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Ethiopia: Reflection on Haile Selassie
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The Daily Observer (Banjul)
OPINION
11 April 2008
Posted to the web 11 April 2008
The facts of his life are well known. Haile Selassie's influence on the world is his most enduring legacy. Born Tafari Makonnen in 1891, Haile Selassie came to be identified inextricably with Ethiopia. Only rarely in the modern world does the story of a man become so closely linked to the story of a nation. It is said that great events beget great men, but they beget failures as well, and the boundary between the two is often defined by singular acts of courage. These the Ethiopian Emperor did not lack.
Not surprisingly, the fortitude of the man sometimes referred to as "The Lion" inspired Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and even Malcom X, each of whom corresponded with Haile Selassie --who advocated civil disobedience when it was necessary to remedy fundamental social injustice or restore freedom to the oppressed. The Emperor's presence at President Kennedy's funeral is still remembered.
One speaks of leaders of men as though their public lives were completely divorced from their private ones. For a hereditary monarch, this should not be the case. What his children think of him is as important as what everybody else thinks. Haile Selassie was a devoted husband and father. His wife, Empress Menen, died in 1962. His sons, Sahle Selassie, Makonnen, and Asfa Wossen, had a great sense of duty to their father and to their people. Of his daughters, Princess Tenagne, in particular, excercised various official duties.
Haile Selassie ascended the throne in the era of polar exploration and slow communication. Africa's oldest nation was little more than a footnote to the great stories of the day --something that Americans and Brits read about in the pages of the National Geographic. Some people still called the country Abyssinia. In certain countries far beyond Ethiopia's borders, segregation and apartheid were long established and little questioned. Most other African "nations" were colonies. Even at home, slavery was technically still legal.
In such an era, words like "pan-Africanism" and "civil rights" were little more than esoteric philosophical notions entertained by an enlightened few.
That a country as backward as Italy, whose widespread poverty prompted the emigration of millions, would seek to devour a nation like Ethiopia, was an irony too subtle to raise eyebrows outside the most sophisticated intellectual circles. With British backing, Haile Selassie returned to defeat the Italian army which, in the event, the Allies never viewed as much more than a nuisance. The British themselves considered the Ethiopian campaign in its strategic context --as a way to free the Red Sea from possible Axis control-- as much as the liberation of a sovereign nation. To the Ethiopians, it was as much a moral victory as a military one.
The Emperor's speech to the League of Nations denouncing the Italian invasion is remembered more than the aggression itself. It prompted essentially ineffectual international trade sanctions against a European nation but, like the Battle of Adwa four decades earlier, represented in a tangible way one of the few occasions in the modern era that an African nation defied the arrogance of a European one.
There were very few world leaders of the post-war era who had actually led troops in combat. Haile Selassie and Dwight Eisenhower were exceptional in this respect, which partially accounts for their close friendship.
Even when the foe is truly formidable, courage has a psychological side that has little to do with combat or physical victory. One may seem defeated materially without being defeated morally. Perhaps it's a question of confidence, values or knowledge. Haile Selassie's greatest strength was as a builder of bridges --across rivers but also between cultures. His travels took him to many countries, and he became one of the most popular heads of state, and one of the most decorated men in the world.
It was during one such voyage, in 1960, that he had to rush home to confront an attempted overthrow of the existing order. This perhaps served as a reminder that the most dangerous revolutions are found in one's own house. The sovereign who was once known as a reformer now found himself resented by many members of the very social class his economic and educational policies had helped to create. Internationally, however, his prestige did not suffer. The Emperor established the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, with a headquarters in Addis Ababa.
The revolution of 1974 was supported by outside forces, and while its roots were domestic, its covert objectives cannot be said to have been supported by more than a small fraction of Ethiopians.
Truth be told, administrative practices which worked well in 1950 were terribly inefficient by the 1970s, and a series of problems were cited as a pretext for a full scale coup d'etat. Ethiopia's pre-industrial economy was no better prepared for Marxism than Russia's had been in 1917.
Communism's ultimate social and economic failure, in Ethiopia as well as in Russia, certainly indicates democracy's superiority, whether that democracy is embodied by a republic or a constitutional monarchy. The Derg's alliance with the Soviet Union made Ethiopia the instrument of a foreign power, precisely the thing Haile Selassie resisted.
He had a Solomonic pedigree, but Haile Selassie was a man of the people. Perhaps that's how he should be remembered.
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In reference to your article, Ethiopia: Reflection on Haile Selassie, I would like to give the following comments:
The article insensitively hypes and glorifies Hailesillassie. Hailesilassie may have been famous in the outside World. But, in his own country, he was a blood-sucking despot. He enslaved the majority of the people of Ethiopia by taking away their land and giving it to his cronies and blood relatives who became absentee landlords. The absenttee landlords thus enslaved the great majority of the rural people. The peasants were forced to till the land and give the fruit of their labor to the... [Read Full Text]
What a pity that Haile Selassie, to this day, wasn't fullsy scrutinized. He was a ruthless dictator, on whose watch, Ethiopia was doomed to decades of stagnation despite its enormous potential.
Haile Selassie and his cronies are responsible for the dismal state of affair in one of the oldest Nations of the World. Numerous investors were discouraged frm investing in the Nation due to the policy of Haile selassie and his blood sucking circle of cronies. Who along with the Church owned more than half of the land in Ethiopia. The feudal system benefitted these rascals. I agree with the... [Read Full Text]
I think the article focusses on the positive aspects of Haile Selassie's legacy. As it does not go to details I do not blame the author. However, I differ with the two comments that insued. We in Africa always attempt to blame the past leaders for what is happening today. We should judge our past leaders in their own context. When Haile Silassie came to power he was one of the Japanizers/modernizers of Ethiopia. He was a reformer. Remember, be it Haile Silassie or Minilik, Yohannes or Tewodros, non of them were "educated" to be leaders. The only education was... [Read Full Text]
It is a pity that there are folks who don't do any comparative assesment of Ethiopia's economic performance relative to those of the Allied forces soon after the Second World War. A Nation which was a founding member of the League of Nations and United Nations should have achieved a lot more. Gemany and much of Europe were in ruins after the War. Look what they have achieved due to a transparent market oriented policy. No govt owned enterprise( Ethiopian Airlines, ETC) would have accomplished the monumental task of rebuilding Germany. What made Germany was the fruit of hard work... [Read Full Text]
WHAT SURPRISES ME IS WHEN I LISTEN BOB MARLEY SONG FOR HAILESELASSIE! AND NOW TEDROS KASSAHUN/TEDY AFRO IS DOING THE SAME...REALY BOTH OF THEM HAD NO ENOUGH INFORMATION ABOUT THAT DICTATOR ,FIRST AND FORMOST HAILESLASIE DIDN'T SATAND BY THE GRAET ETHIOPIAN PATRIOTC FIGHTERS. MANY OF THE PATRIOTS DIED IN THE BATTLES FOR THEIR COUNTRY WHERAS "MAJESTY" HIMSELF FLED TO GRAET BRITAIN WITH MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY.
HOW CAN YOU THINK OF ELECTRICITY,AIRLINES,UNIVERSITY,.NOTHING IS MORE ..DURING TEWODROS,YOHANES...WAS THAT POSSIBLE?!?!?!? WHAT ABOUT MINILIKS CONTRBUTION ABOUT SUCH TECHNOLOGIES... HAILESLASIE DID NOTHING..WHAT WE CAN SAY IS HE WAS FORTUNE.LUCKY THAT HE WAS LIVING IN THE ESABLISHEMNT OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES THROUOUT THE WORLD....BUT ALL THES THINGS ARE MINOR WHEN COMPARED TO ETHIOPIAN SOUVERIGNTY ,ETHIOPIAN PEOPLE AND GOOD GOVERNANCE...HAILESLASIE DID NOTHING CONCERNNING THESE.THE PEOPLE OF ETHIOPIA WERE OBLIGED TO WORSHIP HAILESLASIE NEXT TO GOD!!!!!
It is a fact that is rarely acknoledged by many people who dont like Haile Silasie, that he took over a county that was extremely backward, basically stuck in stone age dispite the best effrorts of Menelik. The contry made great stride in developing on his clock. Air transportation, Universities/Education system, Parliament, etc etc. were established under his rule. Obviously, as the man aged and got older he started focusing more on international issues, and never made the kind of progress he achieved locally in the 40s and 50s. In all fairness he does not deserve to be named a... [Read Full Text]
Haile Sellasie was a fake, a fraud and a phony. As for those who think Ethiopia, a Nation of 3000 years of history with its own script as being that in a stone age, I suggest check on your facts. All Human Beings are capable of achieving the level which the West has attained given transparent and good governance. Nations like Korea, where our boys shed their blood has proven that. The Koreans wernt any better than us but they were open to ideas and foreign investments. They copied their masters and look where they are now. Our despot who... [Read Full Text]
As per the abvove article, people may argue that Hailesellassie was a "unifier and a strong leader who kept Ethiopia an independent and non-colonized country within Africa". But the truth was knowingly or unknowingly overlooked about the the realities that took place in the late 1900s when many nations and nationalities were forced to surrender and folded into the Ethiopian Empire. Thanks but no thanks to the British government's supply of arms to Menillik and later on to Hailesellassie, Oromos, Sidamas and other nations and nationalities became tenants on their own lands, lost their identities and had to be forced... [Read Full Text]
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