By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-
Last week we caught a glimpse of reformist ideas in Menilek’s
Ethiopia, and quoted a little from Afawarq Gabra Iyasu’s Amharic
textbook, published in Rome in 1908, which bore the innocuous title
“Guide du Voyageur en Abyssinie”. Let us now look further at that work,
in which a European-educated Ethiopian and a foreigner are supposedly in
conversation.
The foreigner now starts up a new conversation, by provocatively observing to his friend:
“You who understands many things concerning Europe must be greatly respected by your compatriots”
“I am Considered the Most Ignorant Person”
” Oh, monsieur,” the Ethiopian replies, “on the contrary, in my
country I am considered the most ignorant person, especially when I tell
of things I have heard said by some of the Europeans which seem
impossible.”
” Truly ? How is that ?”
“I remember having on one occasion said that the earth went round and
that the sun was fixed. The people who heard me replied that it was my
head which turned and not the earth.
“And at the same time they said to each other in a tone of
commiseration that to live in contact with Europeans had spoiled my
intelligence instead of developing it as I spoke in an extravagant way
in claiming that the earth moved.”
The character and object of the discussion, which was designed to
ridicule traditional Ethiopian views, is apparent from its conclusion.
The foreigner observes: “You made a mistake in speaking of something so
difficult to explain to people who, like St. Thomas, cannot be persuaded
except by something which they can touch with the hand.”
“The Biggest Animal in the World”
“You are right,” the Ethiopian replied, “from now on if my
compatriots tell me the fly is bigger than the elephant, I will say,
`Yes, it is the biggest animal in the whole world.”
Turning from these philosophical questions, to economic and political
matters, the conversation touched on the absence of an efficient legal
system. The Ethiopian, who as usual is expressing the
anti-traditionalist view, complained that whenever a new king was
crowned the law was changed. It was true, he said, that there was a code
of law called the Fetha Nagast, i.e. Law of the Kingdom, but it was as
old as Methuselah and its text “more confused than the languages of
Babylon”. Moreover it had been written, at a period “when science and
the human conscience was not as developed as today.”
Critique of Traditional Government
Traditional government was not spared from Afawarq’s indictment. The
foreigner asks what the local authorities are doing and whether they
were not concerned with the improvement of the roads. The Ethiopian
replies:
“The authorities of the country eat, drink, sleep, and get fat like
Easter sheep at the expense of the poor public which is continually and
pitilessly robbed by them. These, monsieur, are the beneficial
occupations of our good authorities.”
Though hostile to many of his country’s traditions the author was by
no means uncritical of the Europeans. The traveller, who asks whether
the Europeans in Ethiopia are not trying to introduce civilisation in
the country, is informed that:
“with the exception of some individuals, all the Europeans who come
to Ethiopia not only do not teach us the civilisation of their own
country, but do not even retain it themselves … as soon as they put
their feet on Abyssinian soil before setting out for the interior they
leave behind them at the coast everything they had learnt in their own
country, in Europe.”
The general point of view of the book may be summed up in its
author’s words, namely, that “as long as the feudal system exists in the
empire of Ethiopia neither equality nor liberty will reign there.” Warm
support, however, is given to the Emperor Meniliek’s efforts at
modernisation.
Gabra Heywat Baykadaygn
A no less interesting piece of social criticism was developed by
Gabra Heywot Baykadaygn, an Ethiopian who had studied in Germany. It
took the form of an essay, Atse Menilek na Ityopya, which was included
in a collection of essays entitled Berhan yehun published in Asmara by
the Swedish missionary O. Erickson. Like Afawarq’s Guide it thus had a
minimal circulation in Ethiopia.
Discussing the objections to new ideas Gabra Haywot asks:
“Was not an intelligent Abyssinian who taught that the earth rotates
round the sun recently arrested in Harar ? After 1900, when the 20th
century had begun, was not a man stoned in the Addis Ababa market for
abusing the Monophysite faith? Do we not see that our brothers, who go
abroad or learn from the whites who come to Abyssinia, though they wish
to help their government are nonetheless regarded as Protestants,
Catholics, non-believers or spies of other countries, and are therefore
starved and accused?”
Drawing attention to the progress achieved by Japan, the author declares:
“When the Japanese Government finds someone willing to go to Europe
to learn it supports them by giving them money … As a result the people
(of Japan) opened their eyes. They became rich, strong and respectable…
China and Asia have been following the path of Japan with great
enthusiasm.”
Emphasising the need for education Gabra Heywot expressed the fear that:
“because of our lack of unity while other countries are advancing in
mind and technology we are being left behind, until we are regarded as
savages by those other countries. While peace and knowledge are
spreading all over the world we are living in darkness.”
Turning to a critique of the traditional Ethiopian-type of government
of the day, the author expresses considerable bitterness, declaring
that:
“the chiefs up to now regard the land they are appointed to govern as
their own land, bought by their own money. They do whatever they like
with the taxes collected from it. The chiefs and servants under them
know of no other master save them because they depend on their
generosity for their living.”
Observing that “a long time has passed since we Ethiopians have been
acquainted with the Europeans,” Gabra Heywot nonetheless added: ” We
have not learnt anything (from them) up to now. It is not improbable
therefore that our Government may be destroyed.” His appeal was
therefore for innovation: ” When, O people of Ethiopia, when will you
wake up from your sleep? When will you open your eyes and see what
things are being done in the world.”
The Succession Problem
Menilek’s last innovation was the appointment of a successor. By then
largely incapacitated by several strokes, he took the decisive step of
designating a successor in May 1909. In an innovative proclamation he
reminded his subjects of the political difficulties which had followed
the deaths of his predecessors Tewodros and Yohannes, and announced that
his twelve-year-old grandson Lej Iyasu, the son of his daughter
Shawaragga by Ras Mika’el, the Oromo and former Muslim ruler of Wallo,
was his chosen heir.
Child of the Twentieth Century
Iyasu, a child of the twentieth century, was, in a sense, an
innovative figure, and one who took for granted many of the innovations,
which Menilek had achieved only with difficulty.
Extending the secularist attitude of his grandfather, Menilek, who
had permitted the practice of smoking, hitherto banned by the Church, he
tried to treat followers of the two country’s two main religions,
Christianity and Islam, on a more or less equal footing. This was
doubtless easier for him than for many members of the royal family, in
that Wallo, his father’s homeland, was a province in which members of a
single family often included members of both faiths. He was at the same
time strongly opposed, like Emperor Yohannes before him, to foreign
missionaries.
Iyasu actively attempted to accommodate both faiths. As a Christian,
he attended Church services, founded the church of Madhane Alam at
Qachane, in Addis Ababa, and inaugurated that of St George, also in the
capital. On the other hand he also built a mosque, at Harar, and toured
the Muslim provinces, where he consorted with Muslim chiefs, and too
often, critics complained, with their nubile daughters.
These travels, though in the tradition of Ethiopia’s old rulers,
weakened his already tenuous position by taking him away from the
capital, which had by then, due to the coming of the telegraph and
telephone, become the country’s real centre of political power. His
visits to the Muslim periphery also displeased the country’s Christian
establishment. The nobles of Shawa did not take kindly to the young
man’s attitude and policies. They were particularly incensed when the
prince, declaring that he could not become Emperor while his father
Mika’el was only a Ras, promoted the latter to the title of Negus, or
King, of Wallo and Tegray. This was resented in that it gave him
precedence over all Menilek’s former courtiers, many of whom had
previously regarded him, an Oromo and a convert from Islam, as their
political and social inferior.
Reforming Policies
Notwithstanding growing opposition from both the Shawan nobility, and
from the Church, Iyasu and his counselors continued Menilek’s reforming
policies. They attempted to improve the system of land ownership and
taxation, established a system of government auditing, abolished the
traditional system by which plaintiffs and defenders were chained
together, banned the traditional institution of lebeshay, or magical
thief-catchers, and set up Addis Ababa’s first police force.
Source: http://www.linkethiopia.org
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