Well, thank you everyone for coming and welcome to the US Institute of Peace, which is a national nonpartisan independent institute founded by the US Congress in 1984, and dedicated to the proposition that a world without violent conflict is possible, practical, and essential for US and global security. My name is Ali Virgy. I'm a senior advisor here to the Africa program at USIP, and welcome to the second in our Ethiopia discussion series, and also welcome to our online audience with the hashtag a changing Ethiopia. There's a lot going on in Ethiopia, as we all know, with events every day unfolding that have a significance, and I'm sure we're all eager to get to those events and to discuss them. Let's get to the here and now. We wanted to try and understand some of where things have come from. Today we'll be discussing ethnic federalism. Where did it come from? What is it? What is this idea of ethnic federalism, and where is it going? Some of us have heard and are following the situation in Sudama in the southern part of Ethiopia, and some of the issues there. There's also been the recent assassinations in the Amhara region. This is a time where clearly the ethnic federal model is being questioned by a lot of Ethiopians and by people who are following Ethiopia. We hope to get into some of those issues today and hopefully remove some of the mystery as well of what this concept is and how it's expressed and how it plays out in everyday life. Without further ado, let me introduce today's panel. Today sitting to my immediate left is Dr. Johannes Gadamu, who is a lecturer in political science at Georgia Gwinnett College just outside of Atlanta, and commentator on political issues about the Horn of Africa. Johannes wrote his dissertation on ethnic federalism and authoritarian survival in Ethiopia. There's probably no one better qualified to speak to the subject today, and he's a frequent commentator and scholar of Ethiopian politics and will also be speaking later today at USIP about the Gulf dimensions of involvement in the Horn of Africa and in Ethiopia. To his left is Dr. Daniel Mainz, who also has an Atlanta connection, who finished his PhD at Emory, and is now associate professor of anthropology and African studies at the Honors College of the University of Oklahoma just outside of Oklahoma City. His research explores the intersection between culture and economics in urban Africa, and he's the author of Hope is Cut, Youth, Unemployment and the Future in Urban Ethiopia, and has also spent a lot of time in Awasa in the southern region, which we'll get to talk about a bit later. And then finally, to my right, is Alamau Funtau-Weldemuriam, who is formerly a national peace advisor to Ethiopia's Ministry of Federal Affairs back in 2011, and was a scholar in residence at the Lyndon Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and he's also toured a number of other universities in both Ethiopia and the U.S. So thank you gentlemen all for joining us today. For the format we are on the record and webcasting live, I'll try and moderate a conversation between our discussants here for the next hour or so, and then we'll turn to some questions and answers from the audience. So ethnic federalism, this is a term we hear a lot. You talk to people about Ethiopia and they say, ethnic federalism this, ethnic federalism that. Johannes, I want to put the first question to you, something definitional. When we hear this term, ethnic federalism and that Ethiopia is ethnically federal, what does this mean from a constitutional, from a legal point of view? And what does the term actually mean? What does Ethiopia's constitution actually say? Can we remove some of this mystery of what ethnic federalism actually is? For those of us who are perhaps less familiar with this different federal model, we think about federations in terms of the United States or Canada or an African federation like Nigeria. What is ethnic federalism? Can we start there? Thank you so much Ali, I appreciated the invitation and I'm very happy to be here. Ethnic federalism, you know, we call Ethiopia's federalism ethnic federalism but some may call it, you know, ethno-national federation, some may call it with different names but I think ethnic federalism is a name more or less suited for the kind of federal design that is in Ethiopia today. The constitution explains that the federal arrangement is created based on state elements patterns, ethnicity and linguistic classifications as, you know, the main or major ways that the government tried to create this federal design. And why we call it ethnic federalism is because, one, the government calls it ethnic federalism. I once, you know, when I was writing my dissertation a few years ago, I met someone who was somehow close to the prime minister and the prime minister, the late prime minister, actually also calls it ethnic federalism, even though today some made disagree with that name. But why it came to be that way, why Ethiopia opted to actually form ethno-federal arrangement in that way is because of the narratives that were championed by those groups who actually were able to conquer political power in 1991. So Johannes, before we go into the history, because we'll get there in a moment, that is important to understand where this concept has come from, but can we just sort of focus in on what does it actually mean? So when we say, or at least on paper, right, the expression of it may be different, but on paper what does the constitution say? What does it mean? The constitution, you know, I would look at it in two ways. One is the federal constitution, Ethiopia's constitution, Ethiopia's constitution says that the government and the constitution wants to empower different ethnic groups in Ethiopia. And the way to do that is by granting them these self-administration rights along ethnic lines. That's one. The second, and for me is the most interesting part of Ethiopia's constitutional system is each and every regional state has its own constitution. And each constitution of any regional state, except I would say the Amhara regional state, starts with this notion that we, this group, this and this group of this region have been exploited, oppressed by, you know, these old, you know, regimes. And now this constitution grants us our self-administrative rights, and we are the owners of this region. So basically, ethnic federalism, right, for the, you know, the old, oppressed peoples of Ethiopia gives them this ownership of their own regional states. So each championed group rights, and of course, the constitution anywhere, nowhere says it's against individual rights. But somehow, when they emphasize and focus more on group rights, ultimately it has cost it quite a lot when it comes to individual rights. But that's just the concept, and let's show that. All right. We'll come back to the history in a moment. Alamayo, let me ask you the same question. So when we talk about ethnic federalism from a definitional point of view, I mean, what does it mean? Can you, can you add to that from your legal background? I will be very straight. I'll cut to the chase. What's ethnic about Ethiopia's federation? Because ethnicity is the organizing principle of the Ethiopian state. So take a look at the preamble of the constitution. It begins with the worders, with the phrase, we, the nations, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia. These are the authors of the constitution. That's construct. And one thing, very important to note here is that the constitution in its definition of nations, nationalities and peoples doesn't slice and dice who nations, who the nationalities and who the people are. It's just a generic reference to any group that shares a language, a culture, a psychological makeup and a quantity of territory. So those are some definitions, right? Because this is article 39 we're talking about. So we have the preamble, which makes explicit who the authors of the constitution are. You have article eight, very important, which is the sovereignty clause of the constitution. He's best at with the nations, nationalities and peoples. Then what do you have? You have an ethnic constitution. You have an ethnic federation. So to be specific about what article 39 says here about nationality, it does define nationality, right? It says a group of people who have or share a large measure of a common culture or similar customs, mutual intelligibility of language, belief in a common or related identities, a common psychological makeup and an identifiable, predominantly contiguous territory. So that's the constitutional starting point. But then from that we have the nine ethnic regions of Ethiopia. So can you explain how this concept as it's been outlined in the constitution, how does it actually manifest itself in Ethiopia? So actually article 39 is a carryover from the transitional government's charter. This is before 1995. So when the federative arrangements, when in 1991 EPRF took over at this and they commissioned a body to draft the constitution, a 29-member commission headed by the late Cleo Rajan, a prominent actually, a prominent liberal, liberal advocate, I would say, which also includes the president of the Supreme Court of Ethiopia, Amad Hashanafi. They drafted the constitution. They submitted the constitution to the council of representatives. Then it was adopted by the constitutional assembly. So when they took over power in 1991, they had, they convened the July conference on peace where various groups, political groups and also rebel movementists, the ones that played the key part in the drafting of the, of the founding document, which is the charter where actually the rebel movement is. Which is actually a misunderstanding to say that it was only dictated by EPRF because the OLF was also part of that initial exercise, so it left at a later stage, disgruntled by the number of seats that it was, that it was given in the, in the legislature. So am I getting lost in the details or? Maybe, maybe let's try, let's try and zoom out also to say, you know, how, before we get back into the history, because there is, it is complicated, a lot happened. So. What you said was that what we have today is a carryover from, you see, pre-1995 constitutional arrangements. So what does ethnic federalism look like in Ethiopia today? So ethnic, what ethnic federalism did in the charter and the proclamation that founded the regional states, I think it was proclamation six of 1992, is it established 14 regional states. Right. More than. Not nine. Exactly. Then, when it comes to the constitutional stage, it amalgamated five of the regional states that we now call the southern nation's nationalities and people's regional states. Regions 7 to 11 were merged together for SNNPR. Now the question is, why is it that these regional states were merged together while the others kept, and is it really consistent with organizing principle of the constitution where ethnicities are the authors of the constitution? They did that, actually, for practical reason. And a solution to this problem was put in Article 47 where any group which wishes to establish its own state can demand for a statehood. So this is what we are witnessing today. In the south, with the Siddhama, with the Ulajta, and 11, together 11 other groups. So that's how the regional states were formed. So you have a list of the nine regional states, and one city, actually, not two cities. Radar isn't recognized in the constitution. It's not established as an autonomous state, as part of the federation in good standing. It was made a federal state later on by a grant of a charter to make it an autonomous city, accountable directly to the federal government, but not a part of, it's not in good standing as a sub-ass, a sub-ass, legally speaking. So if we're to summarize, and Johannes, if I can come back to you, we have an Ethiopian today where there are nine ethnically based federal states. We have the capital, at Isawaba. We have the Radar under a charter. And we have these provisions in the constitution where you can have an ethnic region that has the right up to secession that's constitutionally provided. It has happened, if we look at what has happened with Eritrea, right? There was a secession. So, broadly speaking, this is the constitutional framework. Now, Alamayo has given us some of the background of what happened in that period between the end of the Derg regime, 1991, and the takeover of the EPRDF, and what happened prior to the adoption of the 1995 constitution. But what I want to ask you is, where does this idea of ethnic federalism come from? What are its intellectual and historical roots? Because, yes, we can say that's what's there. It's what's written on paper. It's what is implemented to an extent in Ethiopia, although we can differ, perhaps, on the extent of its implementation, as you just pointed out. But where does this idea come from? Can you help orient us a little bit to its origins? Thank you. I think those who actually came up with the system, I think they are geniuses. I'm not saying that in a good way. You know, federalism is a good thing. We know it works, right, in so many different countries. And we have it here working just fine, just great, actually. But in the United States, just to give you some kind of perspective, in the United States, we do have certain important democratic principles, like republicanism or popular sovereignty. Great ideas such as separation of power in checks and balances. And federalism just happened to be one of these democratic principles, because it's a result of that democratic compromise we had in the 1780s. We had this experiment with somehow close to unitary state under the British rule. Then we have this confederal structure, and the compromise happened to be federalism. And in Ethiopia, it's not like that. It's not a compromise. Let's just try something new. Ethiopia's politics, since 1991, is not Ethiopia's politics. It is APRDF's politics. And APRDF's politics has always been about political survival. So when in 1991, they came up with this ethnic federal arrangement, even though. Where did they come up with it from? I mean, even if we talk about it after 1991 period as being dominated by the EPRDF, where did this idea originate from? I mean, it didn't just come from nowhere. There is this assertion that I do not fully buy in that assertion, but there is this socialist Albanian kind of principles that they may have inherited some of these ideas of, say, promoting group rights. So that's just one. But federalism has always been out there. And federal arrangements can be constructed along different, different lines. Probably we can come up with up to 1780, if I can't quote William Riker. Even though we just have only the last 30 federal states worldwide. So the whole idea was just about establishing regional status in a way that you could use to empower group rights. And they did that successfully when it comes to arranging these ethnic federal states. But there is just one major idea behind APRDF's framers. That was to somehow punish certain groups and reward certain asers. Looking at history very much closely is very important here. But suddenly, what happened is in the state of actually empowering groups all across Ethiopia, it benefited certain groups probably four major regional status that are directly administered by APRDF member of political parties. APRDF is this coalition political party that has four parties as its members. These parties administer four regional states, namely to Gariah, Amhara, Oromiya, and the southern region. All the other regions, five of the other regions, are administered by what the APRDF officialists call affiliate political, APRDF affiliate political parties. But what happened is that they called these five other regional states like the Somalis, the Afar, the Gabelas, and the Benchangul gumus regions. They called them developing regions as if the other four are really developed. And what created is a two-tire federal structure within the country. Those who are administered by APRDF member parties are the ones that are running the country, even though one political party like TPLA was very much dominant in the past, until a few years ago. And now we have another party probably is taking the upper hand in the country. So the others that are just out there. I mean, the Somali region, the Afar region and others that I mentioned are not really being treated the way they should be treated. So I think that's why some even go in very much radical ways and call it apartheid. Because most of the minorities that this federal structure was established to empower are actually being really oppressed by the very constitutional structure. So I think that in that regard, it did not really achieve its objective. But if I may add a couple of points, because Alamayo raised two important questions. The constitution is all, for example, the Article 39, which is really quite a carryover. Yes, but did they forget to take it out after Eritreas has seated? And when they came up with this 1995 constitution, I don't think so. But such clauses, such articles are very, very important for us to look at. Because I think these are the kinds of articles that created suspicion among others, distressed among political leaders, regional and state administrators, and the people at large. So I don't think it's just a carryover of my mistake, but it's just a purposely-implanted seed that could unravel the Ethiopian state at some point in the future. I hope that will not be the case. So what you're pointing to is the question that a lot of people are asking today is whether ethnic federalism is in crisis. And before we get to that point, let me bring in Daniel Maines. You've heard now, Daniel, what's been said about the origins. And of course, it is contested as well, this idea that perhaps it originated with more of a Soviet Marxist interpretation of nationality. The other argument one can make is that this is, in some degree, a response to a historical phenomenon in Ethiopia of empire first and then military government that was very unitary and centralized. But leaving aside the specifics of the explanation, what I want to ask you is first whether you agree with the characterization that you've heard so far, but I also want to bring in this question of youth. You've written and researched youth, and as we all know, Ethiopia today is a very young country, certainly younger than all of us here on the panel. How does this intersect as a question? You've written something very interesting a few years ago about this idea that youth aren't necessarily conceived of, and when we talk about youth, you meant urban and male youth in particular, are not necessarily conceived of in ethnic terms, and they don't see themselves ethnically. Can you explain that a little bit, what you were trying to get at in that argument as well? Sure. I mean, just to, I think I'm not going to take issue with anything that's been said so far in terms of the history of ethnic federalism, I would just emphasize, because I do my research in Jima, which is in Oramia, just very close to the border with the southern nations, nationalities, and peoples regions, as well as in Hwasa, which is the capital of the southern nations, nationalities, and peoples region, and definitely from the perspectives of the Oromo people, as well as many of the people in the South, this issue of empire is very important in terms of understanding federalism, and kind of a longstanding history of what people see as exploitation, loss of land, forced domination from the period of the late 19th century continuing almost to the present. So that is an important context for understanding ethnic federalism. And of course, the southern region is the most diverse region of Ethiopia, as well, with a high number of ethnic groups there, as well. And most of those, all of those ethnic groups were essentially subjugated by the north. And so ethnic federalism is partially a response to that history. On the question of youth, I would maybe qualify that statement a little bit in saying that I don't argue that youth universally see themselves outside of the lens of ethnicity. Rather, particularly urban youth in Jima, where I did my research, Jima is a very diverse city, similar also to Hwasa, very diverse cities, in terms of the way that they were organizing themselves, was not on the basis of ethnicity. Saw highly diverse groups, I've always asked people what their parents' ethnicity was. It could include people of Dauro, Aromo, Amhara, Tigray, Gorage, Kafa, Yem, all hanging out with each other, all spending time with each other. And so whereas their parents might have been more organized in terms of their social networks on the basis of ethnicity, for many of these young people, that was not the case. And for many of them, the working language within the cities was a mark as well, regardless of what the language that their parents would speak. And the common things that brought them together was often economic struggles, issues of unemployment, common interests in leisure activities, whether that's playing sports or chewing a chat or a cot, which is common activity for young people in urban Ethiopia, especially in Jima. Whereas ethnicity was not necessarily the major kind of fundamental dividing line among these young people. I think that youth is also important in terms of the politics, state questions, just because of the power that young people have had, particularly within the past five years, beginning with the Aromo movement and then now with the Sadama as well. I can talk about that perhaps later when we get to that, but just like the youth as a political force that is rooted largely in economic issues. So it may seem odd to say that ethnicity is not an important issue for youth given the major role that youth have had in all of these ethnic movements, but that's something that's emerged recently and also I think that when I'm decoupling ethnicity from youth, that's largely in an urban environment as well. And just to stay with you for a moment, Daniel, no one is suggesting that, so now I wasn't suggesting this in a universal finding, but qualify that carefully. But given that Ethiopia is rapidly urbanized, that its population is also rapidly becoming younger and increasing in size, what is the implication of the fact that this characteristic age or profession or education or other dimensions of class or gender as well can be decoupled from ethnicity, I mean what's the implication of that for this federal construct? Well, I mean cities are very tricky for an ethnic federalism and as my colleagues have pointed out, ethnic federalism is based on the idea that you can arrange a region around a very specific ethnicity. Cities throughout Ethiopia don't work that way, whereas the rural areas in some cases are quite homogenous, cities are not. They're highly diverse and that's the reason why, one of the reasons why Atasababa and then later Jaredawa became kind of separate federal cities. But even if you look at other cities throughout the country like Hwasa, like Jima, they are not dominated by a particular ethnicity. And so it's very difficult then to put this highly diverse urban population into that package of say the Aroma region or potentially in the case of Hwasa into the Sadama region where the population of the city doesn't necessarily match up with that region as a whole. And particularly when you have a large number of people within the city that, number one, perhaps don't identify with the region, the ethnic group that governs the region. And perhaps secondly, don't even identify with their parents in the city. Many of the young people may even just identify simply as Ethiopian. Then that becomes tricky to fit those cities within the context of ethnic federalism. And that's created, well we'll probably get to this later, but that's one of the reasons why the 2005 elections, urban areas went so much, almost entirely for the opposition was one of the key reasons was because of that kind of rough fit between diverse urban areas and with the policies of ethnic federalism. And then changes in urban policy since then have been partially a reaction to that dynamic. Thanks. Alamai, let me come back to you. Can I respond to the historical question? Let me ask you something first and then you can weave in your answer. So what we've just heard from Daniel Mainz is this idea that ethnicity to some extent can also be mutable, right? It can change depending on the circumstances and so on. And I don't think anyone would entirely disagree with that concept. One of the things you've written is that ethnicity in Ethiopia is a noble lie, by which you mean that it's been a useful organizing principle. I think if we can briefly summarize what you mean by that. But if it's a noble lie or a lie at all, then what are the implications for it being a useful organizing principle going forward? And if you want to weave in your historical answer there as well. Okay, so to answer this question, I still have to go back to the historical question that the two colleagues were responding to. The historical question has two parts in my understanding. The first part is the question of the origin of ethnic federalism as a theoretical construct. Where does ethnic federalism as a theoretical construct come from? One question. The second part of that question in my mind is what factors prompted the emergence or the advent of ethnic federalism in Ethiopia? Two historical questions. The first is political theoretical. I will start by attending to answer that question first. The history of ethnic federalism goes back to the history of the doctrine of the theory of self-determination. The origin is Soviet Union. Before Soviet Union, in the light up to the revolution, there were intellectual debates around that issue. Most prominently were debates between Kotoskiy and Rosalgausenberg and around self-determination. And the most prominent theoretician of that doctrine was Vi Lenin. But the person who had the final say on that was Stalin, unfortunately. So if we can... But we need to disabuse the way some audience here, because we are always bad against Soviet and Soviet stuff. Let's not forget that self-determination was made popular by none other than Woodrow Wilson. And it made its way into the twin international human rights instrumenties of 1966, article one, ICCPR, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Now, we have this bad answer to you of the doctrine of self-determination. Let's turn to the second part of this political question, which is what made ethnic federalism tick in Ethiopia? Well, ethnic federalism was a historical necessity. Why do I say that it was a historical necessity? It wasn't a luxury.  You had this ABCD options and let's settle down for A. No, there was no other option on the table. I mean, it was a historic necessity. We have to go back to the era that we called the era of princes, where parts of Ethiopia called regions. We had regional orders. And the first person who tried to bring regionalism to Anid, who tried to unify Ethiopia, just as in European history, we call this unification. Yeah, you have Bismarck.  So this was, the first was Teodon. King Teodon, Teodon's second. I mean, there is a brilliant history of this part of history, the unification process, written by not a very academic historian, but he's the best historian ever. Teclas Ademocria, a three-volume study of Ethiopian history of unification. The first is, as Ateodon wrote in Ateopaean Nutt, which roughly translates as Emperor Johannes, Emperor Thord Teodor, and the unification of Ethiopia, or Ethiopian unity. The second in that installment is Emperor Johannes and the unification of Ethiopia. And the final in the installment is Emperor Menelik and the unification of Ethiopia. To me, the founder, the founding father of modern Ethiopian, the modern Ethiopian state is Emperor Menelik. We can, we can, we can disagree on this. I mean, we can fight over this. But let's, let's, let's, yeah. So what happened is in the unification process, in the empire building process, some call it nation building, but I don't call it nation building but because there isn't a single nation. It's a nation of nationalities. It's a nation of nations.  So the unification process had these two aspects. One is modernizing the state and another is centralizing the state's structure. It was brought to the modernization project and the centralization project was had further progress under Emperor Haile Selassie. The problem now is that centralization process was taken to a breaking point by the military region. I mean, if I can summarize what you're saying. So this is, one TPLF came in 1991. So what we're saying is, in some respect, ethnic federalism is a response to that centralization. Is that fair enough to say? Yes. So the question then for me to put to you is if that's a response to the centralization, but the basic problem or our basic problem here is that we talk about self-determination. It also implies that there is some certainty to that entity, right? That if ethnicity is changeable, if it isn't fixed, if by marrying somebody or having a parent that comes from one group or another, your ethnicity can change, how do you reconcile the possibility of achieving that kind of self-determination? Yeah, so one thing that I forgot was like the progenitors, I mean, the main players were also ethnic-based liberation movementists. We should keep this in mind. Now to turn to your question. Yes, to my mind, ethnicity is not something fixed, something unchanging. To me, ethnicity is a social historical construct. It's fluid, it's dynamic, it changes. Someone, I mean, if you have the lecture, the privilege to live through different regions, long enough, like long enough to live long enough. One person who might identify himself as Amhara might find himself on the other end, maybe a Tigray. You know, if you ask me what I was growing up, where I was born and raised, that part of Ethiopia was a part of what was called during the Durg, the world law province, which now is part of Tigray. But if you ask me, like, I was a world law here, yes, of course I was a world law here. Does it contradict with you as a Tigray? Doesn't, why doesn't it contradict with that perception of my identity? Because, you know, at home, I mean, it's language, I want to be excited. At home, my parents just speak native, they are speaking native speakers. But, while raising their children, they weren't talking about in Tigrinya. I mean, we used to think like, Tigrinya is when our relatives come from the countryside, they speak Tigrinya, but we don't respond to them in Tigrinya, we respond to them in Amharic, and we say, oh, this kid is spoiled. But the thing is they understand, we actually understand. So it was like, the thing was about urbanization, was, it was like a modern thing to do, you know? Speak Amharic was a modern thing, because it was part of the modernization project of the past regions of high-less Malaysia, of Manilik, of Johannes. It was Teodros who made Amharic the language of the court, the official language. Johannes, at Tigre himself, made Amharic his court language and official language, you know? So the project was about empire building. But at least now on paper, there is no state language, right? There is no state language, even if Amharic is the lingua franca to some extent, there is no state language. So what you're describing is not necessarily what is constitutionally foreseen or provided for. But let me ask, come back to you, Johannes. I think there's a lot of complication to understanding this, and there are a lot of different dimensions to it. I think one of the useful ways that you've framed it to help us understand in what you've written as well is as a patron-client relationship. Can you explain what you mean by that? I mean, who is the patron or the patrons in this? Who are the clients? How does that analogy that we might be familiar with from other contexts explain modern Ethiopia? Thanks. I would also touch on a couple of points that Alamayo discussed, but first let me just address your question. The ethnic federalism as an institutional design was or has been serving the Ethiopian people's revolutionary democratic front as a framework to extend its lifespan. It is a coalition with nothing but political survival ambitions. And for that to happen, even if such regional states were formed along ethnic lines, even although these regions were, say, empowered with the self-administrative rights, they were not in practical terms self-administering that regional state. In a state, for example, when Malazi Nawi was the prime minister, each regional state had advisory boarders or advisory offices, and some of the advisors assigned to each regional state's presidents were actually more powerful than the presidents of the regional state themselves. That was his way of manipulating and maneuvering that federal structure. And even though we do call it a federal structure or ethnic federal arrangement, Ethiopia was very much centralized. So this comes back to what you were saying as the two-tier model of federalism earlier, right? I mean, in some sense. In something that's tied to that, but also as a whole. Even the first tier of federalism, that belongs to, say, to the four regional states. You have probably an individual who is very much loyal to the prime minister, who is serving as an advisor to the president of Oromia. So if this federalism was unequal or uneven also, where is the patron in this system? I mean, how does that map on to this explanation you're providing now? So Ethiopia is a party state. When I say a party state, it's just a very deep party state. That is also one reason that is really challenging the current reformist prime minister. I think he has some positive, you know, he wants to do good, but he's been also, you know, challenged by that deep state structure. So what you see is the government, the bureaucratic line is not only inefficient, but it was weakened by the very strong political party apparatus. So PRDF is headquarters in Addis Ababa, you know, has this power over the Amara Democratic Party's office in Bahadur and vice versa. And what happens is that those elitists at the center co-opt those other regional states. And the regional states do not have this independence when it comes to proposing policies or implementing it the way they would like to implement it based on the needs of their regional states. But it's always based on the interests of the elites at the center. So that's, there's a clear, you know, co-optation mechanisms in play. And that ethnic federal arrangements made it very much possible for the elites at the center, right? These elitists could be composed of these four political parties that of course make up the PRDF coalition. And they are able to co-opt, right? Those are the regional states and that definitely serve it as a framework for political survival. But here, one thing that I would like to add and go back to also with what Alamayo said is in 1991, as Alamayo said, ethnic federalism is the result of this historical necessity. And there was no any other option. I agree. There was no any other option on the table. But it was just because the liberation movement is that had this opportunity to save political power in Ethiopia wanted to make sure that there is no any other option but ethnic federal arrangement. Again, one thing is, one reason is because they wanted to punish some and reward others. But even those people, just to my, you know, discussed at times, those people they wanted to reward or empower are actually now the most oppressed. The Somalis or the Afars or the Gambelas or the many minorities in the southern region, they are the ones that are very much oppressed. And it's the fact that the PRF or especially those who are presenting themselves as the protectors of the federal arrangement today, especially the Tigrayan ethnonationalists and the Oromo ethnonationalists. That is not true. If they are really championing group, if they are really saying they are championing group rights, one in academic terms, you know, if you, it's just very clear that once you respect an individual's right, you know, it will be, it comes naturally that you will also respect a group's group rights. But at the same time, there's also one fact that they never ever entertain any PRF's politics when it comes to group rights, especially when if you go to any Amhara region like Gondar or Gojjam or Tigray, Tigrayan region or any rural part of Oromiya, anywhere in the country, you see that women are the most oppressed members of the society who are suffering so much.  There's so many issues that we can tie to group rights agenda that are not really working. So let me ask you this then. Is it that the ethnic federal model is broken or is it that its implementation is problematic? I mean, this is the key question here. You said that the idea was the people who were oppressed should no longer be oppressed and today they are. Is it because the model has not been implemented correctly or is it there's something fundamentally defective about the model itself? Just briefly.  One, it is defective, absolutely. It's just the worst ever institutional design that Ethiopia ever had. In fact, I would say that, you know, in what others call, including Al-Mayo called the empire, there were better rights to the Ethiopian people than today. But again, is that a question of implementation or action because the rights are there under the constitution, you know, their individual rights, as you said, the idea of protection exists? Everything starts with the intention. What is, what did those who actually frame this ethnic, you know, federal constitution want to do? What do they want to achieve? What they aspire to achieve? Nothing but political survival. And they wanted those who had the political power at the time wanted to present themselves as the arbiters. The ones who actually, you know, could keep Ethiopia together. So, you know, when it comes to ethnic conflict, right, there is this vast political science literature that ethnicity in and of itself may not cause ethnic conflict. But if a certain minority group actually controls political power, it may actually cause ethnic conflict. Today, what you have is Ethiopia, which is number one in terms of its size of IDPs, right? Political violence is rampant. We will talk about Siddha Maslera. But the displacement is not, you know, I mean, many in Ethiopia actually mentioned Rwanda, okay, our faith will be just like that or faith will be just worst cases of genocide. But you know what? What if those displaces, those evictees actually refuse to be evicted? What would happen? Of course, genocide, nothing else. You know, if you have three million IDPs, I don't know, you know, I think we are worse than Rwanda. And that is the issue of the defects of it in federalism. But when it comes to implementation as well, some within the it non-nationalist camp, you know, they say that it is just the best possible solution that we have, it's just that it's not implemented. I agree with them that it is not implemented well. That means these regionists do not have these, you know, self-administration capacities that they should have had if it was implemented correctly in one hand. But the way they actually explain it, however, is very much in different way. They want it because it is conducive to the homogenization of these regional states. There is this project right now, just like Daniel earlier said, right? In Hawassa, you have this very much diverse urban citizenry, urban residentists that do not really identify with the SIDAMA, which is a zonal administration that's in charge of that area. So what happens? Those SIDAMA internationalists want to make sure that the city becomes homogenous in the long run, in the short run. That's called displacementist. So when they say it should be implemented, right? And implemented the way the constitution puts it, they are not saying that, oh, we have this political right to administer our service and we should have it fully. It's not. It's just about homogenization. It's just about making sure that non-SIDAMAs or non-Oromans in Oromiya or other regions are not in any way able to exercise their political right in those regions that they live in. So that's why I agree in those two questions. I know you have a view on the question of implementation versus design, and I'll come to you in a moment, but I want to come to Daniel Mayn's first, because one of the other dimensions that Johannes has just alluded to a bit earlier is infrastructure, and we could also perhaps also think about federalism in fiscal terms and in terms of resources, but coming to infrastructure in particular, one of the interesting things I think we could talk about a little bit are the unforeseen implications or consequences of having a federal structure of this kind. Can you say a little bit about how infrastructure and particularly roads in this case has also contributed to both the changing Ethiopia in terms of how ethnic federalism has played out and how it's actually manifesting itself? Because of course since 1991, and particularly since 2005, let's say, there has been a huge expansion of roads across the country of investment in infrastructure. How is this affecting? It's not something we would necessarily think of as having ethnic dimensions. Can you explain that? Sure, sure, yeah, I can explain that. I mean, I wonder if also would it be helpful to maybe provide a little bit more background about the position of Hwasa? We'll come to Hwasa in a moment, but I just want to get this idea. Yeah, and of course infrastructure is very important. I mean, I would argue, so just a plug for my book that's coming out next month, it's all about infrastructure. It's called Underconstruction, coming out with Duke University Press, and there's no coincidence that you have a, I think this looks like a photo of the train probably connecting Deirdawa to Addis. Is that? Yeah, so in some ways, I think within the past 10 to 15 years, could almost be defined as an infrastructural state. I mean, huge billions of dollars going into dams, going into roads, going into telecommunications, and this has implications for ethnicity in a number of ways. Just for example, if you take the case of Hwasa, Hwasa actually has a capital of the Southern Nations Nationality People's Region, some of the best infrastructure that I've seen compared to other cities within Ethiopia. Excellent road systems, comparatively to other cities, and what that does is it becomes a form of distribution of resources. So when we think about ethnic federalism, ethnic federalism doesn't necessarily have any implications on paper at least for the way that resources are distributed. But in practice, it often does ship that, and that's where a lot of the tensions come into play is when resources themselves, like access to roads, like access to telecommunications, access to electricity, access to water, when those things become attached to ethnicity, then that creates a large amount of tension, particularly in an urban environment. So when you look at road construction, when roads are built in areas that benefit one ethnic group, as opposed to another ethnic group, that's going to naturally cause tensions to be created, and that's something that's happened in the Hwasa case, where new roads were explicitly built with the idea of benefiting the Sedama people for political reasons to kind of bring them back into the EPRDF, to bring them back into the ruling party, bring them out of the opposition. On the other hand, construction of roads doesn't always work out in the manner that's expected. There's a number of cases where it would appear that these new roads are perhaps going to benefit a particular ethnic group, but due to long-standing historical dynamics, it simply doesn't work that way at all. And then you have cases like, if you go down further in the south, also within the southern region, where the, so for example, the Gibi-3 Dam that's being built in, or the construction there is finished, which has impacted or destroyed the livelihoods of close to 500,000 people, this becomes a different type of center periphery relationship. In this case, it's not, it's really kind of the urban centers, the manufacturing, the wealth that is benefiting at the expense of the pastoralist people, the people who have relied on the rivers there, historically, for access to water, fishing, water for their livestock, historically. So a different type of divide is created that's not necessarily along the lines of ethnicity, but more along the lines of pastoralist versus urban dwellers in terms of these kind of economic shifts. And so the dams, the roads themselves create a large amount of displacement that doesn't always work along ethnic lines. Again, coming back to the case of Owasa, when new roads are built in the city center, the people that were living alongside those roads are displaced to the outskirts of the cities. This tends to be people who are already economically marginalized, people who are renting property as opposed to owning property. And this doesn't break down neatly along ethnic lines. Ethnicity has something to do with it, but it's also class lines as well. Most of, in my research, most of the people that were displaced to the outskirts of the city were single women who were heads of households. So gender lines coming to play here as well. And so I think that one of the things that infrastructure, thinking through infrastructure in order to understand policies and implications of ethnic federalism, is it kind of takes us beyond just thinking about politics, difference, inequality in terms of ethnicity, and thinking about some of these other issues, whether it's the marginalization of people on the very peripheries, whether it's class-based, whether it's gender-based, that infrastructure interacts with that. And infrastructure, particularly in a state that is investing such huge amounts of money. I mean, I think Ethiopia right now is number three in the world in terms of the amount of public funds per capita or as a percentage of GB GDP that is invested into infrastructure. When such a huge amount of public funds are put into infrastructure, that becomes a way of trying to understand literally how inequality is privatized in the form of roads, in the form of hydroelectric dams, other types of things. And then there's also the jobs that are created with that infrastructure that's highly important as well. And then that connects back to the issue of youth as sort of a potential for unrest as well, which becomes part of this political question. So of course, there are other dimensions to how inequality is manifested or whether it's based on gender or class or occupation. But if we can think about the connections between the federal model in Ethiopia and economic development or institutional development and come back to Awasin in particular, I mean, one of the things that you had said before is that from the perspective of the EPRDF, that the success of Awasin in terms of its economic success, its development and so on had legitimized in their eyes at least the policies of ethnic federalism. That was a 2016 view, so we're free to adapt it since. But how can that be the case? I mean, can you explain that for us? How is it that the success of Awasin, which has become much bigger place, much more developed place, the roads are better, infrastructure is better, et cetera, et cetera. How does that connect with this idea which predates Abiyamnid's coming to power, of course, but was there of legitimizing ethnic federalism as a model? Well, so in that paper, I actually argue that, so Awasin, good Awasin's oftentimes celebrated as the city of diversity, city of love, it's talked about, and one of the themes, the slogans of the EPRDF is unity through diversity, billboards everywhere in the town, and so the town becomes this kind of symbol of unity through diversity. But at the same time, I argue that the model of ethnic federalism necessarily destroys that diversity because it doesn't work well. The diversity doesn't work well with the ethnic federalist model. So Awasin is the capital of the southern regions, as I mentioned, it would be the capital of the Sadama region. The Sadama have occupied, they're the largest ethnic group in the south and the southern nations nationalities. People's region, Sadama are about four million people, they're the largest population ethnic group, but Awasin historically is a new city, was only founded in the 1950s, and the population was not dominated by the Sadama people historically. If you go back 20, 30 years ago, only around 10% of the population was Sadama at that time. The vast majority of the population was either coming from the north, but many of the people from other groups in the south like the Wallaita, Kambata, Adiyah people, but also from Amara, Aromo, so highly diverse city. Then we've got to jump ahead to the, and statehood, advocating for statehood has historically been an issue that Sadama, beginning with the coming up EPRDF, have advocated for, so we can jump ahead then to the 2005 election when cities across Ethiopia supported the opposition. One of the ways that the EPRDF struggled to bring cities back in to the party system and to support their party away from the opposition was to try to homogenize the population of the cities. So after the 2005 election, Awasin expanded its urban boundaries to bring in a larger portion of Sadama people. People living around the city are Sadama, not people actually in the city. So with that expansion of the boundaries, suddenly Sadama became the majority population within the city. The reason for that is because diverse cities don't necessarily work well with this ethnic federalist model because it becomes a question of how do you represent that diversity? So once Awasa becomes a Sadama city, then it's a little bit easier to fit that into the ethnic federalist model. So to go to your question, from a symbolic standpoint, the Awasa as this diverse city works very well with the EPRDF rhetoric. From a practical standpoint, in terms of people's voting behavior, in terms of who they actually support, it did not work very well because of the lack of fit with ethnic federalism. So there's been a very conscious attempt to make Awasa a Sadama city, whether that's through infrastructure to build roads that connect with Sadama neighborhoods, whether that's through things like at Awasa University, where I worked for a year, where it's about giving positions to a Sadama people, whether it's through making all of the city administration Sadama, then by making the city more homogenous in that sense, the ideas that can then be connected with that ethnic federalist structure. And so the kind of the unity through diversity doesn't always fit so well with the actual ethnic federalism through practice. Let's talk a bit more about Sadama. It's been in the news recently, last week, what exactly is going on there? Let's provide some background first, that on the 18th of July, 2018, so just over a year ago, the Sadama council, the representatives of the zone, tried to exercise their rights under the constitution to move towards creating their own state. So this is what you were talking about earlier that the southern region is also very diverse. You would have Sadama coming out of the southern region and moving from their current state as a zone to a state, potentially, assuming the referendum was held and voted in favor of that outcome. That was what they were trying to achieve. What has happened since that request was made or that attempt to use that request under the constitution was made? Can you explain to us a little bit about what's going on? Okay. What does Sadama people in the southern nations in nationalities, peoples' regional state, let's call it SNNPA for short, such a man at one, right? Is they demanded in accordance with article 47 of the constitution, so article 3b, for statehood, independent state. And this happened more than a year ago, now a few days more than a year ago. And according to that constitutional provision, there is a schedule within a year within which the regional state has to organize the state council, has to organize a referendum on whether or not. They should become a state or not. Yes. The request was submitted because, you know, I mean, the mandate, the constitutional mandate, the authority is false wisdom, the state council. But because the state doesn't have the resources organizing pause, it was given to the National Electoral, the N.E.B.E. The election commission, yes. Because it's the body that's in charge of polling, whether it's elections, national, regional, and local elections, or referendum, referendum. So what happened was, with Abby coming to power in April, and the new head of the N.E.B. appointed eight months ago, they missed out on the deadline. They needed to move forward with it. They didn't organize the referendum by institutional deadline. With the deadline. Now, the question is, I don't have the answers for that, I'm with certainty, but I can speculate. Why did they fail to organize the referendum within the deadline? One reason I guess is because Prime Minister Abby Ahmed was giving them contradictory signaling, contradictory messaging. When you say they, when you say they, you're talking about the Sedanian people, or who are you talking about? The state council. The state council, the N.E.B.E. Yeah. Because Abby came with this rhetoric of unity, of reforming the federal system itself. Yes. But again, after several months in office, she came out and said, the ethnic federal system is there to stay. That's not something negotiable. So maybe I saw them waiting on him, what is he gonna do about this? All right? Or maybe the regional council, we're concerned about losing their power. I mean, you have a party, SEPDA, which is a member in good standing of the coalition, the API of the coalition. How are you going to maintain your seat in the parliament and ex-officer, a kind of minister, supervising a certain government agency without when you are like attacking your own party, there won't be, they won't be stepped up anymore. If there is, if SIDAMA is going its own way, if LITE is going its own way, and all the 11 zones, zone administrations that are requested for statehood.  I mean, it was this kind of demand is proliferating at this rate, we need to put this thing on hold. So I think that's what's good. Now SEPDA held an 11 day long meeting in Addis. I don't even know why they couldn't have their meeting in their own capital, in Hawassa. But whatever they did, there is in Addis. And they came up with something very impenetrably, very dark. Really, I mean, it's easier for me to decode Aristotle's metaphysics than their statement. You can't make a hotel of it, you know? I mean, what the parties stand on that, you cannot figure it out from that statement alone. Then a few days, again, they convened in Hawassa and they said there is a study, they call it scientific, I don't know what scientific means in such, I mean, is that, that's, these days you know you do something and it's scientific. Whatever they say, according to the panel of expertise we convened and the study that we commissioned, they came up with three options. The first is to keep the SNNPR intact as it is. So keep the region as it is. Keep the region as it is. Okay. Second? The second option is to split it into two or three, but no more. Right. The second option is for Siddhama to hold a referendum. So, but I'm not answering the questions of the other. I mean, it's only for Siddhama. Yeah. But Siddhama is the only one who's fulfilled their promise so far. Yes. So still, what they are signaling isn't clear. It's contradictory, you know? What's the contradiction? The contradiction is because the NEBE said it's going to hold the elections in the referendum in five minutes. Right. Yeah? But the party in Hawassa is saying different. Yeah. It's coming through a back door and saying like, it's taking back what the constitution is giving them in one hand and it's taking it in the other. But how is it a contradiction? I mean, the party doesn't decide, right? If you follow the constitution, if the constitutional right has been asserted, they get the opportunity to have a referendum. This will take us to the question of the disconnect between the practice and the design and the constitution. So in practice, we have EPRF, and the way the modus operandi so far has been for EPRF to run the nation, the federation, as if it were a unitary state. Yeah. Because it's one part, they belong to one coalition. They are also joined by the allies in the remaining five regional states. So it was easy for them. They have the dominance in the legislature. They have the party apparatus. Yeah. Yeah? So whatever the party is saying, you know, is gonna hold, most likely. Okay. Johannes, one of the consequences of the failure of the election board to hold the referendum as scheduled was that some of the organizers of the Siddhama state or some of the proponents of it said, we're going to declare our own state. Said, we waited, we tried to follow, and we're going to declare if they don't give us our own state. That didn't ultimately happen, although it was threatened. Although the possibility of that happening in the future still remains, I suppose, that it's not precluded. How do you see this situation in Awasa and in Siddhama in particular playing out? Because it's unclear whether the election board can hold this referendum for whatever reason, or let's say there are doubts about whether it will move forward with doing so. People have said we're not prepared to wait any longer. There has been violence as a result of the failure to hold the referendum on time or to move towards some negotiated settlement of one kind or another. So that risk remains. We've heard, as Daniel Mainz has already said, that Awasa has become a more exclusively Siddhama city and wasn't necessarily historically so. So we have that grievance now also over the status of Awasa, the city. Not only Siddhama in the zone, but what happens to Awasa in the city, whether the state government has to leave if the southern nations changes. What is the implication, as some have argued as well, about this possibility of a southern region unraveling or the dominoes sort of following, that if it's first, if it starts in the Siddhama and then the Volaita and then the people from North Omo and so on and so on. Is that something that you see as a risk? Is there something that can be done about it? How do you see things moving forward? Thank you, Ali. It's a huge risk. I think if I could say, Prime Minister Avi Ahmed was able to do few things really successfully. I think he was able to manage the recent debacle. So she did with the Siddhama really well. He recognized that it's going to be a major trait to the country. And here is how. Alamayo mentioned most of the points she has suggested with the National Electoral Board, but the National Electoral Board also sent a letter to the Siddhama, the committee that is in charge of this state would demand, asking them what's going to be the status of Hawassa because Hawassa is the city is the capital city of the southern region and most of the southern regions diverse ethnic groups or Ethiopians in the south have invested a lot financially, emotionally, in so many different ways in that city. And that city happened to be the symbol of unity in the south and of course to all Ethiopians. And when I think of the southern Ethiopian, I usually don't call it the southern nation, it's nationalities, people's region. I just call the southern Ethiopia. And it is just, we call it little Ethiopia. And if this ethnic federal arrangement is to work or if there is real desire, positive desire to actually make it work, I think we need more of the southern Ethiopian kind of regions in Ethiopia, in the northern Ethiopia, in the western Ethiopia or the eastern Ethiopia. But hang on a second, the southern region is very diverse in terms of its composition. And a lot of people would say that the Amhara region or the Oromo region, while there are minorities, they don't have the same 80 group type composition that you find in the southern region. So how does that work to have more northern regions like the south? With the exception of few groups in Ethiopia, I would say mostly the Amhara's, followed by the Gragas, in Zengtugorei, I may be wrong in terms of how I rated them, which are these groups who actually live all across Ethiopia. Most Ethiopians, most ethnic groups actually live in very much certain localities. So Siddhamas are usually found in Siddhamas. I have never growing up in Gondar, which is the Amhara region. I have never met a Siddhama growing up, or very, very, very few Oromos. But to Gragas, of course, quite a lot, right? There's lots of Gragas in Gondar. So I think that Abiyah Ahmed understood the trade not only against Ethiopia as a state, but also a trade that is coming from internationalist compass against EPR-DEF's rule of Ethiopia, because most internationalists, I mean, the TPL live, although it is within the EPR-DEF, there is this, I wouldn't call it disrespect, but the federal government can do much integrate today. ODP, which is the Oromo Democratic Party, where the prime minister comes from, the prime minister cannot get probably anything that he wants in Oromia today, even though it is a party that he actually chairs. So the federal government at the center, or the central government in Ethiopia, is very much disconnected from most other regions. And the federal government cannot actually send its police forces or military forces to actually control displacementists and political violence all across the country. But one thing that they, at least the way they wanted, one thing that happened before the Siddhama issue is what happened in Jigya, with the guy of the Ile, who actually wanted to secede from Ethiopia. This is the Somali region. This is the Somali region. And he put that on the table. And Abiyah and the late military, the late military chief of staff acted decisively. And that regional president is now in jail. And Abiyah, actually, I raised this issue because Abiyah reminded the group that is, that is managing this Siddhama state of the question, okay, if you do not, right, follow this constitutional guideline and the government's guidance in terms of how to actually handle the Siddhama state of the issue. What you're referring to is if they've gone ahead and declared their own. Exactly, because they wanted to declare in July 11, 2011, right? They wanted to declare that. And he said, if you do so, what happened to the Somali region would also repeat itself in Siddhama. Because he knew that it was going to be a major trait against the sovereignty of the southern region in terms of its regional sovereignty. But also with huge ramifications, as Alamayo said, to EPR because the southern Ethiopian people's democratic movement, SCPDM would be in a very much weaker position. And the SCPDM, with its leader, Ms. Mufrayat, she's the minister of peace, is a major ally to the prime minister. So he recognized that part. But I would like just to add a couple of points here, just maybe just one point. What is the good thing about the decision by the government and the electoral board, which is really under a huge pressure rain on the electoral board is because there are so many other things in different regions that should be on the agenda. Today they're just postponed, like a few hours ago, they postponed the election in Addis Ababa and Dredo city councils as well. Local elections. Yeah, the local elections because they are really under a huge pressure. What is really important is they, I think, have realized and understood what is really behind the Ijeto, there's a youth group that's behind the Siddhama statehood question, which is using very much violent actors to push its agenda. And also the committee behind the statehood question is that just like Daniel said earlier, there has been that homogenization project in the city of Hawassah for a long time, but it's not complete. But the ability of having your own regional state could actually facilitate that agenda of creating a very homogenous Siddhama state because what happened the day the electoral board really does treatment was so many non-governmental organizations closed their offices, businesses were closed, Hawassah is a very beautiful city with so many resorts, the occupancy rate for their hotels and resorts is under 5%. And there's a lot of huge economic strain and money in Siddhamas started to lead the city. But how does the state itself, how does the zone becoming a state lead to the zone becoming more homogenous? Because outside of Hawassah, the city, the zone itself, yes, there may be some minorities, but it is predominantly Siddhama, right? So becoming a state doesn't necessarily make it more homogenous. Exactly, exactly, ethnic federalism doesn't mean that at least we all understand, and the government understands, but sometimes it's not nationalists in any camp may not actually buy into the idea. It's ethnic federalism doesn't entitle each ethnic group its own state, right? If it's a very small minority, it could be, you know, it could have its own word as sort of like a county or zone of administration. And as long as they are in charge of that zone of administration, they are basically administrating themselves. But having a regional state would mean for them, right? Having more, say, in national politics. Having the bigger slice of these national resources and influence and the ability to also have, create or establish new political alliance across ethnic lines when it comes to engaging in moving forward with the national political environment. But here is this also one major problem that the government already understands. And we also in the academics or in the media also definitely understand. That is, if the Sidama, say, secedes from the southern regional state, there will be an equally most populated, also bigger geographically sized Gedeo zone will be basically left out as an enclave, still part of the southern region, but outside the state borders, regional borders of the southern region. That is a huge issue. And here is why. The Gedeos, it's a minority ethnic group. Minority in it can standards of over 100 million people, but that is close to 2 million. About 1 million of them, or close to 1 million of them were displaced from Guji, Oromia, because most of the Gedeo zone is in the southern region. But Gedeos, ethnic Gedeos also live inside Oromia in the other side. And over a million of them were displaced. And until recently the oil left, the groups that returned from Eritrea after invitation by the prime minister was actually in charge of this zone administration in Guji, Oromia, and was actually responsible for the displacement and also for preventing the return of the Gedeos to where they belong. So there is this huge dilemma. This will be a national catastrophe. It will be something that actually the Sidama issue, that's what I'm talking about. Sidama issue would definitely escalate the tensions around that area, the ethnic tensions around that area. Violence could be spiraling. And definitely the issue of IDPs that has now put Ethiopia, I mean, we are always in the international headlines, but the issue of IDPs is one of the most devastating and hurtful really phenomena about Ethiopia today. And the Sidama issue, if they were able to succeed, would definitely be a blow to Ethiopian unity and of course to the hope of the country in terms of how we actually move forward. Daniel Mainz, do you share that concern about what may happen in the southern region? I mean, there is this argument that has been made by certain analysts and scholars that if you allow, or if Sidama is allowed to succeed, then the other zones of the region may follow. Is that a problem? For one question, I mean, there is this question of allowing, which I find interesting if it's constitutionally an entitlement that is there. But beyond that, looking specifically at Sidama, if we can come back to that as well, what are the implications if this referendum or constitutional process isn't followed?  Right, right, no, those are great questions. I mean, definitely it's already begun with other ethnic groups, the Wallita, or the policies first we have to request it and then there's a year to organize the referendum. So there's other groups that are already in the process of declaring their own state. You know, it's difficult to say exactly how that would play out. But I think that one thing is very clear is that the proliferation of states in this region has the potential to be highly negative when resource distribution is attached to those particular states. So you can have different ethnic states, and I think that it's possible for that to work out in positive ways in terms of empowering the groups that live within those states. The problem is when the resources within those states are only distributed on the basis of ethnicity. So let me give an example that comes specifically from OASA. So OASA has been in the news the past few years because it also hosts the largest industrial park, not only in Ethiopia, but in Africa, the OASA Industrial Park. It potentially is a source of 60,000 jobs, debatable how valuable these jobs are, since they only pay a dollar a day, which is also one of the problems that is aggravating the youth movements, but there are still jobs. Now this is not something that I believe is mandated by the Constitution, but all of the recruitment for those jobs at the industrial park currently takes place within the southern nations and nationalities and people's region. OASA is just right on the border with Oremia. There's no reason why they couldn't recruit workers from the Aroma region to work in that industrial park. So this becomes a case where economic resources in the form of jobs is concentrated within the particular regional state, not for constitutional reasons, but as sort of a favoritism for the people that live in that region. So what would happen if Sadama becomes its own state? Does that mean that all 60,000 potential jobs in that industrial park are only given to the Sadama people, even though it's a diverse group of people living in that area? If so, that's going to create extreme conflict. That's just one example. You could spin that off into a number of other areas, whether it's access to jobs at the university, access to infrastructure, things like that. And so I believe that when ethnic federalism is compounded with this type of ethnic-based resource distribution, that then it is particularly contentious and has the potential to create a much higher degree of conflict, has a much higher degree of instability, but it doesn't have to work that way. You can have a Sadama state and still allow people from outside that state to work at the industrial park, for instance. Same with the Hwasa University. That's based at Hwasa. Or indeed any other prize. Exactly, exactly. So I think it really comes, I think that that's one of the ways where the negative potentials of ethnic federalism occurs is when it gets attached to redistribution, but that's not something that has to happen. There can be ways around that, ways of intervening. That's not the way that ethnic federalism has to occur. It does seem to be increasingly going that direction, I would say within the past 10 to 15 years, focused more on a tool that allows local politicians to then redistribute resources within their own ethnic group to kind of build up their base. Maybe another form of kind of patron-client relationship that has emerged, but that's not a necessary aspect of ethnic federalism. I guess we're thinking about ethnic federalism in terms of the way it works in practice versus the way it works in theory. It doesn't have to be that way, but that is the way it's becoming increasingly in practice. And that's one of the reasons for tensions. And it's also around land. A lot of the recent violence within OASA has been people pushing, for example, the Wallaita people, who are one of the largest groups in OASA, attacked, pushed off their land, so access to land is another key area there as well. And there's an interesting counterpoint because, of course, historically, public sector employment drew people from other parts of Ethiopia to places like OASA. Let's take some questions from the floor before coming back to you for final remarks. For the benefit of our online audience, we'd like you to use the microphone, which Amy is about to hand out. We can hear you, but we need to make sure our viewers can also hear you, so please tell us who you are and ask a question. No questions. Someone must have a question. Yes. Thank you. I'm Herman Cohen, former State Department official. The word oppressor was mentioned at the beginning. Now, historically, you had an authoritarian regime under the empire and then under the derg. Was the power concentrated in a particular ethnic elite, would you say? Okay, thanks. We'll take a couple before turning back to the panel if there are other questions. Is that a hand, Mike? No? Okay. All right, Alamire, let me ask you to respond to that question first. I think I have to be very theoretical here. Three people, three big people I want to bring in to that. That's not theoretical, that's real. Hegel, Nietzsche, and John Robs. Nietzsche, most important, is the one who discovered the historical sense. And, you know, Nietzsche has this book called The Untimely Meditations and the second is in that collection of, it says, it is called The Use and Disadvantage of History for Life. So, like I was saying earlier, ethnic patriotism was prompted by reasons of history as also by reasons of T.I. That reason of history is that narrative of occupation, of the nation's nationality, what the constitution calls the nation's nationality and peoples, by a certain hegemonic ethnic group. Now the thing is, one of the defects of the constitution which needs Ramarit, Ramarit is this. This excess of historicism, this excess of, you know, history has a blessing and a curse and historical knowledge as well. So, it's time to shift gear and, you know, and for the hulls of the body politic called Ethiopia to move away from this excess of historicism of oppression. So, I don't wanna put my finger on any attacker. Okay. I don't think the question is limited to ethnic groups, but Johannes, how do you respond to this question of the oppressor? The state calls the oppressor. I think it's a very important question, really. You know, we should not ignore, you know, such questions. I agree with Alamayo that history has its blessings and it could be a curse sometimes. But history is different, you know, on the ice of everyone and how we research it and the methodology and who writes it. The victor, right, those who lost, you know, it depends. Earlier, Alamayo mentioned a very interesting example, which I highly appreciated. It was about Emperor Johannes, my namesake. Emperor Johannes IV. So, he was the one who, he's from Tigray, but he died fighting to liberate some parts of Kondur from the dervish. He's the Eras Islamic radicals from the Sudan. And he was also the one who came after Emperor Teodros and who, you know, made, who decided to make Amharic the state language, not because he doesn't like to Grinyan, but because it is conducive to his nation building or state building project. But when it comes to how we actually criticize Emperor Menilik for making that language, we just make it all about Menilik and we forget all, as are all our previous statesmen that we had. Mr. Cohen, I understand that you had, you know, as an Africanist or as someone working for the State Department in charge of so many important responsibilities, you have played your role in conflict resolution or state building in so many different countries. But I think there is this one major issue that I have also followed some of your remarks about recent political developments in Ethiopia. I think there is something that you actually got completely wrong. Ethiopian history of, especially in contemporary times, is about political narratives. It's not about eventists or objective reality, but it's embedded on very much subjective, very much political narratives that pete one group against the other. You know, if we, Mungustuhael Amariam was half Oromo, or more Oromo, even based on some documentaries from American government documents, Zan and Amora. Haile Selassie had, of course, some Oromo lineage as well, right? And I am someone from Gondar, and people may think that, okay, he's Anamara, so he's being defensive on this or that. But, you know, the reality is I do not know a name of a Haile official from Gondar who served in the Durg regime or in the Haile Selassie regime. In fact, the empire was authoritarian. Yes, I agree. The Durg, you say it's correct. Yes, it was authoritarian. But what about if you are deaf? Probably the most authoritarian in modern times, in our history, and pretty much maybe anti-Ethiopian. But today, somehow, because the so-called unity camp in Ethiopia, those groups who actually advocate for Ethiopian unity because they are more or less irrelevant because of the rise of ethno-nationalism, if you are deaf, suddenly it looks like the moderate, the center, the choice, they have become an option. If you ask anyone around 2005 or after the advent of the 21st century, you would say, if you are deaf, it's like no option, but now it's an option. And part, of course, hugely thanks to Prime Minister Abiyamir's popularity and that this understanding that he wants to do good, right? Although we see him that he's now a hostage of his own political party and the growing, you know, strangles of Oromo nationalism and which he had to rely if he wanted to make sure that he wants to survive politically. One thing that also I would like to add is that Amaro nationalism is not about going back to the past. If it's saying, say, going back to the past, actually it will be the most disastrous to the Amhara because the past was not good to the Amhara to be frank, but it is about the future. It's about preventing a systematic operation that targeted the Amhara, especially after 1991. As I said, this ethnic federal arrangement, if it's about federalism, if it is about bringing government closer to the people, right, empowering groups, expanding these democratic principles and bestowing group rights, individual rights to everyone, that would be great. But as I said, it just came because they wanted some people, some group wanted to reward some and punish others. And that is just one last point. Briefly. Briefly, okay. Let me just do, yes, nationalism in and of itself is bad. Whether you call it Amhara nationalism or Amor nationalism or whichever ethnic groups nationalism in the Ethiopian politics, or Ethiopian nationalism, nationalism is bad. But in Ethiopia, not only because we do not understand what nationalism is all about, but we do not understand also our politics really well. And our politics is really, really bad. And it is APRDF's politics. And APRDF happened to be a group made of the ethnonationalist political parts itself. So, yeah. Okay. So before we conclude, I want to put the bottom line question to all of you. Which is, you know, we can debate how well ethnic federalism has been implemented, whether it's defective in design or whether it's defective in implementation or accommodation thereof. But it is the constitutional disposition of the country today, and that's how it remains. Is ethnic federalism a viable solution in the long term for Ethiopia beyond the immediacy of what's happening today or what happened last week? As a sustainable model of governance, it has been the basis there of the constitution for the last 25 years or so. Is it something that will be able to carry the country forward, Alamayo? Unfortunately, to our dismay, yes, it is. Why? Okay. Briefly, why? Okay, two things. Two things. Because I just want to prevent people from misunderstanding me. I'm all for liberal democracy. There is no other option. And Fukuyama is right in his end of history argument, which is a haggling point. That's not Fukuyama, actually. But ethnic federalism, whatever you call other political arrangements, are arrangements that you craft to deal with the unfavorable conditions of your history. Countries burdened with that kind of history, we need to craft such kind of argument, federative argument is. To carry us through to the future. But the future is liberal democracy. Daniel, ethnic federalism remains as we've just heard, as you know. What is a way, are there ways in which its approach or its modification might overcome some of the challenges that have been identified, particularly in the southern region, if you want to confine yourself to that. But feel free if you have a national perspective as well. I think federalism is definitely a viable model. It can work in terms of its efficacy. I don't know if there's a better model out there for governing the country. But there's a couple things. One I already touched on is when ethnic federalism is directly linked with distribution of resources that undermines the system. The second, which I haven't had a chance to talk about very much is this issue of youth. Particularly youth as a powerful force that's put up political movements that are based in youth. So youth unemployment in Ethiopia, urban youth unemployment has historically, when I was doing research in the early 2000s on the topic was on 50% and when I talk about youth as well, that's not, this is, we're talking about ages at 18 to 40, for instance. You can be 38 years old and still live with your parents and still be classified as a youth. That's it, yeah. This is a very volatile population. And when you have a population like this that is desperate for accessing an income to build a family, to support, to achieve these goals of becoming an adult, I mean the term fendata is sometimes used in Amharic, literally translates as explosive. So when you have that, that makes it very difficult to have discussions about statehood, when there's a large population of youth that are desperate for economic change and willing to advocate for that in ways that are sometimes violent and to sort of grab those resources. So you can have a much more, I think, relaxed, less tense conversation about ethnic federalism, about the rights of states when that population of youth in some ways is not so militant, how do you get to that? Part of that is through the creation of jobs. I mean the jobs that were created through infrastructural development as well as the massive expansion of the university system in Ethiopia during the past 15 years, that was a small step towards alleviating some of that explosive tension. The jobs at the Awasa Industrial Park do the opposite because you're paying people a dollar a day which is not enough to live in the context of a vibrant city like Awasa. It creates another point of stress, another point of friction. So to the degree to which you can offer economic development where we, where youth are not seeing their own ethnicity as their only approach to getting ahead and improving their lives, that changes the discussions around ethnic federalism and it allows those discussions to kind of take that violent threat out of the discussion and gives more time, more patience. This is not, I mean, to have a new state at the same time that Prime Minister Abbey has just come into power dealing with all these other things, assassinations, deaths in his own family, a huge number of things a lot to handle in a short amount of time than to have sort of a militant youth group also demanding state rights. It's a lot to deal with at once. The degree to which you could slow that down depends on being able to offer people economic development. Of course, that's not going to happen overnight. You can't expect patients from people that are living just day to day, hand to mouth, but I think that's one of the ways of making ethnic federalism viable is through economic development more generally. Dr. Yannis Gadam, last word to you briefly speaking. If ethnic federalism is here to stay, are there things, it's easy to point out the defects or the limitations. It's easy to point out what hasn't been done well over the last 25 years, but also today. We can easily do that. Are there things that can be done to improve the situation? Are there things that can be done? We've heard some ideas from Daniel Maynes just now. Are there other things that could be done to either make the system more equal, more fair, more equitable for all of Ethiopia's people? Sure. I corroborate to what Daniel said, but also I would say that in today's Ethiopian politics it's very difficult to not see federalism as the only alternative, but federalism is good because just federalism is going to work and it works everywhere, but ethnic federalism is not good. I think we should not undermine or we should not discount this idea of group writers, right? But what to do about them? I mean, this is the question. Yeah. I think we need to have more consolidated regions in terms of, we have to redesign the regions a bit. We have to make regions more heterogeneous instead of just, you know, which comes against this homogenization project if we are actually to coexist and live together. Besides, you know, today I don't see any group that advocates return to the unitary government structure. Not that unitary governments are bad. No, they are not. I mean, most of the countries in the world are unitary states. It's just that even in unitary states, power can be distributed heavily and we can have centralization. But today I think, just like Daniel said, you know, we just have to make sure that we differentiate between physical federalism and what this federal arrangement in Ethiopia is designed to accomplish because everything else is not really working. And if we are to promote democracy, right? And if democracy is going to grow and that country becomes a democratic state, I think we'll also be able to have the answers for most of our problems because federalism is not the answer, democracy is. And federalism then, you know, as a democratic compromise, could help us achieve better governments at the central level or local government levels. Please join me in thanking Daniel Mainz, Johannes Gudamo, and Alemaio Fantao. Well done, Maria, for their remarks today. Thanks. And thank you to all of you for coming.


The Plateau State Chapter of the People's Democratic Party has raised the alarm of what he described as a grand plan by the Plateau State Independent Electoral Commission to exclude the party from participating in the October 9th local government elections in the state. Now, Sepulchre of the Plateau State PDP Catechical Committee, Patrick Obu, who announced this to reporters in JAWS, expressed disgust over what he described as unsubstantiated reasons and vowed to resist any attempt to hinder the party. Obu maintained that the Catechical Committee was drafted to the state following a court judgment that ordered a fresh state congress to elect officers of the party and on resumption. The committee invited the commission to participate in its upcoming local government party parameters but the party did not show up.