What is known in recent history as the Arab Spring started in Tunisia and then spread to Egypt, Libya, Algeria and now Sudan. The Arab Spring in the context of Africa is nothing else but the revolutionary movements for radical change that started back in 2011 and still continues to engulf one African country after the other located inside or outside the Arab North Africa.
That is why Zimbabwe and Ethiopia can be included in this movement. The causes and objectives rather than geographical locations are the main determinants of these revolutionary movements. All these movements are led not by traditional or established political parties but by ordinary people in the streets. Their objectives are freedom from dictatorship, for economic equity and against corrupt elites, military or civilians.
The other common factor these movements share is spontaneity and/or unpredictability. Revolutions are generally unpredictable. Changes happen where they are least expected. And whenever and wherever they happen, revolutions tend to follow different trajectories or act from different scripts. A political analyst on a recent Al Jazeera TV program called the ongoing revolutions in Algeria, Sudan and Libya as the continuation of the first Arab Spring of 2011 that started in Tunisia following Bouazizi, the street vendor’s self-immolation in protest against the humiliating bullying in the hands of the Tunisian police.
It is often said that a single spark can start a prairie fire. Most recently, the fire has spread down from the north towards the south and nearer to the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is still in the throes of an Arab Spring style political change that has not fully consummated itself. It is a revolution that was started by the people of Ethiopia and then channeled towards a reformist agenda by the reformist wing of the ruling party.
This faction saved the party by channeling people’s spontaneous anger and revolutionary aspirations towards a more liberal and pacifist direction. This is what makes the Ethiopian reformist movement different from the Arab Spring countries of north Africa like Egypt and Libya. There, the revolutions were reversed by the counter-revolutionary forces that emerged from within the military and high jacked the student and mass uprising drenching them into pools of blood and liquidating the slightest aspiration for freedom and human rights.
Everybody except the military in these countries were the winners. Like the Arab Spring countries, the popular revolution in Ethiopia was spontaneous as well as bloody until the emergence of the pacifist and reformist wing of the military which could not stage Egyptian-style because it was not unified and was divided along ethnic affiliations. The military has so far remained aloof from the changes that are taking place in the country, serving as peace keepers in areas where ethnic conflicts have characterized the post-reform process.
In the last few months the Arab Springstyle uprising has reached Sudan where a power sharing deal is under consideration between the anti-Bashar wing of the military and leaders of opposition parties and civic movements. As the process is still at its earliest stage, it is not yet clear where the Sudanese revolution is leading the people who spearheaded the uprising. One of the Horn countries most threatened by the Sudanese uprising is Eritrea or its government which is obviously worried similar movements might arise spontaneous and challenge the Issayas regime with popular demands for freedom, human rights and democracy.
Eritrean president seemed unfazed by the change of regime in Ethiopia because it was led by a group of reformists who came out with a positive agenda of peace and reconciliation. Sudan is different. It is a case of a dictatorship overthrown by the ordinary people in the streets. It might serve as an example and inspire the Eritreans for similar action. The Sudanese case has a powerful lesson to teach to the Eritrean people who were already positively affected by the Ethiopian reformist political transformation.
If Eritrea goes the Sudanese way, it would be farfetched the process would be peaceful or orderly unless the ruling party there chooses to leave power peacefully. It is unlikely to do so because the contradictions in Eritrea have been effectively kept invisible as all sign of opposition or dissent had been repressed mercilessly in the last 20 years or so. Instability Eritrea would also spell disaster as it is most likely to cause a massive refugee problem that might destabilize the entire Horn region.
That would also abort the Ethio-Eritrean normalization process and create gaps that might be exploited by forces that might be working to rekindle the flames of wars in the Horn. On the other hand a peaceful and orderly handling of the crisis in Sudan might have a positive impact on the Horn region and on Eritrea in particular where the possibility of a peaceful or negotiated transfer of power might be the case after a possible popular revolt there.
One would however wish that Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia which are the key countries in the Horn handle the popular demand for freedom and democracy peacefully because doing otherwise might spell disaster by releasing a chain of events that might plunge the region into an Apocalyptic showdown with South Sudan and Somalia still in the midest of an unpredictable future, Ethiopia facing ethnic violence and Somalia wrestling with the demons of Al Shabab and its international affiliates.
That, however, would be the last thing all sane people in the Horn wish to see in the region. The better bet for the region would be the peaceful settlement of the political crisis in Sudan, Eritrea sooner or later evolving in a similar direction, a lasting peace in South Sudan and Ethiopia going democratic and impact the region in a positive way. However, the dust raised by the Arab Spring and blowing across the Horn region might not only be unpredictable but now one would tell its direction as no one predicted its inception.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition, May19/ 2019
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
