The Wounded Ethiopian Nationalism and Messay Kebede’s Recent Article
By Leggesse Alemu
July 18, 2013 (The Gulele Post) — Ethiopian Nationalism is wounded
nationalism because of the bloody war it has been fighting with its foes
since 1960s. It has been fighting both with its internal and external
enemies which were created, harbored and brought up by Narrow Ethiopian
Nationalism itself. It was decisively defeated both in the battles of
armed struggles and in realm of ideas. Due to these bitter defeats
Eritrea has gone forever. “Ethno”-Nationalists (even though I do not
like this name, I could not get better one) have got State power and
launched bloody wars against Ethiopian Nationalism. In fact, Ethno-
Nationalists have scored so many successive “victories” that has far
deepened the wound of Ethiopian Nationalism. Due to these defeats and
wound the Ethiopian Nationalists have started to doubt the validity and
viability of their political commitments and values. Hence, they have
lost self values and trapped in to the vicious cycle that could be
analogized to theory of “insecurity dilemma” of the given regime.
In this regard Messay Kebede, the best mind Ethiopian nationalism
can offer, wrote these statements in his recently published article
titled “
Ethiopia’s Fragmented Elites: Origins and Syndromes”
(see below). He wrote, “The dreams of the generation of the 60s and
early 70s have been squashed by the victory of the Derg whose
dictatorial rule decimated its morale and that of their offspring. Both
were offered nothing but the humiliation of a massive exodus. Whether
they stayed in the country or left, all experienced another cycle of
humiliating events when they witnessed, powerless, the defeat of the
Ethiopian army, the invasion of the country by an ethnic army, and the
secession of Eritrea. It is hard not to infer from these events a severe
damage to Ethiopian nationalism and an erosion of self-confidence such
that the generation’s belief in its ability to accomplish great things
has received a deadly blow. Without self-confidence, the readiness to
unite for a great cause is also likely to suffer gravely.”
For me the real problem is not only the humiliating defeat the
Ethiopian Nationalists faced but also how they understand and appreciate
their humiliations and defeats. They rightly come to conclusion that
they cannot simply sit and watch their “ideological” and political
death. Without any doubt, they will, and indeed have done, come to the
conclusion that they have to do something about their irreparable
losses. It seems they want to do this unknown “something” urgently.
Because of this urgency, humiliations, loss of self confidence and
values, Ethiopian Nationalism turned to be reactive and irrational as
opposed to pragmatic and strategic calculations. The reactive and
irrational nature of this nationalism exposes itself to more systematic
and organized attacks of its foes, who have been better organized and
armed with better ideas and instruments. The more it reacts, the more it
gets heavy smacks from all corners of its angry and suspicious
adversaries. This has similarity to theories of insecurity dilemma: the
more you do things to insure your survival, the more you expose yourself
to the greater threats and risks. This is a serious confusion and a
fatal vicious cycle that kills via euthanasia.
Ethiopian Nationalists deeply misunderstood their relative strength,
weakness and challenges they face. They think their adversaries are
weak, useless and eventually die. You can say Ethiopian Nationalism has
been incurably hurting itself by “delusions of greatness and feelings of
impotence”. Since what they think of themselves and what they get on
the ground do not correspond, they are living and talking the world of
contradiction. These create and deepen the psychology of “haplessness”
and prevent them “from devising realistic responses” to the deadly
socio- political problems that they have been creating, developing and
promoting. When more organized and competing political forces come to
the show and effectively challenge the Ethiopian Nationalism, which was
protected from all sorts of democratic or whatever competitions until
1992, the leaders of Ethiopian Nationalists get themselves in to
unceasing and deepening crisis. They could not come up with unifying
ideologies that can compete and win support in the realm of marketplace
of ideas. Since they do not have any galvanizing idea around which they
democratically organize people from different sections Ethiopian
peoples, Ethiopian nationalism and its leaders face problems of trust
and confidence as to their competence and ability to guide and lead. Who
is going to follow the losers and people who cannot come up with
contextualized, updated and working ideas? In this regard Messay
writes again,
“Defeat and humiliation entail leadership crisis. Just as a defeated
army questions the competence of its commanding officers, so too a
vanquished generation loses faith in leadership. Once leadership is
distrusted, the willingness to unite in an organization is drastically
reduced. No less than the need to accomplish great goals, confidence in
leaders is a requirement of unity.”
Another serious problem of Ethiopian nationalism is that it carries
the seed of violence and clearly inconvenient to adopt it into
democratic values and institutions that can earn trust and confidence
from different sections of the communities. Since this nationalism was (
at until the final fall of the Dergue) created, promoted and maintained
by the bloody authoritarian regimes, and hence fully backed by state
security/coercive apparatus, the seeds of violence are in its deep
philosophy of dealing with all sorts of problems and competing
legitimate interests. In other words, Ethiopian Nationalists do not help
not to resort to use of violence at their disposal whenever they get
themselves in problems or crisis. That is why they are still using the
structure of violence that they have been building since the end of 19th
century. Even if they do not have a direct control over the
institutions and personnel (the hardware) of Ethiopian repressive
security apparatus, Ethiopian Nationalists are still providing the game
changing ideas and justifications (the lethal software) for current
Ethiopian Regime whenever it comes to dealing with their perceived or
real “enemies”. For instance, they usually do not hesitate to use the
“multimedia platform” under their control to launch deadly offensive
propaganda wars against some Oromo political leaders and targeted
activists, whom they loved to label as “Atseyyafi Gosangoch
/Zeregnoch”, in English “detestable Ethno-Racists”. These acts are a
sheer exercise of violence and they show how these nationalists are very
much comfortable with the use of violence against their perceived
“enemies” whenever possible. These violent natures of Ethiopian
Nationalism do not sound convenient to solve any serious political or
social matters with peaceful and democratic procedures. Fundamentally,
from the past history and current political and social circumstances, it
is possible to say Ethiopian nationalism is yet to be “civilized” to
accommodate the differences and live peacefully with competing
ideologies. Now peace, freedom, liberty, and other democratic values are
not in the nature of Ethiopian nationalism; it is as wild and barbaric
as that of its Menelik’s time. How anyone with sound mind can be
attracted to this kind of nationalism that does not have any moral or
substantive political contents of 21st century?
In relation the violent nature of Ethiopian Nationalism is that the
more it uses this subtle but dangerous means of violence, the more it
creates problems primarily on itself and its followers. By exercising
this violence, Ethiopian Nationalists simply remind everyone, including
their moderate followers, what this nationalism has been all about for
the last one and half century. It is forcing almost all, including the
moderate and people who have been incorporated in the Ethiopian
political identity, to integrate past traumas of their ancestries into
their life stories, or their self-perceptions, the traumas that are
embedded in to the minds of the significant majority which have been
narrated as “outbreaks of lethal violence that have been described as
‘massacre,’ ‘genocide’ and ‘expulsion.’ Etc. These again create another
cycle of resentments and mistrusts which decisively works against their
wounds, but immensely strengthen their opponents. This is something that
makes me wonder how this nationalism is founded upon its own grave.
I can list so many ways in which the very manifestation of wounded
Ethiopian Nationalism works against itself than working against its
competitors. Just because of time and space again, I will try to put
this in another part of my note. For now, once more, I would like to
quote Messay’s recent statement on this wounded nature of Ethiopian
nationalism. It sound dark and gloomy but illustrating the points I
would like to emphasis. He wrote,
“It would be naive to expect from a wounded generation the solutions
to Ethiopia’s numerous problems. What was ruined by one generation
cannot be fixed by the same generation. True change requires, above all,
culture change, which takes time because it is a matter of creativity
and growth. In short, real change is a generational issue.”
I totally agree with these statements. I would also like to add, the
wounded nationalism would die if it does not know how to stop wounding
itself more and more. Now, every day and every moment, Ethiopian
nationalism is busy in severely wounding itself and in fact bleeding to
death. Doesn’t this nationalism have any nervous system that detects and
trace the bleeding wounds and tell the victims to take the correcting
measures? I think of their nerve node Professor Messay starts to see
how he and his generation has been wounding and slowly killing their
Nationalism which they took an oath to take care, nurture and protecting
by all means, they means they do not have any clue about however.
–
Gulele Post
Ethiopia’s Fragmented Elites: Origins and Syndromes By Messay Kebede (PhD.)
One question that regularly and intensely consumes the mind of many
Ethiopians is the question of knowing why Ethiopian elites are unable to
work together. Especially those opposing the TPLF regime, even though
they are well aware that the regime is their common enemy, invariably
prove unable to agree on a common political agenda, let alone to act in
concert to remove their common foe. Is the failure to act jointly due to
irrational forces or is it the outcome of definite causes that are
susceptible of a rational explanation? This paper is an attempt to
rationally comprehend the failure, with the hope that some such
comprehension will have a liberating impact, obvious as it is that the
conscious awareness of the forces of division is liable to significantly
reduce their grip on the mind of Ethiopian elites.
The first answer that springs to mind to the question why Ethiopian
elites are unable to work together is, of course, the lack of unity. But
the latter is more of a question than an answer. For, why is there such
a deficiency of unity? Why are elites, despite their enduring
frustration toward the regime, nay their recurring conviction that the
regime is leading the country to chaos, incapable of overcoming their
divisions?
The seriousness of the matter forces us to look for causes
transcending the immediate preoccupations of Ethiopian elites, the very
ones having to do with historical reasons. I submit that the most
compelling causes are historical in that the lack of unity is a product
of the ideological and political struggles since the dawn of the
Ethiopian process of modernization. Let me explain.
Socio-Historical Causes
The appearance of a centralized and oppressive government and its
ever-tightening grip over the country as essential ingredients of the
Ethiopian process of modernization have entailed a growing rivalry over
the control of power and wealth among old and emerging elites. As the
progress of modernization modified the Ethiopian social fabric, the
rivalry intensified. It reached its peak in the 60s when the conflict
between the old nobility and the imperial state on the one hand and the
various modern sectors (students, intellectuals, the emerging
bourgeoisie, the bureaucratic and military elites, etc.) on the other
hand increasingly took a political and ideological form.
Where there is no enough wealth, state power becomes the privileged
instrument to exclude competitors. The need to exclude generates, in
turn, radical ideologies either in the form of hardened conservatism or
extreme revolutionarism. The function of radical ideologies is to
justify the political exclusion of opponents. Thus, to the conservatism
of the nobility and the imperial state in the 60s and early 70s,
students and intellectuals opposed socialism and ethnonationalism. The
ideology of socialism allows elites to claim that they are the sole
representatives of the working people, thereby depriving other competing
elites of the right to represent the overwhelming majority of the
people. As to ethnonationalism, it restricts the right to represent a
given ethnic group to native elites, and so denies all political
legitimacy to non-kin elites. Unsurprisingly, both ideologies justify
absolute power as necessary to effect the exclusion.
The characteristics of a state whose function is to exclude rivals
are quite different from a democratic state. In the latter, not only
conflicts are recognized, but they are also provided with the means of
reaching an accommodation based on the verdict of the people. The
provision of accommodation prevents the recourse to violence to settle
disputes. By contrast, the excluding state rejects all form of
accommodation, leaving to opponents no other choice than the overthrow
of the state by violent means.
This politics of exclusion foments a culture of confrontation
pursuing a zero-sum game. The fact that winners take all, in addition to
exasperating the conflicts between elites, inaugurates an endless cycle
of violent confrontations during which one group overthrows the ruling
elite until it is itself overthrown by another group and so on. The
intensification of conflicts undermines the unity of the country and,
most of all, weakens the ability of elites to work together by fostering
a culture of mutual animosity and mistrust. As a result, the effort to
generate a democratic state is repeatedly foiled. Clearly, these
characteristics trace an accurate portrait of the Ethiopian state and
elites.
The main drawback of a state practicing exclusion is the lack of
legitimacy. One group subduing other groups by means of force does not
mean that the subdued groups recognize the authority of the state and
are willing to obey. On the contrary, the groups are in a state of
permanent rebellion and are just waiting for the opportunity to reverse
the situation in their favor. However, their expectation makes victims
of the lack of legitimacy of the state by nurturing an anarchic idea of
entitlement to power. Indeed, where the state lacks legitimacy, many
individuals feel entitled to aspire for the ownership of power. This
aspiration stands in the way of the effort to create a collaborative
spirit among elites by ignite mistrust and rivalry.
A pertinent illustration of fragmentation is the tendency to create
parties revolving around individuals rather than being based on ideas
and goals. Nothing better confirms the truth of this analysis than the
anarchic proliferation of parties in Ethiopia whose number is estimated
to be more than eighty. Worse yet, these parties have the tendency to
split into smaller parties because disagreements cannot be managed
democratically. Given that influential individuals consider political
parties as their private possession, they are apt to create a splinter
party by walking away with their followers each time internal disputes
arise.
Extraverted Psyche
One must not forget that the flourishing of radical ideologies in
Ethiopia is a direct consequence of modern education. Insofar as a
system of education alien to the country’s history and culture has
shaped modern Ethiopian elites, it has greatly facilitated the
absorption of imported ideologies. The main outcome of Western education
is not only to undermine the inherited common culture, but it is also
to inculcate the paradigm of modernity versus tradition. The weakening
of the common culture lessens unity while the paradigm of modernity
values imitativeness by advocating the rejection of whatever is
traditional as uncivilized, backward and by painting Western countries
as the model to follow.
This copyism or extraverted psyche is one of the reasons why the
modern educated sector of Ethiopian society easily adopted
Marxism-Leninism, which was the dominant ideology in the 60s and early
70s. The Marxist-Leninist definition of political struggle as a resolute
elimination of rivals, as opposed to the accommodative stand of
democracy, became the rule for Ethiopian elites, while ideological
radicalization further exasperated their conflicts to the point where
they were perceived as irreconcilable. The high point of these
antagonistic relationships was none other than the insidious
proliferation of ethnonationalism among the educated elites.
The Lack of Galvanizing Ideas
The progressive decline of the fascination with Marxism-Leninism as a
result of repeated economic and political failures of socialist
countries and the prevalence of liberal democracy constitute an
additional reason for the fragmentation of elites. The undeniable power
of Marxism-Leninism was that it was a galvanizing ideology in that it
identified the interests of elites with the liberation and empowerment
of the working masses. The identification provided a nationalist vision
investing elites, especially students and intellectuals, with the
electrifying mission of becoming the liberators of the masses from
oppression and exploitation and of their country from imperialism.
Liberalism offers none of the excitements associated with revolutionary
goals.
True, liberalism can inspire a fervent defense of freedom that can be
as revolutionary as the idea of socialism. But we must see it in the
context of Ethiopia, that is, of a mentality not yet emancipated from
the totalitarian doctrine of the 60s. Such a mentality could not but
amalgamate liberalism with Leninism, the outcome of which is the
confusion of liberalism with individualism. The attempt to combine
ethnonationalism with liberal principles, as sadly exemplified by the
ruling ideology of the TPLF, is the worst form of the confusion.
The amalgam tries to apply liberalism while suppressing freedom in
all its manifestations because of the Leninist remnant of politics
defined as exclusion of opponents. Together with the caricature of
liberalism by those who control power, there spreads among elites the
interpretation of liberalism in the direction of selfish individualism.
For this distorted liberalism, individuals should not be concerned about
other people; their only worry should be their own interests so that
all pursuit of grand causes is devalued. Clearly, where egoistic
individualism becomes the norm, unity of purpose among elites is
difficult to achieve.
In Ethiopia, the unity of purpose has been seriously hindered both by
the proliferation of ethnonationalist ideologies and by the inability
to find a matching or counter ideology against ethnonationalism. The
choice is reduced to being either a supporter, an opponent, or a
resigned tolerant of ethnonationalism. The perversion of Ethiopia with
ethnonationalist ideologies is a stumbling block to the formation of a
common purpose if only because the threat to the integrity of the nation
deprives competitors of a common cause. Since elites rejecting the
Ethiopian nationhood aspire either to secede or to become dominant, they
cannot work together with those who defend the unity of the nation,
still less can they accept an all-embracing ideology.
Divide-and-Rule Strategy and the Politics of Fear
Given that the fragmentation of Ethiopian elites along ethnic lines
is the work of the TPLF, it follows that the main culprit for the lack
of unity is the TPLF regime itself. It is important to note here that
the TPLF did not only divide Ethiopia along ethnic states, but it also
opted for a terrorist method of government, the essential function of
which is the inculcation of fear. Government by fear has a paralyzing
effect: though the overwhelming majority of elites is set against the
regime, it cannot act in concert to get rid of the regime because of the
paralyzing effect of fear. Instead of action, resignation takes the
lead with the consequence that the dislike of the regime never
transcends the subjective realm of feelings so as to translate into
political action.
Be it noted that one of the effects of fear is the propensity to
justify the postponement of political action. Indeed, fear provides
justification for not acting together by enhancing little differences to
the level of a fundamental disagreement. To the question of why
opponents do not act together to remove the regime, the ready answer is
the absence of agreement. Magnifying minor differences is how fear
camouflaged itself into a valid reason for not acting, thereby avoiding
the risks and dangers implied in political action. Not only does fear
paralyze, but it also inspires fragmentation as a way of deferring
political action. It is because dictatorial governments know that elites
broken by fear cannot act in concert that they resort to systematic
campaigns designed to spread fear.
In default of promoting action, fear encourages wishful thinking.
Terror induces hope but in the form of magic or fantasy. Evidence of
this is the recurrent predication of an imminent collapse of the regime
by many opponents. By underestimating the strength and survival capacity
of the regime, they tell us that it is on its last legs, though nothing
is being done to turn the hope into reality. This kind of magical faith
is another way of avoiding the risks and sacrifices necessary to
actually remove the regime. There is some consolation in doing nothing
when it is believed that magical forces are bound to intervene in our
favor.
Beyond the Humiliated Generation
All the defects hampering rival elites pertain to a generation that
has gone through the bitter experience of defeat and humiliation. The
dreams of the generation of the 60s and early 70s have been squashed by
the victory of the Derg whose dictatorial rule decimated its morale and
that of their offspring. Both were offered nothing but the humiliation
of a massive exodus. Whether they stayed in the country or left, all
experienced another cycle of humiliating events when they witnessed,
powerless, the defeat of the Ethiopian army, the invasion of the country
by an ethnic army, and the secession of Eritrea. It is hard not to
infer from these events a severe damage to Ethiopian nationalism and an
erosion of self-confidence such that the generation’s belief in its
ability to accomplish great things has received a deadly blow. Without
self-confidence, the readiness to unite for a great cause is also likely
to suffer gravely.
Defeat and humiliation entail leadership crisis. Just as a defeated
army questions the competence of its commanding officers, so too a
vanquished generation loses faith in leadership. Once leadership is
distrusted, the willingness to unite in an organization is drastically
reduced. No less than the need to accomplish great goals, confidence in
leaders is a requirement of unity. Without exaggeration, leadership
crisis is one of the crucial setbacks of post-revolutionary Ethiopia,
all the more so as the Ethiopian culture is prone to the cult of heroes,
as witnessed by the fact that its past history shows that the death or
the exceptional courage of leaders often determined the fate of wars.
It would be naive to expect from a wounded generation the solutions
to Ethiopia’s numerous problems. What was ruined by one generation
cannot be fixed by the same generation. True change requires, above all,
culture change, which takes time because it is a matter of creativity
and growth. In short, real change is a generational issue. The TPLF,
secessionist groups, and their opponents are all products of the
dominant culture of the 60s. Their collaborations and conflicts show
that society follows a determined path until it sees a precipice. The
generation that takes the precipice as a precipice, and not as a redress
of a vile social order, is the one called upon to change the direction.
It sees an impasse in what other characterize as positive or negative
developments.
When things go wrong, the culprits and their opponents are the two
poles of the same reality. To the extent that the thinking of the one is
just the opposite of the other, they are one and the same, as they
remain tied to each other by their very contradiction. Thus, as action
and reaction, the Derg and the TPLF are one and the same. That is why
many of the actions of the TPLF often give us the impression of a déjÃ
vu. That is why also, just as the Derg, the TPLF is unable to solve the
problems of Ethiopia.
The generation that is free of the thinking uniting the Derg and the
TPLF is alone able to bring real change to Ethiopia. However, the
condition of its emancipation grows from the previous opposition, the
development of which draws the limit beyond which the precipice lies.
Reaching the limit clears the ground for the new, for “where danger is,
also grows the saving power,” as says Heidegger. Whether such a
generation is in sight is hard to tell. One thing is sure, though: the
best that the defeated generation and perhaps their immediate descendant
can do is to take a hard critical look at themselves and exchange their
ambition to remain makers of history for the much more subdued role of
midwife of the coming repaired generation.
–
Messay Kebede is Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Dayton in Ohio. He taught philosophy at Addis Ababa University from 1976
to 1993. He also served as chair of the department of philosophy from
1980 to 1991.
