truth and reconciliation

January 27, 2021 10:08 AM

"To understand what is happening now requires a long lens, but Ethiopia’s pride in its uninterrupted national durée, as evidenced by references in the Bible, the Iliad, Herodotus’ Histories and other ancient texts, can be an impediment to reckoning with that history. It is not enough simply to preface accounts of the current conflict with ancient historical descriptions. Everything is at stake in discussions of Ethiopia’s political present; not only our future, but our past. What might justice look like?" Ethiopian author Maaza Mengiste writes about how Ethiopia's history and national memory inform the present conflict for London Review of Books.
posted by ChuraChura (2 comments total)

In many ways, the Ethiopian regions got some of the first and worst “special attention” from European empires in the Age of Sail expansion because the inhabitants were predominantly Christian already.

I went to college with an Eritrean guy (immediately post-independence) and he was always so cheerful and hopeful. Despite the Eritrean annexation, conflicts, and independence, and other things, it seems like along with India and Brazil and Mexico and other places, Ethiopia has the potential to become a strong multi-ethnic globally dominant democracy and a much better example to the world than many multi-ethnic settler societies (with higher populations of settlers) with their tattered antiquated democracies. So, I really cringed to see bits of news last year about heightened conflict between the Oromo and Tigrayan and other ethnic groups.

The OP is a really great article about the twentieth-century history of it all; thank you very much for posting, ChuraChura.
posted by XMLicious at 2:58 PM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Thanks for posting that, ChuraChura. A really interesting article and I learned a lot from it.
posted by mydonkeybenjamin at 9:44 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]