Enoch the Ethiopian: The Lost Prophet of the Bible : Greater Than Abraham, Holier Than Moses
Enoch, the Ethiopian, Patriarch and Prophet, Greater than Abraham, Holier than Moses, is the first perfect human being in the bible and the first immortal man according to Moses the lawgiver. (Gen.5:18,22,24) And yet he has been kept a secret until the printing of this revealing book.
Old HS WWW: Haile Sellassie Family Web * H.I.M. Web-Biography: from Sellassie WWW pages * R&R: Rasta & Reggae, Rastafarianism, Texts, Links, News * HISTORY: History pages from Sellassie Family Web * FAMILY: Origins, Members, Generations, Tree, photos * Ethiop Village: Books, Music, Art, Gifts * References: Sellassie WWW sites * DIRECTORIES:Listing from all Sellassie sites *
Table of Contents at the bottom of the page
Chapter Eight
1975: AFTER THE END
"Kill a man! Kill a man! It's good to kill a man.
One who has not killed a man moves around sleepily."
Amharic song
Radio Ethiopia announced the burial of the Emperor without any funeral service, and the place of burial was not specified. Since that day the name of the Emperor, who held the reins of power for almost 60 years, was gone forever. The Emperor himself was suffocated and his body thrown in a sewer....
The story of this year I have to begin twenty years after the events of the last days of H.I.M.... Yes, I didn't tell it all; I didn't know how. I still don't know how.
Reuter: Emperor wept on eve of assassination
How Haile Selassie died
ADDIS ABABA: Witnesses at the trial here of 71 members of the former military junta yesterday described the last hours of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.
A servant of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie described
yesterday how the imprisoned monarch wept and prayed on the night
of August 25, 1975 when he realized he was going to be killed.
"Is it true, Ethiopians, that I have not strived for you?"
the 83-year-old emperor cried out.... "He sprinkled the floor
with his tears. He knelt down and wept and started praying," the
imperial servant, a prosecution witness, told the court here. "He
understood that it was the end of his days."
Press
At the time of his arrest was eighty-two. It was a long life
he didn't expect to live. Such a long journey! He thought the
God's will was fulfilled. He wasn't ready for the turbulent days
of 1974. Not again, this time let them do it without him. He who
fought and plotted his whole life, what did he do in detention?
Nothing.
It was over long ago. When? His biography ends before the
fifties. By 1952 Ethiopia was all that Ras Tafari could dream
about thirty years ago -- even Eritrea as a fourteenth province.
The country had one government, not many local kingdoms. Nobody
questioned the power of the capital. Ethiopia was poor, but anybody
who could find Africa on the map knew where to look for
Ethiopia. His critics usually see the postwar time in a global
context, which wasn't the case for Africa when he came to power.
At the time of Menelik they wouldn't think about comparing the
economy of Ethiopia and France. He brought his empire that far,
he hadn't lost a square foot of Ethiopian soil. His task of the
Negus was fulfilled....
No, that is not the story. I have to start it over.
THE STORY OF ABBA GUM
It was the summer of 1995. Or 1987, according to our entrance visas. Yes, there is a casket with his remainings in Addis. Nobody examined it and the family never asked for it. As if it would make any difference. Not to the monk who sits there, not for the tourists... We went to the place.
This visit was outside of the real. It should be left this way.[1]
"So you did not see the body?"
"No, he told me not to come back till it's time."
"Who did see the body?"
"I don't know. They say the doctors."
Well, according to Abba Gum on that day he was in the monastery. He said that the old black goat spoke to him, saying that it was taking the king to his judgment. The others heard it but didn't understand. There had been a full moon that morning. At the hour of his death a white dove was seen flying out of the palace towards the city of Harar. From the time he was a boy he knew how he would die. The voices in the boy's head talked to him. From the very beginning he was told what he was chosen by God to protect the country and to die from it. He was a mystic and he knew that there were the prophecies concerning his death. But more about this later.
I didn't know what to say. I and Esther looked at each other again.
Try to figure. The monk saw a lot of similarities in the end of Christ's life and of Haile Sellassie's. There are a few characteristics of divine victims. Both appear to have known that death was coming but did nothing to prevent it. In fact, they seem to have encouraged their deaths.
"As Our Lord, His Majesty approached the place of suffering, aware of coming events, drawing near to the place in which he should suffer. They sought to seize him, as they did Jesus, so His Imperial Majesty, but for many days no one put a hand on him because his hour was not yet come. The Lord suffered after supper, and Thomas suffered after supper. The Lord for three days was guarded in Jerusalem by the Jews, HIM was guarded by his own people. There four soldiers, here four soldiers. There the sharing of the garments, here of
the mules. There the dispersion of the disciples, here the dispersion of the family and followers. The Lord gave forth water and blood unto salvation; HIM spilled the water the day I saw him last. The Lord restored the lost world; Janhoy recalled to life many in the world."
The day before HIM sent the monk away and told him how he
would die.
"Don't come back," Abba talked as to himself. "Return when
it's time."
"When is it?" I asked.
"You'll know," the priest seems to relive everything he was
talking about. "You'll know, he said. And I left."
The monks' eyes were of a blind man, was he blind? I could
guess; he didn't move much and he knew the space around as his
own body.
"Ask him how the Emperor died," I said to Esther.
"He wasn't there," she was stressed up and as always would
switch to Russian, our private language, although the monk didn't
speak English and wasn't interested in what we had to say to each
other. He wouldn't talk unless she talk to him.
"I know, ask him what he knows," I said.
I. NECESSITY OF DEATH
On March 21, 1975 the Provisional Military Government issued
the proclamation:
The King of Ethiopia, Merid Azmatch Asfa Wossen, has
been suffering from ill-health for a long time and he
is unable to shoulder the heavy responsibility of
leading the country, and because the sort of future
government required by Ethiopia is a matter to be
determined by the people, in accordance with Article
Six of Proclamation No. 2 (of 1974) determining the
powers of the provisional military administrative
committee and the chairman.
The monarchy died, but the emperor was still alive. What a
nonsense! The year of 1975 was promising us a different future.
It was the decade of the triumph of communism. Fall of Hanoi,
remember? There will be millions of deaths to follow the
reunification, thousands of "boat people".... In 1975 they
drafted me to the most powerful army in the world. I never held a
machine gun in my hands, but for the Central Theatre of the Soviet
Army I wrote an adaptation "We, The Russian People." I wasn't
a good enough communist to write an original script; I was good
enough to write about the tragedy of Russia as its victory. The
civil war with millions dead was okay -- in Russia, Vietnam,
Ethiopia. No, sir, I didn't write about the death of Russia, I did
the opposite: I made evil into good. I wrote the
proclamations distributed on the streets of Addis Ababa.
Sometimes I think that changing the language was a result of this
guilt, the crime I committed against all -- Russia, people, great
books, myself, Ethiopia, Vietnam, God; the long list. My native
tongue was cut. Yes, I was there in Ethiopia asking for the old
man's death. Mengistu, who came to suffocate Tafari with the
pillow, knew that he could count on me. The minister of Defense
with the huge entourage came to see the show and my comfortable
place in hell was secured. I became the youngest writer of the Guild.
Oh, the old man had a lot of sins on his conscience, but the
difference between him and me is that he did it all in his own name. He
is easy to blame; my crimes are anonymous. You wouldn't dare to
accuse me of the death of two millions in Cambodia. You can't do
it -- it would be an admission of your own role in history of
evil. No, I don't equate your or my role with Mao's or Pol Pot's
contributions to history, but I resent the notion that not doing evil
is good. I reject the soapy lyrics of "We are the World" when we
feel good about playing good people. I am under no illusions that
all my personal problems are rooted in my withdrawal from
history. No, no, I am not an advocate for activism, I am talking
about my intellectual distance from my times. The big history is
not mine, it's theirs, but the sad fact is that they are not in
charge of it. History became an abandoned property.
In 1975 Ethiopia was in a mindless rush to join modernity. They were two centuries behind the French Revolution, three hundred years behind the Brits and many years behind the Russians in killing their king. The palace revolt of 1960 finally turned into a full blown chaos called "revolution." The names and
faces were changing faster than one could recognize them. Many
semi-educated Ethiopians remember this year as a time of democracy; they don't understand that this was the time of anarchy -- nobody knew who was in power. It was time of destruction, the joy of destroying your own home.
....
Abba Gum wasn't the real name of the monk. I don't know his
name, I don't know how sound his mind was even twenty years ago.
But one strange fact emerges when one wants to think it through, and
that is that no one attempted to ransom H.I.M. from captivity:
not the royalists who certainly could afford to do so, nor his
family, or any foreign embassies. This is quite unusual; he spent
a year in prison and not one person came forward to rescue him
from the Dergue. His end was accepted by all. In many books you
can find the year of his death dated in 1974, the time of his
arrest. History lost interest in HIM and it was a mutual feeling. He
wasn't interested in the future, he and Ethiopia parted; they had
different roads to travel. His walk was to peace; he left
Ethiopia and the world. Ethiopia had to manage its affairs without
him. No, he didn't need anybody to rescue him. He wanted to be
left alone.
"You don't have much time to question Us. We shall only last
one year," he said after they arrested him.
Why did he have to get ready for his death this way? How
did he get himself into this mess? How could he have entrapped
himself, he, who knew so well the politics, the moves and
consequences? He could not believe it. Did it really take place? But
when the family brought the question of leaving the country, he
rejected it: "I am an old man and I've been in exile once in my
life; I've no desire to become an exile again."[2] It was a
choice.
He read the Bible almost every day; he liked the book and his taste hadn't change since childhood, only the selection of pages... "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and
vexation of spirit."
Who dies first -- God, King, Man? All three at once? In what order? How different is each death? And how many times? What do you want me to learn, Lord? What is next?
That was the time of proclamations. Promises, manifestos,
words and "direct actions"; executions, in plain words.
"The sort of future government required by Ethiopia
will be determined by the people. The status of the
Crown powers given to Merid Azmatch Asfa Wossen and all
titles of Prince, Princess and similar royal titles
which were awarded to others by him as King have been
canceled." (Article Three)
It always "the people" who never determine anything.
Governments can never be run by the crowd. They change the
words: king became leader, monarch -- head, emperor -- Secretary
General and so on. Revolutions give birth to the extreme
tyrannies because they are based on chaos. They canceled the
titles because the "ancient regime" had a personal responsibility
attached to the title. Ras is not a governor; it was the
recognition of individual quality of a man. Something like
"doctor".... Negusa Negus was just a title, no more than being
educated or intelligent could be considered as titles. Of course,
there were many with the titles and without noble qualities. In
order to remedy the abuse we change the principle. We made all
the same.
He had his old Bible with him, but he remembered his favorite
books by heart: "And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know
madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of
spirit."
Reuter:
"The three prosecution witnesses who testified yesterday
said Haile Selassie was found dead early on August 26 and buried
the same day."
"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth
knowledge increaseth sorrow...." He didn't need to read the Bible, he remembered his favorite books by heart.
He was out, history ended, eternity fully dismissed time. He
was a monarch for too long; he didn't know how to live his life
as a ordinary man. It was a good thing that he didn't hear the radio and read
newspapers.
Today is no time for the Ethiopian people to be guided by a monarchy -- a system of creatures who claim to be descended from heaven. The powers of the sort of government which passes from father to son have no place in socialist Ethiopia...
The Book of Job, another story he remembered, about God's
ways to test man's virtues, a strange tale with a strange happy
end. What were Job's rewards after so many losses? What possible
reward could make him to forget the dead? And if they asked
him tomorrow to rule again, how could it undo what was done? He
had many questions to ask.
"...So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that
are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were
oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their
oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter."
Joy is a privilege of youth; they can experience the ecstasy of tragedy. There's no tragedy when you are old.
"Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more
than the living which are yet alive.
Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been,
who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun..."
"After organizing themselves in a short time, the progressive Ethiopian people -- the people themselves -- will set up a people's government, in which
they will be their own masters."
The streets were possessed by demons.
"...There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it
is common among men:
A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so
that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet
God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth
it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease..."
As of today there will be no appointments of people
through heredity. Now is the time that every Ethiopian
citizen with ability for leadership can become the
leader of the country if elected by the people. What
makes an Ethiopian a leader today is his ability,
work, trustworthiness, and progressiveness -- not his
birth.
...If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years,
so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled
with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an
untimely birth is better than he.
For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and
his name shall be covered with darkness....
Everything worth being, being itself, has to take the final exam -- pass through the stage of death. The king, priest and prophet have to die with him. Death is an event. The cult of a warrior, death on the battlefield, when life is tested at the moment of it fullness, are based on death. The king, the knight, the man -- they discover their identity in challenging the death. It was the law of man before, and he welcomed death.
No, the trial will produce nothing. Some, who were in prison during the Dergue, are back in the same cells. The power struggle between the shades of marxist, socialist, communist emotions continue. Nobody wants the truth to come out -- not Meles government, not the Americans, not the family. None will look good.
No actual witnesses are called to testify, no records of Dergue
are opened, no interrogation of officials is conducted.
1. THE PRISON OF LIFE
There was only one prisoner in there, and his name was Power of Trinity. He was an old man when, on September 12, 1974, he was deposed and imprisoned by the Fourth Army Division. He had no age when the announcement of his death was officially broadcast by Radio Ethiopia on August 28, 1975.
I was leaving Addis on this day in 1995, leaving my family behind. I had to pay ten dollars for the right to leave the country.
The cause of his death was published in the Ethiopian
Herald. They said that he had been receiving treatment for an
enlarged prostate gland from his private physician, along with a
team of foreign doctors, first at his special residence and later
in the hospital where he was successfully operated on. All of
them, doctors, nurses, even drivers, disappeared. "However," as
it was written in the official communique, "The doctors who were
attending him found his health deteriorating and continued
treating him. As his condition continued to deteriorate, the
former Emperor asked the Provisional Military Administrative
Council to be allowed a visit by members of his family, and
accordingly his daughter, Tenagne Work, and his grand-daughter,
Aida Desta, be allowed to spend August 23, the Ethiopian Feast of
the Assumption, the whole day and night, with him and return to
their residence the next day." Both women were imprisoned after
his arrest and kept in jail ever since.
His Imperial Majesty was kept alive for a while for one reason: his alleged treasure was still in the Swiss banks. Not only did he not die on time, but his heart, blood pressure, lungs, and his small body became stronger and healthier. He almost lost his sight and appeared to be insane, but physically
he was stronger than ever. He was in his place -- in his own world.
The dry and cold Addis nights were when he was talking to God and dead
world leaders, the days belonged to the doctors and interrogators
and he was silent. He returned to the slow time of a child, when
you can see the light on the wall or an ant crossing the room --
and you watch it as the most important event of your life. You
hear again the sounds of birds and it's so new, as if you never
heard them before. But now you know why these light, sounds, ants
are so important. You're leaving them all. He never complained,
never laughed or cried, as he never did in his previous life. He
thought, and his thoughts were his life.
Was he prepared for such an end? No.
Born in another century, Ras Tafari suffered the ups and
downs of fortune, usual in the case of Abyssinian chieftains.
Power did not come easily to Ras Tafari. He made himself "King of
Kings, power of the Trinity, conquering Lion of the Tribe of
Judah, Elect of God, Defender of the Faith, and 225th descendant
of the dynasty born of the biblical loves of the queen of Sheba
and King Solomon." He believed in all that. He lived it, and now
H.I.M. had to live the death.
His thoughts and visions were all his own; he was a true
king. Never in his life had H.I.M. asked for advice. Never did he
give his confidence to a single human being, only to God. His
intense suspicion and distrust of all were responsible for his
rise and his fall. His disbelief of extraordinary degree was the
victorious formula for Abyssinian obsession with intrigue; Ras
was born and brought up amidst intrigue. "Intrigue," that was the
name for Ethiopian politics and leadership. A man dies and lives
alone, man is loneliness; God, lion, eagle, and snake, were all
royal symbols. The desert. He had no friends, no confidants. He
left many dead behind. He never looked back. Till now...
Emperor died first, next was Ras, and now only an old man
was left -- Tafari.
The Diary is missing, his reflection on life. He never finished his official biography. How did he see his life? He did his best. In retrospect some things could have be done differently, but there was nothing he was sorry about. He didn't lead, he followed. There was God who made the country's future into his
duty. Now was the judgement time. Time doesn't hurry to tell it all.
Basically, a self-educated man, a book reader and horseman, he was a good family man, yes, a rarity in Abyssinia. Ras Tafari, instead of being the local grand seigneur of Harar, learned how to be shrewd and cruel in a manner typically Ethiopian. He was Regent when he captured Lej Yasu, a grandson of the Emperor Menelik, and his successor. They say Ras Tafari executed Yasu and his family, including all the children. It was done here, in the old palace of Great Menelik, many lives ago. We don't know it. Who claims that the future is less known than the past?
Just 5'3" tall, he had small hands and long feet, but he never grew, as if every drop of blood went into his brains with the pulsing veins on his temples. He was dead. They didn't wash the body. It was small and light. He almost stopped eating, like a bird, they say. Was he starving or fasting? Thinking of a
suicide? They talked about what to do with the body. To take it out of the city, to cut it into small pieces, to burn? "L'Etat c'est moi" -- he was Ethiopia and now it was a dry body of a dead suddenly aged child.
"By virtue of his Imperial Blood, as well as by the anointing he has received, the person of the Emperor is sacred, his dignity is inviolable, his power indisputable," the Emperor wrote in the constitution, the constitution in Ethiopian history. He wrote it himself.
He knew what his captors were about to learn -- power kills. He knew that the law is the root of evil, his end was determined by virtue of His Imperial Blood. The sacred has to be violated. It always been.
He didn't know why God let him experience the end on the cross, except if out of love. He accepted his faith long ago, why complain now. He didn't know that his life wasn't over till he lives through the final passions of being. He didn't know Bob Marley and the songs the world would sing. He took his end as
a gift.
The time came to be a priest:
"Whatever the task may be, man may begin it but he cannot
complete it, unless God sustains and supports him. If he fails to
accomplish the task on which he has set out, having worked to the
best of his ability, he is not to be maligned by being called
lazy...."
One face Tafari never questioned; he believed that God was
watching him. He was the chosen one and he had to learn how to
stay on the right side of Lord. How did he know that God called
him? Or perhaps it is God who answers man's call. The calling is
a mystery. In a way, it's a choice. You accept the thought and
everything what is to follow.
"Man may, at the onset, control the direction which events take, but once his choice is made, events soon escape his control and history proceeds by its own
force and momentum."[3]
Death, when it's your death, is a test.
Now, however, it has become your fate to obey the order
of the great and merciful Lord, a lot that befalls each
and everyone of us in our turn. As it were, after you
had accomplished what was within your bounds, you have
slept, but although you depart from us physically, your
works and your name will always remain among us.[4]
It was hard to believe in it. But is that the reason why we do believe?
A prisoner on a death row. What was ahead of him? Death. What
else? Death wasn't a new subject to HIM. His sons died before the
father. Before he reached age twelve he lost his father and he
never remembered his mother. Who was there to answer his
questions? That's why he learned how to talk to God. No, it's not
the prayer or praises Lord wants. The Almighty asks for your
thoughts which you don't share with others. The feelings, which
no one knows, you present to God in the open. You have nothing to
hide, if you believe in God. You invite him to be your judge, you
welcome his judgement, knowing that it could be harsh and
painful. We play games with ourselves and we have to leave it
behind, if we want talk with God. You don't give them reasons,
you share with him things you don't know and don't understand.
You tell him the secret, yes, your deepest untold feelings,
shameful and bad. The confession is only a shadow of this act. No
man can listen to a true confession, but God only. This confession never ends, it is never a summary of sins. You talk about your desires.
Mortality is man's inevitable course. We must patiently accept God's resolution in giving us Makonnen, the one whom he gave us to be the ornament of our life, and recalling him. Death changes everything, sweeps everything away. Even mistakes.[5]
He remembered his own words at the darkest days of his life:
O Lord, abode of exiles, light of the blind, truth and justice are Your thrones. Receive us who have been exiled for our freedom's sake, who have had to leave our country on account of violent assault. In praying to You thus, it is not for our righteousness but for Your great mercies.
It was the time to pray again for Lord's mercy, to ask God to take him home, away from his life-long exile.
II. AGAINST THE AUTOCRAT IDEA
1. I and WE
Perhaps the heated discussion on the internet chat group "reggae" could explain the revolution:
>We? WE? Did the man have tapeworms, or just delusions of
grandeur? When white people behave as did Selassie, it's called
'imperialism'! Why should we allow ourselves to be deluded into
embracing this same elitist behavior simply because the man was
Ethiopian rather than European? Uh-uh, no.6[6]
Indeed, I do not refer to myself as "We"... and that's where
rasta's and pomo philosophies see the problem of modern mind.
Mono-identity leads to "me" -- the source of alienation. Even
from the marxist's pov an individual is a summary of social
functions and his "I" at best could be seen as a "field of
individuality" (the combination of those social identities make
him unique). So, why do we react so strong to "We" instead of
"I"? The elitism. Self-value. Equality doesn't know how to
recognize One. What about the superiority of the Other?
"We" is the way to see yourself if you want to see the Other.
Subject: [9]Re: Selassie I Interview: Rastafari7[7]
Date: 1997/05/17
Newsgroups: rec.music.reggae
(Racine125) wrote with NO Foundation:
I-in-I Replied:
> Funny thing, but a majority of his people REBELLED against his
despotic, unconstitutional government. I have been in a
revolution already, and believe me you can not unseat the
government in power unless the people are behind you, as they
were in Mengistu's case.
"While the third period ushered in an era of increasing, if at
times concealed, turbulence among the young urban intelligentsia.
But Haile Selassie could fairly claim that he was Emperor of 25
million Ethiopians scattered over his vast and beautiful domain,
not just of some 1,500 or 2,000 young men who wished to go faster
than he, in his later years considered safe." SOURCE: _The Two
Zions: Reminiscences of Jerusalem and Ethiopia_ by Edward
Ullendorff.
Racine I-in-I suggest you Study Ethiopian History a bit more.
The people that rebelled against Haile Selassie I were the
Military Elite and Nobility and some students, who saw their
power being taken away from them or those careless Ethiopians who
wanted power for themselves. Haile Selassie I was Loved by the
majority of Ethiopians especially the poor and lower classes.
READ THE ARTICLE BY EDWARD ULLENDORFF AGAIN 12 TIMES.
Question for You:
What direction was Ethiopia headed during the Reign of Haile
Selassie?
Did Ethiopia PROSPER after the Reign of the Lion of Judah????
What is the date of this discussion? 1997/05/12.
Of course he wasn't an "elected king." We believe that we
are entitled to select everything -- the place of birth, our
death, body, parents, God. We decide it all according to our
liking. Not only I, but We. I better like what everybody likes...
The one of his last interviews started the discussion on the
net:8[8]
Fallaci: Your Majesty, have you ever regretted your kingly fate?
Have you ever dreamed of living the life of an ordinary mortal?
Selassie: We don't understand your question. Even at the hardest,
most painful moments, We have never regretted or cursed Our fate.
Never. And why should We have? We were born of royal blood,
authority is ours by Right. Since it is Ours by Right and Since
Our Lord the Creator has deemed. We might serve Our people as a
Father serves his Son, being a monarch is a great joy to Us. It's
what we were born for and what We have always lived for.
This interview is an example of the time gap with the two worlds incapable of understanding of each other:
Fallaci: Your Majesty, you are Ethiopia. It's you that keeps it in
hand, that keeps it united. What will happen when you are no
longer there?
Selassie: What do you mean? We do not understand this question?
Fallaci: When you die, Your Majesty.
Selassie: Ethiopia has existed for 3,000 years. In fact, it
exists ever since man first appeared on Earth. My dynasty has
ruled ever since the Queen of Sheba met King Solomon and a Son
was born of their union. It is a Dynasty that has gone through
the centuries and will go on for centuries more. A king is not
indispensable, and, besides, my succession is already ensured.
There is a Crown Prince and he will rule the country
when We are no longer there. This is what We have decided and so
it must be.
Fallaci: On the whole, Your Majesty, yours has not been a very
happy life. Those you loved have all died: your wife, two
daughters. You have lost many of your illusions and many of your
dreams. But you must, I imagine, have accumulated great wisdom,
and of this I ask: How does Haile Selassie view death?
Selassie: What? View What?
Fallaci: Death, your Majesty.
Selassie: Death, Death? Who's this woman? Where does she come
from? What does she want? Enough, go away, ca suffit! ca suffit!
The ancient world was there just a generation back.
There is one of the last photos before his death which Esther
cries over every time; an old man, sad and in contemplation. The
old Europe worshipped a "sorrowful god," who must die in order to
be born again in the spring. That's how he looks like in this
picture with his hands over his face.
For better or worse, the paradox of the power of Haile Sellassie
was obvious -- the clash of two historical times: local and
global. An absolute monarch within the Ethiopian time-dimension
who formally introduced the idea of constitution for the sake of
modernization, he didn't transform the country into a
constitutional monarchy. He, who saw the present -- Europe and
the world - himself was from the past. Ethiopia's future was the
industrial past of the West. He was the main obstacle for
modernization and sooner or later he had to deconstruct the
aristocratic idea. Two constitutions (1930 and 1955) were written
to make HIS practice of governing into the main law of the land.
While in power he had no need for a constitution; he needed it not
as an absolute but an enlightened monarch. The existence of the
constitution helped very little at the moment of the final
crisis. The constitution remained just a "document" with little
appeal to minds of society. Even the new 1995 constitution has no
visible impact on political thought in Ethiopia. Constitutional
mentality comes with the a tradition of law. In traditional
society the law is conducted in the Solomonic tradition of Autocratic
Judgement.
Orthodox thinker of the late 19th Konstantin Leontiev, in trying
to define national doctrine of Imperial Russia, made an
observation that the main principle of the absolute monarch is
impossibility of imposing any law on himself. King's wisdom (or
lack of it) is the living law. Therefore, in order to change the
law the country has to change the ruler. That's why the court knows
very few peaceful transitions of power. If not God then Man has
to change the law -- kill the law. King is dead, Glory to King!
Reuter:
"Yesterday's first witness, a manservant, narrated what he
said were two probable assassination attempts on August 25 in
Haile Selassie's apartments in the Grand Palace, where he was
held prisoner by the Dergue. The first was "an electric device"
installed in the emperor's chair as he talked to his daughters.
The device failed to function.
The second was a pill that the emperor refused to swallow."
2. KILLING THE KING
(44) Freud's mythic account thus gives us two
simultaneous functions for the father: one is the
father of the law, Moses, or God, the giver of
language and symbolic exchange, the father who
represents the limiting function of castration; the
other is the father of the Primal Horde, the mythical
figure who, before he is murdered, possesses all the
women, and is (therefore) precisely the one outside
the law, the one whose enjoyment has no limit, who
does not rule with the even hand of disinterested
justice, but rather takes an obscene pleasure in
arbitrary punishment, using us for his sport, devouring
his children like Chronos, feeding his limitless
appetite on our sacrifices and enjoying the pure
expression of his will--"the dark god," as Lacan puts
it: not the Christian god of love and forgiveness, who
keeps together the sheepish flock of the human
community, but the god of terror and indifferent
violence, the god of Abraham and Job, so much more
clearly grasped in the Judaic tradition.[43][42]1[9]
If King is the Law Himself, the Law doesn't exist outside of the King. The King is powerless against this principle; he is not at liberty to introduced any written law. He rules by decree. Living law was called wisdom. But the concept of such power most familiar to us is martial law. Monarchy is a peaceful military regime.
Father of the Law v. Violator of the Law. Father was the law, there was no law outside of his judgement. No, justice wasn't blind for Solomon.
The king represents both figures: loving father, who gives life, and the despot, who takes it away. The two extremes coexist as perceptions in people's minds; they are interconnected. The higher the king in one, the greater he is in another. There's no visible mechanism in switching from one to another. It's not necessarily acts directed by reason or justice, but his will. For over a century we try to explain it in so many word. No, existentialism doesn't dare to defend will's supremecy; it's a son who dies never experiencing fatherhood. Nature is never "democratic" or "liberal"; its laws are very conservative -- they never change its course. We see the face of Father only at the time of catastrophes, when we do not recognize Mother-Nature anymore. We think that we can "make" laws, but only small ones... Children do not like Law, which provides Order. We changed the word -- it's "daddy," not "father"; a nice guy. "Father" is a dangeous idea...
The act of "Killing the King" expresses the same attitude of extremes. Charles, Louis or Nicholas descend from being divine entities into publicly executed enemies of the people in a matter of months. The killing is done by the minority, but in the nation's mind this end, this reverse of up and down is quite justifiable. According to such a mythological disposition it's
understandable that the king has no place in middle with the commoners. He is a father of the nation.
Both faces of kingship are expected to be present: loved and feared. Mercy can't be exercised without having and exercising the power. King's punishment was educational, preventive, disciplinary method. If the church developed an idea of domination by a super-natural force (God), monarchy was this visible human domination. God's judgement is difficult to understand. The King emulated God's unpredictability and logic unknown for others.
Family idea from top to bottom: with a head and his slaves,
members of a family. Mystery of blood relations we made into a
symbolic power -- Holy Communion. Institution of the sacrament
connects the past (flesh and blood) with the present (spirit).
Connected through blood or spirit? In their simple mind it was
the same. "Blue Blood" could be traced down to Mystire Qurban,
Mystery of Eucharist.
In my visa was another date -- 1987. The soldier stamped it
and looked at me. "Go," he said and pointed to the gates. 1987!
Mengistu was still in power -- how could I leave Esther and kids? I
ran back to see Esther; there was an empty space between the
crowd behind the checking point and those who were leaving the
paradise. The solders on the both sides of the neutral zone
separated us. She was there, behind the guards, in a dense crowd
and I could see her. What did I do? How could I leave them
behind? Am I out of my mind?...
According to Frazer's classification: king is a paradox --
on one hand, a nation identifies itself with a king through
sympathetic magic, and on the other hand, kind in his nature is
different from the ordinary people. King-animals, king-trees,
they were created to rule over their own kind.
They removed Lion of Judah symbol from the national flag. I think they didn't like the lion, the king of animals....
III. POWER PROCESS IN VERTICAL SOCIETY
1. EMPEROR-PRISONER
The King as "text" has the longest recorded history. Until recently his history was the only history we had. History represented itself through the history of monarchs. It was a culture of power which often treated as anecdotal collections of personalities.
Russian monarchists intellectually challenged by the
socialists, democrats and liberals, defined the pillars of the
Russian power model; Monarchy, Orthodoxy, People. They saw all
three as interconnected. Orthodoxy has the supremacy of God;
Monarchy, of the Emperor; People, the power of the national.
Communists followed the same model replacing the triad with
a new marxist ideology: Communism and its Church (Party), Absolute
State power (including power of the one -- Secretary General),
and the unquestionable value of the Sovietism. We see that the
new "democratic" Russia gravitates to the model. Presidential
powers in actuality are unlimited (1993 attack on the
Parliament). The good of the people (most tricky of the three) is
not challenged by anybody of the opposition. Ideology of "democracy"
proved to be not competitive with the idea of "Russia"
(nationalism). Even the "prime-minister's party" (democratic) has
a conspicuous title "Our Home Is Russia" -- with a strong smell
of nationalism.
After killing the king many must die. Didn't you know this law? By the end of 1976 rebellions existed in all of the country's fourteen administrative regions.2[10] The conditions of marshal law were a first step. Dergue needed military dictatorship -- the answer was the same: terror. Red Terror.
Dergue's adversary, EPRP, was a marxist organization as well.
Socialist-revolutionaries in 1918 in Russia, any other branches
of revolutionaries after (1920 and 30).
Now let's talk about Principles of Revolution.
The Revolutions: French, American, Russian, Ethiopian. Two
centuries later the rebuttal is done. Sir, you were right. And
wrong in your evaluation of the wrong. Wrong is right. In God's
eyes they, the low life, were despicable in their minds, hearts,
souls. Their monstrosity has to be brought into the light from
the depths of their dark souls. How else could it be judge? The
invisible must be made visible. They had to commit all the crimes --
and to judge themselves. Oh, what a gain in such a short time!
COMPUTE your gains: see what is got by those
extravagant and presumptuous speculations which have
taught your leaders to despise all their predecessors,
and all their contemporaries, and even to despise
themselves until the moment in which they become truly
despicable. (Burke)3[11]
Yes, Sir, truly despicable! The only question remains -- is
there more in there? Take it out, all of it! Madness? The
possible must be made into actual.
In 1978 in one day two thousand students were shot on the
streets of Addis Ababa. The parents had to pay a "bullet fee"
(125 birrs) to get the body. Between 1977 and 1978 over 30
thousand Ethiopians vanished in the waves of the Red Terror. The
bodies left on the street were for dogs during the day, and
hyenas -- at night. Of course, they killed their King of Kings.
England began it with their public execution of the king.
"They have seen the French rebel against a mild and lawful monarch with more fury, outrage, and insult than ever any people has been known to rise against the most illegal usurper or the most sanguinary tyrant. Their resistance was made to concession, their revolt was from protection, their blow was aimed at a hand holding out graces, favors, and immunities."
Where are the monks who marched on the streets of Addis in the summer of 1974? Where are the taxi drivers who protested the gasoline prices at the time of the OPEC's squeeze on the world? What did they know? Their cars and themselves became national property. Where are the students? The University was closed for many years; the students lost it, the country and their future...
"This was unnatural. The rest is in order. They have found their punishment in their success: laws overturned; tribunals subverted; industry without vigor; commerce expiring; the revenue unpaid, yet the people impoverished; a church pillaged, and a state not relieved; civil and military anarchy made the
constitution of the kingdom; everything human and divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit, and national bankruptcy the consequence; and, to crown all,
the paper securities of new, precarious, tottering power, the discredited paper securities of impoverished fraud and beggared rapine, held out as a currency for
the support of an empire in lieu of the two great recognized species that represent the lasting, conventional credit of mankind, which disappeared and hid themselves in the earth from whence they came, when the principle of property, whose creatures and representatives they are, was systematically
subverted."
Trail and tourtures...
"Were all these dreadful things necessary? Were they the inevitable results of the desperate struggle of determined patriots, compelled to wade through blood
and tumult to the quiet shore of a tranquil and prosperous liberty? No! nothing like it."
Hear me! Evil is natural and the inevitable is necessary. How else did you expect to go through the Judgement Day? How could we know the Holy without performing the Hellish? Sir, an Englishman must be logical. What is our belief without the full experience, including the apocalyptic one?
"Whenever the supreme authority is vested in a body so composed, it must evidently produce the consequences of supreme authority placed in the hands of men not taught habitually to respect themselves, who had no previous
fortune in character at stake, who could not be expected to bear with moderation, or to conduct with discretion, a power which they themselves, more than any others, must be surprised to find in their hands. Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly and, as it were, by enchantment snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?"
The defense squads, the People's Protection Brigades -- they
did it -- to others, and the others were them. In the days of
Chinese Cultural Revolution twenty million died. Red Cambodia
killed half of its population. Masses like big round numbers
and fast speed. In the blink of an eye, before the world could
take a breath, Hutus killed in a few days 500 thousand Tutsi. It
was 1996. No, Sir, we are not done yet.
Didn't you know what was coming? Open your eyes. See for yourself.
Who are they, the leaders? Look at their faces, check out their biographies. They are nobodies. How did they make themselves famous? Did you hear their names before? What do they, who never learn, know? Does it matter? If not, what do you expect?
Russian or Ethiopian parliaments: one look and you know who
they are. What can they understand? Look at them, their faces.
Yeltsin, Zhirinovsky, Lebed, Meles -- how different are they from
the communists before them? They are the children of communism.
What did they read? They didn't. Why should they? They are doing
all right. They manage. And this fact alone is the verdict to
history. They are the end of the social, government and politics.
There is a price to pay for their learning of governing. Look at
their peace time:
"Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understand but too well? It was not an event depending on chance or
contingency. It was inevitable; it was necessary; it was planted in the nature of things."
The last shall be first -- that's the law. The earth is
given to them. They are alive, they are here, they exist -- they
have to be humanized. They have to take charge to grow.
What is left for a noble?
To guard them? To think, to serve?
That assembly, since the destruction of the orders, has
no fundamental law, no strict convention, no respected
usage to restrain it. Instead of finding themselves
obliged to conform to a fixed constitution, they have a
power to make a constitution which shall conform to
their designs. Nothing in heaven or upon earth can
serve as a control on them. What ought to be the heads,
the hearts, the dispositions that are qualified or that
dare, not only to make laws under a fixed constitution,
but at one heat to strike out a totally new
constitution... (Burke)
They steal. All of them. They are hungry. They never had it.
They have to have it. I understand it. I'm one of them. Why
shouldn't they have a good life? In Russia, in America, in China.
They will do anything to get it. What else do they have to do with
their lives? They don't know how to work, and should they work?
Kings do not labor. They shop, they try to get much as possible.
Let them have it, please.
"BELIEVE ME, SIR, those who attempt to level, never equalize."
There is no end to it.
I almost saw what took place in Russia in 1917. I saw it in
Ethiopia. Almost saw it. It still takes place.
Yes, to Everyman! Precisely! It has to be extreme.
Everything ought to be open to the last, evil and wicked. TV and
computers for murderers in prison. Suspend the mortal reactions.
Then you will understand why the European Union asks for abolition of
the death penalty. Forget that you are alive -- and the future
will be seen. Animal rights, the power of green politics,
anti-abortion bombing. The New Age where the talents and virtues
are your own choice, where is no reward for being good and no
punishment for being bad.
It is said that twenty-four millions ought to prevail
over two hundred thousand. True; if the constitution of
a kingdom be a problem of arithmetic. This sort of
discourse does well enough with the lamp-post for its
second; to men who may reason calmly, it is ridiculous.
They represent nobody but themselves.
We know, and it is our pride to know, that man is by
his constitution a religious animal4[12]; that
atheism is against, not only our reason, but our
instincts; and that it cannot prevail long. (Bold
is mine)
Reason made me a believer. Atheism is a faith of machine. In the case of a computer it does make sense. Objects instead of subjects; now, yes, we-they are free from themselves.
I should know why the Statue of Liberty is ugly. It has to be. That's the beginning of Socialist Realism. The end of senses. Without a child. Not a woman. A female. Liberty? That is what the French bourgeoisie made out of Renaissance (the end of Christian Orthodoxy).
Burke (?) is radical in his political emotions: "A perfect
democracy is, therefore, the most shameless thing in the world.
As it is the most shameless, it is also the most fearless."
The Death of the King was only a page in the Chronicles of
the Apocalypses:
In keeping with its declared socialist path, the PMAC
announced in March 1975 that the earlier appointment of
Crown Prince Asfa Wossen as king was revoked. All
titles of royalty were rescinded, and the proposed
constitutional monarchy was thus abandoned. The deposed
emperor, humiliated and abandoned, died in August and
was buried secretly. The patriarch of the Ethiopian
Orthodox Church, Abuna Tewofloes, an imperial
appointee, was deposed in February 1976. (EL)[]
Died or murdered? HIM wasn't tried. Would we ever know?
There is no one who represents HIM at the on-going trail of Mengistu's
officials. Doesn't look like it's important. That's something the
country will pay for again and over again in the future. Now he
dies a second time in silence. In 1975 he was killed in secret.
They weren't ready. They were busy killing each other. He died as
many monarchs before him in darkness of history. He is still
there in the darkness.
Reuter:
"The second witness, who was looking after the emperor that night, said he was ordered by guards to leave the adjoining room where he normally slept. Haile Selassie wept when his servant told him he would be sleeping alone.
"The next morning I knocked on his bedroom door and opened
it. There was a sort of odor and his face was totally black," the
witness said, adding that the emperor's bedclothes were not his
usual ones and that a bandage was around his neck.
Witnesses said Mengistu, now in exile in Zimbabwe, came to
the palace and saw the body.
The third witness, a maintenance worker at the palace, said
security officials ordered him to dig four graves in the grounds
that morning.
[Reuter. Independent Newspapers 1997. Independent online. The
Tape Times.]
There were three ways for the divine sacrifice: by fire,
then throwing the ashes in a field or running water; by killing
in such a way that blood is spilled on the ground; by
asphyxiation, then the body was dismembered and cast in a field,
or burned and the ashes scattered. Or the combination of them.
I heard many stories of Haile Sellassie's death. According
to Abba Gun, he was hacked to death by four armed soldiers and
the eyewitnesses reported that he did nothing to defend himself
and resisted any attempts by the monks to save him. After the
first blow, he fell to the floor as if in prayer, and in that
position was killed. When the murder was completed, the soldiers
cried out, "We killed him, we have killed the emperor!" His body
had been disfigured by the blows, but he did not seem dead, but
by the vivid colour, the closed eyes and mouth, to be asleep. The
limbs did not throb, no rigor of the body, no discharge issuing
from the mouth or nostrils, nor was anything of the kind seen by
the watchers. But the flexibility of the fingers, the peace of
the limbs, the cheerfulness and graciousness of the face,
declared him a glorified man.
"What did happen to the soldiers?"
"They died."
"How?"
"They killed them. They have to."
He was told by the soldiers that HIM had no wounds, though
he was hacked to death, he looked to be asleep. His heart and
entrails were not burned, and along with his ashes, they were
thrown into the gutter. His blood hadn't fallen on the Ethiopian
soil and that's the reason why the country lives through many
misfortunes. They said there was no blood in him.
There are too many stories to sort out; what is a true and
what is a fantasy? It's all depends on what your system of
beliefs is. Whatever I could call a superstition is a reality for
somebody else. ...Accordingly, his spirit visits the special
places, including the room where he was murdered.
Today we are inclined to believe that these amazing occurrences are due more to the imagination of the people more than anything else, but there was an immediate feeling after his death that it had been wrong to kill him. It's very possible that the monk just made the story up, which would be no more unusual than the actual revelations for a man who lives in the different world of spirits, visions and voices. What is so unusual that his significance is better known to history than it was to his contemporaries? Why would Rastas know less than then Ethiopians living at the time?
Killing a man is always killing God. Where's a king in this
act? Father... They thought that they killed the king. They
didn't know what took place.
The church excluded this link -- the king -- from the
connections between God and Man. The church placed itself in his
place: God--Church--Man. Church = many, never one. King became a
"parallel" power, on earth, second rate. Negative? "God, king,
hero" are not needed, according to the Internationale song. After
King was gone the time came for church to go. There was no God to
speak off. Even a hero had to die.
I never wanted to be a hero, or play a hero. I didn't want
to be tested, even if I would come through not being broken...
They like to say, what doesn't break you, makes you stronger.
What doesn't break you? Do you know your limitations? I left
Russia without experiencing prison. It was my choice....
They like to talk about desire without mentioning pain, or
seduction without a word about suffering. I don't trust them,
they never lived, they had no chance to be alive. They are weak
because they never experience real weakness.
Do you know how it feels to be a broken man? Not
financially or with a broken heart. Physically, fully. I don't
know what they feel when they see all the blows, cuts and
tortures on the screen. How different is their living room
insensitivity next to a Russian or an Ethiopian?
Did they disappear from "the face of the earth" -- the
horror of war, or did they get transformed into peaceful forms of
catastrophe? This thought comes to my mind uninvited. Why do I
have this sense of hidden aggression? Good summer day, green
grass, blue sky, I have a family, I write....
IV. ASHES TO ASHES
Served by hundreds all his life he had nobody for a helper
at the time of his physical weakness. The Dergue let only one
silent and tested monk to serve the old man in his last days on
earth. There must be divide providence in this man's life. He
lived though the years of turbulence after the death of the royal
prisoner. He was alive when we came to visit the place where the
remains of the Emperor were kept. He was there, he spent all his
years guarding the bones of HIM.
He didn't talk much. He didn't like to talk and this habit
saved his life. His name was Abba Gum, or as they said it was. He
was waiting here for the Emperor to buried.
It was long ago. Over twenty years ago. Brother Gum wasn't a
young man than in 1975. Not as old as the Emperor, but he
over-lived himself. Perhaps, to serve the last task God wanted
him to perform in his earthly life. Then in the Fall of 1975 he
was called to take care of the old and sick man. He knew who he
was; every one in Ethiopia knew his face....
His life as Emperor was over and his life as a man was over.
What was left? God. He wanted to end his life as a monk. To call
himself Abba. To go deep into the past, because there was no
future ahead of him. The night he gave himself a new name he saw
a dream:
It was a bright light in the darkness, and it was a voice.
"Come!" He heard one of the four animals shout in a voice
like thunder... He saw no animals, but they were near.
"Come!"
Immediately a white horse appeared, and its rider was
holding a bow.
White horse. He remembered all his horses.
The rider. He could not see his face clearly. Was it him,
Ras Tafari?
...The Chiefs and notables wore mantles of crimson, blue or
green velvet, embroidered with gold thread, worn over silken
shirts; some had lion or leopard skin capes draped about their
shoulders. He was given the victor's crown and went away, to go
from victory to glory. Gilded coronets fringed with lions'
names. Their shields were with gold or silver; their long,
curved swords were in richly decorated scabbards... The rider on
the white horse said, "Our era is over. There is no use fighting
the Almighty." The rider on His Imperial White Horse was the
baria - and he, Ras Tafari, couldn't fight the slave. The rider
was holding a bow. "At no time did you demonstrate any real
determination to save the throne," said some other voice. "You
always began by saying 'no' to the demands and ending up by
saying 'yes' to everything." Ras Tafari wanted to turn around
and face his critic, but he had no strength. "Come," Ras Tafari
called, "Come!"...
There was visible border between his day thoughts and his
dreams. He lost sense of time. Or maybe, he find it, the other
reality. Who was he now? Nobody. Just a God's soul. Like the monk
who was with him. The last to see him die. His name was Abba Gum.
And the Emperor took his name. It was easy to think about himself
this way. It was better to think about life.
Abba was disconnected with the present, he had too much in
his past to think about. He has to remember it all. Abba Gum
didn't remember his parents and his birth. But he remembered the
begining of time. It was the memory of blood. Dem spoke to him in
dreams and visions. Blood had the memories of the first father of
his fathers, his name was Ham -- and Abba's age was 8290 years.
Because of such age, Abba Gum's memory wasn't in order; sometimes
he remembered the past, sometimes the future. But he remembered
that the first king of Abyssinian Ethiopia was Ori. It was in
4470 B.C. Abba Gum remembered a lot of stories before he met
Christ...
Without man's age, Abba Gum remembered all the places where
he was born. He remembered the Emperor, the father of the
Emperor, he remembered Menelik the Second and Menelik the First.
He remembered Solomon and Sheba, and he talked about the times of
Christ, as he was an eyewitness of the crucifixion. There was no
distance in his mind between past and present. He remembered
Jesus walking up the Via Delorossa with his students. But it was
not so easy for Abba Gum to predict the future. He had not been
there yet.
He was the man who drank Ykrestos Dem on the day of Jesus'
crucifixion. At that they called him Ethiopian Moses because Abba
Gum was tall and very black. The first time they called him
Ethiopian Moses in the fourth century when Abba came from
Jerusalem and became Father of the Desert. Abba descended from
Ham but only later prophet and king Moses' marriage to an
Ethiopian woman restored the original break of the two brothers.
Abba Gum was an epitome of the Ethiopian priest, a Christian
mixed with a Muslim dervish. He believed that the gift of
original biblical prophecy was lost long ago. That was why Abba
Gum danced. He believed that Christ danced too. He danced when
the sacred spirits were entering his body. Even in his old age,
Abba danced for hours. But Abba Gum wasn't a prophet.
"Who is this Ethiopian Moses?" I asked.
"I don't know," answered Esther. "He says that he is."
"And he saw Christ?"
"That's who he said," Esther felt guilty as if she herself had said it.
The monk who was there at last days of the Emperor,
remembered that the old man talked to himself, but couldn't tell
what HIM was talking about. He talked the words Abba Gum
understood not... They said that the old man lost his mind.
Abba Gum didn't care much for logic or continuity, his
recollections of the past kept floating. Esther was tired, she
was searching for words in English to keep up with the monk.
Sometimes he would switch to Ge'ez or a language Esther never
heard before. Sometimes he would sing. I was not sure that he
remembered that we were still there. It didn't matter much. He
was very old man. Too old to care for understanding.
It is ... axiomatic that change begets change, that
each step forward leads logically and inexorably to the
next, and the next. Once unleashed, the forces of
history cannot be contained or restrained...5[13]
That is his words. Words of king or man? King is the best of
men. A hero. King's death is the end of an epoch, a catastrophe
that changes the order of things. This is a cosmic event, the
changes have to come -- and all are ready to face them. It's
expected -- the new, different, and -- unexpected.
The Haile Sellassie's death proved the validity of these
superstitions. It was the end which began a year ago --
modernization by death, fire, hunger and terror. Red Terror? It
was there, in 1975. The terror of ideas. It was only a matter of
time before those ideas will speel the blood.
I hope the monk is still there in Addis, awaiting for HIM to
be buried. He had his calling. The Imperial blood wasn't spelt,
it dried out on the soil of Ethiopia and only the soul has memory
of it.... They say that HIM had the power of levitation, a unique
talent usually reserved for saints and angels. He did not fly, not till his death.
H.I.M.
Intro. AUTHOR'S CONFESSIONS: LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER
Chapter 1974 is not posted,
but you can visit Revolution
Also, you can read 1960: Lost Sons
The story of the 1960 coup in Addis Ababa
If you're interested in Ethiopia without Emperor
read 25 Years Later
Most of the chapters are not posted, I still work on them. Some chapters (first three -- 2050, 2000, 1998) exit in web-format and I struggle with the thought about the nature of electronic media: what separates the book-text from web-pages? With this and my other websites I discovered something books can't offer, but there is something lost when you don't have a book in your hands.
We'll see how the book and the web can sort themselves out. Anatoly. Oct. 20, 1998
