The Ethiopian Muslim Civil Rights Activists

By Tesfa Mekuria; March 23, 2013

My concern
in this particular piece is much more limited than that of Alemu.
I want to ask a specific question: what are some of the most prominent
characters of this new Ethiopian Muslim generation that Alemu
considered to have played a remarkable role in the democratic record of the
country in its persistent fourteen-months old loud and non-violent activism? In
trying to answer this question, my aim is not to assess the historical,
political, economic, and religious background of this generation. I don’t
intend explaining anything along those lines, but just outlining my personal
reflections on a few of the qualities that the young Muslims have betrayed in their
quest for freedom and justice. I believe doing this is a step towards
understanding the kind of generation we are witnessing in Ethiopian at
present—and take relevant lessons for future wider-scale activism.

Fearless: According to many scholarly sources,
the political past has not been that good for Ethiopian Muslims in general.
There have been numerous structural shackles that undermined the political, educational,
economic and intellectual development of Muslims. These shackles have also had
phenomenal impact on their consciousness in that a large section of the
population has for long been considered to be subservient and docile. As a
person who grew up surrounded with such stereotypes, one of the things that has
unforgettably stunned me is the vibrancy of the Ethiopian Muslims civil rights
movement. The vibrancy of the new Muslim generation has stunned me for three
reasons: One has to do with its break with the obedience-imposing “Ethiopian”
culture. The second has to do with its specific incongruity with our (many of
us who have followed Ethiopian politics for long) understanding of the new
Ethiopian Muslim generation. The third is about its break out in the context of
a very gruesome dictatorial regime. When the three came together, I woke up to
the amazement that there are a large section of Ethiopians in Ethiopia who seem
to have transcended the constraints of culture- and structure-imposed regime of
fear and docility, or, more accurately, have managed to overcome the
self-imposed sense of fear that usually tends to interlock with some structural
and cultural templates in the society. I think how and why this happened now
needs to be studied well by concerned researchers.

Non-Radical: But not every “fearlessness” is a
blessing, nor is every break with tradition commendable. The other admirable—though
perhaps more easily explicable– element of this rather unexpectedly loud
activism of Ethiopian Muslims is its moderate tone. As many observers have
noted, the Muslims have been purely calling for the protection of religious
rights and freedom in the country. Despite the government’s clear intent to
push them towards violence, the protesters have constantly refused to drag
themselves into that pit. It is my belief that in outsmarting the government by
contradicting its wish to induce the escalation of the demands and the resort
to violence, the movement has made itself more durable than anybody’s
expectation. So, my admiration for the movement comes not just because it has
been unexpectedly fearless, but also because it has been consistently non-violent.
That it has so far been constitutional and legal in all its narratives is also part
of this non-radicalism (although some oppositional forces might genuinely question
the promise of such conservatism in the long-term. But this is a point of
debate that I won’t delve into here).

“Apolitically”
Religious: the
intensity of religiosity among Ethiopian Muslim generation is not baffling. In
fact, any close observer of the post-1991 Ethiopian public would not but hasten
to point out the increasing significance of religion among Ethiopians in
general. This has not been different with Muslims. One striking thing that this
movement taught me, though, is that the Ethiopian Muslim youth have been
religious in an “Ethiopian” way despite the call for radicalization
in the whole region and beyond. While I don’t intend to give in to prejudice,
many active Muslim movements in both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority
countries have had overly political tones. In fact, in many occasions, the
activists in such contexts have been very vocal about their intentions to
establish an Islamic polity, But there is nothing in religion
per se—not even in religious activism
as such— that necessarily drives one
to a politically aggressive positioning. And there is no more evidence to prove
this than the young Ethiopian Muslim activists. Here, religiosity hasn’t meant
the craving for political totality. Interestingly, even when it crept into
state politics, it just called for its absence: the demand was “no state in our
religion!”

I know the
so-called arguments reiterated by the government and its supporters to
discredit the movement. To me, they are all neither sound, nor valid. They are,
first, based on either no proof, or doubtful proofs or false “proofs”. The
accusations, secondly, do not flow from the premises. For instance, the major
TPLF propaganda that was released in the form of a documentary film absolutely
failed to establish any proof that the accused Muslim leaders were intending to
establish an Islamic state or wage a jihad. All it did was “accusation by
association”. It urged us to associate the movement to some two (rather
unknown and unrelated) personalities (allegedly Shabab-trained),
or the Arab Spring (through the pictorial juxtaposition of again unrelated
demonstrations, Ethiopian and Arab, and through the establishment of a rather
weak connection with a Qatar-based intellectual whose image was unfairly
distorted). In none of these cases was there presented a proof that the
movement was actually about what the government has said it was. Even the badly
beaten Committee members didn’t appear incriminating themselves. When they
mentioned of an Islamic state, it was clear that they were responding to a
specific question in another context.

The other
sets of arguments are very weak–and also betray another problem: Islamophobia on the side of the TPLF members and supporters.
Some have tried to warn us of the looming danger of Islamism and Salafi radicalism in the Horn, the wider North East African
region, the whole of Africa, and the entire world—and their connections to
Ethiopia. These are based on either faulty reasoning or Islamophobic
assumptions or both. They assume that since some Islamic schools of thought
have such and such features internationally, they also should have the same features
internally. This is faulty on two accounts 1) These
schools, upon their arrival in Ethiopia, according to many recent studies (for
example, see Terje’s works on Salafism,
2011, 2007 etc), have been quick to take an Ethiopian
and non-political shape. 2) The Muslim movement has been neither led nor maintained
by Muslims belonging to merely one school of thought. A vast number of diverse
Muslims are now opposing government policies. To say, as some TPLF-ites claim, that the non-Salafis are
just being deluded into joining the movement, is very patronizing and offensive
to the tons of Muslims marching out every Friday for over a year. It is,
finally, Islamophoc in a way because the arguments
betray a degree of concern that Muslim activism is by its very nature violent
and state-seeking. I have no interest in dwelling on this question. It is
simply a manifestation of nefarious prejudice.

Unity: The question of Salafis—non-Salafis takes me to another point. It seems to me that the
perhaps millions of Muslims who are now demonstrating against government
actions are, as already said, by no means coming from a specific religious
outlook. We all know that there were some stark differences in purely
theological and ritual matters among some Muslims in Ethiopia. And these
differences were almost always reflecting themselves in generational terms. But
according to many local sources, the protests,
although hugely dominated by the youth (like any other modern social movement),
haven’t, however, been confined to them. Nor have they been limited to one
school of thought. Nor has gender difference been notable. The government’s bizarre
policy of religious imposition and abuse of Muslim institutions seem to have garnered
strong support for the causes promoted by the committee members across
sectarian and social divisions. [It is true that the Ahbash
(considered “alien” by the vast majority of Muslims) wouldn’t be
expected to side with the protesting Muslims as the movement itself was
initiated by the anti-secularist polices of the government-Ahbash
coalition]. And the movement is now rapidly spreading to each and every major
mosque in every district in Ethiopia. Hence, all in all, it seems that
Ethiopian Muslims are increasingly getting united in the face of the government
infringement on their religious rights.

Discipline: The Ethiopian Muslim youth have been
fearless in their confrontation with the government forces but they have also
been remarkably disciplined. Discipline may refer to many things, but I have in
mind their loyalty and obedience to their leaders and their words. They have come
out for each demonstration only when they have been commanded to and have done
things according to the injunctions they have received. This has been the case
both during the committee’s leadership and after the latter’s arrest, when the leadership
role was taken over by a facebook group Dimtsachin Yisema. There has
almost never been a meaningful sign of confusion, disarray, dilemma or
rebellion. When so many people in diverse places carry out injunctions with unmatched
perfection (despite some disagreements sometimes with those injunctions, by the
way), it turns out to be surely worth-noting, but probably astounding, too.

Remarkable
leadership: The
note on obedience can never be complete without a note on the leadership. Well,
all the above-mentioned wonderful qualities of the movement were to a large
extent the fruits of the committee members. They have instilled in their
followers sense of courage and moderateness, persistence and non-violence,
religiosity and sense of responsibility. These commendable traits have been
demonstrated in the leaders’ behaviors and speeches before those of the other
protestors.

Innovation: But one thing I really found most
unique has been the protesting styles of the activists. Apart from the loud
calls for the upholding of the constitution, symbolic protests have also been
carried out throughout the country. These include boycotting some mosques, silent
collective physical demonstrations of defiance, and symbolic waving of papers.
The first has meant to demonstrate the size of the movement and to send a
message of fury to the pro-regime Imams. The second has symbolized defiance and
unity. The third has stood for warning or peace or referred to the defiled
articles of the constitution. In addition to their deep meanings, some of these
measures have also been used to avoid government repression by depriving it of
any pretext to logically stop the movement. In the final analysis, these
actions have not only exhibited the level of maturity of the protestors and
their leaders, but also the magnitude, determination and peacefulness of them.

The Ethiopian
Muslim civil rights activists are indeed deserving of being called the “bastions
of democracy in the country” for:

[t]heir unsubduable behavior has created an immensely empowering
political climate in the country. Their unshattarable
unity has given many a good reason to imagine a post-divided Ethiopia. Their
freedom-induced fury and chaos-phobic discipline are the very marrows of
democracy. The Ethiopian Muslims are coming out of this year-long journey as a
new brand of strong, assertive, post-violent, and unified locations of
anti-authoritarian force (Alemu, 2013).

I think
those of us who have had high stakes in Ethiopian politics—activists or
observers—need to alert ourselves to the fact that the time has come to humble
ourselves before these fast-transformed new generation of Ethiopian activists.