I started Sellassie pages seven years ago. Now in 2005 I feel that I shouldn't hold myself back. I am not an Ethiopian, why should I be understandable about the people who screwed their country? I am gentle on Russians, who did the same. Ethiopians need a straight talk.
30 years later. What do you have to report?
We can compare the records. 1940 - 1970 vs. 1975 - 2005.
I have my list what Ethiopia gained, write your list.
I write it, because Ethiopian blood is in my children -- and the last thing I want for them is to lie about their Ethiopian heritage. Good or bad.
Anatoly
Ethiopian & Rastafari by Aster Sellassie, Millennium Ed.
From the letter to my daughter:
... Decide for yourself, what you want to focus on (not everything) and stick with it. I clean my film/theatre pages and Sellassie pages need even stronger focus (stay with your interests -- Ethiopia and African history)? Something you will be studying in the future; if you are to go to France the following year, think about the strong division between Anglo and Franko-speaking Africa. Everything west of Sudan is under the strong French mode to this day. Ethiopia had both. Also, the Islam issue will be with us for a while; Ethiopia is the cultural frontline; maybe this is the underlined reason for it's independence). There is a very big Islam Institute in Paris; we just discovered the conflict -- they deal with it for several centuries. One way or another USA will need experts in Africa, since we inherited the problems from UK. When Americans will realize that there is no quick military fix, we would study the real causes -- there will be 50 (100) yars of intellectual investment, like with USSR during the Cold War (possibily a job for you). Our National Security Adviser made her Ph.D. in Russian Studies. In fact, she negotiated Ethio-Eritrea conflict even under Clinton (and this to a great degree a conflict with Islam/Eritrea). There are some pages on Islam in Sellassie WWW and Cyber University (Muslims are over 50% in Ethiopia and in abcence of Marxism, this socio-religious doctrine will only grow). They can't say it, but the War on Terror in this centuries long war with Islam, which US known very little about. Actually, the fear comes from the ignorance (arrogance is gone after 11-7). You will see how the attention will be shifting to the old centers of confrontation of Islam and Christianity -- Siria, Lebanon, etc. (I'll find some of the Islam pages and finish it there).
Summer 2003: Use other pages, if you want to know about the facts; this page is about the transition of Tafari into big history. 1917 was the year of his regency over Ethiopia, the time when the world will know Ras Tafari. Prince became an invisible king. Only later (1928) he will get the title "King Tafari" and in 1930 -- The Emperor, King of Kings.
Very little we know about the change which took place in Addis Ababa. We know that the great War between Islam and Christianity we hear so much nowadays, was won by Sellassie ("Trinity," the name he took later) in 1917....
This chapter is short. If I could find the time it shoud be written as a play. "Ras Tafari" -- the twilight zone between the past and the future, between Africa and the West, between the old gods and the new times. I started writing it, but the script asks for big show, the spectacle -- and I don't have the energy for it now. In my HIM chronology is the the second life, one aout of the seven. Perhaps, I am waiting when the book could be finished. I like the sounds, voices and images of the story --and of course, there is a brutal plot of the palace intrigues, Yasu in golden chaines, as they say. Imprisoned or murdered. The mystery and the secrets.
Come back to read it. I want to read it too -- this is I need to write it.
"Who therefore will power? An absurd question, if being is by itself will to power...." (VP I 204, II 54)
The darkness we call "night"...
He would listen to the night sounds and to its silence. The
world was hidden in darkness and became small.
The dream (or call it visions) he had after his father's
death was always the same. Two men would visit him at night, the
old man and the warrior. One talked to him, another was always
silent, as if he was there to listen. They would appear without
warning, without a world of introduction. Tafari knew that he was
awake.
"Did he die?"
Ras Makonen died and was buried.
"Ask again," replied Old man.
"Will I die forever?" Tafari asked after a pause.
The warrior never moved as a stone man.
"There's nothing before and nothing after," Old man was
looking at the darkness. "No immortal soul, no eternity. What do
you think "in image and likeness" is? Nothing, that is what I am.
No meaning, no purpose, no destiny -- everything you're about to
do is yours. There's no God, young man, don't you see it?"
"How do I know that you're not Satan?"
"Because I promise you nothing."
The night was deep like silence.
"There is no Devil either, boy."
"But how does man can live knowing it?"
"That's why they don't know it."
He couldn't see the man's face, but he knew that he is old.
"Why did you come? Why to me?"
"I didn't. You're talking to yourself. There's nobody here
but you."
What and when went into the boy's head? What did he promise
himself on that night? (The tree of them).
"There's no such a thing as man, or God. It's all the same.
You can't separate the two. They don't exist without each other.
If you say "man," you said "God" -- you can't say "I" without
meaning "God"....
"Man is nothing without God...."
"Man is nothing, because God is nothing. What else? Of
course, nothing."
There was the third man, a few feet away from them. Silent,
motionless.
Did he recognize them? Did they know him? Trinity. Why did
they behave as a strangers? They were the strangers to each
other, separated by the walls of time. But they all knew the
truth.
"There's no God outside of man. There's no man outside of
God."
What was that? This sensation of freshness. Smell, breeze?
Invisible touch? Light which could be felt and not seen? There
were no signals or signs. Yes, that was how Tafari knew that
"they" were here. And the bird. What kind of bird was it?
"I don't seek recognition, I didn't do it just for the
country. I did what I had to do because I choose to live."
Why did he say it? Tafari didn't ask many questions.
He couldn't tell anybody about the meetings. He had to keep
the secret to himself. The orphan, that's what he was. He kept
many things to himself.
Dying man? His father! He saw him dying. What did he tell
the boy before he died? After the monk's death, his strange
drowning.
There's no dust or dirt at night. Night is a relief. Light
dies and it's mercy.
"Didn't you hear that I am the beginning and the end? There
is nothing outside of it. There's no after or before. There's no
life-after-death. What kind of death is that?"
"What about resurrection, teacher?"
"If YOU have it in your heart, you have done it. I'm the
proof of it; they are in me, if I feel it. What other
resurrections do you need?"
"Did Christ die?"
"Yes, he did."
"Was he resurrected?"
"Did you mention Christ?"
"Yes, sir."
"You just did it. Don't you see it?"
"Did I? I don't know..."
"Then he is dead."
"But what about them who do not know it?"
"They don't know it."
"Is there the Judgement Day?"
"Now. It's always now."
[How did he guess that the two were him?]
"You don't believe in God."
"Faith is man's weakness. I don't have to believe, I have
it, I know it."
"But what about the world, about all of it?"
The boy ran out of words and pointed at night, darkness,
skies. "It's outside of us."
"Everything is outside, even my body. The world is an
extension of me, too."
The invisible bird flew over them again.
"But when you die, world lives on..."
"Now you understand what takes place when body dies."
He didn't. He had his questions.
"Help me," he said.
"Do you think that I am not there?" The old man pointed at
the darkness and Tafari recognized this night silent bird, dark
and quiet.
"It's a bird."
"Yes, and this is a hand."
The old man looked at his old hands.
Tafari was waiting, but both men were silent.
"You mean that I'm you?"
"There is nothing outside of me. I'm everything, because I
am nothing..."
"But they are about to kill you!"
It was the night before his death, not the night of his
father's death. It was 1975. The end oif the year, his last year.
"Death died for me seventy years ago on the same night."
There were many pauses, he had to think about what was said,
he had to remember what was said.
"Why doesn't he speak?" Tafari pointed at the warrior.
"He is a king," said the old man.
"And you?"
"I'm an old man," said the old man.
Tafari wanted to walk to him, to touch his hand, but he knew
that he shouldn't do it.
"Do you know what he thinks?"
"Who? The king?"
"The bird."
It was a boy's question, he shouldn't ask such questions, he
was a boy anymore. He was a governor...
"Why don't you ask?"
What? Tafari turned to look at the old man and couldn't see
him, the old man was gone. The warrior-king got up and walked
into the darkness without a word. The boy looked at the bird and
the bird was not there.
He saw it all -- the years ahead, the days, the faces, but
he didn't know them, he couldn't recognize and remember anything.
It just ran through him, the future. Right to this very last day,
the same night like now, his last night.
He promised it to himself...
[ image ]
Oh, what is this "will to power"? Why do you make things so
complicated? It's simple, my man. Only force can be related to
another force: he didn't read Nietzsche but knew that the will
has nothing in common with egoism. The stars above were the same.
He wanted to live. He was twenty when the emperor died. He
knew who was the next ruler of Ethiopia, he saw the man. The
warrior-king, the silent man.
Where is this territory of history? How do one step into it?
How did he cross the border?
[part 3. MAN]
TIME EUROPE August 9, 1926
Back to Haile Selassie TIME Trail homepage
Abyssinia: Ethiopian Protest
Ringed about by British, French and Italian dominated territories, the quadruple Empire of Abyssinia or Ethiopia, comprising the Kingdoms of Tigré, Amhara, Gojam and Shoa, survives as the one potent aboriginal state in all Africa.
There human slavery still flourishes. There the most trifling jubilation provides an excuse for tearing out the entrails of a living cow, that they may be gorged raw by old and young, washed down with brimming cups of mese (mead) or bousa (beer). A yardwide French-operated railway climbs from French Jibuti on the Gulf of Aden 500 miles inland to Addis Ababa, the capital of Abyssinia. From this glorified dung hill, seat of an Imperial House which claims descent from the biblical Queen of Sheba, a formal protest reached the Secretariat of the League of Nations last week.
Prince Regent Taffari of Abyssinia declared in the name of the retired Empress Zauditu that he has seldom met with foreigners who do not desire to possess themselves of Abyssinia and to destroy the independence of the Ethiopian Empire.
Specifically he protested to the League that Abyssinia, a League member-state since 1923, should be obliged to tolerate the existence of a series of Anglo-Italian notes, exchanged last December, published recently, establishing: 1) The recognition by Britain and Italy, respectively, of Italian* and British+ "spheres of influence" encroaching upon Abyssinia. 2) The determination of League-member-States Britain and Italy to exert united pressure upon their "Little League Sister," Abyssinia to herself recognize this curtailment of her territories.
Prince Regent Taffari drew with dignity a conclusion: Britain and Italy have violated a cardinal principle of the League: that all League states are on a footing of equality within the League. Prince Taffari asked of the League justice, redress....
Dutifully an underling of the League Secretariat filed one more protest of the weak against the omnipotent for future reference.
"Abyssinians." While Prince Taffari protested 10,000,000 Abyssinians continued an indolent existence upon 350,000 square miles of territory, mostly fertile, very largely held in feudal tenure by innumerable rases (princes), subservant to the Empress.
The term "Abyssinian," corrupted from the Arabic Habesh ("mixed," "mongrel") well describes this people who shade in different parts of the Empire from white through reddish-brown to ebony, and from Christianity to Mohammedanism.
To the curious traveler's eye, Abyssinia presents a rural scene, picturesquely set off by civic stenches. Camels jog up to French Somaliland with gum and ostrich feathers which are bartered there for cheap Occidental jewelry and clothing or for rock salt, lumps of which pass current as money in the interior, as do cartridges.
The Empress and a few nobles enjoy the exotic luxury of corrugated iron roofs upon their "palaces." The Prince Regent has but to mutter a command and the groveling object of royal displeasure is led away to have his hands chopped off, his wrists dipped in boiling oil, his back flayed by a U. S. barbed wire lash. Everywhere the timeless usages of Ethiopia are interwoven stressfully with Occidental permeations. But, like potent and perfidious Albion, the Little Empire "muddles through."
During the war the dissolute youthful Emperor Lij Yaser committed the disastrous dual stupidities of embracing the Islamic faith and the Germano-Turkish cause. Vexed, a majority of the feudal chieftains of Abyssinia, stout Christians according to their somewhat pagan lights, supported a successful pro-Christian, pro-Ally revolution. Prince Taffari, an able statesman but by lineage a mere great nephew of the revered late Emperor Menelik, was prudently installed as Regent for the Empress Zanditu, a daughter of the Emperor Menelik, and proclaimed heir to the Throne by the revolutionary feudal lords.
*Ultimate purpose to connect the Italian colonies of Eritrea and ltalian Somaliland by a trans-Abyssinian railway tapping much fertile country which might thus be brought under Italian dominance.
+Eventual design to construct certain dams and waterworks among the Abyssinian headwaters of the Nile with intent to foster cotton growing in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The British dams would inundate numerous shrines held sacred by certain Abyssinian religious cults.
[ ... ]
1917: The Second Thought: If you to write a script (Demons), after twenty five years of silence, write "HIM" (better screen material). Your writing is not good for good books, but for the stories between this non-literature like web and the storytelling like...
What is the genre and the style?
Something from the old oral tradition but in visual forms of the neo-primitives.
The screenplay could be read, but the writer is invisible even more than in theatre. I like it, I always did.
Besides, why do you have so many pix on your webpages, Anatoly? Come on, old man! Confess!
(c)2004 HIM contents (summary of the HS web-biography) *
"Ethiopians & Rastafari" by Esther S. Antohin
Liberty is always unfinished business. --anonymous
