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Time to get rid of “Revolutionary Democracy”
By Tesfay Atsbeha 08-24-18 There is generally a sense of relief, hope and even euphoria amongst Ethiopians since Abiy Ahmed became the prime minister of Ethiopia and since he released many political prisoners and journalists, lifted the state of emergency, started peace negotiations with Eritrea, welcomed members of opposition parties etc... The transfer of power to the new prime minister was accompanied by an insurrection, but it was peaceful by Ethiopian standards of power struggle and even democratic in accordance with the practices of the EPRDF. The peacefulness of the change has to be appreciated in light of the fact that such struggles for power were preceded or followed by executions in the case of the military regime and mainly preceded or followed by purges in the case of the TPLF. Despite its relatively peaceful and radical nature, the change has some attending ills which are reminiscent of the situation immediately after the unification of Germany. Some Germans of the former DDR (East), in contradiction to their political education of internationalism started openly attacking citizens of foreign origin. Similarly, several ethnic based inhumane atrocities are being committed by mobs of people in Ethiopia. This shows that people who don’t enjoy freedom under dictatorship can be forced to respect the law without willingly accepting the necessity of the law and do the opposite, as soon as there is no big brother. In the case of Ethiopia, the atrocities which are being committed by mobs cannot be explained only by the absence of the big brother. With the exception of a few groups, who sporadically fight over grazing land and water, common people in Ethiopia do not have a tradition of killing each other due to ethnic differences. This new and destructive phenomenon is partially linked to the politicization of ethnicity and its institutionalization in the form of ethnic organizations and ethnic based administrative regions by the regime. On the one side, there are also some activists who have gone to the extent of openly calling for genocide to be committed on a certain ethnic group, which is unprecedented in Ethiopia. Consequently, there is an urgent need for the protagonists of change to guarantee the safety of innocent citizens by enforcing law and order. Now, since some leaders of the TPLF are calling for the re-consolidation of the totalitarian system to curb the atrocities of the mobs and to prevent the disintegration of the country, there is a need for clarity with regard to the necessity of the change. The dominance of the TPLF in Ethiopia has been curtailed by the change. The fact that the leadership of the TPLF has lost its dominance means that it has lost the
privilege which it does not deserve. Nobody deserves a privilege of such dominance, anyway. The leadership of the TPLF does not freely and democratically represent the people of Tigray; and if the TPLF were to be considered as a representative of the people of Tigray, the change has not caused any loss to the people of Tigray in the sense of representation. The ideology of the totalitarian system advocated by the leadership of the TPLF is called “revolutionary democracy”. The TPLF started the armed struggle against the military regime in 1975 and a few individuals wrote a manifesto in 1976 without getting consensus from the members of the organization at that time The ideology of the organization was declared to be “new democracy” in the manifesto according to the Chinese model. The ideologue of the TPLF declared the Chinese model to be revisionist and “new democracy” was replaced by “revolutionary democracy” in the early 80s, when the ideologue chose the Albanian model. Therefore, revolutionary democracy is a product of the remnants of the feudal culture, the civil war involving military hierarchy with absolute obedience and secrecy but without human and democratic rights and more of Stalinism for the justification of cruelties. Differences of opinion were degraded to such a taboo in the TPLF/MLLT that Meles Zenawi in a stage-managed podium discussion backed by the applause of those who were in power, portrayed Ghidey Zeratsion (co-founder and a member of the political bureau of the front) as gangrene in the body of the Organization. As a limb of a person affected by gangrene has to be amputated in order to save the life of the person; Ghidey, had according to Meles, to be amputated (cut off) from the front to save the organization. Amputation was implemented in the form of purging on Ghidey and in the form of execution on Teklu Hawaz (a member of the CC of the TPLF). This so called revolutionary democracy which is neither democratic nor revolutionary was adopted by a few leaders of the TPLF, rehearsed in Tigray and extended to the whole of Ethiopia. After the bitter experience of Tigrayans during the armed struggle and later all Ethiopians for the last 27 years the system has reached its dead end. The end of the system is the spirit of the ongoing change. Meles confessed: “The pressures for a conventional liberal democracy are there and cannot be contained indefinitely. (Alex de Waal in “The Future of Ethiopia: Developmental State or Political Marketplace?” Aigaforum.com). Now, the containment is over. As the change which created an atmosphere of hope is incompatible with the experience of Ethiopians under revolutionary democracy, the EPRDF has two choices: either it disintegrates into its ethnic components, which is likely to create a crisis or it continues its existence by agreeing on a liberal democratic system. Notwithstanding its loss of dominance at the level of Ethiopia, the TPLF is in some aspects too strong an organization to be ignored. But it is also almost impossible to accept the TPLF, if it sticks to its totalitarian system. Therefore, those members of the
TPLF who reject revolutionary democracy should be encouraged to join their other Ethiopian compatriots to push for the establishment of a liberal democratic system and maintain the unity of Ethiopia. By the way, some members and supporters of the TPLF who equate the present change with neo liberalism to rebuff the change should know that liberal democracy is not necessarily the implementation of neo liberal economic policies. Liberal democracy is accepted by communists, socialists, social democrats and conservatives in democratic countries. Similarly, state ownership and economic planning is not immune to neo liberalism as in the case of China. An important aspect of neo liberalism is weakening the bargaining power of the masses. Chinese leaders did not need to weaken labor unions which are under their control as Reagan and Thatcher did (cf : the brief history of neo liberalism by David Harvey, for details). The totalitarian system of the EPRDF is similar to the Chinese as far as the control of the people is concerned and on the top of that the system is breeding corruption. Therefore, revolutionary democracy should be abolished sooner than later and replaced by a liberal democratic system which promotes the economic interests of the majority |