by Teddy Fikre

Saturday, May 22, 2010

This Sunday, May 23^rd marks the onset of an election in Ethiopia.  There is a part of me that is hopeful that violence will not flair up again, engulfing Ethiopia’s citizens with yet another round of violence and chaos.  Part of me hopes that the election is free and fair, where citizens are able to express their desires and vote their conscience, but recent history has taught me to be less hopeful—taught me to be a cynic.  I have come to the sad realization that Ethiopia is not ready for democracy, democracy through guns is not democracy at all, it is a rouse perpetuated by those in power to cloak autocracy with a venire of  a ballots and election sloganeering.

Now before you think I am off on a tirade aimed solely at the current government, let me stop you there.  My position on the current Ethiopian government is not easy to figure out.  In Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia has a president that is more intent on balkanizing Ethiopia than leading her people.  I am confronted by a lot of Ethiopians who tell me that Meles is better than what we had before.   However, I do not judge leaders based on who came before them but based on their own achievements.   Grant it, I am not an expert on Ethiopian politics by any means, in fact, after 27 years away from Ethiopia, I am more of a novice than an expert.  Maybe this is a good thing, thus far experts have not done that much to improve the condition of Ethiopia.

What I witness as a novice is a continuing widening of the gap between the haves and the have nots.  I witness the fragmentation of Ethiopia conducted by government officials who are intent on carving out people’s ethnic affiliation more than they are on building a national identity based on a common purpose and a common desire for peace and prosperity.  I see leaders who don’t reach out to neighboring countries to build an economic coalition that could the horn of Africa.  Instead, I see weapons being the number one import in Ethiopia, weapons that are often turned on those who oppose the government.

But my despondency does not rest solely with the current government.   I am also exasperated by those who call themselves the opposition.  I often wonder if their real aim is to install democracy or if it is to gain power.  I often listen to what the opposition is against, but I rarely hear what they are for.  I don’t hear a solution that is based on the idea of inclusion, and most of them throw out the word woyane as if it is an automatic reflexive syndrome.  If anyone disagrees with them, they are a woyane, if anyone thinks differently then them, they are a woyane.  Their anger blinds them to a way forward, they are stuck in inertia, unwilling to compromise, unable to reach out to their adversary to see if a solution could be formulated where all parties are satiated.

Five years ago, Kojo Nnamdi had a show about the Ethiopian election and the bloody consequences of bullet riddled bodies of protesters who dared to speak up.  One caller called in to express to Kojo his disappointment that there were no Ethiopians on the panel.  Kojo’s response was cutting in his brutal honesty.  He stated that they could not find rational Ethiopians to speak on the panel, that everyone that they reached out to was either extremely anti-government or pro-government.  What Kojo was expressing is that a dialogue is not possible with people that are driven by emotion instead of logic.

Thus I am resigned to the fact that Ethiopia is not ready for democracy.  I will once again believe in democracy in Ethiopia when I witness an Amhara willing to vote for a Tigray, or a Tigray willing to vote for an Oromo, or an Oromo willing to vote for a Gambella.  As long as we put our trust in only those that share our ethnic affiliation and distrust someone that speaks a different language, then we will continue to have point blank democracy, where those in power will stay in power through the point of a gun while conducting a farce democracy and those out of power will seethe to gain power.

This blog submission was written by Teddy Fikre.  The views of guest bloggers are not the views of Ethiopian-Americans for Change.  Guest bloggers represent the broad dissection of views and outlooks within our community.

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