Ethiopia: The damages of politicizing ethnicity
By Mubarak Keder
Ethnic diversity has been understood, by some as one of the causes
for slow economic development, poor governance and political instability
in most African countries. Ethnic diversity by itself, however, does
not result in political and economic problems of a country, rather it is
the politicization of ethnicity that will entail these problems. Taking
this into account, after getting their independence, many African
countries work to diffuse the significance of ethnicity in the political
sphere. For this reason, banning ethnic parties and any other identity
based parties in general become a common practice in many sub-saharan
countries around the 1990’s.
On the contrary to this understanding by most African countries, when
TPLF (Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front) took power in 1991, in
Ethiopia, it championed the idea of ethnic based politics. Instead of
transforming the organization to form a national based political party,
they encouraged the formation of ethnic based political parties by
forming a coalition of their own ethnically disintegrated political
parties.
As any ethnic based party in a highly multi ethnic country TPLF
encountered a major setback at the early stage to rule the country, that
was: the constituent of TPLF was not large enough to make up a majority
and establish a government on its own. It overcome this problem ,
effectively, in a way it would be able to form a coalition with other
ethnic groups while maintaining the ethnic groups disunited politically
to prevent cross-ethnic unified opposition. To this effect, it formed a
mere satellite parties in Amhara, Oromia and Southern region to form
EPRDF(Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front).
Keeping ethnic groups separated is a technique to keep opposition
from unifying, adopted from the colonial rule as, example of Kenya,
pointed out by Anke Weber, “the creation of closed and cut off ethnic
units enabled the British colonialists to effectively rule the Kenyan
population without having to fear a united resistance.”
Unfortunately, politicizing ethnicity did not stop at establishing a
government. The country’s federal system is, wholly, defined by ethnic
line rather than regional territories. The ethnic federalism structuring
of the country’s political system is manifested on the House of
Federation, which rather than regional basis as a constituent uses
ethnicity to allocate seats in the house. As a result , the multi ethnic
federal territories of Dire Dawa and Addis Ababa have no representation
in the House of Federation. This division of ethnicities become even
more apparent by the “right for secession” clause included in the
constitution , which fed into ethno nationalism.
As Alem Habtu (Ethnic Federalism in Ethiopia: background, present
conditions and future prospects) well put it, “the constitution of the
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia starts with the words: ‘we the
nations, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia’. This phrase indicates
that all ethnic groups as collectives rather than individual citizens
are, in principle, the authors of the constitution. Thus Ethiopia’s
ethnic federalism is federalism based on ethnic communities as the
constituent units and foundations of the federal state.” He further
noted, “Ethnicity has been emphasized at the risk of undermining the
concept of citizenship. For example, Addis Ababa is a federal city,
official identification requires ethnic identification, although the
latter is irrelevant in a federal city.”
One of the main problems that come with politicizing ethnicity is
that: when opposition groups react to structural inequality towards
their ethnic groups - each of them perceive marginalizing , specially to
their group - they come out as organization which stand for the that
single ethnicity than the national interest.
Generally speaking, political parties adjust their variables in a way
it would optimize vote. In a political system where the ethnic
parameter is inconsequential, parties will have to work on competing
policy proposals for the country in order to appeal to voters.
Therefore, in such cases voters base their decision on the policy that
appeal to them and ultimately the party with better policy plan will get
the most vote. Contrarily, where politicization of ethnicity is
predominant, appealing to the general public using alternative policy
and strategies, is not crucial on optimizing vote. Instead, the parties
simply count on votes from their respective ethnic groups. Due to this
reason, ethnic based political parties are , for the most part,
ineffective in putting forward competing policy proposals for the
country. This in combination have a far reaching effect on the country’s
development and political progress as the parties’ and consequently,
the system’s failure to provide the best among various policy proposals
is going to be directly projected on the countries wide ranging policies
and their implementation.
When we look at the Ethiopian opposition in light of politicization
of ethnicity, they are characterized as fragmented: large in number and
small in size. They are, with a few exception, following the trend of
organizing along ethnic line ; one of the main reason for this being the
cultural and structural inequalities various ethnic groups faced since
the imperial regimes.
Despite their justification to organize in this pattern, ethnic
parties and politicization of ethnicity are viewed as backward and
impediment for a country’s development in a wide spectrum. Moreover, it
is a treat to go forward as a unified country. So, it is the
responsibility of the oppositions to put an end to this trend and make
the change to being politically progressive if they are going to get rid
of the current tyrant rule and lead the country as a just, unified one
nation.
የበረከት ስምኦን እና የሽመልስ ከማል
የጡት ልጆች የሆኑት ሪፖርተር እና አዲስ አድማስ በኢትዮጵያ እየተቀጣጠለ ነው ብሎ ወያኔ የሰጋበትን የሙስሊሞች እንቅስቃሴ
በፕሮፓጋንዳው መስክ በተለየ ሑኔታ እየዘገቡ ህዝቡን እንዲያሳምኑ መመሪያ በማስተላለፍ ለዚህ ጉዳይ የሚሆን በጀት
እንደተመደበላቸው ዉስጥ አዋቂ ምንጮች ለምንሊክ ሳልሳዊ ተናግረዋል::
