That man should kill man not in anger, not in fear, but only to watch the sight.
(Seneca)
Beasts were made sacred by the barbarians on account of the benefits they bestowed.
(Cicero)
Reports that Meles Zenawi, the Tigrayan despot, is in critical condition receiving treatment in Saint Luc Hospital in Belgium have occasioned intensive speculation concerning post Meles scenarios, especially among Abyssinian opposition groups. I think most of the Amhara political elites are dreaming of a situation in which TPLF would be forced to make significant concessions to them so that they can have more decisive clout with the regime in crisis. Their ultimate point is to replace the Woyane despot with their own “authentic Ethiopian” despot, meaning an Amhara one, notwithstanding their lip service to, and praise for, democracy. The death of the Tigrayan dictator is portrayed as the death of EPRDF structure. Selam Beyene, for example, writes, in his article posted in Ethiomedia.com, July 16, 2012: “By all indications, these are desperate times for Zenawi and his corrupt and crumbling regime. An evil dictatorship that is founded upon an ideology of ethnic hatred, cronyism, repression, lies and corruption, is unravelling faster than even the most positive predictions have hoped for.”
All these high sounding words cannot conceal from the majority of the peoples in the empire-state of Ethiopia, and the world at large the fact that it was mainly the Amhara despots who, with the help of foreign powers, institutionalized hidden ethnic and religious pogroms, corruption and other negativities Selam Beyene is ascribing to the Tigrayan dominated regime alone. It is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Selam Beyne is impossible really. He asks: “What are the tell-tale signs signalling the imminent collapse of this accidental phenomenon of history?” But, how accidental it is! In other words how accidental is accidental?
Must Ethiopia not dominated by Amhara despots be indeed an accident of history? As a matter of fact, the Amhara domination, if stripped of its ideological leitmotif and rewritten in clear language, is also among the worst accidents of history. And it will be forgotten, like all such accidents of history, when the broken spirits of the oppressed peoples in the Horn of Africa rise above despair and helplessness successfully and manage to rid themselves of the monstrous spectacles of the Abyssinian despotism. New chapters of history will be written when they learn, how to go beyond their minor differences and overcome, acting in solidarity, fear systematically instilled in them through constant terror for more than a century. Before that they have to defeat their tribal mentality and all forms of dogma, including religious dogma paralysing them from within: learning from the Somali tragedy is a must. Their elites have to stop talking constantly about themselves and their clans instead of the struggle of their peoples for liberation and freedom.
I had already known Amhara aggression and arrogance as a boy by experience. After the death of my father, as the eldest son, I somehow assumed responsibility for the whole family, paying gibir, taxation, dealing with litigation and so on. At the time there were widespread military atrocities against civilians in Bale. One day I decided suddenly, after a series of bureaucratic and police harassments, never to bow down to Amhara administration again. Later when I fled Ethiopia to Somalia in 1966, I, lacking in political experience, thought we Oromos could emulate an independent Somalia to restore our rights as a nation, reviving our battered dignity and self image as human beings by achieving independence likewise. I was soon to be disappointed of course. And I had to learn slowly but decidedly in Mogadishu the difference between world reality and fantasy. Much later, my shock was even greater to see how the Somalis themselves relinquished their self- respect gambling with their precious independence by relapsing to the backward clan politics of the past and inviting Abyssinian intervention. Today, the longer I meditate and read the more I think that we really need to enlarge our field of vision before we speak in the name of an oppressed people. Otherwise the Abyssinian elites and their despots will keep thinking of themselves as the absolute models for us all. They will keep lecturing us on the advantage of unity, parading their version of history as truth and having always a point to make to the world as well.
In the meantime, the Amhara and Tigray elites in the opposition are using the term “tribe” to describe ethnicity in Ethiopia in imitation of colonial practice that aims at legitimizing colonial boundaries in Africa. That will certainly endear them to some western circles. At the moment they are trying hard to give the impression that they are going to serve western interests better than the Woyane, which is very questionable. But that is surely the shortest way to power, which is not new in Ethiopia. Is this not the obscene inverse of their well known patriotism?
Not long ago I met somewhere an Oromo intellectual from Finfinne area. During our brief tense conversation he angrily accused me of trying to teach the Abyssinians instead of concentrating on the Oromo struggle at hand. When I carefully probed into his real concern, it became clear to me that he resented the exposure of the old myths, the creation myths, of Ethiopia, so to speak. These are the weapons with which most of the Abyssinian political elites always try to mystify their audience, including a section of their ignorant, docile and obedient Oromo slaves.
A deconstructionist historical approach alone can decontaminate the Ethiopian history. Until that happens, the dramatic protests of Abyssinian demagogues in opposition against tyranny are without substance, part of the now familiar political theatre. They are waiting for a new Abyssinian dictator capable of mobilizing and enlisting them en masse in the service of the unquestionable Ethiopian unity. All that is needed to maintain such a unity is, as we know, complete submission to the all powerful despot, the ugly face of Abyssinia. Stirring passions, constantly reinforcing fear, hatred and violence are the only requisites.
In well written statements on the Enlightenment, Pierre Saint-Amand writes: “In Montesquieu’s ‘Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their decline’ there is a fantastic description of the homogeneity created by despotism. The obliteration of vital divisions and differences has the effect of a virtual massacre: And, if we see any unity there, it is not citizens who are united but dead bodies buried one next to the other.” How truthfully this statement applies equally, even with such a lapse of time, to the Abyssinian dominated Ethiopian empire!
When I write on this site (which is, by the way, visited by more Amharas and Tigrayans, who are eager to sabotage it if they can, than by Oromos mostly lost in petty personal pursuits) about the necessity of dismantling the Ethiopian empire, it is not because I am averse or opposed to a genuine unity of different peoples. It is because I know from experience the impossibility of achieving real, constructive unity under Amhara and Tigray domination. I am not against a genuine global village which can serve the whole world and not only the never ending greed of the capitalists and their stooges. Yet I am not for a sweeping, undifferentiated opposition to capitalism, characteristic of the old left. Nor do I advocate violence as the best avenue or most practical way for a revolutionary change. For us oppressed in Ethiopia by brutal regimes protected by major world powers, the question is basically one of immediate self-defence and survival.
Some years ago I heard a Sudanese academic talking in the Arabic Aljaziira. He said that some American top politicians had arrived at a conclusion that three countries in Africa, which are ungovernable, should be dismantled in time. He named Nigeria, the Sudan and Ethiopia. I do not know how verifiable that statement was.
But this is a big point. We see that Sudan is being slowly dismantled. Unlike Ethiopia, there is no nostalgia for despotism among the masses in Nigeria, even in Sudan for that matter. As they are not yet reduced to helpless robots, the living dead, forced, whether they want it or mot, to abjectly worship horrible despots, they will find the right solutions to their problems in due course.
We have seen also how, contrary to the Ethiopian masses, Kenyans and the people of Somalia in the south could refuse to be cowed, standing up firmly to dictatorship and foreign puppets, with all the weapons available to them.
In Ethiopia, the picture is completely different: concealed fascism is the reality here. The Abyssinian militarists are determined as never before to crush all genuine opposition and keep their iron grips on power for ever. It is not just the Abyssinian political elite that is the problem; it is also the greater part of the Abyssinian masses who still worship even their dead emperors, the worst despots in Africa. Mengistu Haile Mariam and Meles Zenawi may be transformed one day into saints after their death, simply because they stood for the unity of the Ethiopian empire! That is most probably part of the reasons why the United States and Britain were careful to leave Mangistu-Haile Mariam, one of the worst mass murderers of Abyssinia, to live in peace unmolested.
What does this all mean in practice? The protests which can become the catalyst for real political changes must come mainly, if at all, from the oppressed nations and nationalities of the empire. We need revolutionary elites capable of overcoming village mentality, opportunism, obscurantist fanaticism and fear. This is also why my Oromo friend, who accused me of trying to teach the Abyssinians, and some lukewarm missionary elements in OLF, should have considered their position seriously. It is absolutely necessary to expose, before the whole world, the mythological and ideological underpinnings of the Ethiopian empire, not just the clear cases of atrocities by its sadistic kings and emperors, seen by the whole world.
To underestimate the basic tenets of the Abyssinian faith in Ethiopia is to ignore the unshakable self confidence, the undivided attention and determination and the sense of superiority of the Abyssinian elites and their criminal underworld, where the spirits of their past heroes, the empire builders, are still very active in the psychology of the living. By comparison, for example, Oromo and even Somali nationalism at present is mostly nothing more than day-dreaming. Of course many of us have lost even the capacity to dream due to utter despair. That the Abyssinians uphold what they call “Ethiopian culture” aggressively and with much more pride than we do ours is an undeniable fact. Do we have as much practical respect for and commitment to the memories of our just heroes as they for their unjust ones? The difference shows how much we are below a state of grace which is natural human dignity. No wonder, to the Abyssinian elite we, Oromos, Somalis, Afars, Sidama etc have no unique cultures and heritages of our own worth defending and preserving. We must accordingly identify ourselves with, adopt and defend the supposedly superior Abyssinian culture and heritage unquestionably under the hubris that is Ethiopia. We must consider their pride as our own and revel in it as it is paraded in Axum and Lallibala.
Those of us who cannot do this will be noticed and their loyalty questioned, mostly with dire consequences, even if we slavishly identify ourselves as Ethiopians. Again, when I say Ethiopia must be dismantled, it is not out of hate or anger as some Abyssinians think. On the contrary, it is out of genuine love of its peoples, including the Abyssinian people. I want to see them all released from their century-old bondage, their agonies of endless mutual hatred and suffering.
The Woyane chauvinists are, mostly only on paper, far ahead of the Amhara political cliques. No matter how I dislike them, do I want them to be replaced by the Amhara ruling elite? The apparition of the Amhara intransigence and arrogance must vanish completely by all possible means. Of all the lies that buttress the Ethiopian empire, theirs are the most outrageous. The lessons the Eritreans and even the Tigrayans in their best moments taught them seem to be lost without trace. Where can the most decisive lessons to both the Amhara and Tigray ruling elites never again to play with fire in the foreseeable future come from?
There is an old Abyssinian assumption, not entirely unfounded, that the Oromos will never raise their heads together to move in one direction and aspire to achieve the same goal, and that there will be enough of them anyway who will never rise from the Abyssinian kitchen table to stand in the middle of the yard to see a clear blue sky of freedom, having lived for so long as yes-men perfectly attuned to the wishes and whims of the Abyssinian regimes. Many other Oromos who see their behaviour feel deeply ashamed.
Meles may or may not be dead. In Paltalk rooms some say he was poisoned. Anyway, there has never been really a peaceful transfer of power in Ethiopia throughout its history. How cold history seems to be! It seems to repeat itself almost everywhere. Voltaire may not have been particularly thinking of Ethiopia when he wrote: “ Eglon, King of Moabites, was murdered by Ehud; Abasalom was hanged by the hair and pierced by three darts; King Nadab, son of Jeroboam, was killed by Baasha, King Elah by Zimitri; Ahazia by Jehu; Athaliah by Jehoiada, Jeconiah,… You know in what manner died Croesus, Astyages, Darius, Denys of Syracus, Pyrrhus, Perseus, Hannibal, Jugurtha, Caessar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Richard II of England, Edward II, Henry VI, Richard III, Mary Stuart, Charles I, the three Henrys of France, the Emperor Henry IV. You know….”
Well, Europeans can afford to present the past history as objectively or accurately as possible. Abyssinia has only academics, mostly demagogues and charlatans, bent on concealing the facts of history or falsifying them. Meles or no Meles, Ethiopia will remain under the rule of extremely sadistic political and military elite. We know enough of the results of power struggle within the Abyssinian ruling class. Today, with the systematic involvement and help of the CIA, the Tigrayans may even boast of an exceptional achievement of making a relatively smooth transfer of power to another blood sucking thug.
However, many are the fools and opportunists, especially among us Oromos, who will never learn from their own experiences and the daily realities of the empire. They will always rush in the service of their own self-interest to be instruments of doom in the inner conflicts of Abyssinian power structures and to be cannon-fodders in the endless military conflicts as usual.
But where are our revolutionary elites? Honestly speaking, I have no idea. You may laugh. But it is a tragedy. It is a question of low morale and lack of organization under fascism. In addition, we live in a time when opportunism has become normality as never before in my life time. I do not like to feed you with the glitter of falsehood. Sometimes it is better to tell the truth and die. All I know is this: a revolutionary is not just a person who takes up only arms and rushes shouting unrealistic slogans to liberate his people. Our convictions, our clarity of political outlook, our organizational skills and our understanding of international reality do matter. Foremost, we must be free from all forms of tyrannical behaviour ourselves: clan tyranny, ideological, ethnic and religious dogma, regionalism and other forms of opportunism at the expense of our struggle for freedom. It requires true sacrifice and discipline. We cannot regain our dignity without them.
Besides, it is absolutely vital to carefully examine our attitude to the western democracies. This is one of the most critical questions with no easy answers. But it must be raised with unrelenting great urgency. In her introduction to the book entitled “The Laws of Hostility” Chantal Mouffe starts by saying: “Democratic societies are today facing a challenge that they are ill-prepared to meet. Far from having led to a smooth transition to pluralist democracy, the collapse of communism has opened the way to an explosion of ethnic, religious, and nationalistic conflicts that do not make sense to western liberals. In their view such antagonisms belong to a bygone age, a pre-modern time when passions had not yet been eliminated by the influence of ‘sweet commerce’ and replaced by the rational dominance of interests and the generalization of ‘post-conventional’ identities. Here is the difficulty of democratic thinkers in understanding the current proliferation of particularisms and the new emergence of variety of supposedly ‘archaic’ antagonisms”.
The most important point in the introduction is clearly this one: “It would be a mistake to see such a situation as a merely temporary problem, soon to be overcome by progress in empirical research. Indeed, it could be argued that it is the very structure of the dominant approach in liberal democratic theory that precludes understanding the present conjuncture. Characterized as it is by (superficial) rationalism, individualism, and universalism, this type of theory must necessarily remain blind to the nature of the political and to the ineradicability of antagonism.” A little later: “To be able to delineate an alternative democratic theory, we first need to discover the reasons for its present shortcomings.”
While I welcome attempts at delineating an alternative dynamic view, our immediate concern is how to face the daily realities of atrocities and large scale oppressive measures by one of the most violent pro-western despotic regimes in the world.
Can the present Muslim protest transform itself into an empire-wide mass disobedience to, and revolt against, the regime? It depends mainly on the level of political consciousness and organizational works of political activists involved. Great is the danger of spontaneous mass protest being hi-jacked by the Abyssinian groups as before. Many of them will use the protest to whip the Abyssinian masses into a frenzy of hate and, if necessary, violence.
We must be warned also of the possibility of certain chauvinist Abyssinian Muslim minority elements misusing the ongoing protest in the service of the Abyssinian domination by all means. Such elements do exist especially in the north.
While most Abyssinians are prisoners of their ancestral models of the past, many of them remain absolutely committed to their agendas. Most of us Oromos are not ready to practically shoulder serious and real responsibilities especially if they involve risks to our persons. Even when we act in the interests of our struggle we do things mostly rash and precipitately with our ego interfering. Many of us are also easily impressed and conditioned by our own flowery oral propaganda like human beings mesmerized with their own images and physical appearances. It is rightly said that men might be majestic trunks that reach all the way to the sky, but compassion, integrity and intelligence, which are cardinal virtues, missing, their actions are reckless, their words ring hollow, unconvincing. If I am not convinced myself how can I convince others? Urgent organizational works, both underground and open, for active solidarity against repression and oppression are ignored. Due to the chronic loss of dignity under the Abyssinian aggression and supremacy, many of us suffer from image neurosis. We are mostly eager only to make our marks or be in the limelight in some way, myself included.
What is the common denominator that unites the oppressed peoples in the empire-state of Ethiopia? Let us concentrate on it while accommodating our differences. Otherwise we are programmed for the ultimate disaster under the Abyssinian domination. Needless to say Amhara and Tigray elites will swiftly rally around the dogma of their empire despite the differences and the power struggle raging between them.
Montaigne quotes Juvenal as saying:
This land adores the crocodile,
That one the snake-gorged Ibis as divine;
Here golden images of monkeys shine;
……………………………………..
……………………….while here
A fish, and there a dog, whole towns revere.
In the epilogue in praise of peace in the book on the philosophies of the Enlightenment, the writer suggests the best way out of our ordeal: a will to hospitality and respectful identification with and, I would like to add, recognition of the other. I could not agree more.
I was unable to post this article for sometime. This site has been out of action due to hacking. It will continue its single minded dedication and commitment to freedom of expression and to the struggle for justice for all.