It Is All About Our Values
By Getachew Mequanent
It appears that people got uneasy about my
view of Elias Kifle. In retrospect, as an editor of Ethiopian Review, Elias
facilitated discussions on Ethiopian economy, history, politics and other
topics. This contributed to our intellectual maturity. He also published material for us. My
attention is then focused on this, not on how Elias is behaving today. Above
all, my intent is all about our values.
And it is not only about Elias, as you will read below.
To start with, we acquire values in different ways:
through socialization processes or learning and internalizing new knowledge
such as education. Personal experience is also important. For example, if you
used to work on the farm fields before and after school hours like me, you
could probably have values similar to mine.
Values are like traffic signposts. Traffic signs
guide you when to stop for a red light, when to turn right or left, when to
share the road, when to give way for others, and so on. If the traffic system breaks down, you will
have disorder and anarchy on the road. Likewise, when you have communities with
value deficits, you have a state of social and cultural decline. It creates
uncertainty, mutual suspicion and, subsequently, perpetual crises. In
the good old days, if you had gone to one of the Ethiopian Diaspora community
centres, and if there was a board meeting in progress, you would probably have
been invited to sit down and listen. I am not kidding! There was so much mutual
trust and a sense of collective ownership of everything found in our
communities. This changed when the Diaspora environment became too politicised.
In the early 1990s, I remember attending a community meeting in Toronto where a
political group staged a successful coup (to take over the association). I
remember the nice lady who was co-chairing the meeting kneeling from the podium
down to ask one of the plotters (who was standing in front of her and yelling)
to cool down. The outgoing board members left that meeting shaken but
dignified. Nobody thanked them for their hard volunteer work, whereas the coup
plotters celebrated, our values decisively undermined. This story is not an
exception. Politics, organizational
intrigues, personalities (bureaucratic behaviours and attitudes) and other
circumstances would force many people to leave our community organizations and
many among them created their own. This division became more visible last month
when we saw different community groups in different Western cities organizing
parallel millennium celebration events.
Gimgema (self-evaluation) as an example. Practiced by revolutionary democrats
when they were in the mountains of Northern Ethiopia (guerrillas), the gimgema
system was being institutionalized within the Ethiopian government
politico-administrative structures. On the basis of my interviews of Kebele
officials and ordinary people, here is what I was able to find out: a gimgema takes place when people are
not happy with Kebele officials, such as corruption or nepotism, or when the
powerful Kebele cadres (EPRDF party agents) are not satisfied with the
performance of Kebele officials. The Kebeles do not just throw an official out
of his functions. There is a ceremony (procedure). The Kebele cadres or local people
identify three speakers for the gimgema session. In the presence of the
(to be dismissed) official, each of the speakers will stand up to speak. One of
them recounts the official’s social/family background (praising him all the
time); the second person recounts how much this official has contributed to the
community (again praising him all the time); and the third person explains the
reason that he is being let go (without criticizing him). That official
receives a standing ovation (including a lot of blessing by priests and elders)
and he departs. Compare this with what would likely to happen with the state
and EPRDF party bureaucrats. According to my sources, for example, a crook
state or party bureaucrat who is not happy with his boss (for personal reason
or work related), goes around manipulating people and mobilizing support to
unseat the boss during the next gimgema. I heard that it had happened! What always amazed me was that
ordinary people look for positive experiences, whether the issues are about
Haile Sellasssie, Mengistu or Meles.
Sadly, we often hear some elites ridiculing and calling them ignorant
and fara (backward), only because
they have different views and perspectives.
Once I spent a full hour watching a television
documentary on Richard Nixon. I was
hoping to have an insight into the Watergate scandal. Instead, the documentary started and ended by glorifying the
personality and character of Nixon. Why? Americans have values. They like to
romanticize or fictionalize a good or bad story to turn it into something that
makes you think or capture your imagination in good ways. Do I remember reading
or hearing that Hollywood film producers were once required to submit their
scripts to FBI to make sure that all films promoted American patriotism?
I watch the movie made about Hitler (I think it was
entitled the “downfall”). The movie recounted the rise and fall of this
dictator up to the last minute of his life. The whole scene was full of so much
patriotism that I was actually moved. The Germans have values too.
Last Christmas, my wife’s friend came to visit us with her boyfriend who was a CUD supporter. It was also the time that the Ethiopian army had entered Somalia. As the media carried stories about the Ethiopian army’s engaged in a battle with the Islamic Court militia, this young man’s patriotic instincts flared up. He followed every bit of news and wanted to analyze and fanaticize everything that the Ethiopian army was doing. This was also the time when the passionate Getachew Reda broke ranks with the opposition camp and spoke up in support of the Ethiopian government actions in Somalia. So we called Getachew the patriot, defined by the Internet dictionary as “a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion (don’t ask me to define the patriotism of the vocal Diaspora)”.
Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam’s regime was one of
the most brutal and corrupt regimes of the 20th century. But, Mengistu also climbed up the podium at
Meskel Square, grasped the microphone and proclaimed that the Ethiopian masses
were proud, resourceful and powerful (could even “control nature”) and that
attributing Ethiopia’s underdevelopment to the backwardness of the masses was a
conspiracy by the reactionary feudal ruling class. Political consciousness
would take roots in Ethiopian society, so that today Ethiopia has one of the
progressive societies in Africa and other developing regions. This is
Mengistu’s legacy.
Meles Zenawi is a smart and hard working man. He commands respect in
the international community. Under his leadership, Ethiopia is being rapidly
transformed. Except that many of us have projects (with long durations) devoted
to attacking his reputation and character. We just want to see him go (leave power),
perhaps because we had fought a guerrilla war with TPLF back in the 1980s; we
were displaced from power by EPRDF; we lost historical privileges (benefits of
centralized state); we just dislike him because he is a Tigrean; and so on. Yet
things have been going well for this brilliant man. Rather than thinking of
retirement, he should capitalize on the millennium spirit to travel around the
country and talk to Ethiopians. Maybe EPRDF should think of sending him to a
training workshop on “how to interact with people”, so that he can learn how to
listen to ordinary people. We would be more interested in seeing a fundamental
change in how EPRDF does business rather than Meles’ departure from
politics. I have read somewhere that
EPRDF was negotiating with opposition parties on the allocation of party
finances. This is what we have been calling for and thank you. I have also
taken a personal interest in EPRP prisoners.
Democracy can mean demand-driven politics and I am here asking at least
their whereabouts and an explanation as to why they are kept in prison for
almost two decades. When the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry calls a meeting of 500
Diaspora Ethiopian, and when over 3,000 of them show up (according to media
sources), EPRDF leaders must realize
that we represent the silent majority in the Ethiopian Diaspora. You don’t
ignore our voices.
Let
me conclude by making a few remarks about the Diaspora political situation.
Again, coming back to consider our values, it is important that we respect
Hailu Shawel as a politician and as an elderly man with poor health. Otherwise,
we have known that Hailu’s group would be no match for former revolutionaries
who also remain stubborn. We are actually beginning to compare Birhanu Nega’s
group with the student militants of the 1970s who were going around stirring up
things, while doing little to achieve a consensus on the direction of Ethiopian
politics. Where is the policy aspect, Mr. PhD.? Other than making flurry of
speeches to the counter productive vocal Diaspora, Birhanu has also made no
effort to present himself as a public statesman. I think the beneficiary from
all this is the young and glamorous Birtukan Medeksa. She came to the Diaspora
and got good experience including an exposure to international audience. Things
have worked out well for this young politician – then at least we have this
good story coming out of the post-pardon political fiasco in the Diaspora.
Getachew
Mequanent
October
2007