There is an old story of a young man who came to an expert and who enquired from him, “How long does it take to reach enlightenment?” The expert replied that it may take ten years and the young man said, “So long!” The expert then said, “No, in your case it may take twenty years.” And then the young man started to blurt again about the time, but the expert said again. “For you it may take actually twenty-five years.” The young man then asked, “Why do you keep adding more years?” The expert then said to him, “Let us see. I think in your case, it may take thirty years!” This story was narrated in Readers Digest by Phillip Kapleau, in 1983.
A goal may be achievable in ten years, but one may want to achieve it in ten days, which denotes that you want to move fast, ignoring the old saying: “The more hurry the less speed.” It is not good to delay either, but to hurry is worse. All works get completed in due course. The activities of Ethiopia’s administration and more particularly Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister, appear to have been done in great haste without thought to the consequences to the extent that Ethiopia, which remained to be a respected member of the African continent appears to be its laughing stock today. He was awarded even a Nobel Peace Prize but only started wars within his country and then jumped off to Somalia, a country that has a long violent history with Ethiopia, which he should not have done. Accessibility to a sea would have been achieved through an integrated regional economic platform. He only delayed the formation of that regional platform further. It cannot be achieved through force as the Prime Minister said in front of his appointed parliamentarians in 2023, who have no independent thinking processes.
The Ethiopian administration is now involved in multilayered crises involving domestic, regional and international dimensions. There are deadly wars in the Amhara State and Oromia. The Tigray war is not extinguished yet and there is the Benishangul war as well. The Afar State and the Somali State are also at each other’s throats all within Ethiopia. But worse, the Prime Minister without proper thinking jumped into Somalia and got involved in Somalia’s internal affairs, an issue well known to the world and where the international community has been working to patch the seemingly illusive differences among the Somali politicians, an event which involves both regional and international dimensions. No one in the world wants to break the international rules. What if Somalia signed agreements or MoUs with the Somali State in Ethiopia, which were not acceptable to Ethiopia. He would have been hollering across the halls of the globe!
But worse for Ethiopia is the poverty and the droughts and the famines in the country. There are reports indicating that over thirty million Ethiopians have no food security, yet he was being awarded a FAO prize. Something must be wrong somewhere! In the Tigray region hundreds of thousands are dying of hunger and instead of working for these poor Ethiopians, the Prime Minister is busy causing international issues and causing killings and more disasters in the Amhara and Oromia States of his country. It is perhaps time the Prime Minister stepped down. He cannot handle the job, which needs a calmer person to take over.
Working in haste and embarking on many different agendas at the same time appears to be a sign of irresponsibility or a sign of crass impatience. Ethiopia today appears to be a polarized society when it used to be an organized country with an agenda and a direction. It did not move in all directions all the time causing headaches not only for its population but also for others such the Horn of Africa region. This is affecting not only the country’s stability but also its economy and, indeed, this is affecting the region. The region today seems to be more divided as is Ethiopia and instead of coming together and helping each other, the countries of the region seem to be wary of each other. Relations are strained and the possibility of war between the two largest states, Somalia and Ethiopia, cannot be ignored. This also gives space to the terror groups that operate in the region. It is perhaps time the Prime Minister of Ethiopia stood back from the brink he is standing on. He could fall into a deep abyss!
Ethiopia with all its internal problems did not need to embark on fingering others. Perhaps the interference in Somalia’s affairs was intended to divert the attention of Ethiopians from the multiple conflicts within the country and create a foreign enemy. It did not work and would not work. Ethiopians know that it is a landlocked country, and they should have good relations with the littoral states of the region including Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia and even further south, Kenya or further north, Sudan. It cannot, however, interfere in the internal affairs of any of these countries. It is not in its interest. It is not the only landlocked country, and an economy does not depend on an owned access to a sea. Many countries such as Uganda or Switzerland do not have access to a sea but they still thrive, because they maintain good relations with others and enjoy a balanced and steady foreign policy.
The Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiye needs to pull back from his current moves. He knows they are not successful and would only lead to more chaos in his country and in the neighboring countries. The region was healing. His peace agreement with Eritrea in 2018 was a good sign, but since then he has launched wars in Tigray (2020), Amhara (2021), Afar/Somali States (2021), the Benishangul-Gumuz (2021), the Oromia Conflict (never settled but was triggered again in 2022). The interference in Somalia’s internal affairs (start of 2024) seems to have crowned his mischievous internal and external policies.
The region need not crack its fault lines further. It already suffers from climatic and natural calamities. Adding human chaos to the mix would not be good. The region needs to address the actual needs of the population and not the needs of ambitious politicians making history for themselves, for good or bad. It actually needs to watch for the perils that accompany haste in the decision-making processes of the region.
The Horn Of Africa States: The Perils Of Haste – OpEd
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02.02.2024
There is an old story of a young man who came to an expert and who enquired from him, “How long does it take to reach enlightenment?” The expert replied that it may take ten years and the young man said, “So long!” The expert then said, “No, in your case it may take twenty years.” And then the young man started to blurt again about the time, but the expert said again. “For you it may take actually twenty-five years.” The young man then asked, “Why do you keep adding more years?” The expert then said to him, “Let us see. I think in your case, it may take thirty years!” This story was narrated in Readers Digest by Phillip Kapleau, in 1983.
A goal may be achievable in ten years, but one may want to achieve it in ten days, which denotes that you want to move fast, ignoring the old saying: “The more hurry the less speed.” It is not good to delay either, but to hurry is worse. All works get completed in due course. The activities of Ethiopia’s administration and more particularly Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister, appear to have been done in great haste without thought to the consequences to the extent that Ethiopia, which remained to be a respected member of the African continent appears to be its laughing stock today. He was awarded even a Nobel Peace Prize but only started wars within his country and then jumped off to Somalia, a country that has a long violent history with Ethiopia, which he should not have done. Accessibility to a sea would have been achieved through an integrated regional economic platform. He only delayed the........
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