By Yoseph Enyew
Introduction: A Movement in Formation
The current Ethiopian government, under the Prosperity Party, has evolved into an Oromo ethno-hegemonic regime, where Oromummaa, a doctrine of cultural supremacy masquerading as liberation, has been repurposed into a state ideology. His dogma-driven reconfiguration of the state now shapes national laws, administrative restructuring, cultural policy, and the distribution of state resources. The result is a consolidation of power by Oromo elites and the systematic marginalization of the Amhara and other non-Oromo populations.
In response, a quiet but decisive urban-based struggle is unfolding to define the future direction of Ethiopia’s growing civil unrest. Though not yet a fully organized political movement, a wave of protest, sporadic but persistent, is emerging from professionals such as teachers, doctors, and university students. Their immediate demands concern wages, working conditions, and basic livelihoods, but beneath these issues lies a much deeper and more structural discontent.
These expressions of frustration, though fragmented and heavily repressed by Abiy Ahmed’s increasingly authoritarian security apparatus, reveal a profound societal rift. They represent the raw energy from which a formidable and transformative resistance could emerge. At the heart of this unfolding drama lies a critical question: Who will shape this volatile but promising momentum before it crystallizes into a national force?
This inflection point, where scattered discontent teeters on the edge of political resistance, presents a historic opportunity for Fano. If the movement can rise to the occasion, by articulating a compelling political vision and forging strategic links between rural rebellion and urban grievances, it could transform isolated frustration into a unified and coordinated push for systemic change.
Two Rivals Vying for Control
Yet this moment of opportunity is not uncontested. Two rival forces, each in its own way hostile to the Amhara cause, are maneuvering to co-opt the emerging civic unrest. One is overtly anti-Amhara, rooted in the ethno-nationalist coalition that dominates the current regime. The other, disguised in civic language, is fundamentally opposed to Amhara nationalism, fearing its power to reshape Ethiopia’s political future.
These factions, despite their apparent differences, share a strategic objective: to keep the Fano movement confined to the countryside, isolated from the growing urban momentum. They seek to deny Fano a leadership role, hoping instead to instrumentalize its battlefield victories to undermine the regime, only to later discard it, encouraging its fighters to return quietly to their previous occupations once their role is concluded.
The Ethiopianists’ Dilemma: When Amhara Identity Disrupts the Narrative
The first camp, often self-identifying as “Ethiopianists,” comprises a class of commentators, political elites, former opposition leaders, and media figures who claim to uphold the ideal of national unity. However, they exhibit a deep discomfort with Amhara nationalism, largely because the Amhara exhibit a unique ease in simultaneously affirming their ethnic identity and embracing their civic responsibility as Ethiopians. This dual consciousness, of being proudly Amhara and genuinely Ethiopian, renders obsolete the Ethiopianist insistence on a singular, abstract national identity as the sole bulwark against fragmentation.
For this camp, the very existence of Amhara nationalism challenges the ideological necessity of Ethiopianism as a distinct political project. If one can be both fully Amhara and fully Ethiopian without contradiction, then the Ethiopianist identity, as a counterbalance to ethnic nationalism, becomes redundant, at least in the Amhara context. This realization fuels their unease, leading them to perceive politically awakened Amhara voices as a threat to their vision of Ethiopia, and to regard Amhara nationalism as ideologically incompatible with their own conception of national unity.
As a result, Ethiopianists often minimize or dismiss the systemic injustices faced by the Amhara, fearing that acknowledging ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, and targeted violence would legitimize Amhara grievances and strengthen nationalist mobilization. Their responses to Amhara suffering are therefore couched in ambiguous moral language and noncommittal rhetoric, carefully avoiding calls for justice, accountability, or meaningful structural reform.
This group is not without ambitions on the battlefield. For a time, they attempted to infiltrate and undermine the Fano movement in rural strongholds by luring certain factions with diaspora-sourced funding. However, this mercenary campaign eventually collapsed amid growing diaspora disillusionment, triggered by accusations of financial mismanagement, ideological incoherence, and the group’s expressed willingness to negotiate with the very regime Fano is fighting to overthrow.
Having abandoned hope in the rural resistance, unwilling and unfit to bear the sacrifices required on the battlefield, this group has now shifted its focus to urban arenas, where it seeks to seize leadership by shaping and directing the growing civic unrest. Through the media platforms they control, they aim to co-opt legitimate professional grievances, particularly those of doctors and other urban workers, and redirect them into soft, institutional protests. These actions are carefully choreographed to avoid any direct ideological confrontation with the Oromummaa system, with which they are evidently comfortable forming a transitional arrangement.
Instead of targeting the underlying ethno-hegemonic structure that defines the current regime, they reduce the crisis to a matter of individual leadership, placing blame squarely on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed while leaving the broader system that empowers him untouched.
The Transitional Trap: Justice Deferred, Power Preserved
The second camp consists of the ethno-federalist old guard, the ideological heirs of the TPLF, OLF, and the original architects of Ethiopia’s ethnic constitution. These forces represent the core of the Amhara people’s existential threat, a political class that brands itself as the solution while remaining the root of the problem. Now, under the guise of democratic transition, they are attempting to reinsert themselves into the political mainstream through a “transitional framework” that would effectively undermine the Amhara people’s pursuit of justice and accountability.
Their hollow rhetoric of “unity,” “inclusiveness,” and “dialogue” serves as a calculated smokescreen, concealing a more insidious agenda: to resurrect and entrench their ethnic order, advance long-standing secessionist ambitions, and complete the fragmentation of the Ethiopian state. Within this vision, the Amhara are rendered stateless, denied both territorial sovereignty and political legitimacy.
At the very least, this camp seeks to evade accountability for the atrocities committed against the Amhara by preempting the Fano-led resistance. Their aim is to hijack the urban uprising, redirect its energy, and present themselves as the legitimate voice of opposition, thus neutering the only movement with the will and capacity to deliver structural change.
Both camps understand exactly what is at stake. The current simmering unrest, though still premature, sporadic, uncoordinated, and uneven, holds the potential to evolve into a powerful and unified force of resistance. Each faction is maneuvering to shape this momentum in service of its own political ambitions, not to usher in genuine transformation, but to secure or reclaim power under a new guise.
At the heart of their subversive strategy lies a shared objective: the co-optation and neutralization of the Amhara movement, and above all, the prevention of Fano from entering the capital or assuming a leadership role in any transition. This calculated effort to block Fano’s political ascent reveals the deeper urgency of the moment. The battle to shape this emerging wave of civil disobedience is not just a tactical contest, it is a decisive front in the broader struggle for Ethiopia’s future.
If left unchallenged, this quiet hijacking of urban unrest poses a grave danger to the Amhara cause, threatening to extinguish the one movement capable of forging a national agenda rooted in justice, sovereignty, and civic equality.
Strategic Stakes for the Amhara Cause
This is not a contest over a fully matured uprising, it is a battle to define and shape a movement still in its formative stage. And precisely because the urban discontent is still amorphous, unclaimed, and ideologically unanchored, it remains dangerously vulnerable to capture, diversion, and manipulation by hostile or opportunistic forces.
Fano cannot afford to remain reactive, marginal, or confined to rural frontlines. It must enter the urban political arena with decisiveness, vision, and urgency. This move is not optional, it is a strategic imperative. In fact, it is the single most important decision after taking up arms to defend the Amhara people from existential threat.
If Fano fails to engage, others will fill the vacuum, distorting the resistance, diluting its demands, and derailing its trajectory. Now is the moment for Fano to assert itself as the only movement capable of linking scattered protests to a unified, courageous campaign for justice, dignity, and national renewal.
Conclusion: Own the Streets, Shape the Future
What we are witnessing is not yet a revolution, but its unmistakable prelude. The momentum is scattered, yet mounting. The protests are hesitant, yet gaining force.
History reminds us that when Addis Ababa rises, regimes fall. It was the capital’s civil unrest that signaled the end of Emperor Haile Selassie’s reign. And again, it was the quiet acquiescence, if not outright approval, of Addis Ababa that opened the gates for the TPLF to march in and wave a red card to Mengistu’s regime. The fate of Ethiopia has always been sealed not only in the countryside but in the streets of its capital.
If this growing unrest is hijacked by opportunists or reformist elites, it will be pacified, its radical energy drained and diverted. But if Fano steps in, with boldness, vision, and resolve, it can transform this moment into the foundation of a national awakening.
Every revolution begins when the streets rise, but it triumphs only when the right force leads. This is not a question of who protests, but of who commands the direction of history.
Let the answer be clear: The people. With Fano. For justice. For liberation. For Ethiopia.
Yoseph Enyew is an economist by profession. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Metropolitan University in Canada and a Master’s Degree in Liberal Arts from Harvard University.
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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You cannot extinguish a wild fire by igniting another fire. Ethnic nationalism is a toxic fire engulfing Ethiopia ,call it Amhara Fano ,Woyane Tigray or Oroumma . Your writing has a deep misjudgment about Fano’s political leadership skill to lead an urban resistance . A rural Amhara ethnic peasants army lead by disgruntled army veterans and low level civil servants devoid of democratic principles. Civic nationalism is the only way out. Good luck for your dream of glorification of FANO’s insurgency .
I share your thoughts and views. But are the Fanno forces willing or able to assert themselves with the “boldness, vision, and resolve” you suggest? If the pattern of their engagement so far is any guide, I’m not sure.
Do the forces evince a strategic, transformative commitment or inclination in fighting the decades-old tribal imperium, or are they settled on a tactical, merely disruptive stance toward the regime?
Or, worse, is their leadership vulnerable to capture by subversives that operate inside and outside the Fanno movement? Finding answers to these issues is challenging, but posing the questions clearly and openly is itself no mean task.
Fano has not yet achieved the kind of internal cohesion, party and strategic discipline, nor the vision to steer the urban rebellion in any definite direction. So far, it does not offer a clear ideological stance to invite the serious consideration of other opposition parties. What alternative does it present to the oromumma ideology or to any other vision for Ethiopia? If any form of consensus is sought for the preservation of the Ethiopian state, it can only be built through the participation of all who have a stake in the country.