“I flew and met [my parents] here. It just felt like such a historic moment,” Girma told me when we spoke outside the convention center that morning. (Many Ethiopians opt to employ a traditional naming convention in which children take their father’s first name as their last.) “I’ve been thinking a lot about the diaspora and my relation to Ethiopia and my people,” she added. “So to have a gathering with this purpose of bringing a people scattered back together is so beautiful to me, and so I wanted to be a part of it.”

Hours later, Ahmed took to the stage to directly address the splintering of Ethiopia and its diaspora. Before he spoke, multiple faith leaders prayed over the crowd. Their diversity, in both ethnic background and religion, was itself a rare display. In poetic Amharic, Ahmed implored the diaspora—the more than 20,000 people gathered at the convention center (per his office’s count), as well as the many more tuning into various live-streams—to see Ethiopian national identity as both varied and unified. The son of a Muslim father and Christian mother from Ethiopia’s Oromia region, Ahmed has stressed this throughout his public addresses both at home and abroad. In naming many of the nation’s ethnic groups, some of which have historically been disenfranchised, he stuck to a central theme of his administration’s messaging: All Ethiopians should have access to the benefits of national identity, and they need not forsake their difference to gain it.

“Today, if you all decide, if you commit to healing, then we as Ethiopia will write a new story, like we did during Adwa,” he said, referencing the decisive 1896 battle that ended the first Italo-Ethiopian War and ensured that modern Ethiopia would remain free of formal colonial rule. “If you want to be the pride of your generation, then you must decide that Oromos, Amharas, Wolaytas, Gurages, and Siltes are all equally Ethiopian.”



“What Ethiopians need is community. We need Ethiopian football,” he added, a reference to the national soccer federation that connects Ethiopian Americans to one another through an annual tournament. “Don’t worry. When you come together, the world will extend its hands to you.”

Much of Ahmed’s speech centered on similar calls to action. But he also returned often to a related note: affirming the unique beauty of the country he now leads—and the people who call it home. He tapped directly into attendees’ nostalgia, reminding them of the place they left and the ties they maintain—even as they have settled thousands of miles away from Ethiopia.

“This country has beautiful highways, it has beautiful malls. All of you with the means have cars. Lights don’t go out. Phones don’t cut out. Water doesn’t get shut off,” he said of the United States. “So why is it that via Viber, via Facebook, via YouTube, you all spend every night in Ethiopia?”