Yes, Ethiopia was the country of Tewodros, Yohanes, Alula, and Menelik who led and fought with unreserved love for their country. These were leaders who were instrumental in solidifying modern Ethiopia with vision and resolute determination to defend the country from internal destructive forces and external enemies who desired to engulf it with fire and subjugate it directly or through their renegade clients.
Ethiopia was also a country of technocrats who breathed fresh modes operandi into the stifling post war administration, backward popular and official mindset. This was a country which was once led by a king who pleaded with the nobility to send their children to school, and recruited many young Ethiopians from poor households to attend schools that he personally supervised; and later provided his palace to become a university college.
Ethiopia was a country that sent a disciplined army to Korea and Congo that served under the UN banner with great honour. Many informed foreigners of that era still praise the then Ethiopian army for its exemplary conduct and service.
Ethiopia was the first African country to win the Rome marathon by fielding a man who ran barefoot – a sign of distinct resolve to win; characteristic of a generation that was prepared to sacrifice everything and to put Ethiopia first.
Ethiopia was and still is a country of gifted and skilful technocrats who manage one of the best airlines in Africa, which has surpassed being the pride of Ethiopians; puzzling many who cannot reconcile its success with the country’s chronic poverty, which regrettably erodes its image and dignity.
Breaking with suferring
Why does a country of so much history and culture, endowed with a good pool of gifted, wise and hardworking people and considerable growth potential, fail to be self-sufficient, go hungry and beg generation after generation? Is this Ethiopia’s destiny? Are we cursed to be wretched? Are we supposed to be disgruntled and continue to believe that we will be delivered one day? When do we finish our long journey through the wilderness of political instability which compounds poverty and destitution?
Michel Buerk, in a BBC documentary (October 23, 2004) said “…I never get used to the idea that Ethiopia has plenty of water. It is in fact the water tower of Africa. Egypt would not have existed without it”. Michel concluded “[God] gave [Ethiopians] a beautiful land, dignity and courage, but has punished them ever since”. Are we really a punished people, fatalistic to the bone? Or do we have a streak of resolve, determination, vision and magnanimity of our past leaders to extricate the country out of poverty and hunger. If we still have a streak of our past glory, where is Ethiopia’s Barak Obama or Moses who will free us from old Egypt-style oppression; breaking the sea of suffering and shame.
The leader we want
By mentioning Bark Obama, I am not desirous of cutting and pasting an American modelled leadership style on to an existing Ethiopian leader or a future one. But, after having listened to Barak delivering his historic speech, which has the hallmarks of “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King, I was inspired by Obama’s ascension, his vision and message of change. At the same time, I was angered by our continued descent in the political, economic and social sphere mainly because of the invariable lack of leadership. Given where we have been in our recent history and where we are now, I feel our Barak Obama (a new leader) has to be born yet.
Over the past 30 years or so, political parties and leaders who gave themselves all sorts of names and pretended to represent the interests of the Ethiopian people have failed us miserably. Call it opposition or incumbent government, none did make a difference to pull the country out of the quagmire that self-proclaimed leaders allowed it to slide to. Our hope for what seemed to be a better future was dashed following the 2005 elections, and it is now glaringly clear that both the opposition and the government are in taters; the first because of its failure to mobilize, organize and coalesce the Ethiopian people for the common good, not to mention the intra and across party fighting espoused by contempt for one another and unmerited superiority complex; and the latter for the lack of legitimacy accentuated by repression and failure to govern justly.
If Ethiopia has to stand upright as a country worth its history, culture and development potential, it needs a new (clean) leader who is not tainted by the politics of the past and the present. We want a leader who embodies the spirit of “I have a dream”, the firepower for change, the courage to act and the drive and determination to transform society.
We want a leader prepared to extricate Ethiopia form its burdens of the 20th century and lead us into the 21st with a vision and a mission unrivalled in our history. We want a leader who has a “spirit of service” and who will relentlessly work to inculcate the same in Ethiopians of all backgrounds and from all walks of life. Ethiopia needs a leader who will work hard and sacrifice to “set [the] country apart” by creating an environment in which (as Barak Obama said in his acceptance speech on August 28, 2008) we will “pursue our individual dreams” without losing site of the need to “come together as one [Ethiopian] family”.
In my life time, I want to see a selfless leader who genuinely loves and respects the diverse people of Ethiopia, who will not have a problem with having too many languages, but who will say that speaking in one language is important for our development now and in the future. I would like to see a leader who has the at most respect for our tricolour flag and who will not tamper it with any politically motivated symbol or insignia.
My leader is a person who will not hold the rural poor hostage to a land policy that does not deliver. Dear compatriots, we need a leader who recognizes that we cannot feed the hungry by citing GDP growth rhetoric, the number of investors issued with investment licenses or the area of land being used for growing flower. In the latter case will live to see the negative environmental and human consequences of large-scale flower farms.
In any case, my kind of leader is one who:
will not promote the proliferation of “party-affiliated business” empires;
is committed to ensure that important decisions that affect the country now and in the future will not be made by a special interest clique;
will work to “[generate] an atmosphere of hope and dynamism” in the governance process;
is prepared to resolutely address lingering issues of “authoritarianism, elite rule, patronage”, dismissive and violent political tradition, weak and “independent civil society” and a largely conformist middle class confined to the centre;
believes that there is a different way of thinking and acting beyond the party line;
does not think that power is indivisible, and does not consider power as a prize;
does not believe in the indispensability of a leader, and believes that a hero can only be born, but does not die;
will not manipulate ethnic or religious differences for short-term political gains to the determent of the country;
will ensure that the gap between the political elite and ordinary people, who consider the omnipresence of government next to their creator, is narrowed; and
will pave the way to enshrine a watertight system that will sweep away the enduring “succession problem” that afflicts the country’s political system and perpetuates the “tragic continuity of Ethiopian history’.
The new leader does not have to fit a certain stereotype or does not have to justify his competence by referring to his long march with some self-appointed big political shots who think that their blessing is crucial for anyone who desires to stand up and say I have what it takes to lead.
My Ethiopian Barak will not necessarily belong to an “important family” (whatever that means), but needs to have a social background that a majority of Ethiopians identify with.
Today, more than ever before, Ethiopia needs a leader who has wisdom, tenacity and political propriety to galvanize the country, as Barak Obama did in the USA on the 28th of August, with a call for “renewed sense of [hope] and responsibility … intellectual and moral strength … more ladders to success for young men [and women in their country who otherwise are forced to endure cruel treatment in the hands of their employers in the middle east or those who perish while trying to cross treacherous waters on their way to a promised land]”.
Ethiopia’s Barak Obama will underscore that the country belongs to Christians, Muslims, non-believers and the multitude of ethnic groups who live in its territory; and will ascertain that all are equal before the law. Such a leader will be emphatic about Ethiopia’s unity and its territorial integrity. The new leader will state that patriotism has no ethnic or regional boundaries and political power does not bestow patriotism – rulers do not love their country better than those outside the realms of power.
My new indefatigable leader will restore our eroded “sense of common purpose” and be a role model to help us, as Barak said, “find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite” in our long march to free ourselves from poverty.
I believe that Ethiopia’s salvation lies in a leader like Tewodros, Yohanes or Menelik who can unite, sacrifice and modernize. Modernization, not only in infrastructure, technology, agriculture and industry, but also modernization in the way we think, relate to one another and do business.
The leader of modern Ethiopia will always look back before he moves forward and will consult as widely as possible. This leader will not necessarily be a member of a political party, but an individual loyal to the downtrodden. My modernizer is one who knows the aspirations of ordinary folks, because such a leader would have a strong base among ordinary people.
In the new Ethiopia relevance to leadership will not be claimed because of years of service in a political party, suffering engendered in pursuit of a political agenda, age, education, experience or popularity alone. Relevance to leadership can only be warranted by a track record of political cleanness, humility, wisdom, foresightedness, pragmatism, charisma, decisiveness, resolve to fight corruption, commitment to make ordinary people active participants of the governance process and preparedness to meaningfully decentralize the administrative structure and empower people at the lowest feasible administrative unit.
The new Ethiopian leader will work with new leaders of Eritrea to bring people together and draw a road map for lasting peace and cooperation. The leader will go further and negotiate with Eritrea to secure long-term access for Ethiopia (300-500 years) to the port of Assab. In view of the strategic interests of Ethiopia and considering the geo-political situation of the region, the people’s leader will not only rely on the ports of Djibouti and Barbara.
The new leader will reduce the size of government bureaucracy, put in place polices to get rid of wasteful practices and issue policies that can be translated in to action.
Where do we go from here?
Alas, as things stand now, we are angry, hungry, frustrated and confused. If we want to solve our problems sooner than later, we need to be conservative on analyzing and agonizing. Protracted and too much analysis to attain political purism at the expense of the people who in the first place paid for us to acquire knowledge and skills that will help them to escape their misery have lost hope and are contemptuous of our guts.
Over the years, ordinary Ethiopians have observed bloody fights among elites who claimed borrowed or grafted irreconcilable ideological differences that have anything to do with the problems of the people they purport to represent.
Since the beginning of the Ethiopian revolution, which in due course revolted many rather than revolutionize, the best and the brightest drew very strong ideological lines and fought over inconsequential differences of terminology like lab’ader and woz’ader or enashenifalen and enachenifalen. The incredulity of this was people were identified as enlightened, progressive and worthy for the “struggle” depending on their conviction to distinguish themselves from their opponents by using the right revolutionary term put in their mouth.
Today, the swards of hate and divisionism are dangling in front of our eyes, and are slowly, but surely brushing against our values of unity and common destiny. Intoxicated by ethnic fervour and the privileges of power, Ethiopia’s rulers adamantly prevent the new wave for change.
I do not think and believe that we have the luxury to spend a lot of time to prove the political correctness of one group or another. We have rather an obligation to act now. What kinds of actions? Well, actions that will decisively determine the development trajectory our beloved country must take.
By pooling our resources, knowledge, skills and experience and most importantly by establishing unity of purpose we must start to mobilize and galvanize our people for actions that will concretely improve their lot. In this regard, we need a party of action, not a party full of glamorous political fiction. We need a leader without a political facade; who can propel engines in the minds and hearts of the Ethiopian people and construct a smooth field for hard work that will reward.
We need to stop shading tears and seriously consider not subscribing to a political party, but to follow a leader that has the substance for ushering in real change that Ethiopia desperately need.
It is high time to illuminate our search light to guide us in our search for a new leader.
