Kalayu Abrha
I am an ordinary Tigrayan; but however much ordinary I am, I have no illusions about what Tigray should be and what it should do to be what it should be. For the first time in my long life as an analyst of Tigray politics I lost the direction from which the enemy is coming.During the two years the Tigray War raged, and my people were in deep darkness, I had no problem seeing developments clearly however complicated the issues were. The battle lines were clearly drawn and I did not need to turn to see what lies on my back; I was sure that all were my own compatriots. I knew that enemies of Tigray, be it renegade Tigrayans or others, were located where I can see them clearly. It need not be denied that there appeared so frequent and irritating political glitches within the home front during the height of the struggle to free Tigray. We then tried to understand, forgive, and forget though it was extremely costly to do so. It was extremely testing and many times frustrating to talk about democracy in the middle of a bitter war for survival.
Some were figuratively asking for butter on their bread during a famine. I had to post a few articles on Aiga Forum to advise the young and hot blooded generation of politicians to refrain from acting as if Tigray is something that would last only for a few years. The butterfly has to rush to drink the dew on the leaf before sunrise takes it away. Tigray is not a dew. It is a rock that would last for thousands of years as it did in the past. It had hundreds of kings and leaders in the last three thousand years and none of them thought of leading it before it disappears the next day. Even if TPLF rules for two or more years, there will be hundreds of years ahead of us to serve Tigray. We last, Tigray doesn’t. Unfortunately, some seem to be working for themselves to last, but Tigray doesn’t!
Out of stress about the toxic postwar politics in Tigray I tried to psychologically treat myself by thinking positively that Tigray is lucky to have so many of its sons and daughters competing stiffly to serve it. But the treatment is not responding well. At the back of my mind and from the words of Tigrayan activists and analysts I hear in the media, I am horrified by the idea that there are many who want to eat Tigray rather than serve it. Above all, politics is the science of euphemism; where you don’t call a spade a spade let alone call a car a cart. TPLF could be a spade; but for the sake of decency I don’t want to hear those who think they are much better than the TPLF, uttering words which are not even in the terminology of the “shepherd”.
I have to mention names; because that is how we can be healed. For me personally, I have to see a clear difference between Dr. Abraham Belay and Dr. Mezgebe; between Zadig Abraha and Kidane Amine, between Dr. Aregawi Berhe and Prof. Getachew Assefa. Critiquing is noble; but there are methodologies and terminologies that are charted by experts for use in such contexts. If I hear a Professor trying to assess TPLF like a person who is illiterate, led by instinct, I would be scared for Tigray’s future. When we attain complete peace, I would be the first to ask TPLF to accommodate all Tigray loving politicians, not as a boss but as an equal partner. As far as my unbiased assessment of what is happening in and around Tigray goes, I conclude that it is too early for a hot political competition with the incumbent.
I am too far away to get complete and reliable information about what is going on in Tigray. However, this cannot deter me from making sense out of what I hear and see in the media. I watch real people talk and I have no illusions about what they say. This gives me the opportunity to weigh their words against conventional logic. There are unruly words spoken from where they are least expected. These can be waved as rude and be forgotten. However, many of them want to destroy TPLF not by logical arguments but by the barrage of filthy terminology. One of the most outrageous accusations leveled against TPLF is that “TPLF killed one million Tigrayans”.
Although this is maddening, particularly when it comes from those whom we thought were a reserve army of scholars for Tigray, we have to be sober and assess the meaning of it. By saying so do they mean TPLF gave a list of the one million Tigrayans to ENDF and EDF for execution? Do they mean TPLF machine gunned them all? Or do they mean TPLF miscalculated in its dealings with the Ethiopia-Eritrea-Amhara Block and enabled them to do what they did: Killing a million? The first two need proof because if TPLF is proved to have done any one of the two or both, the verdict is not going to be only to remove it from power; it will have to go to “Nuremburg”.
What the opposition leaders are asking is itself criminal. They are becoming accomplices of TPLF by allowing it to go stark free if it surrenders its power to them! They are making a business deal by blackmailing TPLF the Mafia-style. They talk very loudly and harshly on the readily available media; but they don’t weigh their words beyond their unhelpful emotions packed with political ambitions.
TPLF has done a lot of miscalculations, not much out of negligence for what the people of Tigray need, but out of their chronic ailment of taking serious things easy and not preparing for the harmful consequences. There is always human error when one is in public service. The safest are those who sit and do nothing except criticize. Of course, it is a serious offense when the errors become greater than what the public can tolerate. If TPLF is being accused for murdering one million Tigrayans, what are Isaias and Abiy being accused of? Who is working to take them to ICC when those who should go are in Mekelle? LOL!
If TPLF is the one who killed the one million Tigrayans why did the TDF kill tens of thousands of EDF and ENDF troops and take 20 thousand of them prisoners, when the murders are leading TDF from above? Are these Tigrayans (by birth) talking so carelessly on Reyot, on TPM, etc, have any idea about the implications of what they are saying? On the one hand, they are accusing Dr. Debretsion for dealing with Dr. Abiy about what to do with the UN committee for investigating crime in Tigray. On the other hand, they are accusing TPLF for the crimes and freeing Abiy Ahmed from the crime!! This just ludicrous. If we don’t know how to put our ideas out to the public it is healthier to swallow them. As the great Tigrayan poet Awet Wodajo brilliantly put it “If wisdom doesn’t serve the cause of the people; but is used in a destructive way to benefit oneself, let it be dumped and be forgotten”.
Let me wind up with the subject on the title. I know Tigray has so many roots. The Axumite leaders have done a lot of good things that we are proud of; they may have also done bad things as well. We have excused them as being human; and we have taken their legacies to show the world who our ancestors were. You know what the Axumite envoys in Himyar (Yemen) were doing to ordinary people there in the name of spreading Christainity. Why do we prefer to be proud only of the bravery of the Axumite General Abraha of Himyar? Emperor Yohannes had his faults that indirectly led to what happened to Tigray in the hands of Menilik and his descendants. Yohannes IV allowed Menilik to build a formidable army and economy under his very nose. It was a person he tolerated that got him killed in Metema. Do we loudly talk about these faults and dump the King we are always proud of? No, we don’t! Of course we shouldn’t. Yohannes was a brave man not a mischievous personality; just like we all Tigrayans are.
Was TPLF anything different? Didn’t the same thing happen to TPLF as it happened to Yohannes? Wouldn’t TIP or Baytona leaders repeat the same mistake if they think the problem was caused by the weakness of TPLF as if they are born perfect? Axumite General Abraha, Emperor Yohannes, and TPLF are our roots. Our stem and branches as Tigrayans stand on them. When it comes to the future of Tigray we have to think twice before we jump once. No nations exist, survive, and thrive by destroying their roots. We don’t worship our roots neither do we destroy them, we just critique them. This is done for the sake of not repeating mistakes. The dictionary meaning of critiquing is to: “Review somebody with comments on its good and bad qualities”.
Because of the prevailing carelessness in what opposition politics is doing in Tigray people are losing hope of peace and youngsters are flying out leaving Tigray to the hyenas. No nation can be built without heightened morale of its people, let alone restore it from the destruction it experienced. Is that what you want? You were there suffering in the war and in the siege. Does patience for a few weeks or months cost you more?