Senator Russ Feingold

Leave Ethiopia Alone

Adal Isaw

Adalisaw@yahoo.com

March 6, 2008

Instead of assuaging the political anger that is left on the aftermath of the 2005 parliamentary election of Ethiopia, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, has come out from almost three years of political hibernation to descent into hyperbole and histrionics, by harshly criticizing nearly every aspect of an Ethiopian life. The Senator would have served his country a great deal, by being part of the ongoing political process in his backyard than fomenting a discord in Ethiopia where, " growing economy and robust poverty reduction programs" are in place for good, according to his own speech on March 3, 2008,

The Senator seems to be prescribing the bourgeoning of his notion of democracy, instead of seeing a "...relatively stable" Ethiopia with a "growing economy and robust poverty reduction programs." In a way, Feingold is asking Ethiopians to buy an American born democracy even if that means instability and poverty laden life, where only those with the purchasing power of finished products from the western world are preferred to benefit. The Senator from Wisconsin is also trying to salvage those Ethiopian politicians who were deposed to the dust bin of history, with the hope to install yes men in Addis, in order to impede the independent revolutionary democratic movement in Ethiopia from scoring more points of progress. You may ask, why?

Senator Feingold is aware of the fact that his country is still requiring a collective arduous effort to sustain its basic democratic institutions and endeavors from faltering. The worrisome divide between the haves and the have-nots of America; the non-ending amalgamation of the corporate media; the squeezing political muscle of a lobbying interest; the unabated want and greed that are emptying the coffers of the wealthiest nation; the impending social security and health crisis, coupled with the economic success of China and the disdain being manifested by many people of the world against his country, is driving him to set the tone of what ought to be followed in parts of Africa, especially in Ethiopia, before America loses the grip of an imperial power.

The American economic fabric has become loose and its exported economic ideology is being watered-down to fit specific conditions. Those nations who became successful without adhering to the strictest sense of liberal capitalist ideology have become a pain to America. These nations are setting a new and feasible economic trend that may limit the income and attenuate the economic prowess of American multinationals. This newly found trend opposes the unrestrained liberalization of the market, and by that it aggravates US law makers such as Senator Feingold to cry out foul and assert themselves in the name of democracy. Otherwise, what is then the case for the Senator to be unhappy of a " relatively stable Ethiopia" with " growing economy and robust poverty reduction programs(?)" As far as Senator Feingold is concerned, democracy and capitalist economic system are two faces of a single coin, and he is willing to forget the very fact that, a democracy relies on the consent of the governed, as opposed to any particular economic system.

The problem with most American law makers is not only that they’re ignorant of the very context under which peoples of an independent nation strive to free themselves from deprivation, but it is also because of their own innate undemocratic political character that rises to its peak where and when monetary interest is served on a silver plate. US law makers are quick to forget that people of other nation hate to be infringed up on by an entity that neither has the legal nor the moral authority to do so. But most importantly, they are also quick to forget that peoples’ of other nations to be as willing as Americans, to die for freedom and the right to be left alone.

Sovereignty is not a matter of contention; it’s simply the inalienable right of a nation that should not be compromised, except for a period of transition in which a given nation is found in gross violation of the tenets of international law, by way of war of aggression, to harm, maim, and cleanse its own people and people of other nation(s). Short of such standard, a claim of any legal authority to infringe up on the sovereignty of what is other wise an independent nation is merely a pretext for a hidden agenda that a culprit nation may have. In any case, let’s give the Senator from Wisconsin the benefit of the doubt and try to figure out whether the US has the moral authority in matters of democracy and accountability.

Despite its racist, sexist, and amply undemocratic policies of the past fifteen decades, the US throughout its history have continuously assumed an exceptional status by naming itself morally superior, with the duty to undo any wrongdoing that it sees unacceptable to its own standard. Pure assumption aside, and for the sake of an intelligent argument, the US may question any wrongdoing from a relatively higher ground provided what it claims to have as higher moral ground is evident for others to see and for many to mimic. However, the evidence shows other wise, and the US is still as culpable and as undemocratic as some nations are.

The US still pays its women work force 72 cents for each dollar it pays its men. Women are less likely to represent a State more so than they’re to become the CEO of a company. Men are in charge and sexism still pervades the many working places of America. African-American people are likely to be sentenced to death for the same crime that their white counterparts are committing. In fact, when it comes to state sponsored killing, the US stands side by side with China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Sudan accounting for world’s 90% capital punishment. In a way, the nation that is claiming an exceptional moral authority is now one of the repositories of a relic of an unenlightened past, and it has become so by disproportionately killing the deprived and colored sector of the American society. Indeed, America is still racist in some fashion and few in power admit and do nothing about it, spending their time in the name of democracy, accountability, and American national security interest, concocting a grandiose plan to control those who are otherwise independent people that have roamed their own land way before the Republic of America was born.

America’s national security interest cannot rest solely on the hands of those who are in power in the States. To a lesser extent, it is the rest of the world community that gives the necessary security cushion that America needs to safely maintain its privileged status. Ethiopia is not as privileged as America is, and the cumbersome responsibility of keeping its territorial integrity and nationhood rests solely on the hands of its peoples. America cannot afford to play politics when it comes to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ethiopia if it wants to keep the bilateral agreements in working manners. An arrogant laden foreign policy approach is a political turn off, even to those Ethiopian-American admirers of America who would love to carbon copy the means and ways of the US culture back in Ethiopia. A US foreign policy that is geared to compromise the territorial integrity of Ethiopia by taking side with terrorist groups such as ONLF and OLF will then make Ethiopians very angry, and they will indeed and inevitably make Senator Feingold Leave Ethiopia Alone.