Afar (people)
.jpg)
The Afar (also known under the foreign names Danakil and Adal ) are a nomadic people who live in the so-called Afar Triangle in eastern Eritrea , northeast Ethiopia and Djibouti . Like other ethnic groups in Africa, the Afar are thus a victim of the demarcation of borders during the colonial division of Africa at the end of the 19th century. First and foremost, they make a living from cattle breeding and, near the coast, from fishing . They practice a form of Islam mixed with animistic-traditional elements . The Afar language belongs to the Kushitic language family .
Designations
The origin of the self-name ʿAfár is unknown. The Arabs call the Afar Danakil (plural of Dankali ), the Amharen , Oromo and Somali Adal , Adali or Oda'ali . These names are derived from the names of individual subgroups of the Afar. The Tigray call the Afar Taltal or Teltal .
Culture and society
The approximately 1.6 million Afar live in four sultanates together, the most important Aussa is. The sultanates are divided into a number of sheikdoms . The same is true of the Afar themselves, who are divided into two main tribes - sometimes referred to as "red" ( Asaimara / Asahyammára ) and "white" Afar ( Adoimara / Adohyammára ) - and dozen sub-tribes. The clan is the smallest social and cultural unit . Since most Afar live as nomads, the literacy rate is extremely low.
In addition to herding goats and camels, many Afar live from the trade in salt , which they mine in the lowlands of the Danakil Plain, including on Lake Abbe , and sell it in the Ethiopian highlands around the city of Dese (see Amole ). The consumption of the narcotic drug Kath is widespread . The female circumcision is in the form of infibulation usual. Anette Weber and Rüdiger Nehberg have been named the first "honorary citizens of the Afar" because of their commitment to combating genital mutilation.
The Afar fall like many other tribes in Africa because of its well-tended teeth, as the brushing part (their oldest cultural techniques Salvadora persica known) and well ahead of the European tradition of toothbrushing was. The custom of the Afar women not always to cover their breasts is unusual for Muslim peoples.
history
The origins of the Afar and the linguistically closely related Saho are likely to be in the southern Ethiopian highlands , as is the case for all East Cushite-speaking ethnic groups . Herbert S. Lewis speculated in 1966 that their forerunners were probably the first to separate from the other East Cushite-speaking groups and migrate to the northeast, so that the Afar and Saho languages had enough time to develop apart.
While the northern Afar came under the rule of the rulers of Tigray , the Afar remained practically independent further south and east for a long time. Caravan routes ran through their area, connecting the Ethiopian highlands with the coast. Afar were involved in the Adal Sultanate , which comprised various Muslim ethnic groups and waged war against Ethiopia under Ahmed "Gran" in the 16th century , but then lost its importance and finally fell apart. They were also beset by the expansion of the Oromo . On the coast there was a weak influence of the Ottoman Empire from the 16th century until the 19th century and then, for a short time, Egypt under Ismail Pasha . Towards the end of the 19th century, the sultanates of Raheita and Tadjoura on the coast came under the control of European colonial powers, but the inland Aussa in the south was able to maintain its independence for longer. Even comparatively fertile and located on the Awash River, it was demarcated from the outside by surrounding desert areas. It was not until 1895 that Ethiopia, under Emperor Menelik II , sent an army from Shewa against Aussa on the grounds that the Sultan had allied himself with the Italian colonizers. As a result, the sultanate paid tribute to Ethiopia, but retained extensive autonomy.
When a modern administrative system was introduced in Ethiopia after the Second World War, the Afar areas controlled by Ethiopia were divided into the provinces of Eritrea, Tigray, Wollo , Shewa and Hararge . Tribal leaders, elders and religious and other dignitaries of the Afar tried unsuccessfully in the government from 1961 to end this division. An organization of Afar students was formed in Addis Ababa , and in 1972 Afar students in Cairo founded the Afar Koborih Angoyya (AKA, Movement to Mobilize the Afar). From the 1970s onwards, both the separatist ELF and Somalia under Siad Barre supported this resistance movement of young Afar for tactical reasons, which took on radical left-wing traits and thus also rejected the traditional aristocracies.
From the 1960s onwards, large cotton plantations emerged in the Awash Valley, taking up land that the Afar nomads originally used as a reserve in times of drought. When there was a drought and famine in the Wollo region in 1972–1973 / 74 , the Afar were particularly hard hit. The drought also exacerbated conflicts with the Issa- Somali (who were increasingly better armed) and the Oromo.
After Haile Selassie was overthrown and the Derg came to power , the rulers of Aussa, who had recently had good relations with the Ethiopian imperial family, were skeptical of the Derg and saw themselves compelled to team up with some of the reformist-minded Afar youth. The son of the Sultan founded the armed Afar Liberation Front ( Afar Liberation Front , ALF), while the AKA or your successor organization National Liberation Movement of the Afar ( Afar National Liberation Movement , ANLM) joined the new government, however, still demands for autonomy for the Afar rose. Afar also took part in the War of Independence in Eritrea, but even more of them rejected Eritrea's independence, as they rather wanted the unification of all Afar areas within Ethiopia. As a result, Afar were marginalized within the ELF as well as the later EPLF , and leaders were murdered.
When the Derg government came under increasing pressure in the late 1980s, an autonomous region of Assab was set up in 1987/88 , which comprised around 60% of the Afar area. The People's Liberation Front of Tigray and the EPRDF led by it , which overthrew the Derg in 1991, founded the Afar People's Democratic Organization (APDO) as a political partner among the Afar. As part of the federal reorganization of the country, most of the Afar areas were combined in one state of Afar ; the part belonging to Eritrea became part of the independent Eritrea in 1993.
Political situation
The state of Afar remains a poorly developed area. The Afar also feel disadvantaged in Eritrea , which is ruled authoritarian by the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice . The Eritrean government is trying to alienate the Afar on their territory from those in Ethiopia and Djibouti and to integrate them into a national identity that ultimately amounts to the predominance of the Tigrinya .
In Djibouti , Afar make up about 40 percent of the population, while Somali (from the Issa clan ) are the majority of the population. Because the Issa have dominated Djibouti's politics since independence in 1977, a civil war broke out in Djibouti in the early 1990s , in which Afar rebels turned against the marginalization they felt .
The Ethiopian Afar organization Uguugumo (also German Revolutionary Democratic United Front of the Afar , ARDUF) advocates unification of the Afar and therefore does not recognize the independence of Eritrea.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Didier Morin: Taltal. In: Didier Morin: Dictionnaire historique afar. (1288-1982). Karthala Editions, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-84586-492-2 , p. 262.
- ^ Herbert S. Lewis: The Origins of the Galla and Somali. In: The Journal of African History. Vol. 7, No. 1, 1966, ISSN 0021-8537 , pp. 27-46, JSTOR 179457 .
- ↑ a b c d e f Yasin Mohammed Yasin: Political history of the Afar in Ethiopia and Eritrea. In: Afrika Spectrum . Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 39-65, ( online ).
- ^ Ioan M. Lewis : Peoples of the Horn of Africa. Somali, Afar and Saho (= Ethnographic Survey of Africa. North Eastern Africa. 1, ZDB -ID 446768-1 ). International African Institute, London 1955.
- ↑ Evil days. 30 years of war and famine in Ethiopia. Human Rights Watch, New York NY et al. 1991, pp. 10, 58 f., 62 f., ( Online ).