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The Sights & Sounds of International Education Week @ CCBC

November 22, 2012, 6:31 am
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Proud to be one of the Committee members who organized most of the International Education Week events last week in all 3 campuses of CCBC. Here are some of the photos and videos taken of the displays, presentations and performances during the week. Photos and video recordings are by my colleague Joe Maguire II.






Lecture on Polish costumes & dance, followed by Dance performances by Orczyna Polish Dancers









Italian Pizaeli making demo by members of Rev. Orieste Padola Adult Learning Center 






Ukrainian Cultural display and demonstration of Easter Egg (Pysanky) decoration





Lecture on discovery of Cofffee & demonstration of Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony 



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The Fascinating Story of Endod

December 8, 2012, 5:19 pm
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Blogger's Note: This is a reprint of an article written by Dr. Fekadu Fullas and was published on Ethiopian website called Media Ethiopia. Unfortunately, Media Ethiopia is no longer accessible on the web. Since this fascinating story should be known  I am reposting it here. 
 
The Fascinating Story of Endod: The Trials, Tribulations and Successes

By Fekadu Fullas

 
 
 
 
 
Background

Perhaps, no other single African medicinal plant has brought to the limelight the trials, tribulations and successes of a so-called Third World research to such an extent as has endod, which is also known in Ethiopia by the vernacular name sebeti. The name endod is closely tied to the late eminent Ethiopian scientist Dr. Aklilu Lemma. Before getting into the story of the discovery and development of endod as a molluscicidal plant, it is pertinent to shed some light on the plant itself, and its other multiple medicinal attributes.

Endod (scientific name: Phytolacca dodecandra) is mostly a shrubby plant which rises from a woody base. The stems of this scrambling plant can reach up to nine meters in length. The plant is widely distributed in tropical Africa and Madagascar. It is native to East Africa. It has also been introduced into Asia and tropical America. In Ethiopia, it is commonly found at altitudes of 1,500 to 3,000 meters above sea level, almost in every region of Ethiopia. Endod grows in evergreen bush habitats, near forest edges, disturbed places and habitations.

P. dodecandra has been used in traditional medicine in East Africa for a variety of complaints. For example, the roots are used in small amounts as a purgative, taeniafuge and cathartic. However, high intake of endod has been associated with a number of adverse reactions, including fatal toxicity. Endod has also been used in birth control. The leaves and roots are poisonous. Sheep and cattle have died from eating the leaves during drought. The juice can be used to kill mosquito larvae. In Ethiopia, the powder, made from the debarked roots, is suspended in water and drunk for the treatment of syphilis and rheumatic fever. The powder, obtained from the leaves, is mixed with chicken fat and applied topically to the skin to treat vitiligo (Amharic name: lemts), while a decoction of the root powder is cooled and drunk as an abortifacient to expel mummified fetus. All the foregoing medicinal claims, and many more, have not been definitively confirmed by scientific studies. This is not tantamount to saying that the traditional claims are untrue. However, considering the toxicity of the roots and leaves, caution should be exercised in promoting their medicinal use. The golden rule here is, as in every other case of traditional medicinal plant use, "verify and standardize" ; verify to confirm claims, and standardize to avoid toxicity. The main thrust of this article is, however, to highlight the tortuous research path that endod berries took before the plant attained international prominence as a potential natural molluscicide.

From Natural Soap to Molluscicide

The African soapberry plant endod has been dubbed as "Africanwonder weed," and "poor man's medicine," for very good reasons in relation to its place in the control of schistosomiasis. The chemistry, biology and cultivation of endod have been the subjects of over 100 publications. The late Dr Aklilu Lemma and his colleagues alone have published about 60 scientific papers on various aspects of endod.
 
The stage of the story of endod was set way back in 1964 in the northern Ethiopian town of Adwa. The then-young Aklilu Lemma, just back after acquiring a D. Sc. degree from Johns Hopkins University (Maryland, United States), was conducting a study on the distribution of snails, which were known to be the intermediate carrier vectors in the transmission of schistosomiasis (bilharzia). He made a remarkable observation along a stream where the local women were washing clothes using suds prepared from the powder of endod berries. He noticed that immediately downstream from where the women were washing clothes, there were more dead snails than upstream or further downstream. Suspecting there might be some correlation between the endod and the dead snails, he asked one of the women to pour endod berry suds into a container wherein he had collected live snails from the vicinity. Alas, the snails shrunk, emitted a few bubbles of gas and expired. This landmark observation was the beginning of an up-and-down, intensive and life-long research that spanned decades.
To recap about the disease itself, schistosomiasis is a debilitating disease that afflicts about 300 million people in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It affects principally the liver and bladder. Worldwide, 200, 000 deaths annually are attributed to schistosomiasis. The parasite gains access to the human body through the intact skin, and is carried in the blood stream to infect the liver, spleen, nervous system, intestine and bladder. The eggs are dislodged from the body in the excreta, and carried away in river streams until they reach the host snail. Upon further maturation, they are released from the snail to infect humans, thus completing their life cycle. There is no one single magic bullet which would rid humans of the disease. It rather takes a multi-pronged approach, including prevention, treatment and good hygienic measures to contain the disease. Preventative approach, when coupled with other measures, is the most effective method for a number of reasons, especially in countries such as Ethiopia where treatment alone, or the importation of chemical pesticides is very cost-prohibitive. On the other hand, using an abundantly growing endod that nature provides, can be a cheap and safe method to arrest the spread of the disease. The berry extract in water is also known to biodegrade easily in two days. It is against this background that the search for natural ways of combating schistosomiasis, and the focus on endod took currency.

After his initial observation in Adwa, Dr. Aklilu went back to Addis Ababa, and established the Institute of Pathobiology at Addis Ababa University to coordinate his research more efficiently. Later, Dr. Legesse Wolde Yohannes joined him, thus starting an enduring collaboration which continued for many years to come. In early field trials, it was shown that a controlled application of endod berry extract to selected streams decreased the transmission of schsitosomiasis from 63% to 33% in the overall local population, and the infection rate among children dropped from 50% to 7% over a five-year period.
Of over 1,000 plant species worldwide that were known to exhibit molluscicidal activity, endod was found to be the most promising and extensively studied plant. It satisfied the criteria of being non-toxic (or slightly toxic), highly potent, water soluble, and originating from a regenerating part of the plant. These were ideal criteria that other plants failed to meet. In the devastating droughts of 1973/74 and 1984/85, however, many endod plants were chopped down or simply dried out. In order to curb the possibility of extinction and genetic erosion, about 500 samples of endod were collected. A specific strain, named Type E-44, was found to provide the best berry yield, the highest saponin (active constituents) content, in addition to its fast growth, and being most resistant to pests.

Trials and Tribulations

The research on endod was not a smooth sailing exercise. It had its own ups and downs. It is generally maintained that science knows no boundaries, so that humankind can benefit from the results it generates. In scientific circles, there exists a big buzz word known as "collaboration." It takes place, and rightly so, between individual researchers, research groups and organizations within a country, or overseas. The idea is that in most cases a single group is not self-sufficient in all aspects of research. Hence, at different levels and in various areas of a given research effort, investigators enlist the assistance of collaborators to carry out a coordinated study. Unfortunately, due to uneven development of science and technology in different parts of the world, this collaboration has taken different meanings. In developing countries (so-called the South) research capability is at its infancy. Therefore, in order to hasten the pace of their research, investigators in this part of the world are compelled to seek the collaboration of their counterparts in the North (the technologically-advanced West). On many an occasion, nonetheless, they have been relegated to a status of sample providers, especially in medicinal plant research. Improvements have been made, albeit unsatisfactorily, regarding the benefits accruable to the custodians (indigenous population and researchers) of local materials and indigenous knowledge. The broader issue of benefit reciprocity and Intellectual Property (IP) rights will be the subject of another article in the future. Here, mention of collaboration is made for the sole purpose of putting the story of endod in some context.

The early players in the interesting saga of endod were researchers from the Tropical Plant Products Institute in the United Kingdom, who happened to show interest in endod and offered to collaborate. Accordingly, they were provided with a sackful of endod berry samples to carry out their study. But whatever their results were, they did not want to reveal them to their counterpart, Dr. Aklilu. They even went to the extent of wanting to patent their findings. It took official diplomatic efforts on the part of Dr. Aklilu to stop the patenting attempt by the UK group. What followed was, no wonder, that the British researchers started downplaying the potential of endod in its possible application for the control of schistosomiasis.
Early on, the Institute of Pathobilogy sought funding from the World Health Organization (WHO) for expanded agricultural production, large-scale field application, and evaluation of endod in Ethiopia. However, despite the fact that in earlier studies endod berries were shown be non-toxic, and that they have been used for centuries as a natural laundry soap, WHO declined to offer financial assistance on the grounds that the studies were not done in reputable laboratories. The implicit assumption here was that no good science comes out of Third World countries.
In 1990, the University of Toledo (Ohio, USA) awarded Dr. Aklilu an honorary doctorate degree for his pioneering work on endod. During the ceremony, he delivered a lecture on the history and discovery of endod. At the time, it happened that zebra mussels (a type of snails) were quite a nuisance in the Great Lakes of North America. The snails clogged water pipes, thus restricting water flows. Millions of dollars were expended to declog these pipes. The Toledo scientists were wondering whether endod might be of any use for this problem. Dr. Aklilu quickly demonstrated that endod was indeed lethal to zebra mussels, too. Later, more studies were conducted by the University of Toledo with the collaboration of Dr. Aklilu. However, as more promising results were forthcoming, the University of Toledo group wanted to patent their results. Bitter controversy ensued on who the beneficiaries of the patent ought to be.The issue was never settled to the satisfaction of the stakeholders.

Successes

The research on endod had its own high points. After the initial unwillingness to fund the research on endod on the part of foreign institutions, Dr. Aklilu sought other avenues. Interest in endod research was ignited after regional conferences in Africa and elsewhere were held. In the meantime, the chemistry of endod was studied at the Stanford Research Institute in California. Thus, a series of saponins were isolated. The most potent molluscicidal saponins were lemmatoxin and lemmatoxin-C. These compounds were determined to be molluscicidal at 1.5 to 3 parts per million (ppm) concentration. It is also interesting to note that the molluscicidal saponins were shown to be spermicidal, with a potency that is comparable to that of the commercial spermicide Nonoxynol-9. When applied as a slurry of powder in water, endod berries killed the schistosomiasis-transmitting snail at a concentration as low as 20 ppm, a potency which persevered over a wide range of pH values (acidity/alkalinity levels), temperatures, as well as under ultra-violet irradiation in various concentrations of the river-bed mud.
As postulated and proven by Dr. Aklilu even before the reluctance of the WHO to fund further projects, the International Development Research Center (IDRC) in Canada later published a finding that endod berries were indeed non-toxic to humans. In 1989, Dr Aklilu and his colleague Dr. Legesse were awarded the Right Livelihood Award (considered "the alternate Nobel Prize") in recognition of their discovery of the molluscicidal property of endod, and for devising community-based method of controlling schistosomiasis.

As schistosomiasis affects many tropical countries, interest in endod took international dimensions. Endod Research Groups and Networks (for example, Endod Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries {TCDC} Network) were formed. In Ethiopia, an Endod Foundation was established as a repository of information, and as a point of boosting further research.

Conclusion

Endod has a unique place in the control of the transmission of the devastating schistosomiasis affliction. Mollusciciding certain foci with endod, coupled with other appropriate measures, is a potentially important and key component of the strategy in the overall control of the spread of the disease. Now that the best strain is known and cultivable, and that the chemistry and biology of endod are well established, local technology of extraction should be initiated and expanded to achieve optimal yield of active components with the eventual objective of direct application in the field.

If there is any lesson that the fascinating story of endod imparts, it is the fact that good science indeed comes out of Third World countries. Scientists in this part of the world do work against all odds in an environment where local technology is not well developed (for example, lack of adequate laboratory facilities and skilled manpower) and in the face of unfounded outside biases, should they decide to seek external cooperation. The solution, of course, should be to strive for self-reliance and strengthening of regional collaboration with like-minded investigators. In fact, it is fair to conclude that endod has met most of the challenges so far, although more remains to be done, and the long journey that was begun in 1964 appears to be not yet complete.
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Happy Birthday Emahoy!

December 13, 2012, 1:15 pm
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Blogger's Note: On this day December 13, 1923 (Tahsas 4, 1916 Ethiopian Calendar) Yewubdar Gebru who later became Emahoy (Mother) Tsigemariam was born in Addis Ababa. To honor the birthday of the beloved Emahoy, I am posting the biographical sketch we have included in Tahsas page of Ethiopian calendar with Biographies 2010 edition. I am also posting a link to a fantastic interview Alula Kebede of VOA Amharic program had with Emahoy and Wzo. Martha Nasibou couple of years ago. Wishing Emahoy a blessed birthday and many more happy & healthy years! 



Emahoy Tsige-Mariam Gebru (1916/‘23 —)
Emahoy(Mother) Tsigemariam was born as Yewubdar Gebruin Addis Ababa to a privileged family. Her father Kentiba (Mayor) Gebru and her mother Kassaye Yelemtu both had a place in high society. At the age of six, Yewubdar along withher sister Senedu Gebru was sent for education to Switzerland,
a country where their father had studied. Both attended a girls‘ boarding school where Yewubdar studied the violin and the piano. She gave her first violin recital at the age of ten. She returned to Ethiopia in 1933 to continue her studies at the Empress Menen Secondary School.
When Fascist Italia invaded Ethiopia, several members of Gebru family went underground to join the resistance against the fascist occupiers. In 1937 members of the Gebru family and young Yewubdar were taken prisoners of war by the Italians and deported to the island of Asinara, north of Sardinia, and later to Mercogliano, near Naples. 
After the war, Yewubdar resumed her musical studies in Cairo, under a Polish violinist named Alexander Kontorowicz. Suffering from the stifling heat of the Egyptian capital, Yewubdar returned to Ethiopia in 1944 accompanied by Kontorowicz.
She served as administrative assistant in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later in the Imperial Body Guard where Kontorowicz was appointed by Emperor Haile Selassie as music director of the band.
In September 1948, young Yewubdar left Addis Abeba to enter the Guishen Mariam monastery in Wello Province where she had once before visited with her mother. She served two years in the monastery and was ordained a nun in her 20s. She took on the title Emahoy and her name waschanged to Tsege-Mariam.
Despite the difficult life in religious order and the limited appreciation for her music in traditional Ethiopian culture, Emahoy worked fervently day and night. Often she played up to nine hours a day and went on to write many compositions for violin, piano and organ concerto.
In the early 1960s, Emahoy lived in Gondar studying the religious music of St. Yared, composer and father of Mahlet, the early Ethiopian religious music. On her daily trips to and from the church, she saw young students in Liturgy known as "Ye-Qolo Temari" sleeping outdoor by the church gate. She soon found out that these students are from faraway places without any means of lodging and had to beg for food from nearby residents in order to pursue their studies at the church. Emahoy was deeply moved by the sacrifices these young people made to study at the church. She did not have money to give these students, but she became determined to use her music to help these and other young people to get education. Hence, the Qolotemaris became the beneficiaries of the sale of her first record which was released in Germany in 1967 with the help of Emperor Haile Selassie. Other recordings followed with
the help of her sister Desta Gebru and the proceeds were used to help an orphanage for children of soldiers who died fighting in the war front.
Emahoy left Ethiopia following her mother's death in 1984 and went to serve the Ethiopian Monastery in Jerusalem, Israel. Emahoy is now 86 years old and she plays the piano at the monastery nearby, she continues to write new solo piano compositions. Emahoy has been recognized by many music critics around the world and there is a growing interest in her life and her music by international media including Le Monde, BBC, and Canada TV.
Sources: This biographical sketch is compiled from the following sources:
http://www.emahoymusicfoundation.org (accessed Aug. 12, 2009)
http://ethiopiques.info/guide/ethiopiquest-bio/ (accessed Aug. 28, 2009)

Listen to fascinating VOA Amharic Program interview of Emahoy about her life & works here


Playlist of Emahoy's solo piano compositions 

 

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Ye-Samintu Irswom Yimokrut - Know thy heritage trivia quiz

December 21, 2012, 10:49 pm
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Blogger's note:
This week's trivia quiz focus on how well you know Ethiopian musical tradition. From liturgical compositions created in the 6th century to pop sensations of the 1960s & 70s (The Golden era of Ethiopian Music) and beyond to the modern era. One can find answers to these trivia questions are to be found in our publication Ethiopian Calendar with  biographies 2003 & 2004 E.C. editions.


1. He popularized Oromifa songs in the 1960s & 70s with his band and songs like Si Si Jama Kiya. Can you name the artist?

2. This song sang/performed by the most popular Tilahun Gessesse landed the star vocalist Tilahun & the writer of the lyrics in jail. What was the name of the song & who wrote the lyrics?

3. Composed & sang Ilim ale Baburu Wetat yizo bemulu while riding a train on his way to Djibouti and then to Korea as part of Imperial Ethiopian Army units who were deployed to serve as United Nations Peacekeepers. Name this folk music hero.

4. The 6th century composer Qidus (St.) Yared invented indigenous liturgical chant with notation called Zema and sacred dance called Aquaquam. His works were compiled in 5 volumes with distinct titles. Name some of the titles or the three hymnal modes of Zema.

5. Finally, the following popular tunes from the golden era of Ethiopian music have one thing in common. Enjoy the music and try to find the common element in them.



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PARALLELS IN TIMES

January 3, 2013, 3:48 pm
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Blogger's Note:The following piece is a reflection on current events in the United States and draws parallel to events in Ethiopia around the final years of the Imperial administration citing in both instances the insensitivity of politicians to the suffering of their fellow citizens. The piece is written by Ambassador Imru Zelleke and is posted here with his kind permission. Ambassador Imru has served at various diplomatic posts under Haile Selassie's government. He was the first Ethiopian Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to the German Federal Republic and opening the first Ethiopian Embassy to the German Federal Republic in 1954.He also served as Ethiopia's Ambassador to France in later years. Since retirement he has been living in the United States for many decades now.
PARALLELS IN TIMES
[By] Ambassador Imru Zelleke.
January 2013.
Watching TV last night I saw the Governor of New Jersey (R) and politicians of New York protesting vehemently over the delay to provide disaster relief for the victims of the storm that occurred two months ago. The Republican dominated House, busy haggling over the fiscal cliff, had forgotten or delayed voting for the appropriation. Eventually it did so at the last minute by voting for a small portion of it, leaving the matter for future bickering. Thousands of people are homeless and with no power, no water and without help in this bitter winter. In fact a few days after the storm the matter was set aside, the media had stopped talking about it. The game of outguessing each other by pundits and alike about who would jump over the cliff was in vogue, while human suffering was not forgotten but neglected.

This reminded me of the famine that occurred in Ethiopia forty years ago. The foreign press went wild about it, a gamut of artists, entertainers, organizations were mobilized, and songs were written for it. In the domestic scene the Emperor and his government were blamed and accused for it. Like the present “cliff” in the US, the government was suffering from an internal crisis of enfeebled leadership. There was sufficient food and resources in the country to meet the crisis and quell the famine. Unfortunately, the government had become dysfunctional and subject to intrigues and power struggle amongst individuals and groups. The famine added to the general public dissatisfaction became a catalyst for the revolution; that ended up with most violent loss of life and breakup of the nation’s spirit that has lasted to present days. The parallel comes when considering the conditions and times that such crisis happens. On one side we have a poor and backward country Ethiopia that could not handle a famine, although it had the means to do so, because of politics. On the other hand forty years later we have the most powerful, the richest and most advanced nation in the world failing to help its own citizens, because of politics. However disproportionate the comparison, the common denominator being the failure of politics and of human society. Happy New Year.
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Come for the monuments, stay for the injera!

January 19, 2013, 5:26 pm
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"..come for the monuments, stay for the injera!."

I borrowed this expression from a Washington D.C. native currently living in Paris who commented on recent New York Times op-ed article written by Dinaw Mengistu.  Dinaw's essay about Washington, D.C. drawing some parallels with Paris is an interesting piece which generated passionate discussion among many readers.  Even though Dinaw grew up in Chicago area, he knew Washington, D.C. where his Ethiopian relatives lived from visits of the city in his early youth and later by studying in the D.C. area colleges.  With a keen eye of a writer, he observed how his Ethiopian relatives and other immigrants struggled to survive & thrive in the city and wrote a novel about a Washington, D.C. neighborhood in transformation reflecting the intricate relationship between the new & old residents of the city.
As many people know by now his debut novel entitled "The Beautiful things the Heaven Bears" was a huge success for the young writer which earned him the National Book Award/Guardian's First Book Award and a good pay check from a publisher that sold millions of copies.  I met the young author and the agent from his publisher during one of the book tours the publisher arranged at various cities. The book event in D.C. at Politics & Prose bookstore was very successful in terms of turnout and in the way the book was received by those who have read it.  I actually helped the bookstore in promoting the event among Ethiopians and, I was delighted to see that a decent number of Ethiopians turned out for the book signing and talk event.

I was later informed that the publisher sent him to Paris, France with advance pay so that he could be away to focus in producing his second novel. After living in Paris for a couple of years, he has come back to U.S. to make another book tour for his second book. And this time, when I saw him again in one of his book tours along side his agent was his French wife and their new born baby.  Interestingly, in just a couple of years Dinaw now speaks in French fluently.
Since Dinaw won the MacArthur fellowship, he and his family have moved to the U.S. and as he has written in the New York Times essay they now live in Washington, D.C.

A recent visit by his in-laws from France and the role he played as a native guide to show Washington D.C. prompted him to write the essay.  In his conversation with his in-laws and in the essay Dinaw made an innocent attempt to compare the two capital cities he has come to love. Of course for most Parisiens and the French, comparing their "jewel" city to any city let alone Washington is an 'inexcusable' sin.  Among readers who have reacted to the essay some wrote taking spirited adversarial position. Others agreed with Dinaw seeing similar grandeurs in both Paris and Washington, D.C. especially, in the structures (buildings, monuments, the wide boulevard type avenues and parks) in downtown built from a plan designed by the French Engineer Pierre L'Enfant.  Some others made a point that what make cities beautiful are not the buildings, the monuments, the boulevards ... etc. but its inhabitants ... how vibrant life kicks in full vigor - even late at night citing cities like New York or London even Kuala Lumpur.  I get their point.  I was blessed or fortunate to have seen some of the cities the commentators have written about.  For the record, I have not been to Kuala Lumpur or Tokyo and have not experienced the vibrancy of these cities.  But I recall the chaotic sensation of life-experience in Bombay, nonetheless a city and it's residents - full of vigor which I believe is typical of most of the major Asian cities.  Likewise, I love the big cities of Europe & North America too.  Whenever I visit New York, London, Toronto, Montreal or Paris I come back with such a good feeling that I can't wait to go back there again.  Even though I have always wanted to visit some of these cities more often, it was only to New York & Montreal that I have been able to go back and visit a number of times, primarily for reasons related to family members living there.

On the main issue of Paris-Washington, D.C. comparison Dinaw's essay in New York Times has raised, let me throw a 'unique' perspective of my own and as one-time member of "the Ethiopians in DC". First a disclosure: Like Dinaw, I was also born in Ethiopia. Dinaw left Ethiopia as a child.  I left Ethiopia when I was in my mid-twenties after college and after being a wage earner for some time.  I also lived in Washington D.C. not far from Logan Circle and experienced the life of Dinaw's characters from his book ("The Beautiful things the Heaven Bears").  Even though I did not live in Paris, I have lived in French speaking Geneva and have made several trips to Paris.  My perspective on Paris is from a tourist view-point while in contrast, I viewed Washington, D.C. then as my 'hometown', where I lived and worked; hence lacked that visitor perspective. The only two European cities I knew before I visited Paris were Rome with its relics from the past and Geneva with its clean streets and spectacular landscape surrounding it.  Compared with those two cities, Paris was breath-taking. I was awed by the amazing architecture of its buildings, its wide boulevards, the vibrancy of the city, especially around its train stations and major squares etc... I must say however, I did not find the Parisiens to be particularly welcoming.  As may be the case with most other major cities' residents, the Parisiens  appeared to be always in a rush and did not seem to care or did not have the time for someone they do not know.  I remember a worker at one of the retails shops in Gare-du-Nord scolding a mother of a child for not keeping the child from touching the wrapped bon-bons (candies).

When I visited Paris for the second time I stayed in some run-down looking hotel by Place de-Bastille and for some reasons, Paris's beauty faded on me and that night I wrote the poem you see below in Amharic (my native language).  I was surmising whether Paris has changed or it was me who has changed, or the specs I had were taken from me?  My third visit was after living for about ten years in North America and this time, I had my girlfriend with me for company.  During our three or four days stay in that city, we literally savored its beauty by visiting the landmarks and the city's neighborhoods more than ever; by walking aimlessly at its grand boulevards and by experiencing some local hangouts and restaurants.
In dissimilar ways, the trajectory from which I see Washington, D.C. is different as I first came to the city not as a visiting tourist awed by the city's monuments, public parks, and ... etc., but as someone who had chosen the city to be the new 'hometown'.  I came to D.C. to start my new American life afresh as many Ethiopians or immigrants who had come to the city before or after me did so.

In a typical manner, the newly arriving immigrants as well as a large segment of DC's long time native residents view their city through the prism of their neighborhoods, and view the historic parts of the city as places of work or ignore it as something to be enjoyed only by tourists. Some mindful city residents take time from their daily routines and visit parts if not all the historical landmarks on their own, or some others may do so when they give company to relatives or friends from other states/countries visiting them. But one can find a significant number of residents in D.C not ever making the tour of the monuments, the historical landmarks and/or taking advantage of the unique opportunity the city offers - the possibility of making tours of World-class museums of the Smithsonian Institution for free.

When most Ethiopians, or for that matter Hondureńos, Salvadoreńos, and other immigrants talk about their experience of the city, more often than not, the references involve certain distinct portions of the city.  Most of us lack the broader view of the city, as our life is confined to only certain parts of the city where we work and live. For Ethiopians, that is mostly in the North West part and to some extent in the North East, trekking rarely to the South East & the West part.  Large parts of the the South East or the South West D.C, even some parts of the North East are unknown to most of us.  Even those engaged in Cab driving business say that they rarely venture to the South East or even Benning St. in NE.

As I said earlier, I worked in Washington and lived in one of its vibrant neighborhoods. I actually moved from Suburban Maryland to Columbia Heights-Adams Morgan-Mount Pleasant area when flights from the city neighborhoods to the suburbs were the norm.  I was told that I must have been out of my mind to move to D.C. while the city had notorious reputation for being the murder capital of the nation.  After the city-life experience of Geneva where most of the things I needed for day-to-day living were available within a certain radius, I had a lot of difficulty getting used to the life experience of suburbia in College Park, Maryland.  My shopping experience for the most part, was confined to 7-11 and other convenience type stores. There were only very limited choice of eating establishments in my surrounding and most others were not accessible for someone like me, who did not drive.  Even though it was inconvenient to wait and take the Metro train or the Bus and then the Campus shuttle to go to  my classes, I was happy with my choice of moving to DC.  That choice was also contrary to the choices lots of other Ethiopians living in the city then were making.  Even though D.C. was and still is home to lots of Ethiopians then and now, most regarded the city as a starting point when they arrive first in the U.S - more like a spring board ...  Most would move on to the suburbs once they 're able to afford to buy cars or once they felt secure enough to move to other states.

Well, all of this was before the time Washington D.C.'s fortunes were transformed with its real-estate boom.  Unfortunately, some of us have fallen victim of the gentrification that followed the real estate boom which Dinaw has described in his book. The Ethiopians, the Salvadoreńos, Guatemaleńos, Hondureńos and native residents of DC who refused to move to the suburbs, having weathered through the difficult times of thick and thin happen to be the significant role players in the revitalization and re-development of these formerly economically depressed DC neighborhoods door by door, business establishment by business establishment.  It is time the DC tourism promotion officials recognized the contribution of these new comers in creating the vibrant neighborhoods we see today.  It sure is high-time to embrace the motto: Come for the monuments, stay for the injera
or the pupusa!


http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/monument-to-a-city/


ፓሪስ

ፓሪስ ምነው እንደ መጀመሪያው አልሆንሽብኝ
የመጣሁበትን መንደሬን የምታስታውሽኝ
የሶስተኛ አለም ኑሮዬን፤
'ጌቶ'ዬን ተክልዬን የመሰልሽብኝ።

አለም ሁሉ የሚያወድስሽ
የከተሞች ቁንጮ እንዳልነበርሽ
ምነው እንዲህ የጠወለግሽ
እኮ ምን ገባያ ውበትሽ።

እንዲህ መዓዛሽመክሰሙ
በዐይኔ ላይ መጨለሙ።

ወይስ እኔው ነኝ የተለወጥኩ
ውበት የማይበትን፤
መነጥሬን የተነጥቅኩ።
ጥበብ የማደንቅበትን፤
ጸጋን የተነፈግኩ።

ደግሞም ያንቺን ነዋሪዎች
ነገር ተመለከትኩ
ተኔዎቹ መንደረተኞች
ጋር አስተዛዘብኩ።
ጥድፈታቸው፤
ክል ክል እያሉ መራወጣቸው
እንኳን ለኔው ቢጤ፤
የሰው አገር ሰው አዲስ መጤ
ለራሳቸው ጊዜ የማይበቃቸው።
"ሜትሮ ቡሎ ዶዶ" ነው
አሉኝ ኑሯቸው።

ታዲያ እንዴት ይፈረድባቸው
ቦታ ስጠይቃቸው
የለም አናውቀውም ቢሉ
እንደ ጎብኚዎችሽ ሁሉ
ውበትሽን ባያስተውሉ
በእጅ የያዙት ወርቅ 
እንደ መዳብ ይቆጠራል 
አይደል የኛዎቹ ኣበው የሚሉ፥፥


ፓሪስ 1993

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Words of Dr martin Luther King jr to reflect on

January 21, 2013, 10:47 pm
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Today, on Martin Luther King Jr.'s day, as members of the larger black race it is good to remember that the privilege we are enjoying today in this country are paid by our African American brothers & sisters who suffered humiliations, beatings, imprisonment & worse racially motivated bombings & killings. It is the struggle and sacrifice of those who stood up against injustice that gave us the chance to live with dignity & relative prosperity in our new home called America.  Blessed are those who lived beyond themselves and paved the way for the following generations to live in dignity ".. because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake." in the words of Dr. King.  

As we celebrate the life & works of this noble man, it would be nice to reflect on his words: 
"An individual has not started living until he can RISE above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
- Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

"Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality."

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige and even his life for the welfare of others."
- Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength in Love

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."

"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."

My fellow Ethiopians in America, are we living 'above the confines of our individualistic' pursuits of pleasure to ourselves & to our immediate family members? How many of us chose to be silent in the face of injustice?
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Revival of Ethiopian Golden Era Songs - The Case of Seifu Yohannes

January 27, 2013, 9:26 am
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You may have heard "Yekermo Sew" one of the 3 instrumental sound tracks by Mulatu Astatqe featured in Jim Jarmusch's 2006 movie "Broken Flower".
Of course for many Ethiopians of my generation this & other Mulatu's instrumentals like "Meche Dershe" are familiar tunes that we grew up listening to in the 1970s & '80s. What seems to be forgotten by many Ethiopians however is that some of thesesongs - before they became instrumentals were performed by a one time rising star vocalist by the name of Seifu Yohannes who passed away much too early at only 26 years old.  He was one of the finest upcoming stars of the decade that is known as the Golden Era of Ethiopian popular music.  Seifu Yohannes had an impeccable brief musical career that has left an indelible mark on the musical landscape of Ethiopia.

What is known as the Golden Era in Ethiopian music: from mid 1960s to early 1970s was dominated by Ethiopian Government/Military backed large brass bands such as the Imperial Palace Guard Orchestra or Police Band or The Army Band. During this period, talented artists, lyricists & songwriters (trust me - there is a difference between the two), music composers & arrangers gathered around these bands were churning out well crafted songs one after the other.  These songs were being transmitted through the one & only radio station the country had, captivating the hearts & minds of Ethiopians all over the nation.

There were other less known non-military musical bands which were formed around the major hotels & night clubs of Addis Ababa & Asmara. Seifu Yohannes started his brief musical career as a vocalist in such bands. First as member of the 'Ras Band' and later as member of the first independent non-institutional band: 'The Soul Ekos' managed by Amha Eshete, the founder of the first independent label Amha Records.  In his short musical career, Seifu recorded hits such as Tizita (ትዝታ); Birtukan Terengo Mesay (ብርቱካን ትርንጞ መሳይ);Qonjitye (ቆንጂትዬ); Hanna (ሃና); Melewetesh Minew (መለወጥሽ ምነው); Yekermo Sew(የከርሞ ሰው);>Meche Dereshe (መች ደርሼ) andEbo La (ኤቦ ላ ላ).  Six of these hits were produced by Amha Records.  It seems some of the songs were written by him and others by his friends: talented song writers & fellow band members such as Girma Beyene and Teshome Mitiku. Among those produced by Amha Records "Yekermo Sew" and "Meche Dereshe" were works of collaboration between Mulatu Astatqe who composed & arranged the music and Soul Ekos Band whose lead vocalist at the time was Seifu Yohannes.  After the premature death of Seifu, Mulatu later recorded instrumental versions of these songs alongside other popular tunes.  For various reasons, the instrumental versions stuck in people's minds and forgotten were the original recordings of those songs.  Many Ethiopians remember Seifu for one of the best renditions of Tizita (nostalgic longing - the best expression of Ethiopian Blues). Lately, the piece originally popularized by Seifu has become one of the favorites among Ethio-jazz bands & revivalists of the golden era Ethiopian music, such as the French group - Badume Band.  Here are some YouTube links to the popular or revived versions along side the originals by Seifu Yohannes.
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A Day of Remembrance & Protest Worldwide- Affile, Italia e Vatican - Noi non dimentichiamo (We don't forget)

February 18, 2013, 6:16 pm
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Blogger's Note: Every year on February 19th Ethiopians in homeland as well as those in diaspora will commemorate the day by remembering those 30,000 plus Ethiopians massacred days after an assassination attempt made on the life of Italian Fascist General Rodolfo Graziani failed in 1937. This year, Ethiopians in the diaspora as well as Anti-Fascists all over the world will also march in demonstration against the recent unveiling of a statue & mausoleum in Affile, Italy for the convicted war criminal Graziani who is also known as "The Butcher of Libya & Ethiopi" in particular, and the resurgence of Fascism in Italy in general as well as to demand the Vatican to apologize to Ethiopian people for its complicity during Italo-Ethiopian war & in the recent unveiling of Graziani's statue. I am reposting here an article by Dr. Mikael Wosen whose grandfather was one of those beheaded by fascist Italian forces that makes the case why the remembrance and the protest is necessary. To read the press release by 'The Global Alliance for Justice - The Ethiopian Cause' regarding the worldwide protest click on the following link: http://www.globalallianceforethiopia.org/pressrelfeb19en.pdf

We Accuse Graziani of Genocide and Object His Worship by Italian Neo-Fascists

By Mikael Wossen (PhD)


   
Italians parading the decapitated head of Ethiopian Patriot
 
Introduction
Put bluntly, Nazism and Fascism are two parts of the same ideological coin. Both are 20th Century political phenomena, and what Hitchens calls “man-made structures of inhumanity” that have bloodied the world, as totalitarian allies during World War II. The Nazi criminals were held accountable at the Nuremberg Trials. Meanwhile, the blood trails of Graziani’s crimes run from Libya, Somalia to Ethiopia and remain unaccounted for. This is the crux of the problem for us. Namely, Field Marshal Graziani never stood trial for the genocidal crimes he committed in Ethiopia.
Field Marshal Graziani was a member of Mussolini’s Fascist High Command and served at Il Duce’s pleasure. By the early 1930s Graziani had become vice governor and military commander of Cyrenaica or Eastern Libya. By February 1935 he was appointed governor and military commander of Italian occupied Somalia. This position allowed him to participate in the invasion of Ethiopia from the South-East. By 1936, he became Viceroy of Italian East Africa and Governor-General of Shewa/Addis Ababa. This was the practical culmination of his infamous phrase:
"The Duce will have Ethiopia, with or without the Ethiopians."
Carrying the strategic logic of this sentence to the final conclusion can only lead to concentration camps and genocide. We still hear about Auschwitz Treblinka and other Nazi concentration camps in Eastern Europe, but never about the Italian Fascist concentration camps at Nocra, Danane, Asinara, where Ethiopian “prisoners of war” suffered indignity at the hands of fascist Italy. At any rate, to achieve his murderous intent, Graziani had several divisions of heavily mechanized troops, supplemented by Eritrean Askaris, Somali irregulars, Arab auxiliaries from Libya and Yemeni troops recruited from across the Red Sea. Di Bono, the governor of Eritrea, commanded the other invasion force from the North. He had, under his direct command, a force of nine Army divisions in three corps: The Italian I Corps, the Italian II Corps, and the Eritrean Corps. Di Bono emphasized the fascist military's idea of full-scale war – a strategy of war perfected as Blitzkrieg by the Nazis. Graziani emphasized systemic counterinsurgency methods or techniques of “systemic terror” for pacifying “natives.”
In addition to this enormous invasion force, Graziani would use chemical weapons and gas to crush/overwhelm any patriotic resistance to the Italian Fascist agenda in the region. A communiqué from Rome dated October 27, 1935 from Mussolini to His Excellency Graziani reads “
The use of gas as an ultima ratio to overwhelm enemy resistance and in case of counterattack is authorized.
”(Campbell). Evidently, Graziani had freely used the internationally outlawed phosgene (poison gas) as a weapon of war, both on humans and livestock. This is genocide, pure and simple. International silence about this period is proving extremely painful to us Ethiopians. The question remains: what are the responses/ responsibilities of the international community, the UN and International Criminal Court of Justice at The Hague, in such horrendous events?
The Anatomy of Genocide
In 1934 Il Duce Mussolini decided to invade and brutalize/exploit Ethiopia to expunge the humiliation of defeat “civilized” Italy had suffered at the battle of Adowa (1896). The Italians had returned to avenge the decisive and humiliating Adwa (1896) defeat that Ethiopians and Emperor Menelik had inflicted on the overall white supremacist imperialist-colonial project in Africa. The repercussions were worldwide and lasting. No European colonizing army had ever been so thoroughly crushed in Africa. The Adowa victory forced foreign powers to recognize Ethiopia’s very existence in the modern world’s inter-state system, its sovereignty and independence included. Also, Ethiopia’s victory had inspired Marcus Garvey’s Back to Africa Movement and awakened Black -and Pan-African consciousness.
Ethiopia thus emerged as a beacon for anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggles. Italy, on the other hand, had become a laughing stock. Europeans had questioned Italy’s fitness to colonize, and mocked its imperial pretenses. 

All told, at the Battle of Adowa, Ethiopians exposed the mass of lies, untruths and “negrophobic” hatred and racial inferiorization of Africans at the heart of 19th century imperialism. This victory was unprecedented in the archives of modern imperialism and the famous scramble for Africa. The Spectator of March 7, 1896 set the tone and observed mournfully: “The Italians have suffered a great disaster – greater than has ever occurred in modern times to white men in Africa. Adowa was the bloodiest of all colonial battles”. Also, the racial dimension of the struggle was unmistakable to the European world.
One thing is incontrovertible about the “second coming” of the Italians, this time in fascist guise. In the 1880s Crispi spoke of a “place in the sun,” and plenty of free agricultural land for his army, Fascist propagandists in 1935 spoke of all that and “happy black faces” that await Italian victory. 
Graziani was a perpetrator of genocide in Ethiopia and is directly responsible for 760,000 human losses, according to Angelo Del Boca (The Ethiopian War 1935-1941). Del Boca cites a 1945 Memorandum from Ethiopia to the Conference of Prime Ministers to underline his point. Oral historians put the number of dead, raped and disabled at well over a million. Either way, to achieve this impressive body count, Field Marshal Graziani had presided over “One of the more sadistic and shameful episode of modern times” writes Ian Campbell. The sadistic orgy of violence was speeded up by the failed assassination attempt on Graziani in Addis Ababa on Yekatit-February 1937. 
This scenario provides the background for Campbell’s narrative. My contention here is that the genocide begun long before the assassination attempt on Graziani by Mogus and Abreha; in fact, it was the modus operandi of the whole conquest and occupation period. From the start, the air dropped leaflets prove this intent to committing genocide and promoting fratricide among Ethiopians. The genocidal and fratricidal logic of the following leaflet is as clear as the intent. The message is addressed specifically to the people of Tigrai (Adolf Parlesak/Mekonnen, 114, translation mine) reads as follows:
The Almighty God has sent us to bring peace, civilization and prosperity/development to you. However, the Amara and Oromo oppressors have armed their cruel and man-eating forces to prevent us from achieving this blessed objective.
Dear respected people of Tigrai, should you encounter these savage bandits, strictly refrain from feeding or providing them with hambasha and water at any cost. Instead, eliminate them like dogs. Show no sympathy whatsoever. Beware too that we have our people among you, and should anyone dare to provide or sell any kind of sustenance to these Amara-Oromo “shifta” soldiers, the entire village will be mercilessly erased by our airplanes.

Here we enter the discourse of Genocide, namely the premeditated identification and demonization with “intent to destroy” a specific people and/or ethnic groups deemed disposable. Genocides do not occur in a vacuum as it were. The “Amara-Oromo” people they have targeted constitute the vast majority of Ethiopians. 
This historically forgotten genocide or holocaust perpetrated against Ethiopians from 1935-1941, was a historic product of Fascist Italy’s war of colonial conquest in Eastern Africa. A forced psychological and political detournement in the identity and perception of Ethiopians. The ultimate object was to destroy Ethiopia/Ethiopians and create a pseudo-Roman Empire in Eastern Africa, African Orientale Italiana (AOI). What is more, the so called “international community,” of the time, apart from imposing some symbolic sanctions, was morally indifferent if not complicit in this criminal colonial war of conquest and genocide. It was certainly not moving to stop it, nor held the Fascists rigorously accountable as did the Nuremberg trials with the Nazi hierarchy and the Tokyo trials with the Japanese. Despite Graziani’s well-documented crimes of genocide against Libyans and Ethiopians, his major offense in the end seems to have been his bloody pact with the Nazis against the British.
Though the Ethiopian genocide happened well into the twentieth century, it was as though the international social contract-League of Nations, the laws of civilization and human rights (the sanctity of life) did not apply to Ethiopians and Africans in general, both on the continent and in the wider Diaspora. The concept of genocide was not in circulation. Actually, Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia was blessed by the Catholic Pope and lauded by European statesmen and prominent French intellectuals as “an honorable extension of France’s and England’s project of civilizing the uncivilized through colonization” (Yves Rene Marie Simon). So reads “the Manifesto of French Intellectuals for the Defense of the West” issued by about a 1000 prominent French intellectuals, almost half of them were members of the prestigious Academie Francaise. The “intellectual” signatories to this Manifesto thus defended the Fascist invasion and colonization project, and condemned even the threat of feeble sanctions against Fascist Italy “under the pretext of protecting in Africa the independence of an amalgam of uncivilized tribes.” This amounts to a blatant and racist denial of Ethiopia’s statehood and independence i.e. Ethiopia’s “expulsion from history,” and the obliteration of its proud people’s sovereignty and national identity. It was both an intellectual and psychological warfare waged against Ethiopians and the entire black “race” deemed uncivilized and unworthy of basic human rights and statehood. Poet Aime Caesaire rightly commented that with the holocaust occurring in Europe, Europeans finally discovered that the colonial crimes they routinely inflicted against Negroes, Coolies, Arabs and so called Orientals are, in fact, crimes of genocide when practiced against Europeans. Remarkably, the concept of genocide was coined in 1948.
Genocide has been called the “Crime of Crimes” as it is premeditated, ideologically rationalized, racially/ethnically tinged, impersonal and directed against a whole “people” deemed different, “inferior” and somehow a “peril” to society or Western Civilization. A state practicing genocide becomes in effect - criminalized. While a precise definition varies among legal scholars of the subject, a working definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) and the more recent ICC and the Rome Treaty. Simply stated, Genocide is "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group” though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has apparently been subject to much debate by legal scholars. In this case, evidence shows that the ideology of genocide permeated virtually everything Graziani said and thought about Ethiopians. There is no doubt that Europe’s entrenched “scientifically underwritten racism” created the necessary conditions for tolerating the heinous crime of genocide among certain populations. The question for Ethiopians now is: how can neo-fascists build a monumental mausoleum to “honor” war criminal Graziani? This is neo-Fascist revisionism at best. He and the entire Fascist hierarchy never brought “honor” to Italy, only shame and defeat in World War II.
“Wholesale and Indiscriminate Execution”
Graziani was a cruel and prolific mass killer whose major “killing fields” were in Ethiopia. Fortunately, the oral history of the Ethiopian genocide has been validated in recent literature and books. The crucial events may be presented as follows. Following the Yekatit-February 1937 grenade-driven assassination attempt on Graziani at the Palace, a bloody and indiscriminate repression followed. Terrified by an imminent insurrection, the panicking Italians opened fire, unleashing terror throughout Addis Abeba. It was an “orgy of murder, bloodlust and mayhem” writes Campbell. The indiscriminate massacres, hangings and burning of people, homes/villages lasted for several days. To be sure, the dead have never been really counted, continues Campbell, but are estimated at 30.000 Ethiopian martyrs in three days. That is ten thousand Ethiopians every day!
Authoritative witnesses are not lacking either. The Acting British Consul General reported the atrocities as a “wholesale and indiscriminate execution” of Ethiopians found in the neighborhood of the Palace and elsewhere in an expanding cycle of death. In every case, the crime was one of being Ethiopian. Party Federal Secretary Guido Cortese declared to well-armed Fascists and Blackshirt troops “For 3 days I give you carta blanca to destroy and kill and do what you want to Ethiopians.” In those days mutilated corpses littered the streets of Addis, ostensibly “to make an impression on the native mind” as the Viceroy grew fond of saying. All told, hyenas and dogs fed on the mutilated corpse of Ethiopians. The American Consul-General wrote that there have been mass executions of wretched people, in batches of 50 or 100, although they could not have any possible part in the attack on Graziani. The diplomat wrote “I have seen no display of unbridled brutality and cowardice since the Armenian massacres.” The parallel is instructive. The military-political objective was to colonize Ethiopia by any means necessary, including (poison gas) and fratricide. It is high time the international community acknowledge that genocide was indeed perpetrated by Mussolini’s Italian fascist state in an effort to conquer, plunder and colonize Ethiopia.
Obviously, the second time around in 1934, Italy’s fascist invaders came prepared and with the most modernized and automated machinery of war, including internationally banned weapons of mass destruction. This time around, failure was not an option. Mussolini’s motto was Qualsiasi Mezzo! or win by any means. The result was arguably the most unjust and brutal asymmetrical warfare of the 20th Century. Italians were masters of the sky and poured a “rain of iron and poison” on /defenseless Ethiopians at will, while the Ethiopians had no air force to speak of and limited weaponry. The bulk of the peasant soldiers were shoeless. The four Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns and twenty bullets at the Ethiopian army’s disposal were ineffective antics and relics of the Adwa war of 1896. They could not prevent the steel, poison gas and fire of death falling from the sky.
No wonder Graziani became known as “the Butcher of Addis Ababa” in addition to his designation as “Butcher of Libya” and the “Hyena of Cyrenaica.” His designations speak to his bestiality, not to mention his predatory instincts and deadly intent. To illustrate the genocidal intent and aspects of his crime further:
He declared war on Young Ethiopians and ordered the liquidation of an entire generation of the literate youth and foreign educated elements in society. The Ethiopian intelligentsia of the time was found to be “particularly poisonous” and “dangerously xenophobic” and outright inimical to the Fascist Master Plan for Ethiopia’s dissolution into the new AOI-Roman Empire. During the occupation, close to 80% of Ethiopia’s literate population was eliminated.
Graziani ordered the eradication of patriots and members of the Black Lion Resistance movement on sight. Furthermore, Graziani gave a carta blanca order to “shoot all Amhara notables and ex-army officers.” In his own words, he ordered that “the extermination of all the Amhara chiefs, great or small must be speeded up, none to be spread out of feeling of false pity.” Some 300,000 patriots were summarily killed on that order.
In the predominantly Muslim areas of Ethiopia, populations were instructed to “kill everyone carrying the cross,” thus singling out Christian Ethiopians for extermination.
Graziani authorized the massacre of the monks of the ancient monastery of Debre Libanos, including the large number of pilgrims who had traveled there to celebrate the feast day of the founding saint of the monastery. The legendary monastery and place of traditional higher learning was deemed “a den of murderers, brigands and monks, absolutely opposed to us.” It was, therefore, visited with two mass executions. Graziani’s personal order in this regard, was to “execute summarily all monks without distinction.” After eliminating the targeted population, he wrote “no more trace remains of the Debre Libanos Monastery.” This amounts to admitting to physical and spiritual genocide.
The fascist army ordered the despoliation and looting of some 2.000 Orthodox churches and over half a million homes and all schools throughout Ethiopia. Ethiopians were to be “educated” for some three years in Italian Fascist “Balila” schools and serve Italians. Graziani also presided over the killing of 14 million animals and the methodical poisoning of fertile agricultural lands and contamination of rivers that sustain life. According to Del Boca some 24,000 civilians were killed by air force alone. These examples suffice to prove the point. Graziani is the leading architect of genocide in Ethiopia.
Upon his recall to Rome in Dec 1937, Graziani was deemed an embarrassment to the Italian “Civilization Mission” and diagnosed as mentally unstable. He was replaced by Duke of Aosta, presumably a milder fascist. As Italy finally descended into civil war with the advance of the Allies, Field Marshal Rodolfo Graziani served as a loyal fascist military commander and followed Mussolini till his disastrous end-by-hanging. Graziani, however, was arrested and sentenced to 19 years' imprisonment by the victorious Allies. This was punishment for his part in war crimes atrocities and for “collaborating with the Germans,” and was released from jail after serving only two years. After his release, he resumed active political life with the neo-fascist Movemento Social Italiano (MSI), and even served as its President. The MSI is the movement that nurtured contemporary neo-Fascists like long-time Italian President, and present day contender, Berlusconi. Graziani died in 1955 of old age, while his victims continued to suffer in pain. Instead of persecuting the leading Fascist war criminals, the victorious powers were busy grooming leaders from the Fascist ranks, allegedly for establishing a bulwark against the rising tide of Communism in Italy.
Fellow brothers and sisters, who else is going to hold the Italian fascists accountable for this Great Crime against Ethiopia? Justice demands that all Ethiopians and fellow Africans everywhere make their voices and objections heard on this decisive issue for the Ethiopian-African people and humanity as a whole. Indeed, it is our human obligation not to turn a blind eye to such a crime. Show up at the February 19 demonstrations organized by the Global Alliance for Justice: The Ethiopian Cause.
References
Campbell, I, The Plot To Kill Graziani, Addis Ababa University Press, 2010.
Parlesak, A. (translated by Mekonnen, T.J.) Ye Habeha Jebdu, Addis Ababa University Press, 2010.
Mennasemay, M. The Ethiopian Campaign and French Political Thought. International Journal of Ethiopian Studies. Vol.V, No.1, 2010.
Mikael Wossen is an educator who holds a Ph.D., in Sociology of International Education from University of Alberta, Canada.
He also holds a M.Ed. degree in International/Intercultural Education from the same university and a B.A Honors (Political Science) from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.

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Adwa Victory Anniversary celebration in Washington DC

March 5, 2013, 10:13 pm
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Big congratulatory message to Ethiopian Heritage Society in North America for a very impressive event celebrating the Adwa Victory Anniversary at Georgetown University Conference Center in Washington D.C. last Sunday. Turn out was more than expected. The presentations both live & thru Skype were very informative & intellectually stimulating. The patriotic theme reflected thru the dramatic & musical performances were timely. In general, the ambiance was great, almost everyone that I had talked to had positive thing to say about it. One of the highlights of this year's celebration for me was the scholarship award given to a student who reflected & wrote essay on Adwa Victory. EHSNA recently announce that it had established a scholarship fund and invited high school & freshmen college students to reflect & write essay on the significance of the Adwa Victory.
I have been advocating for creation of similar kind fund to be awarded to those Ethiopian American kids who have made extraordinary efforts in learning & keeping Ethiopian heritage or show unique talent. The idea was to invite the youngsters or their parents to submit audio or video recording of the kids performing or reciting and those selected by competent judges will be sent invitation to the annual heritage festival held in July in Washington, DC their full or partial expenses covered. I want kids such as the ones you see here to be invited during the annual heritage festival for keeping Ethiopian musical tradition alive. Having them during the Festival would encourage other kids born to Ethiopian parents to emulate or follow the foot steps of these kids. But to be fair, I will leave it to potential judges to select who would be the winners.
Hopefully EHSNA will consider this idea & work toward creating the fund in the near future. I hope to discuss the initiative with some details. I am also ready to play my part in this and will be willing to donate seed money upon which the fund can be built.

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Melaku E. Bayen - First Ethiopian Physician trained in the U.S.

May 8, 2013, 1:32 pm
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Blogger's Note:
The biographical sketch you find below appeared in Ethiopian calendar with Biographies - 2003E.C. edition.
 Melaku E. Bayen 1892-1932E.C. (1900-1940)
First Ethiopian Physician trained in the U.S. & chief designated advocate for Ethiopian cause during Italo-Ethiopian Conflict.
Melaku Bayen was born on April 29, 1900, in Wello Province in
central Ethiopia. He is the son of Grazmach Bayen and Woyzero
(Mrs.) Desta. His parents move to Harar, when he was a baby.
The young Melaku was raised and educated in the compound of
Ras (General) Mekonnen, then the Governor of Harar and the father of Lij Tafari, the future Emperor Haile Selassie. In accordance with the aristocracy's custom of educating and training likely young boys for positions of leadership, young Melaku was placed under the tutelage of Lij Tafari and taught by priests, attached to Ras Mekonnen‘s royal court. Melaku lived close to the future king, serving as both his page and personal attendant in the royal courts of Harar and later of Addis Ababa at least for a decade.
Life in the royal court taught young Melaku strict discipline and gracious protocol. On January 19, 1921 Melaku was sent to India along with two young men and a woman for preparatory studies under private tutors from Great Britain.
The sudden death of the young woman left Melaku and his compatriots devastated, hence making their stay in India unbearable. So they appealed to Ras Tafari to permit them to pursue their studies in the United States, where imperialistic designs on Africa seemed absent. The students' request was granted.
In 1928 Bayen enrolled at Ohio State University in Columbus as a graduate student of chemistry. A year later, he was admitted to the Medical School at Howard University, one of the nation's most prestigious black educational institutions.
Melaku attended the coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie on November 2, 1930 in Addis Ababa and traveled back and forth many times accompanying African American recruits for various jobs and briefing the new Emperor on the situation in the United States. At Howard, he co-founded the Ethiopian Research
Council in 1930 with Professor Leo Hansberry, one of the pioneers of African studies in the United States. The Council was regarded as the principal link between Ethiopians and African Americans particularly in the early years of the Italo-Ethiopian conflict. After the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, Melaku focused less upon recruiting skilled Afro-Americans for service in Ethiopia and more on mobilizing black American support for his country.
After graduating from Howard medical school in June 1935, Dr. Melaku had originally intended to remain in the U.S. to complete his internship, but the serious situation in Ethiopia caused the Emperor to recall him. Thus, on July 10, 1935, the physician departed for Ethiopia with his wife, Dorothy, and young son, Melaku Jr.. There, Dr. Melaku's duties at the American Mission Hospital in the capital and later with the Ethiopian Red Cross in the Ogaden, brought him into intimate contact with the war.
Meanwhile, the war went badly for the Ethiopians. When it became clear in late April 1936 that it was senseless to attempt to defend the capital, members of the Imperial Council persuaded the Emperor to leave the country for Geneva to make a final appeal to the League of Nations for support. When the Italian Army captured Addis Ababa, Melaku‘s family went to England and later to the United States to fully campaign for Ethiopia. Melaku and his wife Dorothy Hadley, created a newspaper called Voice of Ethiopia to simultaneously denounce Jim Crow in America and fascist invasion in Ethiopia.
News of Ethiopia‘s plight fueled indignation and furious debates among African Americans. In Harlem, Chicago, and various other cities African American churches urged their members to speak out against the invasion. Melaku established
at least 28 branches of Ethiopian World Federation, an organ of resistance calling on Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia throughout the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean. Touched by the Emperor‘s speech at the League of Nations, and Melaku‘s impassioned message, blacks vowed to support Ethiopia. Melaku Bayen and his African American counterparts remained undeterred for the remainder of Ethiopia‘s struggle against colonization. In 1940, a year before Ethiopia‘s victory against Italy, Melaku Bayen succumbed to pneumonia, which he had caught while walking door-to-door in the peak of winter, speaking boldly about the war for freedom
in Ethiopia. 
Source: This biographical sketch is the authorized abridged & slightly edited version of
the following articles:
Girma Abebe(Dr.) - Melaku E. Bayen: The first Ethiopian to earn an American degree. Ethiopian Register. 
Dec. 1999/Jan. 2000.
Ayele Bekerie (Dr.) - The Case of Melaku E. Bayen & John Robinson. Tadias Online Magazine. April 18,2007.
Tsedey Alehegn - African American and Ethiopian Relations. Tadias Online Magazine. August 11, 2008
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The Victory Day

May 9, 2013, 1:02 pm
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Blogger's Note:
Today's blog entry is from a guest that I had contacted after seeing a superbly written essay by him in commemoration of Patriots/Victory Day in Ethiopia. I found the essay to be very insightful, educational and timely. I agree with the author of the essay on the two major points he raised. First, due recognition has to be given to the key role Atse Haile Selassie played in liberation of Ethiopia and secondly present generation of Ethiopians have to be reminded the contributions of the black diaspora in the Western world in the fight against Italian aggression and later occupation of Ethiopia. The solidarity shown by our brother & sisters in America & the Caribbean before & during Italian invasion of Ethiopia is fascinating chapter of our common history which needs to be told more & more. When we celebrate Patriots/Victory day, in addition to remembering the resistance fighters' role & sacrifices we should also give due recognition to Atse Haile Selassie's role as well as the contributions of  the black diaspora in the Western world. With kind of permission of the writer, this timely essay is reprinted here with accompanying audio-visuals & slight editorial change. 
                                                                            

And each man shares
The strength derived from head held high
As holds his head, the King of Kings
Our symbol of a dream
That will not die.
           Langston Hughes
May 5, 1966, on the 25th anniversary of Ethiopian Victory Day


                     The Victory Day
Yesterday, at Victory Square, Ethiopia celebrated the 72ndanniversary of victory against Fascist Italy. Once again Victory Day’s celebration closed without mentioning the Commander in Chief of the war, Emperor Haile Selasie’s name.
This is the only Victory Day that is celebrated without acknowledging the Commander in chief’s role. The depriving of credit for the last 39 years which is due to the Emperor shows nothing but the incivility of the Ethiopian politics.
         
Once again “God and history will give judgment” when hate fades- away from a vista of politics so that one day the Emperor’s good name will rise up on Victory Day in which He made his famous speech: “Do not reward evil for evil. Do not commit any acts of cruelty like those which the enemy committed against us.”
Even if it seems, the Victory Day is separated from Victorious Emperor, however, the history of the June 30, 1936 will not allow us to do so. The Emperor in a black cape walked graceful through the white people column of assembly to challenge and win the 52 nations with their own diplomacy game. The challenge, one man against the 52 nations was a rematch of David vs. Goliath. A racket of boos, jeers, and mockery that the Italian journalists made in the gallery punch us on the face so that we will not sleep through history.
“I demanded justice...and God and history will remember your judgment” the Emperor’s statement 77 years ago in Geneva is very relevant in today’s Ethiopia. Once more the Emperor is demanding justice. [See video clip of the speech below]

When we think of Victory Day, we should also remember the Black people, in Diaspora, who voiced the Ethiopian cause as their own cause. As the distinguished Black historian, John Hope Franklin, had indicated, “When Ethiopia was invaded by Italy, the Negros protested with all the means at their command. Ethiopia was regarded as a Negro nation, and its distraction would symbolize the final victory of the White man over the Negro. Almost overnight all Negros became international minded.”
As the Ethiopia Patriots marched to the battle field for defending their ancient Kingdom, likewise the Black people in America and the Caribbean Islands did what they could in order to keep the only freedom of flame that has been kindled.
Several Black’s organizations from Harlem to Los Angles had responded to the rhythmic beat of distant war drums of Ethiopia. Chicagoan John Robinson, an aviator who was known as “the Brown Condor” fought the Fascist Italy in Ethiopia, as a true Ethiopian. After independence, he became a trainer of the Ethiopian pilots. When he died in a plain crash, the Emperor gave him the tile of Colonel in posthumous.

To list a few more among the thousands of Black People who toiled for the Ethiopian cause during the war: Dr Leo Hansberry, the director of the Ethiopian Research Council, in Howard University, in which he disseminated information about Ethio-Italy conflict, Professor Ralph Bunche who summarized and analyzed world-wide articles on Ethiopia, both distinguished professors had won the Haile Selassie First Prize Trust Award. Carter G. Woodson, distinguished editor of the Journal of Negro History, who coined The Black History Week, which was later renamed the Black History Month, focusing mainly on Ethiopia history, Reverend Adam Clinton Powel, a pastor of the historical Abyssinian Baptist Church, who preached about Ethiopianism- Ethiopia a land of Biblical reputation and where goddesses loved to be- assured that the country will not be colonized. The long list of volunteers willing to serve in the respective field of specialty is more than this paper can hold.
Dr Malaku Bayen, a young Medical student in Howard University, the only Ethiopian in North America and his dear African-American wife Dorothy Hadley, were responsible to convey the Ethiopian cause to Black people. Dr Malaku is quoted in an interview to have stated: “if Abyssinia is convicted to be invaded is because we are black, the America Black is therefore duty-bound to support Abyssinia.” On the next publication of the Pittsburg Courier which declared: “Anybody who wished to serve as volunteers in the Imperial Ethiopian Army, you can register with Malaku Bayen at his residence 1260 Columbia Road, Northwest Washington.”
Evidently, thousands of men and women from thirty-eight states had come out to fight voluntarily. On the other hand, however, The United States Department opposed the movement, by declaring:
“United States’ Citizens cannot accept or exercise a commission to serve a foreign nation in war against a nation with whom the United States are at peace….if they do they shall be guilty of high misdemeanor and shall be fined not more than $ 2,000 and imprisoned not more than 3 years.”
The Blacks defied the government’s decision and continued to protests and appeal to the League of Nations, the British government, and American Officials. They also boycotted Italian products and had campaigned to raise both financial contributions and volunteers for Red Cross.
In 1935, as the Italy army crossed the border of Ethiopia in the Eastern province, Ogaden, the African- Americans, in New York, had predicted the winner of the war through a famous Boxing matched between Joe Louis (African American) and Primo Carnera (Italian American). 
When Joe Louis knocked out 6’6’’, 265-pound former World Heavy Weight Champion Primo Carnera, in the sixth round had seen as a good omen, Haile Selassie knocked out the Fascist’s leader, Benito Mussolini.
The name of Haile Selassie was and is used as the metaphor for a fight and conquering against all odds.  
Dr Malaku who came from the war front was sent to New York as a Deputy in 1937 to coordinate the effort of Black People struggle in North American and the Caribbean Islands was able to establish the first international organization called, the Ethiopia World Federation, which achieved meritorious task.
As the Ethiopian Patriots fought at home, the members of the Ethiopia World Federation were struggling in America, the Caribbean Islands, Mexico, and Cuba to shift their countries policy and to win the conscious of peace loving people the world over.
Mildred Houston of New York, a young black woman, who contacted more than one thousand people within two weeks to inform a manifesto of the Ethiopia World Federation, should also be remembered. This young woman was the first person to establish the first branch of the Ethiopia World Federation outside the US. There were of course many who provided priceless support for the Ethiopia World Federation; i.e., Miss Aida Bastian, and Miss Eudora Paris who returned from Ethiopia were among the more prominent. They were also among the first female who answered to the call of Marcus Gravey, “Back to Africa Movement” until they were disrupted by the Italian invasion.
When Ethiopia won the war, instantly Blacks gained a self pride in America, despite de jure segregation in schools, on bus, and at drinking fountains. The Ethiopian affair had not stopped at victory; it had gone further to advance the Pan-African sentiment throughout the world. The struggle of the Lion of Judah which temporally fell only to rise up triumphantly was used as a recipe for a fight- back against Colonialism and Racism.
Unlike the European Victory Day, Ethiopia’s Victory is indeed a victory of a small and Black Nation against a Big Colonizer. The Victory of Ethiopia is a victory of Black and Oppressed people all over the world.
During this year’s celebration in Ethiopia and abroad, Ethiopians, friends of Ethiopia, and peace loving people all over the world have voiced against the erection of a statue of the Fascist General, Randolph Grazzani. They said the erection of the statue in Italy is not only an insult, but it also a glorification of a war criminal. 
Gerazzani who is known as the butcher of Addis and responsible criminal for the death of 30 thousand people in Addis Ababa alone, three hundred monks in St Debre- Lebanos monastery, and bombing, and killing over a million more people and destroying animals and wealth, burning thousands of churches and homes, in his five years of reign of terror. 
It is high time for Ethiopia to remember the Emperor’s contribution to its independence, development, and to establish high prestige in the international arena.
We should not forget that the ignominious Derge regime, Low Ranking Military Officers, and Communists- miss- educated students, for years vainly tried to destroy the legacy of the Emperor. The civility of Ethiopia politics is measured by its fairness towards Emperor Haile Selassie, a champion of international morality, who fought Slavery, Feudalism, Fascism, Colonialism, Imperialism, and Racism.
Last but not least, when we celebrate Victory Day, we should not forget the necessity of erecting the Emperor’s statue in Addis Ababa- a Statue worthy of His name. This will help the Nation to repent and to reconcile with itself.
Happy VD
May 6, 2013

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"Hands off Ethiopia" - African American mobilization & enlistment in defense of Ethiopia.

May 19, 2013, 2:04 am
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Ethiopianism Picture & Quote of the Day - May 19
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--- On this date on May 19, 1936, African Americans took to the streets of Harlem to protest Italy's occupation of Ethiopia. The New York Times reported that after the close of a meeting of Ethiopian sympathizers, civil disorder erupted, involving some 400 Blacks "rioting" over the treatment of Ethiopia by Western Powers; there were no serious property damages or death.
John Hope Franklin, noted historian, states in his book "From Slavery to Freedom" that "the Ethiopian episode was a major motivation for Black Americans to lose their provincialism; from that time into the start of World War II, Blacks in the United States remain au courant of world affairs."

(Undated photo of African Americans enlisting to join Ethiopian army . Although thousands signed up , the US government enacted a law making it a crime for American citizens to participate in either side of the conflict.)
From the album:Timeline Photos
By Wayne Edward Maddock
Blogger's Note: The above timeline notes are from my facebook friend Wayne Edward Maddock. I am one of the loyal followers of his Timeline Notes on Ethiopian history. His today's posting reminded me a book I read on the topic and feel like sharing it with you. 

The book is entitled "This ain't Ethiopia, but It'll do" and it is about Lincoln Brigade soldiers (African Americans who participated in the Spanish Civil war). As the title implies the African Americans who went to Spain had Ethiopia in their mind and "regarded the Spanish civil war as an extension of the Italo-Ethiopian conflict. ...for them Spain had become the battlefield to revenge the rape of Ethiopia... The book provide more information about efforts made by various African American organizations in recruiting African Americans volunteers to help Ethiopians defend against Italian aggression. It states that according to one organizer of such effort his organization Pan-African Reconstruction Association (PARA) alone had mobilized an estimated 1000 volunteers in New York, 1500 in Philadelphia, 8000 in Chicago, 5000 in Detroit and 2000 in Kansas City. The book further states that " Initially, [Haile] Selassie was willing to accept African-American combatants, but pressure from the U.S. government compelled Ethiopia to cease all recruitment efforts. Furthermore, potential volunteers were warned that they would be in violation of a federal statute of 1818 governing the enlistment of U.S. citizen's in a foreign army. If convicted, they would face a maximum three-year prison sentence, a $2,000 fine, and loss of citizenship. Despite the law, the Garveyite Black Legion allegedly established a training camp in upstate New York for some 3,000 volunteers, while another group made plans to purchase a freighter to carry black men to the Horn of Africa. None of these efforts came to fruition, however. "

Not all Black mainstream political figures were supportive of the idea of sending African American troops to fight in Ethiopia. Actually, some opposed it and cautioned young men against breaking the U.S. law.


There are no exact figures as to how many made it to Ethiopia and joined the fight. The most known case is that of airmen John C. Robinson nicknamed "the Black Condor" of Chicago South side and Herbert F. Julian of Harlem. Citing other sources, the book indicated by 1933, the African American community in Ethiopia were estimated to number between 100 to 150.

Source: Collum, Danny Duncan (ed.) - This Ain't Ethiopia, But It'll do: African Americans in the Spanish civil war. G.W. Hall & Co., 1992.
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Ode to Ethiopia - Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

June 27, 2013, 4:23 pm
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Today is the birthday of Paul Laurence Dunbar the pioneer African American poet, short story writer and novelist who was born June 27, 1872 in Dayton Ohio. Despite being a son of two former slaves, he rose to literary fame surmounting tremendous obstacles. Here is one of his poems with reference to Ethiopia. The poem was part of his published work  'Lyrics of Lowly Life' published in 1896 the year Ethiopia's victory over European power in Adwa.




Ode to Ethiopia
By Paul Laurence Dunbar

O Mother Race! to thee I bring
This pledge of faith unwavering,
          This tribute to thy glory.
I know the pangs which thou didst feel,
When Slavery crushed thee with its heel,
          With thy dear blood all gory.

Sad days were those--ah, sad indeed!
But through the land the fruitful seed
          Of better times was growing.
The plant of freedom upward sprung,
And spread its leaves so fresh and young--
          Its blossoms now are blowing.

On every hand in this fair land,
Proud Ethiope's swarthy children stand
          Beside their fairer neighbor;
The forests flee before their stroke,
Their hammers ring, their forges smoke,--
          They stir in honest labour.

They tread the fields where honour calls;
Their voices sound through senate halls
          In majesty and power.
To right they cling; the hymns they sing
Up to the skies in beauty ring,
          And bolder grow each hour.

Be proud, my Race, in mind and soul;
Thy name is writ on Glory's scroll
          In characters of fire.
High 'mid the clouds of Fame's bright sky
Thy banner's blazoned folds now fly,
          And truth shall lift them higher.

Thou hast the right to noble pride,
Whose spotless robes were purified
          By blood's severe baptism.
Upon thy brow the cross was laid,
And labour's painful sweat-beads made
          A consecrating chrism.

No other race, or white or black,
When bound as thou wert, to the rack,
          So seldom stooped to grieving;
No other race, when free again,
Forgot the past and proved them men
          So noble in forgiving.

Go on and up! Our souls and eyes
Shall follow thy continuous rise;
          Our ears shall list thy story
From bards who from thy root shall spring,
And proudly tune their lyres to sing
          Of Ethiopia's glory.
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Does the name matter?

July 11, 2013, 12:42 pm
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Blogger's Note: The following essay is submitted by a guest blogger and posted here with minor editorial changes. The opinions expressed by the guest blogger do not necessary reflect the opinion of Wemezeki's blogger/Editor. Wemezekir's Editor is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within this essay.





Does the name matter?
By Mulugeta Haile 
 
Why was the 39 years old name OAU changed to AU? OAU has its credit in the decolonization of Africa, as well as, the sponsorship of Pan-Africanism. This historic name was changed to AU in Durban, South Africa, on July 10, 2002. But! Why? Is this just to imitate the European Community, EC, which was changed to European Union, EU, in 1993, or is there another tangible justification?  
 
In 1972, Dr Walter Rodney, in his famous classic, “How Europe Under developed Africa,” advised what Africa was up against: as long as Africa doesn’t have its own rule of game, it will continue to be a source of free labor, and raw materials. He reminded that African leaders have unfortunately kept forgetting the Imperialistic nature of the Berlin Club of Colonizers.To unchain the code of the Berlin and Algeciras, Spain Clubs, Emperor Haile Selassie on January 25, 1960, three years before the creation of the OAU at the All-African Peoples’ Conference (AAPC) in Tunis, said:
“We must make bold decisions for intra-Africa co-operation. We must link our roads; we must connect and associate our airlines and indeed think in terms of merging our international services.”
 
Thirty one years after this historic speech, OAU, following the adoption of the Lagos Plan of Action, on the 3rd of July 1991, the Head of States singed a treaty of the African Economic Community. The intention of this treaty was to create a common market and sub-regional and regional cooperation through, more efficient and coordinated use of its resources for the common good.
 
Thus, the name OAU is no hindrance to reach the aspired goal of what AU is trying to achieve now. In other words, what AU has aimed to do has been already envisioned by OAU. For example, independent specialized agencies, working under the umbrella of the OAU were:
One can’t help but ask what it is OAU can not, what AU can do? What was the burning issue or emergency for the changing of the historic name of the OAU?
 
In Shakespeare’s play of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet argues the names of things do not matter, only what things “are”, and said, “A rose by any other name smells just as sweet”. OAU by any other name sounds just as the Unity of Africa as already envisioned Pan Africanism.
 
In spite of emulating the European Union, EU, the main justification for the creation of the AU is simply an ambition to appear as the new “Founding Fathers”, who needed their legacy to emerge as the innovative leaders of Africa. For years these leaders had lagged behind the charismatic leaders of the OAU’s Founding Fathers. Even Thabo Mbeki, considered as the architect of the AU, who suffered under the shadow of the great Nelson Mandela needed also a legacy.    
 
If we examine the incident that occurred during the creation of the AU in Durban, South Africa, we see that there is no unity of purpose. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi who thinks of himself as a Super Founding Father tried to outshine the others and takes the driver seat created a great confusion in the assembly. The summit was not recorded in history as significant as the OAU’s first summit. It was radically different and ended up with great misunderstanding and division among the leaders. Specially, the tension created between South Africa’s and Libya’s security forces exasperated the situation to a combat zone.
 
The Johannesburg newspaper, The Star, and the Nairobi’s, The East African Standard, both had written in details. The Star quoted one of the South Africa’s police officer, who said, “There was almost a war here. There were about 40 of us against almost 400 of the Libya security forces. We were totally outnumbered and outgunned, and nobody would back us.” The East African Standard onits part said, “African leaders who indulged maverick Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at summit took risks with the Continent’s ambitious recovery plans.”
 
As strange as it was, the first AU summit had almost came to fall apart in the third day of the summit.
 
Last month, AU jubilantly celebrated its predecessor the OAU’s 50th anniversary, golden Jubilee. On the occasion, speakers tried to pinpoint the contribution of some of the Founding Fathers such as Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Jumo Kenyatta etc, however, the speakers hardly mentioned Emperor HaileSelassie, who was the mid wife of the OAU.
 
Strangely enough, the former President of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, one of the living Founding Fathers of the OAU, who spoke on the occasion, had never mentioned the Emperor’s name. However, it is a fact that the Emperor had abolished the three competing blocks: The Casablanca Powers, The Monrovia States, and The Brazzaville Group, that hindered the Unity of Africa. The Los Angels Times described a scenario “In the foot steps of King Solomon, Haile Seassie united Africa.”
 
In Ethiopia, Pan Africanism is loosely defined and often used to minimize the legacy of the Emperor and to pay tribute to Kwame Nkrumah. The big statue of Nkrumah in AU is a direct result of that notion. In fact, the modern Pan Africanism has evolved out of the Emperor’s legacy. After all, He is a global statesman, the Lion of Judah, who doesn’t need any other “isms” to stand tall, but destined to live up to His title.
 
Pan-Africanism is conceived out of the role of Ethiopia in the Bible (positively mentioned 42 times), and nurtured in the 1896 Victory of Adwa and in the 1930 coronation of Emperor HaileSelassie, which was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Marcus Garvey. The 1936-41 struggle and victory over Fascist Italy, in which the Emperor was the Field Marshall, further glorified Pan-Africanism. More so, the 1963 establishment of the OAU has forwarded it until this generation.  
 
Dr Desta Meghoo, who has presented an Art exhibition on this occasion at OAU/AU, is quoted to have said that it is impossible to present a Pan African Art exhibition with out mentioning Emperor Haile Selassie’s contributions, in opposition to a directive given to her to tone- down the Emperor’s legacy.
 
Why is this unnecessary argument that Nkrumah is more Pan Africanist than the Emperor pumped into the air, and why Pan-Africanism has been wrongly interpreted in Ethiopia? The answer goes to the nature of the Ethiopian politics that has shot out from the school of thought of Communism, which is against the Monarchy, a symbol of unconquered Ethiopia, which received Christianity during the Apostles’ epoch and offered sanctuary to the Prophet Mohammed’s direct family. Unlike other monarchies, it is a liberal which has allowed common people to rise up to the Nation’s top position. More so to its great achievements it has led Slaves into freedom and has defeated European Colonialism twice not only on the battle field, but in the field of Diplomacy as well. It can be called the Pan African Monarchy. In the eyes of the Ethiopian Communists, it may be, a reactionary, but in mind of the Pan-Africanist, Garveyist, Afro-centrist, and oppressed people, is a symbol of pride and hope.
 
In such a grand occasion of the 50th anniversary, the Emperor and his government officers should have been applauded for seeding Pan-Africanism into the OAU. Specially, His young dynamic Minster of Foreign affairs, Ketema Yeferu, the Shuttle Diplomat, deserves to have a street named after him preferably as the main road that leads to AU. (The road from Mexico square to AU)  
 
Of all the good speeches delivered during the OAU’s 50th anniversary, it was the Prime Minster of Ethiopia and the Chairman of AU, Haile Mariam Desalegn that is worthy of special mention. He concluded his closing speech of the 50th anniversary with an outstanding quotation from the Emperor speech.
 
This is a radical deviation from the trend of contemplation of his predecessors who always tried to foul the Emperor’s good name and contributions.
 
It was a refreshing at last; the new generation can hold the Prime Minster Haile Mariam’s quotation as evidence that the paradigm of the anti Haile Sellasie’s politics has shifted at a snail's pace. It seems Ethiopia is finally stretching out her hands unto its history.
 
Prime Minster Haile Mariam is from the new generation, he was a nine years old when the Emperor was dethroned. Regarding the shift of politics, it is interesting to see the young generation of Ethiopian in Diaspora has lifted up the Emperor’s legacy. A young man named Nebyat Aklelu, born and brought up and educated in the US, is now collecting petitions on selassiestandup@gmail.comrequesting support for the erection of the Emperor’s statue in the AU. Already thousands of people including His Excellence President of Ethiopia, Grima W/Giorgis have singed.
 
The positive side of the AU since its creation is the decision that was made in 2003 to recognize the African Diaspora as the sixth region of the AU. Without doubt, the talents and material resources in the Diaspora would boost African’s growth, development and empowerment. The African in Diaspora can play a big role in promoting Pan-Aficanism and African Renaissance.
 
Already a positive contribution is achieved at this summit as expressed in the speeches of the delegates of the Diaspora by dynamic speakers: Miss Portia Simpson (Fikerte Mariam), the Prime Minter of Jamaica, and PJ Paterson, the former Prime Minster of Jamaica. They re-energized the African leaders and audience with fresh thoughts.
 
Although, Africa is on the fast lane of growth; it is not with out its intertwine problems. Unless, Africa implements Pan-Africanism in its true perspective, and allowing its people to travel freely from the North to the South and from the East to the West, the problems which swell up day by day will put Africa in a very vulnerable position.
 
The envision of Pan-Africanism, fifty years ago was mainly to protect Africa from its external enemies, but now it will help to save it from internal enemies as well, such as: tribalism, radical Islamism, ethnic conflict. It also challenges leaders to think out side their tribal and religion boxes. Alternatively, it prevents bright academics from migrate to Europe and North America to serve as second class Intellectuals, as the same time it will help to bring back those who are serving in Diaspora.
 
As it has been said that Europe was created by History, the US by Philosophy, and we must say Africa will be recreated by Pan Africanism.
 
In conclusion, the name changing of the OAU is nothing but a rewriting of the OAU’s amendment of the Lagos treaty. No matter what name has been given to it, the substance of the OAU will always resonate in the AU.
 
During the creation of the OAU, in May 1963, in Addis Ababa, Emperor HaileSelassie’s remark is a trial of Africa: 
“A century hence, when future generations study the pages of history, seeking to follow and fathom the growth and development of the African continent, what will they find of this Conference?”

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Summer Reading -- Home coming

July 14, 2013, 8:01 pm
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I am so excited! and it feels like home coming after long time. Yes, after long time I finished reading a book cover to cover and with the same energy, I am almost half way on the second book from the three books that were brought to me recently from Hager Bet (Homeland).
The book I just finished is "KaYehut na KeSemahut' a memoir of Ras Imru Haile Selassie. I will have a say about some of its content in the coming days but what I can say in general is what a powerful testimony from someone who grew up with Lij Tafari Mekonnen (later Emperor Haile Selassie) and who saw & participated in major political developments of Ethiopia closely throughout Haile Selassie's rise to power & his fall in the end.  The book I am starting now is Fitawrari/Bejirond Tekle Hawaryat's 'Ye-Hiwote TariK' (autobiography). I was told by a friend that it will be more fun read than the one I just finished. So far it reads like fiction. What an amazing real life story. I knew the third one Fiqru Kidane's 'Ye-Piasa Lij' will be a delightful reading.
When the book came out I knew how it was sold like a hot cake and  even on its third  or fourth reprint and it is still in big demand. Actually, the reason I wanted to read that book last was I reasoned if I start with this book, it would be hard to read books which dealt with hard and serious political issues after it. I did not want to start and stop somewhere in the middle like many books that are still sitting on my bed side for months. Since I was introduced to Internet back in the 90s, my reading habits has changed. It has been a while since I read a book from cover to cover.




Actually the last book I "read" until the end is 'Cutting for Stone' by Abraham Verghese.
Even that one I started by reading a book I borrowed from a library but finished it by listening to its audiobook version while driving to and after work. I enjoyed the audiobook experience. Since then when some one tells me you should read this or that book, I ask or try to find out if audiobook version is available. The reason is I am afraid I will start it but won't be able to finish it. I was not like this. I was a book lover. In the beginning as a kid growing in Ethiopia, my social life revolved around soccer and it was through soccer that I was able to make several friends. Just before joining college I was introduced to reading fiction books in English and in my young adult age books have become the means by which I built friendships. Some who have known me since then tells me that the mental image they have about me of those youthful days is me carrying a book under my arms. The reason I was mostly seen with books is not because I read books fast one after another. It is just that it takes me long time to finish a book. Even to my book reader friends I was relatively a slow reader. Taking tong time to finish a book has allowed me to digest it or to savor its content better. I have a saying. Slow reading is like slow eating. The slower you take it the more enjoyment you will get out of it. Now it is that enjoyment, the pleasure which stays with me after I finished a book that I miss the most.
Internet has spoiled me. Getting used to information which come in pieces, now the sight of a small size book (let alone a volumenous one) fatigue me. I lacked the patience to go thorough pages after pages. Cyber hopping (jumping from one website to another; from one portal to another; from one newsfeed on facebook wall to another) had become my favorite pastime. But all this time I was missing the pleasure I used to get from reading a book entirely. Now with these books I am back to reading again. This summer then will be summer of reading. I am glad I am getting my groove back.
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In Memoriam: 120th Birthday of Emperor Haile Selassie

July 22, 2013, 10:08 pm
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Blogger's Note: The following essay is by Ambassador Imru Zelleke and posted here with minor editorial changes.The opinions expressed by the guest blogger do not necessary reflect the opinions of Wemezekir's blogger/Editor. Wemezekir's Editor is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within this essay.
HIM Haile Sellassie I 

Emperor of Ethiopia
In memoriam
July 23, 2013
Today is the 120th Birthday of the late Emperor Haile Sellassie I. In view of what happened in Ethiopia after the end of his reign, it is time now to remember him and recollect some of his achievements in the history of Ethiopia.
He was not a modern educated man but a man endowed with exceptional intelligence whose formation was guided by the canons and traditions  of the Ethiopian Monarchy and the Christian percepts of the Ethiopian  Coptic  Orthodox Church. He had learned French and some modern notions from Catholic Capucins Monks that gave him some modern ideas in his early age. Having visited European countries in the twenties he was exposed to many aspects of modern life and new technologies.
Governor of Harrar at the age of fourteen and subsequently Governor of Kaffa, as well as participating in Court politics, he had learned the ropes of governance in the intriguing and multifarious atmosphere of Ethiopian polity. A visionary and ambitious personality, he pursued vigorously and ruthlessly his goals to gain power. Notwithstanding these traits he was a parsimonious and disciplined leader with little interest in the mundane luxuries that power granted. An indefatigable worker completely dedicated to his role, he pursued relentlessly policies of consolidating the Empire and modernizing Ethiopia, including the  return of Eritrea to the motherland and her historical access to the sea.
To state that during  his reign Ethiopia had made a remarkable progress in many aspects of national life would be superfluous, considering that it was achieved starting from scratch, with little financial and human resources and negligible foreign assistance. Internationally Ethiopia had acquired respect and recognition for its positive role in world affairs, helping  liberation movements and African independence and playing a major role in the creation of Organization of African Unity.  At the end of his rule he handed  over power peacefully and left a country with solid foundation upon which an advanced and progressive nation could have been built. Yes, a lot of improvement and modernization could have been done in his time, but it would be asking the Emperor why he did not accomplish  matters beyond his  capabilities .  In comparison to the disastrous events that followed it is comforting to think that there are some good times to remember.
The Emperor was a human being with the defaults and good sides  that we all possess, nevertheless he was an exceptional leader that served well his country and his people. 
Imru Zelleke
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Remembering our martyr Abune (Bishop) Petros

July 29, 2013, 4:10 pm
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Blogger's Note: In memoriam of the Abune Petros who was executed on this day (July 29th) 1936 by Fascist Italian forces, a brief biographical sketch of the beloved Abune is reprinted here from 2005 E.C. Ethiopian Calendar with Primary Sources.


Abune Petros (1892-1936) was born near Fiche and his given name on birth was Haile Mariam. He studied with clergy to become an Orthodox Church priest, and he became a monk at the age of 24. He taught in the Fiche area, at the Debre-Menkrat monastery in Wolamo, and at the island Church of Mary in Lake Zewai. In June 1929 he was appointed Bishop of Wollo and was given the patriarchic name Abuna Petros. When the Italo-Ethiopian war began in 1935, he accompanied Emperor Haile Selassie in the northern campaign and witnessed the horrific effects of poison gas at-tacks on civilians. During the Fascist occupation, Petros briefly took refuge in Debre Li-banos Monastry in Shoa before moving to Addis Ababa. Abune Petros through his preaching & teachings reminded Ethiopians to stand-up for their belief and conviction that God would redeem Ethiopia & her people. Italian occupation authorities looked at his preaching & teaching as incitement to resist the occupation and asked him to stop. He replied by saying: “The cry of my countrymen who died due to your poison gas and terror machinery will never allow my conscious to accept your ultimatum. How can I see my God if I give a blind eye to such a crime?”
 When the Patriots’ Resistance Movement began a nation-wide war of resistance, Petros moved to Addis Ababa. In the summer of 1936, when an attempted insurrection in the capital failed, Petros was arrested and tortured for having spoken out against the occupying army. In a hurried trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death. His final words before his execution were: “May God give the people of Ethiopia the strength to resist and never bow down to the fascist army and its violence. May the Ethiopian earth never accept the invading army’s rule.” In 1946, Emperor Haile Selassie dedicated a monument in honor of Abuna Petros at the newly christened Abuna Petros Square. Here follows part of Emperor Haile Selassie's speech  during the dedicating ceremony:
Speech delivered at UNVEILING MONUMENT TO ABUNA PETROS
July, 1946
“We today commemorate the martyrdom of an Ethiopian patriot who consecrated with his blood the place on which we now stand, in defence of the principles of religion and of uncompromising resistance against the forces of aggression. The Monument which We have unveiled, distinguishes the square where the Church Leader, Abuna Petros, was shot by the Italian aggressors in July 1936. His crime was that of being an Ethiopian and leader of the Ethiopian church, a leader that shrank not from condemning before the world the immorality of the Fascist regime. His death, which had been ordered amongst the first of those sought by the Fascists, marked the importance which the aggressor attached to the destruction of the basis of Ethiopian culture and standards of conduct. It also marked the culminating point in the bitter struggle in the course of which the enemy systematically burned and destroyed churches throughout Our Empire.
The death of Abuna Petros marked a significant point in a struggle characterized by the use of pro-scribed means of warfare, such as poison gas, the burning of villages and homes, the murder of non
-combatants and the aged, and by attempting systematically to abase the moral standards and the culture of the country through terrorism, the slaughter of the educated classes and the total destruction of schools. His death likewise preceded the massacres of February 1937 and those that followed. How many victims bear witness here today with broken lives to the depths of those atrocities?
It is a sad commentary on the state of the world of that period which tolerated the brutalities and the campaigns of unspeakable atrocities in Ethiopia. We ask, had the world refused to tolerate those immoralities, if it had reacted with energy against those violations of international law, might we not have spared the countless deaths and sacrifices of the last ten years? This monument, although far from the battlefields of Europe, has, therefore, a significance that transcends the frontiers of Ethiopia and the confines of the Continent of Africa and unites the dead of Ethiopia, the Ethiopian and British heroes, with those of El Alamein, of Salerno, of Stalingrad, of Normandy, and of Okinawa. […]
We will now turn to the period of peace at which we have by the Grace of God, at last arrived. It is necessary that the Governments of the United Nations who are now working for the reconstruction of World Peace should be guided by the principles of impartiality so that they shall lay down a solid and proper foundation stone for a system of peace which shall out-live generations. If the condition of the peace is such as will satisfy the conscience and sense of justice of men, if it is assured to human kind that they shall toil and live happily under a just sys-tem in which no discrimination will be made between small and great, then the peace system that shall be laid down can leave a heritage for the coming generation which will be full of happy life and boundless prosperity. […]
All [Ethiopia] needs are institutions and schools to filter and assimilate her an-cient culture with modern culture. As you all know, before Ethiopia was invaded by the enemy, We did all that could be done to advance education in spite of all the difficulties that had to be encountered. The products of Our schools have been put to trial both in peace time as in the time of Ethiopia's calamity. At this moment let us remember all those who have been hunted and murdered by the enemy. […]
Source: Selected Speeches of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I 1918—1967. Addis Aba-ba: Imperial Ministry of Information, 1967.

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India on my Mind by Dr. Msmaku Asrat

August 7, 2013, 6:15 pm
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Blogger's Note:The following essay is submitted by a guest blogger and posted here with minor editorial changes. The opinions expressed by the guest blogger do not necessary reflect the opinions of Wemezekir's blogger/Editor. Wemezekir's Editor is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within this essay.
INDIA ON MY MIND
[By] Msmaku Asrat
India is one of the oldest polities in the world such as China, Persia, Egypt and Ethiopia.  But no people are so misconstrued as the Indians. There are people who are called “Indians” in the entire America North and South. There is also a place called West Indies where no Indians live. The most famous ones (or the ones made famous by Hollywood films) are the Red Indians– now currently called Native Americans. When I was a little boy, my greatest enjoyment was to go to the only three ‘film houses’ in Addis Ababa in Piazza area whenever I could and if possible almost every Saturday and Sunday, as well as on Wednesday afternoons (when my school TMS is closed for half a day) to see cowboy films. These places were called Cinema Adwa, Cinema  Ethiopia and Cinema ‘Ampir’ (Empire) Each work day you can see three films from 12:00 Noon till 6:00 PM. On Saturdays and Sundays there are matinees and the show goes on from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Early morning was for children Tarzan and Chapter adventure films (ch.1 -16) The vast majority of films shown were “cowboy films” where we see the “hero” like Gary Cooper, John Wayne, shooting or mowing down dozens of blabbering “Red Indians” and we stomped, we whistled and stood up and applauded until our palms get red and our voices get hoarse.  The Clot revolvers  of the heroes and other white actors is what is known as “the 6 loader but 12 shooter” ስድስትጎራሽአስራሁለትተኳሽ because the chambers are only six but it keeps on firing on  and on – and never mind that. The joy is in the shooting and the killing. During my elementary and high school years, everything American (meaning US) was admired. Their chewing gums, their jeans, their coca cola, and above all their films are what we cherish most.  Since I was not a sport fan of any sort my major entertainment were the films shown at Piazza. Occasionally blockbuster movies (Mother India, Waqt, Sangham)come from Bollywood which melted the sentiments of women in particular and was loved by the general public if not the smart Alec Piazza kids.  The fiction books we read were either British or American. Agatha Christie and Graham Green were British   Zane Gray, Robert Ludlum and the ‘Saint’ series were American.  During the brutal Derg time all “Western” films were banned and second rate Indian and Russian films were the only ones allowed.
Then there are the “Indians” which the Portuguese and Spanish Conquistadores like Cortes, Pissarro encountered in Mexico and the entire Southern America.  The ‘conquistadores’ were soldiers, explorers and adventurers in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish Empires during the 15th to the 17th Centuries. Cortes conquered the Aztec Empire (Mexico) and Pissarro the Inca Empire (Peru). Both Cortez and Pissarro were second cousins. In 1492 Christopher Columbus wanted to find a Western route to India and arrived at the Caribbean Islands. He believed that he has reached India and he promptly called the islands “West Indies” and the people as Indians. This name was soon transferred to the mainland and the entire population of the American continent were called Indians. In the North American and specifically the United States they were called Red Indians. This name was changed some time ago to Native Americans.  The first and greatest Holocaust which also included the destruction of animals and Nature was in the US after the arrival of the ‘White Man’ in North America. An estimated 13 million Red Indians were massacred and four times that number of buffalos, on which the “Red Indians “ depended for their sustenance, were decimated, usually be poisoning their watering holes and rivers. All this in order to clear the way for White settlers. But America was rich in natural resources beyond one’s imagination. It was called “God’s Own Country” and the holocaust was an entirely unnecessary and a most evil inhuman act for which there was no justifiable reason, except sheer cruelty.  The Second Holocaust in history was the massacre of 10 million Africans in the Congo by the mercenaries of King Leopard II, King of the Belgians and the sole owner of the enormous territory of the Congo in the 19th Century. The crime was so horrendous that Europeans Powers came together and took the Congo from the king and gave it for Belgium. And it became the Belgian Congo.  The Third Holocaust was that of Hitler against the Jews of Europe.
The REAL India was that in the subcontinent of Asia.  The Portuguese first arrived there and established their colony at Goa. When Emperor Libne Dingel asked the assistance of Portugal, the mightiest power of Europe at the time, in order to repel the Jihad of Ahmed Gran and Turkey, Portugal dispatched Christopher DeGama (brother of Vasco DeGama, the famous explorer) with 400 soldiers from its colony of Goa.  When General Napier (later Lord) was sent by Queen Victoria to free the European hostages held by Emperor Tewodros, his huge army sailed from Bombay (now Mumbai), India. The India Raj (Empire) was the jewel of the British crown. First occupied by the British East Indian Company and later taken over by the British. The India Raj was the crowning jewel of the British Empire. It was their richest and largest colony. They were to stay there for over 450 years. When they left in 1948, the country was divided into two (India and Pakistan) and later Pakistan was again divided into two (Pakistan and Bangladesh)
What the British did in India was phenomenal. Those who came out first in the strenuous national exams in Britain were sent to India and those who came second stayed behind to administer the home turf. With a 40 thousand army and an excellent civil service the British ruled a unified India. They built an elaborate and excellent railway system, the best in the world. And they sent Indians to Africa, from South Africa to Kenya to build the railways there. They abolished the nefarious and most inhuman practice of SATI. It was a practice when a widowed woman would be forced to immolate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. (Hindus do nor bury their dead but burn them)  The burning of women alive was a most horrendous crime of the Hindu Patriarchal society – the most extreme crime against women in human history. Hindus have many Gods which number more than the days in a year. Their Gods could be humans, animals (like mice, monkeys, birds, flies and cows). And plants as well. On the top sits the ‘sacred cow’. In their belief in transmigration of souls that is the best you would hope for when you die after living a correct life – to be incarnated as a COW when you are reborn again. Like the religion of “people of the Book” (Jews, Christians and Muslims), human beings   are not created in the image of God. In fact in the caste system there is a hierarchy of humanity. On top are the Brahmins and at the bottom were the Untouchables. –whom Gandhi tried to emancipate and called them Harijans (children of God). Indians also differentiate themselves in dozens of ‘shades of color’.
The British in an act of utter malice and calculated cruelty added another layer to all this. They started a system of discrimination based on color and this for the first time in human history. They put their white race on top and said that it was dictated to be on top by Devine Providence and that the brown and black races are created to be below them. They enforced this principle in the strictest possible measure going to unbelievable extremes to enforce it. Slavery has existed for millennium and all conquered people black or white were made slaves. For example, the Arab ‘Barbary pirates’ of North Africa had captured over a million Europeans between the 16th and 19th and sold them to Arabs and to the Ottoman Empire (Turks.) Later Arabs were middle men who captured Africans and sold them to other European pirates who in turn sold them as slaves to the Americas – North and South. The British who had perfected the color line in India and then transferred it to Africa. In South Africa the color line has four divisions. On top were the Whites, next came the Colored (mixed with white blood), then Indians and at the bottom the Africans. 
One of the greatest men of the world and undoubtedly of the 20th Century was a young lawyer called Gandhi. He was born in Indian 1989 and studied as a lawyer in Britain. In 1893 he went to South Africa and started a struggle for the emancipation of the suppressed races but it was an uphill fight against the Dutch (Afrikaners) and the British. With a brilliant stroke he took the battle into the belly of the beast- the British Raj in India - where he returned in 1908. The rest is history.

I do not know what drew me to Mahatma Gandhi in my college days because I wrote my Thesison Mahatma Gandhi. It may be my earlier exposure to Buddhism while in High School and my rejection of Marxism-Leninism in my college days. In my high school a certain Buddhist Guru was the rage in Addis Abeba with many followers and I was one of them.  When his books come to the only bookstore in town, Janopolus in Piazza we the ‘True Believers’ rushed to buy it and then sat at the famous King George Bar (demolished over 40 years ago and never rebuilt) next door and discuss it endlessly.   Then the Guru disappeared as suddenly as he had come. But the friends I knew then lasted for a long time. I have read short biographies of Mahatma Gandhi and Benito Mussolini written in Amharic when I was in elementary school. It compared the lives of the two and how they died. Mussolini was captured by anti-Fascist Partisans when he attempted to flee in disguise. He was brought to Milan and hanged upside down in one of the streets. 
In the 9thgrade our science teacher was the exquisitely beautiful Mrs. Abrahams.She wore a different beautiful sari almost every day of the school year. We swooned and swayed whenever she comes to our classes but she charmingly and deftly ignored our raging hormones. In 12th grade we had another Indian Chemistry teacher. He was an Orthodox Christian. The small Indian Orthodox community in Addis had their services at Trinity Cathedral every Sunday. Among the 12 types of the Orthodox religions Indian Orthodox Church is one of them and the closest to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church.  There was also a small merchant group called “BANYAN” in Merkato area. I have seen them and they were selling textiles for the most part.  There was also a place called “Benin Sefer” in Addis Ababa where most of these merchants lived. Later they disappeared at about the same time as the disappearance of Arab (Yemenite) merchants, who use to run small shops called Arab bet. Most importantly there were the school teachers which replaced the more expensive “ferenji” teachers. The Indians were willing to teach into the hinterland of the country, where they quickly turned ‘native’ mixed with the population easily and improved the quality of education. Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian students are taught by Indian teachers. During this time, for example, the British were running a failing high school called General Wingate even while the high school education of Wingate School was five years instead of four.  Lastly, Emperor Haile Selassie made the wise decision to invite the prestigious Indian Military Academy (fashioned in the manner of the British Academy at Sandhurst) to establish the Harar Military Academy which became an excellent institution. In graduate school one ‘books of the trade’ author were the books by the noted Indian female environmentalist Vandana Shiva.
Gandhi   not only conquered the British Empire but emerged as the most admired and respected human being of the 20th Century. His deep understanding of the sacred books of Hinduism - Vedas, Upanishads and Baghavad Gitaallowed him to develop the concept of non violence, non-cooperation in 1922. It later became known as the civil disobedience movement best expressed in the “Salt March” he led in 1930 defying importation of British salt. He then rejected the import of textile from Manchester, England, and changed his Western garment to locally hand woven loin cloth- an attire which made him world famous. Churchill refused to meet this “half-naked fakir” as he called him and loftily declared that he has not become the First Minister of Britain in order to liquidate the British Empire. Gandhi said that India lives in its 500,000 villages and should develop small self reliant communities with its excellent cottage industry - a precursor of “Small is Beautiful “concept. He was firmly opposed by Nehru and others who preferred rapid industrialization. Gandhi said that the hand loom or the spinning wheel was the symbol of India’s self reliance. The symbol was to become the centerpiece of India National Flag in honor of Gandhi.   However, India’s first Prime Minister Nehru and the Indian National Congress he led wanted Industrialization. They won the day and India industrialized much to the chagrin of Gandhi was was assassinated a few years later by a Hindu fanatic. Gandhi had brilliantly agreed to support Britain in its war effort if Britain in turn pledges to grant India’s independence after the war was over. Britain had to agree and India won its independence in 1948.  
Meantime Indian soldiers served under the British army all over the world until the end of the Second World War. They were among General Cunningham’s forces when he entered Addis Ababa defeating the Italian Fascists.  It was not their first time for them in Ethiopia.  In 1868 they had accompanied Napier’s army to construct the 20 kms or so railway which was to transport the 13,000 men thirty thousand animals including 25 elephants to the foot of the escarpment. When Napier left Napier dismantled and took back this rolling stock and locomotives and left us to our own devices. Few people remember that this was the first railway built in Ethiopia.
The first time I went to India was in 1979 to attend the Non-Aligned conference ably presided by Indira Gandhi the Prime Minister of India (Mrs. Gandhi is no relation to Gandhi  but is the daughter of the first PM Jawahlal Nehru. He gave her the name Gandhi out of respect to the Mahatma.) During the sixties I had a sister living in India who was married to a diplomat. Another sister had also joined them there. When they returned the husband and wife were extremely impressed by India, he by the philosophy of Hinduism and she, by the beautiful brass, paper Mache and wood artifacts which she had collected a whole household full and they were indeed beautiful.  They also gave a daughter born there an Indian name. The other sister, even though educated there, India left no impression on her. It was as if that she has never been there.  The Indians who came to East, Central and Sothern Africa to build railways stayed there and became prosperous and served as a buffer between the native blacks and the ruling British. Kenya gained its Independence in December 1963 and the fiery “Jomo” (burning spear) Kenyatta of Mau Mau fame completely surrendered to the British after independence. The Indians were the rich traders who treated Kenyans like dirt. I noticed this in late 60’s and early 70’s when we, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs used to pass through Nairobi several times a year while going to the OAU Liberation Committee meetings in Dar Es Salaam. It was as though Kenya was still under colonial rule. The Indians showed supreme arrogance. While they walk the streets they look straight ahead and the “natives” had to scramble or fall on each other to make way for the Indians. The Indians of Tanzania have long left because of the spirit of Socialism and Ujamization introduced by Neyrere. So when Idi Amin drove out the Indians it was a singularly brilliant stroke and, those of us who have seen them in Kenya were the first to applaud his decision.  The Indians of Uganda had maintained their British citizenship but Britain was not prepared to accept them crating a huge embarrassment to Britain which reinforced their determination to topple Idi Amin. Now it appears that Museveni, the Western stooge, has invited the Indians back and with compensation paid.
In this year of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the OAU the TPLF government is deeply embarrassed by the decision of their late Meles Zenawi to deny Emperor Haile Selassie his place of honor by erecting a statue for him at AU besides that of Nkrumah. The spineless African leaders are said to have been deeply ashamed to having succumbed to the dictat of one bully who is now dead and buried. As I written elsewhere in the past it was Kwame Nkrumah who composed and read the following poem at the signing of the OAU Charter in 1963 where I was fortunately present.

Ethiopia shall rise
 Ethiopia, Africa’s bright gem
 Set high among the verdant hills
 That gave birth to the unfailing
 Waters of the Nile
 Ethiopia shall rise
 Ethiopia, land of the wise;
 Ethiopia, bold cradle of Africa’s ancient rule
 And fertile school
 Of our African culture;
 Ethiopia, the wise
 Shall rise
 And remould with us the full figure
 Of Africa’s hopes
 And destiny.


 
The successors of Meles  are trying to redress that historical error first by allowing their doormat of a President (whom they told to shut up when he dared to speak about Patriarch Merkorios) to write a letter to OAU asking that Emperor Haile Selassie statue be erected. The Weyane may even go further and restore the name Haile Selassie to the University and Tafai Makonnen to the school he built. During this time when the world is focusing on Ethiopia on account of the 50th Anniversary of AU the TPLF gang is showing some pro forma gestures about fighting corruption. One half of the government is investigating the other half- a total farce. It has always been known  አሳየሚገማውከጭንቅላቱነው  so does leadership. All this is a calculated window dressing theatre of the absurd for the benefit of the current crowd being assembled in Ethiopia. TPLF will not change its spots or be expected to kill the chicken that lays the golden egg of corruption. After all that is their mainstay and the raison d’être of their very existence.  The youth in Ethiopia appear to be energized and are boldly challenging the dictatorship. I hope that they would WALK theTALK and succeed where others had faltered.
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The bare foot hero who conquered Rome

August 7, 2013, 9:10 pm
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"..it had taken an entire Italian army to conquer Ethiopia, but only one Ethiopian soldier to conquer Rome.."
 Blogger's Note:

In commemoration of Abebe Bikila's birthday, here is a brief biographical sketch of the ground breaking athlete from Ethiopian Calendar with Biographies -2004 E.C. edition.
Abebe Bikila 1924-66 EC (1932 - 1973)
Sport legend. Olympic hero. the First black African to win an Olympic medal, and the first man ever to win two Olympic marathons.in 2 consecutive Olympics, 1960 in Rome and 1964 in Tokyo.
Abebe was born in August 1932 in a village called Jato, about 130 kilo-meters away from Addis Ababa, near Debre Birhan. His parents were Woizero Wudinesh Menberu and Ato Bikila Demissie. Like most other boys in the area, he spent most of his childhood as a shepherd and a student. At the age of 12, he completed the primary level of traditional church education. At this age, Abebe had already distinguished himself as an exceptional player of traditional hockey known as Gena. In 1952, young Abebe was hired by the Imperial Guard. There, he participated in both athletics and "Gena" contests. In 1954 he married Yewibdar Wolde Giorghis with whom he fathered four children.
It took several years for Abebe to come out as a fine athlete at the Imperial Guard. His defining moment came when, once, he was watching a parade of Ethiopian athletes who had participated in the Melbourne Olympics. Looking at these athletes who were wearing a sport outfit with the name "Ethiopia" written on the back, he asked who they were. When told that they were athletes who represented Ethiopia in the Olympics, he was determined to be one of them. In 1956, at the age of 24, Abebe participated in the National Armed Forces championships.
The hero of the time was Wami Biratu who held the national re-cords in 5,000 and 10,000-meter races. During the marathon race, the crowd at the stadium was waiting to see Wami Biratu come as a winner. In the first few kilometers, Wami was leading. After a while, radio broadcasters informed the crowd that a young unknown ath-lete by the name of Abebe was leading. As Abebe was extending his lead, the crowd waited anxiously to see this new sensation. Abebe easily won his first major race and later on went to break the 5,000 and 10,000-Meter records held by Wami. With these impressive results, Abebe qualified for the Rome Olympics. Finally, Abebe‘s dream of wearing that sport out-fit with Ethiopia‘s name written on the back was realized.
Abebe‘s race in the Rome Olympics was what established him as a legend and a household name all over the globe. Not only did he win the race, but also set a new world record at 2:16:2. He was also the first African to win an Olympics medal. Commenting on why he ran barefoot, Abebe said, "I wanted the world to know that my country Ethiopia has al-ways won with determination and heroism."
Four years later during the Tokyo Olympics, Abebe‘s fame had already reached all corners of the globe. Six weeks before the big race that awaited him, Abebe was taken ill with ap-pendicitis. He underwent surgery amid a public outcry for a proper medical team to decide on the procedure. The day he arrived in Tokyo, Abebe hadn‘t fully recovered from the sur-gery and limped his way down the stairs. However, the reception Abebe received from the Japanese people helped him recover rather quickly. Along with his colleagues Mamo Wolde and Demissie Wolde, Abebe resumed his regular training within a few days of his arrival in Tokyo. The marathon race, particularly the way Abebe won it barely six weeks after his surgery and the gymnastic display he showed right after finishing the race victoriously, is a classic image engraved in the minds of hundreds of millions of people. This was also the first time ever that the marathon race was won consecutively by an athlete. The new record of 2:12:11 that Abebe set was also an icing on a cake for this remarkable race.

Abebe trained hard for the Mexico City Olympics of 1968. Unfortunately, he had to withdraw from the race after running 15 kilometers due to illness. His compatriot, Mamo Wolde, would later finish the race victoriously.
Abebe had competed in more than 26 major marathon races in his illustrious athletic career. The world championships he won in 1960 and 1964 deserve special recognition.
In 1968 after returning from Mexico, the legendary athlete was involved in a car acci-dent in the town of Sheno, 78 Kilometers northeast of Addis Ababa. Over the follow-ing nine months, he received medical treatment both in Ethiopia and abroad. How-ever, he remained paralyzed the waist below for the rest of his life. Even while on wheelchair, Abebe‘s competitive spirit and desire to see his country‘s flag hoisted high and proud helped him win in several races. In 1970, he participated in a 25-kilometer cross-country sledge competition in Norway where he won the gold medal. Again, in the same tournament, he won a similar 10-KM race where he was awarded a special plaque.
The illustrious life of the legendary Abebe Bikila came to a tragic end in October of 1973 when he finally succumbed to a disease he had battled for many months. This eternal Ethiopian hero was buried in the grounds of St. Joseph church in Addis Ababa in the presence of a huge crowd and Emperor Haile Selassie.
This biographical sketch is in large part obtained from MediaEthiopia.com and reprinted here with permission. Other sources include a 1996 book written by his daughter Tsige Abebe entitled Triumph and Tragedy—A history of Abebe Bikila and his marathon career.‘
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