African Perspectives #01
The Tigray conflict dividing the Ethiopian diaspora and the dual Pan-African discourse
African Perspective aims at documenting and bringing to the fore Pan-African issues through African voices. In particular, it seeks to tell the stories of the growing African socio-political and cultural movements and communities in Europe and the US and document their impact on Western and African countries.
More than a year has passed since the beginning of the conflict between the Ethiopian federal Army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, now joined by the Oromo Liberation Front. The end of November 2021 has seen the government’s Army, guided by the Prime Minister, recapture strategic towns and halt the advances of the opposing militants. While the conflict negatively affected the Ethiopian state, it has also impacted its diaspora in Europe and the US, leading to its polarisation and mobilisation.
The main reasons for the war can be found in the contrasting ideology between the two sides of the conflict. The TPLF, which constituted the main faction of the previous Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Front’s (EPRDF) government, aims to maintain the EPRDF’s ethnic-federalism with ethnic-based regional governments holding some political, economic, and cultural autonomy. They oppose the current prime minister Abiy Ahmed’s government fostering an ethnically and culturally diverse Ethiopia united under a central government. Although the Ethiopian state seems to have the support of China, Turkey, and Iran, the US and other Western countries remain critical of the government, imposing sanctions and promoting a ceasefire. While Western actors play a vital role in the conflict, their intervention is greatly affected by the Ethiopian diaspora.
Mr Merga Yonas Bula, an Ethiopian PhD student at Leipzig University and founder of The Horn’s diaspora podcast, has researched the transnational Ethiopian diaspora’s online activity. As he states in an interview, “The diaspora is the 5th estate. It has been the heartbeat of social movements back in Ethiopia since the student movements of the 1960s. If it weren’t for the active Ethiopian student unions in Europe and the US, King Haile Selassie wouldn’t have been deposed. The diaspora’s economic, political and ideological support makes the formation of oppositional political parties in Ethiopia possible. The same thing is happening now, with national and ethnic-based Ethiopian parties having a strong base in Europe and the US.”
Counting more than 2.5 million people, the majority of which reside in the US with significant numbers in Canada, Italy, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the Middle East, Ethiopia’s diaspora has a significant impact on its country’s economic and political development. The diaspora’s significance occurs through the billions of dollars in remittances sent annually to Ethiopia, the control of TV stations and online media, and lobbying policymakers, especially in Washington, which has more than a century-long strategic relationship with Addis Ababa. The current Tigrayan war has revived ethic-nationalist sentiment among the diaspora leading to its division into two groups: Those condemning the Ethiopian government and those backing it. Both sides have mobilised through various means and to promote their political reasons.
Many protests have been organised in 2021 by both sides of the political diaspora. On the 4th of November, Berlin, Stockholm, Ottawa, Washington DC, and other cities, in recognition of the anniversary of the beginning of the Tigrayan war, had protests organised by ethnic Tigrayans and Oromo. People holding Tigrayan and Oromian flags and banners denouncing the Ethiopian government for committing genocide on Tigrayans marched across these cities. On the 21st of November, Ethiopians joined by Eritreans responded by demonstrating in 27 cities in Europe against the US backing of the central government and protesting Western intervention in Ethiopian state affairs and accusing the US of supporting the terrorist groups.
The Ethiopian diaspora has also adopted social media. Tigrayan and Oromia flags and the hashtags #TigrayGenocide, #abiymustgo became symbols of an oppressed ethnic group fighting for justice against an authoritarian regime. For the government, Ethiopian and Eritrean flags and the hashtags #Ethiopiaprevails and #NoMore started circulating in support of the Ethiopian government, with denials of crimes against humanity, claimed to have been propagated by Western media without any foundation. While the Tigrayan war and its consequences are the main reasons for the protests, both sides seem to have escalated their reasons of mobilisation to encompass a pan-African motive.
The hashtag #NoMore has acquired a meaning that goes beyond Ethiopian politics to encompass a broader African conflict. Created by Ethiopian and Eritrean activists led by former Al Jezeera and CBS journalist Hermela Aregawi, the hashtag aims at opposing Western media’s campaign believed to propagate disinformation, Western economic warfare, and military intervention in Africa, particularly in the Horn of Africa. Moreover, the Answer Coalition and the US-based Black Alliance for Peace, opposing “western military power to impose western control of African land and resources”, co-sponsored the #NoMore marches in support of the Ethiopian state’s cause of freedom from Western interference in state politics.
Mr Mesfin, an Ethiopian living 18 years in Dublin, remembering the Adua Battle, when Ethiopian soldiers defeated the Italian Army in 1896, recalls how diverse Ethiopian groups united and led the country to victory, being recognised as powerful nation and a symbol of freedom for other African countries. “The same thing is happening now. Ethiopians think they are fighting against the Americans. That patriotic feeling has come back. The TPLF is now a small problem, and it can no longer stop the bigger battle”. While this is a recurring discussion among Ethiopians supporting their government, those that oppose it see a different meaning in the #NoMore movement.
Posts and videos on social media critical of the #NoMore movement understand it as an excuse for the government to continue imposing its power with force and continuing the genocide of Oromo and Tigrayans. “How can we associate the past glorious Ethiopian rulers that have managed to bring to glory all their black people with a government that is killing his own citizens?” writes an Amhara Ethiopian in a Facebook post showing the Ethiopian flag which he defines “ሰበራ ባንዲራ” (sebera bandera), a broken flag.
Mr Mekonnen, a Tigrayan who has been living in Amsterdam for 20 years, looks at the Tigrayan war with great sorrow and disappointment and sees in the Tigrayan protest a fight for justice and freedom. In his opinion, Ethiopia has never been so divided as now. He says, “When we protest, we are not supporting the TPLF. We are protesting for our people. It is not a matter of Ethiopia being one or not. The problem is that power is being imposed by force. If to be Ethiopian, I have to turn my back on my people, I would rather then not call myself Ethiopian.”
In November 2021, a joint investigation by the United Nations and the Human Rights Commission created by the Ethiopian government found that both sides of the Tigrayan conflict have committed serious human rights violations. However, the war has acquired a new meaning among the Ethiopian diaspora whose protests and manifestations are guided by motives that transcend the purely local Ethiopian context. These may significantly influence the outcome of the Tigray conflict.