“I am not participating in a ridiculous election. Never again……. Maybe people think I am committing suicide, but politics is not my life. I am not in the business of cheating.” – AEUP leader Hailu Shawel
Those were the words uttered by Engineer Hailu Shawel yesterday after the “election”! Many others will have uttered similar sentiments in the next few days! It is tempting to gloat and squirt “I told you so!” Given the path taken by this particular politician, one may feel vindicated and therefore justified to take this stance, but it must be resisted!
It is easy to point an accusing finger at someone making a mistake, but none of us is immune from making mistakes! Mistakes can be harmless or it may have a devastating effect on the one who makes them and/or the victim! Mistakes are excellent teachers if we are willing to learn from them. It is foolish to pretend mistakes did not occur, because that stance only facilitates repetition of the same. It is less painful if we acknowledge our mistakes and change course, than when we are forced to do so! Hence, derision of our failed opponents is a sport we love, and plenty of it will come in the coming days and weeks – it is a mistake, and a costly one too! Many who ignored the advice not to work with Meles on this electoral process, and thereby give it the legitimacy it doesn’t deserve, are depressed, ashamed and probably have as sense of worthlessness – it is wrong to kick them on the ground! Their loss is definitely our loss – it is a sad day for all freedom loving people of Ethiopia! Our urgent quest is now how to bring all these people together!
Whether we agreed with the likes of Hailu Shawel or not it is important to understand that in his own assessment he was trying to help the down-trodden people of Ethiopia, and there are many who supported his stance! Now that he and others have found out for themselves the futility of trusting Meles, the right thing to do is to take them back into the fold and try to see what we have learned and chart the way forward. Some of these people may be to hard-headed, and too proud to accept their mistakes, in which case the best treatment is just to leave them alone and move on rather than making similar spectacle as the one we witnessed as Kinijit fell apart!
This is the most delicate time for the opposition! Some of them had formed coalitions to build a united front against Meles in this election, they have counseled each other and planned with each other, they have suffered set-backs with each other. That is how lasting bonds are made. Even those who belonged to the different alliances, at the end of the day, have suffered similar setbacks, and they share similar sentiments today! But as I stated in my earlier write-ups, these alliances are usually formed to meet certain specific goals, and if the goals are not met they naturally fall apart and go their separate ways! Let us not forget how Meles exploited this weakness last time! This is the time for regrouping, enlarging the camp, extending hands of brotherhood, lending sympathetic ears, and above all, openly asking each other why they are in this game! This may sound superfluous, but just look at the quote above and ponder this – if the politician spent all the time and resources to help people, the people are worse-off today than they were yesterday because of the electoral fraud, what is the moral ground for walking away from them now?
About two years ago we attempted to form a grass-root movement – the Solidarity Forum, our objective was to create an organizational structure to which we can all relate, and which would be visible around the entire world so that today, with the presence it will have built, it would have influenced in a not insignificant way, the conduct of today’s electoral process! The Tea Party Movement, albeit for wrong reasons, is a grassroot movement which cannot be ignored in the US. Even its competitor, the Coffee Party Movement is catching on! May be we should have a “Coffee Ceremony Movement” to help us regroup – just a thought!
In the coming days we shall learn how far Meles has been willing to go to heap insult upon insult on the people of Ethiopia. As the truth unfolds we must ask ourselves again and again, why this is happening to our people, in our Motherland! Emotional outbursts won’t do. It has not worked for the last 20 years, and it will not work now! We must resist the knee-jerk response of accusing Meles and reach out to each other and mend our own ways. Try and see if we can intellectually go toe-to-toe with Meles – it is much easier than you think once we have formed the right formula!
