Scramble for Power

It does not seem that the Ethiopians are getting it at all, because where everyone scrambling to is to put the "holy cow" under their control, which happened to be this time the unfortunate government office, the only system in the country something worthwhile going for it. Which means there are those who are determined to sit atop of the administration by any means, which includes usurping power by using arms. This is true not only in Ethiopia but it is applicable in most third world countries. What this shows is there is a lack of other resources that people can use to make themselves rich. They would rather kill each other and create immense destruction simply to take control of this lucrative means of enriching oneself and once they paid the price and have taken charge, they will fight to the end to keep it under their control.

We, however, know that EPRDF is totally different, in spite of the organized effort to tarnish their good reputation, yet it does not mean they have to be poor, because they are not a religious sect that have given up on the world to serve their country people. These are mundane individuals who have found themselves on power either with their own design or haphazardly, and those who know them close are saying that they are doing a good job. The fact that they could have given up an ordinary lifestyle in order to do what they are doing, with all the risks involved needs some consideration given to it.

It is unusual to have such an administration in most of the third world countries or such administrations are not in big number. No one seems to care how transparent the government they are running is because it is going to set a new precedence. Any government that will find its way into office, it does not matter how will have to be transparent like them, and satisfy the onlookers by demonstrating that they are doing things by the book. The problem here is instead of making people happy they are buying enemies by the dozen.

Who are these enemies? These are folks that were mentioned earlier that are scrambling for power, because almost all the inhabitants of the third world countries do not have other means of enriching themselves other than making themselves part of a corrupt government. Since everyone is doing it, everyone takes it for granted, and there is nothing wrong with it. In order to put aside such a bad practice there had to be some other source of generating wealth in the country, which means we cannot come down hard on the scramblers, because they are humans after all.

Before communism took root in the country people were generating enough wealth from the land; it does not matter what they were doing. They can farm it, others can do it for them, or there was buying and selling of real estate in the cities or in the rural regions, which was a lucrative means of generating wealth. They can build several houses and they could create extra income, which could be a supplement for some, whereas for others that income could have been their livelihood.

It was not common to hear the well to do people in the nation, especially those who are educated to have such an aversion toward the government of the day. Even at the time of the Derge, either most of the educated people were by the side of the regime experimenting with the new ideology, or since they were advisors and what not, they were not as vocal as they are today. But what is taking place now is everyone is scrambling for power brazenly and the most desperate ones happened to be the diaspora that were forced to leave the country because what they introduced backfired victimizing them.

Everyone was against the Imperial regime and no one really wanted to correct some of its mistakes by reminiscing where the country was some 40 or 50 years back. That regime had to suffer non-reparable aversion most probably for the same reason the existing regime is suffering similar non-reparable aversion. They must have shown some good result even if they were far from being perfect since it was a third world regime. They had none of the problems these two regimes have as far as the welfare of the people were concerned and people must definetly have learned a few strange lessons that they might not deserve.

But similar interest groups like the ones that are agitating a movement currently wanted to scramble for power because, even if the regime was doing everything by the book as much as possible, as it is in any third world situation, the possibility that anyone who can take control of the government could avert all the resources of the government to their own personal advantage was there, and to do that all it takes was a highly orchestrated propaganda where it was possible to make the regime look bad.

Those who called themselves Derge later on and did all that damage were met by a surprise. When they made it to office they found the government coffer, more or less, empty. The source of the resources were the Western donors like today, and because of the crime and atrocity the particular government committed they refused to recognize them let alone to give them their hard earned money knowing exactly what they will do with it. The rest is history and even if they were not starved to death it was never like they anticipated it.

What is interesting here is, after so many years, even outside observers have not forgotten what happened, although those who were in the middle of it forget quickly, and are laboring to repeat what they did, except that this time what they encountered was worst than them. Why were they worst than them? Because they had suffered in their hands and had seen firsthand what they did to the nation and to the people that are getting some respite now. All the damage they caused is not enough as far as they are concerned and today they are again engaged in their never-ending propaganda because it is the only thing they have at their disposal. There is no fear that they will succeed though, but since one of their strategy is to disrupt what it taking place in the nation in the name of their own personal interest many people are wary of the outcome. It is unfortunate that they will not rest until they get what they want.

Since most of these scramblers are living as the dispora, everyone knows life is difficult wherever they are, and for the most part people are surviving, because by driving taxi and working as parking lot attendants it is not easy to achieve much, even if it might be better than going without anything. Most probably, the source of the burning desire to usurp power from the existing administration might be, they could anticipate that anyone who will come into power will not be militarily as strong as those that are on power now since there is ethnic fragmentation in the county, and it will be easy to change hands as many times as possible. In all this wrangling the people are totally forgotten. They expect the nation to serve one purpose, and it is to enrich these displaced individuals and their cronies, and maybe some dissatisfied groups from within the country. We have said there is dissatisfaction because people have no means of generating wealth other than being employed, or some people might want to go into business, and even that sector can absorb so much and it might already be crowded.

No citizen would like to be in a position to judge other citizens except that it is possible to spot what is missing in all this commotion. It is not shameful or a crime if people want to make wealth in order to live a better life. It does not mean everyone wants to see, for example, the inhabitants of a given geographical region live well and be happy for them, because it is human nature. Nobody likes, for example, to see the people in the Middle East to have it so good because they are blessed with oil, yet since it is a fact of life there is so much outsiders can do about it except to live with it. Which means if all the energy and synergy are directed at creating a means of generating wealth, we can rest assured that everyone will leave this estranged government alone, because they are doing the right thing and the nation needs a good stable government for some time to come.

What attests to this is the fact that there was a news piece recently that the Chinese are drilling oil in Ethiopia and even if it was not given a special emphasis, it was not difficult to tell that it was an interesting news item, simply because we all know that it is economical activity like that what would give us what we need badly. Everyone has understood that what the nation needs is a means of generating more wealth so that the people will start enjoying a higher standard of living, and the time will come when no one would be bothered about who is running the government. If the Tigreans happened to be the best politicians to run the country, we will go out of our way to put them in office, again and again, as long as they come in different forms and meet the requirements.

What this shows is the nation’s problem is somewhere else, yet we do not have to forget that unless it is dealt with at some level, it will always stay under the rug. It is not only that this unfruitful wrangling is going to slowly cause damage to the nation that was doing well before the election or rather before the "scramble for power" to rob the nation underwent. What this means is even if following what the regime is doing is almost a national duty, preventing it from doing what it is supposed to do would also hurt the nation, especially those that are vulnerable. Therefore, this same synergy will have to look at other alternatives to change the present situation in the nation instead of being too focused on putting in a new administration in office prematurely.