Segen Y.

#Ethiopia, something extraordinary is unfolding in #Tigray. Major cities, towns and large rural areas are now under the control of the ENDF and Tigray Peace Forces. The speed of this shift is striking. But the deeper story is not territorial. It is political. Across many towns and cities, the public reaction has been remarkably similar: celebration, relief and an unmistakable rejection of another cycle of war. This should not be confused with celebration of the Ethiopian government. What many people appear to be celebrating is the horizon of no more war. They want ordinary life back: schools, salaries, banks, roads, businesses, movement and security. That distinction is critical. For years, the TPLF presented its political survival as inseparable from the survival and dignity of Tigray. What is unfolding now exposes how far that claim may have drifted from the mood of the people themselves. The clearest disconnect may now be between Tigray and parts of the diaspora. When people inside Tigray publicly express relief, reject another war or celebrate a return to normal life, some long-standing and newly sworn TPLF loyalists dismiss them as bought, coerced or manipulated. And when someone simply describes what is happening on the ground, the response often comes almost automatically: “Are you saying the regime in Addis Ababa can now work for the people of Tigray?” It is a cynical diversion. The question deliberately shifts the discussion away from the real issue: what do the people of Tigray themselves want now? Describing the erosion of TPLF support is not an endorsement of Addis Ababa. Recognizing public exhaustion with war is not a declaration of confidence in the federal government. Reporting that people are celebrating a measure of normalcy is not an absolution of the Ethiopian state. Yet this false binary is repeatedly imposed because it avoids a far more uncomfortable question: what if many Tigrayans simply do not want the TPLF restored to power? Some loyalists rarely say explicitly that the TPLF must return. Instead, every criticism of the organization is met with another excuse, another deflection or another warning about Addis Ababa. There seems to be an endless reserve of explanations for every TPLF failure, but very little willingness to confront what the people themselves may now be saying. If every Tigrayan who rejects another war must be called bought, manipulated or frightened, and every description of TPLF’s declining legitimacy must be reframed as support for Abiy Ahmed, then the problem is no longer the facts. It is a political imagination that cannot conceive of Tigray outside the TPLF. Whatever language is used to disguise it, the underlying preference is becoming increasingly visible: for some, the acceptable future still seems to require the TPLF’s return to its former position. But Tigray is bigger than the TPLF. After years of war, displacement, hunger, repression and repeated mobilization, wanting peace is not betrayal. Wanting ordinary life is not surrender. Refusing another war does not make anyone an agent of Addis Ababa. It is agency. And perhaps the most important political fact emerging from this moment is simple: the people of Tigray are speaking for themselves. Their future cannot continue to be reduced to a false choice between submission to Addis Ababa and restoration of the TPLF