political role. The most serious attack came after the land reform. When it
lost its land, which passed under government control, the national church
also lost its main source of income. A strategy of control followed these
attacks. Patriarch Tewoflos was arrested in February 1976 (and eventually
executed on 28 July 1979), and many archbishops who were opposed to the
revolution were imprisoned. Under pressure from the government, the Holy
Synod elected Tekle Haymanot II, a clergyman loyal to the Derg, as the new
patriarch (Eide 2000, 111–12). The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
was a key player, and the Derg needed to secure its collaboration if it wanted
to govern Ethiopia. Thus, although the state was officially secular, the former
official religion, while being subject to the regime, enjoyed a privileged status
(Eide 2000, 162, 166). Furthermore, as the historian Stéphane Ancel has
shown, the church managed to “meet the immense challenge” posed by the
revolution by reforming itself to “consolidate its financial base and improve
its mode of operation” (Ancel 2015, 687–88). At the same time, the Muslim
authorities were also brought into line. In 1977, one of the sons of Imam Hadji
Mohammed Sani Habib of the Anwar Great Mosque in Addis Ababa was
assassinated, and the other was imprisoned. From then on, the imam appeared
at official ceremonies alongside Mengestu Haile-Mariam, having been forced
into docility (Eide 2000, 113).

Before the revolution, the central government had believed that religious
and national unity were inseparable. Professing Tewahedo Christianity was
seen by the political and ecclesiastical authorities as an indivisible part of the
Ethiopian identity. Protestantism, on the other hand, was an imported reli-
gion, and its proponents were suspected of not being entirely loyal citizens. The
Derg inherited the previous regime's view that Protestantism might create
a distinct identity and prejudice national cohesion, but it conceived the idea
differently: owing to their links with European and North American churches,
the Protestant churches were accused of being agents of imperialism and
enemies of the revolution (Eide 2000, 200). And, by April 1976, the NDRE's
programme made it clear that the new education was to liberate Ethiopia from
imperialist cultural domination.<fnref n="12" /> This reveals a certain ambivalence around
the issue of nationalities. The Derg claimed that it gave an equal place to each
of them, and respected and defended their cultures, and Protestantism had
been incorporated by the people of the south, whose identities it had helped
to rebuild after the integration into Ethiopia. *Kale Hiwot* was an Ethiopian
Church, and was financially independent of foreign missions. No followers
of *Kale Hiwot* were part of any separatist movement. However, suspicions of
disloyalty were supported by the old idea of the connection between Tewahedo

<footnote n="12">¹²Programme of the National Democratic Revolution of Ethiopia, in MOE, *Basic Information on Education in Ethiopia* (1977), 4.</footnote>
Christianity and nationhood, while at the same time being reactivated by more
recent views on the dangers of Western imperialism (Donham 1999, 145).

According to a member of *Kale Hiwot*, the Derg attacked Protestant churches because they had educated the people of the south and made them fit for positions of power: attacks on their religion had the aim of marginalising them. This is in line with the view that the Wolaita always had to fight for their place in the nation under adverse conditions in which those in power, both locally and nationally, tried to prevent them from doing so.<fnref n="13" /> Did the Derg wanted to prevent people who had been educated by missionaries or in Ethiopian Protestant churches from taking up important positions because it doubted their patriotism? While it may be true that the Protestant churches had educated the rural people of Wolaita, and that this had enabled them to improve their status within the nation by partially emancipating themselves from their dominated position, the sociology of government members under the Derg does not enable us to make the claim that the Wolaita, or any other member of a southern nationality, were prevented from holding positions of power because of their identity. The attacks on *Kale Hiwot* are much better understood in terms of the advance of the state and its hold over the population. In 1975, SIM missionaries were operating 40 schools, and *Kale Hiwot's* education network included 280 village primary schools in Wolaita, other parts of the Sidamo region, Kambatta and Gamo-Goffa (Fargher 1996, 301). Given its school project, it is hard to imagine the Derg leaving so many schools outside its control. Taking over *Kale Hiwot's* schools and churches enabled the Derg to eliminate an important competitor in the field of education and to take possession of a network whose reach extended into the heart of village communities. In Wolaita, at the time of the revolution, the city was the domain of the state, while the countryside was a Protestant domain. The functions of the network of churches were worship, education and supervision of the converted populations. With more than 700 churches, which were also organised village communities, it had a continuing coverage of rural areas. The Derg systematically relied on the structures of the Protestant churches and their social seedbed to gain a hold in the countryside. Instead of the distant control of Protestant churches imposed by Haile Selassie's regime, the Derg simply took their place. This is why the 748 churches in Wolaita were closed in 1984 and 1985 and their schools confiscated. Some were destroyed, while others were converted into government schools or premises for peasant associations and other mass organisations (Balisky 2009, 320).

<footnote n="13">¹³ Abebe Fola, interview, December 2009.</footnote>
### 1.3. *The ambivalent attitude of Protestants*

How did Protestants, and teachers in particular, react to this policy? The teachers were the educated elite of the countryside, and many of them were true educational activists who wanted to uplift their community spiritually—reading gave direct access to the word—and politically within the nation. In order to understand their attitude towards the Derg, one has to take its double-edged policy—anti-religion and pro-education—into consideration.

According to a former teacher and school headmaster, Protestants harboured a deep aversion to the form of Marxism-Leninism professed by the regime, due not only to its atheism, but also, and above all, because of the Derg's aggressive policy towards their churches.<fnref n="14" /> At the same time, however, the Derg's educational policy meant an end to the administrative inconveniences involved in opening schools in rural areas. Abebe Fola, a devout member of the congregation at the *Kale Hiwot* Church and a tireless campaigner for rural schooling, makes a clear distinction between the repression of churches and the removal of obstructions to school-building. After explaining that the Derg had been very hard on the Protestants, he recalled that unlike its predecessor, it had allowed them to spread education as far as they were able, and that they had seized this opportunity.<fnref n="15" /> Yaluse Mita, a member of the first generation of Wolaita women who attended school, and a fervent Protestant, makes the same observation: “Concerning school, nothing was forbidden, the Derg did not forbid anything.”<fnref n="16" /> In spite of the repression of their church, Protestant teachers were very active in the field of public education during the entire time the Derg was in power.

Yaluse Mita's journey is a good illustration of this. She completed Grade 8 at the SIM missionary school, the Soddo Christian Academy. After temporarily interrupting her studies to marry and have children, she completed Grade 12 at the government secondary school in Soddo before moving to Addis Ababa to attend the Kotebe Teacher Training College. With her diploma in hand, she returned to Wolaita to teach at Soddo Secondary School from the 1977-78 school year, as soon as the school reopened following the Red Terror. She taught at the government secondary school throughout the Derg period, and also worked in the countryside outside working hours, teaching literacy to peasant women.<fnref n="17" /> The example of Zebdewos Chama is also symbolic. He attended the Soddo Christian Academy from 1954 to 1961 and then taught mathematics there. He completed Grade 12 in 1972 by attending summer

<footnote n="14">¹⁴Elias Damtew (teacher, school headmaster, expert at the Department of Culture of the Wolaita area), interview, Soddo, 11 October 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">¹⁵Abebe Fola, interview, December 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">¹⁶Yaluse Mita, interview, November 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">¹⁷Ibid.</footnote>
school at Addis Ababa University. In 1973, he was appointed headmaster of the junior high school in Alete Wondo, about 100 kilometres south of Wolaita. The following year, the year of the revolution, he was appointed director of the Ottona School, the former Soddo Christian Academy, which had just been transferred to the government. From 1983 to 1988, he was vice-principal of Soddo Secondary School. During the last 18 months of the Derg he was administrator of the Konta wereda.<fnref n="18" />

In fact, Protestants were pivotal actors of the educational field in Wolaita. The Soddo Christian Academy offered a good level of education, and many former students went on to careers in the education sector. According to Yaluse Mita: “those who were educated there were brilliant. They did a great deal for education in Ethiopia.”<fnref n="19" /> Admittedly, teaching was an unpopular career route, which many chose for lack of better alternatives (Tekeste 1990, 26). However, interviews in the field reveal that teaching could be a real vocation. It was as if the Protestant work ethic had been invested in education with a view to promoting the people of the region.

### 1.4. *Catholics: the choice of cooperation*

In 1974, Catholic missionaries were running five schools in Wolaita, led by an Italian Capuchin missionary, Abba Gino.<fnref n="20" /> Unlike the case of the Protestants, these were not a multitude of primary schools teaching the first four grades at best and living on a shoestring of contributions from the faithful, but rather a limited number of schools financed by the Catholic Church, with adequate resources and usually better-trained Ethiopian teachers than in government schools. The Catholic School in Dubbo, which provided education up to Grade 8, was one of the three prestigious schools in Wolaita, the others being the Ligaba Beyene Government School and the Soddo Christian Academy. Wolaita and Hadiya were united in the vicariate of Soddo-Hosa'enna, which had 18,000 followers in 1970. Catholic schools were attended by children of all faiths. Under Haile Selassie's regime, relations between the Catholic missions and the administration were very good: the Catholic Church was much less independent than the Protestants and worked in symbiosis with the government. What was the state of relations between the Derg and the Catholics at the local level? This is what Abba Gino has to say:

> It was hard, but... for us, for the Catholic Church [...], though it was difficult, we preferred to remain here, and not to oppose the Derg system, or socialist system. Anyway, nobody forced us to teach socialism, or to teach something against our

<footnote n="18">¹⁸Zebdewos Chama, interview, November 2010.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹Yaluse Mita (teacher), interview, Soddo, 2 November 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="20">²⁰Catholic Vicariate of Soddo, *Details of Schools under Soddo-Hosanna Catholic Church Diocese*.</footnote>
believing. [...] But we started with this principle: any system has got its own good and is even bad. Even in the system of socialism, I found place for good things, for a good cooperation. And I know that so many schools were closed, even the Protestant or other people because they wanted to oppose. I myself was one of the individuals of the committee of the revolution, because I was responsible for all the youth and the sport in the *wereda*. I preferred to work with the government in these things which are important for us, like helping the poor. Even the socialism is concerned about that. [...] There is a room for a good cooperation. And we did that, and that's why our school continued and still, even during the Derg, we were quite well appreciated by the government. And we always, I myself always tried to be in a good collaboration with the authorities.<fnref n="21" />

The Ethiopian Catholic father Wolde-Yesus Wolde-Giorgis paints a similar picture. He maintains that there was no tension between the Catholics and the Derg. No schools were confiscated by the government, which even encouraged them to establish new ones. In his view, the Derg did not oppose their religious teachings because they conveyed a moral sense of obedience. They were not encouraged to teach Marxism-Leninism, except by local officials who wanted to be well thought of by their superiors. In fact, special political education classes were held on Saturdays and Sundays, whereas in government schools they were a daily event.<fnref n="22" />

Why these collaborative relationships? First of all because the local Catholics were accommodating and showed a desire to cooperate with the revolutionary regime. But the Protestants had done the same before they were subjected to the regime's discriminatory measures, and if the concern was about the patriotism of the faithful, the Catholic Church was also a foreign church, after all. Indeed, two decades earlier, had allegations of Catholicism not been the main accusation levelled at government schools and their imported programmes by those who opposed them? But this mistrust was linked to Europe's colonial expansion and the threat it had posed to Ethiopia in the first half of the century. In the 1970s, the enemy was no longer European colonialism but American imperialism, with which Protestants might be associated. Above all, the Catholic Church was not viewed as a competitor by the administration. It did not have the leadership capacity *Kale Hiwot* had in the countryside that the Derg wished to conquer. With their elite schools working hand in hand with the administration, the educational work of the Catholics was obviously not seen in the same light as the hundreds of Protestant educational centres scattered throughout the countryside, which often shunned the administration's gaze, and which were to be used by the poor, the “masses,” whom the Derg wished to be certain to capture.

<footnote n="21">²¹ Abba Gino (Capuchin missionary), interview, Soddo, 12 December 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="22">²² Abba Wolde-Yesus Wolde-Giorgis (Catholic priest), interview, Soddo, 10 October 2009.</footnote>
In short, the school network grew steadily in the first decade of the Derg's rule. Catholic schools remained in place, and collaboration with the government continued smoothly. On the other hand, the rural schools run by the local Protestant churches were requisitioned by the government in a genuine state takeover of local school structures. At the same time, Protestants remained active in education by teaching and running schools. Rural Protestant communities took advantage of the Derg's school expansion policy to build schools under the authority of the government, something that had been far more difficult under the previous regime, which had often refused to grant their schools legal status. In general, as elsewhere in the country, peasant communities were given the responsibility of building new schools.

**2. Community participation**

In order to understand the relationship between rural communities and schools, it is necessary to look at the structures put in place by the regime to ensure long-term cooperation with the inhabitants above and beyond the construction of school buildings. In a brochure published in 1984 by the Ministry of Education to mark the tenth anniversary of the revolution, educationist Geoffrey Last wrote:

> The new attitude towards education and the new role of education imply new relationships between the community and educational services. Ensuring free, step-by-step education for all the masses requires a high level of cooperation between communities organised in peasant associations and the government, hence the creation of committees.<fnref n="23" />

By the time this booklet was published, the school committees that were established in each school from 1976 onwards had over the course of a decade or so become the key institutions for the functioning of schools and their relationship with communities.

**2.1. School committees: school management and administration**

Proclamation number 54 of 1975 on the nationalisation of private schools specified that every school was to establish a committee responsible for internal administration, and that this administration was to be in accordance with the directives of the Ministry of Education.<fnref n="24" /> But it was in Proclamation number 103 of 1976 on “The Administration and Control of Schools by the People” that the tasks and duties of school committees were defined in detail. They were aimed at “the integration of education into the life of the

<footnote n="23">²³MOE, *Education in Socialist Ethiopia*... (1984), 16.</footnote>

<footnote n="24">²⁴"Public Ownership of Private Schools, Proclamation no. 54/1975", in MOE, *Basic Information on Education in Ethiopia* (1977), 14–15.</footnote>
people.”<fnref n="25" /> Officially, the objective was to integrate the activities of schools into those of the communities while also ensuring close ties with the school and political authorities; in other words, it was to involve the local population and coordinate all the schools in the system. As a result, the remit of each school committee was:

> to supervise generally the running of the school in accordance with the directives issued by the Minister; [...] to advise and assist the school to reflect in its programmes the culture of the people; [...] to co-ordinate the school and village with a view to ensuring that education is not confined to the classroom and that it is integrated with practice.<fnref n="26" />

The pivotal function assigned to school committees applied in the first place to finance. They had to manage the budget allocated by the Ministry of Education, encourage a school to generate its own income and coordinate communities to contribute financially to the running of the schools. As teacher Afework Ayalew recalls: “There were many schools in the countryside. At the time, the government opened various schools, and considering its budget, I don’t think it could afford them all, so it handed over the expenses to the communities.” He also recalls the way expenses were shared between the government and the communities:

> Under the Derg, the government didn’t give a penny to the school; it only paid the teachers’ salaries and paid for the books. But we needed pens, notebooks to prepare lessons and the annual plan. For these different expenses, it was the community, the people who paid, the families of the pupils.<fnref n="27" />

However, it could happen that the communities paid the teachers’ salaries where they were employed locally, without being assigned by the Ministry of Education. The committees had the power “to employ teachers and other workers using money allocated by the government or any other income generated.”<fnref n="28" />

In reality, the state was broadly responsible for most of the expenditure. In 1989–90, the school budget for the whole of Wolaita totalled 7,502,513 ber: 6,672,283 ber from the government, 280,365 ber from student contributions, 78,659 ber from community cash contributions, 128,166 ber from estimated labour contributions, 134,448 ber generated by the school and 208,592 ber

<footnote n="25">²⁵“Administration and Control of the Schools by the People Proclamation no. 103/1976”; in ibid., 27.</footnote>

<footnote n="26">²⁶Ibid., 29–30.</footnote>

<footnote n="27">²⁷Afework Ayalew, interview, February 2007.</footnote>

<footnote n="28">²⁸“Administration and Control of the Schools by the People Proclamation no. 103/1976”; in MOE, *Basic Information on Education in Ethiopia* (1977), 29–30.</footnote>
classified as ‘other’—probably international aid.<fnref n="29" /> The state thus provided almost 90% of the region’s school expenditure, but this does not mean that the contributions were not a burden for communities.

The multiple functions assigned to the school by the government converged in the committees. A reading of their attributions and duties immediately reveals tensions that can give rise to different interpretations. On the one hand, it was necessary, to ensure that village communities took ownership of the school so that it would no longer be an alien body in society.

> In the old reactionary socio-economic order, [...] the creativity of the broad masses was neglected, administration was centralised with the result that the schools were made responsible to far-off administrative set-ups and teachers and students were detached from the broad masses.<fnref n="30" />

For education to take root in the lives of the population, the committees had to involve the communities in the definition of school activities, which would both link education to production and “democratise” education. At the same time, they needed to ensure that the Ministry of Education’s guidelines were implemented. They were at the service of highly vertical top-down institutional integration. As the discourse went, this was not a contradiction in terms. In theory, the “democratic centralism” adopted by the regime assumed that information, ideas and proposals should come from the bottom up, before top-down decision-making and centralised implementation. However, the proclamations establishing the school committees were silent about any possible two-way vertical circulation or joint development of school programmes and activities by village communities and the central government. The two dynamics, democratic and authoritarian, were presented in a disjointed manner.

## 2.2. Educational structures: territorial coverage and social control

The tensions that arose between the democratic and authoritarian potential of school committees were resolved in favour of the latter to make schools one of the structures of the administrative network that were set up throughout the country. In a 1986 article, education historian Teshome Wagaw referred to a gradual shift of school committees towards authoritarianism (Teshome 1986, 39). However, when we read about their composition and powers rather than their attributions and duties, we have to wonder whether school committees were ever thought of in any other way than as instruments of social control. First of all, there was their make-up: the committees consisted

<footnote n="29">²⁹Soddo Zurya wereda, የወላይታ አውራጃ የትምህርት የትምህርት ስታትስቲክስ ማጠቃላይ ጥራዝ (School Statistics of Wolaita Awraja, 1989–1990).</footnote>

<footnote n="30">³⁰“Administration and Control of Schools by the People, Proclamation no. 103/1976,” in MOE, *Basic Information on Education in Ethiopia* (1977), 25.</footnote>
of representatives of the peasants’ association or the urban dwellers association, a teacher’s representative elected by his peers, the school headmaster and, in secondary schools, a student representative aged over 16, elected by his schoolmates.<fnref n="31" /> The committees were therefore composed of members of the local administration and school stakeholders. From the outset, one cannot help but note the absence of members of the “community,” unless one believes that the members of the peasants’ associations were sufficient to represent it. Surprisingly, parents were not mentioned in the article on the composition of school committees. A short article on parents stated that parents’ representatives could be members of a committee if there was no peasants’ association or residents’ association.<fnref n="32" /> The interviews revealed the absence of parents of pupils who were not leaders of peasant or mass associations. Those who sat on the school committees were all regime officials, and representatives of the school’s pedagogical team were in the minority.<fnref n="33" /> In short, schools appeared to be in a close partnership with the local administration rather than the community. The eligibility requirements meant that candidates were supporters of the revolution, and were not among the “privileged members” of the overthrown regime. They had to support the programme of the National Democratic Revolution, not have owned more than 10 hectares of land before the land reform, and not have owned any additional houses before the nationalisation of urban land.<fnref n="34" /> Finally, the committees were subject to the authority of non-educational government departments: “The peasant associations of the cantons and provinces and the central associations of the neighbourhood associations coordinate the activities of the committees within their jurisdiction.”<fnref n="35" />

The proclamations of 1975 and 1976 defined the powers of school committees in two stages. Article 7 of Proclamation number 54 of 1975 on the nationalisation of private schools stated as follows:

> The school committee shall have legal personality and the power to: 1) enter into contracts; 2) open bank accounts and draw money therefrom; 3) sue and be sued in its own name; 4) employ, administer and dismiss its own staff; 5) determine school fees; 6) operate, expand and maintain the school handed over to it; and 7) receive assistance in accordance with directives issued by the Ministry.<fnref n="36" />

<footnote n="31">³¹Ibid., 27–28.</footnote>

<footnote n="32">³²Ibid., 29.</footnote>

<footnote n="33">³³Tesfaw Derebe, interview, February 2007; Mantagosh Eshete (teacher), interview, Lalibela, 14 February 2007.</footnote>

<footnote n="34">³⁴"Administration and Control of Schools by People's Proclamation no. 103/1976", in MOE, *Basic Information on Education in Ethiopia* (1977), 33–34.</footnote>

<footnote n="35">³⁵Ibid., 34.</footnote>

<footnote n="36">³⁶"Public Ownership of Private Schools Proclamation no. 54/1975", in MOE, *Basic Information on Education in Ethiopia* (1977), 15.</footnote>
They were incorporated as legal persons for administrative acts and provided with specific powers to administer schools. They appeared to be endowed with a certain degree of autonomy. However, in Article 9, the Ministry of Education reserved the right to determine fees, which meant an overlap with the powers of the committees. In practice, by virtue of their financial powers, the committees had real room for manoeuvre, which allowed each one to adjust tuition fees to balance the needs of the school and the resources of the community.<fnref n="37" /> One year later, Article 10 of Proclamation number 103 of 1976 on “The Administration and Control of Schools by the People” greatly expanded their powers:

1) The committee shall have the following powers with regard to school workers, teachers and students: a) to give warnings; b) to suspend either from work or school for not more than fifteen days; c) to impose fines not exceeding two months' pay; d) to dismiss from the school anyone who fails to be corrected after repeated warnings and punishments; e) to have any damaged property of the school reinstated or made good.

2) Before taking measures pursuant to its powers under sub-article (1) of this article, the committee may give every opportunity to wrongdoers to criticize themselves and to improve their behaviour;

3) The committee shall have its decisions executed by the public welfare committee of urban dwellers' associations or by the defence squads of peasant associations or by the police, as the case may be.<fnref n="38" />

A clear definition of an institution's powers gave it authority while also establishing its limits, which might avoid the arbitrary practice of power. The ability to define wrongdoing and punish it was specific to the established authorities, and schools were among them. In practice, the repressive powers of the committees were very extensive. While suspensions and exclusions for misconduct were a part of the customary attributions of any institution with employees, deductions from wages—which were very extensive in this case—were rarer. In addition to being made up of a majority of members from local government bodies, the committees had the right to call on the militias to enforce their sanctions. These characteristics and powers of the committees placed schools between the ideological and repressive apparatus. This is still the case—pedagogy always involves repression to a greater or lesser extent—but here the position occupied by the repressive function was particularly extensive. School committees were endowed with significant coercive resources that made them instruments of social control associated with

<footnote n="37">³⁷ Afework Tadesse (teacher), interview, Lalibela, 10 February 2007.</footnote>

<footnote n="38">³⁸ “Administration and Control of the Schools by the People, Proclamation no. 103/1976,” in MOE, *Basic Information on Education in Ethiopia* (1977), 30–31.</footnote>
peasant and mass associations, three institutions that enabled a tightly-woven network of social control and multiplied their effects.

Paragraph 2 on self-criticism and the correction of conduct immediately brings to mind individuals' public acknowledgment of their supposed "deviations" as practised in dictatorships claiming to be Marxist-Leninist.<fnref n="39" /> It was a question of repressing political rather than professional faults. By virtue of the ideological function assigned to education and the desire to educate all the masses with a view to shaping them, it was essential to closely monitor what was happening within the school walls, to limit the relative autonomy of the school space. By placing a majority of people from outside the school and members of the local administration on the committees, the state gave itself the opportunity to look inside the school. Schools had been the main areas of contention under the previous regime, and between 1976 and 1978, during the Red Terror, the struggle for control of the school space had been a political issue of prime importance. The preamble to Proclamation number 103 of 1976 stated that the reactionary forces in schools had to be fought against, a declaration that targeted the civilian Marxist opposition to the military regime at the dawn of the Red Terror.<fnref n="40" /> Once the opposition had been crushed, this proclamation was maintained in order to prohibit any criticism of the regime in schools, which were to remain under state control at all costs.

The repressive powers of the committees greatly limited teachers' room for manoeuvre. It was essential to control the knowledge and attitudes transmitted by the men and women who had been entrusted with the task of educating future generations. It was largely through the circulation of young teachers in the country's schools that the culture of political opposition had spread before the revolution. It was also those who had a school education that had opposed the military regime most fiercely in its early years: the teachers had experienced their schooling in a situation of political turmoil that the Derg needed to tame. An event that occurred at a school in Addis Ababa in 1983 gives an idea of the pressure placed on teachers.<fnref n="41" /> Bealu Germa's novel *Oromay*—which rapidly became a success, and a major classic of Ethiopian literature—had just been published. During a class, a teacher of Amharic urged his students to read the new work by the famous novelist. The book was critical of the regime's uncompromising policy towards Eritrea, however, and a few days later, the government banned the novel and ordered its withdrawal from sale. The very

<footnote n="39">³⁹ A scene of public self-criticism can be found in Ethiopian director Haile Germa's film *B4* (Téza), released in 2008, which looks back at the early years of the Ethiopian revolution.</footnote>

<footnote n="40">⁴⁰ "Administration and Control of the Schools by the People, Proclamation no. 103/1976," in MOE, *Basic Information on Education in Ethiopia* (1977), 25.</footnote>

<footnote n="41">⁴¹ An anecdote reported by Minale Sissay, who was an eyewitness of the event as a pupil (interview, Addis Ababa, 18 November 2010).</footnote>
next day, the teacher, visibly tense, told his pupils that he had taken the wrong book and that he had intended to talk about another work by Bealu Germa, *KeAdmas BeShager*. Some months later, on 14 February 1984, Bealu Germa was abducted on the street and disappeared.

### 3. The drivers of demand for schooling

In the space of five years, between the 1977–78 and 1982–83 school years, the number of students attending Wolaita’s primary and secondary schools increased from 42,665 to 131,268.<fnref n="42" /> The constraining and oppressive effects of forced participation in the construction and maintenance of schools, as well as the social control exercised by the schools, were mitigated by the communities’ desire for schooling.

#### 3.1. Affirmation of demand for schools

To explain this movement towards schools, teacher Yemesrach Alula begins by linking the literacy campaign to the people’s investment in formal schooling:

> በደርግ ጊዜ ወላይታ ላይ ትምህርትን ለማስፋፋት ብዙ ጥረቶች ተደርገዋል። በመሰረተ ትምህርት ማእቀፍ የመማር እድል ያላገኙ የማህበረሰብ ክፍሎች ለምሳሌ የቤት እመቤቶች፣ የአርሶ አደር ልጆች፣ የዝቅተኛ ቤተሰብ ልጆች፣ እንዲሁም ጎልማሶች ትምህርት እንዲያገኙ ተደርጓል ። ትምህርት በሕዝብ ውስጥ የሰረጸበት ውቅት ነበር። [...] በተለይም በሂደት የትምህርትን ጥቅም ማህበረሰቡ እየተገነዘበ ሲመጣ ወጣት አዛውንት ሳይል በሱራ ተነሳሽነት ወደ ትምህርት ቤት መሄድ ኵመረ ።

During the Derg era in Wolaita, significant efforts were dedicated to the expansion of schooling. In the realm of basic education, segments of society previously deprived of learning opportunities—including housewives, farmers’ children, and those from economically disadvantaged families, including adults—were provided with educational opportunities. This marked a period when education began to take root within the population. [...] Notably, as awareness of the benefits of education spread throughout society, both the young and the elderly initiated their own attendance at schools.<fnref n="43" />

Yemesrach Alula is discussing a variety of intertwined subjects here, some of which have already been discussed at length in the chapter on the literacy campaign: the regime showed the greatest interest in providing education for all and education affected social profiles that were thought to be definitively excluded from any educational action. In so doing, she rightly connects the literacy campaign with formal education. When she recalls that “the young and the elder” went to school, she is referring to both literacy centres and

<footnote n="42">⁴²WZEO, ከ1967ዑ. ም እስከ 1975ዑ. ም ድረስ በወላይታ በወላይታ አውራጃ የተማሪዎች በዛት (Number of pupils in Wolaita Awraja from 1974–75 to 1982–83).</footnote>

<footnote n="43">⁴³Yemesrach Alula, interview, December 2009.</footnote>
formal schools. She thinks of education as a general phenomenon. On the other hand, while mass literacy and the large-scale construction of primary schools happened at the same time, the literacy campaign had to last for a finite period. The final goal to be achieved, beyond the eradication of illiteracy, was universal primary education. It was necessary to “equip adults with the knowledge needed to build a new society and economy, and educate young people to continue this work.”<fnref n="44" /> For some, literacy was a first step towards formal education. A literacy certificate allowed direct entry into grade 3 or 4. Many children, as well as adults, took advantage of this opportunity. More importantly, in the longer term, the pedagogues at the Ministry of Education believed that literate families would be more likely to enrol their children in primary school. Indeed, the interviews testify to the fact that thanks to the literacy campaign, families became accustomed to school education and integrated it into their social practices. Schools lost their strangeness.

While the literacy campaign and the expansion of primary schooling were conceived jointly by the government, they did not imply the same level of commitment on the part of the population. Sending one or more children to school for long-term schooling was a far greater constraint than literacy classes, which took place for three to four months a year over one or two years. Formal education took up entire years and dramatically limited a child's participation in a family's economic activities. One more step needed to be taken in the investment of government policy: a more profound transformation in attitudes towards schooling, despite the economic constraints on peasant families.

It seems that this step was taken. Although universal schooling was not achieved, as religious teacher Afememeher Allebachew recalls, “those who did not go [to school] could not … All farmers saw an interest in their children studying, even those who did not send them to school. [...] But there were problems, the cows, the goats, and no one to look after them.”<fnref n="45" /> To cope with the overcrowding caused by the rapid growth of the school system, the Ministry of Education had to introduce a rotation system: half the pupils went to class in the morning, and the other half in the afternoon. This made it easier to enrol the children of peasants, who were available for half the day to fulfil their roles in their family’s economic life.

Teacher Yemesrach Alula confirms the transformation of school representations and practices by placing the population right at the heart of the educational dynamic. This makes it possible to make further advances in an analysis of the appropriation of education by the population. In her words, communities were no longer simply “awakened” after having been “forced.”

<footnote n="44">⁴⁴MOE, *Education in Socialist Ethiopia*.. (1984), 16.</footnote>

<footnote n="45">⁴⁵Afememeher Allebachew (history teacher in the school system of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church), interview, Lalibela, 9 February 2007.</footnote>
The progress of education was made possible because the population wanted it, through a convergence between voluntary state action and a social dynamic, without which no education policy can function (Prost 1992). Yemesrach Alula uses a formula in Amharic—temhert behezb west yeseretsebet weqt neber—which, for want of a better term, is translated here as “it was a time when education took root within the population,” but its evocative force is difficult to transpose. The term *seretse* refers to a specific sociocultural process: a phenomenon that grows within a group as the effect of collective action by its members until it becomes a regular, collective and commonly shared “social fact.”<fnref n="46" /> Yemesrach Alula therefore describes the advance of education as the result of a social and cultural fermentation in farming communities as much as state action. What were the driving forces behind this social dynamic towards education encountered by the Derg policy?

In actual fact, the Derg's proactive school policy reinforced and accelerated a fundamental movement towards schooling that dated back to the early 1960s, with a gap between the city and the countryside. The way some rural families began to move towards schools before the revolution has been described above. The initial impetus for this process was the increasing numbers of village schools brought about by Governor Germame Neway in 1958–59, the rise of Protestantism and the aspirations for social ascension of young Wolaita who wanted to leave the marginalisation of the countryside. In the mid-1960s, rural society began to see young people leaving their villages to study and become salaried civil servants, liberated from both the uncertainties of the harvest and the extractive and repressive violence of the state. As a result of these examples, schooling gradually began to attract more attention. While opportunities for upward social mobility began to diminish from the mid-1960s, the effects on school practices lagged behind. Anjulo Agago was an illiterate peasant who became moderately literate during the literacy campaign. However, when the campaign arrived in his village of Dubbo, his son Arjo was already in Grade 8.<fnref n="47" /> This poor peasant family—who had not converted to Protestantism, which was one of the main driving forces behind schooling—enrolled at least one of their sons in school in the early 1970s. This shows that demand for schooling was in the making in the countryside before the revolution, and was beginning to include non-Protestants. These were the embers on which the Derg's literacy campaign, school-building and education propaganda began to blow.

This increased ownership of schools must also be understood in the light of the transformation of power structures. Power had always been exercised

<footnote n="46">⁴⁶I am grateful to Kidane-Mariam Wolde-Giorgis who clarified for me the meaning of this expression.</footnote>

<footnote n="47">⁴⁷Arjo Anjulo, interview, December 2010.</footnote>
in an authoritarian manner, but it had changed its face. Institutions were no longer seen as instruments at the service of the lords, whose lands had been expropriated by the agrarian reform. Greater proximity to the organs of power, of which schools were a part, was achieved—at least temporarily. While the policy of bringing rural people in closer contact with schools by mobilising them was achieved with a certain amount of coercion and school committees were instruments of social control, feelings towards the institutions changed, and they became less alien. In addition, the discourse around the promotion of peasants and nationalities, which was based on a broader and more inclusive vision, initiated a shift in the way rural communities viewed the nation. School was still the school of power, but it was no longer the school of the “Amhara” alone. The boundary that delimited the legitimate space of belonging to the national political community became easier to cross, as did the doors of the school.

Finally, it does seem that schooling was encouraged by the broader spread of an aspiration for progress. Teacher Abraham Worku testifies to this:

> The general feeling [that education was important] came in the reign of the Derg. The Derg established a school in every village. [...] So, at that time, everybody sent their children. There were literacy courses, there were formal schools. Formal schooling was highly developed during the Derg. And people stood for education. They were away from technology and other worlds. Here, there was no communication, after we learned... your country has gone through many developments... European countries... we learned. We didn't see but in our minds, we learned about Europeans, Western countries and Eastern countries. What are we? What are we this time? We are too late!<fnref n="48" />

It was a desire to improve living conditions more than just an aspiration to imitate the “Europeans.” Abraham Worku is, of course, a teacher who has been around schools since the 1960s. However, he seems to be bearing witness to an expansion of this idea to a wider section of the population. It had been promoted by Governor Wolde-Samaet Gebre-Wold, albeit with less intensity, as early as the 1960s. The Derg then carried out an unprecedented intensification of the discourse on “development,” in which education occupied a central place. The advance of schools and the speeches that accompanied it showed possibilities for improving living conditions and attractive prospects for escaping poverty that had not been envisaged until then. Before the famine of 1985, these prospects seemed accessible, even though their contours may have remained blurred.

<footnote n="48">⁴⁸ Abraham Worku, interview, January 2011.</footnote>
3.2. *The more problematic schooling of girls*

In 1977, the Ministry of Education announced that one of its priorities was to significantly increase participation in the school system by girls and women (Ayelew 2000, 45). Nationally, between 1978 and 1988, girls increased from 32% to 38% of primary school enrolments, and from 24% to 38% of secondary school enrolments, revealing a limited increase at the primary level compared to the regime's announced policy of promoting girls' education. The increase was more significant at secondary level, although the statistics collected in Wolaita are difficult to interpret because of apparent inconsistencies. Firstly, the percentage of girls enrolling appears to be slightly below the national average. In 1977–78, girls accounted for 20% of primary school students.<fnref n="49" /> In 1989–90, the rate was higher, at around 35%, but still slightly below the national figures. For the same school year, the statistics are more precise: they distinguish between towns and rural areas, and show important differences. In the *wereda* of Soddo Zuria, girls made up 46% of the school population in the cities, against 29% in the countryside. The same percentages are found in the neighbouring *wereda* of Damot Gale.<fnref n="50" /> Conversely, the number of girls taking the primary school leaving examination appears to be much higher than the national average. In 1985–86, at the school in Soddo Ber, 264 girls out of 545 pupils took the national examination, comprising 48% of the candidates. This was a significant increase, as in 1978–79 only 21% of the candidates were girls. The rate in 1985–86 was higher than the national rate of 38% (Gennet 1991, 92).

In spite of some inconsistencies, these statistics allow some general trends to emerge. During the first five years of the Derg, the increase in the number of girls attending school was significant throughout Wolaita. During the 1980s, the differences between urban and rural areas remained noteworthy; however, almost a third of pupils in rural areas were girls, a significant proportion compared to the pre-revolutionary situation, when girls were simply not a presence in schools. Teacher and headmaster Girma Bekele recalls that in the small town of Bedessa, the first girls came to school in the late 1970s. Even though there were only a few of them, it was a major precedent. For teacher Kassech Mulugeta, the Derg period saw a marked improvement in girls' schooling, as "there was nothing under Haile Selassie's regime." Her

<footnote n="49">⁴⁹WZEO, በ1970ዓ. ም የትምህርት ዘመን በየአውራጃው በየአውራጃው በምንግስት በሚስዮን በሕዝብ በቤተክህነት አንደኛ ደረጃ ትምህርት ቤቶች የተማሪዎች ብዛት (Number of pupils in government, missionary, community and national church primary schools in Ethiopia, school year 1977–78).</footnote>

<footnote n="50">⁵⁰Soddo Zuria wereda, የወላይታ አውራጃ አውራጃ የትምህርት ስታትስቲክስ ስታትስቲክስ ማጠቃላይ ጥራዝ 1982EC (School Statistics of Wolaita Awraja, 1989–1990), not paginated.</footnote>
colleague Zeritu Buche says the same.<fnref n="51" /> For her part, Yemesrach Alula adds some nuances:

በደርግ ጊዜ ይሻላል፣ ሴቶች ይማራሉ ፣ እኩልነት ፣ ብዙ ነገሮች ነበሩ። ሴቶች በደርግ ጊዜ የተሻለ የተምህርት እድል ነበራቸው። ሴትና ወንድ እኩል ናቸው ይባል ስለነበር ብዙ ሴቶች ወደ ትምህርት ቤት ይሄዱ ነበር። ችግሩግን በየደረጃው ቁጥራቸው እየተመናመነ ይሄዳል። ያም የሚሆነው በተለየ ጎጂ ባህሎች ምክንያት ትምህርታቸውን እያቋረጡ ትዳር ውስጥ ስለሚገቡ እና በማህበረሰቡ በሚደርስባቸው ጫና ነው።

During the Derg era, there was an improvement; girls were receiving an education, promoting equality, among other positive aspects. Girls had enhanced opportunities for learning under the Derg. The principle of gender equality encouraged many girls to attend school. However, a significant issue arose as, at each educational level, the number of girls dwindled. This decline was attributed to the interruption of their education due to certain harmful customs, early marriages, and the societal burdens placed upon them.<fnref n="52" />

While girls and women were strongly affected by the literacy campaign, where they made up half of the students, the transition to formal education was more difficult. The main problem was continuing with their studies. Like Yemesrach Alula, Belaynesh Antonios, who was a teacher at Soddo Secondary School during the Derg, explains that while girls were more easily able to attend primary school, the issue of marriage was an obstacle to secondary education. She illustrates this by relating that secondary school students were being challenged with these words: “Where are you going to find a husband? Get married instead!.”<fnref n="53" /> Long-term schooling ran counter to the envisioned future social role of girls as wives and mothers, a widespread phenomenon that has been observed and studied in many parts of the world (Lange 1998; Rogers 2007; Barthélémy 2010). For this reason, a significant number of girls dropped out of school between grades 9 and 12, at an age when marriage was the norm. In 1989–90 in Wolaita, 47% of Grade 9 students were girls, but only 21% in Grade 12.

## Conclusion

The case of Wolaita offers an interesting and original example of the progress of the state in the countryside through its schools. As in the case of the literacy campaign, the available means were exploited by using pre-existing structures—the network of Protestant churches—and mobilising the population. This time, however, the aim was to create sustainable cooperation through permanent structures at the heart of village communities. Schools

<footnote n="51">⁵¹Zeritu Buche (teacher), interview, Soddo, 7 December 2010.</footnote>

<footnote n="52">⁵²Yemesrach Alula, interview, December 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="53">⁵³Belaynesh Antonios, interview, November 2009.</footnote>
found themselves in a pivotal position at the crossroads of state and societal
dynamics, the bearers of potentialities under tension, a space where convergent
and contradictory objectives and aspirations intersected. In many respects, a
combined analysis of the expansion of the school network and the movement
towards schools makes it possible to identify part of the complexity of these
early years of the Derg. Schools were one of the instruments of the policy
of social control deployed by the new regime, but they were also a place
that seemed to offer a way out of marginalisation, a legitimate place within
the nation and a better future. How long did this political and educational
convergence between the new regime and the rural population of Wolaita
last? Enthusiasm quickly gave way to weariness as authoritarianism became
more and more apparent and it seemed that the regime's promises would
not be fulfilled. Famine, villagisation, displacement and civil war brought
the momentum to a halt in the second half of the 1980s. However, the brief
period between 1978 and 1985 is essential for understanding the history of
education in Ethiopia, and more broadly the country's contemporary history.
It saw an unprecedented acceleration in the appropriation of schooling by rural
populations, which was the result of a true collective effervescence.

The relationship to school is a relationship to political power, but also to
schooling as such: to the knowledge, values and behaviour it transmits and
the aspirations it conveys. School representations and practices partly reflect
the relationship to power, but they are equally independent of it. Society
distinguishes between what is inherent in a school itself and what makes
it an extension of the state. In fact, the Derg's first reforms and egalitarian
discourse met the aspirations for recognition and progress that nourished
schooling. It remains to be seen whether this improved appropriation of
schooling could survive disaffection with the regime. Before the last chapter
attempts to answer this question, it is now a matter of looking at the "black
box" in the history of education: the school space. How did the Derg's political
and economic project translate into a school culture? What were the curricula
and pedagogical practices? What activities took place in the schools, and how
were they effectively linked to the community?
<figure><img src="image_30.png" /></figure>
Chapter 9

Teachings: Breaking with the Past
and Projecting the Future

The 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.<fnref n="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.

The 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.

<footnote n="1">¹MOE, *The Ethiopian School Syllabuses* (1984), 41.</footnote>
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**

The 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*.<fnref n="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*.<fnref n="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.

The 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."<fnref n="4" /> The term *aqotatär* (calendar), which used to describe the sequencing of modes of production and social organisations,

<footnote n="2">²MOE, የኅበረተሰብትምህርት 4 ኣዝ 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.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Ibid., 73.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴MOE, *An Outline of the Social Sciences Syllabi* (1984), 26.</footnote>
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?*

The 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.”<fnref n="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.

The 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.

<footnote n="5">⁵MOE, ታሪክ 7 ኗ ከፍል (History, grade 7) (1979 [1972 EC]), 26.</footnote>
The 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."<fnref n="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.

However, the main reason for the fall of Aksum was the necessary transition to another mode of production.<fnref n="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 trade<fnref n="8" />, 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

<footnote n="6">⁶MOE, *ታሪክ 8 ኣ ክፍአ* (*History, grade 8*) (1980 [1973 EC]), 60–61.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷Ibid., 62.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸Ibid., 61.</footnote>
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።).<fnref n="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.”<fnref n="10" />

The 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 አመጻኞቹን ለመቆጣጠር ችሎአል። ዘማቹ ሠራዊት እዚያው
እንዲሠፍርና ህገሩንና አመጻኛውን ሕዝብ ረግጦ ለመግዛት የወሰደው እርመጃና የአገዛዝ
ጭነት በብዙሃኑ ሕዝብ ላይ ከፍተኛ ስቃይ አድርሶ እንደነበር ይታወቃል። ጠንካራ
የፊውዳል ጦር ሠራዊትና አስተዳደር በኢትዮጵያ 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.<fnref n="11" />

This 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።
[...] የኔርቶዶክስ 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

<footnote n="9">⁹Ibid., 63.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰Ibid., 63.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹Ibid., 70.</footnote>
hands to amplify their influence, working together to subdue and baptise the people.<fnref n="12" />

The 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 ፈውዳላዊው ወራሪ ነገሥታት ይከተሉ የነበረው ፖሊሲ ጭካኔ የበዛበት መሆኑን ነው። አዲስ ግዛት በጦር ኃይል ከተያዘ በኋላ ሰው፣ መሬ፥ ከብቱ፣ በጠቅላላው በወራሪ ንጉሥ መሉ ሥልጣንና ቁጥጥር ሥር ይደረጋል። የነፃነት ተዋጊዎች ታድነው ይመታሉ። የጦር ምርኮኾች ወደ ባርነት ይነዳሉ። ወራሪዎች መንደሮችን በማቃጠል ፤ ከብቶች፣ ፈረሶችና ሌሎች ንብረቶችን ሁሉ በመዝረፍ ይዞታቸው ያጠናክራሉ። [...] በአጠቃላይ የወራሪዎቹን በላይነት አምኖ አለመቀበል ምህረት የለኸ 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.<fnref n="13" />

It 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.

በዑምደ ጽዮንና በወራሾቹ ዘመን የዳሞትና የሐዲያ መንግሥታት ተገፍተው ወደ ደቡብ አፈግፍገዋል ። እንደዚሁም በግቤ፣ በጐጀብና በአሞ 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

<footnote n="12">¹²Ibid., 70.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³Ibid., 78.</footnote>
as communities in other territories, began to experience persecution under the Christian kingdom.<fnref n="14" />

The 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.

The 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*).<fnref n="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.<fnref n="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.

This 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 እንጇ፣ 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።

<footnote n="14">¹⁴Ibid., 81.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">¹⁵Ibid., 84.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">¹⁶MOE, ኢትዮጵያ የታሪክ መነሻ (Historical Atlas of Ethiopia) (1990 [1983 EC]), 24.</footnote>
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.<fnref n="17" />

From 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*

The 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.<fnref n="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.<fnref n="19" />

It was the masses who had protected Ethiopia for millennia; they embodied its existence, even though the feudal system had kept them in misery. Later,

<footnote n="17">¹⁷MOE, *ታሪክ 8 ኖ ክፍለ* (*History, grade 8* (1980 [1973 EC]), 87.</footnote>

<footnote n="18">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.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹MOE, *History Grade 10* (1979), 262.</footnote>
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.<fnref n="20" />

<figure><img src="image_31.png" /><figcaption>Figure 12. The ravages of the feudal system in a Derg school textbook</figcaption></figure>

Fig. 56

While the members of the feudo-bourgeois ruling class were leading a life of luxury, the broad masses of Ethiopia were condemned to lead a life of squalor...

How 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

<footnote n="20">²⁰Ibid., 263.</footnote>
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.”<fnref n="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”<fnref n="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.<fnref n="23" />

This 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 [...].<fnref n="24" />

Tewodros 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.<fnref n="25" />
Finally, he was firm in his vision and governed in a determined manner, but
kept his people informed.

<footnote n="21">²¹Ibid., 204.</footnote>

<footnote n="22">²²Ibid., 207.</footnote>

<footnote n="23">²³Ibid., 206.</footnote>

<footnote n="24">²⁴Ibid., 214.</footnote>

<footnote n="25">²⁵Ibid., 251.</footnote>
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.<fnref n="26" />

This 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.

After 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.<fnref n="27" />

He 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.<fnref n="28" />

<footnote n="26">²⁶Ibid., 217.</footnote>

<footnote n="27">²⁷Ibid., 225.</footnote>

<footnote n="28">²⁸Ibid., 230.</footnote>
He 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.

Haile 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.<fnref n="29" />

The 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 Bismarck, 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.<fnref n="30" />

The 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*

<footnote n="29">²⁹Ibid., 251.</footnote>

<footnote n="30">³⁰Ibid., 251–52.</footnote>
*Autocracy to Revolution*, published in 1975, might, for example, have equipped pupils with a much more effective background (Addis Hiwot, 1975).

In 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.

If 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.

Tekeste 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*

The 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.

The 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.<fnref n="31" />

Devotion 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.

The manual then recalled Ethiopia's long resistance to external aggression.<fnref n="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.

<footnote n="31">³¹Ibid., 237–38.</footnote>

<footnote n="32">³²Ibid., 238–39.</footnote>
In 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.

The 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

The 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

<footnote>33Ibid., 241.</footnote>

<footnote>34Ibid., 242.</footnote>

<footnote>35Ibid., 253.</footnote>

<footnote>36Ibid., 256.</footnote>
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.<fnref n="37" /> Their struggle for independence was a part of the global struggle for emancipation.

<figure><img src="image_32.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 55 Anti-Fascist and Anti-Imperialist Patriotic Elements.</figcaption></figure>

Figure 13. Ethiopian partisans in a school textbook

Some “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

<footnote n="37">³⁷Ibid., 254.</footnote>
their motherland. It was an anti-imperialist and anti-fascist war fought to save the people from inhuman foreign racist rule.<fnref n="38" />

The 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.<fnref n="39" />

But 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.<fnref n="40" />

Classifying 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.

<footnote n="38">³⁸Ibid., 257–58.</footnote>

<footnote n="39">³⁹Ibid., 258–59.</footnote>

<footnote n="40">⁴⁰Ibid., 260.</footnote>
1.4.... *captured by the Derg*

The 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.<fnref n="41" />

The Derg had taken charge of the revolution to become the sole repre-
sentative 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.<fnref n="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

<footnote n="41">⁴¹Ibid., 284–85.</footnote>

<footnote n="42">⁴²Ibid., 294.</footnote>
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.”<fnref n="43" />

There 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

While 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*

The 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.<fnref n="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”

<footnote n="43">⁴³Ibid., 301–3.</footnote>

<footnote n="44">⁴⁴MOE, *Geography Grade 10* (1981).</footnote>
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.<fnref n="45" />

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

The key concepts of Marxist political economy lent support to all the de-
scriptions. 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.<fnref n="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?<fnref n="47" />

The 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.<fnref n="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

<footnote n="45">⁴⁵MOE, *Geography Grade 12* (1981).</footnote>

<footnote n="46">⁴⁶MOE, *Geography Grade 10* (1981), 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="47">⁴⁷Ibid., 5–6.</footnote>

<footnote n="48">⁴⁸Ibid., 2–3.</footnote>
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*

By 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.

The 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.<fnref n="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.<fnref n="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.<fnref n="51" />

Capitalism 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.<fnref n="52" /> In a capitalist economy, production and means of transport were distributed irrationally.

<footnote n="49">⁴⁹MOE, *Geography Grade 10* (1981), 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="50">⁵⁰Ibid., 14–15.</footnote>

<footnote n="51">⁵¹Ibid., 147.</footnote>

<footnote n="52">⁵²Ibid., 67–68.</footnote>
Some areas were highly equipped and developed, while others remained "backward."<fnref n="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.<fnref n="54" />

Planning 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.<fnref n="55" />

In 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).

<footnote n="53">⁵³Ibid., 123.</footnote>

<footnote n="54">⁵⁴MOE, *Geography Grade 12* (1981), 56.</footnote>

<footnote n="55">⁵⁵Ibid., 62–63.</footnote>
## 2.3. Ethiopia's plan for the future

After 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.”<fnref n="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.<fnref n="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.<fnref n="58" />

The 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.”<fnref n="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

<footnote n="56">⁵⁶Ibid., 113.</footnote>

<footnote n="57">⁵⁷Ibid., 78.</footnote>

<footnote n="58">⁵⁸Ibid., 79–80.</footnote>

<footnote n="59">⁵⁹Ibid., 83.</footnote>
was being developed, knowing that populations do not allow themselves to be
displaced willingly.

The 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.<fnref n="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.<fnref n="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.<fnref n="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.<fnref n="63" /> As an educator, the state was to take the lead in transforming the “traditional” rural way of life.

The textbook then went on to present a line of argument on the develop-
ment of heavy industry and mining. On the one hand, systematic prospecting
was necessary in order to discover the country's mineral wealth, and its extrac-
tion 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.

<footnote n="60">⁶⁰Ibid., 86.</footnote>

<footnote n="61">⁶¹Ibid., 88–89.</footnote>

<footnote n="62">⁶²Ibid., 102.</footnote>

<footnote n="63">⁶³MOE, *Geography Grade 10* (1981), 21.</footnote>
2.4. Concrete knowledge that can be applied on a daily basis

Unlike 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.

The 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.<fnref n="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).<fnref n="65" /> It was also necessary to monitor the production of each animal so
that the most productive ones would be kept.<fnref n="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

<footnote n="64">⁶⁴MOE, የአማርኛ መማሪያ 8 ኃይል (Amharic textbook grade 8) (1976 [1968 EC]), 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="65">⁶⁵Ibid., 20–21.</footnote>

<footnote n="66">⁶⁶Ibid., 24.</footnote>
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.

A 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.<fnref n="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.<fnref n="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 Engels<fnref n="69" />; outlines of the dialectical method for understanding the world and societies<fnref n="70" />; a defence of the planned economy<fnref n="71" />; and a general analysis of the “bourgeois system” and imperialism and their internal contradictions.<fnref n="72" />

Finally, 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.<fnref n="73" /> The aim of this last topic was both to decompartmentalise the country and encourage villagers to maintain their infrastructures themselves.

<footnote n="67">⁶⁷MOE, የአማርኛ መማሪያ 11 ኣኛ ክፍል (Amharic textbook grade 11) (1977 [1969 EC]), iii.</footnote>

<footnote n="68">⁶⁸Ibid., 31.</footnote>

<footnote n="69">⁶⁹Ibid, 67–77.</footnote>

<footnote n="70">⁷⁰Ibid., 86–95.</footnote>

<footnote n="71">⁷¹Ibid., 133–39.</footnote>

<footnote n="72">⁷²Ibid., 13–20 and 24–28.</footnote>

<footnote n="73">⁷³Ibid., iii.</footnote>
To 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

The 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.<fnref n="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.<fnref n="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.”<fnref n="76" /> How were these statements translated into school textbooks?

The 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 ribs<fnref n="77" />, 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.”<fnref n="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.<fnref n="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.

<footnote n="74">⁷⁴PMGE, *Programme of the National Democratic Revolution of Ethiopia* (1976), 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="75">⁷⁵MOI, *Ethiopia in Revolution* (1977), 37–39.</footnote>

<footnote n="76">⁷⁶PRDE, *Constitution of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Negarit Gazeta*, 47th year, Proclamation No. 1 of 1987 (12 September 1987).</footnote>

<footnote n="77">⁷⁷MOE, *የአማርኛ መማሪያ 11 ኖ ክፍል* (*Amharic textbook grade 11*)(1977 [1969 EC]), 121.</footnote>

<footnote n="78">⁷⁸Ibid., 121.</footnote>

<footnote n="79">⁷⁹Ibid.</footnote>
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.<fnref n="80" />

This 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.<fnref n="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.<fnref n="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.

However, 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

<footnote n="80">⁸⁰Ibid., 122.</footnote>

<footnote n="81">⁸¹Ibid., 123.</footnote>

<footnote n="82">⁸²Ibid., 124–25.</footnote>
of the names used were female.<fnref n="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.<fnref n="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).

Textbooks 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

The 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

<footnote n="83">⁸³MOE, *Gender Analysis of Primary School Textbooks* (1989), 17.</footnote>

<footnote n="84">⁸⁴Ibid., 21.</footnote>
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.

In 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.
# School Experiences: Openness and Violence

By looking at the classroom and the schoolyard as places where curriculum requirements and pedagogical recommendations are developed through social relations, we can identify some of the concrete effects of educational transformations (Dams, Depaepe & Simon 1999). The objective here is to understand how political and educational transformations were developed, and to reveal the gaps and tensions that were created so that we can shed light on how educational practices and discourses were received. In the first place, what were the new relationships between schools and their social environment in a context in which social hierarchies and power relations were reshaped by the regime's agrarian reforms and egalitarian discourse? Secondly, what forms did the power relations between teachers and pupils—and among pupils themselves—take in the light of the social divisions of identity, class and gender? Finally, how were the aims of educating “for political consciousness” and “for production” translated into action in the school space?

## 1. The end of the cultural domination of the north?

### 1.1. *Going to school: mitigating cultural barriers?*

Under Haile Selassie's regime, the government school was an urban reality. Rural people had to move from the countryside to the city and leave their familiar Protestant village schools, which were founded and run by their communities, to attend a state institution. The obstacles they encountered were due as much to the characteristics of the city as they were to those of the school. The city was a projection of the centre into the periphery; it was the place of power, where government departments held sway, where the settlers from the north gathered, where resources from the countryside converged, and where the Amharic language was *de rigueur*. In the cities, the Wolaita felt the full weight of their marginalisation. For their part, schools ranked the various groups that governed the nation according to the culture of the north, and sought to bend identities into the “Amhara” mould. In Wolaita, and in the south in general, going to secondary school meant that rural people had to adapt to the dominant culture, and not everyone was equally well-equipped to do so. It was not, in fact, a particularly welcoming world:
"The "Amhara" regime just... until Derg's time... never accepted our people as citizens, in the educational area specially, and to give positions as administrator, police commander and like that. And that was our problem. Even to live in the town. [...] At this time [...] 95% is Wolaita. At that time 99% was not Wolaita but other peoples, the opposite."<fnref n="1" />

Abebe Fola makes the link between schooling, having to travel to the city to study and the employment opportunities that were available after graduation. He recalls that before the Derg, these three components formed a system that caused serious problems when it came to achieving full membership of the national political community. He emphasises that the city changed its face after being taken over by the Wolaita: 50 percent of the urban population was Wolaita in 1967 and 60 percent in the early 2000s (Planel 2008, 205). In demographic terms, the transformation was therefore not that straightforward. However, Abebe Fola's testimony is indicative of the fact that the city lost its "Amhara" pre-eminence and that Wolaita from rural origins no longer felt alienated from it. As Sabine Planel has underlined, this appropriation of the town by the Wolaita began under the Derg. It was not so much a radical transformation of urban sociology as a change in power relations. Those from the settlers and their descendants who had been the masters under Haile Selassie's regime could no longer assert the same authority under the Derg, and from that time on, the city was opened up to the marginalised sections of the local population. This phenomenon was part of the Derg's discourse on the equality of nationalities.

The Derg also attempted to reform regional government by appointing regional and local administrators from the region (Clapham 1988, 202). With particular regard to the Wolaita, Jacques Bureau noted in the early 1980s that they had “gained control of their political machinery since they [held] almost all the key positions in their administration” (Bureau 1982, 225). This was the educated minority, who were able to become integrated into the power structures much more easily than had been the case under the previous regime. But, as the peasant Mana Madibo testifies, this process had a wider impact:

"We were frustrated by the administrator of Shewa who was walking armed. He could even reduce someone he met on the road to servitude. Now we are in a good position, little by little our children have gone to school. They are magistrates, policemen and occupy all sorts of positions in the government. With the Shewa man, we used to hide in the woods. Now we have moved from the shadows into the light. This is the merit of education, it gives equality and self-confidence. In front of the judge or the police, we walk normally, we no longer bow down."<fnref n="2" />

<footnote n="1">¹Abebe Fola, interview, November 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Anjulo Agago, interview, December 2010.</footnote>
Mana Madibo evokes a movement that evolved over a long period, from Haile Selassie's regime to the current federal government. However, he insisted throughout the interview that it was during the Derg period that the process was actually initiated. Because school was the route to administrative jobs, the mass education promoted by the Derg, together with the broadening of the criteria for nationhood, played a central role.

Under the Derg, school undoubtedly remained an instrument of assimilation. The expansion of the school system contributed to the intensification of centralisation and the integration of the population into state structures. Within schools themselves, the forms of violence associated with the assignment of an inferior identity to the southern populations undeniably diminished.

## 1.2. *Discrimination in schools diminishes: status of the Amharic language, pedagogical practices and sociability*

This twofold movement of accelerated assimilation and a softening of identity-based violence is perceptible in the change in status of the Amharic national language in both teaching practices and relations among pupils.

While local languages were used during the literacy campaign, Amharic, along with English, remained the language of formal education. The requirement to master it became less inflexible, however, and Amharic lost its status as a subject that could lead to elimination in national examinations (Bahru 2008a, 88). Witnesses underline the importance of this reform. The fact that Amharic had been a subject that could lead to elimination from exams was seen by Wolaita students, who were at a disadvantage compared to pupils whose mother tongue was Amharic, as a profound injustice. The way the examination procedure was experienced was part of a complex relationship with the national language. Amharic, which was both an instrument of domination and a means of enabling people to escape marginalisation if it was mastered, attracted as much as it repelled. The eliminatory status of the Amharic examination was a barrier to its being appropriated by an affective relationship. It was a high-stakes examination for pupils, who were therefore extremely fearful of it. The fact that it was possible to fail the entire examination because of this one subject alone could destroy all the hopes that had been invested in school. As a consequence, because school was the best way to access the national space, the reform was a very important gesture of integration.

Did the function of Amharic as a vehicle and integrating factor thus gain ground at the expense of its attributes as a "language of oppression?" Amharic certainly became more influential during the Derg period. The literacy campaign and mass schooling played a key role, of course. The literacy campaign used local languages transcribed into the Amharic syllabary, which
facilitated the transition from one language to another. The great advance in
formal schooling that accompanied the literacy campaign meant daily contact
with the national language for thousands of children and adolescents in the
south. Having become just one subject among the rest in the examinations,
it ceased to be a threat. Being able to speak Amharic was therefore more
widely seen as an opportunity. In this regard, it is revealing that under
the Derg, no demands for a formal education in the local language were
made in Wolaita or elsewhere in southern Ethiopia (Abbink 1998, 69). These
demands did not emerge until 1991 and the introduction of federalism by
the EPRDF.<fnref n="3" /> The language-related claim that appeared after the fall of
the Derg was in the first place the work of local intellectual elites, and to
assert that such a claim was universally shared would be tantamount to
thinking of nationalities as homogeneous groups cemented together by a
perfect community of interests. This vision is fiction. The only people who
had the capacity to express themselves in the nation's political arena were those
who had gone through school. They had incorporated the codes that governed
participation in national politics, and they were fluent in Amharic and English.
They therefore had a power of representation that was disproportionate to
their numbers, and became the essential representatives of their respective
nationalities. Similarly, the national struggles, which were a nightmare for the
Derg and led to the establishment of federalism after its fall, were primarily
fought by minority educated elites (Abbink 2000, 159–60).

Not all nationalities rose up together to advance linguistic and cultural
claims. What of those who were deprived of the educational capital that was
available to the local intellectual elites? Was the opportunity to learn Amharic
not at the heart of the schooling movement that was born in rural areas?
Did the peasants ignore the opportunity to seize an instrument of power?
Mastery of Amharic was a sine qua non for the longed-for social ascension
that schooling offered. Today, some peasants deplore the fact that education
in the Wolaita language closes the doors of the national space to their children
(Guidi 2015). The issues of centralisation and cultural assimilation are not
simply a matter of support or opposition; rather, they raise the question of the
terms for access to the national space and its economic, political and symbolic
resources. The greater opportunity to speak, read and write Amharic offered
by the Derg's school policy was a way out of marginalisation, and there is little
reason to believe that it was not perceived as such by those who were the most
marginalised.

This was all the more true because the practice employed by some teachers
under Haile Selassie's regime of belittling and humiliating pupils who had

<footnote n="3">³Habtamu Lemma (teacher at the University of Soddo, student under the Derg), interview, Soddo, 17 December 2009.</footnote>
a poor command of Amharic was apparently no longer applied in Derg schools. It is true that it had begun to diminish in the final years of the overthrown regime, and the generation of teachers trained from the late 1960s was more aware of social issues and the “nationality question” than their elders had been, but under the Derg, the movement to end discrimination in schools accelerated. Wolaita society changed radically with the revolution, and the old hierarchies on which political and cultural discrimination had been based collapsed: the “Amhara” were no longer the “masters.” Relations of domination based on identity were part of the “feudal” behaviour that needed to be banned.

It is also very likely that the transformation of the sociology of the teaching profession played a role in this phenomenon. The statistics available in Wolaita offer details on the education level, gender and age of teachers. In 1990, the overwhelming majority were between 25 and 35 years old, which means that there was a high turnover in the 1980s.<fnref n="4" /> It had been necessary to train teachers to ensure that the school system would expand, and the thousands of foreign teachers who had taught at secondary schools before the revolution but had left the country also needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, the statistics provide no information on the social origins of this new generation of teachers. However, considering the ever more significant numbers of rural Wolaita who attended school from the 1960s and the fact that the teaching profession represented one of the main opportunities for graduates, one might suppose that the proportion of teachers from rural and poor urban origins increased. The social proximity between teachers and pupils was greater under the Derg than it had been under Haile Sellasie’s regime.

What were the relationships among pupils like? In 1971, there was a brawl at the secondary school in Soddo in which children of settlers from the neighbouring region and young Wolaita children clashed violently, with children of *melregna* and landlords on one side and children of peasants on the other. The former did not recognise the latter’s right to study: they had to stay in their place, which was to serve. The situation was quite different in the 1980s. A former pupil recalls that pupils of several nationalities— Wolaita, Amhara, Gurage, Oromo, Sidamo, among others—lived together at the secondary school and communicated with each other in Amharic, and that their origin was not a criterion for determining their sociability.<fnref n="5" /> Class and nationality no longer overlapped in the structuring of social hierarchies. In short, although school was still a place where the language and values of the centre were learned, nationality was no longer a criterion on which power

<footnote n="4">⁴Soddo Zurya wereda, የወላይታ አውራጃ የትምህርት የትምህርት ስታትስቲክስ ማጠቃላይ ጥራ-ዝ (School Statistics of Wolaita Auraja, 1989–1990).</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵Habtamu Lemma, interview, December 2009.</footnote>
relations were based. School, this stepping stone to the national space, had
become more welcoming. When combined with the policy of mass education,
this process led to a greater appropriation of the school by broader segments
of the population, by those whose culture was a very long way from that of the
centre.

## 2. The pedagogy of the dictatorship

Although discrimination and bullying on the basis of nationality diminished
under the Derg, the educational relationship became far more rigid, a
phenomenon that was linked to the political violence that marked the Derg
period.

### 2.1. *The vertical transmission of knowledge*

The official 1984 curriculum stated that a school education should help
students develop self-confidence and autonomy.<fnref n="6" /> The new school system
should produce an open-mindedness to scientific debate, new ideas and
working together.<fnref n="7" /> This was reflected, for example, in Amharic textbooks
by an emphasis on discussion and collective decision-making. The school
should encourage creativity, a mingling of ideas and the circulation of practices
leading to a dynamic community life. Building a new society involved
active and autonomous individuals taking initiatives. However, as a study
of the geography textbooks has revealed, the path was entirely mapped out
in advance. The 1984 curriculum summed up the Ministry of Education's
pedagogical approach very well. Students were expected to:

> be deeply convinced that revolutionary Ethiopia is proceeding to the bright future. They should also be convinced that the guidelines given by the revolutionary forces are the necessary precondition for the achievement of the better living condition of man. This will help them grasp the discipline of working class to study hard, and participate in social activities and contribute to building the new society.<fnref n="8" />

The contradiction between autonomy and discipline was only an apparent
one. The concept of autonomy was absolutely central to 20th century peda-
gogical thinking across the political spectrum. Regardless of how power was
exercised and how the economy was organised (whether it was the aim of
education to reproduce an existing system, reform it gradually or transform
it radically), autonomy was always thought of as a way of asserting discipline,
of “governing souls” through “reason and responsibility” (Nóvoa 2002). From

<footnote n="6">⁶MOE, *The Ethiopian School Syllabuses* (1984), 8.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷Ibid., 18.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸Ibid., 112.</footnote>
this perspective, self-discipline is a corollary of autonomy, and the educa-
tional aims of the Derg were no exception in this respect. The ideal type of
autonomous individual would follow the path traced by the “revolutionary
forces” without the need for coercion. He would be fully conscious of the fact
that the project of power was of benefit to him and the society as a whole, he
would have incorporated the objectives of the revolution and he would work
towards their realisation of his own free will. Aside from the project, what
was the most common pedagogy used in the classrooms in practical terms? In
former teacher Elias Damtew’s opinion:

According to the pedagogical aspects [...] there was no group working... the great emphasis was given to one-way communication. The students were listeners, they listened what the teacher said. So there was one way of communication based on theoretical aspects, with no practical works. The only important person in the campus was the teacher. Less emphasis was given to the students. So, aspects at that time was not initiating the students. No place for discussion.<fnref n="9" />

There were neither discussions among students nor exchanges with teachers, only inculcation. Vertical transmission, which was nothing new, was reinforced. According to this former teacher, the main reason was the objective of ideological transmission. In the official texts, “education for a socialist consciousness” included “the development of a political consciousness, an understanding of the nature of the change of the transition to a socialist society and the role of the individual and the masses in bringing about these changes.”<fnref n="10" /> The aim was to get society as a whole moving behind the government’s project. In the discourse, this project, the future of Ethiopia, was based on knowledge as an exact science, knowledge that had been fully developed, a closed knowledge. The ideological orthodoxy adopted by the Derg and the categorical tone of the textbooks left little room for doubt.

Bernard Lahire reminds us, without postulating a purely mechanical
relationship, that: “School is a central institution of socialisation. It is therefore
particularly sensitive to the most important changes from the point of view
of the configuration and conception of the exercise of power at a level of
social formation.” (Lahire 2005, 324). Politics operated on the basis of the
omnipotence of the state, and pedagogy on that of the teacher. One former
pupil believes that “[The teachers] should have set the pupils free and allowed
them to clarify their ideas. The educational situation did not invite this at all.
[The teachers] should have made sure at the time that the students expressed
their needs.”<fnref n="11" /> The educational situation could not be separated from the

<footnote n="9">⁹Elias Damtew, interview, October 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰MOE, *Education in Socialist Ethiopia...* (1984), 11.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹Habtamu Lemma, interview, December 2009.</footnote>
political situation. Why solicit the opinions and autonomous initiatives of
students if those who were governed were not allowed to question the
discourse and policies implemented by the state? The indisputable nature of
knowledge, the way it was articulated and the regime's power practices all
contributed to reinforcing the vertical mode of transmission that was already
under way in Ethiopian schools.

However, the political context and the practices of the teachers, who
had themselves received an education based on authoritarian transmission,
did not explain everything. The political context potentially left teachers
room for manoeuvre, especially in the classroom, and their habits could
change. Teachers had access to the pedagogical theories of the student-actor,
notably through the pedagogical journal published by the teachers' association,
*YeMemerhan Demš* (The Voice of Teachers), which was available at local
branches of the national association. Therefore, the idea of an active pedagogy
as stressed in official curricula and textbooks was relayed and explained to
teachers. Of course, it cannot be assumed that the magazine was read by
everyone, but other channels existed, such as pedagogy courses in teacher
training colleges and shorter, seminar-based training courses, of which there
were many at the time of the Derg. There is no reason to believe that teachers
did not, at least in theory, adhere to forms of active pedagogy. Tekeste Negash
rightly identified classroom overload as the main cause affecting teacher
practice (Tekeste 1990, 29–30). Indeed, in its ten-year plan announced in 1984,
the government emphasised that:

> The single most important challenge which the expansion of formal education has entailed relates to the significant increase in the teacher-student ratio. The latest information available reveals that the teacher-student ratio has increased from 48 to 62 in primary schools, from 31 to 74 in junior secondary schools and from 21 to 44 in senior primary schools in the last 14 years. The ratio could range between 90–150 students in some urban areas. These ratios compare very unfavourably to the standards of 50, 35, and 30, for elementary, junior and senior secondary schools, respectively. The negative implication of this trend on the quality of education is obvious and therefore there is a need for elaboration.<fnref n="12" />

Under these conditions, it is difficult to imagine an active pedagogy based on
intense exchanges between teachers and pupils. First of all, the class had to be
“held” and somehow, a minimum amount of knowledge had to be transmitted.
Teachers’ working conditions were further aggravated by a lack of teaching
materials and low salaries:

> Another development with similar implication is the falling of the cost per student which should be interpreted in terms of the low salary payments for teachers and

<footnote n="12">¹²PMGE, *Ten-Year Perspective Plan, 1984/85-1993-94* (1984), 137.</footnote>
the inadequacy in the provision of teaching materials and other supplies. This is particularly so for technical and vocational education where the cost per student has fallen from 1,816 Birr in 1974 to 830 Birr in 1983. The cost per student in primary schools has also fallen from 81 Birr in 1974 to 57 Birr in 1983 and in junior secondary schools from 185 to 137 Birr. Similarly, although the budget for elementary teacher institutions has been increased from Birr 3.7 million in 1974 to Birr 6.5 million in 1983, the cost per student has gone down from Birr 1,213 in 1974 to Birr 1,093 in 1983.<fnref n="13" />

In many schools, pupils simply did not have textbooks; only the teachers had them.<fnref n="14" /> The lack of teacher motivation was considerable under these conditions, as evidenced by the ERGESE report (Evaluative Research of the General Education System in Ethiopia: A Quality Study) carried out by the Ministry of Education between 1983 and 1986. More than half of secondary school teachers would have preferred to have a different job, and felt trapped in a profession that did not suit them. As state employees, they were assigned to their posts by the Central Planning Commission and there were very limited opportunities for changing profession. The issue of pay was not the main reason given by teachers for feeling discouraged: only 20% did so, and 70% said they had an “average” standard of living. More serious was the low esteem in which they felt their profession was held (Tekeste 1990, 26–27).

In summary, the vertical, authoritarian pedagogy was explained by both the political context and the conditions under which teachers worked. Those who would have liked to apply another method other than vertical teaching would not have been able to do so, both because of political pressure and because of the material situation in which they were forced to teach.

## 2.2. *The harshness of punishments*

The Ministry of Education’s 1981 Handbook on School Administration provided guidance on how to deal with disciplinary problems. These were graduated provisions based on discussion and self-criticism. The regulatory measures were as follows: a discussion with the pupil to make him or her aware of the error, and writing a self-criticism to be placed in the files; a warning from a counsellor or, in the absence of such a person, teachers close to the pupil; a report to the parents; a discussion with the pupil in the presence of the parents, a counsellor, a teacher and a member of the pupil’s association; suspension; and finally expulsion.<fnref n="15" /> Corporal punishment was excluded in theory, but in fact it was at the heart of the pedagogical relationship.

<footnote n="13">¹³Ibid.</footnote>

<footnote n="14">¹⁴Habtamu Lemma, interview, December 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">¹⁵MOE, *Handbook on School Administration* (1981), 81–87; Shibeshi (1996, 201).</footnote>
What I myself saw in primary school was that the punishments were very harsh. In Grade 1, a teacher who hits... very painful, he hits you there, your buttocks. The fault is not serious, but he thinks that if a pupil is beaten he will learn, it seems to me to be poor psychology! And the beating on the hands for being late. If a pupil is late, he just stands there "bam! bam!" [The teacher] hits harder and harder. What was the method? They thought that he who is punished learns! And I remember... something I heard... [someone] seriously injured... he was hit in a bad place when he was beaten up.... Do you know what a teacher was doing? He used to have people who came in late pull up tree stumps. Those who were late for school, who didn't arrive on time, he made them work, and the work was very hard.<fnref n="16" />

Teachers inflicted very severe corporal punishment and were convinced of its pedagogical virtues. Some forms of discipline, such as beating the palms of the hands with a stick, were particularly widespread. Another form of punishment involved a pupil being made to keep still in an uncomfortable position. The one that left the most mark on former pupils was having to crouch for the entire lesson (40 minutes) with their arms behind their knees and their heads down between their hands. The effects were felt rapidly: back pain, exhausted thigh muscles, severe headaches and a feeling of vertigo. A pupil who could not maintain this position would be hit. In addition, as under Haile Selassie's regime, it was common for a student who answered a question incorrectly to be insulted. The most common insult was *dädäb*<fnref n="17" /> (stupid, obtuse, slow-minded). Although not all teachers used violent corporal punishment, the fact that former teachers and pupils mentioned it spontaneously is testimony to how commonplace it was. Former student Telahun Ayele also emphasises the gender aspect of punishment, noting that female teachers were more interested in explaining than insulting. They did not impose a position any more painful than kneeling, and only hit the palms of the hands in a measured way, whereas the men hit all areas of the body indiscriminately, and did not always try to control their strength.<fnref n="18" />

There are several factors that help us interpret this intensification of pedagogical violence. The first is the socially accepted character of corporal punishment, which had already been practised under Haile Selassie in family education, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church schools and government schools. There was a widespread view among teachers that physical punishment allowed students to make amends. However, the intensity of punishment under the Derg was unprecedented because it was linked to the transformation of the way power was exercised. By talking spontaneously today about the harshness and arbitrariness of punishments, by rejecting these past methods

<footnote n="16">¹⁶Habtamu Lemma, interview, December 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">¹⁷Tesfaw Derebe, interview, February 2007.</footnote>

<footnote n="18">¹⁸Telahun Ayele (pupil under the Derg and EPRDF, teacher), interview, July 2014.</footnote>
while fully assuming that they themselves practised them, teachers contextu-
alise pedagogical violence as an intrinsic social fact of the Derg period. Under
Haile Selassie, pedagogical practices were part of a paternalistic relationship.
Emotional relationships were bound to develop between pupils and teachers,
who had the authority of the father. Under the Derg, this relationship seems
to have disappeared, giving way to a style of pedagogy based on an anonymous
authority. State violence was an assumed, organised and institutionalised form
of government. This led to constant violence, which spread throughout society
to the point where it left its mark on pedagogical practice.

Finally, families had no right to supervise what was happening in schools:
“The parents did not intervene in this matter [corporal punishment] because
they considered that the pupil was subject to the school rules. This was
widely accepted.”<sup>19</sup> Two issues can be identified here. The first concerns the
relationship society had with school as an institution, and the second relates to
the fact that disciplinary practices were socially accepted. Members of society
considered a school’s internal rules to be sovereign. The idea that the school
was a closed space of power, governed by its own rules, in which there was
no question of intervening, seemed self-evident. It was seen by families as
a place where political power was deployed, a place outside their sphere of
competence. In this sense, the fact that corporal punishment was socially
accepted does not mean that the degree of violence of punishment inflicted
in schools under the Derg regime was socially accepted. The school experience
was a painful one for pupils, but their families had no leverage to counter these
practices. Solomon Maereg, a pupil in the 1980s, recalls that some developed
a real aversion to school, mixed with disgust: “After these punishments, you
first hate your teacher, then you hate the class… even the walls, and then you
hate your books….”<sup>20</sup>

2.3. *A hardening of gender relations*

What was the specific school experience of girls in this general educational
context? The power discourses and textbooks claimed that socialism would
free Ethiopian women from the dual oppression of class and patriarchy.
Education was presented as an essential tool for women access to equality in
the political and economic spheres: it would allow them to participate fully in
the construction of the new society. School textbooks reproduced the empire of
men, however. Women were very little represented and, when they were, they
were wives and mothers whose character traits were things such as decency
and discretion. Nevertheless, the regime encouraged schooling for girls.

<footnote n="19">¹⁹Habtamu Lemma, interview, December 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="20">²⁰Solomon Maereg (pupil under the Derg), interview, Lalibela, 7 February 2007.</footnote>
The school experience of girls was, first of all, part of a demography. In 1991–92, the number of girls exceeded 40% at each level.<fnref n="21" /> Between 1974 and 1988, the percentage of female teachers in primary school rose from 14% to 24%, while in secondary schools, their numbers dropped from 14.9% to 9.9%.<fnref n="22" /> In Wolaita, in 1990, at the very end of the Derg period, women made up 26% of primary teachers and 6% of secondary teachers.<fnref n="23" /> Teachers were thus overwhelmingly men. In this demographic context, what was the experience of girls in school? What gender relations existed in the school space? The prejudices that devalued the intellectual capacities of girls—who were considered to be less capable of academic success—which were widespread among teaching and administrative staff in the 1960s, still persisted. In her 1989 study on girls’ education, Gennet Zewdie highlighted teachers’ negative perceptions of the academic abilities of their female pupils (Gennet 1991, 96). This meant that girls did not receive as much support, and had less incentive than boys to persevere with their studies. Girls did, in fact, perform less well, and their failure rate in national examinations was extremely high. Between 1978 and 1987, 40% of girls who took the national Grade 8 examination failed it. In 1988, the share of girls in Grade 12 graduates was 6%. Pedagogical staff attributed this to their supposedly lower abilities, while the failure of boys was attributed to a lack of study. The success differential between boys and girls was actually due to the much more difficult study conditions. The workloads imposed on girls in the home became much heavier as they became older compared to the workload of boys. This left them with very little time for schoolwork outside school (Gennet 1991, 91–92).

Girls also interrupted their studies much more quickly and in far greater numbers than boys. The journey to school was a major obstacle in this regard. Families were reluctant for girls to continue their education at secondary schools in the city, a long way from home.<fnref n="24" /> Except for trips related to household work, such as carrying water and wood, which were made in groups of women, it was not considered appropriate for young girls to make long journeys on foot. Families also feared that their daughters would become victims of abduction, which was a common marital practice. Ayelech Tekle-Mariam, a secondary school pupil in the early 1980s, says that she was able to continue her studies because she went to school accompanied by male pupils whom her family trusted.<fnref n="25" /> However, in general, it was the urban dwellers,

<footnote n="21">²¹TGE, *Ethiopia Statistical Abstract* 1992, 271.</footnote>

<footnote n="22">²²PRDE, *Basic Education Statistics*, (1988), table 4.</footnote>

<footnote n="23">²³Soddo Zurya wereda, የወላይታ አውራጃ አውራጃ የትምህርት ስታትስቲክስ ስታትስቲክስ ማጠቃላይ ጥራዝ 1982 EC (School Statistics of Wolaita Awraja, 1989-1990), not paginated.</footnote>

<footnote n="24">²⁴Belayeshen Antonios (teacher, responsible for women's affairs at Soddo Town Hall), interview, Soddo, 2 November 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="25">²⁵Ayelech Tekle-Mariam (teacher), interview, Soddo, 19 November 2010.</footnote>
those who lived close to the secondary schools, who were more easily able to
continue their education. Finally, many girls interrupted their studies because
of the social pressure to marry.

Various forms of male domination manifested themselves in the school
space. Several witnesses highlighted the practice of blackmailing girls into
marriage. Teachers used their position of power to propose marriage to
students, whose acceptance or refusal was immediately reflected in their
academic performance.<fnref n="26" /> Teachers were generally assured of silence from
students who were ashamed to talk about it, or who, if they dared to do so, were
not listened to or were even accused of using this pretext to harm them.<fnref n="27" /> This
phenomenon existed under Haile Selassie's regime, but it was less widespread,
and less pressure was exerted.<fnref n="28" /> It therefore appears that it began to spread in
the time of the Derg. In fact, this sort of pressure and blackmail was far riskier
under Haile Selassie's regime, when there were very few girls at school, and
most were the daughters of teachers or notables, a status that gave more weight
to their word. Under the Derg, female pupils were more numerous and of
more modest social origin, and were more anonymous and vulnerable.

On the other hand, girls were beaten less than boys. Beatings were very
rare because “they were discreet and less disturbing to the class.” However,
their discretion was so socially expected that mere laughter from a teenage
girl could provoke terrible insults. The most common were *berenda adari* (you
sleep in the street) or *shermuta* (slut/hooker).<fnref n="29" /> Belaynesh Antonios speaks of
“unspeakable insults.”<fnref n="30" /> In short, teachers were able to abandon all sense of
decency for trivial reasons and take the liberty of aiming extremely vulgar and
violent insults at female pupils. Problems with male pupils, also, arose during
adolescence. Again according to Belaynesh Antonios: “In school, they faced
problems, inappropriate jokes, intimidation and a variety of insults from the
opposite sex.”<fnref n="31" /> Girls who went to school were at risk of pregnancy. Whether
the sex was consensual or not (with all the nuances of the term “consent” for
someone in a subordinate position), it was they alone who had to bear the
consequences.

During adolescence, the problems they faced... no girls were counselled, nothing was set up for that, those who were not counselled got pregnant, so they had the biggest problems. There were no female teachers. Today, if they have any

<footnote n="26">²⁶Zewde Wolde-Giorgis (teacher), interview, Lalibela, 10 February 2008.</footnote>

<footnote n="27">²⁷Belaynesh Antonios (teacher), interview, Soddo, 2 November 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="28">²⁸Yemesrach Alula, interview, January 2010.</footnote>

<footnote n="29">²⁹Telahun Ayele, interview, July 2014.</footnote>

<footnote n="30">³⁰Belaynesh Antonios, interview, November 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="31">³¹Ibid.</footnote>
problems, women teachers give them advice. There was none of that. The teachers
were all men. So no one saw their difficulties.<fnref n="32" />

In general, due to the negligible number of female teachers, girls had very
little recourse in the face of all the pressures and violence they experienced.
Despite the higher enrolment of girls in school, the school space was still a
male-dominated environment.

To sum up, under the Derg, education for girls was a two-pronged
movement. On the one hand, even though few girls completed studies that
led to a paid job, more were able to benefit from a school education. Most were
urban girls who moved into nursing and secretarial jobs (Gennet 1991, 97).
Even if they were confined to “women’s occupations,” this meant in the long
term that they had a greater presence in educational, medical, administrative
and commercial institutions. In spite of the pressures and violence suffered at
school, girls were on the move, all the more so if the effects of the literacy
campaign are taken into account. On the other hand, as had been the case
under Haile Selassie, the experience of the specific forms of gender violence
experienced by girls in school forged adult women who were determined to
set an example, to push girls to go to school and to fight in the school space to
improve their conditions of study.<fnref n="33" />

3. "Educating for a socialist consciousness" in action

The transmission of ideology was central to everyday school life. What did
a “socialist consciousness” mean in detail? What channels was it transmitted
through? Can the degree to which it was appropriated by the pupils be
calculated? The pedagogical and disciplinary practices we have analysed above
were not standardised in school policies. These practices, which on occasion
contrasted with the official educational discourse, formed part of these specific
forms of school culture, which were secreted through the interactions between
the school and its social environment. The pedagogical system was the result
of relations among actors locked in power relationships deployed outside
the school framework—between the governors and the governed, between
different social groups, between the sexes—and modified or reinforced by
the pedagogical relationship. Although a desire to put a non-authoritarian
pedagogy into practice did not appear to be manifested, the ideological
transmission function assigned to education was the subject of careful attention
on the part of the school institution. Political education was considered to be
a foundation for the construction of a socialist society, and it was an integral

<footnote n="32">³²Ibid.</footnote>

<footnote n="33">³³Yemesrach Alula, interview, January 2010; Belayesh Antonios, interview, November 2009.</footnote>
part of the daily lives of the pupils through multiple media: special classes,
songs and theatre. By "socialist consciousness," the Derg's pedagogues meant
knowledge of the theoretical foundations of Marxism-Leninism, moral and
disciplined behaviour, an investment in the construction of the new society
and feelings that were both patriotic and internationalist.<fnref n="34" /> These educational
goals were similar to those of countries in the socialist bloc, especially the GDR,
which played a key role in the design of Ethiopian school policies and curricula
through bilateral agreements, which were renewed between 1976 and 1989,
and large numbers of development workers (Haile Gabriel 2006, 76).

3.1. *Selected and trained political education teachers*

The first task was to select and train political education teachers. They had to be known for their loyalty to the regime and they needed to cooperate closely with history and geography teachers (Giday 1992, 15). In practice, the vast majority of those responsible for political education were themselves history and geography teachers.<fnref n="35" /> More rarely, some might be from other subjects if they were known for their political involvement. Teaching political education always involved selection.

They select the appropriate person, regarding his class background. Is he from feudal or royal family, or from poor family? Even if the teacher is from royal or feudal family, if he denied, if he ignored his class... [...] For the theory, by itself it was the known theory at that moment... So the teachers were teaching but not all the teachers. Those who deny their royal family class, those who were next to fight for communism, socialism, would teach this. The other will never do this. They will never accept.<fnref n="36" />

It was certainly impossible to oppose Marxism-Leninism publicly, as this
would have meant opposing the Derg. This was all the more true for teachers
who, being responsible for the intellectual and ideological training of future
adults, were controlled especially closely by school committees. However,
according to Elias Demtaw, teachers were not forced to teach political
education if they did not accept the ideology of the authorities. Afework
Ayalew, on the other hand, says: "We were obliged to teach Marxism-
Leninism. It was not good for people who did not like it."<fnref n="37" /> The school
authorities forced some teachers, but were careful to select the most convinced
among them as far as possible. This shows a desire for efficient ideological
transmission on the one hand, and the need to entrust it to people loyal to the

<footnote n="34">³⁴MOE, *The Ethiopian School Syllabuses* (1984), 112–20.</footnote>

<footnote n="35">³⁵Elias Damtew, interview, October 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="36">³⁶Ibid.</footnote>

<footnote n="37">³⁷Afework Tadesse, interview, February 2007.</footnote>
regime on the other. The teachers who were selected then undertook several types of training.

They have short time of training and long period of training. The long term of training, they use Yekatit 66 School in Addis Ababa. [...] For short term of training, they use Awassa. The training was given in TTC [Teacher Training Centre] at that time. The TTC teachers prepare the training for the elementary teachers and for the others. Based on Marxism-Leninism. So the teachers know something about Marxism-Leninism.<fnref n="38" />

Like regime officials, political education teachers attended political and ideological training at the Yekatit 66 School in Addis Ababa that lasted for between three and six months. A proclamation issued in July 1977 placed the school under the direct control of the Derg, after it had previously been a territory of its former ally, the Meison political party. From there, it came under the control of East German advisers, who played a central role in the training of Ethiopian administrative and teaching staff (Haile Gabriel 2006, 76). Yekatit 66 School had branches at regional, provincial and in some places local levels (Clapham 1988, 66–67). Teachers also received specific training at teacher training centres. Teachers from Wolaita received their training at the teacher training centre (TTC) in Awassa, the capital of the Sidamo region. Unlike Yekatit 66, the TTC training was specifically tailored to teachers and was more pedagogically oriented. In all likelihood, the TTC teachers themselves had attended training at the Yekatit 66 School, which was virtually a compulsory step for all civil servants.

In addition to this training, teachers had various materials to support them: not only textbooks, but also literature produced by the regime to spread Marxism-Leninism among officials, teachers and the masses. Political education courses started at Grade 4 and continued up to Grade 12. The textbooks dealt first with what the revolution had brought and the future it promised to the masses in general, and to children and young people in particular.<fnref n="39" /> The short- and long-term objectives of the revolution were explained in detail. The books stressed the participation of young people in the revolutionary process and the construction of socialism, inviting them to become involved in the common collective project. They then described the political and administrative institutions of socialist Ethiopia and explained how the adoption of democratic centralism had placed the state at the service of the masses, whereas it had hitherto been an instrument of oppression in the hands of the ruling classes. The process of social change was the subject of several chapters: every social advance was a result of the class struggle and after

<footnote n="38">³⁸Elias Damtew, interview, October 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="39">³⁹MOE, *The Ethiopian School Syllabuses* (1984), 93.</footnote>
the imperialist phase of capitalism, the inevitable process of world revolution was under way, and the times proved the accuracy of Marx and Engels' analyses of the transition to socialism. It was then necessary to develop an internationalist attitude among students: "An internationalist attitude based on mutual cooperation and solidarity between the world progressive forces"<fnref n="40" />, i.e. the Eastern Bloc and especially Russia. Ethiopia had to be inspired by the example of the revolutionary struggle of the Russian proletariat and its allies. Particular attention was devoted to the struggle against the enemies of the revolution and Ethiopia: the internal enemies who had opposed the Derg and the external enemies, which were Somalia, the Eritrean independence fighters and imperialism. Finally, the grades 11 and 12 textbooks were devoted to political economy, historical materialism and dialectical materialism. In short, the political education courses were a breviary, a compendium of what a citizen of socialist Ethiopia should know and think.

The official curricula also specified that revolutionary writings, newspapers and magazines were to be used by students (Giday 1991, 15). Although they were never, or only rarely, circulated in classrooms, they were available to teachers.

In addition to this there was a newspaper which is called *Serto Adder*, and there was also the book called *Political Economy. YeMemerhan Demš* (The Voice of the Teachers) was available. Because there is association of teachers from the grassroots. At elementary level, in each school there was an association of teachers, at the *wereda* level and the zone level. So the book was distributed to all teachers. So it created awareness for the teachers about Marxism-Leninism.<fnref n="41" />

The weekly newspaper *Serto Adder* was founded in 1980. It was the official organ of COPWE (The Commission for Organizing the Party of the Working People of Ethiopia) and then the WPE (The Workers' Party of Ethiopia) when it was established in 1984. With a print run of 100,000 copies, its aim was to spread Marxism-Leninism among the masses. In addition, the monthly theoretical journal *Meskerem*, which was also published by the single party and had a print run of 200,000 copies, circulated through the urban network and most likely also reached Wolaita. The editorial staff of these two official publications were familiar with the party publications of socialist countries (Sherr 1989, 438). *Meskerem* dealt with topics such as: the faces of current anti-communism, American imperialism before the revolution, the revolutionary role of intellectuals, the history of Ethiopian unity and Eritrean separatism;<fnref n="42" /> or ideological deviation and its channels of dissemination,

<footnote n="40">⁴⁰Ibid.</footnote>

<footnote n="41">⁴¹Elias Damtew, interview, October 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="42">⁴²*መስከረም*, issue 6, September 1981.</footnote>
industrial technology in Ethiopia, population growth and development.<fnref n="43" />
They were in-depth articles for adults on themes that were covered in the
school curriculum.

As Elias Demtaw recalls, teachers also had access to the monthly magazine published by the national teachers' association, *YeMemerhan Dems*, which was available in every school. The magazine contained articles on various general and pedagogical issues. For example, the August 1987 issue dealt with the global spread of HIV, sex education in schools and the role of languages in education and development.<fnref n="44" /> The July 1988 issue dealt with homework, the organisation of learning tests, a description of the school system in the Soviet Union and an analysis of writing and language.<fnref n="45" /> Each issue contained a section titled *Teachers and Creativity* which consisted of interviews with teachers who had written songs or plays or created works of art. They told of their backgrounds, described their activities and presented their views on the role of art in the service of a “pedagogy of the revolution.” The last page of each issue was devoted either to a famous person (the July 1988 issue contained a short biography of and a translation of a text by Bertolt Brecht) or to a political poem written by a teacher. The themes were broad and open-ended. This reveals a tension between the authoritarian practices analysed above on the one hand, and the real concern of the national teachers’ association to work towards an open pedagogy based on a living Marxist culture, far removed from the dogmatism of the official curricula and certain school textbooks, on the other hand.

From the point of view of the state, the distribution of these journals, and
the fact that the school curricula called for their use in the classroom, revealed
a desire to include teachers and students in a national community of readers.
It had an integrating function, reading shared at a national level, creating a
political culture and similar themes of reflection. Did the Grade 12 geography
textbook not state that the development of printing was essential to the
development of a new national culture? Through teachers and students, the
idea was to gradually familiarise the governed with reading these newspapers
and magazines. This major interest on the part of the state in creating a
common culture through the writings it produced was also one of the main
objectives of the literacy campaign. Although the magazines were a long
way from circulating as far as villages, schools could become centres for the
dissemination of ideas and themes developed at the national level.

<footnote n="43">⁴³መስከረም, issue 35, September 1988.</footnote>

<footnote n="44">⁴⁴የመምህራን ድምጽ, vol. 3, issue 2, August 1987.</footnote>

<footnote n="45">⁴⁵የመምህራን ድምጽ, vol. 4, issue 1, July 1988.</footnote>
## 3.2. Lessons, songs and plays

According to the official curricula, political education classes were taught in forty-minute periods twice or three times a week, depending on the level.<fnref n="46" /> The frequency was no greater than it was with other subjects. However, the inculcation of political ideas and behaviour permeated the school space to a considerable degree. It was achieved through the knowledge taught in the humanities and social sciences as well as all the school rituals. As had been the case under Haile Selassie, the days were punctuated by songs. Pupils sang two songs every day that had been written specifically for the raising and lowering of the flag, as well as the national anthem:

ኢትዮጵያ ቅደሚ ፣ በኅብረተሰባዊነት አብቢ ለምላሚ ፣
ቃልኪዳን ገብተዋል ጀግኖች ልጆችሽ፣
ወንዞች ተራሮችሽ ድንግል መሬትሽ ፣
መስዋዕት ሊሆኑ ለክብር ለዝናሽ ፣
የጀግኖች እናት ነሽ በልጆሽ ኩሪ ፣
ጠላቶችሽ ይጥፉ ለዘለዓለም ኑሪ!

Ethiopia, the ancient! Thriving and fertile through socialism,
Your heroes and children pledge unto you a promise.
Your rivers, your mountains, your untouched lands,
Demand sacrifice for your dignity and prestige.
Mother of heroes, take pride in your children.
May your enemies perish, and may you live forever.

As a national anthem, this song took up the great themes of nationalism in general and Ethiopian nationalism in particular. However, the imperial mystique and divine protection that were sung of during the Haile Selassie regime had disappeared in favour of socialism, which, instead of the emperor, watered the country with its benefits and symbolised prosperity. The flag-raising song was along the same lines:

ያንድነት የህብረት የትግላችን አርማ ፣
የድል የጅግንነት የነፃነት ግርማ ፣
የህብረተሰባዊነት መሪ ኮክባችን ፣
ትውለብለብ ዘላለም ሰንደቅ አላማችን!
ያገራችን ውበት ፣ የወንዝ የተራራ ፣
የተስፋችን ብርሃን ፣ የማለዳ ጮራ ፣
የታሪክ ቅርሳችን ፣ የደም ያጥንታችን ፣
ትውለብለብ ዘላለም ፣ ሰንደቅ አላማችን!

Emblem of our unity, cooperation, and struggle,
Grandeur of victory, heroism, and freedom.
Our guiding star towards socialism,

<footnote n="46">⁴⁶MOE, *The Ethiopian School Syllabuses* (1984), 247.</footnote>
Fly forever, our flag!
Beauty of our country, of rivers and mountains,
Light of our hopes, ray of dawn.
Our historical heritage, our blood, our bones,
Fly forever, our flag!

Once again, the metaphor of the dawn had already been used under Haile Selassie. But the source of the light was now socialism, not the emperor who had been replaced as the guide of the nation by the flag, the emblem of the union of the members of the political community. Socialism added cooperation to unity, and the struggle to defend the country was linked to the construction of the new society. The projection into the future, which was also present in the past, was more marked. Socialism gave progress a more precise content. Finally, here is the song that accompanied the lowering of the flag:

ወዛደር ገበሬ ህፃን አዛውንት ፣
መለዮ ለባሹ ተራማጅ ወጣት ፣
ቃል ኪዳን አለበት የቆየ ከጥንት ፣
ለሰንደቅ አላማው ሊሰዋ ሊሞት፣
ለፍትህ ለእኩልነት ለሰብአዊ መብት ፣
ለሰላም ለፍቅር ለህገር እድገት ፣
ለኢትዮጵያ ነፃነት ለልጆቿ ክብር ፣
ሰንደቅ አላማችን ዘላለም ትኑር!

Workers, peasants, young children, the elderly,
Wearers of the battle helmet, progressive youth.
An oath sworn since antiquity,
To sacrifice and die for our flag.
For justice, for equality, for human rights,
For peace, for love, for the progress of our country.
For the freedom of Ethiopia and the dignity of its children,
Live forever, our flag!

While the themes of sacrifice, the oath of allegiance and the eternity of
Ethiopia were repeated, this last song placed more emphasis on socialism. It
was the goal to be achieved, and its components—justice, human rights and
equality—were better defined. It emphasised solidarity among members of the
working class and different generations. Finally, its nature as a school song is
clear from its direct appeal to students as members of a youth with a specific
mission. Young people were progressive, and had to engage in the struggle
to build the socialist society in the face of adversity, just as one goes to war.
Finally, it is remarkable that the character of Mengestu Haile-Mariam does
not appear in any of these three songs. He was a dictator and there was a
cult of personality, for example in the many portraits and statues that adorned
the cities. However, while Haile Selassie's presence was omnipresent in all the
school songs, the figure of the new head of state faded behind nationalism and
socialism.

Plays were another form of pedagogy. They staged social realities with
political implications:

The focal need of the drama was... if it is a class of civics, or history, or political
education class, they bring two classes: the feudal class and the tenants class. How
the feudal oppress the tenants and how the tenants obey for the feudal or for the
landlords, such dramas. [...] At the beginning of the class, the beginning of the
academic year, during the closing ceremony, the dramas were prepared.<fnref n="47" />

The plays portrayed the exploitative relationships that had existed before
the revolution. While the songs spread aspirations, and sought to touch
the emotions and ensure the incorporation of a patriotic attitude based on
tendencies that leaned more towards belief than reason, the plays illustrated
practical realities. On the basis of these realities, the pedagogical objective was
to encourage a vision of social organisation that would overcome exploitation.
This new organisation would reap the benefits of the revolution and encourage
the building of a different future. The plays heavily involved the students, who
participated in them by acting and contributing to the creative process, and
through them, the ideals of the revolution were also to be spread in society: the
beginning of the school year and the closing ceremony were the two times of
the year when the pupils' families came to the school.

How was the ideology received by the students and by society? According
to Elias Damtew:

> So, the students were very interested to learn this political education. Also the
teachers were very interested... because the students were singing and in the same
time learning the points of Marxism-Leninism. So generally speaking, it penetrates
the minds of the students. It creates the outlook of Marxism-Leninism theory.<fnref n="48" />

According to Habtamu Lemma, political education was a popular subject
for students, not because of its content, but because it allowed them to achieve
good grades without much effort. The knowledge to be acquired was written
in simple language, the lessons were repetitive and easily retained, and the
teachers were lenient with their grading. From then on: "Everyone got an A
or B."<fnref n="49" /> In his opinion, this was a strategy implemented by schools to make the
subject attractive. He remembers: "We were learning with no interest. The
exam came, we took the exam and that was it, we forgot about it."<fnref n="50" /> It would
seem that students did not really take the subject very seriously.

<footnote n="47">⁴⁷Elias Damtew, interview, October 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="48">⁴⁸Ibid.</footnote>

<footnote n="49">⁴⁹Habtamu Lemma, interview, December 2009.</footnote>

<footnote n="50">⁵⁰Ibid.</footnote>
This reveals a discrepancy between the importance the regime attached to political education and the way students viewed it. Putting it into a wider context, teacher Demissie Minamo explains that Marxism-Leninism made very little sense to the population. According to him, set in the imported international context of the Cold War, it was imposed and decontextualised.<fnref n="51" /> Perhaps the omnipresence of slogans ended up by provoking a certain weariness. For his part, Dessalegn Rahmato (1984, 93) noted that the jargon-filled speeches made by officials in endless meetings “bored” the inhabitants. Similarly, it is quite possible that weariness took over in the end, as happened with Solomon Maereg: “At school, songs, lessons, and on Sunday morning at the Youth Association, I got fed up with Marxism-Leninism.”<fnref n="52" /> Did pupils nor perhaps also see a certain irony between a discipline that spoke of equality and the liberation of all, and young people in particular, on the one hand,<fnref n="53" /> and a school space where an authoritarian and violent form of pedagogy was practised on the other?

When discussing how political education was received, Afework Ayalew offers a contradictory answer:

> Obviously, they were taught and as children, their minds are quick. If you put something in a child's head at that age, it stays. But when the government changed, that education got disqualified and maybe they forgot some of it... maybe something was put in their minds, but almost 90% was lost.<fnref n="54" />

More than an inconsistency, this contradiction highlights the difficulty teachers experienced when it came to assessing the impact of Marxism-Leninism on their students. When they placed political education in the wider context of society as a whole, teachers laid great emphasis on class background, the position in the old power structure and the experience of oppression as determining whether or not to accept Marxism-Leninism. This is what Demissie Minamo says on the subject, for example: “Some were volunteers, the farmers, those who toiled under the feudal government under Haile Selassie. Honestly, they were very oppressed.”<fnref n="55" /> Elias Demtaw says the same thing. For her part, Mantagosh Eshete, a former leader of a women’s association, considers that some people accepted it because they thought it could change their lives.<fnref n="56" />

<footnote n="51">⁵¹Demissie Minamo, interview, December 2010.</footnote>

<footnote n="52">⁵²Solomon Maereg, interview, February 2007.</footnote>

<footnote n="53">⁵³MOE, *The Ethiopian School Syllabuses* (1984), 112 and 117.</footnote>

<footnote n="54">⁵⁴Afework Ayalew, interview, February 2007.</footnote>

<footnote n="55">⁵⁵Demissie Minamo, interview, December 2010.</footnote>

<footnote n="56">⁵⁶Mantagosh Eshete, interview, February 2008.</footnote>