Experts simply put dialogue as it is the search of truth through two way communication. Commissioner Yonas Adaye (PhD) explained the idea of national dialogue more widely like, “It is the process of enabling and empowering the people to construct their present and future” He added that in national dialogue, the basic principle is each and every one’s say is important in the process.
Related to this, the Ethiopian National Dialogue Commission (ENDC) proclamation No. 1265/2021 defined national dialogue as “A process of dialogue that is made on agendas that are going to be collected and identified by the commissioners based on the principles set by the council of the commissioners at federal and regional level”
Thus, dialogue is about the coming together of the people for discussion who had various attitudes and perspectives on controversial issues for reaching at mutual consensus. Therefore, if dialogue is the coming together of people to discuss their issues, is it time for Ethiopians to carryout it at this very time?
As it has been practically seen in the history of countries and nations in the continent and in the world, national dialogue is made following a sort of conflict or political unrest. Thus, in order to settle these threats and safeguard possible messes, countries call their people to come to the table and talk their mind for negotiation and compromise. Since this concept is too new to Ethiopian people, The Ethiopian Herald approached Mulugeta Ayele (PhD), an instructor and Researcher in the Department of Peace and Security at Addis Ababa University for detailed explanation.
Mulugeta’s response to Herald’s question on relevance of dialogue in Ethiopia at this time was that there have been political issues that have never been settled for many years in the process of the country’s social construction. Since basic questions and grievances that a given society has been raising for years were muted and got worsen in time, elites and activists have taken that space and elevated it to reach at its today’s margin in the country.
Mulugeta recalled that Ethiopian history and socialization is basically constructed abusively and exploitatively. To exemplify this, he stated historical melodies, music, folktales, proverbs, educational curriculums and the like. These aspects did mainly preach social division and resentment.
He added that Ethiopia had been feeble in working and capitalizing on the sense of nationality. The people have never been emphasizing and celebrating the communal histories and deeds for years. This gradually broke social cohesion and pushed the nation to develop exasperation between them. Thus, to bring these muddles to their end, these societies should start dialogue freely for solution.
The scholar had a say on the present status of the society. He said, in the history of Ethiopia there have been three major groups that faced the ruling system. On one hand, there were groups that really worried for the unity and development of the nation. The other groups were fighting the government saying ‘land to tailor’, and the others were associations. These associations were not contagious. They disagree on many issues like language, political philosophy and the like.
Since the previous regimes, the society was raising basic questions related to identity, equality of nations and nationalities and many related issues. Though these questions little by little were solved by those regimes, the culture of degrading the deeds when that regime left the seat had caused the generation to cumulate all the negatives and get offensive on these issues later.
These issues together with the present political exposure and globalization had aggravated the issue and left the nation to its present social connection needs to be more consolidated. He underlined that these issues need to be solved to continue as a nation and transform the country to the higher level it deserves. Thus, as the time demands it and is a best way for solving these challenges, dialogue is in headway in the country.
While approached by The Ethiopian Herald exclusively, Yonas Adaye (PhD), one of the eleven commissioners said, “There have been, if not crises at least, political development questions and aspects which were not properly answered or addressed as other nations did in their political system.” National dialogue is carried out when there is an existential threat such as nations to break up, societies distrusted each other, and social crises, then one might go for national dialogue.
Since national dialogue is the move towards identifying the truth and the factors, the country needs to bring the citizens sit together, discuss and reach a consensus on national issues. For that response the country had independently organized a national dialogue commission that is responsible for bringing the people together via representatives to discuss their issues around a table for communal view as a nation. Dialogue is about identifying the causes of violence or under developments from the grassroots, top to dawn or horizontally. Yonas said that Ethiopian national dialogue is initiated by these social and political crises.
Reasoning out the essence of conducting national dialogue in Ethiopia, the commissioner raised some points precisely. The first one, as to him, is misunderstanding among the people on some issues such as the flag, state structure, and the constitution among others. These issues are very important for the nation that seeks national consensus. When such issues arise, the people get triangulated into many different attitudes and come up with various justifications. Thus, to stand as one nation, these views and justifications need to be discussed peacefully, debated and reached at courteous points around the table. That is achievable when it is run by an independent institution.
The second reason that Yonas mentioned is lack of trust among some sections of the people towards the governments in power though elected. They feel suspect on the way the leaders exercise their power. Based on their experience in relation to previous practices, wrongly articulated narratives and own interests, they easily lose confidence on the efficacy of the government in power.
To build a trustworthy system that links the society with the ruling party, people need to come to the table to exhibit their idea and discuss openly. The national dialogue commission is needed here to facilitate the situation and improve the interaction.
The third point the commissioner mentioned is people usually feel biased on issues that are related to accessibilities of various services, living standards, identity, cultural and political representations both at the federal and regional level. Upon coming across such feelings, some groups prefer armed struggle than giving chance to civilized political dialogue.
Round table discussion and exhibiting persuasive reasons to come to a consensus is the sign of civilized society. But this has not happened in Ethiopia yet. Therefore, to bring such approaches into light, the best strategy to be adopted among the society is conducting dialogue and nurturing the culture of dialogue what the commission is striving to achieve.
Hence, the national dialogue is quite essential to understand the culture and move on changing the predisposed culture and let dialogue as the best and peaceful option for expressing any form of feelings and attitudes on any issue happened among the people.
Since the concept of national dialogue in Ethiopia is the new idea, though there have been long lasted habit of settling disagreement among communities, optimistic view of the people and institutions highly matters to the efficacy of the commission. From the very beginning of its establishment, the commission could win trust of the people as it is their own belonging. Thus, as it has happened with the willingness of the people, positive thinking is the core issue in due process. This positive attitude and hope toward the commission would be helpful to conduct successful dialogue and reach at a national consensus shortly.
The commissioner finally reminded responsible bodies that they should take the lion’s share for the success of the commission. The first one is media. He said that the intensions of the needed messages can greatly be communicated to the public through media. Though media has been working more on the meaning and necessity of national dialogue at the national level so far, there is still a long way to go. Every medium should take this issue as an agenda in its coverage.
The second responsible body relays on regional administrators. Since the issue of the dialogue is very basic for nation building, regions are responsible for the security, mobilization, accommodation and initiation of their people on participating in the dialogue.
Mulugeta finally recommended that the people should first be cognizant of the real history of the country. “We need to take care of the narrations that are simply transcended from generations; we need to be logical and evidence based.” Since consensus is relevant for the nation, people should strive to capitalize on the common historical issues and focus on good sides of the other people instead of being fault finders.
As a nation, the country should cooperatively run to respect individual and group rights together. There should be an inclusive governmental system that entertains the multiplicity of the people. No matter how, conflicts and disputes are inevitable. When these happened, the people should deal with the issues peacefully and in a civilized manner that is the dialogue.
In this regard, the elite should take the lion’s share. Mulugeta underlined that all the citizens including the armed sections should come to a round table and raise their issues for dialogue. “To be competent in the exceedingly boosting world in economy and civilization, we need to solve out our national problem through dialogue,” he stressed.
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
BY MEKDES TAYE (PhD)
The Ethiopian Herald December 15/2014
