Enjoy the latest Ethiopian jokes and articles on
CHEWATA at:
http://www.geocities.com/terefewube

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

hye there,

Celebrating Ethiopianism and doing nothing won't bring
any change. Ethiopianism is great. So what? Does our
presence on the web would bring any change to the
present problem in our country? No, as long as it is
not done with out real action. Besides, you can not
force people to be what they are not, or what they
don't want to be. I mean, the majority of Tigreans are
supporters of the Weyane, a bunch of racist looters.
There is a strong Oromo movement which has a lot of
followers, from people who beleive they have been
threated like Ethiopian Niggers. The point is not
whether it is true or not, but what the people think.

What I want to say is, Ethiopiawinet must be flexible.
It can not be imposed on others with a snap of a
finger. If we don't realize that, we will be in the
same situation fifty years from now. Actually, that is
the main danger which could bring the disentegration
of our country.


thanks,

Stay curious

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

The following is a report on migration trends regarding Ethiopia and
was recopied from

http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/Archive_MN/jan_2001-20mn.html.


Ethiopia - As many as a third of the students who have left Ethiopia
to study on full scholarships abroad have not returned,according to
official figures. This reinforces the conclusions of a study by the
International Organization for Migration which found that Africa's 50
million migrants include many professionals who left their countries.
Ethiopian nations tend to migrate permanently when they are sent for
further education abroad. Popular destinations include the United
States, Canada and western Europe.

Ethiopia is one of the world's poorest nations.
A small number of Rastafarian Jamaicans have settled in Shashemene,
Ethiopia, a market town of 50,000 people about 170 miles south of
Addis Ababa. Rastafarians consider Haile Selassie, whose name before
his 1930 coronation as emperor was Ras Tafari Makonnen, as the Messiah
of the black man.

The Rastafarians have moved to Ethiopia in a back-to-Africa
movement. In 1955, 500 acres of the emperor's personal land in
Shashemene were offered to "black people of the West'' to settle on.
The first Rasafarians arrived in 1971 and at its height numbered
around 2,500, most of whom were farmers. There are now about 1,000.
The Ethiopian government says there are no restrictions on
Rastafarians or other Caribbean blacks who want to visit, but if
they wish to become residents, they must get work permits like other
foreigners.

Abraham Fisseha, "Rasta immigrants keep faith in Ethiopian
'homeland,'" Associated Press, December 17, 2000.

Solomon Tekola from NVCC. I'm Ethic-American. I don't know why
you guys still talk about differences instead off bring love and
togetherness.  Where in the world did any nation prosper with
insistence(emphasis) tribal or ethnic differences. One is Oromo another
Amhara and Woyane, Trigre and so fort. Take a Country and a nation of India,
they are of many many tribes and entnicity,but they live in peace and
hormone.  Just A-Thought. I guess we all have to learn to live together.
Spiritually, It is a curse from God. It is going to be even worse unless we
repent and face our lord with prayer.  Then we will receive his compassion
and love and then in turn We will start loving and excepting each other.

-----Original Message-----
From: Metages Sisay [mailto:msisay@...]
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 4:26 AM
To: ethiopiawinet@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [ethiopiawinet] curious


I am not on the Woyane side.  Have you ever heard of a name Metages Sisay
who is Woyane?  I don't know what you are asking me.  What motive are you
talking about?

Peace
Metages

>>> staycurious@... 04/30/01 18:25 PM >>>
hye there,

Would you please tell me who is behind this group?
What is your motive? You are talking about
Ethiopiawinet. Well, what kind of Ethiopiawinet is it?
I mean, we have been experiencing different kinds of
Ethiopiawinet, and I would like to know your version.
Which side are you from? If you are on the Weyane
side, don't bother to send me any mail again.

thanks,

Curious

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

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ethiopiawinet-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com



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To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Hi, there;

are you Abiy, who was living at San Jose and orignally
from Gondar Azezo? let me know bro. I have a lot to
tell you

Dan



--- abiy gebreselassie <abiyhailu@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
____________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at
> http://mail.yahoo.co.uk
> or your free @yahoo.ie address at
> http://mail.yahoo.ie
>


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

how do i do that?
----- Original Message -----
From: <ethiopianism@...>
To: <ethiopiawinet@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 8:08 PM
Subject: [ethiopiawinet] Please don't unsubscribe


>
>
> If you have been receiving messages from the Yahoo E group
> ethiopiawinet don't unsubscribe to get rid of them but instead go
> back into your  account at Yahoo E-group and disable the option that
> sends every e-mail written to your email called Delivery Option,
> located top right side of the screen.   Please continue to show your
> support to the agenda of promoting Ethiopia!!
>
> Peace!
>
> w.m.
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> ethiopiawinet-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

I invite everyone to visit another Ethiopian site,
CHEWATA at:
http://www.geocities.com/terefewube/

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

If you have been receiving messages from the Yahoo E group
ethiopiawinet don't unsubscribe to get rid of them but instead go
back into your  account at Yahoo E-group and disable the option that
sends every e-mail written to your email called Delivery Option,
located top right side of the screen.   Please continue to show your
support to the agenda of promoting Ethiopia!!

Peace!

w.m.

hello Metages,

Sorry if I offended you, but you don't have to be a
genius to take a fake identity. The Woyanes are doing
it everywhere, at least at the forums where I have
been participating lately. If you are not one of them,
it is fine. otherwise, I will get you.

There is always a motive behind your move. What do you
want to accomplish with this group? I think it is a
legitimate question.

P.S Do not forget that 50% of Ethiopians are Muslims.
Ethiopia is also their land.

peace,

curious

--- Metages Sisay <msisay@...> wrote:
> I am not on the Woyane side.  Have you ever heard of
> a name Metages Sisay who is Woyane?  I don't know
> what you are asking me.  What motive are you talking
> about?
>
> Peace
> Metages
>
> >>> staycurious@... 04/30/01 18:25 PM >>>
> hye there,
>
> Would you please tell me who is behind this group?
> What is your motive? You are talking about
> Ethiopiawinet. Well, what kind of Ethiopiawinet is
> it?
> I mean, we have been experiencing different kinds of
> Ethiopiawinet, and I would like to know your
> version.
> Which side are you from? If you are on the Weyane
> side, don't bother to send me any mail again.
>
> thanks,
>
> Curious
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great
> prices
> http://auctions.yahoo.com/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> ethiopiawinet-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

I am not on the Woyane side.  Have you ever heard of a name Metages Sisay who is
Woyane?  I don't know what you are asking me.  What motive are you talking
about?

Peace
Metages

>>> staycurious@... 04/30/01 18:25 PM >>>
hye there,

Would you please tell me who is behind this group?
What is your motive? You are talking about
Ethiopiawinet. Well, what kind of Ethiopiawinet is it?
I mean, we have been experiencing different kinds of
Ethiopiawinet, and I would like to know your version.
Which side are you from? If you are on the Weyane
side, don't bother to send me any mail again.

thanks,

Curious

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ethiopiawinet-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

The Struggle and ultimate goal is not easy and it is very
gruesome and very long.

-----Original Message-----
From: derege@... [mailto:derege@...]
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 3:59 PM
To: ethiopiawinet@yahoogroups.com <mailto:ethiopiawinet@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [ethiopiawinet] Fwd: second update Ethiopia UA


In a message dated 4/27/2001 12:02:37 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
DBaesler@... writes:




Subj: second update Ethiopia UA
Date: 4/27/2001 12:02:37 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:    DBaesler@...
To:    DeRege@..., ehrco@..., contactus@...

File:12500801.wp (11098 bytes) DL Time (28800 bps): < 1 minute




Dear Derege and Mekonnen

please see below. We will issue a separate short action for our groups
focusing in harassment of EHRCO staff in Addis,   www.humanrights2000.org
<http://humanrights2000.org/index.shtml>
and fear for their safety.

All the best - I'm very sad to be leaving, but trust that the team will
keep looking after Ethiopia. Please keep in touch with them - your support
is so important for us.

Take care      Doris
--------------------

(See attached file: 12500801.wp)

PUBLIC    AI Index: AFR 25/008/2001

                                                              27 April 2001

Further information on UA 99/01 (AFR 25/006/2001, 18 April 2001) and
follow-up (AFR 25/007/2001, 20 April 2001) - Fear for safety/Use of
excessive force by security forces and new concerns: Incommunicado
detention/Fear of torture or ill-treatment/"Disappearance"

ETHIOPIA       Students from Addis Ababa University
               Civilian demonstrators in Addis Ababa, including students
               from secondary schools
               Lidetu Ayalew, EDP Secretary General
               Tamerat Tarakegn, EDP Central Committee member
               Tadiwos Tantu, EDP Central Committee member [note corrected
               spelling]

     New names:     Seifu Mekonnen, journalist for the Amharic weekly
               Mebrek
               Over 30 members of the All Amhara People's Organisation


Eighty members of the Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP) and over 30 members
of the All Amhara People's Organization (AAPO) are now believed to be held
incommunicado following the riots in Addis Ababa of 17 and 18 April. Their
whereabouts are unknown.

Up to 100 students, mostly from Addis Ababa University, are also believed
to be held at various police stations in Addis Ababa. A journalist from the
private press, Seifu Mekonnen has not been seen since he left his home in
the afternoon of 20 April, and there are serious concerns for his safety.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 students were released on 26 April. They had been
held at the police training college in Sendafe, 38 km north of Addis Ababa,
since the riots. The authorities had previously said that they were holding
only 411 students. The students had not been allowed to talk to each other,
or to sleep. They were forced to walk barefoot and to roll naked over
gravel, and to spend hours doing military-style physical exercises in
sweltering heat.

Addis Ababa University reopened on 24 April, but students have been told
they can only return to their classes if they sign a declaration that their
"participation in the illegal movement of the university's students from 10
- 18 April 2001 was wrong", and expressing regret at "the disturbances and
ensuing destructions to human life and property". Students initially vowed
to continue their protest, but now increasing numbers are reported to be
signing the form as they feel they have no other choice. Tension remains
high in Addis Ababa.

In what appears to be another crackdown on the private press , at least 60
newspaper and magazine vendors were rounded up by the security forces in
Addis Ababa after the riots. Although most were released on 22 April, they
had to sign an undertaking not to work for an indefinite period.
Circulation of the independent press has thus effectively been banned. At
least one journalist from a private newspaper, Seifu Mekonnen, has
"disappeared", and there are concerns that he and all others in detention
are at risk of torture or ill-treatment.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The government has now put the official death toll from last week's riots
at 31, claiming that 11 of the victims were killed by stray bullets, 11 by
gunfire in unknown circumstances, and that nine of the dead had been
"hooligans with criminal records" who were shot while looting or destroying
property. However, reliable independent sources have said at least 41
people died. Some 417 people, including 164 policemen, were injured in the
riots, up to 100 of them seriously.

The government has continued to accuse the EDF, the AAPO and the Ethiopian
Human Rights Council (EHRCO) of inciting and organizing the violence. Four
EHRCO members were detained and questioned by police on 25 and 26 April,
but have been released on bail.

FURTHER RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send telegrams/telexes/faxes/express/
airmail letters in English or your own language:
- welcoming the release of up to 3,000 students from Sendafe police
training college, including primary and secondary school students, but
expressing concern that another 100 students are reportedly still in
custody;
- expressing serious concern that a growing number of opposition
politicians have "disappeared", and urging the authorities to clarify where
they are being held, and why;
- calling on the authorities to allow all those still in custody immediate
access to lawyers of their own choice, their families, and adequate medical
care;
- urging the authorities to guarantee that none of those detained will be
tortured or ill-treated;
- calling on the authorities to either charge those still detained with a
recognizably criminal offence, or to release them;
- expressing concern at the reported restrictions on the private press and
the "disappearance" of Seifu Mekonnen, urging the authorities to clarify
whether he is in detention and if so, to clarify where he is being held and
for what reasons;
- expressing concern at reports that more than 31 people might have been
killed during the riots, and calling on the authorities to launch
independent and impartial investigations to determine whether any of these
were unlawfully killed, and if so to bring anybody found responsible to
justice.

APPEALS TO:

His Excellency
Meles Zenawi
Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
PO Box 1031, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Fax:           + 251 1 552020
Salutation:    Your Excellency

Commissioner of Police
Office of the Commissioner of Police
Ministry of Justice
PO Box 21321, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Fax:      +251 1 550278
Salutation:    Dear Sir
Mr Werede-Wold Wolde
Minister of Justice
Ministry of Justice
PO Box 1370, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Fax: +251 1 550278
Salutation:    Dear Minister

COPIES TO:

Mr Kinfe Gebre-Medhin
General Manager, Public Security
Office of the Prime Minister
PO Box 1031, Addis
Fax:           + 251 1 552020
Salutation: Dear Sir

Ms Genet Zewdie
Minister of Education
Ministry of Education
PO Box 1367, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Email:    moe@...
Salutation: Dear Minister

and to diplomatic representatives of Ethiopia accredited to your country.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the International Secretariat,
or your section office, if sending appeals after 8 June 2001.




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Subject: second update Ethiopia UA
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<http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .

hye there,

Would you please tell me who is behind this group?
What is your motive? You are talking about
Ethiopiawinet. Well, what kind of Ethiopiawinet is it?
I mean, we have been experiencing different kinds of
Ethiopiawinet, and I would like to know your version.
Which side are you from? If you are on the Weyane
side, don't bother to send me any mail again.

thanks,

Curious

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

Dear Derege and Mekonnen

please see below. We will issue a separate short action for our groups
focusing in harassment of EHRCO staff in Addis, and fear for their safety.

All the best - I'm very sad to be leaving, but trust that the team will
keep looking after Ethiopia. Please keep in touch with them - your support
is so important for us.

Take care      Doris
--------------------

(See attached file: 12500801.wp)

PUBLIC    AI Index: AFR 25/008/2001

                                                               27 April 2001

Further information on UA 99/01 (AFR 25/006/2001, 18 April 2001) and
follow-up (AFR 25/007/2001, 20 April 2001) - Fear for safety/Use of
excessive force by security forces and new concerns: Incommunicado
detention/Fear of torture or ill-treatment/"Disappearance"

ETHIOPIA       Students from Addis Ababa University
                Civilian demonstrators in Addis Ababa, including students
                from secondary schools
                Lidetu Ayalew, EDP Secretary General
                Tamerat Tarakegn, EDP Central Committee member
                Tadiwos Tantu, EDP Central Committee member [note corrected
                spelling]

      New names:     Seifu Mekonnen, journalist for the Amharic weekly
                Mebrek
                Over 30 members of the All Amhara People's Organisation


Eighty members of the Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP) and over 30 members
of the All Amhara People's Organization (AAPO) are now believed to be held
incommunicado following the riots in Addis Ababa of 17 and 18 April. Their
whereabouts are unknown.

Up to 100 students, mostly from Addis Ababa University, are also believed
to be held at various police stations in Addis Ababa. A journalist from the
private press, Seifu Mekonnen has not been seen since he left his home in
the afternoon of 20 April, and there are serious concerns for his safety.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 students were released on 26 April. They had been
held at the police training college in Sendafe, 38 km north of Addis Ababa,
since the riots. The authorities had previously said that they were holding
only 411 students. The students had not been allowed to talk to each other,
or to sleep. They were forced to walk barefoot and to roll naked over
gravel, and to spend hours doing military-style physical exercises in
sweltering heat.

Addis Ababa University reopened on 24 April, but students have been told
they can only return to their classes if they sign a declaration that their
"participation in the illegal movement of the university's students from 10
- 18 April 2001 was wrong", and expressing regret at "the disturbances and
ensuing destructions to human life and property". Students initially vowed
to continue their protest, but now increasing numbers are reported to be
signing the form as they feel they have no other choice. Tension remains
high in Addis Ababa.

In what appears to be another crackdown on the private press , at least 60
newspaper and magazine vendors were rounded up by the security forces in
Addis Ababa after the riots. Although most were released on 22 April, they
had to sign an undertaking not to work for an indefinite period.
Circulation of the independent press has thus effectively been banned. At
least one journalist from a private newspaper, Seifu Mekonnen, has
"disappeared", and there are concerns that he and all others in detention
are at risk of torture or ill-treatment.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The government has now put the official death toll from last week's riots
at 31, claiming that 11 of the victims were killed by stray bullets, 11 by
gunfire in unknown circumstances, and that nine of the dead had been
"hooligans with criminal records" who were shot while looting or destroying
property. However, reliable independent sources have said at least 41
people died. Some 417 people, including 164 policemen, were injured in the
riots, up to 100 of them seriously.

The government has continued to accuse the EDF, the AAPO and the Ethiopian
Human Rights Council (EHRCO) of inciting and organizing the violence. Four
EHRCO members were detained and questioned by police on 25 and 26 April,
but have been released on bail.

FURTHER RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send telegrams/telexes/faxes/express/
airmail letters in English or your own language:
- welcoming the release of up to 3,000 students from Sendafe police
training college, including primary and secondary school students, but
expressing concern that another 100 students are reportedly still in
custody;
- expressing serious concern that a growing number of opposition
politicians have "disappeared", and urging the authorities to clarify where
they are being held, and why;
- calling on the authorities to allow all those still in custody immediate
access to lawyers of their own choice, their families, and adequate medical
care;
- urging the authorities to guarantee that none of those detained will be
tortured or ill-treated;
- calling on the authorities to either charge those still detained with a
recognizably criminal offence, or to release them;
- expressing concern at the reported restrictions on the private press and
the "disappearance" of Seifu Mekonnen, urging the authorities to clarify
whether he is in detention and if so, to clarify where he is being held and
for what reasons;
- expressing concern at reports that more than 31 people might have been
killed during the riots, and calling on the authorities to launch
independent and impartial investigations to determine whether any of these
were unlawfully killed, and if so to bring anybody found responsible to
justice.

APPEALS TO:

His Excellency
Meles Zenawi
Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
PO Box 1031, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Fax:           + 251 1 552020
Salutation:    Your Excellency

Commissioner of Police
Office of the Commissioner of Police
Ministry of Justice
PO Box 21321, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Fax:      +251 1 550278
Salutation:    Dear Sir
Mr Werede-Wold Wolde
Minister of Justice
Ministry of Justice
PO Box 1370, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Fax: +251 1 550278
Salutation:    Dear Minister

COPIES TO:

Mr Kinfe Gebre-Medhin
General Manager, Public Security
Office of the Prime Minister
PO Box 1031, Addis
Fax:           + 251 1 552020
Salutation: Dear Sir

Ms Genet Zewdie
Minister of Education
Ministry of Education
PO Box 1367, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Email:    moe@...
Salutation: Dear Minister

and to diplomatic representatives of Ethiopia accredited to your country.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the International Secretariat,
or your section office, if sending appeals after 8 June 2001.

----- Original Message -----

From: Thomas Mountain

Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 7:14 PM

To: ethiopiawinet@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [ethiopiawinet] Re: Dr. Negussie Ayeleby's statement

I will try and write something that points out the main errors and
fabrications, though they are very numerous. I will also try and post some
writings on "ethiopia" from various scholars, though on the subject of the
horn of Africa, most westerners are woe fully ignorant and/or follow a very
"romanticized" view of "ethiopia" (which comes from the greek words for
burnt face) ie Ethiopia was the only uncolonized country in Africa, Haile
Sellasie was some sort of African patriot (he fled his country for
protection by the white man in England, refusing to stay and lead the armed
resistance to the Italian invasion) etc. One must remember that Ethiopia is
an empire rather than a nation with many nationalities ie the Oromo, Afar,
Somalis etc who were forceable incorporated into Ethiopia by Menelik with
western support and military aid.
Some of the best writings on Haile Sellasie actually come from Marcus Garvey
(see Dr. Clarke's book on Garvey) exposing how Sellasie did not see himself
as "negro" rather as "semite" and repeatedly rebuffed Garveys efforts to
support ethiopia during the invasion.
The writer of this piece is obviously an ardent national chauvinist, someone
who sees the need to establish a Greater Ethiopian empire and to  hell with
any of the oppressed nationalities rights to self determination. He is most
likely Amhara, as Sellasie was, who forced all Ethiopians to be educated in
Amhara and to hell with their mother tongue.

> From: "ethiopianism assistants" <ethiopianism@...>
> Reply-To: ethiopiawinet@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 00:28:17 -0000
> To: ethiopiawinet@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [ethiopiawinet] Re: Dr. Negussie Ayeleby's statement
>
>
>
> In response to Thomas Mountain's comments:
>
>> The chauvinist sentiments in this article are to numerous to list, >let
>> alone the factual errors and sheer fabrications. Is your purpose >in
>> posting this to spread serious disinformation and lies or are you >just not
>> very informed about the real history of the horn of africa? I would
>> seriously suggest some serious homework before you post such >damaging and
>> inflamatory works in the future. If you are interested I >can suggest some
>> reading materials on this matter so you can get up to >speed.
>> Thomas C. Mountain
>
> I truly apologize if that recopied article "Reflections on Ethiopia and
> Ethiopianity by Dr. Negussie Ayeleby" was offensive because it contains
> "misinformation" and "fabrications."
>
> Could you however give some examples what Dr. Ayeleby said that you disagree
> strongly with.  It's very difficult to find authentic material that will
> complement the vision of Ethiopiawinet and Ethiopianism and doesn't contain
> bias.
>
> Indeed I am naïve to such bad choices and thus it is more than why your
> input is essential, as you have already begun to offer.  Your recent posts
> are helping generate new ideas and topics to be addressed.   Only more
> people were as responsive on this topic as you are.
>
> If anybody else opposes to that article I'll surely reevaluate it and
> consider removing it.
>
> w.m.
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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>
>
>
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>
>



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I will try and write something that points out the main errors and
fabrications, though they are very numerous. I will also try and post some
writings on "ethiopia" from various scholars, though on the subject of the
horn of Africa, most westerners are woe fully ignorant and/or follow a very
"romanticized" view of "ethiopia" (which comes from the greek words for
burnt face) ie Ethiopia was the only uncolonized country in Africa, Haile
Sellasie was some sort of African patriot (he fled his country for
protection by the white man in England, refusing to stay and lead the armed
resistance to the Italian invasion) etc. One must remember that Ethiopia is
an empire rather than a nation with many nationalities ie the Oromo, Afar,
Somalis etc who were forceable incorporated into Ethiopia by Menelik with
western support and military aid.
Some of the best writings on Haile Sellasie actually come from Marcus Garvey
(see Dr. Clarke's book on Garvey) exposing how Sellasie did not see himself
as "negro" rather as "semite" and repeatedly rebuffed Garveys efforts to
support ethiopia during the invasion.
The writer of this piece is obviously an ardent national chauvinist, someone
who sees the need to establish a Greater Ethiopian empire and to  hell with
any of the oppressed nationalities rights to self determination. He is most
likely Amhara, as Sellasie was, who forced all Ethiopians to be educated in
Amhara and to hell with their mother tongue.

> From: "ethiopianism assistants" <ethiopianism@...>
> Reply-To: ethiopiawinet@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 00:28:17 -0000
> To: ethiopiawinet@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [ethiopiawinet] Re: Dr. Negussie Ayeleby's statement
>
>
>
> In response to Thomas Mountain's comments:
>
>> The chauvinist sentiments in this article are to numerous to list, >let
>> alone the factual errors and sheer fabrications. Is your purpose >in
>> posting this to spread serious disinformation and lies or are you >just not
>> very informed about the real history of the horn of africa? I would
>> seriously suggest some serious homework before you post such >damaging and
>> inflamatory works in the future. If you are interested I >can suggest some
>> reading materials on this matter so you can get up to >speed.
>> Thomas C. Mountain
>
> I truly apologize if that recopied article "Reflections on Ethiopia and
> Ethiopianity by Dr. Negussie Ayeleby" was offensive because it contains
> "misinformation" and "fabrications."
>
> Could you however give some examples what Dr. Ayeleby said that you disagree
> strongly with.  It's very difficult to find authentic material that will
> complement the vision of Ethiopiawinet and Ethiopianism and doesn't contain
> bias.
>
> Indeed I am naïve to such bad choices and thus it is more than why your
> input is essential, as you have already begun to offer.  Your recent posts
> are helping generate new ideas and topics to be addressed.   Only more
> people were as responsive on this topic as you are.
>
> If anybody else opposes to that article I'll surely reevaluate it and
> consider removing it.
>
> w.m.
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> ethiopiawinet-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

In response to Thomas Mountain's comments:

>The chauvinist sentiments in this article are to numerous to list, >let
>alone the factual errors and sheer fabrications. Is your purpose >in
>posting this to spread serious disinformation and lies or are you >just not
>very informed about the real history of the horn of africa? I would
>seriously suggest some serious homework before you post such >damaging and
>inflamatory works in the future. If you are interested I >can suggest some
>reading materials on this matter so you can get up to >speed.
>Thomas C. Mountain

I truly apologize if that recopied article "Reflections on Ethiopia and
Ethiopianity by Dr. Negussie Ayeleby" was offensive because it contains
"misinformation" and "fabrications."

Could you however give some examples what Dr. Ayeleby said that you disagree
strongly with.  It's very difficult to find authentic material that will
complement the vision of Ethiopiawinet and Ethiopianism and doesn't contain
bias.

Indeed I am naïve to such bad choices and thus it is more than why your
input is essential, as you have already begun to offer.  Your recent posts
are helping generate new ideas and topics to be addressed.   Only more
people were as responsive on this topic as you are.

If anybody else opposes to that article I'll surely reevaluate it and
consider removing it.

w.m.
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

The chauvinist sentiments in this article are to numerous to list, let alone
the factual errors and sheer fabrications. Is your purpose in posting this
to spread serious disinformation and lies or are you just not very informed
about the real history of the horn of africa? I would seriously suggest some
serious homework before you post such damaging and inflamatory works in the
future. If you are interested I can suggest some reading materials on this
matter so you can get up to speed.
Thomas C. Mountain

> From: ethiopianism@...
> Reply-To: ethiopiawinet@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 01:10:04 -0000
> To: ethiopiawinet@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [ethiopiawinet] Reflections on Ethiopia and Ethiopianity
>
> (Editors Note: The following was recopied from http://www.medhin.org
> and provides some insight in Ethiopiawinet and Ethiopianism)
>
> Reflections on Ethiopia and
> Ethiopianity
>
> by Dr. Negussie Ayele
>
> Ethiopia in Perspective
>
> In this day and age most every one takes for granted the contemporary
> sovereign statehood of many countries in Africa, the Middle East and
> Asia despite their chronic and bloody internecine conflicts. We have
> also been conditioned to assume as passé and acceptable the processes
> of state formation in Europe, Australia and the Americas. In fact,
> one of these relatively recent formations, the U.S.A.-the "first new
> nation"-populated by native Americans, enslaved Africans and polyglot
> immigrantsbrepresenting virtually every ethnic and cultural group on
> the earth-has developed into the first "universal nation" within a
> period of a little over two centuries. The United States is today not
> only a host country of choice for most emigrants, exiles and refugees
> of the world but it is also fast becoming the sole 'omnipotent'
> terrestrial polity in the celestial firmament. In the circumstances,
> it is ironic that Ethiopia, one of the oldest and proudest of
> independent nation-states on earth forged in much the same way as
> most states and sustaining much the same political problems as most
> nations has not only been severed by force of arms into two-and a-
> half pieces (so far) in recent years but the right to existence of
> Ethiopia as Ethiopia in whateverform has come to be negated by some
> quarters inside and outside of its environs. One political scud
> missile of the TPLF ruling junta in Addis Abeba has been cited as
> saying recently that "Ethiopia did not exist heretofore ... we (i.e.,
> EPLF/TPLF cadres) are
> fabricating it now ..."
>
> Parvenu individuals who have to tinker with the past in order to mess
> with the future may not know that Ethiopia has existed for a long
> long time. But, Cambyses, Alexander the Great, Augustus Ceasar as
> well as Marco POlo knew Ethiopia and they all had high regard for it
> and its power in their respective times. To say the least, this new
> pseudo-issue of raising doubt about the historical identity of
> Ethiopia calls for a rectification. What follows is only a precis
> contribution by one Ethiopian on the verity of a>T×}Ã Ethiopia and
> the potency of a>T×}÷ùnT Ethiopianity-the emotional and political
> attachment of the Ethiopian people to their country, heritage,
> identity and integrity.
>
> Ethiopia is the multiethnic and multicultural afR$aÍR$ aF" Afer/Afar
> (hence African) polity in the Horn-the womb of homo afarensis ramidus
> and of the progeny of Etiopis. In the immortal words of B§tÀN g?
> (Poet Laureate) Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin Ethiopia is "the root of the
> Genesis of life" where "the human family tree was first planted ...
> by the evolutionary hand of time." Ethiopians are a people of whom
> the Lord on High is said to have told Israelites: "Are ye not as
> children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel [Sic.]?" It
> is a land where, according to the ancients, Ethiopians were the
> justest of men" and for that reason "the goods ... frequently
> visited ...and feasted" with them. Ethiopians "stretch out" their
> hands only "to God." Ethiopia is not only the land wherein Judaism,
> Christianity and Islam have been domiciled and indeginized for the
> longest historical time but also one which gave asylum to the first
> Muslim refugees from Quraish persecution. It is related in the Sira
> that The Prophet Muhammed (Bilaal, Islam's first muezzin, is said to
> have been an Ethiopian) instructed his followers that Ethiopia (the
> land of the Habash) is "a land of righteousness where Allah will give
> you relief from your suffering." Variants of pantheism and monotheism
> have blended and coexisted for millenia through thick and thin of war
> and peace in Ethiopia. It is only in Ethiopia where for centuries
> Christians have been celebrating annually the Day of (finding) The
> Cross. Facsimiles of the Ark of the covenant are also kept in
> Ethiopian Churches and carried on heads of the holy in religious
> festivals ritually now for centuries. Those in search of the Ark of
> the Covenant may be sniffing and snooping around for it discretely in
> Ethiopia. Monks of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church had staked an
> extensive presence in Christian holy places in Jerusalem for
> centuries though today they have been confined largely to a tenuous
> tenure in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Der Sultan due to
> internecine religious rivalries and the vagaries of regional
> politics.
>
> Ethiopia is not only the womb of humanity but the cradle of human
> civilization as well. As W.E.B. Du Bois put it, Ethiopia is a land
> where "The sunrise of human culture took place ..." Ethiopia is the
> original locale for the domestication of plants and animals and is
> ecologically friendly to large counts of flora and fauna still
> endemic in the region and it also remains the worlds primary nursery
> for plant genetics. Sheikh Anta Diop reminds us that "According to
> the unanimous testimony of the Ancients, first the Ethiopians and
> then the Egyptians created and raised to an extraordinary stage of
> developement all the elements of civilization, while other peoples
> especially the Eurasians, were still deep in barbarism." This may
> explain why besides being "the gift of the Nile" Egypt has also been
> described by chancellor Williams as "Ethiopia's oldest daughter"-with
> all that that implies, including the theme elaborated in Professor
> Martin Bernal's Black Athena tomes. Ethiopia is the repository of one
> of the oldest scripts and language clusters in the world and with an
> advanced and sophisticated Ethiopiac literacy genere referred to in
> part as Qn?$ sMÂ wRQ Qenie/Wax and Gold. Paradoxically, utilization
> of its own indigenous script for several millennia contributed to the
> minimization of Ethiopia's wider global intercultural communication.
>
> Ethiopian melodic music from the length and breadth of the land is
> among the richest and most exihilarating in the world. Ethiopian
> cuisine and its culinary custom is most appetizing, tasty and
> pleasant. Described by observers as a "museum of peoples" Ethiopia -
> from north to south and from east to west of its boarders -is home to
> the most stuningly beautiful women and the handsomest of men. Aksum
> Tsion Church, the rock-hewn structures in Lalibela ("New Jerusalem"),
> in Gurageland and in Tigray as well as Sheikh Hussein's Mausoleum are
> among the numerous spatial markers of Ethiopia's cultural landscape.
> Ethiopia's rich liturgical manuscripts and traditional religious art
> works today grace many private collections and public museums in
> Europe and North America. The few remaining in the country may not
> survive for long if present trends continue. After having spent his
> adult lifetime in Ethiopia studying and expounding Ethiopian
> philosophy, Professor Claude Summer declares: "I was searching for
> man, I found the Ethiopian; I was searching the human and I found the
> African." After a thorough examination of the ´t (ethical and
> philosophical treatises of the seventeenth century Ethiopian
> philosopher, Zer'a Ya'equob), he suggested that "modern philosophy...
> began in Ethiopia ..." Claude Sumner describes himself as Canadian by
> birth and Ethiopian by choice.
>
> A distinctly conspicuous trait of Ethiopians through historical time
> has been passionate love of their country - meaning its people,
> values, mode of life as well as the readiness to stand up for the
> right and the freedom to be Ethiopian, to live Ethiopian and even to
> die Ethiopian. Because the challenge from outsiders was continuous
> and relentless the struggle against these violators shaped and
> defined Ethiopian patriotism. Consequently, especially in the era of
> colonialism, even as the Ethiopian people often chafed under the yoke
> of repression of local ruling feudal and martial elites, they still
> fought and died for their country, their values, their institutions
> and traditions and their freedom to be. And so it is that Ethiopia
> remained the only independent African country during the colonial era
> and was blacklisted as "the last unresolved problem in Africa." The
> heroic patriotic words of Ras Alula Wedi Qubi, the Ethiopian governer
> of Mereb Melash (today's Eritrea) to the Italians that "they could
> come to sa'ati (on the Ethiopian Red Sea coast) only when I can go to
> rome as governor" has been scared in the subconscious of generations
> of Ethiopians. Since the ninteenth century, Ethiopians have fought to
> defend their sovereignty and integrity against Britisch, Italian,
> Turkisch, Egyptian, Dervisch sudanese and somalian colonialists and
> expansionists. The series of battles in northern Ethiopia waged under
> Emperor Menelik against Italian colonial encroachments in the
> ninteenth century that culminated in Ethiopia's resounding victory
> with magnanimity at Adwa in March 1896 raised the morale of peoples
> of color everywhere who were under the yoke of colonialism and
> domination in Africa and the diaspora.
>
>
> Queen Tayitu's resolute farewell to the hapless Italian culprit on
> the eve of that historic confrontation: "It is not death but honor
> for any one to shed his blood for his country" is an immortal
> expression of Ethiopian patriotism. The slogan of "Mother Ethiopia or
> Death" by patriotic Ethiopians under Italian colonialism in Eritrea
> coupled with untold sacrifices in life and limb of the Ethiopian
> people in defence of their land, their freedom, their institutions
> and their values accentuated the potency of the external definition
> of Ethiopian patriotism. The successful protracted people's
> resistance (1935-1941) against the brutal hordes of Fascist Italy was
> but the latest chapter in the long history of continuous struggles
> sustained by generations of Ethiopians.
>
> Ethiopia's legacy of such successes in freedom struggles give rise
> to 'Ethiopianism' 'Pan-Africanism' and 'Rastafarian' movements in the
> ranks of oppressed peoples of color everywhere. Many future African
> leaders had their teething process in liberation struggle in the
> crucible of Ethiopian resistance
> against colonialism and fascism. Casley Hayford, Marcus Garvey, Adam
> Clayton Powell, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyata, Langston Hughes, Leo
> Hansbarry, Jhon Robinson (´´the Brown Condor"), Joseph E. Harris and
> many others have in one form or another articulated the the
> significance and symbolism of Ethiopia and expressed their solidarity
> with it. Ethiopian has served as a beacon of freedom in the histroric
> inividdual and collective struggles of black peoples everywhere
> against raciam and domination. President Nelson Mandels of South
> Africa conveyed a gracious tribute to Ethiopia´s tangible
> contribution to Africa´s freedom struggles in his recent memoir, Long
> Walk To Freedom. President Mandela said that as he countenanced his
> sojourn in Ethiopia for military training in the early
> 1960s: „I felt I woul be visiting my own genesis, unearthing the
> roots of wat made me an African." Thus, historically Ethiopia has
> been the source of dignity and pride not just for Ethiopians but for
> millions of people everywhere. It is not accidental that Ethiopia is
> the hub of African unity and the seat of the OAU
> today or that the Rasta movement in the Western world is still alive
> and well. The Ethiopian tricolor of green, yellow and red along with
> black has been consciously adopted in the flags of many black
> nationstates in Africa an beyond.
>
> To speak of Ethiopia is to speak of its people, their values their
> aspirations and their deeds. For a variety of reasons, Ethiopia has
> been an impoveishe country in material terms but Ethiopians have
> always been a people well endowe with grace, ignity, pride, civility,
> spirituality, self-repect and with negligible artificially
> inseminstedd color or other complexes. Ethiopia is not a polity that
> has been
> „immagined" into being but rather a cultural and political community
> that has been evolving over a very long historical process. In fact,
> it is ironic that Ethiopia is having problema of secession and
> struggles to survive as a nation-state precisely because it was
> not „invented" by colonialism and thereby worthy of „legitimate"
> statehood as is on the basis of colonial blueprint and iktat. In
> stressing the positive, the lofty or ideal features of Ethiopia and
> Ethiopianity in this macro synopsis of ist history, culture and
> political profile, one is not unmindful of other human aspects and
> foibles. Like peoples everywhere in the world Ethiopians have had and
> still have their good and their bad, their gorgeous and dtheir
> obnoxious, their successes and their failures, their talents and
> their shortooming as well as their shortcomings as well as their
> ddreams of utopia and their sharea of dystopia. Ethiopians after all
> are only human—perhaps even too human—just like other fallible
> mortals an dtherefore subject to the same laws of behaior (including
> Murphy´s law) that govem all others in similar conditions andd
> circumstances of social life. Given that mandatory universal premise
> the perspective herein emanates from a view that the positive in the
> Ethiopian character not only outweighs the negaive but that the
> kernel of the good has within it potentials for being bettered.
>
> Elements of Ethiopianity
>
> The essence of Ethiopianityy or Ethiopian personality is an abiding
> love and devotion for distinotly Ethiopian identity, for Ethiopian
> heritage and for Ethiopian way of life. Ethiopianity is a powerful
> paychological myystique that has lasted for centuries inspiring
> successive generations of Ethiopians.
> Ethiopianity has successfully galvanized freeddon fighters against
> foreign invaers and expansionists and it remains todday the single
> most potent political force or magnet for patriotic resistance vis-a-
> vis the policy of national nihilism ´ or Ethiopicide at work in the
> country.
>
> Among the shared value ieals and cultural trssits that characterize
> Ethiopians and Ethiopianity one may cite the following. One is ....
> (spirituality or what may be termed faithliness´) which goes beyond
> catechism or one´s formal religious affiliation although that too is
> duly represented in the country. The spiritual individual in Ethiopia
> seks daily to bond with the supernatural of choice in his pantheistic
> or monotheistic system and most everything is weighedd and judged
> against the laws of the supernatural more importantly than edicts of
> institutional religion or injunctions of the secular state.
>
> Commonplace conversations in peaceful or conflicting situations in
> Ethiopia are always laced with the spiritual term .... (God). Hardly
> any conversation long or short is devoid of the term. Among the most
> frequent phrases are_ „God is around" ( I will be alright), „Praise
> God" (I am well), „May God recompense you" (for the good or for the
> evil you have wrought), „God does not like" (what you have done or
> saidd), „Let God take note of „ (zour injustice), „If God wills" (we
> can ddo or have what we need), „In the Name of God" (please accept/do
> this or that) etc,. Such utterancess are made with reverence and
> belief in their intent and content and not as mere and insincere
> cliches. As was intimated earlier, Ethiopians may appear poor by
> material measurements but they are second to none in their sense of
> spirituality, morality and civility. This sense of ´faithliness´ by
> Ethiopians transcends the walls created by conventional religious
> institutions in that one finds more and more expectations of
> predictable behavior and value choices among Ethiopians regardless of
> confessional persuasions and regional variations. More often than
> not, Ethiopians attribute collective calamities they sustain at times
> to the frown of deity because of something ungodly people or rulers
> have done wittingly or unwittingly.
>
>
>
> Another quality of Ethiopianity is the value norm ....broadly
> corresponding to the term ´Civility´though it is too complex a
> concept to render into one wordd or phrase of another language and
> culture paradigm. In interpersonal relations, an Ethiopian is
> expected to behave with honesty, dignity, discipline, decency,
> sensitivity, deference, politeness, trustworthiness, prudence,
> scruples, self-respect as well as with a sense of balance or fairness
> at all times. Civility as a behavioral norm is modulated and fine
> tuned by age, station in life, familiarity and other relevant factors
> relating to interacting parties. Though such unwritten behavioral
> norms and value ideals are often associated with feudal and other
> ruling classes because they arrogated them to themselves they are in
> point of fact the behavioral property of the ordinary Ethiopian, the
> average civvilized peasant or the illiterate yet learned common
> person. It is not the common people that imbibe or mimic such values
> from outside but the ruling classes that copy one another throughout
> the world. In Ethiopia one becomes fascinated, satiated, excited and
> best disposed to appreciste the essence, lustre and richness of
> Ethiopianity not when he/she goes into cities like Addis Abeba, Ddire
> Dawa, Asmera, Jimma... but when she/he goes into the countryside a
> few miles from the towns and meedts the people there. As a young
> Ethiopian observed in a conversation in Los Asngeles recently, „When
> one goes fifteen or twenty kilometers outside Addis Abeba or any
> other town, conditions of life in rural Ethiopia are basically
> similar" regardless of variations in ethnicity, language, religion or
> regional identity. And, it is from such common experiencess that home
> grown care Ethiopian values, common sense, folk widom and fundamental
> behavioral principles like civility emerge.
>
> Once again, a signature expression of Ethiopianity is fervent ol
> fashioned ... generally renered in English as patriotiam. Ethiopian
> patriotism is a constant instinctive love for as well as
> belongingness and boning with Ethiopia/Ethiopians—people, land
> culture, rights, values andd freedom. As such, the coin of patriotism
> has two sides. One side is internal and more implicit, while the
> other side is external and more explicit. For the most part,
> Ethiopian patriotism has been associated more with the second side of
> the coin. And, that is the side that has been manifested in the
> clashes and hostile relstions of Ethiopia with alien forces.
> Ethiopians have sustained extraordinary sacrifices repeateddly in
> their hitory fighting against those that sought to violate their
> freeddom, dignity andd integrity. But wars or no wars, the foundation
> of Ethiopianity--- the first side of the coin—is love of being
> Ethiopian, the Ethiopian way of life and ist fundamental values some
> of which have been briefly profiled in the preceding paragraphs.
> Reverence for the past, custom and traition is highly regarded and
> bequeathed.
>
> An Ethiopian cares particularly for the youndg, the old, the infirm,
> the weak. An Ethiopian buries the dead whether he/she knows the
> deceased or not. An Ethiopian shares what she/he has especially
> during holidays. An Ethiopian is hospitale to a fault to strangers in
> the area, unless or until they prove to have
> sinister designs on members of the community. The communal or
> communitarian plan in Ethiopia generally is such that coffee is
> tastier and feasts are more enjoyable with the participation of
> larger and larger numbers of sharers. Not only is food consumed
> together sitting around the round food tray but there is also the
> Ethiopian custom of feeding one another for good measure. The peasant
> can count on communal help in thrashing his crops, building his
> shelter or even protecting his flock from predators. Children are
> cared for in the community and protected from harm´s way as though
> they belong to everyone. Any crime committed in a neighborhood is
> examinedd in community gatherings and culprits apprehended and
> communal justice meted out in accordance with local customs. Births,
> weddings and burials are big social and communal events in Ethiopia.
> Holidays and saints´days such as Qulebi, Meskel, Shaikh Hussein
> annual pilgrimage, Epiphany... are among the many colorful occasions
> that are observed by adherents to all religious persuasions. In place
> of the class based or higher/lower status of persons in Ethiopia,
> relations are governed by elder/younger paradigm in which one´s
> status differential is based on one´s age, on one´s reputation and on
> how one comparts oneself in a given interaction.
>
> Ethiopians do not (or, should one say did not) compare their lot with
> others elsewhere in the world to think of themselves better or worse
> than others. That is why Ethiopianity is not based on a sence of
> superiority or inferiority vis-a-vis others but rather on a sense of
> being different and being content with it, living it, defending it
> and ying for it.
>
> This is not to conjure in the mind of the reader some sort of idyllic
> society where there are no abuses, exploitations, alienations and
> oppressions or frontier conflicts in Ethiopia. Indeed, regardless of
> ethnicity, the masses of Ethiopia have often suffered and have been
> bitter about the way elites manipulate, exacerbate and exploit miner
> conflicts to suit their own class ends. Notwithstandding such
> problems, the fact remains that Ethiopians have lived together in
> their particular niche of the Horn of Africa now for thousands of
> years. Despite their internal conflicts, Ethiopians have consistently
> risen up as one in thwarting irrvaders, exparisionists and
> colonialists. The reason obviously is that the good Ethiopians love
> about themselves, their values andd ways of life far outweigh the
> evil that the few privileged classes perpetrate among them as is
> happening at the present time. In historical terms, one oftquote
> efinition of what it means to be an Ethiopian and to efend Ethiopian
> values is the one avanced by Emperor Yohannes IV (1872-1889) in his
> 1888 mobilization call to face the Italians at Saáti near
> Mitsiwa:
>
> (Personal Translation):
> People (children) of Ethiopia, pay careful attention!, Ethiopia means
> first your mother, second your Crown, third your wife, fourth your
> child, fifth your grave. Now then, keep alive in your minds the
> meaning of a mother´s love, the honor of the Crown, the devotion of a
> wife, the pleasures of children and the peace (security) of the grave
> as you rise up" (to fight the foreign enemy who intends to deprive
> you of your birthrights).
>
>
> Thus, far from being an abstraction Ethiopianity springs from a
> genuine apprectiation of the god, the true and the beautiful that is
> Ethiopian. Ethiopianity is enduring even as it is consuming, it is
> demanding as it is gratifying. And, as Professor Mesfin wolde Mariam
> has suggested, Ethiopianity has an elastic quality whereby it
> can „stretch or contract but not snap."
>
> Looking at the other side of the coin of ethiopian patriotism, one
> sees that it has ist own dynamics fashioned in large part in the
> crucible of resistance against constant threats and invasions from
> outside Ethiopian patriotism has been expressed or exercised not in
> terms of aggression outside ist border but
> in efence of ist own indepenent existence or collective self-
> determination within given geopolitical frontiers at ifferent time
> spans. Through wars, famines, oppressive regimes and calamities
> Ethiopian patriotism has never sagged historically espcially in
> Eritrea where the rallying cry was „Ethiopia or Death." To
> carabinieri taunts that Roma was great, Ethiopian patriots in the
> Italian colony of Eritrea shot back „Ethiopia is greater still." Yet,
> the ruling olique and other agents of betrayal in Asmera currently
> pursue a desideratum of „Ddeath toEthiopia „ and an Eritrean
> political functionary has even been quoted as saying recently that
> Eritreans are part and parcel of the „grat Roman civilization."
> Apparently that character does not know that this „Roman
> civilization" not only had instituted strict `racial`apartheid in
> Asmera and elsewhere in the colony in the 1930s but „civilized"
> Italian (roman?) „courts" in Asmera even penalized Eritreans for
> their sudacity of trying to defend themselves against attacks by
> Italian dogs, saying: "Better one Italian dog that ten Habeshas
> (Eritreans)."
>
> The first Ethiopian Patriotic Association was formed by and on behalf
> of Ethiopians of Eritrean extraction in the early 1940s to campaign
> for unconditional union with the ethiopian Motherland. At birthdays,
> weddings, funerals, New Year and other public occasions Eritreans
> expressed their Ethiopian patriotism by draping around dthe Ethiopian
> flag in ways that was not even duplicated elsewhere in the rest of
> the country. Nor should one forget the proverbial patriotism of the
> Oromo, the Tigrayan, the Amhara, the Gurage, the Somali, the Sidama,
> the Kefa, the Dorze... Ethiopians fought constantly against
> expansionism and colonialism in Meqdela, Dogali, Awsa, Adwa,
> Masichew, Welwel, Qorahe, Gore, Gonder or Jimma... toj preserve
> Ethiopia. And in more recent years it was not for the sake of Emperor
> Haile-Selassie or Col. Mengistu Haile-Mariam that thousands of
> ethiopians lost their lives and limbs fighting secessionists in
> Eritrea and dSiyad Barre´s irredentism in the Ogaden. Rather, it was
> because they felt or were led to believe that they were fighting to
> presserve the sovereignty and integrity of Ethiopia, their country.
> For Ethiopians Eritrea is not Korea and Ogaden is not Congo.
>
> No single ethnic community, single cultural entity, single religious
> affinity or single regional locality in and of itself fully and
> sufficiently represents Ethiopia inasmuch as Ethiopianity is a sense
> of identity and belogingness that is greater than the sum of ist
> parts. Ethiopia represents the blending and amalgam of
> ist parts historically into what Professor Ddonald Levine has
> characterized „a cultural as well as an ecological community." A true
> Ethiopian is one who identifies with and lives up to such attributes
> and values of Ethiopianity like the ones cited heretofore not because
> one is of Harari, Oromo, Agew, Hadiya, Amhara or saho descent but
> becase they are values any one from anywhere in Ethiopia can be proud
> to identify with. Ethiopianity is the force, the spirit, the will and
> the courage whereby each generation redfines itself and ist role in
> the historical continuum. It is up to each generation to prune the
> negative and improve on the positive legacies of the past and
> bequeath to posterity a better and healthier, more civil and secure,
> more just and egalitarian, and more democratic and peaceable as well
> as more productive and progressive polity. It also endeavors to
> insure that the country's complementing facets of cultural diversity
> are developed and sustained within the framework of Ethiopian unity.
> And it is important to remember that Ethiopians donot love their
> country less because they are poor or love their country more because
> they are rich. Furthermore, genuine Ethiopianity does not see an
> Ethiopia that is ossified in the past, stagnant in the present or
> moribund into the future. Ethiopianity is an undying dynamic
> patriotic love for national heritage,an abiding -even if trying-
> faith in the present and in the perpetual hope for the future of
> Ethiopia, Ethiopians and the Ethiopian way of life. Ethiopianity
> generates passionate commitment in every generation of Ethiopians to
> refine, redefine and rejuvenate proactive Ethiopian identity and look
> forward to pass on the beton to the next generation with hope for a
> brighter future which the Ethiopian people more than richly deserve.
> In an Amharic article entitled Ethiopia and Ethiopianity published
> nearly thirty years ago, I had stated that:
>
> Ethiopia does not belong to the Amhara alone, to the Galla (Oromo)
> alone or to the Tigre alone ... it does not belong to the Christians
> alone or to the Muslims alone; it belongs to Ethiopians alone ... The
> Ethiopia of my heart, my dreams and my thoughts is also an Ethiopia
> of the future-a land where the Oromo (Galla), the Amhara, the Tigre,
> the Gurage, the Somali, the Danakel ... live in harmony. It is a land
> of Christians, Muslims and adherents of other belief systems and
> where citizens in Wellega, Ogaden, Hamasen, Kulo and Konta, Menz,
> Raya and Azebo, Kembata, Yerer and Kereyu ... localities blend is,
> work and live together cooperatively. More than a country, Ethiopia
> to me is a concept, an ideal and an emotional force capable of
> achieving unity from diversity. I donot wish for this unique
> characteristic and its potentials to be quenched.
>
> The current EPLF/TPLF rulers and their political condoms inside the
> country as well as their pimps outside the country not only deny the
> verity of Ethiopia and Ethiopianity and say that it is mainly the
> Amhara, especially the Shoans, who are complaining about the cabal to
> assassinate "their" Ethiopia. In fact, however, as outlined in the
> paragraphs above, Ethiopia was and is real and Ethiopianity has
> always been its potent and viable political expression of the vast
> majority of its people from every region, ethnic community, religious
> persuasion, cultural differentiation, gender, age group and station
> in llife. In his introductory History of Ethiopia, Professor Harold
> Marcus has made the cogent observation of how in the course of
> preparing his book he "came to realize that Ethiopia's history
> contained an analytical truth validating [his] decision to consider
> Ethiopia's wider geographical limits as [his] canvas: from time to
> time, the nation had disintegrated into component parts, but it had
> never disappeared as an idea and always and reappeared in fact. "One
> could get a fuller flavor of this verity by perusing studies such as
> Donald Levine's Greater Ethiopia, Lapiso Dilebo's Ethiopia's Long
> History of People and Polity (in Amharic), Sven Rubenson's The
> Survival of Ethiopian Independence, Teqle-Tsadiq Mekuria's recent
> works ( in Amharic) on Emperors Yohannes, Tewodros, and Menelik,
> Ernest Work's Ethiopia: A Pawn in European Diplomacy, Paulos Gnogno's
> Ate Menelik (in Amharic), Kebede Tesemma's Historical Memoir (in
> Amharic), John Spencer's Ethiopia at Bay, Yohannes Meshesha's,
> Ethiopia: Governmental and Political process (in Amharic) and,
> mutatis mutandis, UNESCO's eight-volume General History of Africa,
> for starters. In the last one hundred and fifty years or so the
> Amhara people have been in the fore front in the evolution and
> consolidation of the country and their ruling elites have claimed the
> political (imperial throne) and economic (land) spoils accruing
> therefrom. However, the majority of people who have played key roles
> in the process of nation-building in Ethiopia have been either non-
> Amhara or only part-Amhara. This is attested to, for example, in the
> Battles of Dogali (1887) Metemma (1889) Amba Alage (1895) Mekele and
> Adwa (1896) and the Black Lion and other resistance struggles against
> Fascist occupation in the 1930s nor should one forget those who died
> fighting for the unity and territorial integrity of Ethiopia in the
> northern and south eastern parts of the country in more recent years.
> And, in all conditions the exploited masses have stood for Ethiopian
> unity.
>
> Ethiopians-in the truly diverse sense of the word- have wrought
> heroic patriotic deeds which have yet to be written about in as many
> languages as possible for future generations to understand and
> appreciate Ethiopia and Ethiopianity more and for the outside world
> to have a better grasp of the dynamics of what has made and and kept
> Ethiopia as Ethiopia. Well researched expositions highlighting not
> kings or princes but commoners who rose up to positions of leadership
> in the cause of their country and its independence throughout its
> distant and recent history are overdue. Such undertakings should shed
> more light in the lives and times of, for instance, Ras Alula Aba
> Negga, Abdissa Aga, Zer'ay Deres, Abune Petros, Belay Zeleke, Ras
> Gobena Dache, Blatengueta Lorenzo Taezaz, Fitawrari Habtegiorgis
> Dinegde, Blatta Gebreegziabher Gila-Mariam, Dejazmach Umer Semeter,
> Ras Abebe Aregay, W/o Shewareged Gedle as well as thousands of
> others. What is really wanting is genuine people's history of
> Ethiopia reflecting the values, the aspirations, the sacrifices and
> the deeds of the Ethiopian people at large. Upon reading the book
> entitled ¯¯T (A History of the Gurage People) by Denberu Alemu et.
> al., one is struck-in addition to a better appreciation of Gurage
> culture- by two lists of heroes included in it. The first list
> comprises heroes who led the frontier battles of the Gurage people
> against the forces of king Menelik in the latter part of the
> ninteenth century (1875-76); the second longer list contains the
> names of Gurage heroes who participated in the Ethiopian struggle
> against Italian occupation in Adwa and in Maichew in the 1930s. One
> would also cite, in this regard, aÆ ï† Tabor Wami's (Abba Bora) the
> story of Dejazmach Geresu Duki and other Shoan patriots and their
> valiant struggles against Fascism. The book profiles the depth and
> extent of Ethiopian patriotism as well as the downright shabby
> treatment heroes often recieved after the war by the political
> hierarchies of the day. While such works by Ethiopia nationals remain
> few and far between, the overwhelming situation is non- Ethiopia
> narrating and/or interpreting history made by Ethiopians.
>
> As we close this historical back drop on Ethiopia and Ethiopianity
> it, should be said that the millions of heroic Ethiopians from the
> length and breadth of the land who died in patriotic wars defending
> their country's independence, the sanctity of their cultural values
> and the integrity of social institutions did so for Ethiopia as
> Ethiopia and not for a single ethnic, religious, regional or cultural
> group. If anything the elements that aimed at serving sectarian or
> regional interests were the feudal and other ruling classes and not
> the Ethiopian masses. The Ethiopian people needed no brainwashing,
> goading, cajoling or forcing when the time came to stand up, be
> counted and pay whatever price for the cause of Ethiopia as a whole.
> Even when, at times, elites mobilized the people for hidden agendas,
> those elites had to justify their sinister and selfish goals in terms
> of Ethiopian national interest- at least until their rule intent was
> exposed at which point the people rebelled or refused to fight.
> Ethiopia has not always been well served by those who controlled
> public dicision making power by dint of preternatural or naeft based
> claim to rule. The heart and soul of Ethiopianity, however, resides
> in the people at large, including peasants, workers, intelectuals,
> peoples militia and other yeomen. Unless such a quest is ordinated or
> reserved exclusively for certain people, the long-standing endeavor
> of Ethiopianity has been to forge E Pluribus Unum. If any people
> deserve to achieve it, Ethiopians certainly do. Of course, political
> objectives do not just happen because they are deserved or desired
> but because people consciously work and struggle to achieve them.
>
> Profile of Contemporary Ethiopia and Ethiopianity
>
> Not since the fascist Italian invasion in the 1930s has Ethiopia
> faced such a menace to its identity, integrity and independence as it
> does today. A portion of its body politic (Eritrea) has been severed
> by by force of arms; another unit (Tigray) is, for all intents and
> purposes, a state unto itself even though its
> alienation has not been formal. Other elements are falling all over
> one another in their centrifugal pursuits of reaching the same or
> similar ends at the expence of the whole. The EPLF/TPLF marauders who
> have masterminded such acts of politicide against Ethiopia and
> Ethiopians have done everything in their power to do away with the
> name, memory or history, identity and heritage of Ethiopia although
> at the moment they are at their wits end. To be sure, however,
> Asmera's capobanda Cesare has been quoted as having said that after a
> decade (of 1991) there will not be an Ethiopia to worry about while
> his Vicere in Addis Abeba has also been quoted as having said that
> the Ethiopia that (Amhara) chauvinists dream about will never be
> restored or realized in his lifetime. Hence the denigration of the
> Ethiopian tricolor as nothing but a „piece of rag" symbolizing an
> unpleasant past and dthe attempt to do away with it forthwith. On the
> day ther TPLF marauders captured Addis Abeaba, for example, they
> lowered the Ethiopian flag and put up their own rag in the Ministry
> of Foreign Affairs. What we have in Ethiopia today can be analogous
> to what it would have been like in the United States if Jefferson
> Davis had not only succeeed in breaking away the Confederate states
> in the early 1860s but had also jplaced himself in Washington, D.C.,
> as the President of whatever was left of America. Precious blood was
> spilt throughout the country as Ethiopians fought to hoist and keep
> hoisted the Ethiopian flag in the early months of 1991 after the TPLF
> takeover. Consequently, seven years into their hegemony, the TPLF
> still groan and grunt as the tricolor remains the sacred symbol of
> Ethiopian sovereignty (however tenuous today) whether they like it or
> not. With regard to this matter, it is enough for now to cite the old
> Ethiopian saying, „Just because he missed his target a fool disclaims
> he ever took the shot," and move on.
>
> That Ethiopianity is live, dynamic and exuberant has been amply
> demonstrated time and again right to the present. The radical
> Ethiopian student movements of zesteryears were for the most part pan-
> Ethiopian in their memberships and many thousands died—perhaps at
> times needlessly—fighting for justice and progress of the Ethiopian
> people as a whole (including Eritreans, Oromos, Tigrayans, Afars,
> amharas, Sidamas, caste groups and others) chafing under high-handed
> feudal and/or martial rule. Progressive Ethiopian youth groups also
> sought to highlight the urgency of adressing and even seeking some
> peaceful compromise solutions to some regional and local political
> problems in the country. It was also hoped that the spontaneous
> Ethiopian Revolution of 1974 would resolve some of the chronic socio-
> economic andd political problems of the county and place it on a
> progressive course. Unfortunately, that did not materialize as
> anticipated. Once again, Ethiopianity is toay being tested by fire
> and blood in confrontations within the country itself as well as
> within Ethiopian communities in very many cities and localities in
> the diaspora. Several Addis Abeba university students were murdered
> in coldd blood by the TPLF in January 1991 when they tried to stage a
> peaceful demonstration to reassert Ethiopia´s legitimate right to
> national self determination and protest the then UN Secretary-
> General´s gratuitous and cavalier acquiescence to the foreible
> secession of Eritrea. The real reason many Ethiopians (professors,
> monks, soldiers, civil servants, students, peasants, political
> activists etc...) are languiahing in gaols today on various phony
> pretexts is ddue to their resolute Ethiopiantiy and the threat it
> poses for the TPLF ethnocracy.
>
> The struggle for Ethiopia and Ethiopianity continues and intensifies
> day by day punctuated by alternating waves of agony and ecstasy.
> Despite the revolting condditions under different regimes in the
> country, Ethiopian golden athletes from the late Abebe Biqila on to
> Miruts Yifter to Fatuma Roba... have lifted spirits and boosted
> morale of Ethiopians all over the world. As has been noted earlier,
> the TPLF and their external apologists allege and whine that
> Ethiopianity is ony a camouflage for Amhara `chauvinists´ or ´Derg
> remnants´ (i.e., those who have zet to be climinated or
> incarcerated). Yet, a careful perusal of print literature at home and
> abroad, for example TOBIA, ETHIOPIAN REVIEW, QANA, AMMARECH,
> ETHIOPIAN REGISTER, MUDAY and others dealing with Ethiopia in the
> last seven zears, shows that the overwhelming majority of the
> Ethiopian writers who advocate unequivocal Ethiopian causes and views
> are ostensibly non-Amhara or only partly Amhara. And that is a
> healthy reflection ogf the real Ethiopia as it is and of genuine
> Ethiopianity as it should be.
>
> The living forces of Ethiopia and Ethiopianity was amply demonstrated
> in North America in the summer of 1997 when the violence-soaked TPLF
> found out once again that it cannot muzzle the voice, snuff the
> spirit or crush the will of Ethiopianity. Not ony was the real TPLF
> unmasked but in virtually every city it tried to hold ist propaganda
> meetings it was met with resolute challenges it could not negotiste.
> In typical Ethiopian fashion, patriotic Ethiopians asked that first
> the emcee of the TPLF clique apologize to the Ethiopian community at
> large for rude acts—including physical assaults—by them and their
> flunkeys at earlier near-gatherings. At another venue they pointed
> out politely that since, among the TPLF operatives milling around the
> podium eager to fulminate and spew their anti Ethiopian distribes,
> óne is a non Ethiopian (by the definition of the new secessionist
> order), another has said that there never was and there is no
> Ethiopia, a third character has made it clear that he doesn´t care
> about the
> integrity or survival of Ethiopia per se. Consequently, these
> musketeers have no business or legitimacy to talk about Ethiopia to a
> gathering of Ethiopians.´ And the scheduled meetings were not
> consummatedd as planned by the TPLF´s cronies and their local public
> relations cohorts.
>
> Surveys and reports done on immigrants in the United States have
> repeatedly confirmed that, of all nationalities the Ethiopians
> consistently show a very high level of attachment to their homeland
> no matter how long they have been domiciled in host countries or how
> well of they are. The same holds true of other Ethiopians elsewhere
> in the diaspora as well. In fact, younger Ethiopians, some of whom
> have never been in Ethiopia or never grew up or went to school there
> and do not even read or write Ethiopic, are more committed to
> Ethiopianity than their older compatriots and at times even their own
> parents. Another interesting phenomenon has also been empirically
> observed in recent years about Ethiopians in European countries. Very
> often, those Ethiopians who had been naturalised citizens of these
> countries with all the rights of permanent residence and previledges
> emanating therefrom were more militant in their concern for the
> welfare of their people and the future of their country than the
> temporary residents. It can also be noted that x·nT, the basic value
> of Ethiopianity follows Ethiopians in the diaspora in that Ethiopian
> communities donot figure in the statistical litany of underworld or
> otherwise cromonal activities usually associated (rightly or wrongly)
> with new immigrants. And virtually all Ethiopians look forward to
> going home to their beloved Ethiopia sooner or later, alive or dead
> regardless of their secure and comfortable sojourn in the respective
> host countries and inspite of recurring wars, famines, repressions
> and problems hovering over their Ethiopia. Therein lies the mystque
> and power of Ethiopianity. Some times in its extreme form
> Ethiopianity may remind one of the exchange depicted in a cartoon
> wherein a bumper sticker reads "My country (USA) right or wrong"
> another motorist looks at it and, finding what he saw unflattering,
> he retorts the; "When was my country (USA) ever wrong?"
>
> Along with all the foregoing glimpses of Ethiopia and Ethiopianity
> each person has his/her unique markers of Ethiopianity indelibly
> etched in the psyche. When one thinks of Ethiopianity, one can think
> of pristine Ethiopian wit and wisdom of the young peasant who said
> that the center of the earth is where one is stepping on and if there
> is any doubght, why should measure it and that God lives on the
> hallelujahs and thank yous
>
>
> First-rate books and essays of poetry and prose mostly in Amharic.
> Because of his peaceful fights against injustice, tyrnny,
> secessionism and ethnocracy from the era of Haile-Selassie through
> the Derg period to the pressent EPLF/TPLF conspiracy against Ethiopia
> and Ethiopians. On a more personal level I am and will always be
> proud to be an Ethiopian, even if regrettably I may not hve lived up
> tohigher standards and ideals of Ethiopianity all the time. Among
> other things, my sense of Ethiopianity was instilled in me at a very
> early age in the crucible of the Fascist invasion by my paternal
> grandmother who, despite the vicisitudes (or maybe because of them)
> of the period, taught me self-esteem andd clean pride in
> Ethiopianity. Though she could not read or write, my grandmother had
> this uncanny ability to strike a conversation with cirtually any
> Ethiopian from anywhere in the country who came to our abode and, by
> pressing her own version of „twenty questions" into even generations
> of family backroun ofher interlocutor, she wouldd comehow find some
> strand that inked the individual with our own family most of the
> time. And she usually had me sit and listen to such difying
> conversations. I also have memories of my father and uncle who fought
> the Italians on various fronts telling vivid war stories and showing
> their bullet scars or badges of partriotism. I grew upj and went to
> school in a burgeoning cosmopolitan invironment in the heart of old
> Addis Abeba interacting with Ethiopians of varying backgrounds,
> including many from Eritrea, as well as a notley of aliens.
>
> The same has been true of the periods of my higher education and
> teaching career as well. I was not tought chauvinism,narrow national
> ism or prejuddice against others and either did I pick them up along
> the way despite exposures and at times ressures to ddo so. I never
> shied away from fighting chauvinist,
> tribalist and prejudiced behavior when I detectedd such. I dwelled
> more on the whole---the Ethiopian---I was becoming (voluntarily) than
> on the parts I was made from (involuntarily). In other words, what I
> have consciously made of myself through my upbringing and my
> education has been more important in
> moulding my outlook than those things I had no choice about such as
> the ethnic background, religious persuasion, linguistic
> classification of my parents or my place of birth. As indicated in my
> citation earlier, I also tried to project the same Ethiopian mode of
> thinking and behavior in my dealings with others. I struggled
> peacefully for the cause of Ethiopianity and always meant to
> contribute towards building a better, stranger, more prosperous and
> egalitarian Ethiopia for the good of all. And, I have always aspired
> to leave behind as a legacy to my children, to my students and dto my
> compatriots at large an abiding sense of confidence, love and pride
> in being Ethiopian.
>
> If this present generation of Ethiopians seeks to redeem Ethiopia
> from the claws of those who plot to rend the land andd devour ist
> people, there is an urgent need to renew and redefine Ethiopian and
> Ethiopianity in a mannner that is commonly acceptable for today and
> salutary for tomorrow. Such contemporary redefinition of Ethiopianity
> shouldd not reflect an exclusively Amhara image, a Tigrayan image, an
> Oromo or any other partial and partisan ethnic, cultural or
> confessional image—although there are some who attempt toj do jus
> that. It should reflect a genuinely wholesome heteroganous Ethiopian
> image taking into account lessons of the past as well as this
> generation´s aspirations for its future. We have to redefine Ethiopia
> in multicultural and multiethnic amalgam or blend where all its
> people benefit from bing part of the whole while retaining the best
> of that part whence they hail. We must and we can hoist high the
> banner of such Ethiopianty and rededicate ourselves to rebuilding the
> whole of Ethiopia that generations of Ethiopians have aspired to,
> millions of our compatriots have been and still are suffering.
>
> What Ethiopia and Ethiopianity mean to an Ethiopian may be freshly
> appreciated from the following—twenty-point womb-to-tomb---meta-
> phoric rendering contributed to the Amharic monthly magayine TOBIA a
> few years ago. (translation/adaptation is personal)
>
> Your/my country (Ethiopia) is your/my:-
>
>
> Everything ....................... to live for
> God´s Gift ....................... to Adore
> Home............................... to Shelter in
> Shleld.............................. to Depend on
> Nourishment................... to Feast on
> Apothecary...................... to Heal by
> Mother............................ to Care for
> Kith-n´-Kin.................... to Relate to
> Faith Icon...................... to Venerate
> Resource......................... to Make Good
> Thing of Beauty ............ to Enjoy
> Special Grace................ to Value
> Unique Asset ................ to Protect
> Love Affair.................... to Be Jealous about
> Heritage....................... to Be Zealous about
> Banner......................... to Hoist high
> Sunshine...................... to Bask in
> Beacon........................ to Be Guided by
> Life Form.................... to Nurture
> Everything................... to Die for
>
> The challenge of Ethiopianity today promises to be a tough and
> complex uphill struggle but who knows better the meaning of united
> patriotic struggle----including ist dimensions of faith, resolve,
> courage, sacrifice and perseverance----than the legendary Ethiopian
> people! When all is said and done what remins is: Ethiopia is too
> good not to be better for all Ethiopians.
>
>
>
>
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>
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>

(Editors Note: The following was recopied from http://www.medhin.org
and provides some insight in Ethiopiawinet and Ethiopianism)

Reflections on Ethiopia and
Ethiopianity

by Dr. Negussie Ayele

Ethiopia in Perspective

In this day and age most every one takes for granted the contemporary
sovereign statehood of many countries in Africa, the Middle East and
Asia despite their chronic and bloody internecine conflicts. We have
also been conditioned to assume as passé and acceptable the processes
of state formation in Europe, Australia and the Americas. In fact,
one of these relatively recent formations, the U.S.A.-the "first new
nation"-populated by native Americans, enslaved Africans and polyglot
immigrantsbrepresenting virtually every ethnic and cultural group on
the earth-has developed into the first "universal nation" within a
period of a little over two centuries. The United States is today not
only a host country of choice for most emigrants, exiles and refugees
of the world but it is also fast becoming the sole 'omnipotent'
terrestrial polity in the celestial firmament. In the circumstances,
it is ironic that Ethiopia, one of the oldest and proudest of
independent nation-states on earth forged in much the same way as
most states and sustaining much the same political problems as most
nations has not only been severed by force of arms into two-and a-
half pieces (so far) in recent years but the right to existence of
Ethiopia as Ethiopia in whateverform has come to be negated by some
quarters inside and outside of its environs. One political scud
missile of the TPLF ruling junta in Addis Abeba has been cited as
saying recently that "Ethiopia did not exist heretofore ... we (i.e.,
EPLF/TPLF cadres) are
fabricating it now ..."

Parvenu individuals who have to tinker with the past in order to mess
with the future may not know that Ethiopia has existed for a long
long time. But, Cambyses, Alexander the Great, Augustus Ceasar as
well as Marco POlo knew Ethiopia and they all had high regard for it
and its power in their respective times. To say the least, this new
pseudo-issue of raising doubt about the historical identity of
Ethiopia calls for a rectification. What follows is only a precis
contribution by one Ethiopian on the verity of a>T×}Ã Ethiopia and
the potency of a>T×}÷ùnT Ethiopianity-the emotional and political
attachment of the Ethiopian people to their country, heritage,
identity and integrity.

Ethiopia is the multiethnic and multicultural afR$aÍR$ aF" Afer/Afar
(hence African) polity in the Horn-the womb of homo afarensis ramidus
and of the progeny of Etiopis. In the immortal words of B§tÀN g?
(Poet Laureate) Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin Ethiopia is "the root of the
Genesis of life" where "the human family tree was first planted ...
by the evolutionary hand of time." Ethiopians are a people of whom
the Lord on High is said to have told Israelites: "Are ye not as
children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel [Sic.]?" It
is a land where, according to the ancients, Ethiopians were the
justest of men" and for that reason "the goods ... frequently
visited ...and feasted" with them. Ethiopians "stretch out" their
hands only "to God." Ethiopia is not only the land wherein Judaism,
Christianity and Islam have been domiciled and indeginized for the
longest historical time but also one which gave asylum to the first
Muslim refugees from Quraish persecution. It is related in the Sira
that The Prophet Muhammed (Bilaal, Islam's first muezzin, is said to
have been an Ethiopian) instructed his followers that Ethiopia (the
land of the Habash) is "a land of righteousness where Allah will give
you relief from your suffering." Variants of pantheism and monotheism
have blended and coexisted for millenia through thick and thin of war
and peace in Ethiopia. It is only in Ethiopia where for centuries
Christians have been celebrating annually the Day of (finding) The
Cross. Facsimiles of the Ark of the covenant are also kept in
Ethiopian Churches and carried on heads of the holy in religious
festivals ritually now for centuries. Those in search of the Ark of
the Covenant may be sniffing and snooping around for it discretely in
Ethiopia. Monks of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church had staked an
extensive presence in Christian holy places in Jerusalem for
centuries though today they have been confined largely to a tenuous
tenure in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Der Sultan due to
internecine religious rivalries and the vagaries of regional
politics.

Ethiopia is not only the womb of humanity but the cradle of human
civilization as well. As W.E.B. Du Bois put it, Ethiopia is a land
where "The sunrise of human culture took place ..." Ethiopia is the
original locale for the domestication of plants and animals and is
ecologically friendly to large counts of flora and fauna still
endemic in the region and it also remains the worlds primary nursery
for plant genetics. Sheikh Anta Diop reminds us that "According to
the unanimous testimony of the Ancients, first the Ethiopians and
then the Egyptians created and raised to an extraordinary stage of
developement all the elements of civilization, while other peoples
especially the Eurasians, were still deep in barbarism." This may
explain why besides being "the gift of the Nile" Egypt has also been
described by chancellor Williams as "Ethiopia's oldest daughter"-with
all that that implies, including the theme elaborated in Professor
Martin Bernal's Black Athena tomes. Ethiopia is the repository of one
of the oldest scripts and language clusters in the world and with an
advanced and sophisticated Ethiopiac literacy genere referred to in
part as Qn?$ sMÂ wRQ Qenie/Wax and Gold. Paradoxically, utilization
of its own indigenous script for several millennia contributed to the
minimization of Ethiopia's wider global intercultural communication.

Ethiopian melodic music from the length and breadth of the land is
among the richest and most exihilarating in the world. Ethiopian
cuisine and its culinary custom is most appetizing, tasty and
pleasant. Described by observers as a "museum of peoples" Ethiopia -
from north to south and from east to west of its boarders -is home to
the most stuningly beautiful women and the handsomest of men. Aksum
Tsion Church, the rock-hewn structures in Lalibela ("New Jerusalem"),
in Gurageland and in Tigray as well as Sheikh Hussein's Mausoleum are
among the numerous spatial markers of Ethiopia's cultural landscape.
Ethiopia's rich liturgical manuscripts and traditional religious art
works today grace many private collections and public museums in
Europe and North America. The few remaining in the country may not
survive for long if present trends continue. After having spent his
adult lifetime in Ethiopia studying and expounding Ethiopian
philosophy, Professor Claude Summer declares: "I was searching for
man, I found the Ethiopian; I was searching the human and I found the
African." After a thorough examination of the ´t (ethical and
philosophical treatises of the seventeenth century Ethiopian
philosopher, Zer'a Ya'equob), he suggested that "modern philosophy...
began in Ethiopia ..." Claude Sumner describes himself as Canadian by
birth and Ethiopian by choice.

A distinctly conspicuous trait of Ethiopians through historical time
has been passionate love of their country - meaning its people,
values, mode of life as well as the readiness to stand up for the
right and the freedom to be Ethiopian, to live Ethiopian and even to
die Ethiopian. Because the challenge from outsiders was continuous
and relentless the struggle against these violators shaped and
defined Ethiopian patriotism. Consequently, especially in the era of
colonialism, even as the Ethiopian people often chafed under the yoke
of repression of local ruling feudal and martial elites, they still
fought and died for their country, their values, their institutions
and traditions and their freedom to be. And so it is that Ethiopia
remained the only independent African country during the colonial era
and was blacklisted as "the last unresolved problem in Africa." The
heroic patriotic words of Ras Alula Wedi Qubi, the Ethiopian governer
of Mereb Melash (today's Eritrea) to the Italians that "they could
come to sa'ati (on the Ethiopian Red Sea coast) only when I can go to
rome as governor" has been scared in the subconscious of generations
of Ethiopians. Since the ninteenth century, Ethiopians have fought to
defend their sovereignty and integrity against Britisch, Italian,
Turkisch, Egyptian, Dervisch sudanese and somalian colonialists and
expansionists. The series of battles in northern Ethiopia waged under
Emperor Menelik against Italian colonial encroachments in the
ninteenth century that culminated in Ethiopia's resounding victory
with magnanimity at Adwa in March 1896 raised the morale of peoples
of color everywhere who were under the yoke of colonialism and
domination in Africa and the diaspora.


Queen Tayitu's resolute farewell to the hapless Italian culprit on
the eve of that historic confrontation: "It is not death but honor
for any one to shed his blood for his country" is an immortal
expression of Ethiopian patriotism. The slogan of "Mother Ethiopia or
Death" by patriotic Ethiopians under Italian colonialism in Eritrea
coupled with untold sacrifices in life and limb of the Ethiopian
people in defence of their land, their freedom, their institutions
and their values accentuated the potency of the external definition
of Ethiopian patriotism. The successful protracted people's
resistance (1935-1941) against the brutal hordes of Fascist Italy was
but the latest chapter in the long history of continuous struggles
sustained by generations of Ethiopians.

Ethiopia's legacy of such successes in freedom struggles give rise
to 'Ethiopianism' 'Pan-Africanism' and 'Rastafarian' movements in the
ranks of oppressed peoples of color everywhere. Many future African
leaders had their teething process in liberation struggle in the
crucible of Ethiopian resistance
against colonialism and fascism. Casley Hayford, Marcus Garvey, Adam
Clayton Powell, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyata, Langston Hughes, Leo
Hansbarry, Jhon Robinson (´´the Brown Condor"), Joseph E. Harris and
many others have in one form or another articulated the the
significance and symbolism of Ethiopia and expressed their solidarity
with it. Ethiopian has served as a beacon of freedom in the histroric
inividdual and collective struggles of black peoples everywhere
against raciam and domination. President Nelson Mandels of South
Africa conveyed a gracious tribute to Ethiopia´s tangible
contribution to Africa´s freedom struggles in his recent memoir, Long
Walk To Freedom. President Mandela said that as he countenanced his
sojourn in Ethiopia for military training in the early
1960s: „I felt I woul be visiting my own genesis, unearthing the
roots of wat made me an African." Thus, historically Ethiopia has
been the source of dignity and pride not just for Ethiopians but for
millions of people everywhere. It is not accidental that Ethiopia is
the hub of African unity and the seat of the OAU
today or that the Rasta movement in the Western world is still alive
and well. The Ethiopian tricolor of green, yellow and red along with
black has been consciously adopted in the flags of many black
nationstates in Africa an beyond.

To speak of Ethiopia is to speak of its people, their values their
aspirations and their deeds. For a variety of reasons, Ethiopia has
been an impoveishe country in material terms but Ethiopians have
always been a people well endowe with grace, ignity, pride, civility,
spirituality, self-repect and with negligible artificially
inseminstedd color or other complexes. Ethiopia is not a polity that
has been
„immagined" into being but rather a cultural and political community
that has been evolving over a very long historical process. In fact,
it is ironic that Ethiopia is having problema of secession and
struggles to survive as a nation-state precisely because it was
not „invented" by colonialism and thereby worthy of „legitimate"
statehood as is on the basis of colonial blueprint and iktat. In
stressing the positive, the lofty or ideal features of Ethiopia and
Ethiopianity in this macro synopsis of ist history, culture and
political profile, one is not unmindful of other human aspects and
foibles. Like peoples everywhere in the world Ethiopians have had and
still have their good and their bad, their gorgeous and dtheir
obnoxious, their successes and their failures, their talents and
their shortooming as well as their shortcomings as well as their
ddreams of utopia and their sharea of dystopia. Ethiopians after all
are only human—perhaps even too human—just like other fallible
mortals an dtherefore subject to the same laws of behaior (including
Murphy´s law) that govem all others in similar conditions andd
circumstances of social life. Given that mandatory universal premise
the perspective herein emanates from a view that the positive in the
Ethiopian character not only outweighs the negaive but that the
kernel of the good has within it potentials for being bettered.

Elements of Ethiopianity

The essence of Ethiopianityy or Ethiopian personality is an abiding
love and devotion for distinotly Ethiopian identity, for Ethiopian
heritage and for Ethiopian way of life. Ethiopianity is a powerful
paychological myystique that has lasted for centuries inspiring
successive generations of Ethiopians.
Ethiopianity has successfully galvanized freeddon fighters against
foreign invaers and expansionists and it remains todday the single
most potent political force or magnet for patriotic resistance vis-a-
vis the policy of national nihilism ´ or Ethiopicide at work in the
country.

Among the shared value ieals and cultural trssits that characterize
Ethiopians and Ethiopianity one may cite the following. One is ....
(spirituality or what may be termed faithliness´) which goes beyond
catechism or one´s formal religious affiliation although that too is
duly represented in the country. The spiritual individual in Ethiopia
seks daily to bond with the supernatural of choice in his pantheistic
or monotheistic system and most everything is weighedd and judged
against the laws of the supernatural more importantly than edicts of
institutional religion or injunctions of the secular state.

Commonplace conversations in peaceful or conflicting situations in
Ethiopia are always laced with the spiritual term .... (God). Hardly
any conversation long or short is devoid of the term. Among the most
frequent phrases are_ „God is around" ( I will be alright), „Praise
God" (I am well), „May God recompense you" (for the good or for the
evil you have wrought), „God does not like" (what you have done or
saidd), „Let God take note of „ (zour injustice), „If God wills" (we
can ddo or have what we need), „In the Name of God" (please accept/do
this or that) etc,. Such utterancess are made with reverence and
belief in their intent and content and not as mere and insincere
cliches. As was intimated earlier, Ethiopians may appear poor by
material measurements but they are second to none in their sense of
spirituality, morality and civility. This sense of ´faithliness´ by
Ethiopians transcends the walls created by conventional religious
institutions in that one finds more and more expectations of
predictable behavior and value choices among Ethiopians regardless of
confessional persuasions and regional variations. More often than
not, Ethiopians attribute collective calamities they sustain at times
to the frown of deity because of something ungodly people or rulers
have done wittingly or unwittingly.



Another quality of Ethiopianity is the value norm ....broadly
corresponding to the term ´Civility´though it is too complex a
concept to render into one wordd or phrase of another language and
culture paradigm. In interpersonal relations, an Ethiopian is
expected to behave with honesty, dignity, discipline, decency,
sensitivity, deference, politeness, trustworthiness, prudence,
scruples, self-respect as well as with a sense of balance or fairness
at all times. Civility as a behavioral norm is modulated and fine
tuned by age, station in life, familiarity and other relevant factors
relating to interacting parties. Though such unwritten behavioral
norms and value ideals are often associated with feudal and other
ruling classes because they arrogated them to themselves they are in
point of fact the behavioral property of the ordinary Ethiopian, the
average civvilized peasant or the illiterate yet learned common
person. It is not the common people that imbibe or mimic such values
from outside but the ruling classes that copy one another throughout
the world. In Ethiopia one becomes fascinated, satiated, excited and
best disposed to appreciste the essence, lustre and richness of
Ethiopianity not when he/she goes into cities like Addis Abeba, Ddire
Dawa, Asmera, Jimma... but when she/he goes into the countryside a
few miles from the towns and meedts the people there. As a young
Ethiopian observed in a conversation in Los Asngeles recently, „When
one goes fifteen or twenty kilometers outside Addis Abeba or any
other town, conditions of life in rural Ethiopia are basically
similar" regardless of variations in ethnicity, language, religion or
regional identity. And, it is from such common experiencess that home
grown care Ethiopian values, common sense, folk widom and fundamental
behavioral principles like civility emerge.

Once again, a signature expression of Ethiopianity is fervent ol
fashioned ... generally renered in English as patriotiam. Ethiopian
patriotism is a constant instinctive love for as well as
belongingness and boning with Ethiopia/Ethiopians—people, land
culture, rights, values andd freedom. As such, the coin of patriotism
has two sides. One side is internal and more implicit, while the
other side is external and more explicit. For the most part,
Ethiopian patriotism has been associated more with the second side of
the coin. And, that is the side that has been manifested in the
clashes and hostile relstions of Ethiopia with alien forces.
Ethiopians have sustained extraordinary sacrifices repeateddly in
their hitory fighting against those that sought to violate their
freeddom, dignity andd integrity. But wars or no wars, the foundation
of Ethiopianity--- the first side of the coin—is love of being
Ethiopian, the Ethiopian way of life and ist fundamental values some
of which have been briefly profiled in the preceding paragraphs.
Reverence for the past, custom and traition is highly regarded and
bequeathed.

An Ethiopian cares particularly for the youndg, the old, the infirm,
the weak. An Ethiopian buries the dead whether he/she knows the
deceased or not. An Ethiopian shares what she/he has especially
during holidays. An Ethiopian is hospitale to a fault to strangers in
the area, unless or until they prove to have
sinister designs on members of the community. The communal or
communitarian plan in Ethiopia generally is such that coffee is
tastier and feasts are more enjoyable with the participation of
larger and larger numbers of sharers. Not only is food consumed
together sitting around the round food tray but there is also the
Ethiopian custom of feeding one another for good measure. The peasant
can count on communal help in thrashing his crops, building his
shelter or even protecting his flock from predators. Children are
cared for in the community and protected from harm´s way as though
they belong to everyone. Any crime committed in a neighborhood is
examinedd in community gatherings and culprits apprehended and
communal justice meted out in accordance with local customs. Births,
weddings and burials are big social and communal events in Ethiopia.
Holidays and saints´days such as Qulebi, Meskel, Shaikh Hussein
annual pilgrimage, Epiphany... are among the many colorful occasions
that are observed by adherents to all religious persuasions. In place
of the class based or higher/lower status of persons in Ethiopia,
relations are governed by elder/younger paradigm in which one´s
status differential is based on one´s age, on one´s reputation and on
how one comparts oneself in a given interaction.

Ethiopians do not (or, should one say did not) compare their lot with
others elsewhere in the world to think of themselves better or worse
than others. That is why Ethiopianity is not based on a sence of
superiority or inferiority vis-a-vis others but rather on a sense of
being different and being content with it, living it, defending it
and ying for it.

This is not to conjure in the mind of the reader some sort of idyllic
society where there are no abuses, exploitations, alienations and
oppressions or frontier conflicts in Ethiopia. Indeed, regardless of
ethnicity, the masses of Ethiopia have often suffered and have been
bitter about the way elites manipulate, exacerbate and exploit miner
conflicts to suit their own class ends. Notwithstandding such
problems, the fact remains that Ethiopians have lived together in
their particular niche of the Horn of Africa now for thousands of
years. Despite their internal conflicts, Ethiopians have consistently
risen up as one in thwarting irrvaders, exparisionists and
colonialists. The reason obviously is that the good Ethiopians love
about themselves, their values andd ways of life far outweigh the
evil that the few privileged classes perpetrate among them as is
happening at the present time. In historical terms, one oftquote
efinition of what it means to be an Ethiopian and to efend Ethiopian
values is the one avanced by Emperor Yohannes IV (1872-1889) in his
1888 mobilization call to face the Italians at Saáti near
Mitsiwa:

(Personal Translation):
People (children) of Ethiopia, pay careful attention!, Ethiopia means
first your mother, second your Crown, third your wife, fourth your
child, fifth your grave. Now then, keep alive in your minds the
meaning of a mother´s love, the honor of the Crown, the devotion of a
wife, the pleasures of children and the peace (security) of the grave
as you rise up" (to fight the foreign enemy who intends to deprive
you of your birthrights).


Thus, far from being an abstraction Ethiopianity springs from a
genuine apprectiation of the god, the true and the beautiful that is
Ethiopian. Ethiopianity is enduring even as it is consuming, it is
demanding as it is gratifying. And, as Professor Mesfin wolde Mariam
has suggested, Ethiopianity has an elastic quality whereby it
can „stretch or contract but not snap."

Looking at the other side of the coin of ethiopian patriotism, one
sees that it has ist own dynamics fashioned in large part in the
crucible of resistance against constant threats and invasions from
outside Ethiopian patriotism has been expressed or exercised not in
terms of aggression outside ist border but
in efence of ist own indepenent existence or collective self-
determination within given geopolitical frontiers at ifferent time
spans. Through wars, famines, oppressive regimes and calamities
Ethiopian patriotism has never sagged historically espcially in
Eritrea where the rallying cry was „Ethiopia or Death." To
carabinieri taunts that Roma was great, Ethiopian patriots in the
Italian colony of Eritrea shot back „Ethiopia is greater still." Yet,
the ruling olique and other agents of betrayal in Asmera currently
pursue a desideratum of „Ddeath toEthiopia „ and an Eritrean
political functionary has even been quoted as saying recently that
Eritreans are part and parcel of the „grat Roman civilization."
Apparently that character does not know that this „Roman
civilization" not only had instituted strict `racial`apartheid in
Asmera and elsewhere in the colony in the 1930s but „civilized"
Italian (roman?) „courts" in Asmera even penalized Eritreans for
their sudacity of trying to defend themselves against attacks by
Italian dogs, saying: "Better one Italian dog that ten Habeshas
(Eritreans)."

The first Ethiopian Patriotic Association was formed by and on behalf
of Ethiopians of Eritrean extraction in the early 1940s to campaign
for unconditional union with the ethiopian Motherland. At birthdays,
weddings, funerals, New Year and other public occasions Eritreans
expressed their Ethiopian patriotism by draping around dthe Ethiopian
flag in ways that was not even duplicated elsewhere in the rest of
the country. Nor should one forget the proverbial patriotism of the
Oromo, the Tigrayan, the Amhara, the Gurage, the Somali, the Sidama,
the Kefa, the Dorze... Ethiopians fought constantly against
expansionism and colonialism in Meqdela, Dogali, Awsa, Adwa,
Masichew, Welwel, Qorahe, Gore, Gonder or Jimma... toj preserve
Ethiopia. And in more recent years it was not for the sake of Emperor
Haile-Selassie or Col. Mengistu Haile-Mariam that thousands of
ethiopians lost their lives and limbs fighting secessionists in
Eritrea and dSiyad Barre´s irredentism in the Ogaden. Rather, it was
because they felt or were led to believe that they were fighting to
presserve the sovereignty and integrity of Ethiopia, their country.
For Ethiopians Eritrea is not Korea and Ogaden is not Congo.

No single ethnic community, single cultural entity, single religious
affinity or single regional locality in and of itself fully and
sufficiently represents Ethiopia inasmuch as Ethiopianity is a sense
of identity and belogingness that is greater than the sum of ist
parts. Ethiopia represents the blending and amalgam of
ist parts historically into what Professor Ddonald Levine has
characterized „a cultural as well as an ecological community." A true
Ethiopian is one who identifies with and lives up to such attributes
and values of Ethiopianity like the ones cited heretofore not because
one is of Harari, Oromo, Agew, Hadiya, Amhara or saho descent but
becase they are values any one from anywhere in Ethiopia can be proud
to identify with. Ethiopianity is the force, the spirit, the will and
the courage whereby each generation redfines itself and ist role in
the historical continuum. It is up to each generation to prune the
negative and improve on the positive legacies of the past and
bequeath to posterity a better and healthier, more civil and secure,
more just and egalitarian, and more democratic and peaceable as well
as more productive and progressive polity. It also endeavors to
insure that the country's complementing facets of cultural diversity
are developed and sustained within the framework of Ethiopian unity.
And it is important to remember that Ethiopians donot love their
country less because they are poor or love their country more because
they are rich. Furthermore, genuine Ethiopianity does not see an
Ethiopia that is ossified in the past, stagnant in the present or
moribund into the future. Ethiopianity is an undying dynamic
patriotic love for national heritage,an abiding -even if trying-
faith in the present and in the perpetual hope for the future of
Ethiopia, Ethiopians and the Ethiopian way of life. Ethiopianity
generates passionate commitment in every generation of Ethiopians to
refine, redefine and rejuvenate proactive Ethiopian identity and look
forward to pass on the beton to the next generation with hope for a
brighter future which the Ethiopian people more than richly deserve.
In an Amharic article entitled Ethiopia and Ethiopianity published
nearly thirty years ago, I had stated that:

Ethiopia does not belong to the Amhara alone, to the Galla (Oromo)
alone or to the Tigre alone ... it does not belong to the Christians
alone or to the Muslims alone; it belongs to Ethiopians alone ... The
Ethiopia of my heart, my dreams and my thoughts is also an Ethiopia
of the future-a land where the Oromo (Galla), the Amhara, the Tigre,
the Gurage, the Somali, the Danakel ... live in harmony. It is a land
of Christians, Muslims and adherents of other belief systems and
where citizens in Wellega, Ogaden, Hamasen, Kulo and Konta, Menz,
Raya and Azebo, Kembata, Yerer and Kereyu ... localities blend is,
work and live together cooperatively. More than a country, Ethiopia
to me is a concept, an ideal and an emotional force capable of
achieving unity from diversity. I donot wish for this unique
characteristic and its potentials to be quenched.

The current EPLF/TPLF rulers and their political condoms inside the
country as well as their pimps outside the country not only deny the
verity of Ethiopia and Ethiopianity and say that it is mainly the
Amhara, especially the Shoans, who are complaining about the cabal to
assassinate "their" Ethiopia. In fact, however, as outlined in the
paragraphs above, Ethiopia was and is real and Ethiopianity has
always been its potent and viable political expression of the vast
majority of its people from every region, ethnic community, religious
persuasion, cultural differentiation, gender, age group and station
in llife. In his introductory History of Ethiopia, Professor Harold
Marcus has made the cogent observation of how in the course of
preparing his book he "came to realize that Ethiopia's history
contained an analytical truth validating [his] decision to consider
Ethiopia's wider geographical limits as [his] canvas: from time to
time, the nation had disintegrated into component parts, but it had
never disappeared as an idea and always and reappeared in fact. "One
could get a fuller flavor of this verity by perusing studies such as
Donald Levine's Greater Ethiopia, Lapiso Dilebo's Ethiopia's Long
History of People and Polity (in Amharic), Sven Rubenson's The
Survival of Ethiopian Independence, Teqle-Tsadiq Mekuria's recent
works ( in Amharic) on Emperors Yohannes, Tewodros, and Menelik,
Ernest Work's Ethiopia: A Pawn in European Diplomacy, Paulos Gnogno's
Ate Menelik (in Amharic), Kebede Tesemma's Historical Memoir (in
Amharic), John Spencer's Ethiopia at Bay, Yohannes Meshesha's,
Ethiopia: Governmental and Political process (in Amharic) and,
mutatis mutandis, UNESCO's eight-volume General History of Africa,
for starters. In the last one hundred and fifty years or so the
Amhara people have been in the fore front in the evolution and
consolidation of the country and their ruling elites have claimed the
political (imperial throne) and economic (land) spoils accruing
therefrom. However, the majority of people who have played key roles
in the process of nation-building in Ethiopia have been either non-
Amhara or only part-Amhara. This is attested to, for example, in the
Battles of Dogali (1887) Metemma (1889) Amba Alage (1895) Mekele and
Adwa (1896) and the Black Lion and other resistance struggles against
Fascist occupation in the 1930s nor should one forget those who died
fighting for the unity and territorial integrity of Ethiopia in the
northern and south eastern parts of the country in more recent years.
And, in all conditions the exploited masses have stood for Ethiopian
unity.

Ethiopians-in the truly diverse sense of the word- have wrought
heroic patriotic deeds which have yet to be written about in as many
languages as possible for future generations to understand and
appreciate Ethiopia and Ethiopianity more and for the outside world
to have a better grasp of the dynamics of what has made and and kept
Ethiopia as Ethiopia. Well researched expositions highlighting not
kings or princes but commoners who rose up to positions of leadership
in the cause of their country and its independence throughout its
distant and recent history are overdue. Such undertakings should shed
more light in the lives and times of, for instance, Ras Alula Aba
Negga, Abdissa Aga, Zer'ay Deres, Abune Petros, Belay Zeleke, Ras
Gobena Dache, Blatengueta Lorenzo Taezaz, Fitawrari Habtegiorgis
Dinegde, Blatta Gebreegziabher Gila-Mariam, Dejazmach Umer Semeter,
Ras Abebe Aregay, W/o Shewareged Gedle as well as thousands of
others. What is really wanting is genuine people's history of
Ethiopia reflecting the values, the aspirations, the sacrifices and
the deeds of the Ethiopian people at large. Upon reading the book
entitled ¯¯T (A History of the Gurage People) by Denberu Alemu et.
al., one is struck-in addition to a better appreciation of Gurage
culture- by two lists of heroes included in it. The first list
comprises heroes who led the frontier battles of the Gurage people
against the forces of king Menelik in the latter part of the
ninteenth century (1875-76); the second longer list contains the
names of Gurage heroes who participated in the Ethiopian struggle
against Italian occupation in Adwa and in Maichew in the 1930s. One
would also cite, in this regard, aÆ ï† Tabor Wami's (Abba Bora) the
story of Dejazmach Geresu Duki and other Shoan patriots and their
valiant struggles against Fascism. The book profiles the depth and
extent of Ethiopian patriotism as well as the downright shabby
treatment heroes often recieved after the war by the political
hierarchies of the day. While such works by Ethiopia nationals remain
few and far between, the overwhelming situation is non- Ethiopia
narrating and/or interpreting history made by Ethiopians.

As we close this historical back drop on Ethiopia and Ethiopianity
it, should be said that the millions of heroic Ethiopians from the
length and breadth of the land who died in patriotic wars defending
their country's independence, the sanctity of their cultural values
and the integrity of social institutions did so for Ethiopia as
Ethiopia and not for a single ethnic, religious, regional or cultural
group. If anything the elements that aimed at serving sectarian or
regional interests were the feudal and other ruling classes and not
the Ethiopian masses. The Ethiopian people needed no brainwashing,
goading, cajoling or forcing when the time came to stand up, be
counted and pay whatever price for the cause of Ethiopia as a whole.
Even when, at times, elites mobilized the people for hidden agendas,
those elites had to justify their sinister and selfish goals in terms
of Ethiopian national interest- at least until their rule intent was
exposed at which point the people rebelled or refused to fight.
Ethiopia has not always been well served by those who controlled
public dicision making power by dint of preternatural or naeft based
claim to rule. The heart and soul of Ethiopianity, however, resides
in the people at large, including peasants, workers, intelectuals,
peoples militia and other yeomen. Unless such a quest is ordinated or
reserved exclusively for certain people, the long-standing endeavor
of Ethiopianity has been to forge E Pluribus Unum. If any people
deserve to achieve it, Ethiopians certainly do. Of course, political
objectives do not just happen because they are deserved or desired
but because people consciously work and struggle to achieve them.

Profile of Contemporary Ethiopia and Ethiopianity

Not since the fascist Italian invasion in the 1930s has Ethiopia
faced such a menace to its identity, integrity and independence as it
does today. A portion of its body politic (Eritrea) has been severed
by by force of arms; another unit (Tigray) is, for all intents and
purposes, a state unto itself even though its
alienation has not been formal. Other elements are falling all over
one another in their centrifugal pursuits of reaching the same or
similar ends at the expence of the whole. The EPLF/TPLF marauders who
have masterminded such acts of politicide against Ethiopia and
Ethiopians have done everything in their power to do away with the
name, memory or history, identity and heritage of Ethiopia although
at the moment they are at their wits end. To be sure, however,
Asmera's capobanda Cesare has been quoted as having said that after a
decade (of 1991) there will not be an Ethiopia to worry about while
his Vicere in Addis Abeba has also been quoted as having said that
the Ethiopia that (Amhara) chauvinists dream about will never be
restored or realized in his lifetime. Hence the denigration of the
Ethiopian tricolor as nothing but a „piece of rag" symbolizing an
unpleasant past and dthe attempt to do away with it forthwith. On the
day ther TPLF marauders captured Addis Abeaba, for example, they
lowered the Ethiopian flag and put up their own rag in the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs. What we have in Ethiopia today can be analogous
to what it would have been like in the United States if Jefferson
Davis had not only succeeed in breaking away the Confederate states
in the early 1860s but had also jplaced himself in Washington, D.C.,
as the President of whatever was left of America. Precious blood was
spilt throughout the country as Ethiopians fought to hoist and keep
hoisted the Ethiopian flag in the early months of 1991 after the TPLF
takeover. Consequently, seven years into their hegemony, the TPLF
still groan and grunt as the tricolor remains the sacred symbol of
Ethiopian sovereignty (however tenuous today) whether they like it or
not. With regard to this matter, it is enough for now to cite the old
Ethiopian saying, „Just because he missed his target a fool disclaims
he ever took the shot," and move on.

That Ethiopianity is live, dynamic and exuberant has been amply
demonstrated time and again right to the present. The radical
Ethiopian student movements of zesteryears were for the most part pan-
Ethiopian in their memberships and many thousands died—perhaps at
times needlessly—fighting for justice and progress of the Ethiopian
people as a whole (including Eritreans, Oromos, Tigrayans, Afars,
amharas, Sidamas, caste groups and others) chafing under high-handed
feudal and/or martial rule. Progressive Ethiopian youth groups also
sought to highlight the urgency of adressing and even seeking some
peaceful compromise solutions to some regional and local political
problems in the country. It was also hoped that the spontaneous
Ethiopian Revolution of 1974 would resolve some of the chronic socio-
economic andd political problems of the county and place it on a
progressive course. Unfortunately, that did not materialize as
anticipated. Once again, Ethiopianity is toay being tested by fire
and blood in confrontations within the country itself as well as
within Ethiopian communities in very many cities and localities in
the diaspora. Several Addis Abeba university students were murdered
in coldd blood by the TPLF in January 1991 when they tried to stage a
peaceful demonstration to reassert Ethiopia´s legitimate right to
national self determination and protest the then UN Secretary-
General´s gratuitous and cavalier acquiescence to the foreible
secession of Eritrea. The real reason many Ethiopians (professors,
monks, soldiers, civil servants, students, peasants, political
activists etc...) are languiahing in gaols today on various phony
pretexts is ddue to their resolute Ethiopiantiy and the threat it
poses for the TPLF ethnocracy.

The struggle for Ethiopia and Ethiopianity continues and intensifies
day by day punctuated by alternating waves of agony and ecstasy.
Despite the revolting condditions under different regimes in the
country, Ethiopian golden athletes from the late Abebe Biqila on to
Miruts Yifter to Fatuma Roba... have lifted spirits and boosted
morale of Ethiopians all over the world. As has been noted earlier,
the TPLF and their external apologists allege and whine that
Ethiopianity is ony a camouflage for Amhara `chauvinists´ or ´Derg
remnants´ (i.e., those who have zet to be climinated or
incarcerated). Yet, a careful perusal of print literature at home and
abroad, for example TOBIA, ETHIOPIAN REVIEW, QANA, AMMARECH,
ETHIOPIAN REGISTER, MUDAY and others dealing with Ethiopia in the
last seven zears, shows that the overwhelming majority of the
Ethiopian writers who advocate unequivocal Ethiopian causes and views
are ostensibly non-Amhara or only partly Amhara. And that is a
healthy reflection ogf the real Ethiopia as it is and of genuine
Ethiopianity as it should be.

The living forces of Ethiopia and Ethiopianity was amply demonstrated
in North America in the summer of 1997 when the violence-soaked TPLF
found out once again that it cannot muzzle the voice, snuff the
spirit or crush the will of Ethiopianity. Not ony was the real TPLF
unmasked but in virtually every city it tried to hold ist propaganda
meetings it was met with resolute challenges it could not negotiste.
In typical Ethiopian fashion, patriotic Ethiopians asked that first
the emcee of the TPLF clique apologize to the Ethiopian community at
large for rude acts—including physical assaults—by them and their
flunkeys at earlier near-gatherings. At another venue they pointed
out politely that since, among the TPLF operatives milling around the
podium eager to fulminate and spew their anti Ethiopian distribes,
óne is a non Ethiopian (by the definition of the new secessionist
order), another has said that there never was and there is no
Ethiopia, a third character has made it clear that he doesn´t care
about the
integrity or survival of Ethiopia per se. Consequently, these
musketeers have no business or legitimacy to talk about Ethiopia to a
gathering of Ethiopians.´ And the scheduled meetings were not
consummatedd as planned by the TPLF´s cronies and their local public
relations cohorts.

Surveys and reports done on immigrants in the United States have
repeatedly confirmed that, of all nationalities the Ethiopians
consistently show a very high level of attachment to their homeland
no matter how long they have been domiciled in host countries or how
well of they are. The same holds true of other Ethiopians elsewhere
in the diaspora as well. In fact, younger Ethiopians, some of whom
have never been in Ethiopia or never grew up or went to school there
and do not even read or write Ethiopic, are more committed to
Ethiopianity than their older compatriots and at times even their own
parents. Another interesting phenomenon has also been empirically
observed in recent years about Ethiopians in European countries. Very
often, those Ethiopians who had been naturalised citizens of these
countries with all the rights of permanent residence and previledges
emanating therefrom were more militant in their concern for the
welfare of their people and the future of their country than the
temporary residents. It can also be noted that x·nT, the basic value
of Ethiopianity follows Ethiopians in the diaspora in that Ethiopian
communities donot figure in the statistical litany of underworld or
otherwise cromonal activities usually associated (rightly or wrongly)
with new immigrants. And virtually all Ethiopians look forward to
going home to their beloved Ethiopia sooner or later, alive or dead
regardless of their secure and comfortable sojourn in the respective
host countries and inspite of recurring wars, famines, repressions
and problems hovering over their Ethiopia. Therein lies the mystque
and power of Ethiopianity. Some times in its extreme form
Ethiopianity may remind one of the exchange depicted in a cartoon
wherein a bumper sticker reads "My country (USA) right or wrong"
another motorist looks at it and, finding what he saw unflattering,
he retorts the; "When was my country (USA) ever wrong?"

Along with all the foregoing glimpses of Ethiopia and Ethiopianity
each person has his/her unique markers of Ethiopianity indelibly
etched in the psyche. When one thinks of Ethiopianity, one can think
of pristine Ethiopian wit and wisdom of the young peasant who said
that the center of the earth is where one is stepping on and if there
is any doubght, why should measure it and that God lives on the
hallelujahs and thank yous


First-rate books and essays of poetry and prose mostly in Amharic.
Because of his peaceful fights against injustice, tyrnny,
secessionism and ethnocracy from the era of Haile-Selassie through
the Derg period to the pressent EPLF/TPLF conspiracy against Ethiopia
and Ethiopians. On a more personal level I am and will always be
proud to be an Ethiopian, even if regrettably I may not hve lived up
tohigher standards and ideals of Ethiopianity all the time. Among
other things, my sense of Ethiopianity was instilled in me at a very
early age in the crucible of the Fascist invasion by my paternal
grandmother who, despite the vicisitudes (or maybe because of them)
of the period, taught me self-esteem andd clean pride in
Ethiopianity. Though she could not read or write, my grandmother had
this uncanny ability to strike a conversation with cirtually any
Ethiopian from anywhere in the country who came to our abode and, by
pressing her own version of „twenty questions" into even generations
of family backroun ofher interlocutor, she wouldd comehow find some
strand that inked the individual with our own family most of the
time. And she usually had me sit and listen to such difying
conversations. I also have memories of my father and uncle who fought
the Italians on various fronts telling vivid war stories and showing
their bullet scars or badges of partriotism. I grew upj and went to
school in a burgeoning cosmopolitan invironment in the heart of old
Addis Abeba interacting with Ethiopians of varying backgrounds,
including many from Eritrea, as well as a notley of aliens.

The same has been true of the periods of my higher education and
teaching career as well. I was not tought chauvinism,narrow national
ism or prejuddice against others and either did I pick them up along
the way despite exposures and at times ressures to ddo so. I never
shied away from fighting chauvinist,
tribalist and prejudiced behavior when I detectedd such. I dwelled
more on the whole---the Ethiopian---I was becoming (voluntarily) than
on the parts I was made from (involuntarily). In other words, what I
have consciously made of myself through my upbringing and my
education has been more important in
moulding my outlook than those things I had no choice about such as
the ethnic background, religious persuasion, linguistic
classification of my parents or my place of birth. As indicated in my
citation earlier, I also tried to project the same Ethiopian mode of
thinking and behavior in my dealings with others. I struggled
peacefully for the cause of Ethiopianity and always meant to
contribute towards building a better, stranger, more prosperous and
egalitarian Ethiopia for the good of all. And, I have always aspired
to leave behind as a legacy to my children, to my students and dto my
compatriots at large an abiding sense of confidence, love and pride
in being Ethiopian.

If this present generation of Ethiopians seeks to redeem Ethiopia
from the claws of those who plot to rend the land andd devour ist
people, there is an urgent need to renew and redefine Ethiopian and
Ethiopianity in a mannner that is commonly acceptable for today and
salutary for tomorrow. Such contemporary redefinition of Ethiopianity
shouldd not reflect an exclusively Amhara image, a Tigrayan image, an
Oromo or any other partial and partisan ethnic, cultural or
confessional image—although there are some who attempt toj do jus
that. It should reflect a genuinely wholesome heteroganous Ethiopian
image taking into account lessons of the past as well as this
generation´s aspirations for its future. We have to redefine Ethiopia
in multicultural and multiethnic amalgam or blend where all its
people benefit from bing part of the whole while retaining the best
of that part whence they hail. We must and we can hoist high the
banner of such Ethiopianty and rededicate ourselves to rebuilding the
whole of Ethiopia that generations of Ethiopians have aspired to,
millions of our compatriots have been and still are suffering.

What Ethiopia and Ethiopianity mean to an Ethiopian may be freshly
appreciated from the following—twenty-point womb-to-tomb---meta-
phoric rendering contributed to the Amharic monthly magayine TOBIA a
few years ago. (translation/adaptation is personal)

Your/my country (Ethiopia) is your/my:-


Everything ....................... to live for
God´s Gift ....................... to Adore
Home............................... to Shelter in
Shleld.............................. to Depend on
Nourishment................... to Feast on
Apothecary...................... to Heal by
Mother............................ to Care for
Kith-n´-Kin.................... to Relate to
Faith Icon...................... to Venerate
Resource......................... to Make Good
Thing of Beauty ............ to Enjoy
Special Grace................ to Value
Unique Asset ................ to Protect
Love Affair.................... to Be Jealous about
Heritage....................... to Be Zealous about
Banner......................... to Hoist high
Sunshine...................... to Bask in
Beacon........................ to Be Guided by
Life Form.................... to Nurture
Everything................... to Die for

The challenge of Ethiopianity today promises to be a tough and
complex uphill struggle but who knows better the meaning of united
patriotic struggle----including ist dimensions of faith, resolve,
courage, sacrifice and perseverance----than the legendary Ethiopian
people! When all is said and done what remins is: Ethiopia is too
good not to be better for all Ethiopians.

(Editors note: The following article was recopied from Dreadlibrary
at http://debate.uvm.edu/dreadlibrary)

Mythical Pasts: Ethiopianism as a Revitalization Movement
By Caitlin O'Neill

Throughout history, identification with Ethiopian heritage has been a
familiar concept to the Jamaicans who have suffered under slavery,
colonialism and social oppression. This concept of "Ethiopianism"
includes the appreciation of Ethiopia's ancient civilization as well
as its profound role in the Bible and world history. It has long been
manifested in Jamaican culture as a means to identify with a
glorious, righteous, and perhaps the earliest of all human
civilization. Anthropologist Anthony F.C. Wallace has focused much of
his research on the phenomena of Revitalization Movements throughout
social history. He has recognized that such movements are
characterized by a uniform process and can be defined as "a
deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to
construct a more satisfying culture" (Wallace 265). Considering the
centuries of severe struggle amongst Jamaican society, from the
inhumane conditions of slavery to modern neocolonialism on the
island, it seems evident as to why the revitalization of the
Ethiopian homeland would be present in the culture and even
accelerated within the Rastafarian Movement. Prominent leaders and
the circumstances of the times have allowed Ethiopianism to flourish
amongst the oppressed masses of Jamaica and gain popular recognition
through the lyrics of reggae music. There is no doubt that this
identification with historical Ethiopia has served as a
Revitalization Movement for Rastafarians within Jamaican culture and
society.

It would be impossible to understand the Rastafarian connection to
Ethiopianism without first exploring at least a brief history of this
ancient civilization. This historical root in a thriving civilization
is especially important to discover as Blacks have unjustifiably been
regarded as "uncivilized" throughout the centuries. I hope that the
following will prove that today, Africans all over the world are
descendents of what was once a very highly developed civilization in
what is now Ethiopia. However, white populations have attempted
throughout history to deny this fact. European scholars of the
nineteenth century claimed that those who occupied the area in
ancient times were not Negroes but Hamites; this attempt was made in
hope of scientifically proving that whites are the origin and basis
of all civilization (Barrett 70). African descendents have suffered
for centuries due to this "de-negrification" of Blacks and those
confusing racial classifications assigned by Whites. The fact that
the Ethiopian civilization was indeed a Black one is strongly
supported with a quick insight into ancient Hebrew language. Cushite,
the term used consistently by the Hebrews to refer to Africans of the
time, derives from the Hebrew word Cush, which can clearly be
translated to the English word "black." When the Old Testament was
translated from Hebrew to Greek, "cush" was changed to "ethiop," the
Greek word for "burnt" or "black" that gave rise to the more recent
name for the land. Furthermore, when the Greek traveler and writer
Herodotus served as an early eyewitness to the Ethiopians in the
fifth century BC, he described both "the natives of the country were
black with the heat" and that "they are black-skinned and have wooly
hair" (Barrett 72). Early accounts such as these hold high proof that
those who made up the ancient Ethiopian civilization were Black
indeed.

It is also evident that this civilization flourished as highly
developed, knowledgeable and successful. The roots of humanity were
planted in this area under the hot African sun and Equator, where
life was most likely to thrive and proliferate at the earliest. It is
here in Ethiopia that archaeologist Donald Johansen encountered the
incredibly intact remains of "Lucy," the earliest hominid remains to
be discovered (Howe 29). It is in this same area in which the
Ethiopian civilization would evolve many thousands of years later.
Many people believe the identification of Ethiopians to be the
originators of the arts, sciences, technologies and political
organizations.

Ethiopians were the instructors of Music, founders of Arts, Science
and Philosophy…The Ethiopians were the architects that laid the plans
and measured the spaces and laid the foundations of the Pyramids of
Egypt…and put the finishing touches on the Sphinx. (Howe 73).

It is difficult to decipher where the Egyptian and Ethiopian
civilizations differentiate historically, but many argue that those
of Ethiopia proceeded all else. "Europeans have conspired to credit
Ethiopian accomplishments to Egypt, entirely ignoring Ethiopia's…
status as the birthplace of all knowledge" (Howe 48). This is quite
consistent with the argument that civilization spread from Ethiopia
to Egypt and thence onward. A Black Church lecturer of the 1920s
professed that Ethiopians were:

…the first people to throw the flashlight of knowledge upon the
shores of Egypt. Egypt handed it to Babylon, Babylon handed it to
Greece, Greece handed it to Rome, and Rome handed it down to the
western world. (Howe 47).

Held strong in the modern movement of Ethiopianism is the idea that
Europe has produced no indigenous culture but has drawn all it knows
from Africa. The accounts of Herodotus describe the many ways in
which the Greeks took from Ethiopian civilization, ranging from the
worshipping and naming of the gods to the division of the seasons and
yearly calendar (Herodotus 8-14). Herodotus additionally noted of the
Ethiopians:

…they existed always, ever since the human race came into being, and
that as their land advanced forwards, many of them were left in their
first abodes and many came down gradually to the lower parts.
(Herodotus 14).

This account is supportive of the theory that all of Africa has
origin in the Meroitic Civilization of the Nile, from which both the
Ethiopians and Egyptians evolved (Barrett 72). However, with the
threat of the close proximity of the Mediterranean Basin, these
civilizations would soon be encroached upon by the conquering armies
from the north. This pattern of imperialism would begin with the
Persians and continue with the Greeks under Alexander, then the
Romans, and finally with the Arabs. Over the centuries, the African
blood would be mixed with these various peoples of the conquering
Eurasian armies (Barrett 72-3). It is during this era of outside
influence when the Black civilization lost power, and thereafter was
to be oppressed by all races. Migration to the south and west created
the spread of African civilization from its origins of the Nile.

It is perhaps the Biblical references to Ethiopia that have
instigated the most momentum in the movement of Ethiopianism within
Rastafarianism. Being the only religious text accessible to Jamaican
slaves and speaking of the origins of Africa as being in Ethiopia and
extremely important in the history of civilization, it is no wonder
that the early African inhabitants of the island took to the glory of
their homeland so strongly. It is those references to the Black race
in the Bible that have created the mythology of the Ethiopianism
movement in parts of Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas. The Old
Testament speaks: "Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall
soon stretch her hands unto God" (Barrett 69). Such a powerful
reference to the homeland has empowered Africans all over the world
to identify with the land of their ancient ancestors. In the Black
tradition today, the word "Ethiopia" has come to represent all of
Africa, including Egypt (Barrett 74). In one word, it encompasses the
origin of all human life today.

It is now possible to see why Ethiopia has taken on an eschatological
dimension in Jamaican society over the centuries. Yet such faith in
the homeland would not have emerged if it were not for the social and
racial struggles that occurred on the island with the subhuman
institutions of slavery and British colonialism. Centuries of
humiliation of the African race have created a concept of Ethiopia as
a "…vision of a golden past…that revitalized the hope of an oppressed
people" (Barrett 75). Indeed, those Africans taken to Jamaica during
the slave trade–beginning in 1655–faced one of the harshest struggles
to survive under the British Empire. Being the richest of all British
colonies, Jamaica contained half the population of the British West
Indies and functioned with almost one thousand sugar growing estates
(Craton 162). Absentee plantation owners were the norm, with
exploitative managers left to control plantation affairs while being
completely uninterested in the slaves as human beings. Although
Blacks outnumbered the British in a ration of ten to one, they were
regarded absolutely as chattel property until 1787 (Craton 169). The
earliest slaves must have experienced an extreme sense of isolation
from both their homeland and families, as it was not until 1788 that
an act was passed forbidding the breakup of families (Craton 169).

Slave plantations were laws unto themselves. Hardly dominated by
official law, owners applied draconian controls against the threat of
violence, the carrying of weapons, the right to assembly, travel
without a pass, running away and the participation in traditional
African practices and customs (Craton 170). The majority of slave
populations would have suffered emotionally and mentally from the
extreme deprivation of their heritage and absolute depersonalization.
Although the Jamaican slave population was derived from hundreds of
separate cultures with unique languages, music, folklore and
spiritual beliefs, they were heaped into a generically African and
homogenous group. They were further acculturated with the
modifications of West Indian, European and Christian influences. It
was a struggle within itself to retain individual cultures within
slave communities. Besides their ignorance of the African background,
British plantation owners deprived slaves of any ounce of dignity by
forbidding the ownership of even the simplest property and
discouraging sexual and familial relations (Craton 173). Although
many Africans could have been quite highly skilled craftsmen, their
individualities were belittled as they were forced to perform
rudimentary work under inhumane treatment.

Additionally, the African slaves suffered physically under the
British. Poor health amongst the populations resulted from a
combination of maltreatment, geographical location and the harshness
of working conditions. Crowded living situations and negligence led
to insufficient and unbalanced diets along with the proliferation of
disease (Craton 176). Birth and fertility rates were extremely low,
and in 1788 the excess of deaths over births was at two percent, with
forty deaths per one thousand slaves (Craton 176). Around the same
time that the African slave trade ceased in 1807, plantation
productivity slowed due to poor management and low economic
productivity. The decline of the industry meant the greater
exploitation and hardship of the slaves (Craton 188). By the time of
Emancipation in1834, the half million slaves brought to Jamaica
had "suffered the most frustrating and oppressive slavery experienced
in a British colony" (Barrett 29). The prominence of slave rebellion
and the "fight and flight" reaction amongst Jamaican slaves are
entirely supportive of this statement.

The basis of social stratification in Jamaica was laid down in the
early institution of slavery. With a lack of British women on the
island, sexual relations between slave masters and African women were
exacerbated. This created a ten-percent population
of "mixed," "creole," "coloured" or "Jamaican Whites" by the time of
Emancipation (Craton 172). This racial stratification derived from
slave society led to the categorization of Jamaica in later years
into three groups: white, brown and black. Here they are represented
in the order of dominance, but the exact reverse of relative
numerical strength (Kuper 48). This concept of "lightening of the
skin" for social reasons has long had a confusing and belittling role
in Jamaican history (Craton 173). Nonetheless, its capacity to
influence social circumstances is unsurpassed by all other
influencing factors on the island. It is understandable why more and
more Jamaicans would aspire to identify as truly African with the
Ethiopianism Movement. The need to do so becomes more clear in a
society where race is the sole determinant of social status, yet
remains variable and ambiguous in criteria for identification.

The state of Jamaican society following Emancipation went largely
unchanged for some time. The attempt to replace slave labor
with "apprentices" was frustrating for Black Jamaicans and fairly
unsuccessful (Kuper 4). For the most part, the radically unbalanced
distribution of wealth continues to prevail to this day. Such
economic and social oppression against Black Jamaicans accounts for
why so many people have turned towards the faith and pride of
Ethiopia.

The derivative for much of the social frustration amongst Jamaicans
is the state of employment on the island. Foreign investors,
multinational corporations, the tourism industry and a small sector
of the population occupy the majority of the land (Kuper 16). The
economy was supposed to have experienced "rapid economic growth" in
the past several decades, yet most money has gone towards the mining
of bauxite by Coca-Cola, tourism and foreign plantations and industry
(Kuper 16). Domestically, the agricultural sector remains very poor,
with an "absolute decline in the viability of peasant holding" (Kuper
22). The alienation of farmland to large corporations and the
industrialization of agriculture have led to a decline in demand for
rural labor, as well. There is no doubt that foreign economic control
is leading to a downfall in the quality of life for the average
Jamaican. Urbanization has been extreme in Jamaica throughout the
twentieth century due to these factors of neocolonialism and foreign
domination. Because the rural areas and small landholdings cannot
support the population growth without a substantial drop in the
standard of living, more and more people are migrating to the cities
with the hope for opportunity. The population of the capitol of
Kingston went from eighteen percent of the national number in 1940 to
twenty seven percent in 1970. It is evident that the numbers in
urbanization have increased proportionately with the growth of
foreign investment (Kuper 9). Although unemployment in the cities is
extremely high, there is at least a little hope for intermittent
employment. Employment tends to be casual and seasonal; and while
twenty percent of the population is unemployed, the amount of
underemployed is just as great (Kuper 27). In this era of post-
colonialism, eighty percent of Jamaican unskilled laborers earn less
than twenty-five dollars a week when they actually do encounter work
(Barrett 12).

The desperate and crowded living conditions of the cities are
substantially unwelcoming for the majority of rural migrants. Along
with the difficulty in finding employment, people face the harshness
of life in self-help housing, or "shantytowns," and criminal
activity. An excerpt from a poem by Rastafarian Sam Brown gives a
personal insight to life in the "Slum Condition:"

Tin-can houses, old and young, meangy dogs, rats, inhuman stench,

Unthinkable conditions that cause the stoutest heart wrench.

Tracks and little lanes like human veins, emaciated people,

Many giving up the ghost, their spirits broken, their gloom deepens.

Precocious boys and girls, yet adults, police, thieves, conglomerates,

Generally disjointed, sexually abandoned masters of their fate…

(Barrett 9).

Jamaica supposedly has a long tradition of self-help housing, in
which residents contribute all or most of the construction input
through self-help methods, that dates back to the slave plantation
(Potter 77). The absolute numbers of those living in the shantytowns
of Kingston are some of the largest in the Caribbean, with low
incomes in society making self-help housing a necessity for many
(Potter 78). The situation has become an anxiety of the government,
demonstrated in April of 1994 when the National Housing Trust in
Jamaica bulldozed a substantial amount of homes in Rosemont, St.
James (Potter 80). Such action supports the widespread fear of
government and police brutality amongst shantytown populations. The
oppressed masses of these areas are dealing with issues of crime on a
daily basis. Though quite frightening, the fact that more and more
people are turning to crime is seen as understandable by many.
Barrett supports this:

The history of Jamaica is one long tale of exploitation by a few rich
families whose privileges were never questioned. But with
independence, Jamaica was thrust into the arena of the underdeveloped
nations with little or no aid from those who benefited from the
island…They were on the island but not of it. (Barrett 13).

Black Jamaicans, those who occupy the majority of the population,
have suffered for centuries through slavery, colonialism and now
neocolonialism. They have been existing in a society where the
minority incessantly demands without the least bit of reciprocation.
Beginning with the inhumane treatment by the British and carried
through the years of racial stratification, extreme misdistribution
of wealth, and a low standard of living, many Jamaicans are now
seeking the revitalization of their unique heritage. Ethiopianism has
served this purpose: through hundreds of years of severe social
stress, Jamaicans look to the glory of their homeland, of Ethiopia or
Africa, in order to restore their faith and dignity as a society, a
culture, and as individuals. While the eschatological aspect of
Ethiopia first appeared in Jamaica during the eighteenth century,
this faith was carried out for centuries until it finally accelerated
with the birth of Rastafarianism. Only the social circumstances of
the times and the extensive oppression of the people would have
allowed the movement to become so widely accepted in Jamaica.

It is impossible to know exactly when and how Ethiopianism became
part of Black Religion in the "New World," but it is evident that
African heritage has always been a priority to the culture. The
actual term was introduced by American Baptist slave preacher George
Liele, who founded the Ethiopian Baptist Church on the island in 1784
(Barrett 76). However, the movement could never have gained such
momentum if it were not for the inspirational voices of its early
leaders. The eschatological dimension of Ethiopia was first publicly
recognized by the Reverend Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912), a West
Indian-born man who attempted to grapple with the fundamental
problems of his race through literature. In his published writings,
he continuously dealt with such questions as "How to dispel the
lingering myth of European peoples of the inferiority of the Negro?"
and "How to ameliorate the condition of African people in the New
World" (Lynch xi)? He was later to publicly recognize that the great
West African civilization, from which the slaves were taken in the
sixteenth century, had originated from what was once the glorious
Ethiopian Civilization (Barrett 76). He wrote, "…thus, Ethiopians
have always served…the world…The Empire of the one is more widespread
than that of any other nation" (Lynch 35). Much of Blyden's work
focused on the destruction caused by what Rastafarians today
entitle "Babylon": European culture, the Christian religion, and most
derivatives of the Roman Empire. His movement against these social
sectors revolutionized thinking for the Black masses throughout the
New World with the claim that Christianity had been the destroyer of
Black dignity (Barrett 76). His claims were made entirely justified
through his literature, which expressed the fact that Africa had
become deservedly distinguished throughout history as having served
and suffered for the comfort of others. "Having been made perfect
through suffering…then we see the position which Africa and the
Africans must ultimately occupy" (Lynch 37). In his attempt to
educate the people of his race of their profound role in history,
E.W. Blyden broke ground in the movement of Ethiopianism. In 1872, he
helped to find The Ethiopian, a monthly journal that was devoted to
the educational matters concerning Africans all over the world (Lynch
xxv). His inspirational voice chartered the course that would later
be taken towards the Ethiopian homeland, the repatriation movement,
and eventually Rastafarianism.

I look forward to the day when black men in this country, roused to a
sense of their duty to Africa, will rush to those shores to bless
that benighted continent. `Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her
hands unto God.' The almighty hath decreed it…Ethiopia, in all her
length and breadth, shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as
the waters cover the sea. (Lynch 20).

The writings of Blyden were to have a deep posthumous impact on
Ethiopianism, most especially on the life of the revolutionary
thinker Marcus Garvey and, henceforth, on the whole of
Rastafarianism. Garvey once spoke of E.W. Blyden as "one of our
historians and chroniclers who has done so much to retrieve the lost
prestige of our race" (Lynch xxxiv). Himself a Jamaican, Garvey was
soon to spread the concept of Ethiopianism throughout the culture
that would eventually give rise to the Rastafarians.

In The Rastafarians, the author expresses that "In Marcus Garvey,
Ethiopianism reached its highest development" (Barrett 79). Indeed,
such a statement is supported by the fact that Garvey was the first
to make popular the historical role of Ethiopia to the Jamaican
culture. Born in St. Ann, Jamaica in 1887, he set out on a future
that would revitalize the hope and dignity of the black race
throughout the Americas (Barrett 65). Raised in a newly Emancipated
society when racial suppression was at its worst, Garvey became eager
early on in making a change in the European domination of political
and social affairs. Several years of travel made clear to him the
similar state of imperialism in much of the Americas. Garvey would go
on to express his ideas through his many publications; his most
successful, the Negro World, came to promote his nationalist ideals
and represent his founding organization: the Universal Negro
Improvement Association (Howe 75). In 1924, Garvey justified his
movement at the Madison Square Garden in New York City:

Our desire is for a place in the world; not to disturb the
tranquility of other men, but to lay down our burden and rest our
weary backs and feet by the banks of the Niger and sing our songs and
chant our hymns to the God of Ethiopia. (Barrett 77)

He professed to his race that African history should be a source of
inspiration and emotional uplift to blacks, coupled with the
systematic derogation of European claims of the past (Howe 76).
Viewing African civilization as anterior to all others, Garvey later
went on to inspire Black God Movements in his insistence
of "worshipping God through the spectacles of Ethiopia" (Barrett 77).
With the powerful work of Marcus Garvey, Ethiopianism developed from
a mere concept to an actual historical movement in which he served
as "The Provisional President of Africa" (Barrett 79). His
repatriation project was officially launched with the Back-to-Africa
Movement and its philosophy: "Africa for the African at home and
abroad" (Barrett 67). This movement was to gain speed in a messianic
aspect when, on the eve of his departure to the United States in
1916, Garvey supposedly said: "Look to Africa for the crowning of a
Black King; He shall be the redeemer" (Barrett 81). The power of such
a statement shall never be underestimated. With the crowning of the
Ethiopian King Haile Salassie, "King of Kings, Lord of Lords,
Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah," in 1930, the prophecies of
both Garvey and the Bible had been fulfilled.

Besides the teachings and prophecies of the movement's early leaders,
the "incubation period" in the Kingston slums that followed the
crowning of Haile Salassie allowed the nurturing of early
Rastafarianism. There were originally four "Garveyites" who took the
crowning seriously and were to become ministers and founders of
separate groups. Those "claiming to have received revelation" that
Salassie was the Messiah were Leonard Howell, Joseph Hibbert,
Archibald Dunkley and Robert Hinds (Barrett 81). Howell's movement
during the years 1930 to 1933 was to have an incredible impact on the
Kingston shantytowns. This took root in his early Pinnacle Commune,
set within the hills of Jamaica with the hope of escaping both
society and the police. Perhaps the most important phase in the
cultivation of Rastafarianism, this era set the stage for the future
in its characteristics of communal living and the use of ganja, along
with the original establishment of the movement's rites and practices
(Barrett 86-7). Following the death of Howell and the collapse of the
Pinnacle, the movement's leaders took to the streets of Kingston's
shantytowns. Pointing out the disgraceful living conditions and the
massive social gap, the hopeful faith of Haile Salassie was eagerly
spread about (Barrett 88). It was here that the concept and actual
term of Babylon was first established; with the recognition of social
disparities and a strong defiance to the white establishment, the
movement grew naturally and rapidly. Innate to the early
characteristics of Rastafarianism was the indentured ideal of the
Ethiopian homeland. The fact that the recently crowned Ethiopian King
was native to their own roots was no coincidence to the Rasta faith.
The hope for salvation and the faith in their African heritage
resonated in such cries as "Repatriation now!" and "Ethiopia! Yes!
England! No! Let my people go!" (Barrett 90). It was during this
period in which the official adoption of Ethiopianism took place.
Although it was an ideology already prominent in Jamaican society–due
to their historical struggle and very inspirational leaders–
Ethiopianism took on a new meaning within Rastafarianism. As
prisoners to a society that had become increasingly insensitive to
the needs of the masses, Rastafarians gave Ethiopianism a new shape
and a revolutionary transformation.

Today, the ideals of Ethiopianism are strongly expressed through the
words of Reggae music. First and foremost to make this movement
popular through his music was Bob Marley. He identifies with the
cultural frustration that gave rise to the movement in the song So
Much Trouble in the World with his lyrics "We the street people
talking, we the people struggling…" Marley expresses the Ethiopian
ideology with such songs as Exodus:

We know where we're going,

We know where we're from,

We're leaving Babylon

We're going to the fatherland…

In Rastaman Chant Bob professes the eschatological aspect of his
Ethiopian homeland with "…fly away home to Zion, fly away home…One
bright morning when my work is over I will fly away home." In the
lyrics of Africa Unite, he attempts to bring together the concept of
Ethiopia and the African heritage to the people of his race
everywhere:

Africa unite

`Cause we're moving right out of Babylon

And we're going to our father's land.

Africa, you're my forefather cornerstone

Unite for the Africans abroad…

With an inspirational voice of poetic persuasion, Bob Marley made
familiar the concept of Ethiopianism to people of all different ages,
races and backgrounds throughout the world. His insistence
that "we've got to fulfill the book" was to have a phenomenal impact
upon Rastafarian movement and the lyrics and music of future Reggae
artists. This is evident with the song African With African Pride by
Buju Banton and the lyrics of Fire Pon Rome by Anthony B:

Fi' Pope Paul an' him scissors an' comb

Black people waan go home

A Mount Zion a di righteous throne.

There is no doubt that Reggae music has had an impressive impact on
the Ethiopianism Movement, and its increasing popularity throughout
the world is allowing the message to bring pride to an oppressed race.

This has substantially been the purpose of the message all along.
There is no denying that the people of Africa and their ancestors
have suffered some of the harshest abuses in the history of the
world. From the earliest contact with White civilizations, the
Africans have struggled against the racial prejudices that would
continue throughout history. Through the force of physical seizure,
these people were removed from their native lands for the mere
service of White civilization, to later exist in a society where the
discrimination and racial manipulation would continue well beyond
Emancipation. For centuries, the numerically minor British population
of Jamaica has gained immensely at the expense of these African
descendents. Such oppressive social and political circumstances,
combined with inspirational leaders, were what gave rise to the faith
of Ethiopianism. It was within this movement that the African pride
was rediscovered and the Rastafarian faith put forth. It is in this
that Barrett recognized the arrival of the movement "at the fullness
of time:"

Jamaica in 1930 was at low tide economically and socially. Socially,
people experienced the brunt of the Depression as well as disaster
due to a devastating hurricane. Politically, colonialism gripped the
country and the future of the masses looked hopeless. Any doctrine
that promised a better hope and a better day was ripe for hearing.
(Barrett 84)

It is entirely evident that the conditions of Jamaica over the past
several centuries have nurtured the growth of Ethiopianism. The human
society of Jamaica–the cultural organism–has become increasing
dissatisfied with its surrounding characteristics. It is here that
that we recognize anthropologist Anthony F.C. Wallace's theory of the
Jamaican effort "to construct a more satisfying culture." There is no
doubt that the presence of Ethiopianism within Jamaican culture has
fulfilled the act of revitalizing and restoring the dignity of the
African race after so many years of suffering.

(Editor Note: This poem was recopied from Sons of Sheba's Race,
by William Scott, 1993 Indiana University Press)


ETHIOPIA,

Lift your night-dark face
Abyssinian
Son of Sheba's race!
Your palm trees tall
And your mountains high
Are shade and shelter
To men who die
For freedom's sake ...
But in the wake of your sacrifice
May all Africa arise
With blazing eyes and night-dark face
In answer to the call of Sheba's race

Ethiopia's free
Be like me
All of Africa,
Arise and be free
All you black peoples
Be Free! Be free!

- Langston Hughes
(Published in Opportuntity in September 1935)

thanks for your comments or Initiatives to enhance faith...

but I don't necessarily agree on what you are trying to address. I am a firm
believer in the Bible and a born again Christian too.
As a matter of fact, this morning in the class we were discussing about the
second coming of Jesus Christ. I shared the stuff you mentioned about Billadin.
I am afraid to say you guys are off the line. Be on guard. I know a borne again
Christian will not be confused by your agitation.
If the group is standing for the rights of the Christian and above all the "name
of Jesus", search your bible first and then allow the Holy Spirit to speak to
you. don't confuse the Christians please.