The deracination [uprooting from ancestral lands] of
indigenous people that is evident in rural areas of Gambella
is extreme. It is very likely that Anuak (and
possibly other indigenous minorities) culture will completely disappear in the
not-so-distant future. Cultural survival, autonomy, rights of
self-determination and self-governance are all legitimate issues for these
indigenous groups, and these are all enshrined by international covenants and
United Nations bodies – but all are meaningless in Gambella
today.
The military junta (Derg) that
ruled Ethiopia from the mid-1970s until 1991 used “resettlement” as a political
and tactical counter-insurgency weapon. The Derg
“resettled” populations in rebel-controlled areas in the north of the country
to create military buffer zones and to deny the insurgents local support. At
the onset of the 1984 famine, the Derg initiated a
resettlement program for 1.5 million people from insurgent-controlled and
drought-affected northern regions to the south and southwest of the country.
The Derg claimed the people were relocating
voluntarily. Tens of thousands of people died in that resettlement program from
illness and starvation. Families were separated as people fled the ill-equipped
and ill-managed resettlement centers.
Ironically, the northern insurgents, who have now wielded
power in Ethiopia for the past 21 years, condemned the Derg
and characterized the “resettlement” centers as “concentration” camps. In 2012,
the very leaders who fought against such inhuman practices have become the
chief architects and engineers of a new and systematic program of forced
resettlement and transfer of population in Ethiopia. It seems history repeats
itself over and over again in Ethiopia. But for the record, “deportation or
forcible transfer of population”, (defined as “forced displacement by expulsion
or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present,
without grounds without grounds permitted under international law”) is one of
the specified crimes against humanity under the Article 7(d) of the Rome
Statute.
Kililistans and
Bantustans
For the past two decades, Zenawi
has been repackaging an atavistic style of tribal politics in a fancy wrapper
called “ethnic federalism.” He has managed to segregate the Ethiopian people by
ethno-tribal classifications and corralled them like cattle into grotesque
regional political units called “kilils”
(literally means “reservation”; semantically, the word also suggests the notion
of an exclusion zone, an enclave). “Kilil” is
basically a kinder-and-gentler form of Apartheid-style Bantustans (“black
African tribal homelands”). The ideology of “kililism”
shares many of the attributes of Apartheid’s “Bantustanism”.
Both ideologies aim to concentrate members of designated ethnic groups into
“homelands” by creating ethnically homogenous territories which could
ultimately morph into “autonomous” nation states. Zenawi
made sure to insert Article 39 in the Ethiopian Constitution which provides:
“Every nation, nationality or people in Ethiopia shall have the unrestricted
right to self-determination up to secession.” In other words, the “kilils” could secede and become sovereign nations, which
was precisely the ultimate aim of the Bantustans.
But there are many other similarities. One of the major
policy aims of “Bantustanization” was to make South
Africa’s blacks nationals of the homelands instead of the nation of South
Africa. By politically disempowering them and diminishing their national
citizenship and human rights to travel freely and establish residence in any
part of the country, Bantustanization effectively
atomized black African communities. The forced removal of disapproved ethnic
groups from the southern part of Ethiopia accomplishes the same purpose. “Bantustanization” was based on forced relocation of the
black African population from different parts of South Africa to the
“homelands”. It aimed at eventually accommodating every black person in South
Africa into one of the 10 “homelands”. Kililism has
effectively achieved that objective by corralling Ethiopians in 9 “regional
states” (kililistans) organized exclusively on the
basis of ethnicity. “Bantustanization” was used
strategically to prevent alliances between the various African ethnic groups.
It was an effective tool of the Apartheid government’s policy of divide and
rule to cling to power. “Kililism” serves the same
purpose in Ethiopia today to the point where a handful of individuals exercise
absolute power . According to the International
Crises Group, (a research organization that gives advice to the United Nations,
European Union and World Bank):
Once close to their rural Tigrayan
constituency, the TPLF and the EPRDF top leaderships now largely operate in
seclusion from the general public. This has led to a situation in which an
increasingly smaller number of politicians – the TPLF executive committee and
the prime minister’s immediate advisers – decide the political fate of the
country.
Playing the Ethnic Card to Divide and Misrule
My basic belief is that tyranny, despotism and
dictatorship thrive and flourish when the people are disunited and fragmented
particularly along ethnic lines and the tyrants and their supporters maintain
their ironclad unity. Ethnicity in Ethiopia, as in other parts of Africa, is a
source of division, weakness, conflict and violence. Unity is a source of
strength, harmony, peace and reconciliation. African dictators have used
ethnicity as a powerful weapon to divide and rule.
For the past two decades, the maxim of those who have
riveted themselves to the platform of power in Ethiopia has been: “We, the
rulers of the people, in order to form a more perfect disunion…” They have put
to use the ultimate weapon found in the arsenal of tyranny and despotism. They
have divided and misruled, divided and subjugated, and divided and parceled
away the land in bits, pieces and chunks. They have managed to systematically
divide the people by region, city, town and even neighborhood. They have
succeeded in dividing the people by corralling them into homelands (Bantustans)
in the name of “ethnic federalism”. They have sought to divide the people by
language and religion, and even rupture the bonds of affection between
Ethiopians living in the country and those in the Diaspora.
Overcoming Identity Politics in the Transition to
Democracy
In the transition from dictatorship to democracy, one of
the greatest challenges Ethiopians will face is the problem of identity
politics at the ideological level and “kililism” at
the structural and constitutional levels. One could surmise that the current
political rationale for “kililism” could create a
chaotic, if temporary, situation in the transition to democracy and potentially
impair much needed efforts to create national unity, preserve the country’s
territorial integrity and guarantee its political sovereignty. The challenge,
in my view, is how to transform the politics of identity and ethnicity into a
dialogue over strengthening national unity and furthering the common cause of
our humanity through cooperation, accommodation and reconciliation (while
avoiding the path to conflict and violence).
The threshold issue for me is whether it is productive to
play Zenawi’s “ethnic card” game. He has used it as
an effective tool to justify his one-man, one-party divide and misrule. He has
used the “ethnic card” to anger and distract his opponents and divert public attention from the desperate economic
situation in the country (“a recent report by the Addis Ababa-based research
group Access Capital SC stated, ‘Ethiopia had the second-highest inflation rate
in the world last year, when it peaked at 40.6 percent’”). It is best to leave
the ethnic polarization game to Zenawi and focus on
ethnic reconciliation, cooperation and collaboration.
There is much social scientific literature to suggest
that “identities are constructed and can be deconstructed and reconstructed
anew”. In other words, ethnic identity like other forms of identity is
malleable. It can be transformed over time by processes of immigration,
marriage, education, national integration, nation-building, economic
development and other factors. (Zenawi’s antidote to
this process is segregation of people in kililistans
where there will be little opportunity for “ethnic fusion” or assimilation.)
Often, ethnic identity trumps all other issues and leads to conflicts where
there is an absence of social and legal justice, poor governance and denial of
the equal protection of the laws and opportunities. The real challenge for
Ethiopia’s opposition political leaders, scholars, elites and ordinary folks
today is to re-conceptualize the politics of identity which for so long has
been based on historical and current grievances to a politics based on
promoting and implementing human rights values. I believe a paradigm shift in
the way we understand and discuss the question of ethnic identity; and that
necessitates first and foremost a change in the very language of communication
we use to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct ethnicity and its associated
social, economic and political problems.
Inventing a New Language for a New Identity
I have previously argued for and proposed a new
“language” for dialogue on the question of ethnicity in Ethiopia. (I even
“invented” words (neologisms) for the occasion, one of the privileges of an
academician.) I find it necessary to re-articulate those ideas once again. I
view ethnicity as the flip side of the coin of unity. The coalescence of ethnic
groups is the fabric of unity in any nation. When subnational groups are
fragmented, divided and are at odds with each other, a nation faces the threat
of disintegration. Zenawi sees Ethiopia as a
collection of 9 distinct and autonomous kilils. In
other words, Ethiopia for Zenawi is a patchwork of
“nations and nationalities” that have very little in common (a convenient cover
for divide and rule) and with mutually exclusive interests. We believe Ethiopia
is a variegated mosaic of multiculturalism where all citizens have the same
rights, freedoms, opportunities and protections under the law. They can live,
work, play and pray in any part of their country without any limitations or
restrictions whatsoever!
In the transition from dictatorship to democracy, it will
be necessary to build a new kind of unity based on our common humanity. This
special unity is grounded in a fundamental belief that our common bonds of
humanity are greater than the sum of our bonds of ethnicity, nationality and
communality. Our common yearning for freedom, democracy and human rights is
greater than our narrow ethnic interests. Our commitment to each other’s human
dignity is nobler than the arrogant ethnic identity.
Unity that is based on our common humanity draws not only
on universal ethical and moral values but also on the African ethic of “Ubuntu”,
often used by Nelson Mandela to teach us about the essence of human existence:
“A person is a person because of other people. You can do nothing if you don’t
get the support of other people.” “Ubunity” is unity
that requires us to see each other as brothers and sisters and relate to each
other on the basis of the principles of sharing, caring, trust, tolerance,
honesty and morality. We do not see each other with a colored ethnic lens that
filters for Oromo, Amhara, Tigrean, Gurage and so on but with a
clear lens that is calibrated to illuminate justice, equality and fairness. The
special unity of which I speak is also grounded in an unshakeable belief that
our individual liberty must be protected against those who commit crimes
against humanity and acts of atrocity, sneer at public accountability and abuse
their authority and act beyond the limits of constitutionality.
I ask all Ethiopians to strive for a special kind of
unity which I call both “humunity” and “younity”. “Huminity” is unity
based not on ethnicity or nationality but on a blend of core universal values
of human dignity and the African ethic of “ubunity”.
It requires individual moral commitment to respect and uphold human rights, an
allegiance to the rule of law, a belief in the consent of the people as the
only legitimate basis of power, and strict adherence to principles of
constitutional governance, accountability and transparency. If we could develop
wide and deep consensus on these values, we would have achieved unity of
thought, purpose and consciousness, the prerequities
to all other forms of unity. More importantly, if f we put these values into
action by defending the rights of victims of human rights abuses, working for
improvements in the observance of human rights conventions, organizing,
teaching and preparing the youth for a democratic society, exposing corruption
and abuse of power, strengthening our interpersonal relations across ethnic,
religious and class lines, we will have achieved unity in action and deeds. Is
it not true that the things that divide us, sow discord and hatred amongst us
are rooted in and fester because of the very absence of these universal values
in our lives?
Tyrants divide the people by magnifying the smallest of
differences. Often, the people fall prey to the schemes of tyrants and sing
their songs of discord and division. But in my conception of “huminity”, it is possible to have diversity of opinion,
views and approaches because I believe “Every difference of opinion is not a
difference of principle.” If we embrace and practice the universal principles
of human rights, we will realize that it is not about our ethnicity,
nationality, language, religion, region or anything else, but what we can do
collectively and individually to remove the yoke of oppression and tyranny,
institute democracy and the rule of law to uphold human dignity.
My conception of “younity” is a
simple idea about you and I together standing up to tyranny, corruption and
abuse of power. It is based on the notion that each one of us is a link in a
long chain of both oppression and freedom. Our yearning for freedom welds the
links in the chain of unity; tyranny melts the links. I believe we all have an
individual civic and moral duty to strengthen the links and bonds of unity in
the Ethiopian people by embracing and practicing the core values of human
dignity and rights. Political leaders must adopt a new and more powerful
language of “huminity” to bring the people of
divergent views together. Religious leaders must speak of “huminity”
in the language of divinity. They should preach and pray for unity. Civic
leaders must speak up and advocate for “huminity”.
Academics must teach the ways of “huminity” to the
youth; and the youth must teach the older generation of the necessity of “huminity” for a new and enlightened Ethiopian community.
Most importantly, ordinary people in the street must speak in the language of
our common humanity (ubunity) to achieve ultimate
unity.
Playing the ethnic card game with Zenawi
is to fall victim to destructive identity politics that breeds division,
hatred, conflict, and cynicism. We can choose to play Zenawi’s
zero-sum ethnic card game (a game in which he always wins and we always lose)
and express outrage over the spectacle he has created in Gura Ferda, Gambella, BenjMaji and wherever else. But
we can also rise above ethnicity and the politics of identity and help build a
national Ethiopian identity. But how…?
“Establish New Relationships, Devoid of any Resentment
and Hostility”
The most direct way to build a new national identity is
to establish new relationships and discard the old and tired ways of hatred and
domination. We must look to a vision of Ethiopia that is not only free of
dictatorship and tyranny but also united. On the occasion of the establishment
of the permanent headquarters of the Organization for African Unity (OAU) in
Addis Ababa on May 25, 1963, H.I.M. Haile Selassie made the most compelling
case for African unity. One-half century later, that same message rings true
for Ethiopia:
We look to the vision of an Africa not merely free but
united. In facing this new challenge, we can take comfort and encouragement
from the lessons of the past. We know that there are differences among us.
Africans enjoy different cultures, distinctive values, special
attributes. But we also know that unity can be and has been attained among men
of the most disparate origins, that differences of race, of religion, of
culture, of tradition, are no insuperable obstacle to the coming together of
peoples. History teaches us that unity is strength, and cautions us to submerge
and overcome our differences in the quest for common goals, to strive, with all
our combined strength, for the path to true African brotherhood and unity…. Our
efforts as free men must be to establish new relationships, devoid of any
resentment and hostility, restored to our belief and faith in ourselves as
individuals, dealing on a basis of equality with other equally free peoples.
Close ranks regardless of ethnicity or regionality; reaffirm our basic humanity in our Ethiopianity; renounce our old enmity; openly declare our
steadfast unity and trumpet our Ethiopian nationality at every opportunity. Let
us strive to establish a new identify in Ethiopian unity!
Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author
may be found at:
