Mekelle: 4 May 2024 (Tigray Herald)
UPGRADING RELIGION IN ETHIOPIA: PM ABIY’S EXPERIMENT
By Mukerrem Miftah (Ph.D)
1. Introduction
In the post-1960s, state-religion interaction in Ethiopia has always been unpredictable and increasingly blurred. Following the official dissolution of state-religion interpenetration, particularly with the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), the period saw greater freedom for those that had long been overlooked in Ethiopia’s public sphere, Islam and Protestantism. Arguably, despite some degree of manifest aversive propensity under Mengistu’s socialist regime, it did little to pursue a policy that would eventually undermine religion in Ethiopia. In other words, EOTC’s national, cultural, and institutional role and influence relatively remained intact. No evidence, therefore, points to the possible claim that the Dergue regime manipulated religion to further its socialist proclivity comparable to those that came before and after it.
In what follows, the report closely reviews the nature of state-religion interaction in two periods in Ethiopia’. The first part demonstrates how the TPLF-led EPRDF regime attempted to “enclave” religion in Ethiopia. The second part analyzes various evidence arguably characterizing PM Abiy’s
government and its approach to religion. It argues that, unlike the TPLF-led government, the current leadership appears to “upgrade” religion in Ethiopia. Theoretically, the report mainly draws from Bryan S. Tumer’s popular approach to religion. He argued modern states actively work to interfere with and/or control religion through either enclaving or modernizing. Although the report generally engages religion in Ethiopia, the specific details are more descriptive of Islam and Muslims. It concludes by pointing out and highlighting some of the symptomatic
challenges and repercussions.
2. Religion under TPLF’s EPRDF: Containment?
The greater part of the TPLF-led EPRDF regime’s almost three decades of rule was as messy and chaotic in its political and economic ventures as it was in matters of religion. Under the TPLF-led government, state-religion interaction took different shapes. In spite of clearly demarcating the spheres of state and religion in its highly mooted constitution, what it actually operated on yielded different outcomes. In many cases, this involved deliberately trespassing the constitutional borderline between state and religion. Clearly, no evidence can make this more intelligible than EPRDF’s gross involvement in the affairs of Islam and the EOTC in Ethiopia, especially since 2002. From those state-led bold and reckless actions, EPRDF’s direct intervention, on the one hand, against Islamic institutions and Muslims’ affairs in Ethiopia, and its attempt to weaken the EOTC, on the other, are relevant examples. The present report closely. engages the former.
The TPLF-led EPRDF regime unhesitatingly took draconian measures aiming to squash what it considered an extremist, radical, or terrorist Isiarn and/or Muslims’ threat in Ethiopia. Principally, this involved a state-led restructuring of the already weak Muslims’ institution of the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council (EIASC) and Awoliya Islamic complex along with implanting state-serving individuals. Furthermore, there was mounting evidence suggesting the state was deliberately working hard to impose what it Al-Ahbash, though by no means strange to Ethiopia’s cultural geography, particularly among some residents of Harar, was not evidently the way how the majority of Muslim Ethiopians understood and practiced Islam³. Yet, this state-led move in religion did not just simply go unnoticed and without any visible repercussions. Undoubtedly, the Ethiopian Muslims’ “Let Our Voice be Heard” (DY) movement fiercely challenged the state’s policy and decision. It was, certainly, an existential shock to the TPLF-led EPRDF regime. It had never anticipated that the DY would unwaveringly struggle for years, first, to make the state regret its decisions, and second, to help strengthen the already simmering anti-government discontents in the country
It was, certainly, an existential shock to the TPLF-led EPRDF regime. It had never anticipated that the DY would unwaveringly struggle for years, the state regret its second, to help already government first, to make decisions, and strengthen the simmering anti- discontents in the country.
The important question, however, is what factors underpinned EPRDF’s ill-conceived moves against Islamic institutions major conditions might have informed the regime’s reprehensible acts. First, the September 11, 2001 attack on the US and the subsequent global interventions could have well been behind EPRDF’s subsequent measures in Ethiopia. As it had happened, America’s global war on terrorism (GWOT) went far beyond the confines of the Arab states. Given Al-Itihaad al-islamiyya and Al- Shabab’s presence and influence in the Horn of Africa, the USA had to work with its strategic ally in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia’s EPRDF. Among other things, this alliance provided the TPLF-led EPRDF regime, though short-lived, with two important opportunities.
First, the regime was able to secure a significant amount of US dollars for the regime’s highly controversial actions. Second, despite being authoritarian and violent for decades, its mission against “terrorists” in the Horn of Africa served as a source of provisional international legitimacy. Along with this threat in the region, 1995’s assassination attempt on the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa enabled the TPLF-led regime to rethink its domestic approach to Islam and Muslims.
Apparently, the EPRDF regime exploited this alliance to further own political ambitions.
Apart from its direct military involvement, via the African Union Mission in Somalis in Somalia, it brought, rather invented, an Islamic and/or Muslims’ challenge in Ethiopia. To be fair, this state-led politicization and securitization of Islam and/or Muslims in Ethiopia was not necessarily without any local stimulus. This has something to do with religious revivalist movements among Ethiopian Muslims in the post-1990s. Many documented this in their published academic researches, such as Terje Østebø (2009) and Mukerrem Miftah (2015). This constitutes the second important backdrop to the TPLF-led EPRDF regime’s intervention in religious matters.
Although many empirical researches unequivocally made it clear that the movement was essentially focused on reviving religious traditions and the expansion of religious-based missionary activities, the regime deliberately worked hard to make it look like purely a security and political threat to Ethiopia and the Horn”. Many still remember the regime’s laughably doctored documentaries produced and aired on the national TV channel for this purpose These documentaries were essentially produced to serve as a “degradation ceremony” (Garfinkel, H.) through which the TPLF-led government intended to undermine the credibility of Ethiopian Muslims representative committee of the DY movement and justify its horrendous and erratic actions.
government under PM Abiy appears to
The government even went as far as labeling them as terrorists, extremists, and/ or fundamentalists aiming to turn Ethiopia into another failed state, breeding terrorists. Naturally, this was followed by mass arrests and tortures of all the Muslim’s representatives and other activists in the country’s notorious prisons and human torturing chambers. Yet, shortly after these draconian measures and due to the accumulated grievances and unsettling discontents in the different parts of the country, the chief architect of the EPRDF regime, TPLF was decentered from Ethiopia’s national politics, and inevitably, the official demise and/or disintegration of the EPRDF coalition.
3. Religion under PM Abiy: Upgrading?
Even though the TPLF-led EPRDF regime attempted to contain religion, the transitional befriend, rather than sideline, religion in Ethiopia. Whether this has been by choice, existential necessity, or both needs further reflection. Now, since Abiy came to power, many things have happened. Reforms, across different and multiple institutions, changed Ethiopia’s public sphere”. However, its scope and depth remain as contested as its normative suitability. One of the social institutions Abiy’s government attempted to deal with under its reformist venture concerns religion.
A critical look at what has been happening around religion, particularly Islam and Ethiopian Muslims, it seems as if the state been operating on an has evolutionary trajectory adopting reformative measures to a transformative end.
A critical look at what has been happening around religion, particularly Islam and Ethiopian Muslims, it seems as if the state has been operating on an evolutionary trajectory adopting reformative measures to a transformative end. In the first few months of Abiy’s premiership, many of the Muslims’ representatives, activists, and other religious scholars were discharged from prisons. The state-led direct imposition of Al-Ahbash through forced seminars and training in the different parts of the country was discontinued. The recruitment and allocation of “tolerant” and/ or “Sufi” minded religious officers at different levels in the different parts of Ethiopia were largely reduced. Many places of worship initially contested or queued for legal processing are now receiving “proper” legal attention
These “corrective measures were followed by what the government considered a reconciliatory intervention to “unit” Ethiopian Muslims Although many applauded the government’s decision to help rectify previous misdeeds, others rejected what the government called “uniting” Ethiopian Muslims who had been “struck” by sectarian differences, often simplistically expressed through ‘Sufi vs Salafi contradictions and struggle. They claim the problem was essentially between the state and Muslims, not necessarily between the state-sponsored Al-Ahbash and others, or between “Sufi” and “Salaf 15
Similarly, unlike the TPLF-led EPRDF’S reluctant position on the establishment of Islamic banking in Ethiopia, Abiy’s government excited the Muslim community by its decision to “allow” it become operational. Following this, such initiatives as Zemzem and Hijra banks have been actively interacting with the Muslim community. However, the process of obtaining legal and institutional recognition for these banks, many allege, had to reckon with the country’s stringent bureaucratic, legal, and institutional barriers 56
The other significant step concerns the institutional and legal status of EIASC in Ethiopia. Once the state-led manipulation was suspended and Muslims’ representative committee members were discharged, EIASC has arguably started undergoing two major changes. The first concerns the internal restructuring of the institutional organization of EIASC through the devolution of rules and regulations, staffing, and leadership. The other concerns a question that has been unanswered for generations in Ethiopia. This is a demand for the institutional visibility of Muslims in Ethiopia’s public sphere.
EIASC had been, though the only symbolic representative institution of Muslims’ religiou affairs in Ethiopia for generations, functioning as another nongovernmental or charity organization and often serving the subsequent governments’ interests. This has, however, been changed on Thursday, June 11, 2020. In an unprecedented move in Ethiopian history, a joint meeting that brought Ethiopia’s Council of Federation and the House of Peoples Representatives, a decision has been passed approving the draft proclamations set to legalize EIASC with one vote against, and Council of Ethiopian Evangelical Churches (CEEC)” with two against and two abstentions, respectively
All that has been mentioned so far relatively ascertain to what extent the state has worked to maintain a friendly relation with religion, particularly with Islam and Muslims of Ethiopia. Arguably, these corrective and reformative measures were, on the one hand, the axiomatic preconditions for the transitional political leadership in Ethiopia, and on the other hand, the possible post-TPLF-led government’s new strategy of dealing with religion. In the context of the former, the political leadership that came after the TPLF- led government is naturally expected to take measures that would largely respond to questions that were put forth under the previous regimes. Therefore, the majority of the corrective measures regarding Islam and Ethiopian Muslims were not necessarily unexpected. However, if this should go beyond what has just been mentioned, it would make some sense in light of the other critical point. Some, if not all, of the above measures could be appraised as part of the transitional government’s broad scheme of things, particularly religion in Ethiopia.
Arguably, these corrective and reformative measures were, on the one hand, the axiomatic preconditions for the transitional political leadership in on the other hand, Ethiopia, and the possible post-TPLF-fed government’s new strategy of dealing with religion.
Apparently, unlike the TPLF- led government’s containment-focused approach to religion, PM Abiy’s government seems to engage religion through what sociologists call “upgrading”. The leading sociologist of religion, Bryan S. Turner (2007) underscored that it is modern states prerogative to exercise some degree of control over religion. Contrary to earlier assumptions, religion continues to define individual as well as collective existence both among poor and wealthy nations of the world. More specifically, as religion orders and conditions individuals’ decisions and identity it poses challenges to the modern state Since religion seeks to articulate an alternative vision of power, truth, and membership, the modern state needs to reassert its authority so that it commands over and above other claims of membership. Now, this generally happens in two major ways. The first is to enclave religion and the other is upgrading it. While the former tends to sideline and underdog religious institutions and actors latter befriends, uses, and/ or exploits religion to other ends. Upgrading religion is also known by other names as “cooptation of religion”, “modernizing religion” or “partial secularization of religion. This means that no modern state can claim to strictly uphold the principle of the separation of state
and religion
In practical terms, despite the nature and degree of control, states control religion through religious institutions and individuals who are considered to represent religious institutions. Researches note that religious institutions and prominent religious figures have always been appropriated to serve as a bridge that links the state to the public and promote the state’s interests””. This becomes more apparent in countries like Ethiopia where, compared to other countries of the world, the majority of its population is generally considered religious??
As instruments of control, states upgrade, coopt, or modernize religions primarily through legislations, agenda setting, and through creating other fields of engagements wherein the state invites and works with religious leaders, religious scholars, and influential religious personalities. This may involve the selection, promotion, and integration of actors of religion in its already running structures and other state-serving platforms. Ultimately, the goal is to tone down or neutralize the “cultural distinctiveness of religions and make them suitable to the standards of democratic , the
instruments of control, states As upgrade , coopt, or modernize religions legislations primarily through , agenda setting, and through creating other fields of engagements wherein the state invites and leaders, influential works with religious religious scholars, and religious personalities
In the context of Islam, the purpose can be to *modernize Islam through a set of procedures that bring about a partial secularization of Islam (Turner, 2007). In the liberal management of Islam, however, states can even go as far as devolving legislations. For instance, legislation could facilitate the “education of Muslim women and “encouraged” to enter the “open marriage market”, thereby rejecting arranged marriages. This may also include “encouraging” these women to “abandon veil or other forms modesty and seclusion” (Turner, 2007, p.124)24
Now, understandably, Ethiopia’s transitional government needs the collaboration of individual citizens, civic associations, and other institutions to facilitate the road to democracy. This becomes more of a necessity at times of local and global crises. The Corona pandernic demands not only the collaboration of locally based different institutions but also global coalition and response. However, state-religion interaction was already strong even before the advent of the Corona pandemic in Ethiopia. Key personalities representing major religious institutions, Orthodox Christianity and Islam, have been working with and/or for the government since the PM Abiy’s transitional government came to power.
Arguably, the government deliberately
selected and deployed individuals who are considered to exert significant influence, command followership, and signify legitimate leadership among adherents of these religions. Prominent religious figures from Orthodox Christianity and Islam have been very active in Ethiopia, often with formal and official positions. Some are closely advising PM Abiy Ahmed; some are members of various councils and committees, some are serving state interest abroad; and some others. are still actively involved in dealing with recurrent problems the state is facing, such as forced various councils and committees, some are serving state interest abroad; and some others. are still actively involved in dealing with recurrent problems the state is facing, such as forced displacement, interethnic clashes, and others.
Ethiopia’s public space and fora are already
familiar with these religious figures.
selected and deployed individuals who are considered to exert significant influence, command followership, and signify legitimate leadership among adherents of these religions. Prominent religious figures from Orthodox Christianity and Islam have been very active in Ethiopia, often with formal and official positions. Some are closely advising PM Abiy Ahmed; some are members of various councils and committees, some are serving state interest abroad; and some others. are still actively involved in dealing with recurrent problems the state is facing, such as forced
Nevertheless, as religion conjures up its own sets of values, identities, priorities, and membership, the state naturally feels underprivileged and acts to assert its centrality and legitimate monopoly of power and influence. Undoubtedly, this opens up
fields of conflict and competition. This can be expected to take place both vertically and horizontally. While the former may signify the general state-religion interaction in Ethiopia, the latter can imply the nature of the interaction between religions.
Some degree of competition and claims (and counterclaims) over physical space, partly emanating from their alleged proximity to the state, between the EOTC and EIASC has been observed. Quite recently, Addis Ababa’s Meskel square has been a bone of contention between the city’s administration and EOTC. While the city’s administration openly claimed to develop the area, the EOTC raised her voice demanding explanation and partnership. It became clear that the two reached an agreement wherein both play certain roles.
Although no official statements were issued, individual activists, and few members of the EIASC questioned the process. Some posited whether the city’s collective physical space that has long been serving both Christians and Muslims in the country could be legally relegated to only one religious institution 25 By the same token, the city’s administration has been questioned for its decision to provide EIASC with a physical space meant for building Ethiopia’s largest mosque and closely aligned centers. Again, some activists and religious figures of Orthodox Christianity questioned, via social and broadcast media, the legality, and potential negative repercussions of the decision26
Similarly, the nature of the horizontal confrontation between religions will likely intensify in the coming years. As the state has just recognized the institutional presence of both EIASC and CEEC through proclamation, what this means for the long-standing and powerful religious institution, EOTC, in Ethiopia is yet to be seen. Certainly, the EOTC had been the major player in Ethiopia’s social, cultural, economic, and political domains for a long time. However, this could not continue, at least officially, beyond Hailesilassie’s monarchical rule. Apart from losing its central role in Ethiopia’s body politic, what came after seem to have worsened the overall condition of the EOTC. It is a general knowledge that the TPLF-led EPRDF regime had worked hard to weaken and divide the EOTC for many years?”. Although the transitional government under PM Abiy attempted to rectify some of the multifaceted misdeeds of the TPLF-led administration, the period unleashed another problem that continues to challenge the
church. This concerns the recent fall out between some orthodox representatives of Oromo ethnolinguistic background and others within the EOTC28, Apparently, these circumstances have left the church, at least mildly, wounded.
Another serious cause of concern that has threatened and evidently felt at the inner core of EOTC has been the loose of Orthodox Christians to Protestantism. This could be partly linked with the increasingly dominant influence of televangelism in Ethiopia. Unlike any other point in Ethiopian history, the number of religious- based satellite TV channels engaging Ethiopians, both at home and abroad, has increased unprecedentedly. Interestingly, even though the number of TV channels associated with the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians and Muslims has increased fairly, the same cannot be claimed for those associated with Protestantism29 More than two dozens of Protestantism
Christian Ethiopians have been leaving the church for Protestantism. Before launching its TV channel, the Holy Synod of the EOTC explicitly communicated its frustration due to the “declining number of faithful” Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia and the threat posed by “growing evangelical movements in the country. Furthermore, EOTC’s His Holiness Abune Mathias, Patriarch of Ethiopia said, “the church cannot keep losing her faithful… a considerable number of faithful to Evangelical
Again, what the upcoming national election holds and the long-standing dispute over the proportion of ethnic as well as religious groups will certainly determine the future trajectory of state-religion interaction in Ethiopia.
More than two dozens of Protestantism
(Pentecostal and Evangelical) affiliated
satellite TV channels now air programs
targeting Ethiopians. This seemed to have
vexed the EOTC. Evidently, many Orthodox
and Pentecostal movements in the country
Now, it appears that by officially ascertaining and/ or admitting to the legitimate presence of multiple accounts of reality in Ethiopia’s public sphere, the government could be aiming at shifting the potentially and historically affirmed state-challenging propensities of religions to other domain (s). This may involve reconfiguring the already problematic nature
of the interaction between state and religion.. This could include redirecting the vertical interaction between state and religion to horizontal inter-religious interaction, there by 11
reducing the “distinctive presence of any religious institution or religious tradition in Ethiopia. This could be made possible via strategically empowering relatively contending religious forces to function in a closely monitored public sphere.
4. Concluding Remarks
Above and beyond containing and upgrading religion, there are at least two important questions worth asking here. One would be the issue of whether the state can actually continue to ascertain its facade neutrality vis- à-vis the provision of non-interference enshrined in Ethiopia’s highly controversial constitution. If it continues this way, then, how and under what circumstances state-religion interaction can be understood, mediated, and potentially mitigated in Ethiopia? The other is whether the seemingly borderless interaction between the state and religion can cause other potential role complexes and challenges to the state as well as religions in Ethiopia.
The attempt to contain religion under the TPLF-led regime has offered us many valuable lessons. Yet, arguably, we do not seem to have learned the important lesson, of maintaining a critical distance between the two. The current political leadership appears
to favor the other end of the spectrum. Then, what will be, as it turns out, upgrading religion meant under PM Abiy, though by no means promising, is going to be seen once life (after the Corona pandemic, national election, census, etc.) resumes back to normalcy. Until then, though, the following points are worth noting.
Surely, among other things, state-religion interaction took a different shape under PM Abiy’s administration. Considering what has been happening so far, inter-religious interaction characterized by contention and confrontation is likely to dominate Ethiopia’s public sphere. Upgrading religions, either in the form of instrumentalizing the institutions and religious figures or broadly encouraging and legitimizing various voices resulting in the pacification and neutralization of possible threats, function to the state’s favor. Again, what the upcoming national election holds and the long-standing dispute over the proportion of ethnic as well as religious groups will certainly determine the future trajectory of state-religion interaction in Ethiopia.
