They say, "U" in C.U.D stands for "Unity". Does it?

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Paulos Yrgaw(06/13/05)

Nazi is short for National Socialism and the word Fascism is derived from a Latin word "Fasces", a symbol of bound sticks used a totem of power and unity when Rome was at its zenith, otherwise known as "Pax Romana". These seemingly benign nouns of the said political parties are however, a facade, smoke-screen, skin-deep whose dark history is replete where every language fails to describe the manifestation of evil in human form, in which, the driving impetus of their political apparatus was biological determinism. History narrates to the interested reader that, these political parties in their nascent years, invested their radical and racially centered political platform on the young, impressionable and unassuming segment of a society in which they redirected their social, economic, and political grievances towards a certain group of the whole polity to achieve a highly orchestrated social and political end. Lest the purpose of this writing loses its focus and for the sake of brevity however, as they say, the rest is history.

It would be irresponsible and a hyperbole to draw a parallel between the above mentioned Hobbesian side of history and the now emerging political parties in Ethiopia. Having said that however, way before entering into its formative years, the gist and aura of C.U.D is very tempting to the observer to sense similarities with the ugly side of the said history. Simply because it is frightening. Frightening for two important reasons: the tone and rhetoric the party has been employing is unprecedented in the country’s history and if and only if it forms a government, it can destabilize the country beyond a detrimental repercussion one can possibly imagine in his/her sane mind. Their headline maker ethos "E’kachu wede Kebelie E’nante wede Mekele" says it all. As Friedrich Nietzsche diagnostically put it, it is resentment. The million dollar question however remains begging for a credible answer. That is, why would they want to resort into a hate mongering tactics when they are given practically full access to voice their concerns and aspirations through the government owned media outlets? Why did they center the kernel of their political platform implicitly on a tension oriented ethnic lines? The writer contends, the educated assumption to the answer carries a baggage of both historical and intellectual roots. In 1975, when T.P.L.F, the main organ of E.P.R.D.F set out to wage a protracted war against the uncompromising military junta, the Front, dissected the political realm of the then Ethiopian political reality, in terms of a struggle between a dominant ethnic group and other marginalized and alienated ethnic groups or nationalities on the periphery as oppose to a classic Marxist line of thinking between the haves and the have-nots. In the meantime, when the alienated nationalities realized their equal say in the political landscape, the then dominant ethnic group felt betrayed and perceived the defeat of the military junta as a means to the Front to assent to power. In short, they took to heart the fall of the colonel, instead of a victory of the oppressed people, they considered it as a shift of political power base from Shoa to Axum which is needless to say, a line of thinking of the archaic by gone years otherwise known as the Era of the Princes (Zemene MeSaf’nt). Sadly, C.U.D is stuck in a warped-time in that era and it is paying a political price dearly. At a peril of sounding patronizing or prescriptive, at this crucial juncture and when Ethiopia is coming of age, the opposition parties have an ample time to mature, to grow and to make a sober soul searching to assess their short-comings. After all, the power is on the people and with the people not on any political party. If they can win the hearts and minds of the people, the governed can give them a contract and pass them in the test of political litmus paper. In order to pass the litmus paper however, their historical role need to be inclusive and above all they need to renounce violence. As the champion of "Satyagraha", Mohandas Gandhi said it, "Eye for an eye will render the world blind."

Paulos Yrgaw

Ottawa, Canada

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