September 21, 2022
By Samuel Estefanous
Fasika Sidelil’s latest book is a pleasant addition to the troves of memoirs written by high ranking officials of the defunct Dergue regime-PMAE (Provisional Military Administration of Ethiopia) cum PDRE (People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia)
A good one, too.
Judging by the wide interest it has generated, frankly speaking I am afraid we have become some kind of groupies or junkies for Derguist memoirs. I believe the principal reason is the natural urge to hear from the hitherto silent or silenced other side. You see, society has the tendency to judge sparingly unlike court scribes and their modern day counterparts- the indoctrinated army of cadres who are trained to learn and keep only half-truths and deny and reject the other half.
Hence the inevitability of saber rattling to win power and keep it at any and all costs possible. Even the slogans need to have the capacity to disarm the other side (Revolutionary Motherland or Death is a slogan that disarms the enemy camp, reads a headline in one of the newspapers of the Dergue era). In the absence of multiparty democracy and in the currency of revolutionary fervor, it looks like the only viable and meaningful democracy is actually a revolutionary one.
Dergue had its own National Revolutionary Democracy Program as a transitional medium before embarking on Socialism full throttle and EPRDF had its version of Revolutionary democracy that was supposed to act as the midwife to deliver multiparty democracy. You see, EPRDF’s true revolutionary democrats made no pretense of adopting multiparty democracy. And the architects of the FDRE Constitution had a pretty good idea of the principal guiding spirit when they bestowed Sovereignty exclusively on the Nation, Nationalities and People of Ethiopia.
In between there is little room left for genuine democracy except for the usual standard lip service paid to placate the self-designated guardians of democracy in the West and the Czars of the Human Right Advocacy Industries. And perhaps a little bit of tokenism to give a semblance of diversity by engaging members of the opposition in their respective individual capacities.
I can understand the good impression tokenism creates; it is also a great manifestation that opposition doesn’t mean animosity. Though I still take issues with those who claim that the word Opposition exudes of negative connotation and prefer the ‘benign’ term Competitors. Politics isn’t a sporting event. Parties in opposition are what they are-Opposition parties and not Competitors. All the same I hate tokenism like the plague. A true democracy creates not an impression but the solid foundation where members of the opposition better serve the purposes of democracy being in the opposition and without necessarily joining the incumbent government. Most important of all, I will never be able to understand the characterization of appointing members of the opposition as a power sharing mechanism. Tokenism isn’t power sharing.
I mean unless power is understood as a resources to consume and not as a tool to serve and protect the public.
There is something cheap, dishonest and condescending about tokenism. Just what difference does it make if the policy and program of the incumbent is enforced by its own cadres or members of the opposition? The moment a member of the opposition joins the executive branch of the government at policy making level he ceases to be in opposition. In a way revolutionaries are right to fight their nemeses tooth and nail, to steadfastly resist any attempt of the counter revolutionaries to infiltrate the revolutionary camp for as long as the revolution is alive and kicking.
Fasika didn’t make any allusion to embracing tokenism when he blamed his generation for the inability to chart out the fate of the country in a spirit of fraternity and brotherhood. But he just couldn’t suggest a meaningful and viable blueprint of the alternative under the circumstances. Likewise he bitterly and singularly blames Mengistu Hailemariam for stubbornly resisting a negotiated deal out of the war. I think we will have to wait until Ashagre Yigletu publishes a book giving a detailed account of the efforts for peaceful resolution of the conflict.
Particularly these days when we are facing the same nemeses, and the same inability to peacefully resolve the raging conflict in the Northern Province of our country, Fasika’s book fails to suggest a credible peaceful alternative to the war personally spurned by the then President of the Republic.
Fasika quotes a writer who draws the parallel between a revolutionary and a pious religious fanatic. Both are purists. They are under the illusion that they are the ONLY ones truly initiated in to the realm of the ultimate undiluted truth and they have a natural aversion to the presumed ‘traitors’, infiltrators, and revisionists of the truth. Are we doing them any semblance of justice when we demand Soldiers of the Cross to betray their creed? The system was the problem.
There is this incident Fasika wouldn’t elaborate and reflect on at great length. I mean considering the fact that he was himself a Wez League and taking in to account his being highly intrigued by and regretted why the crème de la crème of that Generation lacked the capacity and willingness to join hands instead of butchering each other for the good of the Nation. The sad fate encountered by members and leaders of the Wez League who had joined the Revolutionary Seded! As the second strong man and ideologue of Seded, Fikresilassie categorically blames the leaders of Wez League as saboteurs who tried to infiltrate the Seded even though both Parties were leftists and adopted similar programs. They were extra judicially killed for ‘wrongly’ believing and assuming that it was possible to reach out and hold hands with other Comrades. It was a cardinal revolutionary sin and they paid for it with their lives.
It isn’t like attempts weren’t made to pool resources and create a strong Marxist Leninist Front. It just wouldn’t materialize. Even EPRP and MEISON had tried to iron out their differences. All attempts failed chiefly because the leaders were basically egoistic and suffered from clinical megalomania. I had expected Fasika’s book would deeply research this topic in a wider historical context.
These days I don’t even subscribe to the common understanding that ‘the Generation’ at least had one extraordinary impeccable good quality-the total commitment to live and die for a cause greater than itself. Faskina takes this for granted and lauds Hiwot Tefera’s assertion to the effect. Actually Fasika did a little bit of pandering to the EPRP camp in his enthusiasm to hold on to both sides of the aisle and extricate himself from the factionalism that had characterized the era.
We were told and taught that Dergue was such a creepy hydra headed monster that even little girls and boys as young as 14 were obliged to join the ‘resistance’. We believed the official chronicle of the historical decades but we wanted to hear the other version of the story, too. In this regard Fasika has given us the chance to re-educate ourselves. The Dergue didn’t just do saber rattling; it had a strong team of Western educated highly qualified professionals who were running the regular affair of government.
It is easy to say, we are brought up on the ruins of the Dergue, but the funny thing about this ‘ruin’ is, it just wouldn’t decompose and get lost in to the thin air or slip deep in to the bowls of mother earth. It is more like the Sphinx; I dare say it has got a regenerative potency buried deep in the heart and minds of the heirs of the Country’s ancient architects. One thing is for sure it wasn’t an aberration as we were led to believe. So much so that, Dergue’s vanguard party (the Workers Party of Ethiopia) is so emboldened as to seek legitimacy with the National electoral Board of Ethiopia.
I hate to make it a side issue here but the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia opted to entertain the question of WPE’s request for registration by settling for the laziest and easiest way out of the presumed possible quagmire. In my wildest dream I didn’t expect the Board would reject the application out of hand citing legislation adopted by unelected transitional Council. The transitional Council was constituted by way of enabling the maintenance of transitional justices until a legitimate Constitution was adopted.
In matters relative to Constitutional rights its currency was finite and limited. The right to Organize and Association is a fundamental Constitutional right firmly established and guaranteed by the FDRE Constitution. The request for registration emanates from the FDRE Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Ethiopia is a signatory. The Board should have entertained the application according to these supreme laws of the land.
Never mind that, perhaps the progenitors or the constituting members were simply testing the waters when they lodged the application for registration.
In all its controversial twenty seven long reign, EPRDF had been haunted by the memories of the Dergue. For every step it takes forward or any misstep it commits, EPRDF had to make some reckoning with the corresponding records of the Dergue. Unwittingly the Dergue had set itself as indispensable yard stick and definitive benchmark to its arch enemy EPRDF. Thus, in a way it was EPRDF which had kept the Dergue relevant well in to the fourth decade after its demise. I guess I am beginning to understand why; I think EPRDF had a sinking feeling like there was a little bit of Dergue buried in the hearts of some segment of the society.
But I am not that sure if the title Fasika chose to reflect this state of affair is a fitting one. Musketeers are the epitome of chivalry, they are known to unsheathe the saber only to guard the faith, defend the honor and keep the oath. On the contrary the Generation Fasika tried to characterize is trigger- happy, vainglorious and incredibly self-righteous. It is a generation that had believed any measure of good achieved is unacceptable to the extent it wasn’t brought about by itself. It is a generation that perpetuated lies like how bereaved parents were required to refund the authorities for the bullet wasted on their children.
For crying out loud how many of us had repeated this lie to others including to foreigners? I personally feel like I owe a great deal of indebtedness to Andargachew Tsige for debunking this legend. You see, according to Andargachew, it was the hospital that used to charge the family to issue the autopsy report and guess what? It was and it is a standard procedure applied indiscriminately irrespective of the cause of death.
Again, generation to come will be puzzled and intrigued by the level of and the roots of the unmitigated and uncompromising animosity among and between the multitudes of political groups in the country.
Then, there is this anomaly staring us in the eyes…how come the three thousand years of history and civilization we put claim to failed to come to the rescue.
God Bless.
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