Social capital is different. It is built from such intangible matters as trust, norms, observance of rules and procedures in relationships following principles, submitting to institutional logic and not to personalised and egoistic pursuits. Each of these elements (e.g., rules, procedures etc..) in and of themselves may be practised in isolation but the human interaction, networks and relationships to generate predictable, irreversible and sustainable solidarity, coordination and collective action is dependent on a combination of the intangible elements that constitute together social capital. When such social capital breaks down it is not easy to fix and reproduce.
When there is high social capital, the tendency for breakdown to undertake effective social action is very low. Conversely when there is low social capital, the tendency to quarrel over little irritating matters is very high. Thus the building and the existence of social capital is a necessary condition to undertake sustainable transformation and development in any environment, cultural and power context. All those that have developed have built over a course of time strong foundations, institutions, citizenship, trust, norms and rules whose interactions together result amongst members in organisations to undertake effective collective actions. They have internalised values of social capital that allows them to function with coordination and cooperation. They have built the culture and ability to deal with effectively against corrosive actions both internal and external that undermine social capital.
7. The Significance of Building Social Capital in Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, we have to learn to build and infuse society with social capital on all fronts. Instead what we seem to see is the opposite. The agenda that drives the country’s system- world (the public realm) and life-world of the citizen (the private realm) is the ethnic philosophy, agenda, policy, discourse and narrative. If the individuals’ existential life world is interpreted with the ethnic variable and the system of government and constitution is also based on vernacular and ethnic foundations, how can constructive social capital that composes, unites and creates solidarity amongst citizens grow? How can civic solidarity, civic expression and civic-based political, social, economic, scientific and cultural engagement be fostered and promoted? It is hard to see how Ethiopia’s social capital can be expected to be growing with the current ethnic dispensation.
If politics is parcelled along ethnic fault lines, how can people vote for citizens with the best ideas, best programmes, best policies and best strategies for delivering service? How can people vote for those that are ethically, intellectually and politically committed rather than those who may be ethnic entrepreneurs? How can norms of reciprocity and networking based on citizenship be fostered when ethnicism dominates and undermines politics based for citizens’ rights and development? How can social capital grow under such constraints? How can building social capital within the ethnic enclosure help the trans-ethnic social capital amongst the citizens?
One of the appealing consequences from the rise of knjit was the possibility of re-framing national politics on the foundation of citizenship and not ethnicity or vernacular specificity. Knjit appeared to promise the emergence of social capital based on a movement that involved citizens’ votes, expressions, voices. It created a new political space that fired the national imagination.
Kinjit and its ally Hibret to a large extent appeared to reverse the prevailing logic of current Ethiopian politics. The ruling idea says that ethnic and vernacular identity is the basis of politics. Knjit reversed this logic by appearing to say: Only on the basis of the foundational principle of free and unconstrained citizenship by vernacular and ethnic fences can the rights and freedom of ethnic nationalities and vernacular expressions find constructive manifestation without undermining social capital. The reverse logic of starting with the specificities of ethnicity and vernacular identity will not add up to the non ethnicised and non-vernacularized citizen for the promotion of social capital for creating a web of trust, norms, reciprocity, sympathy amongst the networks of relationships the people form in carrying out their economic, social, political, cultural and scientific pursuits…