Ethiopia: Jihadawi Harekat: Context, Objectives, and Internal Contradictions

Posted On : February 7th, 2013 | Updated On : February 7th, 2013

By Faysal Qassim

“Authoritarian leaders do repeat their tactics, once as tragedy, second as farce,” a modified version of Marx’s assertion in his article The Eighteenth Brumaire.
On February 5, the regime in Ethiopia released a documentary film entitled “Jihadawi Harakat”, which was wrongly put as “Jihadic Wars”(haraka is movement in Arabic). The documentary is not very different from the long list of multiple propaganda wars the ruling party has been running for several years. In fact, this film is a bit unlucky to have come after so many of its predecessors which were already dissected and eviscerated by many an observer. I think if at all some of its predecessors were a tragedy in some ways, I think this specific documentary will surely be regarded by too many people as a farce.

Before I move on to the analysis of some aspects of the documentary, I would like to mention some points about this paper. This paper is not a full-fledged work of academics but a collection of some personal reflections on the documentary film, Jihadawi Harekat (hereafter JH). It is not, further, a work of media critique, but a simple set of political analysis about the context of the film and some thematic insights thereof. Finally, although a plenty of sober evidences can be brought up to effectively falsify the many claims of JH, I chose not to in this paper. I will instead just confine myself to showing some of (not all) the internal problems of the documentary vis-à-vis its objectives, without mentioning any external evidence.

Jihadawi Harekat is a second-rate purportedly horror documentary about the growing threat of Islamism in some parts of Africa. It supposedly shows the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, militancy, and terrorism in the wider African continent, with particular emphasis on East Africa. Obviously, the major spotlight is Ethiopia, which is claimed to have become a hotbed of such threats since recent times. The “Islamist crucible”, it is tried to show, has particularly targeted the historic inter-religious co-existence, the intra-religious unity and the development strides of the country.

The “Islamist crucible” is the major message wanted to be sent out. There is nothing new about this fear-mongering. It has been around for more than a year now, at least ever since the current civil rights movement erupted at Awoliya. This special documentary simply forms part of, but a conspicuous part thereof, the long-running alarm sounds going off from the side of the ruling party. And just like the many previous films of its kind (think of Akeldama as an example), it has many long-term and immediate political reasons behind it. It should just be seen like any propaganda work, something any government might be in need of, especially if it is authoritarian. Please to read the whole article vist the website http://indepthafrica.com/ethiopia-jihadawi-harekat-context-objectives-and-internal-contradictions/