand how the rank confusion permeating the activities and organisation of the political opposition might get them into the Menelik palace, the foreign backers of the regime have gradually loosened their foreign aid and loan purses to let the infrastructure rebuilding progress and the political repression tighten even further. In the meantime, the internal political processes have entered a new phase with dynamics of their own.
The political sphere has turned into one huge pantomime. Audiences listen with rapt attention to well-scripted, if memorised, monologues of the speaker. Questions are rarely levelled at the speaker. If and when participants raise any ‘concerns’ it is usually with a view to allowing the speaker to hammer home some of the common lines repeated in the same session. The journalists accredited to meetings sit silently to report, and later orchestrate with nauseating effect, the purposes and messages of the speaker through the state-controlled media. It does not matter who the speaker might be or the occasion but the messages are packaged at the central level to be relayed with accuracy and indifference of the target audience, north, south or east of the country. These days the bywords everywhere are ‘change and transformation’, a reference to the so-called plans set out for the country for the next five years. Every cadre, councillor, parliamentarian and government official must repeat these words at every opportunity to prove loyalty to the cause in the first instance and to fill the void of what not to say—a dreadful thought for many who face crowds and gatherings as part of their routine tasks.
The lack of any debate, the absence of any input from persons outside the top leadership into any policies, plans and circulars has reduced the party and front led by the TPLF to one huge rubble. Thinking has been sucked out of the body politic and the entirety of the state is in shambles. These are surely incontrovertible hallmarks of a dying regime. People who witnessed the final days of the Derg would readily recognise the end is in sight.
The latest example of the unthinking but diabolic intervention of the TPLF in the life of the ordinary person is the attempt to curb price increases of basic commodities by force. Shutting down shops, mills and restaurants merely after a smattering of highhanded instructions to put up signs and stick to specified prices has blown the populist cover of the regime. Even its erstwhile supporters in Tigray have risen against this summary treatment of the supply of ordinary stuff in the urban areas. Having exhorted the farmers to put up their prices in previous years to starve urban centres, obviously as punishment for the 2005 rejection of the regime at the polls, it is now harking back to the Dergist methods of requisitions and imprisonment for groups not to its liking. The consequence of this on the urban centres, already home to many starving and homeless, is not hard to guess.
Ultimately, these and similar misdeeds on a daily basis, the rampant corruption, plundering of the state treasury, mismanagement of the economy and the regime’s unrelenting dictatorial practices and brutality will force the teeming millions out onto the streets and face off their clowns of leaders.
