An Attempt to Characterize Contemporary Ethiopian Society
By: Habtamu Girma, Department of Economics, Jigjiga University
Introduction
In his cabinet speech couple of months since selected as Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed (Ph.D) disclosed lack of integrity would be one of the challenges his leadership would face in time ahead. Roughly seven months later, on Feb 1 2019, while reporting the house of peoples representatives on the half-year performance of his government, the premier reiterated the challenge as core hindrances.
But this time, Dr. Abiy was cautious but explicit about the problem when he opted a soft wordings on the issue as ‘short memory’, while openly dubbed it a popular problem. As Dr. Abiy reckoned, “…….it is unfortunate that (we) Ethiopians are people with short memory’. Such a reporting of the problem implies two. For one, its resolve is beyond the capacity of his government, but in the hands of every Ethiopian citizenery. Two, the way to confront the problem requires each one of us (Ethiopians) value intrinsic character, whose traits can be generalized as: one’s will and determination to arrest his/her ego, and firm abidance to moral laws.
For Dr. Abiy Ahmed, the need to fighting the problem of ‘short memory’ amounts to defending the pillars of MEDEMER, his governance principle. And short sightness, the syndrome associated with short memory mindset breeds such evil traits as – immorality, disloyality, mistrust – all of which are antithesis of the behavioral foundation of MEDEMER – love, reconciliation and togetherness.
This piece questions if ‘short memory’ problem characterzes Ethiopian society at large; will try to explain the problem and put forward possible way outs of ‘short sightedeness’ syndrom.
By way of operationalizing the concept of ‘lack of memory’, the writer opted a term ‘lack of integrity’. And Also, the writer buys Dr. Abiy’s take as short memory a feature characterizing (we) Ethiopians, and believes lack of integrity responsible for making every of our interactions rough and tough.
Conceptualizing the term ‘Integrity’
Lack of integrity, a popular problem in Ethiopia, has ample to explain the recent crisis the country has to endure, which is manifested by two interrelated faces: leadership crisis and institutional (formal or informal) dysfunctionality. And a genuine diagnosis on the ailments and sound prescription on the cure of lack of integrity character should base itself on Methodological Individualism, analytical tool this piece adopts. According to Methodological individualism, explaining social phenomena should begin from the individual as a unit of analysis.
Integrity Defined
We find the term integrity much in theology items than in an academic literature. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia – defines integrity as “simplicity,” “soundness,” “completeness,” “upright,” or “perfection.” In Islamic teachings, the word ‘taqwa’ is used to refer the conduct of integrity. The lexical definition of integrity bases itself from makeup of the word itself – “Integrity” comes from the Latin word “integritas”, and “integra” meaning whole, undivided, unbroken, or complete. The Random House Dictionary defines integrity as: doing the right thing, staying true to yourself and your word, even when you’re faced with serious consequences for the choices that you’re making.
In layman words, to show virtues of integrity means to be good.
Virtues of Integrity
From broader definition on the conduct of integrity are three quite interrelated virtues it embraces: i. adherence to moral and ethical principles – soundness of moral character, honesty; ii. A state of being whole – entire or undiminished; iii. Perfect condition – being sound, unimpaired.
The three virtues of integrity in turn born the three aspects of integrity: ego, rationality and moral. From ego perspective, integrity means one’s traits to arrest his/her ego. From rationality angle, integrity involves traits of showing thoughtfulness and consistency in making decisions or taking actions. From moralistic point of view, integrity implies traits in an individual to be loyality to acceptable moral standards by virtue of being a human; by virtue of roles and expectations in age, profession, family or societal status. Moralistic aspect of integrity justifies one’s moral height to get approval or legitmacy for leadership role(s).
Does ‘Lack of Integrity’ Explains the Contemporary Ethiopian Populace?
Here is my hypothesized look, Ethiopians recognize integrity an important asset; by virtue of being a ‘human’, they are able to pay for it; and in lieu of their value for socialized lifestyle, they desperately need integrity in their daily lives. With scanty historical accounts on fabrics of Ethiopian society, existing documents tell Ethiopians are well acclaimed for their values of integrity in the past. Those evidences often taken for granted integrity a feature of Ethiopians.
Moreover, it was customary that Ethiopian kings tried to justify their regimes on the cause of defending integrity values. Even in some instances, as fetched from historical accounts, imperial regime pursued closed door policy on background of defending Ethiopian values from imported values threatened integrity of their subjects. As times goes by, in the advent of globalization, the integrity values of Ethiopians faced threat of contamination. Indeed, evident from our fabrics, I observe integrity elements having been eroded.
To corroborate the point, let me fetch from stockpile of Ethiopian literature (since 1850’s E.C), a task which I have been doing not primarily to organize this piece, but as part of my book project. As to my inferences so far, integrity issue has got much concern since the post-second world war Ethiopia. Those years were when Ethiopian artists & writers in their novels, stories, poems, plays, songs raised integrity threatened, and struggled in their works to defend the cause. Readers can consult works of some Ethiopian literary giants like Kebede Michael, Mekonnen Endalkachew, Roman Work Kassahu, Senidu Gebru, Hadis Alemayehu, Abe Gubegna, Assefa Gebre Mariam, Yilma Deressa, among others.
Perhaps, one of the factors that challenge integrity values is corrupt interpretation on capitalism and globalization, the two inalienable featuring the 20th and 21st century. What is important to note is that it takes to cope up with values of capitalism and elements of globization like spread of science and technology.
Though Ethiopians are not fully embraced capitalism and globalization, as the day counts, the spirit of capitalism and effects of globalization are fast prospering. And what capitalism and globalization both requires, to function properly, is integrity of agents in transactions. In the age of capitalism where much of our fabric are marketed, integrity is a necessity, perhaps equally basic as necessities of life – water, food and sheltering.
In our time when globalization is at its zenith, our world diminished a village. As a result of that, every knocks in one corner of the world is heard in another corner. Hence, in today’s world, the cost of breaching integrity is so dear that every one of us are subjected to count the cost.
Let us all Ethiopians genuinely evaluate our walks in various departments of life – intra-personal, inter-personal, societal or citizenery and interactions defined for various causes – social, economic, politics, religion, security, or other. As to mine, a dwindling characters of integrity is an apparent reality of today’s Ethiopia.
From our relationships, I see frugality of integrity, where we are unable to be good to ourselves let alone to others. I perceive Ethiopians misinterpret conduct of integrity as old fashioned, characterizing it with foolishness.
Our day is when gross suppression is inflicted against morality, loyality, trust and rationality. It is ironic that we blame each other or point finger on others for the woes, self-declaring as being clean. From the outset, how can all of us be clean while all of us talk about woes? Who blames who if everyone perceived genuine? Nothing explains this except paradox of integrity.
Way outs from Shortsighted Mindset
The answer is up to and when we are introvert about aspects of integrity: rationality, ego and moral, upon which I ask all Ethiopians to genuinely evaluate ourselves.
How Rational are we Ethiopians?
The rationality aspect of integrity reveals itself in our intra-personal or inter-personal relationships. A critical look into our communications entails rationality element as one of scarce virtues. To evaluate our rationality, each Ethiopian has to be genuine, not only for answers, but also for the importance of the following quests in our daily lives:
How faithful are we on the power of human as a master of his life, as blessed by its creator, almighty God, as well noted in holly books? How often are we mindful of our actions and reactions with ourselves or others? How far we consider the pros and cons of our decisions or actions before taking action or make decision? How genuine are we about conceding that our life today is the result of a course we chose yesterday?
How Courageous are We Ethiopians to Arrest our Ego?
I can mention and borrow beautiful words from timeless works of prolific Ethiopian writers how Ethiopians are missing elements of integrity time after time. But I opted a recent social media post from a celebrated young Ethiopian writer and social critic, Bewketu Seyum. Quite offended by ’empty’ and ‘unfounded’ comments and critics from some of social media community on a series of reforms by the new Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed (PhD), Beweketu well pictured our ego in one of his facebook page posts (which was depicted Amharic) as “……ድል የሚያሳድድ ሁሉ ድል የመሸከም ወኔ አለው ማለት አይቻልም……..የነፃነት ታጋይ መባልን እንጂ ነፃነትን የማንፈልግ ዜጎች ሞልተናል……”. To give a rough English translation: “……Looking for a victory doesn’t necessarily mean embracing what is implied (by the victory), that is change; there are plenty many (Ethiopians) who consider freedom not from its essence, but to serve own ego, pretending a ‘freedom fighter.“
Those of us who may finds this kind of critic fallacious, abstract and general, let us have courage to interrogate ourselves and be genuine about answers on the followings:
How loyal are we to ourselves, our feelings? How introvert (extrovert) are we on our weaknesses or failure? How far we admit our weaknesses or mistakes? How courageous are we to giving credit or appreciation for good deeds or success of others, even of our closest?
How Moral are (We) Ethiopians?
The fabric of any society is all about institutions meant to various interactions among people, as parent-children, teacher-student, religious fathers-subjects, employer-employee, the government-citizenry relationships. An esential feature of social fabrics is each of us have leadership role(s) in our lifetime. Our leadership role may be in a family institution as a parent or older family member; religious leader over followers; teacher over students; manager (boss) over employees (minors); a governor over governed; political leader over supporters.
Worth noticing is our role as a leader do not guarantee legitmacy. The foundation of a law, rule or regulation to conduct relationships is moral law. What endows a charisma or legitmacy for a leader is his moral height.
As one of emerging problems in our society is moral laws relegated or positive laws missing moral or ethical foundation. As a result, charismatic leaders were found very scarce; government and its institutions lost legitimacy; politics gave way to activism as trusted and potent devise to waving popular causes; politicians seemingly lost confidence of people.
Worst of all, basic institutions that has defended causes of humanity even in the absence of a government as nurtures of moral values like family, religion and education – has been at stake as they were politicized or ignorances on their importance. As a result, religious leaders lost grace in front of believers; parents lost courage to nurture their children with ethics and discipline; teachers lost respect of their students. The sum effect, not only our unity as one country threatened, but also our social existence seriously questioned.
How to Embrace Integrity?
The will to embrace integrity requires first and foremost to ask oneself if sh/e is really alive.
Ask yourself, ‘am I alive? am I a living?’
Living, as I understand, is one’s integrity to himself or herself. Alive is one who is able and willing to sense and respond to own feeling. In its breadth and width, Life is to cry when one is supposed to cry; to laugh with what makes one laughter; to shout on what one considered as unfair, to suggest for right when one feel an action is wrong, and ultimately to be a voice for a voiceless.
Be man of Principles
As another tip to embrace integrity is that we have to be men of principles in life. Those principles are meant to shape the behaviors (motives) of people and their institutional structure of wider importance: economic, social, political and ecological, among others. That is not enough, we have to adhere to our life principles in all our actions and reactions in life.
One’s determination to surrender himself/herself to his/her values boost up material gain. People live up their values means they never go into conflict with themselves, meaning they gain inner peace. People live up their values means they fulfill the prerequisite for success i.e. mental peace. Once we are in such state of mind, we are able to develop the three ingredients of success in material life: free mind, vision, spiritual strength or courage (industriousness). All in all, one’s loyalty to own values is individualistic move (self-love), and is instrumental for prosperity.
Be Reciprocal ! Be Uncluttered Simple !
As a tip to win integrity in our inter-personal relations is adhere to principles of reciprocity and uncluttered simplicity.
The simple formula to enjoy the blessings of integrity from others is to develop trait of reciprocity. Reciprocity principle borne an important aspect of integrity, that is morality, as it implicates for this: “do not do anything on others what you yourself dislike to happen on you”. In our interactions in life, when others show us conducts of integrity, we should reciprocate in a way not annoying their goodness, at least. If we betray the goodness of others or think one way getting oneself out of the reciprocity line, it turns out a problem as it means we develop exploitative and/or deceptive behavior.
Evidences from positive psychology depicts uncluttered simplicity a way for embracing integrity. Uncluttered simplicity meas avoidance of lives that are too busy, too stressed and too fragmented, in both our material and non-material life. Uncluttered simple are those who focus on essentials which gives a meaning in their unique lives.
Beware that Extremes are Bad!
The most important principles that would endow a conduct of integrity in social transactions are ‘extremes are bad’ and ‘belief in natural justice’. The former calls every one of us be moderate in our social transactions- be it in family business, marriage market, social life, or companionship. By offering incentives and courage to behave in a modest and consistent manner, surrendering oneself to ‘extremes are bad’ balances our intra-personal as well as inter-personal relations.
Believe in Natural Justice !
Compliance to ‘natural justice’ shapes human conduct as it implicates for moral and ethical values that smoothen interactions like tolerance, open mindedness, cooperation, loyalty, trustworthiness, among others.
Embrace Thenomics in your Economic Life !
In our economic life, what guide us all shall be Thenomics. Theonomics is how people embrace teachings of holy books like virtues of prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice and humility in their economic life.
With integrity embraced in all departments of life, each step of our walk would be pacific and a success. Where integrity prospers, any dispute would have a resolve, relationships be harmonious and collective wellbeing better realized.
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