Ethiopia’s Stunted Democracy: A Continent’s Cautionary Tale

How engineered division turned promise into polarization.

It’s undeniable: Ethiopia’s infant democracy faltered before it could take root. This isn’t an isolated tragedy. Across Africa, nations walking similar paths now stumble toward the same precipice.

The Fractured Generation
Our youth—democracy’s natural champions—now navigate politics through a lens of alarming myopia. On social media, any commentary on national issues invites instant tribal categorization:

"What’s your ethnicity? Your region? Your creed?"
Ideas are irrelevant; identity is everything. We’ve been reduced to racial signifiers before citizens—a perversion of liberation.

The Architects of Division
This collapse isn’t accidental. For three decades, higher education was weaponized:

·         Universities became factories producing ethno-centric elites,

·         Curricula replaced critical thought with state-sanctioned factoids,

·         The goal? Fragment society into warring factions.

Governments amplified manufactured narratives until fiction hardened into "truth." Centuries of interwoven communities dissolved into suspicion.

The Poisoned Harvest
Today’s political landscape festers with:

·         Parties led by racial entrepreneurs,

·         Movements fueled by primordial hatred,

·         A populace trained to see neighbors as adversaries.

The result? Atrocities that shattered Ethiopia’s soul.

Reclaiming Our Future
Yes, redemption is possible—but there are no shortcuts. Thirty years of systemic brainwashing demands thirty years of deliberate healing. We must:

1.      Dismantle the pedagogy of division in classrooms,

2.      Restore universities as temples of truth, not tribalism,

3.      Demand politics of ideas—not inherited identities.

The road back will be long. But as we were broken, so too can we rebuild.

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