OPINION | By Andualem Hanjalo *
From the ethnic Tigrayan Patriarch of the whole Ethiopian Orthodox Church, (in Abune Mathias), to Ethiopia’s top Minister of Defense (in Abraham Belay), who is also ethnic Tigrayan, it seems several high-profile Tigrayans are embraced in Ethiopia, despite the TPLF’s “Tigrayan insurrection” since 2020. Another under-reported area of privilege that survived has been the over-representation of Tigrayan athletes in the lucrative global running opportunities.
The latest Tigrayan-Ethiopian champions Gotytom Gebreselassie and Letesenbet Gidey certainly earned their gold medals and worked hard personally, and with the national team, to achieve all their accomplishments. However the over-representation of Tigrayans, including at the junior level, has long been a big story during the era of Tigrayan dictatorship in Ethiopia. This issue escalated as more & more non-Tigrayan athletes fled the country and thus Ethiopia’s track & distance running program experienced a brief drought of success at the end of the Kenenisa-Dibaba-led heydays.
Ironically now, the fruits of this privilege, with all its beauty and controversy, has become more visible in the last couple of years again, including during the current 2022 World Athletics Championships.
Historically, it is no secret that the most celebrated and decorated Ethiopian athletes – from Abebe Bikila, to Haile Gebreselassie, the Dibabas and Kenenisa – have often came from Oromia region (partially due to physical and altitude/geographic reasons.) This Oromia region still does produce the fastest and best Ethiopian runners, but where are most of them now? Clearly, Not inside Ethiopia.
“Give the chance to the Tigrayan”
In the last two decades, the Ethiopian Athletic Federation (EAF) has been accused of infiltration by the cadres of the then Tigrayan ruling party TPLF. While the story of EAF preventing the Ethiopian legend Kenenisa Bekele – an Oromo – from competing in the 2016 Olympics made international headlines: problems with the preferential treatment for Tigrayans have always been brewing in the federation for years. The crisis made more headlines in 2016 when the NPR – an American media – reported on the plight of an Oromo runner who provided evidence of him having better results than Tigrayan runners in a domestic race inside Ethiopia. According to his document, many lower performing Tigrayan runners were apparently getting preferential treatment and allowed to advance up the ladder, over Oromo runners, as he was forced by an EAF coach to “give the chance for Tigrayans.”
The EAF official even “pulled him aside and told him to throw the race for another runner,” according to Mohamed Kemal, who told NPR, “I was discriminated because I’m Oromo.”
Imagine, a white American coach or official urging a black American athlete to let a white athlete win a competition. Such a controversy would create massive outrage in Western media but it was a common problem facing the EAF under the TPLF junta rule in Addis Ababa.
Similar stories have been heard over the years, where the TPLF rulers planted their cadres in the EAF management due to their anger that merit based qualification often led to mostly non-Tigrayans like Oromos, Amharas and others to qualify. In addition, with the popular political artist Teddy Afro putting Kenenisa in lyrics to sing about unity and bravery, the TPLF junta also wanted to have more control over EAF. Ultimately, nepotism, ethnic-profiling and discrimination became to define selection processes from the junior to higher level of the EAF under TPLF rule pre-2018.
Unlike virtually all other sectors in Ethiopian society that were already rife with favoritism for Tigrayans, the EAF used to be merit-based until the TPLF ethnic junta managed to taint even such a sacred national institution. Over the years, it is unknown how many more young Tigrayan athletes managed to skip over a more qualified Oromo, Amhara or other Ethiopian due to this ethnic corruption inside the EAF. But the legacy of that pro-Tigray ethnic favoritism appears to reverberate today. Many Ethiopian athletes (particularly of Oromo & Amhara background), have fled to other countries, most of them bitterly changing their nationality to represent their new adopted countries and quickly find success in recent years. This is why it is now very common to see athletic events with “Ethiopians vs former-Ethiopians” racing in many top global competitions.
Ironically, despite Derartu Tulu (a former Olympic champion of Oromo ancestry) now becoming the new President of EAF, she has taken the high-road. There have been no purges, no drastic changes from the top down. No calls for disgruntled ex-Ethiopian athletes in the diaspora to return. Unlike Abiy who highlighted the corruption of Metec, EFFoRT and other TPLF companies, Derartu has never rebuked or gave public acknowledgement of TPLF’s nepotism inside the athletic federation. In fact, she has preserved what she inherited from the junior national team, all the way up, and let things play out. By all measures, Derartu should be praised for her grace amidst an injustice; because it is not easy. Unlike her, in some parts of Ethiopia, like slaves suddenly freed from their masters, Ethiopians in some institutions have responded to being liberated from three decades of Tigrayan supremacy in 2018: with bitterness and vindictiveness. But Derartu has only displayed compassion.
Derartu has also become a motherly figure embracing all athletes and transcending ethnic identities. Despite acknowledging the TPLF rebels are responsible for starting the brutal war in Tigray, Derartu has also taken the role of consoler-in-chief to non-political Tigrayan athletes who are separated from their families and to other Tigrayans who might even share the Tigrayan supremacy views of the TPLF junta. And for the first time in history of EAF leadership, she has been openly and politically critical of the federal government led by PM Abiy Ahmed.
However, it seems the Abiy government generally sees healthy criticism as a good thing, as well as views institutional independence as a foundation for democracy. This has become the new normal with the historic transformation of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) which also displayed independence, criticizing and sometimes denouncing the Abiy government’s performance. This was unimaginable during past regimes.
One of the most defining images of the current administration has been the picture of Abiy Ahmed holding an umbrella recently for Patriarch Mathias, the famous ethnic Tigrayan religious leader who spoke very harshly against Abiy just weeks before this photo was taken.
Supporters of Abiy say his embrace of the ethnic-Tigrayan Patriarch proves Abiy’s humbleness and tolerance of dissent views, no matter how partisan or extreme the view.
And they might be right to some degree. In modern history, when governments change in Ethiopia, the new leaders always change the Patriarch of the powerful Orthodox church and appoint their own preference, either ethnic or politically.
Prime Minister Abiy, however, broke that generational cycle of intolerance by maintaining the ethnic Tigrayan Patriarch appointed by TPLF, despite this patriarch being outspoken promoting anti-Abiy rhetoric about the Tigray crisis, almost as bad as TPLF executive leader Tedros Adhanom.
Yet, every-time notable individuals inside Ethiopia like Patriarch Abune Mathias openly attack & condemn Abiy’s government and face no retaliation, it has become symbolic victory for Abiy Ahmed’s post-2018 “change” and “reform.” In the big picture, this is truly a victory for democracy and for freedom of expression, despite the existing shortcomings.
Similarly, whether or not the careers of most Tigrayan athletes today were direct beneficiaries of the pre-2018 Tigrayan privilege in Ethiopia, the fact that over 100 million Ethiopians can forgive; put that dark chapter behind them and still embrace Tigrayan athletes, is also another victory for all Ethiopians, our unity and the reform.
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