The Sunday Mail
Ibo Foroma
Rastafarian Perspectives
ALTHOUGH European powers were able to retain their African colonies for extended periods of time, the 20th century was the era of decolonisation.
Some African nations would emerge as sovereign states as early as the 1920s and 1930s, while most independent states would not be born until well after World War II.
Throughout the period of African decolonisation, leaders would emerge from all corners of the continent; some of these were concerned with gaining independence for their people, others were concerned with the internal development, a few were concerned with progress on the international level.
Some campaigned for multiple causes.
In the midst of various independence movements and efforts to develop individual nations on the continent, there emerged a movement to unite all Africans. This movement would become known as “Pan-Africanism”.
This term had existed prior to the various movements for national independence in Africa; one that defined the movement to refute the charge of Africans’ unchangeable racial inequality.
Pan-Africanism in the 20th century became redefined as the movement to unite all Africans and was championed by the likes of Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt) and Emperor Haile Selassie (Ethiopia).
Much research has been done on many of these leaders in the context of their respective nationalist movements, and in many cases in the context of their relevance to Pan-Africanism.
Works like “Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana, and Africa’s Global Destiny” discuss at length the Ghanaian leader’s contribution to his nation and the continent.
Haile Selassie is one of these African leaders who some scholars have written on in the context of his relevance to the development of his native Ethiopia. For example, Peter Schwab has focused primarily on what Emperor Selassie did throughout his tenure for Ethiopia.
Schwab is not the only one to take this approach to Selassie, as authors such as Christopher Clapham and Harold Marcus have also written scholarly works focused on administration and the nation’s progress.
This is not to say these scholars do not have segments discussing Selassie’s relevance to the greater African decolonisation movement and Pan-Africanism.
Ethiopia is the oldest sovereign state in Africa. This long-standing independence holds profound importance to the era of African decolonisation.
By the end of the 19th century, after the European powers had carved up the great majority of the African continent for imperial purposes, Ethiopia and Liberia remained the only two independent African nations. Italy attempted to conquer the Kingdom of Ethiopia in order to join its two African colonies of Eritrea and Somalia.
However, Ethiopian forces defeated the Italians at the Battle of Adwa in March 1896.
The fact that Ethiopia was successful in actively resisting colonisation by a European nation cemented its reputation as a leader among African peoples.
Ethiopia has long held a unique and powerful symbolic significance in the context of world history.
A phrase from the Bible, “Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands unto God,” provides an early example of a phrase that would establish Ethiopia as a land to be revered, a land that would lead others.
In this instance and throughout ancient times, “Ethiopia” referred to the entire continent of Africa. This phrase in the Bible serves as evidence of the symbolic value Ethiopia held within Africa and the world, even though Ethiopia did not necessarily refer to the state that goes by this name today.
The connotation of the values attributed by this biblical phrasing, transposed onto the territory in the horn of Africa, would eventually become known as “the Ethiopian Empire”, and later simply “Ethiopia”.
It is important to note that despite the fact that “Ethiopia” evolved geopolitically over time, much of the symbolism associated with this term carried over to these newly founded state structures that emerged throughout history.
For our purposes, “Ethiopia” will refer to the state that existed in some form on the Horn of Africa by this name from the 4th century through to the present day.
Although these symbolic connotations associated with “Ethiopia” do not hold the same tangible contributions to Ethiopia’s reputation as a leading nation among Africans as Ethiopia’s successful resistance against European colonisation, they were still utilized by pan-African leaders such as Marcus Garvey and Nkrumah in order to establish Ethiopia’s role as a continental leader.
Garvey was one of the first men to spearhead Pan-Africanism of the 20th century, which focused on the improvement and unity of all Africans.
Garvey launched the Universal Negroes Improvement Association in 1914 well before the contributions made by leaders such as Selassie were felt.
Garvey’s initiative to promote the ideologies that would become a part of this movement intertwined with his acknowledgement of the significance of “Ethiopia,” which poised Selassie’s Ethiopia to be a widely-understood symbol of Pan-Africanism. This deference to Ethiopia’s historical symbolism of African power predisposed Haile Selassie as a leading figure for all Africans.
References
Clapham Christopher, “Haile Selassie’s Government,” 1969
Geiss Imanuel, “Pan Africanism,” Journal of Contemporary History, 1969
Schwab Peter, “Ethiopia and Haile Selassie”, 1972
Vestal Theodore, “The Lion of Judah in the New World: Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and the Shaping of Americans’ Attitudes toward Africa,” 2011
Rothermund Dietmar, “The Routledge Companion to Decolonisation,” 2006
Haskins James, “African Heroes,” 2005
Jacques Garvey, “Garvey and Garveyism,” 1965
Marcus Harold, “Haile Selassie I,” 1987
Asante SKB, “Pan-African Protest: West Africa and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934–1941,” 1977
Imperial Ethiopian Ministry of Information, “Selected Speeches of His Imperial Majesty, 1918-1967,” 1967.
