Abiy Ahmed’s rise to power did not eliminate Ethiopia’s poverty and dependence on transnational capital and ideologies; it changed the terms under which such ideologies were judged legitimate. By condemning the TPLF’s Marxist-Leninist legacy as foreign, oppressive, and incompatible with Ethiopia’s historical experience, Abiy presented Medemer as a more authentic national alternative. Yet Medemer emerged within institutions inherited from the EPRDF era and alongside political and religious currents with significant international genealogies. The central thesis, therefore, is that the contrast between Marxism and Medemer is less a conflict between foreign and indigenous ideologies than a struggle over who possesses the authority to define ideological legitimacy. Marxism was delegitimized because it was framed as foreign, while Medemer has sought legitimacy by presenting a similarly transnational political project as uniquely Ethiopian.
Marxism provides the first point of comparison. Emerging from nineteenth-century European intellectual traditions, particularly the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Marxism developed an analytical framework based on historical materialism, class conflict, and the transformation of society through contradictions within the prevailing mode of production. Although European in origin, it acquired global influence because it offered movements across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere a systematic language for interpreting exploitation, inequality, and political domination. Its universal appeal rested precisely on its claim that social relations could be analyzed through general materialist historical and economic principles, rather than through the particular traditions of any one nation.
The political history of Marxism further demonstrates how foreign ideologies become localized. In the Soviet Union, China, and other revolutionary states, Marxism-Leninism was adapted to distinct national conditions and transformed into an instrument of state formation, economic mobilization, and political control. The industrialization of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China illustrate the state-building and developmental capacity of Marxist regimes, even as their histories also reveal authoritarianism, coercion, and immense human costs. Marxism’s foreign origin did not prevent it from becoming politically influential; rather, its legitimacy depended on the ability of local actors to present it as relevant to their own historical circumstances.
The TPLF and the EPRDF similarly adapted Marxist-Leninist concepts to Ethiopia’s political environment. Their ideological framework was not simply imported intact from Europe. It was reworked through the language of national self-determination, revolutionary struggle, developmentalism, and ethnic federalism. Nevertheless, Abiy Ahmed’s political ascent relied heavily on portraying this ideological inheritance as alien and oppressive. The criticism was directed not only at Marxist theory but also at the institutional order associated with the EPRDF: its constitutional arrangements, party structures, security apparatus, and mechanisms of political control. By defining Marxism as foreign, Abiy’s political discourse converted ideological origin into a basis for political delegitimation.
The emergence of Medemer, to be sure, did not represent a complete institutional break with that order. Although presented as a philosophy of synergy, unity, reciprocity, and collective advancement, Medemer was implemented through many structures inherited from the EPRDF period. This continuity complicates the claim that Ethiopia moved from a foreign ideology to an indigenous one. The political transition was therefore not simply a replacement of Marxism by Medemer. It was a rebranding and reorganization of political legitimacy: the language of class struggle and revolutionary transformation gave way to the language of unity, cooperation, prosperity, and national renewal, while significant elements of the existing state architecture remained in place.
This comparison becomes sharper when Medemer is considered alongside the transnational religious currents that have influenced Ethiopia’s contemporary political environment. The philosophy is presented as an indigenous response to Ethiopia’s divisions, yet its political expression has developed amid the growing visibility of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity. These movements have important international connections, particularly to American evangelical traditions and prosperity-oriented religious networks. Their presence does not prove that Medemer is simply a religious ideology or that Pentecostalism controls the Ethiopian state. It does, however, expose the inconsistency of treating foreign origin as disqualifying in one case while overlooking it in another.
Pentecostalism is especially relevant to this comparison because it demonstrates how transnational ideas acquire local legitimacy. Its modern expansion is commonly associated with the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles in 1906, although its origins involved several earlier revivalist and evangelical currents. Drawing on the account of Pentecost in Acts 2, Pentecostal traditions emphasize the baptism of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, healing, prophecy, spiritual gifts, and direct personal experience of God. Like Marxism, Pentecostalism offers a universalizing framework that has traveled across national boundaries and been adapted to diverse social contexts.
Its social appeal also helps explain why it has expanded so rapidly across sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and other regions experiencing economic insecurity, urbanization, migration, and institutional change. Pentecostalism cannot be reduced to a religion of poverty, since it attracts adherents across class lines. Yet its emphasis on personal transformation, spiritual empowerment, healing, testimony, and material improvement has often resonated strongly with economically marginalized social classes and communities. The phrase “the poor man’s Protestantism” captures one interpretation of this appeal, though it should not be treated as a complete definition of the movement.
The comparison with Marxism is significant because both traditions can provide marginalized populations with a language of empowerment. Marxism interprets inequality through class relations and promises collective transformation through political struggle. Pentecostalism often interprets hardship through spiritual, moral, and personal categories and promises renewal through faith, discipline, divine intervention, and community. Marxism seeks to transform the social order through collective political action; Pentecostalism frequently emphasizes the transformation of individuals and communities through religious experience. Despite these differences, both can generate alternative forms of authority and challenge established elites.
Pentecostalism’s decentralization of religious authority is particularly important in relation to Medemer. Many Pentecostal congregations place less emphasis on inherited clerical hierarchies and formal theological credentials than on testimony, charisma, lay participation, prophecy, and direct spiritual experience. This can create new avenues of recognition and leadership for people excluded from established religious institutions. In this respect, Pentecostalism’s social structure parallels Medemer’s political rhetoric of inclusion and collective participation, even though the two operate in different domains. Both can present themselves as alternatives to rigid hierarchies while producing new forms of charismatic authority.
The political significance of this convergence lies in the relationship between charisma and legitimacy. Marxist-Leninist regimes typically derive legitimacy from revolutionary history, ideological discipline, party organization, and claims to represent historical necessity. Medemer, by contrast, derives legitimacy from unity, reconciliation, national development, and the promise of overcoming division. Pentecostal and charismatic religious movements may reinforce this political language by emphasizing personal transformation, spiritual empowerment, prosperity, and national renewal. In both cases, authority is justified through a narrative of historical or moral transformation. The difference is that Marxism grounds transformation in material and class relations, while Medemer and its associated religious currents tend to frame it through unity, aspiration, spirituality, and collective prosperity.
This convergence also raises questions about the boundaries between religious influence and state power. Religious movements do not merely provide private systems of belief; under particular conditions, they shape public morality, political identity, leadership styles, and popular understandings of national destiny. In Ethiopia, the growing visibility of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity must be situated within a much older religious landscape that includes Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, Islam, and indigenous traditions. The issue is not whether Pentecostalism has replaced these traditions or directly controls the state. The more precise question is whether particular religious networks, theological orientations, and charismatic forms of authority have influenced the Prosperity Party’s political language and the broader exercise of power.
This question returns the analysis to ideological legitimacy. Marxism was condemned not merely because of its policies but because its foreign genealogy was used to portray it as inherently unsuitable for Ethiopia. Medemer, however, has been presented as an authentic Ethiopian philosophy even though it operates within inherited institutions and alongside transnational religious and political influences. The distinction between the two therefore cannot rest on origin alone. If foreign ideas become legitimate when they are adapted to local conditions, then Marxism cannot be dismissed solely for being European. Conversely, if foreign origin is treated as evidence of illegitimacy, then Medemer and the international currents surrounding it must be subjected to the same standard.
The central issue is thus not whether Marxism or Medemer is foreign, but how foreignness is politically constructed. An ideology becomes “foreign” when political actors define it as alien to the nation, its history, or its moral order. An ideology becomes “indigenous” when those same actors successfully translate it into the language of national authenticity. This process is selective rather than neutral. It determines which ideas are condemned as external impositions and which are absorbed into the national political imagination as expressions of renewal.
The transition from Marxism-Leninism to Medemer should therefore be understood as a reconfiguration of ideological authority rather than a simple movement from foreignness to authenticity. Marxism offered a universal theory of historical transformation grounded in material relations and class struggle. Medemer offers a national language of synergy, unity, and prosperity, while drawing legitimacy from institutions inherited from the previous order and from broader transnational currents, including charismatic religious forms. Both demonstrate that political ideologies gain power not because they are inherently indigenous, but because political actors successfully localize them.
The deeper sociological question is whether Ethiopia has undergone a genuine transformation of its political order or merely a transformation in the language through which power is justified. The revolutionary vocabulary of historical materialism has been replaced by the vocabulary of unity, prosperity, spiritual renewal, and national reconciliation. Yet the underlying questions remain: Who defines the nation? Who determines which ideas are legitimate? Which institutions are preserved, and which are condemned? And how are claims of indigenous authenticity used to authorize one political project while discrediting another?
The comparison between Marxism and Medemer ultimately reveals that ideological legitimacy is not an inherent quality of an idea. It is produced through political struggle, institutional continuity, cultural translation, and claims about national identity. Abiy Ahmed’s project did not free Ethiopia from dependency and transnational ideology; it reorganized the terms through which transnational ideas could be accepted. The decisive shift was therefore not from foreign ideology to indigenous philosophy, but from one mode of legitimating political authority to another.
Editor’s Note: Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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