Making sense of Ethiopia's Tigray conflict
On the importance of understanding the historical origins of the conflict and potential paths to lasting peace
I: Searching for heroes and villains
When the history of the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia is written, it will not portray the majority of journalists and analysts who covered it in a good light. Many took sides, cast their favored elite protagonists as heroes, and went about moralizing about the war as if it was a contest between evil incarnate and righteous vanguards of progress. The tendency to ignore the conflict’s historical origins as well as enabling institutions, politics, and elite incentives smothered open discussion of the causes of the conflict and potential solutions.
The real victims of the war were the Ethiopian people. More than 600,000 people may have been killed. Imagine if Lilongwe disappeared. Millions of people in Tigray and other regions were displaced, their lives upended forever. The destruction of infrastructure, farms, homes, and jobs undid hard-won progress that ma…