Voice of America and Changing Times

It has been common for Ethiopian Diaspora political groups to clash with almost every national and international agency that contacts the Ethiopian government. The latest one is the Voice of America (VOA). In this case, the story (according to Diaspora web sites) is that the VOA Broadcasting Board of Governors has just come back from Ethiopia blackmailed by the Ethiopian government to de-politicize VOA’s broadcast programming including shuffling staff and imposing self-censorship. While there is no public information detailing the meeting between the Board of Governors and Ethiopian officials, the main issue raised by the Ethiopian government may not be difficult to understand, in that, VOA broadcasts in Ethiopia are too political and favour Diaspora political groups, thereby leading the government to block the broadcasts. VOA’s director Steve Redisch would go public later to confirm that the Ethiopian government had indeed filed complaints and that VOA management would look into them. More importantly, Redisch made it clear that VOA’s interest was to focus broadcast programming on issues more relevant to the needs and aspirations of the Ethiopian people.

I am writing here to express my appreciation of the changing times and the fact that media organizations like VOA are making adjustments. For decades, public space in the Ethiopian Diaspora has been monopolized by vocal groups consisting of political and intellectual elites who once had dominated Ethiopian society. Today those of us who came to the West as destitute refugees have established ourselves and entered public domains to raise awareness of the plight of our relatives back home. While we believe that freedom of speech is important, issues like economic growth, environment, socio-cultural rights, urban pollution, technology, trade, corruption, and so on, are equally important as they affect the daily lives of the Ethiopian masses. An NGO worker who visited Northern Ethiopia told me how communities are often cut off from each other for days or weeks in the rainy season when torrential rains downpour and fill up streams and rivers. The government’s priority should be training rural people on how to build simple overpass bridges, he said. Who says VOA would not be able to host discussions that inspire research in appropriate technology for building rural overpass bridges? VOA could also share the stories of our Diaspora compatriots who support various social and economic development projects in Ethiopian cities and countryside. Recently one American newspaper featured a story about a little Ethiopian-American girl who founded a charity organization that collects and sends pencils to Ethiopia to help poor school kids.

One continuing problem for Ethiopian Diaspora groups is that they remain preoccupied with gathering information critical of the Ethiopian government and then going to the media to disseminate propaganda information. This is still ok, but there has to be a balance between politics and many other issues. Very few may in fact believe that it is possible to de-politicize the development process in Ethiopia. Woreda (district) officials often complain of project delays. People demand access to services. Abuse of pubic offices, nepotism, corruption and other governance problems are common. These are serious accountability issues with political implications. They ought to be understood in historical, institutional, political, social and cultural contexts. The Ethiopian Television now produces good quality programs (by an Ethiopian standard) that raise popular awareness of public policy issue, history, culture, politics and environment. VOA also has to find its broadcasting nitche, otherwise its relevance for changing Ethiopian society will be limited.

The case of China is worthy of mentioning here. VOA has already cut broadcast programming in China and the explanation was budgetary constraints. One would find this explanation somewhat insufficient given the importance of democracy and human rights issues in China. Perhaps a large part of VOA’s decision had to do with US government foreign policy strategies, such as the US wanting to access China’s $3.3 trillion cash in foreign reserves (the US already owes China $1.7 trillion). Maybe all this should not be important to us. What is important is to appreciate the changing times and seek other ways of promoting freedom and democracy in China, such as through the transfer of knowledge and skills that build the capacity of the Chinese state to open up space for the participation of its citizens while effectively managing popular demands generated by politically active citizens. Ethiopia is a poor country and a major recipient of American aid, but this reality does not suggest that America can help to promote democracy in the country by providing airwaves for warring Diaspora groups that are even responsible for the division and fragmentation of our Diaspora communities.

VOA was created in the Second World War to disseminate war related information. After the end of the war, the American government used it to spread propaganda against communism, and most recently (in the post-Cold War period), to promote elections and human rights. It is also true that Third World exiled and immigrant elites (including reactionaries and terrorists) took advantage of American and other Western country foreign policies to promote their own remote controlled political agenda. Today times have changed, so that Diaspora elites have little support for their political projects. Western governments are more concerned with responding to the UN and other international agencies demanding increased support in the fight against global poverty and climate change. More important, Western governments are preoccupied with domestic issues ranging from fiscal recovery and stability to public security. Since 9/11 there has also been a general change of perception of immigrant populations, as the debate on the impact of increasing flow of immigration on security, culture and economy has intensified. All this is to say that the Diaspora like ours ought to be realistic in what ways or how much they can influence Western government foreign policies to achieve political leverages. In any case, Ethiopia is a rising regional power more and more called upon to contribute to international efforts for global peace and security. The US and other Western governments would need to work with the Ethiopian government to address security, diplomacy, commerce and other international issues. This is not however to suggest that VOA’s current effort to address the concern of the Ethiopian government (politicized VOA broadcasting) is guided by the American tradition of foreign policy realism. It is rather to suggest that we need to appreciate the changing times and embrace new approaches that have potential to nurture a culture of democracy in public debate at the same time contributing to Ethiopia’s development.

Getachew Mequanent
Ottawa, Canada
August 1, 2011