In Addis Ababa, the wealthy are driving Mercedes along city streets teeming with the poor. But the surprising successes of Ethiopia's westward-looking economy are jeopardized by the escalating border dispute with Eritrea. Haggai Erlich reports from the Horn of Africa.
Haaretz (Israel) June 12, 1998
ADDIS ABABA. The journey embarked upon by the Queen of Sheba in biblical times now takes all of three and a half hours. The plane leaves from Ben-Gurion Airport, flies above Jerusalem, crosses the Red Sea, passes over Aksum, the ancient capital of Ethiopia, and lands in Addis Ababa. Looking out of the huge window of the local Sheraton Ñ one of the fanciest hotels in the world, with prices equal to the Savoy in Paris Ñ the sharp contrasts that typify the city are hard to miss, but there are no signs of the growing conflict with Eritrea.
Built by Ethiopian billionaire Sheikh Alamudi, the hotel is perched on a hill, midway between the palaces of the emperors Haile Selassie and Menelik, resplendent with wood paneling, marble, fountains and crystal. Every table in the piano bar bears the signature of an Italian designer. Just below the hotel sits a squalid neighborhood of tin shanties, and in the distance one sees the Mercato, Africa's largest, most bustling marketplace. Sleek Mercedes owned by ambassadors and wealthy businessmen drive alongside old, sputtering Fiats, while cripples, beggars and homeless roam the streets.
Ethiopia is progressing by leaps and bounds. The housing and roads under construction, the volume of goods being transported from place to place, the well-stocked stores, the newspapers, the private and public companies Ñ all of these are signs of the growing economic revolution that has taken place since the overthrow of the despot Mangistu Haile-Mariam in 1991.
The current government, headed by Meles Zenawi, has turned westward and adopted a market economy, with impressive results. It has convinced international banks and institutions to invest in Ethiopia's economy, famished but bursting with potential, and convinced farmers that it has no intention of expropriating their crops as governments did in the past. Even opponents of Meles's administration admit that personal corruption has all but disappeared. Ethiopia's former prime minister, Tamrat Layne, an associate of Meles, is now awaiting trial on charges of embezzlement.
But demography continues to strike at Ethiopia's progress. For every child born to an educated, middle-class family, three poor children are born. Today Ethiopia has a population of 60 million people, and the overwhelming majority of Addis Ababa's 4 million residents live in abject poverty. Privatization and Western economic methods have been introduced by young revolutionaries who less than 10 years ago were hiding in caves in Ethiopia's Tigre province discussing Leninist theory, Albanian-style. After seizing power and toppling Mangistu, however, they quickly adopted the American approach and a liberal economy. In the process, Ethiopia's national identity has undergone changes, too.
Ethiopia has bid farewell to its longstanding tradition of "andnat" Ñ oneness. For generations, the monarchy, the church, and the country's national-religious ethos perpetuated a siege mentality, an image of Ethiopia as an island of Christianity surrounded by Islamic nations. This allowed the Amharic speaking Christian elite to exercise control over many different peoples and cultures. In the days of Mangistu, the message of Amharic-Christian oneness was couched in Marxist terminology and applied with vigor.
The underground militias that liberated Ethiopia hailed from the provinces. They were led by Tigreans and Tigrinya-speaking Eritreans who were already familiar with decentralized rule and a monarchy that recognized local rulers. As a consequence, their whole approach was different. When Meles Zenawi and the revolutionaries of the Tigrean People's Liberation Front came to power in 1991, they brought their multicultural ideas with them. A new constitution approved in 1995 declared Ethiopia a federation of nine ethnically diverse states (among them Tigre, Amhara, Afar and Somalia).
Traveling outside the capital, one senses the change. Addis Ababa, an enormous city, is located within Oromia, Ethiopia's largest state. Nearly 40 percent of Ethiopia's inhabitants are members of the Oromo people who were annexed to Ethiopia a century ago. The majority of the Oromo are Muslim. According to the new constitution, schools can now teach in other languages apart from Amharic, which used to be Ethiopia's sole national language. Recently, the Oromo abandoned traditional Ethiopian script in favor of Latin characters, and shop and street signs are usually a mixture of Amharic and Orominya Ñ evidence that ethnic identity and patriotism can and do exist side by side. The constitution also grants local parliaments the right to secede from Ethiopia, but it seems doubtful that they will exercise this right.
One of the by-products of casting off Leninist Marxism has been a return to religion. On Easter, churches in Addis Ababa are packed solid for the "hosanna" ritual and the atmosphere is distinctly biblical. The new ethnic-cultural openness also extends to the building of shrines and holy places. Apart from the Sheraton, Sheikh Alamudi has built an elaborate mosque over the burial site of an ancient emperor whom the Muslims believe converted to Islam. Islam is flourishing in the cities and provinces, and in the town of Harar, Ethiopia's Islamic center, it enjoys a special autonomy. Two prestigious bodies that invited me to lecture Ñ the business community's Rotary Club and the Institute of Ethiopian Studies Ñ are headed by Muslims.
The new Ethiopian multiculturalism also has affected foreign policy. Those at the helm continue to see the country as part of Africa, but they are also anxious to exploit whatever good may come of belonging to the Middle East. In fact, Christian Ethiopia has always had a Middle Eastern connection Ñ to the Copts in Egypt, to Jerusalem, and to Jewish history Ñ and its strategic links have been, and still are, to countries around the Red Sea and the Nile basin. Eritrea, lodged between Ethiopia and the Red Sea, is now embroiled in a border dispute with Ethiopia that could have economic repercussions for the country. A war would also be catastrophic for Ethiopia's multicultural experiment, chalking up more points for the old Amhara elite.
Another critical issue is water. Egypt derives nearly 80 percent of its water from the Blue Nile and its tributaries, whose source is in northern Ethiopia. Egypt depends upon the Nile for its survival, and this dependence has only grown in recent years. The Ethiopians, and especially the current government, whose members come from the north where drought and famine are common, lay special importance on the development of dams and irrigation projects. The seriousness of such a dispute cannot be sufficiently underscored. The uneasy dialogue now underway between Cairo and Addis Ababa has failed to dispel the mutual distrust between the two countries, founded on a long tradition of myth and fear. If there is any solution, it will come from Ethiopia's becoming a part of the Middle Eastern commercial world. By being named a preferential trade partner, Ethiopia may be convinced to let go of those irrigation plans that could be harmful to Egypt.
Thanks to the new atmosphere in Addis Ababa, the formula for good neighborly relations may yet be found. Ethiopia's joining the Middle East is definitely in Israel's interest. David Ben-Gurion, who first envisioned a link between Israel and Ethiopia, called it "peripheral strategy." In the 1960s, Israel and Ethiopia were two anti-Arab societies under siege. Today, the emerging bond is based on openmindedness and pluralism, and many Israeli businessmen and companies are currently playing a role in the development of Ethiopia with the assistance of the Israeli embassy.
Israel has fundamental political reasons for promoting a multi-hued Middle East and keeping Arabic and Islamic identity from marginalizing other cultures. But there is a delicate social issue involved, as well. Ethiopian Jews in Israel continue to suffer from an image problem, owing, in part, to the distorted view many Israelis have of Ethiopia. Bolstering economic and cultural ties between the two countries will help Ethiopian immigrants in Israel to become more fully absorbed.
Israel, Ethiopia and the other countries in the Middle East are now in the throes of divesting themselves of the "oneness" concept, the sense that they are islands in a sea of hostility. Looking at the downside, there is always the possibility of an identity crisis. But there is also the hope that pluralism will win and enrich us all.
War and pluralism
The growing conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea has taken political observers and even the parties themselves by surprise. It is practically a family dispute, between two governments led by Tigrean Christians who speak the same language but are physically separated because of Italy's colonial aspirations 1890.
In 1991, after 17 years of a united struggle, the liberation movements of Eritrea and Tigre succeeded in ousting the Ethiopian tyrant, Mangistu Haile-Mariam, and reached a friendly agreement to live as two separate nations. Meanwhile, Ethiopia's Tigrean government, headed by Meles Zenawi, has embraced pluralism and become a promising model in the eyes of the West. Not so the government of Eritrea.
Under Isayas Afaworki, a tough soldier, the Eritrean liberation movement has found the transition from underground militia to Western-style statehood difficult. The militiamen who seized power in Asmara (some of them veterans of earlier battles in the late 1960s) barred the return of thousands of exiled Eritreans, who had amassed resources and know-how in the capitals of Europe and the United States, and were now ready to invest, economically and politically in their old homeland. Instead, Isayas, suspicious and introverted, sealed off Eritrean society, alienating Muslims in particular. As a result, the economic loss has been enormous, and the country has become politically isolated.
Eritrea's relations with all of its neighbors Ñ Sudan, Djibouti, Egypt and Yemen Ñ have suffered. The economy has taken another plunge in the last few months, following the Eritrean government's decision to withdraw all Ethiopian currency and print its own money. Ethiopia has refused to recognize the new currency (called "nacfa" after the town where Mangistu's army was defeated in March 1988), and the Eritreans have responded by initiating border skirmishes and occupying disputed territory.
Isayas apparently believed that he could start a small, controlled conflagration to distract his people from problems at home and induce the Ethiopians to make economic concessions. The tragic outcome is that he has fallen into the trap that history sets for manipulators. Meles Zenawi could not sit back and ignore the provocation. For years, the Amhara intelligentsia has accused him of betraying the historical unity of Ethiopia and allowing the province of Eritrea to fall into foreign hands.
In the wake of undisguised threats from the supporters of "one Ethiopia," Meles Zenawi has had to fight back. If the two are not quick enough, and fail to find some way of avoiding a full-fledged war, the Tigrean decentralization experiment in the Horn of Africa will soon be over, with dire consequences for the entire continent and international relations along the Nile and the Red Sea.
The author is a professor of Middle Eastern and African history at Tel Aviv University.