As reflections of Marxist-Leninist ideology and Marxism being a negative philosophy, i.e. not a positive philosophy in its own right, all these approaches advance invariably negative solutions. Because of this, those who believe that ‘Amhara national domination’ was the main problem of Ethiopia wish to ward off the “Amhara chauvinists” comeback in the 2005 election chimera. They add that should the ‘Shewan supremacists’ come back to power one day by toppling the weyane leader, they would go to the bush again to fight for a second round “liberation” of Tigray. For those who believe that northern Ethiopia has colonised southern Ethiopia, the solution lies in allowing the oppressed Ethiopian ethnic groups to exercise freely ‘their’ ‘right’ to ‘self determination’. Likewise, those who believe that Tigrayans are the causes of Ethiopia’s current political, economic and military crisis, the solution is to abolish perforce Tigrayan ethnocratic rule. On top of being negative, all these approaches are also ethnicist inasmuch as they aim to politically incriminate certain language groups as a whole for the ongoing crisis.

The problem is that not only these Marxist-Leninist-cum-ethnicist approaches are the result of a wrong diagnosis of the Ethiopian crisis, but they are extremely dangerous in that they lead Ethiopians to be mutually suspicious precluding thereby every possibility of solving Ethiopia’s problems together by sharing responsibility for the national tragedy. Our position on the urgent need for sharing responsibility for the national tragedy does not depart from a desire to be charitable vis-à-vis a perceived culprit or to be apologetic towards the Amhara contrary to what was insinuated by philo-Eritreans. Cheating, lying, terrorism and apology being the greatest betrayal that an intellectual, qua intellectual can commit, it has never occurred to us to want to adopt an apologetic stance vis-à-vis this or that ethnic group. What is more, defending one ethnic group against other groups is a great disservice to Ethiopia; and the well-being and the unity of Ethiopians being our main objective, we cannot be apologetic towards this or that ethnic group on pain of contradicting ourselves. Contradictions and inconsistencies are the choices of malevolent and pre-logical individuals. Nonetheless, despite the consistency of our arguments some were led, out of sheer ignorance or bad faith, to brand us ‘apologist’ of King Menelik simply because we defended Ethiopia’s territorial sovereignty as has been enshrined in Ethiopian, African and international laws by arguing that colonial treaties were not treaties in the legal sense of the word and that Menelik was duressed into signing them. Our arguments were based on the dominant Western racist legal view of the 19th century that Europeans had a colonial right to own African territory, which continent they considered to be ‘unclaimed land’. Because of this, we argued consistently that the European lawyers’ and policy makers’ conception of international law in the 19th century did not enable to call “treaties” the Italian diktat that the West is again trying to impose on us with the help of the TPLF (for a detailed information on the 19th century conception of international law, one can read Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960, Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Besides , we already replied to our ‘critics’ that no one could argue, on pain of contradicting themselves, that the Algiers Agreement was null and void and accuse at the same time King Menelik of signing those pseudo treaties unless by attacking Menelik one was secretly working for the EPLF or trying to justify the illegal and Eritreanist policy of the TPLF which considers Eritrea as a former colony of Ethiopia. Although defaming Menelik, the second black king who defeated European colonialists and therefore the pride of the black race (with the exception, of course, of EPLF and TPLF) and a fortiori the pride of Ethiopians is a futile attempt at nullifying Ethiopian national pride and history, I believe that the most important issue for Ethiopia today is not and cannot be what Menelik, who by the admission even of European historians was, together with Germany’s Bismarck, the most diplomatically intelligent man of the 19th century, did to defend Ethiopian independence in her very difficult relationship with European colonialists. I don’t really understand why a nineteenth century “problem” has become in 2004 a favourite subject for the venerable Tecola Hagos and why accuses gratuitously other Ethiopians and me of ‘sillily denying Menelik’s crime of selling Ethiopia’s patrimony’. It is really very strange that Tecola should be so much fond of insulting everybody who does not accept his personal conception of Ethiopia, Ethiopian politics and history. One can surmise that this is the reason why he is so much interested in monologue and not in a dialogue. A dialogue is a mutual exchange of ideas which requires that one should be modest and respectful towards those whith whom one does not share the same ideas. Without respect, dialogue becomes impossible. Without dialogue, the door is open for dogmatism and dictatorship as has been the case of Ethiopia since 1974. So hoping that Tecola will start learning to stop monologising and accept that as he is entitled to his own opinions others are also entitled to defend what they think is good for Ethiopia, let me make a little digression and say that far from a blind apologist of Menelik or denying sillily the ‘facts’ , I have already made it clear why it was necessary to make a distinction between Menelik’s internal policy and his handling of Ethiopia’s foreign relations with colonialists. Regarding his internal policy, I argued several times that King Menelik’s policy after the Adwa victory was harmful to Ethiopian unity and national cohesion. In fact if Western colonial powers in general and Italy in particular were trying to invade Ethiopia after the Adwa victory, it was because they knew that Ethiopia had internal problems of unity. And had Menelik and Haileselassie worked for the unity and mutual respect between the various traditional elites of Ethiopia, fascist Italy might not have dared to invade Ethiopia in 1935. So, for me it must be possible to express one’s disagreement with Menelik’s internal policy without throwing out the baby with the bath water. Which is to say that one can disagree with Menelik’s internal policy while accepting that if Ethiopia was independent until 1991 and if Ethiopians including Menelik’s notorious bashers are proud of this independence, it is because Menelik was able to rally all Ethiopians around the fight against a common enemy. Contrary to Tecola and his organisation, the TPLF, who have worked hand in glove with Ethiopia’s worst enemies with the sole aim of snatching power from what he calls the ‘Shewan supremacists’, an enterprise which led to the criminal acceptance of the EPLF’s invented story about Ethiopia as the last colonial power in Eritrea, the Tigrayan nobility did not take side with Italy against Menelik to bring back the throne to Mekelle. As patriotic and far-sighted Ethiopians, the Tigrayan nobility said that the honour and the pride of the country was far more important than power. To that end, our heroic and patriotic ancestors fought side by side with their Shewan brothers against the enemy and not against their compatriots and their country. It is also a historical fact that Menelik did not chase Italians from Northern Ethiopia , his resounding victory notwithstanding. And the reason why he did not do that is a moot point. In our childhood, we were told stories that Menelik agreed to the Italian stay in the Northern Ethiopia because he was afraid of the Tigrayan nobility. One can surmise that it is because of this that Tecola Hagos is led at the dawn of the 21st century to brand Menelik a “sell-out”.

But it is also a public knowledge thatTecola is a full-bore Tplfite. He says that Menelik should have chased the Italians from northern Ethiopia. The problem with the Tplfites is that if they believe sincerely that Menelik should have chased Italians from northern Ethiopia, they cannot justify why they fought or supported the TPLF’s fight to dismember and landlock Ethiopia while Menelik’s ‘mistake’ as Tecola calls it wrongly, was rectified by the measures taken by King Haileselassie and by Eritreans themselves. In fact, if Tplfites were concerned Tigrayan nationalists or Ethiopians as they pretend to be, the logical thing to do for them should have been to defend Tigrayan local interest [history] and Ethiopian national interest by fighting against the invented story that Ethiopia colonised Eritrea as did courageously and patriotically such extraordinarily wise Ethiopians as Abraham Yayeh and Gebremedhin Araya. As a lawyer and top intellectual of the TPLF, Tecola should have been the first to teach his less educated and unpatriotic TPLF comrades that it was an egregious violation of history, African and international laws to say that the Eritrian problem was a colonial question not to mention that being Ethiopian requires that one should fight by all fair or foul means [as is counselled by Nicolo Machiavelli cited above] to defend Ethiopia’s vital national interest. Despite his polymathy, the venerable Professor lent intellectual support to all the lying and distortion of history and violation of law. Because of this, he has not only misreably failed Ethiopia and has committed a professional direlection of duty , he has also collaborated with the EPLF and has committed a treason against the Ethiopian state as is clearly stipulated in various Ethiopian penal laws. Unwilling to or intellectually incapable seeing the huge difference between fighting against a political regime [the Dergue] and fighting against a nation [Ethiopia], his excellency has sacrificed national interest at the altar of cliquish interest and has now the nerve to tell the Ethiopian people that the TPLF has “liberated” Ethiopia even if, as its very name indicates, the TPLF has never said it was an Ethiopian liberation organisation. By declaring solemnly that Ethiopia has been ‘liberated’ by the struggle of the organisation to which he has lent unfailing intellectual support in its violation of history, Ethiopian, African ad international laws, the professor in TPLF has accepted the illegal secession of Eritrea and Ethiopia’s landlockedness. He seems to say that the dismemberment and the landlockedness of Ethiopia is a price for its ‘liberation’ by the TPLF. If that was not the case, he cannot logically argue that TPLF fought for ‘our liberty’ even if we don’t know to whom exactlty refers the word ‘our’. The irony is that ‘forgetful’ of all this crime against Ethiopia, not only Tecola accuses, not anyway without malevolence, King Menelik of ‘treason’ but tries to pass for a ne plus ultra patriotic Ethiopian . And that by singling out the weyane leader for the violation of Ethiopian sovereignty and territorial integrity and by derecognising Eritrea as if the distingushed scholar did not work as a policy advisor to his erstwhile weyane boss and as if he had not accepted Eritrea’s de facto independence before he left weyane transitional governement. Still worse, Tecola has confessed in public that he left the weyane transitional government not because of its Eritreanist policies but because the weyane leader ‘betrayed’ the TPLF by befriending with some members of the ‘Shewan supremacists’ whom he accuses of having ‘conspired’ to antagonise the TPLF dignitaries one against the other. That clearly shows that Tecola gives priority to the unity of the TPLF and not to the unity and the well-being of all Ethiopians without distinction or exclusion. That said, we are entitled to ask why Tecola singles out the weyane leader for the violation of Ethiopian sovereignty while the fact is that no member of the TPLF leadership including Tecola himself have been unapologetic about their treasonous and collaborationist conception of Ethiopia as a last colonial power of Eritrea and of king Yohannis as an emperor of Tigray who colonised Eritrea. The venerable professor has also accepted the TPLF’s conception of Ethiopian history as a history of 100 years, while he whimpers now fretfully that Menelik ‘usurped’ power from Yohannis’s ‘descendants. That is why, at a time where Ethiopia craves to see the unity of its divided elite with view to pulling itself out of its political and economic quagmire Tecola’s pre-modern conception of Ethiopian politics leads him to reduce Ethiopian 20th century complex problems to a rivalry between the Tigray and Shewa elites as if the rest of the Ethiopian people did not matter. Still worse, the distinguished scholar dares to dub ‘agents of supremacists’ those Ethiopians who have been doing commendable job together with other Ethiopians with view to smashing the remaining shaky wall of distrust among Ethiopian political elites. Why does Tecola want his hate of the ‘Shewan supremacists’ in general and of King Menelik in particular to be the guiding political principle of every Ethiopian?

The point however is that even if the Professor pontificates that Menelik was a ‘sell-out’, the great majority of Ethiopian intellectuals believe that Menelik did not have the means to continue the war and to chase Italians from Northern Ethiopia. So, which “school of thought” is right? The partisans of the “treason” thesis cite in support of their arguments that Menelik accepted money from Italians and concluded treaties ceding Ethiopian territories. The problem is that Tecola and people like him don’t go further and ask the question whether King Menelik did that with the aim of harming Ethiopia or out of necessity [understood in the legal sense of the word] to save Ethiopian independence by sacrificing a part of Ethiopian territory. For theoreticians of conspiracy such as Tecola, there is no doubt that their desire to retrospectively ethnicise Ethiopian history [i.e. to reduce it into Tigray-Shewa rivalry] perhaps in a bid to justify the current statusquo and to get themselves demagogically wowed by the TPLF rank and file leads them to preach that Menelik was an enemy of Tigray because not only he ‘usurped’ the Solomonian throne by pitting the different houses of Tigray against each other but also he sold Ethiopian patrimony with the aim of harming Tigray. Is this really the burning issue for the inhabitants of Tigray in general and for the inhabitants of Tembien in particular in 2004?

Tecola loves unlawyerly to jump to conclusions with out arguments or proof. The Professor has not for example demonstrated in what way the Tigrean nobility had a more legitimate claim to the Solomonian throne than that of Menelik given the historical fact that the taking of power in Ethiopian history was not based on legal succession but on power strength. It is really strange that the venerable Professor can ‘believe’ that the Tigrayans had a more legitimate claim than Menelik while the fact is that Yohannis himself is quoted to have said just before he decided to combat the Mahdists at Metema that Menelik could become King of Ethiopia if that was the will of the Almighty. What is more, not only Tecola’s opinion does not make sense at all but it is very dangerous, because the descendants of Tekelegiorgis of Wello province could also say the same thing against Yohannis. If we were to attend the political ethnic course of the professor, the historical accusation and counter accusation can continue back wards till it reaches the Axumite period. The danger of Tecola’s opinion is that it goes against the modernisation/democratisation of Ethiopia as it insidiously tries to give historical justification to the current TPLF domination of Ethiopia even if he might wish that the weyane leader be removed from his post of ruling the TPLF. In that case, Ethiopians cannot live together; and Tecola cannot forward any convincing argument why the “Shewan supremacists” or for that matter the members of the Dergue/ESEPA should be ruled by the TPLF. This is the reason why political ethnicity is a danger to the unity and to the democratisation/modernisation of Ethiopia. In this regard, one can speculate that his hate of Menelik and of the Shewan political elite is the main reason why Tecola has decided to go it alone to summon Menelik before a tribunal of History and to convict him for selling out Ethiopian patrimony. However not only such a decision at a time when Ethiopians try to get united is not helpful to advance the Ethiopian cause, but it violates the due process of law; because not only Tecola does not meet all the requirements to sit in a tribunal of History as a judge but he plays also the role of a prosecutor and a judge. Tecola’s tribunal of history has also deprived King Menelik of his right to a fair hearing and to be provided with a defense. By branding ‘silly denier of facts’ those who want to work for the respect of the supremacy of law including by a tribunal of history, Tecola seems to convoy a message to the weyane rank and file that they should rally around the TPLF so that power will never again return to the ‘Shewan supremacists’. Although there is no doubt that Tecola’s kangaroo court cannot be taken seriously, I have tried to mull over the question whether Menelik really wanted to harm Ethiopia. Before looking for an answer to this question, I also examined the question if the 1902 colonial treaty depriving Ethiopia of its natural right to build a dam on the Lake Tana was made with view to harming Ethiopia [the inhabitants Gojam] given the fact that Menelik had warred against the Gojamite aristocracy and given also the rivalry between the traditional elites of Shewa and Gojam . Had it not been for Menelik, who knows, King Tekelehaimanot could have become the successor of King yohannis. The comparison between Tigrayan and Gojamite cases seems to be very interesting for it helps to see the difficult situation Ethiopia was in in her relationship with European colonialists. Because of this, although I don’t belive that Menelik or the TPLF are reputed for their love of Tigrayans, I don’t see how and why, irrespective of his attitude towards the Tigrayan nobility, Menelik could be led to act to the detriment of Ethiopia. Tecola has not demonstrated why Menelik acted to the detriment of his own country. If he has the proof, I am ready to learn.

In my view, an attempt at understanding objectively the Menelikian policy toward colonialists in general and towards Italians in Northern Ethiopia in particular requires that we de-ethnicise the problematisation of our past. Bearing this in mind, I have tried to study this problem as objectively as possible even though pure intellectual objectivity is as hard to find as the philosopher’s stone. By relative objectivity, I mean that I take an analogy from certain modern principles of law before deciding whether Menelik was a sellout or a patriotic leader and a consummate diplomat to whom Ethiopians are immensly indebted for their country’s independence. In contract law, there is the modern general principle that when a judge is of the opinion that a law or a contractual clause is susceptible of two contradictory interpretations, he shall adopt the interpretation that is in favour of the debtor. Like-wise, in criminal law, there is the presumption of innocence, and if 99% of the evidence shows that the accused is guilty while 1% of the evidence shows that the accused is innocent, then the judge must declare the accused innocent. I am of the opinion that any judge sitting in any tribunal of History must be led, if they correctly use this analogy from law without fear or partiality, to decalre King Menelik innocent. Because, the European conspiracy to invade Ethiopia and other historical facts which we cannot discuss here should lead us to give the benefit of doubt to King Menelik and to conclude that, although, as Gebrehiwet Bikedagn wrote, there had been no love lost between Menelik on the one hand and his Tigrayan and Gondarite subjects on the other , Menelik acted in the best interest of Ethiopia by sacrificing a part of Ethiopian territory. I believe that Menelik’s policy towards the Italians in northern Ethiopia and towards the British cannot/should not be the sole concern of Tigrayans and Gojamites. It was the whole Ethiopian people who fought against Ottomans, Italians and the EPLF army in Northern Ethiopia. That territory is therefore an Ethiopian territory, i.e. owned by all Ethiopians even though it has been inhabited by Tigrigna speaking Ethiopians. Because of this, Menelik’s decision should be studied from the angle only of Ethiopian interest and not from the angle of Shewa/Tigray rivalry. Otherwise, as I said above we cannot continue to live together as Ethiopians and Tecola cannot come up with a convincing argument why Ethiopians in general and the Shewa ‘supremacists’ in particular should be ruled by the TPLF whom Tecola defends with red-hot passion even against being criticised by what he calls ‘a number Tigrayans in the Diaspora’. On the contrary , if we nationalise the problematisation of historical questions, all Ethiopians can participate in the discussion of a national issue and the discussion can become worthy of following. Otherwise, no Ethiopian from Benshangul or from Welaita or from other parts of Ethiopia can be interested by outmoded parochial political conception of Ethiopia. On the contrary other Ethiopians can despise us for reducing ethocentrically the country’s problems to a Tigrayo- shewan eternal rivalry. It is hightime that we emerge from our ethnic cocoon in order to make a real diffrence in enabling our country to meet the internal and external multi-challenges of the 21st century.

So, in view of the foregoing, is it possible to conclude that Menelik is a “traitor”, and he who says that Menelik was duressed into signing the colonial treaty is an apologist or wants to “sillily deny the facts”? I already forwarded facts based on the geo-political situation of East Africa in the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century and comparative examples from other countries in support of my argument that Menelik was duressed into signing pseudo-colonial treaties. Until now, Tecola has not demonstrated why my arguments are wrong. It would also be very foolish on his part if he were to try in vain to demolish my arguments, whose sole aim is to defend the interest of the contemporary and future generation of Ethiopians unless he chooses to follow the example of the Eritrean philosophers who try incompetently to defend to the hilt Eritrea’s illegal claim against Ethiopia’s legal interest while they shamelessly call Ethiopia their ‘beloved country’. They express their ‘love’ for Ethiopia by pleading for the defence of Eritrean illegal claim and by propagandising that Ethiopians are barbarian war mongering who should be taught about peace. Their extreme contempt of the Ethiopian people even leads them to demand that the Ethiopia honours them as her ‘ peace hero ‘ even though the peace they talk self servingly about is a peace only for Eritrea and a dislocation and a suffering for Ethiopians, therefore a war as usual against Ethiopia.

Anyway, does Tecola really think that it is in keeping with intellectual professionalism and the logic of arguing to jump to pontifical conclusions and to brand ‘silly denier of facts ‘ anyone who reject the attempt to unscruplously misrepresent historical facts with view to masking one’s betrayal of the nation and collaboration with an enemy? To tell the truth, there is no silly or judicious in all this matter. The accusation against Menelik is a simple red herring. The target is neither Menelik nor the Shewa supremacists. Because neither Menelik nor the Shewan supremacists are the real problems of Tigray. The real target is the Tigray population. The disagreement revolves therefore around the attempt by the few to isolate Tigray and to hold it hostage to perpetuate dictatorship in Tigray in particular and in Ethiopia in general and the efforts of the majority to expose every form of anti-Tigray Tigrayan nationalism so that Tigray would not be used as an instrument to perpetuate dictatorship and treason against it self and against the whole Ethiopia.

That being made clear, even if people are cocksurely convinced about the exactitude of their ethnicist and divisive interpretation of Ethiopian history, l am neither apologist nor a denier of ‘facts’. No serious intellectual who read my previous articles can say honestly that I am apologist even though one can perfectly say that my arguments are not convincing or are completely wrong. What conceivable interest can I have to be apologist or to deny Menelik’s “treason” other than trying to make my sincere and humble contribution towards the national reconciliation of Ethiopian political elites so that Ethiopia’s multifarious problems can be resolved? My aim is to make a limited contribution to the modernisation of the current backward political thinking by some of the intellectual and political elites. As I said above, I may have disagreements with Menelik’s internal policies but I am not a hater of Menelik or the Shewan elite. I respect Menelik as I respect any other Ethiopian king. In fact were it not for the violation of Ethiopian integrity and territorial sovereignty by the Algiers Agreement which is itself based on the self-same Tecola approved ideology of Eritrea as a colony of Ethiopia, I would not have been led to raise issues of history on which historians are better placed to enlighten us. On my part, I depart from the conviction that Menelik as a King of Shewa was different from Menelik as King of Ethiopia. Regarding Ethiopia’s foreign relations, Menelik as governor of Shewa had acted irresponsibly. But acting irresponsibly in the 19th century and during the first two decades of the 20th century was not the preserve of Menelik. The same was true of Dejazmach Negusse who promised to give land to the French should they send him weapons to topple King Teodros (source: TekeleTsadik Mekuria). After Dejazmach Negusse, we know also that Yohannis took the British side against king Teodros. It is also a fact that the Italophile Dejazmach Gebreselassie gave a part of Ethiopian territory in western Tigray to Italy administered Eritrea in exchange for weapons. It is because of this that I already argued that one should evaluate 19th century problems according to the mentality and tendencies of the 19th century. None of my ‘critics’ has tried to demonstrate why this approach of mine is wrong.

Now let me come back to the policies of Menelik as a King of Ethiopia. Let us say that Menelik should have chased Italians from Northern Ethiopia. The first question that I pose to readers is: was it possible for Ethiopia [ whose population was considrably smaller than the Italian population of the time not to mention the huge technological difference between the two] to station permanently an army to defend her Red sea coast against Italy or against any other European power? Two, given the prevailing racism in Europe in the 19th century, would the Europeans have tolerated a complete humiliation of a European power(Italy) by a black nation (Ethiopia) had Menenlik decided to chase the Italians from Northern Ethiopia? Hoping that Tecola will answer these questions, I ask readers to allow me to concentrate on the second part of the question. My answer to this question is that the Europeans would not have tolerated a complete humiliation of Italy by Ethiopia and sooner or later they would have done everything to invade her. I am firmly convinced that Menelik knew humiliating Italy completely amounted to foolishly losing the phyrric victory. And it is precisely because of this that I argue that Menelik was duressed into signing the unequal pseudo-colonial treaties. This arguments is not based on a simple idiosyncratically patriotic claim. It is based on plausible (if not absolutely true) arguments. In this regard, Ethiopians and especially Tigrigna speaking Ethiopians should be reminded that the news that an Italian army had been wiped out by a “primitive African army” had caused a great consternation and a wail of indignation in some European capital cities. Far from being a military defeat of one European country by an African country, the Adwa Ethiopian victory was seen by some Europeans as a defeat of modern European civilisation by a “primitive civilisation” just as the black race around the world considered that victory as a proof that the Europeans were not born invincible and that Africans were not either born to be slaves. And Italian cities of the 16th and 17th centuries being the cradle of European Renaissance, the defeat of Italy, therefore the place of birth of modern European civilisation and capitalism was in reality the defeat of the whole white race’s “superior” civilisation. As the Dutch historian Henry Wesseling writes, and I believe that it was because of this that once the defeat of Italy was made public, Germany adjured Great Britain to go to the help of the defeated Italians (Henri Wesseling, Le Partage de l’Afrique 1880-1914, Amsterdam: Bakker, 1991, translation from the original Dutch by Patrick Grilli, 1998). The British were willing to respond positively to the German request [ibid]. However, the British had other fish to fry [ibid]. They had to take revenge against the Mahdists of the Sudan who, after having massacred 168 British troops and Major-General Charles Gordon in 1885, captured Khartoum. Winston Churchill, a journalist at the time, described the battle between the British troops and the Mahdists as “the most savage and bloody action ever fought in the Sudan by the British troops”. Then the Mahdists ruled the Sudan for a dozen of years. So at the time Germany exhorted the British to go to the help of the humiliated Italians in order to bring Ethiopia to its knees, they were preparing for a war against the Mahdists and they feared that fighting against Ethiopia to ensure the superiority of the white race might backfire and their plan of taking revenge against the Mahdists and colonising the Sudan might be thwarted. The Mahdists fought with bravery and lost 15000 of their men and were defeated in 1898 by the British army led by General Sir Herbert Kitchener.

If Menelik had completely humiliated the Italians by chasing them from northern Ethiopia, there is no doubt that Western colonial powers would have sent their army to colonise Ethiopia. Ethiopia did not have the means to fight against several European powers. And the independence and pride that was registered at Adwa would have been meaningless if, as Tecola now “wants”, Menelik had decided to chase Italians from northern Ethiopia.. As a consummate diplomat, Menelik knew that, and that is why he adopted a low profile by not crying victory. He did not say “Talian geday” as we would certainly say today. He expressed his “regret” that two “Christian nations” were forced to resort to blood letting to resolve their differences (on this point, on can read Richard Greenfield, Ethiopia: A new political history, New York, 1965 ). He treated correctly Italian prisoners although he ordered that Eritrean soldiers be punished for fighting against their motherland on the side of the enemy. The families of Italian prisoners were happy that the Great Christian King did not kill them [ibid]. By doing that, Menelik showed that he was morally a more civilised leader than his European counterparts, although as Weselling writes the latter continued to describe Menelik as an ‘exceptionally enlightened barbarian’. However Menelik’s behaviour was a great moral victory over the Europeans who believed that an African was a moving chattel which they had to civilise/humanise. Because of this moral victory, many European countries were led to send their ambassadors to Ethiopia. At the time when racism as a science and as a state policy towards Africans was at its heyday , it was indeed remarkable that Europeans were forced to recognise that Ethiopia, a country led by an enlightened ‘barbarian’, was their equal even if that was a lip-service recognition as we demonstrated it in our previous articles.

So if the Sudan lost in 1898 its phyrric victory of 1885 and became a British colony for almost sixty years, while Ethiopia succeeded in preserving her independence, it was thanks to the exceptional diplomatic intelligence of king Menelik. From the foregoing, readers can judge for themselves that far from being an apologist or ‘sillily denying the facts’ as the venerable Tecola tries to demagogically make believe the Tigrigna speaking Ethiopians, I have every intellectual reason and duty to defend the Menelikian Adwa victory from being retrospectively written off unscruplously as a victory marred by ‘treason’ and that with aim of justifying the TPLF violation of Ethiopian sovereignty and territorial integrity. I expect my ‘critics’ to prove me wrong in accordance with the rules of the intellectual profession instead of resorting to the use of foul language. As readers can see, my arguments are based on a relatively objective interpretation of historical facts. To repeat myself, my only vested interest is to defend from the legal point of view the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ethiopia and if possible to help the young generation of Ethiopians to see Ethiopian history in a critical way so that they would not be led to snivel in the 21st century at Menelik’s and his ‘descendants’ 19th century ‘usurpation’ of the Solomonian power from Yohannis’ ‘descendants’.

My question is: can members of the contemporary intellectual generation who have accepted or fought for Eritrea to secede from Ethiopia have a moral legitimacy to defame one of Ethiopia’s greatest Kings while describing the TPLF fight for the dismemberment of Ethiopia as “heroic” act? If yes, what are the criteria? Is it really wise to rubbish the great achievements of our ancestors as ‘treasonous’ while we have not even done one millionth of Menelik’s contribution to Ethiopia’s pride? If Menelik were a sellout, then wouldn’t it imply that the Ethiopian people should stop celebrating the Adwa victory?

That said, for me the crucial national issue for Ethiopia today is the TPLF and Tecola’s violation of Ethiopian sovereignty and territorial integrity enshrined in Ethiopian, African and international laws since the Second World War by accepting the EPLF story that Ethiopia was the last colonial power in Eritrea. What Menelik did may be interesting to know from the historical point of view but no one with right mind can argue that Menelik has something to do with the TPLF violation of Ethiopian sovreignty. If Tecola says it has, I challenge him to demonstrate in what way Menelik’s policies have something to do with the TPLF conception of Ethiopia as the last colonial power in Eritrea.

Could Yohannis and Alula believe their ears if they were to rise now from their tombs and learn that there are a group of individuals in Tigray who say that Eritrea is a creation of Italian colonialism, and who move now heaven and earth to look for lame excuses in a bid to justify their collaboration with sworn enemies of the Ethiopian people? The irony is that these very people who have written off the Ezana, Kaleb, Subagadis, Yohannis, Alula and the Menelik heritage as colonialism try now to make the Ethiopian people or the inhabitants of Tigray believe that fighting for Eritrea against Ethiopia was a “liberation” of Tigray and Menelik was a sell out. If the criminal dismemberment of Ethiopia and its deprivation of its legal access to the Red Sea is a “liberation” of Ethiopia, then we should logically accept that the fundamentalist Sudanese government and the EPLF also “liberated” Ethiopia all the more so since the TPLF expressed officially their gratitude to the fundamentalist Sudanese government and to the Eritrean people for helping them in their struggle to dismember Ethiopia. Ethiopian children will have to be taught that their parents were “liberated” by their enemies. Are we really sure that we are speaking on behalf of the inhabitants of Tigray?

In view of the foregoing, I don’t really see how Tecola can be the accuser of Menelik in the name of Ethiopia or in the name of Tigray while it is not certain that he himself is beyond reproach. That said, I don’t see how Ethiopia can benefit from accusations and counter accusations by its educated politicians. I believe that accusation inevitably triggers an indomitable counter accusation, and mutual accusations can only transform Ethiopia into a permanent ethic cauldron making it propitious for Ethiopia’s traditional external enemies and foreign intellectuals and politicians masqueraded as concerned Ethiopians to fish easily in troubled waters. So, in accordance with my conviction that Ethiopia can never ressurect unless her political elites do everything possible for national reconciliation by saying that bygones are bygones, I believe that Tecola can contribute to the well-being of Ethiopia if he completely deweyanises/ de-Eritreanises and de-ethnicises himself and work together with other Ethiopians in order to make Ethiopia a nation to be reckoned with in the regional and international decision making process. Prior to that, he should apologise before the Ethiopian people for taking the side of the Arabs and the EPLF against history, law and against his province and his country. He should leave Menelik, may his soul rest in peace, alone.

In order to achieve the badly needed and unduly overdue reconciliation between the Ethiopian political elite , every Ethiopian has the intellectual and national duty to critically analyse and prove wrong the many preconceived political judgments which have been not only militating against the reconciliation of the Ethiopian political elites but which have also led to the use of tens of thousands of Tigrayan peasant youth as a cannon fodder for the secession of Eritrea. Working hard towards true reconciliation means also accepting the sharing of responsibility for the national crisis as a precondition to modern political and economical nation building so that the country will pull itself out of the crisis that modernist Ethiopians have put it. I don’t pretend that my approach of Ethiopian crisis is the only valid one. But I believe , as will hopefully be demonstrated in the following pages, that my position on sharing responsibility departs from a conviction that can be verified scientifically that all Ethiopians are responsible to a varying degree for the tragedy befalling the country for more than forty years.

In this regard, it is essential to bear in mind that the above-mentioned wrong diagnoses are not only the result of the Marxist-Leninist legacy of looking for a political culprit. They emanate also from the Ethiopian traditional culture of personalising the diagnosis of the causes of societal problems, and that in stark opposition to the modern western way of abstracting the diagnosis of societal problems. That said, I am not saying that the above-mentioned diagnoses are devoid of any truth. For example, if head counting were our only guide, there is no doubt that the Menelikian and Haileselassie regimes were dominated by people from the Shewa province. On the other hand, if we take the current TPLF regime, every Ethiopian knows that it is dominated by men from some of the provinces of Western Tigray and the adjoining Eritrean highlands. The problem of head counting is that instead of focussing on the policies of individual rulers, it dangerously leads us to confuse a bevy of individual rulers and their few supporters with whole awrajas, regions or ethnies whereas the majority of people in those awrajas, regions or ethnies have the same problems and difficulties and aspire to a better life like any Ethiopian who does not hail from those awrajas, regions or ethnies.

The question now is: should the Hailselessie and the Eritreanist weyane regimes be respectively considered as Amahra and Eritreao-Western Tigrean regimes simply because the people which they appoint in key governmental posts at all levels of the state administration are loyal supporters from Shewa or Western Tigray and southern Eritrea? If the answer is affirmative, aren’t we taking the risk of confusing democrats and patriotic Ethiopians from those areas with dictators whereas in reality the former have the same dream of seeing democratic Ethiopia like any responsible, patriotic Ethiopian citizen?

Last year, I wrote an article in which case I rejected the theory of “Amhara national domination” and I argued that the theory emanated from the intellectual inability to tell a domination by ethinc group from a domination by political regimes. The indirect responses to my article were irrelevant and therefore bereft of intellectual value. Because, instead of trying to prove wrong my arguments based on the distinction between domination by political regimes and the domination by ethnic groups, some insinuated that I did not know Ethiopian “history” as if the issue was the existence or the non-existence of domination and oppression in Ethiopian history. In similar vein, others said that I could not defend that thesis unless I was denying the “facts” as if the facts were the object of disagreement. In any case both ideas seem to suggest that the “facts” are known and that there cannot be different interpretations from those accepted by the Ethiopian Student Movement. And when I said that the theory of Amhara national domination was completely erroneous, either I didn’t know the “facts” or I wanted to deny them.

Let me take this opportunity to make it again clear that my distinction between domination by the monarchy and domination by ethnic groups aims to make sure that Ethiopians don’t continue to accuse each other for ever of doing this or that against this or that ethnic group. To that end, I try to forward logical arguments and not personal preferences. I never write with the intention of masking the unpleasant part of Ethiopian history. Because that would be foolishly believing that there are no or there will be no more competent intellectuals who can completely demolish my arguments. Every intellectual writes knowing full well that their arguments may be in the end proven wrong; because as Karl Popper rightly argues a theory which cannot be invalidated is not a scientific theory. So when I write, it is with the aim of being proved wrong so that Ethiopians can benefit from a high level dialogue based on chewanet. However, one does not write to be branded apologetic, silly, or contemporary intellectual. I surmise that those people who resort to such incivilities, in a blatant violation of the posting guidelines of their web sites, suffer from poverty of ideas. And this is in keeping with the bad legacy we inherited from Marxism-Leninism. Accordingly, some Ethiopian Leninists with whom you are in disagreement don’t try to prove you wrong through logical arguments. They try to attack your person by calling you counter-revolutionary, bourgeois, feudalist, didey sebari, chauvinist, Oneg, EPRP, EDU, et cetera.

So until my “critics” come up with arguments which show why my thesis is untenable, I still hold the view that the theory of “Amhara national domination” is erroneous one which cannot resist to a serious intellectual scrutiny. This does not mean that there was no humiliation, disparaging and exploitation especially in southern Ethiopia. It does not mean either humiliation and exploitation were problems everywhere in Ethiopia. For some Ethiopian peripheral populations, the problem was simply they were forgotten and neglected. They did not know that they were Ethiopians and the other Ethiopians did not know that those tribes were their compatriots. In Eritrea for instances, some of the peripheral tribes believed that Egyptian rulers, and not king Haileselasie, were their leaders whereas, in marked contrast to this, Christian Eritreans were, as we know, the second most politically integrated part of the Ethiopian nation during Haileselasie ‘s reign.

So, for me all the above-mentioned and other problems of mal-integration were the work of the monarchy and not that of the Amhara. And more precisely, that resulted from the personal will of kings Menelik and Haileselassie. If the two kings had followed the example of their Japanese counterparts by adopting a national politico-economic project of modernisation for the realisation of which should work all Ethiopians irrespective of ethnie, religion, region, etc., our current problems would be behind us. My contention is that Menelik and especially King Haileselassie had an absolute power to do what they wanted. No one could dare to resist their authority. So if King Haileselassie presided over that humiliating and exploitative policy which lasted more than fifty years (perhaps out of ignorance, rather than malevolence, of what was best for himself, for the monarchy and for the country), he did it in his capacity as the holder of an absolute political power in Ethiopia and not because he was “Amhara”. My point is that it is the autocratic way that power has been exercised and not the ethnic identity of rulers which has been the main problem of Ethiopia.

The danger of the ethnicising of the diagnosis of the Ethiopian national crisis

In the revolutionary upsurge of the 1960’s and 1970’s, there was a heated debate among Ethiopian Revolutionaries on the question whether Ethiopian problem was ethnical or “classical”. For those who believed in the primacy of the classical, the solution was to wage an armed struggle against the “exploiting class”. On the other hand, for those who espoused the ethnical school of thought, an armed struggle for “national liberation” from the “dominant Amhara nation” was a must. Although both attempts to diagnose the Ethiopian national crisis were completely wrong, one cannot help being surprised to see the gradual replacement of the classical thesis by the ethnical thesis. Today, many of yesterday’s proponents of the primacy of class struggle have apostatised and espoused the ethnicist political discourse.

I say that both the classical and ethnical diagnoses are completely wrong because they don’t enable us to democratically solve the issue of the human rights of those considered to be the “culprits” of Ethiopian maladies. For example, the TPLF says that the “chauvinists” were the sources of all Ethiopian problems and Oneg is a “trouble maker”. The question is, do TPLF people have more right to speak on behalf of Ethiopia than the “chauvinists” or Oneg not to mention that the TPLF as an organisation has never proved its Ethiopianness in deeds. Let us not forget there are many foreigners concerned about Ethiopia’s well-being whereas this has never been the case of any of the members of the TPLF leadership. One can cite among the many foreign true friends of Ethiopia in bad times Professors Jean Doresse, Donald Levine, Richard Pankhurst and Harold Marcus. So, if we are democrats, we must accept that no Ethiopian has a more valid claim to speak on behalf of Ethiopia than another Ethiopian and that it is upto the Ethiopian people to decide who is to excercise state power. It is true that Leninism recommends measures aimed at depriving “chauvinists” of their fundamental right to aspire to state power like any other Ethiopian. In that case, one cannot violate the fundamental right of the “chauvinists” without violating the right of other Ethiopians who root for the respect of the fundamental right of every Ethiopian. In other words, he who does not respect the human right of “chauvinists” and that of “terrorists” will not respect the right of the Ethiopian people to be ruled democratically and in accordance with the rule of law. The same is true with the classical approach. And that is what demonstrated Ethiopia’s horrible experience under the Dergue. This is to say that, any diagnosis based on Marxist-Leninist or ethnicist approach, which ideology teaches a permanent life and death struggle between the exploiting (the “evil”) and the exploited classes (the “good”) not only militates against nation building but also begs more questions than it resolves. Because of this, I believe that diagnosing our problems correctly is very crucial. Recall the maxim: bene diagnoscitur, bene curatur. The persistence of the political and the economic crisis of Ethiopia during the last fifty years shows that we Ethiopians may not have been aware of the fact that our inability to pertinently diagnose the main cause(s) of our country’s political and economic problems has been itself the major cause of the national crisis. What I am driving at is that it is in the best interest of Ethiopia and therefore in the best interest of every Ethiopian to be weaned off the habit of ethnicising the diagnosis of Ethiopian problems. Such a political weaning is an absolute sine qua non to the national reconciliation of Ethiopians, which reconciliation at national, regional (ethnic) et cetera levels must help us to rediscover the great merits of our traditional mechanism of resolving conflicts. We should always bear in mind that Manichaean approach has been the most efficacious instrument for unethical anti-Ethiopia Marxist-Leninist rulers to bleed Ethiopia and its people. By pointing fingers at this or at that group, rulers try to pit Ethiopians against each other by presenting themselves as someone entrusted with political Messianic mission of saving Ethiopia. This is what we were told by the Dergue and by the TPLF. For example, the Dergue ideologues preachified that Ethiopia would prevail over reactionaries and Mother Nature thanks to the central role of Mengistu Hailemariam. For their part, TPLF high priests terrorise Ethiopians by chanting the sutras and mantras such as without “revolutionary democracy, the fate of Ethiopia would be to be the Yugoslavia of Africa; poverty will lead to an eventual disintegration of Ethiopia”. The “solution” they advocate is the acceptance by everybody of their monopoly of power so that poverty would be “eradicated” and “democracy” would prevail. Dictators always like to talk up their ability to deliver economic growth and democracy. This leads them to schizophrenically consider themselves as the only measure of truth, justice, democracy, etc. Anyone who deviates from this is, a reactionary, a chauvinist or a narrow nationalist and therefore belongs to “the axis of the evil”. The idea of human dignity and the equality of Ethiopians is completely unknown to Manichaean rulers. This self-serving Manichaean ideology helps dictators to be immune to critique by their followers and therefore to be always in monopoly of power. They are the only ones to rebuke everybody. The above in short is the secret behind Dergue’s and the TPLF leaders’ respective schizophrenic obsession with class struggle and political ethnicity. The truth is that the ideologies of the Dergue and that of the TPLF are completely anti-democratic and anti-Ethiopia, and are based on the uncontrollable greediness to monopolise power. They know that without politically demonising some Ethiopians, they cannot stay in power even a day.

For the sake of their common well-being and in order to recover Ethiopia’s lost national pride and independence, Ethiopians should accept that Ethiopia badly needs each and every Ethiopian. If Ethiopians abandon the backward Marxist-Leninist legacy of calling each other “chauvinists”, “narrow nationalists”, supremacists etc., and if they respect each other as Ethiopians and as human beings entitled to be treated with dignity, they will see immediately that every Ethiopian is indispensable to Ethiopia because every one has a lot to contribute to their people and to the country in terms of money, knowledge, etc. In other words, if they want really their country to become democratic and modern, then let they as individuals start behaving in a sincere, democratic, modern and patriotic way towards their country. It is also very imperative that true Ethiopians be weaned off the political cant and flimflammery to which they have been dangerously accustomed by the Dergue and the TPLF regimes. Without a modicum of political sincerity about their loyalty towards the well-being of their country and with out a sincere desire to forgive each other and to work together, Ethiopia’s ongoing crisis could, Heavens forbid!, culminate in the total disintegration of the country.

(To be continued)