From Words to a Genocide : Hate speech against Amharas

For more than thirty years, the Amhara community has been confronted with a steady stream of dehumanizing narratives. What began in political language moved into activist spaces and now circulates constantly on social media. Over time, these messages have framed Amharas as tied to domination, portrayed them as outsiders in places they are native to, and questioned their very presence.

The roots of this thinking trace back to the Ethiopian Student Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The term “Amharanization” was introduced to describe a state understood as built around one group, but this framework rested on a misreading of Ethiopia’s history, society, and structures of power. As the idea spread, it drifted away from institutions and settled onto people. What began as a political argument gradually hardened into a social assumption.

That assumption has been repeated for decades. A constitution was crafted after 1991 around these assumptions, embedding them into the country’s political system and reinforcing them in everyday language. Amharas were described as settlers, as expansionists, as obstacles and colonisers . The repetition mattered. It shaped how communities understood each other, especially in places where tensions were already high.

Then social media removed whatever limits were left. Now the same ideas move faster and reach further. A post written in anger can be shared thousands of times within hours. A label can spread across regions where people have never met the group they are judging. Influential figures and ordinary users feed into the same stream, until it becomes difficult to separate opinion from fact.

This environment does not remain abstract. It turns into direct, life-threatening messages. Amharas are openly threatened, targeted, and warned that they will be next. Violence is not only justified, it is anticipated and, at times, even celebrated. What begins as language does not stay as language.

Spend enough time in those spaces and the shift becomes visible. People stop talking about individuals. They talk about a category. The language flattens everything. A farmer, a student, a child, all reduced to the same identity, carrying the same accusation.

That way of thinking does not stay contained.

From Arbagugu and Bedeno in the early 1990s, to later waves of violence in different regions, to Maikadra in 2020 where people were identified and separated before they were killed, and to ongoing attacks in Wollega, Metekel, and other parts of Oromia, a pattern emerges. The locations change, the years pass, yet the language surrounding these moments stays familiar. People are described as outsiders or settlers, as threats to be dealt with. Each label narrows how they are seen, making it easier, step by step, to treat them as if they do not belong.

Nothing about these moments appeared suddenly. They were built over years of repetition, through conversations that made it easier to accept the idea that an entire group could be treated as a problem.

The danger lies in how ordinary this has become, almost like an ethnic activist starter kit, designed to be absorbed, repeated, and passed on to the right audience. The language circulates daily across feeds, replies, casual posts, and live videos, carrying the same message forward without pause.

The gap between that narrative and reality has collapsed. It now shapes how people see their neighbors and what they are willing to accept, reaching as far as determining who lives and who does not. This is still unfolding. The language continues, and the patterns remain visible. What has happened in different parts of Ethiopia shows where this path leads when it goes unchallenged.

Changing that path begins with refusing to repeat what is not true and rejecting any version of reality that strips people of their humanity. The same system that grew out of these assumptions still shapes political life today, but it no longer goes unanswered. Claims repeated for decades are now being questioned, exposed, and pushed back against. The story is no longer moving in one direction.