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    Plan

    Plan détaillé Texte intégral 1. Rereading history: modes of production and the class struggle 2. The masses: instruments of “socialist” progress Conclusion Notes de bas de page

    Educating the Nation in Ethiopia

    Ce livre est recensé par

    Précédent Suivant
    Table des matières

    Chapter 9

    Teachings: Breaking with the Past and Projecting the Future

    p. 259-288

    Texte intégral 1. Rereading history: modes of production and the class struggle 1.1 The same national antiquity? 1.2 Contemporary Ethiopia (1): the parasitic feudal class and the decline of the emperors 1.3 Contemporary Ethiopia (2): the glorious history of the masses 1.4 … captured by the Derg 2. The masses: instruments of “socialist” progress 2.1 Presenting the socialist project 2.2 Humans and their environment: mode of production, productive forces, production relationships 2.2.1 Socialist development versus capitalist development 2.3 Ethiopia’s plan for the future 2.4 Concrete knowledge that can be applied on a daily basis 2.5 Women of the socialist nation Conclusion Notes de bas de page

    Texte intégral

    1The educational revolution that was to lead to the transition from a “feudal” to a “socialist” Ethiopia engaged quantitative and qualitative aspects of the school system. Both the existing social structures and the organisation of the economy had to be transformed. The identity of the nation was to be extended to the nationalities of the south, who had been oppressed by the overthrown regime. As part of the same movement, individuals needed to be equipped with new ways of seeing the world, living in society and projecting themselves into the collective future: school had to work to inculcate socialist beliefs and behaviour so that the new Ethiopia could be built.1 From the perspective of the march towards socialism, it was also necessary to create a new way of perceiving the nation’s past and future. The Derg officially adopted scientific socialism in the programme of the National Democratic Revolution in April 1976. Three years later, in 1979, the first new textbooks were published. In the meantime, several thousand members of the administration received political and ideological training at the Yekatit 66 School, which opened in May 1976. The East German development workers attached particular significance to training Ministry of Education officials and guiding the design of the new curricula (Haile Gabriel 2006, 76), which were rewritten from the standpoint of Soviet Marxism-Leninism.

    2The new textbooks were developed with relative urgency and insufficient resources, and the growth of the school system was not followed by a commensurate increase in the production of teaching materials. Textbooks, which had already been scarce in Haile Selassie’s schools, were even scarcer under the Derg. Although they were little used by pupils, however, they still formed the basis of what was taught in the classroom. In the absence of teachers’ guides, teachers took their lessons from the textbooks alone (Tekeste 1990, 34). Specific tasks were assigned to the different humanities subjects. The succession of modes of production was the new key to understanding, and the class struggle was the motor of human destiny. Feudalism, which was responsible for Ethiopia’s historical “backwardness,” came under heavy fire, while the “masses” became the new central actor in national history. Emperors became enemies of the people and the Derg their representative. The geography textbooks presented the regime’s great project by extolling the virtues of planning and collectivisation. The Amharic textbooks, on the other hand, offered useful knowledge that could be applied to everyday life. Finally, if efforts were made to educate girls and women, how was the discourse on their emancipation translated into teaching?

    1. Rereading history: modes of production and the class struggle

    3The history textbooks show how the nation’s past was rewritten to meet the objectives of the revolution. From grades 1 to 6, history and geography were brought together within a single subject called “social studies,” before being dealt with separately from Grade 7 onwards. The textbooks for grades 4 and 6 identified the perspectives from which the national past was to be approached. The first of the two chapters on history in the grade 4 textbook was titled The History of the Ethiopian People is the History of the Masses.2 It was explained that the history that had been taught until then needed to be called into question: before the 1974 revolution, most of the literature had confused the history of Ethiopia with that of its ruling classes, while the living and working conditions of the oppressed had been ignored. It was therefore necessary to cast light on the history of the peoples of Ethiopia by looking at the class struggles that had been waged since the kingdom of Aksum (1st century BC–10th century). The second chapter devoted to history was titled The History of the Ethiopian People is an Ancient and Long History.3 The authors pointed out that although the archives consisted mainly of documents that reflected the views of the oppressors, a combination of oral sources, archaeology and written records would make it possible to write a history of the oppressed going back to ancient times. The nation’s past had to be re-founded on the history of the masses.

    4The second perspective adopted in the approach to history was to study modes of production. The Grade 6 textbook explained the stages in the evolution of human history. After the primitive society came the slave system, feudal society, bourgeois society (which included capitalism and imperialism) and finally socialism, with all these periods being termed the “calendar of historical periods.”4 The term aqotatär (calendar), which used to describe the sequencing of modes of production and social organisations, implied a mechanical and invariable arrangement of historical periods—just as Monday comes before Tuesday—and was a form of reductionism of historical materialism.

    1.1 The same national antiquity?

    5The history of Ethiopia began with settlement. Like the textbooks used under Haile Selassie, the Grade 7 history textbook, which was devoted to antiquity, explained that Ethiopians came from Africa, the Mediterranean and Asia. They were very quick to unify: “Ethiopians have an ancient and solid unity that was not forced on them.”5 However, while the old textbooks had claimed that migrants from Asia had brought with them a superior civilisation—that of Mesopotamia and the biblical Near East—which lay at the origins of Ethiopian culture, the new books did not establish any kind of hierarchy among the different “original” cultures. The “African” component of the settlement was no longer downgraded to a lower status. As under Haile Selassie, the history textbooks of the Derg began with the antiquity of settlement in order to support the myth of a nation that was several thousand years old. However, the textbooks engineered a major shift in how the nation was defined: instead of a hierarchy, they established the primary equality of the components that were to constitute “nationalities” over the centuries and emphasised their unity despite their differences, which were considered secondary. Wolaita and all the regions that were incorporated at the end of the 19th century were saved from the inferiority that had been assigned to them.

    6The Grade 7 history textbook then focused on the “ancient civilisations.” The Ethiopian state always dated back to the prestigious kingdom of Aksum, which was placed alongside the “great civilisations” of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea: Egypt, Greece and Rome. On the other hand, the legend that the founder of the dynasty of Ethiopian emperors, Menilek I, was the son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon quite logically disappeared. In addition to legitimising the dynasty that had been overthrown by the revolution, this myth based the identity of the nation on a direct link to the Israel of biblical times. Its removal from the school curriculum challenged the idea of a strictly Semitic identity of the nation. In the same vein, a single paragraph was devoted to the introduction of Christianity, which was presented in a non-discriminatory manner with reference to non-Christian Ethiopians. In the textbooks used under Haile Selassie’s regime, Christianity had drawn a line between civilisation and barbarism. The Derg’s school history offered a neutral interpretation of the adoption of Christianity, and no longer gave it the “civilising” function that had previously been attributed to it.

    7The Middle Ages and feudalism were the subject of the Grade 8 history textbook, which provides a good example of a re-reading of the classical sequences of Ethiopian history in light of the succession of modes of production: Aksum, which the textbook returned to for one chapter, corresponded to the mode of production of slavery. The fall of Aksum, and more particularly the seizure of power by the Zagwe Dynasty in the mid-12th century, saw the beginning of the feudal mode of production. Initially, as had been the case in the textbooks used under the previous regime, the fall of Aksum was explained by the closure of the Red Sea trade routes due to the expansion of Islam. However, Muslims were no longer represented in a negative light: indeed, “having become free, reorganised and endowed with a new state of mind with the adoption of Islam, those who had been governed by Aksum began to establish their own government.”6 The same applied to the attacks by Queen Yodit at the end of the 10th century: previously presented as a “pagan” or falasha (Jewish) aggression against the Christian kingdom, with no apparent motives other than a desire for plunder or blind violence, they became the legitimate revenge of a peripheral population (the Agew) that had been oppressed by Aksum’s slave state.

    8However, the main reason for the fall of Aksum was the necessary transition to another mode of production.7 This kingdom, whose power was based on slave-like relations of production, had to fall because of the internal contradictions that led to feudalism. The productive forces had been transformed, and corresponding production relationships needed to be created. Impoverished by the decline in trade, the state could no longer pay its soldiers and had to replace the money it owed with donations of land. The new landowners became rich by taking profits directly from Aksumite trade8, and their rise weakened the centre even further. The dispersal of power from a strong centre to various regional actors took place from the 7th to the end of the 11th centuries, and led to the feudal system. The most powerful of the regional lords, the Zagwe, gradually imposed themselves, until they seized the crown in the middle of the 11th century. The textbooks produced under Haile Selassie portrayed the Zagwe as usurpers, as a parenthesis between the fall of Aksum and the return of the legitimate Solomonian Dynasty to power in the middle of the 12th century. The Grade 8 textbook in the Derg schools used a political and historiographical explanation to attack the myth of the Solomonian Dynasty once again. First of all, it was explained that the concept of the Solomonian Dynasty was a myth of the legitimisation of a power its holders viewed as an end in itself: “Our history bears sufficient witness to the fact that the ruling classes are thirsty for power. There is not an ounce of truth in the belief in lineage” (የገዥ መደቦች የሥልጣን ስግብግብነት እንደሆን እንጂ በሐረግ ማመን ቅንጣት እውነት እንደሌለበት የሀገራችን ታሪክ ራሱ በቂ ምስክር ነው።).9 The authors went on to explain that there was a lack of written sources for the history of the Zagwe because the Solomonian Dynasty was supported by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The clergy had no written record of the Zagwe Dynasty, which they considered “illegitimate.”10

    9The return of the Solomonians in the 13th century had been presented in the old textbooks as the beginning of a period of greatness marked by political centralisation, economic growth and cultural dynamism. According to the Derg textbooks, on the other hand, this period ushered in the militarisation of politics and society and the establishment of a permanent state of war that weighed heavily on the people.

    ቶሎ እየተጠናከረ የሄደውና ጠንካራ የጦር ኃይል የነበረው ማዕከላዊ መንግሥት ዘማች ጦር […] በመላክ አመጸኞቹን ለመቆጣጠር ችሎአል። ዘማቹ ሠራዊት እዚያው እንዲሠፍርና ሀገሩንና አመጸኛውን ሕዝብ ረግጦ ለመግዛት የወሰደው እርመጃና የአገዛዝ ጭነት በብዙሃኑ ሕዝብ ላይ ከፍተኛ ስቃይ አድርሶ እንደነበር ይታወቃል። ጠንካራ የፊውዳል ጦር ሠራዊትና አስተዳደር በኢትዮጽያ በሰፊው መንሠራፋት የጀመረውም በዚህ ዘመን አንሥቶ እንደሆነ ይገመታል።

    The central government, rapidly bolstering its strength, successfully quelled insurgents by deploying troops. The measures implemented by these troops, stationed in the country to suppress rebellious populations, and the weight of the occupation, inflicted considerable suffering on many people. The establishment of a robust feudal military government in Ethiopia can be traced back to this period.11

    10This was also the time when the state and the church sealed an alliance in their common interest. They legitimised each other in order to share the benefits of the economic resources available to the country, ensuring a jointly-held stranglehold on political, economic and spiritual powers.

    መንግሥቱ ሥልጣን ሲይዝ ያፀደቃቸው ውሎች ፊውዳሊዝም የበለጠ የሚጠናክሩ ነበሩ። […] የኦርቶዶክስ ቤተ ክርቲያን በበኩሉ ለሰለሞናውያን ለዋለው የማይረሳ ውለታ ሰፋፊ መሬቶችን ከያለበት በርስትነት አግኝቶአል። […] ከዚህ ጊዜ አንስቶ ቤተ ክህነትና ቤተ መንግሥት ከማንኛውን ጊዜ ይበልጥ ጣምራ ኃይሎች ሁነው ለግዛት ማስፋፋት ፣ ሕዝቦችን ለማስገበርና ለማጥመቅ ለእጅ ተያይዘው ተነስተዋል።

    When the government seized power, it further reinforced feudalism by entering into a contract to ensure its sacredness. The Orthodox Church for its part obtained vast fiefdoms for its imprescriptible oath with the Solomonians. Since then, the Church and the government have become unprecedented twin forces, joining hands to amplify their influence, working together to subdue and baptise the people.12

    11The period that began with the reign of Amde Tseyon (1314–44), which had previously been described in terms of boom and rebirth, was now depicted through his exactions, violence and looting. The expansion of the borders of the Christian kingdom that was underway at the time was interpreted from the perspective of the peripheral populations under subjugation.

    ይኸውም ቅኝ ተገዥ ሕዝቦችን በሚመለከት ረገድ ፊውዳላዊው ወራሪ ነገሥታት ይከተሉ የነበረው ፖሊሲ ጭካኔ የበዛበት መሆኑን ነው። አዲስ ግዛት በጦር ኃይል ከተያዘ በኋላ ሰው፣ መሬቱ፣ ከብቱ፣ በጠቅላላው በወራሪ ንጉሥ ሙሉ ሥልጣንና ቁጥጥር ሥር ይደረጋል። የነፃነት ተዋጊዎች ታድነው ይመታሉ። የጦር ምርኮኞች ወደ ባርነት ይነዳሉ። ወራሪዎች መንደሮችን በማቃጠል ፣ ከብቶች፣ ፈረሶችና ሌሎች ንብረቶችን ሁሉ በመዝረፍ ይዞታቸው ያጠናክራሉ። […] በአጠቃላይ የወራሪዎቹን በላይነት አምኖ አለመቀበል ምህረት የለሽ በሆነ በትር ያስመታል።

    Considering the perspective of the subjugated peoples, the policy of the feudal kingdom was exceedingly cruel. In forcefully conquered new territories, everything—people, land, livestock—fell under the dominion and control of the invading king. Those who fought for freedom were hunted and subjected to beatings. Prisoners of war were enslaved. The invaders solidified their control by burning villages and pillaging all cattle, horses, and other possessions. […] In general, there was no mercy, only the stick for those who did not acknowledge the superiority of the conquerors.13

    12It seems that the authors had the theory of the “oppression of nationalities,” which had been developed by the Ethiopian student movement in the 1960s and 1970s, in mind here. From this perspective, the conquests of Menilek II would find a precedent as early as the Solomonian “restoration.” It was therefore part of the very logic of the Christian kingdom to conquer, submit and subjugate in the name of its belief in its superiority. This link between the expansionist policy of the 13th century and the conquest of the south by Menilek II at the end of the 19th century was highlighted three pages later.

    በዐምደ ጽዮንና በወራሾቹ ዘመን የዳሞትና የሐዲያ መንግሥታት ተገፍተው ወደ ደቡብ አፈግፍገዋል ። እንደዚሁም በግቤ፣ በጐጀብና በኦሞ ወንዞች ዙሪያ የነበሩት የሲዳማ ሕዝቦችና በሌሎቹ ግዛቶች የነበሩት ማኅበረሰቦች የክርቲያኑን መንግሥት ጥቃት መቅመስ ጀምረዋል ።

    During the era of Amde Tseyon and his successors, the governments of Damot and Hadiya faced unjust attacks, compelling them to retreat to the south. Consequently, the Sidamo peoples residing around the Gebe, Gojeb, and Omo rivers, as well as communities in other territories, began to experience persecution under the Christian kingdom.14

    13The imperial regime had created an affiliation between the two expansionist policies of the 13th and 19th centuries to justify the conquests as a reunification: Ethiopia regained its past greatness and Menilek II reconnected with the most powerful medieval emperors. The idea of this affiliation was retained in the textbooks written under the Derg, but this time to denounce the intrinsically oppressive nature of the “feudal system,” and to acknowledge the oppression suffered by the southern populations under the overthrown regime.

    14The conquests of Imam Ahmed in the middle of the 16th century, a key moment in Ethiopian historiography, were no longer described as invasions and destruction (werara) but as combat (wegiya).15 According to the historical atlas authored by the historian Lapiso Dalebo and published by the Ministry of Education in the final year of the regime, they were a revolt (amets). This was a significant change: in the previous historiography, this had been the period when Muslim hordes had descended on Christian Ethiopia with the aim of destroying it, while in the atlas, the author explains that a study of this period had made it possible to lift the veil on the long and complex history of the Ethiopian Muslims, a part of the nation whose past had been ignored. Since the 19th century, the sultanates of Eastern Ethiopia in Shewa, Yefat and Adal had developed their civilisation through centralisation, trade and culture. The Muslims wanted to regain power after being vassals who paid tributes to the Christian kingdom. It was now their turn to regain power.16 Their revolt had a rational explanation, and was therefore justified. The new school history presented two competing powers rather than a legitimate Christian power to which Ethiopia had belonged for all eternity, and which was opposed by an illegitimate Muslim power that intervened in the nation’s history in the shape of a devastating force.

    15This rebalancing did not prevent the Christian kingdom and the Muslim sultanates from being equally blamed at the end of the chapter, however.

    በክርቲያኑም ሆነ በእስላሙ ክፍሎች የነበረው የኅብረተሰብ ሥርዓት ግን እንደ የአካባቢው የምርት ስምሪት የግብሩም ዓይነት የተለያየ ይሁን እንጂ፣ ከሥር ያለው ጭቁን መደብ ተጭነውት የነበሩትን የገዥ መደቦች በመርቱም ሆነ በጉልበቱ ተሸክሞ ኖሮአል። […] ምርት የሚያመርተው፣ ግብር የሚከፈለው፣ ለባርነት የሚወጣው፣ የፊውዳሉን ጦር የሚመግበው፣ ለቤተ ክህነት ወይም ለጂሃድ የሚገብረው፣ የሚዘረፈውና ሌሎችም ሥርዓቱ የጣለበትን ብዝበዛዎች ተሸክሞ የኖረው ጭቁኑ ሰፊ ሕዝብ ነው። 

    While the organization of society, distribution of production, and modes of taxation varied between Christians and Muslims in different locations, the oppressed class at the bottom—the governed classes—lived burdened lives, ensuring production and providing labor power. […] Those who produced, paid taxes, were enslaved, fed feudal armies, were taxed for the Church or Jihad, were sacked, endured detestable orders of plunder, and supported all these activities were the oppressed masses.17

    16From the Christian kingdom to the Muslim sultanates, the masses had been shamefully exploited everywhere. This version of history was part of the new definition of nationhood produced by revolutionary Ethiopia. The masses were to be united across religions and nationalities by a class identity. National sentiment should be based on pride in belonging to the oppressed masses, who had been liberated at last. In this movement, the peoples who had been conquered at the end of the 19th century, including the Wolaita, found a dignified place in the nation.

    1.2 Contemporary Ethiopia (1): the parasitic feudal class and the decline of the emperors

    17The Grade 10 history textbook consisted of 201 pages on world history from the mid-19th century to World War I, as seen from the perspectives of the workers’ movement and anti-imperialism. Like the grade 11 and 12 textbooks, it resembled a translation of a Soviet book.18 To this section were added 122 pages devoted to Ethiopia from the reign of Tewodros II (1855–68) to the first four years of the revolution (1974–78). Some fundamental elements emerge, two of which especially support the entire story.

    In the long history of Ethiopia, there are two dominant features that stand out clearly. The first is the ability of the country to maintain her age-old independence and territorial integrity by turning back the periodic waves of foreign aggression that were directed against her. The second is the subjugation of the broad masses to the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance due to the socio-economic backwardness of the country. As the history of the various foreign-instigated wars […] demonstrates, the former was made possible primarily because of the determined struggle and epic sacrifice the broad Ethiopian masses have made. The basic factor that accounted for the second was the feudal system that had reigned supreme in Ethiopia for over many centuries.19

    18It was the masses who had protected Ethiopia for millennia; they embodied its existence, even though the feudal system had kept them in misery. Later, the textbook gave details of the country’s “backwardness,” which was blamed entirely on feudalism and its ruling class:

    The feudal system that had dominated the social scene of the country over many centuries had made the people of Ethiopia remain at a shamefully low level of development by arresting their socio-economic and political advance and thereby shutting off their creative spirit. Consequently, when Ethiopia’s level of development is examined today in terms of the various scales measuring growth, it is invariably found that she holds last place in all respects. In economic development, she is one of those countries which are classified as the poorest in the world. In terms of health, she is one of the most disease-ridden countries in the world. In terms of education, she is one of those countries where mass illiteracy reigns supreme. The same holds true in other areas as well. As has been pointed out earlier, the sole factor that accounted for this miserable social condition was the feudal system that had reigned supreme in Ethiopia for a long time.20

    Figure 12: The ravages of the feudal system in a Derg school textbook

    Source: MOE, History Grade 10 (1979), 265.

    19How did Ethiopia arrive in the last quarter of the 20th century to such a pitiful state? In the textbooks published under the overthrown regime, the succession of emperors Tewodros II (1855–68), Yohannes IV (1872–89), Menilek II (1889–1913) and Haile Selassie (1930–74) was presented as an ascending phase in a teleology of progress. In the Derg textbooks, this perspective was reversed: the sequence of the four emperors was a process of decadence that was brought to a logical conclusion by the revolution. The reign of the first of these emperors, Tewodros II, was thus treated in a favourable light. After the “Era of the Princes,” which was presented in terms of political fragmentation and incessant wars, his reign was seen as a welcome restoration of central power: “For the first time in several generations of supreme authority in the Ethiopian state […], military and political power were united under the same person.”21 In order to neutralise the apparent contradiction with the way the centralisation of the Middle Ages had been analysed—as the rise of a reviled “feudal system”—the Grade 10 manual stated: “There was a strong emphasis on reunification, restoration, reconstruction in what he said and did. This does not imply, however, that his government policies, seen from the perspective of Ethiopian history, were retrogressive”22 He had placed his reign at the service of the people of Ethiopia:

    By adopting Tewodros as his throne name, he sought the legitimacy and support of a cherished myth, for this was the name of the eagerly awaited prince without which the masses thought the time of happiness, righteousness, peace and prosperity may not come. This reflects the high degree of feudal oppression and exploitation […] that prevailed during that time. Kassa by taking this throne name appealed to the support of the masses promising them that he would lead them to a better and new life.23

    20This search for legitimacy was based on a real willingness to keep his promises, which were part of an actual political project. From this perspective, centralisation was a requirement in order to bring peace, morality and progress in the service of independence:

    Tewodros perceived as did none of his predecessors among the feudal war lords that the political anarchy, moral laxity, and technological backwardness of his people threatened national survival. […] He aimed at nothing less than a national revival combined with the transformation of his country into a centralised, strong, modern feudal Empire state, which the European imperialists did not want at that time […].24

    21Tewodros II had envisaged bringing about order in the name of nationalist ambitions, and not in such a way as to dominate and exploit the people. The centralisation process he led had acted as a barrier to European expansion.25 Finally, he was firm in his vision and governed in a determined manner, but kept his people informed.

    Tewodros was hardly the kind of person who allowed himself to be easily influenced by others. On the other hand, he did not govern in secret. There is no lack in contemporary accounts of references to public meetings and trials, to councils and occasionally a nationwide assembly of chiefs or governors. Whether Tewodros called this primarily to seek advice, educate his people, or simply make his own will known, the fact remains that he put the issues to his people.26

    22This last sentence is particularly reminiscent of the Derg’s mode of government: establishing directives in an authoritarian manner, making them known—the “proclamations” of the Derg—and educating the people. Tewodros II remained the same nationalist hero he had been under the previous regime.

    23After the reign of Yohannes IV, which was approached from the standpoint of his wars against the Mahdists and the Italians to defend the integrity of the Ethiopian territory, came Menilek II. The great victor at the Battle of Adwa, who had saved Ethiopia from Italian colonisation, the unifying emperor who had restored the borders of the great medieval Ethiopia, the enlightened monarch who had paved the way for “modernisation,” was now presented in a rather unattractive manner. His first trait was that he was only interested in his own power rather than in the unity of Ethiopia:

    It was not until late in 1878 that Minilik submitted to the overlordship of Emperor Yohannis and Shawa was made part of Yohannis’ Empire. However, Minilik was allowed to retain the title of kingship over Shawa. To seize the imperial throne and title from Yohannis remained the most important objective, however.27

    24He was so focused on this objective that safeguarding Ethiopia’s independence, the central issue of the period, was the least of his concerns:

    The death of Emperor Yohannis finally presented Minilik with the opportunity he had been waiting for almost 25 years. He had been a reluctant vassal, and his contributions in defence of Ethiopia’s territory and independence had so far been quite marginal; in fact, they had consisted mainly of his refusal to involve himself on the side of Ethiopia’s enemies. This attitude was facilitated, and to some extent dictated, by the fact that he had his main power base at a safe distance from both the western and northern frontiers. Only the Egyptian occupation of the Bab-el-Mandab and Gulf of Aden ports and of Harar had been of immediate concern to him as king of Shawa. In the very last year of Yohannis’s reign, however, Minilik came perilously close to allying himself with Ethiopia’s potentially more dangerous enemy, Italy.28

    25He had been prepared to jeopardise independence out of personal ambition. The link between his power-building, his accession to the throne and the protection of independence, which was a key element of Ethiopian national history under Haile Selassie’s regime, had simply disappeared to make way for the activities of an opportunist. Unlike Tewodros II and Yohannes IV, Menilek II was torn from the pantheon of heroes of the independent nation.

    26Haile Selassie’s reign marked a peak. He was cynical, megalomaniacal and totalitarian:

    He inculcated absolute submission, complete fanaticism and total imperial control. ‘I am Ethiopia,’ was the way his mind worked, and he tried to make all Ethiopians think the same way. Haile Selassie was a feudal Mussolini who aspired to be a demigod.29

    27The reign of the last emperor was reduced to its most conservative aspects. He even deliberately hindered the country’s progress:

    In social terms, Ethiopia experienced no substantial changes during the half century of Haile Selassie’s totalitarian rule. He was a sort of Bismark, but without abandoning the class positions of feudalism. He became as petit-bourgeois as possible. He feared, and rightly so, that capitalist economic development would lead to the development of the working class; open the country to revolutionary ideas; and further the growth of the intelligentsia, who would first wonder at but later find repugnant his deification and greed for riches, power and personal glory.30

    28The passage on Haile Selassie thus consisted of a collection of sweeping statements, value judgments and meaningless comparisons. He was alternately compared to Bismarck and Mussolini, sometimes feudal, sometimes petit-bourgeois. If we add to this the disorganised nature of the account, it is hard to imagine that pupils could have drawn anything constructive from this passage of the textbook. The objective of discrediting the overthrown regime was too obvious and the method used too crude. As Tekeste Negash has remarked about the passages on the 19th century, it seems that the author of the textbook had not read the works on the period (Tekeste 1990, 64). However, it would have been possible to provide students with a much more credible and well-argued critical reading of Haile Selassie’s reign. When the textbook was written in 1979, there was no shortage of critical works by left-wing intellectuals. If the overthrow of the “feudal regime” was to be justified by a Marxist analysis, the one proposed by Addis Hiwot in his Ethiopia: From Autocracy to Revolution, published in 1975, might, for example, have equipped pupils with a much more effective background (Addis Hiwot, 1975).

    29In the end, the national history of the 19th and 20th centuries was turned upside down. In the pre-revolutionary textbooks, Haile Selassie appeared as the last of a series of monarchs, each of whom represented a step further along the path of the project of unification, independence and progress. The teleological account of “modernisation” was developed around successive reigns. Haile Selassie was the culmination of this, the man who had finally taken Ethiopia into the 20th century. In the post-revolutionary textbooks, this same succession of reigns represented a downfall that symbolised the decadence of the feudal system, and the process of deterioration had reached a point of no return that left no other choice than revolution.

    30If one looks at the history textbooks as a whole, one notes a certain ambiguity around the concepts of centralisation and unity that makes the overall logic difficult to grasp. In medieval times, the strengthening of central power was viewed negatively as the work of an oppressive feudal state. The political fragmentation of the “Age of Princes” was considered the same way, as the result of feudal egoism. In the 19th century, on the other hand, the process of centralisation adopted by Tewodros II was seen in a positive light, as it served independence and unity. Tewodros II’s glorious reputation was retained because after the 1950s it became the symbol of political voluntarism in the name of a project that was guided entirely by patriotism and not by personal interests. It was essential for the Derg to be able to benefit from reliance on the past, to be able to hold on to a historical precedent at the head of the state. It needed to position itself both as a break with the “feudal” regime and as the continuity of the Ethiopian state. It had to justify its centralisation and could not afford not to be able to offer examples from the past. On the contrary, Menilek II and, above all, Haile Selassie represented a system that needed to be brought down. It was they who had failed to make a 20th century Ethiopia: a country free from poverty, disease, illiteracy and political oppression; a “modern” nation in a “modern” world. It was up to the revolution to take on this task.

    31Tekeste Negash wrote that this perception of national history carried with it a contempt for Ethiopia and its past, and was incapable of creating any kind of patriotic feeling (Tekeste 1990, 65–66), and it is true that the history textbooks included few elements that might give any colour to a past that was presented in a dark light, except—and this was a major novelty—for the glorious history of the masses. From the end of the 19th century, the masses became the real driving force of history and the matrix of national pride.

    1.3 Contemporary Ethiopia (2): the glorious history of the masses

    32The grades 10, 11 and 12 history textbooks dealt with the history of the 19th and 20th centuries in terms of the consolidation of capitalism and imperialism, international revolutionary culture and anti-imperialism, revolutions and anti-colonial liberation struggles. The Grade 10 textbook made a special effort to reintegrate the masses into the history of the Ethiopian 20th century. The battle of Adwa in 1896, when the Ethiopian army repelled an attempt at colonisation by Italy, and the occupation of 1936–41 were the two key moments.

    33The title of the chapter on the Battle of Adwa titled Adwa: the anti-imperialist triumph of the masses immediately made it clear that those who deserved credit for the victory were the troops and not the aristocracy. Indeed, the victory was explained by the patriotism of the masses.

    The broad masses of Ethiopia have proved their utmost devotion to the defence of the motherland. It was this that led to the resounding victory of an ill-armed and ill-equipped African country over a major imperialist European power of the time.31

    34Devotion to the motherland was the only evidence given to explain the rout of the Italian colonial army. Of course, the motivation of the troops is an important factor in a battle, but this argument is not enough. The fact, for example, that Italy completely underestimated the Ethiopians’ capacity for mobilisation and that the Italian troops were literally overwhelmed by the Ethiopian numbers was not mentioned. Moreover, Italy was not a major imperial power. It is not a question here of debating the reasons behind the Ethiopian victory, but only of stressing that the intention behind emphasising the bravery of the Ethiopian masses alone—which cannot be denied—was to exalt the nationalist sentiment of the pupils by inviting them to liken themselves to the masses.

    35The manual then recalled Ethiopia’s long resistance to external aggression.32 In Haile Selassie’s schools, as under the Derg, the idea of independence was a true nationalist matrix. Ethiopia’s endurance always lay at the heart of the discourse. Anyone who had tried to subdue Ethiopia had come up against a rock. The country’s invincibility under Haile Selassie was explained by the divine protection and sanctity of the emperor. The idea of independence was nourished by a mystical imagination. Under the Derg, Ethiopia was impregnable thanks to the masses, who were united by their courage and by their love for their homeland. The exalted masses, endowed with a collective spirit, were the matrix of a new nationalist mysticism.

    36In Adwa, their courage and self-sacrifice were matched by the inconsistencies of the feudal class, which, under the leadership of Menilek II, committed a very grave historical error. Once victory had been achieved, the Ethiopian high command decided not to chase the Italians to the Red Sea, thereby missing the chance to liberate the northern coast. As long as the Italians were still a presence, Ethiopia’s freedom remained under threat.33 The Italian colony of Eritrea would also have ceased to exist, and its territory would have been reintegrated into the domain of the Ethiopian monarch. This version of the past implied the Ethiopianness of Eritrea, a country whose existence was the fruit of imperialist machinations and the failure of the Ethiopian feudal class to exploit the favourable situation created by the victory at Adwa. The handbook concluded by arguing that the task of liberating the northern coast from Italian imperialism had fallen upon the shoulders of the oppressed masses.34 This justified the radical rejection of any negotiated solution with the Eritrean independence fighters and the war waged against them by the Derg. Eritrea was Ethiopian, and any concession on this point implied acceptance of the outcome of imperialist actions.

    37The emperor and the feudal class completed their delegitimisation decades later, during the Italian occupation between 1936 and 1941: “In the attempt to glorify legends and fables about itself in order to camouflage its evil deeds, the archaic system has gone as far as usurping the heroic history of the broad masses, which they wrote in their blood.”35 This usurpation needed to be corrected.

    Thus, the Ethiopian broad masses were forced into another war in defence of the motherland. Although our people were not new to the challenges of war, they were temporarily overcome by the sophisticated arms of the enemy. […] Thus, they organized themselves into guerrilla units and prepared for a protracted war. At this juncture, it is worth-mentioning the steps taken by the monarch, the aristocracy and the nobility of the now-defunct feudo-bourgeois regime, who fled the country at such a decisive point in history. This action, while exposing the self-interested nature of the former ruling class, also testified to the devotion of the broad masses to the motherland.36

    38The masses and the feudal class were thought of as opposites: one noble, patriotic, supportive and selfless, and the other cowardly, selfish and irresponsible. It was the masses that had built the national grandeur and it was on them that the very existence of the nation as an independent entity rested. Before the revolution, the concepts of unity, sovereignty and integrity had converged in the figure of the emperor. He was the keystone, the person through whom the nationalist symbolic system developed. The reorganisation of history through revolution brought about a substitution. The essentialised masses became the collective actor that symbolised the past, present and future of the nation. Their legitimacy was all the greater because the Ethiopian masses were recognised throughout the world by the socialist countries.37 Their struggle for independence was a part of the global struggle for emancipation.

    Figure 13: Ethiopian partisans in a school textbook

    Text reads: “Anti-Fascist and Anti-Imperialist Patriotic Elements.”

    Source: MOE, History Grade 10 (1979), 259.

    39Some “feudalists” had fought to drive out the Italian occupiers, in fact, but from a completely different standpoint from that of the masses.

    During the liberation struggle waged by the Ethiopian people, the feudalists alongside with the peasants and other toiling people also participated but saw the war from a different perspective. To the exploiting class, it was a struggle for the re-attainment of a territory and immense property it used to own. It was a life or death struggle on the side of the big landowners, because the war meant the reconquest of thousands of vassals and serfs to manipulate without engaging in any sort of production whatsoever. On the other hand, poor peasants and other oppressed sectors of the society fought fiercely out of pure nationalism and love for their motherland. It was an anti-imperialist and anti-fascist war fought to save the people from inhuman foreign racist rule.38

    40The ruling class had therefore fought in order to regain its former privileges. The masses, by fighting for their freedom, had participated in the international struggle against imperialism and fascism. After five years of exile, the emperor and those who had gone with him had returned to Ethiopia and immediately set about repressing the people who were involved in the struggle and stealing the benefits of victory from them. Those who had made the greatest sacrifices were dispossessed by those who had fled in such a cowardly way.

    After five years of such heroic struggle, the Ethiopian broad masses were able to hoist the tri-colour Ethiopian flag, the symbol of their independence. A month later, the feudal monarch, accompanied by his allies, the nobility and aristocracy including imperialist agents and troops returned to the country. They soon began to hunt the patriots. […] The absconders named themselves patriots and turned the true patriots into traitors. […] Following the victory of the liberation struggle, the nobility and the aristocracy committed a number of atrocious crimes against the Ethiopian people.39

    41But the masses were not fooled; having driven out the Italian occupier did not mean the end of the struggle. The conquest of their freedom also meant fighting the feudal class.

    However, for the Ethiopian masses the struggle for total independence from all forms of exploitation and oppression was not over. The struggle against the feudo-capitalist system and against imperialism, the development of which was intensified, especially after the Italian fascist invasion and occupation (1936–41), continued and resulted in the popular democratic revolution of 1974.40

    42Classifying the resistance against the Italian attempt at colonisation as an anti-fascist and anti-imperialist struggle made it possible to situate the Ethiopian masses within the class struggle that was being played out on a global scale. The battle being fought by the Ethiopian masses against the Italian occupier and the revolution were placed in the same struggle for emancipation. For the first time, those “without a history” were bursting into the national history to occupy a prominent place in it, and efforts were being made to place their actions within the framework of the international struggle of the oppressed classes and peoples.

    1.4 … captured by the Derg

    43The past was ordered in such a way as to present a linear movement in which the masses were the actors, a logical sequence that gave full meaning to the revolution. The chapter devoted to the revolution then showed that the arrangement of history based on the masses had been seized by the Derg for its own ends:

    Before the feudo-bourgeois regime could succeed in subverting the revolutionary uprising of the broad Ethiopian masses, the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police and Territorial Army was established on June 28, 1974. The responsibility for coordinating and leading the struggle of the broad masses for the time fell upon the shoulders of this Coordinating Committee. This Committee of the Armed Forces, Police and Territorial Army, by taking the revolutionary demands of the broad masses and the men-in-uniform as its guiding principles, began to pave the way for the intensification of the struggle […]. The Coordinating Committee had the active support of the broad masses in all the revolutionary measures it was undertaking.41

    44The Derg had taken charge of the revolution to become the sole representative of the aspirations of the Ethiopian people, a responsibility that had fallen on it more than it had chosen it for itself; it had fulfilled a necessary historical mission. It had made the demands of the masses its own, and the masses had recognised their expression in it. Once it had been established that the masses and the Derg were one, the term “mass” could be substituted for “Derg.” All the decisions taken by the Derg then became those of the masses, and from then on, all the Derg’s enemies became enemies of the masses, sometimes as defenders of the old regime, and sometimes as agents of imperialism. They had deliberately acted against the Derg, and therefore against the people and against Ethiopia. The Confederation of Ethiopian Labour Unions (CELU), the official grouping of trade unions, which had played an active role in the revolution before being dissolved by the Derg, began to be funded and controlled by the CIA.42 The Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU), which was made up of former leaders in Haile Selassie’s regime who favoured a parliamentary regime, became anti-popular and fascist. The longest explanations and harshest invectives were directed at the EPRP, which had posed the greatest challenge to the Derg before it was annihilated by the Red Terror:

    In this anti-Ethiopian revolution campaign, the primary role was played by the so-called EPRP. This counter-revolutionary organization of the right wing section of the petty bourgeoisie did its best to subvert the Ethiopian revolution by wearing a Marxist-Leninist garb and by claiming to have stood for the interest of the broad Ethiopian masses, by advancing […] a reactionary slogan which called for the establishment of a ‘provisional people’s government’ […]. And when it realized that such a counter revolutionary slogan could not strike a responsive chord among the broad Ethiopian masses, it attempted to lead astray those Ethiopian workers whose political consciousness was rather low. By exploiting the low level political consciousness of those workers, it made them engage in such counter revolutionary activities as work stoppages, labour strikes, destruction of industrial machines, and numerous other counter revolutionary crimes. It also attempted to lead astray the Ethiopian youth and especially the students by agitating them not to continue their schooling unless its so-called ‘provisional people’s government’ was established. In addition, it did its best to dismantle the Zemecha program—a program designed to help improve the political, economic, social and cultural conditions of the broad Ethiopian masses. […] It became imperative to take a decisive revolutionary measure against this counter revolutionary organization. And as a result of the strong measure that the broad masses of Ethiopia took against this counter revolutionary organization not only was the Ethiopian revolution protracted but in the processes quite a number of innocent youth and students who were victimized by the reactionary politics and ideology of this anti-people organization were freed and were brought in the camp of the revolution as well.”43

    45There was no need to go back over the EPRP’s political positions and actual activities. These passages justified the extreme violence that the Derg had deployed against the organisations that had not opposed the revolution (and still less the “masses”) but government by the military. It was a distortion of a very recent past that everyone still remembered.

    2. The masses: instruments of “socialist” progress

    46While history sought to delegitimise the old ruling class, to make the masses the new anchor of national sentiment and to justify the Derg’s seizure of power, the geography textbooks showed the way forward.

    2.1 Presenting the socialist project

    47The Grade 10 geography textbook provided a map of the country’s economic activities, its potential production capacity and a lesson on planning the national economy.44 It was both a geography textbook and a presentation of the government’s project, alternating descriptions of Ethiopia with theoretical explanations. Its focus was on the production of material life, the level of technical development and the organisation of production. At its heart lay the question of how humans could best produce their material lives in relation to their environment. Finally, it constantly compared “traditional” and “modern” methods of production on the one hand, and capitalist and socialist countries on the other. This textbook should be compared with the Grade 12 version, which alternated geographical descriptions (on topography, climate, agriculture and population) with national development programmes and praise for the revolution.45

    2.2 Humans and their environment: mode of production, productive forces, production relationships

    48The key concepts of Marxist political economy lent support to all the descriptions. The introduction to the Grade 10 geography textbook announced that its purpose was to analyse the relationship between humans and the natural environment. The decisive factor affecting the life of a society was the production of its material life. The extent to which the environment was used related to the level of technology achieved. Humans therefore sought better control over nature and improvements in their standards of living through better production methods, which in turn depended on the improvement of productive forces.46 Finally, production relations were the relationships among the different social classes: who owned the means of production and what did this imply in terms of the exploitation and the redistribution of production?47

    49The concept of productive forces was then mobilised to explain the wealth gap and the division of the countries of the world into two categories. On the one hand, there were the “developing” countries, which were largely dependent on agriculture, and where 70 percent of the world’s population lived, while on the other, there were the “developed,” industrialised countries, where 30 percent of the world’s population lived. The “developing” countries were not using their natural resources properly. They were employing old, unprofitable methods, because of the low level of development of their productive forces. Unemployment was high, illiteracy and malnutrition were widespread, people were in poor health and life expectancy was low. The working capacity of the population was severely limited. Economic growth was therefore limited because the productive capacity of each individual person was low. In “developed” countries, conversely, individual productivity and economic growth were high.48 The future of “developing” countries was therefore to improve their productive forces. This would necessarily involve a process of rationalisation of economic activities and control over nature. As humans made scientific and technological advances, they became capable of learning the laws governing the development of nature and society. They could then consciously act on their environment to improve their lives. Students were asked to keep this in mind when studying the Ethiopian geographical environment.

    2.2.1 Socialist development versus capitalist development

    50By relying on the context of a bipolar world on the one hand, and the “laws of history” which defined a given succession of modes of production on the other, the geography textbooks made the claim that a rational and efficient organisation of production could only come from a “socialist” system, which was opposed to the feudal and capitalist systems.

    51The first issue to be raised related to ownership of the means of production, which determined both the relations of exploitation and the efficiency of economic activities. In capitalist societies, the bourgeoisie owned the means of production and exploited the proletariat; in socialist societies, the means of production belonged to society as a whole and the exploitation of man by man had ceased.49 How did social relations based on the private ownership of the means of production, or on privileges monopolised by a few over them, influence agricultural production in “developing” countries with primarily rural economies? In a feudal system such as Ethiopia’s, land was owned by a tiny minority. Farmers lived in a precarious situation, and had no incentive to improve production. This echoed the interpretation of left-wing Ethiopian intellectuals in the 1970s: the arbitrary nature of state and feudal levies left the peasants with barely enough to survive, no matter how much they produced, and they therefore had no incentive to improve their productivity. The agrarian reforms initiated in Asia, Latin America and Africa were a response to this type of problem.50 In “developing” regions, any rationally thought-out social and economic transformation needed to break up old feudal and capitalist production relations and create new ones for the equitable distribution of resources.51

    52Capitalism and socialism were also opposed to each other due to the irrationality of the former and the rationality of the latter. In capitalist countries, the sole objective of industrial production was profit. Production was therefore market-oriented. In socialist countries, on the other hand, “economic laws” were applied in the interest of society as a whole, which was why the governments of the socialist countries drew up plans.52 In a capitalist economy, production and means of transport were distributed irrationally. Some areas were highly equipped and developed, while others remained “backward.”53 Socialism, on the other hand, left no one on the margins of the progress it enabled. This is why a country like Ethiopia embarked on a socialist path of development with the aim of creating an independent and self-sufficient planned economy.54

    53Planning according to the “laws of the economy” was founded especially on the “law of population distribution.” The Grade 12 textbook was based on the work of Marx and Engels on the territorial distribution of the population according to the mode of production. This again allowed a comparison between capitalist and socialist societies. The former, on the one hand, had population surpluses. This maladjustment led to problems such as poor housing conditions and unemployment. The latter, on the other hand, organised a rational distribution of the population according to production. As a result, unemployment had disappeared. This rational distribution of the population was the result of a planned, proportionate development of the national economy. The distribution of the branches of the national economy had to determine settlement by the population and, conversely, the availability of labour power had to decide the distribution of production. Population density in certain places could lead to the cultivation of new areas.55

    54In the end, these textbooks defended a scientific and radically rationalist position. They demonstrated a profound belief in the administrative management of nature and society, and the project claimed to conform to scientifically established laws. It makes one think of the “assumption of infallibility” of totalitarian regimes referred to by Hanna Arendt, “based not so much on superior intelligence than on a correct interpretation of the essentially reliable forces in history or nature” (Arendt 1973 [1951], 349). The future was predictable if the right method was used. It was a powerful tool for legitimising a power that could not go wrong. One should not postulate the simply cynical use of an ideology that justified governing by authoritarianism, however. It is certainly undeniable, as Christopher Clapham has pointed out, that this doctrinaire version of Marxism-Leninism has been an important instrument at the service of the “nationalist and statist objectives” of power (Clapham 1988, 220), but did the state not also believe in progress made possible by the construction of a socialist Ethiopia? Authoritarianism and progressivism are not systematically mutually exclusive. As James Scott has also noted, advocates of large projects based on science and reason—even if they were authoritarian and devastating—were often motivated by a sincere belief in progress (Scott 1998, 89).

    2.3 Ethiopia’s plan for the future

    55After laying out the theoretical foundations, the geography textbooks presented the future the Derg was planning for Ethiopia. It was modelled on the idealised project of the Soviet Union, the pillars of which would be a collectivised agriculture linked to the development of industry. A socialist society had to provide itself with the necessary material foundations, otherwise it would be nothing more than a utopia: it was “impossible to think of a socialist society without developed industry.”56 However, the transformation of the agricultural production system had to remain the priority in the first instance: it was the basis on which future developments would be built.57 Ethiopian planners based their project on the realities of a country in which the overwhelming majority of producers were farmers. Agriculture was at the heart of the project because Ethiopia was experiencing food shortages and famine, and agriculture was an important resource for foreign trade and the primary source of employment. Once the agricultural productivity had increased, it would be possible to transfer the necessary workers to other branches of the economy. Finally, agriculture and industry would work in conjunction so that the economy could “walk on both its legs”: industry needed agricultural raw materials, and agriculture needed industry (tractors, fertilisers, etc.) and could be a source of capital for industrial development.58

    56The Grade 12 textbook quoted Lenin in order to compare Ethiopia to Russia. Lenin had said: “In this country of peasants, it was the peasantry as a whole that was the first to have to gain, that gained the most and gained immediately from the dictatorship of the proletariat.” This was also true of Ethiopia. The revolution had started a new life for the masses by liberating the peasants from oppression and feudal exploitation. For the first time, the working masses had become masters of the means and results of production. Their income had “increased immensely,” but much remained to be done. How could agriculture be transformed? First of all by making better use of the country’s land resources, which were considered underexploited: “Cultivated land is […] about 10% of the total area. This is, of course, very small […] However the size of the cultivated land of the country can be increased, for there are many areas which have not yet been settled.”59 In 1981, the geography textbooks anticipated the population displacements that would be implemented after the great famine of 1984–85. It was necessary to convince the pupils, and through them the population, of the validity of this project that was being developed, knowing that populations do not allow themselves to be displaced willingly.

    57The next step was to convince the population to join cooperatives. According to the Grade 12 textbook, they would have a dual role: to provide technical training for the peasants and to develop their socialist consciousness.60 However, the authors pointed out that the transition to a socialist agricultural economy would take time: the level of awareness of members of cooperatives and their willingness to work together would only come gradually, and cooperatives would serve as a model once the farmers had proved their efficiency. As a result, peasant agriculture would remain dominant for many years, even though the size and performance of state farms increased rapidly. Therefore, as a first step, any serious growth in agricultural yields would have to be achieved by improving the productivity of peasant agriculture.61 It was facing serious problems, however; the productive forces were “backward,” erosion was at a high level, storage conditions were poor, and farmers did not use fertilisers, insecticides, pesticides or herbicides.62 State farms, on the other hand, used machinery, scientific cultivation methods, fertilisers and selected seeds. A systematic comparison of the productivity of non-mechanised intensive and extensive mechanised methods, which were classified as “traditional” and “modern” respectively, followed these statements.63 As an educator, the state was to take the lead in transforming the “traditional” rural way of life.

    58The textbook then went on to present a line of argument on the development of heavy industry and mining. On the one hand, systematic prospecting was necessary in order to discover the country’s mineral wealth, and its extraction had to be organised and its benefits placed at the service of the national economy. On the other hand, the metal industry, shipbuilding and cement production should be developed, as should the production of leather, rubber, fertilisers, medicines, tobacco, glass and ceramics. The growth of the printing industry was essential for both the economy and culture. These activities had already existed under the overthrown “feudal-bourgeois” regime, but they were marginal and at the service of private interests. Private individuals who had invested in these activities had not sought to develop them beyond their objectives of personal enrichment. Revolutionary Ethiopia had nationalised them in order to develop and operate them for the benefit of the entire nation.

    2.4 Concrete knowledge that can be applied on a daily basis

    59Unlike the geography textbooks, which designed social change at a macro level, the Amharic reading manuals explained that their role was to show the way to a reorganisation of daily life. On the one hand, the extensive demonstrations yielded to actual knowledge that could be applied by everyone, similar to the kind disseminated during the literacy campaign, but the way the messages were conveyed was far more flexible. The Amharic textbooks did not so much state indisputable truths as they did the ways and means of living together. The Grade 11 textbook explained that the ideas pupils heard, expressed, read and wrote in their language classes should provide knowledge that would be generally useful in their social lives. They could then pass on these ideas outside school, through practice. This was a translation into school learning of the objective of integrating the school into village life, of making it an open institution that kept up exchanges with its social environment so as to transform the world from below through everyone’s cumulative actions. In class, pupils had to learn to exchange opinions so they would be able to develop ideas collectively; this practice would then be spread throughout society to give rise to dynamic communities. The textbooks were organised into a series of short chapters of no more than ten pages that could be grouped around three themes: production techniques, education for citizenship and the opening up of rural life to the national space.

    60The chapters on production were devoted to activities practised in the context of peasant agriculture. They dispensed facts acknowledging that every peasant family was a unit of production that needed to improve its own productivity. The passages on agriculture and animal husbandry presented so-called “modern” techniques. They dealt with soil maintenance and fertility through ploughing methods and planting trees on slopes and grasses on the borders of fields to combat erosion.64 Others invited improvements in the production of marketable agricultural products such as coffee: how to avoid diseases, how to choose the most suitable locations and how to adapt the soil. The chapters on livestock explained that each farmer should seek to improve it by learning how to combat animal diseases and by selecting breeds that were suited to different climates, and about their role in production (milk, meat or ploughing).65 It was also necessary to monitor the production of each animal so that the most productive ones would be kept.66 In the case of both agriculture and animal husbandry, it was always advisable to study the state of the market so as to be able to sell products in the correct way. In short, the Amharic manuals called for the rationalisation of peasant farming practices using simple techniques, so that families would have surpluses to sell. The first step towards progress was to free a fragile family economy from the vagaries of subsistence farming.

    61A series of chapters was then devoted to the creation of “socialist behaviour.” This implied, first of all, a sense of morality characterised by a spirit of unity, equality, fraternity and frankness.67 Secondly, members of socialist Ethiopia had to be politically aware so they could defend their rights, fight against exploitation and act for the construction of the new society. The role of culture was essential here. In a society that had chosen socialism, literature, for example, should no longer be aimed at a minority of intellectuals but at the oppressed masses. It had to talk about everyday life and its problems, and propose solutions.68 Finally, these chapters, which sought to inculcate social and political attitudes, were complemented by other, more theoretical ones, which spread a basic Marxist political culture and encouraged a critical reading of the world: short biographies of Marx and Engels69; outlines of the dialectical method for understanding the world and societies70; a defence of the planned economy71; and a general analysis of the “bourgeois system” and imperialism and their internal contradictions.72

    62Finally, the reading manuals sought to integrate pupils and their communities into the space and time of the nation. While the history textbooks attempted to inculcate a new national imagination through a reinterpreted past, the Amharic textbooks were concerned with the material aspects of the nation. They invited pupils to appropriate the multiple vectors of shared belonging scattered across the country. The functions of administrations, health services and cooperatives were described, and it was explained that these institutions were shared assets that belonged to the masses. The idea of belonging to a wider community was developed in the chapters on means of communication (such as letters, telegrams and telephones, which allowed contact from a distance) and brochures, newspapers, radio and television (through which the state disseminated national news and revolutionary culture). Finally, to bring the masses into the space of the nation, there was a presentation of means of transport, the different types of roads and the ways tracks were maintained.73 The aim of this last topic was both to decompartmentalise the country and encourage villagers to maintain their infrastructures themselves.

    63To sum up, the teachings disseminated by the Amharic textbooks reflected a concern to integrate the school into the life of the population and to transmit a basic political and moral culture to the pupils. They aimed at short-term objectives, where the geography textbooks had a long-term projection. The major projects implemented by the state and the creation of a new socialist personality, the macroscopic transformations undertaken on a national scale and the dissemination of new daily practices complemented each other. The revolution could not succeed if one of these elements was missing.

    2.5 Women of the socialist nation

    64The National Democratic Revolution’s programme, which was announced in April 1976, paid lip service to the gender issue. It included a short passage that declared that no one would have privileged access to employment because of their religion or sex any longer.74 The booklet Ethiopia in Revolution, which was published by the Ministry of Information a few months later, devoted two pages to the status of women in Ethiopia—they were subject to both class and patriarchal oppression—and announced that an emancipation process was under way in socialist Ethiopia.75 The Constitution of the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, which came into effect in 1987, declared: “The state shall give special support to women, especially in their education, training and employment, to enable them to participate with men in the economic, social and cultural fields on an equal footing.”76 How were these statements translated into school textbooks?

    65The Grade 11 Amharic textbook explained the theory of the dual gender and class oppression experienced by women. The chapter began by pointing out the responsibility of religions, Christianity and Islam, and the bourgeois order. The Christian holy book said that woman was created after man from one of his ribs77, that she was not a finished creation and therefore that she could not be considered as his equal. This is why God ordered that a woman should be “an object at the service of man.”78 The Muslim religion made the same claim. It “advised that women should be beaten,” that a man could marry up to four women, and that women had to cover themselves with a veil.79 The bourgeois order had not improved this situation: on the contrary, it defended the idea that nature had made men powerful and women weak, and therefore inferior. This is why men had to give orders and women had to obey them. In short, the inferiority of women was sometimes justified by religious beliefs and sometimes by nature. Scientific socialism, on the other hand, had shown that whether they belonged to the class of the oppressed or the class of the oppressors, women were always in a position of inferiority. This situation of oppression had to cease: in a socialist society, women were equal to men.80

    66This was followed by an explanation based on historical arguments taken from Friedrich Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Matriarchy had existed in “primitive societies,” where the oppressed and oppressors did not exist, where community life was based on equality and where goods were shared equally. Then, over the centuries, humans multiplied, and by working to improve their living conditions they increased and diversified production. A division of labour between men and women had emerged, with the former going out to fetch food and the latter taking care of children and domestic work. As production and trade in goods increased, men took control of trade and assumed ownership of goods, while women only had access to material goods within the household. The development of private property had thus benefitted men but excluded women.81 With the slave society came the classes of oppressors and oppressed, and women suffered the dual oppression of class and gender. The chapter concluded with the essential role played by women in the history of the revolution. Women had to fight the oppressive class alongside oppressed men. Once classes had been abolished and the means of production had become collective, women became men’s equals, and it was then possible to speak of a socialist society.82 This chapter therefore presented the question of the oppression of women in line with the Soviet version. The question of gender relations was included in the process of historical materialism, and the liberation of women was subordinated to the construction of socialism.

    67However, while this passage affirmed gender equality in a socialist society, the study titled Gender Analysis of Primary School Textbooks published by the Ministry of Education in 1989 revealed strong male dominance and the prevalence of gender stereotypes. The authors carried out a textual and iconographic analysis of fifty textbooks from grades 1 to 8. They looked at the vocabulary used, the types of activities in which women were represented and the main character traits attributed to them. In the first place, 71% of the proper names used were male, which led girls to take the view that the textbooks were not addressed to them (Gennet 1991, 97). In history, 99 percent of the names were male, while in home economics, 100 percent of the names used were female.83 Common nouns defined men as “soldiers,” “workers” and “citizens,” and girls as “mothers” and “sisters.” This all gave legitimacy to the public and private roles reserved for men and women, respectively, while the Amharic Grade 11 manual called them into question. In all the textbooks studied, the most-used female adjectives were “pregnant,” “fertile,” “pleasant,” “pretty” and “decent.” “Pregnant” and “fertile” appeared 30 times, while “oppressed woman” and “revolutionary intellectual” were only mentioned twice and once, respectively. Conversely, “workers’ leader,” “revolutionary leader,” “battlefield companion,” “hero” and “freedom fighter” came top of the male descriptions.84 Gender stereotypes therefore persisted. Considering that textbooks are an indirect experience of the world, this way of representing weak, dependent and inferior women on the one hand and courageous, independent and superior men on the other could only contribute to the reproduction of gender relations (Gennet 1991, 97).

    68Textbooks represent one of the practical applications of the discourse on women’s emancipation. The discrepancies noted between official statements and how they were translated into what was to be taught reveal serious limitations, reflecting the government’s lack of interest in women’s emancipation. In the project to build a new society, women were always first mothers and wives who were subordinate to men. No effort was made to translate the discourses on gender equality into the knowledge that was taught. They reflected common sense representations of women. Under the previous regime, school education had not brought about a break from common sense—far from it—and the student movement had shown very little interest in gender issues. This shows that the concept of a “mass” that was constantly mobilised to redefine a homogeneous nation unified by class solidarity was not successful when it came to concealing other distinctions. Gender remained a powerful criterion of hierarchisation.

    Conclusion

    69The teaching shows in the first place how the Derg caused the past to be reinterpreted in the light of the class struggle and the fight to maintain independence. It was a question of giving new life to national sentiment by basing it on a sense of pride in belonging to heroic masses who had freed themselves from oppression, who had become the mythical representation of the past, present and future of the nation in place of the emperor. Women, peasants and the people of the south found a special place in this discourse. The past was also revisited through a teleological historical materialism to legitimise the choice of socialism and the power of the Derg. On the one hand, the Derg claimed to be the only legitimate representative of the masses. On the other hand, the Derg claimed to have knowledge of the rules for the development of societies thanks to a form of Marxism-Leninism that had been elevated to an exact science. It thus developed a grand project that had been borrowed from the Soviet Union, a future planned on the basis of reason, on a scientifically-established truth that could not be challenged. It is interesting to note that the policies that were carried out expeditiously after the great famine of 1984–85 had already been presented in the textbooks that were published in 1979. The forced displacement of people from densely-populated areas affected by the famine to areas to be cultivated, accompanied by a policy of villagisation to provide the countryside with infrastructure and implement the collectivisation of agriculture, was presented to school pupils six years before it was implemented.

    70In the end, the knowledge that was taught was not recast solely in accordance with a new ideology that promoted other ways of viewing the world, imagining the nation and projecting its future. The new teachings and the way they were communicated testified to the close ties between the transformations in school knowledge and in the ways power was exercised. Teachings were based on an “exact science,” a categorical mode of transmission and an authoritarian practice of power.

    Notes de bas de page

    1MOE, The Ethiopian School Syllabuses (1984), 41.

    2MOE, የኅብረተሰብትምህርት 4 ኛ ክፍል (Social sciences, grade 4) (1979 [1972 EC]), 66. Ethiopian Marxists translated the Marxist notion of “masses” as “Yä sefiw hezb “, “all the people,” a term that can be found in school textbooks.

    3Ibid., 73.

    4MOE, An Outline of the Social Sciences Syllabi (1984), 26.

    5MOE, ታሪክ 7 ኛ ክፍል (History, grade 7) (1979 [1972 EC]), 26.

    6MOE, ታሪክ 8 ኛ ክፍል (History, grade 8) (1980 [1973 EC]), 60–61.

    7Ibid., 62.

    8Ibid., 61.

    9Ibid., 63.

    10Ibid., 63.

    11Ibid., 70.

    12Ibid., 70.

    13Ibid., 78.

    14Ibid., 81.

    15Ibid., 84.

    16MOE, ኢትዮጲያ የታሪክ መነሻ (Historical Atlas of Ethiopia) (1990 [1983 EC]), 24.

    17MOE, ታሪክ 8 ኛ ክፍል (History, grade 8) (1980 [1973 EC)], 87.

    18The textbooks for grades 11 and 12 were translations of a Russian book: A.Z. Manfred, A Short History of the World (Moscow: Progress Publishers); MOE, History Grade 11 (1979), ii.

    19MOE, History Grade 10 (1979), 262.

    20Ibid., 263.

    21Ibid., 204.

    22Ibid., 207.

    23Ibid., 206.

    24Ibid., 214.

    25Ibid., 251.

    26Ibid., 217.

    27Ibid., 225.

    28Ibid., 230.

    29Ibid., 251.

    30Ibid., 251–52.

    31Ibid., 237–38.

    32Ibid., 238–39.

    33Ibid., 241.

    34Ibid., 242.

    35Ibid., 253.

    36Ibid., 256.

    37Ibid., 254.

    38Ibid., 257–58.

    39Ibid., 258–59.

    40Ibid., 260.

    41Ibid., 284–85.

    42Ibid., 294.

    43Ibid., 301–3.

    44MOE, Geography Grade 10 (1981).

    45MOE, Geography Grade 12 (1981).

    46MOE, Geography Grade 10 (1981), 1.

    47Ibid., 5–6.

    48Ibid., 2–3.

    49MOE, Geography Grade 10 (1981), 6.

    50Ibid., 14–15.

    51Ibid., 147.

    52Ibid., 67–68.

    53Ibid., 123.

    54MOE, Geography Grade 12 (1981), 56.

    55Ibid., 62–63.

    56Ibid., 113.

    57Ibid., 78.

    58Ibid., 79–80.

    59Ibid., 83.

    60Ibid., 86.

    61Ibid., 88–89.

    62Ibid., 102.

    63MOE, Geography Grade 10 (1981), 21.

    64MOE, የአማርኛ መማሪያ 8 ኛ ክፍል (Amharic textbook grade 8) (1976 [1968 EC]), 1.

    65Ibid. 20–21.

    66Ibid. 24.

    67MOE, የአማርኛ መማሪያ 11 ኛ ክፍል (Amharic textbook grade 11) (1977 [1969 EC]), iii.

    68Ibid., 31.

    69Ibid, 67–77.

    70Ibid., 86–95.

    71Ibid., 133–39.

    72Ibid., 13–20 and 24–28.

    73Ibid., iii.

    74PMGE, Programme of the National Democratic Revolution of Ethiopia (1976), 6.

    75MOI, Ethiopia in Revolution (1977), 37–39.

    76PRDE, Constitution of the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Negarit Gazeta, 47th year, Proclamation No. 1 of 1987 (12 September 1987).

    77MOE, የአማርኛ መማሪያ 11 ኛ ክፍል (Amharic textbook grade 11) (1977 [1969 EC]), 121.

    78Ibid., 121.

    79Ibid.

    80Ibid., 122.

    81Ibid., 123.

    82Ibid., 124–25.

    83MOE, Gender Analysis of Primary School Textbooks (1989), 17.

    84Ibid., 21.

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    1MOE, The Ethiopian School Syllabuses (1984), 41.

    2MOE, የኅብረተሰብትምህርት 4 ኛ ክፍል (Social sciences, grade 4) (1979 [1972 EC]), 66. Ethiopian Marxists translated the Marxist notion of “masses” as “Yä sefiw hezb “, “all the people,” a term that can be found in school textbooks.

    3Ibid., 73.

    4MOE, An Outline of the Social Sciences Syllabi (1984), 26.

    5MOE, ታሪክ 7 ኛ ክፍል (History, grade 7) (1979 [1972 EC]), 26.

    6MOE, ታሪክ 8 ኛ ክፍል (History, grade 8) (1980 [1973 EC]), 60–61.

    7Ibid., 62.

    8Ibid., 61.

    9Ibid., 63.

    10Ibid., 63.

    11Ibid., 70.

    12Ibid., 70.

    13Ibid., 78.

    14Ibid., 81.

    15Ibid., 84.

    16MOE, ኢትዮጲያ የታሪክ መነሻ (Historical Atlas of Ethiopia) (1990 [1983 EC]), 24.

    17MOE, ታሪክ 8 ኛ ክፍል (History, grade 8) (1980 [1973 EC)], 87.

    18The textbooks for grades 11 and 12 were translations of a Russian book: A.Z. Manfred, A Short History of the World (Moscow: Progress Publishers); MOE, History Grade 11 (1979), ii.

    19MOE, History Grade 10 (1979), 262.

    20Ibid., 263.

    21Ibid., 204.

    22Ibid., 207.

    23Ibid., 206.

    24Ibid., 214.

    25Ibid., 251.

    26Ibid., 217.

    27Ibid., 225.

    28Ibid., 230.

    29Ibid., 251.

    30Ibid., 251–52.

    31Ibid., 237–38.

    32Ibid., 238–39.

    33Ibid., 241.

    34Ibid., 242.

    35Ibid., 253.

    36Ibid., 256.

    37Ibid., 254.

    38Ibid., 257–58.

    39Ibid., 258–59.

    40Ibid., 260.

    41Ibid., 284–85.

    42Ibid., 294.

    43Ibid., 301–3.

    44MOE, Geography Grade 10 (1981).

    45MOE, Geography Grade 12 (1981).

    46MOE, Geography Grade 10 (1981), 1.

    47Ibid., 5–6.

    48Ibid., 2–3.

    49MOE, Geography Grade 10 (1981), 6.

    50Ibid., 14–15.

    51Ibid., 147.

    52Ibid., 67–68.

    53Ibid., 123.

    54MOE, Geography Grade 12 (1981), 56.

    55Ibid., 62–63.

    56Ibid., 113.

    57Ibid., 78.

    58Ibid., 79–80.

    59Ibid., 83.

    60Ibid., 86.

    61Ibid., 88–89.

    62Ibid., 102.

    63MOE, Geography Grade 10 (1981), 21.

    64MOE, የአማርኛ መማሪያ 8 ኛ ክፍል (Amharic textbook grade 8) (1976 [1968 EC]), 1.

    65Ibid. 20–21.

    66Ibid. 24.

    67MOE, የአማርኛ መማሪያ 11 ኛ ክፍል (Amharic textbook grade 11) (1977 [1969 EC]), iii.

    68Ibid., 31.

    69Ibid, 67–77.

    70Ibid., 86–95.

    71Ibid., 133–39.

    72Ibid., 13–20 and 24–28.

    73Ibid., iii.

    74PMGE, Programme of the National Democratic Revolution of Ethiopia (1976), 6.

    75MOI, Ethiopia in Revolution (1977), 37–39.

    76PRDE, Constitution of the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Negarit Gazeta, 47th year, Proclamation No. 1 of 1987 (12 September 1987).

    77MOE, የአማርኛ መማሪያ 11 ኛ ክፍል (Amharic textbook grade 11) (1977 [1969 EC]), 121.

    78Ibid., 121.

    79Ibid.

    80Ibid., 122.

    81Ibid., 123.

    82Ibid., 124–25.

    83MOE, Gender Analysis of Primary School Textbooks (1989), 17.

    84Ibid., 21.

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    Guidi, P. (2024). Teachings: Breaking with the Past and Projecting the Future. In Educating the Nation in Ethiopia (1‑). Centre français des études éthiopiennes. https://doi.org/10.4000/12iyl
    Guidi, Pierre. « Teachings: Breaking With the Past and Projecting the Future ». In Educating the Nation in Ethiopia. Addis-Abeba: Centre français des études éthiopiennes, 2024. https://doi.org/10.4000/12iyl.
    Guidi, Pierre. « Teachings: Breaking With the Past and Projecting the Future ». Educating the Nation in Ethiopia, Centre français des études éthiopiennes, 2024, https://doi.org/10.4000/12iyl.

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    Guidi, P. (2024). Educating the Nation in Ethiopia (S. Dix, Trad.; 1‑). Centre français des études éthiopiennes. https://doi.org/10.4000/12iy3
    Guidi, Pierre. Educating the Nation in Ethiopia. Traduit par Simon Dix. Addis-Abeba: Centre français des études éthiopiennes, 2024. https://doi.org/10.4000/12iy3.
    Guidi, Pierre. Educating the Nation in Ethiopia. Traduit par Simon Dix, Centre français des études éthiopiennes, 2024, https://doi.org/10.4000/12iy3.
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