The state is neither a political organization for the sake of individual freedom, nor a totalitarian power to control society. Rather, the state is for the purpose of promoting the common good of citizens, the respected thinker Brendan said. Thus, state-building refers to the making of physical institutions like armies, police, bureaucracies, ministries so on and so forth. The state thus is measured by its capabilities of ensuring and realizing laws and directions of economic policies. In addition, the state is measured in its ability to provide goods and services and safety to its citizens.
Nation-building by distinction is the formation of a sense of national identity to which individuals will be devoted to, an identity that will replace their allegiance to tribal identity. Nation-building process in contrast to state-building process, requires the creation of intangibles such as national traditions, symbols, shared historical memories, and common cultural points of reference. Many respected thinkers believe national identities can be created by states through their policies on languages, religions, and educational programmes.
Poets, philosophers, religious leaders, novelists, musicians and other individuals are basic instruments to create and realize nation-building process from bottom up. In a similar coin ,the Ethiopian scholars have differences in relation to the form of the state. Some of them are in favour of the past unitary state and the others are against unitary state and favour the current federal state. Even the politicians are divided into two grouping opinions regarding the types of the state they wish it could be. Most of them fought against the unitary state viewing it as a state dominated by one ethnic group and able to form the current federal form of state. The rest favour the past unitary state arguing that federal state is against the unity of the country.
Fore instance,the past unitary state came to being by destroying the monarchical system. The Derg who brought strict unitary system through burying the emperor ended up the way it came to power by EPRDF. The current regime has brought a totally new and different system- which is the federal arrangement in a response to the century old national questions of Ethiopians. However, some scholars and politicians appeared who bitterly oppose the system explaining that federal system inherently creates imprinted ethnic divisions which is dangerous to the unity of the state. The rest seemed happy of the federal system.
A more important proposal in this regard is the need for the promotion of a democratic pan-Ethiopian national unity based on equality, the rule of law, respect for human rights and commonly shared values in regard to the historic past, economic development and political commitments. In this regard, a deliberate policy of promoting consensus and unity in diversity around positive historic legacies has to be designed and implemented. The victory of Adwa, Ethiopia’s tolerance and long acceptance of all major religions, etc. could serve as unifying historical symbols for Ethiopia. While addressing historical grievances due to previous exclusionist regimes and rejecting any new political tendencies to bring back the old regimes of discrimination and exclusion, much has to be done in championing commonly appreciated and accepted legacies.
The historic legacy of Aksum in culture, religion and language, the meaning of the victory at Adwa for all black and freedom-loving peoples. The idea of national unity through the promotion of an historical legacy of an inclusive kind, as discussed by Donald Levine, is an important area of improvement. One way in which the foremost difficulties in federalism and the relationship between the centre and regions could be tackled would be to conduct training on the relevant laws, to increase their knowledge among the concerned organs of the federal and regional state. This would facilitate the building of a human rights-protective federalism.
The prolonged divisions we currently observe hugely in the idea of Ethiopianism concept is the works of ‘Ethiopianist’ scholars, who perpetuated arrogantly and ignorantly the notion of unitary form of state without recognition of the concern of the rest diversified Ethiopian societies. The marginalized society by the Ethiopianists scholars and politicians developed sentiment to separate from Ethiopia. These tendencies have been practically reflected when the OLF, ELF, ONLF, TPLF, ALF etc. conducted an armed struggle against the exclusionist perception of a certain Ethiopian scholars and politicians.
As a result, we are practicing two strong opposing views on the current federal system. Supporters and contesters of the system! These divisions should be settled down based on consensus and negotiations. Lowering down the tone of nationalism and focusing on Ethiopian-ism would be basic solutions to the future of Ethiopia continuity. EPRDF should also focus on unifying projects rather than dividing notions. Creating a country where all diversified Ethiopians could agree up on is the only way out, not the other way round.
One should not forget that the process of state and nation-building is not an easy task. For instance, in Britain itself, this daunting nation building task is not something finished businesses. It needs rather continuous efforts to maintain or develop it further. It took over hundred years for British governments to realize the state-building process before reaching current status. Chinese leaders also have also waited over 40 years to consolidate the state and nation-building process.
Hence, we can easily understand that state and nation building activities are a work in process than a onetime action. The same is true for Ethiopia, which needs coordinated efforts to realize a unified nation-state, but possibly in a shorter period unlike the aforementioned countries. One thing we Ethiopians can learn from them is that they focused on future trends rather than quarrelling on past mistakes to find out a unifying cause which can bind them all as a strong nation.
