By Aesop
The Tigrean popular revolution, primarily manifested through the Alula campaign, has changed the status quo (order) in East Africa for good. What was the status quo? It is a situation where Tigrai was a peripheral region located in Ethiopia. Today, Tigrai is a major force in the Red Sea region to be reckoned with. What does “for good” mean? Tigrai will never return back to the status quo, a minority. In fact, it is standing at an opportune moment to resurrect its ancient civilization.
Tigrai is now in a position where its leadership is able to defend it against enemies: foreign and domestic. The Tigrean military does not need to improvise. It will no longer train infantry using no bullets nor build mechanized units using hand-written and a stolen manual. There is no need for Tigrai’s army to train while engaging. Altogether, the past few months has affirmed that, as Tigrai’s military leaders put it, Tigrai will surprise- not vice versa! But this ground breaking military transformation fades compared to the political transformation which manifested over the past two years.
When one speaks of politics, one is thinking about power. Who controls power? That takes us to the concept of CITIZENSHIP. Most associate citizenship with a flag, a passport, or government issued ID. This is a myopic understanding, an illusion. Citizenship is a deep concept stretching back to Aristotle. This great mind divided people into slaves, subjects, and citizens. When people have no say in electing, interfacing, and firing their leaders, and their leaders are self-centered, they are either slaves or subjects, not citizens. If their leaders are powerful and cruel, the people become their slaves. When their leaders are omnipotent but benevolent, the people are called subjects.
People are citizens when they take an active part in electing, protecting, sustaining, and firing their leaders. In this scenario, it is not their leaders but the people that are omnipotent. Powerful people cannot elect selfish leaders. That is the true essence of democracy- a perception where an ordinary citizen believes she is responsible for her government’s wellbeing and vice versa (where leaders work to solely secure the interest of the people). Hence, citizens support their political leaders and their military wholeheartedly. Same goes with their government- that is willing to do whatever it takes to protect and prosper its citizens. It is based on this original meaning, not some rubber-stamped passport or government ID, that we must assess Tigreans’ status relative to their neighbors.
At this point in time, it is, I think, necessary to inquire the true status of Tigrai’s enemies. Are the tens of millions ruled by them slaves, subjects, or citizens? This question is relevant in determining Tigrai’s future, i.e., with whom it wants to associate with in the future. Well, the Eritrean people are not allowed to elect or have a say in their so called “government”. They have no constitution in place, nor have they cast a ballot box. Instead, those in power forcefully conscript them to serve for an indefinite period of time. Anyone dissenting, protesting, or refuses to cooperate with the rulers dies, disappears, migrates, or languishes in the 400 plus prisons established in a small country of 3.5 million. Whether Eritreans are slaves or subjects remains contentious; but they are not citizens.
What of Ethiopians? Well, Ethiopians have got into the habit of multiparty democratic culture for two and a half decades, because of EPRDF. They also forged a popular constitution in 1994- nobody takes the articles ratified by the Emperor’s or Derg 1.0’s constitution seriously. For now, there is no forced military conscription in major urban areas- unlike Eritrea. However, ethnic minorities, political opposition, activists, journalists, and prominent citizens, including government officials, are arbitrarily killed, imprisoned, and disappeared. Further, election remains rigged. So, Ethiopians are classed as the slaves or the subjects of the “7th emperor” presiding over them since 2018. They are not citizens in the real sense of the term.
What about Tigreans? Have they elected their leaders? Well, that is the very reason why they were targeted for genocide today. Have they protected their leaders during desperate times? Well, even the 8-year-old Donat confronted Derg 2.0’s soldiers- leave alone those who excavated weapons, hid the wounded, sent their children to war, and gave all they had for the resistance. According to Tigrai’s military and political leaders, it was the people who decided the war must succeed before the farming season began last year. Subsequent conferences held among the people has proved this where everyone witnessed barely literate people briefing S.W.O.T analysis. Based on this, a reasonable person, can deduce that Tigreans are neither slaves nor subjects, but full-fledged CITIZENS. So, what remains, for the long haul is, figuring out how to govern these citizens.
It is based on this context that one must ask: “what sort of government guarantees citizens’ wellbeing or happiness?” There is a two and half thousand years’ old divide between Plato and Aristotle regarding this subject. Is citizen wellbeing better preserved vis-à-vis enlightened rulers passing down “sacred” wisdom to the masses? Or, is it experienced, informed, or, in some cases, concerned citizens who select and dictate their leaders that secure sustainable wellbeing? This is the core difference between Plato and Aristotle- quintessential philosophers hitherto unmatched, I think, on this topic.
Plato believed societies will squabble for eternity until philosophers become kings. Plato witnessed his mentor, Socrates, being executed by a mob prophesying democracy. So, he was suspicious of the masses. By contrast, his disciple turned rival, Aristotle, distrusted leaders claiming to be enlightened. Aristotle believed politics was too big to leave in the hands of one or a few wise folks. Aristotle argued for responsible citizens bound by civic duty. These days, we see this original divide, as old as two and a half thousand years old, dominating discourses in political thought.
Should a nation develop like China or democratize like the West? Should people celebrate democratic dissent or cooperative development? Is the leader’s sole duty to lead the people over the cliff should they want to; or away from it, against their will? Questions like these have bewildered and conflicted philosophers since time immemorial. Regardless, fate obliges societies, especially when the stakes are high and options limited, to choose!
Now, Tigreans have a long history where they lived through a period dominated by philosopher kings and responsible citizens. They have also witnessed where its detractors lived under similar circumstances. By now, it seems apparent that Tigreans are better off when they are owners of their polity, where they take the responsibility of selecting and firing their leaders.
Tigreans have awakened to the fact that philosopher kings are, after all, human beings leading ephemeral existence. No matter how great a leader is, he/she is the prisoner of the undertaker. Great leaders ranging from Pericles to Gandhi have passed unexpectedly, leaving their people hanging dry. Hence, Tigreans should adopt Aristotle’s model and continue being responsible citizens.
Responsible citizen are people who never relies on an authority figure to make up their own minds. Tigrai’s enemies wait for some tyrant (in Eritrea), a populist (in Ethiopia), princes (across the Red Sea) or some bandit (adjacent region) to deliver them. That is why we see tens of millions in some regions of Ethiopia are willing, if they had real power, to vote Teddy Afro to reign as their king until Christ returns. The Tigreans psyche is, due to the bitter experience, designed differently.
Tigreans, due to their unique experience, prefer to chart, shape, test, and judge their leaders. Hence, anyone who seeks power, fame, or wealth by leading Tigreans is doomed to failure- even if, that pursuit is, unfortunately, lucrative in most quarters of the African continent. This war should prove to anyone positioned or is aspiring to lead Tigrai now or in perpetuity- that Tigreans will gladly choose death over tyranny, they want to rule their own destiny. So, the role of Tigrai’s leadership is facilitating the peoples’ quest to become responsible citizens.
Going forward, I think, Tigrai’s leaders should strive to cultivate this responsible citizenship by transforming it into an informed citizenship. They should feed the popular thirst for truth with facts. They should unravel the truth by disseminating scientific knowledge to ordinary citizens, away from unfounded habits and cultural practices. They should convince the people to acknowledge that unexamined reality, one perceived through crude senses, perception, and culture, is really an illusion. Tigrai’s leadership should lay a foundation where education is a means where Tigrai’s children discover the unseen, un-smelled, unheard, and hardly fathomable elements of light, chemicals (molecules), gravity, soundwaves, magnetic fields, and electricity constituting reality.
In the long run, Tigrai’s leadership should understand and inform its people what every living thing pursues, viz.: the quest for energy. That is the true meaning of security (hard or soft power) and development (growth, health, education, and climate). It is this fundamental quest for energy that translates into national specific policies: agriculture/food security (primarily extracting energy/calories from plants/animals), health (e.g., primarily sustaining homeostasis against inertia and microbes), industry (e.g., primarily converting energy from one form to another to extract more power), commerce (e.g., primarily exchanging energy based products and services), politics (when its about controlling source of energy like land on top and under), diplomacy/geopolitics (e.g., primarily bargaining the transportation, storage, and dissemination of energy products and services without fighting).
By and large, when one discusses the story of energy in the past, it becomes history, when its about the present- it becomes politics, when its about the future, it becomes research and development (R&D). Tigrai’s leadership should create a consilience where students of the twin branches of study (physical and social science) understand each other on the fundamentals of energy.
Energy is the core essence of foreign and domestic policy. It is based on this foundation, energy-an element which determines survival and power, that one could discuss issues of higher domain such as justice, cooperation, reputation, and other moral and subjective factors. For example, it is fundamental to address: a) how much calories Tigrai needs produce or import to sustain its population over time? And how can Tigrai secure them? b) How much energy should it generate to sustain an industry? And how can Tigrai generate that?
In sum, it is important to realize that Tigrai needs to cultivate, nurture, and preserve its responsible citizenship. Leaders should always remember that their followers are neither slaves nor subjects but citizens. In the same vein, Tigreans should take the initiative to defend their polity without seeking permission, approval, or accolade from their elected leaders. In the long run, Tigrai’s leaders should strive to forge an informed citizenship. An informed citizenship is one that wields a scientific understanding of reality, i.e., capable of discerning the different forms of energy and their indispensability in shaping multifaceted policies within and outside Tigrai. If Tigrai’s citizens, already responsible, are equipped with scientific knowledge, they become informed, hence impervious to fleeting temptations of would-be philosopher kings and their counterfeit versions: “strong-man”, messiah, populist, oligarch or aristocrat.