Jawar Mohammed, a member of the Oromo ethnic group who has been a public critic of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, addresses supporters outside his home in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Oct. 24, a day after his supporters took to the streets, burning tires and blocking roads following rumors of Jawar's mistreatment by security forces.
Oromo nationalism helped bring Abiy Ahmed to power, but it could also be his undoing. To hold the country together, the Nobel-winning prime minister needs to convince various ethnic groups that he and his new party represent all Ethiopians.
The chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, poses with a picture of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in the Nobel Institute in Oslo on October 11, 2019.
Western leaders long saw the authoritarian Meles Zenawi as an indispensable ally. Now, they’ve found a new hero in Abiy Ahmed. But is the Nobel Prize an effort to make amends or influence Ethiopia’s political future?
Pictures of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winners, Nadia Murad, a public advocate for the Yazidi community in Iraq and a survivor of sexual violence, and Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, displayed in Oslo on Oct. 5. (Fredrik Hagen /AFP/Getty Images)
North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (R) and South Korea's President Moon Jae-in (L) walk together after announcing a joint statement near the end of their historic summit at the truce village of Panmunjom on April 27, 2018. (KOREA SUMMIT PRESS POOL/AFP/Getty Images)
(From L) World Council of Churches (WCC) spokeswoman Marianne Ejdersten, Nuclear disarmament group International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) executive director Beatrice Fihn, ICAN coordinator Daniel Hogstan and ICAN member of the steering committee Grethe Ostern attend a press conference after ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize for its decade-long campaign to rid the world of the atomic bomb on October 6, 2017 in Geneva. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)
(From L) Nuclear disarmament group ICAN coordinator Daniel Hogstan, executive director Beatrice Fihn and her husband Will Fihn Ramsay pose with a banner bearing the group's logo after ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize for its decade-long campaign to rid the world of the atomic bomb as nuclear-fuelled crises swirl over North Korea and Iran, on October 6, 2017 in Geneva.
With the nuclear threat at its most acute in decades, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which on October 6 won the Nobel Peace Prize, is urgently pressing to consign the bomb to history. / AFP PHOTO / Fabrice COFFRINI (Photo credit should read FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)
Aung San Suu Kyi at 20th anniversary ceremonies honoring her winning the Nobel Peace prize December 10, 2011 in Yangon, Myanmar. (Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)
YANGON, MYANMAR - NOVEMBER 08: Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition politician, chairperson of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Burma, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, arrives at the polling station to cast vote during Myanmar's first free and fair election on November 8, 2015 in Yangon, Myanmar. The elections will be Myanmar's first openly contested polls in 25 years, following decades of military rule. (Photo by Lam Yik Fei/Getty Images)
This picture taken on December 10, 2010 shows an exhibition at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo highlighting this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Liu Xiaobo, a few hours before its opening. Confusion over which countries would attend the peace prize ceremony for jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo grew Friday just hours before the event with organisers adding more names to the list. AFP PHOTO / SCANPIX - Berit Roald (Photo credit should read BERIT ROALD/AFP/Getty Images)
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - OCTOBER 02: Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos (C) makes the victory/peace sign with son Martin Santos (L), wife Maria Clemencia Rodriguez (2nd R) and daughter Maria Antonia Santos (R) after voting in the referendum on a peace accord to end the 52-year-old guerrilla war between the FARC and the state on October 2, 2016 in Bogota, Colombia. The guerrilla war is the longest-running armed conflict in the Americas and has left 220,000 dead. The plan calls for a disarmament and re-integration of most of the estimated 7,000 FARC fighters. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Nadia Murad (center) testifies during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing in Washington on June 21, 2016. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Nadia Murad’s work on behalf of Yazidi women who’ve suffered at the hands of the Islamic State has earned her a Nobel nomination. But even if she receives the prestigious prize, it may do little to help her cause.
Even as the Arab Spring was falling apart around them, Tunisians opted for the difficult path of dialogue and compromise. Now their persistence has been rewarded.
