Islam, Ethnicity, and Conflict in Ethiopia: The Bale Insurgency, 1963–1970 by Terje Østebø

Abstract

Østebø’s study of a major insurrection in Ethiopia during the 1960s presents a significant example of contemporary trends in the study of religious and ethnic movements. This book is an in-depth study of an important movement in modern Ethiopian history. It is also a clearly presented argument, reflecting important current trends in scholarship, for utilizing inclusive analytical frameworks to study religious and ethnic movements.The ambitious goal of this study is to provide an “understanding of the intertwined roles of religion and ethnicity in fomenting identity, demarcating boundaries, and causing conflict” (1). Østebø’s approach goes beyond redefining terms; it reshapes the modes of analysis. Much of the current study of movements is shaped by sets of binary conceptualizations, like traditional vs. modern or religious vs. ethnic. Østebø argues that the “either-or” perspective involved in such binary approaches hinders an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of group and communal identity.In this study, religion and ethnicity are understood to be “intimately connected” as dimensions of group definition and identity (317). A movement is not viewed as either ethnic or religious but can be both. This framework opens the way for a different understanding of important historical developments. For example, the process of Islamization of African communities (like the Oromo in Østebø’s study) is often viewed as the spread of some kind of “mainstream” or “pure” Islam, and when local religious traditions and practices are maintained within the Muslim framework, they are seen as departures from “mainstream” Islam. However, Østebø views “the expansion of Islam as a dialectical process of Islamization of the Oromo and the Oromization of Islam” (52). This interactive synergy is also seen in what Østebø describes as the “localization” of contemporary Muslim Salafism in Ethiopia. Within this framework, he concludes that in viewing insurrections in the Horn of Africa, “the integrated nature of religion and ethnicity … makes it impossible to dissect such conflicts as either religious or ethnic” (258).The introduction to the book presents a general discussion of the approaches to the study of religion and ethnicity. It introduces Østebø’s concept of “peoplehood” as an inclusive analytical concept that “enables us to move beyond either-or perspectives in relation to conflicts” (28). Chapters 2 and 3 provide the ethnographic and historical backgrounds for the insurrection, followed by two chapters about the insurrection itself—texts that Østebø describes as a “historical ethnography of the insurgency” (29). This historical account, which utilizes important interviews with surviving participants, is a distinctively important source.Østebø follows this historical account with a series of interpretive discussions. His assertion, in Chapter 6, that the Bale insurgency “was not a peasant rebellion” precedes discussions of how changing systems of land tenure were related to the insurrection (180). The final chapters of the book look at the meaning and role of religion and ethnicity, with concentrated discussions of the evolution of Ethiopian Christianity, Islam, and local Oromo nationalism. In this concluding section, Østebø includes a consideration of the “relevance of class in relation to religion and ethnicity,” arguing that “interpretations that favor and isolate one of these categories at the expense of the other inevitably bring forth a one-sided and incomplete picture” (259).How does Østebø’s broadly conceived analysis change our understanding of the nature of the secular? During the 1960s, many scholars identified activist movements as secular-nationalist rather than as instances of religious revivalism. Accordingly, as Østebø notes in this book, insurgencies in southeast Ethiopia were more influenced by “secular Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism” than by Islamic revivalism (245). If he had gone beyond an analysis based on the old binary of religious vs. secular in this book as he did with the paradigm of religious vs. ethnic, this book might have been even more useful.In a time like the present when ethnic conflicts and religious militancy are important elements in global affairs, it is important to study the relationships. Østebø presents an important study that goes beyond old exclusivist conceptual binaries in examining the relations between religion and ethnicity. The book is a valuable addition to the library of studies working to understand the nature of identity and conflict in the modern and contemporary world.