What Radical Evil Lurks in Ethiopia?

Since Abiy Ahmed took office in April 2018, we have witnessed an unprecedented amount of bloodshed and destruction throughout Ethiopia. Among other characteristics of a failed society and national unity, hate, polarization, division, and self-conceit have become the main attributes most Ethiopians are characterized by. Despite all the division, many pro-Abiy Ethiopians have come to a consensus on one thing: their all consuming hate for Tigray’s elected leaders and Tigrayan ideologies for self-determination.

There has always been an unobtrusive resentment towards Tigrayans. In the past few years, marginalization and demonization of Tigrayans became the priority in state politics and propaganda promoting the need to invade, destroy, and exterminate Tigrayans, accusing them of being the sole cause of “27 years of darkness” and wanting to destroy all that is Ethiopian. This flagrant hate and grudge reached its boiling point when the autocrat Abiy Ahmed waged a full-fledged international war against Tigrayans on November 4, 2020. In response to Tigray’s desire for self-determination and an election held by the Tigray government in which 2.8 million Tigrayans participated, the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), Eritrean Defense Force (EDF), Amhara special forces and militia, Somali soldiers and UAE drones encircled Tigray with the intent to destroy by Abiy Ahmed and the Ethiopian government.

When the war broke out, Tigray was put under a total communication blackout. Cut off from the world, Tigray was inaccessible even for Tigrayans living across Ethiopia. But soon after, when international organizations and media started to assess the situation and some communication was restored in a few places, horrific stories started to emerge. 

What has emerged over the last year is evidence of the complete destruction of Tigray. A region-state once at peace  and having made advances since the last civil war in the 70s and 80s has been destroyed, degraded, pillaged, and ravaged. Till this day, Tigrayans are being massacred, raped, displaced, and starved to death by invading forces, including Amhara militia, ENDF and EDF. As the United Nations and international agencies have reported, appalling and unspeakable atrocities have been committed against the people of Tigray beyond moral comprehension, making Tigrayans wonder about the very nature of evil.

In one of its countless deplorable acts, the Ethiopian government and its supporters have been completely denying these investigated and confirmed atrocities, even denying the presence of the Eritrean army within Tigray.

In what seems like a fictitious but damaging alternate reality, the Ethiopian government and its nonstop state propaganda machinery media has tried to “normalize” the situation in Tigray. The prime minister and his cronies have made multiple genocidal remarks, extremely inappropriate and derogatory sarcastic comments about the suffering of Tigrayans and the horrendous crimes that have been committed.

Upon initial reflections, it would seem unjust to condemn and judge the masses for the poor choices of few; one  must rather look to see how the masses responded to rectify the unfortunate predicaments created by few; and yet most Ethiopians didn’t disappoint their genocidal and egomaniac government. In the same fashion as their government, swaths of the Ethiopian population, especially those in Addis Ababa, have denied the carnage and destruction that unfolded in our home. Masses flocked to the streets to celebrate the massacres and mass rape of those who should have been their brothers and sisters. Our closest and trusted friends not only denied but also endorsed the killings and rapes that our brothers and sisters endured.

In a brainwashed-like manner, against all the forthcoming evidence and in defiance to logic, a significant number of Ethiopians choose to believe an egomaniac prime minister over their once loved and trusted Tigrayans friends and neighbors. Some ordinary Ethiopians, so blinded and driven by hate, went as far as killing their own people by the very gun rounds they fired in celebration of the death and destruction of Tigrayans and Tigray. Hellbent on witnessing the decimation of Tigray, most cheered for their leaders marginalizing Tigrayans and depicting them as “backstabbing” and “snakes.”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century, contemplated the nature of evil, stemming from her attempt to understand and evaluate the horrors of the Nazi death camps. In the Origins of Totalitarianism (published in 1951), Arendt used the word ‘radical evil’ to describe the evil of the Holocaust. Arendt applies the term to denote a form of wrongdoing which cannot be captured by other moral concepts. For Arendt, radical evil involves making human beings as human beings superfluous. This is accomplished when human beings are made into living corpses who lack any spontaneity or freedom. According to Arendt, a distinctive feature of radical evil is that it isn’t done for humanly understandable motives such as self-interest, but merely to reinforce totalitarian control and the idea that everything is possible. Arendt’s analysis of evil focuses on evils which result from systems put in place by totalitarian regimes. In her analysis on the character and culpability of individuals who take part in the perpetration of evil, she argues that “desk murderers,” as she referred to some Nazi functionary, were not motivated by demonic or monstrous motives. Instead, “It was sheer thoughtlessness — something by no means identical with stupidity — that predisposed them to become one of the greatest criminals of that period.”

In this sense, according to Hannah Arendt, it is safe to say most pro-Abiy Ethiopians have been made into living corpses who lack any spontaneity or freedom and are doomed to echo the delusional idiosyncrasy their leaders narrate. Evil in the form of utter and complete hate has enslaved the masses, so much so they cannot even differentiate reality from illusion. So blinded by hate and ignorance, they cannot even recognize how they have shattered their values and moral principles. Fueled by sheer thoughtlessness and ignorance, they have damaged the Ethiopia they dream of beyond repair and the saddest part is they do not even realize it.