Missed in the Elusive Narratives : An articulated Political Cause and Purpose

By Samuel Estefanous

I have a feeling of what FANO and OLA are fighting for. True, it is an ammo packed and backed bloody protest and it goes counter to my pacifist and Satyagraha persuasions. Yet I have a feeling it is a protest against injustice, a protest against hegemony, a protest against usurpation and abuse of public trust. It is a protest against intuitional corruption and state capture. Protest against marginalization and degradation of a segment of the society to a second class citizenship. Particularly it is a protest against a sense of entitlement, lack of accountability and sickening superciliousness on the part of the incumbent.    

I have a feeling of the purpose they are paying the ultimate price for. I mean I just couldn’t think of them as Rebels without Cause, could I? I have a feeling of what they want to achieve. I have a feeling of the vision they have charted for the country.

However in God’s Good Name I cannot articulate it.  I cannot repeat it to another person.  I cannot like or dislike it.  Just call to mind how we have been holding TPLF to account for a one time party program that had advocated secession from the Commonwealth.  Remember how EPRDF espousing the right of nations and nationalities to self-determination up to and including secession has defined its struggle- for good or bad. Naturally we want to know ‘what are your takes on the definitive questions that matter to the Nation at large’.

In the case of the Factions under discussion, I cannot single out a clause or two from a legitimately consolidated and endorsed program and argue for or against it.  As far as clear political ideals and values go, it is grey and neutral. 

1- Dying for a purpose Greater than Oneself

A martyr is thus one paying the ultimate price for a mission worth dying for with the perfect knowledge that sooner or later it will be achieved.  The certainty that the ultimate goal is within grasp is the prime motive that makes a martyr walk on a mine field so that his comrades could cross over unharmed. 

That is why unlike soldiers of fortune, soldiers of mission are kind to a fault.  Shy like a country girl and forgiving like the Messiah.  They despise material gains and celebrate humanity.  In a way they die, too, in imitation of the Christ-for the sake and the good of others-according to the late Sebhat G/Egziabeher. That is why they kill with regret and try to avoid it whenever they can.  That is why they ‘live beyond the grave’ with enduring legacy like Che. 

A soldier of mission is a saver not a killer. A killer is a coward, a dull and mean spirited selfish savage, a greedy egoist incapable of martyrdom. 

I haven’t heard of any edifying exploits of a soldier of mission in all the conflicts raging in the country.  Kidnaping college kids and demanding ransom money is the worst kind of brigandage- not fighting for a cause. Mass killing of children and the elderly just because they speak a different language is despicable and a distinguishing mark of a low life unworthy of existence among the community of civilized Nations. Putting up roadblocks and robbing passenger buses is highway robbery pure and simple.  No amount of ‘need’ justifies or warrants the criminal act. 

Whoever is behind such atrocities is devoid of any measure of political aspiration, be it in the government camp or otherwise.

2-Opposition isn’t an end by itself  

As far as I understand, a warring faction has to come up with stronger and more lucid and exemplary alternatives to the incumbent than registered opposition parties try to do. Because naturally it is a hard sell. Thus, they subject their members to draconian rules to insure discipline.  They give the law and insure compliance to stave off anarchic tendencies and betrayal of the cause.  

Whoever reads the memoirs of any EPRP and TPLF militants understands the indispensability of party in-laws and procedures. It is one complex regime of law with the party program taking the place of a Constitution.  They run the party like a government complete with governing family law and regulations. 

Berhanu Nega recounts how the party in-laws and procedures were likened to canonical edicts of middle age religious fanatics at Asimba.  Gera, the tender like a kitten guest, we had listened to on TV a couple of years ago was actually worse than the cruelest drill officer in a military academy- according to Berhanu. The comparison to the now ‘demobilized’ soft spoken established New Yorker would certainly look farfetched.

However one thing is incontestable.  Armed oppositions without iron discipline are worse than highway robbers.  Stiff party in-laws and bylaws are potent legacies communist guerillas of Imperial Russia and China had bequeathed to post WWII Marxist rebels to weed out any attempt to break rank and spoil the cause. Guess what?  It had made them invincible and Tempered like Steel– እነደብረት ጠንካራ- remember the historical novel by Ostrovsky? 

It is only lately that we have come to learn the downside to those Draconian rules.  Particularly EPRP and TPLF had enforced them with such ruthlessness that the entire establishment was reminiscent of Christian cults of the 70s and 80s in North America.  What is more, the central tenet of the constitutions of Marxist rebels a.k.a Democratic Centralism had infiltrated the civil government even after they had assumed power.          

3-Narratives are Expendable Annexes-not Substitutes to an Articulated Cause. 

One may produce volumes of narratives to indoctrinate its followers but it serves no long term purposes except seeding suspicion, hatred and revenge which are the trade mark antithesis to a greater political cause. 

I mean let us get it right. Political narrative is ‘a Construction of Perspective’, isn’t it?  It is the garnish that decorates the real Cause. It is the kind of propaganda medium Mussolini and Hitler had graduated to an art form.  It is a link populist leaders tap into, to cloud the rational thinking of their followers and to turn them into devoted poodles. 

Narratives are liable to take opposing forms within a stretch of a few years. Not more than ten years ago Oromo elites were pressing on us ‘a ruler and subject’ relationship between ‘Imperial Ethiopia’ and the Oromos. Now out of necessity, the narrative is assuming the opposite formulation. 

Every time I try to understand the two armed groups all I read and hear is changing narratives.  ‘Alright, I get it, and then?’ One naturally wants to know. Nada! Everything goes blank and black after the narratives.

At a certain level I understand their predicaments.  Rebels with ideological causes are no longer in vogue. Their days are over. Ethnic factionalism is viewed with disdain as a backward movement in reverse gear. In Ethiopia religious fanaticism meets its antidote at the smallest organized community level and is dissipated into the thin air in no time. I understand this is a difficult era not to say Farewell to Arms. I know this also sounds like the fate of the unfortunate rider on the back of a bolting horse to whom folks on terra firma suggest idle advice.  

Yet I will be damned if the government isn’t exploiting this state of affairs and using it to white wash its failures as witnessed in the non-stop narratives it is constructing to win back the trust of the weary public.  It has enabled it to deny any meaningful conducive forum and environment to a viable true Opposition Group capable of booting it out of office.         

4-Political Programs outsourced to Consultants? 

In my wildest dream I didn’t believe I would live to hear expert Consultants vying amongst themselves to outsell their version of political manifesto to armed groups. 

God Bless.  

The writer could be reached at :  estefanoussamuel@yahoo.com

Editor’s note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com

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