The Nigeria vs. "Ethiopia" soccer game on Oct. 13, 2013 was more than "just a soccer game" for the Ethiopian empire. The government and opposition groups in the "Unity" camp used the sports game to prop up the wounded ETHIOPIAN NATIONALISM. There are even some reports that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, formerly a state religion until 1974, was also involved in "politicizing" the sports game to ferment "nationalistic" feelings in the fans.
On the days leading up to and immediately after the Oct. 13, 2013 match between Nigeria and "Ethiopia," this nationalistic agitation turned sour - in which the fans of the Ethiopian team resorted to racially-motivated slurs and graphics towards the Nigerian team and fans in order to cheer for their 'team.' This "nationalistically"-charged mood, leading up to the Sunday game, turned into violence after the game. According to media reports, the fans of the Ethiopian team were burning properties in the capital, Finfinnee, out of frustration of the victory by the Nigerian team (score of 2:1).
In a way, the ETHIOPIAN NATIONALISM revealed its darker side before and after this crucial game for the Ethiopian empire. It's this same ideology that has been torching and killing innocents in Ethiopian-Nationalism-triggered wars in Eritrea, Oromia, Ogadenia and the rest of the South for the last century or so in the Horn of Africa. This dangerous ideology labels the "OTHERS" (in this case, the Nigerian team and fans) in an ethnically-motivated framework, and indiscriminately targets civilians who are believed to have "robbed this ancient empire of its sustained glory of 3,000-years." In folklore indoctrinated to schoolchildren and church goers, "the time will come when the empire rises up to its lost glory, and starts RULING over the world." And, this World Cup game was framed by the government, opposition groups and the Church as the "TIME" when that glory would be returned to the empire. The failure in winning the game has resulted in the torching of properties - as it was seen by the fans as failure to clinch the "mythical promise" that "Ethiopia will rise up again to rule the world."
The 30-year war with Eritrea and all other civil wars in the Empire have also been framed in a similar way. The Eritrean fight for freedom was framed by the Ethiopian colonialists as "rebels robbing Ethiopia of its head" that would have enabled the empire to "clinch" its prophecy of rising up again with access to the seaport. With that, millions perished. Similarly, in the ETHIOPIAN NATIONALISM ideology, the Oromo are "OTHERED" throughout Ethiopian/Abyssinian history, and the Oromo people are framed as the "locust who swarmed the Ethiopian empire in the 16th century," and, according to this ideology, the "presence of the Oromo in the Ethiopian empire" is a hindrance to the promise of the Ethiopian empire rising up again, thus the elimination of the Oromo through ethnocide and genocide has been the policy of successive Abyssinian governments in the Ethiopian empire since the conquest of Oromiyaa in the late 19th century by Menelik II. Such genocidal folklore against the Oromo used to be preached throughout the Empire OPENLY as early as 1974.
Such an ideology becomes dangerous when it's also state sponsored. The violence-ridden darker side of ETHIOPIAN NATIONALISM - easily triggered to an out-of-control level by a loss in a soccer game, creates instability in the Horn of Africa, one of the most conflicted zones in the world.
Ingen kommentarer:
Legg inn en kommentar