Recurrence of war | Failed federalism | How Ethiopia keeps losing its parts | Art of compromise

Описание: Why have successive regimes in Ethiopia failed in their attempts (sometimes genuine) to create a system where the various peoples in the country have the autonomy and agency they have been demanding for generations?

Paradoxically, even when forces who promised to democratise power took the helm of power in Addis Ababa, as the TPLF did in 1991, they have invariably succumbed to the centrist forces in Addis Ababa and become enemies of decentralisation themselves.

What explains these failures, paradoxes and pathologies?

The historian, writer, and commentator Ezekiel Gebissa reflects on these fundamental questions. He explains how these all too powerful “Addis Ababa-based interest groups” end up subsuming anyone and everyone who “holds power” in Addis Ababa.



Notes related to the conversation for further reading:

The expropriation of scholarship for justifying state power by Ezekiel Gebissa: https://addisstandard.com/deluge-defe...
How manufactured stupidity fueled the Tigray genocide by Ezekiel Gebissa: https://addisstandard.com/deluge-defe...
In his book “The struggle over Eritrea” the historian Haggai Erlich writes how Aman Amdon of the Dergue regime tried to meet the Eritreans half way, and how his overtures and proposed concessions were seen as acts of betrayal by the establishment. He also writes there were similar attempts during the Haileselassie regime but were similarly dismissed. Book here: https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-...
In Prison Notebooks, Antoni Gramsci describes the concept of “interregnum”, a period where the old order has disappeared but a new one hasn’t come to life, for reasons that Ezekiel explains in this discussion. Book here: https://www.amazon.se/-/en/Prison-Not...


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#ethnonationalism #ethnicity #federalism #tigraywar