Concluding Summary

The Afar belong to Cushitic-speaking language group and have their own language called cafar-af. Their original African homeland seems to have been between the upper course of the Webi and the coast of the Gulf of Aden. Historically their territory stretched from the Djibouti-Dire-dawa railway in the south to peninsula of Buri in the north, and from the shores of Red Sea to the eastern spurs of the Abyssinian plateaus. Currently the Afar have been partitioned into three states, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.

As stated earlier in this chapter, various researchers indicated that the Afar had maintained independent self-administration until the beginning of the 20^th century. Prior to their political incorporation into the Ethiopian state in 1905, the Afar had been outside Ethiopian state administrative control. They also remained outside the effective control of the central government until 1944. After this period the political and economic importance of Afar territory in terms of location (access to the Red Sea) and agricultural potential in the Awash Valley has been recognized and the successive Ethiopian governments have pursued with full incorporation of Afar territory through setting up civil and military bureaucracy. This finally culminated in the abolishment of the Sultanate of Aussa in 1974, the gradual incorporation of traditional structures into central government administration and into far-reaching consequences on the Afar pastoral economy.

Over the past half of a century the Afar have been squeezed into the Lower and Middle Awash Valley alongside of the river Awash due to Issa-Somali successive incursions, pressure from highland peasant cultivators, expansion of commercial large-scale farms and establishment of national park and wildlife games. (This point will be discussed later in chapter 5).

And yet the Afar social and political organizations are still effective at the clan and lineage levels, despite excessive pressure from the central government. The Afar social and political organizations are based on descent, kinship and clan territory. Nowadays clan leadership is still significant and cohesive among the Afar pastoralists. Despite the formation of new structures and institutions by the successive Ethiopian governments at the grassroots level, the Afar traditional authorities (elders, clan and lineage leaderships) have continued to function in governing the Afar social, economic and political life. Especially clan leaders have continued to be important political leaders representing their respective clans towards external actors.

Community members often take heed of traditional authorities (clan leaders and elders).

The long-standing Afar Maada/Ada (customary law) is still instrumental and effective in handling cases, and in guiding traditional governance, self-help and mutual assistance. People are proud of their traditional way of administration through Maada. They feel that their Maada provides them with justice which entails fair and common use of resources. Justice is understood as careful observance of Maada principles (mutual recognition, mutual respect, common use of resources in the locality) (Yacob et al., 2000:24).

In general it can be said that the Afar social and political organizations have largely remained resilient in pastoral communities, despite the excessive pressure from modern governmental administrative structures for such long time. This might be partly attributed to the following factors:

i. The traditional organizations and leadership structures are very much participatory and transparent to all adult male members. Political systems, leadership and decision making processes require full participation, full debates and examination of cases at length, and consensus in decision.

ii. The cohesiveness and solidarity of the Afar people against external pressures. The Afar elders stress that all Afar are governed by the same Afar Ada (customary law) irrespective of clan membership, area of residence, national politics, etc.

iii. The continuous resistance of Afar to the attempts of complete incorporation by the successive Ethiopian governments. This relentless resistance has reduced exercise of direct rule by the successive Ethiopian governments.

iv. The fact that the Afar inhabit the peripheral areas where the modern governmental structures (civil and military bureaucracies) could not be easily set up into all the Afar land.

v. The ability of the Aussa Sultanate to handle the central state pressures in its favour via playing by the strategic importance of Afar territory for the nation.

vi. The policies of Ethiopian governments that have pursued indirect rule (i.e. through

‘traditional authority’ and the Sultanate of Aussa).

Recently after the 1991 political change in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Afar population is consolidated within a single region with autonomous powers of self-administration.

Therefore, it seems that the current federal system has opened an opportunity for the Afar society to enhance the roles of traditional organizations and authorities in handling their internal affairs, representing their people, and linking them with external actors. However, the involvement of traditional authorities in the present local government (Woreda and Kebele administrations) is so far very limited. Community members lack trust in the current local government administration due to lack of commitment and non-participatory, patron-clientele system, clan favourism, and corruption and individualism. This issue of local governance is assessed in Chapter 6 by way of considering the perception of study community as illustrative instance. The next chapter deals with the Afar pastoral economy and its predicaments.