BY AYNALEM ADUGNA (Ph.D)
Weaving the facts of war, deaths, and dislocation into a coherent narrative supported by statistical discourse isn’t for the faint of the heart.
Propitiously, however, the air is pregnant with contented calm as nation saviors the sweet taste of spectacular war victories won by a yet fully unheralded fighting force – a new generation of young men and women fighters.
This, I believe, gives me license to launch right into such a discourse and provide data-supported narratives by carving out slices from the demographic underpinnings of Ethiopia’s population now approaching 115 million. The slice I have chosen is the war-scarred age structure (past and present), of Tigray state– the region hosting the most recent conflict.
It is important to highlight the near impossibility of true peace in a toxic environment strained by seemingly endless overabundance of hoodwinked young men led by cowardly old men stocking war from a perch atop the apex of a regional government power.
I will refer to these craven old men henceforth as pseudo alpha males while respecting everyone else’s prerogatives to call them Junta. I am naturally not given to name calling but the beyond the pale satanic cruelty perpetrated in Mai-Kadra leaves me no choice and other related ideas. Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed’s fast changing Ethiopia! is day by day flourishing.
Some individuals 50 – 64 age group; men in this age group were in the 30 to 44 years age band at the writing and publication of TPLF’s manifesto. Taking into account male surpluses in the below 15 age group and adding up all the deficits in subsequent ages, an unsophisticated arithmetic unencumbered by demographic modeling and projection rules would produce a male war causality estimate of at least 100,000 from TPLF’s inception to its leaders’ rise to power as the undisputed pseudo alpha heavyweights in Ethiopia’s political theatre.
Given the size of the generation of mothers in the 50 to 64 age group numbering around 138,000, it is logical to assume that each Tigraway mother had lost a son on average, including thousands killed by TPLF itself. The word average needs emphasis here as some mothers had lost a lot more sons and, on occasions, daughters too.
Nearly all of TPLF’s civilian and military leaders were in the middle two age groups, but they weren’t counted then on account of being foxhole combatants beyond the reach of census takers. I am reminded, here, of George R.R. Martin’s war quote: “Every man should lose a battle in his youth so he does not lose a war when he is old.”
Pseudo alpha males Sibhat Nega, Debrtsion Gebremichael, Getachew Assefa, Abay Tsehaye, Siyoum Mesfin, etc. would be forgiven for taking this quote to heart in ordering the November 4 massacre. Unfortunately for them, however, history did not repeat itself in this instance and they now find themselves in the throes of death whether by violence or through justice for treasonous acts.
Another idea is a quote, “war is peace”, is by George Orwell. Remember the census day of October 11, 1994? Fate has brought another shine on this date, for October 19 was the day in 2019 (25 years later to the date) when the Nobel Committee in Oslo, Finland announced the winner of the 2019 Nobel Price for Peace.
Abiy Ahmed was just seventeen years old on October 11, 1994. The Nobel Committee might have as well awarded him a prize for saving a nation they declared themselves to be a citizen of (committee members had declared themselves to be Ethiopians citing Lucy).
There is no denying, and he has admitted as much, that the seventeen-year-old had been preparing for his premiership role all his 25 years since.
Having spent two thirds of my life abroad listening to, and on occasions meeting with, the great political, legal, and scientific minds of the world, I find myself at a loss trying to pin down an all rounded (repeat all rounded) equivalent for the one and only Abiy Ahmed. And I believe that demography (at 43, he is the youngest leader in Africa) more than college degree, is the prime factor.
I also attended a December 19, 2020 conference in Addis Ababa titled Ethiopia 2050, joined in by the country’s bright minds and top-notch academics. Lo and behold, PM Abiy Ahmed has us all conference participants beat to the punch! I saw footage of him declaring that he sees Ethiopia in 2050 as the second most powerful nation in Africa.
I believe that high intelligence quotient (IQ), natural-born leader instincts, and 25 years of readiness (having been anointed King by his mother) have a lot to do with his all roundedness.
Although I would not go that far on account of my less than stellar religious credentials, I would throw it out there that the late Professor Mesfin Woldemariam never retracted, or revised, or watered down his statement that he thought Abiy Ahmed was sent by God to help Ethiopia turn a new leaf in its historic chapter by bringing true unity among its people and by ensuring democracy, freedom, and prosperity for all.
Chaos of the last two and half years, orchestrated and financed by TPLF’s pseudo alpha males, and egged on by power-hungry returnee diaspora locking arms with egotistical political opportunists, threatened to produce alternative narratives about Abiy Ahmed and his character. And they almost succeeded. He has been maligned, disparaged, denounced and made to dodged bullets and grenades at every turn.
Echoes of “down, down Abiy” have rung through corridors and alleyways in national capitals of Europe and North America including by individuals who have never set foot on Ethiopia’s soil. His book – Medemer – was burned on live video in Oromia, his region of birth. It did not matter that much, or not at all, that what was put out there about Abiy was blatantly untrue, for falsehood itself had found equivalency with freedom of expression and democracy in the minds of a populace that has never known true freedom or democracy.
Pundits, opinion writers, pseudo intellectuals, federalist secessionists, and political newbies made Abiy-bashing fair game. Regardless, he has indisputably risen from a prisoner Prime Minister status to a vanquisher of TPLF whose ashy relics are destined for the dustbins of history assisted by demography.
By demography, I am once again referencing Ethiopia’s twenty and thirty something year old men and women in uniform and the forty or fifty something year old generals. Having said this about demography, and acknowledging the truths now permeating the pregnant air of contented calm on account of new war victories referenced in the opening passages of today’s article, my hopes are firmly pinned to the fighting youths’ generals’ feature peace making (not war making) abilities and actions.
The writer is reached at AynalemA2012@gmail.com, California Department of Social Services, USA
The Ethiopian herald December 24/2020
