Studies in African Languages and Cultures (Dec 1994)
The impact of Western and Soviet type models of Euro-American industrial civilisation in Ethiopia
Abstract
During my stay in Ethiopia in 1984/5 and 1987/8 I was impressed by the strong similarities between the socio-cultural effects of the system of “real socialism” as it functioned in Ethiopia and in Poland, although the two countries are tremendously dissimilar in their histories and cultures. This similarity consisted of aggressive behaviour on the part of the people, growing numbers of drunken young men on the streets, the way government clerks behaved toward petitioners, loss of respect for the authorities, diminishing regard for the educated, the fear and suspicion omnipresent in human relations, and last, but not least, the similar economic difficulties experienced in everyday life. What was equally striking was the destructive social effect of this system - the growing lack of cohesion within social groups and families, the passivity and the feeling of helplessness on the part of the populace, and the hatred for those who had imposed the system on them. All of this came about in a much shorter period of time in Ethiopia than it did in Poland.
