By Mitiku Adisu  11/25/2004

Think leadership for a moment. How many Ethiopian leaders can you name? Do you remember them on grounds of ethnicity, principle, or hearsay? Can you think of one endearing quality they possessed? For reasons that will become obvious, these are not easy to answer or reach unanimity on.

The last of the emperors died thirty years ago. The combined rule of Menilik and Haile Selassie spanned nearly seven decades. In the past 115 years Ethiopia had only six rulers; the United States had twenty-one presidents during the same period, eight of which served 2-3 terms; India had about 12 heads of government in its 50-year independence with Mrs. Gandhi serving nearly a third of the time. Could have the restrictive environment stunted the practice of political leadership in Ethiopia? Did this in turn nurture a peculiarly inflexible culture of leadership?

Dead or living, all Ethiopian leaders were too distant. And yet, a culture of nervousness and displacement continues to stalk us at home and abroad. Our lone living strongman has been exiled for over a decade in far away Zimbabwe. Half the current Ethiopian population recognizes only ethnicized leadership, which could mean the past is also viewed through a grimy lens of ethnicity. Nearly eighty percent do not have experience with the imperial state. Each generation is holdup by its leader and the dark forces of illiteracy. We suffer from a dysfunctional and selective memory. In short, discontinuity has become the hallmark of Ethiopian political leadership. Hence, Professor Tecola�s most recent study on the subject must contend with the difficult task of bridging the knowledge and time gap.

Professor Tecola is, arguably, the most productive public intellectual currently writing in Ethiopian websites. He writes with passion, covering a range of topics. I take it that he is professor, lawyer, painter, and perhaps a host of other things. Reading his postings, one cannot help but notice an inquisitive and a restless mind. For example, The Most Beautiful Cross in the World � The Lalibela Ethiopian Cross (https://www.tecolahagos.com/faith.htm, July 2002) is both a delightful and a creative bit of information. Why do I go into all this?

First, every time one tackles metaphysical and socio-political issues the same open themselves to all sorts of criticisms�deserved or not. Public activity exacts its own price. The privileged, the strong, and the learned in addition to their facility also display their vulnerability. Could this be the reason why many of us do not write or if we did, only pseudonymously? If for nothing else, therefore, the good professor should be commended for his untiring contribution and courage to stick out his neck!

Second, because the professor�s stated objective is �truth-telling� the reader has every right to ask why he, and not any other person, should be believed. That is the nature of accountability. It is in this spirit that I want to engage him concerning his four-part installment, A Sobering Lesson: The Menilik Factor and the New Defeatism (https://www.tecolahagos.com/).

The four-part essay is essentially a reevaluation of modern Ethiopian leaders in the light of available literature and reliable oral witnesses. Unsurprisingly, all our leaders are found wanting. Hence, the professor advises us to let go our all-too-human �heroes� (except, perhaps Empress Taitu) and adopt instead such disembodied concepts as �courage�, �patriotism� and the like (Part ONE, p.1). How feasible is this proposition? Does a deeply religious and largely illiterate population function well without some recourse to symbolic representations?

Among the kings, Menilik stands out for his treasonous act, greed, promiscuity, cowardice, and a political and genealogical illegitimacy (Part THREE, VIII). These factors, we are told, institutionalized emergent mehal sefaris and led to our enduring crisis. Is this an attempt to shirk our generational responsibility?

Why is Menilik singled out? Is it fair to uproot him from his habitat and judge him using present realities? Why are Amde-Tsion and Sertse-Dengel �exceptional� and �praiseworthy� for �expanding and creating a great Empire� when that was exactly what Menilik had done (Part ONE, p.7)? The creation of Empire, we believe, required acts of subterfuge, sabotage, betrayals, and making compromises. Imperialism is not a humanitarian venture; it decimated villages, subjected captives to subhuman conditions, and plundered resources. This, in short, is the short history of the world.

I think the severity of Menilik�s blunders lay, first and foremost, in the breach of trust. He made a deliberate and sustained effort to undermine the authority and humanity of fellow kings. His greed was unbound. The professor rightly and convincingly marshals relevant documents to this effect. But why should this be unique to Menilik or even to the Ethiopian polity?

Interestingly, Yohannes does not receive a similarly rigorous treatment. Yohannes is portrayed as a kind, deeply religious and heroic unifier. That can only be partly true. His religiosity, unfortunately, was terror to those who had to endure the brunt of his policy: ultimatum to those of a different conviction to convert or else face the consequences; unity was pursued not for some altruistic reasons but to consolidate personal power. The difference between the two leaders is more of style than substance. Yohannes decentralized. Menilik centralized. Yohannes� idea of unity was in uniformity; Menelik was relatively tolerant of diversity. In the end, both set their own conditions for governance and ultimately failed to effect smooth transition. We see no qualitative difference in regard to their receiving cash bonuses and firearms from foreign powers and how they treated rivals.

The existence of regional kingdoms should not be confused with decentralization either. Each kingdom was duly centralized and each bided its time to expand and usurp power from the rest; some succeeded and others failed.

Yohannes� blunders though similar to Menilik�s are consistently overlooked on the grounds that they were �a single incident� and �insignificant� (Part TWO, p.1; Part THREE, p.20). We are told that his march south to Shewa to subdue Menilik was postponed because the Mahdist incursion in the northwest posed a greater threat to national security and that the unity of the nation was Yohannes� primary concern. That is one plausible explanation. We could also look at the same event from the grand plan of Egypt, Britain, Mahdist Sudan, and Italy, on the one hand, and on the other, the ambitions of Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam, Menelik of Shewa, and Yohannes of Tigray for the Throne of Thrones. Menelik was perhaps the best strategist of the three. I am here simply stating a historical situation and not endorsing any of their actions.

In the face of impending imperialist threat on the eastern and western fronts, Yohannes� ravaging of Gojjam undercut an indispensable local support. As a result, old rivals Menelik and Tekel Haymanot colluded against him. Incidentally, antagonizing local power players was also Tewodros�s prime failure. Inflexibility and inability to build consensus always inflicts heavy blows to the body politic. In his last moments, Tewodros was deserted by his friends and died alone on Mount Maqdala. Emperor Haile Selassie died alone in his palace. Mengistu fled to a foreign country, alone. Menelik, on the other hand, died in his bed surrounded by friends and family. What does that say about his managerial skills? My interest here is in observing qualities of leadership, not acclamation or vilification of personalities.

Menelik knew full well that he would be the next target of Yohannes� fury once the current Mahdist crisis was over. Is it possible that Yohannes sent Tekle Haymanot to face the Mahdist army in order to get rid of him? Was Yohannes� treatment of Muslims to blame for the worsening foreign relations? The lesson is clear and pertinent to current Ethiopian situation: three ambitious men doggedly pursued differing and self-serving visions and in the process let national unity go to the dogs.

Recognizing how our leaders revise history to fit their specific agenda, do we have enough information on the intricacies of court and civic life in those times to warrant the rating of their blunders? How much crime and corruption is permissible? How will our knowledge of the human nature guide us into assessing distant but real personalities? In other words, to grade evil according to its severity relativizes evil; what is evil in your eyes may be �insignificant� in mine and vice versa. That was the mistake of the United Nations Organization and Western governments in assessing the Rwandan genocide. If you recall, the first hundreds and then thousands of Rwandan deaths was regarded as nothing more than the perennial ethnic clashes in Africa. Or even worse, the clashes were weighed against Western energy security interests and policy of containment. And when the casualties grew to a staggering eight hundred thousands the debate in the halls of power was still whether or not that constituted genocide.

We evolve

Professor Tecola recounts, with some regret (I suppose), that in his radical student days he had viewed Tewodros as a hero but now thinks he is in fact a mercurial individual lacking qualities of a statesman (Part TWO, pp.1-6). Dr. Messay and Professor Tecola are two of the few who have publicly admitted mistakes of their radical past and sought �expiation�. We all evolve. We contradict ourselves. We make unjustifiably disastrous choices. Coming generations may yet again resurrect and adulate any one of our dead kings�including the current prime minister. When it came to judging others, however, we deny them or stingily grant the liberty we accord ourselves and fail miserably in acknowledging the fact that we learn at our own pace.

In the current debate, there are obviously those who uphold the humanity and prestige of

Menilik (https://www.ethiomedia.com/newpress/poisoned_chalice_). Some have argued that his signing away land and peoples rights was done under duress or due to impending logistical complications. His expansionary policy is considered tact in that he managed to outwit Western powers lurking in the neighborhood. In other words, he beat the colonialists at their own game. Faced with new evidences, we can remain adamant or will to reorient ourselves. We may put forth our best arguments but in the end we have to let others make the choices. Name-calling and labels are uncivil and a sure way to kill dialogue. This goes for the professor as well as his �detractors� (Part TWO, p.10).

Professor Tecola is a man of strong convictions. Because he is too involved with his subject, he is wont to make astounding and rash statements. His extended case study of our rulers could have been tempered, for example, by factoring into his treatise the ready propensity of Ethiopian society to accommodate the victor in disregard for how the objective was attained. Are we over-idealizing the �masses�?

His convictions about the civilizational importance of Ethiopia and the nobility of her peoples also run the gamut of his argumentation. He accords the institutional church a special place in Ethiopian history and morality (Part ONE, p.7). This is rightly so. However, he is so enamored of the spirituality of the Ethiopian church that he unabashedly declares the land holy and the church the quintessence of such earthly possibilities. This is indeed a welcome conversion from a generation that deliberately undermined or irreverently used the church to revolutionary ends.

I concur with the fact that the church played a significant role as defender, custodian, and transmitter of all that is dignified in our history. Though the church provided cohesion, she also failed to live up to her prophetic calling. My criticism is here offered reverently�as adult to a parent. The church blessed and legitimized the powerful and the corrupt, did not advance mass literacy in matters of faith and cognition, often questioned the national identity of those outside its fold, and frequently harassed the new generation that sought to quench its spiritual thirst in other ways than the church could provide, recognize or endorse. Of course, one may argue that that was the failure of particular leaders. But that will not blur the fact that, as in the political realm, leaders do not fall from the sky; rather, they are the product of the society they lead.

Leaders represent generational ethos. Hence, calling Mengistu and Meles �dubious� creatures may not be tenable (Part TWO, p.9). We often wonder why our leaders are secretive and insensitive and yet, as a society we relish double entendres and the combative mode! In other words, we cannot sanely disown any of our rulers though we can minimize the recurrence of their misdeeds by educating and preparing the next generation.

I often think that the present out migration of fellow Ethiopians may be a blessing in disguise. Not in the economical sense alone but also in its curative quality. As Mark Twain once remarked, Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. Could have the establishment of open-door immigration policy four decades ago saved us from the fires of a revolution and the wrangling of ethnicized politics?

The new generation has birthed a different leadership style. That should not come as a surprise. However, compared to the past, the present generation is characterized by noncommittal, relative youth, parochialism, rootless-ness, and a value system that overlooked the significance of universal values. Indeed, the formulation of a responsive and responsible education policy has never been more salient.

I believe very strongly that any fundamental change could not come without a significant input from the Ethiopian church. As Professor Tecola correctly hinted, what we need more of is �moral and ethical content� to our social outlook that Western technology cannot comprehend or substitute (Part THREE, p.21). Changes that came to Poland and Hungary in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Empire could be cited as evidence. Would the church rise to the occasion? Where are the creative and patriotic leaders when we need them the most? Should the �foreign� educated elite now return to its religious roots and strengthen the capabilities of the church?

All past and present rulers fully recognized the power of the church and that apart from her support their hold on power was short-lived and inconsequential. Mengistu was religious for a season. Like his alter ego, Tewodros, he assumed a messianic role. The people concurred that a person of his stature could only be on a divinely ordained mission. And so it was; in fact, he surpassed our wildest expectations. He and his co-conspirators took oath of allegiance in the name of �the Living God�. �Apostles of change� were sent out in twos to all parts of the country to sow the seeds of revolution.

Mengistu and his advisers also calculated that the reigning Abun (Tewoflos) could be disposed of easily by inciting the clergy and strategically planting a mole in the church hierarchy. It worked then; it still works. The ethnicization of the office of the Holy Father for political ends is nothing new. Haile Selassie pacified the church by coopting it; Mengistu antagonized it and later employed a murder tactic; Meles� appointment effectively neutralized and diminished the stature of the church. In fact, Meles was so confident of his grip that he had the audacity to send armed police into a church courtyard to club and arrest striking university students. First, the state murders a presiding church Father and later desecrates a hallowed ground by violently intruding on those seeking refuge. The two events may well be the best indicators of our moral condition and the disconnect that exists within our society. Even so, the knowledge of the power of an independent and prophetic church will remain a terror to all power grabbers.

Professor Tecola�s consuming passion is �to speak truth to power�to bring about a total change of the power structure that had been in place since 1868�to promote what is beneficial to Ethiopians and Ethiopia�by debunking myth and false grandeur of Ethiopian leaders�to reinvigorate our social responsibility with renewed commitment for social justice and freedom for all� (Part THREE, p.21). Who could dispute such lofty goals? The challenge is how realistic these goals are and what it takes to realize them. One can also add if it is at all necessary �to bring about a total change of the power structure� (ibid). Can we reach an agreement on what should take the place of the old? The last time we tried our hands at a total systemic overhaul we ended up poorer than when we began.

The professor�s justifiable indignation with historic injustices often pushes him to make rushed statements. For example, in order to curb the corruption of our great culture and especially the problem of prostitution, he advises the closure of international and continental organizations (Part ONE, p.17). Are these the �main source of �general moral deterioration� (Ibid)? Do Ethiopians really need outside help to act immoral? How does gender-and urban-biased education system feature in this? Depicting Ethiopians as a �fairer� group is ultimately unfair to our humanity. To be real, humanness must prefigure a characteristic folly�a primordial capacity to err, if you will.

Presenting mehal sefaris as a blemish on the pure and legitimate Ethiopian stock is untrue to history of populations. It may serve as a point of departure for the author�s thesis. However one would like to sanitize the issues, the fact remains that cultural �impurity� is not the abnorm. A review of migrations would show that there are no societies unaffected by cultural hybridization. In almost every case, the victors constituted the dominant core while remaining attached, in some fashion, to practices of the vanquished.

Political leadership in our history may fall into two, albeit indistinct, categories: divine appointment and/or appointment of history (or judgment of history). In every case, power preceded legitimacy. You seized power first and forced legitimacy later, in the process being damned to eternal illegitimacy. The process included rewriting history, reconfiguring genealogies, and hanging onto power until �death do us part�. Myth becomes more useful than facts. In sum, all leaders of modern Ethiopia have been illegitimate; illegitimacy is the norm and the enduring leadership culture because it continues to elude popular consent. As things now stand, any future changes cannot veer far from this course.

The making of a leader has also been the function not only of internal rivalries but also of foreign interest groups. Menilik was, partly, the product of Italian colonial ambition; Iyassu�s Germano-Turkish connection cost him the throne; the Soviets and East Germans preferred Mengistu over the educated elite because he had the guns and the guts to promote their imperial design; the educated elite, in the meantime, were fighting over Chinese and Russian ideological crumbs. For the post-Soviet West, Meles was their man of the hour. He knows this so well that he has sumptuously exploited it to the chagrin of his opponents. We should not forget that Meles� calculated renouncing of Marxism was delivered in English and not in Amharic.

Prime Minister Aklilu Habtewold�s government suffered from impaired legitimacy. Power resided in the person of the Emperor. Thus, in the absence of the Emperor the prime minister could neither muster legitimacy nor survive as illegitimate.

Endalkachew�s fate was sealed the day he left Oxford. He imbibed the �rule of law� and �popular will� concepts and became alien in his own land. He sought legitimacy for all his actions. He was cut down. The great Haddis, on the other hand (may they all rest in peace), turned down power offered to him in the form of the premiership because he sensed the offer was hollow and those who made the offer lacked legitimacy. How rare are the noble!

Illegitimacy despises the light. A �shifta� culture can only thrive on secrecy. This type of leadership is shrouded in mystery and religiosity. I do not need to explain this to fellow Ethiopians. The pervasiveness of this event is all too evident. Invariably, the more active segment of Ethiopian population readily sympathized with and sustained a guerilla group while the rest sided with a guerilla-cum-government. This culture is with us even in this day of the Internet. Please click on Ethiopian websites at your leisure.

Any dissent, legitimate or not, is a reminder to the incumbent that life at the top is not for the weak and the just but for those who are endowed with a political extra-sensory-perception and could act decisively. In this political jungle, conventional wisdom dictated that taking unjust measures in the pursuit of �order� is the safer route than the kind of justice that entertained countervailing forces. One could find plenty of verification for this, especially in the relationship between the developed and developing nations. In fact, the layering of such actions over time created the necessary conditions for the demise of the powerful. Haile Selassie could collaborate with British Royal Air Force to pummel into line his wayward peasants. Yohannes could side with the British for a fleeting moment. Mengistu used East German spies to root out �enemies of the people� (a euphemism for his own enemies). Prime Minister Meles is having a field day hunting down �terrorists� and corrupt party officials.

Despite the change from a military fatigue to a suit-and-tie and despite dropping the �colonel� appellation, Mengistu could never free himself from his militaristic upbringing. Rather, the new Socialist State with its Workers Party provided a favorable environment for him to act unilaterally and without compunction. Prime Minister Meles was a guerilla leader before taking control of the state apparatus. Like his predecessor, he remains trapped in his old camouflage. To a foreign audience he passes for a suave statesman but locally his tactics and actions are reversed. He continues to evade the strictures of public accountability by weaving in and out of multiparty underbrush.

Prime Minister Meles may be the smartest of the lot. In regard to the national interest, Professor Tecola has spotted few of Menilik�s traits in him (Part ONE, 1A, 3A, C). He speaks all the right words at the precise time when local or global challenges are imminent. So far, he has succeeded to dodge any real or orchestrated threat because the cumulative effect of local opposition is downgraded by internal quibbling over no-vision, petty vision or multiplicity of visions; by Nature delivering war-drought-famine escape routes; and by the condescending and fragile designs of regional interests. How else can one explain that in a matter of two weeks Britain�s Tony Blair and Wolfenson of the World Bank pay a visit only to heap praises on him for his exemplary continental leadership and effective economic program (https://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS)? Why did they choose to overlook all relevant data on the ground? Is this a timed signal, a regime change in reverse, if you will, to ensure Meles� victory in the next �free and fair� elections?

In the end, we learn once again that not even the two visiting dignitaries stand by their own gospel of democracy, rule of law, and transparency. They would have us believe that illiterate and poverty-stricken nations aren�t ready for a full-fledged democracy and that in the interim they need a custodian to train them to adulthood. If perchance, the remarks of the dignitaries were the carrots to induce good behavior, the same may also intensify the present contradictions that will ultimately destabilize the power structure in Ethiopia. No foreign entity has a lasting commitment at heart. All seek their immediate interests. But such misjudgments cannot go on forever. In fact they reopen the door to the possibility of a violent removal of incumbents.

The British march on Maqdala and the subsequent death of Tewodros was the fulfillment of Yohannes�s ambitions; for being a good accomplice Yohannes was rewarded with cash bonus and firearms. With ill-gained power Yohannes was able to withstand and defeat a numerically superior rival Tekle-Haimanot. You reap what you sow. A crafty and more agile Menilik rose up to challenge Yohannes and succeeded to cheat him out of his presumed succession. Haile Selassie did it to Zauditu/Iyassu combo. Derg is simply an aberration and a mirage in the monarchical tug-of-war. In the year 1991 the children of Sebagadis of the Royal House of Agame reclaimed, with the help of the West, their long-lost throne. The next leader to emerge on the national scene would have to make himself indispensable to Western interests and if need be, also compromise the sovereignty of the nation. I am not here intimating that the unchanging law of the universe is stacked up against us. It is rather a description of facts that, in the absence of a responsible and organized leadership, is bound to recur.

Ethiopians long suffered from the illusion that we are special and could receive fair treatment from foreign entities (see Part FOUR, X-XI). Wucciale and Algiers documents effectively jeopardized recourse to our sovereignty. The League of Nations would not honor its �collective security� mandate. It is true that our own leaders had a part in all this; but that will not diminish the fact that the exercise also brought to light the real intentions of the peddlers of power and justice.

Here then is a grim reminder: the salvation of Ethiopia could only come from her God and her sons and daughters. The crisis of leadership points fundamentally to lack of organization. Sadly, her children never cease to be destructive and visionless. What if we could identify the greater danger to our national well-being and muster our courage to tackle it? What if we could make a sustained effort to tell our own story and not let others define us? What if Drs. Tecola, Messay, Tseggai et al, could work together? What a waste of resources to see them wage a misdirected and discordant campaign. Don�t they owe the readership an apology?

Is it fair to expect the largely illiterate and diverse Ethiopian population to live in harmony when even the educated elite are incapable of sorting out their differences�let alone converse civilly? What if every 200^{th Ethiopian living abroad contributed a hundred dollars a year that would go to representing our national interest? What if we dwelt less in the past? It is true that �those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.� But it is equally true that one �Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear.�}