Gossip, rumour-mongering, and defamation in Ethiopian Politics
By Hailu Yeshiwondim
March 5, 2004

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The aim of this article is to try to explore some aspects of the phenomena of gossip, defamation, and rumour-mongering within the Ethiopian political setting.

Gossip is informal talk or stories about others lives whose content may not be true but may have some basis in factuality. It is also loosely defined as idle talk or trivial chatter on a private level. Rumour is a piece of unsubstantiated information or a story, that people talk about, and is disseminated on a public level. In both gossip and rumours, information is received third hand. The main concern of this article is not to present a comprehensive study of the above concepts in their entirety, but to try to deal only with the aggressive version of gossip and rumour that is motivated by an intention to harm others. Occasional gossipers like everyone else are not my concern here. Defamation is the act of causing harm to somebody by saying or writing bad or false things about them (Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary). Defamation usually takes place in retaliation to the victim’s real or imagined beliefs, opinions, attitude or behaviour. The intention behind defamation is to either silence, to neutralize or to discourage and isolate. The object of defamation through a systematic and aggressive assault of gossip and rumour feels defenceless and can be vulnerable to scapegoating. Once a scapegoat, an individual, a group, a tribe or a nationality becomes a prime candidate for persecution including and up to extermination.

In Ethiopia, gossip and rumour are traditionally linked with women and the ceremonious session of coffee drinking. However, this is not to suggest that gossip and rumour are a female disposition alone. With the emergence of political organizations after the revolution, gossip and rumour were elevated and used as weapons of defamation in order to undermine an individual, a group or an organization considered to be a threat. The two major organizations of that period, namely the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Party and the All-Ethiopian Socialist Movement were engaged in a fierce competition to win the allegiance of the youth and the intellectuals. Both parties were characterized by arrogance and mutual antagonism and were not willing to understand the language of tolerance and peaceful persuasion. The existence of a possible third alternative was also far beyond the realm of their comprehension. It was a situation where there were no innocent bystanders and where no prisoners were taken. Each adhered to the motto of “either you are with us or you are with the enemy.” To the former (EPRP), politically neutral or apolitical persons were simply Bandas (collaborators) and Fidists (followers of Haile Fida), while to the latter they were anarchists and Trotskyites. These labels were spread through hearsay and rumour against individuals who were for some reason looked upon with disfavour or against those who refused to be confined within the coirsive authoritative domain of a given party.

The effectiveness of such defamation as a weapon lay in the fact that it was impossible to argue one’s innocence because the very nature of rumours does not allow any form of open debate. Because, like fiction, rumour and defamation involve the suspension of disbelief, there is a strong resistance to any evidence contrary to the rumour already in circulation. Party members of that time lacked any solid political education beyond a superficial concise instruction, on a cell level, of the five systems of society, from slavery to communism. Instead, a huge amount of time and energy was wasted on political rivalry, party feuds, disinformation, blackmail, isolation, and excommunication culminating in armed campaigns of terror. As a result, these tools were not only effective in isolating and making the victim visible for humiliation in the public eye, but any fanatic party members and sympathiser other than the perpetuator of the rumours could borrow a weapon and blow the victim’s head off. Hence the direct relationship between the generation of gossip and defamation on the one hand and blood letting on the other. In the absence of any healing mechanism, simply opening old wounds is rather inappropriate, hence my refraining from naming some of the fiercely proud and immensely independent-spirited brilliant Ethiopians who were senselessly murdered for no other reason than refusing to “belong” to either parties. My intention here is, to emphasize the need for us to learn from our mistakes and to point out the need to deal with our past frankly and honestly in order to start afresh in building an affluent democratic society.

With the take over of political power by the EPRDF, gossip and defamation became even more malicious, divisive and deadly due to the introduction of the ethnic dimension. The mushrooming of the private press during the emergence of the current regime was another new element that contributed to the increasing perpetuation of rumour, gossip and tabloid news. This is not to undermine the heroic role of Ethiopian journalists of the private press as agents of change and watchdogs of civic society.

In the past, alleged organizational belongingness was the sole parameter of defamation, while at present ethnic belongingness is added to the equation. A systematic act of scapegoating targeting individual members of ethnic groups or whole ethnic groups is another new feature in the current Ethiopian politics. Defamation, spreading lies, scapegoating and counter scapegoating occur on levels of the Ethiopian society to the extent that history is being made right under the noses of the people in an environment where truth and fiction, reality and fantasy get mixed. In the presence of such ambiguity and lack of transparency on the part of the ruling party and the opposition, our minds abhor chaos and tend to create plausible patterns by piecing together information, thereby creating a fertile ground for rumour to flourish. This widespread public interest and participation in gossip and rumour is in turn exploited by people engaged in this ignominious act in order to blame and defame others. A more serious consequence of this campaign of defamation and scapegoating is the spectre of genocide haunting the country. Ethiopia is categorized among countries that are likely to face the danger of a systematic annihilation of a people based on their ethnicity. Events like in Gambella are symptomatic incidents heralding a fully-fledged act of genocide.

Among the Ethiopians in the diaspora, it is especially those carrying the legacy of the years of terror with them that tend to resort to gossip, rumour-mongering, and disinformation. Among these are party members whose primary aim is to insure the dominance of their organization by any means necessary. Others include members of the old guard whose Ethiopian national loyalty has been upset due to post Derg events. Because of this group’s diminishing political importance as a result of divided loyalty, advanced age and their lack of self-confidence owing to the skeletons in their closets, they tend to attain gratification by assuming the status of the all-knowing authority within their community. Now that their children are grown up, they can afford to spend time pulling strings, concocting sensational rumours, and devising ways to disseminate them with the evil objective of achieving maximum devastation to anyone deemed a challenge to their authority. They fill comfortable with their role behind the scenes and refuse to come to the forefront to assume civic or political responsibility. They do not want to make any real sacrifices and nor do they want to let go of their political obtrusiveness. Any initiative that does not earn their blessing is seen as a direct threat to their ill-earned authority.

Extreme nationalist elements also constitute a third major group who try to make use of rumour-mongering. Because gossip and rumour reinforce the feeling of group solidarity and social bond, a few extreme nationalists exploit the feeling of fear and insecurity among ethnic minorities to enhance their aim of mobilizing the majority of them for their separatist and divisive purposes. All the above groupings are all engaged in some form of political cannibalism through their perpetuation of gossip, backbiting, disinformation, deceit, character assassination, spreading lies and blackmailing with the intent to confuse and create suspicion.

Despite their awareness of the fact that their actions lead to the development of a culture of political and ethnic intolerance, the rumourmongers refuse to alter their ways, simply because, to them, political party grandeur, ethnic commandeering, as well as personal glorification and satisfying their inflated egos are more important than the future of Ethiopia. In the community they operate prevail an atmosphere of mutual distrust and suspicion. Everyone is often led astray and cannot comprehend their game except for those involved in similar defamatory activities or those who objectively and critically investigate things before reaching conclusions. This harmful game has become a real obstacle to the development of a culture of tolerance, mutual understanding, dialogue, peaceful-coexistence, and the ultimate goals of peace and progress in Ethiopia.

What are some of the possible reactions of the victims of this corrosive conduct? It would be helpful to divide the reactions in the two broad categories of healthy and unhealthy. Some of the unhealthy reactions involve those who succumb and admit guilt as well as those who let be pushed to join a camp or a party they had no intention of joining only for purposes of vengeance or fear of facing it all alone. When the going gets rough, others cut and ran making a safe escape to the warm womb of their ethnic origin spewing out their ethnocentric venom at imaginary enemies (usually Amharas) from their insular ethnic cocoon. A healthier reaction would be to try to render the action of rumourmongers ineffective by not wavering and staying the course no matter what. Remaining steadfast in following one’s principles would in the end pay, for truth would prevail once the real facts have been established. Besides, people could eventually get fed up with all this rumour-mongering and find the their perpetuators a nuisance or rather an enemy in disguise trying to carry out the covert mission of the destruction of Ethiopia.

To sum up, gossip and rumour could be as harmless as spices seasoning Ethiopian coffee ceremonies or as dangerous as a lethal weapon leading to ethnic genocide. This indicates that gossip and rumour cannot be eliminated. Part of what sustains them is the psychological function they serve in explaining uncertainty and making sense of the world around us. One can only try to minimize the damage they cause in society. Some of the ways of combating the negative outcome of gossip, defamation, rumour-mongering, and scapegoating include exposing their sources and motives and assuming a critical stance when exposed to information that smacks of hearsay. It would also be advisable not to judge a person on the basis of third person sources. By virtue of the gravity of their consequences, rumours having to do with nationalities or ethnicity require a special critical scrutiny.

Another way of combating this dangerous affair is for organizations to shed their condescending and antidemocratic methods and come closer together as equals in an atmosphere of respect and harmony irrespective of divergence in political program or stand. The creation of open and democratic fora that bring together political and civic organizations and that help resolve conflicts between individuals and groups could constitute a positive beginning of a journey to a united, democratic, and prosperous Ethiopia where every individual and every ethnic, religious, and cultural minority group enjoys full participation and equality.