Addis Fortune (Addis Ababa)
6 January 2008
opinion
Imagining what those who lived in the 10th Century would have wished is perplexing. As such, the difficulties of projecting ahead a full 1,000 years led LIDETU AYALEW (MP) to envision a 100-year path to emerge as the locus of Africa, where he sees a greater role for Ethiopia.
An offer from Fortune's editorial department to scribble down my vision of Ethiopia in the coming 1,000 years was made to me last week. I warmly and happily welcomed the challenge for I - as member of society and as an individual - have a strong conviction that conveying positive wishes would result in good opportunities.
Both as an individual and member of a generation that is fortunate enough to live in such a peculiar period, one should be lucky to observe an occasion of a Millennium that arrives once in 1,000 years. Nevertheless, we can only make this occasion meaningful so long as we have the will to review our past in terms of our successes and failures, and are able to draw a good lesson so that it would guide us to set a vision for the future.
Having attempted for half a dozen minutes pensively thinking with my eyes closed to foresee the future of Ethiopia, the year 3000 becomes farfetched and beyond the horizon of my thoughts. I tried to see myself through an imaginary spectacle 1,000 years ago, before I attempt to think about 1,000 years ahead.
If our ancestors who lived in the 10th Century had been offered the opportunity to foresee today's Ethiopia from their perspectives' and we could have found their thoughts in the national archive to read, I could imagine how funny their thoughts would have been and inconsistent when viewed from the vantage point of contemporary advancement.
This is because the middle ages societies in those days, however further they would see the world in which they had lived, were not able to see beyond the number of taxed-serfs in their possessions and encroaching on as vast of territories as they could. Harvesting surplus crops in their stocks and swelling the number of cavalries armed with shields and spears as well as building castles and religious shrines were more important to them than thinking about anything more.
Hence, their collective inability could not have given them the basis to think about the world as we come to know it today.
I would say even those who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries' societies of Europe and North America had had no realistic basis and opportunity on which to see today's world as we see it now. The fast changing human environment in terms of advancement seen in the world as well as in Ethiopia could be observed by reviewing the modern history of this world after World War II and in the past 60 years. I think this testifies to the fact that projecting the world in the next 1,000 years goes beyond human capability.
Attempting to visualise Ethiopia's future in the coming 1,000 years provokes more questions than offering answers.
Would there really be a sovereign nation and state in the world, including Ethiopia, in the year 3000, given the fact that the advent of the information revolution brought the world into a global village; such that human beings have become profoundly knowledgeable in its pursuit of space research; that the bounds of rights have broadened its scope to include the rights of animals; and that national states have eroding control over their political and economic domains due to globalisation?
Where would this world be in the coming 1,000 years, in this age with which we have grown accustomed to live having to know about the existence of destruction as opposed to human wellbeing? Could we really see a future of our world and Ethiopia in the year 3,000 that furnishes better environment than it offers today, considering that newly emerging series of epidemics, the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction, the explosion of population and the worsening of global warming and environmental degradation threatening it?
Understanding my limitations to offer answers to these complex challenges, I stop myself short of visualising Ethiopia in the next 1,000 years. Nevertheless, and in order to avoid the risk of being a laughing stock of the generation in the year 3,000 due to my uninformed guess and misguided wish, I resorted to make use of the special offer I was afforded by Fortune to project my view of Ethiopia in the next 100 years. I rather chose to see it in four periods.
The first quarter of the new century (2000-2025) will take Ethiopia through a period where a firm foundation for good governance will be laid, although I see our contemporary challenges are bound to continue. The country will live to see the establishment of institutions that are very vital for the emergence of stable democracy.
There will be a critical mass of Ethiopians with a social conscious that believes in reason and rationality, factors crucial in building a truly pluralist system. There will emerge strong multi-ethnic political parties born from national agendas and ideologies suitable to this social base. Such will be political parties committed to advance their agendas through peaceful means and a legitimate manner.
Several independent professional and civic associations will flourish; while at the same time sufficient number of privately-owned media outlets will exist that would serve the public good.
Ethiopia will write the sad history of food insecurity off its book during this period. The expansion of infrastructure in Ethiopia will be sufficient enough to accelerate the private sector, particularly, the industrial and that of the service sectors.
Come the second quarter, 2025-2050, Ethiopia will be a country that ensures peace and a democratic land with a strong practice of good governance. A majority of its population will be educated and enlightened and a significant size of a middle class that will satisfy its basic and material needs.
Ethiopia and its people will experience a structural transformation from a rain dependent agrarian economy to that of one based on agro-industry and service sectors.
Ethiopia will be a nation that has addressed its deep political and economic problems and guarantee social justice. It will become a strong nation that will be reckoned within its region as well as globally.
In the third quarter of the century (2050-2075), Ethiopia will run on par with those developed nations when measured by good governance and development indicators. As a result of its leading role in the Horn of Africa, there will emerge an integrated nation comprising today's Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya as there will also be regional configurations in the rest of Africa anchored by countries such as Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
No longer will Africa symbolise poverty and civil war at the end of this period.
The fourth quarter of the century (2075-2100) will see the Horn of Africa becoming the centre of attraction for political, trade and tourism not only in Africa but also in the world. As the century wears out, Africa will become a united sovereign state, bidding to become one of the four or five superpowers that will exist in the world. Addis Abeba will truly become the capital of Africa and the hub of activities ranging from culture to sport, and from art to tourism; the nation that will emerge as Horn of Africa and will incorporate today's Ethiopia will become as crucial as California is to the United States (US) now.
My desire presented here in four segments will likely provoke debate for some may say it is too early or too late. However, it is my strong wish to see my generation develop its own vision in a manner that is broader or shorter than mine and unite to work for peace, democracy and development. I strongly believe and wish that nothing will stop on its way to realise these dreams.
If our ancestors who lived in the 10th Century had been offered the opportunity to foresee today's Ethiopia from their perspectives' and we could have found their thoughts in the national archive to read, I could imagine how funny their thoughts would have been and inconsistent when viewed from the vantage point of contemporary advancement.
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