I personally don’t know the reasons for Ethiopia’s decision to create an ethnic federation, not sure if it was for culture preservation purposes or just the way to decentralize the state. But anyway it was one of the worst decisions that they’ve ever made as a nation.
Ethnic federation is one of the easiest way to make your country vulnerable to attacks by your enemies from within.
There’s no way Ethnic federation can work, and communities can coexist peacefully in Africa. The reason is simple, most Africans are more loyal to their tribes than their nation ( There’s historical explanation to this).
Also thanks to poverty that exist in most African countries , it’s so easy for foreign states to support certain ethnic groups to serve their interests. There’s no easier man to convince to do something, than a person who lives in a desperate situation, unfortunately we have a lot whom live in such conditions in Africa.
Now it is Tigray vs the Ethiopian government, don’t be surprised if another tribe start their own movement against the government, or one tribe against the other.
Other African nations can choose to learn from it or look at it like another civil war in Africa, and then they became the next victim. Ethnic federation doesn’t work in Africa.
Its more an issue of bad politics though dividing a country at ethnic borders also adds some fuel to the fire.
Look at Somalia. They are one ethnicity but cant get along.
In Kenya, every gava since Jomo has tried to balance ethnicities.
Also, Ethiopia is a special case since she was never colonized. The ethnic groups was thus never fully brought by force together under one all powerful bureacracy
In Kenya, the focus of the different tribes has always been to take control of the bureacracy rather than fight each other militarily. In other words, our fights have always been at the political level and not the military one
That shows that Africans have a problem.
Switzerland is a confederation of three ethnic groups.
Swiss Germans who have Cantons like Bern, which is the capital and Zurich
Swiss French who are based around Geneva and Swiss Italians who are close to the Italian border.The last war Switzerland fought was not even over ethnicity but because some Catholic majority cantons, from all three ethnic groups tried to create a theocracy.
200 people died in that ‘civil war’.
Since then Switzerland has remained a federation and one that works perfectly.
They are not ethnic federations per se. There is no ethnic state that is ‘pure’ though Gambela which is host to the Anuak(yes the South Sudanese have a state in Ethiopia) comes close as the Nuer in that state are all refugees.
Oromos are divided along clan lines that started fighting the moment Abiy Ahmed lossened the power of the federal government.Addis which is home to everyone was a part of Oromia before it was hived off.
Amhara has a Wollo Oromo region and another minority close to Tigray.
Beghuz is home to nilotic communities originally but close to half the population is from Amhara and Tigray.
West Tigray had a small Amhara minority(but the land was very fertile, they have now cleansed the Tigray who were 97%of the population there).
The Borena region of Oromia overlaps with parts of rhe Somali state so Oromos and Somalis live side by side and they started clashing when Abiy came to power.
In fact his rule has given me the impression that perhaps TPLF was correct to rule Ethiopia with an iron grip.
Federal system is good. Without it, some Ethiopian tribes with huge population would shit on the rest.
In fact, the Federal system should be used throughout Africa to contain the ethnic tensions.
i always thought political instability is as a result of colonialism,bt Ethiopia was never a colony so i think maybe its because they’ve already had a civil war,and once u go that way akuna kurudi nyuma ie somalia
You forget Spain is always having issues with Catalonia issues. Canada has issues with Quebec always.
Ethiopia was not colonized, but those federations did not exist before scramble and partition of Africa.
Ethiopia’s history is far more complicated than the tame, semi truthful version that 8-4-4 fed us. It is a history of violence, conquest and subjugation. Its emperors were always the most successful warlords and not democratically elected leaders. This is one of the reasons why it was never really a continental power but an isolated enclave.
The ethnic federationalist constitution implemented by TPLF was one of the most realistic solutions to the ethnic divisions existing in the country. It did something that few other constitutions on the continent did- recognize the diversity of the people living within its borders and their right to self-determination. The problem was that the old TPLF were never completely interested in sharing power or respecting the human rights of the people living within Ethiopia. This is where disaffected groups like the Ogaden Somalis and the Oromo Liberation front started springing up in armed rebellion.
Abiy’s biggest mistake was becoming an Amhara/Eritrean puppet and failing to resolve the deep issues that were plaguing Ethiopia. He instead chose the route of cheap performative PR and tried to become the number one Oromo honcho and now its backfired on him.
Ethnicity is a reality that every African country except Somalia and Djibouti is going to have to face. As long as the state does not work for everyone, then there will always be deep dissention, rebellions and wars by people seeking to reclaim their self-determination and dignity.
Hehe… sawa Mzee Fulani. But the ones with the largest population are the 15. Zile zinge pale in numbers compared to the rest. Ni kama Kurias hapa kenya
Kulikua na ethnicities kama Poles na Zi Germans but their numbers were very small.ata hapa Kenya tuko na Englishmen but we dont really coint them as we have 42 ethnicities hapa