Hangover from imperial nostalgia destabilising the Horn of Africa

The nostalgia for Britain’s past imperial power and glory propelled the Brexit, the historic withdrawal of the UK from the European Union in June 2016.

Brexit triggered a worldwide retreat of regionalism the framework of regional peace and security architectures.

Recently, observers of the geopolitics of the Horn were shell-shocked by Ethiopia’s unprecedented move to snub the summit of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Kampala Uganda on January 18, 2024.

Over the past five years, Ethiopia has seen a resurgent wave of ethno-nationalism based on a Cushitic consciousness which has pan-African tradition, fueling a clash of ideologies in the Horn of Africa and pushed IGAD to a dangerous tipping point.

The ‘Cushitic consciousness’ is driving Ethiopia’s new agenda to recreate the ancient ‘Kush Empire’ in the Horn. If unchecked, Addis Ababa’s imperial nostalgia for ‘Greater Kush’ will plunge the Horn into a cataclysmic conflict.

Since coming to power on April 2, 2018, Abiy Ahmed Ali has staged three regionalised wars in his four years rule as Ethiopia’s 3rd Prime Minister. There is a clear logic and grand strategy to the wars in Oromia, Tigray and Amhara regions. These wars are driven by a distinct Cushitic consciousness and militarism.

Abiy rode to power on the crest of a wave of anti-government protests spearheaded by Ethiopia’s Oromo population — a Cushitic-speaking people of southern Ethiopia and adjacent parts of Kenya — becoming the first ever ethnic Oromo premier in Ethiopia.

As a galvanising ‘us-versus-them’ ideology, the Cushitic consciousness maps the Horn into two geographic identities of “highlanders and ‘lowlanders’ grouped into three linguistic clusters of the Bantus of Kenya, the ‘Semites’ (Amhara and Tigrayans and Eritreans) and the Cushitic groups (Oromo and Somali).

The new agenda is to mobilise the Cushitic-speaking people into one political identity and exerting its hegemony over the Semites and Bantus in a “Greater Kush” as sprawling ‘empire’ touching the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean coasts. Over five years, Ethiopia’s Cushitic agenda has unfolded in two phases.

In the first phase, 2018-2022, Abiy forged a Cushitic Alliance to replace the ‘Semitic-Bantu Alliance’ that hitherto dominated Horn geopolitics. His rise signaled the end of the ‘Solomonic dynasty’ (the hegemonic control of the Amhara and Tigray ethnicities) in Ethiopian politics and regional geopolitics. A military alliance with President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea, widely but erroneously held as a ‘peace agreement,’ earned Abiy the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.

In Somalia, President Mohamed “Farmaajo” (2017-2022) embraced Abiy as an ally in Ethiopia’s power shift. On September 5, 2018, Farmajo, Abiy, and Afeworki Eritrea signed a trilateral agreement in Asmara with its subtext being ending “bullying policies” of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The triple Cushitic alliance moved to isolate Kenya.

However, from 2020, the ‘Cushitic Alliance’ began to unravel. The postponement of elections in 2020 triggered the two-year civil war in Tigray in which Eritrea and Somalia fought alongside Ethiopia. It claimed over 600,000 people lives, and displaced millions of others, ended Abiy’s shine as a man of peace.

In the second phase, 2022-2024, Abi has witnessed a retreat from the supra-ethnic Cushitic Alliance project to the narrower but more concrete agenda of consolidating the ‘Greater Oromia’ as the basis of ‘Greater Kush’, — an imperial nostalgia to revive the old Kushite empire. Driving the ‘Greater Oromia’ project is the Oromummaa ideology, which draws on a set of fundamental beliefs, values, moral codes, and guiding principles as the basis of the Oromo nationalism and vision of the collective identity and power.

The strategy to secure the ‘Greater Oromia’ project has four distinctly militaristic hues. First is a divide-and-conquer strategy to militarily defeat “the Northern Semitic invaders” mainly Amhara and Tigray within Ethiopia. Related to above is the agenda to displace an estimated 15 million Amhara, Tigrayans and Eritreans who control businesses and vast tracts of farms in the big towns in Oromia.

Second, the fueling of schisms within the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as the symbols of the hegemony of “the Semitic races” and relics of the Abyssinian imperial domination.

This will entail creating the Oromia Synod as a crucial step to sever the historical ties between Cushitic Oromo Orthodox believers and Amhara/Tigray part of Ethiopia. The endgame is to root out the Church at a later day.

Third is to consolidate Greater Oromia’s military power by equipping Special Oromia forces with cutting-edge arms, cutting down the influence of Orthodox Oromo Generals and tightening the grip of none Orthodox Cushites on the leadership and command positions of the Ethiopian National Defence Forces.

Regionally, Eritrea has also to be humbled. This entails inciting a new war between Tigray and Eritrea. With Ethiopia’s Tigray being too weak to either provoke or sustain war against Eritrea, the fall back is to enlist extremists from the ‘Adwa Group’ in Tigray to push for it.

Abiy has entered into a pact with Somaliland as part of Ethiopia’s historic quest to get an outlet to the Red Sea at the corridor between Somalia and Djibouti. This will address the aspirations of the proponents of ‘Greater Oromia’ for a direct access route to the Red Sea.

Besides expanding into the Red Sea (Afar in Assab) frontier, proponents of the “Greater Kush” are seeking to unify Kenya’s Oromo-speaking people (the Gabra, Orma and the Sakuye) in Northern and Coastal Kenya to gain access to the Indian Ocean Coast.

Sadly, the “Greater Kush” project has provoked resurgence of pan-Somali nationalism as a response to renewed threat from Ethiopia. It has also inadvertently revitalised and emboldened al-Shabaab.

- Prof Peter Kagwanja is the Chief Executive at the Africa Policy Institute, Adjunct Professor University of Nairobi & Visiting Scholar at the National Defence University-Kenya.