January 12, 2017
This paper aims to re-examine the theoretical and political basis of current notions of the ‘national question’ in Ethiopia. It proposes to do this by (1) defining the conceptual framework for the ‘national question’ in sections 2, 3 and 4; (2) delineating the nature and evolutionary transformation of the Axumite/Ethiopian state to date, in section 5; (3) establishing the contrasting claims of the various political groups and tendencies pursuing or opposing ‘nationalism’ and ‘self-determination’, in section 6. It concludes by pointing out the stalemate among political forces in Ethiopia even in formulating the question.
2 . Ethnic Groups and Nations
The earliest academic reference to groups of people particularly during the colonial period up until the 1970s was ‘tribe’; that characterization remains unchanged for the most part in public non-academic discourse to this day (Yeros 1999:17). It is ironic that the term has been in use in relation to Africa more often and in a manner suggestive of not qualifying as a ‘modern nation’ on a par with Europeans. This led to criticism by anthropologists and paved the way for the transition to the use of the term ‘ethnic group’ or ‘ethnicity’ from the 1960s onwards when the struggle against colonialism produced independent states. Still, ethnicity was viewed as another name for, or a continuation of, ‘tribalism’. Whilst the elites in power in the newly independent states of Africa envisaged an era of ‘nationhood’ and ‘modernisation’, ethnicity appeared to them to be backward looking and a potential obstacle to that prospect. Academic interest in Africa in ethnicity did not pick up until the failure of ‘nation building’ prompted the political opposition to find support among ‘ethnic groups’ within each newly independent state. (Yeros 1999:20)
Nevertheless, there is no universal agreement on the concepts of ‘tribe’, ‘ethnic group’ and ‘nation’, both as to their origins and continuing significance in the rise or building of nation-states. Indeed, there are several divergent views on the origin of nations. The ‘primordialist’ view holds that nations existed from time immemorial, supposedly only to be aroused from their slumber to assert themselves at some point later. By contrast, the ‘modernists’ assert a linkage with the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution as underlying causes for their emergence. (Jacquin-Berdal 2002 : 8-16) The process of consolidation of the state under the rising capitalist class, namely by establishing “a territorially based centralised market” as well as installling elected representatives as embodiments of popular sovereignty, completed the transformation into the nation. (Jacquin-Berdal 2002 : 10) Yet, a third perspective, that of the ‘perennialists’, intervened by suggesting that the nation was not a totally new invention because nationalism has an emotional appeal that could not have been created, and therefore the transformation into nations in the 18th century was based on “pre-modern ethnic communities”. (Jacquin-Berdal 2002 : 15) By introducing the notion of ‘ethnicity’ (or ‘ethnie’) as “a pre-modern cultural community” serving as a foundation for a nation, they sought to establish a link between the modernist view of “nationalism (as political consciousness)” and the primordialist view of “nationalism (as a cultural sentiment)” The proposition that nations are not entirely artificial creations seems, therefore, convincing.
In spite of the lack of agreement among the writers, there is a discernible attempt to bridge the gaps between them. Hence, according to Lewis, ‘tribe’ was “applied to distinctive cultural entities, whose members spoke the same language or dialect, generally occupied a common territory, and might or might not acknowledge the authority of a single” political entity. He noted, however, that the term evoked “parochialism, backwardness and primitiveness”. (Lewis 1983) Smith similarly defines ethnic communities as “named human populations with shared ancestry, myths, histories and cultures, having an association with a specific territory, and a sense of solidarity.” (Smith 1986: 32) Noticeably absent from these six dimensions are “economic unity, or a unified division of labour” and “common legal rights and a common polity”, both being characteristic of nations. (Smith 1986: 31) Smith’s definition has been criticised for its failure to distinguish between the various population groups such as casts, clans and sects, amongst others. (Jacquin-Berdal 2002 : 22) By contrast, Wallerstein views a ‘nation’ as “a socio-political category, linked somehow to the actual or potential boundaries of a state” while treating an ‘ethnic group’ as “a cultural category” consisting of “certain continuing behaviours that are passed on” down the generations but not necessarily tied to “state boundaries.” (Wallerstein 1991: 77)
Evidently, therefore, societies must undergo an evolution or transition from a culturally defined community possessing a ‘common ancestry’ (ethnic group) to one which acquires “self-consciousness” (a nation) though no “objective criteria” have been established for this. (Jacquin-Berdal 2002 : 21) Yet, merely equating an ‘ethnic group’ to one which has yet to attain self-consciousness (as a nation is supposed to) is not a helpful differentiation of where the first stops and the second starts. Smith points to ‘three revolutions’ that made the rise of nations possible: “a revolution in the sphere of the division of labour, a revolution in the control of administration, and a revolution in cultural coordination.” (Smith 1986: 131) He also refers to these as socio-economic, military-administrative and cultural-educational. Of these factors, he identified language as “the criterion, or marker, that enabled one to identify and distinguish nations,” [Jacquin-Berdal 2002 : 26] though “linguistic homogeneity is not always a necessary component of nations” [Jacquin-Berdal 2002 :29] citing the case of Switzerland demonstrating the possibliy of a multilingual society becoming a nation. Not everyone had to speak or understand the same language either. Thus only half of the French spoke the language in 1789. As a matter of fact, “many did not speak French in their everyday lives, if at all” or dialects and non-French variants predominated (Anderson 2007: 3). Standardization of language became necessary to create a larger and more mobile pool of industrial workers and such was attained through the advance of print technology and the state sponsorship of the educational system—the latter pointing to the state as a midwife for the arrival of the nation.
The cultural-educational ‘revolution’ Smith referred to entailed promotion and shaping up of ‘nationalist’ sentiments as a form of ideology under the leadership of the state. Underpinned by the creation of administrative uniformity, nationalism became “the expression, the promoter and consequence” (Wallerstein 1991: 82-3) of such a course of development and a tool of legitimation as against internal dissonance or external aggression. To Wallerstein, ultimately, the “nation derives from the political structuring of the world-system”; all but a few of the current members of the United Nations are its by-products. Among those possessing a history “more than a century or two” old and able to “trace a name and a continuous administrative entity in roughly the same geographical location to a period prior to 1450”, China, Iran and Ethiopia arguably “came into existence as modern sovereign states only with the emergence of the present world-system.” (Wallerstein 1991: 80-81) In any case, “in almost every case statehood preceded nationhood, and not the other way around, despite a widespread myth to the contrary,” and the misleading use of the word, ‘nation’, to refer to both. (Wallerstein 1991: 81-2
Overall, one could identify three phases in the resolution of the quest to establish nation states throughout history. The first was the establishment of a central power or state over largely homogenous group of people among west Europeans. The second is the struggle to get rid of colonialism and found independent states, though not necessarily over homogenous national groups. The third phase is the rise of aspirations to found nation states from within multinational entities largely in a post-colonial setting. Blaut refers to this as the ‘national question’, namely “the question of how the fight for political sovereignty is to be carried out and what role it should play in the larger struggle for social justice.”(Blaut 1987: 1)
3 . The Right to ‘Self-determination’
The struggle for political sovereignty, or ‘self-determination’, of nations owes its origin to Kant’s principle of self-determination for the individual, namely liberty from injustice and arbitrariness of monarchic rule prior to the 18th century. Individuals would express their political will by electing their representatives. The French revolution took it as an expression of political will by putting up the nation as the collective body. The 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen stated, “The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. Nobody nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.” With the expansionism of Napoleon, nationalist movements emerged across Europe to counter French rule, in a quest for self-determination. According to Hobsbawm, the rising wave of nationalism was led by “the lower and middle professional, administrative and intellectual strata, in other words, the educated classes.” (Hobsbawm 1962: 135) By the turn of the 20th century, the Russian revolutionaries as well as US President Wilson transformed self-determination into a formal right.
The Russian revolutionaries’ embrace of the right long before they rose to power in 1917 (and much earlier than Wilson’s) owed very much to its theoretical elaboration by the Austrian and German Marxists, Renner and Otto Bauer and Karl Kautsky, respectively. Karl Kautsky agreed with Bauer’s identification of the nation as “a product of social development” though he pointed to the vagueness of his definition as “a community of culture and a community of character arising out of a community of destiny”. (Kautsky 2009: 373-4) Instead, Kautsky suggested language (particularly in its written form) as “the indispensable tool of social interaction” and as “the most significant feature of the nation” together with its linkage to a common territory. (Kautsky 2009: 378-9) He underscored the rise of a unitary language in the bureaucracy, the economy and the state as indispensable for the “smooth running of state business. He perceived hostility towards a single predominant language forced on all subjects of the absolutist state was inevitably born of a sense of exclusion from education, state office and, in general, difficulties imposed on those who did not share the dominant language. (Kautsky 2010: 147)
While the German Marxists sought to readjust interrelations among the constituent nations of multinational states such as Austria through forms of autonomy, the Russian revolutionaries went a step further in recognising the formation of an outright separate state wherever it might arise (through the unconditional right to self-determination)! The programme of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party stated “that all nationalities forming the state have the right to self-determination.” Rosa Luxembourg took issue with this formula as being bland and too vague. She proposed instead “a concrete formula, however general, which would provide a solution of the nationality question in accordance with the interests of the proletariat of the particular nationalities.” (Luxemburg) Lenin’s view was premised on the notion that the struggle for a separate state would constitute a progressive or revolutionary moment as “the national State assures the best conditions for the development of capitalism” and that the demand for self-determination is “a democratic one which is not at all different from the other democratic demands.” [T]
While the Marxists across Europe were grappling with the notion of self-determination and its application to the revolutionary struggle to overthrow capitalism and vestiges of feudalism, the Western powers descended into war. It was left to the US, led by Woodrow Wilson, to chart a programme of action in respect of colonies and territories held by the feuding powers. Wilson’s espousal of the principle through his Fourteen Points proposal was directed against the defeated powers in World War I but in favour of their former protégés or colonies seeking to overthrow external rule and supplant it with their sovereignty. Still, the broadness with which the right was expressed (as stated in Wilson’s speech of 27 May 1916: “every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live”) made it amenable to “be cited with equal validity by any group desirous of repudiating foreign rule.” (Connor 1994 : 5) Nonetheless, the practice in post- World War I Europe did not follow the cultural rationale consistently; language was not distinct enough to be pursued as an organising principle. As well, fear of fragmentation affecting the security of states stood in the way. Finally, owing, largely, to the objections of the French and British (reflected in the absence of Wilson’s principle of self-determination in the Covenant of the League of Nations), the plight of the colonies was never directly addressed till much later.
The quest for self-determination took acquired urgency after World War II. The Atlantic Charter, the policy statement issued on August 14, 1941 by the leaders of the USA and UK and later agreed by their allies defined their goals for the post-war world. Among the principles was “the right to self- determination” for “all people”. Clause 3 of the Charter stated that the allies would “respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.” Yet, Great Britain was adamant that the right would not extend to its colonies while the US and a few others (Holland) equivocated. When the UN Charter was signed after the War, Article 1(2) stated the purpose of the Charter as: “To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace.” Article 73 further enshrined the rights of peoples placed in trusteeships to attain self-government. Subsequent UN resolutions and other legal instrument added to the right to self-determination though the specific and practical modes of implementing it have remained illusory and unclear.
The ex-colonies which gained independence under the rubric of ‘self-determination of nations’ did so within “borders that delimited either the sovereignty or the administrative zones of former colonial powers” in disregard of “ethnic distributions”. It took only a small step for the demand for self-determination to emerge in these newly independent nations by way of extending the principle to “its natural conclusion.” (Connor 1994 : 5) The spread of cultural and political consciousness can only exacerbate the urge to redraw political borders and produce more and more nation-states in a manner never thought possible or likely. (Connor 1994 : 18)
In summary, the framing of the quest for self-determination has metamorphosed in the context of the historical evolution of the central state itself and the international dimension within which it operates. Whether the struggle to erect a nation state emerged as part of buttressing a nascent domestic capitalist system during the 18th century (in Western Europe largely) or against the domination of an international capitalist system (during colonialism and afterwards) or later on in reaction to the failure of the post-colonial state to address aspirations for self-rule, regional or cultural autonomy by national groups, the yearning for independence and self-determination was expressed by classes and strata that hoped to capitalize on the perceived chasms. An analysis of the national question consequently demands examination of the social and class underpinnings of those engaged in the struggle for such an outcome. The specific histories, cultural and political matrices of the struggle will only provide the shell of the narrative for the movement for self-determination, no more, no less.
4 . The Current Context for Ethnicity and Nationalism (in Africa)
The incorporation of diverse ethnic groups within single states (whether born of the decolonisation process after the Second World War or, as in Ethiopia, through centuries of internal expansion) had seemed for some time to be capable of withstanding pressures for fragmentation of those states along ethnic lines. The geo-political preoccupations of the great powers, particularly the United States and its allies, to contain any such tendencies and to ward off Soviet encroachments in the guise of encouraging “revolution” or “national liberation movements” paved the way for the emergence of heavily armed regimes that reined in not only those which contested the legitimacy of the new states but also the new elites in power.
The period up to the end of the cold war also involved a constant attempt by governments in the invariably multi-ethnic states in Africa, Asia and Latin America to manage, if not control, popular perceptions of, and desires for, change in the wake of the “revolution of expectation” that was the hallmark of that period. Their quest to succeed in this task was bolstered by grants and loans from the West to build and maintain a relatively huge military and intelligence apparatus in many of these states. Their economic requirements were expected to be fulfilled through the exploitation of their natural resources as supplemented by assistance from the industrialised countries.
The difficulties of fulfilling the basic demands for economic development in these backward countries, indeed the frustration of sections among the fledgling educated elite (and the army), often led to popular disenchantment and military coups. The denial of democratic rights by regimes which claimed to embrace the cause of economic and social development before all else bred tensions as well as civil war in many of them. (Jacquin-Berdal 2002 : 55) Abated by the Soviet Union and other East European countries and China, some of the dis-establising forces assumed a level of activity that put pressure on the West to side with the elites in the new states, usually through further bolstering up of their military arsenal. The consequent but unavoidable use of internal resources for security purposes further prevented these countries from investing in areas where more benefits could be reaped in the long run.
The apparently immutable realities of economic underdevelopment and political (particularly ethnic) deformity of the state, the ever expanding role of the military machine that exacerbated both as well as the deceptive front of liberalism (at least on the legal plane) to mask the suppression of even a semblance of opposition made the fate of the new states to be intertwined with the interests of the West. The uncertainty and irregularity of Western assistance and the lack of leverage that the new states could have on their benefactors compounded the range and difficulty of the problems they faced. In particular, the reluctance of the West to intervene or assist fully in resolving these various issues of the ex-colonial countries (conveniently re-classified as ‘developing countries’) was a major source of resentment and campaigns of ‘anti-imperialism’ against Western governments throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, countries which had strategic importance to the West in one way or another could force the latter to accede to their wishes. The oil rich and Pacific Rim countries attempted to utilise their “leverage” (respectively, the indispensability of oil to the industrial economies and the geo-political importance of the latter to counter perceived Soviet designs on Asia) with varying degrees of success. The apparent end of the confrontation of the superpowers in much of Africa, Asia and Latin America has deprived the latter of any ‘leverage’ they might have had in procuring assistance, military or economic. Indeed, the sudden disappearance of the spectre of Soviet intervention which had prompted Western governments to come to the aid of many states has induced a policy of leaving them sort out their problems, with little or no assistance from the West.
However, the abandonment of states in the south to their own devices has not been total. Indeed, new policies have emerged that impose more burdens on them: requirements of meeting standards in human rights, environmental protection and intellectual property have been introduced in international relations and trade. Aid and credit are gradually being made conditional on compliance of the backward countries with these and other standards. On the other hand, the relative abandonment of these countries by Western powers has weakened them to such an extent that a resurgence of every type of popular or sectarian demand on the central government has occurred. Among these, the demand for recognition of national/ethnic interests including the right to self-determination has posed a significant danger to the territorial integrity and security of a number of countries. This is even more so in the Horn of Africa in general and in Ethiopia specially.
The termination or reduction to Ethiopia of assistance that had been flowing as a result of the Cold War confrontations was a principal cause for the downfall of the Dergue regime and the continuing instability that besets its successors. The inadequacy of internal resources to support the existing state bureaucracy and the military machine as well as to finance social and economic development projects has forced the current government to give in to every kind of demand by Western governments and institutions as well as to, literally, kowtow to the Chinese as alternative patrons. Moreover, the political fallouts from internal social and ethnic disparities continue to prod the regime in the direction of allowing decentralisation of the statet in the guise of promoting ethnic federalism. Lacking the resources or political muscle to contain oppositional movements of ethnic origin, the government in power tends to swing between acquiescing to every kind of demand and limiting the ethnically based federal experiment to a mere formality—a factor that has tended to raise more tensions among those aspiring to sharing more power or, even, statehood.
Not that Ethiopia is an exception in this. All the regimes in the Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya are bogged in one type of ethnic confrontation or another. Countries nearby such as Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi too are embroiled in similar conflicts. Unless the conflicts are brought to end as soon as possible, ever-present problems of famine, poverty, environmental degradation and economic degeneration will be further intensified by such conflicts and put into question the very survival of the various peoples living there. While the solutions to the problems in the entire Horn may be generally similar, Ethiopia’s exceptional history, cultural and state formation need to be scrutinised separately to evolve a framework appropriate to its needs.
5. The Formation and Evolution of the Ethiopian State
The author has attempted elsewhere[1] to examine the origins, formation and evolution of the Ethiopian state. A summary of that attempt follows. The origins of the Ethiopian state are still shrouded in mystery. Written and archaeological evidence suggest that the Damat state based in Yeha preceded the rise of Axum. Though only tenuous links and relationships have been traced to Meroe (‘The First Ethiopians’) and Punt, even Egypt to the north, the period 700 BC to the current day represents a continuous, evolutionary existence of what became, after the Christian conversion of Axum, the Ethiopian state. Lack of knowledge of its pre-700 BC predecessors prevents any serious analysis of the makeup and functioning of the older state. The traditional tale of numberless kings and queens that preceded Damat and even extended back to thousands of years has not been verified by independent sources. Much of the relevant Geez bibliography appears to have been either destroyed or remains inaccessible for scholars and the society at large.
It can however be surmised that the Ethiopian state was patrimonial in nature with boundaries that waxed and waned depending on the number of tributaries it conquered and subdued or assimilated. The ‘federal’ nature of the political system that arose from the multiplicity of semi-autonomous communities ruled by local kings and chieftains but subservient to ‘the central authority’ at Yeha or Axum, later, provided space for constant reshaping of relationships and ascendancy or demotion in the hierarchy established as a matter of course among them. It would also appear that the multiplicity of peoples it incorporated under the various tributary mini-states enjoyed the ‘freedom’ to speak their own vernaculars and worship their own gods as well as to mingle and roam wherever they wanted so long as the central powers provided protection and guarantees inside the enlarged and ever expanding empire. The imperial authority was probably in no position to dictate matters of language and religion in view of the vast expanse of its rule and the difficulty of maintaining a concocted new order made for, and applicable to, the populace everywhere. A critical absence of a centralised administrative machinery spanning the empire must also have negated any possibility of homogenization in terms of language and religion. Until the late 19th century, the Ethiopian state suffered from an undeveloped bureaucracy and could not effectively marshal its resources for the public good as would have been expected and was possible under the circumstances. Key features of bureaucratic empires that were missing in the Ethiopian state are (i) the organisation of administrative activities as a distinct function, (ii) a system of recruitment to fill positions established and operating hierarchically as well as underpinned by ‘a system of abstract rules’ (iii) a level of professionalism propounded in some form of ideology underlining public service as opposed to personal service to the ruler. (Eisenstadt 1963 : 21-2) New initiatives began to be taken under the emperors Tewodros, Yohannes and Menelik to bridge these gaps and eventually gave rise to the centralised (absolutist) state under Haile Selassie.
The historical period between the 15th century and the 19th is full of thrusts and pressures towards change in the inter-relationships among the principalities and kingdoms of the Axumite state. The threat of encroachment by the colonial powers on the then existing Ethiopian territories (defined by the fact that they were ruled from the imperial seats of power in Debre Tabor, Ankober or Addis Ababa) impelled the successive rulers to rally their chieftains and the general population to resist by any means possible. Indeed, the same threat propelled the expansion of the boundaries of the empire beyond Shoa and Bali including the areas long converted to Islam and brought under Axumite control. Menelik’s explanation of why he would not look on disinterested while the European powers confiscated the neighbouring areas remains apt. However, he did not engage with the colonial powers merely in power play. He seemed to be aware of the desperate situation the country would be in unless he created a buffer zone all around the southern boundaries and acted in time to avert being sliced up among the three colonial powers (Britain, France and Italy) jockeying for control of ever larger portions of that part of Africa.
The quest to establish an ever larger empire incorporating new areas and a diversity of peoples demanded and produced a burgeoning army and a bureaucracy. The necessity to acquire resources for these essential tools of the state in turn led to expropriation of large swathes of land in the south and the attendant rise of serfdom. While previous land holding structures in the empire were unaffected in spite of the swarm of retinues that accompanied local rulers everywhere, the speed with which the two institutions rose and swept throughout the south forced the discontinuation of that practice. The importation of arms and the luxuries the ruling elites consumed had to be paid for through foreign trade and local taxation as well as the confiscation of land previously occupied by communities. Ethiopia was inescapably being absorbed into the world economy and fast! Peasant agriculture and trade in unprocessed products had to match up with the onrush of industrial goods from abroad. Thus was created the nexus of dependent or aborted development between the Ethiopian economy and society and the then western Europe.
A great deal of confusion and uncertainty surrounds the nature of the Ethiopian state and its evolution. Many continue to peddle the story of its formation in the last century and a half. This is not confined to European writers by any means. Local writers too have been bowled over by this story. An example is Teshale Tibebu who constructed a framework to classify state formation in general before addressing the Ethiopian case. According to him, the first was the West European creation of nations by states through “centralised sovereignty” —as in England and France–or nations transforming themselves into states –as in Italy and Germany; the second was ‘old civilisations’ transiting to ‘modern states’ either through internal forces as in Japan or under pressure from colonial occupation as in India; the third were “pre-capitalist settings… with no centuries-old tradition of statehood” as in Africa as a whole. (Tibebu 1995 : 21-30) Initially he seemed to suggest that the Ethiopian ‘realm of state formation’ ‘shared’ (combined?) what he saw to be the three ‘realms’. But he ended up with the unsubstantiated declaration that “State formation in Africa, including Ethiopia, took place in a process of collision with European expansion.” (Tibebu 1995 : 31) Instead of following his own formula for modern state formation (the centralization of sovereignty and consolidation of territory) and tracing it to Axumite times, he harked back to what everybody else maintains ad nauseam, namely “the triumph of centralised sovereignty over the parcellized sovereignties of the Zamana Mesafint” (Tibebu 1995 : (Tibebu 1995 : 30) as the beginning of modern statehood in Ethiopia and assumes such to be self-evident. He did not explore his notion of the similarity of Ethiopia with “old civilizations” like China or Iran except by way of critiquing its extraction of tributes and taxes as ‘predatory’. (Tibebu 1995 : 33-37) He was vehemently opposed to any perception of the Axumite empire extending to or covering present day southern Ethiopia claiming that its “territorial extent at its largest was confined” to the north, and any other assertion was “fictitious” (Tibebu 1995 : 41).
The fact of the matter is that the Ethiopian state that continued, uninterrupted, to evolve from Axumite times onwards had to be transformed in the wake of competing power structures in the proximate areas that popped up with the expansion of Islam, particularly from the 15th century. The Ottoman Turks to the east and the Egyptians forced the Ethiopian state to seek foreign allies (the Portuguese mainly but not necessarily them alone) at the same time as gradually abandoning the parallel existence of principalities, kingdoms and the like as a ‘federal structure’. In the measure that the parallel co-existence of such principalities and kingdoms prevented the ascendancy of any one of them to assume the status of an overlord, it served as a means of neutralising the ever-present internal squabbles and stabilising their relationships. Indeed, ‘foreign’ aggression or the threat of such was deployed to bring some of the unruly kingdoms into line and subdue untoward intentions. On the other hand, linkages with such ‘foreign’ aggressors that ‘opportunistic’ aspirants to overall supremacy in the country could manage to concoct represented a permanent danger to the ‘central state’ and a potential avenue for the reversal of fortunes. Kassa Mercha’s (later Yohannes IV) overture to the British expeditionary force and Menelik’s clandestine dealings with the Italians are cases in point.
In any case, even during the historical period between the 15th century and the 19th the competing power centres within the country itself were still subservient to, and followed the mode of operations of, the Axumite state though paths opened up, from time to time, for more fractious relationships among them, vertically as well as horizontally. The Afar, Somali, Harrari, Sidama and Haddiya sultanates adjoining, respectively, the Red Sea and on the south eastern plateaux of Harar, Shoa and Bali as well as the remaining kingdoms and ‘state-lets’ further to the west, south-west, and the northwest presented opportunities for myriads of combinations and permutations in any potential claim for power. While the literature on that period in Ethiopian history is skewed towards the ‘Era of Princes’ stretching no more than a century (and that towards the end of the period just cited), the historical forces and linkages that shaped the state and subsequent developments spanned around 500 years.
The mosaic of power centres throughout the land continued to shrink as part of the attempt to withstand the potential or real threats of foreign aggression. The Axumite tradition of letting the local power holders get on with their internal administration so long as they paid their taxes to the imperial treasury was supplemented with the obligation to raise local armies to aid any war effort on aggressors. The fullest transformation in central state-local power relations occurred when Haile Sellasie took up the centralisation of power as the principal goal of his empire. Still that did not happen overnight. Indeed, the Italian occupation interrupted that project. It was only on the return of Haile Sellasie to the throne, after 1942, and with the assistance of the Anglo-American alliance that he was able to slash the power of local potentates and erase their hold on their localities root and branch.
Local elites everywhere were gradually overshadowed and ultimately removed from positions of complete authority and influence; the replacement of such elites by appointees imported mainly from Shoa (Ankober, Debre Berhan etc) left the local populace hankering after the ‘old order’ overthrown by Haile Selassie and his orderlies. Thus in Gojam, remnants of the Agaw dynasty in place for hundreds of years were removed and their power transferred to Haile Selassie’s loyal chiefs. The same measures were meted out to local potentates in Tigray, Kaffa, Harrar, Wolayta, you name it. The seething discontent of the various chiefs and local grandees who lost power wholly or partially to Shoa (and the central state) was channelled into popular opposition and widespread anger at all levels. The Lij Eyasu phenomenon was an attempt to paper over the cracks among the ruling elites and provide a unified base from which to govern, again. Still, the Wollo peasantry was thrown into the maelstrom of inter-dynastic conflict and slaughtered at the Segele war with Shoa in 1916. When the Italians invaded Ethiopia in 1935, some of the potentates who had suffered from Haile Selassie’s centralisation reforms switched sides and sought to vent their frustration. Ras Hailu of Gojam, Ras Gugsa of Tigray and the like became stooges for the Italian regime. The Oromo chiefs in Wollega and Kaffa took the extra step of offering to the British colonialists ruling over the Sudan to accept the ‘federal state’ they concocted as a protectorate.
The fact that the rising costs of the burgeoning bureaucracy and the huge standing army now in control of the centralised state after liberation in 1941 could not be paid for through internal taxes and the export of traditional unprocessed materials added to the misery of the peasantry. More taxes were levied across the country. The peasantry in Tigray, Gojjam and Balie (in that order) successively took up arms against the regime of Haile Sellasie but were made to pay for their resistance. Popular anger and disaffection mingled with the resentment of the chieftains in every direction produced an image of regional, if not ethnic, rebellions, popping up at will. The story of resistance to Shoa rule wherever it sprang was certainly fuelled by new taxes and the avarice of the newly appointed meté governors, administrators and judges. However, its roots lay in the side-lining and replacement of local potentates by officialdom hailing largely from Shoa. It was characterized more by demands for reinstatement of the regional and local authorities spearheaded as a matter of course by the ousted chiefs and kings than anything else. It was thus more an appeal to regional forces to wrest the lost power from Shoa and put things back to the ways of old. The Eritrean problem emerged in the 1960s as a typical manifestation of this.
6. The ‘National Question’ in Ethiopia
There is very little information as regards the movement of peoples and groups in the Axumite empire all the way down to the 15th century. The author has attempted to paint a broad picture of the configuration of peoples spanning from the earliest Axumite era to date. (Endeshaw 2007) The exploits of the Axumite state provide ample evidence of the nature and parameters of the movement as well as consequences in terms of successive waves of intermingling and shifts in composition of the populace. Still, there was no straightforward transformation of any of the population groups into neat or distinct entities. Shades of various linguistic, ethnic, cultural and religious groups emerged and metamorphosed into ever ‘newer’ forms and entities through unceasing conflicts as well as the intentional intervention of the Axumite state.
Conflicts were generally confined to neighbouring peoples such as the Afar and Kereyu, the Afar and Issa, the Somali and Boran, the Argoba and Afar and the like in the south east as well as the numberless groups in the south west. All these arose from contests over grazing land and water holes, in particular because the pastoralists roamed the earth and extended or diminished their stretch of occupied areas. The Nilotic peoples too were engaged in similar conflicts with the ‘highlanders’ in their attempt to move out of the arid and humid climate they were apparently perennially destined to remain. Internecine conflicts within the Oromo and between them and their neighbours such as the Giddeo, the Sidama and Hadiya continued well into the Dergue era. The well-known Oromo influx into the central highlands stretching to Tigray in the east and Gondar in the West as well as Kaffa in the south West accentuated the inter-group conflicts and resulted in mergers, absorptions and assimilations of conquered local people into the Oromo or pushed them into new combinations or entities.
The perpetual southward expansion of the Axumite (or Ethiopian) state not only provided the impetus and space for the emergence of a new ‘conglomerate’ of peoples around a new ‘lingua franca’, (Amharic), it sought to set it up as the fulcrum for further expansion into, and assimilation of, anyone and anything in its path. The advance party sent to pave the road for the success of this enterprise was always the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, usually followed by the army. The combination of these two managed to strengthen the hold of the state on the ever expanding territories. The rise of Sultanates following the Islamisation of the coastal areas and the inroads they made into the plateaux created a constellation of peoples at odds with Axum but still subservient to its rule. Those tending towards total loyalty to Axum and occasional rebellion against it populated the region between Kaffa in the west and Harrar in the east along the southern flank of Shoa. Yet, the fact that the Axumie empire had been thwarted first by the Ahmed Ibrahim (Adal Islamist) phenomenon and later the influx of the Oromo into the highlands (and territories overrun and devastated by Ahmed Ibrahim) meant that the absorption and conquest of the local people in the south was averted or, as it turned out later, postponed. In the meantime, elements earlier on loyal and subservient to Axum (better stated advance troops sent by the same to vanquish the areas they were to settle in) such as the Argoba, Harari and Gurage set themselves up as islands in search of reinforcements from their erstwhile base, Axum. Indeed, their service to the Axumite empire had been interrupted by the Adal and Oromo forces we just cited and an attitude born of remaining independent from Axum taking root. The re-conquest of these groups under Menelik afterwards only left grudges and resentments in place of rekindling old alliances and forging kinships, as one would have expected.
The imperial order under Haile Selassie was confronted by a diversity of centrifugal forces particularly after the rout of the Italians. Regional and local power centres that had been uprooted by Haile Selassie’s overzealous drive towards centralisation and absolutism started to find new paths for expressing their resistance. In Eritrea, Tigray, Bale, Gojam, Wollo, Ogaden and elsewhere popular movements emerged, if not initiated at least motivated by the gentry who had lost power to the Showa imperial elite. The patriotic forces who had been snubbed by Haile Selassie on his return from exile sought to prod students at the university to show their dissatisfaction with the state of affairs of the nation. The numberless coup attempts (by the famous Bitwoded Negash and Hailu Kibret, the Newaye brothers and the dedicated republican Takele Wolde Hawariat) as well as plots to kill the Emperor managed to stir up urban opposition to imperial rule among students. And thus was born the student movement. The latter articulated, among other things, the ‘national question’.
The introduction of ‘the national question’ into Ethiopian politics, even the very formulation of the problem as such, owes its origin, largely and almost exclusively, to the influence of Marxism in the Ethiopian student movement of the 1960s and 1970s. In Marxism, the ‘national question’ has become a shorthand for the relationship between national groups (including minorities) and the state as well as how that relationship should be framed; this has found currency particularly in the context of multinational states. The simplicity of the solution suggested in the Marxist literature whereas other sources and views on the same question were either lacking or inaccessible[2] led to the speedy adoption and expansive influence within the Ethiopian student movement of the ‘national question’ as formulated in the former. Indeed, as expressed earlier, the non-Marxist literature on the problems of ‘national identity’ or ‘self-determination’ and the like only emerged in the post-colonial period. Waleligne Mekonen’s piece ‘On the Question of Nationalities in Ethiopia’, issued in 1969 (Mekonen 1969), introduced a totally new outlook on the problem of inter-ethnic relations in the centuries-old country. Soon, the debate raged on the scope and significance of the same question leading to serious divisions among the fledgling student/political groups of the period stretching all the way down to the current conditions. (Takele 1971)
Waleligne asserted that the Ethiopian state was dominated by “the Amharas and their junior partners the Tigres’’; he also declared that “Ethiopia is not really one nation’’ but “made up of a dozen nationalities’’ among which he cited the Oromo, the Tigrai, the Gurage, the Amhara, the Sidama, the Welamo and the Adere, as well as the Somali each of which he called a “nation’’. As far as he was concerned, “[t]he immediate question is we must declare a stop to [the subjugation]. And we must build a genuine national state.’’ (Mekonen 1969 : 3) It was all very exciting at that particular juncture for Waleligne to issue an audacious declaration to change the status quo. His paraphrase of Lenin’s writings to support his declaration for establishing “a genuine national state’’ by “stopping’’ the subjugation of the diversity of nations or, as referred to interchangeably but without any explanation, nationalities, led to endless debates and rancour among students and with the government media who urged a clamp down on the student movement before it was too late. The December 1969 crack down on the main campus of the university signalled the students were finally onto something that could shake up the old order.
Nevertheless, while upholding and propagating the right of ‘nations’ to self-determination, Waleligne as well as the student leaders of that early period failed to examine the nature and evolution of the Ethiopian state and whether the diversity of population groups had transformed themselves into ‘nations’ and therefore measured up to assert their claim. Waleligne’s article and much of the subsequent meagre literature on the question assumed the central issue (namely the determination as to the existence of ‘nations’) as proven. Tilahun Takele thus wrote: “it is our contention that several of the so-called ‘tribes’ in Ethiopia…are either already developed nations or nationalities fast being transformed into full-fledged nations.’’ (Takele 1971 : 20) The assumption extended to effectively granting blocks of territories such as Eritrea, the Ogaden, Bale, Arssi and the like the status of a ‘nation’ although doubts existed (nobody really supported the idea of) Eritrea as a colony of Ethiopia–an argument spawned by the liberation fronts. The discord among student groups in the diaspora on formulating the question swung between two poles: one group opting for christening every social group (even region) as a nation and therefore declaring them worthy of espousing the right to self-determination; the other group asserting the transformation of tribal groups into an ‘Ethiopian nation’ and denying the need for any quest for self-determination. The latter group dubbed the notion of nationalism thus presented as ‘regionalism’ in other words the attempt of regional forces seeking to regain power from the centre, touched on already.
The Dergue sought to keep intact the imperial state bequeathed to it by the leaderless popular uprising of 1974. It made small overtures to ethnic groups by allowing them concessions on the language and cultural fronts. Up to 10 languages were selected and alphabets introduced for the literacy campaign. There were also feeble attempts to grant autonomy to selected regions with ethnic dimensions, purportedly to reverse the marginalization of the local people. Indeed the military regime had officially converted to the recognition of the right of ‘nationalities’ to a form of autonomy and propagated this in its pronouncements. It had therefore made Waleligne’s pronouncement of creating a ‘national state’ as part of its armoury.
Indeed, the Dergue’s stated position of empowering disenfranchised national groups (including the establishment of the Institute of Nationalities) provided it some leverage in the political space. The Dergue embraced standard terminology in the local vernaculars such as Oromiffa, Amharic and Tigrigna to encapsulate the right of nationalities, however limited such was in its view. Thus in place of the earliest references to ‘nation’ or ‘nationality’, confined to students in their use of the English language as a medium of discourse, the local vernaculars (Amharic in particular) came up with equivalents. In Amharic, ‘biher’ and ‘bihereseb’ were picked up (regardless of their original meanings in Geez) and popularised. Soon enough, these terms became household. Today everyone knows what they represent. Still, a few continue to pour scorn on these terms and prefer the use of ‘clan’ or ‘tribe’ though much maligned and discarded in much of the world.
While the Dergue helped elevate the necessity of building the self-respect of national groups, it failed to deliver in fundamental ways. The war it continued to wage in Eritrea and elsewhere against popular disenchantments of one kind or another did not abate. The latest (final?) chapter in this saga was written in 1991 with the Dergue’s overthrow and the coming to power of forces brandishing a ‘liberation’ ideology. The proclamation of the right to self-determination in the 1991 Transitional Charter provided an impetus for the dissemination and assertion of forms of political autonomy, ‘independence’ and an urge to redress past wrongs.
Post-Dergue, each ethnic, or what appears to be ethnic, group scrambled to redefine itself partly through acquisition of territory by ‘cleansing’ what they saw to be foreign or undeserving elements living among or near them. All groups in whatever shape or form they found themselves were suddenly plunged in a flux. This flux did not exclude the so-called Amhara or the Tigray who appeared to have undergone a transformation over the centuries from distinct language groups into a fusion of multi-lingual, multi-ethnic entities. Yet, the Amhara in particular still remains divided along regional lines, often following dialects that used to be spoken by groups absorbed under the Axumite project. As the author has argued elsewhere (Endeshaw, 2002), the Amhara and Oromo have become the best beneficiaries of the current delimitation of territory and right to what amounts to cultural self-determination. Neither has had the opportunity to redefine itself as, and develop into, a self-contained nation. The Amhara was the centrepiece of the ‘unified’ empire and never thought of itself as distinct from others as a group. It was only when ‘others’ started to demarcate national territories and political spaces for themselves that the Amhara started to formulate ‘ survival’ strategies espoused by former grandees and chieftains of the imperial era.
7. The Impasse Continues
The failure of the current regime to live up to its promises and uphold the constitution in the matter of creating equitable access to the central state has been acknowledged even by its leading figures. This failure was partly the underlying cause for the general unrest and public uproar up and down the country over the last year and more. In the measure that the powers that be continue to flout the law they themselves enacted and carry on regardless of the intense opposition they face day in and day out, the dimensions of the movement to upstage them seem to multiply.
The opposition to the regime by way of forcing it to respect the right of national groups has acquired ever newer forms and shapes. False theorisations and concocted stories of ‘black nationalism’, ‘Abysinian imperialism’ and the like have been on the increase among the proponents of national self-determination for specific peoples in Ethiopia. Moreover, there is intense competition among foreign scholars to chaperon indigenous champions of the ‘national question’. In its day, the Eritrean problem generated enough numbers of foreign patrons and promoters of secession on the one hand and the ‘revolutionary’ content and dynamics of the ‘liberation movement’ on the other. Eritrea was neither a nation nor a colony; it was a piece of Ethiopia suffering from the global economic and social disorder following the demise of European colonialism in Africa. The devastation the ‘independent’ regime wrought on the Eritrean people the morning after ‘liberation’ is merely a continuation of that disorder.
Space is unavailable to critique all the fabrications and false accounts of proposed paths for ‘national liberation’. Promoters and champions of every hue extoll the virtues of ‘national self-determination’ while denigrating Ethiopian history and state practices down the generations. If their mode of assessments were to be applied to all countries near and far, none would escape their recrimination and calumny. They rely on misconstructions of the past to somehow resurrect the might of the historically vanquished and re-shape the current state. This view of recasting the present has been assisted by the mythical distinction spun by the likes of Markakis between ‘Abyssinia’ and ‘Ethiopia’. They suggest that the former preceded the latter and that the latter was a 20th century (indeed, post-1940) ‘invention’. Markakis states “The expansion of Abyssinia into the empire of Ethiopia occurred… in the last quarter of the past century” when imperialism intruded into the area. (Markakis 1994 : 220) He asserts “Tigrai to be the junior branch of the Abyssinian family, closely related to the Amhara, the former rulers of Ethiopia, from whom they are distinguished only by their language.” (Markakis 1994 : 230) Unfortunately, as explored above, all this has no basis in history. The Ethiopians called themselves as such form the 4th century AD and no amount of foreign repetitions and persistent renaming of the country as ‘Abyssinia’ ever found acceptance. The formal acceptance by all foreign missions and media to use the term ‘Ethiopia’ from 1941 onwards, consistently, represented a surrender to the imperial regime which demanded the slur to stop.
While the protagonists of ‘secession’ and ‘self-determination’ throw up any manner of theories and fabrications, their opponents have sought to fight back largely by refusing to accept even the existence of the problem in the first place. One such writer is Messay Kebede with his archaic proposal of ‘unconditional unity’ as the foundation for Ethiopia’s future (Kebede 2009); but his assertions merely hark back to the age-old top-down ordering of the state. The fact of the matter is that in a truly democratic state the people decide every which aspect of their lives. ‘Thinking democratically’, in the words of the venerated professor, in this case means letting the people decide. That does not of course mean that the people will have only one option, as the OLF arrogantly peddles to this day and the EPLF imposed on the hapless Eritreans, to wit: secession. The people of Quebec have voted repeatedly but the outcome has not been prejudged by any notion of ‘unconditional unity’. In the final analysis, the vociferous declaration of ‘unconditional unity’ is a recipe for re-enactment of further conflicts and wars.
In the end, neither the protagonists for ‘secession’ and ‘self-determination’ at all costs nor those clamouring for unconditional unity’ seem to grasp the necessity of understanding the nature of the social and political phenomenon they seek to base their aspirations on. Far be it for them to investigate the global social and economic order and articulate a political programme for democratic change in Ethiopia.
Bibliography
Anderson, James M. 2007. Daily Life During the French Revolution (Greenwood Press)
Blaut, James M. 1987. The National Question (Zed Books)
Connor, Walker. 1994. Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding, (Princeton University Press)
Eisenstadt, S.N. 1963. The Politcal Systems of Empires (The Free Press of Glencoe)
Endeshaw, Assafa. 2002 Ethiopia: Perspectives for Change and Renewal (Seng Lee Press Pvt. Ltd.), Singapore
Endeshaw, Assafa. 2007 [EC]. AxumßàEthiopia: A Brief Account of State Formation and Configuration of Peoples (Amharic), 2nd ed., (Adwest Digital Printers), Addis Ababa
Hobsbawm, E. J. 1962. The Age of Revolution Europe 1789-1848 (Weidenfeld and Niolson).
Jacquin-Berdal, Dominique. 2002. Nationalism and Ethnicity in the Horn of Africa, A Critique of the Ethnic Interpretation (The Edwin Mellen)
Kautsky, Karl and Ben Lewis. 2009. ‘Nationality and Internationality’, Critique, a journal of Soviet studies and socialist theory 37: 3, 371-389
Kautsky, K. 2010. “Nationality and Internationality Part 2” Critique: a journal of Soviet studies and socialist theory 38: 1, 143-163.
Kebede, Messay. August 22nd, 2009. “On the Right to Self-determination”, Abugida (online journal)
Kebede, Messay. 2008. Radicalism and Cultural Dislocation in Ethiopia, 1960-1974 (University of Rochester Press)
Lewis I. M. (ed.). 1983. Nationalism and self-determination in the Horn of Africa (Ithaca Press)
Luxemburg, Rosa. The National Question, https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1909/national-question/ch01.htm
Markakis, John. 1994. ‘Ethnic Conflict & the State in the Horn of Africa’, in Katsuyoshi Fukui and John Markakis (eds.), Ethnicity & Conflict in the Horn of Africa, James Curry, 217-237.
Mekonen, Walelign. November 17, 1969. ‘On the Question of Nationalities in Ethiopia’ Struggle V:2.
Smith, Anthony D. 1986. The Ethnic Origin of Nations (Basil Blackwell)
Takele, Tilahun. March 1971. “The National Question in Ethiopia”, EZUNA Newsletter (New York Chapter) 1: 3.
Tibebu, Teshale. 1995. The Making of Modern Ethiopia: 1896-1974 (Red Sea Press)
Wallerstein, A. I. 1991. “The Construction of peoplehood: Racism, Nationalism and Ethnicity” in Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, Verso, 71-85.
Yeros, Paris (ed.). 1999. Ethnicity and Nationalism in Africa (Macmillan Press Ltd)
[1] Endeshaw, Assafa. 2007 [EC]. AxumßàEthiopia: A Brief Account of State Formation and Configuration of Peoples (Amharic), 2nd ed., (Adwest Digital Printers), Addis Ababa
[2] Messay maintains that, on a par with Marxism or, perhaps, instead of it, “Nationalist indignation and commitment to liberal ideas could have as well motivated opposition to the imperial regime” but “prior ideological commitment to radicalism” prevented that choice. (Kebede 2008 : 2) He adds, “The venture into a revolutionary path is the direct product of the infatuation of Ethiopian students and intellectuals with Marxism-Leninism.” (Kebede 2008 : 3) The infatuation is in turn supposedly fueled by ‘cultural dislocation/crisis’ and ‘the internalization’ of ‘Eurocentric norms’. (Kebede 2008 : 4
Source – EthioMedia