Welcome to this week’s premium article. After the Egypt vs. Ethiopia one, I wrote a Twitter thread about Africa that has gathered 350k views. Here it is: November 9th 2021 647 Retweets2,291 LikesIf you’re interested, I might expand on it in an article. In the meantime, I wanted to zoom into the African Horn. One of the latest countries to gain independence in the African Horn is Eritrea, from Ethiopia, in 1993. Another region in the area is de facto independent: Somaliland from Somalia. And now, Tigrayan rebels are 250km away from the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. What’s happening in the region? Why is there so much splintering? Tigrayans have been fighting the Ethiopian Army, but also the Eritrean one. Eritreans, who by the way fought a long separatist war with Ethiopia, were joined by paramilitary groups from the Amhara region. The Oromo Liberation Army is fighting the Ethiopian army too, while the Tigrayans invade Afar. If you’re confused, I don’t blame you. I am too. Why are so many groups fighting each other in this region? This map shows the different ethnicities in Africa. African EthnicitiesAs you can see, there are a lot. But the density is not the same everywhere. In areas where it’s easy to move from one place to the other, people tend to commingle and adopt the same culture and ethnicity. Deserts such as the Sahara and the Kalahari are an example. The Nile is another. Meanwhile, humid regions breed more people (humidity brings better agriculture, so more food, and a bigger population), and mountainous regions generate different ethnicities (because there are more people but also because mountains seclude groups). So it’s unsurprising that the Rift Valley has so many ethnicities. And thus why the Rift Valley has one of the highest concentrations of conflict in Africa. Africa in general is not very stable, but Ethiopia’s region is particularly prolific. That’s due, of course, to its geography and its ethnic groups. Ethiopia’s GeographyYou can clearly see the two ridges of the Rift, with the valley in the middle, spotted with lakes. As we discussed earlier this week, the areas that catch the water here are these mountain ridges. So here’s what it looks like if you add vegetation: And since people live where there’s vegetation, it's not surprising that there is a close overlap between it and population density. So yeah, lots of people living in highlands, not ideal for generating wealth—trade is too expensive because communications are too expensive—but great for generating many ethnicities. This is how many people there are of each: These ethnicities, of course, are influenced by religion. It might be hard to see what’s happening here, so let’s overlap these with the topography. What can we see?
Here’s what’s weird about this: weren’t we told that Ethiopia is an ancient kingdom? Why is it so divided if it has so much history as a united country? The Core and the CoastIn the first millennium, between about 1 AC and 1000 AC, the biggest kingdom in the region was the Kingdom of Aksum. The Kingdom of Aksum was centered around Aksum, a city in Tigray today that still holds vestiges from these times. As commerce between Rome, Greece, and India increased, it became part of the Greco-Roman sphere of influence and adopted the Greek language. As Christendom was taking over the Roman Empire, Aksum became the first Christian kingdom in the world¹. This shows how connected it was to the Mediterranean cultures due to its position on the trade path between India and the Mediterranean Sea. As the Roman Empire fell, so did trade with India, and so did Aksum’s wealth. It was aggravated by the emergence of Islam, which cut the Christian kingdom from the rest of Christendom. Aksum plunged into dark ages around 1000 AC. But Muslims also traded a lot, and they naturally used that path too. The more trade, the more wealth, but also the more cultural influence. This is how about a dozen sultanates appeared in the area, especially when the Ottoman Empire was strongest. The closer to the coast, the stronger the influence from Muslim trade, and the more likely there was to be a sultanate. But as the Ottoman Empire lost power, so did the sultanates in the Horn of Africa. During the scramble for Africa in the 19th century, when European powers tried to conquer as much land in Africa as they could, the British, French, and Italians were especially interested in that region for the same reason: it’s a key passage between the Mediterranean and India. The French took what is today Djibouti, the British took Somaliland, and the Italians tried their luck with Ethiopia but were rebuked. So what’s so special about the Horn of Africa? It’s the combination of two distinct features:
Both were broadly united under Aksum, but not after that. The coast always remained open to the sea, while the highlands, inaccessible and populous, remained more disconnected. This is why, today, Ethiopia doesn’t have a coast anymore. That coast is occupied by the majority-muslim countries of Eritrea², Djibouti, and Somalia. Nobel Peace Prize of AksumIn 2018, Abiy Ahmed was named Prime Minister of Ethiopia.
That doesn’t sound like a leader who wants peace for the sake of it. That’s because Ahmed never wanted it. It’s obvious from his policies since taking power. He’s signed deals with Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somaliland, and Kenya to get access to ports in their countries and build better infrastructure to reach them. Ahmed didn’t want peace. He wanted to reconnect the populous heartland to the coast, and he needed peace with Eritrea for that. The more connections Ethiopia has to the coasts, the more it can trade, the wealthier it will be, the less it will depend on one single neighbor, and the more confidently it will be connected to the rest of the world. Maybe Ahmed dreams of bringing Ethiopia back its heyday, to make the glory of Ethiopia high again, to bring it back to the times of the Kingdom of Aksum, when the region was one of the ancient world’s four great powers alongside Persia, Rome, and China. Tigray’s ThreatIf you are a political leader trying to regain the wealth and power of your ancient Kingdom of Aksum, you want to connect your populous core to the coasts. Your worst nightmare is the independence of the populous region containing the actual city of Aksum, at the center of the old kingdom that bridged coast and highlands. And so there is Tigray, pulled by the coast on one side and the central highlands on the other; proud of a past as the capital of Aksum and distrusting of the far-flung capital Addis Ababa that it once controlled. And meanwhile, here is the government of Addis Ababa, trying to unite Oromos, Amharas, and Tigray, east and west highlands, valleys and deserts, Christians and Muslims, core and coast. But everything is falling apart, splintered by the atomizing forces of local ethnicities anchored in their mountains, and coastal communities drawn to the world by trade. 1 Close to Armenia. Depending on the source it’s one or the other 2 Of the three, Eritrea is the country with the biggest Christian population and is where the highlands meet the sea. It’s also the one with the most ties to Ethiopia. |