MATTERS OF CONSCIENCE OR STRATEGY

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MATTERS OF CONSCIENCE OR STRATEGY

 

Teshome Abebe

September 5, 2014

 

 

Winning doesn’t always mean being first! I:download.jpg 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.

 

 



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