The EPRP Revolution: Book Review

There are successful revolutions and there are failed revolutions. Some failed revolutions don’t attract attention while others keep historians awake for generations. The EPRP revolution belongs to the latter case and even after 40 years, it attracts attention. There has been an avalanche of books published telling EPRP stories either through participant observer’s eye or through a historian’s hat. Kiflu Tadese perhaps is best known for chronicling the struggle of the generation with two volumes. While he romanticizes the struggle (it is too much to demand from him to remain otherwise) I bet he has chosen one of the best book titles in the Amharic language: Ya tiwilid. Then slowly other books followed.

In the past one year alone more than three books have been published treating the same theme. “Tower in the sky”, by a female city operative, has received wide acclaim by critics and intelligentsia for its detached storytelling style and power of invoking distant emotions of the era. Then followed by ‘Ye Asimba fikir’, a very accessible book in the Amharic language.

And now comes an interesting political memoir by Hailemariam Weldu, a veteran ‘tagay’ who has seen the ins and outs of the struggle. Hailemariam was one of the big people leading the Addis Ababa Administration in the initial phase of the EPRDF rule. However, for reason unknown to me, he disappeared from public sight and decided to live as a private citizen teaching at some of the public Schools in Addis.

With the release of his new book, he comes back to the undying public debate on the

EPRP collapse. Extracting information from a secretive party like EPRP is always a challenge (the case he admits in the book) but there is nothing better than listening from the horse’s mouth. If it can’t be the whole truth about the party, in my opinion, it is the closest thing one gets to the truth. I am sure, Hailemariam’s book will not be the last word on EPRP struggle and how it failed but it is an important contribution to the debate presenting one Irob man’s perspective from the playing ground in Asimba, Sengede, and other places.

While you may be frustrated by the initial display of unusually long, if not bizarre, title he has chosen for his book, you will be compensated for the struggle the author shows to remain objective ( a rare quality for Ethiopian writers) even when treating the story of his first love: the party. He has employed sharp memory (including some documentation) and a political intellect to make sense of the revolution that made an entire generation go crazy and kills each other like rabbits.

If you are a political animal, with a knack for political literature, read it. But if you are not into politics read it even more, so that you learn what politics can do to human brains from time to time.