When
I first heard Victor Hugo's quote about the power of ideas, i.e.,
"An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose
time has come", I accepted it with a grain of skepticism. Not
any more.
With
each passing day the Ethiopian government is finding it hard to
believe that power is slipping out of its hands as fast as it is
attempting to cling on to it. I sincerely believe that the
"Time has come" for the modalities of governing in
Ethiopia
. I don't really have a
strong opinion one way or another about how best this transition
would take place. Neither do I labor or lose sleep to figure it
out. I leave it in the good hands of the Almighty.
History
is replete with examples of governmental systems, some good and
some bad. All of these past governmental systems have had one
thing in common�they have failed. If there is a difference it is
in the degree or the frequency of it.
The
reason is quite simple when we look into the hearts and minds of
people. By nature, people are the opposite of selfless. We are
basically selfish, and some are more selfish than others. Most
seek only to satisfy their own desires and priorities. This human
trait of selfishness is one of the major reasons why governments
designed and administered by humans will never survive the test of
time.
Governments
do not fail because of the governmental system; they fail because
of the human factor, a factor that is so capricious and
destructive that no physical force has been able to tame it.
I
am not arguing that humans should not strive to do well. There are
governments whose model we should emulate. Yet, our continent
seems to have the fate of governments who only read history to
pass exam and not to learn from it.
Ethiopia
regrettable is no
different. I wonder whether the next Ethiopian government would
learn from history or fail yet again. In any case, let us take
heed that history always plays the arrogant for fools. The lesson
here might be that we are seeing history be history again Wow,
history. Let history be the judge again. It always has the same
refrain: "Gotchya." END
Amare B
December 6, 2005
