Reactions to nation-building: The roots of Amhara nationalism in Ethiopia and its implications

Abstract

This article shows reactions to nation-building practices induced in the last decades of the imperial regime and its antithetical replacement of the current political system. It examines how the post-1991 political discourse and its institutions contributed to Amhara identity formation and mobilization and the latter’s implications for the current political discontent in Ethiopia. The article engages with the discursive narratives—’Amhara domination discourse,” ideological othering, and institutional flaws—that reinforce the development of Amhara nationalism. Using a qualitative research methodology, it gathers data from sources such as documents, broadcast and social media, and key informant interviews to argue that the origins of the Amharas’ sense of victimization lie in good part in the replacement of centralized one-nation nationalism with a non-representative devolved system; having been left out during the institutionalization of the current political system, the Amhara now demand to be integrated into that system. The repercussions of Amhara nationalism have been visibly seen in the political dynamics of the Amhara region and the deadly conflict that Ethiopia faces after the war with the Tigray region that could attract neighboring countries and regional players to it. Hence, launching an inclusive peace settlement and designing a legitimate political system are necessary to mitigate the current political discontent.

Keywords:

• Nation-building
• Amhara nationalism
• Amhara domination discourse
• implications
• Ethiopia

1. Introduction

In most African states, nationalism is associated with colonialism and anti-colonialism. Ethiopian nationalists, by contrast, trace their origin to a remote past and emphasise their historical rootedness in ancient times. Yet, while this is so, in Ethiopia’s contemporary political and scholarly discourse ethnicity and nationalism are largely framed in two competing models that could be described as pan-Ethiopian nationalism, on the one hand, and ethnonationalism, on the other. These models became polarized mainly after The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) institutionalized the later as an organizing principle of the polity. Pan-Ethiopian nationalism imagines an idealized form of national identity, which promoted as a supra ethnic identity that ethnic groups need to integrate into. While ethno-nationalism perceives Ethiopianness as the sum total of ethnic groups and guaranteed through their participation. It is the manifestation of the new construct of Ethiopian identity “from below”, which would emerge from the “first” and “real” identities of Ethiopian peoples, i.e., their “ethnic” belonging (Bach, 2014, p. 105). In contrast to the former, now it is possible to have double loyalty to the group and to the state i.e., Ethiopian national identity without losing one’s own ethnic identity. The ethnicity of other ethnic groups has centered on the discourse of “Amhara domination”, with roots going back to the student movement of the 1960s and 1970s and ultimately to the territorial expansions of Menelik and the birth of modern Ethiopia at the end of the 19th century.

Competing ethno-nationalisms are somewhat the outcomes of institutional legacy of the Ethiopian state system. With the objective of building a centralized absolutist state, the imperial regime replaced the traditional administrations, dislodged the local nobility from power, and increasingly concentrated power at the center, thereby triggering resistance that usually had an ethnic dimension. The extraction of resources in the form of taxes to meet the growing budgetary needs for building a modern state structure was also an exacerbating factor to the grievances. Resentments over the identity of local governance structures and the extortionist policies of the regime eventually led to multiple rebellions. The most prominent peasant uprisings against imperial rule were the 1942 Tigraian rebellion known as the “Weyane,” the 1960 Gedeo rebellion also called the “Michille war,” the beginning of the Eritrean secessionist movement in September 1960, the Bale rebellion in 1965, and the rebellion of peasants in Gojjam in 1968 (Gebru, 1991). The underlying causes of these rebellions point to the key political problems of the imperial regime that ultimately led to its collapse in the 1974 revolution (Berhe & Gebresilassie, 2021).

The Ethiopian Student Movement (ESM) of the 1960s and 70s articulated ethnonational claims in Marxist terms; at the same time, state aggrandisement presented Ethiopia as a unified nation under the imperial crown of Haile Selassie I—a vision that was not uncontested. The ESM rejected the idea of Ethiopia as a nation, seeing it instead as made up of diverse cultures and semi-autonomous elements. Ethiopia, it was held, was as a multinational state restrictively defined through the prism of Amhara cultural hegemony. This line of thinking came to shape Ethiopia’s political discourse and the way the state is viewed, and over the past four decades it has led to the rise of increasingly vociferous ethnoregional movements (Semahagn, 2014).

The argument that proponents of the national oppression perspective make was the domination of one group, “Amhara ruling class”, against all others. Thus, it is the conviction that only ethno-linguistic political characterization that can guarantee the equality of all nations and nationalities within the country. Despite being referred to as “empire builders,” “oppressors,” or both, they have benefited little from the empire, and this extends only to cultural matters (Markakis, 2005). In actuality, the northern region of the country was marginalized, a victim of underdevelopment, and struck by famine by the end of the imperial government. Despite repeatedly saying oppressed Amhara is not an enemy, the mentally entrenched narrations of Amhara blame politics are manifested practically in various ways.

Beginning in 1991, Ethiopia shifted from a centralist state into a constitutionally entrenched ethnic-based organisation (Dereje, 2013). The then-ruling EPRDF claimed to be the successor of the ESM and adopted a unique federal arrangement. “New frontiers in Ethiopian politics” appeared in which ethnic groups became building blocks in the Ethiopian polity (Andreas, 2003). The year 1991 marked not a mere regime change; it was a turning point at which the Ethiopian state was fundamentally restructured (Dereje, 2013). In particular, it marked the institutionalisation of a state system premised on the narrative of “Amhara domination”.

As this article will be arguing, the constitutional and federalization project was designed by ethnonationalist movements that raised arms for self-determination—and since that historical moment, the Amhara people, who otherwise subscribe peaceably to the notion of an Ethiopian national identity, have become the objects of ongoing ethnic target practice.

In this regard, “Amhara identity” has been a centre of political and academic debate, especially among the “Amhara elites” and Ethiopianists abroad—a political debate initiated following the non-representation of the Amhara in the 1991 transitional process. Studies on Amhara identity, such as those by Tegegne (1998), Pausewang (2005), Michael (2008), and Admasu (2010), describe “Amhara” both as an ethnic identity and a supra-ethnic category. Some scholars, such as Tegegne and Admasu, have considered the circumstances and political developments that could galvanize an Amhara ethnic consciousness in the future. However, these studies assumed a situation in which most Amhara people subscribe to pan-Ethiopian nationalism. Circumstances have changed, however, and heated political mobilization along the Amhara ethnic line has prevailed.

Ethnicity, conflict, and institutional design in Ethiopia have been discussed mostly in connection with minority groups (groups possessing positions of relative non-dominance in political or numerical aspects). This kind of general classification may be rejected by “dominant” groups that do not perceive themselves as based on ethnicity. As a result, there is little study about Amhara identity in relation to the Ethiopian state-nation building. This concern is more crucial in the current context as the Amhara, who used to closely associate themselves with Ethiopian statehood since imperial times, are now developing an ethnic sentiment claiming a perceived and real marginalization within the post-1991 political system. This is partly the result of problems to do with the replacement of centralized one-nation nationalism by a non-representative devolved system, problems which are compounded by a dominant discourse espousing the “national oppression” thesis. Since 2015, Amhara nationalism has become an important political variable in Ethiopian conflicts. The Amhara sense of exclusion from the political life of the existing political system has potentially and practically delegitimized the constitutional and federal order, which needs urgent rectifications.

As such, the underlying questions this article seeks to answer are these:

• In what ways do the post-1991 political discourse and its institutions contribute to the development of Amhara nationalism?

• What are the implications of Amhara nationalism?

The discussion is organized as follows. Next to this, section one, section two states the theoretical and methodological approaches that seem best suited to explain the problem at hand. Part three briefly reviews the limits of the nation-state as a nation-building design in diverse societies and the fragile nature of multi-national federal systems instituted in post-conflict states in relation to the Ethiopian state system. Section four conferred the ethno-national reaction against the one-nation nationalism nation-building project and transition towards a new political order. Section five discusses the determinants of the rise of Amhara nationalism in the course of post-1991 political discourse. The sixth section shows the implications of Amhara political mobilization both at sub-national, and federal level, as well as in the Horn region. And the last concludes.

2. Theoretical and methodological approaches

The current orthodoxy regarding ethnic identities imagines ethnicity and nationalism as social constructs and socio-political contexts that determine ethnic affiliation and identification. The emergence of Amhara nationalism has been better explained by what the French philosopher Michel Foucault called “the construction of a ‘reverse’ discourse,” in which a once marginalized community seeks to make a claim to legitimacy and recognition (Foucault, 1978). The Amhara ethnic group started to speak up in order to simply assert its authenticity. According to Foucault, social constructionist theories of sexuality are likely to undergo a full reversal of their laboratory potential in sexual discourses. The evolution of homosexuality is a straight forward illustration of this. Once disparaged and unlawful behaviors are now publicly supported in the term itself and form a part of the person’s identity tied to them.

Despite being linked to momentous political developments in Ethiopian history, the name Amhara and its identity have been associated with negative characterizations like “Amhara domination”, “Amharization” and until now “Amhara chauvinism”, which is the burden that an organization or people affiliated with the name have to bear (Markakis, 2005). It is also possible to argue that there is no ethnic group in Ethiopia whose history places its burdens on the name Amhara. “Amhara” has been used as a marker of oppression and dominance that can encourage identity concealment to avoid consequences. It is inevitable that the name Amhara is subject to varied interpretation, notably in dichotomous, polarized political as well as scholarly debate. On the one hand, there are those who stand for there being no such group. Contrary to this, others insisted on the existence of Amhara as a distinct group. One of the terms of these contending arguments is an attempt to escape from the burden of history by decoupling the Ethiopian national identity from the Amhara referent on the one hand and challenging the blame for the current political evolution of the country on the other. Since 1991, ethnicity has been the predominant vehicle for articulating political conflict in Ethiopia. In the process, Amharas have come increasingly to feel that they can better protect their interests by embracing the name Amhara, and identifying themselves as a single ethnicity rather than by subscribing to a pan-Ethiopian national identity—all of which has important implications for the current discontent and the future of Ethiopia.

Qualitative research for this study is based on the paradigm of interpretivism, which considers the way people interpret and make sense of their experiences and the world in which they live. Data were gathered from a variety of sources, among them documents such as magazines and party programmes; broadcast and social media, including audio recordings of speeches by and debates among, inter alia, political officials and Amhara activists; and key informant interviews. Thirteen interviews were conducted with key informants such as officials of the National Movement of Amhara (NaMA) and Amhara Prosperity Party (APP); Amhara activists; academics; and displaced individuals from Oromia who are defined as Amhara.

3. From nation-state to fragile federations

During the decolonization and post-colonial period, the primary emphasis of African countries was securing the territorial integrity of the state following western models nation-state building. The first generation of African leaders were engaged with the process of nation-building aiming to realize the ideal of “one-nation” in multi-lingual, multi-religious, multi-cultural, and multi-ethnic contexts (Olukoshi & Laakso, 1996).

The Ethiopian state formation has its own unique features as it took a combination of pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial patterns of state formation (Clapham, 2002). The pattern of pre-colonial state formation follows the expansion of the highland core into the hinterlands, and the extent of possession of territories was determined by the strength and ambition of the ruler (Clapham, 2002). Ethiopia is the only state (except for Liberia) that escaped direct colonialism. While the region was under the siege of the tripartite European colonial powers in the first decades of 20^th century, Ethiopia was the only party that took part in the territorial demarcations (Bahru, 2010). As a result, there is an assertion that despite the fact that Ethiopia is not the creation of Europeans, the state as everyone knows it today is not older than other African states (Markakis, 1999).

There were sets of attitudes or ideologies owned by the long-established and politically dominant state system (with the ingredients of orthodox Christianity, historical mythologies, and written language, notably Amharic), which claimed its members (those who associate themselves with the state) are destined to govern the surrounding territories and peoples (Clapham, 2002). The state was not exclusively owned by a particular group, and all individuals who were originated from various identity groups could join the royal court. This was possible only if those individuals were to associate themselves with the state through the adoption of orthodox Christianity, Amharic language, and Geez (Amharic) names (Chernetsov, 1993; Clapham, 2002). However, because of the nature of the state itself, the cultures and communities of these individuals had no chance of recognition and equal treatment (Clapham, 2002).

Liberals and socialists were certain for a long time about their expectation that ethnic, racial, and national identifications would wither away as the unification of the world was realized through international trade and mass communication (Hutchinson & Smith, 1996). However, as Connor (1999) put it, ethno-national forces have been a political reality of most states in the world irrespective of geographic location, level of economic development, democratic culture, religion, and ideology (Connor, 1999). Ethno-national mobilization is a universal phenomenon of ethnic groups’ struggles with the state, claiming autonomy, representation, or fair socio-economic share (Kymlicka, 2006). Despite the presence of a few homogeneous states, equating the borders of political authority with national identity in the name of nation-state consequently remained more aspiration than reality (McGarry & Keating, 2006). In post-colonial Africa, the processes of nation-state building faced challenges that came from ethno-nationalist assertiveness and mobilizations. Davidson (1993) explained the causes of the crisis of post-colonial African states as the “nation-building” project based on the European nation-state model with less sensitivity towards Africa’s socio-political structures and other realities.

Using attitudes or ideologies owned by the long-established and politically dominant state system, the Ethiopian state promoted its own version of Ethiopian nationalism in its nation-building process (Markakis, 1999). The notion of nation-state building was not convenient in light of the reality of Africa’s diverse states. The Ethiopian reality is not an exception since various linguistic, religious, and cultural groups became part of the state after the late 19^th century. The desire for unity and territorial integrity through centralization of power at the expense of various distinct groups eventually led to the reaction of ethno-cultural groups to mobilize against the nation-building project since 1960s (Assefa & Zemelak, 2018).

By the end of the 1960 and 1970s, the idea of Ethiopia as a nation was challenged by the radical student movement with Leninist-Stalinist underpinnings. It was presented as a multi-national state that was narrowly defined by Amhara-Tigre hegemony (Bahru, 2014). It was first raised in Walelign’s article (1969) entitled “On the Question of Nationalities in Ethiopia” which consequently influences the political discourse of the country until this time. The main argument Wallelign makes was that Ethiopia is not a nation. Rather, it is a nation of nations that he characterized as a collection of nationalities. He also asserted the presence of national oppression as the imposition of cultural and political hegemony over other nationalities. Using Fanon’s terms, Ethiopian nationalism has been criticized as fake nationalism but with an Amhara mask. He controversially writes: “What is this fake Nationalism? Is it not simply Amhara and to a certain extent Amhara-Tigre supremacy?” (Wallelign, 1969). The ethnicity of other ethno-national movements is centered on this speculation of “Amhara domination” rooted in the varying interpretations of the process of the modern Ethiopian state. The “national question” was the articulation of ethno-nationalisms by the ESM in the Leninist-Stalinist glance.

The ESM was successful in being the gravedigger of the imperial regime. There was controversy within the student body politic on the national question. The disagreement has manifested in the political organizations that evolved out of the ESM. While the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and All Ethiopian Socialist Movement (commonly known by its Amharic acronym (MEISON) took the class struggle under the Pan-Ethiopian umbrella, the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) choose the national liberation struggle as their prior mission (Merara, 2006). After the class-based parties were wiped out by the military group, Dergue, the ethno-nationalist movements had got a momentum that dominated the political climate of the country and took power by overthrowing the military regime. The new political system that began in 1991 was thus antithetical to the past regimes. The government began to encourage ethnic mobilization and ethnic-based self-government based on the Soviet federal model.

Many states embrace federal arrangements for the sake of maintaining territorial integrity and managing intrastate conflicts through the accommodation of diversity. This was the major factor for the adoption of post-cold war federal arrangements (Choudhry & Hume, 2011; McGarry & O’Leary, 2009). Some African states adopted federalism and devolution in their post-conflict situations, among them South Africa (1995), Ethiopia (1995), Sudan (2005), Kenya (2010), South Sudan (2011), and Somalia (2012).

The hallmark of post-conflict federations is the drawing of internal borders that aims to ensure territorial autonomy those ethnic minorities constitutes a majority in a region. The division of powers between different levels of government is designed to ensure that no national group is left out and has sufficient powers to protect itself from economic and political disadvantages. However, this is not always the case when it comes to practice. In some federations like Ethiopia, the design has been working as a fragile experiment (Kymlicka, 2006). Steytler and de Visser (2015) also designated the African federations as “fragile federations” to signify the federal arrangements designed to solve the fragility of the state are themselves fragile.

The ethno-nationalist group, the TPLF that prevailed in the armed struggle against the Dergue, established an ethno-nationalist coalition, EPRDF, and seized central power in 1991. EPRDF claims to be the main successor of the ESM, advocating the rights of nationalities to self-determination up to and including secession, adopted federalism in which ethnicity is an organizing principle of the polity. The primary reason for adopting federalism was the need to respond to the “national question” that various ethno-nationalist groups demand self-determination (Assefa & Zemelak, 2018). However, after three decades of experimentation with ethnic politics, the “national question” endures as many groups are still seeking recognition, self-government, and political participation. The number of ethno-nationalists pursuing armed struggle against EPRDF regime is not much less than during the Dergue regime.

4. Reaction to one-nation nationalism project

It is a sociological reality that countries in the world, with few exceptions, are inhabited by at least more than two distinct groups. This reality results in tensions among them. Throughout history, countries used various mechanisms to overcome the challenges of diversity extending from methods for eliminating differences to methods of managing differences (McGarry & O’Leary, 2013). The long-running institutional arrangements aimed to regulate ethnic diversity have contributed to the rise of a series of nationalist mobilizations. Nourishing on the autocratic nature of the successive regimes, have finally managed to push Ethiopia into political crisis after a generation (Semir, 2019).

The root of the ethno-national reaction could be discerned in the recent half-century history of Ethiopia: between the liberation from Italian occupation in 1941 and the overthrow of the military regime in 1991 (Andreas, 2003). Possession of absolute power and state aggrandizement was the hallmark of the long rule of Emperor Hale Selassie. The making of Amharic as a national language, the placement of the Ethiopian Orthodox church under the authority of the emperor, the erosion of the federal pact with Eritrea, and the establishment of modern bureaucratic institutions like the military and ministry of interior were designed to serve the centralized state. The socialist military regime was a replica of its predecessors in terms of centralization and the view towards the state.

Institutional arrangements destined to manage ethnic diversity in imperial Ethiopia caused the rise and proliferation of ethno-regional movements. The nation-building project that aspires to one-nation nationalism i.e., Ethiopianness, was portrayed as the tool of national oppression and a “mask of Amhara domination” (Wallelign, 1969). Nationalist movements rose arms for more autonomy and self-determination that eventually culminated in 1991 when EPRDF took the central power. During the Peace and Democracy Conference held at Addis Ababa in July 1991, the vast majority of participants were from these nationalist liberation organizations (Andreas, 2003).

The transitional process (1991–1994) could be explained as a revolution. It was a full-scale reversal of the centrist political system developed for decades. A conference endorsed Eritrea’s independence, and the transitional constitution called transitional charter recognized self-determination and secession as rights of territorially based cultural communities (Andreas, 2003). It also established a Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) to facilitate the adoption of a new constitution. The TGE was committed to restructuring the country based on ethno-linguistic criteria. An ever influential proclamation of the TGE, “the national self-government proclamation” (Proclamation no. 7/1992) created 14 ethnic-based regions and identified 64 ethnic groups. Amhara was included in the listed ethnic groups and provided with a territorially demarcated region. It follows that the transitional charter was the foundation for the constitution still in effect and the federal design with its constituent unit establishment.

Given the provisions of the transitional charter, the EPRDF envisioned building a new kind of state structure on the basis of ethnicity. This was largely derived from a sense of ethno-cultural injustice and marginalization by the centrists of the past regime. Meles Zenawi, the then president of TGE and chairman of EPRDF, argued that “We cannot ignore that Ethiopia is a diverse country. Previous attempts to do that have led to wars, to fueling nationalistic tendencies…” Cited in (Lyons, 1996,). Hence, the new political system seemed to be designed in line with the interests of groups who favored a weak center, as they want to exercise the right to self-determination, and who felt oppressed by the central regimes that had been dominated by, as they perceive, the Amhara (Lyons, 1996).

Despite the conference being remarkably inclusive in regard to mobilized ethno-national groups, Pan-Ethiopian groups and parties were excluded by the EPRDF (Young, 2021). The EPRDF and its tactical ally, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), were overwhelmingly represented both in the conference and TGE council (Lyons, 1996, p. 123). The fact is those ethno-nationalists, particularly the TPLF dominated EPRDF and OLF, ardent supporters of the doctrine of self-determination, played a crucial role in drafting the transitional charter (the foundation of the FDRE constitution) and the roadmap of the transitional period (Berhe & Gebresilassie, 2021).

In the meantime, there was no group representing the interests of the Amhara. This contradicts ethno-nationalists’ designation of Amhara ethnic identity while affirming the nonappearance of Amhara political identity. As Meles himself said ‘we came across through the Amhara people and understand its problems. Hence, hereafter the oppressed people of Amhara will be represented by EPRDF” (Meles & Mesfin, 1991). To manage this gap, the Pan-Ethiopian member party of EPRDF, the Ethiopian Peoples Democratic Movement (EPDM) changed its name to Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM). Despite opposition notably from the Amhara and most of the urbanite elites, the TGE rushed the demarcation of ethnic-based regions before the adoption of the constitution and before holding a national election (Admasu, 2010). Here lies the fragility of the federal design that go to effect with significant leftouts. In the above reconstruction, the transitional period was a critical historical juncture, which gave rise to Amhara nationalism both in an official and a reactive manner.

5. Political and institutional determinants of Amhara nationalism

5.1. A sense of exclusion and marginalization from the political system

The constitution itself and its development process is a source of resentment on the part of many Amhara elites. One of the major issues that appeared during and in the aftermath of the Amhara protests since 2016, is the sense of victimization as a result of exclusion in the making of the federal political order as well as its ongoing implementations. AAPO’s nascent Amhara nationalism and the Pan-Ethiopian nationalism were sidelined from the constitutional making process, as the EPRDF portrayed them as reactionary nationalisms which aimed to restore the old regime (Tsinat, 2006). EDPM became a de facto Amhara organization sharing the power in the transitional government as well as participating in the constitutional making. However, it does not mean that people from the newly established Amhara region were not represented in the constitutional assembly. The fact is these representatives were hand-picked by the regional party EPDM. Data obtained from the senior members of EPDM (ANDM) confirms this reality. A senior official of the EPDM (ANDM) summarizes how individuals were selected to represent Amhara in the constitutional assembly as: “there was a top-down assignment of individuals by which a short-list was prepared by the party and the people were asked to espouse the names in the list.” (KIIP04, Bahir Dar, 5 December 2019). Hence, the people did not have a chance to propose persons to represent themselves. The members of the constitutional assembly selected by the party “elected” by the people to represent the Amhara support the right of ethnic groups to secession. In contrast, in the popular discussion of the draft constitution, there was strong opposition to that particular clause (among others) of the constitution. Another senior official of the EPDM (ANDM) who was coordinating the public discussions on the draft constitution recalls:

On the issue of the secession clause, almost all discussions were ended with objections presuming that it will disintegrate the country. From my practical experience in facilitating the discussion, attending plenary sessions and the discussions with my colleague before constitutional making, there is no single discussion that ended in accepting the secession clause. (KIIP06, November 20, 2020, Addis Ababa)

A senior official of the EPDM (ANDM) was also asked whether the discussants had an ethnic consciousness while addressing their opinions in a way that benefits or hurts them as a group. The answer indicates that the Amhara ethnic consciousness was not developed at the time. One says: “When the discussants accept the right to self-determination of nations, nationalities, and peoples, it was not considering they are part of those ethnic groups rather it was from the impression that the right deserves for other nationalities.” (KIIP06, 20 November 2020, Addis Ababa). This was because they might not consider themselves as a distinct ethnic group claiming collective political rights. The lack of ethnic consciousness among the people was the result of the attachment of the “Amhara people” rallying along with Pan-Ethiopian sentiment. Generally, the spirit of Bolsheviks’ assertion that reiterates “progressives came out from the oppressive nation must support the right to the secession of oppressed nationalities” was the driving force which shapes the mentality of participants in the constitutional making process.

The Amhara sense of exclusion from the political life of the existing system has potential and practically de-legitimized the constitutional and federal order. Launching an inclusive constitution-making process is a necessary condition to hold divided societies together. Consent is a crucial element for meaningful and legitimate constitutions which is realized though offering the polity a sense of authorship and ownership: a sense that they are included in the constitution (Lerner, 2010). In this regard, the South African Constitution is among rare achievements that break through the difficulty of creating a legitimate constitution within deeply divided societies. The Ethiopian constitution does not enjoy such legitimacy. The main opposition has been coming from the Amhara. NaMA and APP claimed that Amhara were not consulted and properly represented during the constitutional making process and the redrawing of constituent units that followed. Despite APP is a branch of the ruling Prosperity Party (PP), there are dissenting voices from its officials about the necessity of amending the constitution. In this regard, an official of APP says:

Both the constitution and the federal arrangement do not design in a way that understands historic relations of nations, nationalities and peoples and the history of the country. We believe that the Amhara people were not represented as a distinct and conscious ethnic group. (KIIP 03, October 2020, Bahir Dar)

Both parties have been complaining that the constitution is not genuine enough to protect the Amhara interests. This has been reiterated both in the Amhara activism and political mobilization, especially post-2018.

6. The limits of ethnic-territorial approach and Amhara sense of victimization

The institutional legacy of the FDRE constitution, and the federal arrangement established partly the causes for the rise of Amhara ethnicity. The constitution was emphasized empowering the titular ethnic groups by providing their territorial self-government turned themselves to the majority, a typical form of territorial autonomy. Article 39 (5) of the constitution, especially the phrase “an identifiable, predominantly contiguous territory” could be explained as “ethnic territorial approach” (Van der Beken, 2014). This creates a new kind of minorities vulnerable to discrimination and attacks by the titular groups. Regional constitutions have conferred special status for regionally empowered “indigenous” groups to develop a sense of “the son of the soil” whilst others being considered as newcomers and treated as “second class citizens” (Van Der, 2007). The paradox of multi-national federalism is, that while it explicitly recognizes diversity and guarantees territorial autonomy at the national level, it fails to do the same at the sub-national level (Kössler, 2018). A replica of building a nation-state tendency has clearly been seen in relatively homogenous regional states like Oromia, and Tigray.¹ Their constitutions gave sovereign power only to the dominant ethnic groups that the regional state has named. On the other hand, The Amhara state constitution has some provisions which recognize territorially concentrated intra-state minorities. It has created “Nationality Administration” for those groups particularly the Awi, Himra, and the Oromo ethnic groups under Article 45(2); Article 74 of the state constitution and a “Nationality Woreda” to Argoba ethnic group by ordinary law under Proc. No. 130/2006).

There are creative mechanisms for accommodating differences in the Canadian federation. The differentiated rights of groups include self-government rights to what Kymlicka termed “national minorities” (Quebecois and Aboriginals) and polyethnic rights to “ethnic minorities” (immigrants) (Kymlicka, 1996). According to Kymlicka, national groups in Canada are historic communities with deserved homeland rights while ethnic minorities are not “nations” and do not occupy homelands (Kymlicka, 1996). However, they are free to maintain various aspects of ethnic heritages, and exercise old customs and traditions (Ibid.). There seems similarity between the Ethiopian and the Canadian mechanism. “Indigenous” groups with territorial concentration are guaranteed self-government. The case in point in Amhara region is similar to the “self-government rights” in Canada. However, there are indigenous minorities who relegated self-government rights in regional states as indicated above. Moreover, unlike the Canadian group-differentiated right, special preservation rights, almost all regional states do not give proportionate and guaranteed representation for the dispersed and marginalized groups.

Given the absence of federal institutions in such contentious areas, the intra-unit minorities are thus left at the mercy of local autocrats that the former continue to face various kinds of discrimination and marginalization (Assefa, 2017). This also encouraged the pursuit sub-national elites to build a homogeneous unit of their own out of their diverse nature. Paradoxically, the ethno-nationalists who fought against the institutionalization of one-nation nationalism (Ethiopianness), now they have been building the replica of that nation-state model at their “home region”. This has been violating the rights of minorities within such homogenizing sub-national units that eventually forced them for assimilation or forceful displacement. As a result, Ethiopia acquires one of the world’s leading countries having internally displaced people especially in the last five years. The issue of “Wolkayit Amhara identity question” partly arises from the reaction to the dominance of the Tigray language and culture. Amhara in Wolkayit, Western part of Tigray region, have faced a requirement of assimilation into Tigray language and culture or face discrimination, arrest and persecution (John, 2021). Given a large number of Amhara living in various parts of the country as a result of reasons related to historical, personal, and government policies, they have been victims of attacks such as ethnically motivated killing and displacement which endured for nearly three decades. This deep-seated insecurity is one of the triggering factors for the emergence of Amhara nationalism.

There are accusations from Amhara nationalists that Amhara did not properly represented during the making of regional demarcations. Nor the government undertake consultations with both the local elites and the population. Delineating boundaries during the transitional period and in the aftermath was largely made politically (Young, 2021). Teshome explained what has happened by the time when he saying: “To be blunt, the harsh reality is, the ethnic ‘Scramble for Ethiopia’ was supervised by TPLF, OLF, and other like-minded organizations in the early 1990s to determine who gets which pieces of the pie” (Teshome, 2018). The boundary was delimited on the basis of language, an observable marker than disputable history and the boundary commission extensively consulted the work of the Dergue’s Institute for the Study of Ethiopian Nationalities and crosschecked with Bender’s 1976 language map for the work to be finished within a short period of time (Vaughan, 2003, p. 35).

The legacy of regional state demarcation in areas that were formerly part of the principal Amhara domains, Shewa, Gojjam, Wollo and Gondar (Begemidir), became part of other regions notably: Tigray, Benishangul-Gumuz, and Oromia, thus leading to Amhara to develop asense of annexation. Areas (such as Wolkayit and Raya) demarcated to Tigray region from Gondar and Wollo respectively remained the bone of contention and centers of Amhara identity mobilization that attract international attention. The limitations within the demarcation process are not exceptional for Amhara. Despite they do not officially claim, Tigray and Oromia lost a big chunk of land to Afar and Assosa Zone of Benishangul-Gumuz region respectively. Nonetheless, it is understandable if Amhara now retrospectively reinterpreted the politics of allocation given the stark power imbalance and their sense of exclusion from the political process.

Experts suggest consociational federalism as a better remedy for the protection of intra-unit minorities. In addition, Kymlicka (2006) identified conditions in which multi-national federalism is successful in protecting minorities living under ethnic-territorial units, and suggested that the process of “institutionalization is done in a peaceful and democratic way, consistent with human rights and liberal freedoms”. He said ethnic federalism is a riskier proposition in the Global south where there is no convergence over liberal and human rights values that led to the breeding of local tyranny without protection to the new minority groups. As this study revealed the problem is acute in Ethiopia, as ethno-national boundaries are not established in a democratic and inclusive manner nor the titular groups are less interested to adhere the values of democracy and protection of human rights in which the Amhara living in other regional states have been experiencing killings and displacement. Power sharing and non-territorial autonomy can protect the rights of intra-unit minorities without limiting the empowerment of titular groups which already existed.

7. The “Amhara domination” discourse

There are accusations that the EPRDF with its core TPLF regime has used revolutionary democracy as an ideological weapon to target Amhara for decades. Since the 1980s, Revolutionary Democracy known in Amharic as “Abiyotawi democracy” had been the core ideology of TPLF, and EPDM in its Marxist version passed through a discursive shift since 1980s not less than four times until 2010 (Bach, 2011). Bach describes revolutionary democracy, a doctrine neither revolutionary nor democratic “but remains powerful as a fighting tool to exclude internal and external “‘enemies’”” (Bach, 2011). Its exclusionary nature through tagging names is inherent in the ideology and the strong conviction that the TPLF-led EPRDF uses it as a discursive weapon to weaken the potential opponents.

The name “Neftegna” has also notoriously been mentioned interchangeably with “Timkihtegna” (chauvinist) to target potential political contenders since 1991. A specter of ethno-nationalism that criminalizes the Amhara as an oppressor was haunting Ethiopia. In the early years of the 1990s, where ethnic tension was the highest, Amhara became the fitting choice for ethnic target practice.

People who are designated as Amhara have been massacred and evicted from the newly established ethnic-territorial regions Amhara were executed and displaced in areas of the Oromia region such as Bedeno, Arba Gugu, Garra Muleta, and Eastern Wolega.and a large number of Amhara were evicted from the southwest to the Amhara region (Tronvoll, 2000; Tesfaye, 2009). The ethnically motivated political tension and the atrocities on the “Amhara” people since 1991 that continue until these days gave rise to Amhara nationalism. The plight of the Amhara and its non-representation in the transitional process caused the establishment of AAPO. It has been the root cause for the rise of reactive Amhara nationalism. Teshome argues that “the rise of Amhara nationalism was … a reaction to EPRDF-propagated discourse against the ‘neftegna’- often meaning Amhara” (Teshome, 2018)

Many ethno-nationalists are also acting as if the “Neftegna system” (imperial regime since the late 19^th century) was not removed and the 1974 revolution had not happened. Those poor peasants who have migrated from other parts of Ethiopia largely the current Amhara region have become Neftegna who must be expelled. EPRDF, on its part, believed that although the system had collapsed, it survives at the level of perception and there are elite groups who have carried its ideology and lost their power that will inevitably aspire to regain their long-standing interests (Mekonnen, 2017). However, the ethnic dimension of neftegna has been used for attacks. As this notion diffused to the territorial units, the people who were defined as “Amhara” by the respective titular groups have been targeted and displaced from parts of the country until today. In this case, religion and ideology have no value as ordinary Christian and Muslim people are neftegna as far as they are ascribed as ethnic Amhara. The recent atrocities in Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz region confirm the above assertion.

Data collected from survivors of the violence that claimed hundreds of lives of members of the Amhara community in the Oromia region on 1 November 2020² indicated that both the attackers and local administrators were repeatedly saying “Neftegna Amhara” do not deserve to be buried let alone to live in this Oromo land’. Among this group of survivors, most of them were vulnerable Muslim women and their children (personal observation, November 2020). A survivor-woman estimated 30s surrounded by her three children says: “all the Muslims and Christians were targeted in the region and they call us ‘neftegna Amhara’; they told us as we have no place in that region”. An old Muslim man, one of the survivors says that:

We made the mistake of not paying attention to them. The local governors instructed us to vacate the area before four years because it is not our property. They will compel us to leave and confiscate our property for the Oromo, unless they forewarn us. They have completed the task now. (interview, November 2020)

The above testimony of victims is only a sample that shows the suffering that Amhara living in other regions lasted for three decades. The Amhara nationalists largely framed their movement in response to victimization inflicted from what they call “anti-Amhara” narratives and its state machinery. Discursive attacks against Amhara that denote and connote as neftegna and timkihtegna that forced individuals to decide on their identity (re)configuration, most likely embrace Amhara identity and join the mobilization.

Amhara nationalists also criticize that the constitution was designed based on the discursive narrative of Amhara domination. Amhara nationalists complain that the spirit of the constitution implicitly recognizes narratives of “Amhara oppression, and oppressed nationalities.” They mentioned the preamble of the constitution as it recognizes the presence of unjust historical relationship between people. As the preamble states that “Fully cognizant that our common destiny can best be served by rectifying historically unjust relationships and by further promoting our shared interests”; they point to the national oppression thesis which blames the Amhara and thus needs to be revised.

8. Implications of Amhara nationalism: a sub-national, federal, and regional perspective

The Amhara nationalism has been putting its implications on the political discourse and institutional set-up of the Amhara region.

Following the Amhara protests of 2016 and the subsequent party fragmentation within the EPRDF, the local political dynamics have been going differently in Amhara national regional state. The endorsement of questions rallying behind the Amhara protests and afterward by the regional party somehow began to affect the institutions of both the regional and local governments. The regional executive and local government councils pass ethnically motivated decisions and rename local governments themselves, as well as an airport.

Since 1991, EPDM (ANDM) has begun to impose new names and, in some cases, rename various places and institutions in the Amhara region. Names such as Ginbot 20 and Hidar 11 were coined as names of sub-cities, schools, an airport, health centers, and public places in many urban centers. The names signify just a month and date. Ginbot 20 (May 28) is the day that EPRDF seized Addis Ababa, defeating the Dergue regime, and Hidar 11 (November 20) is the month and date that EPDM was established, and it is considered a surrogate of the TPLF, hardly represents Amhara interests. The Amhara activists strongly argued that the Amhara people have not benefited from the Ginbot 20 victory; rather, it should be considered the day in which the Amhara ethnic target practice was just beginning, and the date EPDM was established is not worthy of celebration by the Amhara people. This was accentuated by the Amhara protests, and the unfolding Amhara activism forced the regional government to embark on changing place names. In Bahir Dar, a capital city of Amhara region, the names of two sub-cities were immediately changed. The first sub-city, formerly known as Hidar 11, was changed into “Atse Tweodros”, the name of an Ethiopian emperor (1855–1868) with whom the birth of modern Ethiopia is associated. The second sub-city’s name, Ginbot 20, was replaced by Menelik II (188–1913), a ruler that the EPRDF and its fellow ethno-nationalists elites despise the most.

In reaction to “Amhara domination” discourse, and the EPRDF’s despise of the imperial ruling class, glorifying and praising the rulers of imperial Ethiopia has become the hallmark of Amhara activism. The reason Amhara nationalists celebrate the rulers of the past regime is the eventual blame shift by the ethno-nationalists from the Amhara ruling class to all Amhara (KIIP2, 9 October 2020). The other reason is attributed a reaction to the selective demonization of rulers because ethno-nationalist elites consider them Amhara. One interviewee says:

We need to selectively promote those who are victims of selective demonization ascribed to Amhara. Previously, ethno-nationalists considered all those who associated with the Ethiopian state system as members of the oppressor Amhara ruling class, regardless of their ethnic origin. But now the Oromo and Tigray nationalists have been praising the ruling members of the imperial regime by virtue of being Oromo and Tigray. (KIIAC1, February 29, 2022)

EPRDF (ANDM) had renamed the airport found at Bahir Dar city as Ginbot 20 by revoking the preexisting name, Dejazmach Belay Zeleke, a heroic patriot in the resistance against Italian occupation (1936–1941). In contrast, the two airports in Mekele and Axum in the Tigray region were named Alula Aba Nega and Emperor Yohannes IV, respectively. There are also growing tendencies towards celebrating and praising national heroes with an Oromo background, such as Balcha Safo, Abdisa Aga, Abichu, and other heroic patriots who fought against Italian colonialism. This implies that the desire for ethnic representation of the past is such that some imperial rulers are more equal than others. The renaming practice in Amhara region signifies the endorsement of the regional government about the Amhara activism to correct its previous “mistakes” the imposition of ideological names at the expense of cultural and historical values of the people. Hence, the former name of the airport, Dejasmach Belay Zeleke, was reportedly restored.

There is a basic alignment between the National Movement of Amhara (NaMA) and Amhara Prosperity Party (APP) in framing the Amhara nationalism questions: Countering the national oppression thesis and its side slipped “Amhara domination” discourse that master the federal edifice is built up on; issues related to constitutional amendment; heightened territorial claim more particularly the Wolkayit and Raya; the violations of rights against Amhara living in other regions. The above major political actors within Amhara political mobilizations do not tend to fully reject the existing constitution nor did the ethnic-based federal system. Rather, both APP and NaMA demand constitutional amendments and remedial actions based on the existing federal arrangement.

Nonetheless, the solutions are easier said than done, as they depend on a political reality in which almost all titular ethnic groups seek to maintain the status quo and fear that changes to it would harm their interests. Moreover, most of the claims of Amhara nationalism call for a “thinking-out-of-the-box” approach that utilizes extra-constitutional amendment mechanisms. This is so because the issues, or aspects of the constitutional text, requiring amendment relate, inter alia, to the spirit of the Constitution as premised on the national oppression thesis, that is to say, the preamble, as well as to the definition of “nations, nationalities and peoples” and the secession clause—none of which are easily amendable under the current amendment procedures. Furthermore, the issue of territorial claims is highly sensitive, particularly when it comes to Wolkayit region. The content of the Pretoria agreement and its implications on contentious recent political development in Amhara region is the case in point.

Since the Pretoria agreement was signed between the federal government and TPLF on 2 November 2022, to end the war with the Tigray region, Amhara has once again shown a sense of political exclusion. Many expressed their concerns about the federal-TPLF negotiations that exclude Amhara. Amhara Association of America (AAA), a U.S.-based lobbying group with some Amhara political figures in Ethiopia, claims representation of Amhara in the Pretoria agreement. Apart from the main question over the constitution, the Amharas’ territorial disputes with the Tigray region make them a potential party to participate in the peace talk. Eventually, the process and result of the federal-TPLF agreement caused a federal-Amhara clash that signals Oromo-Amhara political tension five years after the Prime Minister came to power through their “Oro-mara” alliance (Abel, 2023). On 2 April 2023, widespread public protests were held in many parts of the Amhara region while Ethiopia celebrated Abiy Ahmed’s fifth anniversary. This was worsened following the government’s decision to restructure regional special forces, some Amhara special forces refused to comply with the order (FDRE, 2023). Ethiopia was once again drawn into another internal conflict. Starting in early August 2023, armed groups collectively called Amhara Fanno controlled most of the Amhara regional major towns (Standard, 2023). Fighting escalated when the federal defense force tried to push the armed groups from occupied towns, and eventually the federal government proclaimed a state of emergency in the Amhara region, which will stay for six months with the possibility of transcending other parts of the country (Jazeera, 2023). The initial support for Prime Minister Abiy from Amhara, hoping he would change the political discourse (“Amhara domination discourse”) and revise the constitution, is now filled with mistrust. “Amhara” elites, who used to be against state policies that encouraged ethno-regional political mobilizations, now stand behind their regional forces, and supporting the fresh armed resistance against the federal government.

Ethnic nationalism can also be an important factor in the stability or instability of a region, which can eventually have an impact on international relations and regional security. Since 1991, ethnicity has been the predominant vehicle for articulating political conflict in Ethiopia. Since 2015, Amhara nationalism has become an important political variable in Ethiopian conflicts. Given Ethiopia has an important geopolitical position in East Africa, and the development of Amhara nationalism in Ethiopia may have influences in the region and superpowers who have been showing interests in the Horn region. The armed conflict between the federal government and the Amhara forces (Fanno) likely attracts different players in the Horn region, notably neighboring countries and their respective regional powers. Eritrea’s historical and political concern over Ethiopia the ongoing civil war in Sudan, accompanied by the border proximity of the Amhara region with the two countries, are some of the factors that might have led them to look into the Amhara-Federal armed conflict. The Blue Nile and its contentions, to which the river is largely confined in the Amhara region, and the growing interests over the Red Sea are also important variables that attract regional powers into the conflict.

9. Conclusion

Informed by Foucault’s “the construction of a ‘reverse’ discourse,” theory and drawing on the literature of nation-building, the limits of nation-state and multi-national federalism, this article sets out the roorts of Amhara nationalism and its implications a sub-national, federal, and regional perspective. Competing nationalisms are to an extent the outcome of institutional arrangements put in place during the imperial Ethiopia. Attempts at building a nation-state through educational, political and military institutions were perceived as national oppression by some non-Amharic-speaking elites. The out-group conception that the presence of a unified Amharic-speaking people who dominate the political system since the imperial times became a foundation for the new political system since 1991, and the main cause for the rise of new identity formation, Amhara nationalism.

Through “expansion” from northern central Ethiopia and the amalgamation of local elites, the Amhara identity has become closely associated with Ethiopian statehood since imperial times. Coming under pressure and even suffering oppression and expulsion from parts of the country, there is the emergence of a reactive and defensive Amhara ethnic nationalism with important implications for the current political discontent and future of Ethiopia.

It is the result of a political reality that one nation nationalism political system and its centralized structures are replaced by a non-representative devolved system.

Amhara nationalism is a political force that sidelined in the post-1991 political reforms in Ethiopia and remained left out. Hence, it is safe to argue that the Amhara, who are part of the core of the Ethiopian state-nation system, were pushed back from involvement in making the federal system and then participating in it politically, and are now demanding to be integrated within it. This requires an inclussive peace settlement and designing a legitimate political system necessary to mitigate the current poltical discontent.

Hence, creating a sense of authorship and ownership among the Amhara people—a sense that they are included in the constitution is one possible action. This could be done through launching an inclusive dialogue on the constitution, which is also called an extra-constitutional amendment. This entails when a constitutional amendment become difficult based on the amending procedures, an initiation of amendment might come from the elites as they appeal to the people for its necessity. This led to a mutual understanding of the benefits of maintaining the spirit of the Constitution or amending it. The inclusive dialogue can redress the contention emanated from the violation of the existing rigid amending procedures. Reaching at consensus with the regional states on the protection of internal minorities and thwart their pursuit of creating homogenous states is crucial. Consociational democracy has to be introduced and constitutionally recognized, to force all ethnic based self-governing units to ensure the protection of intra-unit minorities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Let alone the dispersed minorities, the Oromia region did not recognize the Argoba (resided in both western and eastern Harargie zones), the Zay (lives within and around Lake Zeway), the Gedeo, and Yem. Tigray did not guarantee autonomy to the Kunama, Erob, and Amhara minorities.

2. https://addisstandard.com/killing-of-civilians-in-west-wollega-guliso-wereda-govt-reactions/ (Accessed Augest 2, 2021)