NEVIS Review No 12, Section I : Ref # 12.1

NEVIS Review No  12
Section I 
Ref # 12.1
March 11, 2013

From Massification to Quality Assurance in Ethiopia
By Ayenachew Aseffa

(Credit to Hedda- Higher Education Development Association)

The past fifteen years are marked by a massive expansion in the Ethiopian higher education (HE). The number of public universities increased from just two by the end of 1990s to 32 in 2013. Total enrollment has increased from 42,132 in 1996/97 to 319,217 in 2010/11 and it is targeted to reach 467,445 by 2014/15 (MOE, 2005; 2010a). Yet, as much as it is hailed for its success in the massification, the government has been equally criticized for immensely neglecting quality. Recently the government has admitted to this problem and declared that it has redirected its attention from expansion to quality assurance.
Ethiopia’s quality endeavor is now faced with a complicated set of challenges and requires a well thought out, comprehensive strategy and strong commitment. On one hand, the issue of quality has been long neglected implying that the problem has accrued over the years and the reform effort has to begin from almost zero. On the other hand, the very nature of quality assurance in higher education is complex and demands multidimensional and concurrent attention on the various determinants. The overall strategy for quality should focus on (but not be limited to) the following major and interdependent challenges, each one of which can be further analyzed in greater detail.
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AVAILABILITY AND DISTRIBUTION OF QUALIFIED ACADEMICS
There is a chronic shortage of qualified teaching personnel in the labor market. As a solution, besides hiring expatriates, the government has recently launched central hiring where by large number of fresh graduates are recruited every year and assigned to different universities. While this seems to be solving the supply problem, it is a huge compromise on quality. No rigorous assessment, not even a proper interview, is made to determine the interest and capacity of the candidates to the job. In fact, many new recruits take the teaching job as way of escaping unemployment and/or harnessing opportunities for graduate studies. The recruits are first given weeks of training, rather orientation, on the political ideology and policy directions of the ruling party. Then, the Higher Diploma Program (HDP) is provided to train them with pedagogic skills. Yet HDP is neither provided before the new recruits begin teaching nor it is consistently done.
In terms of composition, the Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency (HERQA) recommends a qualification profile for university academic staff of less than 20% first degree holders, about 50% Masters Degree holders, and about 30% terminal degree (PhD) holders. In practice, studies show that as of 2010 only 8% of the academic staff had PhD and more than half (in some studies 70%) are undergraduate degree holders. Besides, Addis Ababa University alone accounted for about half of the PhDs compared to the other 21 universities which have 95.2% of the undergraduate degree holders (c.f. Areaya, 2010).
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DISSATISFIED AND UNMOTIVATED STAFF
The academic profession is immersed in a lot of problems resulting in low satisfaction and absence of motivation among the professoriate. Low remuneration is top of the list. A person in the private or nongovernmental sector can earn more of that earned by an academic of the same educational background and years of experience. The ever increasing inflation has made it impossible for academics to live on their salaries. The options considered viable are either to burden themselves with more than one job or to leave the academic career. The working conditions, particularly in the emerging universities, is characterized by poor infrastructure, low (or no) internet connection, lack of teaching aids in the classroom, large class size, inadequacy of laboratories and equipments, poorly equipped and often crowded offices and lack of personal working computers (laptops). In addition to this, the working load of the academics has significantly increased as the growth in the number of students is not matched with that of the teaching staff. The student-to-instructor ratio has increased from 13.7 in 2002/2003 to 28.0 in 2008/2009 signifying that the instructors’ workload had doubled within six years (MOE, 2010b).
These issues, coupled with structural and policy problems along with low participation in institutional matters, fragility of academic freedom, job insecurity, unattractiveness of career path, excessive focus on teaching duties than research and service, add up to the dissatisfaction of the academics. University teaching is among those jobs hit hard by both internal and external brain drain.
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‘QUALITY’ OF THE QUALITY AGENCY
HERQA was highly focused on auditing and taking corrective measures on private institutions while there is no evidence that the public universities are any better than their private counterparts. As of 2008/09 the number of public universities audited for quality was only 20%. The agency itself is critically limited in its capacity. Lack of autonomy, shortage of skilled manpower, lack of institutional experience and operational inefficiency are among its major problems. Besides the universities do not have a well established internal quality assurance and self evaluation system.
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INSTITUTIONAL AUTONOMY
Regardless of what the higher education proclamation says, public universities are still under direct and strong influence of the government. They are not autonomous enough to make decisions of their own with regard to financing, staffing, appointment of officeholders, or even setting their own mission and vision. The internal management of the universities is filled with tension in what Ashcroft described as “control versus autonomy, modernization versus ‘government knows best’, democracy versus the need to control dissident voices” resulting in a dilemma for managers having to address both overt and covert agendas. The lack of mutual trust between the government and university officials has rendered the latter unable to decide without the fear of their decision being overruled. The university board, the highest decision making body according to the 2009 proclamation, is directly and indirectly appointed by the government. The involvement of stakeholders other than the government is largely limited.
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IN CONCLUSION
The transition from massification to quality assurance needs a comprehensive strategy, which, both in policy and practice, sufficiently addresses all the relevant issues, and sufficiently engages all stakeholders. While the government remains having an irreplaceable role, it has to be noted that quality assurance, unlike massification, cannot be achieved by the single (no matter how) strong arm of the government.
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REFERENCES
• Areaya, S. (2010). ‘Tension Between Massification and Intensification Reforms and Implications for Teaching and Learning in Ethiopian Public Universities’, Journal of Higher Education in Africa, Vol.8, No. 2, pp. 93-115
• Ethiopian Ministry of Education (2005). Education Sector Development Program III, Addis Ababa: Ministry of Education
• Ethiopian Ministry of Education (2010a). Education Sector Development Program IV, Addis Ababa: Ministry of Education
• Ethiopian Ministry of Education (2010b). Education Statistics Annual Abstract 2008/9, Addis Ababa: Ministry of Education

(Ed’s note:We thank Ayenachew for allowing us to reproduce his article which was first published in Hedda- Higher Education Development Association). Ayenachew has studied Management and Masters of Public Administration (MPA). For over eight years he has taught at Unity University and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. Currently he is a student of Masters in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE) at Danube University (Austria), University of Tampere (Finland), Beijing Normal University (China) and University of Osnabruck (Germany). The article above first appeared in the following link: http://uv-net.uio.no/wpmu/hedda/2013/02/13/guest-blogger-from-massification-to-quality-assurance-in-ethiopia/
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NEVIS Review No 11, Sec III ; Ref # 11.3

 NEVIS REVIEW No 11, Section III 

 Ref # 11.3

Feb 25, 2012 

African political culture and democracy- Part IV (continued)

The Intensification of Predation

By Hiwot Wendimagegn

The new African leaders who embarked to rule nations tangled with extreme poverty were neither personally wealthy nor were they experienced in protecting the economic rights of others. They succumbed to the temptation of using government power, for the accumulation of personal wealth (Rowely 1999:138). The only basis for such wealth accumulation was the diversion of resources too often provided in the form of international aid, away from processes of economic development into personal bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere (reports continue to indicate that billions of dollars stolen from Africa are deposited in Swiss banks. This money is neither accounted for nor recovered after their depositors, usually presidents and heads of state, are assassinated or forced out of office (Toteh, 2012) ).  Basically, African politicians established the “economy of plunder” (Bayart et al., 1999: 71).

McGuire and Olson, (1996 :72-96) and Rowley 1999, interestingly compare the banditry of the colonial era and that of the post- independence Africa by dubbing colonial powers “stationary bandits” and post- independent African political elites as “roving bandits”. The colonial powers, who systematically robbed Africa of its resources, enjoyed unchallenged monopoly. “They ensured a certain level of minimalist laws designed to protect the property rights of their subjects from Internal anarchy, to defend their monopoly of theft against potential internal and external aggressors” (Rowely, 1999:138).

To the contrary, the haphazard nature of post- independence African politics characterized by civil strife, skirmishes and recurring coups, made power uncertain which in turn made African bandits erratic or roving. “By definition, the roving bandit does not exhibit a stable and encompassing interest in the domain over which he rules. In such an environment, there is little incentive for the bandit to invest in improving future productive capacity” (ibid: 139). Moreover, when African elites discovered the root to wealth via embezzling foreign aid, the incentive as well as the necessity for pursuing mutually benefiting societal goals became minimal. To quote Bayart:

“Thus, if public enterprises in Africa have recorded such mediocre results, it is almost exclusively due to the fact that they have been systematically plundered for purposes of enrichment and accumulation of power by members of the elite. The methods used include the diversion of funds to private accounts, the failure to allocate resources to the designated target areas,, the utilization of institutional resources for private gains, the utilization of an enterprise’s borrowing capacity for improper purposes, the constitution of private clientelist networks through nepotism or the creation of unnecessary posts and so on” (Bayart et al., 1999: 71).

In their insightful book, “Criminalization of the State in Africa”, Bayart et al. (1991) boldly argue that, the growth of fraud and smuggling, the plundering of natural resources, the privatization of state institutions and growth of private armies in post-independence African states has made the state an instrument for organized criminal activity (Bayart et al., 1999). By the same token, several other authors have highlighted how extreme authoritarianism and predation in the new states of Africa hindered the functional utility of formal institutions. All their researches tried to show that African politics bizarrely integrates criminalization, corruption, clientelism and patronage into the rubric of formal politics. Along these lines, Stephen Ellis, in his assessment of South Africa and how the informal and the formal integrate so well in African politics has  discovered, South Africa has the continent’s largest formal economy as well as  its largest criminal economy (Bayar et al., 1999: 49-68).

Independence therefore did not lead to major changes in the form and function of African politics. State power remained for the most part as absolute and as arbitrary as that of the colonial system. “Political behavior became even more myopic” (Rowely, 1999:139). Ironically, history repeated itself, only this time in a more anarchic setting. Throughout Africa, ordinary people started demanding a second independence, this time from the indigenous leadership whose economic mismanagement together with brutal repression made mere survival all but impossible (Ake, 1993:240). As will be discussed subsequently, the politics of plunder intensified statism and deepened informal networks.

 

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STATISM AND “INFORMAL” NETWORKS

                                                                                                               

In most instances, the ruling class in Africa is a state class because its culture, its basic values, its power and its economic base results from its tight relationship with the state (ibid, Callaghy, 1987:68, Chazan, 1994:73-78). State expansion and centralization give ruling elites the opportunity to maintain political control as well as to accrue unprecedented wealth amidst great poverty (ibid, Kasfir, 1985). Since, “the state relies on liquid revenues and interacts with transnational economic forces, state power became a prime vehicle for material accumulation, while also enhancing the position of rulers in their competition with other groups” (Hart, 1982:90).

The state in Africa is a “prize” for anyone who is lucky enough to have it. Bayart went as far as claiming, access to state power, is predominantly concerned with access to wealth that “it is a preoccupation that offers very little hope to World Bank 'privatization' projects, which promise merely to transfer resources from the formal control of the state, to the private portfolios of those who rule it” (Clapham, 1994:435). Interestingly, the obsession with state power and access to all the perks it entails, doesn’t only affect the ones who rule it but also the ones who are opting for it.  “The state and proximity to its resources emerged as a central determinant of class formation and class relations” (Chazan, 1994:74).  Therefore, those who possess state power go to great length to maintain it and those who don’t, to attain it.

In consequence, the sacrilegious obsession with state power and possessing it as if its one’s own  personal property, made governments in Africa kleptocratic at worst and neopatrimonial at best. Kleptocracy is a form of political and government corruption which exists to increase the personal wealth and political powers of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population. In its original Greek meaning, Kleptocracy simply meant “rule by thieves”. In such a system, the despots make no attempt to disguise the fact that they are bandits ( Bayart et al. 1999, Charap and Harm 1999, Fan, 2006). They may even feel like they are doing the right thing by rewarding themselves for all the pain they endured to get to the throne (Goldsmith, 2004). These kinds of governments, the classic example being Mobutu Seseseko’s Zaire, made corruption a way of life.

On the other hand, neopatrimonialism is characteristic of most of the current nations of Africa which is personal and informal rule under the guises of rationality and legality.  In other words, in this type of system, formal laws and institutions exist only to serve the personal interests of the ruling class which is to cling to power by all means. Kleptocracies and neopatrimonial systems thus buy off the loyalty of their citizens because they cannot get it through legitimacy (ibid, Hutchcroft, 1997, Szeftel, 2000, van de Walle, 2003). As Gunther Roth (1968:196) insightfully argues, “neopatrimonialism is a synonym of personal rulership as it is based on the basis of loyalties that do not require any belief in the ruler’s unique personal qualifications but inextricably linked to material incentives and rewards”. These systems thus integrate clientelism, corruption, patronage and nepotism with the formal affairs of the state.

Heretofore, the elite culture of predatory rule not only affected the elites but the rest of society as well.  The incorporation of private affairs with official affairs integrates everyone in corruption, clientelism and nepotism. Be it for a lack of options or by sharing the same sentiments as its rulers, the rest of society enhances neopatrimonial predatory rule by selling its loyalty and support, and using its profession or workplace to get undeserved benefits (Bayart et al., 1999:256).  As the famous Cameroonian adage goes, “goats eat where they are tethered”. Thus, attesting to the likelihood that the very reason predation endured for years after independence is because of a society that facilitates its perpetuation. Bayart’s book “The State in Africa: Politics of the Belly”, is filled with many enticing stories that reveal the ugly side of predation.  This article will end by reciting one such interesting story of a Zairian air force (FAZA) organization that was forced to close down due to unprecedented corruption. Here is how the tale goes:

  “Every morning, pilots and mechanics arrived at the base and towed two planes to the fuel pump of Air Zaire for a complete refueling. As soon as they had been filled up they were towed back to the hangars where their fuel tanks were emptied. The first clients of their little operation were the wives of the soldier based at the CETA training camp, who bought the petrol at half price then proceeded to resell it in Masina, Kimbaseke and especially Kisangani. It was not long before the sale of air force fuel became semi- official as no attempt was made to hide what was happening. Every day, a flood of empty barrels, big oil drums and all kinds of receptacles passed through the main entry gate to Ndjili airbus under the watchful eye of guards who, had they been above corruption, would never have allowed so many customers to pass through, let alone help them carry their barrels to and from the hangar” (Bayart, 2009:236)

(Ed’s note: The article above is a continuation, a fourth part, of the series of articles on “African political culture and democracy”. Part one to three has already been published in the previous NEVIS issues. Hiwot Wendimagegn has a Masters in International Relations at Addis Ababa University, and earned her BA degree in Political Science and minored in Public Administration again at AAU. She has worked as a lecturer, and currently works as a private consultant and event organizer)

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NEVIS Review NO 11, Section II : Ref No # 11.2

NEVIS Review NO 11  
Section II 

Ref No # 11.2 
 February 25, 2013
  
 Reinvigorating the Spirit of Constitutionalism: We say ‘NO’ To Political Messiah from the Diaspora 

By Gezahegn Anbelu

There was this conference I attended very recently .One of the participants were discussing the potentialities of the Ethiopian Diasporas that could be contributed to the economy .He talked of the financial capacity, their intellectual prowess and technical knowledge they could bring to the country if they were given the well-deserved attention.

I presume the government has also clearly understood the power and the economic tide the Diasporas community could generate and is trying to serf as cautiously as possible.
However the extreme political view the Diasporas and the government hold never seems to give a way and impasse, political deadlock and suspicion have hereto characterized the intricate relationship between the two

The angle of attack that mostly comes against the Diasporas political elite with alleged sole ownership of the opposition political blog is of their snobby and bigotry view of ‘I know better than you’ attitude. This impression they as a group have is expressed in many ways. They have a flagrant self-appointed view that they are the solution to the economic predicament of Ethiopia. Their interpretation of history, politics and culture of any content is the sole interpretation that can’t be dared questioned or disagreed on. The tide they cause due to their financial ability is hard to surmount .It is of their propaganda and misinformation which characterized their political strategy which is purely based on public relations stunt focusing purely on crises and confusion in Ethiopia. Any potential and apparent political instability is a best opportunity to be exploited and any positive is subjected to mockery.

The contribution the Diaspora community is making to their country is quite significant. The remittance they annually send exceeds the Ethiopia’s export earnings. The technical support they make available to their nation is also worthy of acknowledgement. This is the case for majority of members of the Diaspora. However, some in the group mislead the majority by engaging in misinforming and disorienting. These group plays with the genuine sentiment of a lot of Ethiopian Diasporas Community who have strong sentiment toward their country.

Many Diaspora have genuine desire to see their country strides in democracy and development; they also want to see a unified and strong Ethiopia. There is nothing wrong in having such prospect to once country. However, when it comes to realizing these objectives, the path they are urged to take by these extremist elements is disturbing.

In Ethiopia, the rule of the game is set by the legal and cultural frameworks that are devised to regulate every political engagement.

The rule of the game dictates that people who aspire to bring social and political change to do it according to the rules that is set by the constitutions as it is the embodiment of collective political will of the nation. This is of commonsense, not the kind of enlightenment one gets from eating the forbidden fruit.

Often we hear this disturbing news from the Diaspora that some bunch of defectors who had been hooked to power structure till their belly is filled with their greed, has organized a council and start talking about taking power. This trend is disturbing and unconstitutional. The act would elucidate the extent power mongers would take to realize their ultimate and the only goal to overtake power. When popular vote fail to realize their dream to seize power, they will not sit down but will leave no stone unturned to make sure their unlawful usurp to power. The only thing they are eying is the throne! 

Any apparent political uncertainty is an opportunity to beat the drum and create havoc, clamor just incase the wind would drop them some luck to smooth takeover of power.
Some genuine folks in the Diasporas may not be conscious of such manipulation to suck their hard earned dollar for their absurd political manipulation.
Let me ask, what makes anybody from USA or Europe the Messiah of Ethiopian politics? Who is the prophet that anoints?

These people are not interested about the political process within the nation but arrogantly assume that because they are in Europe or USA ,that they are all entitled to call a meeting ,assign whosoever present with title and then people would do ‘anything’ to make sure the coming of their fantasy into reality .

The political change I envision to evolve in Ethiopia should be indigenous. The elite from some dream-land cannot tell me what I need or should need. What we need is developing a system where institutions would be built up with democratic principles, accountability and public-service taking their rightful place. I want to see people, not some bunch of ‘enlightened folks’, get empowered and have voice to freely speak their minds, get benefited from economic growth. I say not to elite-led politics.

Some argue that the political space is narrowed and they do not have the space to undertake political activities which is stipulated in the constitution. They may have a grain of truth in what they said .But can we confidently say that the opposition parties have not been in disarray: wobbling ,accusing, betraying one another totally possessed by short term thinking and lack of vision, creativity, and palatable policies and strategies. They are monotones, unorganized. They could not move beyond opposing the ruling party just for the sake opposing. Their very existence can be justified by very existence of something that they can oppose. 
Is the blame game viable?

We should return to constitutionalism. The only way to bring political change is to be part of the mainstream politics and present palatable policy alternatives: not sitting in Disneyland across the Mediterranean or the Atlantic, eating MacDonald and fantasize about usurping power.

It is not revolution but Process, engaging the grass root that has to be the beginning of genuine political transformation that transcend generations. All actors in the polity must envision of long term political transformation towards democracy and people’s empowerment. We do not want political Messiah from Diasporas .We want political process that places the mass at the centre. People are not pawns that are easily manipulated and used by power-thirsty individuals who do want to pay a penny except an easy entry to resource.

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NEVIS Review NO 11, Section I : Ref # 11.1

NEVIS Review NO 11 , Section I, Ref # 11.1, February 25, 2013

We want our "Opium" back! : Dualism in an Ethiopian Perspective
By Ahmed Yosuf

Ah! Finally we are about to unite for a cause! For Team Ethiopia, we stand united! But, in all honesty, why would the sight of a group of men chasing around a spherical ball for ninety minutes lift our spirit so high that we decide to fight for it, spend our money to watch and support them run around or sometimes let it be a source of our misery. None of us would rationally explain as to why we love football the way we do. Why are we still keeping the faith on Team Ethiopia? Why do we keep watching our team play even though we know it won’t get any far? If Marx was alive, he would agree to the thought that football is the opium of the frustrated Ethiopian. Football, as I see it, however, has striking resemblance with the traits of religion. People follow football as they follow religion, read and attend events about it at least once a week. They have their Heroes a Saint or Player. They are passionate about both football and religion, yet few could possess words to explain their love and devotion to them. If you happen to support a similar team, it is like following the same religion- you are brothers in one faith. Even “blasphemy” against your team or religion makes you angry. If your team does not win, you feel as if God has forsaken you. But you will keep the faith in sickness and in health.
Some people get tired, frustrated, get sick or kill someone just because they want to defend what is theirs. There are fanatics in both camps. It would be as if trying to reach for the stars if one attempts to quantify their feelings. Once you are part of the saga, however, you will experience the unity, the brotherhood, the connection you shared with the person next to you even though you have never met that person in your entire life.
Thomas Nagel, an American philosopher, in his famous article, “What is it like to be a Bat?” shows that every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will abandon that point of view. Nagel further explains;
“I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat. Yet if I try to imagine this, I am restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those resources are inadequate to the task. I cannot perform it either by imagining additions to my present experience, or by imagining segments gradually subtracted from it, or by imagining some combination of additions, subtractions, and modifications.” (Thomas Nagel, 1974)
Religion and football provide this common point of view, common experience for Ethiopians who share it. The existence of another world in addition to the natural one is the basic premise of every religion and art. Religion and football, as forms of art, are places where man seeks refuge from the growing uncertainty in the material or physical world. Just as the poet and painter take us to a far and utopian world, they provide sanctuary for the frustrated life of an ordinary Ethiopian. The work of art is an impression of the natural world or as Aristotle would say an imitation. But it is something more, a place where we obtain unity, peace and tranquility. It is unlike a world created out of the Freudian childhood drives such as he refers it 'the infant's helplessness and the longing for the father'.
One way or another, we all live dualistic life or Descartes’ dual worlds the res extensa (physical things) and res cogitans (thinking things), where the set of thinking things do not exist in space and time as we know it. The Darwinian world takes you through nature while Michelangelo and World Laureate Afewerk Tekle carry us to a world beyond our imagination. The city life in Addis versus the rural land our grandparents lived in, school based education versus our folklores and tales of Ababa Tesfaye, culture versus civilization, mind versus brain, art versus science, Teddy Afro versus Meles Zenawi. “There is an order to an engine as there is order to a melody” writes Izetbegovich, the late Bosnian philosopher. The first is a spatial or quantitative combination of relations and parts in accordance with nature, logic and mathematics. The second maintains a combination of tones or words in melody or in poem. No wonder people get frustrated in the evaporating values in cities with particular emphasis Addis. Why do songs no longer inspire us for revolution or change? How many people stand up for elders in the Anbessa Bus compared to the past? What happened to the poets of the old who wrote to touch our hearts nothing more? What happened to the tales of Ababa Tesfaye that inspired and held most of us together? Whatever happened to the Unity that we so proudly boast at? The simple explanation would be that art is in decay. Our ways are now being used as a means not as end by itself. A musician sings to get rich or die trying, the poet writes to please someone not to inspire, the “religious” “prays” but only to stab someone at the end. No one seems to be passionate about anything working for minimum wage attempting to expand our needs when we have little means. Civilization without the Ethiopian essence of Culture is a one way line, a Darwinian pursuit of the intelligent animal to survive within the physical realm.
Sadly, we are on the one-dimensional life, where material exchange between man and nature proliferates. This exchange was intensified as we Ethiopians are attempting to identify our ways with that of the foreign man. The country is growing in double digits but is development all about roads and buildings? To whom are the fruits trickling down? We are further submitting to the will of nature, more or less in a pursuit of satisfying our desires, the selfish gene; the Freudian “Id” takes the wheel. We are no longer altruistic but only more dangerously egoistic. The individualistic way of life has suddenly conquered us, although we claim to have defeated the Italian fascist. But then again, during those days, our ancestors fought to preserve our ways, our Culture. They sacrificed Civilization for cultures’, for arts’, for religion’s sake. The opportunity cost was blissful.
It was not long that we gave it up so easily, though. The one thing that could unify us was the arts, the unseen world where Ethiopians meet in utopia. It seemed a tailor-made world for us. How great were the times of the 50s and 60s? The poetic, the revolutionaries, the passionate activists all had won the hearts of the public. The songs lift you, the poets inspire you and the painter takes you on an epic adventure. “Fano, Fano” sings Kassa, World Laureate Afewerk paints about “African Movement” and the 1960’s were among the most productive years for Poet Laureate Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin who emphasized the importance of Unity while Team Ethiopia for the first time won the African Cup of Nations in 1962. These were the times where our civilization was so cultured that we chose to practice “Gudfecha” rather than “exporting” our children. Even if we cannot say all Ethiopians were one, we can say there was a goal that gathers most if not all to oneness. Revolution was possible because religion, culture, poems and the music brought people to oneness, to the world that no one saw but everyone keeps faith on. It was obvious that all men who gathered knew not each other but got connected through the magical works of art.
Today, we have “hospitalized” Culture, no longer students of the “Art of being Man” or being Ethiopia for that matter. It is in a state of oblivion but we know not. We say it exists but it is only an empty shell. Our education is not taking us anywhere but only making us more prone to manipulation. It is the educated thief that brings more harm than the illiterate one. Our one- dimensional life will only make us more individualistic, materialistic, solitary, nothing to unify us. We are in a position where music is sang for profit but seldom makes sense, poems are written but does not lift us anymore, innocent people are thrown to prison and no one cares, catering for neighborly needs are no more. Without the unseen world, without the arts, religion or the unifying spirit such as football, you can only be described in terms of “what you are”, not “who you are”. You are an Amhara, a Tigre, an Oromo, the higher class, the “1%”, the Manager who just got a promotion, earns more and drives the Hummer. In a linear, materialistic life, there are more things that separate us than what unifies us.
What is it then that could bring unity among us? It would firstly be my utmost advice for us to admit our dualistic life. We should not be so extreme in any of the ends being fanatically immersed in the arts such as religion, poetry or football to the extent that we are led to forget our worldly or material needs which are the reality, the here and now; or be fanatic in our worldly affairs to the point that we overlook the needs of others, use the arts and religion for means than for an end. Our purpose should be moderate. There will be no unity if we have a one-sided life. If we are to be immersed in the worldly affairs, if we are to pursue only on the path of Civilization without Culture, it would represent the development of the potential forces that existed in our less developed ancestors as Darwinian evolution would put it. We would be busy in adopting the goods of nature based on our needs, our endless needs. In this linear path, we will forget our other role. We will embrace differences in race, ethnicity, language, and in wealth. How are we to unify these all if we have forsaken the “art of being Man”, our Culture? The Arts such as religion, culture and the spirit of football are things that undoubtedly have profound effect on our harmony and on how we bring change or revolution. They lay the framework for brotherhood, football in a small scale while religion in a greater scale. If you wish to inspire and lead the mass, you have to be passionately involved with their culture like the poems of Tsegaye Gebre Medhin; you have to speak their tongue like Teddy Afro; live their lives not in Palaces; feel their pain and die for their aim. That is living duo life. Just like we keep the faith on Team Ethiopia, we have to keep it when leading Ethiopians out of the darkest level of the ocean of poverty and ignorance. There is a way just Keep the Faith!

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NEVIS REVIEW No 10, Section II : Ref # 10.2

NEVIS REVIEW No 10
Section II 
Ref # 10.2
Feb 11, 2013
 
Federalism and Constitutionalism in the Horn of Africa
By John Markakis

( Ed's note-The following is an extract from the above mentioned article that starts with constitutionalism in general, followed by a larger portion taken from the section dealing with the specific case of Ethiopian constitutionalism)

I-CONSTITUTIONALISM

Constitutionalism was born in the struggle of the rising bourgeoisie to limit the power of the monarchy in the modern political history of Europe. This was a long and bloody affair; civil wars were fought and crowned heads rolled. When the
bourgeoisie finally prevailed, the ‘absolute monarchy’ gave way to the ‘constitutional monarchy;’ something of a contradiction in terms, the latter still survives in that continent. The quintessence of constitutionalism in the Western tradition, therefore, is the prescribed limitation of state power. Like many political
concepts – freedom, democracy, justice, equality – constitutionalism is an ideal much praised in theory yet seldom fully realised in practice.

In the Western tradition, conflict is the midwife of constitutionalism, and its genesis is a formal arrangement for power-sharing agreed by the conflict’s winners. Nations that wrest their independence from alien rule need this arrangement, and a constitution is the indispensable accessory of a newly born state. Civil conflict within a state signals the breakdown of a prior arrangement and the need for its replacement when the conflict is settled. Hence, constitution-making follows the end of foreign and civil wars. France with its five republican constitutions is a good example.

A distinction must be made between constitutions and constitutionalism; between documents of transient and uncertain validity and a principle of universal value. Constitutions may or may not constraint the exercise of state power, and the
presence of a constitution does not guarantee a constitutional form of state rule.Constitutionalism as the principle of constraining state power and regulating its exercise through law comes into its own when a balance of power between contending social forces is the result of social conflict. More often than not, the state is both the object of, and a party to, the conflict, and its power is used without restraint during its course. It is only when a balance of power results that a consensus is reached, and the power of the state is curtailed to avoid it becoming again the object of conflict. In Western Europe, constitutionalism is the final product of a series of historic struggles for state power; the nobility versus the monarchy, the aristocracy versus the bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie versus the working class.

Because a potent source of conflict is the exclusion of sectors of society from access to state power, constitutionalism ordains representation in the political system and provides the institutional framework through which representation is achieved. Constitutionalism therefore is closely related to representative democracy, itself the product of a balance of power between social forces mentioned previously. Striking this balance is a rare achievement only a few countries in Europe were fortunate to realise until recently. The much vaunted democratisation of the rest of the continent – south, central, east - dates only since the end of the Second World War, and has yet to sink deep roots everywhere.

Because it is born of conflict, constitutionalism also entails a corps of procedures through which conflicting social interests can be negotiated, disputes resolved and conflict avoided. All the institutions of government are involved in this process, especially the judiciary whose independence is a hallowed constitutionalist principle. The procedures are based on laws that define the jurisdiction and determine the authority of all state institutions. Further limits on the power of the state are drawn by provisions that detail the rights of citizens upon which the state cannot trespass.

Because constitutional government is based on the rule of law, it requires a solid foundation of legitimacy in order to prove stable and sustainable. Max Weber defined three types of ruler legitimacy. The traditional type is the sort Ethiopian emperors, including the last one, enjoyed. The charismatic type is the sort the first African nationalist leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere acquired, and the legal-constitutional type is the subject here. It takes time, generations, and a lengthy period of successful governance to build this foundation, and for the main sectors of society to accept their interests are best served under this system than any attempt to change it.
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II-ETHIOPIA: CONSTITUTIONALISM/ETHNIC FEDERALISM
Ethiopia has a lead among states in the Horn of Africa in constitutionalist experimentation, having adopted its first constitution in 1931, less than a year after Haile Selassie’s coronation as Emperor. This was a gesture from above, ‘unasked and of Our own free will,’ as the Emperor put it, intended to improve the country’s international image, and also to provide the legal framework for the centralisation of the state and the taming of the nobility. More than half of the articles in the constitution were devoted to describing the powers of the Emperor.
A brief mention was made of citizens’ rights, and the chief drafter of the Constitution,Takla Hawariat, promised: ‘henceforth, the Law will protect the weak and the poor against the powerful upstart.’

The 1931 constitution was revised in 1955, on the twenty fifth anniversary of Haile Selassie’s coronation. Two basic motives for revision were the same ones that had inspired the constitutional experiment of 1931; namely concern for the country’s image abroad and further centralisation of state power in the hands of the monarch. The sketchy provisions of the older document regarding the powers and prerogatives of the Emperor were greatly expanded and elaborated in the new document. An additional motive was to settle the status of Eritrea which had been linked in a federal union with Ethiopia since 1952. Remarkably, the 1995 Constitution made no mention at all of the union, but settled the issue in the very first article by proclaiming the ‘sovereignty and territory (of Ethiopia) are indivisible.’

Political correctness is not missing. Twenty nine articles are devoted to the rights and duties of the people, including, the freedom of (a non-existent) press, and of association in a state where not a single civic association was tolerated.

The façade of electoralism was not missing either. The 1931 document established two appointed advisory bodies, a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies, of which little was heard afterwards. The 1955 document made the latter an elected chamber, and the first election in the history of the country took place in 1957, and every four years subsequently until 1969. Given the fact that no political parties did not exist, it is not surprising that people took no interest at all in the electoral process.

Ethiopia’s third constitution was unveiled in 1985 by the military regime that had seized power in 1974. Its preparation was assigned to a team of academics and experienced civil servants working in the Institute for the Study of Nationalities,
who were instructed to study relevant documents in the socialist bloc, especially the federal models of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. After a long period of study and deliberation the team drafted a number of alternative schemes that were submitted to the regime’s leadership. As was the case with Haile Selassie, the military regime’s strongman, Mengistu Haile Mariam , saw to it that nothing was included that could possibly threaten his supremacy and approved the final draft.

The introduction of the federal concept is the only interesting aspect of this constitution. Pressed by its Soviet advisers to deal with the problem of nationality conflict in Ethiopia, the embattled regime made a half-hearted and insincere attempt to meet some of the demands raised by nationalist insurgents in Eritrea, Tigray, Oromia, Ogaden, Afar and elsewhere. Accordingly the 1985 Constitution divided the country into autonomous and self-governing regions. This was an obvious ploy recognised by the insurgents whose forces toppled the regime a few short years later.

Ethiopia’s current experiment with federalism is the third in a series. Unlike the timid and disingenuous gestures of the past, this was a radical reform intended to cut through the century-old tangled knot of iniquitous oppressive centre-periphery relations, and to restructure the state on a federal pattern based on equal, autonomous, ethnic constituent units. Largely unanticipated, this upending of the status quo was hurriedly implemented, following a brief but intensive period of publicity to mobilise support. No doubt, speed was of the essence given the unsettled political conditions of the time. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that not many Ethiopians who live in the countryside have a clear notion of what federalism means, or had the opportunity to express an opinion on its merits. There was simply no time to form a national consensus on the legitimacy of the new political system. Lacking this foundation, it is no surprise that federalism in this country is the subjects of intense political controversy that often threatens to turn violent.

It should be noted at the outset that the theoretical foundations of this experiment lay not in the philosophy of constitutionalism that is rooted in western liberalism, but in the ideology of national self-determination as construed by Marxism. From this difference spring divergent interpretations: of democracy (liberal versus
popular); the state (unitary or plural); political rights (individual versus group); property rights (private versus collective); development theory (state-planned versus market-led); and a host of other thorny issues that divide the incumbent regime and its opponents and fuel an ongoing political debate.

Debate is essential for the evolution of this highly complex system of government planted in untried ground with little preparation. If it is to prove constructive, the terms of the debate must share a minimal consensus on its goal. However as it has unfolded to date, the debate has strayed away from federalism itself, to focus on the legitimacy of the regime which introduced it a dozen years ago and, by implication, the legitimacy of the federal system; proof that a consensus on the issue has yet to be reached in this country. This casts a shadow over the future of the federal scheme as it now stands, and raises the question whether it will prove more successful than its predecessors?

The answer to this question is of paramount importance. If the history of the region and of Ethiopia itself has anything to teach us, it is that the pressures to transform the iniquitous centre-periphery relationship cannot be defeated by force, nor deflected by political manipulation; methods that have been tried repeatedly in the past without effect. The cost to the countries involved has been disastrous in material and social terms; half a century has been wasted. Moreover, when the state has permanent resort to force to maintain its authority, all hope is lost for political stability and democratisation. Once force is adopted as the instrument of rule, it is applied indiscriminately in the centre as well as the periphery. The recurrence of military rule and of civilian regimes that depend on the military to keep them in power is a lesson proponents and opponents alike of federalism must take to heart. In debating the merits of this system as a constitutional solution to the civil conflicts that have plagued the region, they must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
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