The Betrayed Task of Ethiopian Intellectuals
This article is not a rejoinder to Prof. Alemayehu G Mariam’s recently posted article titled “Ethiopia: The Irresponsibility of the Privileged.” Alemayehu’s article is well-thought-out and accurate in its analysis of the shortcomings of Ethiopian intellectuals. The apparent indifference of many Ethiopian intellectuals to the plight of the Ethiopian people and to the lack of democratic governance or their veiled support to a tyrannical government, mostly because of ethnic affiliations, is indeed appalling. Rather than a retort, this article is a complementary contribution with an eye to discerning the root of the derailment of Ethiopian intellectuals.
Besides indifferent or sold intellectuals, Ethiopia has produced a virulent type of radical intellectuals who are directly or indirectly responsible for the prevalence of tyranny in Ethiopia since the fall of the monarchical system. I am not saying that tyranny started with the collapse of the imperial rule, but that the imperial autocracy was replaced by a more vicious and destructive type of tyranny, characteristically defined by the commitment to a clean slate or tabula rasa ideology. The typical ethos of the ideology is to indiscriminately denigrate whatever has been bequeathed by the past so that the country must be rebuilt anew. Whether we take Leninist type of socialisms or the various versions of ethnonationalism, they share the belief that the first condition of real change is the merciless destruction of inherited features.
Those who are familiar with my book, Radicalism and Cultural Dislocation in Ethiopia, know that I trace this clean slate ideology to the colonialist overtones of modern education in Ethiopia. What else is the indiscriminate assault on tradition but the product of the internalization of the colonial discourse by uprooted native intellectuals? Colonial discourse and policy called for the eradication of native traditions, judged primitive, and pushed for the subservient copying of the Western model of modernity. A cursory examination is enough to see how closely the modern system of education in Ethiopia was and still is framed to inculcate uprootedness and colonial mimicry. As a result, a significant number of Ethiopian intellectuals (this writer included) became in the 60s and 70s, not the defenders, but the gravediggers of Ethiopia’s history and legacy by creating radical movements championing the clean slate ideology, be it through Leninist versions of socialism or outright ethnonationalism. Unfortunately, their undoings still define today’s Ethiopia and constitute a major obstacle for democratic government and modernization.
This is not to say that social radicalism should be banned in favor of one category of intellectual. As in any other social question, prudence should avoid one-sidedness and promote diversity. It is much healthier for Ethiopia to produce various types of intellectuals, ranging from conservatives and reformists to radicals. The democratic process itself, to the extent that it is genuine, requires and produces various types of intellectuals. Even so, the type practicing indifference or insincerity should be denounced. For, the role of intellectuals is to tell and argue in favor of what they believe to be true, that is, what they have established as “true” through an intellectual procedure of research and validation. What is sane for democracy and progress is not the triumph of one view, but the open and dynamic debate between competing perspectives.
In my view, the type of intellectuals that is most needed in today’s Ethiopia is the type that transcends classes and ethnic groups and defines a national mission for the country that is both comprehensive and galvanizing. Traditionally (what follows is taken from my published paper titled “Return to the Source: Asres Yenesew and the West”), Orthodox Church intellectuals, often known as debteras, played this role. Indeed, according to Asres Yenesew––a leading scholar of the Ethiopian Church during the imperial rule––traditional intellectuals were the scouts or the outposts of Ethiopian society; as such, their role was to scrutinize the surrounding world so as to safeguard its national mission and identity. What defines them is thus their national function, which compels them to rise above factions and special interests. While kings rule, warriors fight, peasants produce, priests pray, intellectuals reflect on what is good and bad. They represent the small but advanced garrison protecting the society from malefic and dissolving internal and external forces.
After highlighting the traditional role of intellectuals, Asres deals with what he considers as the greatest betrayal in Ethiopia’s long history, to wit, the transformation of the Westernized Ethiopian intellectual into an ally of the colonization of Ethiopia. In a highly provocative statement, he declares: “although Italy’s army was driven out, its politics was not.” In other words, the military defeat of the colonizer has not ended the colonial project; it has simply compelled Westerners to use subtler means. Chief among such means is modern schooling. That is why they were so eager to open schools and send teachers in Ethiopia. What better means was there for realizing their colonial project than the propagation of their books and the creation of a Westernized Ethiopian elite?
For Asres, Ethiopia faces the gravest danger of its long history since modern native intellectuals, whose task is to provide protection, now side with the enemy by becoming the instrument of colonization, When the patrols of the society turn into deserters, its defensive capacity is utterly shattered. This ominous transformation fully materialized when the guardians of tradition turned into its critics under the instigation of Western teachers and books. Asres unravels the insidious method used to effect the transformation. To change intellectuals into turncoats, Western education had first to denationalize their mind by encouraging “individualism and social ambition.” In thus isolating them from the rest of the community and inducing frustration over their place in the social hierarchy, Western teachers changed them into rebels and revolutionaries.
In light of the deep predicament in which Ethiopia is immersed, mere political activism and elections are not enough to salvage the country. Hence my belief that the kind of intellectual change that Ethiopia needs is the kind that assumes the role of the traditional intellectual but by modernizing it. Freed from the clean slate ideology which, to paraphrase Asres, is just the continuation by natives of the colonial ideology, the modernization of the traditional intellectual redefines the national mission of Ethiopia in accordance with the requirements of modernity and the religious and ethnic characteristics of today’s Ethiopia.
Rather than partisanship, reborn intellectuals draw a comprehensive vision that is renovating and galvanizing because, going beyond group and individual interests, the vision provides a supreme national goal, thereby mobilizing the sense of duty and the power of emotion. Such a vision preserves and changes at the same time; it alone is capable of inspiring social and political reforms that are born of the Ethiopian soil and that elevate Ethiopians from copyists to designers and agents of their own modernity. In short, what is needed is a modernized and integrative new Kibre Negest, the very one that creates a nation, that is, an object of love, and not merely of interest.
Let us rethnink Ernest Renan’s famous definition: “A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form. . . .The nation, like the individual, is the culmination of a long past of endeavors, sacrifice, and devotion. . . . To have common glories in the past and to have a common will in the present; to have performed great deeds together, to wish to perform still more–these are the essential conditions for being a people. . . One loves in proportion to the sacrifices to which one has consented, and in proportion to the ills that one has suffered. One loves the house that one has built and that one has handed down. . . . Man is a slave neither of his race nor his language, nor of his religion, nor of the course of rivers nor of the direction taken by mountain chains. A large aggregate of men, healthy in mind and warm of heart, creates the kind of moral conscience which we call a nation.”
Nation is love, history, forgiveness; it transcends race and language and is commitment to unity in greatness. Is not the above definition absolutely contrary to the path taken by Ethiopian intellectuals since the 60s? Instead of love, history, forgiveness, and unity, we have division, tabula rasa ideology, resentment; instead of transcending race and language and working for greatness, we are mutilated by ethnnationalism and sectarian meanness.
There is a say *Fools have only one song*
21 Years with the same song.. trying one thing again and again and expecting different result is being a donkey.
Look melas he was a communist first then completely changed his style with the time…
I used to hear 20 years a go Tigray is sinking with the goods stolen from Addis is become heavy….
As that was the song 20 years a go Now those G7 members trying to make money with the same song…
grown up guys you become a grandpa and still thinking as 7 year old.
Ethiopia will be better those farmers addicted with Aid food and those diaspora politicians like tamagne Addicted with Aid money start working…
If some one is comfortable leaving in some one else hard work money what can you say..
Prof Messay (a look-alike)
A look-alike is a person who
closely resembles another
person (resemblance to a celebrity, politician, intellectual)
A look-alike intellectual earn a living by making guest appearances at public events, interviewing/performing on radio, television, giving analysis for various media outlets & posting articles on the web,……………
Prof Messay (the only intellectual look-alike), is known for his writings, political analysis, interviews, critics,………………..
How many of us witnessed what he said, wrote, talked regarding Ethiopia ? (On VOA, bla bla bla)
All trash scientifically founded prediction; ethnic conflict, military power division & fighting, junta formation, destruction of the country, more likely war with neighboring contries, peoples uprising, betrayal of various parts including military…………….. Ou Ou Ouuuuuuuuuuuu
We have seen things going wrong direction rather than Professors scientifically enhanced prediction, analysis, interview, nonsense, his educational proud,……..
which resulted for his disappearance as a dead professor. Of course now appear again by blaming other Intellectuals for betrayal of their country & people.
Prof Messay = Prof Look-Alike !
Dear Prof. Messay,
A betrayed task of Ethiopian intellectuals is the result of its own myth by the inrespossible intellectuals including you who want to restore the ahamara vision in the Horn if possible by requenquering Eritrean too to reverse the Identity nationalism VS Ethiopian nationalism to secure the Ahmara supremacy over others is the main cause for the failure Of Ahmara intellectuals as if they have a monopoly of intellectual package over Oromos, Tigreans and others is a playing with fire at 21st century is a danger task for the true sense of democracy for our country and why Ahmara’s evil is rising again: take ESAT and Moresh Ahmara as an alarming alert for non- ahmara nations and nationalities where our good prof. like Messay failed to condemned the evils.
As I was your student back years ago, I closely followed your one sided interest only to punish Non- Ahmaras as narrow- minded while you are doing the worst what we call the intellectual failure.
Such poison exists not least because the chauvinists are, again , being manipulated in a way that is against the democratic will of Many of the Ethiopian people thanks the so- called failed intellectuals including you who never bringing in democracy and peace in a one sided approach. Time to take a note OR ***t up!
i wish i read this text in amharic to understand it fully
So true, there is a reason many of the privilieged went to Westen funded schools in Ethiopia to disconnect them from nationalism rather to more to individualism, Western way of thinking. Then these students went to West to get educated. Thus they thrive for themselves unable to determine what their role is in Ethiopian society especially they are numbed out when it comes to Ethiopia. On the other hand the sentiment of Eritreans towards Eritrea has been rising. Ethiopians are timid, silent and afraid. We are at a critical moment where Islam is also taking over Ethiopia this is the work of the regime and West and Arabs again working hard to undo Ethiopia. Ethiopians are even unable to form good community in their respective host country.
Concise, to the point and beautiful as usual. Lovely! The confusion we find ourselves in cannot be described better. It is time to rethink and for soul searching. Hatred and defiance can only push us to the abyss.
Prof.Messay, we read your writtings,your book…,listened to your interview…,but I personally didn’t find anything that relates to the Ethiopian peoples situation! an educated person is expected to produce an unbiased research that can helps the Ethiopian society! Everything that you guys write,call it Messay kebede,Almariam…,is all based on a nonsense & hate for Tigrians! all of you act as if you are exclusively elected by God to serve Ethiopia,the rest are watchers from the fence like a dog! we didn’t see any sense of democracy & freedom either!
Ethiopian have been waiting for so long! The people had waited until there is no gov’t who cares about them! Ethiopian had waited for so long & died in millions in famine ,war…. ,because there was no gov’t who cares about them! Ethiopian had been humiliated because they naturally happened to be Oromos,Tigrians,Somalis…! the reason Ethiopian waited thus far was because Ethiopia is the only country they have!
When Prof. Messay Kebede says Ethiopian tradition…, I don’t understand what he is talking about though!
Anyways, it’s been 21 years since, but the Ethiopian intellectuals in the Ethiopian extremist side never produced anything that can bring Ethiopian diaspora together,no matter ones political affiliation! the only empty motto they have is “Ethiopian unity” which they don’t have any unity among themselves! nevertheless, they were busy listening to their own echoes ,scumming money from the innocent diaspora & all kind of Ethiopia’s enemies!
Now, Ethiopia belongs to Ethiopian,but not to the elites,their families, friends in laws…!
Please be better & don’t let us be ashamed of you! Ethiopia’s enemies are laughing at you!
Excellent analysis by one of Ethiopian’s profound intellectuals. Prof Al Mariam is another one. We have recently witnessed the beauty of Ethiopian unity in the soccer fields of South Africa. Adane Girma has probabaly united Ethiopians by scoring that goal against Zambia than all the 20 + years of propaganda by the ruling class. Who cared whether any one of them is Tigre, Oromo, Amara , Gurage etc when they were searching for a goal against Nigeria ? Because deep inside we are all nationalists. If Ethiopia belongs to all, then there has to be a role for diaspora intellectuals as much as there is a role for a farmer or solder or teacher or who ever it may be. I respect you guys. I may or may not agree with you but I respect your opinion. It’s easy to get sucked in to the American life and forget about home land. At least somebody appreciates you.
some of you here are just hiding behind Ethiopia ,but inside,you have nothing for Ethiopia at all! I personally care about Oromo,Amhara,Tigraway,somali…,because ,all these Nations,Nationalities & Peoples are the ones who made up Ethiopia!
Bzu teshefafnew yalefu negeroch slebezu new chigirachin yebezaw! But now everyone has its own kilil,therefore,you can’t cover anything!
what we are talking about is: the kind of Messay Kebede, Almariam…can write because they know how to…but have no democratic principles in themselves! they can’t solve anything! they can only enjoy their lives in a ready made country ,like in the west, nevertheless not in a country like Ethiopia!
so far the best Ethiopia has is,the EPRDF!
whatever intellectuals you are talking about are just braggers!
I wish these so called intellectuals have the power to bring the Ethiopian diaspora into unity!