When did Seeking only Accord become Democratic!
Tariku Abas Etenesh
Following the death of the late Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, pictures -both old and new, Photoshop-treated postcards, animated status updates and expressions of
condolences had become the common features of the past two weeks on the social media, especially
Facebook.
The
best and the worst in many people have got the chance to spill over and claim attentions
in their own right. Nowhere could this mixed display could be seen more vividly
that in the electronic and social media.
However, after the state burial ceremony of the PM, one more troubling phenomenon threatens to claim attention in the form of a bashing
spree in the social media. These bashing tendencies have as their ‘credit’ and
‘excuse’ the supposed good or bad legacies of the late Prime Minister to throw spears
of attacks towards others in some easy-to-attack ‘enemy
groups’. The attitude they shout seems to say whoever is not supporting me, or is not supporting the person i support or the
ideal I support is my enemy.
I
don’t expect every Ethiopian to have the same attitude about the late PM’s life, death
or legacy. What can be said is that everyone has the right to hold any opinion
of the PM-be it supportive or critical- because the Prime Minister was a Prime
Minister for all Ethiopians. And
no one or group should feel more entitled to claim to have the right to silence
the other; or force him to think in one way of the other; or dictate him to
view the PM in one way or the other, or even claim to have the best interest of
the other without his or her consent. This for me is the essence of democracy that
one should be free from ‘imposed opinions’ without consent.
However,
some in the electronic and the social media, especially Facebook, seem to be
vested in disregarding this right of the individual to hold his own opinion by labeling every one who has opposing opinion than them as enemy. They
even dare to claim whatever the opinion one has of the PM should pass the litmus
test of originality that they prescribe and if one fails to pass the test he/she
is declared ‘enemy’.
Well
as far as I am concerned, the only enemy, our country has right now is the
attitude that says: whoever is not
supporting me, or whoever is not supporting the person or ideal I support is my
enemy.
In any democracy, if someone doesn’t agree with you or doesn’t think what you think,
or doesn’t revere what you revere, or doesn’t adulate what you adulate, or not
worship what you worship, or doesn’t have the same picture of the future of Ethiopia
as you do, or doesn’t feel as animated about the policies being run in this
country as you do, that doesn’t qualify the other person as an enemy; it only qualifies him as a person who is exercising
his inalienable rights as a human
being.
NOBODY
or group has the right to take the rights of others.
