Chapter 5
The Nation’s Leaders: From Fidelity to Revolt
p. 149-169
Texte intégral
1It is important to study the political roles played by the generations of pupils and graduates who attended school between 1941 and 1974. This involves looking at the effects of the socialisation—official and dissenting—that was underway in schools, and questioning how schoolchildren interpreted the discourses that were instilled into them there. The political attitudes of the pupils of Wolaita reveals how they understood the nation, its social hierarchies, the power practices that were played out in it and the role they were expected to have in it.
2The transition from loyalty to contesting the regime at the turn of the 1960s and the radicalisation of the Addis Ababa students have been the subject of detailed studies (Balsvik 1985; 2007; Messay 2008; Bahru 2010; 2014). The most visible events leading up to the 1974 revolution took place in Addis Ababa. Because the organs of power were concentrated in the capital, the role of the provinces had been largely neglected or considered only marginally. The fact that it was students in Addis Ababa who spearheaded the revolution and gave it its first impulses and ideological weapons reduced the political experience of secondary school pupils in the provinces to a distant whisper. This faint echo gives the impression that they were just following in the footsteps of their elders. The case of Wolaita must be used as a contribution to a decentralised history of the years prior to the 1974 revolution.
3In Wolaita, as in Addis Ababa, it is possible to distinguish between a loyal generation educated in the 1940s and 1950s and a dissident generation educated in the 1960s and 1970s. In the first two decades after the Second World War, schooling offered important opportunities for upward social mobility. The national space was a resource for young Wolaita who wanted to free themselves from the vagaries of subsistence farming and the violence of political domination. Those who went to school nurtured hopes for Haile Selassie’s regime. From the 1960s onwards, however, it became increasingly difficult for schools to keep their promises, the political system became rigid and the unceasing progress that had been promised was desperately lacking: young people in Wolaita who were attending school saw their families in a situation of domination that seemed not to be changing. Increasingly critical students became politicised alongside the student movement at Addis Ababa University. In 1970, Wolaita was the scene of the “eradication of thieves” campaign, which stands as a testimony to the way their political consciousness was forged both in the dissemination of dissident ideas through schools and their experience of local power structures. A focus on the ties to students in the capital makes it possible to draw comparisons in order to distinguish between the shared and specific features of the politicisation process that played out in the development of local and national spaces.
1. The loyal generation of the 1940s and 1950s
4Following liberation, schools were made responsible for training the staff that was required at all levels of the administrative apparatus that was under construction. Until the late 1950s, graduates enjoyed unrestricted access to public employment (Markakis 1974, 183), in the capital as well as in the provinces. The emperor wished to create assimilated elites from all over the country, and so he encouraged the principals of provincial schools to send their best students to the elite schools in the capital, where they were taken in as boarders at the government’s expense. Some of Soddo’s first generation of students enjoyed a meteoric social rise to very senior civilian and military positions: Leul-Selassie Temamo and Zewde Gebre-Medhin at the Ministry of Education, Abate Mengeste at the Ministry of Defence, Chabude Gebre at the Bank of the Republic, Gebre Emmanuel Teka at the Ministry of Health, Agriculture, Industry and Development, and Asafa Tebebu and Antonio Worku in the army, where they rose to the rank of colonel,1 to name but a few examples.
5In order to ensure the development of schools, people with only limited education were encouraged to become teachers, at a time when the profession represented a real social promotion.2 As late as the 1950s, Bogale Wallelu sent people who had completed their primary education in Wolaita to teach in the neighbouring Gamo-Goffa region, where he was the Regional Director of Education.3 He preferred to hire them rather than better-trained teachers who were sent from Addis Ababa. An anecdote that was reported in the YeZareitu Ethiopia newspaper provides an illustration of his concept. One day in the 1950s, three qualified teachers appointed by the Ministry of Education arrived in Gamo-Goffa. A few days later, Bogale Wallelu received the budget needed to pay their salaries. He reportedly sent a letter to the Ministry in which, after conveying his obligatory gratitude, he announced that he was dismissing the teachers but keeping the money. This enabled him to employ nine teachers who were less well-qualified but spoke the local language and were better suited to rural life.4 In the same decade, pupils who had performed well in the final primary school examination and wished to continue their studies were allocated to their choice between an agricultural school, a technical school or a teacher training institute. They were provided with government support and guaranteed employment upon graduation.5
6School met the expectations of students and their families, which fostered confidence in the regime. Because of its proximity to the centre of government, this was even more pronounced in Addis Ababa. Comparing his generation with the next generation attending school in the 1960s, writer Tesfaye Gessesse, who first went to school in the 1940s, recalls: “Our generation of students and graduates was really not revolutionary. They had good positions, they were given responsible jobs and good salaries, and that was the end of it.”6 The school system was fulfilling its nationwide role of integration into the state apparatus at various levels of government.
7Willingness to help their country was also an important motivation for students and graduates. School socialisation based on the inculcation of patriotism and dedication was an effective tool, but it must be understood in the specific context of the 1940s and 1950s, as Mesfin Wolde-Mariam reminds us:
That was after the war, after independence. Ethiopian patriotism was very high, songs… everything was about Ethiopian patriotism, and so we were filled with that. And we… if you asked anybody, he would say: ‘I am going to school to help my country.’ It’s not to make money, it is not like now, to become this or that, it was ‘to help my country.’7
8Children and adolescents were all the more receptive to the incorporation of devotion, as they were steeped in the nationalistic atmosphere that had survived the joy of liberation. Haile Selassie immediately directed this nationalistic enthusiasm towards his autocratic project. Propaganda was very intense in Addis Ababa, where there were numerous vehicles for disseminating it. The press, radio, art, literature and schools were all mobilised. In a province such as Wolaita, where the media were almost non-existent, schools were the favoured locations for propaganda, and pupils were among the first to be reached, through both teaching and school rituals. My interviews reveal that pupils harboured strong patriotic feelings and an attitude of veneration towards Haile Selassie. This same feeling was shared by a large section of the local population from all social backgrounds. He was not only the sacred emperor of the settlers and the faithful of the national church, but also—and this was far less obvious—of Wolaita. According to former teacher Lemma Didana:
በዚያን ጊዜ ንጉሱ እንደአምላክ ነው የሚታዩት። ሰው ተጣልቶ እንኳን ለማስታረቅ ሽምግልና የሚቀመጡ የወላይታ ሽማግሌዎች ለንጉሱ እረጅም እድሜ በመመኘት ነበር ስራቸውን የሚጀምሩት። ኦርቶዶክሱም ፕሮቴስታንቶችም ለእሳቸው የተለየ ክብር ነበር የሚሰጠው።
They regarded him as divine. In gatherings of elders to resolve disputes among the people, the proceedings commenced with wishes for the king’s long life. Regardless of whether they were Protestant or Orthodox, they shared a belief in the king and elevated him to a divine status.8
9The same witness reported that the peasants also sanctified Haile Selassie. Obviously, the dominated Wolaita did not equate the emperor with the local aristocracy. He was not seen as the head of a political system that presided over coercion and the draining of resources to the capital. On the contrary, he was seen as a just king, while the multiple forms of oppression inherent in domination by the centre were attributed solely to the settlers and their Wolaita allies. In-depth studies of peasant political consciousness in southern Ethiopia would certainly add nuances to this phenomenon, which James Scott calls “naive monarchism” (Scott 2008, 111–17); it is nevertheless confirmed in several interviews.
10The idea that Haile Selassie was the source of the benefits, while coercion and exploitation were the work of his subordinates, was undoubtedly shared in the school environment. Pupils and locally-trained teachers were custodians of Bogale Wallelu’s design.9 In his letter to the Ministry of Education in 1942, he denounced the local aristocracy, portraying them as his determined enemy, firmly opposed to educating the poor, whose upward mobility they rejected for fear of having no one left to exploit. There are many anecdotes about his intense efforts to make school accessible to everyone, especially the dominated. Alula Anjiyo, who was part of the first generation of students, remembers a morning when a child from an aristocratic family went to school accompanied by a servant carrying his belongings. Seeing the servant leave just as his master entered the school, Bogale Wallelu grew angry: “If the servant doesn’t come here to learn, what is the use to bring him along?” (አሽከሩ የማይማር ከሆነ እሱን አስከትሎ መምጣት ለምን አስፈለገ ?).10 He saw school as a means of promoting the dominated section of society and levelling the top of the social hierarchy, a concept that left a powerful impression on people’s minds. While school and its homogenising role might devalue their identity, the power of the centre was viewed by Wolaita pupils and graduates as emancipatory in the face of the power of the settlers and their local auxiliaries. The struggle for an Ethiopia united behind Haile Selassie was conceived to oppose the arbitrary power of the local aristocracy. The national space offered a way out, leading to a belief in assimilation and the benefits of unity. From then on, the sense of belonging to the nation was encouraged both by schools’ position in local power relations and by the propaganda deployed in them. In the 1940s and 1950s, the upward mobility offered by school and a belief in the progressive nature of power combined to produce a loyal generation of graduates.
11The situation gradually changed from the mid-1950s onwards. The Ministry of Education’s 1954 report titled Basic Recommendations for the Reorganization and Development of Education in Ethiopia stated that having met the needs of reconstruction, the school system had to be reformed in order to meet the country’s wider needs.11 The elites needed for reconstruction and the growth of the administration had been trained, and the focus now needed to be on the development of basic education for the greatest possible number of people. At the same time, the capacity of the state apparatus to absorb graduates was beginning to run out, while employment opportunities in other sectors were almost non-existent (Tekeste 2006, 15). The future direction of the school system was extremely unclear. A letter attached as an appendix to the Basic Recommendations bore witness to a certain amount of disarray among educationists in the Ministry of Education about the lack of clearly-defined policy perspectives:
Through a nationally controlled system of education, Ethiopia can make Ethiopia any kind of Ethiopia it may want to be. […] The problem of ‘what kind of Ethiopia does Ethiopia want to be?’ will not be decided by educators. It will be decided by those in positions of leadership […] who control the development of Ethiopia. […] The educator must depend upon others to make decisions with reference to the kind of Ethiopia that is to be […]. The Long-Term Planning Committee for Ethiopian Education is seriously handicapped by the fact that it is attempting to plan an educational program without knowing what the objectives of a total overall planning programme are.12
12This situation revealed the limitations of Haile Selassie’s political project. The peak of his power, which was crowned by the 1955 Constitution, was followed by a blocking of the system (Bahru 1994, 32). The consequences of this political stalemate, which eventually led to the school system running out of steam, were soon felt in Wolaita, just as rural demand for schooling had begun to emerge in the late 1950s. By 1958–59, Germame Neway had established literacy centres in even the most remote villages, and the Sudan Interior Mission missionaries followed suit. At the same time, paths for upward social mobility through schooling had emerged in the most remote townships of Wolaita. Although it was extremely marginal, this phenomenon was a good example. According to Abraham Worku, who lived in the rural wereda of Offa: “People understand when some people in this area went to the government school and complete it. They become higher officials.”13 School education was slowly beginning to attract people in rural areas at the same time as structural obstacles were appearing.
2. A hijacked school space: the circulation of dissident ideas
2.1 The pupils: a potential political force in the heart of the city
13Germame Neway did not stay long enough for its literacy centres to become permanent establishments. It was under the direction of Wolde Samaet Gebre-Wold between 1963 and 1973 that government education began to take hold more openly in Wolaita. Six new towns were founded so that each wereda had an administrative centre connected to Soddo (Almaz 1984, 25) and primary schools were established in each of them: 14 more were added to the 15 that had existed before.14 Under his administration, the seeding of government schools was thus distributed across the territory of Wolaita more effectively. The primary schools that were built in the new towns attracted students from rural missionary schools, some of whom continued their studies at the secondary school in Soddo. As a result, enrolment there increased significantly: in 1965, it had 1,613 pupils (Demeke 1985, 33) in a town of 10,430 inhabitants.15 In contrast to the previous generation, when many of the pupils were children of settlers or government workers, the newcomers were mostly from modest social backgrounds, and from exploited and marginalised rural areas. They were much further away from the centre, both politically and culturally.
14This rapid growth of the school phenomenon from the 1960s was in itself a source of social tension. Young people from rural areas arrived at secondary school motivated by the hope of leaving their miserable and oppressed life in the countryside at a time when the system’s capacity for integration was weakening. They were soon to make the bitter discovery that there was a wide gap between the progressive discourse of power disseminated by the school and the prospects that were actually on offer to them. In the secondary school in Soddo, which was far better connected to the national space than the rural towns, they also discovered that the emperor’s aura was crumbling, and that the regime was beginning to suffer from serious disrepute. The increasing contacts with students in Addis Ababa from the mid-1960s onwards were essential to this awareness.
2.2 The circulation of revolutionary ideas in the 1960s and 1970s
15In the 1960s, a student movement that was increasingly critical of the political system developed at Addis Ababa University, at a time when the circulation of dissident ideas and opposition practices was intensifying internationally. As the former activist Asfew Damte testifies, students from other African countries, notably Kenya and Nigeria, who came to study in Addis Ababa in the late 1950s brought with them the political culture of anti-colonial movements (Bahru 2010, 19–23). Ethiopian students were also sent to continue their studies in the United States and Europe. For many of them who had grown up convinced that they were living in a country that had been set on the path to progress by an enlightened emperor, their journey was a source of bitter disillusionment. In the collection of oral sources on the student movement compiled by historian Bahru Zewde in 2010, Ethiopian academic Dessalegn Rahmato recalls the shock he felt during his North American experience:
For most of us (relatively speaking) it came as very frightening experience to realise how backward Ethiopia was. When we were in Ethiopia, we would sometimes read foreign newspapers and occasionally listen to foreign radio broadcast and watch fatuous films. This revelation, I believe, may be one source of our disillusionment. […] [One] thing I came to realize at that time was the great amount of influence exerted on visitors from such African countries as Ethiopia when they travel abroad. Although I never analysed the concept, I had heard of imperialism and colonialism. I got a true picture of how much we were underprivileged not only in such significant areas as arms technology and the economy, but even in such rudimentary areas as thought process, […] creation of ideas and their propagation. (There were times when I—and by extension my country—felt small). At times like this, such questions as “Where is our place on the international scale?,” “Where can we perceive our progress?” would resonate loudly in my mind. (Dessalegn, in Bahru 2010, 35)
16Trips to and exchanges with foreign countries revealed the purely rhetorical aspect of the Ethiopian authorities’ discourse on progress of which the school space was saturated. The integration of students into international left-wing movements began at the same time as Haile Selassie’s regime entered a phase of inertia. The encounter with the literature and the great international figures of the revolution was therefore decisive, and there was no turning back. From the beginning of the 1960s, Ethiopian student associations in Europe, the USA and Addis Ababa became politicised and kept up constant exchanges. On the Ethiopian university campus, student newspapers became more and more radical—the shift from titles such as News and Views to Struggle is sufficiently evocative of this—as did militant practices. Pan-African, anti-imperialist international solidarity and national issues were both the focus of student political activity.
17Representatives were sent to the pan-African conferences in Uganda in 1957 and Sierra Leone in 1959, and to the Eighth International Student Conference in Peru in the same year (Balsvik 1985, 85). In the 1960s, a pan-African sensibility developed, and students made their voices heard against the regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia (Idem, 207–9). In 1966, students from Addis Ababa wrote to the National Union of Vietnamese Students to express their support for the “sacred struggle against U.S. imperialist aggression,” while the slogan “Yankee Go Home” appeared on banners at demonstrations in Addis Ababa (Idem: 200–201). In this movement, the students questioned the condescension of their elders towards other Africans. Nationalism based on distinction, on pride in being the only independent African country, gave way to pan-African solidarity. Within a closed country subjected to intense propaganda, the university was a place for the circulation of information and openness to the world.
18Radicalisation and the break with the regime can be observed through a few milestones. The 1960 coup d’état, which took place at a time when students were just beginning to be politically active, generated enthusiastic support. The rapid crushing of the coup and Germame Neway’s suicide after the execution of the 17 dignitaries he had taken hostage left them stunned. On his return from Brazil, where he had been on a diplomatic visit, the emperor, like a wounded father who still showed understanding towards his prodigal sons, forgave “his” students for their confusion. Everything temporarily returned to normal. Nevertheless, during the few days the coup had lasted, a space had been opened up for freedom of expression. Students were able to express dissatisfaction for the first time, the political and social realities of Ethiopia were brought into focus and the government was openly challenged (Idem, 100). All of this had a considerable impact on students’ political consciousness. As Bahru Zewde points out: “The failure of Germame and his companions was not followed by docile submission but by even greater mistrust. Immediately after the failure of 1960, subversive leaflets sprouted like mushrooms in the capital. […] It can be said that this new opposition set the tone for future events” (Bahru 2007, 254).
19In 1965, while parliament was debating land legislation, students took to the streets to demonstrate behind the slogan “Land to the Tiller,” claiming that the land system was the source of the population’s misery and the country’s economic gridlock. This demonstration was a pivotal moment that initiated an intensification of criticism of the regime, which was now described as “feudal.” In May 1966, another important demonstration took place, whose call was: “Is poverty a crime?” The students wanted to draw attention to the barbed-wire fenced camps around Addis Ababa, where beggars and invalids were “picked up” from the streets on the occasion of international conferences (the Organization of African Unity had had its headquarters in Addis Ababa since its formation in 1963) and visits by foreign heads of state. Until then, the student movement had claimed the right to be an opposition integrated into the political system, increasingly critical but still loyal. Subsequently, the clear goal became to dismantle the imperial regime (Balsvik 1985, 25–27). In 1969, the assassination of the student leader Telahun Gizew by the authorities completed the rupture. The opposition then won over the students of the capital’s secondary schools, who finally joined their elders from the university. Getachew Kassa, who was a student at Tefari Mekonnen School at the time, recalls: “When Telahun Gizew died, for the first time I went to the university, to oppose. It is Haile Selassie’s regime which killed him. From then, the attitude of the students completely changed. We realized that he was a backward ruler.”16
20Addis Ababa University was pivotal in the expansion of the fight against the regime to secondary schools. It was at the centre of an international network for the development and circulation of political ideas and activist practices, which it redistributed in provincial secondary schools. From the second half of the 1960s onwards, dissident ideas circulated through the school network between the provinces, Addis Ababa and Ethiopian students abroad, with Addis Ababa University as the nerve centre. The role of the Ethiopian University Service, through which students from Addis Ababa completed a compulsory one-year period of teaching in the provinces, was essential to this process. When it was established in 1964, student politicisation was already well under way. By 1969, when students doing this service were redistributed to secondary schools on a massive scale following the departure of the Peace Corps volunteers, the movement had entered its radicalisation phase, and was armed with a powerful anti-imperialist and anti-feudal message. The student activists soon decided to use this opportunity to promote the ideas of the movement and provide information on the social realities of the country in order to feed their political discourse (Balsvik 1985, 145).
2.3 The politicisation of pupils in Wolaita
21The case of Wolaita shows that pupils were particularly active, and partly belies the view that the impetus came primarily from Addis Ababa. Although they were connected to the national space, the struggle of the Wolaita pupils was deeply rooted in local realities. The political influence of the students in the capital was essential, but so was the social experience of the Wolaita students.
22In order to spread the movement throughout the country’s schools, students sent from Addis Ababa as part of the Ethiopian University Service were instructed to use existing student associations, or if necessary to create new ones, as a channel for politicisation. Their position as teachers would allow them to do this without arousing the suspicions of the administration, at least initially. The first students arrived in Wolaita in 1963 and the first student association was established there at Soddo Secondary School in 1966, with the approval of the authorities. Its official powers were strictly academic. It had a president, a vice president, a secretary and six permanent elected members (Demeke 1985, 45). It seems that the school administration did not interfere in the selection and election of candidates, probably because of the presence of teacher members. This type of organisation ensured a certain degree of discretion in the dissemination of political activities. Political activities were carried out alongside the official functions of the association in informal meetings held outside the school.17 Until the first public political activities in the early 1970s, the second half of the 1960s was restricted to the dissemination of the ideas and demands of the student movement to a limited number of students:
የተወሰኑ በእድሜ ትንሽ ከፍ ያሉ ተማሪዎች ከአዲስ አበባ ዩኒቨርስቲ ተማሪዎች ጋራ እየተመካከሩ መሬት ላራሹ ይሰጥ፣ ትምህርት ለሁሉም ይደርስ ይሉ ነበር፣ ከዚያ ደግሞ የነበረውን አስተዳደራዊ በደል ይቃወሙ ነበር ።
Slightly older students exchanged ideas with their counterparts from the university of Addis Ababa. They advocated for land to be granted to those who cultivate it, called for education to be accessible to all, and stood against administrative abuses.18
23Political exchanges took place through discussion, and there were links with the university through letter-writing. Letters and writings arrived in Wolaita frequently enough to be mentioned by several witnesses:
የአዲስ አበባ ዩኒቨርሲቲ ተማሪዎች የተቃውሞ ሰልፍ በሚያደርጉበት ጊዜ መረጃው ለእኛም እንዲደርሰ በደብዳቤ አደርገው በድብቅ ይልኩልን ነበር ። ሚስጥራዊው ደብዳቤ ወደ እዚህ በሚመጡ ሰዎች አማካኝነት ይደርሰን ነበር ።
During the opposition demonstrations they held in Addis Ababa, students would clandestinely send us letters to keep us informed. We received these covert messages through individuals who were coming to our location.19
24The discussions focused on concrete elements rather than ideology. The main slogans were discussed in the light of the local situation and the concept of social justice.20 It was an exchange of ideas: as well as politicising the pupils, the students gathered information about the provinces and took it back to Addis Ababa. Students from rural areas were key informants.
25The priority was to raise awareness of the fact that collective action was possible and to disseminate slogans to mobilise. During the 1972–73 school year, secondary school students in Soddo began to involve pupils from schools in the wereda. In the same year, a new students’ association was established throughout Wolaita that also brought together teachers and some of the few farmers who were parents of students (Demeke 1985, 47). During the demonstrations of the time, the pupils’ political consciousness was not based on any precise ideological knowledge. Before the 1974 revolution, students in Wolaita had not known about Marxism or the international icons of the revolution. Paolos Sorsa, who was one of the most active students, remembers the three years before the revolution:
We were just propagating in the society, to the peasantry or all elementary schools in the nation. And the main motto at that time was just to send all the youth and the school students and teachers against the government. And, it was just to bring social transformation to the country. And we were saying socialism. Actually, at the beginning of the time when we were demonstrating in the school, our question was not socialism, we don’t know about the ideology. Just the only thing what we were questioning is just we were with… we were looking to change society. The old government of the Haile Selassie regime could not administer society. The contradiction between the ruling class and the ruled was very sharp. The land tenure system in the country was… it was the main source of contradiction. Poverty was very acute, the poor were getting poorer, the rich were getting richer and richer. 21
26Not “knowing about the ideology” obviously did not mean that there was not an acute awareness of social realities and the political issues at stake. The slogans “Land to the tiller” and “Education for all” and the struggle against “the oppressive administration” made particular sense in view of the relations of domination in which the students had grown up, and which represented their daily lives and those of their families.
3. The campaign to eradicate thieves
27The “campaign to eradicate thieves,” which was led in Wolaita by a hundred or so pupils between January and April 1970, is particularly enlightening in this respect. Their reasons and motivations make it possible to understand the many sources that fed their political consciousness. One day in January 1970, a farmer returned from the market with a sum of money that would enable his family to live for a long time: he had just sold two fat cows that had taken him several years of work to raise. On the way, he was robbed by a gang of thieves, among whom he recognised some people he knew to be connected by client ties to a wealthy lawyer in Soddo. When he returned home completely devastated, he told his relatives about his misadventure. One of them was his son, a pupil from the secondary school in Soddo who spent Sundays with his family in his village. As soon as he arrived at school the next morning, he told his friends what had happened to his father. They decided to meet after school to talk about it some more.22 That same evening, the 20 students who were present decided to discreetly spread the information to their friends in other schools in the province to decide jointly what to do. Eighty-four participants from every wereda in Wolaita attended the next meeting, which was held a few weeks later, in early March.23 It was then that they came up with what they called the “Campaign to eradicate thieves”: they would take advantage of the school holidays in April when everyone returned to their villages to take action. Their approach was to travel around the countryside and ask farmers to tell them which thieves to punish by “beating them severely on their feet and hands.”24 But events took a different turn: in the space of four days in April 1970, 12 “thieves” were killed with stones, spears and sticks, four were severely injured and 87 houses were burned.25 Faced with the inability of the local police to stop the movement, troops were deployed in Wolaita on the fourth day of the campaign. More than 168 people were imprisoned, including students and peasants who had joined them. A high court of justice was temporarily established in Soddo. Accused of crimes and of attempting to overthrow the government, six people were sentenced to 1 year in prison each, three people to 5 years each and twenty-seven to 15 years each. Three others were sentenced to death before their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.26
28Starting with a robbery committed against a peasant, a violent movement that brought together about a hundred people was initiated and led by pupils, with beatings and house fires as its modes of action. The speed of their reaction, their methods and the radical nature of the movement invite us to ask the reasons that led them to act in this way and the identity of their targets. Saol Akamo was a member of the first group of students who started the movement:
ትልልቅ ስልጣን ላይ የነበሩ ባለስልጣናት ሌቦች ሆኑ። ከመሬት ከበርቴዎች ጋር በመሆን ተራውን ዜጋ ይዘርፉ ነበር። የድሃን ንብረት ከመቀማት አልፈው ሚስትም በጉልበት በኅይል ይደፍራሉ። የሚሰራው ስራ በጣም አስከፊ ነበር። ንብረቱን የተዘረፈ ሰው ተዘርፌያለሁ ብሎ ከተናገረ የባሰ ይንገላታል፣ ይደበደባል ከዛም አልፎ የሳር ጎጆውም ሊቃተል ይችላል። ያ ሁሉ ያንገሻግሸው ተማሪዎች ተንቀስቅሰው። ሌባ መጥፊያ ዘመቻ እንግዲህ ትልቁ የአስተዳደር በደል ለማቃወም ነው። የአስተዳደር በደል ምንድን ነው ? ዳኞች በጉቦ ስለሚሠሩ ነው። ሌቦችን እንዲሁም የሀሰት ምስክሮች መብዛትን ለመቃወም ተማሪወች ተንቀሳቅስዋል ።
The thieves held positions of significant power, some of them being high-ranking officials. They colluded with landowners to exploit and pillage citizens, not only confiscating their possessions but forcibly taking away their wives. The actions taken were deeply repugnant. When a victim of robbery dared to demand the return of their property, they faced physical violence. If the victims had thatched houses, the accused thieves would even set them ablaze. These egregious acts fueled the discontent among the students, prompting them to take action. The campaign against thieves was, in essence, a campaign against maladministration, rooted in a judiciary system tainted by bribery. The students rose up to confront not only the thieves but also the corruption embedded in the judiciary, where judges were known to operate with bribes and false witnesses were prevalent.27
29Peasants were regularly robbed and assaulted by pillagers, who were the protégés of important figures among the local political elites. The thieves’ impunity was guaranteed on the one hand by the fear they inspired and their political support, and on the other by the corruption of judges and false witnesses. In his history of Wolaita published in 2000, the former teacher, school headmaster and school administrator Wanna Wagesho describes the system, which one witness, Zebdewos Chama, calls “the chain of oppression”: 28
በዚህ ልማድ በመጠመድ […] ከሰለጠኑ በኋላ ግንዘብ ማግኛ ዘዴ እየፈለጉ በጫካ የተሰማራውን ከብት እየወሰዱ በሌላ ስፍራ በመሸጥና ከዚያም ወደ ሚኖሩበት ስፍራ የሌላውን ከብት አምጥተው በመሸጥ በሌብነት ተሰማሩ። በሌሊት […] ከቤትም ከውጭም የተገኘውን በመውሰድ አንዳንድ ጊዜ ሲከሰሱ ሐሰት አልሰረቅሁት በማለት በሙግት ድል እያደረጉ በሰርቆት የተገኘውን ገንዘብ ለሹሞች ጭምር በመከፋፈል ሌብነትና ሐሳት በዚህ ምልክ ተስፋፋ።
Having effectively exercised control, they sought ways to amass wealth. They confiscated cattle grazing in the woods, selling them or appropriating others’ cattle to steal and then sell. During the night, they plundered whatever they could find, both inside and outside houses. When occasionally brought to court on accusations, they resorted to lies, claiming innocence with assertions like ‘I didn’t steal.’ They profited through perjury, utilizing the ill-gotten gains to bribe officials, thus perpetuating a cycle of theft and deceit.29
30Thefts were not isolated acts and corruption was not a marginal phenomenon; they were common practices. There was an organised system of extortion that united cattle thieves and the administrative and judicial authorities.30 Paolos Sorsa recalls that corruption of judicial administration personnel was common, and practised in plain sight. It was simply the norm: “At that time, it was very easy to find the house of a judge. If you saw a line of people waiting in front of a house with sheep, honey, butter and so on, it was a judge’s house, you can’t believe it!”31 In a judicial system like this, the poorest were always the losers. The peasant world was subjected to a form of domination in which the legal and illegal spheres were intertwined. Tenant farmers were impoverished by the multiple taxes levied by the state, as well as by the melkegna and landowners, when they were not required to work for free for one or the other. A system of illegal but well-organised extortion combining banditry and corruption was superimposed on these official structures.
31The “campaign to eradicate thieves” was as much a result of the peasant revolt as it was of the student movement. Its organisers acted as both the children of peasants and students. In addition, although it appeared at first glance to be a simple reaction against a situation of oppression, it was nourished by precise concepts shared among the students of how the political system should function. In rural areas, the memory of the political experiment conducted by Governor Germame Neway was always very present. The reform programme he had sought to implement was a central source of inspiration for the students:
እነግርማሜ ንዋይ በ1953 ሞቱ ። የእነሱ ሐሳብ ምንድን ነው ጥሩነቱ መሬት ላራሹ፣ አስተዳደራዊ በደል ይቁም ፣ ትምህርት በየቦታው ይኑር፣ ትምህርት ለሁሉ ይደርስ። እነሱ ቢሞቱም የነሱ ታሪክ ስላልሞተ የነሱ አርአያን በመካተል ያው ስንቀሳቅስ የነበረው ግልጽ ወጣ ።
Those associated with Germame Neway perished in 1960, yet their ideas endure. Advocating for goodness, land distribution for the tiller, an end to the oppression of power, and the establishment of schools everywhere with education accessible to all. Though they may have passed away, their narrative lives on. As we embarked on our movement, it became evident that following their example was a path we should tread.32
32In many ways, the students wanted to use violence to break the system the young governor had wished to transform through reforms. He not only redistributed vacant government land to landless peasants, but also established literacy centres in every village. He had the villagers elect representatives who were responsible to him alone to compete with the power of the balabbat and the aristocracy. He also transferred cases of theft or disputes between landlords and tenants from the official judges to judges elected from among the peasants.33 His public denunciations of the corruption of judges and false witnesses in his capacity as president of the court left a lasting impression throughout Wolaita (Guidi 2013). His attempts at reform were exemplary. They had opened up a breach, a field of opportunities in the political system. The “campaign to eradicate thieves” therefore emerged from rural Wolaita for at least three reasons. First, it was organised by peasant children who had grown up in the villages and had firsthand experience of oppression. Secondly, it tackled practices that were rife in the countryside and that had reached an unbearable level for those who were subjected to them.34 Young people felt vehemently that their parents were dispossessed, abused and powerless. Finally, the “campaign to eradicate thieves” was based on the desire for emancipation that had secretly but surely been stirring in rural areas since the experience of Germame Neway35.
33For other reasons, it was a students’ revolt. For them, going to school represented a way to help their families later on thanks to access to employment, which would offer a certain degree of security in an economic and political situation marked by uncertainty and vulnerability. The individual social advancement of a sibling was a family investment, sometimes a sacrifice. Wolaita former student Wanna Dea recalls that: “[Their] parents used to sell their cattle so [they] could study.”36 Pupils, who were using hard-earned money without being able to contribute to the household themselves, felt indebted to their families. How could they not react when their families’ meagre possessions were taken away? The political socialisation they received at school, whether it was anti-establishment or official, could also make them predisposed to rebel. The university students encouraged them to act as they did in Addis Ababa, and made them aware that others were taking part in social movements at the same time. Saol Akamo recalls that the pupils turned to action not only out of “disgust,” but also because of their contacts with the students, which provided them with a window to the outside world. Knowing that others were fighting elsewhere for greater justice set an example:
ሌሎቹ በየአካባቢያቸው ለአገራቸው ሲታገሉ እኛ እዚህም በወላይታ አካባቢ ለምንድን ነው የማንታገለው? ሌባው ዘራፊው ቀማኛው ለምን ይበድላል? አባቶቻችን ለምን ይበደላሉ? ለምን ይጨቆናሉ? በሚል ወጣቱ ተነሳሳ።
Why is it that while others were fighting for their countries, we weren’t doing the same in Wolaita? Why do thieves, looters, and robbers mistreat us? Why do they mistreat our fathers? Why do they oppress? These questions stirred the youth, prompting them to rise up.37
34Instilling obedience to authority and loyalty to the regime were among the very first aims of school socialisation; however, students were also constantly reminded of their responsibilities as future leaders of the nation. School taught them that they had to be faithful servants of a just power: the country was ruled by law and not by force, and civil servants had to be honest and loyal, and devoted to the emperor, the country and society. The reality of Wolaita seemed to them to be totally contrary to these precepts. Power was exercised through force and arbitrariness, the local notables were accomplices of the thieves, the corruption of judges was so commonplace that they did not even bother to hide it and civil servants only served their own interests. In a word, the representatives of power betrayed their offices. Saol Akamo insists that the “campaign to eradicate thieves” “was not aimed at overthrowing the government but the false people in power.”38 It was to cleanse the administration of its corrupt, arbitrary and oppressive practices; to restore what should have been. In this sense, the revolt was not just a reaction to a situation that had become unbearable: it could be rationally legitimised by the education received at school. The pupils were inspired by the idea of an honest, fair and caring administration: the one the school showed them as an example, the one Germame Neway had tried to set up in Wolaita, the one that the students of Addis Ababa defended, the one they wanted for the future of their region and their country. In this respect, it seems that the movement should not have taken the violent turn it did. According to one of the actors in the movement, Wanna Dea, what was a “good idea turned into other crimes.” The leaders, who wanted to impose “moderate punishments,” were overwhelmed by events.39
35Stressing that the campaign was not conceived as an act of disloyalty to the regime is essential to being able to understand it. The pupils of 1970 still nourished the faint hope that central power and national space might be a resource against local practices of power. They were inclined to believe that the emperor would take their side once he became aware of his subordinates’ illegal activities, so to be judged as criminals was a source of great disappointment. They received harsh sentences, while the “thieves” were not disturbed. The regime, if not the emperor, had just proved that it showed solidarity for illegal practices. While some doubts might have remained, the trial proved once and for all that the Addis Ababa regime and the local aristocracy were one and the same.
36Militant activities continued under the leadership of the students’ association. During the election of dagna (judges and village representatives responsible for collecting taxes) in 1972, the association succeeded in bringing together enough people to campaign in all Wolaita. The aim was to encourage farmers to choose their representatives freely by resisting pressure from the melkegna and landowners only to elect people from their own clientele group. The campaign was a success in many parts of the province. The two-year period between 1972 and 1973 before the revolution was devoted to actions aimed at mobilising the population. School was closed several times due to strikes organised by the students. A demonstration was held in Areka, a Wolaita town on the road to Addis Ababa, in May 1973. Joined by the townspeople, students, teachers and a few peasants who were parents of pupils, they demonstrated in front of the office of the governor of the wereda with slogans such as: “Land to the tiller,” “Incompetent administrators out” and “Bread for the hungry” (Demeke 1985, 48).
4. Wolaita students, the nation and the revolution
37In a book published in 2008, the philosopher Messay Kebede takes stock of the factors that led to the political radicalisation of Ethiopian students. He argues that it was not Ethiopia’s political and economic conditions that resulted in the infusion of revolutionary ideas, but the prior adoption of Marxism-Leninism, which led to an alteration in how problems were perceived (Messay 2008, 15).
38According to Messay Kebede, the students came from privileged backgrounds. Because they were not directly faced with economic problems, they were not socially predisposed to adopt revolutionary ideas. If students were ready to embrace Marxism-Leninism, it was because they were in a state of “psychological disorientation.” The fault lay with the imported school system and its Western values, which would eventually lead students to reject their country and heritage and choose a total break with the past. This analysis may not be totally inaccurate, but it is far too partial, and Messay Kebede (too) draws radical conclusions, to say the least. Why not rather think of the process in terms of a system in which social realities and political theory feed into each other to lead to political dispositions, rather than choosing between the chicken and the egg? Is it not possible to come from an affluent background while also being disgusted by the black misery ravaging one’s country, and to opt for a radical transformation without being “psychologically disoriented”?
39The pupils in Wolaita were exposed to the imported school system but their radical criticism of Haile Selassie’s regime and the socioeconomic realities of their region was not the result of mental disorders caused by a state of cultural alienation. They were critical before they knew what Marxism-Leninism was because they were facing political oppression, cultural discrimination and economic problems. Their analysis was based on their own experiences. Moreover, to assume that an imported system necessarily leads to alienation ignores the complexity of the processes of reappropriation of school education. Pupils knew that some of the knowledge taught to them was imported; they were not passive recipients. Although they are attracted by distant societies and cultures, social actors use their capacity for reinterpretation. Finally, pupils are subject to multiple socialisations, at school, in their family and in their community, and school socialisation is not all-powerful. The political dispositions of the Wolaita pupils were the result of their immersion in these different socialising universes. Competing, and even contradictory, socialisations did not necessarily lead to identity crises and psychological disorders. Although this may happen, actors also know how to mobilise diverse embedded patterns of thought and action, depending on the situations in which they find themselves (Lahire 2011, 392). Ultimately, the case of the Wolaita pupils raises serious questions about analysis based on alienation, and invites a careful examination of the processes of appropriation at work in school education in the context of an imported system.
40What was the level at which the Wolaita pupils who entered the struggle conceived their fight? Did they fight nationally against Haile Selassie’s regime or locally against the system of domination implemented by the settlers, the Wolaita government employees and agents sent by the state? Measuring their testimonies against the “question of nationalities”—even though they had not yet formulated it in these terms—provides some elements of the answer, and allows us to look at the reality of their sense of belonging to the Ethiopian nation at the time. The “question of nationalities,” which has been a major issue since the establishment of federalism from 1991 onwards, has its origins in the student movement at the end of the 1960s. This movement was the scene of the emergence of a discourse that combined a class struggle and a struggle for equality of nationalities, not without sometimes virulent debate. The problem is a complex one, and it gave rise to long-lasting and sometimes very violent divisions, the effects of which are still being felt today (Bahru 2007). It is true to say that class and nationality partly overlapped to form the structure of domination in southern Ethiopia, and the 1971 brawl between Amhara and Wolaita students at Soddo Secondary School was part of this dual relationship of domination. The “campaign to eradicate thieves” that had taken place a year earlier was more complex, as the people who were attacked by the students were part of a system of extortion that combined the shared interests of settlers and members of rural Wolaita society.
41Because of the importance this issue has had since the 1990s, it is not easy to draw conclusions about the views of pupils in the 1970s on the basis of oral interviews conducted today. As a methodological precaution, the witnesses were not directed towards the question of social classes or nationalities. The aim was not to smooth out a complex reality or to caricature their concepts, but simply to establish the spectrum across which they unfolded. Abebe Fola, for example, says that when he was a secondary school pupil in the early 1970s, the problem he shared with his classmates was not the imperial regime but the “Amhara of Soddo.” He and his friends were not very much influenced by the students from the Ethiopian University Service who took advantage of their teaching year to politicise the pupils of Wolaita: “These teachers, not all but some serious politicians, were agitating us. […] Not many of us accepted their agitation. Why? It was secondary for us. Our serious problem was with the Amhara of Soddo town.”40 According to Abebe Fola, the activist teachers from Addis Ababa were not paying attention—or were not paying enough attention—to the issue of nationality. In turn, the attention he paid to the political system the student movement described as “feudal,” which located the struggle in the entire national space while also recognising specificities in the south due to the cultural domination by the north, was secondary. His concept of domination dissociates local and national spaces.
42For his part, Zebdewos Chama frequently interprets the struggle of the Wolaita students as being directed against the “Amhara.” For him, the central issue at the time was “to be freed […] from the bondage of Amhara.” But he immediately adds: “When I say ‘Amhara,’ this means ‘Menilek’s Amhara.’ […] Not all the Amhara people…”41 He therefore refers specifically to the system of domination set up in Wolaita—and by extension in the south—following the conquest by the Ethiopian army in 1894. Zebdewos Chama uses the formulations “Haile Selassie regime” and “Amhara regime” interchangeably. Although his dissociation of spaces appears to be less clear-cut than Abebe Fola’s, he seems to favour, through his past opposition to the imperial regime, the question of the oppression exercised by the north over the south. Ultimately, Abebe Fola and Zebdewos Chama situate social injustices within a perspective of the oppression of nationalities. Do they believe this today, in the context of federalism and the current government’s emphasis on “nationality rights,” or did they already believe it in the 1960s and 1970s? It seems that the latter version is correct: apparently they felt more marginalised as Wolaita than they did as peasant children. They consistently and emotionally emphasise the humiliations and daily struggle involved in living in a social world—that of the school and the city—in which their identity was denigrated.
43Others, on the contrary, seem to view the “nationality issue” as secondary, or as not even a part of their struggle. Saol Akamo says that he committed himself to the “campaign to eradicate thieves” in order to put an end to the oppressive situation in which the peasants lived, which was considered unbearable. He speaks of an oppressive and corrupt administration without blaming the “Amhara,” a term he never uses. He also says that he wanted to fight “as others did elsewhere,” and so does not individualise Wolaita as a place of oppressive power practices. For their part, Paolos Sorsa and Wanna Dea also do not utter the word “Amhara” at any time. They do not place the Amhara and the Wolaita in opposition to each other, but rather young people and the regime, the melkegna and the landlords. They do not seem to believe it is significant whether one or the other was Amhara or Wolaita. The vocabulary they use is one of social classes. For them, the lot of the Wolaita peasants was the same as that of all peasants in Ethiopia. They fought against a feudal power that was exercised on a national scale. The fact that they were the most heavily engaged in the student movement is certainly not insignificant, however. They were, therefore, members of a movement whose goal of overthrowing the regime suggested the entire country as a field of action. While the student movement was divided on the issue of nationality and social classes, it is the latter that seems to have had the greatest influence on the Wolaita student activists of the 1970s. It provided an opportunity to oppose oppressive practices at a local level by projecting the goal of social transformation to the whole country. Thinking about and acting for a different future at a national level meant locating oneself in the time of the nation. As was the case with the faithful generation of the 1940s and 1950s, the national space was conceived as a resource against local forms of domination. This time, however, it was not a political space that was merely to be integrated into: the aim was to transform it.
Conclusion
44The generation that was educated in the 1940s and 1950s was generally loyal to the regime. The extensive opportunities for social mobility and the patriotic climate of regained independence invited adherence to school propaganda based on nationalism and a personality cult—the atmosphere was one of trust in the school, and the regime and Haile Selassie. National integration and assimilation were also encouraged. In contrast, the generation educated over the following two decades was anti-establishment. Nationally, the administration and the economy were no longer able to absorb all the graduates. In Wolaita, the number of students increased significantly, particularly as a result of the increasing enrolment of young people from rural areas, at a time when opportunities were becoming scarcer. This revealed the limitations of the emperor’s political project, whose autocracy proved to be an end in itself despite the tireless preaching about progress in the school space. In the 1960s, the discrepancy between the assimilationist and progressive discourse of the state on the one hand, and the misery of the peasant world and the oppressive practices of the local administration on the other, was revealed in all its violence.
45There can be no question that the political actions involved only a minority of pupils and teachers—about a hundred during the “campaign to eradicate thieves” out of more than 1,500 pupils in the town of Soddo—but it was a powerful minority: a hundred or so people in contact with the national student movement through the school network and linked to the surrounding countryside by family ties represented a political force in a town of 10,000 inhabitants. This was just an incubation phase, however, and a more intense politicisation process was to take place in the early years of the revolution, during the struggle against the establishment of the Derg military regime between 1974 and 1978.
Notes de bas de page
1 Wanna Wagesho, የወላይታ ሕዝብ ታሪክ (History of the Wolaita People) (Addis Ababa: Berhanenna Selam Printing Press, 2003), 161.
2 Alula Anjiyo, interview, December 2009.
3 Gebre-Mikael Kuke and Desalegn Tanga, interview November 2010.
4 YeZareitu Ethiopia, megabit 2, 1981 EC (19 March 1989).
5 Gebre-Mikael Kuke and Desalegn Tanga, interview, November 2010.
6 Tesfaye Gessesse (student at Tefari Mekonnen School from 1948 to 1955, novelist, poet and playwright), interview, Addis Ababa, 18 August 2009.
7 Mesfin Wolde-Mariam, interview, August 2009.
8 Lemma Didana, interview, December 2009.
9 Abebe Fola, interview, November 2009.
10Alula Anjiyo, interview, December 2009.
11 MOEFA, Basic Recommendations… (1954), 3.
12 Letter attached as an annex to the MOEFA report, Basic Recommendations… (1954). Fonds Merse-Hazen Wolde-Kirkos, 21.07, NALE.
13 Abraham Worku, interview, January 2011.
14 WZEO, የትምህርት ተቋማት ዘርዘር (List of Establishment of Schools) (2010).
15 CSO, Ethiopia Statistical Abstract (1965).
16 Getachew Kassa, interview, August 2009.
17 Saol Akamo, interview, November 2010.
18 Ibid.
19 Wanna Dea, interview, December 2010.
20 Ibid.
21 Paolos Sorsa, interview, December 2010.
22 Ibid.
23 Saol Akamo, interview, November 2010.
24 Zebdewos Chama, unpublished manuscript. It is a history of Wolaita that has not yet been published, which he kindly allowed me to photocopy. The passage on the “campaign to eradicate thieves” is based on the minutes of the trial obtained from the Ministry of Justice, oral testimony and the author’s own recollections.
25 Ministry of Justice, Case no. 1035/64, May 3 1965 EC.
26Zebdewos Chama, unpublished manuscript.
27 Saol Akamo, interview, November 2010.
28 Zebdewos Chama, unpublished manuscript.
29 Wanna Wagesho, የወላይታ ሕዝብ ታሪክ (History of the Wolaita People) (Addis Ababa: Berhanenna Selam Printing Press, 2003), 88–89.
30 Paolos Sorsa, interview, December 2010; Zebdewos Chama, unpublished manuscript.
31 Ibid.
32 Saol Akamo, interview, November 2010.
33 Paolos Sorsa, interview, December 2010.
34 Wanna Dea, interview, December 2010.
35Paolos Sorsa, interview, December 2010.
36 Wanna Dea, interview, December 2010.
37Saol Akamo, interview, November 2010.
38Ibid.
39 Wanna Dea, interview, December 2010.
40 Abebe Fola, interview, November 2009.
41 Zebdewos Chama, interview, November 2010.

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