THE THINGS THAT KEEP ME AWAKE AT NIGHT: All in One!

Though it ended on a note of extraordinary bleakness of the country’s political economy my starting point was dissatisfaction with the pernicious geopolitical move of the leadership.

1. When powerful individuals in the US want to have a stake in the natural resources of an African country, with a claim over universal interests and are part of the negotiations about the forms, distribution, and uses of hydropower.

2. What Jared Kushner, Steven Mnuchin, WB, Isreal or KSA have got to do with it? Just saying. They appear at a moment of paralysis in the country. This might, in an ontological sense, have the potential to put it in perpetual subservience.

3. When all “rights defenders” of yesteryears resurfaced as ethnic entrepreneurs, selectively reporting on colossal killings. This will continue to discredit the principles of R2P in Ethiopia for years to come.

4. When Organ Failure predominates in a transition. Democratic election needs to be fortified in strong institutions such as the Supreme Court and Election Board. It also needs a big tent. The technical part is always the easy part.

5. When failed old policies keep reassembling. These are like political weapons of mass destruction. I know irrationality is a powerful force in politics. Who said ‘to live in the past is to die in the present’?

6. When a locally funded mega project landed in Washington. Bank brokers realized at once the deadly threat posed to their multi-billion dollar project. They acted with astonishing swiftness, and the weight may be more than we can bear.

7. When every side feels wronged. Ethiopian politics ‘in the age of lies’ is fundamentally irresponsible because it is not for real. Even those of us who warned violence was likely coming did not foresee the inter-and intra-community score-settling and cruelty that has emerged in the past one year and half.

8. When others try to define long-term national security at a huge cost for others. If the Israelis worry about it there is a more responsible way of supporting Egypt with new water dropping technologies than blundering in our vital welfare.

9. When the West is still desperate for success, perpetuate a ‘transition’ which is neither democratic nor effective, but also double down on an obvious fraud in a way that undermines much needed elite pact at a time when it is needed most.

10. When even the most informed is unable or unwilling to comprehend the unqualified US diplomatic and financial support for Egypt. Try to disentangle the GERD from local political stress indicator and powerful partisans. If need be, bring back the Nile Basin Initiative/NIB/ into the process; accentuate an Africa-wide message: while Egypt has a “recolonial” agenda, Ethiopia has a “decolonial” one.