The Shaky premise of authoritarianism

Taye Negussie (PhD)

Since we ordinarily associate authoritarianism with a political system bent on subjugating and repressing its subjects – so conceived rightly – and, as such, we tend to overlook as it reigns in a number of other human institutions.  

As a matter of fact, the abusive parenting in family life, exploitative economic relations, the imposing and alienating carrot-and stick management system, the behavioral educational scheme aspiring to shape and remold humans could all be viewed as authoritarian in every sense of the term.    

A ‘Democratic Front’ at odds with democracy

Taye Negussie (PhD)

Few rhetoric terms have so pervaded as the term democracy in the political discourse of the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) that controls the Ethiopian government since 1991. Far too often, the front proclaims that the very cause that drove it into armed liberation struggle was its firm resolve to carry through the much repressed Ethiopian people into a democratic system where freedom, justice, equality and the right to self-rule will unconditionally and fully prevail.