Convinced of the need to hammer on the idea of the blackness of Ethiopians, Asres asks Ethiopians to remember that their famous Queen Makada (otherwise known as Sheba) was black. She proudly described herself to King Solomon as “a fine black person.” and as “more beautiful than all the sons of Israel.”34 Here an objection comes to mind: how does Makada’s story help confirm the blackness of Ethiopians when its main purpose is to justify the claim of Solomonic descent of Ethiopian kings? The objection overlooks the complexity of the story, notably that Makada’s pregnancy was unwanted and that it was decided by God, who thus wanted to shift His preference from the Israelites to Ethiopians.35 According to the Ethiopian story, Makada turned down King Solomon twice; the latter had to use the stratagem of spicy foods to compel her to sleep with him. Makada was, therefore, attracted by Solomon’s wisdom, not his person, and had it not been for God’s design, she would have persistently rejected his advances. The purity of Ethiopian blackness was tarnished less by the desire of Semitic mixture on the part of Makada than by divine assignment.
Asres brings out the contagious divisiveness of European racism. Not only to demean black people is to ally with white people, but once the soul is infected with the influence of white racism, “first you look down on your friends, then on your country, and lastly on your father and mother.”36 Unmistakably, Asres warns here against the harmful influence that European racism had on northern Ethiopians and its negative effects on national unity and cohesion. By claiming a Semitic descent under the influence of European racism, northern Ethiopians cannot but feel above Ethiopia’s southern peoples, who do not claim such a descent. Equally divisive is the feeling of superiority on the basis of wealth, which is a replication of European type of class distinction. For Asres, such feelings originate from the “divisive propaganda of the enemy,” they make Ethiopians forget that “without unity there is no force, and without force there is no unity and pride.”37
The mimicking of Western superiority is injurious to Ethiopian national unity because it presents what is but a recovery as a colonial conquest. Indeed, faithful to the pre-European writing of Ethiopian history, Asres sees Menilik’s southern expansion as a recovery of “lost provinces subsequent to Gran’s invasion.”38 Cut off from the political and cultural center, these lands underwent a characteristic deterioration, in particular in the use of technical devises, such the ox-ploughing technique. Asres is further inclined to speak of the southern expansion as a return to the mother land rather than as a new conquest since he believes that for many centuries all African peoples “were under one king and one flag.”39 Both on the basis of skin color and the legacy of common ancestry and history, Asres pleads for worldwide black solidarity in the defense of the black person.
This solidarity is all the more necessary as Asres sees a vast and protracted conspiracy to humiliate and subdue the black person. Incidentally, he makes the Arabs accomplices of the white conspiracy against black peoples. He backs the allegation by the role Arab merchants played in the selling of Africans to whites.40 This conspiracy against the black person has historical roots, as it is but revenge on the part of whites and Arabs. Indeed, citing the Bible, Asres maintains that in the past the “sons of Africa had conquered and despised northern white races,” so that the present racism against blacks is a payback for past mistreatments.41 Both the historical grudge and the racist mistreatments of the modern time clearly show that “the main purpose” of whites is “to divide, impoverish, and obfuscate Africa so as to rule over it.”42
At first look, such plain accusations recall the position of the African scholar, Cheikh Anta Diop, who also alludes to a conspiracy stemming from the fact that the black person is “the very initiator of the ‘Western’ civilization flaunted before our eyes today.”43 However, noticeable differences quickly emerge. Diop establishes the pioneering role of blacks through the thesis that black people were directly responsible for the remarkable and original contributions of ancient Egypt while categorically rejecting the inputs of Aksum. In his eyes, “except for one obelisk and two pedestals of statues, nothing is found. The civilization of Axum, former capital of Ethiopia, is more a word than a reality attested by historical monuments.”44 Moreover, unlike Asres, Diop is of the opinion that Africans were so peaceful that they never showed the desire to conquer other peoples, as demonstrated by the historical proof that “invasions often take place from north to south.”45