The Solution To The 'Weak Centre'

As I wrote in my previous blog post, it would normally take decades to recover from the damage - the generational loss - brought about by two revolutions. Given our political realities today, the debilitated Ethiopian political centre does not have decades to recover. It must strengthen and counter-balance the ethnic nationalist elite as soon as possible, in order to bring about any semblance of rationality and maturity to Ethiopian politics.

The shortest route of recover for the centre is for the wealthier classes, especially the business class, to assert itself in politics, but in purely a realpolitik manner. The main goal of course being less conflict and violence ridden politics. To achieve this goal, ethnic politics must be reduced - ethnic politics - especially ethnic federalism - is by theory and practice (28 years of it) and conflict and violence producing machine. Note here that it is not ethnic and local rights that need to be reduced, it is ethnic politics - I will say more on this later. What is realpolitik about this? It is of course in the strong interests of the business class that our politics moves away from ethnic strife! Peace, the ability to work and conduct business anywhere as first class citizens, security, etc., is what makes the business class more prosperous. An ethnic conflict ridden society on the other hand is a danger for business owners. So clearly, it is in the interests of the business class to work for a more united and less ethnically divided country.

Yes, it is in their interests, but is the Ethiopian business class capable of intervening successfully in politics? Of course, like all other segments of the elite, the business class has been decimated by revolution and is, for all intents and purposes, and upstart trading class. Nevertheless, its all we have. And it is wealthy. It has more than enough money to greatly influence politics. The top ten richest business owners in Addis Ababa can easily and without much pain create and fund think tanks, charities, media, political lobbies, and other influencing organizations to the amount of billions of birr. They have the money, but do understand the urgency and do they have the know-how? No, but they'll have to get it - soon. They stand to lose a lot if they continue to leave politics to the ideologues.

Here's a simple blueprint of how the business class can slowly begin to influence politics. The primary goal is a more peaceful politics.The main intermediate goal is achieving long lasting influence. This is done by creating charities (for cultivating a good relationship with the population), think tanks (to help rebuild a decent political elite), political lobbies (to influence politicians), and media. All these organizations should treat all political groups equally. Donations should be made to all, for specific peace building goals, of course. There should be as much as possible no discrimination, except perhaps against the most extreme political groups. The strategy should be 'make no enemies'. The political platform should be based on this, with two simple points: 1) All Ethiopians should be able to live as first class citizens everywhere and 2) Afan Oromo should become a national language - all federal services should be available in Afan Oromo and it should be taught in all educational institutions. No sloganeering against ethnic rights or even against ethnic nationalism. No silly equating ethnic nationalism with discrimination and racism. The approach should be empathetic and realistic, with a long term view of influence and snatching our politics away from violent ideologues.

This simple blueprint should allow the business classes to steadily increase their influence among political circles. In short order, politicians will be knocking at their door for more funds, and thus be willing to fulfill the business class' agenda, which is exactly what we want. Politicians will begin to be influence more by realpolitik than by ideology. This is fundamentally what will help transition our politics from violence to peace.