Settling of Scores and Déjà-Vu Change

Settling of Scores and Déjà-Vu Change

By Dr. Messay Kebede
July 14, 2003

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In Ethiopia, the more things change, the more they look alike. Famine, endemic poverty, ethnic inequality, oppressive political rule were the ills of Haile Selassie’s regime. These same ills defined the rule of the Derg. They are also those of the current regime.

Yet in less than three decades Ethiopia has gone through a series of upheavals whose admitted purpose was the extirpation of the ills. Though the country went from absolute monarchy to ethnic federalism via socialism at a staggering speed, those who brought about the changes and promised to eliminate the ills were invariably caught fomenting the same harms. And as if this were not enough, some opposition groups still say that they have in store other upsetting changes whose express purpose is to democratize Ethiopia. I do not think that world history can show any another case of drastic changes occurring in so rapid a sequence and yet accomplishing nothing. In view of so much disruption leading to nothing, the mind is understandably at a loss.

Doubtless, this drifting course of Ethiopian history is the outcome of manifold reasons. The first condition to understand such a puzzling and harrowing unfolding is indeed to avoid simplification. For instance, the effort to relate the failure of the changes to the lack of appropriate institutions is hardly enlightening. Not that institutionalization is unimportant, but because institutions are inefficient where the corresponding motivation is missing. The success of institutional mechanisms depends on the degree to which political actors are willing to play by the rules. Not only are democratic institutions vain if they do not gain internal acceptance, but also they can be used as a cover-up for repressive practices.

One way of getting hold of one of the reasons why change in Ethiopia does not lead to improvement is to listen to those who aspire for change or actively fight to bring about change. We can also dig into our memory and revive the languages of those who rose against the imperial regime or the Derg. What is common to all these protests is the definition of change as payback time. The leitmotiv running through the discourses of advocates of change in Ethiopia was and still is the pursuit of a policy of revenge.

Opponents of given regimes in Ethiopia think that they are deprived of their legitimate entitlements, whatever these entitlements may be. They want to see change, which they immediately define as the process by which their adversaries are demoted so that they take their place. Change is thought in terms of dislodging and replacing a privileged elite; it is what allows contenders to have their turn, to exact revenge. The rights acquired by contenders are rights taken from adversaries. They result, not from expansion, but from dispossession, denial. So defined, change fails to initiate a win-win situation in which the acquired rights stand up for the recognition of the same rights to everybody else, including the dethroned elite. This state of affairs explains why change simply repeats the past. Rights are not extended, broadened, and universalized; they are used for the same purpose, namely, exclusion. The change is not so much about substance as about privileges changing hands.

The socialist ideology advocated by the student movements of the 60s and put into practice by the Derg was a pertinent expression of the politics of revenge. Socialization and nationalization were used to deprive the ruling “feudal” class and the stuttering bourgeoisie of their wealth and rights. The thinking wrongly thought that the deprivation of the privileged of the old regime protects the poor when in reality the dispossession amounted to a loss without any positive gain. The new rights allegedly transferred to the people deprived the old elite, but did not promote equal rights. The oppression of the old class does not entail the liberation of the people.

No better example of the politics of revenge is to be found than in the ethnicization of Ethiopian politics. Granted that the rejection of Amhara hegemony—a dominant theme of ethnic ideology—was largely justified, the fact remains that this legitimate complaint was soon followed by an aspiration to become the “new Amhara,” the new dominant ethnic group. Witness the objective of replacing Amhara hegemony was and still is dominating the whole thinking of the TPLF. Ethnic hegemony is not done away with; it simply changes hands. Many Oromo nationalists succumb to the same goal of establishing Oromo supremacy. Ethnic movements fail to understand that the demotion of the Amhara for the purpose of exercising a new version of ethnic hegemony never promotes the cause of democracy. Democracy is advanced if the ascension of one ethnic group through the demotion of another group gives way to a movement that endeavors to expand democratic rights regardless of ethnic belonging. Only when the ethnic paradigm welcomes the definition of rights in terms of individual rights can the stagnation of Ethiopian politics come to an end.

The stubborn persistence of the politics of revenge cannot be explained without the hidden blessing of Ethiopian culture. My book, Survival and Modernization, portrays the notion of idil as a driving belief of Ethiopian culture. The notion is intricately blended with the Ethiopian conception of time. For Ethiopians, time is not a progression, a movement going toward a future; it is the doing and undoing of things, the ups and downs of life. As such, it is the mode of existence of idil, which always combines rise and fall. Such familiar expressions as, “gize talegn,” “gize yanesagnal,” “gizew yene new,” etc., give a good idea of the Ethiopian time as the advent of idil, as the shift announcing either promotion or downfall.

Idil is thus discriminatory: the favor bestowed on the one individual results from the disfavor of another individual. Since a gain somewhere means a loss somewhere else, idil works like a yo-yo. Clearly, such a conception of promotion does not encourage the thinking of social change in terms of creating a win-win situation. Given that the idil of the one group entails the misfortune, the decline of another group, change is anything but all-embracing. Instead, reversal is the true outcome of change.

Let me hasten to add that this cultural penchant has been particularly sharpened by the promises of modern life. One important fallout of such promises is the exasperation of competition between individuals. Though the notion of idil is quite sympathetic to the idea of open competition, in a situation of scarcity, it was bound to deteriorate into an infatuation for exclusion. The availability of meager resources combined with the centralizing role of the state could not but unleash a fierce competition for the control of the state through ethnicization. In a condition of generalized failure and decline, idil interprets the exclusive control of the state as a mark of success and distinction. That is why Ethiopian elites prefer the avenues of the state to business ventures and enterprising activities. Since the state commands access to power and wealth, the control of the state is how they exclude competitors.

The policy of tit-for-tat obstructs the progress of democratic thinking and institutions. In addition to failing to broaden rights, it convinces those in power that their sole interest is to stay in power at all costs. Since losing power means for them the beginning of revenge depriving them of their rights and status, they are alarmed by the idea of peaceful, democratic transfer of power. One grave consequence of the politics of revenge is that force alone can initiate a political change.

Changes in Ethiopia are thus never cumulative: nothing expands because change means undoing, and not adding to previously acquired gains. So long as this state of affairs persists, Ethiopia will be going through the same nauseating ups and downs of elites without appreciable, permanent, and cumulative gains. To stop this macabre dance of elites, the demise of ethnic politics is a necessary step. The promotion of individual rights rather than groups is how idil abandons the pursuit of exclusion and warms up to the idea of open competition. While groups are exclusive, individual rights are inclusive, non-discriminatory: they are the rights of anybody, and so are liable to promote an open society.

The promotion of individual rights is also how we desert the reliance of our individual fate on the control of the state for the much more exciting and rewarding quest for entrepreneurial ventures. Unlike promotion through political links, which activates exclusion, entrepreneurial individuals try to fend for themselves. Since they are after achievements rather than privileges, they demand equal rights, and thus are immune to the politics of retaliation. Where there is a longing for accomplishments, not restrictions, but demands for more freedoms prevail. What is creative escapes revengefulness because it wants to add to the existing stock, as opposed to exclusion, which multiplies restrictions because a predatory mode of life defines it.