Bashing The Ethiopian Leaders

By: Bekele Gedamu, SEP 25,2006

Several actors in our political arena, confused of articulating their agendas have made street demonstration, once an effective tool to illustrate dissent, a trite venue. The profound complexity of mass grievance is, therefore, regrettably lost in the hubbub, and few individuals in the Diaspora are to blame.

Let me start with Mr. Girma Bekele.

Mr. Girma Bekele, notorious for his demagoguery ever since the inception of the Ethiopian Review magazine – and the expulsion of the Derg by the invincible EPRDF warriors – is a good example. Witness his recent activities: He was once again attempting to disparage the Deputy Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Ato Addisu Legesse, on his last visit to the United States.

It didn’t work, but I’d like to present a couple of ideas for the readers to ponder.

In the early 1990s, when the Ethiopian Review started, Girma Bekele, as the editor of the magazine, wanted to take the direction of the magazine to the extreme right, against a full-scale opposition from the publisher and other levelheaded advisors. Most wanted the magazine to be impartial, including Elias, the then impressionable and yielding publisher (before the days of his corruption), who, as a newcomer to the American political battlefield, refused to be Girma’s pet.

Girma didn’t like it. Coming from the old school and knowing only blood and mayhem, and being insufferably bankrupt of new ideas, he couldn’t fathom the young Elias’s recalcitrant attitude. He wanted the magazine to be full of terror, but the sudden metamorphosis of the young man didn’t sit well with the Old Guard.  He then bolted out and formed, along with his friend Professor Getachew Haile, another magazine, entitled, The Ethiopian Register.

The Ethiopia Register emerged with a huge bash. Hardliners were elated. Those who wanted a mouthpiece to air their personal grievances (mostly Derg adherents) went berserk. “Meles a Killer” “Meles a Butcher” and “The Evil Woyannes” were phrases most often used ex-ambassadors and former cabinet officials. More notorious for its bad grammar than for its coherent, intelligent articles, little by little the magazine became tabloid trash, similar to that of the Globe, known for its invention of sighting Martians in the Arizona desert. Discriminating readers began to question where it was headed and what philosophies it espoused. It appeared at the time most contributing writers of the magazine were trapped in their mercenary views and unable to proceed from issuing doom and the immediate arrival of the Apocalypse.

Negativity can only trot a few miles. The Ethiopian Register continued for a brief moment, leapfrogging with a languid state, but then suffered its final quietus, taking with it the infinitesimal hope it brought to its ardent hard-line followers. There went the ubiquitous Mr. Bekele, along with the frigid magazine, hibernating for a while, until the Age of the Internet. He is now Kinijit’s henchman in the San Jose area, ready to take Kinijit down.

Mr. Bekele’s agenda and tactics can serve only one purpose, however: that of alienating the Ethiopian Diaspora from their motherland. Driven by his twisted messages, those innocently fooled by him do not have a clue where they are headed. Take, for example, the incident in the early 1990s, when the venerable Dr. Dejazmatch Zewdie G. Selassie attempted to hold a fact finding and truce seminar in the Bay Area. He was booed with loud uproar by the likes of Girma Bekele, disrupting the process.  Anyone seeking a peaceful means to resolve the problem between the ruling party and the oppositions was almost all the time dubbed as a “hod ader” or a “Woyanne supporter.”

I am not a psychologist, but even a tyro like me can tell that there is a fog of insanity in the air. Hate seems to be the dominant passion for people like Girma to feed upon. Depicting (with the description of the Tigriyans as non Ethiopians or considering the Oromos as inferiors) anyone who didn’t blend with his maniacal beliefs as traitors was his scheme. His fanatical goal to dehumanize and debase Mr. Meles (because the Prime Minister is of a Tigriyan origin) became morbidly unrelenting during the Ethiopian Review age and later with the Ethiopian Register. In both cases, Mr. Bekele’s Enemy Number One, Mr. Meles, proved to be invincible, thank God, making Bekele’s arrows as feeble as straw. It also made most Ethiopians (living in Ethiopia) wary, galvanizing their undivided support for the Prime Minister.

Still, Mr. Bekele hasn’t abandoned his old tricks, regardless of how ineffective his schemes were. As evidenced in his latest attacks on the Deputy Prime Minister on his recent visit to the Bay Area, the Old Guard was heard calling attention to himself once again. Professor Tekola Hagos once wrote of Girma Bekele, in 2003, as “Mengistu’s Chihuahua,” meaning an animal in a screaming state, driven to get attention. Lately an Ethiopian blog called him the worst: The greatest “cynical liar” ever born. I will shy away from such remarks, although I am curious as to why he invites such scathing comments.

Here again, Mr. Bekele, not the old hellish, belligerent and mean spirited warrior-wannabe, but a slightly shaky, timid and weak man, wrote a piece on Ethiomedia lambasting the visitors. Bekele’s message to his followers (if there are any left) was simple: Boycott the meeting and let’s embarrass Meles and his followers as they stand before the American people. “Addisu the Butcher” was therefore a repeat of his 1990s mantra, calling for the United States to interfere. Obviously, the big picture is to get America involved.

Can I draw an analogy here, Mr. Bekele?

One: The Cuban Diaspora has been saying and doing the same thing against Fidel Castro for the last forty-something years. The Cubans came all the way from Miami, stood through rain and snow in front of the United Nation’s building, lobbied Congress incessantly and went to D.C. en masse to demonstrate (for over forty years!); I am sure you know that. And now my question: What did they achieve?

Never mind Cuba. I probably would bore the reader if I couldn’t restrain myself on this subject. Let me draw another analogy.

Two: The highly sophisticated, enormously wealthy and profoundly educated Iranian Diaspora has been lobbying for the last twenty-seven years to oust the Khomeini-led clerics from office. They have been saying: Tehran is ablaze and the clerics are killing all women.

What did they achieve?

Three: While we are at it I am going to remind Mr. Bekele about politics in America. I hope he doesn’t take me as being didactic, but we must discuss this.

Mr.Bekele: You know as well as I do that until very recently American foreign policy was strictly based on the Monroe Doctrine, basically an inward philosophy, avoiding any interference on foreign grounds. 

In his message to Congress in December 1823, President Monroe stated that any unfriendly act by a European nation to interfere in the affairs of the American countries was un-welcome. Consequently, he reiterated, that America herself would resist intervening in the affairs of foreign nations unless her interests are directly affected.

Did you get it? “Directly affected.”

Remember how long it took and what catastrophic incident had to happen for the United States to get involved in the Second World War? If Hitler were alive today, he would suffer from a harrowing nightmare at the notion of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I am sure you understand my point. Simply put, unless America’s interests are directly affected, it would take a miracle to get the United States fighting your war.

Certainly, this doesn’t mean you are completely hopeless. I know what you’ve got. I know that if you lobbied hard and made a persistent call to a sympathetic congressman, there could be a bill. But alas, don’t wait for that bill to be the panacea! It may not be what you really seek. It may not possess the jaws of a lion. It may not have enough ammunition to decapitate a nation.

Yes, bills authored by a congressman, especially if they pass the rigorous test of the senate floor, can be good for the ego, but that’s about all that such bills accomplish. They are short-lived and completely impotent. Today, what Ethiopia couldn’t get from the United States, she could get from somewhere else overnight. For your information, the Ethio-American relationship is at its zenith as we speak regardless of your attempt for years to dismantle it.

Now I ask: where does that leave Mr. Meles if you are fighting him? Do you really believe that the Diaspora’s political philosophy in that sense is headed in the right direction? Does bashing the Ethiopian leaders when they arrive to New York work? Do shouting and name calling, other than their psychological comfort, paid off? 

There is no question in my mind that the Diaspora, even as a foreign based political entity, could play a vital role in shaping Ethiopian politics. As Professor Al G. Mariam put it in his article, yes, it could be a giant awakening. The problem is the awakening giant is coached miserably, and so has no clue where it is headed.

Here is a good example of the poor coaching.

When the high delegation led by Ato Addisu came from Ethiopia with an open mind and an olive branch, the right thing to do, even through the impenetrable dissent that existed, was to engage the officials and get answers from them. Camping on the streets, yelling incomprehensible words to the American public and putting out picket signs that most Americans are wary of cannot achieve anything. The magic of name-calling for a political purpose, degrading the person targeted (“You Traitor!” “You Butcher!” “You Embezzler!”), even if true, takes away its effect, and consequently destroys the essence of intellectual discourse that’s vital to communicate with one’s opponent. When you ask that political prisoners be released and at the same time you dehumanize those that could help in their release, then you have effectively killed your chances to stand up on their behalf. Unless, of course, you want them to stay in prison, hoping that their prolonged detention will bring attention to your own causes.

Could that be the covert, sick intention of the diehards in antagonizing the Ethiopian leaders? That’s why, I believe, there is a terrible misdirection and poor coaching involved here.

The hardliners, like Mr. Bekele, obviously, would resist any new approach. They will threaten the fabric of the Diaspora’s unity if the new breed leaders entertain the notion of taking a different route. But should the new leaders, knowing that the old path ended in a cul-de-sac, take a different route or, from fear of backlash, go down the old highway, knowing it would end up in Timbuktu?

Mind you, the Diaspora has a weapon, but it’s ill used. Mahatma Gandhi was smart when he considered the British and their strength. He knew he couldn’t wage war facing his enemy with conventional weapons. The genius guru therefore came through the back door, leaving his useless stick on the ground, entering empty-handed.

He won.

So did the Reverend Martin Luther King.

And therefore what should the Diaspora do to change course?

I have one and only one suggestion.

Admit EPRDF as a political entity and by doing so get in the game.

But what does admitting or acknowledging the opponent mean?

Before getting nasty and spewing filthy innuendoes straight from the garbage bin, Girma and company should see the positive achievements made by EPRDF. First of all, nobody is going to believe it when you tell the world that for the last fifteen years everything was in ruin. Worthy deeds, as hard as they may be to swallow for the opposition, must be mentioned. This is not only candor on your part, but shows that you have courage. Politics can be charming. Humoring one’s rival, now and then, will not make you a charlatan or weakling.

Victors of great wars are those generals who not only knew how to chart their winning strategies, but were able to captivate their foes. That takes courage and magnanimity. To champion hate, divisiveness and extremism is a fortune only imbeciles entertain.

So for the Diaspora to get on a positive track, acknowledging the existence of the EPRDF, and to move on in the right direction, they must rid themselves of the Old Guard’s bondage and their bankrupt views. Functional lunacy must be replaced by clear thinking. STOP intimidating or harassing Ethiopian officials and their supporters. The spin doctors must learn the truth. Fabrication will not get them anywhere, nor will it bring about democracy as a result of it.

Getachew Mequanent in his excellent article responding to Mr. Meles’s paper (The Developmental State in Meles Zenawi's African Development: Dead Ends and New Beginnings - A Commentary) said, and I will quote him “…in the case of the Ethiopian Diaspora, some of them are intimidating anyone who meets [with] Ethiopian government officials.” Here is another bulletin, for example, soliciting the crowd to harass the Prime Minister on his visit to the UN (?) for the 61^st General Assembly meeting. 

“Since Meles Zenawi has committed democide as a result of his regime murdering citizens for political reasons, the Ethiopian Diaspora have organized themselves to confront the tyrant when he appears [on] their turf in the United States.

Ethiopians who reside in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York will be coming to the United Nations in New York City on September 22nd to show their solidarity with the people of Ethiopia.”

Isn’t this a course destined to fail?

A paradigm shift is therefore highly recommended for the Diaspora. There was a denial of sorts in not fully recognizing the changing political landscape in Ethiopia ever since the EPRDF came to power, as many still suffer from that abnegation. Over the years, therefore, denouncing the EPRDF was easier and even gave a sense of delayed jubilation for many people. In that regard, the EPRDF remained in the minds of several people as shapeless, abstract and an amorphous entity without life. Entertaining the thought that it will go away, leaving no historical footprint in its trek, became an obsession.

When, in 1995, for example, Prime Minister Meles came to Washington, many erroneously concluded that he was a lightweight and that anyone could take him down on the first round.

That was Mistake Number One.

Never underestimate your opponent and never deny his existence. If you do, as Sonny Liston appeared in the ring with a disdainful swagger to face the young Cassius Clay (later Muhammed Ali), in 1964, you will be eaten alive.

In 73 B.C. the young Spartacus, a freeman born in Thrace, after serving in the Roman army in Macedonia deserted the army and went seeking a new life. Shortly after, he was captured, sold into slavery and trained as a gladiator. A year later, however, he escaped with nearly a hundred gladiators, camping in Mount Vesuvius and later joined by other slaves, making Rome jittery. The Senate, scoffing at this lowly gladiator, sent General Claudius Glaber, known for his hubris and empty braggadocio, to arrest Spartacus. Claudius had three thousand recruits and didn’t even know the name of his opponent. He was dismissive from the start to the end.

Spartacus led his men to route Claudius’s troops from the rear, completely destroying the general’s army. Spartacus had the last laugh.

That’s what underestimating your enemy will get you.

The Ethiopian Diaspora made the same mistake by writing off the EPRDF for the last fifteen years! And what did they achieve?

No seer is required here, Mr. Bekele.

Ask Sonny Liston and Claudius Glaber.

They have the answer and it’s time for the Ethiopian Diaspora to make a U-turn and head on in the right direction.