Hobsbawm’s text made me think of the folkloric stories surrounding “bandits”, often making them out as some sort of national heroes, in a populist context for the first time. The Mesazgi brothers are a perfect example for this populist perspective: they marketed themselves as part of the people, fighting with them against an external colonial force while upkeeping tradition and cultural values while retaining a certain mythical nature.
The article makes an interesting connection between Ethiopia’s fragile political/social state and media freedom and democratic processes, arguing that both legacy and new media played a role in the radical polarization of the country. The theory that stood out to me especially was that liberal media norms may not be suitable for fragile democracies like Ethiopia, as I had never really questioned the importance of making media as liberal as possible. Alternative frameworks for media in such contexts were suggested to be that of the “democratic mirror,” “vigilantism and fraternisation,” and the “therapeutic” function of the media (p.73)