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Abstract

This article aims to advance the understanding of famine memorialization—or the lack of it—in postcolonial Africa by focusing on famines in Ethiopia. It analyses the memory politics of Ethiopian state actors, and the silenced or marginalized place of famines, particularly the 1984–1985 famine. Drawing on interviews with individuals involved in memory-making in Ethiopia, observations of museums, monuments and other memory sites, and archival and secondary sources, the article shows how famine memory only appears at the margins of public commemoration initiatives. It discusses how tensions between a centralized national authority and Ethiopian identity, on the one hand, and regional ethno-national politics, on the other hand, along with efforts to brand the country as modern and developed, have served to silence past famines. However, artistic work and initiatives to remember famine victims “from below” contribute, to some extent, toward making the memory of mass-starvation publicly visible.

Keywords

Ethiopia mass-starvation memory activism memory politics silences

Introduction

How many days does hunger last?

Those of you who have suffered, speak out

[…]

How many days? How many nights?

Before the vulture descends; before it rips you apart with its claws

With its wings of death, hovering with its plaguing legs

If you still have some voice, don’t refrain from telling

Speak out, if you can.¹

In his poem from 1973, Ethiopian poet and playwriter Tsegaye Gebremedhin captures the unbearable experience of famine. He also urges survivors to speak about it, stressing the importance of not letting this trauma be forgotten.

The last decades have seen an intensification of official memorialization of the past. Also—or especially—tragic pasts have become the focus of public commemoration (Logan and Reeves, 2009: 3; Macdonald, 2013). Countless monuments, memorial days, exhibitions, and documentation efforts memorialize those who succumbed to war, terrorism, and genocide (Turner, 2006). Commemoration is an important ingredient for national identity construction (Malinova, 2021). It is also central to transitional justice norms and practices, as it is believed to assist efforts to heal, reconcile, and prevent re-occurrence of violence in societies affected by mass atrocities (Hamber et al., 2010; Light and Young, 2015).

The death-count of famines tends to equal—sometimes dwarf—those of wars and terror attacks; between 1870 and 2010, large-scale famines killed at least one hundred million people (De Waal, 2018: 5). It is widely recognized that famines are not the unfortunate result of forces of nature, but caused by actions—or lack of actions—by humans (Devereux, 2006; De Waal, 2018; Sen, 1983). Despite this, attempts to come to terms with famine pasts through public memorialization are rare. Two exceptions stand out, though: in Ireland and Ukraine, historical famines have been thoroughly memorialized and made central to national identity (Kasianov, 2011; Mark-Fitzgerald, 2013; Noack et al., 2012). Other European famines have also been considered a heritage worth preserving (Corporaal and de Zwarte, 2022). Although most famine causalities during the past half century are concentrated in Africa (Devereux, 2009; De Waal, 2018), these famines tend to be absent in public memory-making. Instead, they are remembered through oral traditions and folklore or on social media (Azeze, 1998; Mwambari, 2024; Nweke, 2024).

Ethiopia has suffered several famines. Kifu Qen (Evil Days) 1888–1892 is well documented and reportedly killed up to a third of Ethiopia’s population at the time (Zewde, 1976). Other examples are the 1966 and 1973 famines in the northern provinces; the devastating 1984–1985 famine which affected large parts of the country; famine in the southeastern Somali region in the early 2000s; and the severe hunger crisis in Tigray during the 2021–2022 war (Conley et al., 2022; Hammond and Maxwell, 2002; Mesfin, 1984). These famines have been caused by a combination of repression, war (including blockades), forced displacement, draught, poor governance, and insufficient humanitarian response (Conley et al., 2022; De Waal, 1997, 2018; Mesfin, 1984; Zewde, 1976). The 1984–1985 famine differs from most other African famines due to the massive international attention it attracted (Müller, 2013). It was also one of the largest disasters the country had suffered, killing an estimated 500,000 people and displacing 2.5 million (Africa Watch, 1991; Rahmato, 1988). When the Horn of Africa and Sahel region were affected by drought in the early and mid-1980s, Ethiopia’s ruling Provisional Military Administration Council, also known as the Dergue, was in the midst of civil war with armed movements seeking the liberation of Tigray and Eritrea. That the Dergue failed to respond to the ensuing hunger crisis was also linked to their preoccupation with the 10th anniversary of the revolution that brought them to power. Meanwhile, the response by international donors was restrained by Cold War politics (Smith, 1987; Wolde, 1989). Thanks to international hits like “Do they know it’s Christmas” and the role of celebrities in mobilizing a humanitarian response (Müller, 2013), this famine is widely remembered globally. However, it is conspicuously absent in Ethiopia’s own state-mediated memory-making practices.

This article aims to advance the understanding of famine memorialization—or the lack of it—in postcolonial Africa by focusing on famines in Ethiopia. The article analyzes the memory politics of Ethiopian state actors, and the silenced or marginalized place of famines, particularly the 1984–1985 famine. It discusses how Ethiopia’s memory regime, that is, the dominant discourses of the past and the mechanisms and institutions that reproduce them, has marginalized famine memory, but also highlights the role of memory activism and initiatives to remember hunger “from below.” Drawing on interviews with individuals involved in memory-making in Ethiopia, observations of museums, monuments and other memory sites, and archival and secondary sources, the article shows how famine memory has only coincidentally appeared in public commemoration initiatives, and how tensions between a centralized national authority and Ethiopian identity, on the one hand, and regional ethno-national challengers, on the other hand, along with efforts to brand the country as developed, have served to silence past famines.

The next section situates the article in earlier scholarship on famines and memorialization and introduces the concepts of memory regime and memory activism. After that, we present our methods and data. Thereafter, two sections present our findings with regard to Ethiopia’s memory regime and its evolvement over time, focusing on changes of government and ethno-national tensions, and development and modernization, respectively. Then, we detail how famine memory does appear at the margins of official memory-making and how initiatives from below enable public memorialization of famines, before a final section outlines our conclusions.

Remembering/forgetting famines: theoretical perspectives

Many associate hunger and famines with Africa, even though historically, the largest famine fatalities were recorded in other parts of the world (De Waal, 2018). However, when hunger decreased globally in the last decades, Africa continued to suffer from famines or famine-like conditions. Armed conflicts, climate change-induced extreme weather conditions, raising food prices, and poor governance are behind a recent increase in the number of hungry people in the continent (FAO, 2023). While famine research has mapped trends and detailed the causes of large-scale hunger (Devereux, 2006; De Waal, 2018; Rubin, 2019; Sen, 1983), less is known about how societies remember these tragedies afterward.

Which past traumas and achievements are officially recognized and commemorated, and which fall into oblivion, is the result of complex and often contested processes that are closely tied to political power struggles and nation-building (Kubik and Bernhard, 2014; McDowell et al., 2014; Ochman, 2017). In fact, forgetting is a relatively common reaction to tragic pasts. Connerton (2008) discusses seven ways in which past traumas are forgotten, highlighting the role of humiliation and suppression, but also forgetting as a strategy that enables people to continue living peacefully together (see also Beiner, 2018; Mannergren Selimovic, 2020). Irwin-Zarecka (1994) notes that “to secure a presence for the past demands work—‘memory work’—whether it is writing a book, filming a documentary or erecting a monument” (p. 13). Such work necessitates resources and is shaped by power dynamics. To understand memorialization, we thus need to analyze actors and practices. In this article, we are especially interested in the role of Ethiopian state actors, but also in how non-state actors seek to make famine memory visible. Studying forgetting is considerably more difficult, as it requires that we trace what is remembered, by whom and how, and notice the silences and lack of memory work in relation to certain traumatic pasts (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994: 13–14); a type of “negative methodology” (cf. Navaro, 2020).

State institutions and political elites play a crucial role determining what is to be publicly remembered and how. According to Zhurzhenko, a memory regime is made up of “dominant discourses on the past and commonly shared symbols and myths in a society, as well as mechanisms and institutions that support and reproduce them” (Onken, 2007; Zhurzhenko, 2011: 635). We argue that the public forgetting of famines needs to be understood in relation to the prevailing memory regime in Ethiopia. This necessitates an analysis of official memory-making by political representatives and key institutions, and of the discourses they promote. Examining the memory regime and its transformation over time helps us identify the space—or lack of space—for famine memory.

In the contemporary world, memory regimes and state-led memory-making are closely connected not only to national identity but also to development strategies and nation-branding. Image-building has become increasingly important for countries wishing to reap the economic profits of international investments and tourism, exercise “soft power,” and avoid criticism for human rights violations and deficient democracy (Dukalskis, 2021; Eggeling, 2020; Van Ham, 2002). Branding strategies can range from contracting professional consultants and buying advertising time and space, to suppression of negative images spread by human rights advocates and opposition figures (Dukalskis, 2021). The past, including heritage and memorial sites, is sometimes “presenced” in image-building and tourism-promoting efforts (cf. Macdonald, 2013). This includes “difficult heritage,” which has become increasingly central to both national identity and tourism (cf. Foley and Lennon, 1996; Macdonald, 2008). That many museums and heritage sites have to appeal to an audience to gain incomes also influences if and how painful pasts are presented (see Gouriévidis, 2000). How Ethiopia’s past figures in the country’s branding efforts and development strategies is thus central to understanding its memory regime. We will hence study which images of Ethiopia’s past are promoted and which are considered “undesirable” and discuss what this means for the possibilities to frame historical famines as heritage.

Furthermore, to understand how famines are remembered—or forgotten—we need to move beyond how elite actors and institutions make use of, or silence, the past for economic, political, or other purposes to also consider the memory work of activists, artists, poets, scholars, and educators. Indeed, initiatives “from below” play an important role in maintaining, shaping, and reviving the memory of past traumatic events. Gutman and Wüstenberg (2022) suggest that we define memory activists as actors who “strategically commemorate the past to challenge (or protect) dominant views on the past and the institutions that represent them” (p. 1070). Social movement researchers have shown how people mobilize in the pursuit of a reinterpretation of the past, and that social movements can shape public memory (Daphi and Zamponi, 2019). Scholars have also highlighted the importance of vernacular memory, that is, the ways in which local communities informally maintain and express memories (Mihelj, 2022). Traumatic memories—including of famines—may live on in folklore, oral tradition, sayings, or social media (Mwambari, 2024; Nweke, 2024; Zhao and Liu, 2015). Actors, initiatives, and memory processes “from below” may operate as a counter-memory (Foucault, 2019; Young, 1997) or memory from the margins (Conley, 2019) in relation to official memory-making and may challenge and contribute to the transformation of memory regimes.

As we seek to understand how famines in Ethiopia have been publicly remembered—or forgotten—we thus trace the development over time of the country’s memory regime, but also look at efforts by memory activists to break the silence around the memory of mass-starvation.

Methods and data

The article builds on interviews, observations, archival research, and secondary data. Twenty-six semi-structured interviews were conducted in Ethiopia in 2022 with persons involved in memory work. These include museum officials, artists, heritage agency officials (at national and sub-national level), scholars, as well as former and current senior government officials. We see the interviewees as both actors involved in memory work and experts with in-depth knowledge of the Ethiopian memory regime. The interviews were carried out in Amharic. They were recorded with the permission of the interviewees and focused on how official memorialization has developed over time in Ethiopia, famine memory, and specific memorialization initiatives.

We also observed 12 memorial sites in Addis Ababa, Amhara, and Oromia—9 museums, 2 monuments, and an art collection of a heritage site. We were able to access the collections in storage of two museums, while the remaining observations were made from publicly accessible areas. We documented the observations by taking notes and photos. In addition, we collected and studied legal and policy documents from heritage and culture authorities; poetry and fiction books associated with famines; relevant newspaper articles; history and civic education textbooks; music albums; documentation of conferences and cultural tours that related to famine memory; oral and folklore couplets in Amharic and Oromiffa languages; and brochures produced by museums and cultural centers. This material was gathered in Ethiopia and online, in some cases on advice from our interviewees. We do not consider it a complete and representative selection of evidence of Ethiopia’s memory regime and famine memorialization. However, it is comprehensive and diverse enough to provide crucial knowledge on these topics.

The findings we present result from a thematic analysis which was guided by questions such as: How has Ethiopia’s memory regime evolved over time and what is the place of famine memory in it? What initiatives are there to remember past famines? We identified themes based on a reading and re-reading of the entire body of empirical data, as well as of relevant secondary literature. The analysis was informed by the theoretical discussions outlined above, especially those of the concepts of memory regime and memory activism.

The next two sections present our findings with regard to Ethiopia’s memory regime. We first focus on how it has been shaped by tensions between a central power and regional challengers, and thereafter zoom in on the role of nation-branding, development, and shame. The following two sections detail how famine memory is—to some extent—present at the margins of official memory-making and how initiatives from below enable public memorialization of famines.

Memory, power, and ethno-nationalist contestations

The first thing every regime does is tear down the heritage works of the previous regime and try to build its own. (Interview 5)

Early official remembrance in Ethiopia was mainly tied to the church and involved, for instance, the monarch constructing churches or donating land or artifacts as a way to preserve and manifest his own memory (Doresse, 1959: 30–32; Pankhurst, 1982, Interview 2, 17). More recently, dramatic shifts have taken place as powerholders have been ousted and replaced: from the monarchy (up to 1974), to the Marxist-Leninist military Dergue regime (1974–1991) and the federal arrangement of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) after 1991.

“Memorialization is dominated by military affairs in Ethiopian history,” one interviewee stated (Interview 20). Monuments indeed predominantly present strong leaders and victories. For instance, a statue of Emperor Menelik, put up in the 1930s, honors his 1896 triumph over Italians attempting to colonize the country. The era of Emperor Haile Selassie (1930–1974) marked the beginning of official memory-making at a larger scale, involving the naming of institutions and construction of monuments (Zeleke, 2010). These were, one interviewee noted, “elevating the image of the monarchy . . . [by depicting] Haile Selassie as an educator, Haile Selassie as a liberator and Haile Selassie as a modernizer” (Interview 17). Monuments from this period also commemorate the victims of the second Italian invasion and the Emperor’s ultimate victory in the 1930s (Gedamu, 2020; Tola, 2017b).

One of the first actions of the military Marxist-Leninist Dergue regime, which took power in the 1974 Revolution, was to replace many of Emperor Haile Selassie’s monuments, symbols, and institutional names with those that represented the Dergue regime, Marx, Lenin, and the Revolution (Tola, 2017a). During this, as well as earlier regimes, commemorative efforts primarily focused on major confrontations with external enemies and served to assert the unity of the Ethiopian nation. For example, the Tiglachin (Our Struggle) monument from the Dergue era commemorates the victory over Somalia’s 1977 invasion. During both the Emperor and the Dergue periods, state-led memory work “was focused on national heroes and martyrs, [. . .] the focus was on an external enemy” (Interview 5).

The 1991 toppling of a large bronze statue of Lenin (Hiltzik, 1991) in Addis Ababa signaled the end of the Dergue’s rule and the ascendancy of the EPRDF coalition which comprised four ethno-national liberation movements (Tola, 2017a). This, and the erasure of other Dergue-era monuments and symbols, marked a shift from a focus on national memory-making, which had been criticized for having projected “a homogenous identity upon diverse nations and served as a camouflage for Amhara nationalism” (Regassa and Emmenegger, 2023: 906). The new EPRDF regime embraced and institutionalized identity politics (Gudina, 2004); a federal arrangement along ethno-national lines gave regional governments increased autonomy to promote their own history and traditions (Finneran, 2008; Young, 1996). This shift is reflected in monuments, memorials, museums, statues, and the naming of organizations and public spaces to represent “nations, nationalities, and peoples” and honor the armed struggles of the 1970s and 1980s (Gedamu, 2020; Tola, 2017a). For instance, Martyrs Memorial sites were established in numerous regional state capitals (Tola, 2017b).

A scholar we interviewed noted that “EPRDF’s work on commemoration is unique since focus is given more to the history of internal power struggles and conflicts among various identity groups, than to external encounters” (Interview 2). Officials in museums and heritage agency offices pointed out that the EPRDF neglected museums and memorials sites of national scope and thus the country’s shared history. Instead, sub-national museums, memorials sites, and commemorations received state support: “Now [memorialization] has become about internal civil wars,” one interviewee cautioned; “now we are erecting monuments of hatred” (Interview 5). Another said that the new heritage politics did not serve to “educate generations, but rather to meet the politics for the time” and that this raised difficult questions about victimhood and culpability: “In a civil war, who is the martyr and who is the perpetrator?” (Interview 17). Another interviewee tied the memorialization of martyrs to the legitimation of power:

In a way it is to commemorate those who were sacrificed [in the liberation war] [. . .] But more than that [. . .] it is to motivate the new young generations that did not experience that period and to legitimize [the idea] that this victory or achievement is a result of large sacrifice and that everyone should subdue and be ruled quietly. (Interview 20)

Reformist changes by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed from 2018 involved a shift away from the emphasis on ethno-national struggles in official memory-making. For instance, the memorial site in Bahir Dar was transformed from “Amhara Martyrs Memorial Monument,” which honored the armed liberation struggle of the 1970–1980s, to “Amhara People Historical Center,” which focuses on a broader history of the Amhara people (Interview 16). The post-2018 changes are also visible throughout Addis Ababa with the construction of museums and public spaces like the Friendship Park and the Unity Park that tone down ethno-national identity politics (cf. Regassa and Emmenegger, 2023).

The memory of Ethiopia’s devastating famines does not appear to serve the nation-building projects or political ideologies during any of the periods discussed. One scholar remarked:

When it is about war or victory [. . .] it is convenient [. . .] to use it as a political capital. But when you come to famine, you don’t even think of it. It is a mixture of uncomfortable, it is about inadequacy, [. . .] there is embarrassment. (Interview 20)

Another interviewee said, “Ethiopia’s history is a history of war and famine. However, the history of the famine is kept in the archives of the rulers and not publicly” (Interview 5).

The devastating 1984–1985 famine can be framed in different ways in relation to the tensions between a centrally defined history and identity, on the one hand, and ethno-nationalist challengers, on the other hand: it could be seen as a shared national trauma—or as an assault on certain ethno-national groups. The latter framing was actualized by the 2020–2022 war in Tigray, where powerholders were accused of using starvation to commit genocide against Tigrayans, both historically and during the ongoing war (Weldemichel, 2022).

Nation-branding, development, and shame

A person who cannot afford to buy a sock, you might find him wearing 700 Birr [= expensive] shoes. [. . .] It is to cover up for something humiliating. [. . .] There are things you tell and don’t tell even to your neighbor or your mother. [. . .] This is a very deep-rooted culture in Ethiopia. (Interview 4)

To further understand Ethiopia’s memory regime, and the lack of space for famine memory in it, we need to look at the images that the country attempts to project of itself, and at how famine memory may appear “uncomfortable” or “embarrassing” (Interview 20). One dominant discourse in Ethiopia has been that of modernization. Inspired by a first wave of European-educated Ethiopians and Emperor Haile Selassie’s travels, a modernization movement emerged during the last century (Giorgis, 2019; Zewde, 2002). It brought modern state-led memory-making practices that largely mimicked European commemorative practices (Zeleke, 2010). The statue of Emperor Menelik, the Victory Monument, and Yekatit 12 Martyrs Monument in Addis Ababa hail from Haile Selassie’s period (1930–1974) and show obvious resemblance to monuments and statues in Europe. The Tiglachin monument and now removed monuments of Lenin and Marx from the Dergue period (1974–1991) instead remind of memorials in the former USSR. One interviewee, a government official in the heritage sector, suggested that the establishment of monuments and museums in itself was a way for Ethiopia to manifest its “Europeanization” (Interview 17).

In its quest to look modern, Ethiopia has attempted to hide famine stories. Some interviewees referred to the lack of “space for free speech and expression of opinion in public” (Interview 4) as one reason for the silence around famines. Tsegaye Gebremedhin’s powerful poem, cited in the introduction, was censored several times (Belcher, 1998), while the work of artists has been restricted in periods (Interview 17). In 1984, the Dergue regime suppressed information that could damage the image of prosperity it sought to portray during the 10th anniversary of the Revolution. Only after a BBC report, the news of the famine garnered massive attention. Dugo and Eisen (2016) argue that successive regimes have actively hidden disasters and atrocities, including famines, by intimidating journalists and attacking communication infrastructure.

During the 2000s, Ethiopia adopted a “developmental state” model, which involved heavy public investment in state-driven development under catchphrases like “double-digit growth,” “economic and structural transformation,” and “Ethiopia Rising” (Kelecha, 2023; Wayessa, 2021). These efforts also involved the branding of the country as a destination for investment and tourism. Ethiopia’s Growth and Transformation Plan (2010–2014) aimed to “enhance the role tourism and culture play in socio-economic and political development initiatives” and to enhance earnings from the sector, while stressing its potential to promote a better image of the country (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 2010: 116). The second Growth and Transformation Plan (2015–2020) similarly framed culture in economic and development terms (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 2016: 167). “Heritage used to be categorized within the socio-cultural sector of the state but have now become rearranged within the economic sector,” a senior official explained (Interview 3).

Accordingly, museums and other memorial and heritage sites are curated primarily for tourists. An official at a regional heritage agency confirmed that the agency’s mandate is to promote the region and project an attractive image to visitors (Interview 15). Other heritage agency and museum officials echoed this (Interviews 6, 19, 21). Likewise, proclamations and policy documents perceive the country’s historical sites, museums, monuments, and cultural traditions chiefly as resources for tourism and development (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2016: 1–7).

The image-building aspiration of the Ethiopian state intensified during the post-2018 reforms that transformed the EPRDF into the Prosperity Party (Wayessa, 2021). While its vision of prosperity remains unclear, in practice the country has seen lavish palace and office renovations, the establishment of expensive parks and plans for a new palace, accompanied by a “Rising Ethiopia” campaign and speeches by Prime Minister Ahmed that are prophetic and stress positive thinking. Ahmed’s approach has been likened with a “prosperity gospel,” closely tied to a type of protestant Christianity that is popular in many African countries (Balehegn, 2021).

Clearly, neither the early discourses of modernization, Europeanization, and state-led development, nor the more recent prosperity discourse, leave much room for the memory of hunger. Interviewees describe famines as “a bad event” and note that “in Ethiopia’s political and social culture, you commemorate the good and appealing [. . .] we connect it to national pride” (Interview 17); “the famine is a suffering, you want to forget it” (Interview 20). One interlocutor said that famine “needs to be forgotten because there is this sense of shame. [. . .] when the nation’s name is used [internationally] in the dictionary as an example [of famines], it is somehow a national shame” (Interview 12). He made a comparison between the silence surrounding famine memory and the authorities’ use of metal sheets or banners to cover up unattractive parts of Addis Ababa ahead of prestigious international events. These comments resonate with earlier research on the silencing of difficult pasts. Connerton (2008) talks about how “humiliated silence” muzzles the memory of violence among those defeated in war, while Walker (2014) has investigated the close link between poverty and shame (see also Orjuela, 2024). Famine memory, hence, appears to be excluded in Ethiopia’s memory regime through the parallel workings of national image-building and shame. However, the silence is not complete. Two interviewees pointed out that historical famines could also motivate development: “Particularly in the period of EPRDF, famine has been used in development related propaganda [. . .] ‘Our enemy is poverty,’ ‘Our enemy is hunger’ has always been said” (Interview 5); “When listening to the EPRDF leaders’ public speeches [. . .] it seems like it [famine memory] is one of the driving forces of development” (Interview 12).

Commemorating famines at the margins

Although the Ethiopian state has not pursued memorialization of its devastating famines and their victims, we observed some public recognition of them. This was often at the margins of memory works focusing on other aspects of the country’s history. One example is the Tiglachin (Our Struggle) Monument, inaugurated in Addis Ababa for the 10th anniversary of the Revolution. The monument’s depiction of Emperor Haile Selassie on a horse next to two emaciated mothers carrying babies highlights the contrast between the riches of the monarch and the dispossession and starvation of the people in 1973. Ironically, the monument was inaugurated in 1984, at the time of an even worse famine. With its 50-m pillar featuring a red star and the hammer and sickle, it commemorates the Revolution. The 1973 famine is represented as an ailment that led to and was overcome by the Revolution. On its other side, the monument has a sculpture of then President Mengistu Hailemariam giving a speech to soldiers and workers.

The official Martyrs Memorial site in Mekelle, capital of Tigray state, depicts victims of the 1984–1985 famine. An architect who participated in its construction revealed that officials requested that the mass flight of famine-affected communities from Tigray was included in the memorial (Interview 12). Around 200,000 people migrated to eastern Sudan in 1984 and returned after the famine (Assefaw, 1993). In the memorial, the famine is represented by “weak-bodied figures carrying sacks, mothers holding their children; a scene of migration” (Interview 12). That the famine refugees are included—alongside statues of fighters—was, according to the interviewee, because the episode was “a cause for [Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF’s)] struggle” against the central government and a “major chapter in the organization’s history,” enhancing its social base (Interview 12). The TPLF played a crucial role in the 1991 defeat of the Dergue regime and attained a dominant position in the coalition that then ruled the country; it thus makes sense that the only clear reference to the 1984–1985 famine in an official memorial is found in Tigray. However, as an official commented, “even if the famine victims are included, the site is in memory of the gallant fighters that sacrificed their life fighting against the Dergue. [. . .] Monuments and memorials are made to commemorate either kings or heroes or martyrs” (Interview 13).

The Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum in Addis Ababa is another site which references famine history. Inaugurated in 2010, it is dedicated to the victims of the Dergue’s terror against urban underground resistance in the late 1970s, during which 30–50,000 people were killed (Conley, 2019; Zewde, 2009). Constructed and run by an association of families of victims—rather than by the state—the museum narrates the history of the resistance struggle, and displays tools used by security forces to torture and kill opposition members, as well as skulls and bones of victims. The first hall displays photographs from the 1973–1974 famine, occurring on the eve of the Revolution that brought the Dergue to power. There is a portrait of an old man with an emaciated physique, with a caption that refers to the public anger evoked by the film “The Hidden Hunger,” shown on Ethiopian TV in 1974. A group photo of senior Dergue leaders at the Revolution’s anniversary in 1984 is placed next to a photography of famine-emaciated children nursing from their mothers’ breasts, with the caption: “Extravagant inauguration of the Ethiopian Workers Party in the middle of a national food catastrophe and the death of millions of compatriots”—a reference to the 1984–1985 famine. Although at least 10 times as many people died in the famine as in the Red Terror, its memory merely serves as a backdrop in the exhibition: “it is shown as a prerequisite or context” only (Interview 12).

Some public memorialization of famines has also occurred through the display of artwork. Eshetu Tiruneh’s 1974 painting “Victims of Famine” was displayed in Ethiopia’s National Museum in the early 1990s. Using a soft color palette, Tiruneh depicts the hunger-displaced as they strive forward in a desperate search for food. Skeletal men and women carry children. Left behind are those who have succumbed to hunger and their grieving family members. That the painting ended up in the National Museum was a mere coincidence. When Tiruneh was selling one of his well-known paintings of a former Emperor—a representation of the country’s glorious history—the museum considered it too expensive. He therefore included the famine painting for the same price (Interview 18).

Another famine painting exhibited at the National Museum is the “Famine Cycle” by Lemma Guya from 1984. It is small and abstract in nature, but a glimpse of a screaming human face and a skull leads the thoughts to suffering and death. Its size and placement in a narrow alley leading to a bigger room with large paintings of kings and war victories illustrate the marginal place given to famine memory.

The exceptions we have found of famine memory appearing in the official commemorative landscape share a common characteristic; they are peripherally situated and figure as an addendum to the commemoration of other historical events. The reference to famine history at the Tiglachin monument and the Red Terror Memorial Museum serves as a background rather than the central focus, whereas the famine paintings at the National Museum appear on the sidelines, marginal in comparison to other exhibits in terms of presentation and size.

The absence of official memory-making aimed directly at commemorating famines was explained by some interviewees by the continued presence of poverty in the country: “One reason could be that famine is endemic [. . .] We had plenty of famine in this country’s history. [. . .] which ones would you commemorate or erect a monument for, and for which one would you not?” (Interview 20, see also interviews 1, 4, 26). Others viewed the complicated political causes of the 1984–1985 famine as a main reason for the silence, as commemorating it would raise accountability questions (Interviews 7, 10, 25, 26): “building a monument or museum for the [1984-85] famine would be to erect a constant reminder to the people of who is responsible not only for that famine but also for the ones that continue to exist” (Interviewee 26).

Memory initiatives “from below”

Despite the absence or marginalization of famines in the memory-making practices of the Ethiopian state, famine memory has been publicly displayed through other initiatives. Memories are retold through folklore and oral traditions, and efforts have been made to document these narratives, including their often emotion-evoking descriptions of emaciated children and women, and dead and dying bodies. Traditionally, famine is conceptualized as a force mightier than humans. Azeze (1998) recorded couplets where famine victims call to, and confront, their God in ways that otherwise would be considered acts of disobedience: “God swears and lies like men/When I asked Him for a piece of enjära [bread]/‘I swear I have none!’ He said/ [. . .] Can You, God,/Stand up to us in the struggle?/Plough we did with donkeys/When our cattle you killed!!!” (pp. 131, 136). In the verses, God is the central figure to whom people turn to plea and express their anger. Lemma’s (1986) thesis, based on fieldwork in famine-affected Wollo Province, also documents famine-related Amharic oral poetry, while Gamechu (1999) discusses themes of poverty, hunger, and starvation in Oromiffa folklore.

Numerous artists, musicians, poets, and writers have (re)told famine stories. Famine is a central topic of Birhanu Zerihun’s three novels Ma’ebel (The Tide) (1974, 1981, 1982) that tells the story of the 1974 Revolution in an “eve, dawn, aftermath” sequence. Some artistic work was used for fundraising and continued to play a commemorative role after the famine. In Europe and North America, the memory of the 1984–1985 famine is strongly tied to the musical production of Band Aid and Live Aid that culminated in two parallel live concerts in the United Kingdom and the United States in July 1985. The songs “Do they Know it’s Christmas” and “We are the World” still remind of the famine and large-scale mobilization of relief (Davis, 2010; Grant, 2015). Less globally known is the artistic work produced within Ethiopia, which still attests to and reminds of the famine. For instance, in 1985, the Ethiopian Musicians Association produced the album Ye Biruh Tesfa Eshet (Fruits of a Bright Hope) featuring well-known artists. Although it was produced for “proceedings from the album to be used for relief works,” none of the music tracks deals with the subject of hunger; the title track is about hope and happiness and the rest are romantic in content. Another example of artistic work produced during the famine is the stage play Enat Nesh (A Mother, You Are) that involved well-known artist Wogayehu Nigatu. The performance toured Ethiopia, highlighting the hardship and loss during famine.

Of the various independent artistic works that remind Ethiopians of the famine, Tilahun Gessesse’s song Way Way Silu (When They Wail) is the most well known. Released in 1985, it graphically tells the story of those suffering and continues to be played today. Poets have also contributed works that deal with famine in Ethiopia. For example, Debebe Seifu’s poem (written in 1974, published in the 1990s) titled Ke Axum Chaf Aqumada (A Sack from the Tip of Axum) metaphorically describes the desire to help each other during hunger. Tsegaye Gebremedhin’s poem Rehab Sint Qen Yifejal (How Long Shall a Hunger Last?), quoted in the introduction, was inspired by his encounter with famine in the 1960s and provokes the reader to empathize with those suffering hunger. Painter Gebre Kirstos Desta, one of the pioneers of Ethiopian modern art, has also engaged with the subject. His painting “In the Grotto” from 1979 depicts a mother with an infant, along with other skeletal and feeble human figures.

However, memory activists, like artists, describe famine as a challenging subject. One reason has been the lack of freedom of expression, and the unwillingness of powerholders to recognize “the country’s weaknesses”: with “no democratic rights for artists,” one interviewee told, “it became a difficult situation [. . .] there was no interest to do any artistic work about the [1984-85] famine because the interpretation is that you are going to oppose the government” (Interview 18; also Interview 17). The unsettling nature of the topic has also made famines difficult to discuss, commemorate, and represent. One artist argued that it is an emotionally and technically difficult task to paint those affected by famine and believed that this was a reason behind the dearth of famine paintings (Interview 18).

Nonetheless, the memory of famines has clearly received some attention through artwork and other initiatives “from below.” While some mnemonic acts or objects relate to a particular famine, many interviewees viewed famine in Ethiopia as part of one singular history. One scholar observed that famine memory travels and that the famines in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and today are “connected dots” (Interview 1).

Conclusion

Difficult pasts have increasingly become part of official memorialization efforts around the world. This article focuses on one type of difficult pasts—famines. In Ethiopia, famines have killed hundreds of thousands, but not gained a place in official commemorative practices. By looking at the country’s memory regime (i.e. dominant discourses of the past and the mechanisms and institutions that reproduce them) and how it has shifted over time, we have uncovered some reasons for the silencing or marginalization of famine memory. Ethiopia’s state-sanctioned narratives of the past have—under different powerholders—been shaped by a tension between a centralized national identity and challenging regional nationalisms, which has privileged discourses of victory and national or ethnic pride. In addition, dominant narratives of modernity, development, and prosperity have influenced the Ethiopian state’s uses of the past. This discourse has been reproduced by the cultural sector and heritage sites, which have been tasked to cater to tourists and convey an image of the country or region as successful. In these contexts, famines are an undesirable and shameful past, not useful for identity-building and nation-branding. This, in turn, limits the opportunities to see historical famines as heritage.

When famines do appear at commemorative sites, they do so at the margins, as a backdrop or contrast that highlight, for instance, the heroism of Tigray fighters or the wickedness of an ousted ruler who let people starve. However, we have also found many examples of memory work “from below.” Poetry, literature, paintings, songs, and theater performances may or may not be produced with an intention to commemorate famine victims or challenge the silence that surround this past. However, they can play an important role in publicly communicating and shaping that memory. The commemoration of famines that take place unofficially or at the margins sometimes support official discourses of heroism and their differentiation between “good” and “bad,” as in the Tiglachin monument or the Red Terror Memorial Museum. Alternatively, such memorialization takes place in parallel to and in the shadow of official memory-making, as is often the case for poetry, folklore, music, or the marginalized paintings at the National Museum; they do not pose a serious challenge to the official silences imposed by Ethiopia’s projects of modernity, nation-branding, and identity politics, but nevertheless play a role in publicly displaying the memory of past famines.

Our study of Ethiopia also sheds some new light on the broader scholarly discussion on how famines are remembered and forgotten. In a way, Ethiopia is another example of a state which silences or ignores the traumatic past of mass-starvation (see, for example, Newby, 2023; Nweke, 2024; Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, 2003). Like in other places, famine memorialization has been hampered by the lack of an external enemy to blame, a sense of shame, and the fact that hunger crises still recur (see Orjuela, 2024). Unlike in Ireland and Ukraine (Kasianov, 2011; Ó Gráda, 2001), famines in Ethiopia have not been considered useful historical material for the construction of a national identity and heritage, nor a tool in opposition politics. What is unique in the Ethiopian case is the global reach of famine memory, linked to the relief campaigns in the mid-1980s. This global memory has motivated Ethiopian governments to make efforts to shed the country’s international image as famine-struck and helpless and instead brand Ethiopia as proud, modern, and independent. In this process, the famine past is toned down and forgotten. Ethiopia’s post-1991 memory politics, with its explicit recognition of regional ethno-national histories and identities, also play a role in dynamics of public remembrance and forgetting. When in Ukraine and Ireland, political leaders have successfully framed historical famines as a national tragedy; in Finland, center-periphery dynamics worked to silence memories of hunger (see Kasianov, 2011; Newby, 2023; Ó Gráda, 2001). In Ethiopia, the focus on regional histories and identities prevented the mid-1980s famine and other hunger crises from being framed as national tragedies; they were only marginally framed as atrocities against specific ethno-national groups.

Also in other parts of the world, there are initiatives to keep memory of famines alive, although silence prevails in state-led memory-making (Orjuela and Parashar, 2024). The Ethiopian case highlights the challenges faced by those who attempt to preserve and communicate famine memory. The lack of freedom of expression and the sense that famines are an uncomfortable and shameful past have stifled such initiatives. A lesson learnt from this case is thus that memory activism needs to be understood both in relation to the broader constraints on activism in a society and in relation to the difficulties specifically related to famine violence. To “speak out” about famine experiences, as Tsegaye Gebremedhin urges in his poem, is considerably more difficult in some contexts than in other.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council under grant 2018-03770.

ORCID iD

Fisseha Fantahun Tefera

Camilla Orjuela

Notes

Author biographies

Fisseha Fantahun Tefera has a PhD in Peace and Development Research from the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg. His dissertation was focused on the politics of accountability and commemoration in the aftermath of famines in Africa. His research interests include politics of development, transitional justice, and memory politics in Africa.

Camilla Orjuela is a professor of peace and development research at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her research has focused on diaspora mobilization, peace activism, identity politics, post-war reconstruction and reconciliation, famines, memory conflicts, and transitional justice.

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Remembering and forgetting famines in Ethiopia

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Remembering/forgetting famines: theoretical perspectives

Methods and data

Memory, power, and ethno-nationalist contestations

Nation-branding, development, and shame

Commemorating famines at the margins

Memory initiatives “from below”

Conclusion

Footnotes

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

Author biographies

References