Sunday thread: beyond jingoistic patriotism & rallies.
Source; Tsedale Lemma
In the last 3 years the leadership of PM Abiy has offered Ethiopia to the west inch by inch, including inserting the US & WB in the GERD negotiations, compromising the policy independence the TPLF led EPRDF closely guarded.
Important to note that it’s Ethiopians who fiercely rallied behind the slogan #Itsmydam (1st used by Dr Seleshi & introduced by journalist Elias Meseret), forcing PM Abiy & his politicians to wrestle back GERD negotiations from the grips of the US & WB after they offered it for grabs.
Likewise, the decision by PM Abiy to dismantle the EPRDF & the developmental state economic policy, which was inspired by Asian Tigers + China, was meticulously overseen by the West/America.
Yes TPLF/EPRDF’s developmental state policy was debilitatingly undermined by kleptocracy & a crippling authoritarianism. But
that was barely the reason for its unceremonious undoing.
So, this notion that Abiy’s Ethiopia is pushing back against the West’s meddling is nothing but:
A/ an embarrassing push back against the demand/sanction by the west to stop the war crimes being committed in Tigray, and
B/ A paranoid electioneering even when the results are a sweeping win for the incumbent. This cause is laughable because the results of an election that takes place after jailing your formidable opposition & systematically pushing out what’s left of prison is a foregone conclusion.
So both reasons didn’t need rallies & posters because: A/ The west/America are putting the pressure after they have seen the neoliberal Ethiopia they wanted to create under PM Abiy is not only unable to stop the war crimes in Tigray & change course to their values of democracy but has become a liability to whatever interests they have in the Horn.
When a PM they have propped up as a “reformer” turned to a man overseeing a devastating civil war against his own people, by teaming up with an unhinged dictator in Isaias Afwerki & a jailer of his opposition so that he can capture a neoliberal state they wanted to see by using uncontested election, (needless to say by disenfranchising millions of voters), it becomes obvious that his western handlers drop him like a hot potato & distance themselves. That’s how their worldview functions.
The rallies aren’t going to serve electioneering either because there is so much to a legitimate government than holding an election; so much than winning & losing an election; & so much than animating a crowd (in times of COVID) by evoking jingoistic patriotism of an empire state.
And drooling for Putin, Erdogan & Xi isn’t a replacement of an independent foreign policy which will withstand the neoliberal world that is financing Ethiopia’s so called “reform”; it’s intended to make Ethiopia a pawn in a game it’ll ultimately end up losing.
Vicious cycle! 
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