Ethiopia: History, Politics, and the Challenges
By Peter Reat Gatkuoth
February 12, 2008 — Ethiopia is one of the multi-ethnic state in which most of its people speak the language of “Afro-Asiatic family such as Semitic, Cushitic. Oromitic and Nilo-Saharan.” It is one of the world’s oldest nations and is considered to be one of the “cradles of civilization.” The region lies on the Eastern side of Africa. It is situated between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator. It covers the areas of Blue Nile, and its tributaries, as well as a major stretch of the African Rift Valley. Hence; the scope of this paper will examine the brief history of the nation, its society, politics and political system, economy, human right issues and other challenges.
Ethiopia has always been a Christian state and its relations with the “rising Islamic” nations were very significant. The Arab considered Axum on a par with china and the Byzantine Empire. Although trade between the Islamic Empire had diminished, it never stops indicating that Ethiopia continued to hold the respects of the Islamic nations. The “Axum collapsed in about 8th century” and power shifted further south; and the southern expansion, a Christian expansion, continued over the following several centuries.
In many instance, Ethiopia experienced war, coup and revolution over the past decades. During the time “Fascists came to power” in Italy, Fascist’s advocated imperialism so that their nation could rule an empire. Mussolini sought “African possession as a way of a reviving the glory of ancient Rome.” However, Ethiopia became one of the victims of Italy expansionism.
By the late 1900s, Ethiopian had “fought off various incursions” including those of the Italian and Egyptians. The successor, Menilik “reunited and expanded the empire to the East, South, and West, taking areas rich of coffee, gold, Ivory and slaves.” Menilik, who later died in 1913, is the ruler who began the modernization of Ethiopia; a process that continued under one of the country’s legendary ruler, emperor Haile Sellassie.
Haile Sellassie was revered for his courage in fighting against the Italian invasion and conquest of 1935-1941, but after the liberation, Haile Sellassie’s policies didn’t work well. He was compelled to centralize his control, and played off the U.S. and U.K. against each other so that he can remain in power.
In 1954, Eritrea, which had been a UN mandate, was “federate with Ethiopia,” and Haile Sellassie immediately began to dismantle its institution, including the press, trade Union, political parties, and the elected parliament; all of which were “anathema to his own highly centralized structure of control.” When Eritrea became province of Ethiopia in 1962, it signaled the start of “Eritrea’s struggle for independence,” which began with a group known as the Eritrea liberation Front. The ELF was joined by the Muslims from the lowlands and in the early 1970s, a group from highlands; the Eritrea People’s Liberations Front (EPLF) became involved. From then through present, the history of Ethiopia is unsettled. Suffrage the effect of Sellassie’s failure to meet the agrarian reform; it has endured drought, famine and there has been a “mutinies in the army and strikes in the civilian sector.”
The Ethiopia revolution of 1974 was an essential one of the spontaneous “outburst of popular anger and despair.” This outburst of revolution “triggered” the sudden uprising of the people and organized it to a popular revolution. First, the provisional military council began to believe that it is an instrumental to launch a revolution, coup; and in December of 1974, Ethiopia was declared a socialist state. After the revolution of 1974, a former soldier named Mengistu Haile Mariam “declared himself as Derg’s Chairperson” and set about consolidating his power in 1977, but this led to various attacks against him and his group. However, the Derg regime’s need was to bring the country, particularly the rebellion in Eritrea under control. As a result, the derg’s regime nationalized the banks and insurance companies and seized control of practically every importance valuable thing in the country. The Derg regime has tried and made an effort to improve the economy by liberalizing the domestic market; it abolished price and control for “goods and services.” It has also reformed the finance sector by “floating the Birr (Ethiopia currency) and put new investment and labor law” in place that are “designed to improve domestic resources mobilization; and bring greater reliance on market force for resource allocation.” However, despite privatizing other institutions, the government has left The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), the largest bank in the country in the private sector, on the basis that the “rural sector is not profitable and will not be served by the private sector.”
In addition, despite the fact that the constitutions grant them equal rights, women are marginalized in the Ethiopian society. This fact illustrated that women and lower class citizens do not participate fully in the political processes.
Ethiopia “adopted a new constitution” that established the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in 1995. The Federal government is bicameral parliament with the “council of people representatives being the highest authority of the federal government while the federal council represents the common interest of the nation nationalities and the people of the states.” Suffrage is the universal, and the council members are elected for five year terms. The federal government “is responsible for national defense, foreign relations and general policy of common interest and benefits.”
The history of the Ethiopia during the last thirty years indicated that real power is still matter of contention, revolution, coup and struggles persist. Some of the most powerful individuals in the Ethiopia politics have come out of the various liberation movements; that is why they are not career politicians, but activists. The current Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, was one that might charitably be called a “militarist.” He joined the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), became the leader of the group and work to “overthrow the Derg regime” headed by the Mengistu Haile mariam in 1991. At this time, Meles Zenawi wields considerable power, but there is a large opposition against him due to the fact that he had marginalized other ethnic group and centered himself as “ethnic minority dictatorship.” In 1998, Ethiopia and Eritrea fought on their borders which bring down the economic development in two nations. Ethiopia’s economic was weakened than before, and its citizens face lack of food and other essential necessities in the region. Most of its citizens left the country to seek for survivors, and daily assistance in other regions of Africa. Because the government is ideologically oriented toward socialism, it has tried to consolidate a “peasant political base” and has “given priority to rural development.” The focus of its development is to raise food production, freeing the population from the fear of famine and the problem of “chronic malnutrition”. But none of the strategic has help despite its effort to reform the economic development.
Human rights violation in Ethiopia seems to center largely on women and the poor. Over 70% of all Ethiopia women have been subjected to “female genital mutilation,” and the practices remain widespread, particularly among the poorer women. Female genital mutilation is a cruel and dangerous practice that often leads to the death of the girl on whom it is practiced. It is a serious human right violation, but the society seems to “sanction it and it may take long time before it’s stamped out.” Women in relation to “workforce, property and other matters of public importance” as well as their “status as political being in Ethiopian society” are associated strongly with marriage and motherhood. To great degree, women’s lives are embedded in their social, economic and religious contexts. Many of the factors that disadvantage women are problems of poverty and underdevelopment, shared by their communities on the country as whole. Therefore, women were particularly marginalized.
One of the most significant problems was an enormous number of opposing parties. There are four categories of four organizations. These are the “Pan-Ethiopia Nationalist parties, coalitions, and those involved in the army struggle.” Among the later group are the OLF (Oromo Liberation Front) and ONLF (Ogaden Nationalist liberation Front). The fact that some of these parties are organized along ethnic lines, while other attempt to span the country would indicate that these parties are likely to remain ineffective, unless they can put aside their differences.
One the biggest challenges that Ethiopian nation face is the problem of agricultural reforms. The country is suffering “famine after famine” because it can not grow enough food to feed its people. If this situation is to improve, the government will have to pay attention to the rural areas and make farming methods available to all citizens. On the other hand, if Ethiopia is to develop a full democratic system, then the monolithic party has to be reformed into a more equitable structure. This means that the opposition parties will have to be a true opposition and able to field candidates who have a chance of winning elections. The 2005 elections were marred by the violence, and most of the people were tortured, arrested, and even kill during the demonstration when they heard the result of the election. The election procedure was not effective, and it didn’t help because there were over thirty parties involved. The citizens were in doubt that Meles Zenawi group had sheeted the election’s result. Although it can be argued that the U.S. two-party system is not healthy because there are not enough choices, it seems equally obvious that this many parties system is something of joke and may perhaps prevents effective opposition from rising, which in turn blocks the formation of a true democracy.
Ethiopia is an ancient country with many problems. In many ways, it seems to still “stuck” in the past. It faces terrible problems, particularly the ongoing waves of famine, war with its bordering nations such as Eritrea, and Somalia. But, if the government will start to look at the problem of all its people, and not just turn things in powerful positions, it can turn thing around and the community as whole may have certain things to live on than strike for change regularly.
The author is a student in the department of Political Science and Sociology in Canada. He can be reach at [email protected] or [email protected]