A defining feature of contemporary ethno-nationalists in #Ethiopia is that they really seem to lack an awareness of chronology and a sense of proportion. It is now conventional wisdom that there were historical injustices that had pushed certain identities to the margins. 1/

But the way present day ethno-nationalists talk about group grievances is as if 1974 and 1991 never existed on our calendar. To be politically salient, historical injustices need to have some systematic link to current reality. 2/

For instance, in the US, you can draw a clear link between slavery and Jim Crow and the massive and multidimensional inequalities between black and white America. Similarly, in South Africa, you see the fingerprints of apartheid everywhere in terms of everyday inequalities. 3/

Ethiopia has a different history. Economically, Derg has rendered everybody equal (or equally poor, depending on how you see it) when it nationalized almost every aspect of the economy and redistributed land over 45 years ago. 4/

The work of rectifying cultural and linguistic marginalization started in 1991 and have come a great length despite the lopsided political landscape. The way ethno-nationalist elites are raising the alarm about the reversal of those progresses lacks a sense of proportion. 5/

By conflating in-group power struggle with a threat of reversal, the ongoing rhetoric has dangerously portrayed the legitimate concern about the future of democracy in Ethiopia as a war between the past and the future, between "us" and others. 6/

The bottom-line is that the ultimate judge for what part of our past is still relevant is its effect on the present. 7/

Identity politics should only be relevant to the extent that the effects of identity-based injustices still persist and cannot be addressed effectively with more broad-based political platforms. 8/

In the absence of those conditions, anyone who pushes the historical injustices argument belligerently should ask themselves if what they really aspire for is redress or their turn in domination. 9/