Ethiopia is at a crossroads as the nation swears in a new Prime Minister in a move to reclaim stability after three years of political crisis. There is realization among political leaders, opposition members and the society at large only inclusive reconciliation, dialogue and mercy can bring an end to the country’s turmoil. One man at the forefront of this effort is Professor Ephraim Isaac, a retired Harvard scholar who lectures around the world on religion, peace, and conflict. At 81, he continues to make the plea for national reconciliation and compassion, and that all refrain from hate speech and incitement to violence.
His strong attraction to mediation, he said, came in part from the childhood experience in 1941, from the Italian invasion period. When the Italians were driven out of their base in Nedjo, Wollega Province by the Ethiopian army backed by the British, Ephraim was a child and recalls spending in fortified enclave for two days, hearing explosions and bomb showers. For the next two months, he and the family took shelter in a relative’s house in a far-off village. When they returned to Nedjo, Ephraim was told that his best friend and playmate, Desta was killed. The power of this tragedy has stayed with him and the experience contributed to a lifelong conviction in peace and reconciliation.
Coming from a family background and culturally mixed social environment, a Yemenite Jew father and a Christian Oromo mother, with Oromo as his first language, Ephraim was able to study Hebrew and observe Jewish practices at home. He also familiarized himself with the Christian tradition by going to the Swedish Mission School in his native town, Nedjo. He left Nedjo about age 13 and moved to Addis Ababa to attend the Haile Selassie Secondary School. He eventually headed to the US in 1957 on the Imperial government-funded scholarship at Concordia University in Minnesota, which would become the start of a rich and colourful scholarly life. After graduating from there, he would enroll at Harvard, first earning a Bachelor of Divinity degree and later a Ph.D in Near Eastern Languages. The first professor hired in Afro-American studies at Harvard, he has achieved eminence as a teacher at prominent academic institutions, including Princeton and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.(Harvard University founded a yearly prize for outstanding contributions to African studies and exceptional capability in African languages inaugurated in the academic year 1999–2000. In a rare accolade, that prize is named in honor of Ephraim Isaac.) But he also has been concerned for those at the bottom levels of education and he co-founded the National Literacy Campaign Organization, which taught 1.5 million Ethiopians to read. He raised funds for the program and made frequent trips to Ethiopia to oversee its implementation.
During the civil wars that devastated so much of Ethiopia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ephraim Isaac has actively been working to bring peace through the Ad Hoc Ethiopian Peace Committee he co-founded, employing cultural reconciliations, which relies heavily on the shuttle diplomacy of respected elders. In 2006, Ephraim along with other elders played an important role in negotiating the release of 35 opposition members who had been in limbo since the May 2005 elections, earning wide appreciation for the tireless and unselfish dedication to advancing political openness and dialogue in the country.
Ephraim who lives principally in the United States has returned recently to Ethiopia in an attempt to find common ground and to resolve the country’s political impasse after witnessing how the country was being pulled further apart in its anger and anguish over the past three years. As he sees it, the recent events in the country and the country’s political problems have intolerance and polarization as their cause. He said he was concerned to see more and more people indulging in the direct use of hate speech and devolving into tit-for-tat accusations, which he said motivated him to write a lengthy letter to the Reporter newspaper a few weeks ago with a message of healing and concession, and restraint in using extreme language. “Nobody denies that we need strong and genuine democracy in our country. But the road to genuine democracy and political agreements is not paved by hate and anger, but through calm dialogue and respectful discourse. Then, we can form “a covenant” of timeless co-existence,” he wrote.
“Nobody denies that there are political differences among us. We have serious problems that we have to deal with…… I think we should focus on the dangerous problem that I called “hate” – to wash it away from our mind so that we can sit down together calmly as brothers and sisters to solve our national problems,” he wrote.
He also underlined the common heritage and melting of all peoples of Ethiopia regardless of linguistic differences, a positive, bright, optimistic view for the future in spite of the present occasional sad inter-people conflict.
Ephraim once again has taken upon himself the goal of mediation and he is working with council of elders to seek solutions to the problems and conflicts that occurred in the country. He and other elders are working with government officials and opposition members towards that end.
As board chairman the Peace and Development Centre (PDC), a non-governmental and non-profit organization that evolved from the “Ad-Hoc Peace Committee”, Ephriam has enlisted the support of a council of elders that included Dr. Ahmed Moen, former Ethiopian Director-General in the Ministry of Health and professor of public health at Howard University, Dr. Haile Selassie Belay, former President of the Ethiopian Agricultural College and former governor of Tigray, Dr. Mulugeta Eteffa, former professor and Dean of Students at Haile Selassie I University. Dr. Tilahun Beyene, former President of the Eritrean Teacher Association and Dean at the University of Maryland and other respected doctors, lawyers and spiritual leaders.
They have so far talked to government officials such as Deputy Prime Minister, Demeke Mekonnen, senior member of the government and director of the Ethiopian International Institute for Peace and Development, Sebhat Nega, President of the Oromia region, Lemma Megersa, opposition figures Oromo Federalist Congress leader Merera Gudina, the Ethiopian Federal Democratic Unity Forum (Medrek)’s Beyene Petros. The plan is also to reach other relatively moderate exiled politicians such as Lencho Letta and Dimma Negewo.
Critics say that Ephraim Isaac’s traditional mediation was part of the regime’s tool to avoid applying human rights conventions and rule of law and a machination to regain time against increasing threats to its very existence. Many social media agitators have been portraying the scholar in a bad light and there were particularly vitriolic reactions to Ephraim’s letter published in the Reporter. Semahagn Gashu Abebe, an exiled university professor and vocal critic of the regime wrote on his Facebook page saying that Ephraim is preparing to stage another drama but the problem is no one is interested in watching this bad episode, he wrote. The comments from his friends that followed the post were frighteningly negative and some of them were baseless accusations, accompanied by a barrage of insults.
Ephraim responds to the criticisms saying it is true that he respects the people in power, but it does not mean that he is part of the power. “Those who direct their criticism at me hardly know me, or try to reach me. They don’t know anything about my commitment to Ethiopia. Since starting my student days in the Janhoy’s (Emperor Haile Selassie) time, I’ve been committed to the people. When I started the literacy campaign, even then I was accused of supporting Janhoy,”
Ephraim and the other elders do understand the challenging and fraught climate but they are convinced that it is worth the efforts and there is a lot at stake to be left out to the conflicting parties.