The Imperatives of a Strong State in Tigray.

Paulos Irgau 1-26-22

Here is one of those “once upon a time" stories where one is taken back to a memory lane of childhood, but the takeaway is intellectually robust, nonetheless. You’re forewarned though for I am going to take you for a long haul and bumpy road in between and I suggest you buckle up. Hope it is worth your time.

Here goes it: Once upon a time, in a remote village, there lived people with abundance—almost in everything including in husbandry, livestock milk, honey and what have you. And as it happened, vicious bandits lived far away from the village—almost months travel by horse. One day, the bandits heard about the village and decided to raid and raid they did when they ransacked, pillaged and looted the village. The fact that the bandits lived very far away, they had to make sure that they take away a yearlong supply. As a result, the villagers were ruined and devastated when the bandits kept on coming back to loot and ransack for more till, they were left practically with nothing.

However, for a reason only known to the creators or narrators of the story, there lived other bandits about twenty miles from the village and when they heard about the repeated misfortunes, they approached the villagers with a proposal. They said to them, they would protect them from the far away bandits if they could give them about five percent of all their yearly produce in return and the villagers agreed.

When the vicious bandits came back, the nearby bandits pushed them back and henceforth never returned again. Later on, the nearby bandits approached the villagers with a new proposal when they said, it would be practical for them if they could live with them in the village instead of coming back and forth in an event of a raid. The villagers agreed and the bandits moved-in and settled for good.

Years went by and things for the villagers started to come back to normal. One day however, the elders called for a meeting to all the adults in the village. The agenda was to find a calling or proper name for the bandits. And after many debates and deliberations, they settled and agreed for a name. They decided to call them, “Government.”

The moral of the story is of course, governments are benevolent bandits whose sole mandate started out as in collecting taxes in exchange for internal security and declaring war in an event of external aggression and invasion. But as society evolved due to several factors including in scientific progress—-invention and innovation—and social, economic and political progresses, so did the mandate of the government or the State as well.

The daunting question however remained: What if the government or the State becomes too powerful? That’s where legal and political institutions as in Rule of Law, Transparency and Accountability come into the mix in a bid to check the power of the State.

On the other hand, what if the reverse is also true when the said institutions are too powerful to the extent of rendering the State weak? That is the reason, some nations are highly effective when they struck a balance between the State and the said institutions and other nations falter to the extent of a complete failure when the balance is almost nonexistent.

The boilerplate case in point among academic literature of the two extreme scenarios is China and India but in the early evolution of a State in general, Absolutist France under King Louis XIV and England under Cromwell when the parliament revolted against King Charles I is invariably invoked as well to illustrate when the State was strong and otherwise respectively.

In modern times however, the weakness of the State is evident in India when for instance, any sort of project forwarded by the State gets dragged on for months on due to bureaucratic and parliamentary choke holds. Whereas in China, the project would immediately go into effect when the State brings out the proposal. And that is the reason, we see fast track mega projects in China getting done with when India is still between starting to the finish and still dragging. That may sound too rudimentary to make a point, but the intent is to paint a general take, nonetheless.

In the late 60s through the 70s, the need for a strong State started to take a center stage particularly with in policy makers and public intellectuals alike when Liberal Democracy/Free Market and strong State competed for precedence when the Tiger Nations elected for a strong State which was ultimately proven the right trajectory when in the end the State bequeathed its grip to the public sphere including their respective economy as well. To be more precise, the State retreated back to its “natural” mandate if any to enforce law and order and left the market [almost] on its own so long as income redistribution was with in an accepted range and the social safety net was still in place.

Again, the purpose here is not to dwell on how and why the Tiger nations should be emulated but to get a rough idea on how a State evolves in a kaleidoscopic pattern in a healthy society.

What of Tigray? Tigray is unique—unique in a lot of ways. Tigray is a triumph and yet a contradiction. Tigray is an inspiration and yet a tragedy. A tragedy precisely because one cannot choose or fight geography when Tigray is bordering with a savage army to the North; barbarians to the South; mercenaries to the East and unstable and at times turncoats to the West. Moreover, Tigray is in a transition in an agonizing labor to be born if not to morph into a Republic.

My take is the midwifery is not Representative Democracy or Jeffersonian Democracy but a highly centralized and strong State in tandem with Revolutionary Democracy instead. The latter precisely because, in the past, it played a central role for Tigray to own a sharply defined identity, regional autonomy including over her economic, social and political affairs. It can play a major role in curving a national ethos as Tigray transitions into a Statehood or a Republic as well.

However, when the ill-timed idea of mushrooming of political parties in Tigray comes into the mix, not only it renders the State weak but the labor for the birth of a Republic could result in an excruciating pain if not stillborn of a once prospective Republic. In fact, the symptoms are already there, in a mid-stream, when the cart or the horse should not be changed, some are proposing for a Transitional Government when Tigray is under siege and when one-third of her rightful territory is under the occupation of the enemy as well.

Moreover, one cannot propose a change to a duly elected party when the party has shown a stellar leadership quality come rain or shine including an extraordinary perseverance and courage in Tigray’s long and darkest recent months.

The caution here is—opting for a strong State should not be confused with embracing a dictatorship for the unique historical juncture Tigray finds itself in is too serious to be taken lightly so much so that, Tigray cannot afford to entertain the luxury of differing ideas on the pot where one picks blindfolded. It should be outsourced to the future instead.

Moreover, the military central command, the political elite, intelligentsia community, business class, peasants, civic and religious institutions are coming to a single focus—unity, unity and unity not conforming to a single political idea, but the consensus carries heavily on them for their lives are in a serious danger and equally Tigray’s survival is at stake as well. When the enemies at the gate are decimated on the battlefield, they are mobilized around the clock to get a crack on the unity of Tigreans for they have realized that their [Tigreans] forte and bulwark is in their extraordinary unity.

Once Tigray is at peace with itself and its neighbors, when the signposts are clearly visible and when the light at the end of the tunnel is not confused with an incoming train, it is only then Tigray will be in a position to set out to shop and select one “ism” of the menu of myriad “isms” and the State subsequently retreats to its basic mandate. Till then however, the imperative of a Strong state remains, again because, as the father of “Realism” Cardinal Richelieu put it centuries ago, “Man owns immortality for his salvation is here after, the State doesn’t own immortality for her salvation is here or never.” Tigray shall prevail!