A HISTORY OF NATIONALISM IN ETHIOPIA: 1941 TO 2012

TEWODROS HAILEMARIAM GEDLU

A DISSERTATION

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of History

2013

iii

ABSTRACT

A History of Nationalism in Ethiopia: 1941 to 2012

Tewodros Hailemariam

Ph.D. in History

Addis Ababa University, 2013

This dissertation investigates the history of nationalism in Ethiopia since 1941. Based primarily on government archives, newspapers, magazines, student papers and other publications of the period and oral informants, it traces the genesis and evolution of the different conceptions regarding the Ethiopian nation. It also attempts to see how the Imperial, the Military and EPRDF regimes had accommodated the national question. This dissertation argues that in spite of the major ideological and power shifts of the period, Ethiopian nationalism is more widespread and resilient than it was commonly believed. It also underlines that state nationalism could create either an integrative national culture and sentiment or a violent and militant reaction towards the state based on political,

social and economic factors. Nationalism for the historian is of interest not merely as a problem in the history of ideas, but also as an urgent issue in current affairs. Therefore,

this study will be a contribution to the scholarly dialogue on the national question in Ethiopia. The study may also benefit scholars from various disciplines and future researchers on the subject as a starting point. Statesmen, social workers, policy makers may utilize the findings for public benefit. Above all, this study is hoped to assist Ethiopians to understand and arbitrate themselves with their past, and draw useful lessons to fashion their future for the better.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I must begin by admitting that my original interest to investigate the history of nationalism in Ethiopia from every possible angle was too ambitious, to say the least. It

would have been done in conditions of better financial and logistic support, less politicized and suspicious atmosphere, and outside the rigidities of an academic calendar. If I had achieved in this dissertation only a fraction of what I dreamt, the credit goes to many individuals.

First and foremost would be to Professor Bahru Zewde, whom I cannot thank enough for bearing all my irregularities and painstakingly honing my professional standards. I doubt

if I could have handled this without you. Professor James Mccann, I am very grateful to you, not only for saving this project in the first place but also for courageously contributing in a very difficult arrangement. Dear Sirs, I thank you both, respectfully!

I am also grateful to all my informants, named and unnamed, my hosts at various localities and, most of all, to the librarians of the Ethiopian National Archives and

Library Agency, Archives and Legal Deposits sections.

Above all to my family, who were the ultimate bearers of the effects of a faulty education and an ailing economy. My wife Tijo, my daughter Meqdelawit and my son Zeleul: Hurrah, it is over!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pages

ACRONYMS vii

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND TO HISTORIC ETHIOPIA 46

1.1 The Evolution of Historic Ethiopia 47

1.2 The Institutional and Symbolic Elements of the Nation 64

CHAPTER TWO: THE GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF

MODERN ETHIOPIANISM 83

2.1 The Italian Interlude (1936-1941) 89

2.2 The Foundations of Modern Ethiopianism 104

CHAPTER THREE: THE GENESIS OF SOCIAL AND

ETHNIC NATIONALISM 150

3.1 Ethno-National Challenges to the Ethiopian State 160

3.2 The Ethiopian Student Movement and the National Question 169

vi

CHAPTER FOUR: THE ERA OF SOCIALIST NATIONALISM 201

4.1 The Genesis of Socialist Ethiopianism 206

4.2 The Nationalities versus the State 244

CHAPTER FIVE: THE ERA OF ETHNIC NATIONALISM 266

5.1 Ethno-National Empowerment and Redefinition of the

Ethiopian Nation 270

5.2 The Resurgence of Ethiopianism 308

CONCLUSIONS 331

BIBLIOGRAPHY 350

APPENDIX 380

vii

ACRONYMS

AAPO All Amhara Peoples Organization

AEUP All Ethiopians Union Party

AZ Addis Zemen

CUD Coalition for Unity and Democracy

EDP Ethiopians Democratic Party

EPF Ethiopian Patriotic Front

EPLF Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front

EPRDF Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front

EPRP Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party

ESM Ethiopian Student Movement

ESUE Ethiopian Students Union in Europe

ESUNA Ethiopian Students Union in North America

GPNRS Gambella Peoples National Regional State

IES Institute of Ethiopian Studies

JOS Journal of Oromo Studies

MEISON All Ethiopian Socialist Movement

OLF Oromo Liberation Front

ONLF Ogaden National Liberation Front

PMAC Provisional Military Administrative Council

SLM Sidama Liberation Movement

viii

SPNNRS Southern Peoples, Nations and Nationalities Regional State

TGE Transitional Government of Ethiopia

TPLF Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front

UJD Union for Justice and Democracy

USUAA University Students Union of Addis Ababa

WSLF Western Somalia Liberation Front

1

INTRODUCTION

Nationalism is as old as the modern world but it gained an unprecedented momentum

during the 20th century, when it spawned very potent political and social movements,

became a driving force in the fight against colonialism and imperialism, and powered

genuine struggles for freedom and social justice everywhere. The international

community is organized in terms of nation-states and the politics of national interest. The

idea of the nation has become so normative that a person without nationality is a moral

and legal oddity. Almost all wars of the past century have been fought under national and

sub-national banners so that the world has entered the era of identity wars.1

Nationalism is today a maker or breaker of states, an agent of peace, stability and

progress as well as a cause of horrendous bloodshed, destabilization and destruction. The

most damning indictment of nationalism is its role in promoting intolerance, communal

egoism, arrogant patriotism, racist tyranny, and genocide.2 In spite of its checkered

career and to the great dismay of political analysts, however, the 21st century has not yet

proved to be the threshold of the post-national era. On the contrary, [n]ational

movements are regaining popularity, and nations that had once assimilated and

vanished have now reappeared.3

1 This is in contrast to the ideological wars of the Communist period. Susan L. Woodward, The Political

Economy of Ethno-Nationalism in Yugoslavia, in Leon Panitch and Colin Leys (eds), Socialist Register.

Fighting Identities: Race, Religion and Ethno-Nationalism (London: The Merlin Press, 2003), pp.73-92. 2 Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (New Jersey: Princeton University Press,1993 ),p.95.

3 Ibid, p.3. Other analysts such as E.H.Carr, Nationalism and After (1945), pp.36-37, and Eric Hobsbawm,

Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Program, Myth, Reality (Cambridge University Press: 1990/2000),

p.258, have made the very same predictions almost half a century apart. Anthony Smith, Theories of

Nationalism (Great Britain: Camelot Press, 1971).

2

The growth in the international study of nationalism has closely followed the increase in

its relevance in the past century. Though nationalism had begun to draw academic

interest in Europe in the second-half of the 19th century, there was no systematic effort to

understand it as an autonomous phenomenon until the aftermath of the First World War

(1914-1918).4 During the interwar period, the unprecedented intensity, duration and

destructiveness of the Great War directed attention to the investigation of the causes of

war in general. The question why do nations go to war? led to an explicit analysis of

nationalism, which was considered as the major breeder of strife. The first coherent

scholarly works on the subject were written during this turbulent period.

Historians pioneered the field by recognizing nationalisms diversity and by charting its

emergence as an ideological force.5 They constructed spatial, chronological and analytic

typologies and provided models and taxonomies. Philological and conceptual historians

attempted to distill the semantic confusion attending nationalistic rhetoric, conventional

usage and academic discourse. When scholars from other disciplines began to take

serious interest after the 1960s, they criticized the narrowly empiricist approach of

historians and introduced new analytical tools, theories and insights. They conceived

nationalism not only as a doctrine or ideology but also as a social movement with

4 Smith, Theories, p.258. Scott Burchill and Andrew Linklater, Theories of International Relations (St

Martins Press: 1996), pp.5, 6.

5 Credited as the twin founders of the academic study of nationalism, Carlton Hayes and Hans Kohn

defined the general methodology and focus of historians. Kohn argued that a fruitful understanding of

nationalism can be gained from a comparative analysis of its individual and concrete manifestations

through time. Later historians have been as faithful to this dictum as a family business. The very titles of

their erudite books, A Historical Evolution of Nationalism (1931) and The Idea of Nationalism (1944),

respectively emphasize that the basic concern of the historian is understanding of the phenomena as an

Idea in transformation.

3

recognizable relevance to the larger issues of modernization and development.6 Current

theories and methodologies in the study of nationalism reflect the gradual convergence of

the reconstructionist/historicist and the constructionist/sociologist paradigms.7

The history of nationalism in Ethiopia is mediated by internal factors as well as regional

and global trends. The post-Italian period has been a period of soul searching for

Ethiopians, while Ethiopianists and anti-Ethiopian elements subjected the idea of the

nation to all kinds of scrutiny, speculation and propositions. During this period, history

became the main battleground and the handmaiden of embattled nationalism.8 Ethiopia

being among the few African states with claims to an ancient pedigree of nationhood, any

effort to understand the country and its peoples must accord due place to this aspect of its

history. In fact, certainly not as paradox to the above, it is the only post-colonial African

state which faced nationalist claims framed in terms of anti-colonial ideology.9

Over the past half century, Ethiopia has witnessed one of the fiercest and most

destructive civil wars in the world under contending nationalist banners. At the end of

these wars, the country has the unique distinction of being the only African state to be

6 Smith, Theories, p.258. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Balckwell Publishing: 1983/2006),p.xxxi.

7Alan Munslow, Deconstructing History (1997), uses such taxonomy to classify historians into three:

recconstructionists who shun theories and rather try to reconstruct the past in the Rankean tradition;

constructionists who deal with history by means of explanatory framework or overarching theories,

including Marxists; postmodernists who rather scorn both methods and question the very validity of any

historical enquiry beyond the personal level.

8 Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell, 1960/1993), p.137. John Markakis and

Nega Ayele, Class and Revolution in Ethiopia (Addis Ababa: Shama Books, 1978/2006), pp. 99,101,271.

9 Sally Healy, The Changing Idioms of Self-Determination in the Horn of Africa, in I.M.Lewis(ed),

Nationalism and Self-Determination in the Horn of Africa (London: Ithaca Press, 1983), p.102.

4

reengineered by a radical ethnicist approach to the national question.10 The discrepancy

which developed between scholarly views, nationalist claims and common sense

perceptions underlines the significance of the debate about the history and destiny of the

Ethiopian nation. No one can ignore it without serious consequences.

In or outside the academic world, few subjects have been as riddled in irrationality,

skepticism, passion and divisiveness as the national question. Because, as part and parcel

of the overall debate on modernity, nationalism reflects the interests, ideologies and

traditions of stakeholder societies, institutions, classes, affiliations, etc.11 In addition, the

national question has proved to be a notoriously protean subject because nations and

nationalism are historically novel and fluid concepts that are hard to pin down by

permanent and universal criteria. The various criteria so far employed in characterizing

nations and nationalism, such as language, ethnicity and culture are themselves fuzzy,

shifting and ambiguous.12 Generally, the problems in the field spring from the historical

genesis and evolution of the modern state itself; and the impact of prevailing intellectual,

ideological and political trends in each epoch. Therefore, this introduction sets out to plot

10

Aregawi Berhe, A Political History of the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (1975-1991): Revolt, Ideology

and Mobilization in Ethiopia, (Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Oslo, 2007), p.8:"In the history of Ethiopia,

no government other than that led by the TPLF since 1991 stretched ethno-nationalism to such a far-

reaching point, although ethno-national challenges steadily trailed the evolution of the modern Ethiopian

state." Dima Nogoo, Contested Legitimacy: Coercion and the State in Ethiopia, (Ph.D. Dissertation:

University of Tenesse, 2009), pp.164 (fn), also 203, 224:"The revolutionary regime attempted both

cultural and structural assimilation, but the post revolutionary regime seems to have returned to the pre-

revolutionary policies of the ethnically based hierarchical centralization of the state."

11Rosa Luxemberg quoted in Horace B.Davis, Towards a Marxist Theory of Nationalism (New York and

London: Monthly Review Press, 1978), p.4. Ronaldo Munck, The Difficult Dialogue: Marxism and

Nationalism (Zed Books: 1986), p.43.

12Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, pp.viii,5-6. Thomas H. Eriksen, Nationalism and Ethnicity (1993).

Gellner, Nations, p.3. Approaching nationalism from the international relations perspective Carr,

Nationalism, p.11, observed: the vocabulary of this subject is notoriously full of pitfalls.

5

the general theoretical/conceptual framework and the methodology used in the

dissertation by a comprehensive historical account of nationalism as an ideology and

movement; as well as a theoretical and methodological critique of the relevant

scholarship.

The Two Paths of Nationalism: Civic and Ethnic

The modern state as it emerged in late 16th century England differed from earlier human

political associations because of its explicit national character. The nation-state was born

through the coalescence of feudal principalities into territorially defined political units

that later claimed monopoly of power and sovereignty.13 At this initial stage, the state

attempted to make its political and cultural boundaries congruent and, in spite of social,

ethnic and other diversities, it was regarded as a national whole. This characteristic of

homogeneity in diversity14 has become a social norm in most states since. The new

state defined its individuality in terms of the historical and cultural claims of a ruling

class and symbolized its nationhood by the institution of the monarchy. The people were

accorded only symbolic equality and membership to the nation. This is what is termed as

etatism, the idea which aspired to forge a social nation out of a political state.15

13

Webers triple features of the modern state, i.e, defined territory, power monopoly and sovereignty,

did not acknowledge its nationality. Modern states have stubbornly claimed some form of nationality and

demanded this from their subjects. Max Weber, 1921/1928, p.54, quoted in Colin Hay, Michael Lister and

David Marsh (eds), The State. Theories and Issues (Palgrave Macmillan: 2006),p.8. 14

Richard Handler, Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec, in George E., Clifford Marcus and

James Madison (eds), New Directions in Anthropological Writing: History, Poetics, Cultural Criticism (The

University of Wisconsin Press: 1988),pp.6-8. 15

Peter Alter, Nationalism (Great Britain: 1985/1994).

6

If England had been the birthplace of the nation-state, France was the home of its

nationalism. This is because the French Revolution (1789) heralded the era of the mass

nation by upholding popular sovereignty instead of dynastic claims as the basis of

national community. Underlying this fundamental change was 18th century

Enlightenment thinking centered on the concepts of liberty, humanity and universalism

applied within the framework of the nation-state.16 The revolution defined the nation as

the people of a state and for the first time established a necessary connection between the

state as a political unit and the nation as a cultural one and the combination of these

two elements in a single political conception.17

Hitherto the nation-state had been a historical fact, now it became a theory. It was

embodied in the theory of nationalism, which posited as an ideal the identification of

cultural and political communities in a universal system of nation states.18 There is again

a one to one congruence between state and nation though the state, now owned by the

people, consciously and programmatically strived towards forging a national community.

This original ideology of the nation-state was later identified as civic nationalism19 due to

16

Kohn, The Idea,p.455 17

Alfred Cobban, The Nation State and National Self-Determination (London: Collins, 1969), p.35. Carr,

Nationalism, pp.2, 6. Kohn, The Idea, pp.3, 6. 18

Ibid, p.36 19

Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, p.87. The typologies of nationalism vary depending on the

perspectives of scholars. For example, Hechters typologies which coincide with the above two categories

are state-building nationalism and peripheral nationalism respectively, but he also adds irredentist

nationalism and unification nationalism; Michael Hechter, Containing Nationalism (Oxford & New York:

Oxford University Press, 2000). Smith, on the other hand, based on the ethnic origin of nations has

territorial nationalism and ethnic nationalism respectively. Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations

(Oxford: Blackwell, 1986). Andersons typologies are official nationalism and vernacular nationalism

respectively. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

Nationalism (London and New York: Verso, 1983/1991).

7

its emphasis on common citizenship rather than a unique culture or language as the

measure and substance of nationality.20

The above historical development in Western Europe was reflected in the early semantics

of nationalism. Even though the term nation was a derivative of the Latin verb natio,

which in its pristine usage meant place of birth or origin and referred to a group of

people who believe they are ancestrally related,21 it started to gain wider social and

political import with the genesis of the early nation-states in the 16th and 17th centuries.

During this period, notes Carr, the term nation throughout Western Europe was the

most natural word for the state.22 This implied the homogeneous or national character of

the nation-state because, in contrast, the multiethnic empires of Central and Eastern

Europe were referred to by the legal term state. Though the designation nationality

was used for the various linguistic and cultural subjects of these empires, it had no

political significance until the currency of the principle of national self-determination in

the 19th century.

Next to evolve was an organic and ethnic conception of the nation based on the Romantic

Movement23 (late 18th and early 19th century), which defined the nation in biological

20

Kedourie, Nationalism, p.51: A nation, to the French revolutionaries, meant a number of individuals

who have signified their will as to the manner of their government. Cobban, The Nation State, p.159:

The essence of political nationality is the recognition of a single political authority, and common

citizenship... 21

Kohn, The Idea, p.120. Kedourie, Nationalism, p.5. Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism. The Quest for

Understanding (UK: Princeton University Press, 1994), p.94.

22 Carr, Nationalism, p.1. Connor , Ibid,p.94, also notes: It was perhaps from the 17

th century on that

nation came to refer to the entire peoples or citizens of a country. By the end of the 17th

century it was

also employed as a synonym to the territorial state. 23

This was a vast ideological orientation which also exalted the role of intellectuals in society, and made it

imperative for national communities to rediscover their pristine origins and golden ages. John

Hutchinson and Anthony Smith (eds), Nationalism (Oxford University Press: 1994),p.5.

8

terms. As originally articulated by German intellectuals, the nation was a unique natural

community or a natural division of the human race, endowed by god with its own

character.24 Gottfried Herder made the Volk (the people, the community) and its

language the basis of his doctrine and claimed that human civilization lives not in its

general and universal, but in its national and particular manifestation. A group

speaking the same language is known as a nation, and a nation ought to constitute a

state.25 Such ethno-linguistic entities were, therefore, regarded as the sole legitimate

foundations of any social and political association. Now it is not the state which defines

and forges the nation, but the ethnie that must form and constitute a state, an ethno-state,

Volkstaat. What is more, while the state is something artificial and accidental, the ethno-

nation is natural and essential.

This ideology wanted first to divorce the state from the nation and then overtake it, and in

its aspiration to do so made nation and state appear antagonistic. It shifted the concept of

national homogeneity from relatively wider historical and cultural similarities to sharply

specific boundaries of blood, speech and custom.26 The sovereignty of the people was

sidelined by the uniqueness of the people, and the basis of nationality became such

primordial markers rather than territorial and political bonds of citizenship. This

derivative ideology was termed as ethnic or vernacular nationalism due to its emphasis on

24

Kohn, The Idea, p.429. 25

Kohn, The Idea, p.429. Connor, Ethnonationalism, p.9. Goetfried Herder, Nature produces families; the

most natural state therefore is one people(Volk) with a national character... quoted in John Breuilly, The

Sources of Nationalist Ideology, in John Hutchinson and Anthony Smith(eds), Nationalism, p.107.

Kedourie, Nationalism, pp.12-43, 51,62. 26

Clifford Geertz, Primordial and Civic Ties, in Montserrat Guibernau and John Rex (eds), The Ethnicity

Reader. Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration (Great Britain: Polity Press, 1997/1999),pp.29-34.

9

championing the causes of a supposedly unique ethno-linguistic group in the context of a

nation-state. Its tenets were taken up and applied to politics with far-reaching results.

The rival redefinition of the nation as a volk community entitled to its own state brought

in its train semantic confusion regarding the terms 'nation', 'nationality', nation-state and

nationalism. As a result of its politicization, the nation became inextricably linked to

state power and commonly denoted those which have political autonomy or even aspire

for one. Nationalism in this primordialist conception was then loyalty to an ethnic group

and for its emancipation from an overarching state.27 In some cases, the related term

nationality was reserved for self-defined cultural groups which were sufficiently

politicized, though they had not yet achieved their own state. Nationalities were

understood as something of a transition between the cultural and political continuum of

ethnies and nations.28

Since the emergence of ethnic nationalism, the civic nationalism of the old continuous

nations29 has been on the defensive. The rise of separatist and ethnic agitations after the

27

The democratization of the state by the French revolutionaries had resulted in the emergence of self-

determination of the people as a core principle of nationalism. In Central and Eastern Europe, this

developed into a principle of national self-determination which reached its zenith between 1848 and the

Second World War (1939-1945). The emphasis by the proponents of German and Italian nationalism on

the primordial and empirical attributes of the nation and their political success for statehood made ethnic

nationalism very appealing to the disparate peoples in Eastern Europe. In the Balkans it sparked

widespread struggle to achieve 'national' independence or autonomy which set the tone for

contemporary ethno-nationalist movements. 28

Eriksen, Nationalism and Ethnicity, pp.3-4: Ethnic group, a sociological jargon which is used

interchangeably with nationality, particularly in nationalist discourse, had its roots in the Greek word

ethnos or ethnikos referring to a group characterized by common descent. Nevertheless, it was late in

the 1950s that ethnicity was applied to communities which display linguistic and cultural boundaries vis

a vis others. Connor, Ethnonationalism, pp.40,100. Hayes, A Historical Evolution,p.6. 29

According to Hugh Seton-Watson, Nations and States (London: Methuen, 1977), pp.6-10, old

continuous nations are those which had acquired national identity or national consciousness before the

formulation of the doctrine of nationalism. The new nations are those for whom two processes

developed simultaneously: the formation of national consciousness and the creation of nationalist

movements.

10

Second World War (1939-1945) has become the principle of state-creation as a reflection

of three forces: decolonization, revolution and intervention of outside powers. 30

Multiethnic states, alternatively designated as multinational states, continued to exist side

by side reflecting a compromise between the civic and ethnic conceptions of nationalism.

With the expansion of European model nation-states across the globe, nation served as a

blanket term for all sorts of states. All modern states operate on the assumption of being

nation-states and now owe their legitimacy to some version of the national idea though

less than 10% of the world's countries are in any sense ethnically homogeneous.31 The

rest contain two or more ethno-cultural groups. So variegated is the process that nation

stands for any sovereign state, its territory (country), citizens, and specific ethnie. As a

result of this overlap in meaning of terms, both the assertiveness of the state and that of a

group within it have been called nationalism.32

30

Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, p.131. The anti-colonial wars of independence, termed as

nationalist/liberation movements, and the establishment of national states in Africa and Asia, displayed

both the multiethnic and ethnic features of the state. The Cold War era made emerging states internally

weak and seedbeds of revolutions, and externally reliant on the superpowers and malleable to

interventions. Davis, Towards a Marxist, pp.3, 9-26,67. While Marxists generally adopted a negative

definition of the nation as the superstructural reflection of the economic base of capitalism, and

dismissed nationalism as false consciousness, and subordinated the nationalities question to proletarian internationalism, they opportunistically kept the issue alive by embedding ethnicism in the state

structure.

31 Tamir, Liberal Nationalism, p.59.

32 Hayes, A Historical Evolution, p.vii.

11

Theories and Methodologies: Primordialism, Modernism, Ethno-

Symbolism

The historical duality of nations and the evolution of nationalism along the above

trajectory continue to bedevil the field. An underlying assumption in the above narrative

is that states might be as old as history, even a few nations (as human groups) might also

have roots deep in history, but nation-states and nationalisms are modern European

innovations. This has stirred controversies among scholars regarding the nature and

manifestation of nations and nationalism. The first debate is over the characteristics and

dating of nations, what are they made of and whether they are antiquated or modern.

There are three views on the matter: primordialism, modernism and ethno-symbolism.

Primordialism, which is the paradigm first adopted by ethno-nationalists but also includes

some theorists of nationalism, makes blood, speech, custom and kinship the basis of

national identity. Primordialists consider nations as organic, perennial, natural and

universal; some even characterize nations as extended kinships.33 In this view, nations

are intrinsic to human group formation, they can be found everywhere and in any epoch

of history and the emergence of a new nation is, then, often explained as an awakening

of a dormant entity.34 This view is anathema to most social scientists because it consigns

33

Atsuko Ichijo and Gordana Uzelac(eds), When is the Nation? Towards an understanding of theories of

nationalism (London and New York: Routledge,2005), Primordialism: Introduction, pp.51-55. 34

Some primordialists such as Pierre van den Berghe and Edward Shills consider what is primordial as

socially constructed. Steven Grosby, The Primordial, Kinship and Nationality, in Atsuko and Gordana,

When is the Nation? Towards an Understanding of Theories of Nationalism (London and New York:

Routledge, 2005), pp.56-78. Pierre L. van den Berghe, Ethnies and Nations. Genealogy indeed, in Atsuko

and Gordana, When is the Nation? Towards an Understanding of Theories of Nationalism (London and

New York: Routledge, 2005), pp.113-118.

12

nationalism to the inescapable predicament of human nature. Methodologically, it places

nationalism outside the realm of historical investigation.

The modernist or contextualist school sees nations as historical and constructed, and

prefers only economic, political and socio-cultural explanations.35 The Hayes Kohn era,

the period between the two world wars, repudiated the assertions of 19th century scholars

that nations are as old as history. Nations and nationalisms are rather outcomes of a

specific stage of human development, namely that of modern industrial society.

Nationalism is an integrative response to systemic and socio-cultural disturbance in

traditional society caused by modernity. It had little significance in pre-modern times and

contexts because its emergence demands some unique structural and functional features

of modern society. But what aspects of modernity are more important in the emergence

of nations and nationalism: economic, political, or socio-cultural? This constituted the

second level of debate among modernist theorists.

Those who regard the changes in economic and political systems as more important in

engendering nationalism are called system integrationists. The economic view is

represented by Gellner, who considers nationalism to be rooted deeply in the distinctive

structural requirements of industrial society or in the economic logic of capitalism.

Economic factors of system disturbance such as rapid industrialization, urbanization and

technological advances make traditional structures dysfunctional. Such objective and

inescapable imperatives make industrial society mobile, culturally homogenous and

ideologically egalitarian. Nationalism emerges as an external manifestation of a deep

35

Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, p.3.

13

adjustment in the relationship between polity and culture.36 Ethno-nationalist ferment

crops up when unmet egalitarian expectations are compounded with the existence of

separate symbols and diacritical marks between rulers and ruled. The expression of

discontent adopts a cultural aspect by the fact that in industrializing societies

communication and hence culture assumes a new and unprecedented importance.37

While Gellner makes the existence of a centralized state a necessary but not sufficient

condition for the emergence of nationalism, other system integrationists pay more

attention to changes in political structures, such as military and administrative

expansions, centralization of government and a taxation system on the whole clearly

bounded territory of the state.38 A central tenet of this latter view is that nations are mass

phenomena created by the modern state. It is the consolidated and functionally expanded

modern state which shapes the people into common political form and creates nations,

not the other way round.

Socio-cultural integrationists approach the issue from the perspectives of the social and

cultural reintegration of collapsed traditional society. They consider the roles of social

groups and the changes taking place at community level as more important in creating

nationalism. According to Hobsbawm, nations are constructed from above but they

cannot be understood unless viewed from below. Nationalism is important because it

36

Gellner, Nations, p.38 argues that the emergence of nationalism in history is tied to industrialization, the structure of the modern state, and creation of high culture. 37

Ibid,p.72 38

Breuilly, Mann, Nairn, Tilly, Giddens, in different ways, emphasized the modern state as a new kind of

power container which, in its relationship with its subject-citizens and with other states, turned the

people into the nation and the state into a nation-state in conflict with other nation-states.John Breuilly,

in his introduction to Gellners Nations and Nationalism (2006), p. xxxii.

14

performs useful social, cultural and even psychological functions in society. Anderson

maintains that nationalism is embraced not as a self-consciously followed political

ideology, not even as a result of any rational calculation, but as a cultural system with

religious characteristics.39 At a deeper non-material level, nationalism is important in

providing spiritual anchorage to a free-floating modern society. It becomes a substitute

for factors of integration in a disintegrating society. When society fails, the nation

appears as the ultimate guarantee.40 This provision of meaning, cohesion and continuity

to a crumbling religious and social world is what accounts for the emotional appeal of

nationalist ideology.

The socio-cultural integration theory overcomes three major limitations of system

integrationists. First, it attributes the emotional power of nationalist politics to factors

beyond pecuniary interests; nationalism has a psychosocial and ontological function to

perform. Second, it brings in agency to modernist accounts. Societies, groups and classes

are agents which take active part in the ideology and movement rather than being at the

mercy of structural imperatives. At various times in history, the aristocratic classes, the

middle-classes, intellectuals, and finally the masses have been the bearers of the national

idea. Third, and more important, nationalism becomes not an exclusive phenomenon of

39

Anderson, Imagined Communities,pp.5-7: The important question is, however, how and why at a point

in their history people come to imagine themselves as members of a certain nation, and that with such a

passion? Can these be explained by a purely functional or economic reason? Anderson is concerned with

understanding the force and persistence of national identity and sentiment. The fact that people are

willing to die for the nation, he notes, indicates its extraordinary force. 40

Miroslav Hroch quoted in Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, p.175.

15

industrial society, for wherever a system of status and power divisions is based on

nationality, nationalism is likely to flourish.41

Integration, interaction, standardization and homogenization are the key concepts of

modernist theories. 42 There are certain points of convergence among modernists

regarding the emergence of nationalism on the global scene. First, all concede that

nationalism is an adaptive response to the transition from tradition to modernity. Second,

modernists give the state central role in creating nations and nationalism. Third, they also

agree that nationalism has some important social function to perform. Fourth, they

consider the creation of a homogenous national culture as a special feature of modernity.

Modernists do not deny the pre-modern roots of at least some nations but attempt to limit

their accounts to the historical genesis of nationalism than to the significance of pre-

modern nationalities, or rather to the relevance of any such claims for modern nations.43

41

James Kellas, The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity (London: Macmillan, 1991),pp.23,.46.

Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, p.206: The creation in the former Communist states of ethno-

linguistic territorial national administrative units, i.e nations in the modern sense, where none existed

or been thought of... was a theoretical construct of ...intellectuals rather than a primordial aspiration of

any peoples. Cobban, The Nation State, Even dormant nationalities have been aroused to life. 42

Karl Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication. An Inquiry Into the Foundations of Nationality (the

MIT Press:1953/1966),p.91,96,98: It is the range and effectiveness of social communication which serves

as a valuable index to the degree of integration of [a]people[s], to its stage towards becoming a nation.

Effective communication enables a nationality to transcend economic and social differences and stand in

unison for the national ideal. Anderson, Imagined Communities, pp.15,16. Kellas, Politics of Nationalism,

p.45. Among the socio-cultural integrationists the instrumentalist view, which puts the intelligentsia at

the core of nationalist movements, is a powerful explanation. Kedourie, Nationalism, p.136, paying

particular attention to ethnic nationalism, argues that nationalism is not some inarticulate and powerful

feeling which is present always and everywhere; and that neither is it a reflection of particular social and

economic forces. It is rather an intellectual project, a doctrine or an ideological obsession first invented

and disseminated by German intellectuals. Nationalist intellectuals make the excluded and marginalized

youth... a vehicle of mass mobilization around the concept of the nation as a culturally homogenous

community and offer consolation in the struggle for national freedom. The nation then becomes a

community of care and destiny.

43 John Breuilly, Dating the Nation. How Old Is a Nation?, in Atsuko Ichijo and Gordana Uzelac.(eds),

When Is The Nation? Towards an Understanding of Theories of Nationalism (London and New York:

Routledge, 2005),p.15, disputes the validity of national terminology prior to the modern era as applying to

16

They believe that however long the real or ascribed historical continuity between

groups claiming the same name, earlier collectivities cannot be confused with the

modern, essentially class or rather literacy linked, concept of nationalism. 44

Modern nation-states, which are political and secular, seldom claim common ethnicity. In

most cases sheer diversity and size of population preclude that option. In fact, very few

national movements start based on a strong sense of ethnic consciousness.

Modernist theories which attempt to explain social change based on structure and social

institutions are labeled by critics as structuralist or functionalist. According to these

views, new social institutions replace old and dysfunctional ones by establishing

equilibrium mainly at the level of the social system. In such explanation social

institutions themselves are seen as actors of social change. 45 Hence nations and

nationalism become byproducts of broader social processes. Critics who consider some

modernist theories as constructionist or instrumentalist emphasize their so-called

upward conflation, where the changes in social structure are explained by unconstrained

actions of agency...46 Hence the nation is regarded to be a result of agents free will,

anything more than a small fraction of any society. Rather it operates within elite discourses to underpin

narratives of civilizations or to justify conflicting political claims. John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State

(Manchester: Manchester University Press,1993),p.76; any premodern discourse on the idea of the

nation, if it appeared at all, was subordinate to religious and monarchical principles. 44

As Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, p.79, remarks, discerning what concepts of the nation mean to

the mass of the population, beyond the opinions of those educated individuals for whom we have

records, is fraught with problems. It is difficult to penetrate the denseness of the fog which surrounds

questions about the national consciousness of common men and women, especially in the period before

modern nationalism unquestionably became a mass political force. This is a very pertinent concern. The

more so as the problem of paucity of records attains debilitating proportions in Ethiopia, which, though it

boasts thousands of years of literacy, possesses no matching wealth of archives.

45 Atsuko Ichijo and Gordana Uzelac(eds), When Is The Nation? Towards an Understanding of Theories of

Nationalism (London and New York: Routledge, 2005),p.13. 46

Ibid, pp.12-13.

17

interests and agendas. Modernist theories then lack the useful balance between structure

and agency in accounting for social change.

Another critique of modernism questions the very outcomes of social communication.

Michael Hechter challenged that not just commonality but the opposite might as well

result from modernization and increased interaction, especially if it is attended by

regional disparities or perceptions of uneven economic development. Hechter advanced

a theory of internal colonialism in which he argued that increased interaction among

peoples is as decisive in breeding nationalist discontent if coupled with a cultural

division of labor between centre and periphery situations.47 This has been the most

widely embraced theory, especially among ethno-nationalist politicians as well as

academics of the Third World. Nevertheless, the internal colonial model is criticized for

assuming simple centre-periphery polarity across culture, economics and politics.

Peripheral predicaments and politicization emerge out of the incongruity between

cultural, economic and political roles.48 This means, there are instances where economic

deprivation might not produce nationalism, and where economically well-to-do regions

might still exhibit strong nationalist sentiment.

Another school called ethno-symbolism concedes that nations are perennial, and perhaps

universal, but denies their natural origin. This constitutes the third debate on the nature

and manifestation of nations and nationalism. Ethno-symbolists challenge the exclusive

modernity and Westernity of nations, because recent studies have indicated universal

47

Quoted in James Kellas, Politics of Nationalism, pp.39-40.Michael Hechters internal colonialism

model(1966/1975) has since been a favorite slogan of ethnic nationalists all over the world. Hechter

however has later modified his view on the matter. 48

Rokkan and Urwin, quoted in Kellas, Politics of Nationalism, p.41.

18

trends in the formation of states, nations and nation-states both in the West and the Rest.

The idea and vocabulary of the nation have existed in the non-Western world throughout

the previous millennia primarily as a religio-historical association with or without

necessarily implying common political background.49 Anthony Smith argues that though

nationalism as an ideology and movement is a wholly modern phenomenon, the nations it

worked upon or it gave rise to often have pre-modern ethnic roots. Many existing

nation-states have ethnic cores or noticeable dominant groups as bearers of the historic

nation. When such historical and cultural claims have relevance for modern nations,

either as models or raw materials, they may be termed as proto-nations, pre-nations or

ethno-nations, and their binding sentiments as pre-national sentiment or ethnocentrism.50

Nevertheless, both primordialist and modernist theories fail to account for the dualism in

most nationalisms: ethnic as well as civic, secularity as well as religiosity (of tone and

substance), homogeneity as well as diversity, modernity as well as antiquity. By pushing

nations further back in history, ethno-symbolists attempt to overcome the timelessness

and naturalness of the former as well as the narrowly Western and structural-functional

conception of the latter. The basic premise of the historical ethno-symbolic approach is

the centrality of symbolic elements in the formation and persistence of nations and in

analyzing their distinctive characteristics. Methodologically, it attempts to identify the

traditional and pre-modern content of national culture the myths, epics, symbols,

heroes, etc., because they are as valuable to the understanding of the spirit and shape

49

Benyamin Nueberger, State and Nation in African Thought, in John Hutchinson and Anthony Smith

(eds), Nationalism (Oxford University Press: 1994),pp.231-235. 50

Smith, Theories, p.59.

19

of modern nations as any analysis of social institutions and class formation..51 The

ethno-symbolic approach is particularly appropriate in situations where the polity is not

consolidated and rival nationalisms of the state and its ethnic critics draw their

ideological myths and symbols from a certain ethnic past or pasts. It enables us to study

such cultural and social resources of nationalism from both perspectives.

The analysis of cultural elements over la longue duree has certain advantages over other

approaches. Firstly, it enables the treatment of nations distinct from the modern

ideological movement of nationalism. Secondly, it opens the way to the analysis of

(ethnic) past or pasts and the present across different epochs. Thirdly, by blending to

advantage history and sociology, it tells the first-half of the story missing from

modernist accounts of when and how nationalism emerges.52 Ethno-symbolism integrates

the political and cultural dimensions of nationalism in a single framework.

The civic and ethnic conceptions of nationalism are based on the relative emphasis each

place on the political and cultural attributes of nations rather than their exclusive

adherence to either.53 Many scholars have attempted to solve the problem by drawing

51

Anthony Smith, National Identity (USA: University of Nevada Press, 1991),p.20. The ethnie, his term for

predecessors of modern nations designating ethnic groups, has deeper roots in history than we concede.

If so, what is novel about modern nations and nationalism? Not much. With regard to human association

their major role lies in extending and entrenching the meanings and scope of older ethnic concepts and

structures. His methodology is what he called ethno-symbolism or rather historical ethno-symbolism.

Smith argues that nations are not static targets, to be attained once-for-all. They are processes, albeit

long-term ones... and nations require ethnic cores if they are to survive. If they lack one, they must re-

invent one... Anthony Smith, The Genealogy of Nations. An Ethno-Symbolic Approach, in Atsuko Ichijo

and Gordana Uzelac(eds), When Is The Nation? Towards an Understanding of Theories of Nationalism

(London and New York: Routledge, 2005), pp.98, 100-103. 52

Adrian Hastings, The construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism (Cambridge and

New York: Cambridge university press, 1997),p.11.

53 As his critics pointed out Smith fails to explain adequately the manner of transition from ethnicity to

nationalism, and why particular nationalisms vary in their strength or weakness. Anthropologists generally

view nationalism as a variant of ethnicity. Eriksen, Nationalism and Ethnicity, p.101: Nationalism and

20

attention to the conceptual yarn between state and nation, by restricting the one to the

legal-political and the other to the social-cultural realm.54 Though the modern nation-state

claimed to combine these two attributes, its essential characteristics such as defined

territory, power monopoly and sovereignty were considered irrelevant to the concept of

the nation. But this conventional observation overlooks the very fact that nationalism has

always been aimed at making the political and cultural boundaries congruent, and,

historically as well as theoretically, it is no more feasible to keep state and nation apart.

Keeping a distinction between nation and nationality or ethnie, rather than between state

and nation, based on possession or lack of state power, is very important in untangling a

part of the confusion. If nationality is defined in terms of cultural or historical attributes,

then it only becomes nation when it establishes its own state (independent or

autonomous). The equality between nation and state automatically makes the former

political, whatever its cultural claims; it will accommodate both the civic and ethnic

conceptions of nationalism, and reunite nation and state in a single framework. This

means that, even if defined in political terms, states would have nationhood, and nations,

whether composed of one or many nationalities, would have statehood. Citizenship will

then denote political nationality in all kinds of states.

Methodologically, this approach would make all nations modern while giving

nationalities or ethnies more time depth. In addition, it delineates the relationship

ethnicity are kindred concepts, the majority of nationalisms are ethnic in character. But there is no direct

leap from ethnicity to nationalism because the former has a largely cultural content while the latter is

political. For ethno-symbolists, the relationship between ethnicity and nationhood is central.

Nationalism and ethnicism are rather two poles of a continuum, continuity but not identity.p,118. 54

Seton-Watson, quoted in Tamir, Liberal Nationalism, pp.59-60, argued that a state is a legal and

political organization with the power to require obedience and loyalty from its citizens, while a nation is

a community of people, whose members are bound together by a sense of solidarity, a common culture,

and a national consciousness.

21

between the legal-political state and other sub-national units, be they nationalities, ethnic

groups, regions, etc. Nationalism would also be sufficiently extended to include the

integrative ideologies of a state, reformist social groups within it, or the demands of

constituent nationalities couched in both cultural and political terms. This would

overcome a hiatus in the conventional typology of nationalism as official/civic and

ethnic/vernacular, which is impervious to a third alternative outside the two brands. Civic

nationalism must not be exclusively limited to the state as official nationalism; it should

also include the nationalism of non-ethnic or supra-ethnic reformist groups.

The modernist and ethno-symbolist perspectives on nationalism can be synthesized in

that the ideology and movement incorporate political, economic and socio-cultural

dimensions. In the final analysis, whether the state embodied the nation or the nation

possessed the state, nationalism has always been an ideology about empowerment -

political, economic and cultural. It is not the mere existence of heterogeneous groups and

languages which determines the unity or destruction of national development, but more

dynamic processes such as social mobilization, cultural assimilation and political

integration.

This study regards nations and states as synonymous as argued above. The nation-state

unifies the political and cultural aspects as it is based on two kinds of community, a

community of citizenship concerning the relations between citizens and the state

(including political, social, and economic rights and obligations); and a community of

sentiment, meaning a common language and a common cultural and historical identity

22

based on literature, myths, symbols, music, art, and so on.55 Nation may be then defined

as a named and self-defined community whose members cultivate common myths,

memories, symbols and values, possess and disseminate a distinctive public culture,

reside in and identify with a historic homeland, and create and disseminate common laws

and shared customs.56

Hence: nationalism is:

An ideology and movement for the attainment and maintenance of autonomy, unity

and identity on behalf of a population, some of whose members deem it to constitute

an actual or potential nation57.

This perspective is valuable in that it overcomes the prevalent tendency among

nationalists and nationalism theories to associate nationality or ethnie exclusively with

primordialist bonds, mainly to language and linguism. It also combines the historical and

sociological perspectives of nationalism to advantage.

55

Georg Sorenson, The Transformation of the State, in Colin Hay, Michael Lister and David Marsh(eds),

The State. Theories and Issues (Palgrave Macmillan:2006),p.196. Carlton Hayes, Nationalism: a Religion

(1960), p.3, gives precedence to language as it bespeaks both the solidarity and continuity of a people.

Second is historical traditions which constitute a nationality and distinguish it from others even within the

same linguistic area. For Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood, pp.2-5, the most important

factor for the development of nationhood from one or more ethnicities is an extensively used vernacular

literature. For Hroch the three irreplaceable factors in nation-building process are a memory of some

common past, a density of linguistic or cultural ties, and a conception of equality of all members. Miroslav

Hroch, From National Movement to the Fully-formed Nation: The Nation-building Process in Europe, in

Balakrishan Gopal(ed), Mapping the Nation (New York and London: Verso, 1996), pp.78-97. 56

Smith, Genealogy of Nations, p.98. Connor, Ethnonationalism, p.4, also accords primacy to the self-

identification of a people with a group its past, its present, and, what is most important, its destiny.

Hroch, Ibid, p.79.

57 Gellner, Nations, p.1. Smith, Theories,p.171. Also Smith, Chosen Peoples (2003),pp.24-25 .

23

An Integrated Conceptual Framework

One serious gap in Ethiopian scholarship is perhaps the lack of an imaginative framework

which addresses the antiquity as well as modernity, unity as well as diversity, uniqueness

as well as commonality of the nation. In spite of its tangential relevance, Ethiopian

history has been treated within the colonial and post-colonial paradigm.58 A review of

the literature on Ethiopian nationalism indicates two major methodological trends,

reconstructionist and constructionist, which are also observed between historians and

other social scientists. Generally, in the good old reconstructionist tradition, most

historians have so far avoided the acknowledgement, if not the use, of any explanatory or

theoretical frameworks in writing the history of Ethiopia.59

58

Edmond Keller, Ethiopia: Revolution, class and the National Question, African Affairs?, Pp. 519-549, is

premised on a question begging proposition and stretches colonialism and imperialism to the almost

meaninglessly universal. Colonialism in the sense of one people dominating another is as old as human

society and this has no relationship with a historical context of Western colonialism and imperialism, to

which he refers as the colonial era. See for a similar argument Ezkel Gebissa, The Lesser of Two Evils

Paradigm of Colonial Rule: A Comparative Study of Colonialism in the Sudan and Ethiopia, JOS, VIII,

1&2(2001), pp. 1-34. Of the very few attempts to address the issue, that of Donald Levine and Teshale

Tibebu are outstanding. Ethnic nationalists, who often write from a predetermined ideological

positioning, have capitalized on this predicament and labor to justify the view that the country is no

different from other African nations whatsoever. This seems a self-defeating logic since they are at the

same time depicting Ethiopia as a unique African colonialist power. Christopher Clapham, Ethiopia and

the Challenge of Diversity, Africa Insight, 34(1), (2004), p.53: "The new system likewise dismisses the

experience of Ethiopian nationalism as mere Amhara chauvinism, and denies a place in the political

order for those who wish to identify themselves simply as Ethiopians a fact that is all the more peculiar

in that Ethiopia, despite the undoubted inequalities embedded in its historic political structure, does

indeed retain reservoirs of nationalism that have deep historic roots, and cannot be dismissed merely as

the preserve of a single group."

59

Alan Munslow, Deconstructing History (1997), uses such taxonomy to classify historians into three:

reconstructionists refers to historians who shun covering theories and rather try to reconstruct the past

based on empirical evidence in the Rankean tradition; constructionists are, including Marxists, those

who deal with history by means of explanatory frameworks or overarching theories; deconstructionists

or postmodernists are those who rather scorn both methods, and question the very validity of any

historical enquiry beyond the personal level. Most historians fall in between the two major trends,

reconstructionist and constructionist, while the postmodernist approach is rejected by many as

inappropriate for the Third World, which, according to the Subaltern school, did not yet transcend

modernity. For instance, the conventional demarcation for the birth of modern Ethiopia, which is the

24

Academic concern with Ethiopian nationalism was coterminous with the national revival

and reunification efforts of the 19th century. The initial phase was a continuation of the

fascination with which medieval travelers, philologists, Semiticist scholars saw the

biblical antiquity of Ethiopia.60 Ethiopian scholars also continued the mythology and

history in the hagiographic and chronicle writing tradition of the historic nation. Amharic

came of age as a national official and literary language mainly through the history writing

of the clerical scholarship. Narrative, chronological and genealogical histories were the

literary genre at this stage. When the earliest popular histories by Ethiopian writers began

to appear at the turn of the 20th century, their themes were ideologically allied to the

nation-building efforts of the modernizing state. 61 Italian scholarship during the

occupation period (1936-1941) outlined the future battle lines by shifting the emphasis

from the state to the peoples, from the nation to the ethnic groups, from politics to

cultures, from unity to diversity.62 Modernity and modern education in the post-Italian

period ushered in a more scholarly work on the history of the nation. With the expansion

of higher education and training of a new generation of Ethiopian scholars, boosted by

coronation of Emperor Tewodros II(1855), has an underlying modernist assumption of state consolidation,

expansion and continuity. Even ethno-nationalists like Tesema Taa(1986), Merara Gudina(2003), and

Negaso Gidada, YeNegaso Menged(Addis Ababa: 2004 EC), trace the roots of ethnic oppression to this

king. Surprisingly, Merara bases his claim on a letter of Emperor Tewodros, which has a single ethno-

stereotypic word and fails to distinguish between ethnicism and nationalism. Aregawi, A Political

History, p.1, pushes a little back the politicization of ethnicity in modern Ethiopia at least from the so-

called Era of the Princes.

60Merid Wolde-Aregay, Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom, 1508-1708. With Special

Reference to the Galla Migrations and their Consequences, (Ph.D. Dissertation: SOAS, 1971), p.19:"For

most contemporary Europeans who wrote on Ethiopia it was still the country of the Prester John. As the

legendary king was believed to have under him many kings, princes and dukes, Ethiopia was shaped to fit

the legend by being divided into several kingdoms, principalities and dukedoms." 61

Taye (Aleqa), YeEtyopia Hizb Tarik (Addis Ababa: St.George Press, 1914E.C). Hiruy Wolde-

Silassie(Bilaten Getta), Ye Etyopia Tarik KeNegist Saba Iske Talaqu YeAdwa Dil (Addis Ababa: Central

Printing Press,1999E.C). Tekle-Tsadiq Mekuria series from 1933 onwards. 62

Conti-Rossini and Enrico Cerulli notably.

25

the international experience of scholarship students, came an ideological heresy regarding

the history and destiny of the Ethiopian nation. The Ethiopian Student Movement (ESM)

and the subsequent revolution completed and stamped this generational as well as ethno-

national conception of Ethiopian nationalism. With the fall of the ancien regime, intra-

generational ideological battles solidified among factions within a MarxistLeninist

universe. This phase witnessed the maturity of nationalist discourse along center

periphery, or coreperiphery, oppressoroppressed, northsouth dichotomies. 63

Academically, the trends were captured by the likewise antithetical paradigms of Greater

EthiopiaAbyssinian Core schools.

The modernist and ethno-symbolic approaches have respective merits in explaining the

history of nationalism in Ethiopia. The modernist focus on the role of the state is an

appropriate starting point in delineating nationalist phenomena both in the industrialized

and non-industrialized world. The delimitation of the study period is based on the

transformation of the state from a proto-nationalist to a nationalist phase as evidenced in

the structure and character of the government, the condition of the economy, and the

emergence of new socio-cultural forces. State consolidation and functional expansion is

the critical moment for the genesis of nationalism, because the state has a very powerful

role in defining and redefining what ethnic or nationality boundaries are. It is the state

which primarily establishes the framework for ethnic and nationality issues.64

63

Andargachew Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Revolution: 1974-1987. A Transformation from an Aristocratic to a

Totalitarian Autocracy (Cambridge University Press:1993/1995),pp. 180-181. Aregawi, A Political

History, pp.192-193. 64

Pierre L.Van den Berghe, Ethnies and Nations: a Genealogy Indeed, in Atsuko Ichijo & Gordana

Uzelac, When is the Nation? Towards an Understanding of Theories of Nationalism (London and New York:

Routledge, 2005) ,p.121.

26

The integrationist views can be profitably combined to balance the two poles of the

nationalist phenomena: official or state-based nationalism from above and its impacts

on social groups below. Official nationalism operates through the fear of ethnic

nationalisms as threats to state integrity.65 Thus at the heart of the history and politics of

nationalism resides a tension between the states concern for political stability and the

centrifugal quest for group-differentiated rights. The pattern of contact between the

central government and the peripheral cultures determines group formation. Therefore,

the state and its nationalism as expressed in official ideologies, institutions, policies and

legal provisions will be one major concern of this study.

Nationalities or ethnic groups are not, however, passive receptacles of everything from

above. As ethnic and social nationalists emerge as critics of the status quo, the study of

nationalism will remain incomplete without the study of opposition movements and

groups. The reason why ethnic communities should be among the basic social units on

which any analysis of nationalism is anchored is due to the profound interrelation and

continuity, though not identity, between nationalism and ethnicism.66 The ethnie is a

mediate social category between the individual and the state which has a direct relevance

to the issue of nationalism. In polyethnic societies such as Ethiopia, the manner people

perceive their communal identity and destiny has a bearing on the conception of the

larger national community.

In addition, ethnic groups have come to attain increasing significance as ultimate units of

differentiation and rivalry, whether expressed in political or cultural terms, particularly so 65

Kellas, Politics of Nationalism,p.53. 66

Smith, National Identity, p.40. Smith, The Genealogy of Nations,p.99. Liah Greenfield, Nationalism:

Five Roads to Modernity (USA: Harvard University Press, 1992).

27

in recent Ethiopian history.67 They are the foci over which official nationalism and

ethnic nationalism converge in the battle to win the hearts and minds of the people. In

this struggle both the state and the intellectuals of ethnic groups regenerate and invent

national and sub-national ideologies, traditions, ceremonies and symbolisms. 68

Methodologically, the fact that ethnic groups are relatively durable than other social

categories such as class, denominational, professional and ideological associations makes

possible the analysis of change and continuity over longer periods. It also enables one to

assess and use the peoples own sources and their self-perception in the context of the

wider world and in time.

Originally, this study had set out to take five ethnic communities with varying patterns of

relations to the central government and various degrees of ethno-nationalist expressions:

Rayana Azebo (Tigray), Awi-Agew(Amhara), Sidama (Southern Nations, Nationalities

and Peoples Region), Oromo(Wollega, Oromia), and Anywaa(Gambella). This was

intended to provide the regional dynamic and analyze transformations from below,

particularly cultural and political expressions of identity - naming, symbolism,

ceremonies, institutions, mythologies, etc - in the selected areas. Two major factors have

limited the scope of investigation in the regions: the partial or total destruction of the pre-

1991 archives and the severe financial and logistics constraints of the project. As a result,

except for GPNRS (Anywaa) and to some extent the ANRS (Awi-Agew), the major

source for the remaining groups is the former Ministry of Interior archives in the National

Archives and Library Agency. In one respect, regional and national archives replicate

each other and both reflect official views which could be used alternatively without 67

Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism,p.178. 68

Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: 1983/2000).

28

significant gaps in the study. Nevertheless, it has to be acknowledged that the attempt to

supplement the study with extensive primary sources, such as newspapers, of the period

could not entirely overcome the national orientation of the dissertation.

The civicterritorial state does not define its relations exclusively with ethnic groups,

unless/even if it is ethnically structured. This unavoidable statecitizen interaction brings

into picture another aspect of nationalism, generational or ideological, especially

conceived in terms of reforming the state rather than destroying or dismembering it. This

supra-ethnic social nationalism is missing form most accounts of Ethiopian nationalism,

which either ignore it altogether or subsume it under official nationalism of the state.69

This study adopts the concept of social nationalism as distinct from the official/civic

nationalism of the state as well as the ethnic/vernacular nationalism of particular ethno-

linguistic groups. It is intended to emphasize the socially inclusive characteristics of

nationalist ideologies and movements in Ethiopia between the two extremes, the state and

the ethnie.70

The ESM started as a reformist generational critique of the ancien regime but its

moderate position was lost in the overbearing radicalism of the late 1960s and early

1970s and its original social nationalism remained in low key. The cardinal question of

the movement was the national question framed as a Marxist problematic and captured

in the terse query who is an Ethiopian? This is essentially a sociological question,

which is intertwined with a more historical question of when was Ethiopia? The

69

Merara Gudina, Competing Ethnic Nationalisms in Ethiopia and the Quest for Democracy (2003), for

example is confused how to account for what he calls the South and the Ethiopian Left in his faulty

scheme of contending ethnic nationalisms in Ethiopia. 70

Adopted from James Kellas excellent book, The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity (London:

Macmillan,1991).

29

answers may be categorized into two broad antithetical camps: Ethiopia always was and

Ethiopia never was.71 The ambiguity about the concept of the nation, or more precisely,

who belongs to it and when did it emerge means that it is always hostage to conflicting

interpretations as this dissertation attempts to show.

Even though the Marxist generation (The Generation) was consciously anti-historical,

thus ahistorical and un-Marxist, the attitude towards the nationalities question was

ultimately decided by the political fortunes of contending groups at every stage of the

struggle. It is only partly true that the defeat and disarray of the multiethnic cosmopolitan

left constituted the defeat of Ethiopiansim.72 In the heat of the ideological and military

battles between the Derg regime and sundry ethnic liberation movements, even the very

idea of historic Ethiopia was readily rejected by the latter in preference to the more

bizarre and derogatory appellation Abyssinia. The seemingly innocuous nomenclature,

which now permeates the literature, has, however, its consequence particularly in

obfuscating the understanding of the phenomena of nationalism. That the very term

Abyssinia was at best the result of European misunderstanding or, at worst, a deliberate

ploy by the colonial mindset intended to underscore the ethnic cleavages hardly needs a 71

Yonas Admasu, Narrating Ethiopia: A Panorama of the National Imaginary (University of

California:1995), p.5, quoting Gwyn Williams on the illusiveness of the concept of the nation wrote: To

the question when was Wales, it is possible to return several answers. One could say, with a measure of

truth within narrow limits, that Wales never was. It is equally possible to say, with equal truth within

equally narrow limits, that Wales always was. The antiquity versus invention debate has similarly given

rise to widely divergent chronology of Ethiopian nationhood, from those like Sisai Ibssa, Tesema Taa and

Dimma Nagoo who demarcate Ethiopias origin to the post-WWII international recognition of its name

instead of the previously preferred Abyssinia, through those like Edmond Keller who make it no more

than a century old nation, to the traditional 3,000 years, and even to the likes of Lapiso Delebo who push

it back to 10,000 years and in extreme cases as far as Luci! Keller, Ethiopia:Revolution, p.524. Dimma,

Contested Legitimacy, p.100. Tim Carmichael, Approaching Ethiopian History: Addis Ababa and Local

Governance in Harar,ca 1900 to 1950, (Ph.D. Dissertation: Michigan State University,2001), p.7. 72

The mushrooming of national liberation movements in Ethiopia is regarded by some as a direct

consequence of the defeat of the Revolution. Assafa Endeshaw, ETHIOPIA: Perspectives for Change and

Renewal (Singapore: Seng Lee Press,2002), p.39.

30

reminder.73 The Abyssinian thesis has been effectively used to deny the pre-modern

history and continuity of Ethiopia.

Ethiopian nationalists and scholars seem to have roles in the ethncization of the nation

by unquestioningly adopting the term. This is too surprising since no Ethiopian of

whatever station of life ever called his country Abyssinia or himself and his people

Abyssinian as far as historical records go, at least prior to the 20th century.74 The

hegemonic ideological and military battles of the past half-century resulted in standing

fissures among Ethiopian scholars and politicians over the nature and manifestation of

nationalism and its place in the countrys history. Nevertheless, on the main point of

divergence, that is, on the national identity of the Ethiopian polity and the appropriate

scholarly approach towards it, two main trends which parallel the civicethnic typologies

of nationalism theories are observed.

73

The denial of the very self-name of the country Ethiopia, or the stubborn and often racist preference

for Abyssinia, has been a carryover from that tradition of Orientalist-Semiticist scholarship. Ethiopians

have been consistently against Habasha(Arabic) or its corruption Abyssinia as early as the medieval

period. Michael Geddes, The Church History of Ethiopia (London: 1696), p.113, relates an interesting

incident: Tsega Zab asserts that "...Neither is he[the King] ever called , as Matthew falsly[sic] reported,

Emperor of the Habassins, but of the Ethiopians; for he[Mattehw] being an Armenian did not thoroughly

understand our affairs, and least of all those relating to our Faith..." The appellation Habesha was

popularized in Ethiopia only in the post-Italian period. Aregawi, A Political History, p.245, however,

curiously mentions that besides Ethiopians another common name that includes many of the people in

the central north of Ethiopia is Habesha, and elderly Eritreans, along with their kin to the south, are

often proud to be called Habesha." Dimma, Contested Legitimacy, p.100fn:'Ethiopia has been known as

Abyssinia (Habash in Arabic) until it adopted the name Ethiopia after the Second World War, though the

name Ethiopia existed in religious texts, as it is also mentioned in the Bible. Popular Arabic references to

Ethiopia still use the name Habash." This is a willful blunder since the name Ethiopia was used by its

people since at least the 11th

century, and alternately with Abyssinia by outsiders perhaps a little later

than this.

74Sven Rubenson (ed.), Acta Aethiopica, vols. I, Correspondences and Treaties: 1800-1854(Addis Ababa:

AAU Press, 1987); II, Tewodros and His Contemporaries: 1855-1868(Addis Ababa: AAU Press, 1994); III,

Internal Rivalries and Foreign Threats(Addis Ababa: AAU Press, 2000).

31

What may be termed as the Greater Ethiopia paradigm is the earlier trend which might

be ideologically traced to the initiation of national revival and reunification efforts of the

19th century. It underscores the civicterritorial conception of the nation and its historic

continuity.75 The point of departure for this approach is the recognition that within the

geopolitical unit termed Ethiopia different peoples have been coexisting in various

degrees of interaction and isolation.76 For Levine, Ethiopia is not yet a full-fledged

nation. It is rather an evolving system, a multinational polity with some coherence or

unity. Hence full understanding can be gained by approaching the matter from the

perspective of individualities as well as interactions with other groups and peoples.77 The

Greater Ethiopia view adopts a dynamic and multilinear conception of history with very

important implications for the treatment of the history of nationalism in Ethiopia. By

integrating history with social theory it broadens the scope of investigation, enables us to

see changes and continuities and the interplay among diverse factors over a long period.

75

It must be underscored that, in spite of the often misconstrued adjective Greater, this view does not

advocate Ethiopian greatness and all scholars who consider the country as some form of unified entity,

at least conceptually, do not subscribe to identical propositions regarding the characteristics of the unit

and its political and historical import. Cf. Mohammed Hassen, The Oromo of Ethiopia (Trenton, NJ: 1994).

John Markakis, National and Class Conflict in the Horn of Africa (Cambridge University Press: 1987). Addis

Hiwet, Ethiopia: From Autocracy to Revolution (London:1975). Mandi Ottaway, Ethiopia: Empire in

Revolution(New York: African Publishing, 1978). Getahun Delebo, Emperor Meneliks Ethiopia 1865-

1916: National Unification or Amhara Communal Domination,(PhD Dissertation: Howard University,

1974).

76 This view was popularized by Donald Levine (1974) who attempted to overcome the limitations of the

three major approaches in the study of Ethiopian history the Semitic past, the ethnographic present, and

the modernist future. By combining the Parsonian theory of total societies and the theory of social

evolution with a good deal of historical data he attempted to reconstruct the image of Ethiopia as a

complex sociocultural system that has evolved through determinate stages(p:25). Levines work still remains unsurpassed both in terms of theory and insights. 77

Mohammed Hassen, The Oromo of Ethiopia (1994),p.4, for instance, discredits the theory of a pure

Oromo tribe derived from a single founding father He maintains that the history of the Oromo people is

not a mechanical and unilinear compilation of the story of disparate tribes which had been taking place in

absolute seclusion. What is more, the Oromo are not exogenous but one of the indigenous peoples of

Ethiopia(p:xiii). Teshale Tibebu,The Making of Modern Ethiopia:1896-1974 (The Red Sea Press:1995),p.xi.

32

The second school is what may be termed as the Abyssinian Core paradigm, which

emerged as a critique to the state and the traditional conception of the nation. Writers

under this category are even less unified in their subscription to the Abyssinian Core

thesis.78 Mainly represented by ethno-nationalists, this view approaches the history of

modern Ethiopia and its nationalism from an ethnically-specific vantage point.

Abyssinia, which is the main concept of analysis of nationalism, has been conceived in

its discontinuity, mutation, or separateness from modern Ethiopia. 79 This paradigm

generally calls attention towards certain ethno-cultural and historical factors in

characterizing the state and attempts to reflect peripheral perspectives in the study of

nationalism in Ethiopia. 80 By employing historical ethno-symbolism, this study

endeavors to show that the attempt to present Ethiopia as a self-serving ethnic project is

at variance with history, theory and empirical facts. It argues that though ethnicity and

ethnic groups are the normal makeup of the country, the Ethiopian nation or appropriately

rendered as Bihere Etyopia has from its inception been a supra-ethnic ideal.

78

The view was first popularized by Edward Ullendorf from what Teshale terms as the Orientalist

Semiticist school (p.xii) or Levines Semiticist school (1974). 79

For Gebru Tareke (1991),p.206, modern Ethiopia is not the successor state of Christian Abyssinia

because the former is an Amhara dominated state. Furthermore, Amhara Ethiopia is an empire-state

while Christian Abyssinia is a Christian nation. There is, therefore, a discontinuity in the genealogy of

the state since Menelik IIs assumption of power. For Adhana Haile, Mutation of Statehood and

Contemporary Politics, in Abebe Zegeye and Siegfried Pausewang(eds), Ethiopia in Change: Peasantry,

Nationalism and Democracy (London: British Academic press, 1994),p25, the change is rather the

mutation of Ethiopian statehood due to the subjugation and denationalization of the historic state-

nation by Menelik towards an empire-state, with northern Shawa alone occupying the status of state-

nationhood.. In other words, all the predicaments of nationalism in contemporary Ethiopia have their

genesis since 1889.

80 The most prolific advocate of this view is what may be conveniently termed as the colonial school.

Disproportionately represented by hardliner Oromo nationalists and a few expatriate scholars, this view

argues that modern Ethiopia is an invention of the Abyssinian core or specifically the Amhara-Tigre

coalition, and that Ethiopians/ Abyssinians and other Southern peoples have always been separate

historically, politically, and culturally. It follows that these two entities must be treated distinctly.

33

Works produced by scholars with an ethno-nationalist bent are mostly primordialist,

propagandist and outward looking, written as a counter-discourse to a real or imagined

insult. There is either too exclusive concentration on the state or the alleged dominant

group in accounting for the entire predicament of nationali