Haile Sellassie I: The Formative Years 1892-1936 (Vol. 1) - Hardcover

Marcus, Harold G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520056019 ISBN 13: 9780520056015

Publisher: University of California Press, 1987

Synopsis

Always controversial during his lifetime, Haile Sellassie became, after his dethronement in 1974, a political icon to some, a monster to others, and to all a legend. There is no understanding modern Ethiopia without a grasp of the emperor's life. This first volume of a projected three-volume biography describes Haile Sellasie's early training as a member of a cultural and political elite, a conditioning that led him to believe it was normal for the elite (later an oligarchy) to govern and exploit Ethiopia, even if many of its peoples did not benefit from the prevailing order. Once he became emperor, he viewed himself as the embodiment of Ethiopia's proud sovereignty and independence. Haile Sellasie was the architect of the centralized Ethiopian state. He transformed Addis Abeba, his ramshackle capital, into a core city, educated a cadre of "Young Ethiopians"; and developed the central government. He managed his country's political and economic entry into the modern world and in the process made Ethiopia the central actor in Northeast Africa and himself a global figure. Between 1920 and 1935 Ethiopia mad important and obvious progress toward modernization which Italy regarded as potentially threatening to its African colonies. Haile Sellasie, ever jealous of his country's sovereignty, redirected trade away from Europe toward Japan and the United States. By doing so he robbed France of a good economic reason to protect Ethiopia from Italy, he alienated Great Britain, and he permitted Rome to contemplate his nation's conquest. By 1934 Ethiopia was without allies and without the means to counter the Italian aggression. The emperor suffered defeat, exile, and despair but he would return in 1941, as a phoenix, to restore the status quo ante.

About this title

About the Author:

Harold G. Marcus Distinguished Professor of History and African Studies at Michigan State University, is the author of The Modern History of Ethiopia and The Horn of Africa; The Life and Times of Menelik II (RSP, 1995); The Politics of Empire: Ethiopia, Great Britain, and the United States, 1941-1974 (RSP, 1995).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter Three External Security, 1918-1924, Since the sixteenth century, Europe has been rebuffed in its efforts to recast Ethiopia in its own image. the Solomonic state has always fallen back on its philosophical and religious traditions, and Emperor Menilek, the innovator of the semimodern Ethiopian state, rejected but exploited the materialistic example of Western capitalism by buying weapons to defend his empire against imperialism. As his state waned, European diplomats in Addis Ababa anticipated reforms that would benefit their countries' long-term interests. the British and the Italians sought Ethiopia's disarmament and the end of slave trading and raiding across the frontiers. They cared little, and understood less, about the internal dynamics of Ethiopia's political economy and its government. Whereas Britain was truly concerned about the security of its adjacent colonies, Italy's motive was purely and simply sinister, with a goal of nothing less than Ethiopia's submission as a European dependency. Fortunately, this goal was balanced by France's commitment to Ethiopia as the engine of French Somaliland's prosperity.

The Quai d'Orsay's representative in Addis Ababa invariably advised his host government about how best to strengthen the state or the economy to rebut antagonistic propaganda from London or Rome. To demonstrate the rectitude of keeping Ethiopia weak, officials in those two capitals pointed to various sins of backwardness, in particular, the continued existence of domestic slavery and a flourishing slave trade; an apparently ineffective central government, whose writ appeared to run as far as Addis Ababa's city limits; and an incorporated into the conventional wisdom about Ethiopia, and cited as reasons to keep the Addis Ababa government weak.

Ras Tafari early understood that his country had a serious image problem in Europe. The Ethiopian way of government appeared corrupt and was, in fact, slow to create a consensus; westerners mistook the indirection for misdirection and the languid administrative machinery for inefficiency. Tafari knew that the government needed reform, inevitably a slow process since he did not have enough of a new breed of officials, later dubbed the "Young Ethiopians", who were educated, efficient, modern, and patriotic. Such men might have been relied on to assist in eradicating slavery, regarded by Europeans, if not by most Ethiopians, as anathema, worse indeed than the chaotic internal arms trade. Because solutions to both problems would take years, Tafari chose to temporize with a public relations gambit: on 11 November 1918, he decreed the abolition of the slave trade and the regulation of weapons sales, both necessary if Addis Ababa were to escape the arms embargo revealed Tafari as a serious man with inchoate modern goals.

From the beginning of his career, Tafari's thinking was shaped by a received a memorandum on modernization prepared by two longtime foreign residents. It is an interesting document, not only because it pointed out obviously necessary reforms, but also because it pointed out obviously necessary reforms, but also because Tafari began most of them before the second Italo-Ethiopian war. The two Europeans drew immediate attention to the contemptible condition of the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry, "a little hovel composed entirely of one small room, furnished with a table, and a few chairs and a cupboard." They called for quarters that were appropriate to an organization representing Ethiopia to foreigners and that could demonstrate that the country was "capable and worthy of being independent." That goal would also be served by the installation of legations abroad, to endow Ethiopia with the same quality of sovereignty that other nations enjoyed in foreign capitals. The memorandum also recommended the formation of special courts for municipalities in Addis Ababa, Harer, and Dire Dawa; the introduction of a uniform national currency; the standardization of weapons in the army; the domestic production of munitions; the establishment of model farms; the development of education. The recommended programs required considerable capital, which could only be forced from Ethiopia's domestic economy.

Addis Ababa had "energetically rejected" any scheme that required foreign experts to reorganize and administer the country's finances and rarely had taken foreign loans. The Ethiopians feared falling into arrears and being forced to give up a part of their national sovereignty, as they knew had happened in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. When Tafari became head of the government in 1917, Ethiopia's revenues came largely from customs duties and from tributes, which were slowly evolving into taxes. At the local level, there was a kind of feudalism, whereby producers owed customary taxes and services to a political elite, which administered and policed the Ethiopian Empire. It would be impossible to estimate the value of these transfer payments, but it must have been considerable, permitting southern governors in particular to pay relatively heavy tributes to Addis Ababa in gold, Maria Theresa dollars (MT$), salt bars, ivory, hides and skins, and the like. For 1902, tribute revenues amounted to MT$868, 942; for 1903, MT$1,274,344; and for 1904, MT$2,255,711. The total probably continued to rise throughout Menilek's active years, but it declined after he became ill in 1909, because provincial officials failed to remit all the revenues due the government and, of course, the extra gifts and honorariums customarily sent to the crown.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0520056019
• ISBN 13: 9780520056015
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 242