Beyond the Politics of ‘Othering’: Shifting Representations of Christian-Muslim Relations in Ethiopia

Description

Since the early 1990s Christian-Muslims relation in Ethiopia has been dominated by a discourse
of traditional “religious tolerance” and enculturated communal harmony, while concealing the
historical marginalization of Muslims in Ethiopia by former governments. The article discusses the
changing representations of Islam as being related to recent fears of a foreign “Islamic fundamentalism”, which is suspected to fuel new religious conflicts. As result the Ethiopian government
started to persuade some Ethiopian Muslims to accept the moderate but globally controversial
movement called al-Ahbash.