Abiy Ahmed Meets the Ethiopian Diaspora
Last Saturday afternoon, the streets of Washington, D.C. were a sprawling symphony of green, yellow, and red. The flags of Ethiopia and Eritrea flew from car windows, tri-color banners hung from apartment railings, and peace ribbons adorned the facades of local businesses. Trucks and cars bearing messages of unity stationed themselves outside the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, drawing crowds of eager amateur photographers looking to document an occasion most never expected to see within their lifetimes.
The Washington metro area has long boasted a large East African immigrant community, but Saturday saw a staggering influx of Ethiopians (and some Eritreans) from around the country. Hailing from states as far Ohio, California, and Georgia, they all gathered in D.C. for one purpose: to hear Dr. Abiy Ahmed, the new Ethiopian prime minister, address the diaspora. To medemer, as Ahmed’s office titled the invitation, an Amharic word meaning “to come together”—or, more literally, “to be added to one another.”
Appointed after the of former P.M. Hailemariam Desalegn, Ahmed inherited a deeply fractured country when he was sworn in this April. In recent years, a wave of protests over urban expansion in Ethiopia’s Southern regions had been met with from the state. and had been jailed or disappeared. Border tensions with neighboring Eritrea, which was in the 1960s, had remained a constant source of anxiety for residents of both countries. But Ahmed began his tenure with a series of : ending the state of emergency that the prior regime imposed in response to widespread protest, freeing between the two countries in the process. In doing so, the 41-year-old Ahmed, whom many have compared to former U.S.President Barack Obama, has inspired a rare, renewed sense of in Ethiopians—and relief in Eritreans—around the world.
