It’s a done deal. I just returned from a staycation in Ethiopia and felt like the time I spent on ER forum as something of a dilemma - is Ethiopian politics worth my time?
The more things change the more they stay the same versus too much has changed it’s hard to make heads and tails out of it seems the two conflicting but coexisting perceptions I felt.
Human and humane government - Abiy et. al. have changed government and governance into a human and humane one. Government is not an alien thing that is made up of PM, president, this minister and that minister. Abiy has made government faceless that can’t be pinpointed and hence no one knows where to point a finger. Governance have also become humane with the central message that government of olden days is gone - palace is open so people feel “mengist” is accessible, and made an ordinary thing or tourist attraction. So government is gone and disappeared so who can you fight and topple. This has diffused situation where government and governance of old is reconfigured and diluted that you need long to rally people against it - if at all they find its face and body.
Is Abiy tyrant? Maybe a soft dictator in the making but he has the advantage of being accused of soft and lame - the opposite of what real dictators are accused of as heavy-handed and ruthless. How blessed are you when you’re skidding to power and people blame you for being “soft for a people who only know the language of the stick and not the carrot?” So we don’t know if or when Abiy will need to be bare-knuckled and takes off the gloves.
TPLF has not admitted how the West and the East have conspired against it. But if it says it out loud it would be exposing that it’s naked and TPLF doesn’t want to be seen as loser. Tigrians in the hinterland are coming to a rude awakening that not only the hope of TPLF coming to Finfinne is a nightmare but also that TPLF has slain Tigrians with its belief that the poor are expendable. No amount of victory would pay off the loss Tigrians have suffered and now made to suffer while the West and the East are looking the other way. Cheqlaw/Meshrefet is tightening the economic noose and the insecurity TPLF put Tigrians in is generational loss for them. And Eritrean “businesspeople” are everywhere and serving Abiy’s spies putting TPLF on its heels.
TPLF is taking the time until its followers forget about those killed and the false hope it fed its followers. Now it’s slowly assuming the 3rd grade boy cloth it’s fitting in in its new and diminished size and sense. The West and the East don’t want to see a nation state called Tigray because that can only survive out of taking half of Ethiopia and half of Eritrea which is not going to make neither Tigray nor Ethiopia nor Eritrea stable. So West and East have made Tigray and Tigrians the sacrificial lamb for the stability of Horn of Africa. To get a penny from its (“EFFORT”) savings in Emirates, Beijing, London and Las Vegas, TPLF is winding down to reality and trying to save some cash that Meshrefet orders the Chinese or Emirates to give them (TPLF) and him (Meshrefet) their cuts.
The economy has taken the toll. If you fly into it you feel like that proverbial frog jumping into the frying pan. But for those in its midst, it’s business as usual. Everyone back there is a part time swindler. So it’s go with the flow.
Nobody talks about politics. For a person like me it felt lonely and quite. But everybody has a business proposal for you and all are waiting to hear from you until they threw you back on the plane back here. If your expertise is politics and that is the only thing you know or know to talk about, try to find other hobbies to talk about. Unless you find business to talk about, politics is like you’re wasting their time. Yada yada yada. There is no one they put their finger to to blame. Abiy is soft and he refused to kill and beat us is the weirdest charge and people are a long way off from putting the state of their being on Cheqlaw/Meshrefet or PP.
But look at the storm on YouTube. (ER is too minuscule to mention it). You even wish people cared about a fraction of that. Nobody cares. For now, politics is dead and done with.
Now people’s go-to source of information is government media. Remember the credibility of government media after Kinijit crackdown? EPRDF’s downhill decline started that time. Now people prefer government voice than anyone else’s. I saw Muslim protest demonstrations broadcast on ETV and realized how Abiy is showing confidence while at the same time building capital for his media.
So this “openness” along with the depiction of Abiy as soft and “kind” has disoriented and disillusioned people. If you ask me, Abiy is as ruthless as it comes but people still say he’d better be a “Pastor” as Ethiopians need a “ruthless dictator who keep ‘em in-line”. That gives Abiy a long way to go.
Where is the elite? The elite has folded and gone their way. Opposition is tasteless. Even Jawar learnt that militancy when you have green card and keeping the fire out when you live in the house are two different things. This realization made him come off as a “pastor” compared to his old charisma and made him almost irrelevant. Is he moderate now or being calculating? Before detention he calculated TPLF will return/be influential with military power and he’d have a place when that happens. He realized that TPLF is nothing but a-38 seat parliament seat miniature. So Jawar and Bekele are gambling to work with ABiN in next election as that’s only way to power. That’s why he’s shedding crocodile tears for FANNO. Just like the fall from grace of Jawar, there is no elite force that you could count on to put pushback on Cheqlaw/Meshrefet.
I wish I had better news for the TPLF turncoats who dance as Amharas, Gurages, Oromos and Eritreans on this forum. These and other groups have kept doing Cheqlaw/Meshrefet’s job by dividing the gullible on ethnic lines and disorienting for him with propaganda so that Abiy can focus on tightening the levers of power. The dirty job is being done by people who were trained to disorient citizens while TPLF was in power and who’re NOW doing this for Abiy - tradition dies hard. Adios for now.
On the sum, it was an eye opening staycation and helped me to break out of my shell of perception.
Humbly,
Your Galla friend.
Re: What I learned from my Ethiopian staycation? Cheqlaw/Meshrefet Hulunim beQitachew asqemituachewal.
First off - this quite welcome was not what I expected from my forumer friends. But I know tagays do not indulge in such luxury like “ye’Egziabher selamta”.
Bequmneger gin - power has slid the Abyssinians and the bridge they destroyed (TPLF by its temper tantrum war acting like a baby who lost street-candy called power) and Amharas who are inebriated by the opium of a mirage of power that came as a windfall in the war’s aftermath without the hard work or meticulous planning one needs to get to power. And spice up the mix with Wolkayit and Raya.
What TPLF learned (in a costly and hard way) is that it has no domain over other nationalities except it’s kilil. So it planned the war as Big Bang using smoke and mirror (shua-shua) because it knew it can’t be accepted by others as before. Most people I spoke to have resigned from politics and the Tigrians even more so. That swagger is gone. Although people are uneasy about the Oromo emancipation m, the alternative of leaving Oromia and Finfinne is even harder. So it seems to be sinking that no power coalition that doesn’t have Oromos as decisive partner is not going to work. So power has irreversibly gone southwards and the sooner non-Gallas accept this the better for the country.
Bequmneger gin - power has slid the Abyssinians and the bridge they destroyed (TPLF by its temper tantrum war acting like a baby who lost street-candy called power) and Amharas who are inebriated by the opium of a mirage of power that came as a windfall in the war’s aftermath without the hard work or meticulous planning one needs to get to power. And spice up the mix with Wolkayit and Raya.
What TPLF learned (in a costly and hard way) is that it has no domain over other nationalities except it’s kilil. So it planned the war as Big Bang using smoke and mirror (shua-shua) because it knew it can’t be accepted by others as before. Most people I spoke to have resigned from politics and the Tigrians even more so. That swagger is gone. Although people are uneasy about the Oromo emancipation m, the alternative of leaving Oromia and Finfinne is even harder. So it seems to be sinking that no power coalition that doesn’t have Oromos as decisive partner is not going to work. So power has irreversibly gone southwards and the sooner non-Gallas accept this the better for the country.