The Passing of Zenawi

Meles Zenawi, who we will be covering in class when we talk about regime types in Ethiopia, passed away this morning (or did he? He hadn't been seen in public for a couple of months and there had been rumors he passed away awhile ago).

Zenawi is a controversial figure in contemporary African politics, which is reflected in many of the obituaries and posts that have emerged today. Ethiopia has experienced high amounts of economic growth in the past decade and was a strong ally of the United States in the region. Some hold him in high regard:

Others, however, point to democratic backsliding and argue that whatever benefits they were, Ethiopia suffered from his increasingly authoritarian rule. A good summary of the split between supporters and detractors can be found on The Atlantic, written by Armin Rosen. The key paragraph on his mixed legacy can be found here:

"At times, Zenawi represented the promise of the post-Cold War "African Renaissance," the wave of new leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Rwanda's Paul Kagame, and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, who replaced a generation of corrupt, anti-Western or ethnically exclusionist strongmen who had previously ruled much of the continent. But like Kagame and Museveni, he resisted, rather than aided, the rise of democracy across much of the continent. Zenawi did initiate a clean break with Ethiopia's violent past, and helped overthrow and then reverse the effects of the brutal and widely hated communist government of Mengistu Haile Mariam. Still, in Zenawi's case, the "Renaissance" was, at times,illusory, a record of development, economic growth, and regional leadership tempered by a dictatorial ruthlessness that foreign actors -- including the United States -- were often quick to forgive. U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice tweeted that she was "profoundly saddened by the untimely passing of my close friend and cherished colleague," calling Zenawi's legacy "indelible." Yet as Obang Metho, a Washington, D.C.-based Ethiopian civil society leader who was convicted in absentia of terrorism earlier this year, put it to me, "Meles set up a system where what he said to the world and what he did to his people were really two different things.""

I would recommend checking out the full piece when we reach the discussion on the legacy of authoritarian regimes in contemporary Africa.