Ethiopia is currently struggling to consummate the two-year political transition with a democratic election and the establishment of a truly representative government for the first time in its long history. But this is proving difficult to achieve for many reasons. The first reason is the lack of consensus among the political elites who are often unable to take the road of reconciliation and constructive engagement. In this sense, most elite-driven political movements are not yet free from their past history of divisions, hostility and hidden agendas while a few of them are trying to play the political game by the rule although the rules are sometimes vague and ill-defined.
The second reason that makes it difficult to complete the transition period and pass to the stage of practical electoral politics is the ideological confusion that is now dominating the debates and the attempt by many opposition parties to push aside the incumbent government and replace it with their own transitional authority or coalitions with agendas that are far from being democratic or transparent. Most of the ethnic or nationalist parties are divided among themselves even when they are apparently adhering to similar political agendas.
The division among the Oromo nationalist movement may a good example of this. All Oromo-based movement tell their constituencies about their goals of achieving the freedom and/or liberation of the Oromo people from what they call age-old oppression and exploitation. However in practical terms these movements have failed to unite and push for their common agenda. Instead they are locked into factional fighting, elitist hair splitting over their points of agreements or disagreements most ordinary people do not understand let alone defend. Thus, Oromo nationalist movements are divided into a number of factions and tendencies In fact, political debates in Ethiopia have gone backwards instead of going forwards. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Ethiopian university students were engaged in political debates over ideas and not over personalities. Land to the tiller, freedom, bread and democracy were the key issues that engaged them and not the student leaders who did not enjoy special privileges and were fighting in the forefront of the mass political mobilization. Nowadays, small elitist groups are often haranguing their followers which individual or party they should or should not support.
As a corollary of this, the third reason for the difficult journey from the transition period to the democratic politicking seems to be this divorce between the elite political leaders and the mass of followers whose aspirations may not always be similar to the small vanguard groups that pretend they are the sole representatives of their peoples. The idea of political vanguard that is borrowed from Marxism-Leninism and applied uncritically during both the Derg and EPRDF periods is still proving tenuous and showing itself in the form of elites versus masses dichotomy. The ultimate objective may be the accession of elite groups to power in the name of the masses and not the empowerment the people at grassroots levels.
This has made the transition from elite politics to mass democratic bargaining not only impossible but also damaging. The educated political elites are speaking a language the vast majority of the masses do not understand or subscribe to. Elites speak different political languages that are hardly understood by the people they claim they lead. Most of the debates now taking place in the media about the current constitutional crisis or constitutional interpretation are conducted in elitist and highly learned language that is hardly understood by ordinary members of the public.
In a way, the debate looks like a dialogue among a few select groups in a language the public hardly make head or tail of. The ideas are not only erudite but the language in which they are presented to the public is also complex and this makes it hard to establish a bridge of communication between the elites and the public. It does not matter whether the discussions are conducted in Amharic, Oromiffa or Tigrigna. Ordinary members of the public are practically excluded from the discussions because they are conducted in political jargons and learned phrases the masses do not understand. Because of this, the political debates suffer from the risk of being not only misunderstood but also the attempt by a few political elites to reduce them into mere slogans that appeal to emotions rather than to reason and logic. In the final analysis, the views that command support from the public are those that are emotionally charged rather than logically presented and critically analyzed.
The Derg regime adopted Marxism as it chief ideology simply because it suited its purpose and gave it the ideological illusions through which it could dominate and control the masses. Otherwise Marxism and Leninism had nothing to do with the history, culture and traditions of people in Ethiopia in all walks of life. It was simply an ideological illusion taken from Soviet propaganda books by the educated elites and offered to the ruling military strongmen who were confused and directionless as to where the country should go at that time. Then as now, there were pseudo-debates taking place in the media but as they were presented in a language that were not understood by most people they were interpreted arbitrarily and served to divide more than they united them.
This foreign ideology was imposed on the majority of the people who could not grasp its meaning because it was covered with sweet-sounding but inherently dangerous ideas couched in erudite language that the masses could not understand and were forced to commit atrocious crimes, leading up to the shameful “Red Terror” versus “White Terror” shooting sprees in which some of the best sons and daughters of the nation lost their lives and were quickly forgotten.
The same mistake was committed during the TPLF-dominated era when MarxismLeninism was replaced by Revolutionary Democracy and imposed on a population whose tragic memories of the years under Marxist dictatorship was fresh in their minds. Revolutionary Democracy took 27 years to discredit itself and be rejected both by its ardent followers, its advocates as well as by those who were forced to accept it for this or that reason.
Nowadays democracy is back on the national agenda and even the so-called extremist or nationalist groups are swearing in its name. Democracy is somewhat the current political fashion and its ideas are being articulated by the elite groups the way their predecessors were doing for the last 40 or so years. Democracy too is not an Ethiopian idea and we are upholding its tenets simply because it has become a universal political alternative that has been imposed on many people around the word as a guarantor of freedom and economic prosperity that is not always true. As many observers believe,democracy is a better idea among many bad ideas. Democracy’s other virtues is that it allows debates and even dissent and gives all points of views equal opportunity for being heard. This does not however make it immutable or a recipe for success unless it is implemented in light of local conditions.
In the context of Ethiopian politics, the good thing about democracy is that the recent disputes around the holding of the next national elections are provoking heated debates among the educated elites in the country and abroad. Various points of views and ideas are being expressed through the traditional media outlets and the social media as well. The issue has galvanized much interest that both government and civil society are engulfed in heated discussions among intellectuals and hardly understood by the public. It is the first time that these kinds of debates are taking place seen since the 2005 election that had created widespread interest around the issues of democracy and democratic elections during a period we might call the 2005 Addis Spring.
There is however a sharp difference between the 2005 election-related debates and what is going on at present. The contentious issue of regime succession in Ethiopia has always remained a constitutional or political no man’s land depending on how people look at it. This time around, everyone seems to agree that political power should grow out of democracy and not out of the barrel of a gun.
Countries like Ethiopia are latecomers or late learners of democracy. Even the Americans say that they are still learning about democracy and try to make it more functional in tune with the demands of the time. If Ethiopia succeeds in holding a genuinely free and fair election sometime next year, all the debates, dissents and disputes that are now expressed are worth the trouble. If not, the specter of 2005 may come to haunt us once again and that will certainly be a retreat from democracy and no one will know what will come afterwards.
The Ethiopian herald May 31,2020
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
