Ethnicity and Race in Africa

Ethiopia and South Africa represent two opposite poles in dealing with ethnicity. The two countries are on entirely separate constitutional journeys. South Africa has emerged from the ethnic balkanization of apartheid and moved toward the constitutional establishment of a unitary state with the idea of a single nation. Ethiopia, on the other hand, has emerged from an imposed imperial unity via a centralist, militarized distortion of socialism to a dispensation of ethnic federalism. Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that explicitly recognizes ethnicity in its constitution, enshrined in the construction of ethnically based regional states and the official acknowledgment that there are many nations. In the case of Ethiopia, the nature of feudal autocracy determined the invariably ethnic-based form of opposition. For example, virtually all the liberation movements involved in the overthrow of the military regime had secession from Ethiopia as an integral part of their programs. This aim was obviously influenced by the slogan of the rights of nations to self-determination. Imperial oppression was structured along the lines of imposing a policy of Amharization (officially promoting the language and culture of the Amhara) in an effort to construct a unitary national culture in Ethiopia. It is not surprising, therefore, that opposition was founded on the affirmation of separate peoples, nations, and nationalities and that virtually all multiethnic or nonethnic political parties have failed dismally in Ethiopia. It is instructive that the form of rule is termed ethnic federalism, but the groups that occupy these positions are referred to as peoples, nations, or nationalities.

If South Africa and Ethiopia represent two poles on a continuum, then Nigeria exists somewhere between these two in the manner in which it has chosen to deal with ethnicity. The Nigerian constitution does not explicitly recognize ethnicity, but it recognizes the federal character of the country, or the regional (read ethnic) differences between people. Here sharing of the national cake is very explicitly seen in ethnic terms, even if ethnically based parties are banned. The federal character principle adopted in the First Republic was supposed to be reflective of the wide diversity of the Nigerian population, but it has not prevented Northern domination of the federal government. It was in response to this tendency toward Northern control that a system of rotating presidencies was proposed by parties in the running for the presidential elections.

People obviously have different cultural practices. These mark the distinctive ways in which identity and consciousness are formed in different communities. Whether these ethnic identities should be politicized is an ongoing debate in African social thought. All African societies are diverse, and how to accommodate and even celebrate that diversity without the endless civil strife and ethnically inspired violence remains an abiding challenge.