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Abstract
In the 1960s, Africa was heavily influenced by Pan-Africanist ideals promoted by great leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah. At the same time, it was also an era of other great -isms entering the African continent, namely Socialism, Marxism, Pan-Arabism, Pan-Islamism, and regional varieties of Pan-Movements. This article assesses two such pan-movements, namely, Pan-Ethiopianism and Pan-Somalism, which had very explosive and competing characters. This article examines the different historical roots of both movements (Pan-Ethiopianism and Pan-Somalism) and their competing elements. It also analyzes how relevant they are for our understanding of historical developments in the region of the Horn of Africa up until the present day.
Notes
1 Roman Loimeier, Muslim Societies in Africa. A Historical Anthropology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 194.
2 Human Rights Watch, “Ethiopia: Eritrean Forces Massacre Tiray Civilians. UN Should Urgently Investigate Atrocities by All Parties,” Human Rights Watch, 5 March 2021, https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/05/ethiopia-eritrean-forces-massacre-tigray-civilians (accessed 15 March 2021).
3 Peter Fabricius, “Abiy Helps Somaliland Put More Facts on the Ground,” Institute for Security Studies, 5 June 2020 , https://issafrica.org/iss-today/abiy-helps-somaliland-put-more-facts-on-the-ground (accessed 15 March 2021).
4 Merwin Crawford Young, “Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Class in Africa: A Retrospective,” Cahiers d′études africaines 26, no. 103 (1986): 421–95.
5 See, for example, Elisabeth Schmidt, Cold War and Decolonization in Guinea, 1946-1958 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007); Paul Bjerk, Building a Peaceful Nation: Julius Nyerere and the Establishment of Sovereignty in Tanzania, 1960-1964 (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2015).
6 Kalevi Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 66.
7 Ioan M. Lewis, A Modern History of Somalia. Nation and State in the Horn of Africa (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1988).
8 Fekadu Adugna, “Overlapping Nationalist Projects and Contested Spaces: The Oromo-Somali Borderlands in Southern Ethiopia,” Journal of Eastern African Studies 5, no. 4 (2011): 773–87.
9 Marco Zoppi, “Greater Somalia, the Never-Ending Dream? Contested Somali Borders: The Power of Tradition vs. the Tradition of Power,” Journal of African History, Politics and Society 1, no. 1 (2015): 48. http://www.africapilsen.com/images/pdf/JAHPS/Zoppi_JAHPS_Vol-I_No-I_2015.pdf
10 Ioan M. Lewis, “Pan-Africanism and Pan-Somalism,” Journal of Modern African Studies 1, no. 2 (1963): 149.
11 Christopher Clapham, The Horn of Africa. State Formation and Decay (London: Hurst, 2017).
12 Kidane Mengisteab, The Horn of Africa (London: Polity, 2014).
13 Gebru Tareke, The Ethiopian Revolution. War in the Horn of Africa (New Haven: Yale University, 2009).
14 This is valid especially for Ethiopia as there is an ongoing clash between various ethno-regional nationalist movements (such as Oromo, Sidama, Tigray, etc.) and the overarching Ethiopian identity promoted primarily by the rising Amhara nationalist movement.
15 See, for example, Ruth Iyob, The Eritrean Struggle for Independence. Domination, resistance, nationalism, 1941-1993 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
16 Tekeste Negash, No Medicine For the Bite of a White Snake: Notes on Nationalism and Resistance in Eritrea, 1890-1940 (Uppsala: University of Uppsala, 1986).
17 Gebru Tareke, The Ethiopian Revolution, 58.
18 Edmund J. Keller, Revolutionary Ethiopia. From Empire to People’s Republic (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 79–81.
19 Jan Záhořík, “Italy, Ethiopia and the Walwal Incident, 1934,” Prague Papers on the History of International Relations 2 (2010): 147–60.
20 Crawford Young, The Postcolonial State in Africa. Fifty Years of Independence, 1960-2010 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), 118.
21 Mordeachai Abir, Ethiopia: The Era of the Princes. The Challenge of Islam and the Re-unification of the Christian Empire (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1968).
22 See, for example, Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855-1991 (Oxford: James Currey, 2001).
23 Bahru Zewde, Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia: The Reformist Intellectuals of the Early Twentieth Century (Oxford: James Currey, 2005).
24 Miguel F. Brooks, The Kebra Negast (Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1996).
25 See, for example, Uoldelul C. Dirar, “The Issue of Nationalities in Eritrean and Ethiopian Constitutions: A Historical Perspective,” in International Conference on African Constitution, edited by Valeria Puiergigli and Irma Taddia (Torino: Gappichelli, 2000).
26 Ethiopia, "The 1955 Ethiopian Constitution," file:///C:/Users/HP/Downloads/The%201955%20Ethiopian%20constitution%20(English%20version).pdf
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 Mekuria Bulcha, “The Politics of Linguistic Homogenization in Ethiopia and the Conflict over the Status of ‘Afaan Oromoo,’” African Affairs 96, no. 384 (1997): 325–52.
30 Speeches delivered by His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, on various occasions. May 1957 – December 1959. Addis Ababa, 96.
31 Christopher Clapham, The Horn of Africa. State Formation and Decay (London: Hurst and Company, 2017), 42.
32 Randi Ronning Balsvik, Haile Sellassie’s Students: The Intellectual and Social Background to Revolution, 1952-1974 (Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University Press, 2005), 205.
33 Hussein M. Adam, “Eritrea, Somalia, Somaliland, and the Horn of Africa,” in Eritrea and Ethiopia. From Conflict to Cooperation (Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1996), 145–6.
34 FCO 8/3042. Secretary of State’s visit to Iran, 51–2, available at www.agda.ae
35 Christophe van der Beken, “Ethiopia: From a Centralized Monarchy to a Federal Republic,” Afrika Focus 20, no. 1–2 (2007): 27.
36 See, for example, van der Beken, “Ethiopia.”
37 Clapham, The Horn of Africa, 47.
38 Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail. The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (London: Profile Books, 2013), 358–61.
39 Edmond J. Keller, “Constitutionalism, Citizenship, and Political Transitions in Ethiopia: Historic and Contemporary Processes,” in Self-Determination and National Unity. A Challenge for Africa, edited by Francis M. Deng (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2010), 71.
40 Young, “Nationalism,” 441.
41 The Constitution of the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Review of Socialist Law 14, no. 2 (1987): 181–208. https://chilot.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/1987-ethiopian-constitution1.pdf
42 Herbert S. Lewis, “The Development of Oromo Political Consciousness from 1958 to 1994,” in Being and Becoming Oromo. Historical and Anthropological Enquiries (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1996), 45–6.
43 See Iyob, The Eritrean Struggle.
44 Catherine Besteman, “Representimg Violence and ‘Othering’ Somalia,” Cultural Anthropology 11, no. 1 (1996): 123.
45 Virginia Luling, “Genealogy as Theory, Genealogy as Tool: Aspects of Somali ‘Clanship’," Social Identities. Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture 12, no. 4 (2006): 473.
46 Abdi Mohamed Kusow, “The Genesis of the Somali Civil War: A New Perspective,” Northeast African Studies 1, no. 1 (1994): 34–5.
47 Mohamed Hussein Gaas, “Primordialism vs. Instrumentalism in Somali Society: Is an Alternative Needed?,” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 36, no. 4 (2018): 465.
48 DEFE 5/54. Annex I. Future of the Haud grazing areas in Ethiopia, 32, available at www.agda.ae
49 Antonio M. Morone, L’ultima colonia. Come l’Italia é tornata in Africa 1950-1960 (Roma-Bari: Gius. Laterza e Figli, 2011), 124.
50 Cecil Barnes, “The Somali Youth League, Ethiopian Somalis and the Greater Somalia Idea, c. 1946-48,” Journal of Eastern African Studies 1, no. 2 (2007): 281.
51 Lewis, “Pan-Africanism and Pan-Somalism,” 148.
52 The Constitution of the Somali Republic (as amended up to 31 December, 1963), https://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/so/so001en.pdf
53 Ibid.
54 Lewis, “Pan-Africanism and Pan-Somalism,” 149.
55 Samuel Negash, “Colonial Legacy, State Intervention and Secessionism: Paradoxical National Identities of the Ogaden and the Ishaq Clans in Ethiopia,” in Society, State and Identity in African History, edited by Bahru Zewde (Addis Ababa: Forum for Social Studies, 2008), 282.
56 John Markakis, Ethiopia. Anatomy of a Traditional Polity (Addis Ababa: Shama Books, 2006), 441.
57 Marco Zoppi, “Greater Somalia,” p. 54.
58 Ali Jimale Ahmed, Daybreak is Near. Literature, Clans, and the Nation-State in Somalia (Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1996), 95.
59 Bahru Zwede, A History of Modern Ethiopia, 216.
60 “Additions to 2 February 1977 Report by Third African Department, Soviet Foreign Ministry, 'Somalia's Territorial Disagreements with Ethiopia and the Position of the USSR',” June, 1977, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, TsKhSD, f. 5, op. 73, d. 1619, ll. 61-68; translated by Paul Henze http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/111613
61 FCO 8/3042, Brief for Cento Ministerial Meeting, 49, available at www.agda.ae
62 FCO 8/3042, Secretary of State’s visit to Iran, 51–2, available at www.agda.ae
63 Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), Volume VI, 1977-1980, Soviet Union, “Oral Statement From the U.S. Leadership to the Soviet Leadership,” Washington, DC, 14 January 1878 (Washington: Department of State, 2013), 259.
64 “Urgent Note from W. Paszkowski on Conversation with Viktor Bakin, Counselor of the Soviet Embassy in Warsaw,” 15 April 1971, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Archiwum Ministerstwa Spraw Zagranicznych [Warsaw], D.V-1972, 31/75, W-3, OG-O-240-1-71. Obtained and translated by Radoslav Yordanov. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/134765
65 “Third African Department, Soviet Foreign Ministry, Information Report on Somali-Ethiopian Territorial Disputes,” February 02, 1977, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, TsKhSD, f. 5, op. 73, d. 1632, ll. 39-44. translated by Mark H. Doctoroff http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/111623
66 Donovan C. Chau, “At the Crossroads of Cultures? A Historic and Strategic Examination of Kenya-Somalia Relations,” Journal of the Middle East and Africa 1, no. 2 (2010): 75.
67 Gebru Tareke, Ethiopia: Power and Protest. Peasant Revolts in the Twentieth Century (Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1996), 139.
68 Terje Østobø and Kjetill Tronvoll, “Interpreting Contemporary Oromo Politics in Ethiopia: An Ethnographic Approach,” Journal of Eastern African Studies 14, no. 4 (2020): 617.
69 Kidane Mengisteab, The Horn of Africa (Cambridge: Polity, 2014), 98.
70 Crawford Young, Ideology and Development in Africa (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 65.
71 My Country, My People, Selected Speeches of Jaalle Siyad, Chairman of the SRC, 1975 (Mogadisho: Ministry of Information and National Guidance, 1977), 194.
72 Somali Democratic Republic, The Constitution. Mogadisho 1979, https://www.worldstatesmen.org/Somalia-Constitution1979.pdf
73 Ibid.
74 “'Information About the Highlights of a Brief Working Visit to the USSR (25-27 July This Year [1988]) of the General Secretary of the WPE CC, the President of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Mengistu Haile Mariam',” July, 1988, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár [Budapest], XIX-J-1-j, Etiópia, 1988, 38d, levéltári szám: 41 – 13. Obtained and translated by Radoslav Yordanov. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/134785
75 Markus Virgil Hoehne, “People and Politics along and across the Somaliland-Puntland Border,” in Borders and Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa, edited by Dereje Feyissa and Markus Virgil Hoehne (Woodbridge: James Curey, 2010), 101.
76 Markus Virgil Hoehne, “Against the Grain: Somaliland’s Secession from Somalia,” in Secessionism in African Politics, edited by Lotje de Vries (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 232.
77 Mark Baradbury, Becoming Somaliland (Oxford: James Currey, 2008), 60.
78 Alexis Arieff, “De Facto Statehood? The Strange Case of Somaliland,” Yale Journal of International Affairs 3, no. 2 (2008), 65–6.
79 Martin N. Murphy, Somalia: The New Barbary? Piracy and Islamism in the Horn of Africa (London: Hurst, 2011), 44.
80 Stig Jarle Hansen, Al-Shabaab in Somalia. The History and ideology of a Militant Islamist Group (London: Hurst, 2016), 22–3.
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Notes on contributors
Jan Záhořík
Jan Záhořík is an Africanist/social scientist who focuses on the modern and contemporary history and politics of the Horn of Africa, ethnicity and nationalism, and migration. His has published several books and many articles on these topics and is a coeditor of the upcoming Routledge Handbook of the Horn of Africa (forthcoming).