I think I met the late Donald Levine twice or thrice, and it was a great privilege. He loved Ethiopia and Ethiopians. He looked at Ethiopia like an Ethiopian, almost. Indeed, he was more Ethiopian than most of us Westernized natives! Though "Liben" was a sociologist, he had something of an anthropologist about him in that he tried his best not to project his Western or Modern mindset on Ethiopia. He had a great reverence for Ethiopia's traditions. He exhorted us to hold on to and grow in our traditions. He advised and warned as follows:
“The vitality of a people springs from feeling at home in its culture and from a sense of kinship with its past. The negation of all those sentiments acquired in childhood leaves man adrift, a prey to random images and destructive impulses… The most productive and liberating sort of social change is that built on continuity with the past.”
This is one of my favourite quotes.
Anyway, here is Donald Levine's keynote speech at a 2007 conference on Ethiopian studies at the University of Western Michigan. It wasn't an academic exercise for Levine - he shed tears more than once during the speech. 2007 was a melancholic time. And he just so wished that we Ethiopians would emerge from our abyss...
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Ethiopia's Missed Chances–1960, 1974, 1991, 1998, 2005–and now
An Ethiopian Dilemma: Deep Structures, Wrenching Processes
Donald N. Levine
University of Chicago
My title "An Ethiopian Dilemma" stands to evoke an association to the book by Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma, which played a signal role in helping Americans resolve their longstanding conflict of values regarding racial discrimination. My hope is to suggest ways in which a social scientist, and a ferinj at that, might help Ethiopians get a better grip on their country's problems.
Although work by social scientists gets valued often for methods of securing more reliable data, there are three other ways in which our disciplines provide more objective analyses. One is to locate current issues in a larger historical context. One is to bring to bear sharper theoretical tools. And one is to undertake comparative analyses. Here I shall offer suggestions in all three modes.
First, to history. Not since the 16th Century has Ethiopia experienced changes so convulsive as in the past fifty years. The 16th-century changes were instigated by the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Suleiman, who gave arms and soldiers to satellite state Adal under Ahmad Grañ. Grañ assassinated the rightful Harari ruler Sultan Abu Beker Mohammed and abrogated the Islamic doctrine that Ethiopia was a righteous land to be spared jihad. His attacks destroyed vast stretches of highland Ethiopia and created a vacuum that invited Oromo peoples to conquer vast parts of the country, initiating the chronically contested multiethnic rulership of the Ethiopian state. Turks later invaded Ethiopia directly and wrested away Ethiopia’s historic coastal strip, paving the way for conflict three centuries later.
20th-century turbulence likewise stemmed from invasions: first Sudan, then Italy–twice. These invasions pushed Ethiopia toward deliberate programs of internal change, what sociologists call "defensive modernization." One way or another, however, a push toward modernization was inevitable, given steady engulfment by a global civilization. What was not inevitable was how Ethiopia faced the challenges of becoming modern.
Parameters of Modernization
When we think about roads to modernity we often invoke the trope of revolution. We link the modern world with the revolutions in America and France, Russia and China–what Eisenstadt (2006) calls the “Great ‘Classical’ Revolutions.” Or we think of generic transformations that use the same label–the Industrial Revolution and the Democratic Revolution. Social scientists may associate to phrases recognized from the work of penetrating originary theorists, terms such as the Managerial Revolution (Burnham, 1941), the Integrative Revolution (Geertz, 1963), the Academic Revolution (Jencks and Riesman, 1969), the Participatory Revolution (Huntington, 1974), and the Disciplinary Revolution (Gorski, 1993).
Whatever 'revolution' is taken to signify, the term connotes changes of form that combine abruptness and violence. We tend to suppose that modernization requires societies to suffer a set of wrenching events, in which one complex of deep structures must necessarily be eradicated in favor of another. Lenin’s famous phrase puts the matter with crude succinctness: “You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs." But surely the subject demands a more differentiating perspective.
I approach this theme from a lifetime of study of the seminal figures of modern social science, each of whom penetrated a central feature of the modern order. Some analyze modernity in terms of the division of labor, specialization, and increased productivity (Smith, Marx, Durkheim); some consider political centralization, mobilization, and nation building (Tocqueville, Elias); some stress equality and the extension of rights (Hegel, Tocqueville, von Stein). Others stress objectified knowledge and scientifically educated elites (Comte, Weber, Dewey) or the creation of world-shaping ideologies (Pareto, Eisenstadt); still others highlight changes in persons, for example, as becoming more disciplined (Weber, Freud, Elias) or more individuated (Durkheim, Simmel) or more flexible (Simmel, Riesman, Lerner). My recent work seeks dialogue among these authors by connecting the phenomena they discuss in terms of six major categories: specialization, individualization, social equalization, political unification, cultural rationalization, and personal discipline. I have also sought to specify the costs and dissatisfactions associated with modernization as well as its benefits (Levine 2005, 2006c). [Figure 1]
Figure 1 MODERNITY REVOLUTIONS AND THEIR EFFECTS*
PROCESS
|
Differentiation
|
Democratization
|
Rationalization
|
Specialization
|
Individuation
|
Unification
|
Equalization
|
Cultural
|
Personal
|
REVOLUTION
|
Industrial
|
Urban-Commercial
|
Integrative
|
Social
|
Academic
|
Disciplinary
|
BENEFITS
|
Commerce,
Goods
|
Freedom
|
Efficacy
|
Justice
|
Knowledge
|
Civility
|
DISADVANTAGES
|
Personal
atrophy;
Social
deficits
|
Hyper-specialization; Alienation;
Consumerism
|
Repressive
centralization;
Violence
|
Mediocrity
|
“Tragedy
of culture”;
Jacobin barbarities
|
Psychic
repression
|
*Source: Levine 2006c, 26
Although the transformations analyzed by these authors often seem to occur suddenly I prefer to view them as the acceleration, albeit occasionally at breakneck speed, of large-scale processes that evolved over centuries. As Donald Donham suggests in his perspicuous account of modernization among the Maale of Debub Kilil, regarding "the question of modernity . . . a long, vernacular conversation has gone on for centuries among ordinary men and women the world over" (1999, 180). But whether or not those rapidly unfolding processes entail abruptness of change is a variable, not an inexorable feature of the dynamics of modernization, a central assumption behind Wax and Gold (1965).
So, relatedly, is the question of whether or not modernization necessarily entails violence. Although “revolutionary” ideologies tend to rationalize–idealize, even–the use of violence in producing certain changes associated with the modern order, it has never been demonstrated that these changes could not have come about in nonviolent ways. Indeed, one of the great theorists of modernity, Alexis de Tocqueville, demonstrated that after all the bloodletting of the French revolution, what emerged was essentially a set of changes that already in place under the ancien regime ([1856] 1955).
We would do well, then, to conceptualize modernization in ways that accommodate variations in whether, how, and how well the challenge to make certain modernizing changes is met. To deal with this variable, I propose now the notion of structural opening—a moment of fluidity in which actors imagine and deal with the array of options that every situation presents. Every opening harbors possibilities for change and action that are more or less constructive, more or less beneficial. It requires disinterested analysis to identify and clarify the options available in a situation, in order to enable actors to transcend the inertia and passions of the moment and thereby avert possibly disastrous results.
Within this perspective I shall review openings for Ethiopia that appeared over the past half century, openings which in each case found key players moving in suboptimal directions. I invite you to reflect upon five such opportunities that arguably were mishandled, as these became manifest in (1) the abortive coup of December 1960; (2) the ferment of 1974; (3) the regime change of 1991; (4) the Eritrean war of 1998; and (5) the May 2005 national election.
Base Line 1957
It must be hard for Ethiopians today to grasp the confidence about Ethiopia's future that prevailed in 1957. Half a century ago, one could imagine that Ethiopia's future would be benign. Consider what had been accomplished. Regional warlords had given way to a standing national army trained to handle modern technology. Central ministries dealt with justice and tax collection. The slave trade was ended (1923!). Customs barriers impeding the flow of domestic trade were removed. Ethiopia had a written constitution, a fledgling national parliament, a central bank, and a national currency. The country had built networks of schools and medical facilities; industrial plants in textiles, cement, sugar, and electric power; and modern media of transport and communication. The modernizing sector pulsated with the energies of foreign-educated young people and graduates of Ethiopia’s new colleges. Things appeared so good that by 1960, when the march of African colonies toward independence raised concerns about their viability, it seemed that Ethiopia, thanks to its long history, might offer a model, averting the internal conflicts that threatened so many of the new states.
Ensuing decades dimmed such hope. The December 1960 coup attempt valorized a pattern of murder to effect social change, and cost an opportunity to move toward consensual liberalization. The Derg takeover of 1974 escalated violence against dissident domestic groups, and against Eritrea, and reversed promising lines of economic development. The regime change of 1991 was met with an escalation of ethnic tensions and new forms of internal suppression. The war with Eritrea destroyed countless lives, resources, and development opportunities. The aftermath of the May 2005 elections plucked disaster out of the jaws of triumph, yielding a fresh polarization of political attitudes.
How can Ethiopia reverse this pattern of missed opportunities? I propose now to revisit those junctures with an eye to raising questions about what might be done to enact more benign solutions in the future. Let us ask: what structural openings had emerged in each case, what forces drove the country toward those less constructive solutions?
Five Missed Chances
1960: Year of Ferment
1960 saw sixteen African countries achieve independence. With Ethiopia no longer almost the only independent sub-Saharan country, educated Ethiopians chafed that under European powers, other African countries had acquired economic and education systems that outshone their own. As one Ethiopian told me, “Our problem is that we never ‘suffered under colonialism.’” Impatience with Ethiopia’s slow pace, outmoded hierarchical structure, and conservative folkways grew, especially among Ethiopians returning from education abroad.
It was clear to me in 1960 that some of them yearned to engage in progressive forums of some sort, but were fearful of doing so. One complained, “Our culture praises gwebeznet (courage). Why have we become so afraid of speaking out?” What options were there? Progressives could have formed a political party. To be sure, they might have landed in jail, since the regime objected to parties and frowned on all voluntary associations and free publications. Still, they might have created a journal under the umbrella of enhancing civic education. They might have formed discussion groups; some did, but in secret–even the alumni association of Haile Selassie I Secondary School was clandestine.
The alternative was to change regimes by peaceful means. Germame Neway, a US-educated returnee eager for change, accepted this route initially. As provincial administrator in Walayta, he enacted reforms to ease the burden of tenant farmers–with innovations that earned him a transfer to Jijjiga, where he worked to integrate Somali Ethiopians more effectively by offering them schools, clinics, and roads. In Bahru Zewde's words, Germame converted these “exile posts into stations experimenting in equitable administration” (Zewde 1991, 213).
Meeting official resistance, he enlisted his brother General Mengistu Neway, who commanded the Imperial Bodyguard, into a conspiracy that attempted a coup d’état on December 14. They did so while the emperor was in Brazil, hoping he would stay there in peaceable retirement. General Mengistu had refused overtures by his brother to use violence and counted on support from other military commanders. As one Bodyguard officer boasted to me a month before the coup, “When a signal for change is given, be-and innenesalan, we shall rise as one.” That was the preference of those who marched from Arat Kilo to the Piazza, with placards that proclaimed, “Ityopiya le-hulatchn be-selamawi lewet--Ethiopia for all of us through peaceful change.” This option also was not taken. Failed communication between Bodyguard and other military units led to a counter-offensive; army and air force troops defeated the rebels. A third option might have been for the rebel leaders, once defeated, either to give themselves up or to flee and issue statements from hiding. Instead, prior to leaving the Grand Palace where the ministers and other high-ranking figures were held, Germame and others machine-gunned the hostages in cold blood.
The coup’s failure promoted the consolidation of imperial power, leading the emperor to focus on “rewarding those who had defended his throne, not in trying to solve the problems indicated” by their protest (Zewde 1991, 214). This produced continuing efforts to quell dissent and to spread the hegemony of Shoan Amhara rule, including efforts to marginalize the main other languages–Tigrinya, officially suppressed in 1970, and Oromiffa. It also led to annexing the federated province of Eritrea, in ways that undermined Eritrea’s more liberal democratic achievements–multiple political parties and a free press, which the British protectorate had encouraged. In sum, the failure of Ethiopians to pursue constructive options in 1960 sowed seeds of later disturbances: the violence of the Derg, and the alienation of Tigrinya-speakers, Oromo-speakers, and progressive Eritreans.
1974: Revolutionary Breakthrough
The year 1974 created a large opening for structural change at the country’s political center. On the one hand, Haile Selassie’s waning abilities to govern as before became glaringly apparent. On the other hand, unprecedentedly, diverse groups mounted a series of protests airing a variety of grievances. This led to efforts to achieve the unlikely: a wholly peaceful change of political structure. “Ityopiya tikdem/ yala mimin dem”–“Let Ethiopia progress/Without any bloodshed”–became the popular slogan of that heady time.
On the surface, this seemed almost plausible. A new cabinet was formed under conservative Endelkatchew Makonnen, later under the more popular liberal aristocrat, Mikael Imru. A blue-ribbon committee, respected by a wide range of civilian and military elements, drafted a progressive constitution, described as “years ahead of its time in terms of Ethiopia’s social and economic development” (Ottaway 1978, 41). Another committee was set up to investigate whether or not figures from the ancien regime suspected for wrongdoing were legally liable. Following the emperor’s deposition on September 14, the popular General Amman Andom was selected to head the military committee that had become the de facto governing power of the nation. Amman, an Eritrean himself, was well positioned to heal the country’s major festering wound: the rebellion of dissident groups in Eritrea.
The non-violent option was not taken. Already in February an engine of potential violence was forming when a cabal of junior officers organized an Armed Forces Coordinating Committee. As this committee, called the Derg, moved to attain control, senior officers, civilian leaders, labor unions, and friendly foreign governments all stood by. One of its members, a misfit from Harar named Major Mengistu Haile Mariam, came to dominate the Derg. On November 23, Mengistu engineered a murderous attack on General Amman and then summarily shot 59 former imperial officials. That night, Paul Henze wrote, “The Ethiopian revolution turned bloody. Blood never ceased to flow for the next 17 years” (Henze 2000, 289).
Mengistu’s coup became aligned with communist intellectuals who supported his efforts to impose a Leninist-style revolution from above. They proceeded to confiscate budding enterprises, nationalize all land, herd farmers onto unproductive collective farms, and force tens of thousands of people into resettlement sites. Their heavy-handed policies and violent tactics provoked reactions in many parts of the country; the Derg period was marked by insurgencies and severe famine. Their uncompromising military action against Eritrea finally turned that ancient part of the Ethiopian homeland toward secession.
1991: A Multiethnic Polity
1991 offered a reprieve from the Derg and yet another opportunity for non-violent change. The May regime change was painless enough: Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, senior Derg officials were imprisoned, and EPRDF established control with hardly a shot fired. The turnover was followed by a national conference, which established a Transitional Government. A year later, the country’s first multi-party elections were held. Dozens if not hundreds of publications sprang up overnight. A new Constitution was ratified in 1995.
Before long, however, the EPRDF ascendancy mired the country into yet another period of internal discord. Viewed by some chiefly as a takeover of revanchist Tigrean rebels, the EPRDF victory unleashed a storm of protest at the Embassy of the United States, blamed for facilitating the transition. The removal of Shoan Amhara from power coupled with virulent anti-Amhara attitudes in many TPLF leaders stirred waves of Amhara chauvinistic response. The Oromo Liberation Front, central to the new regime’s commitment to ethnic regional autonomy, was not satisfied and refused to lay down arms. A similar attitude was taken by remnants of the EPRP group of radicals who had opposed both the Derg and the TPLF. The emphasis on ethnicity as an absolute value, manifest in the EPRDF’s commitment to ethnic federalism, traumatized those who considered themselves to be above and beyond tribal allegiances. For its part the EPRDF, reacting to these dismissive attitudes and to implement their own distinctive revolutionary doctrines, became repressive against journalists and individuals oriented to forms of political expression other than what the regime favored.
1998: Competition without Fratricide
After Eritrea became independent in 1993, official relations between the two countries were cordial. Their leaders espoused fraternity between the two countries and a policy of promoting mutual trade and cooperation. Within four years, issues regarding trade imbalance and currency restrictions, and possibly Ethiopia's lingering grief over the loss of the Red Sea ports, began to sour those relations. What is more, boundaries between the two countries had never been demarcated. These issues might have occasioned an appeal for mediation by an international body, affording an opportunity to stabilize the anomalous relationship between a mother country and its ambitious young offspring. Instead, when Eritreans who entered the town of Badme in May 1998 were met with gunfire from Ethiopian militia, they launched an mounted a massive attack that extended from the Irob area all the way to Sheraro in the west, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and destroying health stations and churches. Full-scale warfare between the two states ensued quickly, producing an estimated 100,000 casualties and some 400,000 refugees. Both countries employed cluster bombs. In June 1998 Eritrea launched air-delivered CB-500 cluster munitions against the Mekele airport, two of which struck a school and residential area resulting in civilian deaths, wounds, and suffering, and similar hits caused dozens of deaths and injuries in the town of Adigrat. In May 2000 Ethiopia bombed two camps of internally displaced persons with BL-755 cluster munitions and hit civilian airports in Asmara as well. The cost of the war for the world’s two poorest countries was enormous, and led to subsequent destabilizations elsewhere in the Horn.
2005: Democratizing Breakthrough
The first years of the 21st century found Ethiopia beginning to hit its stride. The economy grew, repressiveness abated. In 2004, for the first time since coming to power, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was removed from Reporters Without Borders’ annual list of “Enemies of the Free Press.” The government decided to make the 2005 election a surge toward political pluralism. Opposition parties for the first time had access to the media, and televised debates between representatives from opposing parties were aired. The elections were monitored by international bodies, including representatives from the European Union and the Carter Center, who called the elections fair in many respects yet noted serious irregularities before and after the Election Day. The election outcome saw opposition groups leap from 15 to 180 members of parliament and sweep into control over the city of Addis Ababa.
Ensuing post-election complications offered two options. One was to abide by existing National Election Board procedures and accept their verdict regarding disputed contests. Repeat elections in several of them actually resulted in switches of parliamentary seats in both directions. A second option, after the CUD party caucused and decided that its members would not enter the Parliament, was a negotiation with the government that went on for several days in late October.
Instead of either of these denouements, Ethiopia experienced fresh outbreaks of violence and stirrings of hatred. Compounding the June killings, the November demonstrations brought total fatalities to nearly two hundred. Tens of thousands were carted off to prison. The government incarcerated more than a hundred dissident political party officials, civil society leaders, and independent journalists. Their long detention during court procedures judged to be flawed exacerbated animosities between the two sides. Resulting polarization weakened the new government’s claim to legitimacy and damaged its efficacy. The points just covered are summarized schematically in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Issues and Openings
DATE
|
Developmental Issue
|
Missed Constructive Opportunity
|
What Happened
|
1960
|
Hunger for accelerated economic development and democratization
|
1. Nonviolent advocacy of reforms
2. Successful nonviolent coup
3. Failed coup without assassinations
|
1. Nothing
2. Impulsive coup attempt
3. Random assassinations
|
1974-5
|
Social class egalitarianism
|
Differentiated land reforms
|
Stalinist collectivization
|
1991
|
Ethnic egalitarianism
|
Multiculturalist recognition
|
Imposed ethnic federalism àpolarization
|
1998
|
Geopolitical boundaries
|
International adjudication
|
Destructive warfare
|
2005
|
Pluralist political democratization
|
Adjudicated multiparty election outcome
|
Incendiary reactions; deaths, casualties, incarcerations
|
An Ambiguous Balance Sheet
Before proceeding further, I should emphasize two points. For one thing, probably no society has ever responded to all its challenges in the most constructive and beneficial way possible. Beyond that, although Ethiopia took many damaging missteps in the past half-century, the country accomplished a great deal of progress on the always-difficult paths toward modernization.
In response to the abortive coup of December 1960, the Emperor made a few progressive ministerial appointments, notably Yilma Deressa who transformed budget and appropriation procedures in the Ministry of Finance (Clapham 1969). Ethiopia's first university (Haile Selassie I University, now Addis Ababa University) was established and quickly flourished. The economy developed steadily, with stable currency and a solid financial position. Haile Selassie reached his pinnacle as an African and world leader. Ethiopia’s prominence in African affairs was marked by the establishment in 1963 of Addis Ababa as home to the Organization of African Unity and the UN Economic Commission for Africa. Ethiopia stayed on course while much of the rest of Africa deteriorated.
However heavy-handed and destructive, the Derg reforms valorized the public use of languages other than Amharic–notably Tigrinya and Oromiffa–and religions other than Christianity–notably, Islam. Although the quality of education deteriorated, the Derg increased school enrollment dramatically; during the Derg’s first decade the number of students in government schools rose from about 800,000 to nearly 3,100,000 and the number of students in higher education likewise quadrupled (Clapham 1988, 150). They started the Workers’ Party of Ethiopia in 1984—the first political party in the country’s history—and established the kebele system still used to organize neighborhoods.
The TPLF victory rid the country of an oppressive dictatorship and such damaging policies as collectivization of agriculture and forced resettlement of hundreds of thousands. TPLF maintained the value of Ethiopia’s currency against all odds: Ethiopia may be the only country to emerge from an authoritarian regime and economic collapse without suffering from serious inflation. TPLF also gave unprecedented levels of political autonomy to peoples in the southern parts of the country. The EPRDF regime expanded the construction of modern buildings and roads, and opened hydroelectric plants that doubled the country’s energy supply.
For the border war with Eritrea, to be sure, it is almost impossible to find any positive achievement. By contrast, the 2005 elections achieved a great deal. They opened up electoral competition to an array of national political parties and offered them unprecedented access to the media–a major milestone in Ethiopia’s journey toward political modernity. The disasters of the Derg period and the repressions of EPRDF can also be "credited" with driving hundreds of thousands to emigrate. That created a large diaspora of modern-educated Ethiopians whose continuing devotion to their homeland makes them part of the new Ethiopian nation–which consists, I noted elsewhere, of three parts: ye-bét agar, ye-wutch agar, and ye-cyber agar (Levine 2004)–and which positions them to make great contributions to Ethiopia's development.
Such positive accomplishments must be kept in mind. Nevertheless, they came at far too steep a cost. To sum up what of all of us must be feeling about these decades I say: Ethiopia, you deserved better! And it is in hopes that whatever produced such dire outcomes might be modified in the future that I inquire into what factors were responsible for those missed opportunities. For that, let us review those episodes in a search for possible common patterns.
An Ethiopian Dilemma: Three Troublesome Factors
Wax and gold: a culture of distrust
Two factors involved in these missed opportunities, I suggest, represent customs that were adaptive in pre-modern periods but have become dysfunctional in the present. One is a deep-seated habit of suspiciousness and distrust in social relations. The prevalence of this tendency was thematized in the title of my first book, Wax and Gold. For a social order where so much hinged on securing rights to use land, an ethos of manipulative tactical scheming proved advantageous. For a political order in which power and status hinged on strict deference to superordinate patrons, the open voicing of critical sentiments was intolerable; they had to be expressed in some surreptitious manner. That order made it hard to generate trust, and disposed people to be always on the lookout for hidden motives and deceptive maneuverings.
When one examines the episodes I have been describing, this trait is hard to miss. In 1960, endemic suspiciousness and distrust colored the entire social fabric, preventing even those who thought themselves friends from discussing grievances and aspirations openly. This mindset kept them from any proactive para-political initiatives. The coup leaders and the generals who opposed them were presumptive friends, but held back from sharing ideas about the need for change and in the end battled against each other. When General Merid of the loyalist forces visited General Mengistu in the hospital before he was hanged, the latter reportedly told him: "I thought you would understand."
The Crown accentuated the pervasive distrust. Following the coup attempt as before, the Palace discouraged transparency in public communications. After Eritrea was annexed, a number of high school students from Dessie wanted to come to the Palace to express their appreciation of the Emperor’s bold move. He forbade their visit, reportedly saying, “If they come now to say they approve of my policy, what is to prevent them from coming in the future to say they disapprove?” This fear of open public discourse lay behind the Emperor’s misguided policy of suppressing political parties and the free press in Asmara. It even led to the suppression of Tigrinya in 1970, a grievous error, especially in view of Paul Henze’s observation that “Amharic is firmly established as the national language with English in second place. . . . What this goes to prove is that the Imperial regime could have safely afforded to be much more open-minded about language questions than it was” (2007, 214).
The 1974 demonstrations represented a big shift in the openness of public protest. Even so, what proved to be the central political dynamic was kept clandestine and murky for nearly a year after the initial protests of February. How the Derg was organized and where it was heading remained secret. Rumor remained the prime medium of public communication.
Nearly universal relief over the dissolution of the Derg in 1991 gave way to mutual suspicions and incriminations. Although Oromo Liberation Front leaders gained a great deal in negotiations over the new order, they feared laying down their arms following the EPRDF ascendancy. Remnants of the EPRP remained armed. Above all, although serious substantive differences arose between Ethiopian patriotic nationalists and TPLF proponents of ethnic federalism, these differences were compounded by distortions that stemmed from deep suspicions about one another’s motives. The TPLF leaders accused the nationalists of being Amhara chauvinists, even though they included numerous non-Amhara people and for the most part Amhara Ethiopians whose allegiance was primarily to Ethiopia as a multiethnic nation. The nationalists accused the TPLF leaders of being agents of their Eritrean comrades in EPLF, even though TPLF and EPLF had been enemies during much of the previous decade and seeds of future animosity were not hard to discern below the surface.
These seeds sprouted in 1998, when distrust between brothers yielded to lethal attacks. Medhane Tadesse's searching analysis of the background of the war throws light on how ambiguous communications between the two sides helped trigger the outbreak of hostilities. From the outset, Ethiopian leaders failed to map out guidelines concerning future relations between the two governments and peoples, leaving vague such matters as the legal status of Eritreans in Ethiopia, arrangements for economic cooperation, and border demarcations (Tadesse 1999, 135). Subsequently, he suggests, EPRDF leaders made their attitude toward the EPLF appear warmer than it actually was, whereas the Eritreans “must have expected favours from the Tigray without publicly admitting that they really needed their help” (155).
The tragic dénouement of summer 2005 represented nothing so much as a flagrant manifestation of the archaic pattern of distrust. The regime acted on the suspicion that the opposition was deliberately stirring up anti-Tigrayan hostilities when the CUD leadership explicitly discouraged their followers from doing anything of the sort. They also ran with the idea purveyed in a tract by Negede Gobeze that the opposition should mobilize the populace in an effort to overthrow the regime through a kind of Orange Revolution, when in fact the opposition wanted nothing more than an exact count to be respected. Based on the regime’s initial hasty declaration of martial law on Election Day and premature announcement of victory, the opposition went on to distrust nearly every post-election action of the regime. The regime’s hyper-vigilance in the wake of their suspicions led them to provocative incidents and well-documented excessive violence against demonstrators in June and November of that year. The latter confrontations, with fatalities on both sides but overwhelming brute violence from government security troops, might have been averted had last-minute daily negotiations at the end of October succeeded. Although those negotiations reportedly broke down when the EPRDF refused to establish a neutral Election Board, it is my understanding that mutual distrust played a role in their breakdown.
Wendinet idealized: a culture of martial honor
DATE
|
Traditional Distrust Factor
|
Traditional Martial Ethic
|
Alien Factors
|
1960
|
1. Distrust and fear in civilian elite
2. Suspiciousness within military elite
|
Commitment to violence as a
means of political change
|
Modernization ideologies
|
1974-5
|
Distrust of democratic process
|
Rulership succession through martial combat
|
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideologies
|
1991
|
Distrust of democratic process
|
Continued resort to arms
|
Stalinist ideology of “self-determination of nationalities”
|
1998
|
Intense mutual suspicion
|
Martial pride; drive for revenge
|
Arabist support for Eritrean insurgency
|
2005
|
Intense mutual suspicion and mutual demonization
|
Fight against the system, rather than within the system
|
Tenacity of radical polarizing ideology
|
A missing revolution
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