Hotel Des Milles Collines. Is "Hotel Ethiopia" a ticking time bomb?

__________________________________

Paulos Yrgaw(07/13/05)

Eli Weisel a Noble laureate and a survivor of the holocaust tells a murky story about a little boy who got hanged by the Nazis in one of the concentration camps accused of spying. As the Nazis forced the people in the concentration camp as a deterrence to come out and see the hanging, a man asks where God might be when this unimaginable cruelty takes place. Another man responds, "God is hanging the kid." Later on that day, Weisel continues the story, all the academics, doctors, engineers, writers, poets, laborers, barbers and carpenters in the concentration camp gathered and accused God of a crime against humanity and decided to put Him (excuse the gender bias) on a trial in an ad hoc court of law. As God takes the stand to defend Himself, the accusation poured in, and the judges delivered their verdict and found God guilty as charged. At the end of the day, all the people in the "court room" got on their knees and thanked and praised God for the justice well served. Weisel, a product of existentialist school of thought, reflects the absurdity of life in his narratives and wrestles the idea of evil through his genre characters.

The crime perpetrated against the Jewish people through out history from the Spanish Inquisition, Pogroms, to the holocaust justifies Plautus’ and later Freud’s credo: "Homo homini lupus." In a recent memory and in our time as well "bellum omnium contra omnes" swept our continent when Hutu majorities massacred Tusi minorities in millions. As the debate continues with in the academic circles to conceptualize the root cause of ethnic cleansing, Karl Marx’s interpretation of history remains the mainstay and an index to measure the animus of history. Karl Marx, arguably, the greatest thinker ever lived, dissected human action in terms of class struggle where the haves and the have-nots are the antagonists who carry the thesis and anti-thesis into synthesis where his mentor Hegel is turned upside down.

Recently however, in a complete departure from Marxist dogma, Professor Amy Chua from Yale Law School, in her brilliant and potentially ground-breaking book, "World on Fire" argues, in light of Globalization and the "Butterfly Effect" of democracy in third world or developing countries, the driving force behind history is the struggle for power between minority and majority ethnic groups in a specific polity. In most of the developing countries, she argues, minority ethnic group dominate the economic super-structure where as the majority or "indigenous" majority live in an abject poverty and work for the minorities if they are lucky that is. The Chinese, she contends, who make up only 3% of the population in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and in the other South-East Asian countries control all the industry, transportation, banking and high tech firms. Indians in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda; Lebanese in Sera-Leon who control the diamond and agriculture sectors; Slovans and Croatians in the former Yugoslavia; Whites in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South-Africa; Whites in Bolivia, Chile, and Ecuador; Ibos in Nigeria; Alawis in Syria. Again, all the above mentioned minority ethnic groups strangle the majorities by controlling all the economic sectors of the respective countries.

As America crusades in a messianic allusion to pacify the world under the banner "Pax Americana", the majorities empower themselves in the democratization process and turn their newly found political power against the wealthy minorities by unleashing their age old pent up anger and economic frustration. Mugabe’s "Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans" and "Hutu Power" of the interhwames are vivid recent memories. In her concluding remark, Amy Chua, implicitly asserts that, the border-blind Globalization and liberal democracy are incompatible and are in a head-on collision in developing countries which results in ethnic cleansing. To be fair, her argument or thesis is compelling but the pervasiveness of her stand is not clear. Perhaps, it is one of the potential factors of ethnic hatred or cleansing but it is far from being conclusive. However, it definitely warrants further scholarship and thorough research.

Against this background, the question still lingers. Is there a potential for ethnic cleansing in Ethiopia? In his recent interview with Sackur, Shawl believes that, the fact that we are inter-married, ethnic cleansing of a Rwandan magnitude can not happen in Ethiopia. His response sounds a child’s play at best. Hutus are intermarried to Tusis as well. In a stark contrast, the Prime Minister’s fear of a potential interhwames in Ethiopia emanates from the rhetoric of the Opposition which bluntly reflects a resentment against certain ethnic group, an ethnic group whose Achilles’ Heel is being a minority in terms of sheer demography not a "blood sucking" minority in Amy Chua’s lingo. It is true that, there has always been an ethnic tension with in the Ethiopian polity. The tension however, was a deliberate design by the last senile emperor in a Machiavellian scheme to stay in power. When the brutal military junta came to power, the colonel, sidelined (not removed) the ethnic tension under the superficial and glib "Ethiopian Socialism". In effect, "Ethiopian Socialism" could not deliver or gravitate the nations and nationalities on the periphery into the political power. Instead, the colonel, callous and indifferent to the rights of the nationalities, pushed them until they took maters into their own hands which ultimately called for his final demise. The genius of E.P.R.D.F. is ethnic federalism. An idea which is centered in such a way that the rights and political take of every nation and nationality including the then dominant ethnic group is respected and garnered according to the spirit and agreed upon constitution. The present system not only provides equal political rights, it also diffuses any tension between potential ethnic rivals. Undoing the system or federalism calls for the making of "Hotel Ethiopia" and the Ethiopian people can not afford to relive in their dismal history.

Paulos Yrgaw

Ottawa, Canada.

home