Professor Donald Levine

Professor Donald Levine is a historian from the University of Chicago. He is well known amongst Ethiopian scholars for his numerous works on Ethiopia of which his two books, "Greater Ethiopia" and "Wax and Gold," are noteworthy.

He was in Ethiopia last week to present paper on what he calls "The Promise of Ethiopia".

Senior reporter Bruck Shewareged had a moment with Prof. Levine. Excerpts:

Despite its facing lots of problems, you still talk of "the promise of Ethiopia". Can you elaborate on that?

Ethiopia needs to make promises and try to live up to that. If Ethiopian leaders and the public make the changes I'm suggesting, there could be hope. Many changes are needed.

Such as?

Probably, the most important change is political. It is important to overcome the polarization that came after the May 2005 elections. I'm trying to find ways that people, both in the government and the opposition, can draw on some aspects of Ethiopian culture and say goodbye to other aspects.

I wrote about what I call five opportunities that Ethiopia wasted, i.e, the December 1960 coup d'etal attempt, the 1974 draft constitution that was set aside, 1991 when EPRDF took over power, the 1998 war with Eritrea and the 2005 election.

In the last 50 years, Ethiopia had five chances to make a big step forward in terms of modernization, and peaceful change. And it missed every opportunity. So I asked why? What is it? Is there a pattern?

What do you think is the problem?

I look at some features of the traditional behavior that interfere with making these positive peaceful changes. They are still there. The ones I talk about in particular are "wondinet" (macho), i.e, problems are to be solved in a way a military leader does. Either you follow the leader or become a bandit. In 2005, for example, you have EPRDF coming and shooting people. Many wealthy business men believe that the government should be "strong". On the other hand, the opposition were thinking that they must be "strong", or rebel. They were of the opinion: "We will have nothing to do with the government." So they go to jail or America, and some of them organized military opposition.

In my opinion, what they need is courage in a new form, i.e., courage to face one another and talk to one another. I call it civic courage. You can't have democracy without people talking to one another, negotiate and sometimes compromise. This is against one part of Ethiopian tradition.

In my presentation last week, I talked about another part of Ethiopian tradition, which is the opposite. That is very peaceful dialogue. At a local level, I gave several examples. I say peaceful deliberation must come and the age old militaristic outlook must be shed. That has to happen.

The second thing that has to happen is forgiveness. There is a tradition of forgiveness among Ethiopian rulers. Several of them demonstrated the ability to forgive including emperors Tewodros, Yohaness, Menelik, Haile-Sellassie etc.

The three major religions practiced in Ethiopia - Christianity, Islam and Judaism - talk about forgiveness. But for forgiveness to result in a peaceful situation, it must be on both sides. Both sides must ask for forgiveness and grant forgiveness.

Let's talk about the opposition first. To ask for forgiveness and become included in the public again means: "We won't continue to do this divisive things". But the first thing the CUD leadership did was go to America. They did not stay for the millennium except for Mesfin and Hailu Shawel. The rest run off. That's a mistake.

The government also made big mistake. They should need to apologize not only to the families of the victims, but also to the people of Ethiopia. If people have to dig out their loved ones out of a mountain of corpses and pay money to get the dead bodies, it is the whole of Ethiopia that is suffering.

Some opposition forces favours unitary government while EPRDF is for ethnic federalism. Can a compromise be reached?

Last week, I talked to students of New Generation College. Their opinion is either one or the other. If the two sides talk, may be there is a solution. You can have ethnic identity and pride as well as Ethiopian identity and pride. It is possible.

What are the big problems for Ethiopia? Many are caught up in the ethnic versus national identity issue that they had hard time thinking of other important problems. No one mentioned about AIDS and famine at the college meeting. Population density will probably be the worst problem in ten years time. There is the deforestation problem. You have to deal with your problems. Blaming others won't do.

If one is to create hope, one needs first to come up with a symbol. What can Ethiopia do in this respect?

Historically, Ethiopia had lots of symbolism. It is starting to come again with the millennium celebration. Part of the millennium is a public relations exercise. But the millennium is important because since TPLF came to power, they are really talking about Ethiopia for the first time. Now you can talk about Ethiopia all over the place.

Most people, among the new generation, don't know about Ethiopia. But probably it is the only place where Christians and Muslims not only live together but do things together, do common pilgrimage. You can create a symbolism out of this. 

There was the culture of forgiveness upto the 1960s when real political polarization surfaced. What went wrong back then?

I tried to warn back then. I saw it coming. In my book "Wax and Gold" I predicted the Derg would come although I didn't call it by name then; but this new ideology, Socialism, will come. And it came big time. And it is un-Ethiopian. Marxism-Leninism divides the people into the good guys and bad guys. It has huge hatred against the "bad" guys. There is no dialogue. You just cut off their heads. That's how the students movement got moving. They demonized the emperor, the aristocracy, and everything about the people who were starting to build the economy. The country was really starting to develop in the 1960s. The students were saying: "Our past is all bad, the capitalists are all bad," and that's very un-Ethiopian.

All the parties back then bought into it - EPLF, TPLF, MEISON, EPRP, OLF became Marxists. But the worst damage was done by the Derg. The Derg said: "Everything in Ethiopia's past is bad." You have a whole generation growing up without any appreciation of traditional Ethiopian symbolism.

Both the opposition and the current government were brought up in demonizing ways of thinking. That's why you have such incredible polarization.

Without appreciating the past history you can't project a bright future. So, isn't it really difficult to talk about the promise of Ethiopia?

It's going to take a massive education and I don't see anybody getting ready to do that. What I think the country needs to do is that the people need to have some things in common. They have to search their own history. The US had to continue to be good symbol for all its citizens. It had to rewrite some of its history, make it more inclusive and more honestly. What could be better for Ethiopia to have some people put together its history in a short form that is non-partisan and appreciates many good things about its past?

You assert that the nation building process in the 60's in a unitary system was interrupted by ethnic federalism. But did the country have any other alternative than implementing that federalism?

Dealing with ethnic injustices can be handled in many ways. For example, you need to create a public forum. People must be able to come forward and say, "We have this problem". A small number of problems in Ethiopia had to do with the national question. The big problems could be famine, poverty, health, AIDS, deforestation, poor education etc. The Derg destroyed a wonderful education system, and in many ways it is getting worse.

Ethnic federalism was a possible solution to one important problem. It was a short term solution. Decentralization is not always the solution. For example if there is a famine in one part of the country and bumper harvest in another, how are you going to get a national distribution? You can't have that problem addressed unless you have a national public.

Would you say that the infusion of communist ideology into the 1960s students movement was the primary, if not the sole, reason for today's polarization?

I'm very glad you asked about that. In my paper about the missed opportunities in Ethiopia, I raised that there were three big reasons for these missed opportunities.

One is excessive "wodinet" (macho). Another is importing alien ideology. The other is represented in "Wax and Gold". It is how Ethiopians talk to one another. Some of this polarizing is based on old habits of distrust and "mesedadeb" (exchanging insults). Both sides must overcome that. The healing process must take place. Both sides made mistakes. There must be genuine forgiveness. If the government asks for forgiveness, the opposition must not say, "Oh, they didn't really mean it". If I give you a hundred dollars, you may say, "I wonder why he did that?" But at least I gave you a hundred dollars.