In 1916, the British diplomat Colonel Sir Mark Sykes took a grease pencil and drew a crude line across a map of the Middle East. It run from Haifa on the Mediterranean in what is now Israel to Kirkuk—Iraq—in the northeast. It became the basis of his secret agreement with his French counterpart Francois Georges-Picot to divide the region into two spheres of influence should the Triple Entente defeat the Ottoman Empire [1299-1922] in the First World War. North of the line was to be under French control, south of it under British control. Prior to Sykes-Picot agreement, there was no state of Syria, no Lebanon, no Jordan, no Iraq, no Saudi Arabia or Kuwait
The above illustration in the book titled “Prisoners of Geography” by Tim Marshall attests the nature of superficial states—man made states. Against that backdrop, certain nations boast originality and some pretend where under the veil is anything but.
What I have in mind is Ethiopia where until 1907, for instance, it was two-third of what we know Ethiopia today. It was through expansion abutted by subjugation to the southwest and the south that Ethiopia was “completed” as a nation-state under Emperor Menilik. When the legitimacy was won through brute force, the centuries prior to that, particularly in the North was crafted through a myth that had spanned six centuries [1274-1974] when the last King of the “Solomonic” dynasty was overthrown by a ragtag military Junta—the Dergue.
The pretension of a unified Ethiopia was further lubricated by a fierce “sense of nationalism” under the rubric ህብረተሰብኣዊነት when the Dergue muffled the rights of the nations and nationalities when they had remained victims and overshadowed by a pervading single language, culture including a mindset.
The reality beneath the facade of a homogeneous Ethiopia, however, could only be kept buried for so long when Liberation Fronts sprung up demanding autonomy and self-rule where it later graduated up to secession should a certain ethnic group elects for it. The Liberation Fronts particularly TPLF carried the national question to torpedo its struggle not a malicious intent to break Ethiopia along ethnic lines as its enemies later obsessed to accuse it with but precisely because it had the right reading of Ethiopia’s history. And thus, the Constitution was designed to substantiate unity in ethnic diversity where power was distributed so much so that nations and nationalities can own mastery of their destiny with in a geographically delimited Ethiopian polity.
The bold but precarious ethnic based federalism was turned on its head when the lost glory of Amhara elites re-emerged and made a war pact with Eritrea to annihilate Tigray whose only “crime” was being Tigray. Tigray withstood the almost impossible onslaught but in the meantime Ethiopia unraveled when the center is losing control to manage the humanitarian crisis including killing and massacre of civilians in the Oromia and Amhara regions. The tragic daily killings of civilians is not the cause but the wider symptom of a nation that has remained untruthful to its own history when it feigns unity that was never there.
When no amount of national dialogue or reconciliation is the elixir to amend wrongs, the time has come for Tigray to chart ways for total independence. There is no political arrangement where Tigray could enter with Ethiopia—either the already tried federalism or any other loose type of arrangements, simply because the moral dimension alone makes it repulsive for Tigray to be part of an entity that had caused unimaginable havoc including genocide. Moreover, it remains to be illogical for Tigray to remain part of a nation whose most visible ethnic groups—Oromo and Amhara—are irreconcilable for a reason not only that goes back deep in history but they have nothing in common either— including in language, culture, ethnicity and mindset among other things.
Certainly, the challenges ahead is not going to be a walk in the park for Tigray for it is uncharted waters but the challenges short of independence are more costly than opting for independence. Tigray will have to walk through that door with resolve and courage for there is no any other door.
Even those there’s some hardles Its the right assessment to successful end.