The boundaries of pride and self-respect

 

By Golto Aila ׀ June 11, 2008

 

As nations have internationally accepted boundaries so do most aspects of human life have accepted normal boundaries. In terms of international order, the respect of any nation’s recognized boundary is fundamental! Violation of a nation’s boundary historically is the reason for international conflicts; it is the one thing that leads men and women to willingly lay down their lives to defend! Such an act, in turn, renders such individuals to be hailed as heroes and heroines. Such an acknowledgement confers dignity and self-respect to the individual and makes the individual to be a role model for the generations to follow!

 

There are/were so many acts perpetrated by the current regime in Ethiopia which are provocative enough to lead to resistance or even uprising by the people in Ethiopia, and here are a few:

 

• Ceding Ethiopia’s territory to Eritrea – first after the fall of Dergue and then after war with Eritrea;
• Institution of a subversive constitution which goes as far as accepting cessation of territories;
• Divide and rule policy under which hostilities are generated and maintained among the different ethnic groups;
• Stealing of people’s vote after 2005 elections;
• Arrest and incarceration of opposition leaders in the aftermath of the 2005 elections;
• Massacre of innocent people in the aftermath of the 2005 elections;
• Disenfranchisement of the population in the most recent local elections;
• Parceling out of Ethiopia’s territory to a hostile nation without the accent of the Ethiopian people;
• Mismanagement of Ethiopia’s economy and agricultural development leading to recurrent famine and deaths of thousands of people;
• Genocide in Gambella, Oromo and Ogaden;etc.

 

The most important aspect of our lives as Ethiopians and, for that matter, any human being is the respect we have for ourselves and the respect we garner for ourselves among our fellow human beings. Self-respect or respect by others is not a free-standing concept unrelated to anything else! As stated above our actions are directly responsible for the measure of respect we earn from other human beings! While we may outwardly display qualities of self-respect, it is all hollow when in fact there is no basis for us to feel the sense of self-respect!

 

I have listed above provocative actions taken by the regime in Addis Abeba that could have led any self-respecting individuals to take measures to resist them as matter of principle and pride. Individually, in reaction to these provocations many people have taken actions and many of them have paid the ultimate price! This, under normal human situations would in its own right provoked yet more violent reaction from self-respecting compatriots!

 

Given these repeated insults and provocations over 18 years, how come that we have not effectively reacted in a manner befitting respectable people? Well there are many reasons which can explain our Ethiopia’s subdued responses:

• Trusting that a well meaning administration is taking an apparently negative action as a temporary measure to get a difficult national situation under control.
• Trusting that the action by the administration is in deed a measure taken to make atonement for past injustice
• There is complicity on the part of a section of the population, for narrow selfish reasons
• Hope that some leadership would emerge from among the many opposition parties and lead Ethiopia to the “promised land”
• Hope that some outside powers would come to our rescue and rescue Ethiopia from a decidedly destructive administration
• Despair that the opposition leadership have let down the trusting population, many vowing to get involved in Ethiopian politics again
• Distrust and hostility between the different organizations about each other’s motives leading to failure to unite around a common cause
• Distrusting people of other ethnic groups
• Reluctance of people of other (less desirable) ethnic background taking leadership in the fight for Ethiopia
• The universal tendency by Ethiopians to deny realities on the ground, etc.

 

At some points and under some circumstances most of the above reactions may have been justifiable but not at all times, and failure to take remedial actions when called for may mean abdication of responsibility, complicity in a crime against the population, or plain cowardice! In these situations we Ethiopians, collectively, have no right to consider ourselves worthy of self-respect or respect by other people. While all the above are obviously discomforting, the often ignored concern may be that leadership of people from certain ethnic groups may, at least subconsciously, be not acceptable to some, and that is tragic for Ethiopia. We really need to examine our conscience and make sure such a primitive sentiment is not a handicap to progress!

 

There is a deafening silence when Ethiopia’s territorial integrity is being violated by an administration which has shown utter contempt for the country it is ruling and its people! There is even more deafening silence as a man-made famine is about to wipe out our people! We are beyond the boundaries of self-respect and of being respectable, therefore, we must come together to chart the way forward to avoid living in shame for eternity!