August 25, 2012 |
MOHAMMED ADEMO
When Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s leader for
more than two decades, died this week, he was mourned by many as a
“stable” force in a chaotic region. South African President Jacob Zuma
praised him for “lifting millions of Ethiopians out of poverty” while
British Prime Minister David Cameron remembered him “as an inspirational
spokesman for Africa on global issues”, who had “provided leadership
and vision on Somalia and Sudan.” Microsoft founder Bill Gates even
praised him as “a visionary leader who brought real benefits to
Ethiopia’s poor.”
Ethiopians themselves have more complicated
feelings about the late prime minister. Yes, the country emerged as a
regional power and one of Africa’s most dynamic economies under his
rule, but Ethiopians also saw Meles crush political opponents, surround
himself with yes-men, muzzle the free press, and purge dissenters even
from his own party.
His death has been as controversial as his
tenure. Meles, 57, had been missing since June 26, the last time he was
seen in public before his demise. Officials dismissed earlier reports
that he had died, insisting instead he was vacationing or on
doctor-prescribed sick leave. The state of his health and an ensuing
power struggle within the ruling party has been a subject of online
speculation for the last two months.
Meles’s death also comes at a
moment when Ethiopia is witnessing an unexpected and hitherto unknown
phenomenon: popular protests. For the last eight months, hundreds of
thousands of Muslims have been non-violently protesting a series of
religious decisions by the government and a quasi-independent religious
council. How the government handles the protests could affect the
fragile transition.
Ethiopian Muslims, who make up a third of the
country’s 94 million people, began demonstrating in the capital in
January, after students at the country’s only Islamic university, the
Awolia Institute, walked out of classes to protest a proposed curriculum
change mandated by the government and the removal of some teachers. The
students accused Ethiopia’s government of imposing the teachings of
Al-Ahbash, a foreign sect with Ethiopian roots but better known in
Lebanon.
Al-Ahbash is a supposedly moderate Sunni sect founded in
Lebanon in 1930 as a philanthropic project and reorganized into a
religious movement in 1980s by followers of exiled Ethiopian Muslim
scholar Abdullah ibn al-Habashi, who was forced out by Emperor Haile
Selassie’s regime. Ahbash has followers throughout the Middle East, who
have often clashed with Salfi Islamist groups, but until recently has
remained fairly obscure in Habashi’s home country. The protesters claim
the government is forcing them to accept Ahbash’s teachings as a way of
containing what it sees as a growing radicalization of Ethiopian
Muslims.
The government denies any effort to promote Ahbash and
claims the university reorganization was the work of the nation’s main
Islamic authority, known as the Majlis. Though officially independent,
the Majlis, formally the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Council, is widely
seen as a quasi-governmental agency.
Contrary to Ethiopia’s firm
denial, a US State Department terrorism report released last month
acknowledged that Ethiopia’s Ministry of Federal Affairs had indeed
launched a controversial nationwide training program to counter violent
extremism by promoting Ahbash. The Ethiopian government quietly launched
the training in July 2011 at Haramaya University, in the eastern Oromia
region. The catechism, billed as “Training Religious Tolerance” and
attended by some 600 religious leaders from around the country, was
given by clerics invited from Beirut, Ubah Abdusalam Seid, a researcher
on Islam in Ethiopia, wrote earlier this year. Unpublicised training
courses, aimed at reorienting all mosque leaders and Majlis
representatives around the country to the Ahbash teachings, took place
in major cities like Addis Ababa, Harar, and Bahir Dar later that year,
according to Seid.
In January, shortly after the protests broke
out at Awolia, Muslims in Dessie, a town 150 miles northeast of Addis
Ababa, held a huge impromptu demonstration after Majlis leaders tried to
take over the regional mosque and an Islamic school there. Fearing a
backlash, the Majlis pulled back.
As the protests in the capital
continued and intensified over the last seven months, demonstrators’
demands have grown beyond the issue of school curriculum to larger
grievances over the Christian-dominated government’s policies toward
Muslims. In particular, demonstrators are now demanding that the Majlis
leaders be elected in mosques rather than at government centres.
The
decentralized movement has now grown into a nationwide resistance
against the unelected Majlis leaders. On August 17, hundreds of
thousands turned out in the capital Addis Ababa demanding the release of
their jailed leaders. The government crackdown has backfired, prompting
Muslims across the country to join in the protests. The largely
youth-led movement is now emulating the weekly Friday prayer protests
that started in Addis Ababa.
Meles addressed the growing
discontent on April 17, during his final appearance before Ethiopia’s
one-party parliament. The prime minister denied allegations of state
interference in religious affairs but acknowledged that senior
government officials had held meetings to discuss plans to educate the
populace about the rule of law. Meles blamed the protests on radical
Salafist and accused them of preaching intolerance and calling for an
Islamic state. He also announced that al Qaeda cells had been uncovered
in Ethiopia’s Oromia region and warned that without an aggressive
response, the country experience the kind of instability seen in Egypt,
Libya, Tunisia and Syria. “This has to be stopped before it’s too late,”
he said.
The warning was a typically canny move from the late
prime minister. Throughout his rule, Western powers were reluctant to
criticize domestic repression in Ethiopia as long as Meles continued to
provide support in the fight against Islamist militants in East Africa,
including sending troops into neighbouring Somalia in several
US.-supported operations.
There are also increasing signs that the
discontent is spreading beyond the Muslim community. An exile group
affiliated with Ethiopia’s oldest Orthodox Church, which has led similar
protests last April against the proposed demolition of a fifth century
monastery in Northern Ethiopia, has called for all-Ethiopian solidarity
with Muslim protesters. Earlier this month the chairman of the
opposition All-Ethiopian Unity Party, Hailu Shawel, backed the
protesters, saying their demands are not illegal. At a recent rally held
in front of the US State Department, Ethiopian Christians held signs
that read, “We support the peaceful struggle of Ethiopian Muslims.”
The
leadership vacuum created by Meles’s death may well embolden the
movement to speed up calls for greater religious freedom. The national
week of mourning, now in effect, also coincides with government’s
attempt to push forward with the election of Majlis leaders. The
protesters are calling on all Muslims to boycott the election and refuse
the ballots being given out at regional administrative centers. It is
not clear whether the protesters will call off their weekly
demonstration to honor the mourning week this Friday.
The newly
minted prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegne, is a relative newcomer to
Ethiopia’s political scene and there is widespread talk of a succession
struggle behind the scenes and rival factions emerging within the ruling
party. In what appears like early signs of power struggle, the
government abruptly canceled, with no explanation, plans to swear in
Hailemariam in an emergency parliament session called for Aug. 23. How
long he lasts in the job may well depend on how the government handles
the growing discontent both inside and outside the government in coming
weeks. –Foreign Policy
