Debating Ideas reflects the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarly, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It offers debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books. It is edited and managed by the International African Institute, hosted at SOAS University of London, the owners of the book series of the same name.
On 13 February 2024, the Dean of Westminster Abbey announced that he would agree ‘in principle’ to the return of a contentious Ethiopian Tabot. A replica of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tablets of the Law or the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabot had been looted by British forces during the Battle of Maqdala in today’s Amhara region of Ethiopia in 1868. The possible return of the Tabot is the latest such object to be restituted to Ethiopia in recent years. It followed a formal request by the country’s federal government for its restitution in July 2018, shortly after incumbent Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power. One can only welcome this move, but it should also be an opportunity to question the Abiy government’s weaponisation of history and heritage within Ethiopia – particularly in the aftermath of the war on Tigray. Read more