by Mubarak Keder
The relationship between the Ethiopian Muslim community and the
government has always been on a delicate balance reached by a compromise
made by the Muslim community. For the most part, given the
authoritarian rule the country is under, the Muslim community tolerated
the government’s unconstitutional involvement in their religious affair
and institutions. In particular, the Muslim community has, for long
time, been unsettled by the government’s heavy-handed involvement in the
supposedly independent Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council
commonly known as Majlis. Consequently, the Majlis have been as
ineffective in executing the tasks entrusted by the community. However,
it was not this specific circumstance that gave way for the growing
protest in the country that has been going on for more than a year.
Tension between the two start to grow when the government decided to
import followers of Islamic sect from Lebanon, known as Ahbash, on a
bold and ambitious move – that disrupted the long wrestled balance
between the two – to implement a Nationwide plan to introduce and impose
Al Ahbash ideologies, which is completely alien to Ethiopian Muslims.
Al Ahbash, is an organization based in Lebanon, formally known as
Association of Islamic charitable project, which describes itself as a
charitable organization promoting Islamic culture. Despite the group’s
claim, some have hard time understanding the true objective of the
group, one of the reasons for this being the fact that the group was in
the center of the UN probe into the murder of the former Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri, following the UN inquiry naming two of its active
members as key suspects.
In July 2011, the Ethiopian government has aggressively mobilized to
change the country’s Muslim belief for that of ‘Ahbashism’. To this
effect, it launched a nationwide training of imams and Islamic scholars
in Ahbash ideologies side by side with ‘revolutionary democracy’, which
is essentially an indoctrination of EPRDF’s political ideology as the
only and perfect fit to govern the country. Those imams and Islamic
scholars who have either refused to take part in the program or teach it
in their respective mosques have been removed from their mosques
otherwise arrested; mosques and Islamic institutions that turned down
the government’s demand have been closed.
The Muslim community came to find out about the government’s plan
before it hardly take full effect; they understood this to be a grave
aggression against their constitutionally bestowed right to freedom of
religion and action that farther endangered a secular form of
governance, which the government have been insisting on having. So,
started the protest which spread from Awolia and Anwar mosques in Addis
Ababa to different part of the country, and have been growing throughout
it’s more than one year period. The disorganized Muslim community
started to readjust; and the first important advance they made were to
form an arbitration committee of 17 Islamic leaders to negotiate with
the government regarding four issues: “1) respecting the Ethiopian
constitution’s guarantees of religious freedom; 2) ending government
imposition of al-Ahbash on Ethiopian Muslims, while allowing al-Ahbash
to operate equally with other religious communities; 3) re-opening and
returning schools and mosques to their original imams and
administrators; and 4) holding new elections for the EIASC, and having
these elections take place in mosques, rather than in neighborhood
government community centers, to ensure that the community’s selections
would be honored.” as noted on the November 8, 2012 statement released
by the United States commission on international religious freedom (
USCIRF).
However, the negotiation between the government and the arbitration
committee failed to bring any result and the protest continued to grow
in size and frequency. The same month the government arrested all 17
members of the committee along with other hundreds of protesters. Since
July 13, Ethiopian police and security services have harassed,
assaulted, and arbitrarily arrested hundreds of Muslims at Addis Ababa’s
Awalia and Anwar mosques who were protesting government interference in
religious affairs, Human Rights Watch said.
While the protest continued to gain the overwhelming support of the
Muslim population, instead of dealing with the grievance of the people,
the government rather got invested in campaigning to characterize the
movement as a question of the few propagated by ‘extremist elements’ in
the country, belittling the legitimate constitutional demand of the
people. The EPRDF government attempted to justify it’s unconstitutional
action as a measure that needed to be taken to eliminate terrorist cells
– allegedly are trying to establish Islamic state – threatening the
secular form of government. The Muslim community rejected linking the
protest with terrorism as a misrepresentation of the legitimate concerns
raised in a desperate attempt to scare away the support the movement is
gaining. Ironically enough, the protesters demand is, for the
government to uphold the laws that are entrenched in the constitution to
maintain a secular state, on the contrary to that asserted by the
government. This position by the protesters transcended the movement
from being a theological one to that of a struggle to protect
constitutional rights which the government is defying.
The statement issued by the USCIRF backed the protesters’ claim that,
“Since July 2011, the Ethiopian government has sought to force a change
in the sect of Islam practiced nationwide and has punished clergy and
laity who have resisted.” And, when the negotiation between the
committee and the government had failed in July 2011, and as the protest
start to grow, “the Ethiopian government started to crack down on and
intimidate the demonstrators, surrounding them with armed guards and
conducting house-to-house searches.” The report further stated, “The
government also has manipulated the election of the new leaders of the
Ethiopia Islamic Affairs Supreme Council (EIASC). Previously viewed as
an independent body, EIASC is now viewed as a government-controlled
institution. The arrests, terrorism charges and takeover of EIASC
signify a troubling escalation in the government’s attempts to control
Ethiopia’s Muslim community and provide further evidence of a decline in
religious freedom in Ethiopia.”
Regarding those people arrested during the protest the statement issued
by the Amnesty international, on November 2, 2012 rebuked the
government’s allegation, stating “These individuals appear to have been
arrested and charged solely because they exercised their human rights to
freedom of expression and to participate in a peaceful protest
movement.” The report also expressed concern regarding the country’s
vague anti-terrorism law and its application saying, “Since its
introduction in 2009 the excessively broad Anti-Terrorism Proclamation
has predominantly been used to prosecute dissenters and critics of the
government, including journalists and members of political opposition
parties.”
Given the level of very little, if any, freedom of expression in the
country, the protest is being met with great difficulty. The people have
been well aware of the risk in assembling or staging a protest. The
last time the people held a demonstration, in 2005 opposing the ruling
party; more than 200 people got killed. Taking this experience into
account, the Muslim community was forced to come up with a way to avoid
any violent incidents from happening. To this effect, instead of holding
a big mass demonstration in the cities’ squares, the Muslim community
have been holding the protests in separate mosques after the Friday
(Jumah) prayer, where large congregation gather; and to avoid any
circumstance that might give a chance for the police to turn the
peaceful protest into chaos, the protesters come up with an innovative
means to circumvent the challenges that are set and to get their
messages across. The protesters used white and yellow placard and
papers, and hold silent demonstration as a sign of peaceful intention,
and as way of refuting the government’s assertion of the protest as
provocative. Even though holding a mass protest in a single location
might have been effective in putting the spotlight on the issues the
people raised and pressuring the government for a quick measure to deal
with the grievance of the community, however, with the current
political environment in the country it were deemed impractical.
Besides, having the protest in separate smaller group has its own perks:
one of which is the fact the protest have been able to continue for
more than a year, which would have been unattainable as the cost of
continuing the protests would have been impossible to bear and the
movement would have been long suppressed or weakened shortly. The most
important thing for the community have been to keep the movement alive
until their questions are being answered, fortunately enough for the
community, the weekly Friday prayer offered convenient enough platform
to attain this objective. The people were also able to overcome the
challenge of weak communication infrastructure and managed to unify
their voices. Most importantly of all, the protesters have been able to
keep an impeccable record of staying peaceful, despite the provocation,
depriving the government any opportunity to misconstrued the movement as
a violent one and easily squash it.
Throughout the protest, the other main challenge the movement faced
has been the apparent absence of free press, which left protesters to be
a victim of smear campaign by the state media and no independent media
outlet to have an independent investigation and coverage of events.
While the EPRDF government used the state media as a propaganda tool to
portray the protest as violent, terrorist-related and orchestrated by
the few, it has been as much invested in cracking down the few
independent newspapers for covering the protest. Journalists who
published article regarding the protest were imprisoned on charges of
treason and incitement to violence; police, even, raided the printing
company which published the newspapers. “Ethiopia has reached a high
level of harassment of the press by attempting to censor coverage of the
protests,” said CPJ(committee to protect journalists) East Africa
Consultant Tom Rhodes.
International human rights and other related organization have been
fast to condemn the government’s action and call for a rapid judicial
process. While the idea of bringing those arrested swiftly to judicial
authorities and have a due process is sound and reasonable, one
important fact that is being overlooked is the apparent absence of the
rule of law and independent judiciary in the country. In spite of what
is stated in the constitution there is no practical distinction between
the executive and judicial branch of government on the ground, making it
impossible for the people to see the obscure line that differentiate
being charged of a crime to that of being convicted of one. One
manifestation of this is the ‘documentary’ that aired on February 6,
2013 on the state controlled Ethiopian Television, which basically,’
investigated ‘ the allegation , ‘charged’ those suspected and
‘convicted’ them of a crime, all these while court hearing is far from
being half way, and throwing the basic principle of ‘innocent till
proven guilty’ to the side.
while the mark the movement will have on the history of the country
is something to be seen, the course the protest will take and the roll
it will play in the sociopolitical sphere will largely depend on the
level of sociopolitical consciousness the society possess, by which the
people in general, stand to defend the common principles regardless of
the groups being involved. This level of consciousness by which the
general public is well informed about their country’s affair and, as
much importantly, are actively involved in dictating and further
safeguarding the principles and values they want their country to be
governed a complex development to bring given the current sociopolitical
structure in the country. However, the unprecedented persistency and
solidarity the people that have been exhibited by this movement for more
than one year just might be an indication to the changing course.This article has taken from
http://www.dceson.no/news/2013/03/04/ethiopian-muslims-protest-a-rise-of-sociopolitical-consciousness/
Thank you very much for your contribution!
