PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

This dissertation seeks to examine the category of Itəyoṕəya’winətə (being Ethiopian) by drawing on the logic of radical alterity. Focusing on the constitutive moment of the modern Ethiopian empire state during the late nineteenth century, the dissertation problematizes the story of Ethiopian modernity as part and parcel of the ambivalence of modernity at a global scale. The dissertation discusses how the hegemonic notion of Itəyoṕəya’winətə was simultaneously professed as a modernization process in order to dislodge Ethiopia from its ‘traditional past’ and then willy-nilly imposed upon a number of subjugated peoples of the historic realm of the Ethiopian empire–– such as the Oromo, the Wolaita, the Sidama, the Somali societies––under the banner of a universal ‘civilizing mission.’

Contrary to conventional postcolonial/de-colonial discourses that tend to flatten the ambivalence of modernity as if the dichotomy between the hegemonic presence of modern Europe and the marginalization of the ‘Third World’/ ‘subaltern,’ this dissertation focuses on a multidimensional historical plane in pursuit of capturing manifold centers of hegemony in a global local scale. The main purpose of the current dissertation is, therefore, to valorize the inherent ambivalence of modernity qua colonization by highlighting the liminality of the modern Ethiopian empire state, while simultaneously being a center of hegemony and a periphery of the global-local phenomena of modernity.

Itəyoṕəya’winətə was essentially constituted by the hegemonic presence of modern Europe during the nineteenth century, thus generating an inherent craving in pursuit of becoming modern Europe among the hegemonic habäša(Abyssinians) elites of modern Ethiopian empire state. After imitating modern Europe’s self-image as the quintessence of humanity, along with the rationalization of its colonial violence à la “civilizing mission,” the modern Ethiopian empire state has been construed, in the chronicles of the Ethiopian great tradition, as if it were the ‘Europe of black Africa.’ Copying from the hegemonic self-image of modern Europe, Itəyoṕəya’winətə has essentially been construed in negation to the category of blackness and Africanness. Assuming the role of an imposter, i.e., imitating the hegemony of modem Europe, the modern Ethiopian empire state reduced numerous inhabitants of its historic South realm into the category of “subhuman,” thus legitimatizing its colonial/imperial violence as a “civilizing mission.”

As much as Itəyoṕəya’winətə has been constituted and sustained by the hegemonic Ethiopian great tradition, the Ethiopian Student Movement (ESM) gave birth to a counter tradition during the long Sixties. The long Sixties is developed and deployed inside the current dissertation as a heuristic devise in order to understand the historicity of ESM from a broader intellectual milieu, namely the anti-colonial global-local moment of historical synchronicity, c. 1950s-1970s. Drawing on ESM’s debate on the concept of the “national question,” i.e., the application of the principle of the right to national self-determination–– including the right to secede––in Ethiopia, which were published in various periodicals belonging to ESM during the long Sixties, the dissertation seeks to resonate ESM’s critical engagement with the category of Itəyoṕəya’winətə.

Theoretically, the dissertation is inspired by Reinhart Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte and Jacques Derrida’s différance. After initially departing from Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte in order to posit an elastic notion of temporality, thus being able to engage with the conventional empiricist notion of history (focusing on the one-dimensional reduction of the past as an object of historical inquiry), the dissertation embarks on an ambitious endeavor in pursuit of positing an inherently open temporality. Capitalizing on Derrida’s notion of différance and Ethan Kleinberg’s notion of “Constitutive Dissymmetry,” the dissertation seeks to advance a multidimensional notion of history.

Eventually, the dissertation concludes by reimagining the possibility of Addisitwu’a Itəyoṕəya (the new Ethiopia) by drawing on ESM’s anticipation of Addisitwu’a Itəyoṕəya as a utopian dream of salvation for the historical(and actual) problems of Itəyoṕəya’winətə. After taking a clue from a local eschatological tradition, namely “səmən’täñña ši (the eight millennium),” the conclusion also aspires to warn the principal actors of the present-day Ethiopia concerning the impossibility of Addisitwu’a Itəyoṕəya, i.e., the possibility of Ethiopia becoming the next Somalia, Libya, Yemen, or Syria.