Addis Ababa: Migration and the Making of a Multiethnic Metropolis, 1941–1974 (review)

The basic premise of this book is that the founding and growth of Addis Ababa stemmed from the political domination of the Amhara and their expansion into the vast labor- and resource-rich domain of the Oromo and other oppressed groups in the southern regions of the country. Getahun Benti argues that previous scholars of Ethiopian urbanization have simply ignored the role played by the imperious Amhara and their ethnic, linguistic, and cultural manifestations in the north–south population movements in the country. This failure in scholarship, he believes, is attributable to restrictions imposed on scholars by the Amhara rulers in their attempt to superimpose Amhara cultural identity on other ethnic groups in the country.

The construction of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, the building of road networks during the brief Italian occupation, and the extraction of exportable surplus mainly from the Oromo territories facilitated urban growth and development in the country, Getahun writes. In the process, Addis Ababa enjoyed a disproportionate share of the infrastructural development owing to its geographic centrality, its status as the nation’s capital, and its road links with the surrounding resource-rich hinterlands. Heavy concentration of commerce and industries in the capital also led to the concentration of water, electricity, health, financial, and educational services. Such services, in turn, attracted people—educated and noneducated, skilled and unskilled—from all over the country.

In examining regional factors contributing to increased migration to the capital city, Getahun states that poverty, pressure on rural land, and declining agricultural income constituted major factors in the migration of rural people from the north to Addis Ababa. He contends that better roads facilitated the southbound migration while the lack of road development in the southern provinces constrained possible migration of the Oromo to Addis Ababa.

There are numerous unfounded assertions in Addis Ababa. Getahun’s contention that north–south migration was facilitated by road policies that favored the Amhara and Tigray provinces is not supported by the facts; he refers the reader to “various sources” (80), but no actual citations are provided. Further, he is not able to name a single road network alleged to have been improved or built in these provinces during the postindependence years; the two major arteries connecting Addis Ababa with the northern provinces (both built by the Italians) were in total disrepair for decades, and few feeder roads connected the hinterlands to these networks. In contrast, much of the road construction and repairs took place in the southern half of the country, simply because that region contained the bulk of the nation’s exploitable natural resources; the Oromo provinces in particular provided marketable products, of which coffee was the most important.

Too often Getahun draws incorrect conclusions from inapplicable sets of data. For example, data on migrants’ birth origin (180) do not prove that Amhara cultural and political dominance allowed the Amhara to migrate to Addis Ababa in larger numbers. Nearly one-third of the migrants originate in Shoa, but the population of the province was 75 percent non-Amhara; to conclude, therefore, that Shoan migrants are predominantly Amhara just because the ruling class was Amhara is not a reasonable supposition. Similarly, one cannot assume that all migrants from Wallo were Amhara because Wallo has had a significant Oromo population. In other words, birth origin data by province do not necessarily indicate migrants’ ethnic background.

Getahun’s heavy reliance on only a few informants raises questions, since their views are accepted uncritically throughout the book and general conclusions are drawn from them. For example, he concludes that only a small number of Arsi Oromo migrated to Amhara-dominated Addis Ababa for fear of subjecting themselves to Amhara “hatred and discrimination” (84). However, it is possible that Oromo from the southern provinces did not migrate to Addis Ababa in large numbers not because of what the Amhara rulers might do...