Beyond Nationalism

Abstract

Good evening. It is good to be in New York. Good to have the opportunity to speak to a group that has taken on the responsibility of reflecting upon the state of Ethiopian society in the last half of the twentieth century. All too often it has been my experience to meet African students who embody a conflict of loyalties. That is, they are torn between two roads, between two directions. On the one hand, they feel that they should devote their energies to trying to find a way to mobilize the forces at home to make revolutionary changes in their lives. On the other hand, having tasted the inducements of the West, they are tempted to devote their energies to enhancing their own selfish interests, even though they know that this usually means abandoning their homeland. So they rationalize by insisting that the conditions at home are natural and inevitable at this stage of historical development.

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