Ethiopian Legacy
Strengthening remarks to Prof. Merera Gudina's article, "The New Directions of Ethiopian Politics"
By Messay Kebede
April 1998
Merera Gudina's article, "The New Directions of Ethiopian Politics," published in the September-October 1997 issue of Ethiopian Review directly inspires this writing. It is not a reply to the article, still less a criticism: in general, I found the article well-thought, defiantly synthesizing the two commitments of the author, namely his attachment to Ethiopian unity and his allegiance to Oromo identity and interests. When the prevailing mood among some Oromo intellectuals is to polarize the two commitments to the point of imposing a choice between being Ethiopian or Oromo, the display of such a brisk and promising synthesis comes as a relief. Leaning on Professor Merera's dismissal of the idea of incompatibility between the two identities, my comments suggest some strengthening remarks in favor of unity.
Remarkably enough, the central position of Merera springs from the acceptance of a clear democratic principle. Since the Oromo are believed to constitute the single largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, the way some of their so-called representatives revel in the idea of secession is strange, as Merera seems to say. A minority group can have recourse to secession when it finds no other means to protect its particularism and interests. Not so a majority group whose goals are attainable through the normal pursuit of democratic changes. Owing to this coincidence of the interests of such a group with democratic changes, its representatives should opt for an internal form of struggle promoting changes within unity.
As yet, no clear idea emerges as to why some Oromo groups think exclusively in terms of secession from Ethiopia. Do they mean that a democratic change is anything but reachable in Ethiopia? Or is it that democracy will eventually entail the decline of their cause, which therefore values the issue of ethnic purity above the redress against injustice and the establishment of equality? In both cases, the attempt to keep aloof so important an ethnic group as the Oromo from the cause of Ethiopian democratization is only another way of blocking the progress of democracy. The suspicion that once more secession is used less to further the real interests of the concerned peoples than to invent and appropriate new centers of power by contending groups is hardly avoidable.
Merera suggests other ideas in favor of Ethiopian unity. Thus, the historical argument according to which the inclusion of the Oromo in Ethiopian politics and society dates far back from Menelik's southern expansion understands the expansion more as a completion of a process started long ago than as a sudden outburst of colonial intrusion into a foreign land. For the Oromo already settled in Ethiopia, where they even gained political prominence, as in the case of the Yejju Dynasty, the unconquered part of Oromia appeared as an anomaly. In effect, by involving both the Amhara and the Oromo, the incorporation turned into their common product, there being no doubt that Shoa became instrumental in effecting the conquest due to the large Oromo participation. Even if subsequent ill-advised developments changed the "reunification" into a massive land expropriation and hegemonic rule of one ethnic group, the fact remains that the expansion has never been anything like an overseas conquest.
In the light of these overlapping histories and identities, the Oromo claim to the Ethiopian identity is simply a reinstatement of a common historical legacy. Assuming, then, that Oromo secessionists only aspire to be faithful to Oromo legacy, the recognition that the most exciting part of Oromo history and identity is interwoven with Ethiopian history should pull them back from the idea of secession. The desire to achieve a tabula rasa on this other identity of the Oromo is no less oppressive than the Amhara hegemony. Instead of harmonizing the issue of Oromo identity with Ethiopian unity, the decision to uphold exclusively the one to the detriment of the other is not far from self-dispossession. Yet dispossession and marginalization of the Oromo people were precisely the crimes of which the Amhara ruling elite was accused. This strange agreement between accusers and accused bodes no good for any party. Events demand redefinition, not denial.
Another consequence of overlapping histories, according to Merera, is the difficulty to demarcate the borders of the future independent Republic of Oromia. The difficulty is not confined to territorial demarcations, flowing from the fact that the Oromo have boundaries with almost all Ethiopian ethnic groups. It is also tied up with the extremely explosive, unpredictable, and chaotic situation that would inevitably result from the secession of Oromia. No mistake about it: the secession of Oromia would entail nothing short of the dismemberment of Ethiopia whose consequence would be the multiplication of conflicts caused as much by bitterness as by claims and counterclaims of territories. Supposing that Oromia would be immune from internal divisions, some such environment of war, bitterness, claims and counterclaims, further aggravated by inevitable economic disasters and political crises, would be scarcely propitious for any isolated project of prosperity. It is like imagining a safe island in a tormented sea. Clearly, the whole region would be moving from uncertainty to a totally unpredictable and perilous situation.
Moreover, secession would not do away with the problem as it is now posed. The dismemberment of Ethiopia would not cancel the problem pertaining to the inclusion within Oromia or areas and towns populated by strong minorities, just as the appearance of mini states controlling little resources would incline some of them to seek integration into larger groups. Should the solution favor the Oromization of minorities or the device of a multiethnic state calling for reconciliation and peace, in both cases consistency would suffer most. Whereas Oromization would be tantamount to following a discredited policy of forced assimilation, the creation of a multiethnic state would simply invalidate the prior dismemberment of Ethiopia. Most reasonable, therefore, is the resolution to reform the inherited Ethiopian state rather than to call into existence new states whose shortcomings would outweigh their anticipated advantages, not to mention the complete irrelevance of the destruction of Ethiopia.
These arguments in support of unity must not be underestimated: they simply require a larger framework of comprehension. For more can be said about unity if only we take the trouble to ponder over the conformity of democratic Ethiopia with the ideal of Oromia. If democratic Oromia is achievable, so is democratic Ethiopia, as both require the same means, the very ones having to do with the acceptance of diversity with the issuing rights, be they those of a majority or a minority. Indeed, nothing is more confused than the belief that the democratic principles and rules necessary to handle ethnic diversity are different from the management of social diversity. In the future Oromia, not only other ethnic groups, but diverse religious groups and classes will interact. The democratic principles and rules that Ethiopia now needs to promote justice and equality are also those that Oromia will need to manage its social and cultural diversity, the only difference being that Ethiopia is a present reality while Oromia is yet to come into existence. This gap between the ideal and the real is only a test of how far our democratic disposition is ready to face real challenges instead of looking for excuses behind the requirement of an ideal situation.
When Merera reminds the Oromo elite that "the Oromo have a far better historic role to play at far less cost by assuming the leadership of both the maintenance of Ethiopian unity and the democratization of the Ethiopian state and society, he discloses the dependence of Oromo interests and well-being on the renovation of Ethiopia. No need to postpone our democratic commitments until Oromia sees the day: the best we can do for Oromia is here and now, as it is called the democratization of Ethiopia. Just as the same person cannot be tolerant toward his family while being intolerant toward other peoples, so too the ideal of Oromia passes through the struggle to change Ethiopia.
True, some Oromo intellectuals toy with the idea that the Ethiopian temperament is not democratic, that the Oromo, owing to their gada tradition, are more prone to democratic principles than the peoples of northern Ethiopia. This statement succeeds in converting secession into the sole available means to realize the Oromo potential only by being heedless even of our recent history. For instance, it pushes aside the decisive impact of Amhara students and intellectuals on the social movement which led to the overthrow of the imperial regime, even though many of them had vested interests in the then prevailing land system. The non-recognition of this contribution has engendered bitterness and lack of communication on all sides. While many Amhara students and intellectuals had understood clearly how imperative the sacrifice of undue privileges was to the fulfillment of their dream of a genuine modern nation, now the bitterness is such that some wonder whether the sacrifice was not vain, whether their struggle did not trigger the present decline of Ethiopia.
Let us go further still. Assuming that after so prolonged an exchange between Amhara and Oromo peoples the latter have not inherited some of the alleged vices of the former, still the paradox of a large ethnic group increasingly induced to assert its ethnic particularism rather than its democratic rights remains. It stands to reason that the assumption of the leadership of both the defense of the unity of Ethiopia and its democratization is a right for so important an ethnic group as the Oromo. Better still, it is a universalist vocation emanating from the conjugation of oppression with the numerical and economic importance of the Oromo.
Agreed, the concept of self-determination up to secession is a democratic right. But when the right to secession prevails over or becomes a sine qua non of the exercise of democratic rights, by the very fact that a condition is thus set, democracy is de facto curtailed and secession deprived of its democratic entitlement. A people cannot be said to have chosen freely secession unless it has the right to choose. So much is this true that secession should be the culmination of democratic rights already in action, not the moment of their birth. Put otherwise, secession becomes a democratic alternative when other democratic means have failed. So long as it is made into a condition before other democratic means were even tried, the whole concept continues to smack of manipulation and intoxication. There is no way by which the Oromo can exercise secession as a democratic right if democratic rights are not previously and truly their own.
Now is the time to examine the premise of the Oromo being better off among themselves than in the Ethiopian diversity. I am not referring to human and natural resources: these matter little so long as people do not get down to serious work. No sooner is the validity of this statement recognized than the north emerges with a contribution of great importance, namely the legacy of a glorious and embattled history of survival. The protracted preservation of independence and identity against all the odds, in particular through the resistance of an indigenous Christian Church backed by a no less autochthonous imperial system, which even defeated colonial onslaughts, is a legacy transcending by far any of its shortcomings while being also crucial to the fostering of modern achieving drive. Since the Oromo have been active participants in various ways in this odyssey of survival, the merit belongs to them as well.
If Ethiopians have any reason to foster an unwavering will to modernize, it should emanate from the anger, the frustration of seeing the glorious history reduced to the humiliations of present-day Ethiopia, characterized by such calamities as civil wars, famines, generalized poverty, and secessions. From this anger and shame should arise the need for expiation in the only way Ethiopians can, to wit through hard work. Indeed, the background of a glorious history poses the modernization of Ethiopia in terms not so much of imitating the West as of recovering its rightful place in the world. Transcending the aspiration to material betterment, this heritage turns the modernization of the country into a duty. So that, the appropriation of the historical legacy is the best way for Ethiopians to nurture the will to modernize if only because it spurs them on by the imperative to be up to its expectations. In addition to inspiring ambitious goals, this inclusion of the exigency of a unique and galvanizing legacy in our memory, that is in our present identify, is apt to sustain the sacrifices needed to translate ambitions into reality. Unfortunately, Western education so inculcated Ethiopians with the tendency to debunk rather than extol the Ethiopian legacy that they ended up by acquiescing to their suggested insignificance. Secession is one of the products of this self-depreciation. And the deafening encouragement bestowed by some Western intellectual circles on the idea of Oromo secession is only an upgraded lesson in historical striptease.
Yet oppose separatism, and integration becomes the best incentive for Ethiopians to develop universal, modern values. When one ethnic group tries to assimilate with other ethnic groups, the same idiosyncrasy is simply multiplied. The opposite occurs when diversity is targeted: the outcome is then the fostering of universal values over and above ethnic particularism. These universal values, comprising, among other things, democratic values, emerge from the necessity of managing diversity, of being involved in a give-and-take process of social change. That is why the rise of ethnicity should be not so much condemned as encouraged to seek integration. In this way, particularism is used to promote from inside impersonal values. In short, Ethiopian ethnic groups are better off together because the necessity of integration is liable to change them. Change is then not the product of acculturation, but an inner process stemming from their dual commitment to Ethiopian unity and ethnic particularism.
Modernization begins when universal values rule over particularism and ascriptions. It establishes the conditions of a fair, equal competition whereby what each person possesses is due neither to birth nor to any form of ascription. By the way, Merera's endorsement of an ethnic based federal formula in Ethiopia arouses my reservations, less because it upholds federalism than because it institutes an ascriptive right going against the modern principle of free intercourse and movement as well as the secularization of property. To my mind, the defense of Ethiopian unity is the royal road to achieving the integration of universal values. No better method can be found to promote modernization than this sanction for impersonal values and rules in the assertion of idiosyncrasies, be they religious, ethnic, or individual. Already too inclined toward impersonalization by its religious and imperial components soaring above ethnic references, the Ethiopian legacy can only be a fertile ground for impersonal values.
Far be it from me to imply that outside the Ethiopian framework modernization is unlikely. Rather, I suggest that the Ethiopian context renders modernization far less costly, more predictable and resourced, and all-embracing. Above all, siding with historical consistency, it promises a genuine form of modernization which, because it avoids being imitative of or subservient to external models, is headed for more power and creativity.
Neither the Amhara nor the Oromo nor any other ethnic group can hope to preserve its ethnic purity. Modernization being what we all long for, change is inevitable. I mean the kind of change affecting much of our common and particular legacies. So the issue is less to remain the same than to devise means whereby what can be saved and deserve to be saved is salvaged through the assumption of a modern configuration. The more the trend is to divert from the Ethiopian legacy, the deeper becomes the need to refer to external models, and the higher the resulting crisis of identity. With all its problems, resources, and historical legacy, Ethiopia, so far stigmatized as the prison house of nationalities, offers the most reasonable and promising way to achieving modernity: the solution to its problems simply coincides with the cultivation of modern values and methods. This indigenous path to modernity loudly says that Ethiopia is still worth trying.
____________________________________________________
Messay Kebede, Ph.D., was a member of Addis Abeba University faculty for many years, both as lecturer and chairman of the Department of Philosophy. His university career was interrupted following the illegal mass dismissal of 40 instructors by the EPRDF-led government in March 1993. He now lives in the U.S. He will resume his university career as member of the Department of Philosophy of at the University of Dayton, Ohio, in August 1998. Prof. Messay has published many articles in reputable international journals of philosophy and a book entitled, Meaning and Development. He has a new book due to appear this year entitled Ethiopia: Survival and Modernization.
