There can be no experience more shocking than watching fellow humans being abused and tortured to death. It only takes being human to understand the cruelty of the doer, when an action entails the suffering of another able person.
But that is was what happened last week inSaudi Arabia. Illegal migrants who were not able to get out of the country by the predefined deadline were seen being chased down by the religious police of the petro-dollar nation and forced to fight with the armed officers till death. Those who fell prey to the officers were seen suffering from the unimaginable pain of physical abuse.
A shocking revelation of the torture and death of Ethiopians spread through the social media like a wildfire. The genie of anger leaped out of the bottle, until it eventually swarmed the capitals of most western nations with demonstrations.
Our fair city has seen its own share of the demonstrations. But it was dispersed by the federal police, as the ruling elite saw it as something against their interests.
This latest event seems to have, however, disclosed the true nature of the ruling elite. It has also revealed their definition of politics.
Immediately after the demonstration by concerned citizens in Addis Abeba, the minister of foreign affairs went to his favourite medium – twitter – and warned that the crisis in the Middle Eastern nation ought not to be used for political consumption. Everyone needs to focus on bringing the citizens suffering under a foreign land back home, he argued.
As sympathetic as his tweet seems, it also illustrates the essential nature of our ruling elite. There seems to be an attitude within them that the weak edges of the system should not be brought into the political debate. They seem to think that local political debate ought to focus on areas where they have designed policies and institutions, and hence a competitive advantage.
I wonder what could be consumed in political debates, if not an undeveloped consular system that is unable to provide efficient service for citizens abroad and a foreign affairs system that failed to streamline essential standards within the foreign employment structures.
What is apolitical about questioning the essential political commitment of the government in protecting citizens from suffering in foreign countries?
True, the ruling elite has not been working enough to improve the nation’s consular services. It has even heavily politicised it that Embassies in foreign countries are considered to be hubs of partisan agendas, rather than focal points of serving citizens. They call citizens only when they want to preach to them the politics of the ruling elite or when they want them to contribute resources for a given project.
Human resource deployment in the embassies and consular offices is not based on competence, but rather political loyalty. Even if the foreign policy of the nation focuses on economic diplomacy, the staff deployment is biased towards political activities. Often, the real task of economic diplomacy is undertaken by a single expert.
Even worse, the consular services are not flexible. They are as rigid as their public service counterparts back home.
Procedures and directives matter more than the cost born by citizens. There is even a gross categorisation of activities, cases and citizens as developmental and non-developmental. Unfortunately, preferential treatment is given to those categorised as developmental.
Cognisant to these political fixations, our consular services, especially in Middle Eastern countries, have failed to protect citizens from various kinds of suffering. And this is connected with the politics back at home. If not an intention to cover up the decade old reluctance of the political system, I do not see any reason behind trying to avoid political debate on the issue.
It took the ruling elite decades to display the political resolve required to stand behind citizens suffering under the disorganised foreign employment system. But they want the whole debate to focus on their recent and relatively effective repatriation effort, rather than on the weaknesses of the very system they oversee and their decades-old hesitation.
I see the same tendency in reporting economic growth in the country. Even if the ruling elite have been in power since 1991, they only dare to talk about the economic history of the past 10 years. There is no interest within the ‘powers that be’ to talk about the 14 years of economic volatility and policy confusion before the latest growth trajectory. After all, that is not in favour of their politics.
I do not think politics works in this manner. A government needs to take responsibility for both its achievements and its failures.
It is nonsensical to redefine politics to mean a mere discussion of achievements. It is similarly unreasonable to adjust the time of political debate to the era of betterment only.
If politics is to serve the interests of the wider public, every possible systemic failure ought to be debated. Both times of betterment and vulnerability ought to be embraced within politics. There should not be such warnings as – “don’t use this for political consumption”. Officials ought to take responsibility for their failures, as they would like to gain recognition for improvements.
If we are to avoid the suffering of Ethiopians living abroad once and for all, therefore, we ought to debate on every aspect of the issue. There should not be any limitation on what should and what should not be discussed.
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