The old wine skins

By Abel Eshetu Gebremedhin

(PhD Candidate at Addis Ababa University)

The Master teacher Jesus in the Bible noted a parable to teach His disciples about the need for a transformed heart as “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.” ( Luke 5:37-38).The new wine remains new and as purposed when it gets new wineskins. Adjoining the new wine with the old wine skins perish both as the old becomes older and the new wasted. The parable speaks a volume apart from spiritual matters. 

The so-called political reform that happened five years ago as of Prime Minister Abiy’s new chair, trapped citizens put immeasurable trust up on  ‘team Lemma’ and their subsequent promises. Good wishes, street celebrations, supportive prayers, Diaspora vows, physical hugs, prophesies claiming the PM to be “Moses” the deliverer and mad-worshipers’ bows flooded their camp. The name ‘Abiy’ became a worth to be personality that kids dream to be. 

The prime minister swore in the name of Ethiopia and ‘Ethiopianism’ as a tool for heart drain. The priest, the elite, the Sheikh, the monk, the soldier, the professor, the younger, the elder , except a few who kept their integrity , danced tail wagging as a sacrifice for the ‘7th King”. 

The Tigray civil war, the cruel displacements in Sheger city, the killings of innocent Amharas, the Oromuma movement, amongst the many, served awakening call from the five years deep sleep. Why such long years? Abiy’s made sleep tablet named as “Ethiopianism” left us all fall on a bare floor drunken with empty hope. 

The reformed EPRDF with its “Dabo Sim” Prosperity Party changed nothing but the cover while still promoting Ethnic based politics with its lame Constitutional elements that TPLF intentionally introduced to divisively govern for decades. Abiy maintained the old wine skins in the course of transition from TPLF domination to OPDO domination. Ethno-centered banks, car plates, football teams, holidays, academic institutions, hospitals, security forces, etcetera are stamped legacies of the old wineskins. 

All the new education policy, heath reforms, home grown economic policies, Justice system reforms, the new election board, and other new , new , new stuff were poured  in the old Ethnic-skins. The ‘new’s run out and the Ethnic-skin burst into bloody clashes and unstoppable instabilities coupled with rampant corruptions, ‘Hussien boltic’ inflation, unmatched unemployment, state sponsored crimes etcetera. 

All efforts go in vain unless the old wineskins get changed forcefully. We need a new governance that recognizes us by our name ‘human’ first and resign its rights.