The
regime in power in Ethiopia today is orchestrating a full-court press
demonization and vilification campaign against Atse Menelik II, the
Nineteenth Century Ethiopian emperor whose centennial is being
celebrated this year (Ethiopian calendar). The campaign is conducted
largely through regime lackey-proxies, stooges and puppets.
One need not be surprised by the volume or vehemence of the
propaganda attack on Atse Menelik or the regime’s methodical and
organized campaign to incite hatred and ill-will by trotting out
Menelik’s Ghost. The fact of the matter is that the real issue is not
about the demonization (making a devil) of Menelik but about the
canonization (making a saint) of the regime’s late capo di tutti capi(boss of all bosses) Meles Zenawi.
Demons Demonizing Atse Menelik II
The vehement demonization propaganda campaign being waged against
Atse Menelik II is a futile attempt to re-write, miswrite, overwrite and
un-write Ethiopian history with the hagiography (tale of sainthood) of
Meles Zenawi. They want to unwrite Menelik’s history and write up Meles’
history as the greatest African leader of modern times. They want to
mythologize Meles, the “new breed of African leader”; Meles the bringer
of developmental state democracy; Meles, the African leader on Global
Warming and Climate change; Meles, the African leader who rubs elbows
with leaders of the G-8, the G-20; Meles, the chairperson of the Beijing
Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation; Meles, the destroyer
of Somali jihadists and terrorists… By demonizing Menelik, they want to
canonize (make a saint) Meles. Why demonize Menelik? Because he created a
modern African nation from petty feuding fiefdoms, kingdoms, princedoms
and chiefdoms. He is demonized because he stood up and whipped on the
battlefield one of the great European imperialist powers and permanently
secured Ethiopian independence and sovereignty. He is demonized because
he was a true African leader. By defaming Menelik and degrading his
legacy, they seek to give fame to Meles and sanctify his legacy.
The regime wants to completely overwrite the history of Atse Menelik.
Menelik was the first African leader to build a railroad. They want to
overwrite that history by claiming Meles was the first to bring a
magnificent long distance and light rail system to Ethiopia. Menelik
was the first African leader to introduce the telephone and telegraph on
the continent. When the first telephone was installed in Menelik’s
palace in 1889 thirteen years after Alexander Graham Bell patented his
“apparatus for vocal sounds”, anxious clergymen asked him to remove it
as the work of Satan, which he declined. Within a decade, Menelik had
inaugurated a telephone line connecting the capital with the eastern
city of Harar. They want overwrite that history by claiming that Meles
brought the most modern communication system to Ethiopia. The truth of
the matter is that the first African country to have telephone and
telegraph service today has the worst mobile telephone and internet
service in Africa. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that
while farmers in Ethiopia have cell (mobile) phones, “The trouble is,
they have to walk several miles to get a good signal.” Ethiopia has the
second worst internet service in Africa.
They want to miswrite history by depicting Menelik as brutal king who
lopped off women’s breasts. When it comes to brutality, is there anyone
more brutal and cold-blooded than Meles Zenawi? Meles personally
ordered the massacre of hundreds of unarmed protesters in 2005. Meles’s
own hand-picked and appointed Inquiry Commission reported that police
and security officials under Meles’ direct personal command and control
intentionally and deliberately massacred 193 unarmed protesters and
severely wounded 763 others. Meles personally ordered the massacre of
over 400 hundred civilians in Gambella, in western Ethiopia in 2004.
Meles personally authorized the bombing and strafing of villages in the
Ogaden. Under Meles’ personal command, his troops in the Ogaden
committed gang rapes, burned villages, conducted “demonstration
killings” including public hangings and beheadings intended to terrorize
the population. Steve Crawshaw, the United Nations advocacy director
for Human Rights Watch described the crimes against humanity committed
in the Ogaden as “a mini-Darfur.”
They want to rewrite history by depicting Menelik as an enemy of the
Oromo people. There is more than sufficient evidence to prosecute Meles,
if he were alive, and members of his gang for the untold and
unspeakable crimes against humanity they committed against the Oromo
people. The international human rights organization Freedom House in
2012 reported that Meles and his regime engaged in widespread
discrimination and repression against Oromo people. Meles has banned
the Oromo Liberation Front and jailed untold numbers of suspected
members and leaders without due process of law. According to former
Ethiopian President Negasso Gidada, when he left office in 2001 “roughly
25,000 people were in prison on OLF-related charges throughout Oromia
and in Addis Ababa.” Meles’ former comrade and defense minister Seeye
Abraha ironically observed: “Kaliti Prison speaks Oromiffa, and 99% of
one of the camps housing hundreds of inmates at Kality Prison are Oromo.
Many of the detainees don’t know their charges but have counted years
as OLF suspects.”
Meles invaded Somalia in 2006 on the bogus pretext that jihadist were
taking over that country and that he had been “invited” by the Somalis
to intervene. In a televised address Meles said, “Ethiopian defense
forces were forced to enter into war to protect the sovereignty of the
nation and to blunt repeated attacks by Islamic courts terrorists and
anti-Ethiopian elements they are supporting.” On December 27, 2006,
Meles’ troops and tanks stormed into Mogadishu. By August 2007, Meles’
troops were bogged down in Somalia and the human cost was proving to be
horrendous: Tens of thousands of Somali civilians had died and over
870,000 were forced to flee their homes in Mogadishu, a bustling city of
1.2 million people in 2006. After Meles’ invasion, international human
rights organizations described Somalia “as one of the worst humanitarian
situations in Africa.”
Menelik fought defensive wars against Europe’s imperialist aggressors
and won. It is undeniable that Menelik was the first African leader in
history to decisively defeat a mighty European power in battle and send
them packing back to Europe with their tails between their legs. Menelik
whipped the Italians at Amba Alagi and Mekele and delivered the final
blow at the battle of Adwa in 1896. No European could have imagined that
an army of “black African savages” could defeat a mighty European
imperial power. Menelik was a brilliant military tactician and despite
his extreme disadvantages in modern weaponry, tactics and resources, he
prevailed triumphantly crushing once and for all the ideology of white
superiority and supremacy. Through trickery and deception, various
European imperial powers sought to carve out pieces of Ethiopia as
colonial territories. In 1889, Menelik concluded the Treaty of Uccialli
with Italy with respect to certain territories in the north of the
country. When he found out that the Italian language version of the
treaty, in stark contrast to the Amharic version, had rendered Ethiopia
an Italian protectorate, he denounced the agreement.
They want to rewrite this history by showcasing Meles as the regional
and international leader who made Ethiopia a regional power. They want
to portray him as the man who defended Ethiopian territorial integrity
and sovereignty. The facts show otherwise. Meles fought the Eritreans in
1998-99 over a border dispute in Badme, secured a military victory at
the cost of 80,000 Ethiopian lives and promptly agreed to turn over
Badme to the Eritreans in international arbitration. Never in the
history of warfare has a victorious army turned over its victory to the
vanquished so willingly. After defeating the socialist military junta in
1991, during transitional negotiations moderated by the U.S., Meles
refused to accept the port of Assab on the Eritrean coast as Ethiopia’s
outlet to the sea. Meles is singularly responsible for making Ethiopia a
landlocked country. Through secret treaties Meles has given away
Ethiopian territory to the Sudanese without so much as perfunctorily
consulting his rubber stamp parliament. Meles has pawned off millions of
hectares of the most fertile land in the country to underhanded
fly-by-night operators.
Menelik united Ethiopia and inaugurated the modern Ethiopian state.
Meles brought the illusion of modernization. He built hospitals without
doctors or medicine. He once said we don’t need doctors. He built
universities without competent professors, books, libraries or modern
technology. He built buildings without sewers. Menelik opened Ethiopia
to Western civilization. Meles took Ethiopia back to Oriental despotism
with his ludicrous theory of the “developmental state”. After taking
power in 1991, Meles fragmented the modern Ethiopian state and promptly
proceeded to balkanize the country into so-called kilils, or
apartheid-style bantustans or kililistans. Despite Meles’ completely
bogus claims of double-digit economic growth and 3xhortations of
“fastest for a non-oil exporting country in Sub-Saharan Africa”,
Ethiopia became the second poorest country in the world as I documented
in my commentary, “Why is Ethiopia Poor?”
Menelik was a “renaissance” Ethiopian leader. He took important
steps to strengthen and modernize his country. He eagerly embraced
modern technology and brought new communication systems to the country.
Menelik introduced the telephone and telegraph and a modern postal
system. He introduced electricity to Addis Ababa. He imported the first
motor car and even tried to introduce a modern Ethiopian currency
replacing the Maria Theresa thaler, the silver bullion coin that had
been used in world trade at the time. Menelik always placed Ethiopian
sovereignty above all else. In 1894 Menelik gave the French a concession
to lay rail lines from Djibouti to Addis Ababa. The same year, the
European imperial powers held the Berlin Conference and carved up Africa
for European colonialism. When the French tried to pull a fast one to
divest Ethiopian sovereignty over the rail line, Menelik shut them down
cold and relented only after reasserting Ethiopian sovereignty in 1906.
They want to rewrite that history by writing a bogus narrative of Meles,
the Renaissance Leader, the Builder of Hydroelectric Dams Unseen in
African History, the Builder of Bridges, Roads and Railroads…
Menelik may have presided over a feudal kingdom. He is an African
leader who did what he could under extreme domestic and international
conditions. He left a legacy of an Ethiopia, one nation under God, under
Allah. Meles’ enduring legacy is that he created the first true
thugtatorship in Africa. As I explained in myHuffington Post commentary,
“If democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the
people, a thugocracy is a government of thieves, for thieves, by
thieves. Simply stated, a thugtatorship is rule by a gang of thieves and
robbers (thugs) in designer suits. In a thugtatorship, the purpose of
seizing and clinging to political power is solely to accumulate personal
wealth for the ruling class by stealing public funds and depriving the
broader population scarce resources necessary for basic survival.”
The fact of Meles’ thugtatorship is amply documented not only in the
records but also in the eyewitness testimony of his former
comrades-in-arms. From the inception in the bush, Meles and his comrades
set up a kleptocratic system of administration. They diverted tens of
millions of dollars earmarked for famine relief in Tigrai region in the
early 1980s to buy weapons and enrich themselves. Recent reports have
shown that over one-half of the Ethiopian economy is controlled by
Meles’ officials, supporters, cronies, friends, comrades and others.
Corruption and theft of state resources is so endemic in Ethiopia that
the World Bank singled out Ethiopia as a case study of corruption in its
nearly 500-page report entitled, “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia”.
Thugtatorship shall be the lasting legacy of Meles.
They just love to hate Menelik
Hate is a symptom of a terminal sickness of the soul. Hate is
irrational. The scientific literature on hate shows that haters hate
because they are afraid, insecure, jealous; or because they hate
themselves or want to become the very object of their hate. Above all
haters hate themselves because they feel inadequate, powerless, hopeless
and helpless.
Mandela said, “No one is born hating another person because of the
color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn
to hate.” When I think of those in power in Ethiopia today, I wonder
and ponder if Mandela is right in his philosophical assessment. He
added, “If they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love
comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” I really
want to believe that Mandela’s principle would apply to those in power
despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
As a matter of principle and practice, we must strive to live by
Gandhi’s rule: “Hate the sin and not the sinner.” When we hate the
haters, we become their mirror images. We are who we hate. If we hate
Meles or his gang as a human beings, we become them. If we must hate, it
must be their acts and not them as human beings.
Hate is a powerful force. The hate spread by the Nazis destroyed
entire nations. Hate in Rwanda destroyed the lives of millions of
Rwandans. In Darfur, hate destroyed the lives of millions of Sudanese.
Thousands continue to die in Nigeria and the Central African Republic
because of religious hatred today. We must never, never give into hate.
I believe there are two types of people in the world. There are those
who follow the golden rule “love thy neighbor as thyself.” There are
others who live by what I call the “copper rule”, “hate thy neighbor as
thyself.” Haters think they can overcome their own helplessness,
insecurity, guilt and inability to change their circumstances by hating.
They hope to raise their feelings of inferiority and low self-worth by
hating others. Those who hate Menelik do not really hate Menelik; they
hate themselves and wish they could be Menelik and whatever he
symbolizes.
I pity those in power in Ethiopia today. I really do. I feel sorry
for them. They think they can sanctify their late leader and their
two-decade history by demonizing great Ethiopian leaders and tearing
down Ethiopian history. They think by tearing down Menelik and Haile
Selassie they can build up Meles. They think that by removing Menelik’s
statutes from public places and plastering cheap posters of Meles at
every street corner they can elevate Meles to a status of a deity. Meles
fought tooth and nail to make sure H.I.M. Haile Selassie’s statute
would not sit next to Nkrumah’s on the grounds of the African Union in
Ethiopia. Yet Nkruma himself said there would have been no Organization
of African Unity but for the relentless efforts of H.I.M. Haile
Selassie.
Despite prolonged reflection on the nature of the hate practiced by
those in power in Ethiopia today, I find no rational explanation. Most
people fear and are apprehensive of the future because it is unknown and
unpredictable. I cannot fathom people who fear the past, the distant
past, the Nineteenth Century Ethiopia. In my professional experience, I
have learned that the only people who fear and dread the past are only
criminals fearful that the crimes they have committed in the past will
eventually catch up with them. I have also come to the conclusion that
those in power hate to cover up and conceal their abuses and misuses of
power and use hate to divide and rule. They use hate to create fear and
loathing among Ethiopians of different ethnic groups so that they will
not be the object of scrutiny and accountability. Hate mongering is used
to distract people from their economic problems.
Love thy hater as thyself
The golden rule says, “love thy neighbor as thy self.” I say, “love
thy hater as thyself.” It is better to love than to hate. Hate is like a
boomerang. It goes out and comes around to the hater. To paraphrase
Mandela, hate is a poison of the soul. When haters hate, they are
drinking poison and expecting those they hate to die. There is also a
strange dialectics to hate that those in power should heed. Hate often
transforms the hated into an object of love and admiration. Those in
power in Ethiopia today should learn from the experiences of their
apartheid soul mates in the old South Africa. The apartheid masters
sought to diminish Mandela’s humanity, leadership and reputation for
decades. They put out all sorts of propaganda about him as a terrorist
and communist and never released a single photo of him during his years
of captivity. However, the law of unintended consequences prevailed. As
time passed and the anti-apartheid movement grew, Mandela’s invisibility
only added to his mythic status and helped transform him into an
international icon. The lesson is that the more they try to demonize
Menelik and Haile Selassie, the more Menelik and Haile Selassie will be
popular in the imagination of the younger generation. The more the older
generation will reassess its views about these leaders as they become
the objects of unending and relentless campaigns of vilification.
We must go beyond hate to love. Dr. Martin Luther King and Mandela
have taught us about the unconquerable power of love (agape) of humanity
and community; the power of healing a society afflicted by the cancer
of racial, ethnic and religious hate. Mandela had every reason to hate
and exact revenge. For 27 years Mandela’s name was Prisoner no. 46664.
When he emerged from the prison gates that February morning in 1990, he
beamed with that million dollar smile of his. He did not have a single
hateful thing to say about the masters of apartheid who jailed him for
27 years and separated him from his family. He taught us a great lesson:
“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my
freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d
still be in prison.” Mandela was never a prisoner of hate. The prison
was apartheid hate itself and the inmates were the wardens and masters
of apartheid. Mandela left prison to liberate the real inmates of
apartheid chained behind their walls of hate, fear and revenge.
If those in power in Ethiopia today continue with their hate, they
will find themselves in much the same situation as those who were in
power in apartheid South Africa. The free whites during apartheid stayed
up all night thinking about what the black Africans they had repressed
for so long could do to them when inevitable majority rule comes. The
hatred they had for black Africans not only denied them sleepless nights
but also destroyed their heart, minds and souls, their humanity. They
became zombies; the walking dead unable to enjoy the comforts of their
wealth; their exclusive neighborhoods became virtual prisons gated and
surrounded by electric fencing and prison-style razor wires. They live
in virtual armed camps.
There is a better way. Rather than responding with more hateful
vitriol, we should be more determined to find out the truth. We should
bring out the truth about Atse Menelik II, Atse Haile Selassie,
Colonel/President Mengistu Hailemariam and Prime Minster Meles Zenawi.
Let us learn from their mistakes not to hate them but to make sure we
the living do not repeat them. Let us learn from their errors not to
engage in recrimination but to find ways of reconciliation and to
correct their mistakes. We should band together with Ethiopia’s young
people to build the New Beloved Ethiopia where no man or woman has to
identify him/herself by his/her ethnicity but humanity, Africanity and
Ethiopianity. Let us build a New Beloved Ethiopia where no man or woman
feels so secure in his/her powers that s/he can order the massacre of
unarmed citizens and innocent civilians and get away with it. We must
work together to create a society that respects the dignity and rights
of every individual regardless of his ethnicity, faith or language. That
is how we must build a future, not by tearing down a past that has long
faded into the fog of time.
Let us not get offended or angry by the rhetoric of hate. It serves
no useful purpose. Let us expose the demonization campaign, debunk the
myths, and defend against the demonization and molestation of Ethiopian
history. Let’s us not throw ourselves in the mud and muck with the
haters. We should never forget George Bernard Shaw’s admonition, “I
learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it.” Exchanging hateful words with professional,
and possibly born haters, haters is like wrestling with pigs in the mud.
Changing hate to love
Let the haters hate and lie. There is not much we can do about that.
What is within our power is the ability to change ourselves from hating
to loving; we have the capacity to transform negative energy into
positive energy. We should change from hating to loving not because it
is easy but because it is exceedingly difficult. Love, whether of self,
others, community or nation requires a lot of work.
Let us learn from Gandhi and his way of Satyagraha or “truth force”.
Gandhi explained “Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha)
engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force.” The aim is to
convert the hater not to coerce him or her. In practical terms, the aim
is to convince the hater that the hate in his/her heart, mind and soul
will destroy him/her; that his/her only salvation is love of self,
community and nation. Let us use Satyagraha to make lovers out of
haters.
We should learn from Dr. King: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do
that.” He taught that “we must develop and maintain the capacity to
forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power
to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the
best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our
enemies.” Forgiveness and reconciliation are the antidotes, the cure,
for hate.
We should even learn from the greatest comic of modern times, Charlie
Chaplin: “The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power
they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men
die, liberty will never perish.” Liberty will outlive all haters. Let
us close ranks regardless of ethnicity and reaffirm our basic humanity
in our Ethiopianity and Africanity. Let’s leave no room for haters; we
should crowd them out.
Message to those in power in Ethiopia today
My message to the hate mongers in power in Ethiopia is simple. The
hate you propagate today will boomerang back to you. Today you smile and
snicker at the statute dedicated to show Menelik as a breast lopping
brute. Those who are told to hate Menelik today will be told to hate
Meles tomorrow. The day is not long when your great visionary leader
Meles will be commemorated in stone and marble as the Second Coming of
Rodolfo Graziani in the Ogaden, Gambella, Addis Ababa and elsewhere.
Those you hold as friends today will be your mortal enemies tomorrow.
Those you demonize as your enemies today will be your friends tomorrow
when the chips are down and you are on the receiving end. That is the
dialectics of history. Learn from history.
Atse Menelik II was neither saint nor demon; he was neither divine
nor a demigod. He was an African king who tried to unite and modernize
Ethiopia when the rest of Africa was on chopping block of European
imperialism being sliced, diced, spliced, priced and sacrificed. Let
Menelik II be judged by only one measure: The Truth. Historians should
tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Menelik.
In his centenary commemoration, I submit the testimony of the Belgian
explorer, Baron de Jarlsburg, given to the New York Times in 1909 as part, only part, of the historical evidence to be used in pronouncing judgment on Atse Menelik II:
Menelik has since accession to the throne, twenty years ago,
transformed Abyssinia from a semi-barbarous power to a State modeled on
the lines of a European constitutional monarchy… The sovereign, who
styles himself somewhat pompously, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Juda,
Elect of the Saviour, King of Kings of Ethiopia, shattered Italy’s
colonial ambitions by his victories at Amba-Garima… When Menelik was
crowned Emperor of Ethiopia on Nov. 4, 1889, after King Johanne’s death,
he was far from being the accepted ruler of all the States which
constitute the Abyssinian empire. It was only after much hard fighting
that Menelik finally succeeded in subjugating those rebellious
chieftains who did not recognize him… Since then, Menelik’s one aim has
been to introduce European civilization into his country. The Emperor,
after abolishing the feudal laws still extant in the empire, and
emancipating the slaves, established compulsory free education
throughout his dominions. As a result in another generation education
will be as widespread in Abyssinia as in several European countries.
Menelik is himself an altogether unique figure among African
potentates. As a diplomat, as a financier, and as a soldier, he can hold
his own with the most up-to-date of his brother sovereigns. As a
soldier and a diplomat, he showed his worth at the time of Italy’s
defeat by the Abyssinians. In late years, however, it is particularly as
a financier that Menelik has distinguished himself. He had a natural
bent for finance, even as a young man, before his accession to the
throne, and at that time went for stock speculation on the Paris Bourse
to a considerable extent. These youthful speculations proved successful,
and were only interrupted by the events which followed Menelik’s
accession…
The Abyssinian ruler has extended the range of his financial
operations to the United States, and is heavy investor in American
railroads. With his American securities and his French and Belgian
mining investments, Menelik has a private fortune estimated at no less
than twenty-five million dollars.
The most striking fact about Abyssinia’s dusky ruler is his
versatility. An accomplished linguist, he speaks French, English, and
Italian fluently. Notwithstanding all the time he is compelled to devote
to state affairs, he still finds the opportunity to keep up in current
European literature, and is rarely at a loss when a new author is
mentioned. At Adissaba Palace – to give him the title by which he is
known to his subjects — he takes particular pride in his library of ten
thousand volumes, collected by himself. Menelik’s chief hobby in the way
of books are works dealing with the ancient civilizations of Africa and
Asia.
Offering Menelik haters a square deal
I offer Menelik haters a square deal: If they stop lying about Menelik, I will stop telling the truth about Meles!
Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be
found at:
http://www.ecadforum.com/Amharic/archives/category/al-mariam-amharic and
http://ethioforum.org/?cat=24
Previous commentaries by the author are available at:
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/ and
www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/
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