The Ethnopolitics of Ethnofederalism in Ethiopia by Jan Erk

Author:Jan Erk [Erk, Jan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781351227452
Goodreads: 36984534
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Genesis of Multi-ethnic Cities in Ethiopia

For most of its history, Sub-Saharan Africa did not have large urban conglomerations. One could find small indigenous forts and settlements from times even before the Pharaohs to the era of slave trade in Africa; however, modern African urban centres, by and large, were the products of colonial and post-colonial periods (Freund, 2007). This was especially the case in the East of the continent:

The location, size and distribution of the major urban centres in East Africa is almost entirely the product of colonial decisions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in terms of setting of administrative headquarters; routing of transport lines; and identification of areas of colonial strategic and economic importance. (UN-HABITAT, 2008, p. 122)

Ethiopia did not experience European colonialism, but the urban spatial development strategy of the Abyssinian Empire was akin to colonial cities and remained heavily top-down. This resulted in ‘a very high rate of urban primacy whereby Addis Ababa, for example, dominates among the urban centres in Ethiopia’ (UN-HABITA, 2008, p. 125). Modern multi-ethnic Ethiopia was built mainly through wars of conquests in the last quarter of the nineteenth century as the Abyssinian Empire expanded southwards (Tibebu, 1995). The making of modern multi-ethnic Ethiopia was accompanied by the ‘establishment of new centres of political and military control, generally known as Ketemas or garrison towns’ (Gudina, 2011, p. 11). These towns became the main agents of the imperial project of ethno-linguistic homogenisation (Amharaisation) of the conquered peoples (Bonsa, 2013; Gudina, 2011; Jalata, 2010). Finfinne, an Oromo village, was conquered and renamed Addis Ababa (‘new flower’ in Amharic) as a garrison town in 1886. It later became the imperial capital in 1889. Bonsa (2013) believes the process of name change from the local language to Amharic represents something more than a cadastral detail:

the process refers to the state’s capacity for naming a place that it conquered, at the expense of an old one that it had erased. The naming of Addis Ababa and the power politics that this involved served as a signifier of and a harbinger for a larger conflict, as political developments since the 1990 shave glaringly exposed. (p. 168)

Modelled after Addis Ababa, many towns were renamed by the imperial regime and became military and political centres: Bishoftu’s name was changed to Debre Zeit; Adama to Nazeret; Batu to Zeway; Adola to Kibre Mengist; Ambo to Agere Hiwot; Ejere to Addis Alem; Ciro to Aseb Teferi; and others. The original names of all of these towns have been restored following the downfall of the Derg regime in 1991—except Addis Ababa.

In the 1960s Knutsson (1969) conducted a study of the multi-ethnic market villages/towns in Oromia, and discovered ethnic-based sector monopolisation. That is to say, bureaucrats and administrators were Amhara, shopkeepers were Gurage and grain dealers were Oromo (Knutsson, 1969). Across all Ethiopian cities, assimilation of diverse ethno-linguistic groups into Amharic-language and Amhara culture was encouraged (Gudina, 2011; Knutsson, 1969). Speaking Amharic was seen as sign of urbanity. The Derg military

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