BOOK REVIEW
My Life & Ethiopia's Progress: Haile Selassie I, Volume 2, Addis Abeba, 1966 E.C. Edited, annotated, and translated by Harold Marcus with Ezekiel Gebissa, Tebebe Eshete, et al. Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, 1994.
Reviewed by Deneke HaileMariam
Ethioipan Review, August 1998
When he died in mysterious circumstances in 1975, Emperor Haile Selassie was 84 years old, infirm and oblivious to the cruel fate awaiting him. This was a far cry from the confident and dynamic reformer that he was when he began his political career as a dejazmatch at the young age of 13 in the early 1900s, or from the respected elders statesman who stood at the head of world leaders at the John F. Kennedy funeral procession in Washington, D.C., in 1963.
In his 1994 autobiography, Nelson Mandela wrote that when he first met the Emperor he was surprised to find him physically shorter than he had expected, but, "...his dignity and confidence made him seem like the African giant he was." Nevertheless, during the twilight of his reign, on his death, or during the seventeen years of Mengistu HaileMariam's dictatorship, Emperor Haile Selassie was made to seem to be anything other than a giant.
His mysterious death was announced in a simple radio broadcast, he was derided in the ideological media, many of his ministers and members of his family were put to death or in detention, and most of what he worked for all his life lay in shamblesa sad commentary to the end of a statesman who played such an important role in Ethiopian, African, and international affairs for over 50 years.
To Marxists, student radicals, and the ruling junta, Emperor Haile Selassie had always been a feudal relic fit only for the dust bin of history. And even long after his death, few others have dared to critically review the failures and achievements of his long reign. Professor Harold Marcus of Michigan State University is perhaps one of the few exceptions.
In translation into English My Life & Ethiopia's Progress, Volume II the Emperor's autobiography, Marcus and his collaborators have not only done a good job but have also accomplished an important task that needed to be done. This is an historical memoir written at a time when Ethiopia was in an entirely different era. As Marcus himself says, it is the lone memoir of a world War II leader not previously available in English or any other foreign language.
Marcus is not stranger to the life and times of the emperor. His book, Emperor Haile Selassie I: The Formative Years, 1892-1936, published in 1987, describes how the mind and personality of the emperor was shaped at an early age and how young and progressive Teferi steadily planned the course of Ethiopia's and his own political future. The book presents Teferi as a rising star in Emperor Menelik's court despite the fact that he was an orphan and relatively distant from the crown as compared to others like Ras Kassa and Dejazmatch Taye. Wzr. Yeshimebet, his mother, had died at age 30 when he was only two, and his father, Ras Mekonnen, died in 1906 when he was just 13. But Teferi was unusually perceptive, cunning, deferral to his elders, and disciplined to a fault (he didn't smoke or drink and practiced a strict regimen of physical exercise, fasting and praying long before these came into vogue). Because of the respect he gained in court, Teferi quickly began to assume responsibilities beyond his years.
At 14, he became governor of Sidamo, and in rapid succession rose in ranks from Lidj to Dejazmach to Ras to Negus and finally to Emperor. At 23, in 1916, he was appointed by the crown council as crown prince and regent ahead of pretenders more senior and legitimate than he. Finally, on November 2, 1930, two years after he became Negus Teferi, he was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I, King of Kings.
Marcus professes his reluctance to write The Formative years because friends had warned him that he would come under intense scrutiny from both the right and the left. However, I doubt if any criticism of the sort ever occurred. And reading the book, I was not so sure to what relevant extent its content and style might have been influenced by the thought of such criticism. For example, while he describes the Emperor as an "unusually gifted political genius," he also contends "his limited Western education directed him toward change which he never clearly understood."
I think the Emperor had all the Western political education he neededhe was well trained by Ethiopian and European teachers beginning at an early age, he read some of the greatest books available at the time, his constant visits to Western capitals and close contacts with Western leaders were unprecedented in Ethiopian history, and as a young regent he spent five months touring European capitals.
According to many who know him, the Emperor's problem regarding the slow pace of reform seemed to have been caused mainly by his inability to shake off the powerful feudal elite headed by his daughter Princess Tenagne Work and others such as Ras Asrate Kassa, and perhaps by his own feudal roots. Be that as it may, I have no doubt that The Formative Years is one of the best historical documents on the Emperor to come out in many years.
Going back to My Life & Ethiopia's Progress, the memoir covers the period from 1936, when the Emperor was forced into exile, to 1941, when he returned to Ethiopia after the defeat of fascist Italy. This seems a very brief interlude in history, but it was a momentous time in the history of Ethiopia and in the life of the Emperor himself.
The Emperor details how the war was conducted, the success of Ras Imiru's and Ras Mesfin's forces in the western front, the devastation wrought by massive enemy bombardment with poison gas, the death of some of the most patriotic resistance fighters, the systematic decimation of the few educated Ethiopians (this must have been the precursor of Mengistu's Red Terror except that by this time Mengistu was unable to wipe us out because of our large number), and his own personal and political struggles in Europe.
It is interesting to note that the character of the young Teferi described in Marcus' The Formative Years is clearly reflected in the Emperor's life during the period of his exile: that he was tenacious, methodical, determined, and patient in the face of adversity. For example, although Mussolini's allies and thugs dogged him wherever he showed up in European capitals to address various forms by shouting him down, isolating or ridiculing him, he was able to win over a large following including members of parliament in Great Britain, France, Sweden and Denmark.
The Emperor writes that his troubles were not over after his return to Ethiopia, mainly due to the roadblocks placed before him by British government functionaries. He describes his anger and frustration with the British colonial office which schemed to incorporate Ethiopia into their colonial administration as they did in Eritrea, and how some British groups in a last ditch attempt fomented inter-ethnic rivalries to break up the country.
After reading the book in both Amharic and English, I should confess that Marcus and his collaborators have clearly shown their skill in Amharic/English translation and their familiarity with Ethiopian history. They have gone beyond a mere literal translation to a meaningful, contemporary, and fluent English, and more importantly added value to the significance of the memoir by identifying and annotating hundreds of important individuals and events mentioned in the book.
It took me over 20 years (the book was published in Amharic in 1974) to read the Emperor's autobiography because like many members of my generation, I never considered it relevant. This was a big mistake. Having read both volumes, I found them a remarkable piece of Ethiopian history.
Volume 1, translated in to English by Edward Ullendorff in 1976, presents a fascinating account of the Emperor's early life up to the period leading to the Italian invasion. My Life and Ethiopia's Progress is an important book that should be read by all who wish to understand the history of post-World War II Ethiopia and the man who shaped it.
__________________________________________
Deneke HaileMariam lives in New York City.
