Association of Ethiopians in Europe Stop Apartheid in Ethiopia ! የዘር ፖለቲካ ለማስወገድ እንታገል
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From the get-go, let me reveal parts of this section that are borrowed verbatim from my earlier articles. The Ethiopian Constitution is billed and marketed as a constitution that establishes the rights of all tribes large and small. In practice, the Constitution has three different classes of tribes with different levels of constitutional rights and protections. The first class consists of Tigray, Afar, Amara, Oromia, Somali, Benshangul-Gumuz, Gambela, and Harari Peoples. They are fully recognized and granted constitutional rights to govern themselves.
The second class is the Southern Peoples Region. Southern Peoples is the only region in the Constitution that is not a tribal land. It can be referred to as the constitution’s miscellaneous region. The region is a square peg that does not fit into the philosophical underpinnings of the tribal constitution’s circle. Its establishment was an afterthought and driven by a desire to form an economically viable region. The larger tribes within the region such as Sidama, Wolaita, Hadiya and Gurage each have more population than Afar, Benishangul, Gambella and Harari People. Yet, they were not given Autonomy to administer themselves.
Their rights to form their own autonomous region was stripped to form a region, consisting of a hotchpotch of dozens of smaller tribes. Since smaller tribes are not economically viable to exist on their own, the larger tribes were forced to serve as their constitutionally sanctioned adoptive partners.
The third class consists of two dozen small tribes that the Constitution does not even recognize by name. The only place they are included in the Constitution (without being mentioned) is in Articles 61 and 62, as members of the Council of Federation. Though the Council of Federation is a legislative body (often compared to the US Senate), it has no legislative power. It is denied legislative power to enact or block the enactment of laws.
The current Constitution provides for 11 tribal Presidents. Ethiopia does not have regional governors. It has tribal Presidents with their own flags, palaces, and security details and all. Recently, Sidama relinquished its adoption (ጉዲፈቻ) responsibility and made itself a free tribal land and upgraded itself to be a member of the first-class tribal colony. It now has its own President, flag, palace, and all. There are nearly more than a dozen tribes who are fighting for their own tribal land or a cluster of tribal lands different from the current tribal divides. Any person outside the tribe can not vote or be elected in the tribal land (ክልል). He has also no rights of Property there. His or Her Rights are not protected by law. For example, 15 million Amhara people, 3 million Gurages, 2 million somalis who live in Oromo region have no rights. They exist now at the Mercy of the leaders. They can loose their propertyy and expelled at anytime.
Every leader of a tribal politics wants to be a President. At the writing of this letter, there are at least two groups campaigning to create their own tribal enclaves, breaking out of the Amhara tribal land. For example, many of the people who met via Zoom video conference are business people, scholars, professionals, cab drivers, Uber drivers, etc. They all want to be Presidents or chiefs of their tribal land. If the process continues, it will not be long before we see atleast 84 Presidents in Ethiopia.
As every tribe fights to carve out its own little kingdom, Ethiopia will enter a new era of Apartheid that will bring border conflicts with long-term consequences of epic proportions. The race to the bottom will be fueled by what physicists call entropy of the second law of thermodynamics. In politics, the entropy dynamics propels societies into a self-destructive state of random chaos. This happens as a systemic social order splinters into smaller components that spin out of control.
Ketema, Alemu (Dr.)
Association of Ethiopians in Europe
