They are still indignant, confident and with unwavering devotion for human rights and the rule of law; the usual suspects, the one and the only ones- Zone9bloggers from the notorious Ethiopian prison still pen, criticize and inspire thousands regardless of the hardship they have to go through on a daily basis. I still couldn't believe this piece was written by someone who is being incarcerated for the crimes he didn't commit. Befqadu and his colleagues are critiquing the brutal and vengeful regime knowing that their shackles on their skinny arms and legs will be fastened harsh for such writings. I think, we are the ones who are in jail; THEY- the unbeatable young, fearless and innocent Ethiopians are sacrificing their lives to free us, AMEN! Facebook and aimed at ending EPRDF’s two-decade authoritarian rule. Just after a year I wrote one more rejoinder titled “Revolution is Ephemeral ’. In this article I tried to highlight what Ethiopians truly lack to launch a genuine social revolution using social media. In these couple of articles it appeared that I went up against proponents of revolution but I was trying to explain the traceable causes and conditions of social revolution. In a nutshell, I was saying that the significant portion of the Ethiopian population, the opposition politicians, and the intellectuals and generally the elite and social ideals and social reality were not sufficiently prepared to kick-start an authentic and organic social change.
Yet again in 2012, I was inspired enough to write a series of articles under a general title ‘Concerning Change’ on our own blog Zone9. In the first of my series of articles titled “Will EPRDF hand over power by means of election?” I tried to explain why EPRDF will keep on clinging to power. I argued that EPRDF is not yet ready for an electoral democracy. In a bid to demonstrate an alternative yet constitutional means of possible social change such as civil disobedience I wrote further articles as a follow up to my critique and highlighted different elements of social change across a spectrum of societal issues. As much as I can I tried to kindle genuine public conversations in bringing these issues to the public’s attention through my articles such as ‘Fear and Social Change’ ‘Regime Change and Religion’, ‘The Role of Civil Society in 1974 Ethiopian Revolution’ and “Revolution or Sluggish Change” It was during this time that I contemplated deeply about revolution. It was one phase of my life in which I have tried to articulate my comprehension of revolution into pieces of writings but it was also a stage of my life in which my belief on revolution was
dropped off
significantly. But I have to confess here
that my belief on revolution plummeted to its all-time low merely in 2013. Subsequently,
I found myself turned into an activist of an organic social change through
processes (not a transient revolution) from an avid reader and advocate of
revolutionary ideas. I have to put in
plain words that what made me skeptic of transient revolutions; I have to
explain at length that how I progressed (say it regress if you like) from being
optimistic revolutionary to a proponent of an organic and authentic social
change through processes, as the 1960s Ethiopian Marxist revolutionaries put it,
what turned me from being ‘Revo’ (revolutionary) to ‘Sabo’ (Saboteur). Please note that I was only an
enthusiastic reader of revolutionary ideas.
At some stage while I was grappling
with the revolutionary ideals of intending to bring fundamental structural
change in favor of the mass but unexpectedly might turn to be like unrestrained
wildfire which could be destructive; Mohamed Morsi was ousted in Egypt's second
revolution just in two years. The second Egyptian rebellion (revolution) made
me feel perplexed about revolutions. But I thought in his short-lived
presidency Morsi operated against basic principles of democracy and hence I
believed the second revolution was born in resistance to another form of
dictatorship. Certainly the second revolution even made me assert “A Conscious
public will not be a possession of a despot and Egyptians are a proof”. I
genuinely took the idea seriously that Egyptians would thrive in protesting until
they get their preferred form of government; just like the 18th century series
of French Revolutions which profoundly affected modern history. However, I
realized that this is not the case when I observe the Egyptian army suspended
the constitution and took control the revolution. In a similar manner of the
1974 Ethiopian Revolution during which the Ethiopian army hacked the revolution the Egyptian army did
the same. After that I even went as far as asking “If Revolutions are
inherently similar?”
In the meantime the
Ethiopian social media sphere and the private press spontaneously embarked on entertaining
a sort of peculiar conversations. These conversations were prompted by Jawar
Mohamed’s public comment on Al Jazeera’s English daily television
program called The Stream.
On the show when Jawar was pressed by the host of the show what he prefers,
flanked by his ethnic and national identity; he declared his ethnicity comes
first over his national identity and acknowledged himself as ‘Oromo First’. Many
consider the public discussion which followed the Jawar incident as a pointless
exercise of talking past each other but I
think of this spectacle in a
different way. I consider this
incident as one of fascinating things because it really helped many people to re-examine
their understanding of Ethiopia’s historical and political phenomenon. For me that
incident was an excellent opportunity and serves as an evidence that we need a
ground for long-running debates and a continuous scholarship on Ethiopia’s
historical and political phenomenon. The spectacle should be an eye opening and
insightful opportunity especially for those of us who are a loosely-knit
community of dissents, oppositions groups, writers and activists whose
organizing purpose is only to triumph over EPRDF. It was an incident that tasked
all of us to find a possible way and build a system that can maintain a
consensus among opponents. Furthermore, the incident made it clearer than ever
that most of us only know what we do not want but we do not clearly know what we
really want. To conclude on this, the incident exposed that Ethiopians struggle
for democracy is not principled but rather it is based on indignation and
grudge.
As
difficult as this issue to contemplate I started to realize the fact that despotic
leaders are generally results of broader and yet fundamental societal flaws. For
me this was like the aha! moment. So when revolution is conceived in a society
with a high degree of authoritarianism, the end result is usually more
authoritarianism. I think it comes down to individual elite who appeared liberal
and revolutionary from authoritarian society are either concealed authoritarian themselves or the society is not
yet ready to allow them to exercise
their liberty. This is like a classic causality dilemma, which one came first a
chicken or the egg. But I think one
should change first and it should be the society. It is with this eureka effect that I tried to revisit the
revolutions in the Arab world. Tunisia,
Egypt, Libya, and Syria… and I tend to think that the revolutions in these
countries have done more harm than good. They caused a great deal of
human suffering. Removing a despot does not necessarily guarantee a change. In
similar manner the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution which removed HaileSelassie’s rule
and replaced with the Dergue, a Marxist military junta is just as bad (If not
worse) than the revolutions of the Arab world. It is even worse if we consider
the human suffering that was caused by the infighting and power struggle of the
political parties of the time. I have watched when the storied Ukraine for its
Orange revolution of 2004 back to revolution all over again in 2014. I even
tweeted about it ‘to revolution then calmness and back’. The February 2014 Ukrainian revolution culminated (I am
not sure if I can say it is culminated) in turning over its own State Crimea to
pro-Russian forces even though it appeared the Russian involvement in Ukrainian affairs cited as one of the cause
of the revolution. I also wrote a commentary on my personal blog asking “Are revolutions meant to be betrayed? ››My point in this particular blog post was showing
reasons why elite citizens who usually initiate revolutions would end up in
brawl and infighting after they started revolutions. I used the old Amharic
saying to illustrate my point ‘Thieves usually do not fight when they steal but
they brawl when they divide what they robbed”. I intentionally used the word ‘thieves’ to
illustrate the context of Ethiopian political reality. I am referring
to Ethiopian astroturf political originations (formal or informal) that
are organized in the name of interest group to bring social change. Beyond
their being astroturf in their nature they fight each other. We have numerous such
groups
and their sole propose is to get hold of political power and harvest the
benefits from it not brining genuine revolution.
For
this reason I truly believe we can bring change without going through an instantaneous
revolution. We can take a good lesson from the history of English people. The
English people have a lot of exemplary deeds. Rule of law, discussion and
public engagement though grass root organizations can bring the desired form of
government and we can also achieve social change peacefully.
An acquaintance
of mine who knows my stance of instantaneous social change came to visit
me in prison after I was unjustly accused of inciting revolution. He looked at me and said " Aha, what did
I told you, there will never be a change without revolution’. But remarkably
even in the injustices and sufferings me and my zone9 blogging collective colleagues
have been through I still see the need for an authentic social change. Had the
society have had the consciousness; they would have seen the impunity of the
Ethiopian government (police) enjoy and the injustice we are suffering from. Apparently
the Ethiopian government does not have the slightest concern for legitimate
questions of Ethiopians but rather they are deeply bothered by the ‘noise of
foreign powers’. Suffering the
consequence of using the right to freedom of expression has become a social
reality because the society sits silently and watches all the injustice.
Society should start to speak up against injustice but to do so we should
embark on educative and liberating process through grassroots activism and peaceful
disobedience which are yet not happened in Ethiopia. Once a society has become
conscious of the benefits of liberating social change and developed a test for
liberty there is no way back. I believe consciousness comes first then liberty
follows. We have failed spectacularly because as a society we have
the cart before the horse in most
of our projects. That is how explained for my acquaintance who
visited me in prison as well. However, as Kiflu Tadesse put it on the first of
two volumed books “That Generation” which dealt with the 1974 Ethiopian
Revolution Haile Fida one of the iconic figures of the storied Ethiopian
Socialist Movement never predicted Ethiopians would revolted just one year
ahead of the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution. According to Kiflu, in 1973 Haile said
for Ethiopians to start a revolution it would take them a minimum of twenty
five years. Unless I blunder like Haile I don’t think there will be a
revolution in Ethiopia in the foreseeable future. Finally like the Ethiopian satirist
Abebe Tola usually say if I screw-up on this screw me over. Source: Zone9ers
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