Haile Selassie: His Rise, His Fall

218 Pages·2018·34.103 MB·English

by  Haggai Erlich

Hale Selasse
i i

Ha le Selass e
i i
His Rise, His Fall
~
Haggai Erlich
boulder
london
Published in the United States of America in 2019 by
Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.
1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301
www.rienner.com
and in the United Kingdom by
Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.
Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 5DB
„ 2019 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Erlich, Haggai, author.
Title: Haile Selassie : his rise, his fall / Haggai Erlich.
Description: Boulder, Colorado : Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2018. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018026431 (print) | LCCN 2018030584 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781626377639 (ebook) | ISBN 9781626377547 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, 1892–1975. |
Ethiopia—Kings and rulers—Biography.
Classification: LCC DT387.7 (ebook) | LCC DT387.7 .E75 2018 (print) |
DDC 963/.06092 [B] —dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018026431
British Cataloguing in Publication Data
A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book
is available from the British Library.
Printed and bound in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements
of the American National Standard for Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992.
5 4 3 2 1
Contents
~
Contents v
Map of Ethiopia in the 1960s vi
Preface vii
1 A Political Icon 1
2 In Father’s Shadow 9
3 The Road to Power 19
4 The Crown 31
5 Facing Mussolini 49
6 From Refugee to Liberator 69
7 Absolutism 87
8 The Road to Loneliness 103
9 We Are Not God 119
10 Nothing New Under the Sun 139
11 Revolution 165
12 The Burial of a Donkey 181
Bibliography 191
YouTube Guide 199
Index 203
About the Book 207
v
Map of Ethiopia in the 1960s
Preface
~
Who was Haile Selassie? What was the secret of his survival, and
why did his life end in a brutal murder? In this book I attempt to re-
construct the life and times of Ethiopia’s last emperor—one of the
political icons of modern world history, and a man who believed in
his own legend without noticing when it began to fade away.
Writing the book was a special experience for me. I have studied
Ethiopia for more than fifty years, and I am still attracted to its
uniqueness, to its biblical roots, and to its own way of coping with
modern developments. As a young student, I first saw Haile Selassie
in March 1972, when he came to open an exhibition in Addis Ababa.
He was approaching the age of eighty, radiating intense dignity.
Even an old socialist and kibbutz member, the Israeli minister of
agriculture, bowed to him, as if it were the only natural thing to do.
I elbowed my way to bow as well, in a vain hope to catch his eye. A
few days later I encountered him again. I was waiting for the eleva-
tor in the Addis Ababa Hilton’s lobby when two bodyguards arrived
and pushed me aside. He entered, not bothering to nod a thank you.
A third encounter nearly happened twenty years later, in February
1992, when sitting in my Tel Aviv University office I received a tele-
phone call from Addis Ababa University. Could I come to Addis in
two days? The supposed hidden grave of Haile Selassie had been lo-
cated, and some historians were being invited to attend its opening. I
said that I would try, but then found no credible way to explain such
a request to the guardians of my university’s research fund.
vii
viii Preface
Much later still, in October 2016, attending a conference at
Addis Ababa University, I visited Trinity Cathedral. There, in the
east wing, stands the tombstone of Haile Selassie. I was about to
finish the manuscript for this book, and I silently apologized to the
emperor. The manuscript was not a salute to a larger-than-life figure
but a balanced, scholarly story—as it should be—of Haile Selassie
and of Ethiopia in his time.
* * *
My thanks go to the Israeli Academy for Science and Humanities
(research grant 491/14); to my talented and resourceful research
assistants, Roy Bar-Sadeh, Dekel Klein, and Or Pitusi; to Chaya
Benyamin and Michelle Asakawa, who edited my English; to my
publisher, Lynne Rienner, with whom I’ve worked for more than
three decades; and to all my colleagues and students whom I forced
time and again to hear the story of Haile Selassie. And, to my
beloved wife, Yochi, my partner in all.
Ethiopian Names and Titles
Ethiopians have no family names. They are identified by their first
name, often adding to it their father’s name. A certain Makonnen
Haile is the son of Haile Mangasha whose father was Mangahsa
Walda-Mariam, a son of Walda-Mariam Abebe. The full name of our
hero, prior to his coronation as emperor, was Tafari Makonnen. No-
body will call him Mr. (Ato) Makonnen; Makonnen was his father.
The same goes for all other Ethiopians—we shall mention them by
their “first name” and often with their rank or title preceding it,
sometimes with their father’s name after it. Tafari Makonnen was
promoted to the rank of a ras, and therefore he was known as Ras
Tafari (or Ras Tafari Makonnen).
Until the 1974 revolution, and from early medieval times, there
existed in Ethiopia a hierarchy of political and religious functions
and titles. Following is a short list of them:
• Abuna: head of the church.
• Atse: emperor, king of kings.
• Dajjazmach: (commander of the door) a high rank of nobility,
a general, a regional governor.
Preface ix
• Echage: head of the monks.
• Fitawrari: (commander of the front guard) a rank just below
Dajjazmach.
• Janhoy: an appellation for the emperor.
• Lij: prince.
• Negus: king.
• Negusa nagast: king of kings, emperor.
• Ras: (head) the highest rank below a negus, a duke.
• Wayzaro: lady.
d.).
n.
m,
uris
To
of
y
nistr
Mi
a:
b
a
b
A
dis
d
A
(
e
d
ui
G
urist
o
T
A
a:
pi
o
hi
Et
o
e t
m
o
c
Wel
m
o
d fr
e
nt
pri
e
R
Haile Selassie in his prime, mid-1950s.