Linking Centralised Politics to Custodianship of Cultural Heritage in Ethiopia: Examples of National-Level Museums in Addis Ababa

Abstract

Ethiopia has a history of complex cultural dynamics, which have been reflected in and manipulated according to the political motivations of successive governments. In particular, historical biases in cultural policy and practices can be strongly linked to governmental support of cultural programming initiatives such as the types of culture centres that were developed for particular segments of the public. Archival sources – beginning with the rule of Haile Selassie, as well as in more recent studies of heritage management in the country – give a detailed chronology of government-sanctioned developments in Ethiopia's culture sector in the last century, which have influenced both the institutional presentation of heritage objects, and public access to those objects. For this article, archival and contemporary sources related to Ethiopia's cultural policy were central to a review of the successes and constraints of two federally-funded museums in Addis Ababa.

Keywords:

• cultural policy
• museums
• Ethiopia
• heritage preservation
• custodianship

Notes

‘A Roundtable on Communities and Cultural Heritage Centers in East Africa’ (Addis Ababa, 6 November 2009), was a workshop for East African museum specialists with topics ranging from educational outreach to archives and future collaboration.

Negarit Gazeta ‘An order to provide for the creation of an Ethiopian antiquities administration’, order 45/1966, item 3.6.

Negarit Gazeta ‘A proclamation to provide for the protection and preservation of antiquities’, proclamation 229/1966, articles 3, 5, 7.

Among the foreigners heading the newly established educational and cultural institutes in Ethiopia was the Canadian Jesuit Lucien Matte, first rector of UCAA and later president of Haile Selassie University. In 1962, the Englishman Richard Pankhurst became the founding director of IES, with Stanislaw Chojnacki as curator; and archaeologists of the French Institute of Archaeology headed early research missions approved by the state. Today, foreigners continue to fund, curate occasional exhibitions or otherwise offer expertise at IES; however, Ethiopians occupy leadership roles in the institution.

Foreign educated professional artists of the time included Skunder Boghossian, Gebre Kristos Desta, Agegnehu Engida, Abebe Wolde Giorgis, Ale Felege Selam Heruy, and Afewerk Tekle. Upon their return to Ethiopia foreign educated artists received commissions from Haile Selassie, which often depicted Christian history, military campaigns, or the imperial dynasty.

General surveys of Ethiopia's political history include Cerulli (1971), Henze (2000), Levine (1974), Marcus (2002), Pankhurst (1971, 1982, 1984), Tamrat (1972), Trimingham (1965), and Zewde (2002).

Many foreign-trained painters commissioned by the emperor now found their subjects and styles no longer in line with the ruling party. Artistic license was so limited that many of these painters went into exile.

Another critical bureaucratic change related to linguistic scholarship in Ethiopia: Under Selassie's rule, the Ministry of Education and Fine Arts established the National Academy of the Amharic Language in 1972. With the emergence of the Derg, this was reorganised as the Academy of Ethiopian Languages, promoting the equal status given to all of the nation's languages. It is now the Ethiopian Languages Research Center, part of AAU.

Negarit Gazeta, ‘A proclamation to provide for the study and protection of antiquities’, proclamation 36/1989.

Negarit Gazeta, ‘A proclamation to provide for the protection and preservation of antiquities’, proclamation 229/1966.

For example, the Society of Friends of IES, an organisation dedicated to the promotion and support of cultural heritage, could not adequately function from the mid-1970s, but was re-activated in 1991 with the political changes (Pankhurst 2000).

CSA, The 2003 National Statistics; The 2004 National Statistics; and The 2006 National Statistics, http://www.csa.gov.et (accessed 10 March 2008). The federal budgets for culture and sports have been linked for decades, even while the cultural affairs sector has undergone shifts in ministerial alliances (Negarit Gazeta, ‘A proclamation to provide for the definition of powers and duties of the executive organs of the FDRE’, proclamation 4/1995, ‘A proclamation to provide for the reorganization of the executive organs of the FDRE’, proclamation 256/2001, ‘Federal government budget proclamation’, proclamation 469/2005). From funds allocated to culture, federal budget expenditures generally prioritised monumental and archaeological heritages. However, the World Bank's Ethiopian Cultural Heritage Project – a US$5-million loan – was approved in 2000 and represents the first major funding project to include Ethiopia's handicraft culture, in line with the project's aim to include wider civic engagement in cultural projects.

A notable exception of extravagant budgetary allocation for culture made for the year-long Ethiopian Millennium celebration, which began September 2007 (Council of Ministers Regulation 117/2005, 24 May 2005).

The EPRDF defines cultural heritage as ‘anything tangible or intangible which is the product of creativity and labour of man in the pre-history and history times, that describes and witnesses to the evolution of nature and which has a major value in its scientific, historical, cultural, artistic and handicraft content’ (Negarit Gazeta, ‘A proclamation to provide for research and conservation of cultural heritage’, proclamation 209/2000, part 1, 3.4).

Abdulhafiz Mawi, head of Culture and Mohammed Yussuf, Heritage Controlling Department, interviewed in Harar, Ethiopia, 9 July and October 2004, respectively.

The Red Terror Martyrs' Memorial Museum, opened in spring 2010 in Addis Ababa, is the latest museum whose construction the present government approved, thereby propogandising the suffering of diverse groups under Derg rule. Future research into the impetus behind the creation of this new museum by the Association for the Erection of Martyrs Memorial Monument could further the present discussion.

For example, in 2004, the Harari Regional Bureau of Culture supported Enayasia women's weaving guild's teaching of basketry skills to a group of girls from the Harar School for the Deaf. Shukuria Ahmad, head of Women's Affairs, Women's Development Initiative Project interviewed in Harar, Ethiopia, 28 September 2004.

See end note 12 above.

Programmes like the Ethiopian Cultural Heritage Project and the Millennium festival encouraged popular participation, in part because of private sector lobbying and foreign donor pressure on the government.

The changing concept of art in Ethiopia is presented in Silverman (1999).

Negarit Gazeta, ‘A proclamation to provide for research and conservation of cultural heritage’, proclamation 209/2000, part 2, 14.1.

Ibid, part 3.

Negarit Gazeta, ‘Definition of powers and duties of the executive organs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’, proclamation 471/2005, article 30/1.d.

Ibid, article 33/16.

The other departments of ARCCH are: Archaeology and Palaeontology, Cultural Anthropology, Heritage Restoration and Conservation, Inventory and Inspection of Cultural Heritage and Heritage Research & Central Documentation.

In August 2010, 13.7 Ethiopian Birr = US$1.

Combined domestic and foreign visitors to the National Museum each year were, in chronological order, 21,822; 29,731; 27,945; 39,437; 61,051; 62,877; 61,676; and 63,599. CSA, The 2004 National Statistics Table R.7; and The 2006 National Statistics Table R.9, http://www.csa.gov.et (accessed 10 March 2008).

IES, http://www.aau.edu.et/research/ies/indexn.htm (accessed 10 March 2008).

AAU Senate's Statute of the IES, issued 16 August 1995 is quoted on the IES website, http://www.aau.edu.et/research/ies/indexn.htm (accessed 10 March 2008).

Ticket receipt statistics were gathered with permission of the museum curator, Dr Hasen Said and the assistance of Dereje Berehanu at IES, Addis Ababa, August 2007.

Most of the classes for the Master's programme in Ethiopian Studies take place at IES. Between 2005 and 2007 class size ranged from four to nine students (with 23 students registered in the programme in the 2005/2006 academic year).

Information about EMSA is available online, http://www.ethiomuseums.org.

Many plundered and stolen items of Ethiopian heritage remain in collections abroad, and the author agrees with arguments for their immediate return to Ethiopia.

Extensive documentation of case studies of four regional-level museums in Harar has been presented elsewhere (Tarsitani 2009b; Tarsitani and Tarsitani 2010). Findings from regional museums in Harar are exemplary of Ethiopia's new breed of local museums, which allow regional communities to express their own agency in heritage management.

CSA, The 2004 National Statistics Table R.12, ‘Number of Registered Cultural Heritages, Museums, Visitors and Revenue 2004/05’, http://www.csa.gov.et/text_files/2006_national_statistics.htm; and The 2004 National Statistics Table R.12, ‘Number of Registered Cultural Heritages, Museums, Visitors and Revenue 2005/06’.