Post #2: Ethiopia – A Country Ravaged by the Politics of Ethno-Nationalism
Post #2: Ethiopia – A Country Ravaged by the Politics of Ethno-Nationalism
By Halie Schuster
Nationalism has been a major point of contention in the world and in Ethiopia. The dictionary defines nationalism as an “identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations”. According to this definition, for nationalism to exist, common interests and characteristics must exist as well. However, Ethiopia is a multiethnic giant with “around 100 million people belonging to more than 80 ethnic groups and speaking many languages” (Bieber, Goshu, 2019). As Zakaria points out in The Post American World, unifying divergent ideas and interests are a difficult task. “This raises the political conundrum,” Zakaria writes, “of how to achieve international objectives in a world of many actors, state, and nonstate” (pg. 39). This issue is seen on a smaller, albeit exemplary, scale in Ethiopia.
In recent years, Ethiopia has experienced a dramatic transformation under the direction of their new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. In an attempt to end years of tension, he signed a peace agreement with Eritrea and granted pardons and amnesties to thousands of individuals and organizations that were once seen as terrorists. While these efforts were mostly successful, ethnic conflicts have increased in intensity as a result of conservative backlash of Ahmed’s reforms and Oromo conflicts have resurfaced (Bieber, Goshu, 2019). For a while, relations between the Oromo and Somali ethnic groups improved and Gedoes who had been largely displaced from Oromia, one of Ethiopia’s most populated regions, returned.
[Demonstrators protesting the political situation in Ethiopia in the wake of the death of musician Hachalu Hundessa]
This state of relative tranquility was short-lived. Triggered by the murder of Oromo singer and activist Hachalu Hundessa, ethnic tension and violence has once again resurfaced. The Oromo Liberation Army has since refused to disarm and has been in conflict with the Ethiopian army for over a year. This has led to the kidnapping of civilians and the murders of local administrative officials, town mayors, and government security officers (Gedamu, 2020). These conflicts are a direct result of a country that has been ravaged by the politics of ethno-nationalism. With increasing ethnic polarization, maintaining peace and security in a divided nation is a difficult task and illustrates the danger in the rise of nationalism that Zakaria warns of.
While Ethiopia has made impressive strides in reducing poverty, inequality still remains a pressing problem. The GINI index in Ethiopia was reported at 35 in 2015 (World Bank, 2015). In a 2019 NSI report, Dr. Lawrence A. Kuznar explains that “Ethiopia is paradoxical; compared to other countries it is an extremely poor nation with an extremely high economic growth rate and low inequality across the entire population”. He also notes that the country’s economic growth and reduction in inequality are “uneven across socio-economic, rural/urban, educational, and ethnic lines” (Kuznar, 2019). Essentially, Ethiopia’s rapid economic development is experienced differentially across social divides and is not explicitly correlated with inequality. As an entirely separate phenomena, inequality in Ethiopia provides many opportunities for conflict between ethnic lines resulting in the eruption of violence and political challenges to control the nation. Education has been identified as a key contributing factor either enabling or disabling individual’s abilities to tap into this economic growth. Kuznar suggests that education may also “be manifest by the growing bulge in upper middle-class wealth factor scores in the past decade” (Kuznar, 2019).
Social programs initiated by Ethiopian government have attempted to negate these issues of inequality but have been largely unsuccessful. Many of these programs targeted the country’s agriculture sector and intended to reduce poverty amongst rural citizens. The Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), for example, succeed in decreasing poverty rates but continued to maintain existing inequality levels that further fueled grievance. The World Bank found that the poorest 10% of Ethiopia’s population “have not experienced real consumption growth between 2005 and 2016, suggesting that economic growth has so far eluded the poorest” (World Bank, 2020). The report also stated that “important opportunities such as education and clean water is highly skewed, with children in rural areas being far less likely to complete primary school or progress to secondary education compared to similar children in urban areas” (World Bank, 2020). This inequality is further illustrated by the fact that the well-educated Tigray elite are resented by other ethnic groups. While Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has made amendable efforts, it is apparent that inequality is still a growing concern amongst Ethiopians.
As previously mentioned, Ethiopia is populated by more than 80 ethnic groups and nationalities. The diverse country hosts a range of minority groups including ethnic, language, religious and regional minorities. Consequently, the country’s political landscape has been historically dominated by ethnic allegiances. Despite Ethiopia’s federalist political structure and minority rights-friendly constitution, the implementation of said structure has been overwhelmingly ineffective. Years of unrest and ongoing marginalization of minorities and indigenous people has “energized power struggles between dominant ethnic groups who stand to benefit or lose from wide-ranging reforms” (Minority Rights, 2019). The minority Tigray community have consistently dominated Ethiopian politics and government, fostering resentful relationships that only intensified as thousands of Oromo people became annexed and military groups incited violent demonstrations. Human rights violations also spread to disenfranchised groups such as the Amhara and Muslim populations, resulting in government protests. Discernibly, the mistreatment of minority and indigenous cultures in Ethiopia have nurtured an environment characterized by tension and often violence between ethnic groups.
Although Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous country, the nation is far from perfect. The root of growing problems in nationalism, inequality, and the treatment of minorities and indigenous groups is deep seated tension between ethnic groups. Decades of unrest and controversial reforms have cultivated a culture of violence, government protesting, marginalization, and hostility. In order for Ethiopia to experience the ideology of nationalism, they first need to address these issues and find common ground within itself.
References
Bieber, Florian & Goshu, Wondemagegn Tadesse. Don’t Let Ethiopia Become the Next Yugoslavia, Foreign Policy, January 2019. Retrieved from https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/15/dont-let-ethiopia-become-the-next-yugoslavia-abiy-ahmed-balkans-milosevic-ethnic-conflict-federalism/
Gedamu, Yohannes. Violence in Ethiopia Underscores Unresolved Ethnic Tensions, The Conversation, July 2020. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/violence-in-ethiopia-underscores-unresolved-ethnic-tensions-142393
Kuznar, Lawrence A. Ethiopia Inequality Report, NSI, October 2019. Retrieved from https://nsiteam.com/social/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/NSI-Aggrieved-Populations-Reports_Ethiopia-Country-Report_Final.pdf
Minority Rights Group. Ethiopia, Minority Rights Group, June 2019. Retrieved from https://minorityrights.org/country/ethiopia/
Trading Economics. Ethiopia – GINI Index, The World Bank, 2015. Retrieved from https://tradingeconomics.com/ethiopia/gini-index-wb-data.html
World Bank. Ethiopia has Made Major Strides in Poverty Reduction but Disparities, Inequality Remain, The World Bank, April 2016. Retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/04/16/ethiopia-has-made-major-strides-in-poverty-reduction-but-disparities-inequality-remain
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