“This is my plea to the new generation of African leaders and African
peoples: work for unity with firm conviction that without unity there is no
future for Africa…I reject the glorification of the nation-state, which
we have inherited from colonialism, and the artificial nations we are trying to
forge from that inheritance. We are all Africans trying to be Ghanaians or
Tanzanians. Fortunately for Africa we have not been completely successful…Unity
will not make us rich, but it can make it difficult for Africa and the African
peoples to be disregarded and humiliated. And it will therefore increase the
effectiveness of the decisions we make and try to implement for our
development.My generation led Africa
to political freedom. The current generation of leaders and peoples of Africa
must pick up the flickering torch of African freedom, refuel it with their
enthusiasm and determination, and carry it forward.”Julius
Nyerere, First president of Tanzania
‘The present consolidation of
African states within the former colonial frontiers runs counter to much of
what had been both predicted and desired during the colonial era. It was widely
assumed that as soon as Africans came to freedom they would sweep aside the
arbitrary boundaries imposed by the imperialists which
cut across tribes and overrode the dictates of geography and economics. The
continent had been partitioned to meet colonial convenience, but it would now
be reshaped to realize its natural contours and return to its natural essence.’(Rupert Emerson,1962)
“…Constructing a nation from scratch: We know we
don’t have the knowledge. We know we do not have the resources. We know
we do not have the experience. Our conclusion is: let’s face it.” Isaias Afewerki, current president of Eritrea (quoted
from National Geographic, June 1996, p.87)
Summary
Failure to defend Ethiopia’s history,
is also a failure to live up to the worthy expectations of all those who
derive so much spiritual energy from the idea of Ethiopia as a free provider to
the world of the ‘resistance-liberation logocentric imagination’
that is much needed as a tangible resource still in vulnerable and penetrable Africa. Ethiopia is synonymous
with the very idea of a de-colonising imagination. Its history of successful
resistance is the timeless bearer of this alternative decolonising logo for the
spread of the African world’s liberation imagination. Ethiopia- as an
anti-colonial symbol- is very relevant today, as it was yesterday and will be
too in the future. The significance of Ethiopia’s history now, at a time
when Africa is being re-threatened with war needs to be appreciated. Its importance
during this time when the former colonial powers are returning to Africa
with military aggression cannot be lost to both those willing to resist
the new aggression and those who commit this latest aggression. At the core of
Africawinet is this Ethiopiawinet that is a bearer of dignity and resistance to
the repeated humiliation Africa is confronted with by external aggression.
Ethiopiawinet is at the core of the African renaissance. It is also at the core
for ending Africa’s repeated humiliation. This is because African unity
can be anchored with a value and dignity that Ethiopiawinet attained over 500
years of resistance. This achievement by the Ethiopian-Africans that resisted
all forms of humiliation is a positive data for building Africa’s united
future and to bring back the African unity first agenda to the fore today. It
is for these reasons we respect our ancestors, whatever their shortcomings, and
problems they were unable to solve in their life times and left behind for
future generations to settle. They left the timeless inspiring resources to
build Africa’s united future. The positive data they left us in the Ethiopian
history remains to this day a relevant asset to build Africa’s much
united future. Ethiopians now and in the future must always value and treasure
this great historical achievement and not play the current ugly, divisive and
cynical ethnic games that the selfish ruling elite play by dividing and
degrading this core provider of Africa’s overall liberation imagination
into vernacular-ethnic enclaves. Ethiopians as Africans and not as degraded
ethnie must unite and strive to make ethnicism as a past by coming together
with foresight and sense of history. They should do it now and not tomorrow to
restore the historical imagination that will make a difference to the African
world as a whole!
1. What isEthiopiawinet?
Ethiopiawinet should be built and developed from the following characteristics
Ethiopia has to this day:
a) Long history-perhaps as long as Persia’s and China’s,
b) An internally generated civilisation (written, art, architecture, music,
religion and so on),
c) A history of resisting and scoring victories against economically and
politico- militarily superior forces,
d) A unique psychological make up where the notion of the divine and the sacred
graces every activity that the people engage in.
The individual, the state and the nation use for their lives divine presence
whether they are Christians, Muslims, Judaic and even Pagans. The state had its
own ethos and had its own ‘Fetah Negist’ and ‘Kibre
Negist.’ In war we note how the idea of the divine is invoked to give
courage to the troops when they charge(e.g.
Giorgis’s participation in Adwa!) and in victory the people show humility
by referring that all their power is due to God.
Whether we like it or not religion is a way of life to the rural majority of
the population. And the change we want, the modernisation we seek is to make
life better for the majority of the rural areas. We do not go and preach
Jeffersonian democracy or Marxism to them. If we are serious we go and learn
from them and build on their beliefs and make modernisation sensible by
translating it into the language and way of life they are used to. This is how
Japan, Korea and others did it by appreciating their context but not rejecting
it like the strange ruling elites that replaced the traditional system are
doing now!
Even China with its Marxism did not reject Menicusian, Confucian, Taoist and
Buddhist values which the population had. They tried to Sinnify their modernist
weapon Marxism so that the people can embrace it. Like everything else which came
into contact with China, Marxism became absorbed rather than the other way
round! They call it Marxism which Chinese characteristics and in reality in
China Marxism was not used like in Ethiopia. Mao Tse Tung started by investigating first
the peasant movement in Hunan where he was born, not by throwing half-baked and
non-comprehended phrases from Lenin and Stalin. He did not select phrases that
insult to persecute and even kill his comrades as it happened in Ethiopia.
Never forget in Ethiopia after people were killed, the strangest things also
have taken place where apparently along with the dead body was placed ‘I was a
dog’ and I deserve to be killed — or some strange ani-Ethiopian and
anti-humane things were done! When a person dies in Ethiopian culture, one
always tries to remember the good the person did by trying to forget the bad
the person did. This is the noble culture that was inherited from
Ethiopia’s past that was abused by doing these strange things to dead
bodies!
There
is an Ethiopian value system from our tradition that we need to bring back
and blend with modernisation. The core ideas are the four key principles of
Ethiopiawinet. We need to treasure them, not fight Ethiopiawinet! What makes
the person from the South to those in the North connect mysteriously is this
shared experience which was passed on from the wider Ethiopian culture
confluence and communication.
2. The Mistakes of our Generation
Our generation was engaged in intellectual
copying. We ignored both
history and reality and embarked on a journey that has cost Ethiopia
dearly. Basically we said because Marx, Engels and Lenin are right,
Emperor Twedros, Yohannes, Menelik
and Haile Selassie are wrong. This
was a very dogmatic logic, ignoring both historical evidence and reality. Did
we not pay a price badly for this. We still do. We
better ground ourselves from our own history, our own challenges and how
to change society by a process of grounded appreciative theorising.
We did not do this. We need to bring back the anti- colonial and anti- imperialist
and
nationalist imagination coming naturally from Ethiopia’s history thatcontinues
to betreasured by Africans the
world over.
Our generation rejected this by mounting two major myths: a) the Dergue
employing Jacobin-Stalinist terror tried to force its hackneyed
“Marxism” down the throat of the bewildered population, b) the
various ethnic based fractional movements echoing rhetorics from China,
Albania, Vietnam and so on tried to create ideologies of Tigreanism, Eritreanism,
Oromoism and recently Amharism and anything and everything but Ethiopianism.
They even have ethnic flags. We have many flags in Ethiopia now, not one flag
that I see every day also in much of Africa and the rest of the world. Others are
proud to use the Ethiopian flag, whilst the ruling ethnic elite diversify the
number of flags to entrench ethnicism and undermine Ethiopian history.
Ethiopia is in a strange paradox: Ethiopia
reminds me of Witgestein’s prescient remark of a nation being run by
elites who are trying to disrupt its future by climbing through the chimney and
the window of ethnic fragmentation, when all along the Ethiopiawinet as
Africawinet door to build its glorious future has been wide open.
What is wrong with holding on and inheriting our Ethiopia and add
modernisation, renewal and democratisation without breaking the framework and
subtracting the nation and parcelling the state? Do we need to regress by
relying on the politicisation of culture, language and blood to blackmail our way
into power with Ethiopia as it is or by breaking it up altogether?
I believe the best and most possible cultural rights and expression for all the
ethnic communities without subjecting them to ethnic cleansing and other
violence is feasible with a healthy Ethiopiawinet. I do not see why we should
not organise by affirming Ethiopawinet and maintain active local engagement
wherever we come from. The key is to democratise the state, individual and the
nation by affirming and not being condescending
to the past.
The theory of the nation which decomposes Ethiopia by weaving the myths of
Tigreanism, Eritreanism, Oromoism and so on goes
counter to the core experience of the people, their long history, tradition,
character and above all their historically evolved nationhood and state
formation.
The Lenin-Stalin notion of the nation which the fractionalisers have imported
their divisive politics from to Ethiopia is too scholastic, mechanistic, and
deterministic. Itemising factors of language, territory, psychological make up
and unleashing every petty nationalist bigot to search how his ethnic group
might fulfil one or the other factor in full or in part is one of the most
unattractive ventures which corrupts science and social practice at the same
time.
Neither the ethnicism of Tigreans, Oromos and so on and nor Stalin’s
shopping list definition of a nation are relevant to the Ethiopian situation.
They cannot be a higher reality to the experience of our people. An experience
where there was injustice along with civilisation, a history of epic resistance
and a unique psychological make up involving the concept of the sacred in the
every day living of all Ethiopians. The attack on this divinely graced Ethiopianet ” wukabi gefafi new” (is
de-spiritualising/demeaning!)!
It has been said that the longer we look back in the history of a nation, the
further we can look forward or forge ahead in building a collective future. It
has also been claimed that history is to a nation as a memory is to an
individual. For an individual to lose memory is to lose a grip of reality. It
has been a maxim held by African sages: ’They lost their history, so they
lost everything.’ A nation, if it wishes to remain a nation must not be
denied its right and indeed privilege to make a conception of history that
yields direction and a future and insulates it from falling into a
directionless and chaotic path like present day Somalia.
Arguably, contemporary challenges and demands must be taken into account into a
nation’s history-making processes, but they must also be confronted to
avoid the mindless rejection of Ethiopia’s historical achievements and
the intelligent learning from the innumerable failures that is necessary to do
individually and collectively as a people. Anything made at the expense of
making a nation lose its historical identity, which is not, incidentally
constituted from more than the sum of the arithmetic additions of a sum of
languages, religions, territory, number of people in an ethnic group, and other
variables is to undermine the ontological foundation of Ethiopia as an idea, a
dream, project and nation.
Those who wish to opt out make not only themselves suffer, but also those who
wish to remain with a positive and constructive rather than destructive and
negative appreciation of Ethiopia’s long history. We have seen what came
of Eritrea after leaving Ethiopia? We were told Eritrea would be
the South East Asian tiger, but is it that now? Is that what has become of
Eritrea by the EPLF’s and TPLF’s gratuitous saying good bye to
Eritrea’s core history which is tied with an umbilical chord with
Ethiopia’s long social-economic history. History provides self-knowledge
to a nation and that self-understanding is a necessary condition to undertake
any meaningful development. Lack of consciousness of a nation’s history
is not simply an intellectual failure. It can be a moral failure as it can
expose unnecessarily a nation to unpredictable danger and suffering. We owe it
to our ancestors who bequeathed a nation with history to avoid extremism,
negotiate out of our conflicts, and find mechanisms to make social peace
amongst individuals, communities and personalities.
It is with a larger purpose and depth of thinking, commitment and dedication
that we should cherish both the long memory and current meaning to us of being
Ethiopian. There is intrinsic merit to preserve this ancient nation, and not
give in to the degrading mantra of ethnic enclosures that has degraded civic
Ethiopian citizenship to a particularly virulent and limiting concept of the
ethnically defined and vernacularly fenced off citizen. This primordially and
biologically condemned citizen must be fully liberated to emerge as the
Ethiopian citizen par excellence. There can be no compromise on the Ethiopian
and African framework for citizen expression and engagement. Everything is
negotiable once the framework is accepted. There can be no negotiation with
those who arrogantly and impudently call Ethiopia a fiction and an invention.
Without the idea of Ethiopia, there is no idea of a future. Let us not forget
that Ethiopia was the first non-European country that defeated a European
power. The Japanese sent delegations to learn how Ethiopians organised to
defeat a European imperial power. Many Africans in the Diaspora from America to
the West Indies were inspired to continue the struggle for liberation owing to
this historic achievement. Ethiopia can achieve even more by doing away with
tyranny and poverty for good provided it overcomes the pettiness of its
politics and reach out to the grand vision of historical presence.
I ask all of you to memorise!
The world fears time
Time fears history
History fears Ethiopia!
