Ethiopia is one of the multi-ethnic state in which most of its people speak the language of “Afro-Asiatic family such as Semitic, Cushitic; Oromitic and Nilo-Saharan.” It is one of the world’s oldest nations and is considered to be one of the “cradles of civilization.” The region lies on the Eastern side of Africa. It is situated between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator. It covers the areas of Blue Nile River, and its tributaries as well as a major stretch of the African largest Rift Valley. Hence; the scope of this article will examine the brief history of the nation, its society, politics and political system, human right issues and other challenges.
Ethiopia has always been a Christian state and its relations with the “rising Islamic” nations were very significant and important. The Arab considered Axum on a par with china and the Byzantine Empire as very significant. Although trade between the Islamic Empire had diminished in earliest years, it never stops indicating that Ethiopia continued to hold the respects of the Islamic nations. “The Axum collapsed in about 8th century” and power shifted further south; and the southern expansion, a Christian expansion that continued over the following several centuries.
In many instances, Ethiopia experienced war, coup and the revolution over the past decades but the leaders that had ruled Ethiopia were very few in history of Ethipia. These leaders were the successor Menilik, Emperor Haile Selassie, Mengistu Haile Mariam and the Current Prime (Meles Zenawi) since the unification of Ethiopia regions. During the time “Fascists came to power in Italy,” Fascist’s advocated imperialism so that their nation could rule an empire of Ethiopia. Mussolini “sought African possession as a way of a reviving the glory of ancient Rome.” However, Ethiopia became one of the victims of Italy expansionism. By the late 1900s, Ethiopian had “fought off various incursions” including those of the Italian and Egyptians. The successor Menilik “reunited and expanded the empire to the East, South and West of Ethiopia, taking areas rich of coffee, gold, Ivory and slaves.” Menilik who later died in 1913 was the ruler who began the modernization of Ethiopia, a process that continued under one of the country’s legendary ruler, emperor Haile Sellassie.
Haile Selassie was revered for his courage in fighting against the Italian invasion and conquest of 1935-1941 but after the liberation, Haile Sellassie’s policies didn’t work well. He was compelled to centralize his control and played off the U.S. and U.K against each other so that he can remain in power. In 1954, Eritrea which had been a UN mandate was “federate with Ethiopia” and Haile Sellassie immediately began to dismantle its institutions including the press, trade Union, political parties and the elected parliament; all of which were “anathema to his own highly centralized structure of control.”
When Eritrea became province of Ethiopia in 1962, it signaled the start of “Eritrea’s struggle for independence” which began with a group known as “the Eritrea liberation Front.” The ELF was joined by the Muslims from the lowlands and in the early 1970s a group from highland regions, the Eritrea People’s Liberations Front (EPLF) became involved. From then through present, the history of Ethiopia is unsettled; suffrage the effect of Selassie’s failure to meet the agrarian reform which lead the country to suffer and endured drought, famine and a constant “mutinies in the army and strikes in the civilian sector especially in the Colleges and Universities.”
The Ethiopia revolution of 1974 was an essential one of the spontaneous “outburst of popular anger and despair.” This outburst of revolution “triggered” the sudden uprising of the people and organized it to a popular revolution. First, the provisional military council began to believe that it is an instrumental to launch a revolution, coup and in December of 1974, Ethiopia was declared a socialist state. After the revolution of 1974, a former soldier named Mengistu Haile Mariam “declared himself as Derg’s Chairperson” and set about consolidating his power in 1977 but this led to a various attacks against him and his group. However, the Derg regime’s need was to bring the country, particularly the rebellion in Eritrea under control. As a result, the derg’s regime nationalized the banks and insurance companies and seized control of practically every importance valuable things in the country.
The Derg regime has tried and made an effort to improve the economy by liberalizing the domestic market; it abolished price and control for “goods and services.” It has also reformed the finance sector by “floating the Birr (Ethiopia currency) and put new investment and labor law” in place that are “designed to improve domestic resources mobilization; and bring greater reliance on market force for resource allocation.” However, despite privatizing other institutions, the government has left The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), the largest bank in the country in the private sector, on the basis that the “rural sector is not profitable and would never be served by the private sector.”
In addition, despite the fact that the constitutions grant them equal rights, women are marginalized in the Ethiopian society. The fact within the system illustrated that women and lower class citizens do not participate fully in the political processes. Ethiopia “adopted a new constitution” that established the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in 1995. The Federal government is bicameral parliament with the “council of people representatives, being the highest authority of the federal government while the federal council represents the common interest of the nation nationalities and the people of the states.” Suffrage is the universal, and the council members are elected for five year terms. The federal government “is always responsible for national defense, foreign relations and general policy of common interest and benefits.”
The history of the Ethiopia during the last thirty years indicated that real power is still matter of contention, revolution, coup and struggles persist. Some of the most powerful individuals in the Ethiopia politics have come out of the various liberation movements like any African nations; that is why they are not career politicians, but activists. The current Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, was one that might charitably be called a Military career politician. He joined the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), became the leader of the group and work to “overthrow the Derg regime” headed by Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991. At this time, Meles Zenawi wields a considerable power, but there is a largest opposition groups within the largest society of the Oromo community and in many part of the country against him due to the fact that he had marginalized other ethnic group and centered himself as “ethnic minority dictatorship.”
In 1998, Ethiopia and Eritrea fought on their borders which bring down the economic development in two nations. Ethiopia’s economic was weakened than before, and its citizens face lack of food during the year of fighting in the border and other essential necessities in the region. Most of its citizens left the country to seek for survivors and daily assistance in other regions of Africa. Because the government is ideologically oriented toward socialism at the time, it has tried to consolidate a “peasant political base” and has given priority to rural development. The focus of its development is to raise food production, freeing the population from the fear of famine and the problem of “chronic malnutrition,” but none of the strategies has help the communities despite its effort to reform the economic development.
On the other hand, human rights violation in Ethiopia seems to center largely on women and the poor. Over 70% of all Ethiopia women in rural sector particular in some communities have been subjected to “female genital mutilation,” and the practices remain widespread particularly among the poorer women. Female genital mutilation is a cruel and dangerous practice that often leads to the death of the girl on whom it is practiced. It is a serious human right violation, but the society seems to sanction it and it may take longer time before it’s stamped out. The women relation to “employment and other matters of public importance” as well as their status as political being in Ethiopian society are associated strongly with marriage and motherhood. To a greater degree, women’s lives are embedded in their social, economic and religious contexts. Many of the factors that disadvantage women are problems of poverty and underdevelopment, shared by their communities on the country as whole. Therefore, women were particularly marginalized.
One of the most significant problems was an enormous number of opposition parties. There are four categories of four organizations. These are the “Pan-Ethiopia Nationalist parties, coalitions, and those involved in the army struggle.” Among the later group are the OLF (Oromo Liberation Front) and ONLF (Ogaden Nationalist liberation Front). The fact that some of these parties are organized along ethnic lines, while other attempt to span the country would indicate that these parties are likely to remain ineffective unless they can put aside their differences.
The 2005 and 2009 elections were marred by severe violence, and most of the people were tortured, arrested and even kill during the demonstration when they heard the result of the election. The election procedure was not effective, and it didn’t help because there were over thirty parties involved. The citizens were in doubt that Meles Zenawi group had cheated the election’s result. Although it can be argued that the U.S.A two-party system is not healthy because there are not enough choices, it seems equally obvious that this many parties in most African countries are something of joke and it prevents effective opposition from rising, which in turn blocks the formation of a true democracy.
Ethiopia is an ancient country with too many economic problems. In many ways, it seems to still “stick” in the past. It faces terrible problems, particularly the ongoing waves of famine, war with its bordering nations such as Eritrea, and Somalia but, if the government will start to look at the problem of all its people, and not just to turn things in powerful positions, it can turn thing around and the community as whole may have certain things to live on than strike for change constantly and regularly. NB- You can reach him at peterreat@yahoo.com
Reference
Pankhurst, Richard. The Ethiopia. Vol.16. Malden: Blackwell. 1998
Keller, Edmond J. Revolutionary Ethiopia. 3rd ed. Bloomington: Indiana university press, 1942
Tiruneh, Andegachew. The Ethiopia Revolution: A transformation from an Aristocratic to a totalitarian autocracy. 1st ed. Cambridge university press, 1993
Pnakhurst, Richard. The Ethiopia. Vol.16.Malden: Blackwell, 1998 Negash, Tekeste. Eritrea and Ethiopia. The federal experience. Vol.3. New Jersey. Transaction press, 1997
Markakis, John. National and Class Conflict in the Horn of Africa. African studies series. New York: University press, 1987 www.un.org, www.undp.org
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