By Dereje Amera
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
November 13, 2017
Ethiopia, as we are told in history books, is a nation whose people share more than 3000 years of historical heritages. This makes such historic nation to have its own flavors and color in this world. Even if, this historical heritage is contributing great deal to the honor and greatness of this nation, it also leaves many assignments left undone that passes from one generation to the other, a kind of quest for many people to date since it still does not solve on the common ideas that people and nation share.
We see conflicts and contradictions on matters that should not be issues since other people and nations who come after us do not make such matters as issue, such as common flag, identity and other related aspects too. In such case, people should ponder as to the drama on what is going on before they make an attempt to change such human drama to the worse.
Conflicts and contradictions are good and healthy as far as they have solutions. When conflict and contradictions becomes continuing and they become daily menu of society life, life becomes boring and the content and form of society do not have right shape since things could get worse and such society is living in unnoticed social illness whose remedy will be difficult as such kind of societies’ problem solving capacity within and by their own is becoming lame, and things become under big questions.
Good nation is a nation that satisfies basic needs of its citizens; good nation is a nation that satisfies basic human ingredients of life in terms of individual societal and institutional aspects that do integrate common human natures and elements such as material intellectual, emotional, spiritual and other human needs and natures of life.
Society is comprised of individuals, and in any given social dynamics, society has three features and aspects; the first one is part of society that promotes and promulgates government political and whatever agenda; the second ones are those part of society who are opposing components of government agendas and they oppose government political ideology and programs and they in most cases go against the government; the third ones are neither of the two, they just go by their own accent and way of life and they do not belong to the two groups, and they take the lion share and the majority as well. They are the normal majority.
Good leaders are good listeners and they listen to symptoms and signs of public woes and worries since they feel the pain of the mass than their own personal comforts and interests. In this connection, those leaders who genuinely give attentive ears and minds on the honest claims the public does, they change their decisions and minds since they are friends and partners of the public in order to promote common good and greater future.
By doing so, they get honored in the eye of the public too. In fact, they save themselves since they are doing their jobs and functions in the right manner; they get truly connected to the public at large since they give answers to the quest people have in life. They get respect from the public since they deliver truthful and genuine answers although all questions are not expected to be answered, significant ones should be answered.
We live in a time where we inherited problems and complication from the past systems and ways of life which make our life and way of life to the present so stony. We also live in a time that we are making and adding another present challenges and problems in addition to those unsolved and inherited ones as well. In such case, crisis gets deeper since we are adding additional crisis before solving past ones and we live with confused and hectic mindset.
As such process of life is going on, the public, government and nation lives in fragmented thinking and way of life since everyone is creating one’s own island in one’s own way due to misunderstanding and misinterpretations of thinking and act one is doing on stage. When the government does something, the public understands in different way; when the public become silent, the government understands in its own accent and fashion as well. In this given case, the integrity and sovereignty of a nations falls under great jeopardy.
Such human drama of life is consistently going on within the three matrixes of the political systems Ethiopia has undergone—though they have their own peculiarities and there are thing that they share in common as matter of fact they are political systems. And the fabrics which such society and a nation has been fabricated, and the political systems and structures this nation has undergone faces challenges and complications that disturb the balance that should be created within the nation. Such imbalance is created since all of them, public, and government whose cumulative effect goes to the makeup of a nation has different priorities, needs and requirements in order to make their given life easy. Hence, they fall apart since they live by their own accent.
One good reason in here is that public lives with inherited problems and complications which demand quick fixations of such complications and challenges by the government. However, the government does not have capacity to solve such deep rooted complications and challenges in way the public demands. In fact, the government keeps on giving with empty promises and hopes that do fail in due course of time.
Consequently, the government loses respect and trust on the side of the public since lie is borne and as lie is borne, the degree of suspicion between people and within people, and with the government increase. Hence, a nation is created with lifeless hope and vision. Here, society leads a life that is very much confused, in fact, frustrated, since things become a life that has three islands— the public, the government and the nation too.
Such interaction and communication the government has undergone with the public clouds and veils many things on what even the government is performing. Even if the government is doing profound things, the public starts seeing everything in suspicious eyes due to the fact there was a bad bridge that connects the public and the government to be in such manner since such experience of life happens out of communications and interactions both have undergone in the process of life.
Here, a government fails since it loses trust on the side of the public due to reason that it promotes failed political and economic program and ideology. In such case, any given government needs a reform that connects to fixing its failures and that leads to the path of success. Such reform is done on the basis of learning from its mistakes and failures so that it should not make further blunders and disappointments too.
Former leader of this nation, at end of his regime, said, do we really know the public? Does the public know us? Does the public correctly know what it wants? This clearly explains itself on what the public and government really wants and they live in their own given islands as result of the process of interactions they have come about.
In this case, the strategy of openness between government and the public should be addressed since there is an interesting human drama going on between the public and the government; both do not speak in louder terms the truth in front of the stage, they do everything behind; although the culture plays significant role in this respect, those culture and habits that do not help the nation should be removed from the dictionary of the government and the public at large as well.
The other factor is that fear is induced on the side of the public as result of political experience of life; such fear is no helping anyone, neither the government or the public at large. It puts everything under difficulty and tragedy. The point in here becomes daily survival than seeking years ahead as people are not sure that their security and safety is pretty much secured as result of the fear they have been induced in such process of life.
And, then, people keep on praying for similar things and they live signing similar songs, whose prayers will be same in which those people who have 1 billion birr at the bank account and those people who have no single coin in their pocket are heard reciting, O God, give us our daily bread!!
The writer can be reached at : derejeamera@yahoo.com
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