In my previous installment I asked: Do we have an Organizing Principle, I now answer, categorically; no we do not have an Organizing principle.  But we must develop one or more potent organizing principles, immediately; otherwise, the Ethiopian state, and for that matter the African state, will never extricate itself from the drama of human made tragedies. We must stop producing self-perpetuating rulers with morally disorganized selves. All our leaders now are morally dysfunctional and must be fully medicated by MAAT. Where they pretend to be moral educators they merely throw at us meaningless slogans about democracy, the market, corruption and much else; and we the sleepy citizens, let them insult our intelligence by fighting among ourselves as we do in Ethiopia, Somalia, Darfur and North Africa. Shame on us for our docility, for marring ourselves in murky waters of destructive ethnicity. 

By an organizing principle I understand a set of principles that motivate moral action and produce corresponding state policies. Principles become effective tools of moral organization when their content is substantive as opposed too rhetorical. Principles become substantive when they contain realizable ideas as opposed rhetorical ideals, which go nowhere. Ideas are realized when they guide the choices that we make as parents, teachers and political leaders.

A nation without an organizing principle is like a self without blood. Principles are to the self like blood is to the body.  The struggle for democracy requires principles, which are the nerves centers of political life.

Neither the regime in power, nor CUD, not even the emerging new parties has linked the struggle for genuine democracy with the foundational cement of organizing principles.  Hastily erected five year plans, ten year plans, or badly written empty manifestos organized by the principles of ethnic dirt and hate are no substitutes for carefully thought out, plainly written principles, which can be digested by a literate citizenry and serve as the public reason of the citizens. The latter require the use of moral intelligence, the language of the human heart, as the seat of thinking.

The African continent itself, via the stellar contributions of ancient Egyptian priests, some of whom, where the teachers of Plato, one of the founders of systematic philosophy, have already endowed us with MATT, a feminine symbol of justice, righteousness, tolerance, patience and compassion. We must integrate these powerful attributes as organizers of the moral and economic self.

I now wish to argue for each of the attributes of MATT by way of linking them to the struggle for genuine democracy, or what I have called the struggle for moral economy as the anchor of genuine democracy.  Future columns will systematically develop the above attributes and show how they ought to infuse the characters of the citizens and eventually function as mediators of public reason, the reason of citizens, out of whom, we can then choose morally medicated leaders to govern us.

Consider now the role Justice, a pillar of moral economy as an organizing principle of the citizenry in the formation of moral economy and the march of genuine democracy.  When democracies are being organized the focus should be on the moral development of the citizens first, and leaders second. It is the collectivity that must be educated both at home and later at schools, under the tutelage of literate parents at home and literate educators at schools, churches, mosques and temples. The march of genuine democracy is long, arduous and serious; it cannot be attained by rhetorical speeches by illiterate politicians.

Justice, the commanding principle of MAAT must be taught by examples, appropriate models, and the formation of morally enabling habits. ⌂

Teodros Kiros, PhD

July 26, 2007