The Ideological Plane in Selected Ethiopian Diasporic Prose Narratives In English: A Comparative Study of Political Philosophy
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Date
2012-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study was conducted on the diasporic Ethiopian literature in English with a primary purpose
of filling the observed gap with regard to readers’ hasty judgments. Most of the first generation
Ethiopian diaspora are political victims and, thus, their literary works are full of political
ideologies. Because of this, they are easily judged as opposers of the domestic politics of their
country by the state authorities on the one hand, and taken for granted as trustworthy to their
people by their supporters on the other hand. It is due to this fact that a study on the ideological
plane of some selected texts from the diaspora became the prime interest of the researcher. As
ideological plane deals with the philosophy behind a given ideology, it greatly contributes in
minimizing hasty judgments by rationally bringing the reality to light.
The method employed in this study is textual analysis. It is a qualitative description and
interpretation of the main issues of the study as reflected in the selected texts. The results of the
four texts are also comparatively seen so as to help reveal the commonalities and differences.
With regard to the theoretical framework, the entire analysis of the study was conducted from the
angle of the three main theories of political philosophy, namely theory of the state of nature, the
divine right theory, and the social contract theory.
Thus, it is found that the major ideologies reflected in the selected texts are Feudo-capitalism,
Marxism-Leninism, Nationalism, anarchism, and liberalism. As the main focus of the study, the
ideological plane has shown the realities behind the stated ideologies. In principle, the leaders
with their forgrounded ideologies claimed/ are claiming that they were/ are busy to bring justice,
security, freedom and democracy. However, the reality is that there were/are injustice, insecurity,
inequality, lack of freedom and democracy, and state intervention instead. The plane has also
shown that the political philosophy of some of the authors is very shallow, while that of others is
relatively better.
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Study of Political Philosophy