Self-determination and the Question of National Unity in Ethiopia
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In an article entitled Ethnic Self-Determination or Centripetal Dismemberment of a Nation - Polarity of Incarnate Narratives and Avant-garde Ideology, Costantinos highlighted one of the most controversial article of the Ethiopian Constitution, which is Article 39, that grants unrestricted rights to nations and nationalities to self determination including and upto secession without qualification. It might be initially considered to be a means to legitimising EPRDF's position that endorsed the secession of Eritrea. However, its opponents pointed out a glaring discrepancy between the Article in the Constitution and the actual practice on the ground.
The article linked the root of such pregnant idea to the Ethiopian student movement of the 1960s which propounded the issue of self determination under the banner of "The National Question in Ethiopia".
The author noted that the way the Eritrean problem was resolved was not within the framework of national self-determination as many tried to construct for it as justification. Hence, the crucial questions were not raised in the rush to conform to the latest trend at the time. The article highlighted that the priciple of self-determination served little more than a legitimizing instrument for all that claimed their shares in the armed resistance. For these groups, Eritrean independence had its legitimacy from their shared assumption that Ethiopian unity was deeply flawed under all the previous regimes including the Dergue.
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Harmoni@Critical Reflections (HS-0012)
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The author asserted that ethnic hetrogeneity will not necessarily be an obstacle in the democratic process. Multiparty democracy if it is implemented in the right way might even provide an enduring solution to problem associated with ethnicity.
Costantinos cited some of the various instances in the history of the country that proved the point that Ethiopia as a nation has already built the capacity over the years to transcend the ethno-centrism and narrow linguistic and religious affiliation that now seem to dominate the political landscape.
Among these instances were noted the resilience of the people to fight back foreign invaders such as Mussolini and Said Barree while united under one national flag. This according to the author is the true test of a nation's unity that prevails in the time of adversity.
"The true test of a nation's unity tested in the time of adversity. It is during these times that Ethiopians have shown their unique Ethiopianness despite linguistic differences," writes the author.
The sympathy the Oromiffa speaking Ethiopians showed to their fellow citizens from Amhara and Tigray who were severely affected during the Great African Famine of 1984/1985 was evident in the contribution they made to the Red Cross in terms of food and money. The author also referred to the now infamous ressetlement program during the Dergue regime which he said would not be possible "without the generous guardianship of the Orromiffa speaking Ethiopians to whole families of the Amhara and Tigrayan re-settlers."
Harmoni@Critical Reflections (HS-0012)
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The author highlighted the tendency of revolutionary democrats to regard any opposition to their partisan views of nationality as oposition to popular opinion, and "the work of anti-people elements." One of the limitations of the structural model of revolutionary social democratic political thought and practice he identified is that the State and its institutions of governance define both the problem of democratic change and propose solutions for the them. He also pointed out the difficulty to see how ethnic-based 'democratisation' could lead to the democratisation of the country as a whole. Hence, such issue of democratisation may rather be viewed more as the feature of its ideology than a feature of Ethiopia as a country.
For it is difficult to see how ethnic-based 'democratisation' constitutes the 'democratisation' of Ethiopia. When all that is constitutive of its historic identity and unity is subject to rejection and deconstruction, how does this become a subject of democratic change? This claim of reductionism in approaching national tradition along with the naively rationalist criticism that goes with it, is predicated on the polarity the new political order draws between historically sedimented values, sentiments and symbols of the tradition, on the one hand, and contemporary ideas and projects of self-determination which they are being promoted, on the other. It is based on a dualism of effective history and revolutionary ideology. This polarisation is indefensible in its assumption that the two forms of Ethiopian national experience are mutually exclusive. If we do not accept it, and there may be good reasons for not accepting it, the arguments that the incumbents make on its basis become untenable.
The values, sentiments and the symbols of unity cherished largely but not exclusively by the city elites and the Diaspora have come under attack and become subjects of deconstruction. The impacts of highly ethnicized political order have been felt more in the everyday social and economic life than at ideological level. Ethnocentric nationalism as a "social experiement" remains the cornerstone of the 'democratisation' strategy that goes well beyond simply changing or improving the position and status of 'nationalities' or ethnic groups. It delves into restructuring of the polity as a whole involving radical transformation of the values, traditions and institutions of the Ethiopian state in their historic and contemporary forms. Hence, it is an attempt to deal both with the question of self-determination of nationalities and the vision of national unity based on equality connected with it.
The author underscores the polarity between historical and ideological bases of Ethiopian unity and the need to evaluate the traditional values and assumptions in light of the categories and models of modern, libertarian nationalism in order to correct the limitations of those values. The collective memory and experience should not be a hindrance for present change and development. It is not also helpful to view the relation between historical and ideological bases of Ethiopiannes in stark opposition while limiting the national consciousness entirely to the present.
The author notes that the differences among ethnic communities is highly overemphasized rather than upholding what they share in common as the unifying edifices. The same over emphasis marks "the equally exaggerated, overly-politicised identification of the tradition with oppression of nationalities," as it is reflected in such phrases as 'a prison of nations' used in the student movement to describe the situation in Ethiopia at the time to justify the demand that Ethiopia be 'born again,' and 'born different'.
It would be a mistake, however, to suggest that this damand, along with the highly negative and overly politicised view of the historical process of nation-state formation on which it is based, constitutes the spontaneous response of ethnic communities in Ethiopia to their incorporation into the polity. It is not necessarily democratic or popular. No one entire ethnic community or nationality in Ethiopia has ever been locked in combat with another or with the state in all-out struggle for 'liberation'. The demand can more accurately be seen as a form of 'elite advocacy': a making out of a case by limited groups within different ethnic communities for the radical transformation of the state. It represents political projects undertaken by particular organised movements on behalf of entire 'nations' and 'people' - as much of the discussion and debate around the demand was generated by leftist, specifically Leninist discourse.
This is not to argue simply that the problem of nationalities in Ethiopia was 'created' by the Ethiopian Left. The 'problem' existed long before leftist movements appeared on the Ethiopian political scene. Rather, it is to make the point, often overlooked. The problem arose in the the specific form it did within a particular tradition of political thought, discourse and struggle -- characteristic of the Ethiopian Left, a tradition that was inherited by present day politicians. To extent, ethnic and cultural communities in Ethiopia have sought equality and freedom from forced unity by the state; they have not done so by invoking such global themes as 'self-determination'. These themes constitute a limited form of representation of concrete ethnic interests, concerns, grievances and aspirations through socialist ideological construction. However important these themes are, they do not have monolithic content or absolute form. They are a partial, variable and potentially negotiable political articulation produced by a particular organisation in a specific context of struggle. They need not and should not be invoked by anyone in non-negotiable terms. They represent a contingent, contestable closure on national identity which should not be passed off as flat, indisputable necessity.
Harmoni@Critical Reflections (HS-0012)
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Costantinos remarks that the highly polemical political discourse and combative nature of communication among opposition groups stemmed from Stalinist, centralist and commandist legacy which proved to be usually sensitive but not particularly responsive to criticism of their goals and strategy. Political transition in Ethiopia requires greater openness and variability inclusive of more complex democratic order that cannot be fully represented by any one political group.
Political issues of self-determination inevitably raise problems, which cannot be neatly enslaved within either any one of these ethnic groups or contemporary ideology. While they constitute more or less distinct cultural area, one cannot conclude from this that contemporary national aspirations can be seen in isolation from or in opposition to issues and problems of the historic tradition. They constitute broader national elements, intersections and consequences, forms of the national experience not necessarily incompatible; nor need they be in conflict. Rather, they may be mutually complementary, as would two images of the same terrain portrayed from alternative perspectives. This means that the problems of 'democratisation' need not be defined in terms of individual projects of self-determination or the aggregate of such projects. They can be defined and addressed within a broad-based multi-ethnic political process. The commitment of organisations to progressive ideas of democracy and ethnic quality does not compel them to use the categories of nationalism in a way that devalues and negates the national tradition. Their commitment to democratic change does not necessarily entail a rejection of the ancestral heritage. If the historic nationalism cannot be said to have a core tradition shared by all ethnic groups, neither can it be characterised as entirely lacking in elements that cut across and connect diverse communities.
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Harmoni@Critical Reflections (HS-0012)
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The author, Dr. Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, is professor of Public Policy and Sustainable Institutional Reforms at Addis Ababa University, and he is the author of a number of articles and several books including Unleashing Africa's Resilience: Pan-Africanist Renaissance in a New African Century.
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