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The nation’s intellectuals and power brokers have too often chosen silence or complicity, leaving authoritarianism to reinvent itself in new guises.
At the recent launch of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s book Medemer State, one voice among the chorus of praise startled the audience. Getachew Reda—once Abiy’s most scathing critic, known for his caustic put-downs during the Tigray war—hailed the Medemer series as a “transformative model for Ethiopia’s future” and its author as a “visionary”. For observers who remembered his years of ferocious disparagement, the spectacle was utterly bewildering.
Getachew is no ordinary politician. With an MA in Law from the University of Alabama and a lecturing post at Mekelle University behind him, he carried intellectual weight rare in Ethiopia’s political class. As the polished spokesman of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) during its war with the federal government, he became a key face of resistance.
But after his fallout with Debretsion Gebremichael leadership and his unceremonious retreat to Addis Ababa last March, he has reemerged as a champion of Abiy and his administration, a reversal which, according to critics, is far from a matter of principled conviction.
In his volte-face, Getachew embodies a wider pattern: Ethiopia’s intellectuals are less defenders of principle than navigators of power. Their shifts are not random lapses of character but symptoms of a system that rewards compliance and punishes dissent. His case is recent, vivid, and emblematic, illustrating how, time and again, the nation’s educated voices forsake commitment in exchange for proximity to authority.
The Narrow Corridor
In The Narrow Corridor, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue liberty survives only when a strong state is restrained by a strong society. The state provides order, services, and security. Society shackles it, preventing power from sliding into tyranny.
In Ethiopia, that balance has rarely existed, and intellectuals bear a share of responsibility. The monarchy endured local uprisings in Bale, Raya, and Gojjam, but rural masses, largely illiterate and bound to subsistence, remained outside the struggle.
Intellectuals did not help mobilize them into a counterweight to power. In the 1960s, students in Addis Ababa did stir change, but the people did not rise collectively; rather, they were mobilized by armed fronts such as the TPLF, Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), and Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF).
The Derg crushed the very intellectuals who might have educated and organized society. Under the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), hopes briefly surged in 2005, when urban and rural Ethiopians voted en masse for change. But when the regime took measures to forcefully suppress the opposition, the intellectual class fractured, some silenced, some exiled, others co-opted.
Today, amid wars, unemployment, inflation, and repression, most of the public remains inert. Social media debates drift toward gossip and celebrity controversies rather than toward corruption, justice or accountability. The silence of intellectuals deepens this vacuum.
Who, then, are Ethiopia’s intellectuals? They are the writers and teachers, the academics, the diplomats, the civil servants, the people equipped with the skills to make sense of society and to hold it up to the mirror of critique.
And who are the elites? Those who wield influence: politicians, generals, business magnates, church leaders, media personalities. In Ethiopia, the two circles overlap so often that they almost become one. The educated lend their weight to the state; intellectuals drift into official posts, where privilege softens their independence.
Ideally, both groups would serve as guardians of freedom, challengers of injustice, inventors of reform, and guides for public conscience. What we have seen instead is a long habit of seeking the warmth of power.
Intellectuals, with a few luminous exceptions, bartered truth for security, and traded the hard duty of independence for the easier comfort of advancement. Each time history reached a turning point, authoritarianism was not dismantled but tightened, layer upon layer.
System of Complicity
To diagnose this recurring failure as mere moral cowardice is to mistake a symptom for the disease. The deeper ailment is structural, rooted in a political economy that functions as a closed patronage system.
As scholar E.A. Brett argues in analyzing the post-colonial state, ruling coalitions often prioritize survival over development, constructing a neo-patrimonial order where the state is the primary fount of wealth and security.
Within this framework, intellectuals, business leaders, and professionals face a brutal calculus: alignment with power grants access to influence, resources, and protection; principled opposition guarantees marginalization or worse.
This is not a simple choice between truth and comfort, but a systemic pressure that makes complicity a rational strategy for professional and physical survival, a dynamic as true under the Imperial court as it is under the EPRDF’s ethnic patronage and Abiy’s authoritarianism.
This structural engine, in turn, drives a destructive cultural cycle that erodes the very foundation of accountability. Each high-profile defection—each critic who becomes a courtier—normalizes the betrayal of principle and sets a precedent for the next generation.
The work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu helps illuminate the consequence: when elites wield their “symbolic power” to legitimize authoritarian rule, they perform an act of “symbolic violence” that shapes public consciousness itself.
The repeated spectacle of the educated and respected aligning with power breeds a deep-seated habitus of disillusionment and cynicism among the populace. What appears as societal amnesia or passivity is, in fact, a learned helplessness—a rational response to the constant demonstration that collective action is futile and that the mirrors of society are perpetually for sale.
Thus, the state co-opts the elites, the elites’ betrayal demoralizes the society, and the society’s fractured inertia allows the state to tighten its grip, completing a self-perpetuating circuit of failure.
Imperial Submission
The early 20th century produced rare visionaries. Gebrehiwot Baykedagn, in Mengistna Yehizb Astedader (1924), argued for rational taxation, separation of royal and state revenues, schools, freedom of worship, legal reform, and a modern army. His ideas anticipated Haile Selassie’s later reforms.
Others tried bolder measures. Girmame Neway, educated in the United States, attempted to dismantle feudal rule through a coup in 1960. Ambassador Birhanu Dinke resigned in protest, urging Haile Selassie to renounce divine right and accept elected government.
But such figures were exceptions. Most educated elites, many schooled abroad at the emperor’s expense, reinforced the monarchy. They built institutions—Ethiopian Airlines, Addis Ababa University, the national broadcasters—but avoided political confrontation.
Constitutional drafts in 1931 and 1955 cloaked imperial dominance in legal form. The monarchy remained absolutist, while intellectuals and elites acquiesced.
Revolution Betrayed
The 1974 revolution toppled Emperor Haile Selassie. It could have birthed democracy. Instead, it delivered military dictatorship. Soldiers with little education or ideological clarity hijacked the uprising. Intellectuals, divided and fearful, legitimized them.
Some, like the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party, resisted and called for civilian government. But internecine violence—the White Terror, assassinations, leaks—crippled opposition. The Derg unleashed purges that annihilated intellectuals en masse. Survivors either submitted, went silent, or joined guerrilla fronts.
Those fronts—TPLF, EPLF, OLF—shifted the struggle toward ethnic politics. In fighting dictatorship, they hardened divisions. The intellectual failure was stark: instead of steering public debate, they allowed low-ranking officers to rule through terror and war. Ethiopia endured 17 years of civil conflict, capped by the secession of Eritrea and the rise of the TPLF.
In 1991, the EPRDF seized power. The 1995 constitution looked dazzling on paper: civil, political, socio-economic, even third-generation rights. In practice, it was a façade. Elections were stage-managed, dissent crushed, rights ignored.
Intellectuals and elites failed once more. Some collaborated as junior partners of the TPLF, trading loyalty for patronage. Others were silenced, marginalized, or exiled. Instead of forging cross-ethnic alliances for democracy, they retreated into ethnic camps.
The principle of self-determination was legitimate. But enshrining secession in the constitution, coupled with framing Ethiopia as a “colonial empire,” destabilized the nation. Eritrea broke away, depriving Ethiopia of sea access.
Federalism hardened ethnic identities, sowed mistrust, and portrayed Amharas as perpetual oppressors. The elites and intellectuals who justified or tolerated this design bear responsibility for Ethiopia’s ongoing fragmentation.
Abiy’s Mirage
Abiy Ahmed’s rise in 2018 unleashed euphoria. The retreat of the TPLF seemed to open a new democratic horizon. That horizon quickly vanished.
Abiy centralized power while leaving much of the country ungoverned. His style—what scholar Berihun Gebeyeh calls “Syncretic Authoritarianism”—mixes military coercion, legal manipulation, and appeals to international legitimacy.
The prime minister governs through patrimonialism. Land, jobs, projects, and contracts are distributed as patronage. He invests in vanity projects—palaces, resorts, artificial parks—while neglecting jobs, rural development, and basic services. He manipulates ethnic and religious divisions, styling himself as mediator, even messiah. Wars in Tigray, Oromia, and Amhara testify to his reliance on violence over consent.
And again, intellectuals and elites have failed. Religious leaders, business magnates, media personalities, and academics have largely aligned with the regime—or stayed silent. A handful speak out. Most, however, serve power.
Anne Applebaum, in Twilight of Democracy, captured the dynamic: authoritarians rely on intellectuals to supply legal justification, media narratives, and cultural validation. Ethiopia is no exception. Figures from Daniel Kibret to Dagnachew Assefa, Gedion Timothewos to Mamo Mihretu, Solomon Kassa to Nebeyou Baye, have provided the rhetorical armor. Religious leaders, Christian and Muslim alike, bless his rule.
They justify wars against their own citizens, twist laws, and rationalize an authoritarian ambition. In doing so, they wage war not only on the public but on colleagues and classmates. Ethiopia’s intellectual and elite classes have, once more, chosen complicity.
Exceptions and Continuities
There have always been exceptions: Gebrehiwot Baykedagn, Girmame Neway, Birhanu Dinke, Getachew Maru, Berhanu Meskel Reda, and Mesfin Woldemariam. They resisted power, spoke truth, sacrificed careers—and sometimes their lives—for the possibility of freedom.
But they were islands. Across regimes, the majority of intellectuals and elites submitted. Under the monarchy, they built institutions but deferred to imperial dominance.
Under the Derg, they legitimized or were annihilated. Under the EPRDF, they entrenched ethnic federalism. Under Abiy, they lend their voices to a syncretic authoritarian.
Meanwhile, society has remained fragmented, fearful, and often inert.
A Broken Mirror
Ethiopia’s story is not simply one of ruthless rulers. It is the story of intellectuals and elites who, instead of reflecting the hopes of society, mirrored the ambitions of power. It is the story of a public too often passive, unable to mobilize, and unwilling—or unprepared—to demand accountability.
Until intellectuals speak truth without flinching, until elites choose reform over privilege, until society organizes to shackle power, Ethiopia’s long quest for freedom will remain a broken mirror: reflecting promise, refracting failure.
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While this commentary contains the author’s opinions, Ethiopia Insight will correct factual errors.
Main photo: Ethiopian Student Demonstration, March 1974, Addis Ababa. Source: Social media
Published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
The author has his heart at the right place. He seems to argue that ‘Ethiopian intellectuals’ have some kind of responsibility (although the bases of the responsibility is not identified) to speak “truth to power.” Getachew Reda and Mesfin Woldemariam are some of the names identified in this article by the author as intellectuals representing sycophancy and courage respectively. The author’s characterization is tainted by the political goals he seeks to achieve. Getachew’s biting, often revolting, oratorical skills should not be seen as an exhibition of possession of deeper knowledge or critical thinking. Mesfin Woldemariam’s unbridled ambition that prompted him to oppose every other politician and political parties does not make him a man of the people. In fact, Mesfin was the one who was urging Abiy Ahmed to “raise his sword.” Again, the author has his heart at a good place.” Hope he lets his mind see his own heart.
In an interview by a western reporter during the days of Pretoria peace talks, Getachew Reda expressed Tigray’s dilemma by saying: we are not fighting because we are a trigger-happy people, we are in a struggle for the survival of our people. That was a powerful, truthful statement to make. In effect, Getachew was saying that the war was imposed on Tigray.
The war has ended, and Getachew has made, or he has been persuaded to make, his own personal peace with Abiy. However, I am not convinced that Getachew finds “medemer” such an admirable political idea. The notion of unity and coming together is not a novel and original concept, no matter how it is fashioned. But, Getachew might have found it obligatory to express flattery and adulation for Abiy under the circumstances.
The primary goal of the Pretoria agreement was to stop the conflict, to stop the carnage. However, Abiy shows no inclination on a project to rebuild Tigray, and to return the displaced people to their homes. Regardless of Pretoria, it is obvious that TPLF will not get its legal status restored. Over the many years, TPLF has done all it can to defend Tigray, TPLF as the heart and soul of Tigray. But now, as hard as it is to say this, the time has come for TPLF to dissolve itself for the sake of Tigray people who have endured so much, to give Tigray a better chance of recovery and to re-connect with the rest of the country. Getachew Reda in his current status might be in a good position to help guide such a transition.
The author expresses dismay about Ethiopian elites as the failed guardians of the revolution, who quite often end up being co-opted by the state for their own professional and personal survival. And that the general public is described as passive, and inert, unwilling to mobilize. In history, in the French revolution, and the Russian revolution, their public had a large participation in the mobilization and uprising, because each revolution contained a homogenous population, who shared the same language and culture, and the same outrage. In Ethiopia, you have different regions with different languages and culture, a situation that is not conducive for a spontaneous national revolution.
Your last point is untrue. You cherry-picked the two most renowned revolutions, and wholeheartedly assumed that both countries were homogeneous. The fact is that a mere 10% percent of France spoke french in 1794. It was a similar case in Russia. Only 45% percent of the Russian empire was made up of ethnic Russians when the Bolsheviks took over. Ethiopia also had its own revolution, one that successfully toppled an 800 year old dynasty. There was no ethnic group that guarded the throne while another tried to topple it. This is not to mention recent cases like Nepal and Sri Lanka (both multi-ethnic countries) that successfully revolted and got rid of their respective autocrats.
What we have in Ethiopia today is a novel system, non-existent in any other corner of the planet. Granting the freedom for citizens to freely express their culture and administer their locality in their native tongue are all good causes. But people seem to overlook that power politics, national identity, and political organization are all predicated along ethnic lines. This is by design, not some deep hitherto irreconcilable differences between ethnic groups, which is what OLF and TPLF sympathizers claim. They also seem to always to overlook the fact that 7 out of 13 regions are defined as multi-ethnic.
Ethiopia might dissolve tomorrow, an eventuality that has never happened to an African state and one they’re protected against thanks to the consensus among African countries to fully respect colonial borders. If it happens to Ethiopia, it will be the successful culmination of the TPLF and the OLF’s endeavor in soft-balkanizing it by not defining it as a state. You can’t escape this fact.
Correction on the final sentence: If it happens to Ethiopia, it will be the successful culmination of the TPLF and the OLF’s endeavor in soft-balkanizing it by not defining it as a nation, but that of a federation of nations. You can’t escape this fact.
A response to roba. The French Revolution and the Russian Revolution were homogeneous in the sense that each event was an organic, inherent revolution. The French speaking public overthrowing the French monarchy, and Russian speaking revolutionaries overturning the Tsarist order. In France or Russia, captive regions / captive people who were neither French nor Russian are not known to have had an active role in each uprising. It could be said that it was not their revolution, they could not identify with it.
To suggest that TPLF had an “endeavor” to soft-balkanize the country by not defining it as a unitary nation is a sinister view. Ethiopia had, all at the same time, an uprising of multiple ethnic groups. The centralized order had collapsed, and under the circumstances a federal system was the only political framework that could put the country back together again. TPLF’s nation building effort and legacy is best exemplified by GERD.