Visions of Zion

Ethiopians and Rastafari in the Search for the Promised Land

Erin C. MacLeod

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781479880751
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ethnic & Tribal Religion

Inreggae song after reggae song Bob Marley and other reggae singers speak of thePromised Land of Ethiopia. “Repatriation is a must!” they cry. The Rastafarihave been travelling to Ethiopia since the movement originated in Jamaica in1930s. They consider it the Promised Land, and repatriation is acornerstone of their faith. Though Ethiopians see Rastafari as immigrants, theRastafari see themselves as returning members of the Ethiopian diaspora.In Visions of Zion, Erin C. MacLeod offers the first in-depthinvestigation into how Ethiopians perceive Rastafari andRastafarians within Ethiopia and the role this unique immigrantcommunity plays within Ethiopian society.

Rastafariare unusual among migrants, basing their movements on spiritual rather thaneconomic choices. This volume offers those who study the movement a broaderunderstanding of the implications of repatriation. Taking the Ethiopianperspective into account, it argues that migrant and diaspora identitiesare the products of negotiation, and it illuminates the implications of thisnegotiation for concepts of citizenship, as well as for our understandings ofpan-Africanism and south-south migration. Providing a rare look at migration to a non-Western country, this volumealso fills a gap in the broader immigration studies literature.

1
Ethiopianness

Contemporary tourists traveling through Ethiopia are shocked by how different each part of the country can be. The mountainous north, with its near-homogenous Orthodox residents, some Amhara and speaking Amharic, some Tigray and speaking Tigrinya, many dressed in the traditional white, scarflike gabis and natalas, could not appear more different than the hot, desert area of Harar, in the east of the country, with its predominantly Muslim population, including Oromo women in extraordinarily bright-colored clothing. And this is a contrast between just two different areas of Ethiopia. The forms of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in Ethiopia possess elements specific to the country. Cultural variation from Hamer people in the south, specifically the Omo Valley, whose cow-jumping ceremony and intricate beaded clothing have fascinated anthropologists and tourists alike, contrasts with the northern nomadic Afar and the western Nuer, known for intricate facial scarification. The Ethnographic Museum of Ethiopia, located in Addis Ababa University, has an exhibit of the different cultures in the country. Walking through the exhibition is overwhelming—there are simply so many ethnic groups with myriad and varied cultural practices—some populations numbering in the hundreds, others in the millions, but all within Ethiopia.

It is difficult to develop any coherent sense of what might be called “Ethiopianness” or Ethiopian identity within Ethiopia. What does it mean to be Ethiopian? For Rastafari, as we have seen, Ethiopia provides a space for unity amongst black peoples. The Ethiopian view (or rather views) of what it means to be Ethiopian is very different from the way Rastafari see the very same thing. Whereas the Rastafari view of what it means to be Ethiopian is based on an imperial narrative, this is but one of the huge variety of identity-informing narratives in the country. Ethiopianness is a variable concept, constituted from within as well as from without. Dealing with the question of Ethiopian identity is challenging because of the linguistic, religious, cultural, geographical, and ethnic heterogeneity in Ethiopia. Of the country’s history, attempts at unifying the country have been disputed and contested. Eighty-four languages are currently in use (Gordon 2005) and the religious groups include Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, not to mention various animist faiths. Ethiopia is profoundly different in each region, from the mountains in the north to the rolling hills of the south, the deserts of the east and the tropical humidity of the west. In each of these areas there exists a wide range of cultural groups numbering as many if not more than the number of languages spoken.

Because Ethiopia was not colonized, it has lacked the ability to galvanize against a colonizing force such as Jamaica with England. Ethiopia has instead developed according to a series of failed attempts to create a single identity. The Rastafari image of a unique, unified nation which is home to all black peoples is contested by this sociohistorical reality. At the same time, the belief in Ethiopian exceptionalism—Ethiopia as different from other colonized African nations—also challenges the Rastafari conflation of Ethiopia with Africa. And ironically, the Rastafari emphasis on the uniqueness and importance of Ethiopia reinforces this deeply held belief in the exceptional nature of the country. The narratives of identity of the incoming immigrant population of Rastafari and of the host country of Ethiopians conflict. And beginning with the history of the country, it is possible to see how heterogeneity as well as exceptionalism have developed and why the Ethiopian narrative is completely different narrative from that of Rastafari.

Identity and History

As historian William Scott writes, until the 1985 famine Ethiopia represented “a mythical space, an idealized place of singular black power and special promise” (2004, 11). The Battle of Adwa is emblematic of this “special promise.” On 1 March 1896, Emperor Menelik II led his 100,000 soldier-strong Ethiopian army in a successful battle against the Italians, who had already established a colony in Eritrea. The Italians suffered what historian Theodore Vestal has called “a total disaster” (2005, 29). It was a decisive victory which still stands as one of the most important examples of the resistance to European colonialism. Demonstrating this point, political scientists Paulos Milkias and Getachew Metaferia begin their edited collection about Adwa as follows:

If Adwa holds a significant place in Africa’s history, it is because its meanings overflow the social and political conditions that made it possible and go beyond any relevance to its initial circumstances. The success at Adwa throws light on the normative dimensions of Ethiopian civilization; it challenges the demeaning Western conception of African cultures; it demonstrates that being targeted for colonization is not a prelude to fatality and that colonialism can be defeated; and, to Africans, it poses new political questions and sets novel historical tasks. (2005, 5)

According to Paulos and Getachew, Ethiopia’s triumph at Adwa demonstrated that the country—and perhaps Africa as a whole—need not accept colonialism: “colonialism can be defeated.” Ethiopia fought for and maintained its independence, eliminating the possibility of foreign intervention throughout the twentieth century. The country resisted Italy’s second attempt at colonialism, an invasion followed by only five years of occupation between 1936 and 1941.¹ In a significant way, this series of historical events has placed the country in a space removed (but not necessarily separate) from the colonial and postcolonial struggles and narratives of other African nations. By postcolonial struggle, I mean the struggle against European colonial rule. Other alternate colonial narratives function in Ethiopia.

Just as Adwa “poses new political questions” and “sets novel historical tasks,” I postulate that Ethiopia itself poses questions about traditional paradigms that have shaped theories of the citizen, the nation, and nationalism. The country presents a difficult task in trying to think about these very issues. The difficulty of speaking about Ethiopianness and/or Ethiopian identity seems to stem from this so-called “novel” nature of the country. Concepts that have been challenged in terms of a discussion of nationalism in the West are further complicated and challenged by the case that is Ethiopia. Ethiopian identity is and has always been contested, especially as the country has experienced three very different styles of government and nation building during the last hundred years. There was the monarchical reign of Haile Selassie, beginning in 1930 and ending in 1974; the rule of the communist regime, often referred to simply as the Dergue (meaning “committee” in Amharic), from 1974 to 1991, with Mengistu Hailemariam as leader; and the contemporaneous EPRDF government under Meles Zenawi, which came to power under the banner of “economic liberalization, democracy and human rights” (Donham 2002b, 151). Each of these governments has attempted to distill some semblance of Ethiopian identity by uniting (or, in the case of the EPRDF, dividing) the country under its own national vision. Historian Sarah Vaughan writes that “Ethiopia’s modern history can be viewed as an ongoing struggle between centralising and centrifugal forces” (2003, 283). The desire to create a single sense of Ethiopian identity, such as was attempted by both Haile Selassie and Mengistu, is consistently challenged by the numerous ethnicities and identities within the country. The EPRDF, on the other hand, have attempted to run Ethiopia under a system of ethnic federalism.

Though many observers of Ethiopia have and continue to see the country as an “ancient” and “mysterious”² land, capturing the imagination of Rastafari in particular, in fact many new ideas and theories developed to deal with issues of globalization and the contemporary reality of global connectedness may be applied to Ethiopia. As a country, it could be considered a so-called developing nation that has only recently entered some semblance of “democracy” under the EPRDF government. But Ethiopia is a multiethnic, pluralistic, and cosmopolitan nation—just like many Western nations. This means that Ethiopianness and Ethiopian identity, especially since the most recent change of government in 1991, are contested in ways resembling those experienced and theorized about in the so-called developed nations in the Western world. Instead of being a reflection of a monolithic black homeland for Rastafari, Ethiopia struggles politically as a multicultural society. Before comparing Ethiopia with the West, however, I will provide the historical and political framework that has made Ethiopia such an internally contested polity.

Contested Ethnicities

Anthropologist Donald Donham describes the history of Ethiopia as a move from “a hierarchical arrangement of cores and peripheries, apparent to all and inscribed upon geographical surfaces, to a more open series of interactions drawing upon partially shared and intersecting ‘ethnoscapes’ of the imagination” (2002a, 2). Donham’s reference is to fellow anthropologist Arjun Appadurai’s idea of “ethnoscapes” in that Ethiopia is a site of multiple connections among different groups that are not necessarily connected to a particular space. Appadurai utilizes this term in order to acknowledge “the changing social, territorial, and cultural reproduction of group identity … groups are no longer tightly territorialized, spatially bounded, historically unselfconscious, or culturally homogeneous … the ethnoscapes of today’s world are profoundly interactive” (2003, 48). The identification of certain ethnicities is difficult, as is a definition of Ethiopia and Ethiopianness for exactly the reasons Appadurai presents. Whereas previous Ethiopian governments tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to insist upon specific boundaries, in the recent past these boundaries have changed frequently and their rationale has on each occasion been contested, thus underlining the “profoundly interactive” and “changing” nature of Ethiopian identity.

Historian Donald N. Levine describes the historical development of the country known today as Ethiopia, tracking thousands of years of history and discussing the ways in which disparate ethnic groups have come together and separated over time to produce a nation that is, in the words of linguist Abraham Demoz, “the despair of the compulsive classifier” (quoted in Levine 1974, 33). Levine’s work details relationships among various ethnicities throughout the history of that part of Africa now called Ethiopia. In attempting to organize these groups (which, as mentioned above, exceed eighty in number), Levine admits that he must “abstain from any one principle of classification,” opting instead for a “flexible approach” (1974, 33). He cannot find any way in which to definitively divide the population of Ethiopia into clear sections. The resulting chart and map that appear in his book are full of intersecting arrows pointing in various directions, connecting various groups of people to other peoples, not to mention the overlapping of numerous geographical areas. It’s a confusing web of information that is hard to decode, understand, or appreciate.

But this is the reality of Ethiopia. It is difficult to comprehend exactly and clearly what constitutes an Ethiopian—what does it mean to say, “I am Ethiopian”? To ask this question is not to fall into the trap of viewing Ethiopia as an “artificial, even mythical construct” developed by those external to the country, a view that C.I.A. strategist-turned-historian Paul B. Henze warns against (2000, xiii). Also, turning to the image of Ethiopia that has been an inspiration to the pan-African community and Rastafari, is to be informed by what Gilroy calls “the project of racial regeneration” (1993, 20). To look in this direction for the answer to the question is to also look outside contemporary Ethiopia. Pan-Africanism has been a powerful force which informed and still informs the theology and philosophy of Rastafari. Haile Selassie’s pan-African ideals resonated powerfully throughout Africa and the African diaspora. However, it only reflects a particular period in the history of Ethiopian identity, not any other historical time span, nor does it reflect the perception of Ethiopians in Ethiopia at the present time.

While what I refer to as “Ethiopianness” is indeed a construct, it is one that is consistently contested and re-created within Ethiopia. With a history dating back to between 4,000 and 5,000 years (Henze 2000, 1), Ethiopia itself, in its various guises over this long period of time, has dealt with extraordinary variation in terms of culture, as made plain in Levine’s work. Levine attempts to connect Ethiopians through certain cultural “themes,” admitting, however, that “few, if any of the people of Ethiopia make use of all of those themes, but most exhibit most of them” (1974, 47). Perhaps certain connections can be made, but Ethiopia as a nation cannot be described in any one particular way. There are always variables—whether of language, ethnic group, area, or self-identification—which defy any coherent national description of the country. The fact that Amharic is the language with the greatest public visibility, often described as Ethiopia’s lingua franca, is not evidence of a common linguistic connection among Ethiopians. Until the institution of ethnic regions under the EPRDF government in 1991, it was the language of primary school instruction. At present, primary education is provided in local languages relevant to specific regions.

Amharic may be the language of the constitution and government documents, but it is not the most widely spoken language in the country; Afan Oromoo, the language of the Oromo people, is more widely spoken.³ This presents a unique situation. Though Ethiopia was never colonized, it exhibits the standard colonial situation of one language being viewed as more important than the others and established as the lingua franca. This “Amharization” was a policy of the communist Dergue regime, “inherited from the Imperial regime” (Hammond 2002, 104). The establishment of ethnic regions could be seen as destabilizing this policy. The 1995 Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia states that although “Amharic shall be the working language of the Federal Government,” “[a]ll Ethiopian languages shall enjoy equal state recognition” and “[m]embers of the federation may by law determine their respective working languages” (78). Language, along with other factors such as ethnicity and geographic location, has long been one of the many constituents of Ethiopian identity.

Haile Selassie and Amharization

Political scientist and noted Ethiopianist Edmond Keller writes that under Haile Selassie there was an attempt “to create the myth of a multiethnic but unified nation-state whose citizens viewed their ‘Ethiopian’ national identity as the most important socio-political category” (1998, 109). Haile Selassie identified with the Amhara ethnic identity and Orthodox Christian religious faith, so this specific ethnic identity and religion were the blueprint for a broader Ethiopian character. To this end, Haile Selassie’s government “conscientiously avoided any reference to ethnic, linguistic or religious diversity and eschewed mentioning such matters in official documents” (110). Because Haile Selassie was the first to develop a constitution for Ethiopia, this lack of reference to diversity is of special importance. By avoiding the issue of Ethiopia’s ethnic diversity in this, the initial constitution, Haile Selassie makes a strong statement about his desire for a cohesive Ethiopian identity. The 1931 Ethiopian Constitution establishes a specific notion of Ethiopianness, thus defined by the imperial government.

Also, the 1931 Constitution was based on Japan’s Meiji Constitution of 1889. For Haile Selassie, “the constitution was an instrument of centralization … such centralization was necessary for national unity and effective modernization” (Clarke 2004, 40). Looking to Japan, the so-called “Japanizers” in Ethiopia saw a successful society with a feudal system under an emperor. This was, of course, attractive to the imperial government of Ethiopia. Also, the fact that Haile Selassie chose to model the first constitution on that of a far more homogeneous state demonstrates that while Ethiopia was moving toward rule by one ethnicity, Haile Selassie underlined the need to create a singular national identity through his constitution. This is not a model of the unity of black peoples, but the enforcement of unity through the denial of diversity.

As for the Dergue government, it attempted to completely eliminate ethnicity from the equation in favor of “mass organizations based upon … economic or social roles and positions” (Keller 1998, 112). As a Marxist government, the idea was to create a sense of communal Ethiopianness without referencing any particular ethnic group. Instead of a ruling government that provided a specific model of identity based on ethnicity, the Dergue wished to maintain power based on the promotion of communism and a centralized, supposedly modern set of ideas. In fact, the Dergue made use of groups of students, called zemecha (“campaign”), whose role was to promote an enforced sense of unity amongst all Ethiopians. They were sent to the countryside with the aim of teaching communism and encouraging the population to support the regime’s ideology. This communal support would translate into a sense of unity amongst all Ethiopians. One can sense the logic: if the countryside could unify under a revamped belief system, perhaps a unified Ethiopian identity would result.

In what can be viewed as a direct response to this attempt to unite the country under communist ideals instead of culture, Dergue military government leader Mengistu’s demise came at the hands of organized ethnic resistance groups in various parts of the country: the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), who joined with other ethnically based groups/parties to form the present ruling EPRDF, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). The OLF later dropped out of the EPRDF and the Oromo question remains controversial. The issues of multiple ethnicities and multiple nations—African historian Cedric Barnes calls Ethiopia a “multi-National Empire” (2003, 508)—challenged the attempt to unite Ethiopia under communist rule, but simultaneously under a specific definition of what it meant to be Ethiopian.

The EPRDF regime still rules Ethiopia in 2014, though Hailemariam Desalegn is now prime minister. Meles Zenawi died on 20 August 2012 and Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn became acting prime minister until 15 September 2012, when the party elected him chair of the EPRDF and de facto prime minister. However, it wasn’t until Meles’s government transitioned from the Dergue regime to a new form of government that the Ethiopian framework altered significantly through the institution of (some would say controversial) ethnic regions. This altered any sense of ethnic as well as Ethiopian identity. The changes instituted by the EPRDF government could not help but have an impact on Ethiopianness.

The EPRDF replaced thirteen provincial regions with nine new regions that are directly associated with ethnicity. However, the capital of Addis Ababa was designated a multiethnic region unto itself and Dire Dawa, the second most populous city, also constitutes its own region. Benishangul Gumuz and SNNPR (Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region) are also multiethnic regions, whereas Tigray, Afar, Amhara, Harari, Somali, and Oromia are all regions of a single ethnicity, as denoted by the regions’ names. This does not bear out as cleanly as the descriptions suggest, as Shashemene, the town in which the majority of Rastafari live, demonstrates. The town is located in Oromia and has a majority Oromo poulation, but is multiethnic. The Wolaita, Kombatta, Gurage, Amhara, Harari, and Oromo people, among others, together create a multicultural reality. Rastafari are simply yet another group in the spectrum of the town’s inhabitants.

What is the result of ethnic federalism? Henze points to “serious questions” regarding “the working of an administrative system based on ethnic structuralism and decentralization. Will minority rights be respected and minorities protected? How will leaders of ethnic states be kept from creating self-perpetuating oligarchies?” (2000, 341). In asking these questions there is an obvious concern with the way ethnicity functions in Ethiopia. Reporting for the United States Institute of Peace, Henze desc...