A. Alexander, Professor of Easter and African Studies
This is the third and final part of my reflection on Ethiopia. In this section, I will discuss the future of Ethiopia by highlighting its Achilles heel and by providing some recommendations. Before that, I would like to answer a question that some of my good friends have asked me: Why do I write about Ethiopia? My answer is that even though I have lived my adult life away from Ethiopia, my affection for the country from my early childhood has remained with me. I love its beautiful scenery, welcoming people, and the lack of generation gap where young and old talk to you, families welcome you to their home, church, private spaces or share with you whatever small they have. That impression has remained with me.
Furthermore, as a person interested in spirituality, Ethiopia is a mysterious and intriguing country for me. Ethiopia appears fragile, weak and on the verge of collapse for casual observers but has remained unconquered and resilient over the centuries while many great nations and empires have reached dazzling heights only to come trampling down.
Ethiopia is complex. It is a country of the highest mountain and the lowest point in the world. It is a water tower of Africa and yet suffers from shortages. It is a country of deep spirituality and yet in perpetual conflict. It is a country of immense wealth that remains unexploited but fails to meet its needs. So I often ask myself why Ethiopia remains in problems? Why do people who have extreme self-confidence in God and their own ability find it hard even to make peace with themselves?
What is the issue? What is the missing ingredient? To answer this question, one needs to see where the conflict starts – within the elite and intellectual class. Ethiopia has everything it needs to achieve peace and prosperity except for one important ingredient: a self-respecting, self-reflecting, and humble intellectual class that doesn’t regurgitate whatever the educational system throws at it. Instead of counting its blessings and strong foundation left by forefathers, many want to destroy it without examining what made this country so great.
Ethiopia is the 27th biggest country in the world and one of the most blessed countries with amazing sceneries, landscapes, ecological diversity, and wildlife. However, it remains poor due to mis-education by Western schools of thought that injected self-hate to destroy self-worth and self-reliance by the intellectual class.
The new educated class ends up being phony by appearing to be educated and sophisticated by imitating someone else instead of upgrading its value and virtues with modern education. Instead of understanding what made this country so great, many want to destroy everything traditional values, religion, and tolerance with new Stalinist virtue of wanton and destruction.
The purpose of education was to improve one’s own value and system using the newly acquired education and skills. But in Ethiopian mis-education, it was designed to destroy everything of ours to make a new self in the image of the people who designed the educational system, which is the West. Unless the Ethiopian intellectuals reset and start fresh to love itself and appreciate what the older generation has done for this country, it is impossible to build a castle in the sky. Ethiopia needs a foundation; that is what our forefathers left for us. By destroying the foundation no one will be able to build anything. Ethiopian intellectuals need to understand their value, their education, their religion, their community co-existence, and ability to resolve problems. Unless Ethiopians stop hating everything made in their own image, the country is doomed to perpetuate the same misery and suffering.
It is very important for Ethiopia intellectuals to get back to basics – the essence and spirit of the country. It needs to find the values that made this the only independent country in the world for thousands of years. It needs to abandon attempts to be an imitation of Westerners and be comfortable in its own skin. It needs to see uniting values like the Ethiopian Orthodox Churches and Islam.
To achieve those values the Ethiopian youth need to unite and continue the struggle against the last 50 years of political hegemony, self-hate, genocide and destruction through united actions.
The public resistance in the Amhara region and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the beginning of the Ethiopian self-reliance and empowerment. It must not remain in the Amhara region alone, it must expand into Oromia, South Gurage, Addis Ababa and other reasons. No one has benefited from existing genocidal system and it is a question who is net for attack and extermination by Western trained extreme of the Oromo political elites.
