July 23 - Haile Selassie I, Ethiopian emperor (d. 1975)
* ELLIS ISLAND - 1892 : Colonel John B. Weber, the Federal Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island, reports that up to March 1892, the end of the fiscal year of 1891-92, there arrived at the port of New York 477,972 immigrants.
... Cleveland was the front runner at the Democratic convention in 1892. Participation of Eligible Voters 74.7%
Fallaci: Your Majesty, I would like you to tell me something about yourself. Tell me were you ever an disobedient youth? But maybe I ought to ask you first whether you have ever had time to be young, Your Majesty?
Selassie: We don't understand that question. What kind of
question is it? It is obvious that We have been young: We weren't
born old! We have been a child, a boy, a youth, an adult, and
finally an old man. Like everyone else. Our Lord the Creator made
Us like everyone else. Maybe you wish to know what kind of youth
We were. Well, We were a very serious, very diligent, very
obedient youth. We were sometimes punished, but do you know why?
Because what We were made to study did not seem enough and We
wished to study further. We wanted to stay on at school after
lessons were over. We were loath to amuse Ourselves, to go
riding, to play. We didn't want to waste time on games. (From his
last interview)
Oh, this magic hour! The time of great changes. Nothing is better than the hour of the dying daylight. Only the mornings could be better than that. The birds call for a new day. The chill and darkness of the Abyssinian night is about to surrender to the hot and bright African day...
Before the first sound of the church bells and morning voices of mullahs on the minarets, the animals begin to cry. The night city was occupied by them -- dogs, donkeys, roosters and ghosts of budas. The remote wilderness outside of the capital was becoming alive at the hour of early services at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. The spirits were retiring for the day, the living creatures were awakening. They knew the hour to celebrate a new day. Totas, the small mad monkeys, led the chorus with the strongest voice of the former royal chimpanzee, Anko. The caged animals and their non-caged brothers in the trees felt no difference at this hour. First light, death of darkness, sundowns and sunrises are more powerful than human history. His Majesty Primal Time had his upper hand at the moment of the ancient battle between light and dark. Anko sang his old song. The court lion Anbeza cried right after he heard Anko;
they remembered better times in the palace, when their voices were a sign to every human to be silent. Lion Anbeza knew human flesh -- it was long ago, but the old lion still remembered the taste of a man's blood in his mouth. Many believed that Anbeza was a man-buda, who decided to remain as a lion, not a man. Others said that he forgot how to transform from animal back to a human, or he couldn't do it because of new times and the curse on him for killing humans. But all agreed that Anbeza could talk, and one could hear him talking to himself from time to time when he had his special place in the courtroom, to the right of the throne. Anbeza was a king long before the humans.
Anko was a buda man, too. There was a golden ring in his left
eye and he liked to wear gold rings on his fingers. He knew how
to read, and he liked to read old books, but he never talked with
people. Sometimes Anko would listen, staring straight into one's
eyes, but he never answered anyone. That was the night when the
two of them came to their master Menelik and told him the news.
.... "A large clock, one meter square, was later
installed above one of the palace buildings. It was visible from
afar, and chimed every hour, thus, it is reported, enabling the
citizens, perhaps for the first time in their lives, to go to
work on time." European history came to Africa. [The
clock on the City Hall tower stopped working at the time of
revolution. They say it was fixed in 1995, we left never seen the
clock legs move.]
Menelik listened in silence and then send Anbeza and Anko
away. And then he prayed. Nobody knew what the great man was parying
for. Emperor was a man of a few words.
The animals have cried. It was their duty to mark this magic
moment. No revolution could reform the ritual. They, the animals,
knew it and cried. The whole zoo of Africa was put into motion
after Anbeza's cry. Giraffes, rhinoceroses, elephants cried as it
was the hour of rebellion. It was the time of evening mass, the
magic hour when buda-people changed themselves into hyenas and
other ravenous beasts. The sleep of the people was deep and they
saw nothing.
It was the night, not the morning... The eucalyptus leaves would tremble... Silver and silk, flesh of vegetation... Tne black dove flew from Harar to the Menelik palace in the capital, dark as night to confirm the news.
Ras Makonnen with his army was one day away from Harar when
they woke him up this night. It was a boy.
You, fools, who believe that you know it all! You don't know how to listen and see! The spirits are everywhere! They give life to everything around, they move waters and air, they make birds sing and trees grow. You can call them "laws of nature" -- they don't care. Your follishness is not their loss.
Oh, the power of the Solomon! The black Hebrew. Not long ago,
before the revolution, the budas were distinguished from others
by a peculiarly formed gold ring, worn by the whole race, the
kind of a ring one could see in the ears of hyenas. Besides the
power that buda-people had of transforming themselves into wild
animals, they used to possess the still more dangerous attribute
of inflicting disease by directing a malign look towards their
victims. The evil eye. After the revolution the gold disappeared,
as well as the budas' rings, and nobody knew anymore who was a
hyena-man and who wasn't. All became evil. One could spot budas
only during this hour, called 'the hour between the wolf and the
dog.' One had to have in hand a piece of dried meat
"quanta" to see them. Persons of royal blood, of
course, had this gift of transformation, as did blacksmiths. Good
Christians believed that the hammer and sickle on red flags had
something to do with budas, but Christians had no say anymore.
There were no place for budas in Addis, all Falasha were
airlifted to Israel.
Now they are somebody's else problems. Oh, how much the country lost!.. A century ago it was another Africa in a different world we hardly remember. There was no Addis Ababa but the fourth sacred place of Islam, ancient Harar, were the future Christian ruler of Ethiopian empire was born.
1. CHILDHOOD OF TAFARI
Baby Tafari Makonnen was born on July 23, 1892, according to
western calendar; in the year of St. John, one of the four
evangelists, according to Ethiopians. John the Divine, who
received the Revelation of the end of the world and the Judgement
Day. It was a rain season, when the dried land is resurrected by
water. It was the time after the Fast of Moses and before the
Fast of Apostles and the Fast of the Assumption of the Virgin
Mary. It was a good time to be born. A boy was born, not a
prince...
By the time of the festivities of the Virgin Resurrection and
Assumption Tafari-boy was circumbsized... and baptized.
His father, Ras Makonnen, was a governor of Harar, sent by the
Emperor to the land of the Muslims. Wezero (Lady) Yeshimebet Ali
was 11 when she married Makonnen in 1874 (?), waited long to give
a birth in Ejersa Goro, in a town-village not far from the old
walls of Harrar. Tafari didn't remember his mother, who died of
unknown cause when he was two. She passed away on March 14, 1894,
barely of thirty years of age and was buried within the precinct
of St. Michael's Church in the city of Harar. She was quiet as a
woman and born Muslim, therefore nothing is known about her.
Upon his birth, Ras Makonnen took Tafari from his mother and
put him in the custody of his loyal General Haile Selassie
Abayneh. Tafari was schooled and tutored by a French Catholic
Priest. Dr. Vitalien and, yes, Abba Samuel, Orthodox priest. When
Makonnen opened a hospital in the city, he met a physician
Vitalien, who came from the French colony of Guadeloupe. Ras
himself had been to Europe and hired his new French friend to
teach Tafari and his cousin, Imru. After a few weeks he realized
that one hour a day wouldn't be enough, he contacted another
friend of his, Abba Samuel, who became the closest man with
Tafari and Imru till his death. Tafari was expected to be a
prince. Many children of Ras Makonnen, something between dozen or
two, weren't of the same fortune, nothing is know about them.
The first tragedy happened before he could understand it --
death of mother. He didn't remember her. Tafari grew up without
mother. He was his father's son, in spirit and tradition. Ras
Michael had big plans for his boy. He was his heir, his pride and
his hope. Tafari began to govern at age of twelve. Father died
when he was twelve.
The father's side of the family was known and powerful. Ras
Makonnen Welde Mikael was the cousin and right hand of Mighty
Menelik The Second (King from 1855 and Emperor since 1889). The
family was from the core of the royal web of the Amhara dynasty
which ruled Abyssinia for the last seven centuries. Tafari's
grandmother was Princess Tenagna Warq. His great grandfather was
King Sahle Sellassie of Shoa (Solomonic dynasty, 1813
1847). And the great, great, grandfather, Dej. Walde Mikael Walde
Malakot was of the Doba and Manz nobility. Wezero Ehte Mariam,
Tafari Makonnen's cousin from his father's side, had married
Haile Sellassie Abayneh and given birth to Imru (who later became
Ras Imru), when Tafari has four months old. The boys grew up as
if they were twins, not known that the big history is ahead of
them.
When in 1904 Lij. Teferi was made governor of a district in
the province of Harrar, emperor Menelik completed his big wars,
tripling the size of the country. It was a new Ethiopia not in name
only. The Amhara highlanders became the dominant power in the
Horn of Africa. Too many nations and tribes found themselves
within the borders of this empire. African tribes of way south,
deep inside the continent. The country has to be govern in new
ways. The appointment of Tafari as a governor of Harar was
designed by his father, who was Ras of the whole region of
Harrarge, but as usual it had to sanctioned by the Emperor. As it
was customary, the title of "Dedjazmatch"
(field-marshal) was also conferred upon him. Becoming Dejazmatch
(also a count or, literally, commander of the gate) at such early
age happened because Ras Makonnen neared death and he had to
entrust Tafari to his long time friend -- the Emperor. Menelik
liked the boy. He saw the great future in Tafari and treated his
as his own son. The old ruler had no son to pass the crown
directly and Menelik asked Tafari to swear that he wouldn't
challenge his grandson, Yasu, who became a heir to the throne.
Tafari did swear. He didn't know that he lied. Menelik knew. He
knew the prophecy.
The date of Menelik's death is not known, it took place
somewhere in 1912 or 1913. The passing of the crown was
always complicated and delicate matter. Yasu was young and the
legacy of Menelik was so heavy. Tafari was a man who saw it all.
He was a patient politician. He was ready, time wasn't. Not yet.
Tafari's political career was an obvious success. A Ras at the
age of 24 in 1916, and in 1917 -- regent. He became Negus of Shoa
when he was 36 in 1928. Tafari was King and Emperor since his
birth, but he had to wait for the world to learn about it.
He loved his father. Ras Makonnen was one of the best man of
his time, he wanted his son to be a learned man, ready for new
times. Tafari was his son among two dozens of bastards the Ras
left behind, following a traditional manhood life. Tafari wasn't
a boy, he was a prince.
When at age seven Tafari and Imru began their schooling, a
foreigner taught them French, Orthodox monk -- Ge'ez. This was
the beginning of the formal education. By the age of ten Tafari
and Imru could read and write in Amharic and Ge'ez, an ancient
Ethiopian language and the language of the church. Of course,
they had to learn the art of warrior -- horse riding and
shooting. The boys had to observe the business of governing, to
be present at all the ceremonies, receptions, trails. The two
were brought up unlike the sons of the princes of the ancient
time. From Teodoros and Menelik the physical labor taboo for
Abyssinian nobility was broken. The boys had to learn how to
serve in order to know how to rule. Menelik himself put the first
stone at the foundation of the St. Trinity church in his new
capital. Work was a virtue of new leaders of Ethiopia.
Tafari knew that he had to serve his God and his country.
2. RELATION AND RELATIVES
The country was a batch of relatives...
Dej. Haile Sellassie Abayneh was Tafari Makonnen's cousin by
marriage. Throughout his life he was also one of Tafari's closest
advisers and friends. (He accompanied Tafari to the coronation of
King Edward VII in 1902 ?).
Arranged by the dying Menelik in 1911 at the age of nineteen
Dedjazmatch Tafari was married to weyzero Menen who was the
grand-daughter of Negus Mikael of Wello (province) and niece to
Tafari's court rival and apparent heir to the throne (Yassu).
Menelik wanted no fight between princes for the crown. The
ancient way to prevent it was to lock them into close relations.
The Power was a family business.
Marriage was a matter of politics. Each new born is another
figure of the game of the ruling class....
The old house of Ethiopian culture was full of forgotten but
religiously observed rituals. Culture, not a civilization with
written rules, ruled that universe. CULTURE in pre-modernity had
powers of totality. It wasn't separated from everyday's every
step. It was a culture of specific thought and sensitivity;
behavior was the culture. The Family went with the Emperor into
exile to keep the immediate environment of Ethiopian culture.
Ethiopian or Abyssinian (Amhara) MARRIAGE had its own features:
The Emperor Menelik was the fifth husband for the Empress
Taitu, and Menelik's daughter, the Empress Zauditu, was married
four times. The Empress Mennen in her third marriage became the
wife of Leul Ras Seged, whom she divorced to be given in marriage
by her uncle Lij Iyassu to Dedjazmatch Tafari Makonnen, later
Haile Sellassie.
In addition there were the inevitable and usual extra-marital
arrangements which, through wide acceptance, largely converted
official monogamy into polygamy. Such liaisons were more the rule
than the exception... From the time of Ras Mangasha, the
illegitimate son of the Emperor Yohannes, down to Haile
Sellassie, the ruling households consisted of heirs both
legitimate and illegitimate, the `inside' and the `outside' off
springs. (Spencer 205)
...Poor Esther, she still struggles, with, at least six, known to
her other offsprings of her father outside of marriage. History
is dirty and painful. Life isn't clean.
II. HISTORICAL GREETING FROM THE WORLD: ADWA
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 made the Red Sea coast
attractive to European countries. Drive for colonization was in
full swing. Italy was determined to colonize Ethiopia because it
already had the coastal Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. In 1872
they captured the port cities of Assab, and Massawa in 1885.
In 1889 Emperor Menelik signed the Treaty of Wichale, which
was supposed to be a treaty of friendship and cooperation with
Italy. But instead it was viewed two different ways, and the
Italians claimed that it made all of Ethiopia their protectorate.
As a result, war broke out in 1895. Ethiopian forces defeated the
Italian forces in the famous Battle of Adwa in 1896. Italy was
forced to recognize Ethiopia as an independent nation.
Never-the-less, Eritrea stays under Italian protectorate. Not
once the Eritrean shadow would cross the whole country from the
North to the South.
His memories starts with the Ethiopian triumphs. He was four
when the great battle of Adwa was won...
Sunday,
When Ethiopians kiss their church,
Saint's day,
Before the Holy Easter-feasting,
Freedom,
Cannons dried up in panicking Rome.
Ethiopia,
Ordered all rivers to strike the neck.
In the early 19th century, Italy itself was not a nation. By
the time it came to the scene, most of Africa was under the
control of the British and the French. The only free countries in
Africa then, were Ethiopia and Liberia. With the encouragement of
the British, the Italians captured the northern part of Ethiopia
and started expanding south. In 1896, Emperor Menelik II signed
the Treaty of Wochale. As it is customary for colonial powers to
distort and sometimes change articles of treaties to fit their
interest, the Italian version of article 17 of the Treaty of
Wochale was completely different than the Ethiopian version.
The Ethiopian version of article 17 read "The Government
of Ethiopia may solicit the help of the Italian Government in its
affairs with European nations." The Italian version of the
article read "The Government of Ethiopia should conduct its
affairs with European Nation through the Italian
Government." In effect making Ethiopia a protectorate of
Italy. European nations immediately recognized Italy's claim and
refused to deal with Ethiopia directly as an independent nation.
Thus the stage was set for the battle.
As the result the Treaty was declared null and void and the
Italians eager for new land to conquer, invaded Ethiopia. Menelik
II assembled his army and met the invaders at Adwa. The Italians
came with a large well equipped army. In a single day battle, the
Italian army suffered one of its worst defeats. Two of the five
generals were killed at Adwa. A third was captured, one general
escaped alive with few survivors. The Ethiopians took more than
2000 Italians prisoners.
Menelik,
Roared and sat on a white Horse,
Gebeyehu,
Chief of Ethiopian Armed Forces,
Harvest,
Started grounding unwelcomed weeds.
Gobena,
Trying to cover for Chief Gebeyehu,
Nation,
Utterered: this is our marriage again!
Gebeyehu... 'No Chain Our Nation" and died first
Mekonnen,
Followed on the line of Dargie,
"Tobia:
Not without reason trusts us!"
Atikam,
Spoke as he chased Racist Rats;
Appetite, For angry Lions never chose killers;
Believers,
Ethiopians feast on enemy beaf;
Finished,
Shells dropped like the Hamle rain,
Ethiopians:
All Men and Women gashed for the Feast,
Kneeling,
Fat abdomens of Italian generals,
Balcha,
Breathing fire artillery operator,
Taitu,
Black Angel turned to killing devil:
"Strike:
And Victory Stays in Our Bosom!"
Water,
Sweet Adwa springs turned red...
Bodies,
Adwa got covered with human bodies,
HGiorgis,
Could not estimate the number;
Yohannes,
Came in spirit to complete the fight...
Ethiopian Army totaled 110,000. Under the direct command of
Menelik -- 34,000, Empress 5,000, King Tekele Haimnot 5000, Ras
Michael 14,000, Ras Mekonnen 15,000, Ras Bitwoded Mengesha 5000,
Ras Wole 6000, Ras Mengesha Yohannes and Ras Alula 3000,
Wagshum Guangul 10,000 and Fitaurary Gebyehu 13,000.
Italian Army had 20819 soldiers. General Dabormida 3800 and 18
pieces of artillery, General Arimondi 2493 and 12 pieces of
artillery, General Albertoni 4076 artillery, General Elena 4150,
plus 12 pieces of artillery, General Baratieri 5000, Major Emilio
1300...
All of it was lost. 7000 dead, 2500 wounded. 2400 were taken
prisoners. The Italians lost all their artillery. Among the dead
-- General Arimondi, General Dabormida, Colonel Galiano, Colonel
Campiano and General Albertoni was captured...
It was a wrong day to do it. "On the night of February
29, 1896, Barateri took advantage of the moonlight and the fact
that the next day was a great feast of the Ethiopians -
that of St. George's - to advance." The Italians marched
into history which remembers its all -- victories and disgrace...
Warned by his scouts, Menelik moved forward although a third
of his men were away for the holiday. By using mountain passes
unknown to the Italians he crept upon them and surrounded them
almost entirely. At 6:30 the next morning the Italians opened the
battle. Their mountain guns played havoc with the massed
Ethiopians. But Menelik, bringingup his modern
quickfirers replied with vigor. Then he gave the order to
advance on all fronts, and the Ethiopians sweeping down, pressed
the Italians into such a closely packed mass that they could not
use their guns. Many of their cannon were found after the fight,
unfired. Thereafter the battle was a massacre. The
Ethiopians speared the foe like sheep. By 3:00 P.M. the Italians
were in full flight, leaving 12,000 dead.
The Ethiopians did not pursue them but the black subjects of
Italy, taking advantage of the defeat, slaughtered the fugitives.
The entire supplies, including the 56 cannon and 4,000,000
cartridges fell to Menelik, whose loss was between 3,000 and
5,000 slain. Thus, the Italian provided Menelik for his future
campaigns...
Colonizers,
From the far land of white fox,
Ignorant,
Confused use of cannons on Ethiopian land;
Experience,
Romans needed a school to question,
Philosophy,
Why Ethiopians choose death than us?
Teodros,
Why do they shame us before changing them?
Hopeless,
At exacting twelve thirty Ethiopian Time,
Civilizers:
Menilek deflowered Italian defence
Warsongs:
Changed from attack to 'Gurowesheba'
Beware: Ethiopians cut enemy male genitalia.
Prisoners:
There was no prison for city builders;
Engineers,
They rushed them to build the City.
Alternate,
To make Addis look like Europe,
Colonize,
They then 1886 colonized the colonizers.
Employment,
And built our city with white prisoners.
Ethiopia:
Will never have colony or colonizers.
Menilek:
Kind human engineer of freeborn folks;
Taitu,
Toughest Lady on Italians brain;
Abyssinians,
Built the city with white prisoners;
Invite:
Let Africans drink from Taitu's wine.
Dreamer:
Menilek and then Martin Luther King...
World:
Both are blond black human tigers;
Unchained,
Humanity's Black and White freedom,
Melting,
Ethiopia is the pot of human race.
Long live,
The unconquerable spirits of Men and Com.
1996. Taddele Gebre Hiwot, Servant of Ethiopian Letters.[2]
At the time of Adwa Tafari war four year old...
Oh, Ethiopia of Menelik, the rising star of Africa! He
childhood was full of stories about victory of Adwa, conquests
over the South. Father, Oromo (everything; present and past),
Tafari's marriage, Yasu...
"The victory resounded around the world. It amazed Europe and heartened black men everywhere. Especially it gave to the oppressed Africans new hope."
...Menelik with new Italian arms moved his huge army south to conquer Africa!
"Oppressed Africans"? Oromo oppressed by Abyssinians were praying for the white man (British) to save them....[4]
That was the way for a boy to start his life, to dream, to
strive. Yes, there were two man to model his mind after -- his
father and Emperor Menelik.
...There is no monument for Adwa. Well, even the anniversary
wasn't in Addis. Great emperor Menelik has his PR problems in
today Ethiopia.
I thought about including the notes to this chapter -- it's a book-in-progress, I don't know the final shape of it. So, here they are, the notes.
III. THE SECRET WORLD OF A SECRET MAN
1. BIRTH IS A BIGGER MYSTERY, THAN DEATH
"I have no name:
I am but two days old."
What shall I call thee?
"I happy am,
Joy is my name."
Sweet joy befall thee!
(Infant Joy, Blake 1789)
Why? Why should a new life to be so open to the unknown? It knows nothing better? "Joy is my name..." Is it so? "I happy am..."
He was extremely serious boy...
Nothing was said about the joy of resurrection... Why? Because before it comes DEATH.
If the body has to be renewed, the birth must change its name. Without redefining birth we can't change the nature of death. What did we do? We're monitoring birth. The birth is in the hands of people. We participate in God's miracle. We call it the Pill. The mind over matter, over life. We have to call it sex, because it's not the reproduction. It's pleasure without birth. We trick
the nature, we are smart animals. We know how to control our bodies. Oh, silly flesh, your powers are blind. The life pushes us at the border of agony, but there is the angles of technology at the gates of life and death. The tales of genetic engineering are to follow.
The question is why birth has to be present in paradise? Or should I ask the forbidden question -- is it a birth at all? Was I born? What is this new birth?
No, we are not ready for such talks. We don't want to know.
Resurrection of the living? If R is the resurrection of souls, not bodies, shouldn't the LIVING be returned? They have to be killed first. (Forget the few, the saints).
Rome was always wise. Rational. What about the majority? Why it's all or nothing? What if there is a place between the hell and the heaven? Not a full paradise and not exactly the torture. That was the real inspiration for utopia. Something doable.
You know it, the Purgatory (Catholic) -- the-after-death still remembering the body. Slow departure from it. Not the angelic kingdom, not yet; the place to be born and die.
Hell or paradise, we live in the kingdom of God, the divine chronotope. Paradise on earth has the qualities of both houses beyond life. The confort of heavens and the hell of a place, when our technologies go wrong.
I saw this application form -- "None of the above": From many gods to one and to none.... God's inner universe has no gods. The end of the superior authority, the "before". In our world there is no "gods" -- not even a companion of Trinity? You can see the difference between the saint and an ordinary soul anymore, no, friends, not in paradise. This is the place of total equality!
What do I hear? The songs! What a strange mixture of joy and agony -- rock-end-roll! "American Time" (New Americans) -- Integrated Spectacle: "I
love you, Tomorrow!" Tomorrow is today! If I live tomorrow, my "today" is yesterday! (For more go to my other site Post-America)
What a power, will to live! My birth? What it's has to do with
"me." It's only pre-conditions. No more than existence
of life, air, light, universe. Sure, there are many
pre-determined qualities which keep pushing me according to their
own mechanisms and forces -- still not me. My life didn't begin
with my birth, or conception; my life is always at the starting
point. I'm not born yet, I'm waiting for the birthday -- the time
when I get what I craving for -- the sense, understanding,
feeling. I am always ahead -- this is "me."
Why should I be afraid of death when the death is an
instrument of getting there. I died as a child, I died as a
Russian -- what's how "I" was born. Birth is another
name for death. Good name. Because we don't see "what"
dies -- another replaces it. We accept and welcome this
(positive) death and reject the final act -- dying. Birth is also
out of my control, it's no less humiliating.
1.1. THE BIRTH SCREAM
I fear, my powers are overwhelming. Birth control, anti-biotic
and controlled death...
Birth is a death of the baby as a part of mother's body. Birth
-- programmed, forced appearance. We only can do damage, we are
in position of resistance. Birth is the opposite to creation. I'm
an object not a subject of the process. Death is the only
possible input from me. I'm going alone with nature. Birth is
passive and therefore is a gift! Birth is the resurrection of the
ancestors!
Monitoring the birth, we do. Being born is a precondition, no
more than being conceived. Being alive is only a situation. Your
will (soul) has to be placed in for you to live. Your presence
has nothing to do with you -- and nowadays it's a crime. Everyone
has to have his mission; follow Christ! A resurrected has to
answer, to act, to defend himself. J Day!
... Future is a kingdom fantasy, past -- of a memory. What is
ahead? Life? If you're young. Death? When you're old. Am I old?
That how it began -- I thought about death because I felt as I
can't live. I wasn't happy with (my) life. I was young, and my
life was ahead of me. My mind still has no balance between the
past and the future.
Oh, there are many good reasons for not knowing.
How different is birth from death? For one, I'm not aware of
my birth. I don't "know" about it -- and do not
remember it. That's the result of a "total experience."
Total alienation from myself? I have to be told about my own
birth. Family's memories, my birth is a legend. Even the factual
aspect of my presence has to be discovered. The right of the
unborn?
What about the right of the not conceived yet? What about so
many I didn't give to? My mother gave birth to as many as she was
capable of. We prevent life from the explosion, we regulate... We
play God. We have to. There is no God outside of us.
Nine months of the creation... Birth? Don't you know what is
that? The welcoming Apocalypses. The begining of a tragedy... Go
ahead! Celebrate the catastrophe! Why this break of the present
is a happy occasion?
Death and Self-recognition: Duplication? No, Resurrection.
Speed of death supports quality of time (living)?
"Rational living beings must first become mortals."
Heidegger says, when discussing the need for poetry, that he
lives in a time when "mortals are hardly aware and capable
even of their own mortality. Mortals have not yet come into the
ownership of their own nature. Death withdraws into the
enigmatic. The mystery of pain remains veiled. Love has not been
learned."
For a resurrected soul death is a pre-requisite. I can't be in
the KOG without being "a little bit dead." After all,
the dead is always dead, even after the resurrection. Being aware
of your own mortality? Not enough! Think about death all the
time? Not good enough! Jesus had to die to know (experience)
death and being dead. That's the only way to experience the
anti-life. We have to colonize the Nothing. How do we go there?
We have to treat time as nothing, we have to waste everything, we
must make everything into NOTHING!
How does the second nature serves this "deadly"
purpose? The dread, fear -- domesticated human being (communist)
is a dead predator. His instincts, his aggression, his will to
live -- killed!
1.2. THE UNREAL
Being loved = expected, waited for... Was I seek out? Parents,
children -- but was it me? Even I, myself, not necessary look for
me.
I can't respect the real because I never was respected by
life. Technology is no less indifferent to my presence? That's
how child feels, his collision with a chair is a conflict between
two subjects. That's how primitives feel. Very appropriate in new
nature where my environment is somebody's expression. Notice,
we're seeing them all, we would sue God if only we could find his
office.
1.3. NOBODY AND SOMEBODY
Who is he who comes to this world... if not a prince? And who
is she if not a princess? Non-invited, unimportant, un-noticed.
Billions of them lost in this abyss between animals and humans.
What should we do with them, the people? By the time I reach this
dark cellar of my thought-thinking, I stop. I stumble and
stutter. I can't accept the waste. Not the mortality, but the
vulgarity is humiliating. Yes, I would support the world of
polaroid, when nobody should pass by not noticed. Do I have to be
a modernist and revolutionary to follow this feeling? I remember
myself feeling it in my youth. Don't get discouraged, friend.
Welcome yourself to this world. ...
Our family stories are ahead. The Oromo blood and the Russian,
all the invisible connections, not known to anybody, including
them (my children) in whom this mystery takes place... Modernity
likes to disregard the hereditary makeup. We like to believe that
our temperament are "personal" -- not
"tribal." The true rulers are invisible.
On no, we are not the first in this destruction of color, it's
them, the Ethiopians, are the race traitors. Go and try to
separate all the bloods.
The birth. A prologue? As well as the epilogue...
Something we understand, can understand. From Self:
self-colonization, knowing yourself, which is past. Both --
intellectual and physical makeup. To discover, to learn, instead
of constructing from nothing as bodiless existentialist thought.
I'm a peculiar Nothing. The Nothing which contains too much,
including my desire to construct something out of my existence.
Past is both -- friend and enemy. What is this Nothing? A desire
for Other -- a woman, a child. Opposite to me.
Do we disregard the body in the same tradition of
Christianity? Should a body be our prime concern at the time of
resurrection? At least, science, medicine and popular culture
insists on materialist approach. They are much closer to totemism
than our philosophy. My ancestors are present in me and would
continue their travel in my children. "Biological" we
say.
What would be a point of resurrection without remembering the
body? RESURRECTION ISN'T CREATION.
My parents -- my pre-existence. And before them, and
before...
Birth in R(esurrection) times isn't "natural" -- through
technology the race is present (God in our primitive
sensibility). Stirner as wrong as Marx, two extremes, we can't
and shouldn't fully departure from the material.
My life (existence) is based, depends on physicality and end
in it. Tribal philosophy always remembered it, never treated body
as a temporary container. They were true formalists: form =
essence. Greek art was "materialistic". Spirituality
ended up in abstractions of communist ideology, when everything
individual got lost, when nothing concrete matters anymore.
Individualism has to be very materialistic, practical, precise.
Materialism must be artistic, detail-oriented. Look at our
bodies, what a craftsmanship!
Alas! BIRTH INTRODUCES TIME -- A TEST!
The Last Evil -- the Time is introduced!
Eckhart's understanding -- God is outside time --
apocalypse/resurrection is God's chronotope, where is no time or
space. The present which includes the past and the future. Being
and becoming are not the opposites anymore.
Nothing is as opposed to God as time. . . There is no process
of becoming in God, but only a present moment, that is a becoming
without a becoming, a becomingnew without renewal. . . All
that is in God is an eternal presenttime without renewal.
[Sermon DW 50]
Progress is anti-divine. (When and how?) Renewal? The news.
Being as becoming. Speed makes becoming = being.
Be-com-ing? Be(com)ing? "A becomingnew without
renewal"?
If you wonder, why I have such notes for the chapter about H.S. youth, maybe I should post the last chapter of the book "Before Now" -- about his life before his birth. The immortal souls are in existance from the beginning of times, don't you know? Oh, you don't believe it? Well, then we will talk about it later, sometimes after our death.
Few notes on the historical background of H.S. youth.
2. HARAR, ISLAM and Yasu
Harar, city-state, old, perhaps, the oldest in Africa, ten
centuries old town. Aw Abadir (literally meaning Father Abadir)
is the patron of Harar who came from Arabia about 940950
A.D.. He converted many tribes around the Harar to the Islam. His
tomb and shrine are inside the old city and are a holy center.
There are three cities in one. The divisions are based on the
difference in their economies. These are three concentric circles
whose inner most one is represented by the city (Gey), followed
by the adjacent gardens and grain fields (Geey fagaay) and lastly
the whole region outside which was left fallow (Gaffa) before the
sedentary Gallas occupied it.
"A Harari is a born trader." The merchants's town,
the inner circle represents the town itself, called Harargey
or merely gey by the Harari, Hararge by the Amhara, Adare by the
Kottu, and Harar by the Arabs and all Europeans. It is encircled
by a stone wall with five gates.
The Gardens, the green, irrigated, and the red soil. And it's hot. You're in Africa.
The outer circle is known as gaffa, which means fallow land, and is very wide. It is thinly populated, mostly by the Kottu (Galla). The city was the center.
Kush, son of Ham, grandson of Noah, gave them the name....
The conquest of Harar by Menelik in 1887 came after the
Egyptians took over the city in 1875. The Great Harar had better
times before....
Ras Makonnen met his wife here. Some historians she was a Muslim....
They said that Menelik presided over his last geber on 11
September 1909, by then mortally ill from syphilis.[7] On 28
October he suffered a massive stroke, which left him paralyzed
and speechless. On April 10 1911, the sixteen-year-old Iyasu
claimed his personal rule, without regency. He thought that he is
ready, and who was there to object?
He was a joyful ruler, womanizer and hunter, they say that he
tried to make Islam a state religion of the nation. He was
careless...
Tafari Makonnen was ready to govern, too. He, who grew up with Yasu in the palace, didn't join his cousin's government. On 13 August
1916, Iyasu removed Tafari from Harerge, sending him to the less
important province of Kefa. Instead of taking up his new post, he
remained in Addis. At a meeting on September 1916 Yasu was
accused of apostasy and excommunicated. That was the time to
break Tafari's oath to Menelik. It was his hour. He was ready to
be a king. The rest is known, it's history.
Iyasu, on hearing news of the coup d'etat, tried to hasten
back to the capital, but was defeated at Miesso, half way from
Dire Dawa. His father, Negus Mika'l, meanwhile marched south in
an attempt to reestablish his son's rule. Two major
engagements ensued. The first was at Toro Mask, near Ankobar,
where the Wallo army was victorious. The second, and more
decisive, at Sagale, north of Addis Ababa, on 27 October 1916,
when the Shawan army, deployed by Ras Tafari, captured Mika'l,
and thus brought the struggle to and end. Iyasu had little option
but to flee into the Afar lowlands, where, refusing, it is said,
to seek asylum abroad, he roamed among a friendly population for
the next half decade. He was eventually captured, in 1921, after
which he remained in close confinement at Garamulata, in the east
of the country, until his death in the autumn of 1936. (Pankhurst 4)
[more on other pages]
Notes
[1] A History of Early Twentieth Century Ethiopia. 2,
Punkhurst.
[2] This Poem is dedicated for the memory of Liqe Mekuas (Dejazmatch) Adnew Goshu Great Emperor Menilek's Brillian General and the 25,000 Nameless Ethiopian Soldiers slaughtered to give us this Day of Smiles.
[3] Rogers, J.A. (1936). "The Real Facts About Ethiopia." p. 18.
[4] Darley _Slaves and Ivory in Abyssinia_.
[5] INFANT JOY Blake 1789
[7] A History of Ethiopia, Harold Marcus, University of California Press 1994
This is a new page. I posted it for H.S. birthday on July 23. If you have comments or corrections, send it to me. Also, another new page 1960: Lost Sons Thanks. Anatoly. July 22, 1998.
(c)2004 HIM contents (summary of the HS web-biography) *
Liberty is always unfinished business. --anonymous
