| Review of: | Ethnic Federalism: The Ethiopian Experience in Comparative Perspective edited by David Turton |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Abdi Ismail Samatar |
| Reviewed in: | Nations and Nationalism |
| Date accepted online: | 02/11/2007 |
| Published in print: | Volume 13, Issue 2, Pages 341-367 |
Book Reviews
Ethiopia's reconstitution into an ethnic federation in 1991 marked a new political watershed in post-colonial Africa. African governments have consistently considered ethnicity and tribalism as colonial instruments which were used to facilitate European rule and undermine political cohesion of African communities. The liberation of the continent's last European colonial outpost, South Africa, and the ANC government's decision to reject apartheid's sectarian project reinforced Africa's opposition to ethnic politics. In contrast, the EPRDF regime in Addis Ababa marched to a different melody and argued that the only way to sustain multi-ethnic Ethiopia as one country was to formally and politically empower ethnic groups by transforming the country into a federation of ethnic states. Although Ethiopianist scholars have debated this matter, the ethnic experiment has not attracted significant attention from other Africanists.
The aim of the book is to examine Ethiopia's ethnic federalism in contrast to other federations.
Chapter 5 is a sophisticated analysis of the disjuncture between constitutional theory and practice of Ethiopian federalism, and evaluates whether the system has the institutional capacity to accommodate diversity. One of the keys findings of the chapter is the absence of federal institutions that are independent of the governing party and which can adjudicate constitutional division of powers between the centre and regions. Other contributors reinforce this point and go further to suggest that the dearth of such organs may ultimately undo the federation. The creators of the new order assumed congruence between ethnicity and language and set no official policy to guide the use of local languages in the regions. Chapter 6 is an appraisal of this assumption and looks into local people's attitudes towards the use of local languages, and how local reality diverges from the mindset of federal authorities. The essay also narrates the arguments for and against the adoption of local languages. This is a complex issue and the author is unable to produce a synthesis that minds the wide diversity of languages and the need for a national language.
Chapter 7 is a fine analysis of the ways in which ethnic federalism generates new ideas of collective self-interest in provinces and locals. In particular, it looks at how central budgetary allocations to the regions and zones have induced struggles among provincial elites over access to these revenues and how such dynamics reinvent micro-ethnic identity. This fascinating chapter shows the different ways federal authorities and regional groups think about ethnic identity, and illustrates how local struggles over resources re-engineer political identity at the regional level in ways unimagined by the former. This outcome highlights the limited utility of macroscopic assumptions about ethnic identity and local homogeneity. Chapter 8 explains, using the case of the Gambella Region, the impact of ethnic federalism on the daily lives of the common people. It recounts the different ways in which various regimes in Addis Ababa dealt with the people of the region, how that legacy continues to shape intra-communal relations, and those between the region and the centre. Although the creation of the Gambella state empowered previously subject communities into citizens, nevertheless, the ethnic order has generated fresh conflicts as the new dominant order marginalises 'minorities', and in which the centre is implicated.
Finally, the book's Afterword teases out the lessons other ethnic or linguistic federations might have for Ethiopia. It underscores the destabilising effects of having two dominating ethnic regions (Amhara and Oromia) and suggests that Nigeria's approach of de-centring large ethnic groups provides food for Ethiopian thought. The author proposes that territorial rather than ethnic federal units might overcome current problems, but only if the architects of the ethnic order have the political will to engage in a genuine dialogue with different stakeholders.
This collection of essays fruitfully examines the dynamics of Ethiopian ethnic federalism within a comparative conceptual framework. In particular, the Indian and Nigerian examples provide exceptionally useful insights and lessons for Ethiopia. Despite the book's usefulness, it has four major weaknesses. First, the authors of the Ethiopian chapters made no attempts to historicise ethnic politics in Ethiopia by differentiating between ethnicity as cultural identity and political ethnicity. Recent Africanist work provides an illuminating analysis of the value of such distinction (Mamdani 1996, 2004). Second, the essays fail to investigate the political and security conditions which predisposed the ruling party to engage in ethnic political practice, and how that expediency continues to shape further developments. Third, the value of the book is short-changed since it does not cover the new order's anchor states of Oromia and Amhara. As the Afterword points out, Ethiopia's fate is bound up with what happens in its two most populous regions. Lastly, it is unfortunate that the editor and the contributors did not even refer to the South African example whose ethnic history has many parallels with Ethiopia. South Africa's post-apartheid polity celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity without Balkanising its citizens into 'official' ethnic and racial groups. This seems the gist of the Afterword's recommendation. Despite these weaknesses,