The Impact of Historical Narratives on Ethnic Conflicts in Post-1991 Ethiopia

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Date

2022-11

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Addis Ababa University,

Abstract

The last 50 years of Ethiopia's history can be characterized by revolutions, popular protests, rebellions, self-determination movements, armed struggles, regime changes, and civil wars. Significant portions of these conflicts and civil wars are caused or supported by historical narratives. The revolution of 1974 was backed by the question of nationality raised by the Ethiopian Student Movement (ESM). As a result, the established narrative on which the imperial regime has been based for centuries is challenged. After the 1991 regime change, the two contending groups confronted each other, as the narratives had been fighting through different courses of action. The main narrative, Pan Ethiopianism, lost its hegemonic status as a government ideology while the opposing ethno-nationalism assumed power through opposition and armed struggle. The dethroned narrative of Pan Ethiopianism continued to fight verbally through opposition parties and non-governmental organizations through the printing and broadcasting media. Ethno-nationalism, on the other hand, was privileged as a government narrative, propagating its ideals through government media and organizations. On top of that, the constitution and the federal arrangement are considered the advantages of ethno-nationalism. These conceptions of each group toward the other created a significant amount of grievance and conflict as a result. This paper aimed to diagnose the features of the two conflicting parties, the perceived deprivations that are raised by both, and the actual conflicts that occurred due to the leading role of the two narratives. Using a qualitative approach, both primary and secondary data are used. Audio and video documents, with printed and unprinted documents such as books, journals, magazines, newspapers, and electronic versions of some documents, have been analyzed. Additional interviews with a few concerned parties are held in order to get at the true causes behind the witnessed conflicts. As the conflict cannot be resolved through decades and still both are approved as the key actors in the nation-building process, reconciliation and peace-building mechanisms have been inquired into by the mentioned methodologies. Based on his research endeavor, the researcher recommended conflict intervention mechanisms for the peaceful process of the ongoing nation-building process.

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Keywords

Pan Ethiopianism, Ethno nationalism, colonial thesis, national question, revolution, regime change, ethnicity, Unionists

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