Note: - Vaclav Havel uses the term 'post-totalitarian' to refer to the Eastern European communist countries in the 1970s and early 1980s that had achieved some measure of economic growth and stability after crushing pro-democracy movements of the 1960s. He refers to them as 'post-totalitarian' because these regimes no longer needed to employ Stalinist tactics of total control and total suppression of society.

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Revolt is appropriate when conditions are clearly and openly in motion, during a war, for example, or in situations where social or political conflicts are coming to a head. It is appropriate in a classical dictatorship that is either just setting itself up or is in a state of collapse.

In other words it is appropriate where there is a clear distinction between the usurpers of power and the subjugated population, or when society finds itself in a state of open crisis.

Conditions in the post-totalitarian system - except in extremely explosive situations like the one in Hungary in 1956 - are of course precisely the opposite. They are static and stable, and social crises, for the most part, exist only latently (though they run much deeper).

Society is not sharply polarized on the level of actual political power, but as we have seen, the fundamental lines of conflict run right through each person. In this situation, no attempt at revolt could ever hope to set up a minimum of resonance in the rest of society, because that society is 'soporific', submerged in a consumer rat-race and wholly involved in the post-totalitarian system (that is participating in it and acting as agents of its 'automatism'), and it would simply find anything like revolt unacceptable. It would interpret the revolt as an attack upon itself and, rather than supporting the revolt, it would very probably react by intensifying its bias towards the system, since, in its view, the sytem can at least guarantee a certain quasi-legality.

Add to this the fact that the post-totalitarian system has at its disposal a complex mechanism of direct and indirect surveillance that has no equal in history and it is clear that not only would any attempt to revolt come to a dead end politically, but it would also be almost technically impossible to carry off.

Most probably it would be liquidated before it had a chance to translate its intentions into action. Even if the revolt were possible, however, it would remain a solitary gesture of a few isolated individuals and they would be opposed not only by a gigantic apparatus of national (and supra-national) power, but also by the very society in whose name they were mounting the revolt in the first place.

(This, by the way, is another reason why the regime and its propaganda have been ascribing terroristic aims to the 'dissident movements' and accusing them of illegal and conspirational methods.)

All of this, however, is not the main reason why the 'dissident movements' support the principle of legality. That reason lies deeper, in the innermost structure of the 'dissident' attitude. This attitude is and must be fundamentally hostile towards the notion of violent change as such to the system - and every revolt, essentially aims at violent change - simply because it places its faith in violence. (Generally the 'dissident' attitude can only accept violence as a necessary evil in extreme situations, when direct violence can only be met by violence and where remaining passive would in effect mean supporting violence: let us recall, for example, that the blindness of European pacifism was one of the factors that prepared the ground for the Second World War.)

As I have already mentioned, 'dissidents' tend to be sceptical about political thought based on the faith that profound social changes can only be achieved by bringing about (regardless of the method) changes in the system or in the government, and the belief that such changes - because they are considered 'fundamental' - justify the sacrifice of 'less fundamental' things, in other words, human lives. Respect for a theoretical concept here outweighs respect for human life. Yet this is what threatens to enslave humanity all over again.

'Dissident movements', as I have tried to indicate, share exactly the opposite view. They understand systemic change as something superficial, something secondary, something that in itself can guarantee nothing.

Thus an attitude that turns away from abstract political visions of the future towards concrete human beings and ways of defending them effectively in the here and now is quite naturally accompanied by an intensified antipathy to all forms of violence carried out in the name of 'a better future', and by a profound belief that a future secured by violence might actually be worse than what exists now; in other words, the future would be fatally stigmatized by the very means used to secure it.

At the same time, this attitude is not to be mistaken for political conservatism or political moderation. The 'dissident movements' do not shy away from the idea of violent political overthrow because the idea seems too radical, but on the contrary, because it does not seem radical enough. For them, the problem lies far too deep to be settled through mere systemic changes, either government or technological.

Some people, faithful to the Marxist doctrines of the nineteenth century, understand our system as the hegemony of an exploiting class over an exploited class, and, operating from the postulate that exploiters never surrender their power voluntarily, they see the only solution in a revolution to sweep away the exploiters.

Naturally, they regard such things as the struggle for human rights as something hopelessly legalistic, illusory, opportunistic and ultimately misleading because it makes the doubtful assumption that you can negotiate in good faith with your exploiters on the basis of a false legality. The problem is that they are unable to find anyone determined enough to carry out this revolution, with the result that they become bitter, sceptical, passive, and ultimately apathetic - in other words, they end up precisely where the system wants them to be. This is one example of how far one can be misled by mechanically applying, in post-totalitarian circumstances, ideological models from another world and another time.

Source: The Power of the Powerless - Citizens against the state in Eastern Europe, Vaclav Havel et al., Palach Press, 1985

Questions:

What is the state of Ethiopia's political regime today in the context of Havel's view of the appropriateness of armed revolt?

How has the sustained migration, resettlement, and assimilation of Ethiopians in the U.S. and Europe affected diaspora attitudes towards participating in armed revolts?

How does the government-controlled resource allocation (e.g. land allocation schemes for local and diaspora housing) affect attitudes towards armed revolt?

How do separate ethnic-based armed revolts affect the attitude of Ethiopians of other ethnic groups towards the EPRDF system?

What are the prospects for transforming Ethiopia through armed revolt (i.e how can we guarantee our humanity won't be enslaved yet again by a new set of armed groups)?

How does the prominent role given to Eritea and the praise of murderous dictator Isayas Afeworki by some diaspora groups affect Ethiopian attitudes to armed revolt by those groups?

The eastern european regimes had delivered a measure of economic growth and social security, (though far inferior to the west). Has the TPLF/EPRDF delivered enough prosperity to secure a measure of legitimacy?

Others...???