What 1960 student movement participants completely devoid of is practicality. They swear by dialectical materialism, and think this sublime Marxist analysis is supposedly the crystal ball that will explain and predict what we are experiencing now and what is to come. However, if one measures the result of this know it all mindset, it is unqualified failure. One doesn’t need to enumerate what those are because there is no single successful accomplishment they can point to; though it is exhausting to hear their attempt to pull a victory out of utter failure in achieving their utopian dream. We brought you Independent, at the cost of destroying the fabric of the whole society; they would say we fought for the cause of land tiller, but at the cost of killing millions of farmers in the failed Stalinist collectivization re-experiment. What about the question of nationality they had worked up about? The result, after fifty years of balm and dehumanization one nationality for the misery of the country, we are now at the mercy of nihilist nationalist who are worming up to start a social engineering project on grand scale, and if hold back; they huff and puff in no uncertain terms to let the whole country to go up in flames. This engrained mind set is a challenge by itself, because it sees only what it wants.
So practicality dictates how we should handle these situations without any trace fanaticism.
Assessing where we are has to be the first order of things: As we witnessed in the past year and half Ethiopian nationalism, that propelled Abey to unheard of popularity, proved that its death announcement by Ethiopian arch enemies within and without has been premature and overly exaggerated. However, 27 years weyane’s ethnic agitation and divisive politics, has done some measurable damage to it. When this ethnic divisions, poked and prodded, by those who designed it ( the Mekele weyanes) and by radical Oromos nationalist who are itching to benefit from this division exacerbate the problem. The Jewarian see that clinging onto weyane Ethinic policies is a sure way to further their extremist agenda, and propagate whoever challenge that wants to bring back the hated old unitary system. So far the Ethiopian nationalist don’t seem to have the agility to respond effectively to neutralized this cocky calculus. So at the moment the Ethiopian nationalist are in response mode while the Ethic nationalist take the initiative to attack. When we look at the EPDRF, weyane is trying hard to reverse the reform unsuccessfully, however; its back up plan has registered some success giving a platform for the radical elements, mainly though, with Oromo fanatics who are more than willing to dancing in synchronize manner, even the ungrateful Bekele gerba seems to be in lockstep tango dance with weyanes; hate is blind sounds more appropriate to describe the action of a the once peace bird turned deadly tribalist . Marring other nationalities, the belove Bekele Gerba mused , is one the greatest treat to survival of the Oromo nationality . Just imagen had the same sentence publically uttered by a white nationalist the public outcry would have been deafening. Hi we are black we can soil ourselves as much as we want and nobody will notice.
Both ODP and ADP easily could have responded to Weyanes shenanigan by organizing or by calling Ethiopian intellectuals to present a paper about the virtue of Ethiopian nationalism and how it could heal the division while at the sometime respecting Ethiopians individual and group right. The only region and person who is pushing that in very intellectual and strategic manner is Muktar of Somalia region, a great man.
ODP is quite a different animal altogether; you have Ethiopian nationalist whose vision at the helm commensurate with Ethiopian nationalism, although how sincere, how committed, or how competent he is in furthering the cause of Ethiopia is much in doubt. Let us side step Abey for a min and examine the Organization he is leading, the one he is going to be using to unite us all. Abey once bragged that the only political organization he is proud of in integrating the past and present party members is ODP; obviously ADP having a cumbia moment with the kind of Bereket
Semon is beyond the realm of possibilities. ODP has not invited only obedient servant of Weyanes, but brought in into its armpit the most radical anti-Ethiopians imaginable. The idea seems to be, looking at it charitably, is to domesticate these hatemonger vipers and change theme into doves. ODP has failed in that respect and
actually the tail seems to be wagging the dog, as they say. ODP’s Tekele Uma announces with a fanfare, to handover the apartment to the legitimate owners that paid their dues from their meager income, then comes a lash from the jawar tesgaye and iskel , and jawar calls demonstration on OMN,and coordinates and leads the mob chanting over our dead body, and ODP provides a bodyguard for violent agitator instead of the threatened law abiding citizens. The radicals in ODP camp came up with a press statement not only they condom the legit act of handing over the property to the rightful owners but they go farther and say that they are working hard to make Oromia the exclusive owner of Addis Ababa. OLF goes to kemise armed to its teeth with a high powered machine gun passed by ODP radicals
with their own agenda, burns churches, kill civilians but here comes out an OLF sympathizer and blames farmers who were defending their community. There are a lot of examples that can be given to show ODP’s action which is parochial in nature. It seems that the ODP, may be not all high officials, but there is a sizable group that works in concert with these radicals ormos, no doubt. You may have herd jawar say he has a plan, take him at his word. To do otherwise will be a naiveté.