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Ethiopia The Society and Its Environment
by Yohannis Abate (A Geographer and African Analyst with the
Department of Defence)
Traditional council of elders
THE ETHIOPIAN PEOPLE ARE ETHNICALLY heterogeneous,
comprising more than 100 groups, each speaking a dialect of
one of more than seventy languages. The Amhara, Oromo, and
Tigray are the largest groups. With the accession of Menelik
II to the throne in 1889, the ruling class consisted
primarily of the Amhara, a predominantly Christian group
that constitutes about 30 percent of the population and
occupies the central highlands. The Oromo, who constitute
about 40 percent of the population, are half Orthodox
Christians and half Muslims whose traditional alliance with
the Amhara in Shewa included participation in public
administration and the military. Predominantly Christian,
the Tigray occupy the far northern highlands and make up 12
to 15 percent of the population. They or their Eritrean
neighbors had been battling the government for nearly three
decades and by 1991 had scored many battlefield successes.
According to estimates based on the first census (1984),
Ethiopia's population was 51.7 million in 1990 and was
projected to reach more than 67 million by the year 2000.
About 89 percent of the people live in rural areas, large
sectors of which have been ravaged by drought, famine, and
war. The regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam embarked on
controversial villagization and resettlement programs to
combat these problems. Villagization involved the relocation
of rural people into villages, while resettlement moved
people from drought-prone areas in the north to sparsely
populated and resource-rich areas in the south and
southwest. The international community criticized both
programs for poor implementation and the consequent toll in
human lives.
The traditional social system in the northern highlands
was, in general, based on landownership and tenancy. After
conquest, Menelik II (reigned 1889-1913) imposed the north's
imperial system on the conquered south. The government
appointed many Amhara administrators, who distributed land
among themselves and relegated the indigenous peasants to
tenancy. The 1974 revolution swept away this structure of
ethnic and class dominance. The Provisional Military
Administrative Council (PMAC; also known as the
Derg
--see
Glossary) appointed representatives of the Workers' Party of
Ethiopia and the national system of peasant associations to
implement land reform. Additionally, the government
organized urban centers into a hierarchy of urban dwellers'
associations (
kebeles
--see Glossary). Despite these reforms,
however, dissatisfaction and covert opposition to the regime
continued in the civilian and military sectors.
Prior to the 1974 revolution, the state religion of
Ethiopia had been Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, whose
adherents comprised perhaps 40 to 50 percent of the
population, including a majority of the Amhara and Tigray.
Islam was the faith of about 40 percent of the population,
including large segments (perhaps half) of the Oromo and the
people inhabiting the contiguous area of the northern and
eastern lowlands, such as the Beja, Saho, Afar, and Somali.
Adherents of indigenous belief systems were scattered among
followers of the two major religions and could be found in
more concentrated numbers on the western peripheries of the
highlands. In line with its policy that all religions were
equally legitimate, the regime in 1975 declared several
Muslim holy days national holidays, in addition to the
Ethiopian Orthodox holidays that were already observed.
Declaring education one of its priorities, the PMAC
expanded the education system at the primary level,
especially in small towns and rural areas, which had never
had modern schools during the imperial era. The new policy
relocated control and operation of primary and secondary
schools to the subregion (awraja) level, where officials
reoriented curricula to emphasize agriculture, handicrafts,
commercial training, and other practical subjects. The
regime also embarked on a national literacy campaign.
The regime's health policy included expansion of rural
health services, promotion of community involvement, selfreliance in health activities, and emphasis on the
prevention and control of disease. As with education, the
PMAC decentralized health care administration to the local
level as part of its effort to encourage community
involvement. Despite an emphasis on rural health services,
less than a third of the total population had effective
health coverage in mid-1991.
Data as of 1991
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