By Grima Berhanu (Prof.)
There’s a question I keep getting asked — and one I’ve never been able to answer well myself:
Why do people who identify as Amhara so often turn on other Amhara with such ferocity?
A Tigrayan friend put this to me once. I had nothing convincing to say. An Oromo colleague asked the same thing later, and once again I came up short.
Why does it feel like we’re bent on tearing each other apart?
The pattern isn’t subtle. Well-known activists get torn apart publicly on social media. People who are now behind bars faced months, sometimes years, of vilification before they were ever arrested. Promising Amhara leaders — new voices and seasoned ones alike — get humiliated, discredited, and dragged through the mud as a matter of routine. I won’t name names; the list would go on far too long.
I’ve lived this myself.
Some of the ugliest insults and most brutal attacks I’ve faced haven’t come from political rivals — they’ve come from people who claim to be defending the Amhara cause. Social media and YouTube have become powerful weapons, and not only for political advocacy: they’re used just as readily to wreck the reputations of fellow Amhara. Some days it feels like we spend more energy tearing into each other than confronting the people actually responsible for our suffering.
Every Amhara should find that troubling. And it raises questions that are hard to sit with.
Who gains when Amhara leaders are picked apart, one by one?
Who gains when Amhara organizations, media outlets, and civic institutions are hollowed out from the inside?
Who gains when every rising leader is attacked before they’ve had a real chance to contribute anything?
Could it be that some of this is driven by people loyal to the Prosperity Party — people working to widen our rifts, weaken Fano, sap the morale of the Amhara population, and ultimately gut the Amhara political cause?
I’m not claiming that anyone who criticizes an Amhara activist or leader is doing the government’s bidding. Real disagreements exist. Fair criticism matters. Personal friction and political differences are bound to happen in any movement.
But at some point, criticism turns into sabotage.
At some point, disagreement turns into character assassination.
And at some point, political rivalry turns into collective self-destruction.
Telling one from the other demands political maturity — and moral courage.
While we’re busy tearing each other down, our opponents hardly have to lift a finger.
We’re finishing the job for them.
If Fano is truly fighting for the Amhara people’s survival, dignity, and security, then dismantling every Amhara institution, media outlet, intellectual, activist, and rising leader from within isn’t just a private grievance. It’s a serious political failure.
Every healthy movement needs criticism, yes — but it also needs discipline. It needs room for disagreement — but also political maturity. It needs accountability — but accountability looks nothing like fabricated accusations, public shaming, and coordinated character assassination.
No movement survives if it wipes out everyone who sees things differently. And no people can build a future if their greatest gift is devouring their own potential leaders.
So I come back to the question that won’t leave me alone:
Why are we so brutal toward our own?
Is it political manipulation? Infiltration? Opportunism? Personal rivalry? Jealousy? Inherited trauma? A factionalism baked into the culture?
Or have we just forgotten that, whatever divides us, we’re ultimately fighting for the same people’s survival and future?
Now is not the moment to destroy one another.
The Amhara people need builders, not wreckers. They need leaders, not cult figures. They need principled criticism, not character assassination. More than anything, they need a unity sturdy enough to hold disagreement without letting it curdle into mutual ruin.
If we don’t learn this now, we may one day realize that the worst damage to our cause never came from our opponents at all.
It came from us.
Girma Berhanu teaches at the Department of Education and Special Education (Professor). University of Gothenburg.
He can be reached at : Girma.Berhanu@ped.gu.se
.Editor’s Note: Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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The writer has raised an important issue related to the Amhara struggle. But he should not have refrained from naming and shaming those Amhara or otherwise undermining the Amhara struggle. It is known that the main challenge the Amhara Fano struggle is facing internal war. Abiy Ahmed is using the Amhara collaborators in the war and causing massive destructions and sufferin g in the region. One can state that the main enemies of the Amhara are these collaborators in the war fronts and cyberspace.
Digital Tigray : you are suggesting to be part of Amhara’s internal disputes as if you have a deep concern. IS THIS part of. “Tseendo” guide line manuplation
Dear Prof. Girma Berhanu,
Great Respect to you! As for me I have a deep revere to you.
Although, I see your photograph at the top of your writing, I was eager to see you in person while explaining to the participants.
I would like to inform you that this is not flattery.
First of all, I know you from your invaluable writings at ‘Borkena’ regarding your actual political and economic & security concern about our country Ethiopia. Thank you so much. Moreover, today I saw you on a satellite panel discussion with Ethiopian diaspora and I was extremely amazed your overall knowledge of the history of our country! You are simply an encyclopedia or a Harvard dictionary!!! Of course you are a teacher at the reputed University of Gothenburg. You remind me of Genius Ethiopians in the 60s,70s ,mid 80s, who were absolutely book worms,and so deep in their books! You are one of them! You are an excellent reader and extremely informative and knowledgeable person! Sadly, it’s a pity that our generation reading skill is not enough! After the Emperor Haileselassie the First ;one of our great weakness is due to lack of adequate reading & education quality in Ethiopia! One of our deep-rooted problem in Ethiopia is the ineffectiveness of our educational system! We should have as leader somebody like you, who wants to share his knowledge! Ethiopia needs you! I wish I were your student; I wish I had your books…
Prof. Girma Berhanu God bless you! Amen.