Revolutionary Turmoil and Structural Change: Ethiopia's 1974 Turning Point in a Global Perspective

• Date: 13 November
• label.tijd 17:15 - 19:00
• Location: Wijnhaven

In the lecture series Tumult 1974-2024, Studium Generale travels back fifty years in time to 1974: a year just as turbulent as 2024. On 13 November we will zoom in on Ethiopia. Prof.dr. Jan Abbink, Professor emeritus Governance and Politics in Africa at the African Studies Centre, will present a lecture that delves into the Ethopian Civil War, and the enduring consequences these turbulent events have had on the region.

Studium Generale activities are free and for everyone. Please note that registration is required.

The 1970s were a decade of political and ideological turmoil, with ‘liberation movements’ active in Africa, Islamist insurgencies in the Near East (e.g., Iran) and civil rights and leftist student protests across Western countries. In contrast to the latter movements in the West, many of the Marxist-inspired insurgent or liberation movements in Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Guinee-Bissau, Congo Republic, Ethiopia, and others) led to political regime changes and major socio-economic effects (e.g., land reforms, nationalisation). This notable conjuncture of global protest and political change in the 1970s evokes questions: why this timing, which actors, and what results did these ‘upheavals’ have? Did they lead to more ‘democracy’ or to socio-economic advancement, and what were the long-term (un) foreseen societal effects?

In this lecture, Jan Abbink will discuss the complex but influential case of Ethiopia, a never-colonized African country, which went through a phase of violent ‘revolution’ since 1974 and subsequent years, the (overall) negative effects of which are still felt today. The ‘thesis’ of this lecture is that the 1970s rupture was a significant one and only ‘progress’ in a very limited sense of the word; it set the country on a problematic political and societal course that also affected the wider stability of Northeast Africa and the Red Sea basin.

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