In his study of Abyotawi Medrek (Revolutionary Forum), a daily column published in the popular Amharic daily Addis Zemen in Ethiopia between 1976 and 1977, Semeneh Ayalew Asfaw identified a rich archive of debates on the African left. Semeneh argues that in a brief period, before the “horrors of the Terror Years [in Ethiopia] that not only stifled free political deliberation and debate but also threw the country into the carnages of authoritarian military rule,” Abyotawi Medrek became a forum for an open and free debate on the meaning of a new revolutionary society. Addis Zemen was known as a mouthpiece of the state, but in Abyotawi Medrek revolutionaries of several parties, tendencies, and points of view, debated a dizzying array of pressing questions facing the left: What does African socialism look like, and how does it relate to universalist articulations of Marxist-Leninist ideology? What role should student politics play in a post-revolutionary landscape? How should left-wing activists and organizers respond to the rising authoritarianism of a popular socialist movement that had managed to capture state power?… read more
The Media of the Useable Past