Emperor Haile Selassie
Defender of the Faith
A remarkable man and historic figure rooted in the history of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
and the spread of the Church in the Western Hemisphere
For two-thirds of his life all the problems Haile Selassie had to face arose from the fact that he was in advance of his time; and it was the tragedy of his reign that during the last third, the wind of change in Africa blew so fierce and so suddenly, that it swept away the good with the evil. It was said of him that he had dignity and pride in this hour of turmoil.
For close to 58 years Haile Selassie has been ruler of Ethiopia and for 44 years, her Emperor, the world's senior statesman; aloof and regal heir to a long tradition of Semitic exclusiveness, yet founder of the Organization of African Unity; approachable as well as withdrawn; imbued with profound mystique, small in physical stature, yet commanding in personality and a symbol of regal strength and enduring power.
During the lifetime of this Emperor, greater and more profound changes have occurred in Ethiopia than throughout the previous two and a half millennia of recorded Ethiopian history.
The Emperor writes in the Introduction of his Autobiography, "Whatever the task may be, men may begin, but he cannot complete it unless God sustains and supports him. Thus, we ourselves, by virtue of our descent from the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, ever since we accepted in trust, in 1916, first the regency of the 'Ethiopian realm and later the Imperial Dignity, right up to the present, we have set out to the best of our ability through which our people may attain a higher level; hence our conscience does not rebuke us."
From The Introduction of H.I.M Autobiography
When I myself took over this responsibility in 1916, it was necessary to correct the chaotic neglect of fully 6 years {by Lij Iyasu} and to make a beginning with the work not yet started, i.e., introducing the new civilization. I spent my time working, to the best of my ability, while my own ideas and the people fond of the old customs {particularly as the latter held many supporters}, squeezed me like wood between two pieces of iron.
There was very little time that i could spend in idle conversation and doing the things that give one pleasure. In addition to this, from time to time, we encountered some difficulties, internal as well as external which were spread about by natives or by foreigners and which constituted obstacles to our work of innovation. It was thus essential to carry out everything perfectly in order to prevent upheavals, bloodshed, and tribal divisions. I was aware, even before i took over the affairs of government that internal upheavals constituted a useful constitution to the designs of our enemies.
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We were particularly convinced by the policies directed against us, that the enemy's heart was stricken with envy at our setting up a constitution to strengthen and to consolidate Ethiopia's unity, at our opening schools for boys and girls, at our building hospitals in which our people's health was to be safeguarded as well as of all sorts of other innovations of ours by which Ethiopia's independence would be affirmed, not only in terms of history, but in actual fact. for this reason, while we took great care to prevent any divisions among our people, we did not wish to take any coercive means that might appear oppressive to our people.
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While we were engaged upon all this careful work and were beginning to lead our people on the road to civilization, our enemy rose up with violence sending to our country, many troops with modern equipment as well as numerous war-planes, and tanks, breaking the covenant of the nations and fighting us with machine-guns and artillery and with modern weapons many times superior in quality and quantity to our equipment. We addressed and appeal to the League of Nations and with our heart free of panic, we encouraged our armies. While we resisted firmly and defended ourselves, they poured all sorts of poison and smoke gases upon us which were capable of causing serious damage and which are prohibited by international law.
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They dropped many bombs on us and even bombarded the International Red Cross doctors together with their medical equipment, thus preventing those injured by bombs and machine guns or suffocation with poison gas from receiving medical attention or care. We ourselves fought for our liberty in battles like any ordinary soldier and mustered the troops like any other officer. On account of our inability to obtain even a loan for the purchase of arms, we did not have any adequate equipment for defense - except for a few modern weapons. After we had resisted to the best of our ability with weapons 40 years old, we were defeated for the time being in no shameful manner.
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-Bath, England, Written Yekatit 1929 {February 1937}
Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia
Haile Selassie's Royal Line {through his father and mother} originated from the Amhara people, but he also had Oromo and Gurage roots. He was born on July 23, 1892 in the village of Ejersa Goro, in the Harar province of Ethiopia. As a child he was known as Lij Tafari Mekonnen.
Lij means child and serves to indicate that a youth is of noble blood. His given name Tafari, means "one who is respected or feared." His Ge'ez name Haile Selassie was given to hymn at his infant baptism and means "Power of the Trinity."
His mother was Woizero {Lady} Yeshimebeth. Tafari's father was Ras Makonnen Wolde Mikael, the governor of Harar. Ras Makonnen served as a general in the First Italian-Ethiopian war, playing a key role at the battle of Adowa.
Haile Selassie was thus able to ascend the Imperial throne through his paternal grandmother, Woizero Tenagne Work Sahle Selassie, who was aunt of Emperor Menelik II and daughter of Negus Sehle Selassie of Shoa. As such, Haile Selassie had direct descent from Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, and King Solomon of ancient Israel, two ancient rulers from the 10th Centuiry BC. Raised as a Christian, Tafari was educated by private European tutors.
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Haile Selassie spent his youth at the Imperial Court of Emperor Menelik at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Menelik recognized Tafari's capacity for hard work, his excellent memory and his mastery of detail. The emperor rewarded the youth's intellectual and personal capabilities by appointing him at the age of fourteen, the governor of Gora Muleta in the province of Harar. When he was twenty, the emperor appointed him Dejzmatch {commander} of the extensive province of Sidamo.
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Upon the death of Menelik in 1913, his Grandon, Lij Iyasu succeeded the throne. Iyasus's apparent conversion to the religion of Islam alienated the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian leadership, who gave their favor to the opposition movement led by Ras Tafari {as Haile Selassie was now named, Ras meaning head or prince}.
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On September 27, 1916, Iyasu was deposed. In his place, the daughter of Menelik II, Zawditu was named Empress and Ras Tafari made heir apparent and Crown Prince. In the power arrangement that followed, Tafari accepted the role of Regent Plenipotentiary and became the de facto ruler of the Ethiopian Empire. Zawditu would govern while Tafari would administer.
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During his regency, the new Crown Prince developed the policy of cautious modernization initiated by Menelik II. Also during this time he survived the flu epidemic, having come down with the illness. He secured Ethiopia's admission to the League of Nations in 1923 by promising to eradicate slavery. In 1924, Ras Tafari toured Europe and the Middle East, visiting Jerusalem, Cairo, Alexander Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Stokhokm, London, Geneva and Athens. Although patterning many reforms after European models, Tafari remained wary of European pressure. To guard against economic imperialism, Tafari required that all enterprises have at least partial local ownership.
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Throughout Ras Tafari's travel in Europe, the Levant and Egypt, he and his entourage were greeted with enthusiasm and fascination.
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The "Oriental Dignity" of the Ethiopians and their "rich picturesque court dress" were sensationalized in the media. Among his entourage they even included a pride of lions which he distributed as gifts to the President and Prime Minister of France, to King George V of the United Kingdom and to the Zoological Garden of Paris.
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In 1926, Tafari took control of the army, an action that made him strong enough to assume the title of Negus {king}. When Empress Zawditu died suddenly on April 2, 1930, Tafari rose as Emperor and was proclaimed Kings of Kings of Ethiopia." On November 2, 1930, Ras Tafari was crowned as Emperor at Addis Ababa's Cathedral of St. George. Upon ascending the throne he took the regnal name Haile Selassie I. His full title in office was "The Conquering Lion of Judah, His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie the First, King of Kings of Ethiopia, Elect of God." This title reflect Ethiopia's dynastic tradition, which hold that all monarchs must trace their lineage to Menelik I who in Ethiopian tradition was the offspring of King Somomon and the Queen of Sheba.
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The coronation was by all accounts "a most splendid affair" and it was attended by royals and dignitaries from all over the world.
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The War : The Italian Invasion
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Haile Selassie introduced Ethiopia's first written constitution on July 16, 1931, providing for bicameral legislature. This symbolized his interest in modernization and intention to increase the power of the government which had been weakening since the death of Menelik. His efforts were cut short, however, when Benito Mussolini's Italy invaded the country in 1935. The Italians who were defeated in the previous war with Ethiopia, battle of Adwa, held bitter feelings and desired conquest. The italian military used superior weaponry, airplanes, and poison gas to crush the ill fated resistance led by the Emperor. It is important to know, that the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, blessed the Ialian army, to invade Ethiopia and commit some of the most brutal war crimes on the defenseless nation; these events we will never forget.
Mussolini, upon invading Ethiopia, had promptly declared his own "Italian Empire." Because the League of Nations afforded Haile Selassie the opportunity to address the assembly, Italy even withdrew its League delegation on May 12, 1936. It was in this context that Haile Selassie walked into the hall of the League of Nations, introduced by the President of the Assembly as "His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Ethiopia." The introduction caused a great many Italian journalists in the gallery to erupt into jeering, heckling and whistling. Haile Selassie waited calmly, for the hall to be cleared and responded majestically with a speech sometimes considered among the most stirring of the 20th century.
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Although fluent in French, the working language of the League, Haile Selassie chose to deliver his historic speech in his native Amharic. He asserted that, because his "confidence in the League was absolute," his people were now being slaughtered. He pointed out that the same European states that found in Ethiopia's favor at the League of Nations were refusing Ethiopia credit and material while aiding Italy, which was employing chemical weapons on military and civilian targets alike.
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He spoke, "It was at the time when the operations of the encircling Makela were taking place that the italian command, fearing a rout followed the procedure which it is now my duty to denounce to the world. Special sprayers were installed on board aircraft so that they could vaporize over vast areas of territory, a fine, death-dealing rain.
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Groups of nine, fifteen, eighteen aircraft followed one another so that the fog issuing from them formed a continuous sheet. It was thus that, as from the end of January 1936, soldiers, women, children, cattle, rivers, lakes and pastures were drenched continually with the deadly rain, in order to kill off systematically, all living creatures. In order to more surely poison waters and pastures, the italian command made its aircraft pass over and over again. That was its chief method of warfare.
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Noting that his own "small people of 12 million inhabitants, without arms, without resources," could never withstand an attack by a large power such as italy, with its 42 million people and "unlimited quantities of the most death-dealing weapons;" he contended that all small states were threatened by the aggression, and that all small states were effect reduced to vassals in the absence of collective action. He admonished the League that "God and history will remember your judgement."
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The speech made the emperor an icon for anti-fascists around the world, and Time magazine named him "Man of the Year." He failed, however, to get what he most needed; the League agreed to only partial and ineffective sanctions on Italy. Only six nations in 1937 did not recognize Italy's occupation, they were China, New Zealand, the Soviet Union the Republic of Spain, Mexico and the United States of America.
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After the invasion, a fascist regime occupied the country and marked the first loss of national independence on recorded Ethiopian history.
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Emperor Haile Selassie continued to plead for League intervention and to voice this certainty that "God's judgement will eventually visit the weak and the mighty alike." His attempts were unsuccessful until Italy entered World War II on the German side in June 1940, and the entire Europe was devastated.
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Haile Selassie went into exile during the years 1936-1941, and spent them in Bath, England.
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In early 1941, British forces aided by the heroic Ethiopian resistance, freed the country from Italian control enabling Haile Selassie to triumphantly re-enter his capital in May. On May 5, 1941, he entered Addis Ababa and personally addressed the Ethiopian people, 5 years to the day since his 1936 exile.
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"Today is the day on which we defeated our enemy. Therefore, when we say let us rejoice with our hearts, let not our rejoicing be in any other way but in the spirit of Christ. Do not return evil for evil. Do not indulge in the atrocities which the enemy has been practicing in his usual way, even to the last."
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"Take care not to spoil the good name of Ethiopia by acts which are worthy of the enemy. We shall see that our enemies are disarmed and sent out the same way they came. As St. George who killed the dragon is the Patron Saint of our army as well as our allies, let us unite with our allies in everlasting friendship and amity in order to be able to stand against the godless and cruel dragon which has newly risen and which is oppressing mankind.
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The Church & the Organization of African Unity
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Between 1941 and 1959, Haile Selassie worked to establish the autocephaly or independence of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church from Egypt. In 1959 Pope Cyrill VI of Alexandria consecrated Abuna Basillos as the first Ethiopian Patriarch or Pope. The emperor continued to be a staunch ally of the West, while pursuing a firm policy of decolonization of Africa which was still largely under European colonial rule.
In the 1960s the emperor was clearly recognized as a major force in the pan-African movement {a movement dedicated to a united Africa}, demonstrating his remarkable capacity for adopting to changing circumstances. It was a great personal triumph for him when in 1936, the newly founded organization of African Unity established its headquarters in Addis Ababa and elected him as the organization's first official chairperson. Unlike other African leaders, Haile Selassie, of course, had not to struggle once in office to prove his legitimate authority to his people. Rather, his control of government for more that forty years had given him enough time to demonstrate his strength. In 1964, Haile Selassie would initiate the concept of the United States of Africa, a proposition later taken up by Muammar Gaddafi.
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On October 4, 1963, Haile Selassie addressed the general assembly of the United Nations referring in his address to his earlier speech to the League of Nations:
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"Twenty-seven years ago, as Emperor of Ethiopia, I mounted the rostrum in Geneva, Switzerland to address the League of Nations and to appeal for relief from destruction which had been unleashed against my defenseless nation, by the fascist invaders. I spoke then both to and for the conscience of the world, My words went unheeded,, but, history testifies to the accuracy of the warning i gave in 1936. Today, I stand before the world organization which has succeeded to the mantle discarded by its discredited predecessor. In this body is enshrined the principle of collective security which I unsuccessfully invoked at Geneva. Here, in this assembly, reposes the best - perhaps the last hope for the peaceful survival of mankind."
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In January 1965 the Emperor convened the Conference of the Heads of the Oriental Orthodox Churches in Addis Ababa. It was an event of undoubtedly some importance in the history of the Church in our time. Although these five Churches, the Armenian, Syrian, Indian, Coptic Church of Egypt and the Ethiopian Church, have all along recognized one another officially as sister Churches, holding full Eucharist fellowship with each other, they have not had a common council or synod after the fifth century. The Addis Ababa conference has now brought it to an end, this practical isolation, one from another of these Churches, and opened up a new age in which they may be expected both to manifest concretely their unity and to play their role together in serving, the Christian cause in the modern world. Due to the fact that Haile Selassie convened the conference, thereby giving it a setting similar to that of the Councils of the ancient Church, they conferred on the emperor the title, "Defender of the Faith."
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His Demise
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By 1970 the emperor had slowly withdrawn from many day-to-day workings of the government and had become increasingly involved with foreign affairs. In 1973, a famine in Wollo province seriously hurt his reputation. With a strain on the nation, Selassie was forced to abdicate on September 13, 1974. The eighty-two year old Emperor spent his final years of life under house arrest. His death was announced on August 27, 1975. The man who led Ethiopia for sixty years - through some of the nations' darkest times - did not have a funeral service.
The Rastafarians
During the 1930's, when the last bastion of African freedom and hope {Ethiopia} was under siege, the Jamaican people who identified with their true heritage led in particular by the Garveyites, formed a young, strong group called Rastafarians {after the name of Ras Tafari, H.I.M. Haile Selassi I}. This was in response to the cry of their besieged motherland, Africa, and their only hope of racial and national salvation. Rastafarians are adamant in their belief that Haile Selassie I is the "returned Messiah," and that the "Spirit of God who dwelleth in Christ now dwells in H.I.M." They base their belief on Scriptures. Anything concerning Jesus Christ in the Old and New Testament is attributed to the Emperor. The Rastafarians dispute his reported death and firmly declare his position as the ever-living God from Old Testament time. Emperor Haile Selassie is seen as the mighty conqueror who will lead the people of Africa and the African Diaspora to freedom.
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- Taken from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, by His Eminence Abuna Yesehaq
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Nonetheless, the Rastafarians only hope is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church of which the Emperor was the head. They have to come and learn about the history of the Church as native of Africa, and not and European import, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and live a Christian life. In this lies their only hope for survival.
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Emperor Haile Selassie sent His Eminence Abuna Yesehaq to help establish Christianity not only in Jamaica but the western hemisphere. Thousands of Jamaicans rejoiced at the coming of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, believing that it is the Church of their forefathers. They profess that it is the only Church for their salvation.
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Today, the Church is flourishing in the Caribbean, North and South America, Canada, Europe and South Africa. Emperor Haile Selassie had the Liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church printed in English out of his own pocked. This was his vision, for us here in the West, to worship the One True God in a language we can understand.
Conclusion
Whatever the future holds for Africa in general, and Ethiopia in particular, the place of Emperor Haile Selassie in the twilight period of emerging Africa is assured. There will not arise in Ethiopia anyone quite his image. The Lion of Judah hath prevailed!