�I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.�

                                                                                             Voltaire, Letter (1770)

I. Criticism as a democratic process

I am not trying to asphyxiate criticism and freedom of expression by writing this article in response to a couple of �commentaries� that were aimed at me for writing critically appraising the activities of Meles Zenawi and Sebhat Nega. I believe in the free flow of ideas. Thus, I write practicing that fundamental right of thought and expression. Because individuals like Engineer Girma and Mezgebe Gebrekiristos had written leveling accusations of misrepresentation of facts against me and raw personal insults, I am returning the favor in kind in my own way with facts and sound reasoning.

If individuals had written articles or essays in defense of their own fundamental rights and their own aspirations, I would have been much concerned with anything I write about such individuals. If Mezgebe or Girma had criticized me because either man�s human rights were violated by my writing, I would have been seriously apologetic for hurting any brother. If either had complained that his life was impacted upon negatively by what I wrote about Meles Zenawi, I would have been contrite for such insensitivity on my part. But none of the criticisms and personal insults thrown at me is based on anything I have said or done to Mezgebe Gebrekristos or Engineer Girma. I have never written about Mezgebe or Girma in any forum.  

At any rate, out of respect to another critic of my article, Tafere Hailemariam, whose criticism I find to be constructive, well articulated, and dignified, I will try not to use foul language. However, I beg to be excused to retaliate this once with an apt expression to the types of personal insults directed at my person by the two hypocrites who have likened me to some animals, and I do retaliate more so on behalf of the animals for being likened to me! Moreover, I will be within the limit of "Ethiopian decency" if I consider Mezegebe and Girma�s types of personal "insults" as some kind of activity of a human anatomical part. The earlier personal insult of Engineer Girma and the recent harangue of Mezgebe Gebrekristos are nothing more than "Ye Qolett chiffera."

When a person blabbers without thinking and/or knowing all of his or her facts, such a person exposes his or her ignorance and mediocrity to all. Mezgebe tried to chastise me, for my pointing out the fact that �shortness� may impact negatively upon the personality of an individual in leadership position. As a counter point and to support his shallow understanding of my article, he named a handful of short world leaders. Among such leaders he named, he wrote in glowing terms about James Madison, whom he used as his leading example of comparison to Meles Zenawi. If that pick of a leader was meant to shore up Meles Zenawi by standing him next to James Madison, it is a disservice even to Meles Zenawi. True, James Madison, was all what was stated by Mezgebe, but Mezgebe left out very crucial points about Madison, such as the fact that Madison was a slave owner of one hundred eighteen slaves, the fact that Madison used his slaves on his five thousand acres cotton and tobacco farm much like farm animals even after he left office, and that Madison traded in slaves, and the fact that Madison died of old age without ever freeing a single slave.

Most importantly Mezgebe hid the fact that Madison was responsible for the defeat of the United States at that stage of serious threat to the very survival of the new nation because of his inefficiency and bad planning of the declaration of war of 1812 against the British. Yes, we know he was opposed to that declaration initially, but gave in to the warmongers. As a result of Madison's mediocrity, the British were able to run over the United States' army and burned Washington DC in 1814 including the White House and the Congress buildings while still under construction. And Madison, and the whole Government of the United States was on the road dodging capture. On the economy, Madison scuttled the progressive visionary policy of Hamilton to modernize American banking and commerce and replaced the banking industry with a tradition of cronyism.  May be in a Freudian slip of the pen, Mezgebe has provided us with the right person in history that symbolizes Meles's treasonous activities ceding Ethiopian territory to Eritrea and now to Sudan because of serious defect in leadership quality. The image of comparison is even worse and absolutely ridicules if you stand Meles Zenawi next to Gandhi (one of the individuals listed by Mezgebe for comparison with Meles).

There is no need to be fearful of my writing that one has to distort both the written word and the spirit of my articles. There is no need either to throw a tantrum in public. Properly written challenge is invigorating to us all, and I welcome such discourse. I wrote sincerely and honestly my informed views on leadership and how we were betrayed by Meles Zenawi and his political party, and how our history, as an ancient people of some worth, was compromised by his falsification of our history. After all this is a man who wrote and also stated over a decade ago that Ethiopia (as a country) has a history of about a hundred years. And yet Meles is now spending millions of dollars and tens of thousands of man-hour preparing to celebrate the one thousand year history of Ethiopia. At any rate, if my criticism of Meles Zenawi or Sebhat Nega stings, it is because my criticism is truthful.

II. "Anatomy is Destiny"

The great psychologist Sigmund Freud had tremendous impact on the development of the field of the study of the human mind--psychology. Among his most poignant remarks, nothing stands out as prominently as his statement: "Anatomy is destiny." [See Collected Works, 1924] Freud made that statement in connection with his studies of the development of personality or self-awareness in boys and girls. However, because of its profundity that statement was expanded by generations of psychoanalysts and even behaviorists to cover a multiplicity of complex human behaviors and types of personalities. In this regard, neither psychoanalysis nor behaviorism is about genetically inherited characteristics.

The criticism by Tafere Hailemariam, ("On Professor Tecola's assertion of looks versus character," Deki-Alula, July 31, 2007) brought to my attention the fact of how concretely people take my words. Although my reference to "short" stature was anecdotal or metaphorical to the main thesis of my article that irked my critics, I must revisit the concept and attempt to put it in the right context and perspective for everyone to have a clear understanding of my statement. I am not worried much about the content of the criticism by Tafere and others as written because their criticisms have serious factual errors on the achievements of Meles Zenawi. However, no matter how profound or gullible their criticism might seem, it made me focus on issues that were not raised by their criticisms directly, but are some where in there lurking to pounce on me at some later date. This is my version of preemptive strike. When I wrote about "short" leaders being insecure and as a consequence being poor leaders, I did not mean to suggest at all that "shortness" per se causes insecurity. Short stature in leaders has more of a correlation effect, rather than a linear cause-effect relationship. In other words, there is nothing to suggest in my essay that there is something determined biologically, pathologically or genetically in short people that will make them insecure and horrible leaders. The one thing that I particularly abhor is suggesting, in any form, genetic determinism. Human beings are far too complex for such nonsense. After all I spent the last thirty years of my life researching and writing against Galton and the eugenics movement.

Nevertheless, it is appropriate here to point out the framework of the debate about heredity (nature v. nurture) and the role of the environment in personality development in general. �B.F. Skinner would argue faithfully that behavior is based solely on environmental contingencies, while Sigmund Freud would just as strongly maintain that the role of heredity determines the personality of an individual. Erikson would argue that personality is determined in the stage trust vs. mistrust. I, on the other hand, believe that all sides of the debate are equally valid; personality is both the product of nature, in the form of the gratification of instinctual basic needs, and the product of learning and life experiences.� To borrow a form of expression from Simon de Beauvoir, one is not born, but rather becomes an insecure vicious leader. In other words, the fact of being short invites the types of treatments that undermine the humanity of the short individual, who in turn develops all forms of compensatory, often destructive, strategy in order to overcome such deeply felt social mistreatments. It is a complex process, but the fact remains such personality development did occur.

It is simply a matter of little extension from the approach I mentioned above that will plunge us into the form of primordial confrontation, with promoting a form of racism, I might be accused of on the second round of assault on my person if I allow such criticism sink into the collective memory of Ethiopians without attempting to clarify properly the relationship of the fact of short stature with deformed personality. Freud, when he wrote his famous line, was not thinking in terms of biological determinism of the Darwinian type. The literature on the subject of how body image affects how individuals are accepted in society and how such image in turn molds the personality of such individuals will easily fill up a library of tens of thousands of books, articles, research papers, and records of studies. [See below a limited list of publications on the subject.]

There are several studies on the personality of Hitler, Stalin, Lenin et cetera all confirming what I stated about the correlation of short stature with viciousness and cruelty. The United States Government routinely carries out studies of a kind of psychological profile (personality) of every foreign national leader in the World that is based on body image and personality development. So do many other governments around the world similar studies of foreign leaders. I do not see why the reaction of a few Ethiopians could be this strong for my stating the obvious about Meles Zenawi�s diminutive stature under five feet. May be my statement is cutting far too close to home in case of some Ethiopians because of their height. Even such a statement must be scrutinized for accuracy for those who migrate are not representative samples of Ethiopians. I want to remind my readers the fact that not all short people are insecure. After all I am not much taller than Meles Zenawi, and if it were not for truth and national concern I will not be writing anything deprecating myself.

III. Meles is an anomaly

In the last one week I have received even more alarming statements from sources claiming to have special knowledge, as childhood friends, about Meles Zenawi�s activities in his teens and about the types of punishments Meles devised against captured enemies later in his life as the leader of the TPLF. I will not go into the detail of the claims of my anonymous informants because I do not write on any alleged factual matter without proper verification. I will make sure to find about those mind-boggling assertions. I am convinced even more so that Ethiopians have the worst individuals in leadership position at this stage of our history.

There is this one pathological disease that defenders of Meles suffer from, which I have identified as �ye qomatta bet birqe ttat syndrom,� which syndrome is a real block against any enlightened discourse. From morning to sunset, what I see and hear Meles Zenawi doing is being involved in twisted conspiratorial activities either to marginalize his equals in his party leadership, or undermining the interest of Ethiopia and selling off our legacy to Sudan and other hostile nations around the area. Look how viciously he degraded and humiliated courageous Ethiopian nationalists such as Seye, Adanetch, Bitew and several others. Look how mercilessly he tortured and is still torturing Tamrat Lyne in a filthy prison for years. Tamrat despite his many faults does not deserve such degradation and horrible treatment from the people who were supposed to be his �band of brothers.�  By contrast Meles Zenawi has promoted to position of power and privilege individuals despised by Ethiopians or not known for any courageous activities and whose only claim for such appointment is sucking up to Meles Zenawi or Sebhat Nega.

How could anyone in the interest of Ethiopia appoint the current Ambassador to the United States whose brand of international diplomacy so far is bar-hopping in Adams Morgan? Heroic children of Arisi, Begemder, Gojjam, Harrar, Shoa, Tygraie, Wollo and very many other heroes from all over Ethiopia did not sacrifice their youth for over fifteen years fighting against the brutal regime of Mengistu Hailemariam in order to have the inexperienced and often degenerate sons and daughters of rotten Mahel Sefaris from Emperor Haile Selasies I feudal regime, get appointed to such positions of great responsibilities. There are thousands of well-qualified Ethiopians in Ethiopia or elsewhere in the world, who are well liked by most Ethiopians, who would have rendered great services to their country than these appointees of Meles Zenawi, jokes of civil servants. How could any decent human being defend such a deformity in a leader?

What is going on here in Meles Zenawi�s type of administration is something very sick. Usually individuals are appointed to high government positions because they bring to the government supporting constituents that will create stability and cohesion within the government structure. Because of the presence of well-respected and well-liked individuals the leadership can implement its development programs easily because the population feel represented through the appointment of such men and women that people trust and admire. Meles seems to be doing the exact opposite. He appoints people who are unpopular, secretive, or degenerate and corrupt. The reason is he wants to be the only luminary star in a solar system with burnt out and charred dead planets of mediocre and corrupt appointees. He does not want any one else to shine beside him. This is one of the insecurities I tried to point out in my article(s); this is the type of character of a leader that is harmful to national growth and development. Look around Meles Zenawi; do you see anyone you could trust as a national leader? Of course not, Meles had either frustrated or pushed out all those who would have evolved into national leaders. And so he surrounds himself now with mediocrity and yes-men, and we suffer as a result under the leadership of such a megalomaniac individual.     

It is a puzzle to me why so many young men (and some women) believe that Meles Zenawi is a profound thinker with great capacity. I have not seen or read anything profound, instructional, or visionary from Meles Zenawi in the last fifteen years or even before. What ever he had written in the past while he was still in the bush was totally marginal, the type of writing you could expect from a young man with nihilistic bent overloaded with little understood Marxism. Even his sustained recent writing, supposedly extract from his student paper on economic development dealing with African countries, which I read on the Web, reads like a briefing summary prepared by a junior executive intern set on impressing his boss rather than solving real life problems. There is nothing that he has done in the last fifteen years that will survive him. The Constitution will be the first to melt like some monument to foolishness made of wax. The next item that will bite the dust will be his effort to divide Ethiopia on the basis of ethnicity in order to dismantle this great nation.  

There is nothing mysterious or profound about the fact that Meles Zenawi survived by out foxing so many courageous individuals, most of whom a better of him ten fold, to get where he is now. The people who helped him to this level and stage of prominence are all cut from the same type of cloth whose characteristic is marked with deceit, deceptiveness, conspiracy, treason, egotism, and short stature, of course. Ethiopia is a victim of its own making; it is a nation whose leadership structure has atrophied for the last four hundred years and that bastard children of illicit sexual encounters with domestics, or children of bandas, or treasonous rebels, or tera wonbedes have succeeded to climb the ladder of power. The result of such downward spiral in the quality of leadership of several centuries is the current leadership of Ethiopia�a group of men slightly better bred than the common street criminal. This is hard to swallow, but look at the degree of cronyism, corruption, and incestuous relationship that is rampant in the system of government at this point in Ethuioia at play where every individual tries to attach herself or himself to a strand of power and privilege bestowed arbitrarily and capriciously from the head of government down to the kiosk keeper or government building gate keeper.  

Meles Zenawi�s political and economic programs, which can be gleamed from various government activities, since he has no coherent political or economic program so to speak of for Ethiopia, are the most polarizing and destructive political and economic processes in living memory. He has already started the dismantling of our nation with Eritrea ceding and Tygraie being set up for such eventuality. He had sown the seed of disintegration through his constitution dividing the nation by ethnic/language that was never done by any Ethiopian Emperor or leader before him for thousands of years. He has created an environment of tremendous hatred between Amharas, Tygreans, and Oromos. And other minority populations are now taking up arms to create their own tiny nations all over Ethiopia. He has undermined the judicial process and the rule of law through his constant interference with the judicial system of the country. Look at the little game he orchestrated in order to have the CUD leaders off his plate because he was losing international and domestic support to his brand of government.

What Mezgebe and Girma are so proud of and boasting about as the singular achievement of Meles Zenawi is a house of cards that will collapse as did Mengistu's Government in an overnight when the deluge of popular political upheavals hit Ethiopia sooner than we think. �Ai nega meslowat eqote ....� Even the Tekeze Dam project, which is supposed to be the crown jewel achievement of Meles and mostly of Sebhat, is an ill-conceived project, which is a white elephant. For Tygrai region that has several dry areas and remote parts from power sources, the best plan of development was to implement basic capacity building economic structure that would distribute development projects, capital, and man-power in as wide area as possible. Rather than spending billions of dollars on a single dam on the Tekeze River, it would have been much more helpful to the people of the region to have built, with the same amount of fund, three or four smaller dams at different sites, and thereby build basic services for more people. The big Tekeze Dam type could have been built later with the money generated by the smaller multiple dams and the experience gained from such widely distributed development capacity building, in fifteen to twenty years. The Tekeze Dam productive use is going to be very limited and a disappointing one. It will require additional billions to lay out the secondary structure for the distribution of power and water to other parts of the region. 

IV. What of our future?

After watching and listening/reading about what is going on after the pardon and release of CUD leaders, I have come to the conclusion that the mediocrity of Ethiopian politicians in general is simply unbelievable. For example, the recently pardoned CUD leaders have been sending mixed signal to their supporters and to Meles Zenawi. Engineer Hailu Shawl has expressed his position clearly that his opposition to Meles Zenawi has not changed, and yet he is backing individuals in the Diaspora who are not acceptable leaders to a large number of Ethiopians. What was most surprising to me is the reported statement of Judge Birtukan on German Radio declaring her �love� �mewded� to Meles Zenawi, a most inappropriate and immature statement from someone much is expected from. I shudder to think of any decent Ethiopian who would look at Meles Zenawi with any degree of affection. Tolerance is one thing, but mewded? Think before you speak, and look before you leap. Ω

Tecola W. Hagos

Wahsington DC

August 3, 2007

Suggested readings on personality development and the effect of height on such development. [I have not read all of the books and articles listed here, I have not listed either all the articles and books I have read.]

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Ainsworth, Mary, Mary Blehar, Everett Waters, and Sally Wall. Patterns of Attachment. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1978.

Bates, John, and Theodore Wachs, eds. Temperament: Individual Differences at the Interface of Biology and Behavior. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1994.

Caspi, Avshalom. "Personality Development across the Life Course." In William Damon and Nancy Eisenberg eds., Handbook of Child Psychology, Vol. 3: Social, Emotional, and Personality Development. New York: Wiley, 1998.

Damon, William. Social and Personality Development: Infancy through Adolescence. New York: Norton, 1983.

Dutton, D. G. (1998). The Abusive Personality: Violence and Control in Intimate Relationships. New York: Guilford Publications.

Dweck, C. S. (1999). Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development. Philadephia, PA: Psychology Press.

Ernst, Cecile & Jules Angst. Birth Order: Its Influence on Personality. New York: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 1983.

Freud, Sigmund, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Ed. J. Strachey with Anna Freud), 24 vols . London: 1953-1964.

Halverson, Charles, Jr., Geldolph Kohnstamm, and Roy Martin, eds. The Developing Structure of Temperament and Personality from Infancy to Adulthood. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994.

Harris, Judith. "Where Is the Child's Environment? A Group Socialization Theory of Development." Psychological Review 102 (1995):458-489.

Kohnstamm, Geldolph, Charles Halverson Jr., Ivan Mervielde, and Valerie Havill, eds. Parental Descriptions of Child Personality: Developmental Antecedents to the Big Five? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998.

Leman, Kevin. The New Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are. Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1998.

Mahler, Margaret, Fred Pine, and Anni Bergman. The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant. New York: Basic, 1975.

McAdams, Dan. "Can Personality Change? Levels of Stability and Growth in Personality across the Life Span." In Todd Heatherton and Joel Weinberger eds., Can Personality Change? Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1994.

Nye, D. Robert. 1996. Three Psychologies: perspectives from Freud, Skinner, and Rogers. International Thomson Publishing Company, New Paltz.

Riggio, Heidi R. �Structural Features of Sibling Dyads and Attitudes Toward Sibling Relationships in Young Adulthood,� Journal of Family Issues 27 (9) (Sep 2006).

Rothbart, Mary, and John Bates. "Temperament." In William Damon and Nancy Eisenberg eds., Handbook of Child Psychology, Vol. 3: Social, Emotional, and Personality Development. New York: Wiley, 1998.

Rubin, Kenneth, William Bukowski, and Jeffrey Parker. "Peer Interactions, Relationships, and Groups." In William Damon and Nancy Eisenberg eds., Handbook of Child Psychology, Vol. 3:Social, Emotional, and Personality Development. New York: Wiley, 1998.

Skinner, B. F. Science and Human Behavior.  New York: Macmillan, 1953.

Skinner, B. F. 1987. "Behaviourism, Skinner On." Oxford Companion to the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.

Skinner, B. F. Science and Human Behavior . New York: Macmillan, 1953.

Skinner, B. F. 1987. "Behaviourism, Skinner On." Oxford Companion to the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.

Timothy A. Judge and Daniel M. Cable. "The Effect of Physical Height on Workplace Success and Income: Preliminary Test of a Theoretical Model." Journal of Applied Psychology. June 2004.

Toman, Walter. Family Constellation: Its Effects on Personality and Social Behavior. New York: Springer Publishing Company, 1993.

Wiggins, Jerry, ed. The Five Factor Model of Personality: Theoretical Perspectives. New York: Guilford Press, 1996.