Short Memories!

Some of us seem surprised at comments by a certain political commentator, Muluwerq Kidanemariam, that given the current political atmosphere, Tigray Region might find it necessary to invoke article 39 of the constitution and exit Ethiopia. But given the history of the TPLF, such comments are nothing unusual and nothing to be alarmed about.

It seems that many have forgotten, or were too young to remember, the TPLF and EPRDF of the 1990's, particularly until the 2000 Ethio-Eritrean War. This was the peak of ethnic nationalism and anti-Ethiopian nationalist rhetoric in Ethiopia, sponsored and encouraged by the TPLF and EPRDF. TPLF supporters, arm in arm with their EPLF comrades, gleefully lorded it over us 'chauvinists'. It was de rigueur for EPRDF members and supporters to identify with their ethnicity first, and Ethiopia second, and reluctantly at that. Often us naïve and shell-shocked Ethiopian nationalists would during the course of a discussion ask a TPLF or OPDO/OLF supporter if they consider themselves Ethiopian, and the defiant answer would be that they are Tigrean or Oromo first, and then Ethiopian (maybe)!


EPRDF officials and supporters would often say that if by some improbable tragedy the TPLF/EPRDF would fall from power and the 'chauvinists' replace them, they would promptly exit Ethiopia. Their 'Ethiopianness' hung on a thread. This was the tone of Ethiopian politics during the 1990's, and this is merely what Ato Muluwerq has repeated in his interview. Nothing new!

During the Ethio-Eritrean war, things changed a little. The departure of EPLF officials and supporters from Ethiopian political circles resulted in a lowering of anti-Ethiopianism in Addis Ababa. In addition, the war effort required the EPRDF to mobilize a good degree of patriotism - Ethiopian patriotism - all around Ethiopia, even in Oromia, the region that the EPRDF claimed was most victimized by Ethiopian nationalism. The EPRDF were very pragmatic - they did what they needed to do to achieve their goal which was, via war, saving face over the EPLF. So pragmatic were they that they recruited former military officers of their arch-enemy Dergue into the Ethiopian military for the fight!

After the war, and leading up to the 2005 elections, the EPRDF began to shift from fervent anti-Ethiopian nationalism to a little more centrist position. Its anti-chauvinist rhetoric began to be accompanied by anti-'narrow nationalist' rhetoric. Eventually, driven by a more flexible Meles Zenawi, the EPRDF even tried the open 2005 elections, leaving itself vulnerable to the feared and hated chauvinist political forces. When the course of the elections did not go as planned, Meles reverted to form and raised the specter of anti-Tigrayan violence and even talked about genocide! Again, this is what we are seeing now - again, many TPLF supporters are interpreting the threat to the monopoly that the TPLF/EPRDF has on political power as an anti-Tigrayan pogrom!

After crushing the 2005 anti-government movement - with indispensable help from the opposition I might add - the ERPDF moved quickly to an agenda of political monopoly through economic growth - the China/East Asia 'developmental state' model. In the Ethiopian context, the EPRDF named this model 'lmatawi mengst'. The EPRDF figured that a focus on development would make the people forget about politics and, just as importantly, ethnicity. The developmental state was a bargain with the Ethiopian people - high economic growth in exchange for monopoly political power - and it was a great success for the EPRDF. Far more successful than it would have ever imagined. Any political opposition was squashed with impunity, but we, the masses, generally acquiesced, was we were to busy making money - or trying to.

During this time, the EPRDF continued moving slowly away from ethnic nationalism. The rhetoric about Tigrawi-first, Ethiopian-second became a distant memory. Instead, members and supporters of the EPRDF began to portray themselves as being 'more Ethiopian' than their opponents, including the 'chauvinists'! The term 'chauvinist' itself became passé in EPRDF circles, and was replaced by terrorists and anti-Ethiopians! What a change from the old days!

However, with time, the developmental state began to display its own problems. As elsewhere, for example China, the masses began to express intense dissatisfaction with the corruption of the ruling party and the resulting lack of civic and economic justice. This is a significant problem in and of itself. But in Ethiopia, it has been increased orders of magnitude because of ethnic nationalism. Because of ethnic nationalism, this dissatisfaction is expressed not just in civic terms, but ethnic terms, and as we all know, any conflict is greatly increased if ethnicity becomes a factor.

So now, the TPLF and its supporters see themselves faced with an existential crisis, and they don't seem to have anyone to help them figure out an innovative solution. So they retreat into old theories and clichés of their childhood, such as what Ato Muluwerq talks about in his interview.

This is not surprising, neither should it be alarming. But it is folly to expect the TPLF, a small partner in the EPRDF, to continue to manufacture solutions - good or bad - to Ethiopian political problems. Inevitably, they will reach a state of exhaustion - they might even be there now. Their never ending yearning for Meles, who had a way of assessing and finding a way out of problems, shows this. They should be relieved of this huge burden that we have saddled them with for decades. By 'we', I mean the general political opposition, especially those who consider ourselves Ethiopian nationalists. It is we who have failed the nation, and even though we have severely debilitated ourselves, we have no choice but to somehow grow up and do our fair share.

So let us not worry about the Ato Muluwerq's of this world. They are at their wits end, and for this I don't blame them. It us up to us to find a way out of this quagmire.

Ethnic federalism kills Meles' developmental state

2009/1/23 (Ethiopian calendar)

2016/10/3 (European calendar)

[Note: An Amharic version of this post will appear sometime!]

(pdf version)

In a nutshell, the EPRDF's deal or social contract with the Ethiopian population over the past 15 years or so has been as follows: I will give you development and growth. In exchange, you will not challenge my political power and you will ignore the fact that my membership will have certain economic and other privileges that the rest of you will not have.

This is what a 'developmental state' led by a 'vanguard party' basically is. The classic example is China. We all know that the Chinese people, in aggregate, have prospering for years. People have been getting richer, there's more education, better health care, better infrastructure, etc. Again, this is in aggregate – large sections of the population have suffered for this and continue to suffer, but let's set that aside for the moment. As far as Ethiopians are concerned, when they see China, they see prosperity.

Now, the only political party in China – the Communist Party – has no political competition, which means there is little accountability. Party members can enrich themselves through corruption and other means and the population can do nothing about it because it cannot get rid of the party – that's part of the deal. Now, if this corruption threatens economic development and therefore threatens the Communist Party's deal with the people, which would then lead to revolt and overthrow of the party, then there's a crackdown on corruption. So as we all have seen, every so often, the party campaigns against corruption, arrests a few thousand party members and cronies, and then when it all dies down forgets about it for a while. Corruption goes up again.

Now, why isn't this working in Ethiopia? Development is taking place, economic growth is pretty good, the big projects such as the Nile Dam are still going strong. So why the unrest? Why the revolt?

The answer is ethnic federalism. You see, in China, there is more or less only one ethnicity. The population resents the privileges of the members of the Communist Party. People resent that party members are rich, have preferential treatment in everything, including the legal system, jobs, contracts, etc. However, the resentment is what we might call class resentment. The upper class is the Communist Party and the lower class the rest of the population. The upper class makes sure the lower class does quite well – not as well as the upper class but well enough to keep politically quiet.

In Ethiopia not only do we have many ethnicities, but ethnicity is part of the government! The vanguard party EPRDF is composed of ethnic parties, and the most powerful party as everyone knows and perceives is the TPLF. Just as in China, the population resents the privileges of the members of the EPRDF and their relatives and cronies. But this resentment is much greater and politically dangerous than in China because the resentment is not just class resentment, but ethnic resentment, and ethnic resentment is extremely dangerous.

As I have written before, people are far more tolerant of oppression by their own ethnic group or no ethnic group than by another ethnic group, or by what they perceive to be another ethnic group. When it comes to political oppression, ethnic feelings are strong. This is why the combination of developmental state and ethnic federalism is not working in Ethiopia.

By the way, this understanding of ethnicity as a strong political force is precisely the basis of of ethnic federalism! We need ethnic federalism, ethnic group rights above all else, etc., because ethnicity is the basis our polity, is what Meles and the EPRDF said when creating the constitution. If we do not give ethnicity this primacy, then there will be an ethnic revolt, they said. What irony then, that the ethnic division they laid in place for this reason is precisely that which is is proving their downfall.

Now, how can the EPRDF get out of this quagmire. The band aid solution is to try and severely clamp down on corruption, which it has tried to do repeatedly. But how can the EPRDF do that given the nature of the vanguard party / developmental state model, since party privilege and corruption is an unavoidable consequence of it? The other option is to do something about ethnic federalism. Of course the EPRDF can't touch the constitution, but as we have heard there is a proposal within the party to change it from a multi-ethnic front to a single non-ethnic party, thereby reducing the ethnic glare, so to speak, from the population. But this will alienate the EPRDF's more fervent ethnic nationalists, but at the same time it won't attract civic nationalists. This might have been a good option 20 years ago, but now it's too little too late.

In a later article, I will discuss what I think is a better solution for the EPRDF.