Your candid examination of the failures, rivalries, intolerance and strategic weaknesses within sections of the Ethiopian diaspora is both necessary and courageous. Your central appeal—that Ethiopians must learn to disagree without destroying one another—is particularly important at a time when political loyalty, ethnic affiliation and personal rivalry too often take precedence over evidence, reason and the national interest.

Intellectuals should not be afraid to tell the truth merely because it is inconvenient to their friends, communities or political associates. Nor should intellectual independence be confused with neutrality between truth and falsehood. A genuine public intellectual must be prepared to criticise failure wherever it occurs, recognise positive progress wherever it emerges, and revise his judgement when the evidence changes.

This has also been the underlying method of my own ten articles in this newspaper. Although the emphasis and approach may differ from yours, I also do not assess Ethiopia’s political actors through a partisan weighting parameter—supporting or condemning every action according to the political tactics, alliances or controversies of the moment. The relevant weighting is Ethiopia’s long-term strategic interest.

Accordingly, I criticised failure without regard to who is responsible for it, but equally acknowledges constructive progress without treating praise as political allegiance. A government may be criticised for constitutional, democratic or security and human-rights failures while still being credited for infrastructure, diplomacy, economic reform or strategic achievements that advance Ethiopia’s enduring interests. Conversely, opposition to the government does not automatically make every opposition strategy wise, democratic or beneficial to the country.

My framework is organised around four singular national interests expressed through three interconnected strategic layers. The first is the preservation of Ethiopia’s unity together with the restoration of meaningful Red Sea sovereignty and access. The second is broad-based economic development, accompanied by democracy as a real and continuing aspiration—even where neither economic transformation nor democratic consolidation can be completed overnight. The third concerns GERD, urbanisation and industrialisation as mutually reinforcing foundations for Ethiopia’s structural transformation. Unity is central and I learned the hard way recently that artists must be equally heard in this intellectual debate as their songs could herald ” — a Way Out of the Monkey Habit of Ethnic Entrepreneurship”.

On ideological level, my central diagnosis – “It is the Constitution, stupid.”

Ethiopia’s recurring crises cannot be understood solely through the personalities, ambitions or mistakes of successive leaders. The deeper difficulty lies in a constitutional architecture that elevates ethnic collectives and ethnic territorial claims above equal citizenship, encourages competitive ethnic political entrepreneurship, and makes the state itself an arena for permanent contests over identity, territory and historical grievance.

This does not mean that the Constitution explains every failure or that leadership, institutions and political culture are unimportant. It means that even capable leaders will struggle to produce lasting national stability while operating within a constitutional structure that repeatedly reproduces fragmentation, distrust and zero-sum ethnic mobilisation.

Despite differences in emphasis, therefore, your work shares an important conviction: Ethiopia requires intellectually honest voices that are not imprisoned by factions. Scholars must be willing to praise what advances the country, condemn what damages it, and distinguish temporary political tactics from enduring national strategy.

Please continue to speak without fear. Intellectuals may disagree over diagnosis, sequencing and political method, but they should never be intimidated into silence. At a time of national danger, silence by those who know better is not neutrality; it becomes an unintended contribution to the tragedy.

Sincerely,

MGH

“Dr. Henry Jarecki

to jeevacation@gmail.com
Apr 28, 2009 4:06 PM

This is the Epstein scholar for 2008. I plan to release your name and to let the Ethiopian government know where you are hiding. He, at least if it’s all true, is a mover and shaker. He was elected to be mayor of Addis Ababa till they put him in jail two years ago.”