The scars of dictatorship are never confined to the generation that suffered them. In Ethiopia, the memory of the Derg era, its purges, famines, and years of relentless suspicion, remains both visible and veiled, shaping how a nation sees itself and its future.

Remembering After the Fall

After the Derg’s collapse in 1991, Ethiopia faced a question familiar to all societies marked by political violence: how do you confront a history that so many wish to leave behind? For some, remembering was an act of courage.

Families built makeshift shrines, and survivors of the Red Terror gathered in quiet corners to name the lost. In Addis Ababa, the Red Terror Martyrs’ Memorial Museum opened its doors as a house of mourning and warning, its walls lined with the faces of the disappeared. Visitors walked past piles of battered shoes and faded photographs, reminders that every statistic concealed a story.

Yet for every act of public memory, there were a hundred moments of silence. The habits of fear learned under the Derg did not simply vanish with the regime’s fall. In many households, stories were left untold, as parents hesitated to burden children with tales of betrayal, or feared that speaking openly might again invite danger.

In rural villages, the violence of the past was sometimes described only in whispers, and old disputes festered beneath the surface. For many Ethiopians, survival had depended on knowing what not to say.

Promises and Silence

Political realities also shaped the story that could be told. Ethiopia’s new rulers promised a break with the violence of the past, but they also faced the challenge of forging a new national identity out of fractured memories. There were moments of openness: trials of former Derg officials, official days of mourning, the creation of public memorials.

But there were also times when the urge to move forward meant leaving uncomfortable questions unasked. Leaders spoke of reconciliation and unity, yet often preferred not to dwell on the years of terror and famine, wary of what old wounds might reopen.

The Legacy of Selective Memory

This selective memory has left its mark. For younger Ethiopians, the Derg era is often a distant echo, known mainly through family anecdotes, half-remembered lessons, or the exhibits in a city museum. Some are curious, others impatient with the weight of the past. Yet the silence around those years is itself a kind of legacy, a reminder of how difficult it can be to reckon with national trauma.

Why do these stories matter now? In Ethiopia, as in many places, the temptation to forget is always strong, especially when new crises demand attention and when old fears seem best left buried. But the past never entirely disappears. The suspicion that took root under the Derg still lingers in political life and private conversation. The fear of authority, the caution around strangers, the reflex to weigh every word, these are habits born of history.

Lessons for the Living

Memory is not just about justice for the dead, though that matters. It is also about warning the living. The lesson of Ethiopia’s lost years is not only that revolutions can betray their own dreams, but that the silence which follows can be just as dangerous. When history is allowed to slip away unexamined, its lessons are easily repeated. In the debates of today, about power, trust, and the rights of citizens, these old ghosts still whisper.

The Work of Memory

For Ethiopia, the work of memory is unfinished. Museums stand, stories circulate, and sometimes, at funerals or family gatherings, the truths of the past are spoken plainly. Each act of remembering is a quiet defiance, a refusal to surrender history to silence. In these small ways, Ethiopians insist that the meaning of those years is not simply a catalogue of suffering, but a living warning, one that still deserves to be heard.