Addis Ababa as Modernist Ruin

Keeping in mind that Addis Ababa translates to mean "new flower," I want to appropriate some of the sights and sounds of this relatively new city in order to rub it against the landscape of transformation, "erasure and reinscription" (modernism), that has characterized Addis Ababa since its founding in the late 1800s (Holston 5). I am particularly interested in Addis Ababa's transition from the Socialist oriented military junta known as the Derg (1974-1991) to a city governed by a post-communist, free market regime. Under the Derg, Scientific Socialism was adopted as the country's method of governance. On the basis of this new method, the military junta introduced across the country-but particularly in Addis Ababa-a public culture of signs and symbols that represented various aspects of the new regime. Monuments to Lenin were erected, as were numerous billboards of Marx, Lenin, and Engels. In 1991, along with all the other countries behind the iron curtain, the military junta fell. The public billboard culture, however, did not disappear; rather the billboards were replaced by ones produced by private companies.

I understand Addis Ababa's latest transformation as being more of the same, whereby the city's public space is organized under both regimes with the same aesthetic-politico sensibility-a sensibility that is grounded in a certain ease with both erasure and reinscription. I also view the very public nature of the billboards under both regimes and the way they have come to dominate the Addis Ababa landscape as serving as a useful heuristic device to get at both the tactics served up to, as well as deployed by, Addis Ababa's residents so as to cope with everyday life.

Figure 1.

Mural of the chairman of the Derg with the broad masses, Addis Ababa (1984) by Berit Salstrom.

Figure 2.

Highland Queen Whiskey Advertisement (2001) by Elleni Zeleke.

The City

Although the usual date used to mark the founding of Addis Ababa is 1886,¹ in fact it was not until after the Ethiopian victory over the invading Italian army in 1896, at the battle of Adwa, that Addis Ababa really became the permanent capital of the new consolidated Ethiopia. It was also at this point that it became clear that Addis Ababa would become a sort of modernist monument for the rest of Ethiopia and the world in general-proving that this once "backward empire" had at last entered the world stage. Railways and roads were quickly built, as was the first grand hotel, Tayitu Hotel.

Yet what is remarkable one hundred years later is that people continue to walk. Yes, here people walk, and they continue to bring their mules, their donkeys, their cows, and their sheep into town. And they walk. On their pack animals, they bring the wheat, the teff, and the rye that will feed the residents of this city. Often an animal is put up for sale because the farmer is in trouble and needs a little extra cash. This is mostly the case with oxen, for oxen are used to plow the land. But the sheep? Other than wool, why is a lamb good for keeping? They are only good because they can be sold as meat. There are many sheep markets around town. You can buy a sheep, take it home, hire a boy to help you skin it, and eat it fresh that same day. This is common. The sheep are tasty.

Perhaps you are wondering how farmers and the slaughter of animals fit in with a capital city. But the tides of people that come in and out of this place are a part of the city, and they are many. Early each morning one sees farmers and herders entering the streets of Addis Ababa and for the rest of the day, depending on your luck and your attitude, you may be blocked for some time waiting for the animals to cross the street.

The official census puts the Addis Ababa population at three million people, but the temporary...