MATTERS OF CONSCIENCE OR STRATEGY
Teshome Abebe
September 5, 2014
Winning doesn’t always mean being
first! I begin the current essay with this
statement at the risk of inviting the wrath of our esteemed athletes such as
the supreme and majestic Tirunesh Dibaba; the indefatigable Kennenisa Bekele;
the unrelenting Haile Gebre Sellassie; and other innumerable up and coming
national treasures of today as well as tomorrow; along with the pioneering king
and supremely gifted Abebe Bikila; the indomitable Mamo Wolde; and of course,
the smooth-sailing and record-breaking Mirutse Yifter. For these almost
super-human athletes, there was no place better than first place. The measure
of their success is so daunting that I can only attempt to live vicariously—re-living
their exploits on video clips and enjoying their achievements as if it were
mine. Needless to say, to these athletes goes a debt of gratitude by a proud and
satisfied nation for lessons well-delivered that overcoming a nation’s ills is
much more difficult than obliterating one’s limitations or perceived challenges.
Yet, in both the human endeavor as well as the affairs of the state usually
what you emphasize is what you generally get.
Back to the point of this essay.
Does winning always mean being first? Bonnie Blair, an American gold medalist
(five gold and one bronze in speed skating) is credited for saying “Winning
doesn’t always mean being first.” For her, winning means that you are doing
better than you have ever done before. And I am certain that for the
aforementioned athletes, at some point, winning meant doing better than they had
ever done before!
Since my first essay on the topic
of Ethiopia, Egypt and the Blue Nile titled, “Of Egypt, Gratuitous Contempt and
National Identity” of June 12, 2013, there have been a multitude of scholarly
papers; essays, opinions and television talk programs that have informed our
point of view on the relationship between these two brotherly countries. The
commentaries on the Ethiopian side have been fully supportive of the position
the government of Ethiopia has taken, and on the Egyptian side, it has all been
(save some enlightened souls) condemnation tinged with coercive threats at the
gumption of an upper riparian state that has suddenly summoned the courage to
utilize its natural endowment—the Blue Nile. The ‘hobbyhorse’ of the
opinion-makers in Egypt has been the diminution of the Ethiopian state, with
the default vocabulary no doubt being of what the gods could do to it. This was
so, at least until the election of President Sisi.
With the election of President
Sisi, there appears to be the birth of new hope that the two countries will
focus on the mutuality of issues that confront them instead of against each
other. Egypt has enormous challenges facing it, least of which is the
performance of its economy despite the billions of dollars it receives in aid
or grants from its Middle Eastern benefactors. Among the other big challenges
are the political turmoil associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the emergence
of new and ultra-fundamentalist sectarian enclaves, and Egypt’s traditional
guardianship of the client states in the Middle East who are under enormous
threats and stresses. As a consequence, and at least for now, President Sisi
seems to have reoriented Egyptians’ obsessional habit of looking south and
finding a non-existent enemy toward a constructive engagement with the
potential to explore with curiosity. Whether this is a matter of conscience or
simply strategy, it will remain to be seen. One thing we may contemplate is
that, in the context of the contested terrain of the politics of both Ethiopia
and Egypt, there are no matters of
"conscience," just strategy!
On the Ethiopian side, setting
aside the ongoing and enormous challenges of underdevelopment, there seems to
be the clarity of unsullied concentration on both the strategy and the task at
hand of completing the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as promised to
the people. Part of the strategy appears to include a diplomatic push to
strengthen the Ethiopian case; maintaining a solid and defensible position on
matters of controversy; aiming for self-reliance as opposed to self-sufficiency
on matters pertaining to the GERD; and, simply overlooking or ignoring the
well-cultivated smugness of the Egyptian hyper-ventilators on the issue, for
good measure.
Bad decisions yield grim results.
While it is a sign of progress that the latest tri-partite ministerial
conference held on August 25-26 in Khartoum yielded agreement to study: a) the
hydrology modeling, and b) the Transboundary environmental issues associated
with the construction of the GERD, it is important to understand that not every
body or not all issues can be placed in nicely compartmentalized containers. As
a result, further disagreements can still be stirred up and differences could
be envisaged. Moving forward, however, it would behoove both parties to
remember what are said to be Voltaire’s last words to his priest who was by his
bedside and who asked him to renounce Satan: the reply, “Now is not the time
for making new enemies.”
What appears to emerge now, we
must acknowledge, is that there is a resolve on the part of both countries to focus
on what they could accomplish jointly instead of unrealistically attempting to
delay the future. The history of these two countries is replete with mistrust
and, in some cases, disdain. It is encouraging to see the brotherly countries
trying to do things much better than they have ever done before—“winning”. The
first step of doing better is, of course, knowing better. And this first step,
I believe, has begun in earnest. While the GERD has the potential to free
Ethiopians from thirst or the lack of energy to further cultivate manufacturing
processes and enhance development, I believe it also has the power to liberate
Egypt, albeit with some mixture of mourning, from the self imposed prison and
unsustainable state of monopolistic power grab.
Dr. Teshome Abebe
is Professor of Economics, and may be reached at: teshome2008@gmail.com.