Meles, the common denominator.

__________________________________

Paulos Yrgaw(07/18/05)

Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of Power Politics once wrote, "If a crime is committed for the preservation of a country, it is a glorious crime." The dictum however, reflects the uniqueness of the state where the anthropic moral and ethical codes are beyond its realm. It was later substantiated by Cardinal Richelieu, the father of Realism and Absolutism, in a crude and cold political thinking otherwise known as "raison d’e’tat." Equally as the state, Machiavelli reminds us, the "Prince" ought to be cunning like a Fox and ruthless like a Lion. If the "Prince" is adulterated with emotions, Machiavelli continues, his political life would be numbered and will disappear into the abyss of a black-hole where he is finished for good. Simply because, enemies are determined to bring him down at any time and at any cost.

Ethiopia has had her own fair share of Machiavellians. Emperors Tewodros II, Yohannes IV, Menelik II, Haile-Selassie I*. They all had a deep seated dark history, maybe more than the history books can dictate or magnify. Needless to say, the scope of this writing is limited to the title at hand, hence it will not serve any purpose in delving in their supposed dark history.

What about Meles? Meles a product of his own times and circumstances, came into the forefront of the country’s political landscape in a very elusive way. To be sure, during the Front’s formative years, most Ethiopians did not know much of the power brokers with in the Front. Even though, an authorized biography of Meles is yet to be an interesting under-taking, some highlights have been shaded of his personalities and political thinking. Meles who set out to make a career in the medical fields, his karma led him into the liberation fields instead. He joined the field with an incredibly lethal combination. A combination of a powerful mind with a clarion clear political acumen and under-estimated steeled gut. And this trait which is an asset to Meles has become to this day an anathema and a power to reckon with to his enemies or political opponents. Those who fathomed his unique potentials and qualities invested in him and made him read books left and right. And that he did with flying colors. Like St. Thomas Aquinas under the candle light, he read veraciously, books from Antonio Gramsci’s "Prison Notebooks", Mikhail Bakunin’s "God and the State", Karl Marx’s "Das Kapital", Leon Trotsky’s "Thermidor and Bonapartism" and others. Reading gave him a solid intellectual tool and a caliber of sophism where he rendered his opponents in the intellectual isle and recent dissenting personalities in his own party look like a mocking dwarfs. He invariably sets the agenda and make them play in his own game and he beats them at it. As my dear brother and mentor Dr. Issaias analogically put it, it is the same as Michael Jordan asking David Beckham for a basket-ball match.

The new breed in the Opposition, the Shawls, Gudenas, Gobezies, Negas, Lidetus, Gebeyehus are terribly frustrated. Walking in a tight rope, they are left with one and only option. That is, despite their astronomical differences with in their political platforms, they found a cohesive force that bind them together, at least for now as a tactical move. They found a common denominator in the person of Meles. Their gleeful and blithe moment in their part and their desperation becomes more vivid when one scrupulously look into their stand in a bid to grab power and to bring Meles down. If the reader can bear with the writer, an attempt will be made to lay out some of the light-years differences between some of the major parties with in the Opposition who found a common denominator in Meles.

In a stark contrast, the U.E.D.F which is chaired by Merrara Gudina and Beyene Petros, subscribes for a Switzerland model federal system, a system which is loosely held than what we have in Ethiopia right now. They push for more power to the Killils with a constrained federal government with limited mandates. And we have the C.U.D. which elects for a centralized government in Addis Ababa where the division of power, Executive, Legislative and Judiciary is confined only to the central government in Addis. Not to mention, the lingua Franca in all the regions of the country is Amharic. Mind you, these political parties do not have an iota or a grain of similarities in them but their animosity toward Meles has given them a drive for a political power where the interest of the Ethiopian people takes a back-seat. One can not help it but ask, how these political parties with a huge differences as this will lead Ethiopia should they come to power. A question the Ethiopian people should be sleepless about.

* The colonel is advertently omitted in the above from the ranks of the leaders, simply because the writer contends that the colonel was a mutated historical accident hence he should be treated as such.

Paulos Yrgaw

Ottawa, Canada.

home