Ethiopia: Breaking New Ground
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Ethiopia Breaking New Ground Beginnings 3 A bird's eye view 4 A land of plenty 6 Menelik the Moderniser 10 Haile Selassie, King of Kings 11 The Derg years 13 The nationalities question 16 Building the Second Republic 21 A life of exile 25 Living off the land 28 The environment 32 Farming and herding 35 Can Ethiopia feed itself? 39 The world's second-poorest economy 42 Education: a way out of poverty? 45 Women's lives: the 15-hour day 47 'May God grant you health' 49 Surviving in the city 51 A land of righteousness 53 The re-invention of Ethiopia 58 Dates and events 60 Up-date: events in Ethiopia since 1995 61 Facts and figures 70 Further reading 71 Oxfam in Ethiopia 72 First published by Oxfam (UK and Ireland), 1995 (0 85598 270 5) Revised edition published by Oxfam GB, 2003 (0 85598 484 8) Ben Parker © Oxfam GB 1995, 2003 All rights reserved. A catalogue record for this with Abraham Woldegiorgis publication is available from the British Library. Published by Oxfam GB, 274 Banbury Road, Oxford 0X2 7DZ www.oxfam.org.uk/publications Printed by Information Press, Eynsham Oxfam GB is registered as a charity (no. 202918) and is a member of Oxfam International. This book converted to digital file in 2010 Map of Ethiopia, showing places featured in this book Dire Dawa / X Awbare Camp ' OX . Somaliland •Hargeisu a ,.•• Harar» • X Jijiga OHartisheikCamps Kafa Wollavra Beginnings The cradle of humanity We all come from Ethiopia. Four million years ago, this land was the home of the ancestors of homo sapiens. In 1974, near the Gona river in the Afar desert, archaeo- logists discovered a partial female skeleton which added dramatic new evidence to the story of human evolution. She was called Dinqenesh ('You Are Amazing') by Ethiopians, and Lucy by Dr Donald Johanson, who discovered her. Her Latin name is Australopithecus afarensis. More discoveries in 1994 supported the theory that our earliest ancestors - the first hominids to walk on two legs and evolve away from the apes - were born along the African Rift Valley, which passes through Ethiopia, and continues southwards to Mozambique. Fragments of bone and teeth in the Afar desert of Ethiopia give a glimpse into the dimmest distant past, long before our ancestors used stone tools or fire, and migrated out into Asia and Europe. History is alive in Ethiopia. Breaking new ground For the last 3,000 years, a rich and unique culture has been evolving in Ethiopia. In the last 30 years, the land has had to contend with war, famine, and utter destitution. Medieval churches, hewn out of the rock, served as shelters from MiG fighter-bombers. At least half a million people died of hunger. Now an impoverished and battered nation is emerging into an uncertain future with new borders, young leaders, and a radical new political strategy. An uneasy peace prevails, as a new social and economic order takes shape. The stakes are high. Keeping body and soul together is still the challenge for most Ethiopians. A bird's eye view s big as France and Spain combined, watered by great rivers. The Blue Nile AEthiopia is home to about 54 million starts its long journey to the people. In the heart of the Horn of Africa, Mediterranean at Lake Tana, just below it is on the borders between the Arab and the Simien mountains, where the highest the African worlds. About half the peaks are topped by Ras Dashen (4,620 population is Christian and half Muslim. metres), Ethiopia's highest mountain. The The landscape varies from barren, salty great waterfalls of Tissisat ('water that desert to lush, dripping forest. Some parts smokes') at the source of the Blue Nile of the Afar desert, in the north-east, are were described as 'one of the most 100 metres below sea level. They seethe magnificent, stupendous sights in the with volcanic activity, a moonscape of creation' by the eighteenth-century Highland areas are sulphurous salt pans and rocky lava fields. Scottish traveller James Bruce. Dividing intensively cultivated. Rising westwards beyond the Afar the highlands from north-east to south- Crops are grown wherever possible, on desert, the land becomes higher, greener, west is the Rift Valley: a vast geological terraced slopes and and cooler, up to the craggy highlands, phenomenon that stretches from Syria to plateau-tops. where plateaux are riven by gorges and Mozambique. #J|3f To the west of the highlands are Ethiopia's ecosystems support Above: a lowland forests; to the south-east, rangelands on thousands of species of plants, birds, and landscape in the Ogaden region the border with Somalia; in the far west mammals; some are found nowhere else are fertile arable plains on the border in the world, and nine of the mammal with Sudan. To the north and east is species are classified as threatened. Eritrea, with its 1,000 km coastline along Ethiopia is among the most important the Red Sea. To the south is Kenya. reservoirs of biological diversity in At the centre of Ethiopia the capital, Africa, and many crops cultivated Below: Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa, is the national crossroads. elsewhere, like millet, are thought to have a city of four million Major roads fan out to the four points of their genetic origins here. people the compass. A 781 km railway leads from Addis Ababa to the Red Sea port of Djibouti. Ethiopia's million square kilometres include a rich variety of climatic and ecological conditions. Population density ranges from fewer than five people per square kilometre in the herding rangelands of the Ogaden to 200 or more in the central and south-western areas. Most of the population, human and animal, is concentrated in the cool central highlands, settled for more than 5,000 years. Here pressure on land and other natural resources is increasing. A land of plenty thiopia was settled by peoples from - became a metaphor for remoteness, or Etwo of the main lineages of human plenty, or simply a land of unknown ancestry: the Hamitic peoples and the dark-skinned peoples. The name Semitic peoples (named after Ham and 'Ethiopia' derives from the Greek for Shem, sons of Noah). A third line, the 'burnt faces'. 'Abyssinia', as Ethiopia was Cushitic ethnic groups, is found commonly known by outsiders until the particularly in the south and south-west. mid-twentieth century, probably derives There are now at least 64 languages from the word which Ethiopians use to spoken in Ethiopia, and perhaps 80 describe themselves: habesha. different ethnic groups. The two largest The Ethiopians' national literary epic, are the Oromo and the Amhara peoples. the Kebra Negast, tells the story of the Other large ethnic groups include ethnic Queen of Sheba travelling from Ethiopia Somalis, Tigrayans, and Gurages. Some to meet King Solomon of the Jews in of them are spread over national borders, Israel almost 1,000 years before Christ. so not all are Ethiopian citizens. She then returned to Ethiopia and bore a Ethiopia, Cush, Nubia, and other son, Menelik I, from whom Ethiopian ancient African civilisations merge into Emperors used to claim descent. This rich each other in translations of Old brew of myth and fable makes the actual Mural at Axum: the meeting of the Queen Testament scripture, travellers' tales, and early history of present-day Ethiopia ofSheba('Makeda') myths. 'Ethiopia' - mentioned several almost impossible to trace. But from the and King Solomon times in the Bible and in Greek literature last 2,000 years, parts of Ethiopia can offer a history, with artifacts, recorded events, and travellers' accounts. When did 'Ethiopia' come into existence, and where was it? Can it be called one of the most ancient states in the world, or is it just an ancient name? Many Ethiopians are proud that the name of their country and its settlements are scattered in the most ancient of historical documents. Others suspect that history has been manipulated to serve the interests of those in power, and that most of the territories of today's Ethiopia bear little, if any, relation to the ancient civilisations of the Red Sea. The empire of Axum Ethiopia's natural wealth and strategic location led at the time of Christ to the rise of an important Red Sea trading and military empire, with its capital at Axum in present-day Tigray. The ancient civilisations of northern Ethiopia dominated the Red Sea region for almost a thousand years from 200 BC. A naval power developed, and Axum's traders and travellers, using the port of Adulis on the Red Sea, reached as far abroad as Egypt, India, and China. Exporting ivory, rhinoceros horn, and spices, and importing metal and cloth, Axum grew wealthy and powerful through trade and conquest. Today, Axum is most famous for its archaeological ruins: obelisks, tombs, and palaces, and the claim by the Orthodox Church that Axum is the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant - the chest containing the ten commandments engraved on stone and handed to Moses by God. Axum's tallest standing obelisk, 23 Lalibela: built by angels Axum's tallest metres high, probably a huge gravestone, Christianity was introduced into Ethiopia standing obelisk, is carved from a single piece of rock. With probably marking a in AD 341. In the Middle Ages the grave: 23 metres windows and doors on ten 'storeys', it Orthodox Church built hundreds of rock- high, it has windows looks like the world's first skyscraper. hewn churches. The greatest are found and doors on ten With half a dozen others, it has remained near the village of Roha in the Wollo 'storeys' standing through the centuries and region of the central highlands.