When measured by this view of political life, we Ethiopians have a long way to go. Our political condition in the Diaspora is in crisis. We are deeply divided by ethnicity and our relationships as political beings are contaminated by hate, suspicion and intolerance.
Lest we correct ourselves quickly, we cannot attain the goal of achieving regime change.
I was compelled to make these statements because I am deeply disappointed with the recent infightings in our websites over the future of our country, the country that we so deeply love and over which we are fighting via hate, suspicion and divisive ethnicity.
What kind of thinker must an Ethiopian be?
The genuine Ethiopian thinker or intellectual should be not merely a well-wisher, a blind follower, an ethnicist, regionalist, an exploiter or uniformed tribalist. The leading principle of a genuine Ethiopian thinker is a heart felt of love of the entire Ethiopian nation. Such a thinker makes his foremost duty knowing the material and non-material resources of Ethiopia.
The thinker or the intellectual makes heroic efforts to know his country: its people, its heritage, its traditions and its customs.
Furthermore, thinkers of a caring commitment bring the various thinkers together. They seek to use the rational idea of Ethiopiawinet to unite the now deeply divided and traumatized people of Ethiopia.
It is the ongoing heart breaking differences in our huge and important Ethiopia that is forcing me to write these words. I appeal to our intelligent intellectuals to stop the endless infighting, the bad mouthing, the in courteous writings, the meaningless competition, the destructive jealousies, the blatant ethnic slurs.
All these negative forces must be replaced by the radiance of Ethiopiawinet.
Once we internalize Ethiopianet what matters the most is not ethnically guided praises and attacks of one another, but rather the moral and pragmatic imperative of solving the Ethiopian people’s issues, the menacing poverty, the savagery of dictatorship and the utter absence of democratic freedoms.
I modestly propose that the infighting among the learned and the bickering among ordinary Ethiopians must stop and that contemporary Ethiopia must be saved and can be saved if each of us Ethiopians willingly and lovingly embrace and infuse Ethiopiawinent in to the living cells of our souls.
I should now like to engage the difficult project of us Ethiopians articulating a national vision of an Ethiopiawinet that we must all own, and make an intimate part of our moral framework.
There are many ways and paths of travelling the journey of realizing our Ethiopiwinet. I begin now with the first vision and future columns will present more ways of realizing the idea of Ethiopiwinent. We Ethiopians express our Ethiopiawinet in two forms. The first form is that we are private citizens and the second is that we are public citizens.
As private citizens we have the right to attend to our individual wants, that we can afford to be self-loving, and when we want we can love our loved ones, our children, our friends an neighbors in any way we want, and to any degree we wish, depending our moods and inclinations. There is no limit to the extension of our private self.
As public citizens and intellectuals our concerns and responsibilities are varied. One of our self-imposed duties is to care for Ethiopia as Ethiopians. When so care, we cannot help but express this love in the form of loving all the members of the Ethiopian nation equally to the extent that we can.
Ethiopianwinet is a project that each and every lover of Ethiopia must undertake.
The unnecessary squabbles and infighting among Ethiopian intellectuals destroys the idea of Ethiopiawinent.
