Constructing citizens and subjects in eastern Ethiopia: identity formation during the British Military Administration

Matshanda, Namhla Thando

doi:10.1080/17531055.2019.1678927

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Another justification for this could be the relationship and agreement reached by Minilik II with the adjacent European colonial powers to consecrate the current shape (boundary) of Ethiopian (Abdirahman & Mohamed, 2017;Horst, 2020;Matshanda, 2019;Zewde, 1991) which is common among the rest of European colonial power in the scrambling process. Some of the agreements signed between Ethiopia and other colonial powers show the demarcation of the boundary of the colonial power.…”

Section: Pan-ethnic Nationalism and Colonization (Antithesis Until Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Anglo-Ethiopian treaty 1944 Ethiopia andBritain (realized in 1948 and1955) Note. Sources: Abdirahman and Mohamed, 2017;Matshanda, 2019;Zewde, 1991 Moreover, the circular letter that Minilik the II sent to the European colonial power that took part in partitioning Africa (particularly after the Berlin Conference of 1884/5) is another justification for some writers that consider the Minilik's conquest as colonial expansion (Gemtessa, 2014;Menelik II, 1891 qouted in Teachers Pay Teachers, n.d). In his letter, Minilik named the conquered and the rest of the African population as pagan and used this instance as justification for brutally conquering non-Abyssinians by Minilik II.…”

Section: Pan-ethnic Nationalism and Colonization (Antithesis Until Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Imperial Regimes as a Root of Current Ethnic Based Conflicts in Ethiopia

Moreda

2022

J Ethn Cult Stud

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Current ethnic conflict in Ethiopia is not a simple byproduct of Multinational federalism and politicization of ethnicity since 1991. Regardless of the contradictions and debates over the core causes of ethnic conflict in Ethiopia, it is impossible to fully comprehend it without a thorough and honest examination of the pre-1991 country's history in terms of ethnicity and ethnic conflict. The article analyzed the historical root causes of ethnic conflict in Ethiopia by taking Minilik’s II and HaileSelassie’s I regimes into account. Hence, a Dialectical approach and historical method were employed to conduct a critical investigation of the core causes of ethnic conflict. The article found that the country's current ethnic politics and ethnic warfare sowed during the imperial regime. Minilik II and his successor conquered, confiscated, subjugated, enslaved, and dehumanized the southern nations, nationalities, and people in the consecration of Ethiopia's current territory. During imperial administrations, Ethiopia was seen as a prison-house of people. Ethnic identity has been taboo during the imperial regimes of Ethiopia. The article found that the imperial regimes of Ethiopia were the precursor to both immediate and potential ethnic-based detestation, animosity, and violence that resulted in the country's lengthy and deadly civil wars. Based on a dialectical method, this article discovered that the process of Ethiopian state creation resulted in sustainable and predictable cyclical rotation of contradiction and contestation between thesis and antithesis, without creating strong syntheses. Moreover, the misappropriation of concepts of nationalism and nation-building has been common in the country's political history

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Section: Pan-ethnic Nationalism and Colonization (Antithesis Until Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pan-ethnic Nationalism and Colonization (Antithesis Until Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Imperial Regimes as a Root of Current Ethnic Based Conflicts in Ethiopia

Moreda

2022

J Ethn Cult Stud

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“…BMA attempts to blur the boundary lines between Ethiopia and British Somaliland only intensified Ethiopian resolve to revert to the pre‐occupation status quo of clearly demarcated boundaries and uncontested sovereignty. Although there was tension between the imperial government and the BMA, there were also instances where their interests converged, most notably in the administration of the Somali inhabited areas (Matshanda, 2019, p. 665). The Somalis were effectively subjects of both the British colonial government and imperial Ethiopia.…”

Section: Ethiopia's Encounter With Colonial Modernity and The Birth O...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Central to both the Ethiopian and British organisations was the concept of indirect rule. They each established a native authority known as Chiefs in eastern Ethiopia, a foreign concept among the decentralised Somalis of this region (Matshanda, 2019, p. 671). The Somali chiefs acted as intermediaries between the imperial government of Ethiopia and the general population of the region.…”

Section: Ethiopia's Encounter With Colonial Modernity and The Birth O...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethiopia's civil wars: Postcolonial modernity and the violence of contested national belonging

Matshanda

2022

Nations and Nationalism

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This article investigates the historical and structural foundations of the war between the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia and the federal government. It does so by employing Mamdani's theoretical framework of rethinking the politics of national belonging. The article considers one of the central propositions in Mamdani's broad vision of political decolonisation, that of reimagining the relationship between nation and state in the face of violent contestations over national belonging. The article argues that the recurring civil wars in Ethiopia indicate that the country's ongoing pursuit of a nation-state is a futile exercise that will continue to produce cycles of political violence. Despite not being colonised, Ethiopia has not escaped the destructive consequences of colonial modernity that the rest of the postcolonial world continues to grapple with. The article thus locates Ethiopia's protracted and violent search for nationhood within the narrative of postcolonial modernity in Africa.

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“…'The Somali nation' appeared for the first time in British government maps, a vision subsuming clan-based territoriality in Ethiopia within a new supra-clan territoriality ( Figure 5). The genealogy of Somali nationalism in this period, the role of groups such as the Somali Youth League, debates on Somali subjecthood, and the Bevin Plan to unite Somalis into one national jurisdiction lie beyond this article's scope (but see Barnes 2007;Geshekter 1985;Matshanda 2019). The point here is that, whatever logics of identity pre-existed imperialism or emerged during decolonization, imperial frameworks for enacting Somalis' political status and 'nationality' by the 1930s were already delimited by the two logics that converged in the 1925 murder trial.…”

Section: Racialized Sovereignty After the 1920smentioning

confidence: 99%

Border crimes, extraterritorial jurisdiction, and the racialization of sovereignty in the Ethiopia–British Somaliland borderlands during the 1920s

Thompson¹

2020

Africa

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This article argues that the politics of extraterritorial jurisdiction in the 1920s reshaped relations between ethnicity and territorial sovereignty in Ethiopia's eastern borderlands. A 1925 criminal trial involving Gadabursi Somalis began as what Britons deemed a ‘tribal matter’ to be settled through customary means, but became a struggle for Ethiopia's regent, Ras Tafari, to assert Ethiopia's territorial authority and imperial sovereignty. British claims of extraterritorial jurisdiction over Somalis amidst 1920s global geopolitical shifts disrupted existing practices of governance in Ethiopia's eastern borderlands and created a dilemma for Ethiopian authorities. In order to uphold international obligations, Ethiopian officials effectively had to revoke their sovereignty over some Somalis indigenous to Ethiopia. Yet Britons’ practical application of extraterritoriality to Somalis was predicated on assumed racial differences between Somalis and highland Ethiopians (‘Abyssinians’). Thus, Ethiopia's recognition of British extraterritorial jurisdiction would lend legitimacy to claims exempting Somalis from Ethiopian sovereignty due to differences in identity. The case reveals how assertions about race, nationality and ‘tribal’ identity articulated to subordinate Ethiopian rule to British interests and, in the longer term, to delegitimize Ethiopian governance over Somalis.

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Constructing citizens and subjects in eastern Ethiopia: identity formation during the British Military Administration

Cited by 6 publications

References 10 publications

The Imperial Regimes as a Root of Current Ethnic Based Conflicts in Ethiopia

The Imperial Regimes as a Root of Current Ethnic Based Conflicts in Ethiopia

Ethiopia's civil wars: Postcolonial modernity and the violence of contested national belonging

Border crimes, extraterritorial jurisdiction, and the racialization of sovereignty in the Ethiopia–British Somaliland borderlands during the 1920s

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