July 27, 2014
“I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists”. Nelson Mandela
by Teshome Debalke
The youth of Ethiopia must come to the realization of the REALITY: your freedom is under siege by a brazen ethnic Apartheid tyranny ruling Ethiopia. Unfortunately most Medias are detachment from the reality and left Ethiopians vulnerable to the brutality of the regime.
Tyranny in general is failed brand. But, when you add ethnicity and organized corruption; you not only find a rotten brand of Apartheid but a stagnant system that make a mockery of liberty, justice, economic freedom and development.
Alex Haley, the American writer known for his bestselling book Roots once wrote;
‘Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you’.
The REALITY is the ethnic Apartheid regime in Ethiopia survives by institutionalizing segregation, violence, injustice, exploitation, and propaganda. Thus, it is not a political entity but an organized mob. That is precisely why it controls public and private institutions to deceit, purloin and torment Ethiopians. Make no mistake, only the beneficiaries nurture it from dying a natural death.
Obviously the benefit of Apartheid is the open season it provides its benefactors on the expenses of the people and doesn’t need much elaboration. After all, Apartheid is fundamentally designed to do just that. But, the costs to society continue to have far more implication for generation to come. Poverty, violation of rights, corruption, division, conflict, migration and nepotisms are visible for necked eye. Furthermore, there are more menacing costs invisible for a necked eye. Among them is maintaining fear society to disfranchise, subdue and subjugate the population in submission.
Here, it worth to note; ethnic based struggle outside the supremacy of the rule of law and the universal suffrage of ‘we the people’ perpetuate fear society became a primary obstacle on the struggle for freedom and the universal suffrage of ‘We the People’.
Therefore, it is not a matter of choice but survival to abandon the hyphenated struggle however intoxicating it may to the elites. It would be self-delusion to expect freedom and democracy from ethnic tyranny or the elites that marginalize justice as a tool for political game.
Nelson Mandela said;
‘Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity’s belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all’.
Mandela was an extraordinary man not because he brought down Apartheid on its knees but, he did it in the name of justices for all. Had he decided to bargain justice for anything else; he would be another shameless African elite that live off his plunder; as we are witnessing over-and-over again when the people of Africa are reduced as pawn of corrupt elites in a position of power.
The question is; why do our contemporary ethnic elites divert us from justice and the universal suffrage of our people?
The ethnic elites’ crime against the people of Ethiopia
THE REALITY is our contemporary ethnic elites starting from the self-proclaimed Tigray elites that institute the failed brand of Apartheid held our people’s liberty hostage. By putting the cart before the horse they reduce justice and the universal suffrage of our people open for negotiation to sustain power and privilege. Therefore,’ us-against-them’ become their only currency to remain relevant.The REALITY is the struggle for freedom and democracy is to institute the supremacy of the rule of law and universal suffrage of ‘we the people’. What are the motives of the ethnic elites?
The similarity of the South African Apartheid regime and ethnic elites’ complicity tells the story of our own divide society by the Apartheid regime in many ways than one, and the more reason to dismantle it faster than ever.
“under apartheid (after 1948) the division and control were more rigorous and these areas were called homelands. The idea was that the homelands would be like countries where the Black people could live and vote for their own governments, led by chiefs controlled by the apartheid state. As the White minority state expanded its divide and rule plan of control, there was a homeland for every major Black language in South Africa. These groups were called nations, and all Black South Africans were made citizens of one of these ‘homeland’ ‘countries’, regardless of where they had been born or where they now lived. The devastating forced removal of millions of now non-citizens of South Africa then became part of the history of our country” see South Africa History Online.
Dismantling ethnic Apartheid in Ethiopia
The dilemma Ethiopians faced to dismantle the rotten brand of ethnic Apartheid Woyane brought is the constant ethnic fragmentation of our people to prevent instituting the rule of law and universal suffrage of We the People.Naturally, unity is incompatible with ethnic elites desire to use our people’s right and liberty as a bargaining chip for power and privilege. In other words, unity guarantees the rule of law supreme for all and ethnic fragmentation guarantees the rule of law as a bargain chip for ethnic elites’ political expediency to sustain the Apartheid regime.
Therefore, our collective inability to stand together on the nonnegotiable universal suffrage of our people left the door open for ethnic elites to bargain our people’s rights and freedom with the ‘devil’.
Institutionalizing the struggle on rule of law and universal suffrage
The REALITY is there is no known guarantee to liberty and universal suffrage but the supremacy of the rule of law of ‘we the people’. Only then we the people are able to choose freely what is best for us.William Hazlitt, the English literary critic and essayist of the early 1800 said it best
‘The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves’.
Therefore, hyphenated elites love of power delayed our liberty by over two decades. How long should we wait before we stop them from distracting the struggle from achieving its goal?
Freeing public institutions from the jaw of tyranny and interest groups
The Reality is the struggle for freedom is freeing public institutions from the jaw of the Apartheid tyranny and interest groups, noting more. What it is NOT is a war between ethnic elites for power and privilege nor war between the people for the privilege of the ethnic elites as we are witnessing.Therefore, the youth of Ethiopia have one and only one nonnegotiable task to do; organize under the supremacy of the rule of law and free public institutions from the jaw of ethnic tyranny and interest groups.
There are a dozen of critical political, legal, social, economy and security institutions the regime uses and abuse to torment and robe the people.
Therefore, the struggle for freedom is the war on the stooges of tyranny that run these public institutions.
For example, the Media airwaves the ruling tyranny held hostage are public institutions used as the Weapon of Mass Deception. Therefore, the struggle is not about freedom of the press but freeing the airwave from jaw of tyranny.
Felix Frankfurter, the co-founder of American Civil Liberties Union and US Supreme Court Judge said it best ‘Freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of achieving a free society’.
THE REALITY is public institutions are for the benefits of the public not for extending the life of ethnic Apartheid or for the privilege of interest groups.
To illustrate the crime of the ruling ethnic tyranny stranglehold of public institution, take the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology held hostage by Debretsion Gebremichael. The little man with the big crime of depriving access to internet technology for 90 million people is also a Deputy Prime Minister of the Nation and the Deputy Chairman of Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF) along many titles under his belt, including cyber spy master to commit more crimes on the people of Ethiopia.
His background speaks for itself. He began early as TPLF combatant learning communication technology way before it was fashionable.
According to Wikipedia “He was sent to Italy by the TPLF and received training in communications technology. He led the team that launched the Dimtsi Woyane Tigray (The Voice of Tigray) radio station in 1980. Debretsion, along with “General Santim”, were famous hackers during the Ethiopian Civil War. They routinely hijacked, jammed and sabotaged the Derg’s radio, TV and military communication systems”
After TPLF came to power1991 “he joined Addis Ababa university while working full-time as the second man to Kinfe Gebremedhin (TPLF security chief assassinated within). He earned his Bachelors and Masters degree in electrical engineering from Addis Ababa University. While it has been claimed he pursued doctoral studies at (or even received a degree from) Harvard University, he is on record as having received a PhD from a distance program at Capella University in 2011”.
After long career of spying and jamming, Debretsion was appointed as a Director of the Ethiopian Information and Communication Development Agency (EICDA) in 2005. The Agency claim ‘to use information and communications technologies, in such a way that it contributes to the nation’s socio economic development and the building of democracy and good governance’. But, under his leadership depriving the public access to the technology and putting up surveillance on Ethiopians is what the agency and his education and experience was used.
After twenty three years of TPLF rule, access to internet remained the lowest in the world. According to Internet World Statistic, out of the 87,302,819 population of Ethiopia 960,331 (1.1%) have access to internet and 902,440 Facebook users. as of 2012, the latest data found.
To make matter worst, the one percent of the public with access to the technology that is supposedly to be used to ‘contribute to the nation’s socio economic development and building of democracy and good governance’ is used by TPLF functionaries for surveillance and propaganda.
Debretsion Gebremichael’s four decade of education and experience like most of his TPLF’s comrades you see in every public institution is depriving Ethiopians access to technology, information, freedom, rights, education and economic opportunity, sad to say but THE REALITY.
The early Christian theologian and philosopher Saint Augustine noted,’’In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?”
The youth of Ethiopia must mobilize to bring down one little Apartheid man after another in every public institution until there is no more. After all, every little mind in public institution serving the Apartheid tyranny is a menace to society, his profession and humanity at large.
That is why I said, When Sister Samarwit Speaks we better listen. Obviously, talking about The Reality she expressed eloquently is the beginning and the end of the Apartheid regime.
Nelson Mandela said;
“Between the anvil of united mass action and the hammer of the armed struggle we shall crush apartheid and white minority racist rule.”
The article is dedicated for the new causalities of the Apartheid regime, G7 leader Andargachew Tsige and Zone 9 bloggers that joined the list of their ‘terrorist’ compatriots in Woyane dungeons. Your sacrifice to pay for the ugliness of Apartheid is pillar of freedom and democracy. You are our Mandela Apartheid fear most in or out of prison.
