Last Commentary?
This will probably be my last commentary, although I may continue to write on broad topics. The Diaspora climate has changed and it is time to give way for others who can make more positive contributions to public debate.
1. When times change
In reflecting what have been going on in our Diaspora in the recent past, here are some of my observations:
-Diaspora groups have managed to decimate each other. Maybe the beginning of the end of Diaspora politics. Gone may also be the times when Ethiopian opposition people coming to the Diaspora to grieve about EPRDF oppression and return with cash.
-Right violators became rights defenders. You may remember Negede Gobezie (the architect of the red terror) going to the EU parliament to speak on behalf of groups including EPRP! If you are my generation, I know how you had felt about this.
-Defectors – most of them arranging their own visas and paying for tickets from the Ethiopian state budget - have become Diaspora heroes, only because they talk to us bad about EPRDF. I have no respect for these opportunists.
-The young Birtukan Mediksa languishes in jail while notorious criminal and thieves roam free in Ethiopia and abroad. The Diaspora was outraged.
-Modern information communication technologies (ITCs) have become effective tools for intellectual and political thugs to spread their counterproductive politics. In fact, these thugs may quite frankly believe that they can mobilize support to overthrow EPRDF by writing and agitating sitting in the Diaspora.
-OLF supporters and sympathizes tried to tell us that EPRDF was responsible for massacring innocent Amhara villagers in Oromya areas. This is not the way to unite Amhara and Oromo elites against EPRDF. Bringing OLF to justice would.
-Aiga Forum got pissed off when I sent material that it did not like. It will be long before practising what we preach.
I pissed off Tecola Hagos too.
-Elites who won cut-throat competitions to access education scholarship programs (a budget from official development assistance) now despise foreign aid and even condemn donors for giving aid to Ethiopia.
-People who denounce EPRDF’s ethnic federalism are now talking about an ethnic federation that favours the majority (Amharas and Oromos). I thought democracy was all about protecting minority rights.
-Birhanu Nega is now reduced to a Diaspora commentator. And he wants to charge each of us $500 for this. He is the worst screwed up we have ever seen in the recent past.
-Derge folks increasingly poisoned the Diaspora climate, since they flooded our communities with their dictatorial and intolerance political habits.
-We became labelled as apologists only because we praised our fellow Ethiopians (EPRDF leaders) for advancing Ethiopian development, as if it was wrong to praise a human being, let alone fellow countrymen.
-One or two websites posted messages that we should boycott the Ethiopian Airlines and there were rumours that a group of people calling themselves Ethiopians in Canada had also lobbied the Canadian government to prevent the airline from flying to Canada. The result? The airline increased flights to North America and earned a record profit this year. When God blesses mama Ethiopia.
-People educated by Ethiopian society do little to give back (in fact, some of them oppose others for giving) while those who escaped as destitute refugees are giving back.
-A party of illiterate peasants (EPRDF) – this is what we were saying in the early 1990s – has recently developed into a powerful political force influencing continental Africa while the parties of “educated” elites (the oppositions) still struggle.
EPRP got divided into two groups: EPRP and EPRP Democratic. The leaders are aging, lost energy, and confined to political foraging as opportunities present.
-Eritrean elites (includes those who grew up in our own neighbourhoods) who worked hard for decades to obliterate Ethiopian (Eritrean) history now appear to have inclined to change except that this time they tend to prefer the Habeshas (Tigreans and Amharas). Of course, the same elites may be among those who are being escorted by EPRDF to wage opposition against Issayas Afewerki. My friends, times change.
2. Ethiopia has risen
Whether because of good economic growth performance, regional military power, global geopolitics (fighting terrorism) or the debating skills of Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia (an ancient nation and a symbol of independence) has restored her pride and got her rightful place in the international community. Those of us who have lived long abroad know what Ethiopia used to be perceived 10 or 20 yeas ago.
3. Praising the diplomats
It is not easy to be a diplomat of a country like Ethiopia where you have a political Diaspora that opposes everything you do. Ethiopian diplomats have worked in this environment to promote Ethiopia’s interests and international image. Keep up the good work.
4 There is a lot to do in five years
Prime Minister Meles should use the remaining five years in office to solidify current development efforts and increase public confidence in the Ethiopian electoral system and government. The government must implement its “big push” development plan by mobilizing different stakeholders in the process. The federal workforce should reflect the diversity of Ethiopian society by recruiting more civil servants from regions. Woredas must be enabled to protect the interests of rural people and supported by autonomous oversight institutions. Federal services, such as immigration, passports, licensing, should be decentralized to Woredas. It is also important to increase confidence in the Ethiopian justice system through better accountability of the police and prison system.
5. Complementing EDP
Once again giving EDP a credit for taking politics on the road out of Addis Ababa. Democracy is the result of an evolution in political thinking and practice. We should give a credit for anyone or any party that learns and progresses.
6. Poor Birtukan Mediksa
You may wonder why there has not been intense Diaspora campaign and lobbying for her release. Perhaps she does not have powerful friends and clan members. She also took the risk to severe her relationship with the vocal Diaspora, first, by “sleeping” with a Tigrean (we were told that this had happened and was very bad), second, by openly questioning whether there were anti-Tigrean elements within the CUD/Kinijit, third, by rejecting armed struggle and fourth, by distancing herself from Birhanu Nega and Hailu Shawel. The tragedy (for our generation) is that we see notorious criminals and thieves roam free, while she languishes in jail. EPRDF must realize that we represent the descent and hardworking people of the Diaspora and what it did to Birtukan is totally outrageous.
7. A woman does not lead me?
I don’t know whether this is a true story coming out of UDJ. What is clear is that our generation has made an immense sacrifice to bring radical changes in Ethiopian society.
8. To Seye Abraha
You were the head of EPRDF forces when EPRP members were captured and taken prisoners in the early 1990s. Yes? You should have known their whereabouts. We are fed up with yesterday’s politicians escaping accountability under the pretext of “struggling against EPRDF”. What do you know about EPRP prisoners?
9. To Bereket Simon
In the “election day countdown” section of the website of the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia, it reads, “Ethiopia will hold federal and regional elections on 15 May 2005”. This could be confusing for outsiders who normally expect this web site to provide updated information about the upcoming 2010 election. Please ensure that this website is updated.
10. How many political parties in Ethiopia?
The proliferation of political parties in Ethiopia could be a clear evidence of the freeing up of political space in Ethiopia, albeit the fact that inter- party politics has remained confrontational. There are about 90 parties? It is worth to ask whether the elites are entering the political arena drumming their ethnic banners with the aim of aggrandizing their interests or aim to contribute to good governance and legislative and policy development? Something needs to be done to better organize Ethiopian politics beginning with EPRDF which should adopt positive attitude towards progressive forces in Ethiopian society.
11. Examples of election campaign issues
Here are some of the issues that I documented during my last trip to Ethiopia (and shared with government authorities to whom I had access) and how an opposition party could use them to develop an election agenda:
· Better rural settlement planning, especially as the young generation are settling by the side of rural roads to be closer to modern services and facilities. What you need is Derg-style settlements that allow the efficient delivery of rural services.
· Land use planning. You see barren land by the side of roads and hillsides that could be rehabilitated by planting grass and trees, providing grazing for animals and promoting the health of ecosystems. If one calculates the space (land) used by all road network across Ethiopia, it is easy to realize how much land could be rehabilitated if construction companies are required to return land damaged by construction works to its original state by planting trees and grass.
· Urban safety net programs have not reached small rural towns.
· Rural land has exhausted its carrying capacity - need for a rural industrial development strategy.
· Farmers want a flexible school system to avoid labour shortages (children are the main source of labour). I met Woreda officials who were thinking of letting schools open on weekends during planting and harvesting seasons, so that they are closed two days during working days to free students for farm work. This is an important issue in a country that relies on rain-fed, seasonal farming.
· Young people are more and more imitating foreign cultures.
· Standardize the hospitality industry. Currently hotels charge customers and tourists different rates without any justification. Some hotels have embarrassingly poor facilities.
In a typical Western democracy, for example, these issues could be highly contested and a party that demonstrates the capacity to address them will get elected. The saddest thing in Ethiopia is that politics is focused on state power and urban middle class issues.
12. Change of government in Japan after 55 years
The now-defeated Japanese ruling party led post-War Japan to development, making the country a global economic powerhouse. As a result, the elites of this party got re-elected again and again until this year when the Japanese saw competency and hope in an opposition party. They said goodbye to the old guard and welcomed the new elites. For Ethiopia’s warring opposition groups, the lesson here is that they could be able to topple EPRDF (which has tied development with its political survival) if they are able to demonstrate how they can address the needs of the poor masses, instead of focusing on elite politics (“human rights”, “Tigrean domination”, “democracy”, etc.).
13. Towards behavioural economics
“Behavioral economics is founded on the premise that human beings are fundamentally irrational and motivated by unconscious cognitive biases” wrote Dan Ariely in the July-August issue of Harvard Business Review. Ariely described studies that showed that people were more inclined to self-serve (cheat) and that this (cheating) declined when they were given incentives. In another case, a company decided to play a marketing trick, which is to set the price of a new product higher and then reduce it by a certain percentage a week later. The result: upsurge in demand for that product. Why? People only saw the discount price without realizing that the price had been set high in the first place or without comparing the price and quality of the product with similar other products. In short, this author says we may see the end of “rational economics” which argues that the market self-regulates (= people are honest/rational brokers) and governments shouldn’t interfere. You may also wonder what the World Bank and IMF (who have spent billions to promote free market economy) would think these days. Perhaps not much, if we consider what one author (Joel Samoff ) wrote almost two decades ago:
A once passionately defended ‘real' cause is displaced by a new ‘real’ cause, and the old ‘correct’' solution is replaced by its successor. The failure of the previous solutions seems to carry no useful lessons for the future. Nor do they engender a sense of humility and fallibility. Even as they reject what had formerly been propounded with great assurance, the practitioners [e.g. World Bank and IMF officials] manifest an even higher level of confidence in their new analyses and recommendations. ‘We misunderstood before, but this time we know’.
And Meles & CO may say, “we weren’t ‘fooled’ before and won’t be fooled in the future”.
14. More on foreign aid
Those of you who are still interested in following the ongoing debate on foreign aid may wish to read the recent paper by the Centre for Global Development, entitled The End of ODA: Death and Rebirth of A Global Public Policy by Jean-Michel Severino and Olivier Ray (March 2009) (http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1421419/) . In contrast to the critics, most recently the African native Dembisa Moyo, this paper argues that there is a growing public support for foreign aid as it can be seen by the growing number of organizations which mobilize resources to developing countries. The problem (perhaps in agreement with the critics) is that the volume of aid and what is done with it (results) cannot be measured, evaluated and communicated. For example, resources transferred through remittances (which exceed all the aid budget), private foundations (the Gates and Clinton Foundations, for example), NGOs and citizens’ groups are not counted as official development assistance (ODA), as are the contributions of newly emerging donors like China and Arab countries. Some of the aid expenses, such as scholarship programs and administrative expenditures, do not benefit recipient countries. For example, people who get educated in Western countries through scholarship programs rarely go back (they stay in the West), yet scholarships are counted as ODA contributions to developing countries. The paper calls up on donor countries to create a common platform that involves diverse actors in the setting of aid agenda including the development of commonly agreed methodology to measure results.
Getachew Mequanent
Ottawa, Canada
September 2009