As an observer and as an integral part of our beloved Ethiopia, I have come to firmly believe that the hopes and aspirations of peoples of Ethiopia centre around the need for a robust, peaceful and united nation that is a Motherland for all and a Step motherland for none of its citizens as well as inimical to any destabilizing, nevermind secessionist tendencies. It is a given thathuman beings cannot escape from his duties and responsibilities.
Duty is inevitably linked to our own being; there has been conscience ever since we have just begun to use reason; we have gone beyond it to the growth of reason, and more often than not, the more it develops. For those not familiar with the chequered history of Ethiopia, I want to highlight the irrefutable fact that our ancestors had shed blood in defence of our territorial integrity, forour union and against colonial aggression by carrying high our national tri-colour.
Many of our young would probably not knowdifferences between colonialism and communism that are not that simple to distinguish. Both involve a sort of political domination by a superior organ and determine forms of repression.
Then we must be eternally grateful to our forefathers because they have sacrificed in blood, limb and life so that Ethiopia will remain everlastingly independent. In the modern world when walls fall, few would have imagined such a positive scenario numerically. We leave political analysis to the politicians, reinterpreting our strange nation that at this moment in spite of our Prime Minister trying to make all the reassuring reforms that the country requires, we are made to witness a veritable ceaseless effortto sabotage of democracy in some regions.
Today, whoever observes Ethiopia from the outside makes a different reading. In the political history of our country, 2018 marks amilestonein the struggle of Ethiopians to be masters of the destiny of their Motherland. I like to call it that for once at least.
I firmly believe that there is a vast treasure trove of emerging dignity in the new generation and great patriotic potential throughout the country, a pride to be called Ethiopian. Then we can say aloud for those who try to make Ethiopia more difficult to dismember.
The fulfilment of the duty of every politician is so necessary to the good of the people. The cynic, who has so many sophisms against every generous sentiment, ostentatiously provokes to deprive patriotism. In other words, the vile mocking cynicism is called the genie of vulgarity. Therefore, it is not polite who does not have the habit of being humble and meek and servant of his nation. Well, what is true of great thinkers is true for every human being: what is true of historical facts, and inventions.
Because even the humblest and modest human life can be the silent and constant worm, the deaf and insinuating file, the dumb and penetrating rodent, the dissolving bacillus, which consumes its basis of a social construction and true democracy. Every State, in fact, has its own special laws for the people: every Government has its own law, I believe that the time has come to apply the laws and make it respected by everyone. Democracy is not a machine that once set in motion goes on by itself.
Democracy must be cultivated day after day, otherwise it remains unfinished. In order to move, it is necessary to put the fuel back into it every day; we must put in it the commitment, the spirit, and the will to keep these promises, our own responsibility. For this reason, one of the offenses that are made at Democracy is the indifference to politics. Indifferentism is a bit of a disease of the politics those who for years do not know what they want only hate since they came out of the grime of their mother Ethiopia. Being political means giving the maximum every day, contributing to political life. Ethiopia must affirm the freedom, for each citizen and the dignity of human beings but, in compliance with the law. Ethiopia must ineludibly repudiate wars. Because disorder is offence to the freedom of the people, because there is no other sovereign state in itself in the midst of a single nation.
Freedom is like air, one notices how much it is worth when it begins to fail, when one feels the sense of asphyxiation that the men of my generation have felt for the last fortyfour years. Our nation is indivisible, but it must recognize and promote democratic rights for every citizen.
The forces of order enforce the order to the democratic spirit of the laws of the sovereign state. What do we want? «Freedom and Justice». We can say that we want what all men feel in their moments of goodness and elevation. Who is of us who does not praise, if the weak rises suddenly at the click of their pride?It is from the bottom that the sap rises; the breath blows from around; and from these elements life takes its essence and vigour. Human individuality is profound and mysterious in our world, which can contain within itself vision of new horizons. Where there is disorder, the government must take the situation into its own hands.
Many still ask us: how do we reconstruct peace for the next generation around our tricolour flag waved for over a century and a half. Ethiopia, which is one of the most factually united national unit of all Africa for an infinity of historical reasons offered to us. This is the exact vision of this great nation in evolution of the idea of the feeling of homeland. Its unity will be indivisible. In the laws of nature there are no boundaries that divide human beings. Ethiopia belongs to all peoples, that is, of all the individuals who compose it. Only those who must intensify and protect class interests give a “political” value to the concept of country and national unity.
The overwhelming of the people detests division. In us, there exists the cordiality and continuous relations among peoples for purposes of wellbeing and freedom, of feeling of brotherhood that is the only means because Ethiopia belongs not only to us Ethiopian but to all humanity! The values that we can achieve through the goal of economic growth brings the full mastery of our life, with the pleasure of feeling it as authentic and firm in our hands, ready to be directed to what we want: This brings the full BENEFIT for all.
Herald January 15/2019
BY AKLILE BERHAN MAKONNEN HAILE SELASSIE
