BY MENGESHA AMARE
“No one could smile when told to go to death’s door. This is a peculiar quality of our defense force. When I saw the unity and fraternity members of the defense force have developed, especially to go to the forefront in a bid to save others’ lives uttering, “You will come after we all are bulldozed,” reflects an eternal love of human beings. I am a living proof for the bravery of my defense force at bad times. They are the primary assets of all Ethiopians who are being insomniac to provide us with a good sleep, with luxurious life leading a hard-up livelihood. If one would like to know Ethiopia, they have to look into the defense force or join the discipline,” said a journalist on the occasion organized to acknowledge the contribution media professionals made in the law enforcement process in the Northern part of the nation.
The above expression was also strongly concretized by the sayings of the Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed, “All Ethiopians have to draw important lessons from the defense force. The effort they exerted to protect comrades, the Oromo effort to save the Amhara, the Sidama to save the Afar, the Wolaita to save the Oromo, the Amhara to save the Siltie etc. is a reflection of a wholehearted affection. Look! How a surprising scenario it was! It is really regarded as a competition to save friends at the expense of own life. Yes, Ethiopia is reflected there. We all have to replicate such a unity, harmony and courageous move on poverty and backwardness to make Ethiopia a donor coming out of being aid dependent and loan-seeker.”
The aforesaid utterances reflect the way how Ethiopians can frame this great nation pulling it from, among others, the captivation of hatred, jealousy, suspicion. Ethiopia needs to be proud of its defense force and its peace-loving people.
The combination of the general public, the defense force and the smart administration has pushed Ethiopia to the next level of success. No one could allow anybody with futile attempts as well as ill-intended mission and infiltrators or who don’t think out of the box to get Ethiopia down from the ladder it has seized right now.
As said earlier, things are now coming to the right track. It is we, Ethiopians, who are responsible for the overall change and development of the nation whom the posterity in the years to come can take over with its future.
Hence, all efforts have to be exerted towards pulling Ethiopia out from the trap of poverty it finds itself in.
Interestingly, defeating poverty is as easy as playing rule less games if unity and fraternity is well consolidated across the nation.
The bravery and unified move of the defense force has to be well acknowledged and replicated in every nook and cranny of the nation as it helped the country and its people bolster peace and development passing through a range of ups and downs in a complex system, which has been entirely manipulated by irresponsible and power monger individuals.
Yes, regional states are made autonomous and their people are free from any imposition to express ideas. Even if being autonomous is enshrined in the constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the theory of self-administration that vested sovereignty in the general people, it is still argued that this dominion hasn’t so far been exercised on behalf of the people of the Tigray state since the political trajectory was under the supreme control of biologically or genealogically tied groups who have come from the same area.
Undeniably, how to reconcile political unity and diversity is a key issue in both democratic practice and theory. Coping with this predicament activates some basic questions about how we understand political actors, institutions and change.
That is why security institutions were given priority and reformed earlier. Without a shadow of doubt, everyone can learn something about the changing conditions of democratic institutions and actors and their significance for the dynamics of change in political orders.
Here, balancing unity and diversity is of paramount importance in bringing about real differences. The quality of democratic institutions depends on their success in balancing unity and diversity, system coordination and unit autonomy, that is the ability to act in a coherent and purposeful way and at the same time respect and accommodate legitimate multiplicity.
Basically, a nation composed of citizens who are striving for change and development on the one hand and people who stand against these efforts always encounters a zero-sum game calculation. Unquestionably, contemporary democracy is a scheme that helps nations to enjoy unity in diversity. However, sorting out minor and trivial issues and provoking citizens to create unrest definitely emanates from irresponsible mentality.
Yes, well-organized political institutions can make the dreams of a given nation possible and help citizens live peacefully together addressing conflicts and disagreements via round table discussion. This has also been proved effective in coming up with lasting solutions and contributing to harmonious political community and social cohesion.
Irrefutably, solving conflicts in civility and bridging difference consulting one another can help bring about a politically stable society. Integration matters the most here as it is a process which turn previously separated units into components of a relatively coherent and consistent system by which decisions and events in one part of a system have an immediate and direct impact on other parts.
Surely, hadn’t it been the hurriedness of the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) to take unprecedented measures on the Northern Defense base dreaming that it would assume power at the ladder of unrest and turmoil, Ethiopia wouldn’t have lost its precious citizens on both sides.
As Ethiopians dislike elements compromising their unity, as reflected by the members of the defense force, and fraternity, the forces who were boating with a swollen heart burst into pus and get hidden in tattered corridors.
Following the law enforcement operation, political stability is able to be secure. Then a sense of identity and allegiance, rules of appropriate behavior and fair outcomes which transcend immediate instrumental concerns and shifting goals are observed on the side of true Ethiopians. The reason and justification of the principles on which the defense force stood for the sovereignty of the nation and against the betrayals has been developed not that much far prior to the law enforcement process.
In a nut shell, Ethiopians have to move in unison bridling minor differences, by which groups who are always running to power without listening to the general public, emanate from language, race, place of origin, social status. It is not a question of butchering the nation into small loaves so long as all citizens and equally treated with respected rights. What matters here is consolidating unity; we all have witnessed the negative repercussions of division and hatred.
The reconsideration of situations that cause separation, rivalry and disharmonious array of groups would help the nation get the roots of hatred politics thereby coming up with real difference. We all are the living proof indeed; unity has pays always paid off.
The Ethiopian herald December 17/2020
