Make Them Better Citizens: YMCA Training in Late Imperial Ethiopia (1950s-1970s)

Abstract

In Ethiopia, activities of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) during the late Imperial period are usually associated with sports and public lectures. This perception obscures the fact that since the early 1950s, the YMCA’s work revolved around the transformation of boys and young men into what it deemed intelligent, responsible, and loyal citizens. YMCA citizenship training, which gradually spread from Addis Ababa to eighteen towns all over Ethiopia and Eritrea, was primarily an urban phenomenon. Under the substantial influence of the International Committee of YMCAs of North America, programs and activities were shaped to highlight universal social citizenship as part of the developmental paradigm during the Cold War. By targeting the minds, spirits, and bodies of urban male youths, YMCA citizenship training developed refined techniques of social engineering. Making use of documents from the YMCA archives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA and the Institute of Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this article focuses on the “Future Citizen Program” (since 1959) and the “Operation Better Boys” (since 1967). It will explore the specifics of an urban citizenship that the Ethiopian YMCA tried to develop, ask how related ideas were communicated, and determine who stood behind these activities.