Formations of the Secular: Religion and State in Ethiopia

Abstract

Modern Ethiopia is a highly religious country with a complex history of religion and state. It inherited a political theology of Ethiopian Orthodox exceptionalism that had been hardened in confrontations with Muslim and Catholic powers but proved inadequate to govern the multi-religious and multi-ethnic nation state which was formed from the end of the nineteenth century onward. When laying down a new constitutional foundation for Ethiopia, Haile-Selassie sought to recalibrate church-state relations in the image of modern state secularism, making tacit acknowledgments to other religions along the way, in particular, to harness the development resources of Protestant missions. The legal guarantees of freedom of religion were of no practical consequence, however, with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church firmly in place as state religion. This relationship was severed with the revolution of 1974 and the subsequent socialist dictatorship of the Derg. Yet dialectical materialism did not render religion obsolete in Ethiopia, and hence the Derg, too, was forced to contend with the political powers of Ethiopian Orthodoxy, Islam, and Protestantism, with the latter increasingly pressed into underground movements. In the post-Derg years, the ruling coalition continued the official doctrine of state secularism, which suited its philosophy of ethnic federalism. Robust constitutional and legal provisions for freedom of religion were put into place, but applied unevenly. Protestants, in particular, benefited from these new arrangements, and for the first time were fully protected by the state and free to spread all over the country. With PM Abiy Ahmed’s recent rise to power, political secularism has faded and a religiously articulated vision of “prospering Ethiopia” formed the basis of a renewed one-nation ideology, with which Abiy sought to replace the inherited philosophy of ethnic federalism, leading his country into a new era of conflict.

The chapter traces this complex history of ethnicity, religion, and state power. In dialogue with Talal Asad’s Formations of the Secular, it argues that political secularity is not adequately framed as merely the absence of religion. Rather, it embodies a particular set of demands on the regulation of religions which apply to highly religious countries as well. In this sense, the history of religion and state in modern Ethiopia has been one of a consecutive struggle with various formations of the secular.