Neither Reform nor Revolution: Social Change and Security in Post-1991 Ethiopia

The epigraph taken from the Transitional Conference of 1991 reminds us of the intention and spirit of the founders of the post-1991 period who, finding themselves at such a vital historical juncture, proclaimed a vision and a starting point for a new chapter in Ethiopia’s history. However, their understanding of the future was not shared by all political forces at the time and continues not to be today.

The new political restructuring and eventual federalization of the Ethiopian state and society in the post-1991 period, based on ethno-territorial decentralization, was received with varying responses: awe and euphoria (Solomon, 2000), fear, skepticism and rejection, caution, and critical appraisal. The overwhelming uncertainty about what the new system might bring is understandable on many grounds, not least the existing radical opposition, and it’s “recipe for disaster” narrative. This uncertainty, the “engineers” of the new system avowed to end has been not easy to comprehend; this is characterized by the non-existent tendency of mediating the ever widening chasm and continuing polarization of political stances in the political arena and the lack of a non-partisan academic approach in examining it. Despite a quarter of a century of political dynamic ushering and sweeping away variegated political and social forces, a non-partisan examination of the political terrain, not yielding to partisan stances on both sides of the divide, has not yet been attended. This gives rationale for embarking on the academic enterprise of approaching the topic from this vantage point. In effect, this set the author of this paper, Neither Revolution nor Reform: The Dynamics of Social Change and Security in Post-1991 Ethiopia, which is also used as the title of this special issue, embarks on rethinking the journey from a position less captivated by the binary political stance that largely defined the discourse of the period. The title is also a logical continuity of an earlier work coedited by the author. Right after the demise of the military government in Ethiopia, the spirit of uncertainty and hope have been addressed by the contribution of various academics in the book entitled Ethiopia in Change: Peasantry, Nationalism and Democracy (Zegeye and Pausewang, 1994).

For centuries, the Ethiopian state was highly centralized and unaccustomed to political changes in attendance to changing times; social change was welcomed as long as it would advantage state power. Changes were politically engineered, imposed from above, or nipped in the bud and thwarted. In sum, major political changes in the constitution of the state and its institutions did not take into consideration changing requirements of social change. In spite of the rhetoric and adherence to the “Territorial unity and political integrity of the Motherland”, at best, changes were audacious pretensions of empire building, masquerading “modernization” as social progress, building centralized absolutist state.

Stubbornly forestalling change inevitably resulted in the demise of the empire with no resolution in sight of the contradictions that social change presented. The unrealized power of social change in the being of the state—the embodiment of universal reason of the empire state—as social progress (undergoing de-formation, re-formation, and trans-formation) continued to influence the ebb and flow of political changes trapped in a never-ending vicious cycle of violence.

The chronic mismatch of aspiration of social progress and hegemonic political ideals of successive rulers is at the heart of the contradiction. However, real social progress has been postponed. The rise and fall of untapped historical forces of change, in the being and becoming of the Ethiopian state resulted in the phenomenon of an Ethiopian state formation that kept its people rocking and restless, but taking the country nowhere and no further. At the heart of the paradox of longevity of statehood and survival of independence lie the unrealized ideals of social progress as part of state identity. Surviving adversity and achieving dialectical recognition of the being and becoming of the Ethiopian state in and of itself, has continued to be the one and only supreme ideal, absolutely incompatible with any other ideals of social progress. The idea of the absolutist state has remained the unchallenged ideology and the deontological a priori, negating the ideals of freedom, equality, equity, fraternity, and solidarity of its people.

The historical dynamics of modern Ethiopian state-building, initiated by Emperor Tewodros, continued by Emperor Yohannes, consolidated by Emperor Menilek, and completed by Emperor Haile Selassie (Bahru, 2003) was expressed in the dialectic of growing state freedom resisting external conquest, and the lack of freedom of the citizenry exhibited during a century of struggle for survival of independence and modernization. This, however, partly can be explained by the antagonistic relations with the colonialist and imperialist Western state system which gave defensible cause and credence to both the practical imperative and pretext of “get thy political kingdom first!”. Recognizing the lack of social progress commensurate with success in political independence notwithstanding, it is not perverse to invoke the detrimental role of external threat in postponing the rise of forces of modernization. The co-occurrence of agents of social progress, the intensification of contradictions, and the decline of external threat at the height of the realization of the absolutist state of Emperor Haile Selassie, supports the above stance.

Yet, it is also vital to note the brief discontinuity of sovereignty by the only realized external threat of colonial occupation. Italian fascism had unintended consequences for the rise of popular peasant resistance and was an anomalous precursor to the rise of modern revolution. In this respect, the post-Italian occupation period could be taken as a turning point, piercing the veil of ignorance of the sacredness of the “king” and the absolutist state with a ray of light that set the condition of the struggle for the ideals of popular sovereignty and republicanism. The Italian colonial occupation is noted here as a condition wherein the suppressed popular grievance vented to express itself in a form of political resistance. It tentatively discontinued state sovereignty and political independence, and cracked the hegemonic conception of freedom, but did not ensure ideals of equality, liberty, fraternity, and autonomy in human relations. Once the shield of political independence calcified by unreason and tyranny as much as the patriotism and vigilance against foreign rule was broken by the worst enemy of the ideals of freedom, it yielded an unintended struggle for social progress. Viewed this way, the Italian occupation can be considered as a blessing in disguise for the rise of agents of the cause of freedom; it is the case that the quest for the cause of freedom symbolized by the various rebellions after expulsion of Colonial Italia from Ethiopia was raised after the brief negation of freedom of the state (national sovereignty). Nevertheless, failure to respond to demands of history which perpetuated oppression on the part of rulers and weakness and haplessness of the rebellions made the cause of freedom (even when well fought over like the Kedamay Woyane Peasant Rebellion of Tigray) a hard-won battle. The continuity of asymmetrical state power, a weak society languishing in poverty and oppression, continue to be the dominant trend in state-society relations.

The various peasant rebellion movements and popular resistance against the absolutist state of Emperor Haile Selassie (Gebru, 1991; Young J., 1997), the path beaters who fomented the February 1974 Revolution aborted by the Derg, ended the era of the longest surviving absolute monarchy of the Solomonide dynasty. The protracted armed struggle that ousted the Derg in 1991 and ushered in the post-1991 political dispensation, therefore, can be viewed as the historical continuity and discontinuity of the struggle to resolve the contradictions engraved in the nature of the state. This is often overloaded with the history of protracted armed struggle, though not as such exclusively reducible to.

Meles Zenawi saw the task of state building as forging one political and economic community as a form of departure from the past. According to Meles, state building in Ethiopia has been based on use of custom (than reason) and fear to control and muffle the mass into passive obedience. In his view, this approach has continued to be a priority focus of leaders and an instrument of rule for which purpose and utility state institutions were designed (deWaal, 2015, p. 157); oppression, suppression, extraction, and predation were values state institutions had seldom failed instilling (Teshale, 1995). This entailed a mismatch of purpose for state institutions, and of aspiration for freedom, equality, autonomy, and justice of the people. In the light of this mismatch, the Ethiopian state remained weak. Yet, in terms of effective control, the modern Ethiopian state has always had strong control mechanisms that tended to characterize the authoritarian nature of the state. Even during the reign of Emperor Menelik when the sovereignty of the Ethiopian state had been contested and threatened by external forces, the state had a far more meaningful presence, not only in its own recognized territories, but also in adjacent colonial territories, than the then powerful colonial administration. This is borne out in British colonial records during the reign of Emperor Menelik that acknowledge the greater effective control of the Ethiopian state far beyond its legitimate borders and deep into the British-controlled Somali territories than British Colonial administration (Petrides, 1983). Under Emperor Haile Selassie, strong state repression and control, but failure to be responsive to the people’s predicaments, had contributed to the rise of the popular revolution (del Boca, 2013). A point worth pondering here is that in light of addressing the popular needs and responding to the demands of social progress, the process of state building can be considered weak; so the states in this specific respect can be considered to have shown state weakness. In the same token, the late Meles Zenawi’s conception of history of Ethiopia state building similarly fits in this picture. Yet, provided state weakness is measured in light of effective control of territory and the people which is a euphemism for authoritarian rule, neither Meles nor his opponents do miss the fact that Ethiopian state has been strong.

Alex de Waal, in his recent book on the post-Cold War nature of states and politics in the Horn, examined the possibility of state building in an era of “rentierism,” puts Ethiopia to have stable and solid stature. He thought that this owes to the fact that the new state building approach, despite rampant rentierism, unlike other states of the Horn of Africa and the old Ethiopian state is creating strong state institutions. This means the current state can be considered strong in terms of the effort to build democratic state and legitimate political rule. Nonetheless, he erroneously associates the history of state building in Ethiopia not with the weakness of government institutions to render the public legitimate rule and progress in enlarging freedom but as weakness to control. To strengthen his point, he misquoted Meles Zenawi that it had been so the case with the Ethiopian state, under the absolutist monarchy of Emperor Menelik and Emperor Haile Selasssie (deWaal, 2015, p. 157). State weakness, meaning a lack of responsiveness and legitimacy inherent to the (unpopular) authoritarian nature of those in power, can be understood. Yet, this should not be mistaken for being weak in effective controlling which had been carried under the grips of iron fit rulers. Stating that past Ethiopian state was weak in effective control is tantamount to denying the authoritarian and absolutist nature of successive governments. If we assume that de Waal meant to say this, then his assertion about current state building would go astray that in the final analyses there is no argument to contend about at all. Accordingly, a lack of effective control critically becomes a case of historical anachronism. Because, stating that a lack of popular sovereignty and responsiveness to the demands of history is one thing, taking the same stance for the absence of a strong state in the sense of lack of effective control, is absolutely another.

Instead of this, Alex de Waal, in his attempt to massage historical fact to fit his rentier-state analysis (as though revolution is all about the immediate episode), clung to the theory of a continuity of state weakness declaring, “the revolution is another crux of the paradox of Ethiopian statehood. Revolution is meaningful only when there is a state apparatus to overrun.” Based on this, he wrongly concluded that it is not apt to name it a revolution(deWaal, 2015, p. 157). As indicated above, the historical anachronism of mistaking state weakness in promoting democratic values and rendering social progress for state weakness in effective control which does not require nothing but being undemocratic has led him to conclude that there was no state worthy of real popular revolution. The self-contradiction of this argument is evident from the reference he made to Meles’s prescription for “hegemonic governance” as a new modality underlying the demand to address popular sovereignty, democracy, and constitutional order and not the power of state control. However, he wrongly argues lack of effective control as the dominant feature of Ethiopian state weakness (deWaal, 2015, p. 157). The logical conclusion of this line of argument to be drawn about the post-Cold War state-building imperative in Ethiopia would be about establishing a strong state, in the sense of effective control of the state, lacking in the past in the eye of the author. Yet, the demands of our time and the imperative for building strong state as underlined by the late Meles Zenawi remains to be giving resolution to the historical paradox. Ethiopian state being strong and at the same time weak; the paradox rooted in the being of the state as an ancient state with longevity of statehood characterized by strength of effective control (its strength in maintaining the freedom of the state not the people) and its limitation on building popular and hegemonic governance (its weakness to enlarge freedom of the people but the state).

Viewed this way, the types of responses to the changes declared and ushered in the post-1991 period by the EPRDF can be understood from historical, ideological, and experiential vantage points. On all dimensions, the post-1991 dynamics can be characterized by the unchartered nature of the political territory EPRDF has cruised through, the strong nostalgic affiliation to the old promoted by its rival forces and comforting bosom of the old tradition that prescribes not venturing on the new experiment. In effect, the desire for the perpetuation of the old than the realization of the unattained being of the Ethiopian state based on popular sovereignty and social progress to enlarge freedom (Endrias, 2003), and the anomalies of the political praxis of the changes afoot to realize this imperative have given cause to challenge the new system on many counts (Young, 1998). Among the major issues around which the discourse on post-1991 Ethiopia continues to rage and which will be fleshed out in the topics covered in this special issue are the following: land, ethnic federalism, development, peace and conflict, secularism, and religion within the ambit of constitutional system of democratic republicanism.

Discourse on post-1991 Ethiopia has covered a range of areas and topics, from apocalyptic narratives (Ottaway, 1994; Gashaw, 1993), the Ethiopian renaissance (EPRDF, 2006), the continuity of unfinished revolution (Abbink, 2015), betrayed revolution (Berhe, 2008), and a continuation of the so-called “Abyssinian dominant state” system in a new fashion(Asafa, 2001; Lencho, 2009). However, meticulous examination of the two extremes of the spectrum (the renaissance narrative of EPRDF and the Balkanization and Lebanonization narrative of the political opposition) shows that both are united in their apocalyptic theme: the former alluding to have transcended the danger, and the latter reiterating an inevitable disintegration. To elaborate the point further, the renaissance narrative of EPRDF is based on the assumption that unless the ethno-national federal experiment and revolutionary democratic developmental state political economy is realized, national disintegration is inevitable. In the most extreme case, this stance is exhibited in the assumption that Ethiopia without EPRDF would face the fate of Somalia. This is further emphasized in the motto of state-controlled TV and radio Network (EBC) which articulates the same theme as, Ke Mebetaten Adega Teshagra Hidasewan Ewune Le Madreg Eyetegach Yalech Hager which means “Ethiopia, a country which has transcended the danger of disintegration and thriving to realize its renaissance!” In essence, the Ethiopian renaissance line-of-argument of the EPRDF is that the system is the universal panacea for Ethiopia’s problems, the rejection of which will signal the disintegration of the state. The late Premier Meles Zenawi’s speech quoted at length below shows the full thread of the argument:

Sometimes, people in Africa feel that they can wish away ethnic difference. Experience in Rwanda has taught us this is not the case. Experience in Liberia has taught us that this is not the case. What we are trying to do in Ethiopia is to recognize that ethnic differences are part of life in Africa, and try to deal with them in a rational manner. Rather than hide the fact that we have ethnic difference, we are saying people should express it freely. That, I think, pre-empts the type of implosion we’ve had in Rwanda. The intent of the Ethiopian approach has been to give greater autonomy to ethnic communities to manage their affairs. (Abdi, 2004)

On the other hand, the polar opposite stance of mainly the political opposition is not the case that it differs in essence, not way away from the same disintegration narrative but only on blame shifting to the current regime; they argue that the EPRDF engineered ethno-national federal experiment that promotes ethnic animosity over time, will take the country and its people into genocidal violence across ethnic lines, a recipe for a Rwandese-type disaster (Ottaway, 1994; Gashaw, 1993). Though variegated political groups are constituted in this perspective, leading among them are intellectual hybrids of the ancient regime, the interlocutors of the Derg regime, as well as some variants of ethno-national politicians, and EPRDF political dissidents. Added to the mix is the emergence of a new generation, influenced by these groups (Young, 1998). Therefore, in their irreconcilable opposition, the two radical stances are dissolved, adhering to the apocalyptic narrative framework that shows more similarity than difference. Central to this is a fear of facing the fate of the Rwandese genocide and the disintegration of Somalia.

Nonetheless, these aforementioned narratives are not devoid of counter arguments, though most of them are overshadowed by the cacophony of the above-discussed two lines of narratives. The counter argument on the other hand, referring to the same Rwandese colonial legacy, alludes to the danger of ethnicization of political life as a precursor of implosion. This sets the example of Rwanda, though different from Ethiopia’s context, as a double-edged argument cutting both ways. Relevant for the discussion at hand is Abebe Zegeye and Maurice Vambe’s critique of Mohammed Mamdani’s argument on the cause of disintegration and the often referred example of the emergence of a genocidal state of Rwanda owing to “[…] the failure of post-colonial ‘communal’ structure of power sharing.” (Abebe Zegeye and Maurice Vambe, 2011). They argued that the problem of ethnicity is to be addressed neither by mere denial, nor by mere recognition per se, but to what use ethnicity can be put. In other words, how ethnicity can be cashed into determines the sharing of tangible and intangible resources. They further elaborate their critique of Mamdani’s dualist analysis of the problem of ethnicity as indigeneity versus cosmopolitanism, modernist, and communitarian struggle as follows:

This is not to deny that ethnicity exists in Africa. Where ethnicity is a factor in postcolonial Africa, as in the case of Rwanda, it has much to do with competitive politics, about who gets what in terms of meagre resources. It is possible to link ethnicity with the fortunes of colonialism in Africa. Ethnicity will be used by groups—the powerful and/or powerless—who are attempting to control the state apparatus and its resources in Africa. (Zegeye and Vambe, 2011, p. 86)

Central to the above argument is whether ethnicity can be a recipe for disaster or a lasting panacea depends on how much development, democratic governance, and constitutional rule it promotes. Inversely, the degree to which ethnicity and the ethno-federal arrangement are less used for parochial and polarized purposes of pursuit of power and resources determines what the uncertain future holds in store for the Ethiopian state and society under the ethno-federal system.

Still relevant to Ethiopia’s contemporary discourse on ethnicity can be the modernist and communitarian struggle raised by Mamdani who confers primacy of rights and culture, respectively. This corresponds to the primacy of individual versus group rights debate in Ethiopia, one which the EPRDF claims to have reconciled by seemingly accommodating both, while the centrist opposition dubbed it an obsession with primordial tribalism. However, as argued by Abebe and Vambe, the matter of controlling state power remains in the realm of real politics and economics, instead of theory and ideology, and ethnicity often yields to instrumental utility. Therefore, the issue of ethnicity should be taken into account without missing the point of addressing development and democracy.

Similarly, Meles did not fail to recognize the fact that “failure to realize development and democracy has resulted in our security being threatened[…] the prospect of disintegration cannot be totally ruled out.” (deWaal, 2015, p. 170)

Therefore, the centrist and ruling extremes can be said to carry some truths only as valuable as the levels of social progress development, democracy, and constitutionalism. It is not the author’s intention to pass judgment but to introduce different perspectives in their respective utility and disutility, coterminous with the political praxis of enlarging freedom. The argument of Meles Zenawi for ethno-federal arrangement as means of safeguarding the state against implosion holds relevance as long as it renders social progress and freedom. Inversely, its disutility emanates as much from the deontological argument and as little from practical problem solving. The same holds true for the rival view, yet this does not by any means allude to extreme pragmatism, as it has no reason to take for granted the soundness of impractical, but tantalizing policies. In short, policies claiming to transcend the historical paradox of the Ethiopian state and limitations of political praxis of the current system before proving their relevance to actual problems, is as good as Utopia. In viewing it in this way, the disadvantaged position of the proponents of the apocalyptic narrative, rooted in failures of the past, should be noted. So should the advantaged position of the regime in power which is able to withstand the promises of policies being automatically rejected, before their implementation.

The centrist critique of EPRDF policy frameworks and their implementation as being bent on serving the goal of disintegrating the Ethiopian state is based on invocation of the limitations of the political praxis as proof of the ill intention of the EPRDF than based on any tangible evidence in its favor. This mainly refers to promises enshrined in and established by the constitutional system which is endlessly invoked. The inability of the federal constitutional system of conflict management, resolution, and transformation, exhibited in the perpetuation, escalation, and mutation of old conflicts, and the sporadic explosion of new ethno-territorial and political violent conflicts, is often taken as a bad omen for ethno-national blood shade (Vaughan, 2003). The extreme form of this view departs from consideration of political praxis and characterizes the spiral of ethno-national violent conflicts to the inherently conflict breeding nature of the federal state system designed for the purpose of divide-and-rule by a minority group.

The combination of political opportunism, continuity of misguided conflict-handling policies and state-centric security concerns, as well as failure to implement the constitutional constellation to its limits, and the interplay of regional and international factors mainly explains the escalation of ethno-national conflicts in post-1991 period than the single reason of EPRDF’s policy (Mu’uz, 2003, p. 36). Issues of self-rule, autonomy, and shared rule at federal level as enshrined in Article 39 of the Federal Constitution is accused of centralized and authoritarian rule of the minority over the majority. The interventionism by the TPLF/EPRDF core by both its front members using democratic centralism, and sympathetic allied regional parties up until 2001, anomalous to the ethno-national, legal, and political pluralist doctrine of the federal experiment, supports the above argument. The escalation of exclusivist particularism, and the lack of democratic practice, constitutionalism, and rule of law, has been fueling the violent escalation of conflict. The regime’s security dilemma in the face of radical rejections and calcifying hatred against everything EPRDF has done also contributed to the unabated conflict dynamic in the post-1991 period (Mu’uz, 2003, p. 41). The centrist opposition block opposes the self-determination provision, while at the same time accuses the regime of re-centralizing the right of self-rule, guaranteed by the constitution, a unique anomaly nurtured by selective memory. Radical ethno-nationalists dreaming to avail themselves of this provision and secede, accuse the regime of imprisoning this basic right, and along with it, ethno-national groups aspiring for a new nation hood (Mu’uz, 2003).

The exact opposite perspective espoused by the Revolutionary Democratic block of EPRDF relentlessly works on making the people believe the certainty of Ethiopian Renaissance, of the absolute inverse of the apocalyptic narrative embodied in State media propaganda (EPRD, 2006). The popular speech of the late Premier Meles Zenawi on the Rise and Rise of Ethiopia, made during the inaugural ceremony of the setting of the corner stone of the symbolic “Great Ethiopia Renaissance Dam” in 2011, stands for the reiteration of the same principle.

The risk of reducing the various discourses on post-1991 Ethiopia to apocalypse versus renaissance notwithstanding, both are neither a totally absurd figment of imagination nor a concrete reality of lived experience of Ethiopian society which pays no homage to any ideology or revolutionary dogma. To understand what the post-1991 period has meant to the average Ethiopian, apocalypse and renaissance have both aspects deserving rational and intellectual appreciation. Tragic as might be the case, the unbridgeable chasm between the two on the one hand, and their respective intransigence on the other, make it implacably painful to recognize their virtues without stepping on a land mine.

In the meantime, the generation of the post-1991 period, has come of age and is either dumped and muted, or compromised by the heavy weight of revolution and anti-revolution, being Ethiopian or anti-Ethiopian, democrat or anti-democrat—mutual accusations with which each accuse the other. The post-1991 era has dimensions of life where revolutionary change has been achieved as there are re-formations and de-formations in other dimensions of life.