Concept Garage

Ethiopian State system is filled with inept personalities whose contemporary policy dilemma is comparable to not knowing whether earth is round or flat. At the heart of the destruction of the Ethiopian socio-cultural fabric, it is the long-term cultural implication EPRDF may be leaving behind that is worrisome. All voices of reason are squashed either are in prison or seeking refuge else where around the world. The very creative forces that could have redeemed the nation are fleeing leaving, such a wonderful historical country to the dictator and his cronies. Legitimate individual effort is plundered by corruption and the state institutions are used to amass personal wealth by those at close proximity to authority. The election itself can be sited as how EPRDF destroyed legitimate effort and competition in many sectors showing by example that day light robbery is the only means to success. Opportunism seems to be the only means to survive to the majority who are left to fend for themselves amidst the thrones of mafia state and subservient business forces, where in all other institutions of reason, peace and faith such as universities, religious establishments and the like are marginalized by tight surveillance and control by illiterate good for nothing Weyane cadres.

It should be noted that democracy is an ingrained need by complex adaptive human systems to ensure continued evolution and survival. It is not a luxurious enterprise for the rich or unaffordable luxury for the poor. It is a mechanism that allows for global search for an optimal solution to multitude of societal problems through the individual agent; in a way it’s our biological destiny in our obligation to endure as conscious beings. It is indeed unaffordable especially in modern times of great environmental, economic, social and political emergency to disregard the experience, the intelligence and the wish of the individual and to continue to pedal along the lines of collectivist authoritarian State dictatorship.

It is said certainly not without any justification, that the US and European governments prefer stability over any uncertain experiments with democracy. Here in the US it’s purported that it’s too early for a democratic transition in Ethiopia and that Ethiopians are not yet able to know what is right for them. This response of course is internalized in the whole western political establishment as a kind of knee jerk reaction. Western politicians are so obsessed with control and stability that they are willing to allot any dictator any ‘African country’ like Ethiopia so long as they believe they can use this dictator as a proxy to do their dirty laundry, an incredibly dumb political formula that has constantly failed the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere around the world, where the US foreign policy had disastrous implications even for the US.

It is the very blockade and repression of democratic expression that promotes instability and complete collapse of the societal system, most often irreversibly. Western foreign policy is indeed mired with confusion and for the most part one of the most significant causes for Ethiopia’s problems.

We have all witnessed how almost all so called freedom resistance movements crown an Unrelenting Machiavellian as their guardian who immediately morphs in to uncontrollable psychotic monster as soon as he assumes power. Most of these freedom movements also coalesce to become ideological “mind camps” ready to destroy reason in self defense, from being exposed of their underlying destructive internal fallacies and inconsistencies. The survival of these feeble mind camps necessitates repression of civilized freedom of thought and all other manifestation of reason, both internally with in party platforms and thorough out the nation; and this is how such an offshoot, EPRDF ethnic mind camp, is trying to protect itself. Ironically though, the west is willing to superficially bandage its recurrent economic and political collapse via government aid packages, training programs and through various NGOs doing “grocery delivery” to the helpless and the needy, People who were made weak and helpless by being denied democratic expression, the very freedom and an institutional framework enabling them to control their destiny.

Its clear that a lot needs to be done in convincing the west that its in their best interest to promote democracy in ethiopia and else where around the world!

At the heart of Ethiopia’s contemporary political and socio-economic deadlock lies destruction of a social fabric, a social fabric that has over the years remained resilient to numerous internal and external socio-economic and political shock. The war with Eritrea, recurrent drought, poverty, malnutrition, the AIDS pandemic and most importantly the May 2005 election, economic recession and the most recent war with Somalia and the Ogaden were so vivid signals that they were detected even by indifferent Washington’s tentacles and the western media. Despite what goes on inside the country and the looming catastrophe at the background it is the attitude of the international community which is indeed perplexing. What’s incredibly is inept is also Washington’s continued misinterpretation of the resilience of Ethiopia’s social system, attributing this systemic strength as the strength of the ruling party EPRDF, as the strength of the incumbent dictator Meles Zenawi in particular.