Decolonizing Identity Politics Through Ethiopians Lived Religion

In this presentation, I analyze the relationship between religion and politics in Ethiopian history to demonstrate how lived religion enabled Ethiopians to create subjective In-betweenness that empowered them to resist imposed and colonial ideologies and practices. The Ethiopian feudal emperors constructed modern Ethiopia through centralized power, which created a singular and hegemonic identity (Ethiopianism). Two political systems rose in resistance to answer Ethiopians’ quest for self-determination: the Marxist government called Derge (1974-1991), then the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) (Teklu, 2014). However, the communist ideology of Derge and the neoliberal identity politics of the EPRDF are two sides of the same coin; I assert that they are imposed ideologies that eliminate the in-between spaces that integrate the religious, political, spiritual, and material in the lives of Ethiopians (Molla, 2023).

Neoliberalism is economic and political governmentality and cultural, social, religious, and theological phenomena that create identity politics (Reschke, 2019). In the Ethiopian context, identity politics function as colonial political and religious ideologies that are embedded in Ethiopia’s construction as a modern nation and neoliberalism eliminate in-between spaces from the lives of Ethiopians.

          Even though imposed neoliberal ideologies eliminated in-between spaces and consciousness of Ethiopians, Ethiopia and Ethiopians have lived and embodied religious and cultural identities that have enabled them to decolonize identity political powers. I claim that the “Greater Ethiopian Discourse,” which created a Greater Ethiopia – or a multiethnic country that protected itself from inside and outside colonialization (Levine, 2000) – that has kept its unity for more than two thousand years, could allow Ethiopians to resist identity politics. Trade, religious evangelism, social skills, and shared cultures have enabled diverse ethnic groups to create Greater Ethiopia through interdependent relationships (Levine, 2000). At the same time, I demonstrate the ways that Wax and Gold and Kebre Negest traditions, called Covenant thinking (Girma, 2012). Covenant thinking influenced Ethiopians to lead a covenantal life with their political and religious leaders, God, and others. I interpret Covenant thinking as Ethiopian lived religion, an everyday language for making their world, which has created a surplus history that connects Ethiopians beyond their differences (Girma, 2012).

Therefore, I argue that the Greater Ethiopian Discourse and Covenant thinking in conversation with African and Postcolonial thinkers' practices and theories of cosmopolitanism, borderland religion, and in-between space may reveal ways that can further empower Ethiopians to decolonize identity politics through subjective in-betweenness (Appiah, 2007; Bhabha, 2004; León, 2004). Ultimately, I assert that subjective in-betweenness resists both hegemonic localization and nationalization by activating in-between consciousness to make Ethiopian bodies the source of their liberation to choose their flourishment, freedom, and development.