By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-
We saw last week that after the fall of Lej Iyasu, in 1916, the
Ethiopian nobility arranged for Menilek’s daughter Zawditu to ascend the
imperial throne, while Dajazmach Tafari Makonnen, son of Menilek’s
cousin, Ras Makonnen, was nominated Heir to the Throne. Now read on:
Zawditu, and Tafari
The political settlement of 1916, which divided power between the
Empress Zawditu, and the Regent and Heir to the Throne, Tafari,
inaugurated a difficult, and unprecedented, period of dual government.
Power become further polarised in 1918, when Menilek’s old ministers
were dismissed as a result of popular agitation, in which the palace
guards, played a major role.
The two rulers had two separate palaces, groups of followers, and
policies. Zawditu, who had received only a modicum of Ethiopian church
education, and was innocent of foreign languages, represented patriotic,
somewhat xenophobic,
conservatism, earlier personified in Empress
Taytu. Tafari, the son of the widely travelled Ras Makonnen, had by
contrast been brought up in Harar, a city with outside contacts, and had
received something of a modern education. He had studied with French
missionaries, most notably Father AndrJarosseau, known in Ethiopia as
Abba Endreyas, and had attended the country’s first modern educational
establishment, the Menilek School. He was, doubtless for these reasons,
more aware than Zawditu of the need for modernisation, and of the
necessity of taking the outside world seriously into account. He thus
emerged as a protagonist of reform in the tradition of Twodros and
Menilek, and gathered around him a small, but increasing, number of
foreign-educated young men, not a few of whom he had himself dispatched
for study abroad. One other difference between the two leaders deserves
mention: Zawditu owed her position almost entirely to her royal birth;
Tafari, though the grandson of King Sahla Sellase, and hence, as he
increasingly insisted, of imperial descent, had risen largely through
his own efforts and ability. He had moreover administrative experience,
having been governor of Harar and Sidamo successively.
The More Active Political Figure
Though Zawditu, as empress, held sovereign power, Tafari was
doubtless the abler leader. Younger than the Empress by almost twenty
years, he soon emerged as the more active political figure. He was in
particular in charge of foreign affairs, and matters connected with
foreigners. The latter, on visiting Ethiopia, were graciously received
by him, and tended to give him their admiration and support. They
welcomed him as the first ruler of his country (since at least Aksumite
times) to be familiar with a European language – French, and were
pleased that he saw a role for Europeans in the development of his
country. One of his first steps, on gaining power in 1916, was to
recruit a number of White Russian officers to train his troops. In the
following year he established an Imperial Bodyguard, a modern force
composed largely of Ethiopians who had served with the British in Kenya
or the Italians in Libya.
The Country’s International Image
Anxious to improve his country’s international image, which was then
being severely criticised on account of its age-old institution of
slavery, and faced the possibility of foreign intervention on that
account, he promulgated a symbolic decree, in 1918, abolishing the
practice. With a view to improving the system of government he also
extended the ministerial system, earlier established by Menilek, by
setting up a Ministry of Commerce and a Public Works Department, both in
1922. A certain amount of road-building also took place at this time,
in Addis Ababa, as well as in the provinces, where Gor and other western
towns were in particular linked with the inland port of Gambla.
Internal customs posts, a vexatious institution and a major hindrance to
trade since time immemorial, were likewise gradually removed.
Entry into the League of Nations
Tafari’s most spectacular achievement came in the field of foreign
affairs. On 28 September 1923 he succeeded in gaining Ethiopia’s entry
into the League of Nations, which had been founded only four years
earlier, in 1919. Admission to the international body was a notable step
in overcoming the country’s age-old isolation, and was potentially
important in withstanding pressures from Italy and other neighbouring
colonial powers. An Ethiopian diplomatic corps came into existence at
about this time, and was later issued with decorative, official
uniforms. In 1924, Tafari began to grapple, more effectively than
before, with the question of slavery. He had a first practical decree
enacted for the gradual eradication of slavery, and established a bureau
and a school, for freed slaves. This edict, like the earlier
proclamation, served to counter foreign criticism, and thus to
rehabilitate the country’s international image.
A European Tour
Later that year Tafari embarked, with Ras Haylu Takla Haymanot of
Gojjam and several other nobles, on a major tour of Europe. This took
them, via Egypt and Palestine, to nine European countries, France,
Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Italy, England, Switzerland and
Greece. While in Paris, Rome and London, the Regent attempted to acquire
Ethiopian access to the sea, or at least a free port on the coast of
one or other of the neighbouring colonial territories. His requests
were, however, turned down, in one way or another, by the three powers
concerned. Despite this failure, his visit was important. Sometimes
compared to that of Peter the Great to Western Europe two centuries
earlier, it encouraged Ethiopian society to become aware of the rest of
the world, as well as to adopt foreign inventions. Tafari and Haylu both
acquired a number of motor cars, besides sundry European gadgets.
Tafari also returned with Emperor Twodros’s crown, which he received on
Zawditu’s behalf from the British who had looted it from Maqdala
fifty-six years earlier.
Modernisation in the 1920s
Tafari also emerged as a moderniser in other fields. In 1923 he
founded a modern printing press, the Berhanenna Salam, i.e. Light and
Peace. It printed an Amharic newspaper with the same title, which
carried articles popularising the cause of reform, which some Ethiopian
intellectuals of the time believed should follow the Japanese model. A
steady flow of literary, religious, and educational books in Amharic
were also published. Zawditu meanwhile established a scriptorium, with a
staff of about 250 men, for the copying of Ge’ez religious texts. Since
the institution of the lebeshay, earlier banned by Lej Iyasu, had not
yet been eradicated, further action against it was also taken.
Other institutions established at this time included a modern
hospital, the BSayda, founded in 1924, and a new secondary school, the
Tafari Makonnen, in 1925. On the opening of that establishment, which
taught in English as well as in French. Tafari urged his fellow nobles
to follow his example by founding schools. Later, in 1928, he decreed
symbolic fines for parents who left their children illiterate. The
number of students abroad for study meanwhile was substantially
increased. Several hundred were sent to France, Egypt, Lebanon, Great
Britain, and the United States.
Difficult Relations with Britain and Italy; French Support
Ethiopia’s international position meanwhile was once more endangered
by the British and Italian Governments. Reverting to a policy dating
back to the late nineteenth century, they persuaded the League of
Nations to ban the export of fire-arms by member states to much of
Africa, including Ethiopia. The prohibition on Ethiopian arms imports
was rigidly enforced by the two colonial powers, which between them
controlled most of the territory on Ethiopia’s borders. Tafari, however,
opposed this arms restriction. He contended that it was incompatible
with his country’s League membership. He had, very conveniently, the
support of the French Government, which wished to keep the port of
Djibuti open to the arms trade. This was partly because this commerce
was lucrative, and partly because it was considered a means of winning
Ethiopia’s friendship. French opposition to the arms ban proved
decisive, and the League finally agreed, in 1925, to exclude Ethiopia
from the restriction zone.
Further Anglo-Italian Intrigues Foiled
A further diplomatic crisis between Ethiopia and the British and
Italian Governments erupted shortly afterwards, in 1926. The two
colonial powers, cooperating together in the spirit of the Tripartite
Convention of 1906, agreed to put joint pressure on the Ethiopian
Government, to grant them concessions in two areas of the country in
which each was interested. The British thus supported Italy’s demand to
construct a railway to link the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia,
west of Addis Ababa, while the Italians reciprocated by backing
Britain’s ambition to build a dam on Lake Tana. Tafari, who, on account
of his country’s membership of the League, was in a stronger diplomatic
position than Menilek twenty years earlier, immediately protested to the
international organisation. He declared, once again with the support of
France, that the Anglo-Italian agreement, entered into without
consulting Ethiopia, a fellow member of the League, was incompatible
with the principles of that body. He pithily inquired whether members of
the League desired “means of coercion” to be applied against Ethiopia
“which they would undoubtedly dislike if applied against themselves”.
The British and Italians, embarrassed by this strongly worded reaction,
protested their innocence of trying to exert undue pressure on Ethiopia,
and were obliged, at least ostensibly, to abandon their policy.
The Duke of Abruzzi’s Visit, and the Ethio-Italian Treaty of 1928
In the following year, during a visit to Addis Ababa of the King of
Italy’s cousin, the Duke of Abruzzi, the Italian Government reopened the
question of Ethiopia’s request for access to the sea. They proposed
making Assab a free port, and building a motor road to link it with Das,
which, it was assumed, would be connected by a road to Addis Ababa. A
twenty-year Treaty of Friendship and Arbitration between the two
countries was duly signed, on 2 August 1928. Evidence of Italian
intrigue and fear of future Italian intervention, however, prevented the
Ethiopian Government from permitting the building of the road, and the
free port of Assab was never established.
Source: http://www.linkethiopia.org
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