By Alethia
This is the third article to complete the series of three articles that began with Truth is Stranger than Fiction,†in Part I, and Who Can Change Truth? in Part II.
I want to remind us what I’m after and what I’m up to in what I’m trying to share in these three short articles. I’ve never intended these short articles to solve any major problem or contribute anything significant to the multiple societal problems, our illnesses, as I’ve been referring to them. My intention has been modest, and hopefully realistic, as an attempt to understand the possible root causes for the problems we seem to have kept inheriting from generation to generation. Unless we pause to reflect, long and hard and deep, on the root causes for our ailments, I do not think we’d ever come up with a lasting solution or remedy for our illnesses.
Once again I want to underscore the approach I’m taking here at getting to the root causes for our societal ills, even individually and collectively. It’s diagnostic. It first aims at understanding before proposing a solution. It goes on proposing a solution based on the reality, the truth, about the root causes of the problems we all commonly share. We as a society have been around for quite some time, for far too long to fail to realize that our today’s problems have their roots in the past. Therefore, our past that has been giving birth to multiple problems that plague us today must be examined in order for us not to keep sinking into the abyss of hopelessness as we grope in darkness that never seems to be going away.
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Socrates, the philosopher, centuries ago, said “An unexamined life is not worth livingâ€Â. That motto seems equally true today, or even more so, for not all, or even the majority of us, would pause to examine our lives individually and collectively as a community and a society in search of lasting solutions for the problems that define us and which have also become our global identities. Who am I? Who are we, who are the Ethiopians? Why am I the way I am today? Why are we as a society the way we are today? We need to answer these ever timely questions turning to all the resources that we’ve at our disposal. We need to know the truth about us for truth to set us free, to free us from at least some of the most prominent yet multiple problems that plague us, gradually but permanently.
A point worth keeping in mind: these questions that I want us to wrestle with are not primarily questions of our political identity nor are they meant to receive solutions from political leaders even if we’ve the best political leaders in the history of the world. Political leaders can accomplish significant things only if there are values and principles that organize the society they lead and govern. If some of us still want to cling to the “hope†thinking and believing that political leaders have all the permanent solutions for our societal ills, the questions become: Is it reasonable for us to believe that it’s the job of political leaders to transform, for example, the moral lives and the moral characters of the people they are leaders of? Is it reasonable for us to expect from our political leaders to make us good, virtuous, truthful, honest, transparent people who are respectful to one another, hard working, loving, faithful, and on and on?
I hope that the answer to above rhetorical questions is clear. What kind of government in this world does possess all, or even most of, these virtues, intrinsically desirable values? The answer is, unsurprisingly, none. We also know why the answer is none: remember that political leaders are largely the products of the values of the larger society that they come from? Even if they can overcome all the ills they inherit from their larger society they cannot change the lives of the people they’re leaders of in any way that their political leadership allows them to do. One cannot make another human being a virtuous or a good person by force; that seems to be a contradiction in terms. Such changes of character begin, unsurprisingly, once again, with the life of an individual.
We, as a society, will not make much progress in any desirable direction if we fail to search for fundamental answers to the fundamental question, “Who am I?†first, before we search for answers to the question, “Who are we as a society?†for a society is a collection of individuals. The classic question which comes first, the chicken or the egg, applied to the questions we’re wrestling with becomes, which comes first, an individual or a society. I do not need to settle this question here since our question is not about the origin of human beings in the first place. Our purpose is rather to seek some answers to the question as to the logical starting point for desirable directions for societal change for there is no society without individuals that constitute it. Hence my focus on the importance of wrestling with fundamental questions about who we are as individuals first and as a society secondarily.
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Now my hope is that you, my readers, see where I’m heading to. If you recall from my previous articles I’ve made the point that all of us as human beings hold values, good or bad, and most of our decisions and actions in our individual and collective lives are reflections of those values.
Once we realize that the root causes for the larger societal illness could be traced back to that of an individual person’s life, and hence to one’s community that that individual belongs to and eventually to the larger society that community belongs to, a reasonable proposal for a solution for the larger societal ills seems to begin with a proposal to address the root causes for the life of an individual. The proposal that I suggest here for the life of an individual as well as that of a community and that of the society is spiritual and moral. I propose that the multiple problems that plague Ethiopia as a nation have their roots in the spiritual crises that the society has been undergoing for far, far too long.
Recall what I was hinting at in Part I in my article? I said there, “We [Ethiopians] claim to be a very religious society with profoundly religious and moral values that could have shaped Ethiopian history in a much desirable direction for centuries but then we’ve been what we claimed to be who we are largely in name, i.e., nominally. We, as a society, are paying a heavy price today because we’ve failed to live up to what we claim to be what defines us as a society and as a nation.†Now so, so many of us have believed and said out loud that Ethiopia is a Christian nation, one of the oldest Christian nations in the world, etc, etc. Still most of us preach this as a solid historical fact. No problem about that claim, my fellow Ethiopians. That is undisputable. But then do not forget that there is a huge difference between saying or claiming something and being what one says or claims to be. I can say or claim that I’m a Christian without even a vague idea of what it means to be a Christian. I do not want to name names for every single person who reads this piece, and who claims that that person is an Ethiopian and a Christian, hopefully, sees what I’m trying to communicate here.
Some in my audience will undoubtedly and perhaps reasonably protest saying that “you’re committing a fallacy of hasty generalization†by saying all Ethiopians have failed to live up to what they claim to be Christians! I’ve an answer to this reasonable charge and it’s this: if what I say does not reflect any degree of truth about you, my dear reader, then I’m not addressing you, but then upon careful self-examinations if you discover some ways of failing to live up to what the Christian faith requires you to live, then it’s a good thing to know the truth about yourself and do something about it for your neighbors, and above all your community needs some such exemplary Christians like you who live their lives consistently, as much as possible, as their ultimate identity as Christianity calls them to live out their lives on their own, individually, and in the midst of their community and the larger society. Those of us who’ve failed in any way to live up to the resources our Christian faith offers us need you. Live your life in such a way that others emulate your exemplary life. I’m not judging any person for that is not my job, nor is it my responsibility. Far from it. I’m only trying to draw out implications by way of diagnosis of our root causes for our society starting with the life of an individual. Who am I? Who are we? We need transforming answers to these fundamental questions.
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If what we claim to be who we are as individuals and as a community and a society is not largely in name, if we’re not largely nominally Christian as a society, I want any one in the audience to show me how some of the following Christian values bring about the kind of paralysis that we’ve witnessed far, far too long in Ethiopia as a nation. Let’s take some of the resources from what we claim we’ve as our birth right as one of the oldest Christian nations:
Christian faith teaches, among other so many things, some of these: love as the most fundamental virtue, one consequence of embodying this virtue is loving our neighbors as ourselves; our neighbors include even our enemies these days more than any other time! Jesus whom we claim to follow loved those who killed him even while they were in the process of killing him.
And truth and truthfulness is another inherently good thing. How consistently do we, those who claim to be Christians, tell truth and resist lying all the time?
What about humility? How many of us, those who claim to be Christians, are humble enough to admit our weaknesses and think that others are better than us? How often have we learned from our mistakes in such a way that learning from our mistakes has changed our lives for better? I’m asking fellow Ethiopians as an Ethiopian myself, mind you, I’m not a foreigner to the way our deep rooted habits manifest themselves; can we, many of us, it could be even most of us, say honestly, truthfully and humbly, that we’re a society where one can observe more often than not, our humility, considering others to be better than others, in light of what we claim ourselves to be, a Christian nation?
Peace and being peaceful with oneself and with others is another Christian virtue. I do not need to comment on this for it’s too obvious how much peace we’ve lacked in our nation’s long history.
Virtues such as goodness and kindness and self-control are Christian virtues and we can see how these virtues define us as a society too. I leave the answer to my readers.
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Now I do not want some among my readers to conclude from the above brief outline of Christian virtues that are meant to define Christian character in a way that those who claim that they are Christians that I’m under an illusion to believe or to suggest that everyone in Ethiopia is a Christian or wants to be a Christian or has anything to do with Christianity. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I’m only trying to show that if those who claim to be Christians in Ethiopia, in the past or at the present, live their lives, starting with an individual and as a community, the following vices that have been destroying the society would not be a result of the virtues outlined above.
Where, then, do the following vices come from such as hatred, discord, jealousy, selfish ambitions, envy, factions, etc, etc? Can we honestly and sincerely be oblivious to the fact that such vices, among so many others, define us as a people, as a community, or as a society? Can we honestly and truthfully say that such characters, such vices, are the exact outworking of our history as Christians then? To just cite from the Christian Scriptures, from the source book for our Christian faith, if need be, the following text seems to sum up what I want to communicate about us as a society and as individuals: “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. 14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each otherâ€Â. Galatians 5: 13-15. Have we not been fulfilling what the Apostle Paul has warned us against as we continued to bite and devour each other? Mind you, my dear readers, I’m only showing the implications of our persistent, endless claims about who we’re as a nation for a long time, a Christian nation, a Christian island, Ethiopia, as its history, or its story goes. I’m not making up anything. The logical outworking of such claims is clear for anyone who wants to pause to reflect on what it means to be a Christian as an individual and as a nation.
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Now multiple objections could be raised against such naïve sounding talk about a possible diagnosis of our multiple problems and how they could be taken as some pieces of evidence for our failure to live out what we claim to be our birth right, our Christian identity, which we claim to define us as a society. I’d only mention a few objections and show how to respond to them, just briefly.
Are you saying that everyone in Ethiopia should be a Christian in order to exercise some or all of the virtues you’ve listed above? Who can believe such a proposal in the first place whoever proposes that? I said these virtues are inherently desirable, good things in and of themselves. Even an atheist who believes that there is no God cannot deny, sincerely and consistently, that love is a virtue, love of truth and truthfulness are good things and so forth for other virtues. But Christians, as many call themselves to be so in Ethiopia, who claim that their Christian faith commits them to the pursuit of such virtues fail to live up to their Christian faith when they do not practice what they claim to believe if they care honestly and consistently about what they claim to be.
Almost half or more than half of the Ethiopian population consists of our Muslim brothers and sisters and why are you leaving them out? I leave the answer to our Muslim brothers and sisters if what their faith commits them to contradicts all or some of the virtues that we’ve observed above. Having said that, I suggest that even when an atheist would not, honestly and consistently, deny such virtues since they are intrinsically good and desirable, I cannot see how Islam would commit our Muslim brothers and sisters to a denial of such values an atheist would hold without believing in any supernatural being.
What about other Ethiopians who are neither Muslims nor Christians who believe in whatever or nothing; are you saying that they are inherently vicious people or cannot be virtuous people if they are not Christians? What I said does not automatically commit me to saying that because I’ve already argued that those Christian values described above and others like them are values that are inherently or intrinsically good and desirable and any person who embodies and lives them out reflects shared values that Christians are committed to living by, if they do live by them, as their Christian faith requires them to.
Now one more objection, among many others, could be: you kept saying that these Christian values are inherently or intrinsically good and desirable values but show us that they are what you portray them to be. My short answer to this challenge to anyone who is doubtful or skeptical of such values as love, truthfulness, honesty, humility, goodness, kindness, being peaceful, etc as being intrinsically good and desirable is for my objector to argue and show the rest of us that it’s possible to be loving, truthful, humble, kind, good, peaceful in any other way that does not require the resources of the Christian faith. Even if such a task is possible that does not make those values intrinsically bad or evil, it will only show that there are independent arguments to arrive at them without being committed to Christianity. But then, once again, that does not show that such values are not inherent to the Christian faith either.
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When I finished Part II of my article I said, “In Part III of this series I’ll address the people of Ethiopia, including myself, as to what we should do to bring about a desirable change for ourselves as a society. Political leaders can accomplish only so much. If the value of the society is conducive or fertile for the leadership of those in various leadership responsibilities, that way, we, all of us in leadership positions and otherwise, can usher in a better future for a future generation of Ethiopians. A forward looking generation now can give birth to a generation that will flourish in the good things, the good legacy that it receives from its previous generations, that is us. I do hope that we can become a forward looking generation while focusing on the present for without the present there will not be a future.†Who am I; who are we, once again? I do hope that knowing the truths about us will begin to set us free from all the vices that have become our defining identities, for some of us individually, and also collectively.
I do hope that the resources that we’ve at our disposal that we claim to be our birth rights, the religious and moral values, that I’ve attempted to briefly outline above, will go a long way in transforming us individually and collectively for a generation that cries out to see such a transformation in us. Am I being a utopian, proposing an impossible ideal for a society? Absolutely not! For those who entertain a nagging doubt about this whole idealistic, dogmatically religious sounding talk, I hope to address some of your important doubts in a future book project where I’ll undertake an in-depth examination of values and ideals that shape or influence our lives as individuals and also as a society. This is just a small beginning to trigger some probing questions as I hope we set out to discover fundamentally transforming answers to our fundamental questions, who I am and who we are as individuals and as a nation, as Ethiopians.
The writer can be reached for comments at [email protected]