“Blame never built a nation; vision did.
By Mohamud A. Ahmed – Cagaweyne
As I navigated the streams of news, articles, and social reflections this week, an intellectually stimulating piece published by the Global Peace Foundation, authored by Mulugeta Gebrehiwot, captured my attention. I found myself absorbed in the precision of his critique and the earnestness of his concerns about Ethiopia’s contemporary crisis. It was a compelling read – provoking both admiration for its craftsmanship and, inevitably, disagreement with certain premises. As often happens when encountering contested truths, my pen rose instinctively, not to dismiss, but to engage, to offer a perspective that embraces complexity over simplicity, and seeks balance over blame.
Mulugeta paints a portrait of Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed as a leader whose persona has overshadowed the institutions, traditions, and aspirations of Ethiopia. Yet, while this critique resonates with the disappointments many feel today, it risks overlooking a crucial truth: the fractures that bedevil Ethiopia today are not the inventions of a single man’s ambition, but the long-buried fault lines of a history selectively told and unevenly lived.
Inherited Fault Lines: Ethiopia’s Unfinished Journey
Ethiopia did not arrive at its current crossroads because Dr. Abiy Ahmed shrank it to fit his stature; rather, he inherited a nation still imprisoned by old myths of identity, belonging, and power. For decades – and arguably centuries – Ethiopia’s national imagination was dominated by a single narrative: an Ethiopia defined by the triumphs and tragedies of the North, while the South, East, and peripheries lived mostly in the margins of memory and governance.
Dr. Abiy Ahmed did not seek to diminish Ethiopia. On the contrary, his arrival marked a daring attempt to redistribute Ethiopia’s soul – to weave into its national fabric the voices, hopes, and histories that had too often been silenced.
Yet such a project was always going to invite fierce resistance. In societies where historical inequities remain unacknowledged, even the mildest shift toward inclusion is felt as a revolution by those accustomed to unchallenged dominance. In a house built on uneven foundations, even the gentle footsteps of reform can sound like earthquakes.
The Mirage of Institutional Resilience
Mulugeta mourns the collapse of Ethiopia’s institutions under Dr. Abiy’s tenure, suggesting that fragile structures were recklessly dismantled. But one must ask: were these institutions truly robust, or merely resilient in the service of the status quo?
The judiciary, long an extension of political will rather than an independent guardian of rights; the military, often an instrument of ethnic balancing rather than national unity; the civil service, historically stratified along regional and identity line – these were not bastions of democratic virtue awaiting a careful steward. They were cracked vessels held together by the inertia of fear and control, vulnerable to any leader who dared to unearth the fragile myths they guarded.
In truth, Ethiopia’s institutions were crafted during an era of revolutionary idealism but calcified into tools of administrative containment rather than engines of participatory governance. Dr. Abiy’s ambition to “open the political space” exposed the fragility of a system that had never truly invited its citizens into the halls of decision-making.
The Charismatic Contradiction: When Vision Wears a Human Face
Dr. Abiy’s ascent was not anchored solely in a technocratic agenda, but in something far more elusive – charisma. He emerged not as a mere policy architect, but as a messenger to a nation gasping for breath beneath the rubble of authoritarian opacity. While Mulugeta dismisses this as populist theatrics and mourns the death of procedural stoicism, it is precisely this emotional candor – the preacher’s cadence, the poet’s imagery, the dreamer’s lexicon – that stirred a disillusioned populace into remembering its own potential.
In a land fatigued by whispering corridors and clandestine governance, it was not strategy but spoken hope that pierced through the fog. His metaphors of unity, destiny, and renaissance may have lacked policy precision, but they were never empty. They were echoes of a shared yearning – not deception, but daring; not manipulation, but a gamble wrapped in audacity. Was it naïve? Possibly. But naivety, when wielded with sincerity, can sometimes animate nations more than cynicism dressed in competence.
Even the controversial mega-projects – from the green corridors of urban rejuvenation to the bold remapping of public space – stand as monuments to this vision. To some, they symbolize misplaced priorities or elite spectacles. To others, they whisper of what Ethiopia could become when its people are invited to dream in concrete, not just ink. These projects, whether seen as triumphs or transgressions, are artifacts of a leadership style that dared to declare: the future is not a memo; it is a movement. And if we must err, let it be on the side of courage.
A Caution Against Replacing One Hegemony with Another
Yet let this rebuttal not be misread. It is not an endorsement of blind loyalty, nor a romanticization of Abiy’s missteps. The Prime Minister’s tenure has seen grave errors of judgment, tragic loss of life, and missed opportunities to bridge divisions before they widened into chasms. The promise of national healing has been compromised by poor implementation, political miscalculations, and at times, a worrisome centralization of power.
Still, while critiquing the present, we must be vigilant not to slip into nostalgia for a past that was itself riddled with contradictions. The goal must not be to replace the dominance of the North with a new dominance of the South or periphery, but to democratize the very idea of Ethiopia itself.
We must build a republic of equals – one where the highlands and lowlands, the central plateau and distant frontiers, co-author the national story. A nation where fraternity is not performative, but constitutional.
Acknowledging Past and Present Tragedies
Thus, the way forward is neither the blind defense of the present leadership nor a cynical retreat into old hierarchies. It is an unflinching acknowledgment that Ethiopia’s history – like her present – is stained with both glory and grief.
True nation-building demands that we confront the traumas of yesterday and today alike. The massacres, the displacements, the betrayals – none should be forgotten, none selectively remembered. Healing requires memory, not amnesia, courage, not convenience.
We must finally accept that no single group owns the patent on Ethiopianess.
It is a song that must be sung in many tongues, not shouted by one.
Conclusion: The Longer Arc of Hope
Dr. Abiy Ahmed’s Ethiopia may seem today a wounded dream, yet it is a dream that for the first time includes faces and histories previously erased. In this sense, even its suffering is more democratic than the cold serenity of old exclusionary rule.
The road ahead is perilous. But the task of building a shared Ethiopia – a nation where no child feels like a guest in their own homeland – remains a cause worth striving for.
Let us not mistake the labor pains of a new birth for the death throes of an old regime.
As a final thought:
“Do not curse the surgeon when the blood flows; curse the disease that made the blade necessary.”
Mohamud A. Ahmed – Cagaweyne is Columnist, Political Analyst, and Researcher. He works at Greenlight Advisors Group, Somali Region of Ethiopia. He could be reached at +251900644648
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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Sir, you are implanted your writing skill to present the current political affair of Ethiopia splendidly. What is matter are we better off in light of Democratic rights and Economic development from previous regimes Ethiopia had endured.
***** ETHIOPIA DOES NOT HAVE STEP CHILDREN *****
1). Abiy’s Debut & Operational Constraints: youtu.be/Pg3WuF1eXww?t=5
2). Eskinder Nega [Update & Mission]: youtu.be/aha_zBYPijM
3). Recap for the Ethnic Supremacist ‘Ultra Ethiopians’:
“(i). We must finally accept that no single group owns the patent on Ethiopianess… We must build a republic of equals…
(ii). …the task of building a shared Ethiopia – a nation where no child feels like a guest in their own homeland – remains a cause worth striving for…
(iii). … naivety, when wielded with sincerity, can sometimes animate nations more than cynicism dressed in competence…
(iv). The massacres, the displacements, the betrayals – none should be forgotten, none selectively remembered…”
This is a profoundly insightful and necessary piece that courageously confronts the complexities of Ethiopia’s historical and contemporary struggles. The author’s refusal to reduce Ethiopia’s crises to the failures or ambitions of a single leader is a refreshing departure from the polarized narratives that dominate public discourse.
Indeed, Ethiopia’s fractures are not the creation of Dr. Abiy Ahmed but the inevitable resurfacing of long-suppressed tensions—fault lines buried beneath decades of exclusionary governance and mythologized history. The critique of institutional fragility is particularly astute: what some lament as “collapse” was, in truth, the exposure of structures that were never truly democratic, only stable in their enforcement of an unequal status quo.
The article also brilliantly captures the paradox of charismatic leadership. While Dr. Abiy’s vision may have been imperfectly executed, his greatest sin, it seems, was daring to challenge Ethiopia’s entrenched hierarchies. His rhetoric of unity and renaissance, dismissed by some as mere populism, resonated because it spoke to a people exhausted by oppression and hungry for belonging. The boldness of his projects—whether one agrees with them or not—reflects an attempt to reimagine Ethiopia beyond the narrow confines of its past.
Most crucially, the author reminds us that the solution is not to replace one hegemony with another but to forge a truly inclusive national identity. Ethiopia’s salvation lies in acknowledging all its histories—the glorious and the grievous—and ensuring that no community is relegated to the margins of its own story.
This piece is a call for nuance in an era of reductive polemics. It does not absolve the present government of its missteps but contextualizes them within a much longer arc of struggle. For those of us who believe in Ethiopia’s potential, the path forward must be one of collective reckoning and shared ownership. The article’s closing metaphor—of labor pains versus death throes—is a powerful reminder that transformation is often messy, but necessary.
A masterful contribution to the conversation. Ethiopia’s healing begins with such honest, courageous reflections.
Thank you.
Yours is an eloquent reminder that Ethiopia is not a project entrusted to a few dominant ethnic groups, but to all the peoples who share the country. I couldn’t agree more. I still maintain that PM Abiy is always moved by goodwill and the desire to make Ethiopia a better nation. However, we will keep reminding him that what makes a modern and stable nation is the creation of democratic institutions vested with real power that can counterbalance his. It is something we’ve never had but indispensable to have if we want to remain together and march forward.
“The road ahead is perilous. But the task of building a shared Ethiopia – a nation where no child feels like a guest in their own homeland – remains a cause worth striving for.”
This joke does seem spoken by those who has yet to experience what others in the country are living through as we speak. A student population more than the size of the population in the author’s region are now not only guest in their own country but legitimate targets of persecution and murder. One’s identity is now cause enough to be banned from entering the nation’s capital or getting decent employment through legit competition. A grandeur affirmative action that aims at pulling certain part of the populace down in favor of promoting those who are favored by the ruling cliques ethnicity and religious affiliation is only considered a way to democracy in the land of the PP cadres. Politics based on a biased ethic affiliated identity is only a recipe for further destruction and civil war, as we are witnessing it happening now.