Some Critical Remarks
One thing is sure: Asres’s book reveals far-reaching revolutionary ideas. Specifically, his analyses of the harmful impacts of Western education and economic penetration are both radical and highly insightful. So my criticism is not attempting to show the invalidity of his analyses, notwithstanding the fact that they appear excessive at times. Equally excessive is his high regard for tradition and the traditional system of education, not to mention the fact that some of his proposals are, if not irrelevant, at least unrealistic. These shortcomings, however, do not reduce the value of his analyses.
Much more serious seems to me Asres’s inconsistencies, which strongly transpire in the complete lack of critical remarks vis-à-vis Emperor Haile Selassie and his regime. I know that a critical stand would have put his life in danger, but the fact remains that the book loses much of its revolutionary impact by not including a criticism of the imperial regime. After all, Haile Selassie has been the main instrument of the introduction of Western education and of the economic penetration of the West whose detrimental effects are analyzed with such a sharp insight. Surprising as it may sound, the book does not make the slightest allusion to the eminent role that Haile Selassie played in designing and applying a harmful policy of modernization.
Asres could not have missed that his acerbic criticisms of the modernizing process of Ethiopia extends to the initiator and patron of the process, to wit, Haile Selassie. Though the latter is the real culprit for the bad policy, Asres inconsistently put the blame on young Western educated Ethiopians. He repeatedly accuses them of being alienated and the prime instrument of the colonization of Ethiopia when they are but the products of Haile Selassie’s modernizing scheme. His book attacks the outcome of a policy and exonerates the real agent of Ethiopia’s derailment.
Another related inconsistency is that Asres’s defense of tradition loses its fervor every time that he has to deal with the imperial regime. Take what is said about the role of idil, that is, of God’s choice in the stratification of Ethiopian society. Asres asserts that each individual occupies the place assigned to him by God and that God’s choice gives the highest positions to those He created with adequate abilities. This justification of social stratification implies that the present rulers of Ethiopia, including the emperor himself, are not living up to expectations, since Ethiopia is divested of its personality and reduces to the status of a periphery of the West. Clearly, Asres backs down from being a staunch defender of tradition to avoid a clash with the regime. Some such reversal is unfortunate, given that he could have condemned the regime in the name of tradition, which would have provided the best defense of tradition. In showing that the present rulers of Ethiopia are traitors to the tradition of Ethiopia’s independence and divine mission, he would have mobilized nationalist feelings in his defense of tradition.
In light of Asres’s belief that the wisdom of God chooses the best leaders for Ethiopia, a basic condition for the implementation of God’s choices is undoubtedly the absence of social barriers to the promotion of the most able. But if mediocre people and sellouts continue to rule because they are protected by privileges, Asres should denounce the obstruction, all the more vehemently that it is bound to bring disaster, which is God’s punishment for going against His choices. Such a position could have been premonitory in view of the occurrence of the 1974 Revolution and the subsequent rise of the Derg, which brought about the decapitation of the traditional elite and plunged Ethiopia into untold sufferings and further deteriorations of its social cohesion and power.