One more unifying chance goes down the drain

| July 6, 2011

The only reason that we don’t
see famine in Ethiopia today on the scales that we saw in 1984 is simply
because we beg the international community early enough.   The aid dependent safety net
program also serves as the ICU and keeps people breathing.   Even as I write this heart-wrenching pictures of famine from Ogaden,
are hitting TV and computer screens around the world.     This is a preview of
what you may most likely see in vulnerable areas if aid agencies walk away from
the area for a few months.  That is
what seem is happening to over 3 million people in the Ogaden and Borena areas
as we speak.  This only shows how,
if we don’t get foreign food aid right now in
2011, people would be dying like flies as they did in 1984.  In other words, if all foreign aid
suddenly stops today, we may be looking at a disaster of epic proportions.  This is where Ethiopia is sitting on –
the edge of the abyss. 

I bring up these gloomy realities not because I even like
to talk about it.  Frankly speaking,
my normal reaction to the thought of it is to try to run away from it. I have
traumatic experiences of seeing people under real famine that keeps haunting me
to this day.  I talk about it here
only and only to underscore the magnitude of the
country’s problems and how it needs a strong, united, and massive
joining of hands of all Ethiopians across all kinds of social and political
divides.  It is because I want to
emphasize the need for creating a social and political environment where every
single one of us can patriotically, passionately and willingly participate and
change our shameful reality together.  I want everyone to see how the
criminalization of political opposition and dissent in our country stands opposite
to the kind of tolerance and democratic setting that getting out of poverty
requires.   The
history of all countries that have emerged out of poverty successfully, or
those who have beaten adversity, some of which are even considered as models
for Ethiopia by Meles Zenawi, shows that they have first succeeded in creating
a social and political environment that helped them pull all their human and
natural resources and remove destabilizing social and political conflicts. 

The proposed dam building on the Abbay River,
with all the substantive, political and technical questions surrounding it, carries
with it a good opportunity to bring Ethiopians together.  Generations of Ethiopians have been
gnashing our teeth for failing to use our rivers while others turn it into
fortune.   The ambition to dam Abbay is not a new
discovery.  Even our rulers of the medieval
times thought about it.  The reason
we are not able to use it has to do with our poverty than the colonial relic
the Egyptians call a treaty that gives them exclusive use.  Truth of the matter is that we are not
going to significantly affect Egypt or Sudan if we use
as much as 20% of the water in the Blue Nile Basin.   But this is huge
in terms of making a difference in changing our poverty situation.   But doing so required all kinds of resources,
stability, and a war  and conflict free time in Ethiopia
and a political leadership that gives priority to fighting poverty.

The thing a healthy community needs to do around the
proposal of building such a dam would have been to open forums for discussion
on how best to accomplish the task, looking for optimal ways of doing it, and entertaining
all ideas including disagreements.   The right thing to do if you are a
government that comes up with such a big idea is to be persuasive of all people
including political opponents.   Instead, what we see is that the
government and its supporters are turning it into a dry propaganda circus, in
some cases falsely portraying the building of the dam as the end of poverty in
Ethiopia.  The relentless,
repetitive, dull, and deafening propaganda being presented about this dam is
turning as obnoxious as the “we shall cover Ethiopia green” and “we
will control nature” propaganda and sloganeering my generation grew up
hearing under Mengistu Hailemariam. 
Some of the propaganda about this dam laughably looks like the inauguration  of
a finished mega dam.

Some of the propaganda work directed at manufactured
opponents of the dam building is simply astonishing. If you read this piece by the Public
Relations Officer in the Washington DC Embassy of Ethiopia, you will be amazed not only by the street language he uses, but also as to whether
he is really interested in persuading members of the community to participate
in helping the project.  In his rant,
he treats all questions, doubts, suspicions, differences of opinions literally
as a crime. His rage, if honest and not made to impress his superiors, make him
look like he would kill all critics of the government if he has his way.

All of this gives you indications as to whether there is
a serious project plan that exceeds an outline, or any cost analysis or
fundraising plans for the Abbay project. 
The frantic and haphazard approaches they employ only lends to strengthening
the suspicion that this project is here for some political machination and
distract a potential rebellion by the Ethiopian people .   If you make some informed
analysis, as I tried to do, this dam as proposed will perhaps end up requiring
twice as much as the suggested amount of money and time.  I am not only referring to the galloping
inflation that has raised the cost by a couple of million dollars since it was announced.  While
public contribution for building the dam could be done
with relative ease if you are a bit more systematic, we hear sad stories that
wretchedly poor people who have difficulty feeding their children and hardly
make ends meet are being coerced to contribute money from their meager incomes.
 I heard recently how a poor mother
of two cleaning lady at a government office in Addis
Ababa was tearfully begging her boss to distribute her contribution of one
month salary of 400 birr ($24.00) over a two year period.   It is hard to understand why
fundraising for a national good has to look more like some kind of schadenfreude.
  The potential contribution of
the Ethiopian Diaspora, which in my view is capable of covering the entire cost
for building the proposed dam, is killed from the start by the way it is
handled.  Now the few supporters of
the regime, many of them whom are in it to seek help from the government
themselves, seem to be the only ones left to contribute.

Ethiopia’s problems as they exist are too big and
complex to solve even if all 90 million of us come together and work as
one.   The current approach of
cracking dissent and opposition cannot help both the political ambitions of the
ruling TPLF/EPRDF or solve the entrenched poverty in the country.     While all
socioeconomic realities and the mitigation of Ethiopia’s poverty call for
more reconciliatory tones and gestures, 
and practical need at solving all kinds of contentions and conflicts,
the recent decree to label OLF, ONLF and Ginbot 7, as terrorist organizations,
and the crackdown that followed are sad indications that the this country has
to endure more tragic days ahead. 
Development of the kind that Ethiopia needs cannot be
accomplished by a military like operation where everybody shuts up,
whipped up into frenzy and gets in line.  A simple measure of serious people who
are out to fight Ethiopia’s deep rooted poverty
is the level of tolerance and persuasiveness they show and a crdibile attempt on their part to create a conducive social
and political environment that unites people.  Dictatorship is incompatible with poverty
alleviation or sustainable development in this century even if you give it all
kinds of good names.

Unleashing Ethiopia’s potential requires serious
revision of the economic policies particularly the issue of land together and
most importantly expanding the political space.  The current kind of development planning
in Ethiopia looks like the work of a farmer who sets his oxen in opposite
directions and forces them to pull the plough.  You know you are not going anywhere.  By criminalizing political opposition and
political differences in our country and trying to lock the country under one
political party and autocratic rule, we are assuring that the abject poverty in
Ethiopia is assured a safe and comfortable home. Our
children are also assured their inheritance of the
badge of shame that we are wearing today.

—

The writer, Fekade Shewakena, can be reached at
[email protected]