RIP the African Renaissance

RIP the African Renaissance

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

Mark Twain


If PMMZ’s rather untimely (unexpected) departure doesn’t serve as a much needed pause for all those interested, involved and engaged in matters Horn of African then we would have missed a massive opportunity to take stoke of our situation and more worryingly an opportunity to right a few wrongs and align ourselves a bit better with what may bear results in heralding the change we all say we seek.

A lot can be said about the life and work of the late Prime Minister; both positive and negative. Perhaps the shiniest jewel in his accolade is the economic strides that Ethiopia made in his tenure. I was born and grew up in Ethiopia during one of Ethiopia’s darkest hours when Mengistu Hailemariam was experimenting with his improvisation of Marxist Leninist ideology. There was no hope… it seemed that there was no future, poverty even in the middle classes was rife, war was staple and everyone was leaving the country taking unimaginable risks fleeing the country in every imaginable direction (any resemblance to current day Eritrea was not my intention but a sad reality!).

Having visited Ethiopia pretty regularly since 2007 I can’t escape the fact that there have indeed been visible economic strides and notable achievements in education and health provisions… there is hope, people are returning from the Ethiopian diaspora. This is largely a credit to the late Prime Minister who despite his own Marxist roots (not that dissimilar from his predecessor or counterparts in the region), applied conventional economic strategies and policies that many say if maintained will see Ethiopia progressing into the ranks of middle-income  countries in the not too distant future; now that is a massive plus for the famine stricken, poverty riddled hopeless case that I grew up in.

But more, much more was anticipated from Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his cohort back in a previous opportunity for the region to pause and take stoke. Together with our own Isiaias Afewroki, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Uganda’s Yoweri Mussevini, Meles was heralded part of: ‘the new generation of African leaders who will lead the African renaissance’, in 1991 much was promised and even more were the opportunities to rid us off of the demons that beset generations of the peoples of the region, many had dared to hope that there after all might be something new in the East African horizon. War was to have been replaced by cooperative coexistence and these principled, upright, disciplined men were going to challenge the state of affaires riddled by corruption and general bad governance.

Unfortunately it didn’t take long for that dream to be realised as nothing but an illusion… in less than eight years two out of the four repeated the legacy of their predecessors by embroiling Ethiopia and Eritrea into a bloody episode of history unlike one that the world had seen in recent memory… any illusion that Isias Afewroki harboured grains apt for the ‘African renaissance’ was buried deep under the rabble of the aftermath of that war.

Paul Kagame played his part by igniting the "African world war", together with the remaining leader of the foursome, Yoweri Mussevini in DRC.  This war involving nine African nations and over twenty armed groups continues to simmer causing the death of countless people in the region and much devastation.

Meanwhile completing the picture of shattered dreams; Mussevini also manipulated his country’s political system to enable him to stay in perpetual power, his most recent accomplishments include: the abolition of presidential term limits in time for his ‘success’ in the 2006 elections and the harassment of democratic opposition for good measure.

The late Prime minister of Ethiopia failed to live up to the expectation put upon him, when he resorted to using force to sort out a border conflict in Eritrea (I know he was not the only one to blame here but it takes to two tango… and the infamy of his counterpart is far too much to discuss here) and then maintain a war footing for over a decade despite the dire consequences for peoples of both countries.

There was also the invasion of Somalia on two separate occasions and much less than chaste motives…

Domestically political opposition was also dealt with harshly, with a lot of arrests and intimidation against political leaders, their supporters and journalists and even bloggers with dissenting voices.

I really hoped that given his relative young age and remarkable achievements in the economic realm, the late Prime Minister would be able to turn things round a bit; I certainly hoped that he would work for peace in my native Eritrea and also resuscitate the hope for democracy in Ethiopia… I always maintained that if anything was left of the African Renaissance, it was literally held in the grains of the person that was Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia… and I fear his death may mark the end of that faint hope of a renaissance under the auspices of that old cohort of ‘the new generation of African leaders’.

I guess in the end the lesson as ever is: Power does tend to corrupt. RIP Prime Minister…you have left behind quiet a legacy but much and more remains to be accomplished… I wish the incoming Prime Minister a lot of luck despite the extreme anxiety in what this may mean for our Horn of plenty misery…

Selam Kidane
21-08-2012

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