Professor Fiseha Tsion Mengistu is a lifetime professional in the areas of taxes, and investment as well as fields related to financial matters. He was a public policy, legal and tax advisor to the Ministry of Finance during Emperor Hailesilasie regime. He has also been teaching in different higher educational institutions in Ethiopia after he accomplished his academic developments earning his first degree and PhD abroad.
Currently, he is engaged in consultative services for different private and governmental organizations. He is today’s guest and will be sharing h i s academic, professional and public social experiences as well as his impressions of the current affairs that the new young generation is going through.
Herald: Thank you for being with us!
Fiseha Tsion- Thank you for having me a guest!
Herald: You are one of Ethiopia’s intellectuals who had served three different regimes. Still you are serving your nation. Would you relate to us about what the life of young Fiseha Tsion was like?
Fiseha Tsion: Let me begin with the remark that I was educated when there was only one university in the country. As such, it is not hard to surmise the competition was red hot during that time. If one’s performance fails to fall within the top ten percent category, the chance of joining the university was like passing through the eye of a needle. It was not like a mass education. We were educated to put the interest of our society and the country first instead of meeting our own self-interest.
Therefore, I dare say that I regard myself like a loyal public servant than a person who likes to promote his own interest . I have not even take my family’s interest a priority ever since my early childhood. I was also politically involved with a vision to see a black power in the horn of Africa. That means I was opposed to any form of secession. But I wanted to see unity based on equality and diversity. But how that unity based on equality and diversity would be managed was a serious issue.
So during my student days, although I was one of the intellectuals supporting the land reform and the land to the tiller issues, nonetheless while I was working during the emperor’s regime, we also had our own angle. And that angle was how we could realize a beautiful country like Ethiopia. Ironically, we had a very hard working but poor people with all the fertile soil, the rivers and the rainfall. We posed a fundamental question “What could be the cause?” In this case, the people who led the country personally, institutionally and collectively were accountable. That was exactly why we became critical on the Emperor.
Herald: But, many say that the emperor was magnanimous for students. What is your take on that?
Fiseha Tsion: Yes. I know he had done quite a lot of good things. But he was sandwiched. He had a desire to have a modern Ethiopia but he was also encircled by feudal landlords challenging him with stern face. That is why we call Ethiopia, during his time, was partly pre-capitalist and partly feudalist.
Herald: Would you elaborate that?
Fiseha Tsion: Basically capitalism was emerging during that time. But feudalism was the order of the day. Everyone in the whole country was responsible to one man, who was claimed to be the elect of God. So we became critical at the system itself because it did not create a type of fair and equitable society that we wanted to see at that time. Thus, when I was part of the student movement I opposed the system. I did the same when I was working in the Ministry of Finance (MoF). I can also say that I know the inside out about the then MoF than the problem of my own family. We were highly dedicated and selfless. We did not care about money. But some members of the young generation now tend to blame us.
Herald: What are the differences between the young generation you belonged to and the current one?
Fiseha Tsion: Like I said earlier the young generation that I came from was highly committed to promoting the interests of the society. One third of my classmates died during the revolution. They sacrificed themselves for the cause they believed was right. We liked debates. There was no internet or color TV and all our arguments were knowledge based. We used to read every book. Our competition was about who reads more and who broadens one’s horizon of knowledge.
However, even though our generation was selfless, it was also more obsessed for power and claimed to be on the frontline of politics. It wanted to govern the people without knowing how to do it. That was one of our major weaknesses. We were also less tolerant which was why the political parties that existed at the time liquidated one another. There had been talks about democracy; the word is still in the mouths of many. But the talk is without a deep understanding about what its basic concepts are and how it is practiced. Without knowledge about its rights and limitations, it cannot be realized. That was the reality before Dr. Abiy came to power.
But the differences between my generation and the new one could be expressed in terms of education. It cannot be gainsaid that the quality of education in my time was very high. We were taught more of the external world than our own history. We conducted study on that. Many of the books were written in English. I have to admit that we did not know much about Ethiopia’s history.
We raised the land to the tiller issue but in principle we had to identify for which part of the people it was critical. It was more relevant for the Oromo people for example. It did not apply much to the people in the north where the land was communal; owned or managed by the village.
When we argued on this issue of land to the people or the tiller, the struggle was meant for the rights of the landless people. If land was given to the tiller, they would at least be self-sufficient; they can feed themselves and their own families.
Herald: So the reason that the land to the tiller issue was raised because there was difference of land system in the northern and southern part of the country?
Fiseha Tsion: Not to a greater extent but yes it was quite different. In the north it was communal and the land in the s o u t h was massively owned by the people who claim themselves from the ruling class. So lots of the people were landless peasants. We were very angry about that and held the Emperor accountable not personally but because of his system which was not the right type that we wanted.
Herald: We were also talking about the difference between generations. Could you shed additional light on that?
Fiseha Tsion: Yes as I said there is a conspicuous difference in the quality of education. I had been teaching at seven universities (for more than 1000 students) at first degree, masters and PhD levels. The quality of education going down hills has hit ever time low. I can also say the same is true with the quality of teachers.
Herald: But aren’t you one of the teachers?
Fiseha Tsion: No, that is not the point. When I was a student, we were taught by high class international lecturers from abroad. Now, I could do my best to teach but if the background of the students is not at the expected level, I cannot miraculously improve them to the level I want them to be. The system begs for improvement or undergoes change.
But one additional thing is that, I know that there are so many good young women and men of this generation who claim to be patriotic. But I do not believe what I do not see. When they reach at their mid-twenties or thirties, they get preoccupied with the thought to have own car, residential villa and get married.
Herald: What is wrong with that?
Fiseha Tsion: Although I am one of the senior elites of the country, I do not have my own fancy materials. People may think that I am a fool not to think for myself. But many of my generation have died for the thing that they believed in. And I want to be a man of integrity and practice what I preach, which means if I am old I want to put the interest of my country and the people first than my own interest. That is another difference
[between the generations].
Modern technologies like the internet and social media is also affecting this generation. The technology is not the main problem but the impact. Young men and women imbibe what they see or read on the social media as if they were words of holy books. They do not know who has written it and for what purpose. I can acknowledge that this generation is much smarter than where I am from. You are more attached with the IT but making choice could be the problem.
Herald: What would be your advice?
Fiseha Tsion: Select or choose the type of information that is good for society. Many people that I know are copying the worst than the best of other cultures. We even tend to copy the policies of other countries giving lesser consideration of the concrete socioeconomic, historical, political and institutional conditions of our country. So, I think if we want to find solutions, it should be from the bottom up; not from top-bottom.
The intellectual members of the society should also need to practice what they preach. They should not be opportunists. There are also numbers of issues that need reform. One is clarity of vision on our macroeconomic policy. We need to have clarity of vision in terms of our fiscal, tax policy, procurement, agricultural, development policies. Why should this country have to import basic necessities when it has a great potential of agricultural resources? Where have our agricultural experts gone during the past seventy years? We have had many agricultural institutions but what have they produced? We are potentially rich but in reality poor.
These are some of the issues that we have to address. We need to have very serious studies on these. We have so many studies but we have to go back and assess what was going on, what went wrong and why in the course of the past seventy years? The other concern that worries me much as a citizen is that the more we are dependent on foreign aid, the more we will try to manage other’s interest. We Ethiopians should get united to minimize the type of external interference for the sake of our country. We also need to scrutinize our investment policy in law and governance. So I hope to see a critically-thinking generation that does not as a sponge absorb what is written on the social media.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 15 December 2019
BY HENOK TIBEBU
