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By Abel Merawi
December 31, 2020 (Ezega.com) – Nations are built with the autonomous and unified efforts of citizens. Rather, nations are destroyed by crowds operating blindly to accomplish insignificant and irrational goals. Crowds can come from various elements. In Ethiopia, they emanate from the catastrophic element of race and ethnicity. Currently, we are witnessing crimes against humanity in various parts of our country, and they all point to the leaders of the mob and their mesmerized followers. The government’s effort to stop these atrocities is rendered futile when citizens abandon national identity and form ethnic factions. These ethnic cliques are led by mass leaders deranged by the lust for power and money. Crowds and their leaders have a symbiotic relationship, and the destruction of one necessarily leads to the end of the other. In the following sections, I’ll focus on the crowd mindset and save the discussion on crowd leaders for the next one. This is because its leaders operate by manipulating the characteristics of the crowd and can only be understood in the context of the crowd.
Upon closer examination, the various crowds begin to resemble each other in their mentality and the causes that lead to their appearance. Gustave le Bon, in his 1996 book ‘The Crowd’, provides us with distinctive characteristics of a crowd. Since we are talking about crowd mentality, psychologically it should be seen as the formation of a collective unconscious mind at the expense of autonomous rationality. A hallmark of a crowd is its ability to do things that individuals cannot. The individual who possesses dark thoughts cannot realize them because of fear and social moral values. But a crowd is not impeded by social values because it is governed by rebellious instincts that do not represent the civilized human, but rather the primitive human. Unless they are seriously mentally ill, people are unable to commit crimes in Metekel and other areas of Ethiopia. It is impossible for one individual to kill innocent babies and old men, but a crowd is capable of such monstrosities. The response of the crowds to these crimes is truncated, since they only feel the pain of their multitudinous identity. Consequently, when a national response is needed in Ethiopia, we only have an ethnic response. To show the nature of individuals in a crowd, Gustave le Bon argues: “Like a savage, … The notion of impossibility disappears for the individual in a crowd.” This is because only individuals possess rational and moral powers of mind. But a crowd is possessed by power in number, then only savagery and primal instincts become the guide.
The most important point is that, unlike an individual, a crowd is the manifestation of instincts without rationality. Primitive tendencies in the civilized individual resurfaced as soon as he joined a crowd to force him to commit heinous acts. This is because we descend into a primitive existence, which civilization wiped out generations ago. It is enough to remember the many savage acts committed by crowds: they are capable of burning an entire family, capable of massacring defenseless people with machetes, capable of killing their secular neighbors and committing many similar cruelties. As we have seen recently, crowds are capable of killing the very people who have lived and died with them for so long. Gustave le Bon correctly describes the member of the crowd:
“Isolated, he can be an educated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian, that is, a creature who acts on instinct. It has the spontaneity, violence, ferocity… of primitive beings… it is impressed by words and images. … An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand among other grains of sand, which the wind shakes at will ”.
In truth, we have seen intellectuals turn into irrational brutes by joining a crowd. In Ethiopia, the effect becomes catastrophic as crowds are formed by ethnic affiliation. Seeing the work of Ethiopian journalists, historians and politicians for the disappearance of our country is truly indescribable. Possessed by the mob mentality, they defend criminals. Seeing civilized human beings, smearing the name of your own country in the international arena is enough to see the primitive power of the multitudes in Ethiopia. As Gustave le Bon remarks of a crowd, “the wise and the ignorant are equally incapable of observing” because they are driven by a herd instinct.
Crowds display primitive tendencies that are alien to the modern civilized human being. First, they are excitable to external forces and act impulsively. Second, crowds are unable to make logical connections as they think in images and generalizations without critically analyzing specific facts. Gustave le Bon argues that crowds are “slaves of impulses” and “think in images” that lack any logical connection to each other. They renounce their moral responsibilities because each one thinks that he is one among many. We are currently witnessing such crowd mentality across the country, and it is vital that people wake up from the hypnotic effect of the crowd. The above realities show how crowds transform history into myths and great men into legendary heroes depending on the current wave that owns them.
There are several causes that create a crowd mentality, with power in number and suggestion as the guide. Individuals in a crowd are considered powerful in number and are considered above reality and reason. They develop, as Gustave le Bon argues, “a feeling of invincible power that allows you to give in to your instincts.” They think in unison and just like in a pandemic, their feeling becomes contagious and felt by everyone. The individual is possessed by the sentiment of the crowd, which is invoked by the leaders of the crowd. Feelings are immediately transformed into action regardless of the danger to oneself and others. Its diabolical leaders exploit this sentimentality as “exaggerating, asserting, resorting to repetition and never trying to prove anything by reasoning are methods of argumentation” used by mass leaders. I’ll talk more about this in the next article, but for now, suffice it to say that ‘crowds show a meek respect for strength’ and take kindness for weakness. That is why, as we are witnessing in Ethiopia, crowds respect dictatorial and crafty leaders while showing disrespect for democratic leaders.
Mired in a crowd mentality, many have become Ethiopia’s internal enemies. With an archaic determination to protect their group and annihilate everyone else, each group is becoming a model of hatred. No one stops to realize that our existence is determined by the existence of Ethiopia, home to all its citizens. Ethnically inclined crowds threaten the nation, their success can only bring mutual destruction. To ensure our national and global prosperity, we need rational citizens, but never crowds. This is a call to the rational and human side in all of us. A nation is only as big as its citizens, and Ethiopia needs great citizens who are willing to fight for unity and mutual existence. I end with the words of the great Martin Luther King, Jr. in his 1968 work, ‘Where do we go from here: chaos or community?’:
“History is littered with the ruins of nations and individuals who followed this self-defeating path of hatred. … On the bleached bones and scrambled remains of many civilizations are written the pathetic words: “Too late.” … We still have a choice today: non-violent coexistence or violent co-annihilation ”.
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Abel merawi is a contributor to Ezega.com based in Addis Ababa. You can contact him through this form.
Other items from Abel merawi:
Conformist realism in ethnic federalism
Alternatives to national identity
Ethiopia in conflict – Part II: A national defense for unity
Ethiopia in conflict – Part I: EPRDF and the creation of an ethnic divide
Forms of human violence (Part II)
Forms of human violence (Part I)
The ‘have’ mentality
Group narcissism
Segregated justice
Creativity
Free But Chained, Part IV: Personal Bondage
Free but on Chain. Part III: Economic Slavery
Free but on Chain. Part II: Social Slavery
Free but on Chain. Part I: The Slavery of the Worldview
Unemployment and economic growth in Ethiopia
Human ignorance underrated
Is America the land of the free? (Part II)
Is America the land of the free? (Part I)
Capitalism becomes an impediment to morality
Ketman: Living in Disguise to Win Acceptance
The system and the ‘criminal’
Trust as an economic force
Do you trust the government?
Our online world
Fame confused with expertise
The heavy burden of health workers
A time to reflect
Albert Camus’s Plague: Fiction Becomes Reality!
History of pandemics in Ethiopia
The Human Fight Against Pandemics: Historical Perspective
Crisis speculators
You can make the difference
Rule of law for a free society
Adwa
The origins of law
Determinants of Market Value: Part II
Determinants of Market Value: Part I
Your life matters too
Manifestations of artistic expression
Achievements vs natural accidents
The sacrificial grip
Injustice is never justifiable
The educational demands of the future
Job security, life and an unpredictable future
The shift from racism to bodybuilding
Sacrifice meaning for power?
Cultural and market forces
Intersubjective reality
Searching for cosmic justice
National myths: makers and destroyers of nations
Are we truly free?
Maturity: the prerequisite for freedom and democracy
Loyalty to the truth, not the group
The value of work
The shortcomings of the Ethiopian political system
The intellectuals and the people
Where are our conquerors?
The Allegory of the Cave and Its Lessons for Leaders
The truth behind humanity
The seven virtues
The seven capital sins
What is the right thing to do?
Building National Identity
Adey Abeba and the spirit of change
Street violence
Living the truth as a human being
Hubris: the tragedy of not learning from others
The Age of Group Mindset: Us vs. Them
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