TIME FOR FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE

 

May the New Year bring us courage to break our resolutions early and our expectations be realized with each and every day of the year. I hope the New Year brings peace and new inspiration to all of us.
My family and I wish you and your family all the best on your thoughts, actions and changes that will bring lots of happiness. My own plan is to swear off, every kind of virtue, so that I triumph even when I fall my wishes in 2016.

Time for fundamental change is about our way of life, our objectives and our decisions. We are convinced that basic human needs are the same everywhere and finally we all strive for the same thing to succeed in life.

My theory for my commentary focus is that the political tradition among Ethiopian elites at home and abroad abruptly blaming and shaming one another will not get us anywhere. Our history since the 1960s shows that it is a failed and disastrous political culture driven by elites who continue to focus on isolated and partisan pieces rather than serving the common good. We critique the governing party but fail to critique ourselves and one another civilly. By this I mean embracing each of Ethiopia’s citizens, defending and advancing their rights and their welfare. Instead of doing this, we continue to react to events rather offer ineffectual alternatives.

 Rarely, if ever do, we have self-doubt in what we say. Egos and self-aggrandizement in the name of a cause dominate intellectual thinking. It continues to be a culture of “my way or the highway.” We talk about freedom, justice and democracy all the time.

Do we have a common definition and understanding of these fundamental principles? What do you think? I, for one, don’t think so.

In other words, without a clear awareness and a common plan there is no forward movement and progress. Don’t you think it’s about TIME FOR CHANGE?

The only method to solve our problems at Home and abroad is an all-inclusive approach which is based on the reawakening belief. For this to happen, the political elite and the people must change their mindset and should stop venerating and lionizing the kingdom of the past temperament to reign again.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved our colourful, charismatic and engaging royalty. But that’s in the past, like everything else, all things good or bad must come to an end, that’s our history but can’t be our destiny.   

We need to move forward with a renewed sense of urgency building institution of all-inclusive education system which can rationalize the minds of the people and the political elite which is suitable for creative and innovative changes to bring transparency and accountability into operational and the awareness to decimate the inkling of nepotism and subjugation.
Don’t you agree that Ethiopian society need a profound transformation from within now not five or ten years from now?

We can’t afford to dwell on our differences. It is not sufficient when someone merely acknowledges, regrets, or apologizes for something they have done. Change in our perception is very essential in our society, in whatever level of services we’re dealing with, whether sports, welfare or community organizations or day to day interactions to be able to acknowledge and appreciate the efforts of individuals, members, volunteers, participants and most of all paying our gratitude to members in any institutions who’ve officiated unreservedly.

To appreciate how playing with the fire of ethnic hatred is so tense with unintended consequences, it will be good to remember that mutual recognition is a precondition for social trust. A sense of self-worth by any group in society is only partially internal; it also depends on the willingness of other competing groups in society to acknowledge the worth of the other. This is why status contests which lack good-will are inherently negative-sum games. Where a group is discriminated informally or as a matter of government policy, cultural self-awareness eventually gives way to inherently exclusionary group consciousness.

If there is one thing the majority in the diaspora and the people of Ethiopia loathe and reject, it is political bluffing, power mongering, egos and self-aggrandizement/self-centredness and hypocrisy. Division, narrow group think, personality cults, arrogance, hidden agendas, naming and shaming, character assassination of each other, one person or group trying to undermine the other and so on will not advance the common cause and or respond to our unity and the urgent solutions for the Ethiopian people, especially Ethiopia’s youth.

Our future generation is in desperate need of model leadership and guidance from the vast societal structure inside and outside of the country. It is ordinary Ethiopians at home who die for human, social and economic rights and freedoms. The rest of us can at least stand on their side. For this reason, I suggest that division must give way to cooperation, partnership and solidarity.

Creating confusion and resentment between the younger Ethiopian populations causes more dilemmas than immediate solutions. Although, the Oromo story is so poignant, in fact, not just Oromos, all Ethiopians have suffered massive injustices under successive governments and the only way we can achieve freedom and lasting democracy today is when united, reconciled and all is forgiven, change our perception, not when divided by ethnic groups or not when being polarized by historical lies presented as truth to serve a very few freedom or radical movement organizations.

Let me be clear here that I do not blame the new generation or all the courageous young journalists and freedom movement leaders who wanted to inform the public the truth through the glass doors they grew in. They are products of a traditional society which is high in power distance, i.e., a culture that accepts denigration & inequality between leaders and the led, the elite and the common, the managers and the subordinates, the professors and the students, favouritism over competence and nepotism instead of merit, etc., etc.
Our hope and Ethiopia’s future hangs in the hands of young generations who are in sync with twenty first century values where blind ethnic loyalty is regarded as ignorance, backwardness and primitive. It is rewarding to see around the US, Europe and anywhere else in colleges and universities that young Oromos, Gurages, Amharas, Hararians, Tigrayans, Eritreans and all other Ethiopian ethnic nationalities look and interact with distinctive sense of affinity towards each other.

It is now incumbent upon us, the older generations, to appreciate more and resent less, to encourage and support the interaction of young people and to undertake projects and discussions of the like organized by various institutions abroad and at Home. The least we can do is to refrain from infecting these young people with hatred towards each other. Instead let us earnestly tell them of the good and bad times we had in our Homeland and our determination to get ahead on our long journey to pursuing our success up to where we are today.

“One Ethiopia for all and all for one Ethiopia”