Since 2019, Ethiopia has embarked on a new “national project of peace and unity”. The government’s official
discourse has been characterised by an uptake in the use of Pan-African and Pan-Ethiopian rhetoric.
Strategically invoking visions of a united Africa and shared continental prosperity, the Abiy administration
seeks to enhance its international reputation and rally African support for its domestic agenda. To overcome
the pervasive ethnofractionalist tendencies in Ethiopia’s political landscape and consolidate the Ethiopian
state within its present boundaries, the current government is selectively borrowing political strategies from
previous administrations. This has produced a unique, new form of Pan-Ethiopian governance ideals. So far,
the repercussions of this government discourse on political tensions in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian diaspora
has received no scholarly attention. This academic article analyses the implications of the current Ethiopian
government’s deployment of Pan-Africanist and Pan-Ethiopianist rhetoric on Ethiopia’s current political
crises. This article argues that these Pan-Africanist and Pan-Ethiopianist rhetoric and ideals are paradoxically
perpetuating divisive identity politics in Ethiopia’s domestic and diasporic political realm. This, in
turn, exacerbates the most serious threat to Ethiopia’s national unity.

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