The Elite and the Quest for Peace, Democracy, and Development in Ethiopia: Lessons to be Learnt

Introduction

Donald N. Levine,¹ author of Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multi Ethnic Society, who has popularized Carlo Conti Rossini's description of Ethiopia as "un museo di popoli"—a museum of peoples—characterized the evolution of multiethnic Ethiopia as an "Amhara thesis," an "Oromo anti-thesis," and an "Ethiopian synthesis." Whatever the merits of Levine's historical analysis, the country moved to a crisis of major proportions whose effect was a revolutionary reconstitution of both state and society that relegated the country's ancien régime to the museum of history. This put to a severe test both his thesis and the celebrated historical evolution of the country as a whole. And now, in less than two decades, the Tigrayan antithesis, the negation of his "Ethiopian synthesis"—to use Marxist dialectics for want of a better term—is in full swing—a far-reaching agenda for the remaking of Ethiopia, in a manner that redirects, if not fully reverses, the historical evolution of modern Ethiopia.

The present experiment involves the objective of accomplishing two historical tasks: the tasks of creating a country that houses "nations, nationalities, and peoples" of equals and ending authoritarian rule by democratizing the Ethiopian state and society as a whole, as a precondition for peace and development. However, as the result of the five accumulated grand failures of the Ethiopian elite in the twentieth century, the perennial quest for peace, democracy, and development continues to be as elusive as ever. The most fundamental question is, therefore, what lessons have to be learnt to move forward? This article, which sums up the political history of modern Ethiopia in terms of five grand failures, is a modest attempt to suggest these lessons.

The Expansion and Consolidation of the Empire State: The First Grand Failure, 1850s–1900

When Kassa of Begemidir started the process of the creation of a modern multiethnic empire-state around the 1850s, historic Ethiopia (roughly the northern half of the country today and part of Eritrea) had been in feudal anarchy for about 80 years, and central authority existed mainly in name only.² But the feudal anarchy that precipitated the weakening of the Abyssinian state had the effect of opening up the appetite of the aspirants for power to reestablish past imperial glory and a strong central authority.³ This was further facilitated by the vulnerability of the then dominant Yejju Oromo elite, which controlled the imperial seat at Gonder for about 80 years but was culturally and demographically far removed from the bulk of the Oromo population, which was then living outside of Abyssinian central control.

Kassa-Tewodros, despite his humble background, had both a sense of history and a sense of modernization, presenting him with two major tasks to accomplish. His sense of history had to do with the glorious past of the Christian kingdom, mainly weakened by the intrusion of the Oromos, whom he vowed to stop by reestablishing the country in its old glory.⁴ His sense of modernization had to do mainly with getting access to firearms, without which he could not reestablish past glory.

Tewodros's rule was short-lived (1855–1868) and none of his goals were accomplished, but his legacy assisted in the creation by his successors of a far more grandiose empire-state than he had dreamt of. More paradoxically, his proto-Ethiopian nationalism was never reconciled with the competing nationalisms of the various ethnic groups of Ethiopia, nor could it defuse them, which a century later has produced an antithesis of the historical process initiated by Tewodros in the 1850s.⁵

During the rise of Tewodros, the geographical extension of the Ethiopian state was limited to the northern perimeter of today's Ethiopia. But while his successor, Yohannes, was busy consolidating his authority over the area he had inherited from Tewodros and defending his domains against foreign intruders—the Egyptians, the Italians, and the Mahadists—a new power center was emerging around Shewa. It was this new power center, though peripheral to historic Ethiopia, that was destined...