2009/1/15
(Ethiopian calendar)
2016/9/25
(European calendar)
[Note:
An Amharic version of this post will appear shortly!]
In
a recent post on the dangers
of ethnic nationalism in Ethiopia, I explained why I agree with
the idea now fashionable among followers of Ethiopian politics to
establish Afaan Oromo as a federal language equal to Amharic. This
policy will have two 'effects' – an integrative effect – it will
help increase inter-ethnic integration – and a 'placating' effect –
it will have a psychologically soothing effect on ethnic nationalists
and reduce their zeal, so to speak. In this article, I'll explain
that the integrative effect is the strongest and most effective and
that the placating effect will be minimal. In addition, unless
accompanied by other policies that advance inter-ethnic integration
and policies that ensure demographics do not favour ethnic
nationalism, the policy step of making Afaan Oromo a federal
language, by itself, will not have much effect..
Before going further, let me review why ethnic nationalism is
dangerous for Ethiopia as a whole. First, what is ethnic nationalism?
We know there are different kinds of it – soft nationalism, hard
nationalism, opportunistic nationalism, ideological nationalism, etc.
For our purposes here, let's define an ethnic nationalist as one who
places his ethnicity ahead of his country. The type of person who
says, for example, I'm Tigrean first, then Ethiopian. We all know
what this means at the gut level, but let's try and spell it out with
an example.
Let's
say that in a given province the language of the ethnic group that is
a large majority is not an official language. If members of this
ethnicity campaign to have their language made the official language,
it would benefit them but be a disadvantage (depending on how they
take it) to those who belong to other ethnicities as they would have
to learn this new language. For the province as a whole, though, the
benefits are greater than the costs because a large majority have
their wishes respected. Let's consider a similar example, except that
the ethnic group requesting that its language be the official
language is a small minority in the province. Obviously having their
language be the official language would benefit the small minorty,
but it would place the vast majority at a disadvantage. Yet, the
minority insist. They put their ethnic demands ahead of the greater
good, they put their ethnicity ahead of their province. This is what
I call ethnic nationalism.
The
costs of such ethnic nationalism to a nation are, again, at a gut
level, quite clear. The theory is obvious as well. Christopher
Clapham put it succinctly in an article just after the 2005 election
– to paraphrase: When in a multi-ethnic country such as Ethiopia
centrifugal forces begin to exceed centripetal forces the nation
begins to pull apart. This is what is being tangibly proven in
Ethiopia today, so much so that even the ethnic nationalist EPRDF is
worried about it. They've always been worried about it to some
extent, identifying 'narrow nationalists' as a threat to the nation.
But now they're realizing that even their kind of ethnic nationalism
is causing dangers that might require significant reform, such as
even changing their 'front' from a group of ethnic based parties to a
single non-ethnic entity! (They've seen that political oppression and
ethnic identity is a dangerous mix. People are much less tolerant of
a small amount of oppression that they perceive is ethnic-based than
worse oppression that is not ethnic-based!)
While
insisting on the dangers of ethnic nationalism to Ethiopia, I in no
way deny that ethnic sentiments and identity and are part of Man's
nature, or to use a modern term, a human right. As far as I am
concerned, ethnic nationalism too is a human right. As such I think
it is futile and even dangerous to repress ethnic identity and ethnic
nationalism. If an Oromo wants Afaan Oromo to be the federal
language, or if he wants Addis Ababa to be devolved into Oromia, or
even if he wants to have Oromia secede from Ethiopia, he has a right
to these views and to exercise them politically. Of course, like any
other right, the rub lies in the extent to which these conflict with
others' rights.
Again,
though ethnic identity arises from Man's natural desires, it is, when
it crosses the line I mentioned above, a danger to the society at
large. One clearly cannot have a country where in every sphere
everyone favours their own ethnic group at the expense of the country
as a whole. It is for this reason that we Ethiopian nationalists must
do our share to reduce ethnic nationalism in Ethiopia.
That
was a long review! On to a discussion of integration as a tool to
reduce ethnic nationalism and increase civic nationalism...
Integration is the social and political mixing of ethnic groups so as
to create new groups whose loyalty is to the mixture – the nation.
We all know it as an age old formula for creating new kinship, and
kinship is what we are really talking about here. The reason that
Ethiopia as a nation still stands today is the result of thousands of
years of integration.
In
today's Ethiopia, integration promoting policies are things like
promoting inter-regional migration, business, infrastructure such as
transportation, etc. Assuming the ethnic-based regions stay as they
are, the best way to promote migration is to have people learn
languages of other regions so that they can migrate there, and so
that people of the other region can also come here, so to speak. So
for example if Afaan Oromo is taught in school in Amhara region and
is made a priority, teachers from Oromia would have to be brought to
Amhara, and they would probably settle there if properly welcomed.
And of course the main goal – Amharas having learnt Afaan Oromo
will find it easier to emigrate to Oromia.
At
the start of the article, I mentioned making Afaan Oromo a federal
language equal to Amharic. This makes sense for various reasons,
including integrating the vast number of Oromo youth who for the past
25 years, thanks to ethnic nationalism, have not been taught Amharic
or in fact have been taught that speaking Amharic is not a good
thing. It also makes sense in the context of the Oromo being the
largest or close to the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia. And as I
described above, this policy will have an effective integrative
effect, it will increase kinship and identity at the national level,
reducing ethnic nationalism, in this case Oromo nationalism.
I
will note here that I'm afraid many who advocate this policy also,
mistakenly, think that the placating effect will be high. That is,
they think that making Afaan Oromo a federal language will be seen as
a gesture of goodwill by the Oromo public and result in a major
reduction in Oromo ethnic nationalism. This, I think, is a very wrong
assumption. We can see throughout the world examples of cases where
concessions to ethnic nationalism had no such effect. From Canada to
Spain to Belgium to Scotland etc., we see the central government
making concessions to ethnic nationalists, and these concessions end
up reducing only the rate of acceleration of ethnic nationalism!
In
the case of Ethiopia and Oromia, there's no reason to think the same
won't happen. As soon as Afaan Oromo is made a federal language,
Oromo ethnic nationalists will demand that Addis Ababa be absorbed
into Oromia State. Against democracy, so to speak, since the majority
of Addis Ababans would not want this. This demand is driven purely by
grievance and history and is exactly the type of demand that
prioritizes the desires of an ethnic group over that of the
population at large. And after this demand, others will follow.
However,
if the central government and the governments of the other states
follow policies of integration and demographic balancing in concert,
then Oromo ethnic nationalism will be curbed. Again, if we look world
wide, the 'success' stories of reducing ethnic nationalism involve
either integration or demographics. Consider Quebec... Its
geographical setting is on the edge of most of Canada, sort of like
Eritrea to Ethiopia. For this and other reasons, even with official
bilingualism (English and French), integration with the rest of
Canada remained minimal. However, demographics did the job of burying
Quebec ethnic nationalism. Like all of the West, Quebec has brought
in lots of immigrants (it has tried to focus on French speaking
immigrants) to augment the labour force, pay taxes, etc. These
immigrants are very much anti-Quebec nationalism, and their numbers
have increased so much that they have tilted the balance in Quebec.
If a referendum for secession were called today, a small majority of
White French Quebecers would vote to secede, but their majority would
be easily overcome by the immigrant vote. Where all sorts of policies
failed, the reality of demographics did the job.
So
too in Ethiopia civic nationalists have to ensure that the proportion
of civic nationalists to ethnic nationalists in the population does
not get too low. Encouraging population growth in urban centres,
which tend to be civic nationalist, is one such policy. Amhara State,
being a non-ethnic nationalist state, also has to ensure that its
population does not decline relative to other states in the country.
And so on.
In
summary, ethnic nationalism is a right which citizens must be allowed
to exercise politically. However, too much ethnic nationalism, such
as what we've had for the past 25 years, destabilizes the nation and
is dangerous enough to result in a failed state. Therefore ethnic
nationalism must be curbed, and the force that will curb it, through
thoroughly democratic means, is the Ethiopian or civic nationalist
constituency. The policy instruments to curb ethnic nationalism is
the promotion of policies that advance inter-ethnic integration and
keeping a healthy balance between the ethnic and civic nationalist
constituencies.
