Abstract
This book examines the relationship between inequalities and identities in Ethiopia with special reference to globally riveting contentions on striking a balance
between individual citizen rights and collective group rights. The analysis is set
against the background of dramatic political changes that unfolded following the
conclusion of a devastating civil war in Ethiopia. After a decisive battlefield
victory over a punitive dictatorial regime, a rebellion movement that seized
control of the Ethiopian state in 1991 rolled out radical state decentralization
policies that culminated with instituting what is dubbed ethnic federalism.
Among other things, the newly constituted federal government led by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF ) superimposed an official interpretation of human rights with a distinct emphasis on ethnic minority
rights onto diverse ethno-cultural structures.1 This ushered in a new era in which
the state, ethnic groups, and multitudes of other actor groups have since been
grappling with previously ‘contained’ questions of identity, more specifically
identity-based inequalities and struggles against them. Both the process and the
outcomes of this extraordinary encounter are the subjects of ongoing political
and cultural struggles.
The events in Ethiopia, reverberating throughout the Horn of Africa, have
inspired often polarized debates between academics, policy experts, political
activists, and the media. This book seeks to contribute to this debate through a
nuanced ethnographic analysis of why identities with distinct notions of
inequality persist, even after being attacked and ideologically repudiated. This
book specifically focuses on how the sizable ethnic minorities of southern Ethiopia, each made up of a staggering number of hierarchically structured sub-ethnic
identities, have engaged with the new state’s ethnic group rights politics and
related policies. To introduce the specific issues the book examines, I first impart
three snapshots – one from the world of historical fiction, one from my own
observations, and one from the media – of how ordinary citizens confronted
structures of inequality in Ethiopia’s south.
My first snapshot is drawn from the breathtaking historical fiction, The Prince
of Africa, in which Ethio-American author Daniel Gizaw (2001) portrays a captivating image of life among a southern Ethiopian ‘tribe’ of Dawro in Emperor
Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia, c.1940s.2 In the story, two characters are intensely
engaged in opposing human dispositions. The first, the abuse of power, is
masterly displayed by the villain, a ruthless local governor whose subjects
happen to be ethnically different from him. This small-time tyrant was appointed
by the methodically modernist Emperor Haile Selassie to reward the former for
his service as a loyal ex-soldier. In charge of a territory far away from the
emperor’s gaze, the warrior-cum-governor engages in appalling practices such
as levying excessive arbitrary taxes, imposing forced labor demands, abducting
and marrying an under-aged girl, and other dreadful abuses of state power. The
story’s pendulum then swings to an opposite human zeal – the determined
struggle against evil. The hero of the story is a man from an ‘untouchable local
caste,’ who, through sheer determination, takes on a mighty quasi-mythical beast
that had been consuming the flesh and blood of his people.
Gizaw uses these two characters and their opposing actions to depict Emperor
Haile Selassie’s modern Ethiopia where profoundly unjust acts sanctioned by the
national state were perpetrated against the imperial subjects. The subject community was culturally and hierarchically ranked with the Amharic (national
language)-speaking political class on top, followed by the upper-class/caste local
peasantry, slaves, artisans, and the Manja hunter-gatherers on the bottom. When
the Amharic translation of The Prince of Africa was published in 2013, it was
heartily endorsed by none other than the then-Minister of Foreign Affairs/Deputy
Prime Minister of Ethiopia, His Excellency Hailemariam Desalegn, who was
also the vice chairman of the ruling party, the EPRDF at the time.3 The Prince of
Africa might have attracted the attention of the ruling EPRDF because its plot
reinforced the ruling party’s core narrative that the Amhara-led past regimes of
Ethiopia constituted a system of ethnic inequality in the country.4 EPRDF ’s antidote to this system of ethnic injustice was to institute a new system of ethnic
self-governance (see Chapter 2).
The second snapshot I use as a window to introduce the specific issues I
examine in this book refers to an event I happened to observe in a small town in
what became the Dawro zone in Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’
Region (SNNPR). The event took place in the same ‘tribal area’ poignantly
depicted in The Prince of Africa. On July 1, 2000, in the hilltop town of Waka,
then capital of the Dawro people located about 500 km (350 miles) south of
Addis Ababa, the baira (elders) representing the Dawro ethnic group gathered to
share their thoughts on key challenges facing their society. These elders were
meeting in that capacity (as representatives of the Dawro people) for the first
time in more than a century after their former kingdom had lost its political autonomy in the late nineteenth century. The event, titled “Dawro People’s Culture
and Language Symposium,” was organized by local agents of the new national
government intent on decentralizing the state along ethnic lines. This Waka symposium was meant to pave the way for establishing a politico-administrative
structure of ethnic self-government for the Dawro ethnic group per the new
national constitution. A young official sent by the new regional state to chair the
symposium officially opened the event by condemning the dictatorial regimes of
the past and then invited the Dawro elders to share their thoughts and wisdom on
how to address the predicaments of the Dawro people and help institute fitehawi
astedader (just/good government). Some of the elders took the opportunity to
lucidly recount their dreadful historical experiences under the unjust governing
practices of past Ethiopian regimes. They also pointed out the continuation of
blatant inequalities, stressing that the Dawro remained marginalized in terms of
infrastructural development and essential social services such as access to education and health services, to name the most obvious.
One curious question raised at this symposium is noteworthy for upsetting the
trajectory of this discursive event. In the late afternoon atmosphere of a heated
political discourse, an inquisitive school teacher pointed out that only senior men
from notable clans of Malla (Dawro high-status group), had gathered as representatives of Dawro. To my surprise the teacher was part of the organizing committee of this symposium. Regardless, the teacher asked a culturally troubling
question: “In this meeting about the Dawro people, why are there no women, no
youth, no Manja, no Mana?”5 Given that this was a time of great promises and
unnerving uncertainties, the question caused at least some discomfort. It reminded
those in attendance that everything, including some taken-for-granted cultural
practices, was up for questioning. Even then, some elders were puzzled and even
irritated by the notion that the Manja and the Mana (the most excluded occupational minorities), who were, according to the long-established cultural traditions,
neither entitled to hold political offices nor believed to have any wisdom on such
matters, should have been invited to this high profile ‘public square.’
Fast forward to November 11, 2011 in the new Dawro zone capital town of
Tercha, to my third snapshot and an event that instantly placed Dawro in the
global media space. On this fateful day, a former school teacher, Yenesew
Gebre, who was allegedly dismayed by being unjustly fired from his job (by the
ruling party/local state), self-immolated by setting himself ablaze in his gasoline-soaked clothing. He died of his wounds a day later at the local hospital. Yenesew
apparently drew inspiration from the Tunisian martyr Mohamed Bouazizi whose
self-immolation ignited the Arab Spring of 2010 which shook the entire Middle
East. Yenesew’s story went viral almost instantly. It was reported in independent
national newspapers such as Netsanet (Freedom), pro-government media outlets
such as Walta Information Centre, Ethiopian diaspora media outlets such as
Ethiomedia.com and Tadias.com, and global media establishments such as the
BBC and VOA Amharic service. Most Ethiopians outside the ruling EPRDF
circle (including the vocal Ethiopian diaspora in Europe and North America)
interpreted Yenesew’s death as yet another example of extreme injustice under
EPRDF ’s ethnic federalism. The government, however, labeled Yenesew as a
mentally ill individual and dismissed his action as an ordinary suicide. To prove
this, the government got the local public hospital to issue a medical certificate
supporting its claim.6 Nevertheless, it was abundantly clear that this was not an
ordinary suicide.
These three snapshots draw our attention to issues and concerns that resonate
beyond the pristine mountains of southern Ethiopia. They are instances of recurrent tensions that periodically manifest in violent conflicts that undermine the
well-being of Ethiopians and millions of other Africans. The noted symposium
in the Waka town of southern Ethiopia was enabled by a battlefield victory of
rebels from the northern Ethiopian ethnic minority of Tigre, who had fought a
gruesome civil war against a national government they accused of, among other
things, upholding a system of ethnic inequality. Following their control of the
national state, these former rebels boisterously pledged to institute democracy
and respect for human rights (both individual and minority group rights) as a
sure way to achi