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There is an immense controversy regarding the federal system in Ethiopia and the one concerning the nomenclature is one among them. No doubt the debate over the nomenclature springs from deeper disagreements concerning its structure and operation. Some have dubbed it “ethnic” or “ye gossa” federalism.[2] While the ruling Party, EPRDF and some sections of the opposition (for instance Dr. Beyene Petros) insist that the term “ethnic” federal system has, at least, derogatory and at most pejorative connotations and prefer to adopt Ethiopia as a multination federal system, and certainly not a nation-state federation. Interestingly, Will Kymlicka recently remarked that Ethiopia is a “multination” federal system rather than “ethnic” one because in the Western sense the term “ethnic” is used in reference to immigrant groups where as historic groups are called national minorities. The latter have the right to claim, for instance, self-rule, political representation and control over resources but not the former. Federalism is often used to accommodate national minorities rather than immigrant groups and in this sense Ethiopia is multination federal system.[3] Yet, this does not resolve an important question: in the Ethiopian federal system, it is not clear whether, the nations/nationalities and people are defined as sharing common language, culture, history and territory or whether a common descent is also implied. As some analysts tend to indicate, is it a matter of knowing the culture and language in order to become a member of certain nationality, nation or people or myth of common descent is also implied. Is an “Amharic speaking person” born and brought up in Arsi and who well speaks Oromiffa, an Oromo nationality or is he treated as an Amhara because his parents came from say North Showa? There is some level of ambiguity in the Constitution and as will be demonstrated later, the perception of the federal system in practice is adding another confusion. The constitutional clause is not clear. Article 39(5) states, “ a nation, nationality or people…is a group of people who have or share a large measure of a common culture or similar customs, mutual intelligibility of language, belief in common or related identities, a common psychological make up, and who inhabit an identifiable, predominantly contiguous territory.”

This writer strongly contends that if one deciphers the distinction between a nation and an ethnic group, then one is forced to state that the federal system is one of multination than “ethnic” in form, and I emphasis in from although not in reality. Ethnicity is a state of mind emanating from a feeling of separate identity, which in turn is based on shared cultural markers (culture, language, religion etc), but more importantly on common descent (or its myth). It is important to point out that the myth of common descent is an essential characteristic of an ethnic group but not of national groups that share a common language, religion, custom, history and tradition but not necessarily of common descent. The subjective belief in myth of common descent is in short the essence of an ethnic group or of ethnicity.[4] This is not without some implications when it is mobilised to attain some goals. The myth of common descent serves as a basis for excluding people who share the culture but not the common descent or in the opposite case to include people who share the common descent but not the culture.[5] Nations on the other hand are more inclusive as they are culturally or politically defined.[6]

Setting aside the endless debate between the proponents of Civic/statist nationalism on one hand and ethnic/cultural nationalism on the other,[7] which in all cases involve some level of exclusion,[8] although in the former case not a vivid one, at a normative level then a nation is supposed to be more inclusive so long as others are willing to adhere to the features that define the nation. If we agree on this distinction, then it is interesting that the Constitution does not include the requirement of common descent in the definition. So in form, we can forcefully argue that an Oromo who prefers to stay in Gambela or Benishangul has the right to do so and vice versa. What is required to know is the state official language and not to descend from any of the indigenous groups.

Unfortunately, there appears to be a wide misconception in practice. In Oromia, a large portion of people belonging to other “nationalities” had to be displaced because they do not descend from Oromo. In Benishangul Gumuz and Gambela “nationalities” who speak Amharic, Tigrigna, Oromiffa etc had to be excluded from the regional political process because they do not descend from any one or the other of the indigenous groups. The case of the Benishangul Gumuz is of interest because those who were excluded from the political process applied for constitutional interpretation to the House of Federation and the latter ruled that for any Ethiopian to elect or to be elected what the constitution requires is the two/five year residence requirement plus the knowledge of the official language of the region and not the knowledge of the language of the local vernaculars. The House therefore found an earlier decision of the Electoral Board as well as the practice of the regional government and declared it as unconstitutional. In Gambela, however, those who were excluded from the regional political process did not follow similar steps. Nor did the concerned authorities tried to resolve the crisis along the Benishangul-Gumuz model. A large portion of population that moved to Gambela because of the Derg’s policy of resettlement program sometime in the 1980s was therefore left alone in the region.

Of course this is not the whole story of the Gambela crisis. There is the politics of number and dominance between the Nuer and the Anuak. There is as well the politics of the Horn playing its share in the crisis. Because of hostilities between the Derg and the Sudan and their tit for tat policy on the opposition, the Derg was backing the SPLA whose main army and support came from the Dinka and the Nuer. When EPRDF came to power in 1991 the Nuer was then associated with the Derg and EPRDF allied with the Anuak. As a result, the Anuak dominated the political process until recently. There has been several reports of killings and disagreements for the last decade or so but one thing was clear. The Nuer continued to complain on several occasions to the regional and federal government. At later stages when the federal government was about to intervene on the matter, the Anuak saw this as a kind of shift in policy from the Anuak to the Nuer. The latest crisis was then a commutative effect of the Nuer-Anuak as well as the continuous exclusion of the highlanders from regional politics. There has never been to my knowledge any acceptable proposal to both the indigenous groups as well as to the highlanders. The federal government was trying to shift its alliance from one group to another. So focusing on the perception of the Gambela regional government in the treatment of highlanders as “guest workers” rather than as Ethiopians who have all the rights as stipulated in the constitution, when critics state the federal system is “ethnic” implying exclusive they seem to have a point. But in form, the constitution appears to be multination rather than ethnic as it does guarantee the freedom to live and do business in the place of one’s choice as well as requiring only two years to elect and five years to be elected, where ever one might chose to live. It is the duty of the federal government as well as the respective regional governments to comprehend the long term implications of such narrow perceptions because in the end what matters is not what is written in the law but the way people interpret it.

[1] The writer is a researcher on comparative federalism at the University of Utrecht, Faculty of law, the Netherlands.

[2] See, for instance, Minase Haile, “The New Ethiopian Constitution: Its Impact upon Unity, Human Rights and Development,” 20 Suffolk Transnational Law Review XX, 1, Winter 1996 pp.1-84; Mesfin Wold-Mariam, The Horn of Africa Conflict and Poverty, (Addis Ababa: Commercial Printing press, 1999); Maimire Mennasemay, “Federalism, Ethnicity and the Transition to Democracy,” Horn of Africa Journal v.XXI 2003 pp.88-114.

[3] Will Kymlicka, Emerging Western Models of Multination Federations: Are They Relevant for Africa? Paper Presented at the Seminar on Ethnic Federalism: The Challenges for Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, April 14-16, 2004.

[4] Chaim Gans, The Limits of Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) p.10

[5] Chaim Gans cited above p. 28

[6] James Kellas, The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity (London: Macmillan, 1991) pp. 4-5; but we need to remember what we stated earlier. The notion of inclusiveness implied in the nation is just relative. Both civic as well as ethnic nations have their own level of exclusiveness.

[7] For an excellent work on the distinction between the concepts see an introduction written by Michel Seymour, Jocelyne Couture and Kai Nielsen eds. Rethinking Nationalism (Calgary: University of Calgary Press 1996) pp.1-61

[8] The typical ethnic Nation-state model was Germany. According to this perception, no one could be German even if one is born in Germany unless he/she descends from German Parents. In this sense the exclusive implication is clear. What is less noticed is the sense of exclusion in the civic nation state. It is alleged that such a state is founded on universal values and on the right of the individual, the state as a “daily plebiscite.” But several studies have during the last decade or so clearly demonstrated that this is false. France requires complete assimilation of national minorities to be accepted as French men. The United States as well is founded on Anglo-Saxon tradition sharing same tradition, language and even religion. So the civic state in the end is the state founded on the tradition, culture and language of the majority and the national minority has to assimilate to it.