Asres struggles to show that the contempt for Ge’ez and for traditional education does no more than deprive Ethiopians of the treasure of knowledge accumulated through centuries. To reject Ge’ez is “no less than to burry in the ground all of Ethiopia’s history and wealth.” For him, Ethiopian knowledge is like a hidden treasure; it is found in the monasteries and in Ge’ez. Unfortunately, because of the refusal to learn Ge’ez, this vital knowledge will remain hidden forever. Asres is such a fervent defender of Ge’ez that he criticizes those who say that we should “abolish Ge’ez and maintain only Amharic.” The thinking is that the preservation of Amharic provides Ethiopia with a modern language that is also native while getting rid of the obsolete language of the church. Such reasoning overlooks the vast treasure of knowledge contained in books written in Ge’ez; it misses a fundamental truth, which is that “the source of wisdom is Ge’ez.”16
For Asres, Westernized Ethiopians may know many things about the West, but they are pretty ignorant when it comes to Ethiopia. In rejecting Ge’ez, they make themselves unable to understand Ethiopia and to use the treasure of accumulated knowledge to further its interests. All they can do is read Ethiopia through the lens of alien and borrowed concepts with the consequence that they come up with distorted notions. Far from being the scouts of the society, renegade intellectuals carry the viewpoint of the colonizer, and so replace real knowledge with critical declarations. Their so-called knowledge does not emanate from their society’s history and defining features; it is made of normative pronouncements deploring the extent to which their society failed to develop the features of the model society, i.e., the Western society.
Messianic Destiny
The defense of Ge’ez through the suggestion that it contains priceless knowledge reveals Asres’s approach, which is to counter the colonial project by providing Ethiopians with means drawn from the traditional knowledge. Only the return to tradition can protect Ethiopians from the dissolving ideology of Westerners. To orient young Ethiopians toward the quest of their abandoned legacy, Asres first defines what is meant by learning.
According to Asres, “the purpose of learning is knowledge; the purpose of knowledge is understanding. Understanding, in turn, reveals the marvels that the sovereignty of God prepares and accomplishes.”17 Such an understanding procures wisdom: it makes us understand that God is the ultimate cause of everything and invites us to consider everything with “patience.”18 The understanding that God is the cause of everything is essential to approach Ethiopian history and social organization. Nothing of Ethiopia’s long history and survival is intelligible if we leave out its messianic destiny. The amazing survival of Ethiopia requires the following explanation: “Ethiopia survived from the kingdom of Ham to today, that is, for 4800 years, without its flag being defeated and its script changed because it has been blessed by the prophesies of the holy prophets and has benefited of God’s protection as the country where God’s name is revered.”19 The long survival of Ethiopia in a hostile environment is nothing but a miracle. As such, it is not intelligible unless one understands that God has reserved a special meaning or destiny to Ethiopia.
This knowledge about Ethiopia is not taught in modern schools. In addition to being completely alien to the messianic fate of Ethiopia, the very idea of God granting Ethiopia with a special treatment is intolerable to Western teachers. The special destiny of Ethiopia belongs to the knowledge hidden in Ge’ez books, especially in the Bible written in Ge’ez. The latter is the only authentic Bible: unlike other versions, it alone reveals “the true mystery,” and so must be preserved and carefully studied.20
Supportive of the messianic destiny is the meaning of Ethiopia’s social stratification. Asres notes that in Ethiopia all individuals harbor the desire to become “king or at least lord.”21 Nevertheless, among all these individuals, “only the one chosen by God occupies the exclusive place of king while the rest follows what their fate (idil) reserve for them.”22 What is meant by learning stands out here: learning leads to knowledge and knowledge gives us the understanding of God’s works. The social application of knowledge is that social stratification and the unequal status of individuals express God’s choice. To know this is wisdom in that one cognizes and accepts the place allotted to him/her by God. To be unhappy with one’s fate is both ignorance and a vain protest, since nothing can go against the will of God. No exceptional intelligence is necessary to understand the meaning of God’s promotion of individuals. Since God directly looks after Ethiopia, he makes kings and lords those individuals who have what is required to ensure the survival of Ethiopia. Those whom He has endowed with the best qualities occupy the various positions of leadership. Leadership, especially political leadership, is thus a divine assignment.
Since those who run the state are chosen by God, and not by the people, Asres is far away from the modern idea of the accountability of the state to the people. For him, there cannot be a distinction between the state and the people; in his own words, “the state is the people. And the people are the state.”23 All the same, the intervention of divine election does not mean that kings and lords are above the people for the simple reason that, as we just saw, Asres identifies the state and the people. In so doing, he rules out the idea that the political elite has interests different from those of the people. “Unless the people prosper, banks cannot be established,” says Asres.24 Since leadership is a divine assignment, what we have in Ethiopia is the notion of leader as the shepherd who looks after the welfare of a people so dear to God. What must be added here is that leaders who mistreat the chosen people of God will arouse His wrath and very soon will feel His punishment.
The Blackness of Ethiopians
With a remarkable sense of consistency, Asres understands that his defense of Ge’ez depends on the certification that Ethiopians are both originally and authentically black. He vigorously disputes the idea that “Ham came to Africa after the fall of the walls of Babylon and the separation of languages,” for the idea intimates that “humans did not inhabit Africa” before the occurrence of said events.25 What is more, it originates Ge’ez from the separation of languages, thereby suggesting that it came from elsewhere and was not the original language of Ham in Africa. For Asres, Ge’ez is native of Africa; the origination took place “when Noah divided the world between his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”26 He ascribes the wrong birth of Ge’ez to the malicious writings of Europeans and to all those who like to echo what Europeans say. In turning Ge’ez into a derivative language, these writings deny that it is a primary and authentic source of knowledge. Hence Asres’s categorical assertion: “Ethiopia has no rival in terms of ancientness of state independence, script, and literature.”27