Ethiopia plays a very important if not central role in the African gaze at the mirror of destiny. When Africa looks at itself, where it came from and where it is going, there is no doubt that Ethiopia is part of the picture for all African communities across the continent.
When Ethiopia hurts, all Africa feels the pain. When Ethiopia triumphs and lives in peace and prosperity, all Africa celebrates it as personal victory. This is why it is so sad and discouraging for all of us, when we see Ethiopia faltering under the weight of outdated ethnic strife, as has happened recently against Amhara people. We are bewildered, and wonder how is it possible that a multicultural nation with so many wise people and revered elders, could fall into the crude trap of ethnic rivalry and hate speech?
While many political and religious authorities from all sides were prompt to condemn the violence and loss caused by ethnic agitation, questions remain for anyone interested in Pan African progress. How do we prevent these divisive ethnic and racial strategies from taking hold of the public and political discourse ? These tactics of divide and rule were the staple of colonising forces all over Africa.
Their program is known: downgrading of African historic greatness and power to unite; and re-telling of history as strife between the different cultures of the colonized space.
This way, the colonizer looked like the arbiter and the pacifier, between the different social components of the country, and this justified his pretended irreplaceable usefulness.
This strategy is clear, almost basic, to Africans who spent longer than Ethiopians struggling under colonial rule.
However Ethiopia, except for a few years during the Second World War, has never known foreign domination.
Paradoxically, it seems that this unique historic privilege has left Ethiopia as a modern country somehow vulnerable, short sighted and poorly trained, to confront and solve its inner problems of ethnic conflict.
It is evident to most Africans that such schemes are fomented from outside the country.
No one who loves Ethiopia would want to see her fractured and divided.
Ethiopia was one of the birthplaces of the Pan Africanist movement.
Unfortunately the teacher must now become the student of other Africans sadly familiar with such conditions, to remember what his own elders and guides taught the world.
“…That until the philosophy, which holds one race superior and another inferior, is finally and permanently discredited…”
You should know the rest.
Ethiopia and the dangers of tribalism
