Youth Gangs and Street Children

Culture, Nurture and Masculinity in Ethiopia

Paula Heinonen

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780857450999
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Antropología

The rapidly expanding population of youth gangs and street children is one of the most disturbing issues in many cities around the world. These children are perceived to be in a constant state of destitution, violence and vagrancy, and therefore must be a serious threat to society, needing heavy-handed intervention and 'tough love' from concerned adults to impose societal norms on them and turn them into responsible citizens. However, such norms are far from the lived reality of these children. The situation is further complicated by gender-based violence and masculinist ideologies found in the wider Ethiopian culture, which influence the proliferation of youth gangs. By focusing on gender as the defining element of these children's lives — as they describe it in their own words — this book offers a clear analysis of how the unequal and antagonistic gender relations that are tolerated and normalized by everyday school and family structures shape their lives at home and on the street.

1

ETHIOPIA

The Country

Ethiopia is situated in the northeast corner of the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Djibouti and Somalia in the east, by Kenya in the south, by the Sudan in the west and by Eritrea in the north. The country is as large as France and Spain combined and covers a total area of some 1,221,000 square kilometres. After the establishment of the newly created State of Eritrea in 1992, Ethiopia lost its nine hundred kilometres of coastline along the Red Sea and is now a land-locked country.

The geography of the country is characterised by a variety of reliefs, ranging from 90 metres below sea level in the Afar Depression to the elevated central plateaux varying in height between 2,000 and 4,600 metres above sea level. It is a land of great geographical diversity with high, rugged mountains, flat-topped plateaux, deep gorges, incised river valleys and rolling plains. Abbay or the Blue Nile, its most famous river, flows a distance of some 1,450 kilometres from its source in Lake Tana to join the White Nile in Khartoum. Apart from the brief Fascist Italian occupation of 1935–1941, Ethiopia has maintained its unity and independence by successfully defending itself against a succession of Arab and European foes.

Ethiopia's population has grown from 33.5 million in 1983 to 75.1 million in 2006, out of which half are under the age of fifteen. The crude birth rate stands at an average 47.3 per 1,000 of population. Total fertility rate was 7.7 children per women in 1990–2000. Infant mortality rate stands on average at 86.0 per 1000 with rates for under age five reaching 145.2 per 1000. Civil strife and famine have inevitably affected Ethiopian children. Throughout the past two decades, children and their families have been on the move in large numbers in search of a secure way of life. One result has been that the capital, Addis Ababa, has experienced enormous population growth through the influx of migrants as well as an increased birth rate (United Nations Population Division 2008).

Ethnicity

Ethiopia has a rich well-documented cultural past, which dates back to pre-Christian times. It has its own written script, Amharic, with its unique alphabet, which is the official language. Its ethnic composition is as diverse as its topography. Even though the numbers are often in conflict, it is estimated that it has as many as seventy ethnic groups speaking over two hundred and fifty languages and dialects and many religious communities, which include Christian, Muslim and Jewish as well as a myriad of traditional religious beliefs (Central Statistical Authority 1999).

Modern Ethiopian culture is the product of many millennia of interaction among people in and around the Ethiopian highland and lowland regions. Varied ethnic, linguistic and religious groups have influenced its evolution. The country's political history was shaped and is still dominated by intense intra-ethnic and religious conflicts. Wars, insurrections and rebellions were and still are common occurrences. There is an abundance of scholarly work on Ethiopia and the Ethiopians. Historically, Ethiopia used to be divided into the Northern Highlands, the core of the Old Ethiopian Christian Kingdom and the Southern States, most of which were brought under imperial rule by conquest. In recent times, writings about the social, ethnic, economic and political forces that helped determine the nature of Ethiopian history, ancient and modern, is surrounded by intense debate and controversy. Ethiopian and foreign authors vie with one another to put forth their own perspectives on the subject (see W. James et al. 2002, especially articles by Christopher Clapham, ‘The Political Framework, Controlling Space in Ethiopia’, and Alessandro Triulzi, ‘Battling with the Past, New Frameworks for Ethiopian Historiography’; see also Ezekiel Gebissa 2009, Contested Terrain: Essays on Oromo Studies, Ethiopianist Discourses and Politically Engaged Scholarship).

Research suggests that ethnic identities tend to attain their greatest importance in situations of flux, change, resource competition and threats against boundaries (see Gellner 1983; Anderson 1983; Eriksen 1988; Banks 1996). Ethnicity in Ethiopia is an enormously complex concept and is not amenable to simple classification. The ethnic composition of Ethiopia is as diverse as its history and topography. No ethnic entity has remained untouched by others, even among groups who think of themselves as unique or are considered by others to be different. This is due to migration or conquest and assimilation in earlier times and forced resettlements (see A. Pankhurst 1992) and urbanization in more recent times. Intra-ethnic marriage and ethnic mixing has occurred in the past and is common in urban centres. These mixed-up past boundaries between ethnic groups are now being ‘remapped’ – with at times an uncategorisable present. Furthermore, Ethiopian Christian Orthodox Christians and Muslims each make up approximately 40 per cent of the total population. They are found among most if not all the ethnic groups. Protestant and Catholic converts and adherents of traditional local faiths of different persuasions make up the rest and live interspersed among Muslims.

The usual ethnic markers, namely territorial demarcation, mythical origins, linguistic association, physical appearance, ways of being and doing, religious affiliation, shared oppression or forced assimilation by dominant groups or even the extent of ethnic mixing are still being used by separatist movements, politicians and scholars and rearranged as facts to project new or old realities. Even though ethnicity is at times a subjective response to historical experience and current situations, traits based on ethnicity, much like those based on language and religion, are still deeply ingrained and have not been susceptible to elimination by politics or conquest (see Turton 2006).

The population of Addis Ababa comes from mixed and varied ethnic backgrounds even though some people often express their political loyalties in purely ethnic terms. This may be partly influenced by the fact that in order to be registered in kebeles,¹ and acquire the much-valued identity cards, they are obliged to declare their ethnic affiliations. It is exacerbated by the perception that the Tigray, the ethnic group from which Prime Minister Meles Zenawi stems, benefit unduly from the economic, developmental and political power they derive from his rule. Nevertheless, most if not all the street children families, migrants and city-born residents of Addis Ababa I knew had little or no contact with their places of origin. The only street children where ethnicity may have a bearing on being street children with regular contact with their families are the Gurague, who account for 2 per cent of the population of Ethiopia.

The Guragues are a singular example of rural/urban continuity, even though their traditional way of life has been disturbed by migration and external influences. Shared geographical origins and language as well as myths of common ancestry define them as a group. They are a prime example of a community of people bound by a common interest. Gurague living in Addis Ababa are academics, civil servants, rich merchants, peddlers, shoeshine boys and labourers. Seifu Ruga (1976: 203) asserts that urban-rural links are kept alive by migrant urbanites avoiding making a complete break with their rural socio-economic roots. Christian Guragues return to their villages for Meskel,² every year. The Muslims go during Arefa after the Ramadan ceremony.

I have met many Gurague shoeshine boys who live communally with older siblings or relatives. They draw lots in order to decide who will be going home that year if they cannot all afford to go back. Those unable to visit their families due to financial constraints make all sorts of sacrifices to send presents to their relatives. The Gurague have transplanted and moulded several traditional social self-help schemes to meet ‘modern’ urban demands (Seifu 1976: 204–217). This is done though membership of several kinds of associations at tribal, agnatic or village level in Addis Ababa and back in their homeland (ibid.: 205). They all aspire to own or maintain a small farm of ensete (false banana plant). ‘This is reinforced by the Gurague attitude that a person who does not maintain his farm (back in his village) is usually considered by his neighbours as rootless and “hopeless” even though he may have no use for the farm’ (ibid.: 209).

Marcus Banks (1996) considers that ethnicity is such a difficult concept to define that it is becoming a less useful form of analysis. Nevertheless, for social anthropologists, the focus is on the group's definition of their culture and differences from other groups. Banks describes the primordial approach to ethnicity as derived from blood and origin, as well as religion and language. In contrast, instrumentalist ethnicity is concerned with personal outlook of the subject; here ethnicity is to realise a particular outcome, and is often related to particular historical or socio-economic circumstances. Hiranthi Jayaweera (1991) adds perceived common origin and experience to the above. He also introduces situational and symbolic forms of ethnicity, which are used to assume an identity that aids a group in relation to particular territorial, political or economic circumstances. From the above discussion, it seems that ethnicity is best defined as a composite concept. Besides, ethnicity and allegiance to ethnic groups can change through assimilation, marriage outside the group, acculturation, and conversion to another religion or even due to geographical circumstances. In the literature of youth gangs, ‘race’ and ethnicity play a significant part among such street groups (see Glazer 2000; Schneider and Tilley 2004; Poynting and Noble 2004). Christopher Adamson (2004: 143) writes: ‘The effects of racial and class structures on the behaviour of American youth gangs have been so profound that scholars who have sought to develop race-invariant theories of gangs and delinquency have been stymied.’ As I shall argue in chapters 3, 4 and 5, shared lifestyle and circumstances were more important than ethnic identity or class affiliation in the urban setting of Addis Ababa. Furthermore, most town dwellers, migrants and non-migrants alike, had ‘to learn to live with each other’ and therefore conform to an urban way of behaviour regardless of ethnic origin.

Consequences of Famines in Ethiopia

Ethiopia's principal resource is its land. Its population is predominantly rural. Agriculture provides the major part of national production, exports and employment. It is estimated that over 90 per cent of the population live in the rural areas, mainly as subsistence farmers. The principal exports are coffee (the most important cash and export crop), followed by grains, pulses, fruits and vegetables and cattle on the hoof and hides and skins. The country's mineral resources include oil, gold, platinum, copper, potash, iron and natural gas. However, at present, mining contributes less than 1 per cent of GDP.

The country's proximity to the Equator and its great altitudinal ranges have combined to form three distinct climatic zones. The dega (temperate zone), the woine dega (sub tropical) and the kola (tropical), or hot zone, include desert and semi-desert lowland areas to the east and southeast of the country. There are three seasons throughout most of the country. These are the belg (small rains) from February to May, the keremt (big rains) from June to September and the bega, the dry period from October to January. The two rainy seasons enable the cool and temperate regions to produce two harvests a year under normal conditions. Some of the southeastern and most of the lowland areas have much shorter rainy seasons; sometimes no belg rains at all. Because Ethiopia's agricultural economy is based on subsistence farming, when the rains fail to arrive on time, famine ensues.

Amartya Sen (1999: 192) puts forth a powerful argument for the close link between political freedom and famine preventions, namely that ‘no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent country with a democratic form of government and a relatively free press’. He states that democracy and a free press provide the political incentives for governments or authorities to prevent famines. In an earlier book, Sen (1983: 757) compares and contrasts famine situations in India and China. He concludes that while the situation of regular malnutrition and hunger was far more severe in India than in China, as reflected in the difference of life expectancy (between 66 and 69 years in China, but only 52 years in India), India did not have any famines after independence. This was due to the pressure of newspaper and diverse political parties. On the other hand, in spite of the professed commitment of the Chinese Communist Party to eradicate regular malnutrition and hunger through an equal access to means of livelihood, the regime's lack of democratic transparency and inadaptability to sudden changes resulted in their lack of response to request for food distribution in affected regions. This was a major factor leading to the 1959–1961 large-scale famine, which resulted in millions of deaths. Sen's postulation is instructive for explaining famines in Ethiopia.

Drought and famines have been striking Ethiopia for centuries (see R. Pankhurst 1961, 1968; Relief and Rehabilitation Commission report of Addis Ababa 1986 report, The History of Famine and Epidemics in Ethiopia prior to the Twentieth Century). This is due to a combination of low productivity, absence of developed infrastructure, and rapid population growth, as well as adverse climatic conditions. This has not been helped by political repression and armed conflict. In the post–World War II period, the problem was exacerbated by civil strife and political and economic mismanagement. In more recent times, the world's attention has been focused on Ethiopia mainly due to three famines of biblical proportion. The most devastating one was the 1964–1966 famine in the northern provinces of Tigray and Wello. This was followed by the l973–1974 famine in which about a quarter of a million people died and 50 per cent of the livestock were lost in the same region. Another famine occurred in 1984–1985, and for the third time in two decades, the televised pictures of a starving mass of people in the highlands of Ethiopia triggered an unprecedented response internationally (see W. G. Dawit 1989). The Derg's solution was to put in place a massive forced resettlement, which caused massive rural urban migration in subsequent years (see A. Pankhurst 1992). I knew many street children whose parents were part of that exodus, and who had ended up trapped in a cycle of poverty and joblessness.

During the latter part of the 1960s there was a drive to establish a viable tourism industry. Posters showing the beauty of the land and its cultures were displayed in every hotel and restaurant. The ubiquitous accompanying English language caption read: ‘Ethiopia: thirteen months of sunshine and three thousand years of history.’³ University students and other dissidents made it a sport to deface the posters by changing ‘thirteen months of sunshine’ to ‘thirteen months of hunger’ and ‘three thousand years of history’ to ‘three thousand years of misery’. The world reportage of the latest famine in the making (May/September 2008) continues to affect Ethiopia's image as a land of hunger and misery.

In 1974, mounting pressure for a more open political system, coupled with the disclosure of the 1973–1974 famine, led to the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam's so-called Marxist-Leninist regime (commonly known as the Derg)⁴ that followed ruled the country for seventeen years. Ethiopia was proclaimed a socialist state on 20 December 1974. The nationalisation of land, banks, insurance, commercial and industrial companies followed. Thousands of Ethiopians were killed during what is now known as the ‘red terror’ unleashed by the Derg against its opponents. The end of the Derg was due to several factors: a Somali-backed civil war in the Ogaden in 1977; drought, forced resettlement and the use of hunger as a weapon to subdue uprisings in rural areas; the mismanagement of human and material resources as well as the demise of the USSR. Mengistu Haile Mariam was found guilty of genocide but never put on trial. He now lives in Zimbabwe in relative comfort with his wife and children. I was often told that there were less beggars and street children during the Derg's reign due to their social policy of helping the poor first.

The current government came into power in 1995. It is the successor of the interim government set up by the Ethiopian People's Democratic Front (EPRDF) during the transitional period to the 1995 multi-party elections. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is the leader of the Tigrean People's Liberation Front, the largest group within the EPRDF. His government aims to decentralise power and has established a market economy, although land remains State-owned property. Land-locked Ethiopia maintained cordial relations with Eritrea until the latter started a border dispute in May 1998. Since then, Ethiopia and Eritrea, two of the poorest countries in Africa, have spent millions of dollars financing this border dispute. In spite of the loss of thousands of their citizens, they have yet to resolve their differences. On top of this cross-border war, Ethiopian soldiers were stationed in Somalia for two years and embroiled in an intra-clan war taking place in the Horn of Africa and were only withdrawn in January 2009. Separatist movements are still a great concern to the present government. Rural urban migration due to poverty and joblessness continues unabated. As Muhammad Yunus (1998: 215) so succinctly put it, ‘Poverty is not created by the poor; it is created by the structures of society.’ The effects of urbanization, over-population, rural-to-urban migration and especially political and economic mismanagement by successive governments are the causes for the emergence and proliferation of the street children population.

Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa was founded in 1887. In spite of the present government's decentralising efforts, it is still the political capital of the country and its economic and administrative centre. With a population of 3,627,934 in 2007, it is a mosaic of social and ethnic mixing and diversity. Its altitude ranges from 2,500 to 3,000 meters. It has a surface area estimated to cover 21,000 hectares. It lies at the foot-hills of the Entoto hills and is cut through by numerous fast-flowing streams and rivers. The city was not properly planned. Just over a century ago Addis Ababa started out as a garrison town for Emperor Menelik II's army. It then ‘grew as an agglomeration of sefers, following the contours of nature rather than the dictates of man’ (Proceedings 1986: 5). Sefer means neighbourhood and in modern times it also refers to certain areas of the city. The system of sefers, that is military camps and settlements, was established in medieval Ethiopia: ‘Chieftains with their retinue used to settle around the Emperor's compound. The imperial quarter was usually located on the highest place in the garrison and the sefers were scattered over a large area around it, each chief taking his specific place herein…. The area between sefers was filled in as more residences got built’ (Bahru 1986: 43). Some sefers were originally populated by migrants from other parts of Ethiopia and are still known as such: Welo sefer, Dorze sefer and so on. Other neighborhoods are named after past trading or other activities, such as Serategna sefer (workers’ neighborhood), Sega Tera (meat place) or Kera (abattoir). In the course of time the city ‘continued to sprawl from a camp into a metropolis’, hence ‘the bizarre juxtaposition of luxury and squalor that has been noted by more than one observer’. (ibid.: 45). It has defied numerous urban-planning programs, initially by the Italian Occupation Force during the Second Worl...