Professor
Desta, Asayehgn
June 2019
As a student in high school, it was unfortunate
that I had no opportunity to relate and apply my studies to my locality or Ethiopia
at large, because I was schooled under the curriculum and books written for the
British colonies in East Africa. Given this, I resorted to rote memory all the
subjects I sat for the Ethiopian School Leaving Certificate Exam(ESLCE), needed
for the entrance to the Ethiopian University.
When I entered the Addis Ababa University,I had to register
for the interdisciplinary courses in Ethiopian studies that were mandatory
requirements for the General Education core. I vividly remember the textbooks that
gave me groundwork and
offered me
thought-provoking and meaningful learning experiences. Included were:Donald
Levine’s“Wax and Gold: Tradition and innovation in Ethiopian Culture” (1965),
William Shack’s“The Gurage: A People of the Ensete Culture”(1969),Richard
Pankhurst’s“Economic History of Ethiopia”(1968),and Mesfin Woldemariam’s“ An Introductory
Geography of Ethiopia” (1968).
In retrospect, I would say that the instructors
who taught me the introduction of Ethiopian Studies courses were not only well-prepared
but also caring.They went beyond their call of duty to give me challenging
feedback and sharpened my critically thinking. Furthermore, in contrary to the
conventional socialization process I had undergone in both primary and
secondary schools, the instructors of the courses in Ethiopian studies provided
me with the necessary tools to critically examine the status quo and realize that Ethiopia
was a mosaic, inhabited by distinct historical cultures, and a land of linguistic
groups.
My interaction with talented and knowledge
driven students from different ethnicities, social class backgrounds,and involvement
in student government and extra-curricular activities served me as eye-openers and
gave me meaningful learning experiences to master the Ethiopian landscape.
Still, I cherish what I gained at the university in Addis Ababa as part of my personal
growth and development.
In addition, the nine-months in the Addis
Ababa University Service Program that I had to go through before my senior year helped
me to seriously examine the various class disruptions and student demonstrations,
allowing me to objectively reflecton the relevance surrounding the content of
the various socialist-based slogans that students were uttering at the
university. Painfully, I arrived at the conclusion that,except for our demands
for land reform, I actively helped the organizers of the demonstration in collecting
factual information about land ownership around Worailu, Wello, where I was teaching,
and thereby got me arrested until I was pardoned by the then Emperor
Haieselassie; I found the other student demands that we verbalized over the
years at the university in Addis Ababa were irrelevant to bringing fundamental
changes, instead they cause upheavals and disharmony in Ethiopia. Thereby, I
resorted reading and assessing the relevance of democratic values to the
Ethiopian socio-political system.
Upon consultation with two of the university
professorsof Ethiopian Studies who supervised me while I was engaged in the
Ethiopian University service at Dawrewa, Eritrea
,
for the first time, I learned
that some Ethiopian societies practiced democracy starting in the 16
th
century. One professor who came to supervise was kind enough to bring to my attention
that the Oromos of Ethiopia used a full-fledged egalitarian democratic system,
or
Gada
, to govern themselves. For further reading, on the Oromo Gada
system,the professor referred me to read Professor Asmerom Legesse’s(hereafter
referred to Asmerom)research on the Oromo Gada system of egalitarian democracy.
Except what I read here and there, or
heard about Asmerom’s piece of work, it took me a while to get Asmerom’s book: “Gada:
Three Approaches to the Study of African Society (1973). To understand in depth
about Asmerom’s research, Iregistered to take the emic (insider’s) and etic
(outsider’s)qualitative anthropological research methods offered by well-known anthropology
instructors at Stanford University of California. Since then,I would say that Asmerom’s
work still resonates and remains entangled in my mind. I am happy and thrilled
to see that my former employer, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization, (UNESCO) has adopted and displayed the Gada system as one
of the world’s intangible heritages. I am sure that many member countries of
UNESCO will draw great lessons from the African Oromo Gada system of democracy.
Having said that, I was looking for the
time when Asmerom would be at liberty to supervise research that focused not
only on the etic (outsider’s)approach butuse the emic-based(insider’s
perspective) anthropological methodology to investigate democratic practices that
prevailed within the Wajarate people of Tigray, Ethiopia. I am sure that this
would have been a golden opportunity for Asmerom to take his study to heart,and
without a direct interpreter, use Tigrignaas a vehicle to investigate the
Wajarate people’s democratic culture.
As a footnote, I need to be intellectually
honest to mention that I found Asmerom’s earlier study about the Oromo Gada democratic
culture slightly flawed. Instead of using an emic anthropological qualitative
methodology, Asmerom only relied on etic perspective because he was not well
versed in Afaan Oromo. He relied too much on an interpreter and maybehe involved
his hyphenated Oromo life partner at the time to help him identify the
prevalence of Democracy within the Oromo culture of Ethiopia and Kenya.
Put differently, it needs to be understood
that the emic perspective requires knowledge of local language to communicate
and do participant observation to understandthe culturally acceptable ways of
the local realities and possibly mitigate potential researcher’s obtrusiveness
and bias. On the other hand, the etic anthropological perspectivethat Asmerom
heavily used to study the Oromo Gada system was focused on the study group from
the outside, and then systematically analyzedthe collected data to arrive at a
conclusion. That is, I am sure Asmerom would agree that his study would have
been more authentic had he used emic in conjunction with the etic approach.
In recent times, it is unfortunate that Asmerom has
been demonstrating some deviations from sound and rigorous academic work. As
convincingly stated by the Eritrean Movement for Democracy and Human Rights,
Asmerom unfortunately is in the process of displaying some type of
“Intellectual dishonesty”. He has ended up becoming one of the speakers and apologists for
the brutal regime of Isaias Afeworki (EMDHR, August 2016). In addition, without
using any sound methodological framework, I am astonished to see that Asmerom is
galvanizing a political propaganda and deep hatred towards the Tegaru and
drawing psychological profiles of dead heroes, like Emperor Yohannes IV.
It is quite surprising to hear that Asmerom’s
claim that the impregnable hero, Emperor Yohannes IV, use to suffer from “inferiority
complex,” or lacked self-esteem, because during his reign, Emperor Yohannes used
Amharic rather than the Tigrigna language as the official language of the
Ethiopian Empire,. In addition, Asmerom asserts that Emperor Yohannes IV used Amharic
in the palace and daily life. At this juncture, what could be said is that had
Asmerom thoroughly referred to the Ethiopian History,he could have known in
advance,that is before he opens his mouth to articulate this nonsense, that Amharic
was made as the national language during Emperor Tewodros’ (1855-1868) era
rather than during Atse Yohannes IV’s (1872-1889) period. Consequently, Emperor
Yohannes IV, as wise as he was, diligently pursued the footsteps of Tewodros using
Amharic rather than Tigrigna as a national language.Leaving aside Asmerom’s hub
hazard argument,it is worth underling that because Emperor Yohannes IV
prudently followed the footsteps of Emperor Tewodros, he wisely maintained stability
and pursued the integration of the then, the semi-federated EthiopiaEmpire.
Though it is very trivial, Asmerom’s
characterization that Atse Yohannes IV suffered from inferiority complex syndrome
seems to be contrary to the interview he gave to President Isaias’s propaganda
machine, the ERiXpress, on April 20, 2019 about his family’s guiltlessness. During
the interview process,Asmerom outrightly praised Emperor Yohannes IV for releasing
members of his family from prison because they were arrested by the Orthodox
Church for being indulged in the translation of the Holy Bible from Geez to
Tigrigna. Alas, when we compare Asmerom’s earlier statement that Emperor
Yohannes IV was suffering from “inferiority complex” with the positive excitement
that he expressed about Emperor Yohannes
sense of judgment or Asmerom seems to be undergoing through sign and
symptoms of diminution. If not, heshould have told his viewers that some members
of his family were arrested and persecuted by the Orthodox Church not because
they were translating the Bible from Geeze to the Tigrigna language, but
unfortunately they were attempting to introduce a foreign religion (most
probably, Protestantism) to the country.
Leaving aside Asmerom’s illusionary and
ahistorical statements about Emperor Yohannes IV, authoritative political
historian Dr, Ghelawdewos Araia ascertains that Emperor Yohannes IV is the
greatest ruler and depicts him as the hero of heroes in Ethiopian history. He
brilliantly put,
…inferiority complex cannot at all depict
the greatness Emperor’s persona; this Emperor, after all, was courageous,
defiant, and no nonsense king of kings when it comes to the defense of
Ethiopia; he led battles in which he crashed the Ottoman Egyptian troops at
Gundet (1875), and Gura’e (1876), and routed and defeated the Italians two
times; first at Sehati in 1885 and then at Dogali (led by his General Ras
Alula) in 1887. A person with the highest sense of self-sacrifice cannot suffer
from inferiority complex(
It is shameful that Asmerom charges Tegaru
as evasive in nature and he gives his advice that the Eritrean brother and
sisters shouldn’t honestly deal with them. Although, going one step further, he
presents his arm-chair panacea that if the existing conflicts between Tegaru and
the Eritreans is at all to be resolved permanently, Asmerom strongly asserts
that both Eritreans and Tegaru need to undergo through a thorough conflict resolution
process.
Understandably, except for the summer vacations
that he used to goto Asmera and wander aimlessly through the beautiful streets,
starting thirteen years of age, Asmerom grew up in the fortunate neighborhoods
of Dessie, Addis Ababa, Kampala (Uganda), and then in the United States of
America. Given this upbringing, one wonders why Asmerom has volunteered to be re-socialized
and live in Eritrea under servitude of the murderous government that has no
regard for human rights. Thus, we can say that Asmerom is ignorant of the deep
relationship that exists between Eritreans and Tegaru. For minor family
disagreements that might arise among members, Asmerom should be aware that except
from 1998-2018, no major irreconcilable differences existed between Eritreans
and Tegaru. Blood wise, they are brothers and sisters.
What is more, as he claims, if Asmerom was
a student of the honorable Woldeab Woldemariam, he should have remained polished
enough to show decency to Tegaru. After all, the Honorable Woldeab Woldemariam
was a strong proponent of Tigray-Tigrigne because he believed that Eritreans
and Tegaru are endowed with inalienable blood linkages.
A case in point is, for about twenty years
(1998-2018) the boarders between Eritrea and Ethiopia remained closed.
Recently, without any official protocol, the borders between Ethiopia and
Eritrea were opened. I don’t know if Asmerom’s eyes were open; we saw that
thousands from both sides: Eritrea and Ethiopia, flocked to see their relatives,
loved ones, and friends. From this obvious case, Asmerom should have an understanding
that though leaders have been deliberately using irresponsible propaganda for
the last twenty years to create permanent enmity, from their heart, Eritreans
and Tegaru know they are brothers and sisters. That is why, they fought
together the war of insurgency against the atrocious Dergue and finally marched
victoriously together into Addis Ababa in May of 1991.
Once more it is worth mentioning that it was
perplexing for me to hear from the interview Asmerom unashamedly asserted to ERiXpress(
April 20,2019), that if Ethiopia had ultimately defeated the Eritrean forces
during the during the 1998-2000 war conflict, the late Prime Minister Meleshad
the desire to install Tegaru in the Eritrean power structure. It is sad that
Asmerom had closed his mind to what everybody knew and what was ascertained by
the then Eritrean Foreign Minister, Halie (Deru’e) Weldetensae, that the
Eritrean forces were overpowered. If the late Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles
did not call for the withdrawal of the Ethiopian forces from Eritrea, the
Ethiopian forces would have easily marched to Asmara and then relieved the Eritrean
people from the agony of suffering under the yoke of Isaias’authoritarian
leadership.
Finally, Asmerom claims to be a human
rights advocate becausehe did a survey research that dealt with the Eritrean
deportees from Ethiopia. I strongly empathize with the 1998 Eritrean deportees.
It is my stand that the Ethiopian Government should haven’t deported the
Eritrean citizens without allowing them to undergothe substantive due process
of law stipulated in the Ethiopian Constitution. Though Asmerom has titled it: “A
Scientific Survey of Ethnic Eritrean Deportees from Ethiopia Conducted with
Regard to Human Rights Violations”, I feel that the word “Scientific” is a
misnomer. Asmerom’s research is highly emotional. For example, Legesse
(February 22, 1999) states that “…[the] purpose of the study is to examine
whether and what kind of human rights violations have been committed in the
process of those deportations”. If Asmerom was to pursue a scientific point of
view, in his introduction, he should have objectively documented why the
Eritreans were deported andnarrated the deportation process. Once that was
systematically established, Asmerom could then review the literature and establish
a theoretic framework to systematically analyzewhether theEritrean deportees faced
human rights violations.
Similarly, though not part of his research
endeavor, Asmerom emotionally defends that no atrocities were committed on
Ethiopians living in Eritrea by stating that “…in contrast to the mass
deportations from Ethiopia, Eritrea has a declared policy of not harassing or
expelling the larger Ethiopian population that lives in its territory.”Obsessed
by emotions and personal feelings, Asmerom (February 22,1999) stated that the
United Nations (UNDP, UNICEF) and the US State Department, have “nearly”
established that there was no “significant or extensive evidence of human
rights violations on the Eritrean side or that most Ethiopians who left Eritrea
did so voluntarily or because of changes in the labor market,”(Legesse,
February 22, 1999).
Although Asmerom attempts to give the
impression to his readers that he followed the scientific method to conduct his
research, the finding and methodology indicate that the so called “research”
was purposely selected to prove his point and to defend the indefensible and
reprehensible crimes and failures of his patron regime (EMDHR
,
August
2016). In reality, thetestimony given by the Human Rights Watch Eritrea &
Ethiopia (June 1998 – April 2002) documents that the
permanent
resident cards or,if they wished, they could be Eritrean citizens. Still, these
groups remain under surveillance and their daily activities are monitored.