In-depth

Ethiopia’s federation needs reviving, not reconfiguring

Ethiopia’s nationalities battled long and hard for recognition. A centrally driven effort to reconfigure the federation that does not consider their struggle is a recipe for disaster.

“When philosophy paints its gray on gray, then has a form of life grown old, and with gray on gray it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known; the Owl of Minerva first takes flight with twilight closing in” — Hegel, Philosophy of Right

History and theory conspired to bring about the demise of the Ethiopian unitarist state in 1991 and the emergence of a pluralist polity known as a multinational federation. This claim might suggest ideological bias, but it also reflects an important reality.

The current political system is not an intellectual ideal; it was an arrangement prompted by unfavorable political conditions. No attempt is made here to venerate this theoretical construct. Eminent thinkers from across the globe had gathered to discuss Ethiopia’s predicament in the 1990s, but mapping a country’s future is not the work of theorists and purists.

Instead it is up to the political forces of the day to compromise and shape the proposed order to their interests and needs. It is almost inevitable that the result will be a fudge, and that is what our imperfect federation is.

What the 1995 constitution addressed were the demands of diverse nationalities for recognition, which was the rallying cry of the Marxist student movements of the 1960s and 70s, and of the ethnonational insurgencies that were rooted in those campaigns.

And now, a quarter of a century later, we have almost come full circle, as the naive, the delusional, and the cynical ignore these origins, and thus imperil the state.

Students of the theory of the politics of recognition trace its roots to GWF Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit, whose interpreter Alexandre Kojeve put at the center of Hegel’s thought the desire for recognition as the most overriding human need:

“All human, anthropogenetic Desire — the Desire that generates Self-Consciousness, the human reality — is, finally, a function of the desire for “recognition.” And the risk of life by which the human reality “comes to light” is a risk for the sake of such a Desire. Therefore, to speak of the “origin” of Self-Consciousness is necessarily to speak of a fight to the death for “recognition.”

It is this desire for recognition as equal in worth and dignity that shaped the history of modern Ethiopia. Therefore, the best way to make sense of our contemporary politics is to look at its not-so-distant past through the lens of the center-periphery cleavage.

This split has affected the political landscape with varying intensity since the ascension to the throne of Emperor Menelik II in 1889. Tracing its history helps to identify the factors that prompted the emergence of multinational federalism.

During the Imperial era, the primary source of conflict was endless rivalry between the monarchy and the regional nobility. With the overthrow of royal absolutism in 1974, the ethno-national liberation movements replaced the nobility as regional powers.

Following the demise of the Derg in 1991, ethno-nationalists conquered the center. What accounted for their rise was the failure of the centralization project, which was bent on bloody cultural homogenization. The failure to incorporate the periphery into the center had exacerbated a sense of alienation from society.

The rise of ethno-national movements in the last years of Emperor Haile Selassie I signaled the end only of the beginning, but the Derg’s fall changed the constitutional landscape for good.

A transitory triumph?

In July 1991, the National Conference on Peace and Reconciliation was held in Addis Ababa. Commenting on that year’s revolution, Christopher Clapham said it overturned the centralization commenced by Menelik II:

This project, which provided the theme for Haile Selassie’s long reign, was tested to self-destruction by a revolutionary regime which provoked a level of resistance that eventually culminated in the appearance of Tigrayan guerrillas on the streets of Addis Ababa—a dramatic reversal of the process which, over the previous century, had seen central armies moving out to incorporate and subdue the periphery.”

This conference, as was apparent from its composition, made it crystal clear that state restructuring henceforth would scrupulously follow ethnic concerns. This became reality when the right to self-determination, up to and including secession, made its way to the National Charter.

Furthermore, Proclamation No. 1/1992 delimited the boundaries of the self-governing ethnically based regions. The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, which came into being in 1995, formalized the division of the country into nine regional states “delimited on the basis of settlement patterns, identity, language and the consent of the people concerned”.

The Constitution provides for the unconditional right to self-determination for every nation, nationality, and people in Ethiopia who “have or share large measure of a common culture or similar customs, mutual intelligibility of language, belief in a common or related identities, a common psychological make-up, and who inhabit an identifiable, predominantly contiguous territory”.

In this manner, identity made its way to the forefront of Ethiopian politics. The rise of regional self-rule was largely due to a desire to establish democratic institutions which would guarantee the right of national self-determination. Since then democratization has been inextricably linked to the protection of the sovereignty of Ethiopia’s cultural communities.

As Andreas Eshete noted: “The history and identity of the protagonists that emerged in the wake of the victory over tyranny thus explains why ethnic federalism proved to be a decisive political instrument in Ethiopia’s transition to democracy.”

Inclusive party was needed to maintain cohesion

Far from allegations that this arrangement was crafted by college dropout cave-dwelling insurgents, it was an intellectually stimulating process. Eminent scholars delivered papers at a Symposium on the Making of the New Ethiopian Constitution in 1993. Andreas, drawing on his networks, invited world-renowned lawyers, historians, political scientists, Ethiopianists, Africanists, and philosophers, including, Joshua Cohen, C. Edwin Baker, and Elaine Scarry.

But the contribution by the revered political scientist Samuel Huntington was particularly interesting, insofar as it dealt with constitutional design. In his 1993 paper entitled, Political Development in Ethiopia: A Peasant-Based Dominant Party Democracy?, Huntington argued: “Ethnicity is likely to be central to Ethiopian political parties, elections, and politics generally. Attempts to suppress ethnic identifications or to prevent ethnic political appeals are not likely to be successful.”

Despite this recognition, Huntington shies away from asserting that it should be a first organizing principle: “Drawing regional boundaries along ethnic lines…supplements what is unavoidable with what is undesirable…The combination of ethnic territorial units and ethnic parties…cumulates cleavages and can have a disastrous effect on national unity and political stability.”

He noted a dilemma, saying that while it was undesirable to have ethnic groups represented in government, it was also undesirable to ban their formation. His suggestion was that an inclusive party was needed to maintain cohesion: “If a broad-based, ideological party exists which appeals across ethnic lines, then ethnic territorial lines can be tolerated.”

That was how it started, and for the next two and a half decades, barring the odd bump in the road, that was how it continued, as the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) applied centripetal force to an ethnically demarcated federation.

Borderline reckless

The ascendancy of Abiy Ahmed as Prime Minister has effectively killed EPRDF as a grouping of four ethnonational parties. Doctrines have been discarded, the front’s rule demonized, an impressive economic record rubbished, and decision-making is no longer collective. Abiy’s next target seems to be the multinational federation itself, and he is starting where one should: by attempting to reconfigure the territorial boundaries of its constituent units without their consent by an unconstitutional means.

His method is the establishment of the Administrative Boundaries and Identity Issues Commission. Its creation seems to have been prompted by the Prime Minister’s apparent belief that demands for ethnic recognition and readjustment of regional borders are the source of communal strife. He acts as if he views multinational federalism as the cause of communal friction, not a key part of the remedy.

While some will point to his Commission’s merely advisory role, and others to the necessity for the federal government to act to ease inter-regional disputes causing carnage, its establishment is of dubious constitutionality, and it is a political monstrosity.

Trying to implement future recommendations of the Commission to modify borders would be not just the end of the Ethiopian federation as we know it, but a casus belli for an asymmetric war, and grounds for a unilateral declaration of secession. This is primarily because Tigray has made it clear that it will not cede an inch of the land to which Amhara has laid claim—and those territorial designs are widely presumed to be a key factor in the Commission’s establishment.

The intention of the new statute is as radical as the one that remapped the regional units in 1992. Tigray’s rejection is explicit. But given Amhara and Oromo interest in territory currently under Southern Nations, Somali, and Benishangul-Gumuz administration, Tigray will hardly be the only dissenter. The ruling parties of Ethiopia’s two most-populous regions are currently the nation’s most powerful political entities, after all.

But the trouble with the current process is not just its inflammatory political effect, it is also its dubious constitutionality. I do not normally see eye-to-eye with Tsegaye Ararsa on politics, but I do when he describes prime ministerial justifications for the Commission as an “argument from ignorance”.

Legislation usurps state councils’ powers

Internal boundaries separating the constituent parts of the federation are not just administrative. They are sovereign. Consistent with federalist theory, there is dual citizenship, sovereignty, and constitutionalism.

It is clear that the intention of the Commission is to provide a justification for the alteration of state borders. But regional boundary changes require a constitutional amendment. The Council of Ministers did not have the power to initiate legislation on matters that fall outside of its jurisdiction, nor did the House of People’s Representatives have the power to pass the bill. Only the House of Federation can propose to establish ad hoc or standing committees on matters falling within its remit.

This legislation usurps the powers of the State Councils, the Council of Constitutional Inquiry, and the House of Federation. There is nothing in the constitution prohibiting the upper house from commissioning studies if it needs an expert opinion. What parliament and cabinet did is cut corners. The legislation unconstitutionally confers power on the Commission to initiate constitutional amendments regarding internal boundaries and identities.

The power to hear and decide on disputes over ethnic identity vests, in the first instance, with the State Council concerned. However, the new proclamation divests those institutions of that power and hands it to the House of Federation via the Commission. In other words, the proclamation has in effect stripped State Councils of their constitutional jurisdiction over matters relating to identity.

The new statute also raises questions of standing. Normally, only regional states have standing to petition regarding its boundaries. But the statute strangely provides the Prime Minister, House of Federation, or House of People’s Representatives with standing to refer matters relating to identity and boundary disputes, on its motion or upon petition, to the Commission for investigation and recommendations. Last, but not least, it is troubling to discover that the Commission is accountable to the Prime Minister, rather than to the House of Federation.

The trouble with Mamdani’s federalism

The policy of undermining states’ rights did not begin with this bill. It started with the military intervention in Somali region, and was then pursued with shake-ups in Southern Nations, Gambella, Benishangul-Gumuz, and Afar. But when it comes to the more onerous task of subduing Tigray, the campaign began with prosecution of Tigrayan securocrats accused of human rights abuses. While they may well be guilty as sin, so presumably are their former colleagues that still occupy high office.

In a statement, Abiy suggested Tigray’s boundaries are no bar to federal intervention to arrest suspects. Coming a day after the controversial torture documentary, this marked a new low in Addis-Mekele relations. Combined with the bellicose posturing of Amhara over Wolkait and Raya, the situation is grave.

By seemingly siding with Amhara elites, Abiy is unnecessarily precipitating a crisis. Even if states concede the central government the duty to enforce federal laws within their territories, and even if the unconstitutional Commission has parliamentary approval, being willfully negligent of the current political context is still the height of irresponsibility.

That also goes for commentators, such as Mahmood Mamdani in the New York Times with his oped entitled The Trouble with Ethiopia’s Ethnic Federalism. He argues rightly that the reforms underway are clashing with the Constitution and could push the country towards interethnic conflict. But Mamdani is wrong to draw parallels with British colonial policy of indirect rule and the creation of Soviet-style ethnic homelands.

He mistakenly thinks the constitution has created permanent majorities and permanent minorities. Instead, the constitution vests all sovereignty in nations, nationalities and peoples, rather than in regions. What once was a majority in its homeland could become a minority, as the constitution allows for change. The reason why we are witnessing the mushrooming demands for statehood and recognition of identity is because of the layered character of the right to self-determination.

What Mamdani declines to acknowledge is that ethnicity is now a fact of public life and it cannot be legislated out of existence by reconfiguring the federation based on residency, as he suggests. Whether or not ethnicity was just a lie to start out with, it has turned out to be, after its nearly 30-year career shaping Ethiopian politics, the tie that binds; and therefore at least a noble lie.

Undoing what has been done peacefully would require the consent of the ethnic groups concerned. Why would they dispense with an advantage to embrace a disadvantage for the sake of administrative convenience? It is one thing to get the approval of the NYT editorial board for such a wheeze, it is quite another to bring on board Sidama nationalists on the verge of finally achieving statehood.

Federal government took over vast portions of land

Mamdani’s claim that by replicating the British colonial system, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) ‘Sovietized and Africanized’ Ethiopia looks like an extrapolation from his book on the Rwandan genocide. Mamdani, who touted that the Hutu and Tutsi are political and not cultural identities, transposes this onto Ethiopia’s ethnicities, viewing them as only colonial constructs; a convenient delusion shared by nostalgic elites at home and oversees.

Mamdani also overlooks the fact that some member states of the federation were de facto independent states long before the overthrow of the Derg. A clear case in point is Tigray. The NYT opinion section is not the first place he expressed his misgivings about Ethiopia’s federalism. He is expanding on a view pronounced in April 2012 at the Tana Forum in Bahir Dar on a panel themed Managing Diversity in response to Andreas Eshete’s introductory remarks. He was countered by none other than the late Meles Zenawi.

The trouble with Ethiopia’s federalism does not lie in its ethnic character, but in its praxis. It has functioned more unitarist than pluralist by virtue of EPRDF authoritarian hegemony. The challenge now is to democratize the federation, which means destabilizing the EPRDF while also ensuring the edifice the front held together does not implode.

Ethiopia’s federal experiment can be thought of in three phases. After factional warfare, Meles Zenawi admitted TPLF hegemony over the country in 2001 and removed its shadowy advisors from regions. As an alternative, he called upon the regional governments to improve their constitutions, so that, for example, chief administrators no longer chaired state legislatures.

The second phase ran to the 2005 elections, which saw an opening of the political space, allowing anti-federalist powers to challenge the fundamental tenets of the constitutional order. After the elections were disputed, Meles cracked down and gave up on the opposition. He then embarked on his own centralization project, as the EPRDF system was repurposed for national development.

The federal government took over vast portions of land in developing regions with little consideration for local concerns. But that wasn’t the EPRDF’s downfall. Instead the obsession with development, and sidelining of democracy, ran into Oromo sensitivities, as Addis’ de facto expansion into the surrounding region was clumsily mapped out by technocrats.

The status of Addis Ababa is of course a thorny issue. However, the constitutional position is clear. Despite the fact that Addis is located within Oromia, and that the region has a “special interest” in it, the city’s residents are entitled to self-rule. What is left to decide is what Oromia’s “special interest” amounts to in practical terms such as fiscal, cultural, and language rights.

Mamdani implies that land rights and jobs are handed out based on ethnicity. But it is fallacious to believe that because land belongs to the state, and the governing system has an ethnic component, that land is distributed according to ethnicity. The constitution guarantees freedom of movement, choice of residence, and work anywhere within the federation, irrespective of ethnic affiliation. That goes for land rights too.

Brinkmanship

Of course, improvements are needed. Afaan Oromo should become the second working language of the federal government, and there is also a need for ethnic federalists to confront the problems caused by the absence of a lingua franca. In summary, the aim now must be to make multinational federalism a more potent instrument for the accommodation of ethnic and religious diversity. The promised democratization is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition, unless the ethnic bargaining on display in Kenya or Nigeria is considered a model to follow. What is needed is not less, but more federalism.

One mechanism under consideration appears to be a constitutional court, which would include all the presidents of the sub-federal supreme courts. This could ease political tensions by removing the responsibility for ruling on identity issues away from community representatives in the House of Federation. Yet this court should not be vested with jurisdiction over inter-regional territorial disputes. That should be left to the upper house.

But instead of carefully considering such delicate reforms, Ethiopia is now at another moment of constitutional crisis. The challenge of keeping the union intact seems even more acute now than in 1991. Political opposition decriminalized by Abiy openly disparage the federal system, while in the north Amhara and Tigray face off.

Across the land a breakdown of the party-state apparatus seems to have led to multiple instances of political aggression, which tear at the nation’s fabric. To muddy the waters further, the Southern Nations seem intent on taking the constitution at its word, as multiple constituent units push for statehood, to the detriment of EPRDF cohesion.

An anarchic predicament partly stems from an ideological as well as security vacuum, as Abiy panders to both Oromo and pan-Ethiopian nationalism, in the process browbeating the ruling front he chairs. More than ever, the federation needs a leader to steer it through this dark hour. But instead a centralizing liberal demagogue has risen on a leftist ethnofederalist platform.

Reform doesn’t call for a Messiah

However, despite the democratic facade, the Prime Minister’s appearances in military uniform are indicative of an enchantment with autocracy, as is the creation of his own commando unit. (Showing off their martial moves in t-shirts with his image, no less. I hope Vladimir is taking notes.) Meanwhile, Abiy’s occasional musings on the Ethiopian limits to freedom of expression suggest a paperthin commitment to liberal democracy.

What is complicating Ethiopia’s predicament is not just a burgeoning personality cult amid myriad structural challenges, but also Abiy’s lack of ideological commitment. Like Perfume’s Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, he displays an extraordinary passion and obsession with something that people love, but he essentially lacks. Grenouille loves scents, which led him to become a parfumier extraordinaire. But he discovered, to his own shock, that he himself doesn’t have a personal scent. Abiy, the politician, despite his penchant for obliterating everything the old EPRDF stood for, does not smell like a liberal.

Needed now is not hero-worship of a supposedly perfect leader, but perfecting the federation, which can only be achieved by grinding civic discourse aimed at reaching a compromise among all stakeholders, as occurred two decades ago. The constitution isn’t the Quran. The amendment clause is there. Reform doesn’t call for a Messiah or a prophet to reckon with. Nor even the philosopher-king. All it takes is a leader keen to listen and learn, not impose his vaguely conceived view of the good life on a divided polity.

But instead, in Abiy’s wake, to the dismay of those who sweated blood and tears for the constitution, a cohort of openly anti-federalist personalities, such as Major Dawit Woldegiorgis, parade their conceited ignorance in Addis Ababa. Apparently oblivious of how fundamentally the political landscape has changed, they demand that Abiy dissolve parliament, suspend the constitution, and disarm the regions, forgetting that the federation was forged by such forces.

Despite the opportunity for this noise-making in the cosmopolitan capital arising only because of the resurgence of Oromo and the emergence of Amhara nationalism, the anti-federalists—along with well-meaning but remote African thinkers—somehow do not realize that history and theory have together taken a different course since 1991, and that there is no hope whatsoever of peacefully reversing that direction.

Epilogue

Günter Grass

The Epilogue

Already righteous indignation has found its tailor.

Sunday irons out the everyday annoyance.

Oh, with the soup, impotent rage went up in steam.

     Exhausted and tamed we gently sit around the table.

     Little gains delight Father; worries keep us short,

     for in our household point after point is put to the vote.

So falling sickness makes us fall into impotence.

Still protests are taken into consideration

and —on demand—are mentioned in the minutes.

     There is a motion for a restraining clause:

       Never again shall we protest without power.

Voiceless, because unable to constitute a quorum,

we adjourn until tomorrow.

Query or correction? Email us

Main photo: Meles Zenawi in Addis Ababa in June 1991

Published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. Cite Ethiopia Insight and link to this page if republished. 

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Sep. 18, Domestic despair shadows Abiy’s diplomatic waltz

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About the author

Alemayehu Weldemariam

Alemayehu has taught constitutional law and political theory at U.S. and Ethiopian universities. He served as a National Peace Advisor to the Ministry of Federal Affairs from 2010-11 and currently holds a lectureship at Mekele University School of Law.

32 Comments

  • The constitution is not the Bible or Quran.

    It needs to be amended to recognize ethnicity but not draw political boundaries based on ethnicity.

  • We, Ethiopians, don’t wan to see Ethinically divided Ethiopia. Even if we have many different tribes, there is no a single tribe which is not married to and have kids with another one.

    We saw the dangers of dividing us based on our Ethinicity for 27 years. We don’t want to have borders inside Ethiooia; we only want borders with neighbouring countries. Any one can lead in any corner of Ethiopia as long as he or she is fit enough to do so.

    We thank Allah(God) for ending that stressful time where we were not feeling that Ethiopia belongs to us.

    It was so painful to be treated as a second and third citizen in your own country.

    Thanks God(Allah) again.

    Supporters of that divide and conquer rule can say whatever they want because they are going to be the loosers of this new system which will give equal opportunites to all Ethiopians rather than giving every best opportunities to one Ethinic group – The Tigrians; it is sad that they were our colonisers in our own country.

  • I think everyone speaks for the advantage their tribe over others. Southwest Ethiopians or as EPRDF named SNNP, should speak up and guard against predatortpolitics of Ethiopians. Life is life. No one’s life holier than the other.
    Just show it the bravery inside you. What, who are afraid of?

  • Dear Alemayoh
    I have read your Article.it was shared from one of my dreast friend in universty whom is now in US. it is deper than i think but i got it the nearest that can explain the reality and with amazing prediction of it.
    Thank you so much .
    Thank you all.
    Fikre Yemane

  • There is no freedom of religion in Ethiopia. To defeat predatory interest of the Ethiopiann gov on the Muslims of SNNPR, the shortest route to safety is mass conversikn to Christianity.
    This has worked in Amara and Tigray regions under similar threat to skave trade, property destruction and landlessness.

    • It is clear you are a troll, so any attempt to use logic here would be a waste of time. Go spew your poison elsewhere, nobody is falling for it here.

  • I couldn’t agree more with the notion: “Drawing regional boundaries along ethnic lines…supplements what is unavoidable with what is undesirable…The combination of ethnic territorial units and ethnic parties…cumulates cleavages and can have a disastrous effect on national unity and political stability”. While I am all for different ethnicities celebrating their uniqueness, I don’t believe that should be the central theme of a government where starvation and lack of access to basic survival needs are rampant and know no ethnic lines. Regional lines should be drawn based on objective scientific studies (even though this might be an oxymoron in Ethiopia these days) that would make the most sense to administer that area effectively based on providing public utilities to the community and access to trade routes. After everyone is well fed we can argue about whose DNA has Amhara, Oromo, Tigre……. inscribed on it, and God help those who have multiple ethnic roots for they shall be stateless.

  • Illogical.
    Borders of regions or provinces, death of old or birth of new political parties have nothing to do with a federal government model.

  • Indeed your article clearly demonstrates a sound grasp of the prevailing dynamics on the grounds, however, your respect for Meles & Andrias with a contempt for Abiye has deprived you the wisdom to objectively analyse & make policy recommendations.

  • Samuel Huntington was a horrible islamaphob, only second to Henry Kissinger. Inviting him to advise on rewriting of the Ethiopia constitution was a passive violence against arguably half the population of Ethiopia.

    The Zionist kid Joshua Cohen was only 23 years old in 1993 when he was invited to the Ethiopian constitution writing. No expertise in law, esoecially in constitutions. He was invited to the half Muslim Ethiopia for a spite, for nerve game, to insult the senses of Ethiopian Muslims, as Zionist consider Islam as the enemy of Israel.

    Elaine Scarry as well has no constitutional expertise. She is a lecturer of English literature.

    • Half Muslim Ethiopia is mind boggling.Oromos and Muslims activists are fabricators of data and history.The last 27 years bluffing lies were the common denominator of the ethnic based politics.My friend trying to Islamise and Oromise will back fire on you as many people are standing head on at the moment.We shall see these narrow form of rhetoric will end up.

      • The state of the Ethiopian Muslims is appalling. They will rise for justice and equality. A noble cause any peace loving person may support. It will be a storm that will shake Ethiopia to its core. It will reform the Ethiopian state, politics and culture. An exciting revolution to the promised land of equality of religion and opportunities. spectacle of righteous anger of the oppressed and the enslaved. I hope our leaders will be wise enough to minimize bloodshed and property destructions. No powers in history held such large populations in suppressed bondage.

        • . Let’s be honest about Islam, which is the antithesis to secularism. One of the biggest problems ethiopia in path to democracy will face is the anti antisecularization philosophy inherent in Islam. Democracy is antithesis of Islam and this is Ethiopia’s biggest danger, danger to civil liberties, to women’s rights, to individual rights. There is no justice and equality Islam, let’s be honest. Women are treated as half beings. Minorities, Christians and Jews are Dhimmi. Other minorities are just not tolerated. Please, please a little honesty. The only equality Muslims will get is in a larChristian society or in a totally secular country, of which Islamic countries constantly turn their backs to.

          • You’re absolutely wrong about Islam and secularism.

            Secular states with majority Muslim populations Source: Google search
            Albania
            Azerbaijan
            Bosnia-Herzegovina
            Burkina Faso
            Chad
            Côte d’Ivoire
            Guinea
            Guinea-Bissau
            Indonesia
            Kazakhstan
            Kosovo
            Kyrgyzstan
            Lebanon
            Mali
            Niger
            Northern Cyprus
            Senegal
            Sierra Leone
            Tajikistan
            Turkey
            Turkmenistan[59]
            Uzbekistan[60]
            West Bank[61]

          • You may also consider the following Muslim majority secular states of Northwest Africa to the list below; namely:
            Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Syria, Iraq and Pakistan in Asia

    • Joshua Cohen was born in 1980 and 19 years old in 1993 when Meles Zenawi, short in wisdom and tall in vindictiveness, invited him to the Ethiopian constitution rewriting process. He is the pen-and-paper copy of the podcaster Ben Shapiro, a far right wing zionist. Both Americans.

      • Look at your list closely. They are either African states, former French colonies, or Soviet Satellite states. In the Soviet case, there was not secularism, but atheism. But now in places like Chechnya or Albania, there is a huge emergence of Islam. And it is not Sufi Islam making a comeback. In the former French colonies, French identity was so superimposed that it abrogated everything else. Now Salafi Islam making a come back. These are also peripheral states. The center of Islam remains the Middle East, both ideologically and also because that is where the money is. That money is funding Wahhabism in all latent states, the ones you mentioned. Lebanon is trying to be secular because of a strong French presence there historically. But even there you have ISIS and Hamas vying for supremacy. You think those parties want a secular state? If you want to move forward, be intellectually honest.

  • Mr Alemayehu,
    Could Oromifa be the working language of the Ethiopian federal government? Is there any logic behind? My question is not out of nativity but reality check shows that the language is restricted to mostly one ethnic groups and we do not have any historic instances that this language was instrumental in shaping the history and social life of the old and modern Ethiopia.Now the question is Oromization of the state by facilitating different activities etc…which will not easily welcomed by other so called ethnic minorities.The supposedly not willing to be Oromized is resurfacing here and there as the actions and the ambitions of the incumbent so called transitional Oromo leaders are trying to push.We have lingua franca and it is called Amharic. It has served in galvanizing the country and fomented as a unit. Thats why SNNP is using it as well as Benshangul gumuz and Gambela regions as their working language.Amharic is the language of many Oromo poets and musicians as you know it very well.Now the question is how we can bring Oromifa and other language similar status is the work the respective tribes and ethnic groups.

    The other thing you failed to recognize is Ethiopia remained in thin thread with out total collapse is due to the age old work of the unitary governments .The Amhara nationalists are taking momentum , very true.However,the Amhara nationalism you are supposing you consider will rest on the boundaries that OLF and TPLF formulated during the the constitution formulation is delusional at its best.The Amhara nationalism is by extension is the savior of the nation that the federalist have been playing on it for almost 3 decades.

    My last point is your article seems to brandish all who have worked in the derg regime as those who are against the federalism.This is a cry of those who are aligned with the OLF and TPLF who has no actual taste of democratic federalism.So before you paint a picture on those who served their country and the world at different levels you have to take a thorough understanding of the personalities you mentioned before you propagate your weak analysis.

  • Big Thanks to the author
    This was a mind stimulating scholarly piece.
    Among the best part my mind was caught particularly by this :
    « Need now is not hero-worship of a supposedly perfect leader, but perfecting the federation, which can only be achieved by grinding civic discourse aimed at reaching a compromise among all stakeholders »

  • Dear Alemayehu, how do you evaluate the quality of the Federal Bargain happened during the July Conference of 1991 and the the quality of also the Federal Constutitional drafting and adoption processes – had they been democratic and inclusive enough to to thwart aside any question of legitimacy that may arise over the then Federal Peacemeal just conceived of and imposed by only a smaller segment of the society where in such interest groups and people, as the Amharas, are totally left aside from and un represented in the then constitutional and syaye-building processes?

    Besides, I jave got also a strong objection with regard to the way the question of nationalities was presented, forwarded and advocated as the only explanation, and the post 1991 ‘multi nationanal federation’ as the only solution, to the pre 1991 the Ethiopian Staye’s stagnation and crisis there of.

  • I support federalism but how can you have a federal arrangement based on ethnicity, when the call nations, nationalities and peoples are not really nations, nationalities and peoples? Are Oromos really even a nation? Somalis? Even Amharas? Will Gonder allow to be governed by Wolloyes? Do Tulema Oromo Orthodox Christians really feel comfortable with Qottu Oromo Muslims even as they call them Somalis? I doubt Ethiopia can exist as a federation, how can you have a state without a nation? This is a problem of many African countries-they are dysfunction because they are states with a people. Dr. Abiye Ahmed said he feels sorry for Ethiopia, because no one wants to claim her, everyone is concerned only about there mender, their locality. He is right. Perhaps we should give up this endless discussions about federalism and Ethiopia, and accept that the best we can do is a co-federation of many different little countries, and these countries will be the entities that existed prior to the establishment of Menelik’s empire. Lets forget this fallacy that an Amhara or Tigray have citizenship rights in Oromia or vice versa. In an EU type of an arrangement, a German can move and live in France, but he can not vote in the elections nor can he ever be a citizen in France. That is the kind of arrangment we need in so called Ethiopia.

  • Great aricle well analyzed the current Ethiopian political situation from Minilik to Abiy.Mr Alemayehu, I have similar views with you On federalism in general, and it’s deficient implementation without political and economic democracy in the ethnic “federal”states,which gave rise to minority ethnic elite domination.As a result the so the unitarianists blamed all the problems on ethnic federalism.Assimiltary policy was the problem,

  • RE: Huntington as quoted by Captain_obvious below:

    The problem of Nigeria was not about “control of the center” but about the contest between Federalism and Unitarism where the Western Region under the Action Group proposed Federalism as the only viable option for a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic country like Nigeria. The NPC of the Northern Region embraced Federalism only under the condition that it retains control of Nigeria, which Britain acquiesced to hence the dubious census that gave the North parliamentary majority, while the NCNC of the Eastern Region rejected Federalism, labeling it “Pakistanization of Nigeria” and opted for Unitarism. Both the NPC and NCNC proceeded to try to neutralize the Action Group, the dominant party in the Western region through all sorts of illegalities, which ultimately led to the January 15 and July 26 military coups. The contest between Federalism and Unitarism had defined the anti-colonial struggles, and continues till date.
    Thank you

    • @Pathfinder : Interesting insight, but it does not contradict Huntingford remark that mono ethnic states vying for power all but gridlocked federalism (which led to military coup and the Biafra war).

    • @Pathfinder : Would you say that the reshuffling of Nigeria federalism from three macro-states, each affiliated to a major ethnicity, up to a dozen geographical based states, were helpful to its politics and unity ?

  • Alemayehu Weldemariam, the article author, is also conviently partially quoting the 1993 Huntington advice to Ethiopia he indicated. Fascinating read here :

    “The combination of ethnic territorial units and ethnic parties, however, cumulates cleavages and can have a disastrous effect on national unity and political stability. This is well illustrated by the First Republic in Nigeria. State boundaries coincided with the divisions among the 3 major ethnic groups. The 3 major political parties were based on those 3 major ethnic groups.

    As a result each party won control of its region and control of the center was hotly contested among the three ethnic parties. Political, regional, and ethnic identities and cleavages all coincided. This led to intensified ethnic conflict, instability at the center, and military overthrow of the civilian regime.”
    https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Huntington-A-Peasant-Based-Dominant-Party-Democracy.pdf

  • The 1995 Constitution is deeply dysfunctional.

    It creates thousand of kilometers of internal borders with no historical justification, on the basis of previously fluid linguistic areas. Welkayit-Tsegede-Tselemt are examples of multilingual areas.

    Even the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea, with the latter being a foreign colony for 50 years has proven impossible to delinate, let alone the border between Amhara and Tigray.

    Conflicts hence triggered were previously kept in check by massive human rights violations and torture.
    In the scope of democratization, it is hence perfectly natural to turn to scientific based research for solutions.

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