Decades of recent history are witness to plots by ruthless dictators to enslave the minds of youth and perpetuate a one-party, one-leader rule; but one by one, these leaders failed and fell. Alemayehu G. Mariam writes that like his autocratic predecessors – Hitler, Mao, Stalin – Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi will lose his bid to conform Ethiopia’s youth to his party mentality. What is less clear is how Ethiopia’s youth will react to the increasingly deplorable social and economic cond...read more
Decades of recent history are witness to plots by ruthless dictators to enslave the minds of youth and perpetuate a one-party, one-leader rule; but one by one, these leaders failed and fell. Alemayehu G. Mariam writes that like his autocratic predecessors – Hitler, Mao, Stalin – Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi will lose his bid to conform Ethiopia’s youth to his party mentality. What is less clear is how Ethiopia’s youth will react to the increasingly deplorable social and economic conditions their government is cultivating. Mariam cautions these marginalised youth are a ‘ticking bomb’. Conflict prevention, he writes, requires the older generation and youth in the diaspora to actively empower this sidelined generation.