Documenting the Ethiopian Student Movement. An Exercise in Oral History

by Bahru Zewde

The place of intellectuals (in the broad sense of the educated elite) in society has varied in place and time. The higher the level of industrial development, the less influence they seem to exercise. Thus, while intellectuals may be sought as advisors and members of think tanks in the so-called First World, they are rarely seen exercising direct state power. The situation is different in the so called Third World, notably Africa. The educated elite has historically seemed destined - by social ascription or self-arrogation - to play a central role in the exercise of state power. In Africa alone, the first generation of post-independence rulers - Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Léopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania - provides us with ample evidence to appreciate this reality. In Ethiopia, too, intellectuals have played a role and exercised an influence disproportionate to their size. This can be divided broadly into two phases, with the Italian Occupation (1936-1941) forming an important watershed between them.The pre-war intellectuals were preoccupied with a whole gamut of concerns ranging from educational development to fiscal reform. They had an essentially reformist agenda.The Fascist Italian invasion and the subsequent occupation not only terminated their careers but also - through its merciless policy of liquidation of the educated elite - created a gap in intellectual activity in the immediate post - Liberation years. The second period of intellectual intervention could thus begin only in the late 1950s. It revolved mainly around Ethiopian students (mostly at the tertiary level at the initial stage), both at home and abroad. This eventually evolved into what came to be known as the Ethiopian Student Movement. The movement could be said to have gone through three successive self-awareness, reformism, revolutionary commitment. There is general agreement that the year 1965, when students came out onto the streets with the slogan of "Land to the Tiller", marked the beginning of the third stage. It is this third stage that is the focal point of this study. For it constitutes the crucial period that forms both the backdrop and the essence of the changes that have come to affect fundamentally the Ethiopian state and society - changes that are yet far from over.

Paperback

First published August 26, 2010

About the author

Professor Bahru Zewde is a distinguished historian of Ethiopia and Africa. He received his B.A. with distinction from the Haile Selassie I University (1970) and his PhD from the University of London (1976). He has taught at the Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia), University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (USA), Hamburg University (Germany), and has served as director of the Institute of Ethiopia Studies at Addis Ababa University, editor of the Journal of Ethiopian Studies, the Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review, and Africa Review of Books and as member of the International Advisory Board of the Journal of African History, president of the Association of Ethiopian Historians, resident vice-president of the Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA), and first vice-president of the Association of African Historians. Currently, he serves as the executive director of the Forum for Social Studies (Ethiopia) and a board member of Trust Africa.

He authored widely acclaimed books (including A History of Modern Ethiopia 1855-1991 (2001) and Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia: The Reforming Intellectuals of the Early Twentieth Century (2002), edited a book entitled Between the Jaws of Hyenas: A Diplomatic History of Ethiopia 1876-1896 (2002), co-edited a book (Ethiopia: The Challenge of Democracy from Below (2002), and compiled A Short History of Ethiopia and the Horn (1998). He is also the author of more than 30 articles and book chapters.

Professor Bahru has received numerous awards and fellowships including the British Council Scholarship, British Academy Fellowship, a French Government research grant, and Japan Foundation fellowship. He was USIA/NEH visiting scholar at Boston University and visiting fellow at St. Cross College and St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University. He is also the recipient of the Golden Jubilee Award for “diligence, exemplary conduct and outstanding contribution” from Addis Ababa University.