Entrance tickets of 100 birr each to the public lecture to be delivered by Ethiopia’s best known political scientist, Prof. Gudeta Nadew, in the conference hall of Eshetu Chole Building on the Sadist Kilo campus of Addis Ababa University were sold out days before the great event. On the red – letter day, as was obviously anticipated, the conference hall was full to more than capacity, with a substantial section of the audience sitting on window sills and standing on benches outside the hall.
Prof. Gudeta Nadew arrived just on time and ascended the wooden staircase to the stage to a frenzied applause of clapping and whistling. The tall, well –dressed and composed Prof. Gudeta Nadew cut an imposing figure on the stage. He began his highly anticipated lecture with power-point highlights projected on the white – painted wall.
“As you know, political science is not an exact science. However, it does attempt to be one with the introduction of politicometrics in the 1960’s or thereabouts. Unfortunately, it has not made as much progress in this endeavor as, for example, psychology, which has grown more scientific with psychoanalysis, psychiatry and now neuroscience. Perhaps economics and sociology have made greater strides with econometrics and sociometrics, respectively. In fact, there are those who say that political science has regressed somewhat on a regional basis, which does ring true as I shall try to demonstrate in the course of my lecture.
As you are well aware, the rule book, i.e. the main rule book, of politics is the constitution which decrees the holding of free and fair elections, the assumption of political power by majority vote, the separation of powers, term limits and the rule of law”, Prof. Gudeta Nadew went on and his audience listened with rapt attention until what he said towards the end of his lecture, which continued for over one and a half hours. In the concluding portion of his address, he said to everybody’s surprise: “The regressive aspect of modern politics seems to have surfaced in the shape of individual political idiosyncrasies with regional variations. For example, the objectives of individual politicians in Ethiopia appear to be to emerge as the founding father of a nation, the father of democracy of a nation and the father of economic prosperity of a country.”
The murmurs of the audience that sweept across the conference suddenly broke the pindrop silence of rapt attention that had prevailed all along. Prof. Gudeta, realizing that he had achieved his lecture objective of arousing the interest of his audience said: “From your rather excited response to my last point, this is perhaps a good time to conclude my speech and open the floor for discussion.” Hands bristled up like bayonets of a military regiment. Prof. Alemante, who was sitting in the front row, was given the opportunity to speak: “Thank you Prof. Gudeta for your brilliant lecture which has shone a bright light on many dark aspects of Ethiopian politics, but I wonder what it is that you intend to communicate when you say that some Ethiopian politicians or rather politicians in Ethiopia want to be the founding father of a nation or a country. Wasn’t Ethiopia founded a very long time ago by our forefathers and isn’t it true that any claim to being the father of modern Ethiopia is deservedly accorded to the valiant and wise victor of Adwa Menelik II?”
“Good to see you, Prof. Alemante. It’s been a long time since we last met in Washington D.C. It is a great question, but that is what I meant when I said politics has tended to be regressive rather than progressive in its development by the deleterious effects of individual idiosyncratic behavior of politicians across the world. For example, Brexit is an attempt to re-found England; Essayas Afeworki has become the founding father of Eritrea, which was not only an integral part but a founding region of Ethiopia; Meles Zenawi aspired to become the founding father of Tigre- Tigrigna but was denied the aspiration by natural death. There are many competing individuals who want to be the sole founding father of Oromia or at least joint founding fathers. Debretsion is trying to become the founding father of the Republic of Tigray. The basis for all this unjustified claim is the internally inconsistent basic law written by Meles Zenawi, Essayas Afewerki and Lencho Letta. Even then, the most remarkable thing about it all is that neither the people of Ethiopia nor their government, nor yet the military are showing any strong resistance to the whole unfolding political and economic fragmentation of Ethiopia,” Prof. Gudeta explained.
The audience was astounded at the fearless frankness of one of Ethiopia’s most respected intellectuals, and the hundreds of hands that bristled up like bayonets were now few and far between. Among the few hands, that of Prof. Teshome was picked to take the floor. Prof. Teshome then began to forward his part- question and part- opinion intervention as follows:
“Thank you Prof. Gudeta for your highly thought- provoking and insightful lecture. What is the motivation for wanting to be the founding father of a country by carving up an already founded big country into smaller countries when the more challenging and more rewarding task would be to attempt to be the father of democracy or the father of economic prosperity of the already created and founded big country? I believe you are quite right in contending that, unlike the other social sciences, political science seems to have regressed into a mere egoistic figment of the imagination of overambitions individual politicians or pseudo- politicians. For example, there is no guarantee that some egoistic individual will not want to become the founding father of Bilenia in Eritrea!”
Prof. Gudeta was more than pleased with the very thoughtful ideas presented by Prof. Teshome and said: “I couldn’t agree more, and that is exactly what I meant when I said that political science is being debased by the meanest of egoistic human nature and behavior. The whole egoistic motivation is to immortalize one’s name by being the founding father of a new country or nation, however small and unviable it may be. This is of course the work of little minds. Great minds would take an already created and founded country forward along the path of democracy and economic prosperity.”
The next person to speak was Prof. Alemtshaye Eshetu, Professor of psychology at Addis Ababa University. She said: “Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” (excuse me for the oversight of not introducing the moderator, who is Dr. Zewede Teffera), “Speaking of egoism, competitive progressive egoism is permissible as it is a naturally ingrained trait of human nature. Progressive competitive egoism has produced fabulous wealth, masterpieces in art and music, incredible records in sports, amazing discoveries and inventions in science and technology and overarching ideologies. As you all know, Enestien has been immortalized by his incredible theory of relativity and Darwin by his equally breath- taking theory of evolution. Keynes is the father of Keynesianism and Marx of Marxism. Strangely, mature competitive egoism turns into its apparent exact opposite, altruism. Here, mark the word ‘apparent’ because altruism is actually expanded egoism, i.e. egoism that has transcended the art and idea of obtaining gratification from satisfying one’s self and has expanded to doing so from satisfying other ‘selves’. For example, Bill-Gatesism was once the world’s fiercest competitive narrow egoism, but now it has expanded to the broadest progressive egoism obtaining self- gratification from the satisfaction of other selves, particularly those of the poor and the underprivileged. Carving up an already founded country to be the founding father of a country or a nation is the pettiest and most regressive of egoisms!”
The conference hall echoed with rapturous applause and, true to her principles, Prof. Alemtshaye acknowledged the overwhelming plaudits with unreserved humility and sat down.
The chairperson of the conference, Dr. Zewde Teffera, suggested that the session be brought to a close with a short declaration of the main outcomes of the conference and read out his proposal as follows:
“We strongly oppose the self- defeating political trend to engage in petty political egoism to immortalize one’s name by trying to create states within a state; We uphold the aspirations of most Ethiopians that the ultimate objective of politics in Ethiopia should be to build a strong economy within a democratic system.” The broad resolutions of the declaration were accepted and endorsed by the conference by acclamation.
The Ethiopian Herald May 31,2020
BY TEKLEBIRHAN GEBREMICHAEL
