BY FITSUM  GETACHEW

Many times in the past and even currently, Egyptian politicians have been engaged in a kind of ‘war of words’ against Ethiopia, expressed through a ceaseless negative propaganda campaign claiming with vehemence that Ethiopia is always working to deprive Egypt of the water of the Nile! It seems that it has decided to accuse Ethiopia of things that Ethiopia never even dreamt of. This has practically always been the narrative of Egypt when it comes to talking about its water usage and its worries about the potential of having scarce water if Ethiopia embarks on any project around the Nile water.

On the one hand, we have heard that Egyptian children are even taught that the Nile emerges or originates from Egypt! The Nile has always been a very critical political issue for Egyptians, and anyone who tries to use the water is considered a bitter enemy and must be treated as such. They assert that the Nile is a sovereignty issue, and trying to use the water in any manner is considered an attack, a hostile act or even an infringement on its sovereignty.  

There are credible reports that Egypt has trained thousands of hydraulic engineers whose daily routine is to exclusively dedicate themselves to studying, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year, the flow of the water of the Nile with its ups and downs, its long and tortuous journey across all the thousands of kilometres in various landscapes. They have developed and collected, across years and years, infinite numerical records relating to the behaviour of the water, and it could be anyone’s guess that they won’t be surprised by whatever may happen with the river. In practice, we can say that they know whatever is to be known about the water regime.   

One could say that they are saturated with information and data on the Nile, but paradoxically they still crave more. One could even conclude that they are most probably obsessed with the issue of the Nile water and whoever may use it anywhere across its long and tumultuous journey. They can just calculate what kind of consequences could result when Ethiopia begins to use the river for power generation. They know how much water it can use for the generation of hydropower because they have the scientific know-how of what amount of water can be temporarily blocked and what percentage of the flow and for how long can be stored in a dam’s reservoir.

Then one could wonder why then worry so much about how the water could be used when they know that it is only for the purpose of generating hydropower? Hence, it should be stated that Egypt’s arguments about Ethiopia’s intentions to ‘starve’ it could only be defined as not only far-fetched and used to secure total control of the water against any attempt by Ethiopia, the source and principal owner of the natural resource, but also to block Ethiopia’s bid to make reasonable use of the resource and grow its economy. For years and years without end, Egypt has always accused Ethiopia of trying to harm it by making use of the Nile when it actually has infinite other water resources to satisfy its development ventures. It was asserted so many times that it may appear true and real to an audience that does not know about the facts on the ground. Unfortunately, we have heard many people rushing to the conclusion that Egypt’s claims and its worries are real. Many stand by the side of Egypt without bothering to consult and find out the other side of the issue! They fall short of realising that such outdated perceptions should be dismissed as unscientific and hence distant from the truth. Science has shown us many alternative solutions to the problems Egypt continues to pose as an ‘existential threat’.

First of all, Egypt has always asserted that its existence, its survival, its life is decided by the existence of the Nile water, without any interruption in its flow, without any reduction to its volume. This is intended to intimidate any one upstream country from using ‘even a drop of the water’ or risk being labelled an enemy of the people of Egypt! This point has been peddled since time immemorial as the cornerstone of the politics of the Nile water regime. This argument is clearly intended to exclude anyone who might try to have any kind of say on the water. In other words, Egypt has always presented such an argument to exclude any force like Ethiopia that may intend to use the water for any of its development projects. At the same time, however, it is good to observe here that there are no doubts that Ethiopia should make reasonable use of its natural resources, and one of them is the Nile, which locally is known as ‘Abay’.

Ethiopians have always known that the Nile, Abay originates from their own backyards. They see it grow with all the various tributaries and become a mighty river before crossing Ethiopia’s highlands and flowing down to Sudan and then Egypt. No one can convince them that the river is not part of their geographical essence, part and parcel of their land. When they hear about the claims of Egypt or any other force, for that matter, they just cannot believe it is serious!

Egyptian propaganda on the Nile is limitless. It disseminates everything it believes to be true all the time and without any break or any doubts. We have heard about such stories for ages, and no surprises if we are frankly tired of these fabricated inventions that are not even serious.       

Such statements repeatedly aired and declared could be considered as political statements aimed at keeping Egyptians dreaming about their country’s might as a superpower in the region. All the indications lead us to believe that Egypt is still living in the clouds of the past centuries when it used to take all the water of the Nile as they wished and felt right. It was a time when they never bothered about the existence of upper riparian countries, and one of them is called Ethiopia, which has every right to use the water!

Today, Egypt knows that its claims cannot be considered serious, especially by Ethiopia. It knows no one can take its accusations at face value.  Whatever Egypt states today is merely a political statement intended to keep Egyptian nationals in the dark and make them fancy an unrealistic hegemony on the water.  They know deep down in their mind that they cannot afford to dismiss Ethiopia’s ventures and its claims. They know Ethiopia needs to use its natural resources to uplift the growth of its citizens, and no one in the world would condemn it for that because it is so natural.

There could be discussions on how to use this precious resource, and there should naturally be a friendly agreement to that effect, a pact that would suit the needs and priorities of each of the parties.  And this can involve only peaceful diplomatic endeavours to which Ethiopia has repeatedly subscribed and stressed as the only means of reaching a permanent deal with Egypt.  Any other arrangement that tries to exclude Ethiopia or any other country of the basin from the reasonable usage of the water of the Nile cannot be considered acceptable and, in fact, is not serious enough to be considered.

There is no room for hegemonic aspirations over the Nile, and passed are the days when Egypt was the ‘lord of the Nile’! Continuous hegemony over the Nile has always been the dream of Egyptian political and military leadership, and in the past this was true to a certain extent. Egypt presented itself as a kind of superpower and used to act as such.  It had the ‘blessing’ of Britain, its former colonial master, when they deliberately excluded Ethiopia from the power to use the Nile water by fixing a ‘treaty’ that could not be referred to as such, for all practical purposes, as far as Ethiopia is concerned.

Across centuries and still now, Egyptian political and military leaders have created their own world around the Nile River and inculcated it in the minds of their citizens that the water of the Nile is absolutely and totally their exclusive property! The problem is that they do not even try to modify or moderate their assertions even today, with so much changed in the international geopolitical sphere, when the old days have passed, and there has emerged a new world order! They seem to forget that colonial periods have passed, dead and buried, and old narratives have fallen apart once and for all, and there is now a need to adapt to the current international reality.

Ethiopia is no longer an ‘insignificant and poor country’ that can be shoved away easily without consequences.  It is a huge country with a huge population and owner of one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Furthermore, there are nowadays many new developments, new scientific discoveries, and it has been ascertained that there are immense underground water resources that could be availed for all the needs of Egypt. The fairy tale that it relies only on the water of the Nile has been debunked. Today, there are no old arguments that hold and be relied on blindly and without discussion or challenges. Science, technology, innovation and artificial intelligence AI, have changed the order of things. They have changed the world for good. Today there are multiple resources to which Egypt can resort, divorcing itself from the excessive dependence on the Nile. It may need to invest some money to develop alternative means of securing water resources, but the choices are there. Clearly, one may argue that using the Nile water is practically ‘cost-free’ and that it has been used for centuries for free. Egyptians may hence not have the appetite or will to invest in the exploration or extraction of the underground water resource, or they may be planning to use that resource only under extreme cases of immediate needs or emergencies. In fact, it has been determined or found out scientifically that Egypt has more underground water resources than Ethiopia, which has the reputation of being identified as ‘the water tower of Africa!’ What is more, Egypt can rely on this resource for the coming ages and ages. Estimates have been put at availability for thousands of years!

Hence, we can say that the myth that Egypt cannot exist without the Nile water is hence at least challenged! It cannot be presented as an excuse to make a lot of fuss about how upstream countries should use the Nile water. Besides, it should not be forgotten that, as a shared resource, the Nile can and should be shared by all countries and peoples lying in the basin. There cannot be any claims of exclusive use or hegemony over such a precious national resource God has created for all those who happen to live by its sides or within its vicinity.