Congressman Donald M Payne & HR 2003-The Voices of Specious Democracy

Adal Isaw

Buruk@verizon.net

In regard to some foreign affairs, it’s unfortunate that the US Congress is still adhering to an arrogant and combative approach of crafting a bill. The tone, wording, and the layout of a US Congress bill pertaining to a foreign affair is at times mesmerizing, and also engenders one to question if there is a superseding authority bestowed on US Congress, for example, on a truly Ethiopian domestic issue. It is self-evident that neither the US Congress nor the US as a state has a super ceding authority over the collective prerogative of the Ethiopian people in resolving an Ethiopian issue of contention. Yet, few Congressmen compete for the spotlight to superpose their solicited political prowess on purely Ethiopian domestic issue, thereby unsettling the true axiomatic nature of a genuine democracy.

A discourse about genuine democracy in absolute terms is impossible, since democracy in a nutshell cannot be more than the continuous approximation of fairness in all fields of human needs. One may even plausibly argue that democracy and fairness are interchangeable concepts that we often give lukewarm attention to. The interchangeability of the concepts of fairness and democracy may become apparent in a society that grows to treat its citizens fairly, if and only if that given society is engaged in the act of continuously ridding itself from unfair practices of past and present deeds. Social, political, and economic misdeeds of past and present times may be amended either by incremental social affirmative policies or by profoundly overhauling the unfair system in play.

The American experiment for one is a perfect example as it’s struggling to grow more fair to its colored people and women by continuously ridding itself from past and present deprivations. The bold and fearless contemporary Ethiopian experiment is another example that is growing fair every day by empowering its diverse people to govern themselves as they see it fit. In both cases, the common thread is the struggle to create a fair system dictated only by the needs of the indigenous people respectively. Nonetheless, the likes of Congressman Donald M Payne seem to be missing the point, that democracy in its final analysis in Ethiopia as much as it is in America is the continuous approximation of fairness in all fields of human needs.

Congressman Donald M Payne is an African-American from New Jersey and a veteran of the US House of Representatives. Instead of arduously working to bring about an American Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007 for fair and democratic 2008 US Presidential Election in his backyard, he seems to be working in collaboration with the extreme Ethiopian-American Diaspora contradicting himself over issues of democracy and accountability. You may ask how so?

On January 6, 2004, rising to join his colleagues in objecting the certification of the State of Ohio’s Electorate Vote, and standing tall on the beautiful floor of the US House of Representatives, Congressman Payne passionately and eloquently spoke about DEMOCRACY-the very DEMOCRACY that he is inadvertently and naively trying to legislate ill into. And he said,

...as a member of the House International Relations Committee, I have monitored elections around the world, in remote nations like Namibia in Africa, and most recently in the disputed election in the Ukraine. Watching election coverage of our own elections here in the United States last November, I was shocked to see American voters facing greater obstacles than I have seen in third world countries.

This passionate and eloquent speech of the Congressman was not extemporaneous at all. It was a speech given from a well-known addresses of deep-seated frustration and a blasted sense of indignation about the state of voting rights of the American people in general, and the colored people in particular. It was a speech given purposely, readily, and with care knowing that it was a repeat of the election fiasco of the 2000 Presidential Election. Congressman Payne was indignant and angry over what he would like to call voter irregularities, although he knew that it was, and still is an ongoing, intricately systematic, political and social unfairness perpetrated against some profiled people at large. How do I know that Congressman Payne knew that the case to be beyond voter irregularities?

On that fateful day of January 6, 2004, rising to join his colleagues in objecting the certification of the State of Ohio’s Electorate Votes, and out of the deepest resentment he has harbored toward the election process, the Congressman from New Jersey characterized the whole scenario as the following:

Mr. Speaker, as in the past, the most impacted voters are African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities. In Florida in 2000, minorities on their way to the polls were stopped at road blocks in their neighborhoods on the pretense that law enforcement officers needed to check vehicle inspection stickers. The wait was so long that many minority voters had to turn around and go home or to work. This is not democracy. This is how people lived under apartheid in South Africa.

If anything, Congressman Payne on June 6, 2004, was averring the fact that he was living in apartheid America, and I wonder why the Congressman failed to call upon all Americans for a general strike, demonstrations, and also a violent act of disobedience? I also wonder why the Congressman failed to call the US Supreme Court defunct and illegal for adjudicating contrary to his political wishes? And last but not least, I also wonder why the Congressman failed to call upon all Americans to dislodge the Bush administration for not being voted in fairly and squarely? My only guess is that he was extremely aware of the consequences of resorting to any CUD like actions. If he did in DC half of what CUD did in AA, the Congressman would never have been able to have a day of life to lean on.

One cannot help but notice that Congressman Payne is somehow born with the propensity to exaggerate things. The parallel that he drew between the apartheid South Africa of earlier years, and the amply nice United States of America of 2000 is in itself a proof that the Congressman likes to hyperbolize at ease. Another proof for the Congressman’s tendency to hyperbolize is made when his assessment about the state of Somalia was circulated for immediate press release by his staff. In his press release of April 27, 2007, the Congressman asserted that “Mogadishu is another Darfur in the making,” and accused Ethiopia as an invading nation although he knew that Ethiopia was solemnly asked by the internationally recognized transitional government of Somalia to do what it is still doing. I wonder if the Congressman as a learnt individual still stands behind his grandiosely ludicrous assessment of comparing Mogadishu to Darfur?

Isn’t there the slightest academic prowess that the Congressman can lean on in order to draw a plausible if not a concrete parallel between two issues of importance? No wonder Congressman Payne is failing day in and day out to comprehend the depth of the Ethiopian experiment for what it is, and also no wonder he’s the designated point man of HR 2003. As the adage goes; the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

The crux of HR 2003 can be encapsulated into a single deciphered title: “The way Ethiopia should democratize and secure itself.” Using this type of an arrogant and conceited template to bring about what may become a foreign policy of the US, by dictating on one of the worlds oldest sovereign and revered country, and also by adhering to an insanely misinforming lobbyist desire is extremely destructive to the national security and democratic endeavors of Ethiopia.

The issues of national security and democracy are very distinct in most instances and are also hard to commingle in a congruous manner in order to bring about a working foreign policy. For example, a nation state such as Saudi Arabia, which is unrelated to any one of the disparate notions of democracy by any stretch of the imagination may become a willing partner in the fight against global terrorism. A partner state with pressing need for national security, such as the US, may forsake its demand for a meaningful democratic reform in Saudi Arabia in lieu for its vital national security interest. Primarily, democracy is not that sexy a subject matter that the American foreign policy planners are willing to die for courting.

American foreign policy planners are interested more so in protecting the vital national security interest of America than losing it for the purpose of democratizing Saudi Arabia. Nothing is primary than making sure that all the economic interests that make America a domineering power are intact-without being compromised in any fashion or manner. In fact, as far as the economic and national security interest of America is concerned, it’s tactically irrelevant whether any given country is democratizing itself or not. Democratic or not, a blinding noncompliance to the eyes of the US economic and national security interests begets only trouble; you comply or you die, since America has neither the ability nor the purse to convert the whole undemocratic world into a democracy in any pace.

Deductively, the US will serve its own interest if it continues to have a hand off policy and let Ethiopia have its locally born reasons and its own pace anchor the process of democratization. Instead of HR 2003, a policy of cautiously allowing Ethiopia to pace itself in the democratization process without imposing an arbitrary and artificial measurement is what should guide the US relations with Ethiopia. HR 2003 is an arrogant and conceited approach and thus innately undemocratic, but most important, it ignores the pressing national security interest of Ethiopia and thus is a tool for all of its enemies, especially for those who are bent to carve Ethiopia into meaningless unfeasible states.

HR 2003 fails to mention OLF and ONLF-two of the patented enemies of Ethiopia who are bent to carve Ethiopia into unfeasible states, and yet mockingly, it talks about the national security interest of Ethiopia as if it cares. HR 2003 disregards the fact that ONLF and OLF, by their own clear stance, admittance, intentions, and terrorist actions have consistently shown to be the impediments to the sprouting democratization process in Ethiopia.

In a pursuit for a genuine democratic state of Ethiopia, a sense of a cohesive communal ethos cemented by the sense of kinship and solidarity has to exist. If ONLF, OLF, and some other acutely opposing groups lack the sense of kinship and solidarity with the rest of their Ethiopian brothers and sisters, their plea for genuine democracy would be deemed futile, and thus by extension becomes an impediment to the needed cohesiveness to democratize Ethiopia in a peaceful and timely manner.

Moreover, when an organized and politically active group such as ONLF or OLF employs itself in a killing spree and roams free in the ‘free world,’ our whole partnership with those who harbor and with those who support these organizations should be carefully reexamined. To continuously allow a breathing room for such behaviors is tantamount to replacing the democratization process with havoc, especially, if the consistent desire of any politically active organized group, such as, ONLF or OLF is to exploit the opportune of a democratic beginning for irresponsible and an illicit undemocratic venture of carving Ethiopia into meaningless unfeasible states.

If the process of democratization in Ethiopia has to be sustained, it has to be continuously fueled by harmoniously mingled desire and a duty-bound endeavor for democracy. A duty-bound endeavor for democracy should at least be constituted with discipline and reverence to the rule of law. When a pompous speech desiring democracy is dressed half-nakedly with anarchism and an openly threatening diatribe against a people, the process of democratization itself becomes auxiliary to an impending national security issue of securing the integrity of Ethiopia. Ethiopia will live to fight its enemies with or without the help of the US. But Ethiopia cannot live another day without its integrity and thus should vehemently dismiss HR 2003 in the strongest possible manner. To put it succinctly, HR 2003 and its point man Congressman Payne merely have become the voices of specious democracy. Keep in mind that genuine democracy will never sprout from self-interested narrow interest of the lobbyist but only from the encompassing powerful intention of an Ethiopian society that is bent to create a relatively fair and just system of its own making.