The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church as Religious Other in Contemporary Ethiopia: Discursive Practices of Three Selected Religious Authorities

Abstract

Through critical discourse analysis of widely circulated and debated video speeches by three selected religious authorities in Ethiopia—representing the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), Islam, and Protestantism—this paper examines how religious authority and social media complimentarily help to reach geographically and religiously diverse audiences and to draw politico-religious boundaries. It shows how the politicisation of religion, mainly by a supportive Protestant and calculative Muslim groups, with different intentions, on the one hand and a religiously motivated and repressive government on the other have created a “religious other” (i.e., the EOTC). Perceived discourse of historical marginalisation is used to justify both supportive and calculative tendencies of continued religious repression in the reconstructed new Ethiopia. On the other hand, a struggle for justice to curb this development is religiously justified by the EOTC, which elevates tensions to the level of a holy war against the religious other.

Keywords

• religious othering
• religious authority
• existential threat
• cleansing
• holy war