When Good People Remain Silent Evil Triumphs in the Country
By Prof. Habtamu Bihonilign
Addis Tribune

One evening not long ago, our family was visiting another family. The youngest child of our friend's is six years of age. In the course of the evening, I was teasing and bantering with this child when, out of the blue, the young one blurted out some unmentionable ethnic slur. For a moment, I was thrown for a loop. But no sooner had I gained my composure than I gingerly berated the child, "Don't you know better than saying such a thing?" Betraying none of the innocence of her childhood, this engaging child retorted, "Why not!" "Well, well…." I muttered, trying to find words - any word. It was no use. I gave up the attempt and turned towards an adult for a conversation between equals.

Since that incident, I have thought long and hard about the state to which relationships between Ethiopians and Eritreans had sunk in such a brief period of time. Over the past eighteen months, the discourse between Ethiopians and Eritreans has degenerated into the intractable "us" vs "them" pattern. We find ourselves at cross-purposes all the time. We look at the conflict through different lenses. Consequently, the interpretation - rather misinterpretation - we give to the reality of our relationship is fogged by our distorted perceptions and images we had created.

Wittingly or unwittingly, we seem determined to "misread" each other's intentions. There is practically nothing anymore any of us can say about anything - if we say anything at all - without it being misconstrued by the other with some sinister motive. As a result, many good people have chosen to simply disengage, leaving the podium to demagogues and extremists. We have now come to a point where the voices of reason are effectively muffled by the invectives and inveighing of those who wave bloody shirts.

If our response to the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict is to be used as the pulse by which one gauges our sense of right and wrong as a people, I am afraid we have become corrupted. Unlike during the thirty-year war that destroyed countless people on both sides and the devastation it left in its wake, in this unfortunate and sad war we have learned something different. We have learned to hate. And this hatred will be the saddest, and in the long run, the most disastrous legacy of the conflict.

We have become a people for whom hate is now almost second nature. Mention a certain group - ethnic or political - we pounce and use the most damning and venomous of languages, an act that in times past might have been considered a taboo. We continuously create stories and new myths about the objects of our hate in order to perpetuate and "legitimize" it. The longer this conflict lingers on the more necessary we believe it is to engage in acts that promote hate. We go about it as though there is no tomorrow from which we can look back at the today that will be yesterday. What appears to be important to us is how we can score a political or propaganda point - today.

The seed of hatred, so carelessly sown against a perceived enemy today, will eventually come back to haunt us tomorrow. Why do I say that? I say that because hate is not an isolated act or weapon that one utilizes only at selected targets at a given time for a certain purpose. It is rather a state of mind. Once one goes that path, even if the object of one's hate disappears, the state of mind which spawns that monstrous emotion remains in place, always in need of another object of hate.

The killing fields of Kampuchea, the mass slaughter in Rwanda, the endless strife, mayhem and death in former Yugoslavia, the gassing of six million Jews by Germany did not all start out with what they later on became. They all started with just "little hates" which the perpetrators may have felt they could cleverly calibrate just right to some desired end. But the trigger of hate, once pulled can never be released until it turns on oneself.

This is not to say that there should be no legitimate claim when one is warranted. Even in such a case, however, the fair thing to do has always been to stake one's claim, land or otherwise, to law and/or arbitration. Adherence to this principle is a good sign of whether one is genuine about one's claims. Like it or not, and whatever explanations can be given to it, the Eritrean-Yemeni conflict is a good example of this. They resolved their differences peacefully and legally.

And within the context of finding a peaceful solution, we also should haggle and wrangle all we want. If we believe we have the facts on our side, let us hammer the facts and let the chips fall where they may. If we believe we have the law on our side, let us hammer the law just the same. If we believe we have justice on our side, let us hammer that as well. Those who do not have these on their side are left with only one thing to do - hammer the table and push the "hate buttons."

As our peoples are once again led as sheep to the slaughter, what is left for the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea to do now is to reach out across the wide chasm that separates us - a gulf we have both created. We must start to build bridges in favor of dialogue. We must calmly corral our collective wisdom and begin to speak out boldly. We can no longer afford to sit on our hands when events, are careening out of control. We don't have the luxury of cheerleading from anyone's "amen-corner", or disengage and leave the entire field to the warmongers who are gaveling people of goodwill to silence. History will never forgive our generation unless we rise to the challenge of the moment and advocate peace and harmony.

Standing up for peace has never been for the faint-hearted. It takes a great deal more work, courage and even taking risk. Let us be brave enough to reject the propaganda of those who rain down profanity and threat. Say, no! unequivocally to those who have driven the people apart with inflammatory rhetoric. We should have no room for those whose hands are dripping with blood, and their pages septic with hatred. How much more does it take for good people - people of conscience - to say, in unison, "IT IS ENOUGH!" The dictum that "evil triumphs when good people remain silent" has never been truer for us Ethiopians as today.