The founding principles and aims of progressive politics in Ethiopia may not be entirely in doubt today, but its operative ideas and practices have long been open to question and critique. This is true, though Ethiopian literati have generally not shown interest in subjecting our vexing legacy of progressivism to retrospective scrutiny and in assessing its current status and function.
No longer persuasive intellectually, morally, and politically, particularly to Ethiopia’s younger generation, the staying power of the old progressivism within the Woyane regime and in some oppositions circles lies in the inertia of established, residual conventions and habits of Marxist-Leninist thought. Its “radical” attitudes, ideology, and practice have consistently produced tyrannical leaders and repressive regimes (those of the Derg, the TPLF and, in Eritrea, the EPLF). It has everywhere turned the promise of national revolution into an exclusive partisan performance and the democratic aspirations of the people into the dictatorial agenda of narrow, insular elites.
So we know that, far from offering simple and ready solutions to our national problems, the existing tradition of forward-looking politics is deeply problematic. In fact, it constitutes a major source of Ethiopia’s present national crisis. If it is to help bring about the nation’s democratic renewal, our troubled progressive inheritance has to undergo major conceptual and practical renovation itself. It has to be thought anew – from the ground up.
This is a necessary first step toward a new progressive national agreement in Ethiopia. Patterns of dogmatic thought, forms and mechanisms of partisan dictatorship and styles of anti-Ethiopian rhetoric and polemic associated with the old tradition of “radical” politics are today integral parts of oppositional as well as ruling ethnonationalist orthodoxy. How could contemporary Ethiopian patriots strike a grand progressive bargain with champions of this orthodoxy whose resentment of Ethiopia borders on a reverse chauvinism that devalues and negates our common national culture?
So opening up the old tradition of progressivism in Ethiopia – in all its partisan and tribal forms – to critical, forward-looking reconstruction is essential to the building of a new, more democratic general agreement among the nation’s diverse political, ethnic, and cultural communities. The dismantling of the present, moribund system should create intellectual and political space for thinking up alternative ideas of liberty, democracy, the rule of law, federalism, and local self-government in Ethiopia. It should allow new ideas to be more freely articulated, debated, discussed, and agreed upon by the widest possible Ethiopian public. In short, the dismantling of the old paradigm of revolutionary thought and action can be expected to facilitate the elimination, finally, of dictatorially imposed rule in Ethiopia and allow for a lasting consensually achieved democratic national and political order in the country.
Though possible and desirable, the building of a new Ethiopian progressive consensus today is, however, a great challenge. The collective effort has to resolve not only the differences and antagonisms of particular parties, groups, coalitions, and movements, but also the conflicts of distinct modes of national concern: ethnic nationalism, modern Ethiopian national consciousness that transcends ethnicity, and traditional patriotism that stresses Ethiopian historical roots and identity. In some of their extreme variants, these forms of national concern may be repellent to one another, but they are not entirely self-contained and mutually exclusive. Still, they remain recognizable species of nationalism to be reckoned with by consensus builders. Separately, none of them adequately represents the breadth and depth of Ethiopianness today. Indeed, both governing and oppositional forms of ethnonationalism militate against the Ethiopian experience, a matter of great concern and urgency for patriotic forces.
Traditional patriots who accentuate Ethiopian historical sources and identity are not necessarily averse to modern ideas, like democracy and federalism, but such ideas may not be the major driving force of their national concern. Sensing, correctly, the existential threat Ethiopia faces under the divisive tyranny of the Woyanes and the wholesale tribalization of her national interests and affairs, some may be in no mood currently to quibble about ideas. Perhaps disenchanted with the global values of progressivism some Ethiopian patriots may be turning inward in resistance, pushed by prevailing conditions in the country to a protective affirmation of tradition and identity.
Reclaiming and defending the national base is essential, but we can’t go back to our roots simply and straightaway, in abstraction from present progressive concerns. There is a danger here of patriotic groups inflicting political marginalization on themselves in their disinclination to address major issues confronting the country today. The biggest challenge we face is reconciling the claims of national tradition and integrity with those of contemporary pluralism and diversity through a new Ethiopian national-democratic consensus and solidarity.
The initial task of developing a general forward-looking agreement among various groups and forces in the resistance against TPLF dictatorship, with a keen eye toward post-Woyane Ethiopian political order, is one of establishing a broadly inclusive yet definite framework of ideas, principles, and practices. We need a widely shared set of terms, concepts, and perspectives through which Ethiopian national and political issues may be commonly as well as distinctively defined, grasped, and approached. The framework of thought and discourse should be capable of integrally handling pluralism, difference, and dissent in our common national life.
Departing from this basic understanding, I offer the following theses on progressive change in Ethiopia. The theses are summary notes intended for discussion and further analysis among concerned Ethiopian intellectuals, activists, journalists, opposition entities, civil society groups, and other stake-holders. They are organized around three major overlapping spheres which I consider to be crucial battlegrounds where Ethiopian progressive consensus has to be fought for and won, where we leave the old progressivism behind and embrace the new. These battlegrounds are politics, ideas, and identity.
Theses on Progressive Change in Ethiopia
Politics
1. The underlying defect of the old and still operative paradigm of progressivism in Ethiopia (and Eritrea) is its aggressive, expansionist take-over and domination of the relatively autonomous spheres of ideas, culture, religion, nationality, economy, polity and civil society, more or less incorporating all these domains in calculations and strategies of imperious partisan power. Operating solely or primarily on the basis of priorities and agenda set unilaterally by a narrow political elite with unlimited appetite for power, the paradigm reduces all of these spheres of social and national life to objects and extensions of dictatorial rule.
This is a systemic flaw characteristic of an entire tradition of revolutionary thought and practice, not merely that of particular parties and fronts. The claim here is that the paradigm itself – rather than its “failure” or distortion – led not only to the tyrannical regimes of the Derg and the TPLF but, more broadly, to the self-defeating political overreach and domination of progressivism as such. This fundamental defect of our revolutionary legacy should be a critical, transformational concern to Ethiopian democrats and patriots today.
2. Old school “radical” progressive entities in Ethiopia, including the TPLF, the OLF, the EPRP (which has today sadly reduced itself to political irrelevance), and other groups have not really attempted to learn from social strata and distinct communities they wanted to lead in revolutionary struggle and “liberate.” Instead, they developed their political agenda and programs through polemicizing and fighting against one another. While the victors, like the TPLF and its ethnic and political cousin, the EPLF, gained dictatorial state power over the “nations, nationalities, and peoples” they supposedly liberated, the vanquished, like the EPRP and the OLF, were reduced to the political margins, ending up with the dubious status of the permanent opposition.
The Orwellian reversal of values that has come to characterize the existing paradigm of progressivism in Ethiopia (where professed democracy is actually dictatorship and “national liberation” really means partisan domination) should not be understood as a “betrayal” or an unexpected outcome of the Revolution. From the outset, Ethiopian revolutionaries have been ideologically conditioned and organizationally trained to suppress free civic and political activity in the country and to substitute their own imperious, partisan activism for the autonomous agency of citizens and communities.
Against this tradition of “radical” closure of social and political space, the new progressive project in Ethiopia would allow various self-organized civil society groups, parties and movements to provide bases for national consensus and solidarity within a more open and democratic political framework. In so far as the national environment is relatively open, which is not to say fragmented or politically unregulated, it will invite and facilitate the autonomous democratic participation of various groups and parties opposed to Woyane tribal tyranny. The more transparent and differentiated the environment, the greater participants’ experience of agency within it; and the greater and freer participants’ experience of agency, the stronger, more democratic and sustainable the Ethiopian national consensus and solidarity they are likely to affirm and establish.
3. The projected Ethiopian progressive consensus can be expected to generate active, mutually supportive relationship between political forces, on the one hand, and social constituencies and the nation as a whole, on the other, in a way and to an extent not possible in the old structural model of revolutionary politics. The existing structure has taken shape exclusively from within its own ideology and partisan agenda. In contrast, the new progressive politics would assume a more dynamic form which would allow it greater openness to the Ethiopian social and national landscape, to align itself with varying socio-economic and cultural contexts in the country and with the nation’s vital interests. The nation as a whole and distinct communities and social strata within it will no longer be passive objects of authoritarian “revolutionary” domination and manipulation. Instead, they would become active participants in the conception and enactment of progressive thought.
4. Relative openness or transparency as a principle for organizing a new progressive political order and public sphere in Ethiopia is neither a mechanism for dictatorial rule as usual nor a license for one kind of tribal hegemony or another. It is a way of accommodating pluralism and difference within an integral national whole. The shift from partisan-authoritarian closure of the social and political space to a more open and democratic order does not dispense with national cohesion and leadership. In the absence of overall direction, coordination and regulation, the principles of openness and democracy are as impracticable as they are inconsequential.
So the issue is not whether the new Ethiopian progressive consensus needs leadership or direction, but what kind of direction. In as much as its leadership gains acceptance and support from diverse social, political, and regional bases while maintaining its cohesion, it also gains more democratic validity and legitimacy than the Woyane regime or its predecessor ever did.
5. Political coalitions and alliances that paper over significant differences among opposition groups, say, between factions or elements that prioritize identity politics over common Ethiopian nationality, and those who would reverse this order of priority, may have some political value. For they may lessen disagreements and conflicts by strengthening cooperation on the basis of shared immediate interests and by achieving limited objectives in the short- or medium-term.
But such alliances are ineffective, or may even be counter-productive, in reckoning with fundamental issues and principles about which the groups may quietly differ and in resolving underlying differences for the long-term. Limited political successes gained from the alliances can be easily undone if they are attained through merely tactical calculations and measures that do not relate to or address broader relevant issues and problems of progressive change in Ethiopia. More generally, there is a need to clarify the relationship that should obtain between what any coalition or alliance by itself can achieve and what outcome or impact its actions can have as part of larger movements of Ethiopian social-historical and political forces.
Ideas
6. Old fashioned Ethiopian revolutionaries, including Woyane ethnonationalists, who cut their progressive teeth on the Student Movement and on Marxist-Leninist ideology, have generally seen themselves engaged in serious, high-minded political work driven by critical reason. They apparently believed their activism and struggle were guided by high concept. But behind this self-image lies a paradoxical orientation toward ideas. On the one hand, invoking revolutionary ideas and goals had so much force and influence that theory assumed a dominant, commanding position over everything else, even as it abstractly expressed egalitarian values and ideals. Fiercely held ideological dogma and agenda were privileged over vital Ethiopian national interests and affairs.
On the other hand, old school progressivism in Ethiopia was impatient with any attempt at a serious discussion and development of political ideas in the Ethiopian context. Its priority has been quickly and tightly controlling the articulation of political concepts, including those of democracy and nationality, within narrow, exclusively partisan confines. Preoccupation with tactical activism which predisposes traditional radicals to immediately instrumentalize ideas for contestation, polemic, agitation, and propaganda has obstructed any openness that may sustain broadly enlightening, reflective, and politically productive thought.
7. The way the new progressive political project would handle ideas can be expected to be fundamentally different from the approach of the old revolutionary paradigm, whose ethnonationalist spinoff dominates Ethiopian national affairs today. In the traditional approach, political ideas cannot be publicly and freely discussed, debated, and agreed upon within or outside the authoritarian state, beyond the intentions, terms, formulas, and agenda of an exclusive, dominant party or front. Ideas like democracy, national self-determination, and federalism don’t have to persuade or inspire citizens and communities. They don’t need our minds to freely and actively engage them. Instead they act directly and externally on us, as if we were their objects. They dictate to us, tyrannize over us.
By contrast, the projected model of forward-looking politics departs from the premise that progressive ideas cannot enlighten and move us if we don’t allow them to work in relative autonomy as ideas, to convey logos or meaning in their own terms. It would be based on the understanding that, in so far as ideas function merely as accessories to power interests, or are little more than apologies for tyranny, they cannot bring light to our politics and guide it. They become instead forces of darkness and domination themselves, means of rationalization of dictatorship and repression. Departing from this forethought, progressive innovation would produce alternative meanings of freedom, democracy and federalism in the Ethiopian context. Sorely needed political change and progress would be achieved in Ethiopia through either greater or better awareness of the meanings of familiar concepts and principles or the articulation of alternative forms and contents.
Identity
8. A major source of the polarization of forces of division and unity in post-revolutionary Ethiopia is the way the contending sides often deal with diversity and complexity that make up the historical being of distinct ethnic and cultural communities in the country and of Ethiopia itself. Both sides generally avoid grappling with these involved constitutive features of Ethiopian social and national life, seeking instead the reassurance and comfort of simple identity and unity. In this avoidance, the separatist attitude, seeking exclusive identity, is the other side of the coin of insisting on plain, immediate national oneness. Both sides evince impatience with, and intolerance of difference and pluralism in Ethiopian national and political life.
The new Ethiopian progressive consensus would come into its own in part by overcoming the limitations and problems of these polarized forms of national identity and difference. It would critically engage these forms through collaborative intellectual and political efforts that cut across ethnic and partisan lines. In the process, it would debunk the old progressive construal of “national self-determination” as the simple reverse or negation of Ethiopian nationality and identity. The new progressive project can be expected to show that integral self or identity is not something a particular community brings ready-made to the Ethiopian whole. Instead, it is something built, at least in part, from that community’s relations with other social groups within the Ethiopian whole.
9. References to “nations, nationalities, and peoples” made in old school Ethiopian progressive circles, including the Woyane regime and some in the opposition, cannot be taken literally or at face value. They don’t actually represent or signify real communities in Ethiopia in their particularity and diversity. Instead, the references must be understood as generic ideological constructs whose social referents do not exist outside the uses of these Leninist-Stalinist categories. Following the Student Movement, the Woyanes imagined “nations, nationalities, and peoples” into being and then waged “liberation” struggle on the presumed existence of the social referents of these categories of global revolutionary ideology.
The initial challenge contemporary Ethiopian progressives of various ethnic backgrounds face here as they struggle for national consensus and solidarity is to come to the recognition that all claims of identity and national self-determination made in terms of the old Leninist-Stalinist paradigm are bogus, in concept as well as practice, and that there are different and better ways of realizing universal ideas like self-determination and federalism in the Ethiopian context.
10. The actual identities of diverse Ethiopian communities are given in the historical sense of ascribed distinctness of ethnicity, culture, language, way of life, and so on. But, politically, identities are willfully created rather than given, or, more specifically, they are what political elites, parties, or fronts have sought “radically” to create. A graphic example of political construction of national identity is the use of the Latin alphabet rather than Ge-ez to write Oromgna, an Ethiopian language.
Oromos are inseparably connected to the rest of the Ethiopian people by broader, trans-ethnic national and cultural ties that cannot be severed. Yet, bent on breaking those ties, Oromo nationalists made the political choice of writing their native Ethiopian, or, more broadly, African language in European script. Political priorities impelled them to embrace the contradiction of resorting to a Western writing system in affirming their “self-determination” or identity as a people. Ethnonationalist politics made the Ge-ez alphabet more “foreign” to them than Latin script. The political choice may be understandable as a nationalist preference of Oromo intellectual and political elites, but it can hardly be said to represent the national self-determination of the Oromo masses in Ethiopia in any meaningful sense of the term.
To recognize identity as a political issue rather than taking it simply as given in advance naturally or historically is to realize that it is open to contestation, negotiation, and compromise. It is to note that identity politics is contingently produced and practiced in contemporary ideology and so should not be passed off as absolute necessity or entitlement. This realization is a decisive first step toward a new Ethiopian progressive consensus in which the principle of regional and local self-government, including the use and development particular languages, may be worked out and enacted through alternative approaches in different contexts. The core value of self-determination or autonomy may be fostered more progressively and democratically by being stripped of its authoritarian, exclusively partisan and tribal forms.
11. A fundamental flaw of old school radicalism in Ethiopia that must be overcome today within a new progressive agreement and movement concerns its arrogant, dismissive attitude toward Ethiopian national being. This madly abstract, historically artless attitude is broadly symptomatic of a troubled revolutionary vision, going back to the Student Movement, but it is most clearly evident today in the divisive tribal dictatorship of the Woyanes and in certain opposition circles.
In its more extreme ethnonationalist forms, the existing model of progressivism embodies a separatist political project predicated on the outright denial or rejection of Ethiopian nationality. The country is seen entirely negatively as a “prison of nations.” Where it is not explicitly denied (by the Woyanes, in order to pursue political and material interests nation-wide, and by ethnic opposition groups, largely for tactical reasons of coalition struggle against the Woyane regime), Ethiopian unity is recognized merely as a “choice” or “agreement” of tribal communities and parties. If these groups withdraw their agreement (they may do so according to the constitution), Ethiopia presumably ceases to exist. The Ethiopian whole is thus seen as nothing beyond or outside a collection of disparate ethnic communities, which neither give national meaning to the whole nor receive common nationality from it. This, sadly, is essentially how the old progressivism has ended up “settling” the so-called national question in Ethiopia.
Against this anti-Ethiopian paradigm of radical politics, particularly its Woyane variant of “revolutionary democracy,” we can envision a new progressive arrangement in which differences and disagreements among the nation’s ethnic and cultural communities are resolved within the Ethiopian whole, not only without loss to the communities, but with national meaning and value added. The Ethiopian whole need not be based exclusively on either articulated political ideas or historical sources and values. For neither modern political ideology nor historic tradition alone captures the essence and reality of Ethiopian national being today. Together, complementing each other, the two modes of national concern make up a stronger, better, more inclusive and democratic Ethiopia than either of them separately.
So, in the projected progressive model, Ethiopia is neither reducible to a simple unity nor to a collection of entirely self-contained ethnic groups. It is an integral whole of diverse, intersecting communities, cultures, and regions that have both robust unity and real autonomy. And Ethiopia herself has integrity not merely as a political community but, more broadly, in that she makes up a vital, evolving common national culture that endures.
12. Practitioners of identity politics in Ethiopia have in various ways attacked the nation and threatened to dissociate themselves from it while champions of unity, alarmed by the ethnonationalist domination of Ethiopian affairs, have tended to play a game of patriotic defense in which forward-looking ideas of change are not vigorously pursued or given priority. The point, however, is to bring about the integral transformation of the Ethiopian nation-state along new, progressive and democratic lines.
Summing up
The national crisis of post-revolutionary Ethiopia has been largely the crisis of progressivism itself – in all its residual Marxist-Leninist partisan, authoritarian, and ethnic forms. The entrenchment of one-party monopolization of government power, state domination of civil society, the absence of the rule of law, the substitution of narrow partisan self-assertion for broad-based national self-determination, and the rise of ethnonationalist tyranny in the country were all outcomes of the Revolution and its aftermath. Under these circumstances, progressivism has come to constitute an oppressive form power in its own right, a veritable paradigm of dictatorship that militates not only against democratic rule in Ethiopia but the Ethiopian nation as such.
Consequently, to take the first step toward a new forward-looking Ethiopian national consensus is, ironically, to make the existing tradition of progressive politics an issue, to get a good grasp of its excesses, flaws, and limitations. Reckoning with our revolutionary legacy in this way, we can begin to slog away at lasting democratic change by disentangling the vital threads of Ethiopian national and political life from the weave of the old exclusively partisan, ethnocentric, authoritarian progressivism.
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