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It is often forgotten that the government of any
country has but a few genuine responsibilities.
These are more or less exhausted by the adoption of
precautions to protect and promote public health; to
maintain civil order and justice before the law for
everyone; and to preserve territorial sovereignty.
Principles of governance such as these have already
been discussed in various documents of this
government. One is the policy handbook issued by the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) in 2005, and the
document on foreign affairs and national security
policy made public three years earlier.
There is an account of some aspects of the
development of Japan and Germany in the document
released in 2002, which it is claimed Ethiopia can
learn from. Japan, in particular, has remained a
popular point of comparison with Ethiopia, but the
alleged similarities - feudalism and independence -
are superficial and misleading.
Two other factors that are perhaps more critical for
development than feudalism or independence are the
environmental contexts and consequent mental outlook
of any country. Rather than feudalism or
independence, it is the environment and the mindset
of the Japanese that lead them to the development of
the science and technology that lies at the heart of
the developed world. Another critical factor in the
development of Japan - and indeed Germany - is that
both countries were successful expansionists, which
acquired significant territories far beyond their
borders.
There is at present nothing like such a prospect for
Ethiopia; it is in the interests of the government
to focus on the fundamental cases for development -
science and technology also meaning a modern
education - that are within its reach. It is
impossible to disagree with the very well put remark
in the foreign affairs and national security policy
document.
It reads: “Focusing on serious work within the
country to bring about development and democracy is
the priority of a successful foreign relations and
national security endeavour.”
This much is well taken but unfortunately, without
explaining the assertion that “the studies we are
referring to are themselves based on other studies.”
Then, even as “poverty and backwardness” are
mentioned as the key factors of Ethiopia’s internal
vulnerability, the document proceeds to meander on
issues of militarism, such as “Building a reliable
defense capability;” “What is their capacity to pick
a fight with us?” or “If we stockpile weapons and
boast of an invincible army.”
There is a clear contradictory tension between being
“committed to placing all our resources at the
disposal of economic development” and having at the
same time to “build a strong (military/Police)
defense.”
But if the significant forces against Ethiopia’s
advance are poverty and backwardness, then the
appropriate countermeasure is not military force,
but the scientific and technical forces of
infrastructure, and a modern education. The
“mobilization of capable soldiers” will not solve
the problems of poverty and backwardness, but
mobilizing the resources of science and technology
within the framework of modern English based
education system will offer a more effective
solution.
One of the internal problems of Ethiopia is a
diversity of groups, many of whom claim identities
that do not meld with the existing national ideal. A
universal education system in English, the leading
international language, will go much farther in a
genuine sentimental unification of Ethiopia.
As with many other countries in Africa, a national
language from abroad will put all the other internal
languages in Ethiopia - including Amharic - on a
potentially equal footing. One immediate advantage
of this would be to advance the cause of the
Ethiopian federal experiment. At the same time, as
the world’s language for science and technology, an
English based education system would enable the
Ethiopian people to significantly raise their
intellectual acquisitions in this regard.
What must clearly be understood is that
civilization, by which I mean countries regulated by
democracy, good governance and development, means in
the first place, subduing nature to the will of man.
It is a simple and outstanding fact, that the most
developed countries in the world are those that have
most effectively reined nature to their will through
the forces of science and technology. It is only
after achieving this that citizens concentrated
their efforts on developing the arts of warfare so
that they could more effectively subdue others.
But even the best minds in the civilized world
realized that the continuous subjugation of man by
war is a kind of insanity that must eventually lead
to the destruction of the human race. People will
always be in conflict but the real and genuine
movement of civilization is achieved through the
gift of science and technology which allows humanity
progressive amelioration of human antagonisms and
conflict through free trade, innovation,
exploration, art, music and culture. |
