Reconciliation and the Future of Ethiopia
By Teodros Kiros Ph.D

Reconciliation is to living as blood is to the body. We humans are fated to make mistakes, sometimes without knowing and at other times, thinking that we are infallible, we take cavalier measures, with serious consequences. When we fail to admit our mistakes and move on to correct them, our lives, very much like our contingent body, is deprived of lifeblood central to its very existence.

Forgiveness without forgetting, and reconciliation, are potent possibilities of accommodating our contingent and imperfect natures; and when we can, we must resort to these measures The human self is born to make mistakes, and if it attains maturity, then it seeks to correct them by facing the very combatants, against whom it fought, in an environment, free of hate but replete with full understanding.

Seeking reconciliation is the sign of maturity and moral intelligence. We Ethiopians are advised to embody our contingent lives with the spirit of reconciliation, for the sake of our country.

Professor Ghelawdewos� brilliantly crafted National Reconciliation and National Development in Ethiopia is a pragmatic outline of how to bring the existing regime and the opposition to the palaver of a democratic dialogue guided by communicative rationality. This article wisely proposes a model of political behavior worth emulating.

The Ethiopian common Good, which yet has to be articulated, demands of us Ethiopians to move beyond the corrosive effect of ethnicity and develop policies, which aim at arresting poverty, building infrastructures for the poors of Ethiopia and invite the regime to address these issues head on with the members of the opposition in a sustained round table of dialogue, negotiation and debates.

The time is now. This precious time of resignation must be replaced by the subtle energy of the politics of reconciliation guided by the rationality of the heart, seasoned by experience and graced with hope.

We will do well if we begin with Professor Ghelawedewos� new paradigm of reconciliation appropriate for the sculpting of a new democratic Ethiopian personality.