June 4, 2025 • 58 mins
The Tawahedo Church stands as one of Africa's most profound yet overlooked spiritual treasures—a living connection to ancient wisdom that has survived millennia of external pressure. In this deeply moving conversation with Mehret, an Eritrean educator and cultural preservationist, we journey through the rich history of East African spirituality and its connection to Black identity worldwide.Mehret shares her remarkable personal story of growing up during Eritrea's liberation struggle, walking for two months to escape war, and eventually bringing her cultural knowledge to diaspora communities. Her mastery of five languages—Tigrinya, Amharic, Arabic, English, and Spanish—reflects the complex cultural tapestry of the Horn of Africa region.We explore the Ge'ez language, at least 6,000 years old and still functional today, with characters directly connected to Kemetic hieroglyphs. This isn't just academic knowledge—it's living evidence of African cultural continuity that challenges colonial narratives. As Mehret powerfully states, "I didn't know white people had anything to do with Christianity until I came here."The conversation takes us through pivotal historical moments, from Queen Amanirenas who successfully fought against Roman invasion to the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD that attempted to Europeanize African spiritual traditions. We examine how the Tawahedo principle of divine oneness transcends religious boundaries, having been instrumental in unifying Christian and Muslim communities during Eritrea's struggle for independence.Perhaps most moving is Mehret's description of cultural practices like the coffee ceremony—a ritual that transforms a simple beverage into profound spiritual communion through three symbolic servings. These everyday practices represent how ancient wisdom continues to nurture community healing.Whether you're interested
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Thanks for watching.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I come here tonight to leave you with me, to leave
in yourself and believe thatyou're somebody.
I said to the group last nightnobody else can do this for us,
no document can do this for us,no Lincolnian Emancipation
(01:04):
Proclamation can do this for us,no Kennesonian or Johnsonian
Civil Rights Bill can do thisfor us.
If a Negro is to be free, hemust move down into the inner
resources of his own soul andsign, with a pen and ink of
self-assertive manhood, his ownemancipation covenant.
(01:27):
Let anybody take your manhood.
Don't let anybody take your man.
(01:48):
Be proud of our heritage.
Somebody said earlier tonight wedon't have anything to be
ashamed of.
Somebody told a lie.
They couched it in language.
They made everything black,ugly and evil.
(02:11):
Look in your dictionary and seethe synonyms of the word black.
There's always somethingdegrading and low and sinister.
Look at the word white there'salways something pure.
(02:31):
I'm a man, but I want to getthe language right.
I want to get the language soright that everybody here will
cry out yes, I'm black, I'mproud of it, I'm black and
beautiful.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
All right, man, that was deep right there.
I felt that one that was a goodidea.
That was a good idea.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, man.
That was deep right there.
I felt that one that was a goodidea.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
That was a good idea.
Thank you, sir.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Thank you, sir.
That's the black pism.
All right, so thank you forcoming out, Brother Mag, and you
know I have some questions foryou and we're going to bring the
sister on right now.
How are you doing?
Speaker 5 (03:43):
I'm doing well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
You're welcome.
I don't want to mispronounceyou.
What's how you say your nameagain, even though Mag told me
that a thousand times just now?
Speaker 5 (03:53):
It's Mehret and it's a Tigrinya name.
Tigrinya is one of the manyEast African languages which is
my first language of five Mehret, and it means either blessing
or mercy, based on how you useit.
And then it goes back toKemetic as well, and it means
she who brings blessings fromthe gods to the people.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Okay, so you said you speak five languages.
Okay, so English is one, andwhat are the other four?
Speaker 5 (04:23):
So Tigrinya is my first, and then Amharic, which
is spoken official language inEthiopia, and then Arabic,
because I lived in Sudan forfour years.
It's also spoken in Eritrea,and then English, and then in
college I did study abroad andstudied Spanish.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Nice, all right, all right, hold on, all right.
All right, hold on, all right.
So now let's, I want to goright into it.
I mean, before we go into it, Ilike for people to introduce
themselves, and you already toldus that you have.
You speak five languages, andcan you give it a little bit of
(05:02):
your background?
Speaker 5 (05:04):
And can you give a little bit of your background?
Sure, yeah.
So just to give you a context,I was born and raised in East
Africa, starting with Eritrea,where my family is from.
We are from a highland farmingfamily that goes back for
generations farming family thatgoes back for generations.
(05:25):
Both sides of my family were incommunity leadership.
My grandparents were chiefs andleaders, and then my dad
inherited that and my mom was aherbalist and a natural healer
and a midwife, so very involvedin community life.
And then when the liberationmovement well, when I was born,
the liberation armed strugglefor liberation in Eritrea was
(05:47):
already 15 years into it.
It started in 61.
So when I was born it was likeour house was, like you know,
organizing headquarters, sothat's where my foundation is.
And then because the war keptescalating and it was really,
really bad, and because of mydad's involvement in the
(06:08):
liberation movement, my familywas targeted.
So we had to flee, and then somy mom, myself and three younger
siblings.
It took us two months to walkfrom Eritrea to northern
Ethiopia, the Tigray region, andthen to Sudan.
(06:28):
And we had to walk at nightbecause there were bombings,
bombing jets made in the USduring the day.
So I got to Sudan.
So I learned Tigray and Amharicin Eritrea, because once the
Eritrean liberation movement waspushed and things escalated, we
(06:49):
were forbidden to speak ournative language, which is
Tigrinya, and so the language ofinstruction became Amharic.
So I learned Amharic from theage of six to 12.
Then at 12, we went to Sudan.
So I picked up Arabic becausewe lived there for four years,
and at 16, I came here.
So I picked up Arabic becausewe lived there for four years,
and at 16, I came here so Ipicked up English.
And then I got curious aboutSpanish, not only the Spanish
(07:11):
language, but I was interestedin what role does culture play
in education?
Because I saw that the publicschool system here is very
negating of cultural heritageand I just didn't believe that
it was like that in the rest ofthe world.
So I traveled to Ecuador and Istudied there for a quarter.
(07:36):
And then I went to Kenya andstudied with the Maasai people.
And then I also went to NewZealand and was very lucky and
privileged to study with theMaori people, the indigenous
people of New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
So my BA is in education and cultural
understanding and a master's insocial work.
Nice, nice, that's peace,that's peace.
So now that's your education, Imean.
I mean, we have some questionshere.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
However, I would like to ask more about your
background, but let's go intothe questions.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
So how old is the?
How old is?
Speaker 5 (08:23):
the church of Tawahedo, tawahado, tawahado,
which a lot of people in the USor in the Western world also
refer to it as Coptic.
I didn't know it was called.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Coptic Right?
Yeah, I know it now.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
Yeah, tawahado first of all is practiced in Ethiopia,
eritrea, sudan and Egypt,although in Egypt and Sudan they
refer to it as coptic.
We call it uh just means theoneness of god, um and uh.
You know, if you google it itwill say you know, it goes back
(08:56):
to 330 um.
But the like, the principlesand the the that is Tawahedo, I
think, is as ancient as ourpeople in East Africa.
Because what I'm realizing as Istudy more, you know, the
Tawahedo principles and even thecolors and the symbols and even
(09:18):
the language, is that, like,there's so much comedic culture
within Tawahedo.
Indeed, yeah, so much comedicculture within.
Tawahedo Indeed.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
And like when we have discussions, she'll say a word,
right, and I'll be like, wait aminute, that's like in the Metu
Neta.
And she'll be like, oh yeah,that is in the Metu Neta and
there's a lot of stuff like thatin the East African culture and
the Tawahedo religion.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Okay, all right, man Mag, man, I'm impressed, I'm
impressed man.
I'm impressed by this man, wow.
Okay, all right, a little.
A bit more about that church,because I know about the Coptic
church and, you know, over mystudy I learned about the Coptic
(10:05):
church and, um, you know, overmy study, I learned about the
Coptic church through, uh,watching Asherah Kwesi and um,
and and that's what I learnedabout it you know um that church
through through, through him.
So is it close to Christianityor?
Speaker 5 (10:23):
it is Christianity.
I mean, you know the um.
So in Tawahado, um, they, youknow, they believe in the birth
of the Christ, they believe in,you know, the uh.
So when we say well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well,
well, well, it basically meansin the name of the Father, the
Son, the Holy Spirit, amen,right, so, and then Tawaharo
(10:47):
just means the.
So, you know, and I have been soprivileged to have traveled and
also just been in the US andbeing, like, you know, such a
like a lifelong learner andhaving such appreciation for
learning.
I have studied, you know,buddhism.
I have looked at Hinduism.
I have studied, you know,buddhism.
I have looked at Hinduism.
And one of my favorite, youknow, saints she's considered
(11:08):
the Haging Saint is from SouthIndia.
You know Amma.
So, like, when I look at thesedifferent things, the idea of
oneness of God is, in all,different, you know.
And then I'm a yogapractitioner, I'm a certified
yoga teacher.
So the unity, yoga just meansthe unity of mind, soul and body
, right?
So for me, tawani is just, youknow, an ancient concept and
(11:33):
this concept that our peoplehave lived in so many different
cultures have, you know manydifferent languages to say it.
But just to give you an idea,during the liberation movement
there was no conflict of likereligion and political
resistance and armed strugglefor our people.
Right, and my dad being like achief, he was also very immersed
(11:56):
in the Tohono, you know cultureand then he became like one of
the main organizers.
In fact he was at some point hewas the organizer for a whole
province, our province, and youknow there were times where he
would like squash conflictsbetween Muslims and Christians
and, you know, just using theidea of oneness.
(12:18):
So Wahado Integri Nyata Hid inIslam right, and Eritrea has
such a like, you know uniquehistory in that right and
Eritrea has such a like, youknow unique history in that
right, because our foundingfathers in the liberation
movement were both Muslim,christian as well as traditional
African practitioners.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yes, yes, there's so much with just this one question
Now.
So, eritrea, eritrea, I'mthinking Nipsey Hussle.
I'm also thinking I knowSelassie.
I'm thinking about Selassie,you know, as far as the Tawahadu
(13:01):
church so, and there wasanother one I had, but let's
just go with those two.
Well, we don't have to askabout Nipsey, because we already
know who that is Now.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
So my dad and his dad were in the same movement, just
to.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
What, oh man, hold on , that's a All right.
Wow, that is deep.
Oh man, we, we okay, we gottahave her on more often.
Man, this is not enough for foruh, uh, you know this, we only
got an hour, man.
Um, all right, so Okay now.
(13:41):
Selassie the Tawahedo did hehave anything to do with?
Speaker 5 (13:46):
that I mean he benefited from it and he used
the Tawahedo church to, you know, to gain power and to like
Haile Selassie.
The word means Haile, right.
In Amharic, haile meansstrength, right, and Selassie is
(14:09):
the Trinity.
Selassie means three, selassiemeans Trinity.
So he, like you know, hebasically had the Tawaharo
Church crown him and name himHaile Selassie.
So he used, you know, he usedthe Tohono O'odham Church in
that way.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Okay, now would Christianity come from this, or
what came first, this orChristianity?
Speaker 5 (14:54):
I mean because Tohono is such, you know, culturally,
so immersed in, you know, inBlack culture, in African
culture, in ancient you knowspirituality of our people.
I would say you know that wasalready and that's why, like it
was very and still is hard, foryou know, saboteurs to come and
like dismantle it because it'simmersed in the culture.
So I would say that was youknow, that was already in our
culture.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
And that's actually what Akhenaten taught anyway.
Oneness, you know, and Atenrepresents the oneness as well,
the one God or the oneness ofGod.
So, you know, I woulddefinitely say Tawahedo as well.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
I have a question.
He said, tawahedo, how youdoing peace, sister?
How you doing peace?
My brother Bron, when she wasspeaking about that, it sounds
like some Kibra Nagas stuff.
Kibra Nagas.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Okay, my brother, my brother, you know some stuff I
see, so that term itself, kibrit.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Kibrit in Ge'ez means honor, right, kibrit, honor or
reverence, and the Negus is theword Nugusat kings, nugus king,
so actually Eritrea.
Before its current name, if yougo back, it was known as Bahri
(16:06):
Nagasi, meaning the kings of thesea right.
Yes.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Now think about that y'all real quick.
The kings of the sea.
What does that say?
And you know, I told you shehas the picture of her
grandfathers with the phazon,with the tassel, with the moon
and the star.
Okay, you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (16:28):
You're from Ethiopia.
Eritrea, oh, next door toEthiopia.
I was going to say they have agood name, they have Besh and
all that, yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
I also claim Sudan as my home because when we were
fleeing the war in Eritrea, youknow, my family was sheltered in
Sudan and you know, so Sudan isalso my home.
Like I mean, I'm aPan-Africanist, so you know.
I think the whole continent andthen all of humanity.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
Beautiful, beautiful sister.
That's an honor man.
This is beautiful man we're soconnected, we get so lost man
and it's like um, it's similar.
When you study, like religion,you go even to the bible itself.
When you go to acts one, um,was it, was it.
Acts one acts three acts 13,verse 1, they say they called
(17:25):
them Niger or Niger the black inthe Antioch church.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, because we're
definitely going to talk aboutsome of Christianity's black
roots, you know, within thisdiscussion.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
So yeah, alright, so let's go to the next question.
Mike, you got the next question.
Speaker 6 (17:46):
Nah, I don't have it on me God.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
You do, you do.
But anyway, how old is thelanguage of G-G's?
Speaker 5 (18:00):
G-I's is at least 6,000 years old, I'm from
America.
I'm thinking jeez.
That's what it means, jeez youguys yeah At least 6,000 years
old.
And then I don't know if you'refamiliar with the characters or
(18:23):
the written form of it.
I don't know if you're familiarwith the characters or the
written form of it, but it islike a lot of the letters have.
You know their foundation incomedic characters, right?
So, and that's why, like I keep, I keep bringing that up that
you know we talk about, you knowI've been to conferences with
(18:45):
ASCAC, right and different.
You know scholarly settingswhere we talk about ancient
African civilization and howgreat our people were, and then
we talk about, you know, thetransatlantic, you know slave
trade and and our people hereand then, um, I don't think we
really talk about the fact thatyou know a lot of our greatness
(19:12):
survived and still is survivinglike goodness, is 6 000 years
old, but it's a language that'sfunctional, that's in the church
, that's in the schools, that'sin the government, that's like
you know, it's thriving and thatis like our like, you know,
like ancient and great, but alsofunctioning and now and
thriving, right.
(19:32):
So I think when we can claimthat and when we can really
embrace that, then we we'reputting Osiris back together
Like all I feel like every timeI learn something about you know
, like learning Capoeira and theculture in Brazil.
It's like I'm finding things ofmyself, right.
Um, yeah, so um beautiful.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yeah, y'all like most of the stuff when you look at
arabic, a lot of the words fromarabic um, come from gaz and all
of the afro-asiatic languagesoriginate with gaz.
Hebrew, you know aramaic.
All of these, what they call umswahili yep.
(20:18):
All of them come out of Gez,but Gez have better definition
for the words.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
It's very true, because there was an Ethiopian
church I have visited and youknow this was back in the days
like 98 or something with myfather and it was so deep, Like
when they go deep into, like youknow, studying with the, with
the Kibber and the Gask, and thereal understanding, the real
Falashin Judaic religion, theportion of it.
(20:49):
It's so real, Like the wordsare powerful, even down to what
you said with the Giz language,how it was written, the
characters, like there was likesome kind of how, there was like
some kind of um, how should?
we put the speculative likelanguage of flames, like how it
was written, language of light.
So it's pretty, that's dopeyeah all right, all right, uh.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
who was queen amarinas?
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Amarinas.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Amarinas.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
Queen Amarinas is one of the greatest revolutionaries
, to use a current word ancientyou know leaders.
Amazing you know defenders.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
I don't mean to cut you off.
What would you?
You said in current languagewhat would be the old language.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
What would she would be considered, uh, she would
just be a great queen.
I mean, it wasn't, it wasn'tforeign or it wasn't like you
know um, unheard of for ourgreat you know black women all
over the the world to to to beas great as she was, you know um
, but she stands out because ofhow she, you know she stood for
(22:04):
her people.
She was the queen of Moreau,and Moreau is a place that I
have been to.
You know it's a ruin.
It's, you know, something thathas been dismantled by Rome and
by you know so many otherinvaders from across the sea.
But I have been there and youcan feel the spirit.
This is in Sudan.
(22:24):
You know there's a city calledKassela, where we first arrived.
Well, we settled, and then,because I was part of a cultural
performing arts group of, youknow, irish refugees, we would
go to the rural areas andmobilize our people and kind of
like we were generators of joy,right, because we had to process
(22:46):
all that trauma, but at thesame time it just made us feel
significant to be in service toour people.
And I think that you know partof the resilience of black
spirit globally is that we justgenerate joy and we know how to
like really take something sodevastating, you know, and make
(23:07):
the best out of it, and not onlyfor ourselves but to the rest
of the world.
Um, so I've been to those ruinsand you can feel the spirit,
you can feel the energy in those.
You know like a lot of thegreatness is covered in sand and
it's, you know, in pieces.
You can still feel that.
So she was the queen of Nero.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
That's so dope Ron.
It's so crazy because I'msurprised when she told my reach
in the Ethiopian culture.
Because it's funny because Igot this picture right here of
John the Baptistist but it's theethiopian drawing how they look
like those characters I likethat yeah, so it's just the
universe.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
I mean liking that always be always responding I
didn't know why people hadanything to do with christianity
until I came here.
Because all the like you know,because I learned how to read by
reading the bible into grinyato my mom Right, so I didn't, I
didn't have any concept of likewhite people.
And then now, when I see white,images of Jesus, mary and Moses
(24:15):
and all you know.
I'm like, yeah, that's not it.
Speaker 6 (24:16):
I catch a lot of flack for that, because I have a
lot of those pictures in myhome of the Ethiopian depiction.
I'm like I keep it like thatbecause that's the original.
There it is.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Beautiful history of our people, man Is she
celebrated by the Tawahedochurch.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Not from my experience.
And so here's the thing WithTawahedo.
Remember what I was saying Alot of our ancient wisdom and
spirituality has survived inTawahedo, but because of a lot
of the bombardment that Tawahedo, but because of a lot of the
bombardment that Tawahedo wasgetting and continued to get for
centuries.
(25:05):
There was an inward.
They had to protect certainthings.
There are monasteries whereancient books exist, where
they're guarded by certain monksand only certain people can
access them.
It might be celebrated withinthe circles, but not publicly,
(25:27):
which is sad because honestlyand I'm sad to admit this, but I
didn't learn about her until Ilearned from Professor Amen.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Nice.
What do you know, ProfessorAmen?
Nice, nice.
So what do you know about her?
Speaker 5 (25:45):
What I know is that, sorry, I'm mad.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
She stood out to me finally because there's the
religion of Christianity.
But then there's the regionwhere Christianity happened and
the history that really happened.
You know the religion.
Much of it is myth.
So when I studied the timeperiod first century, the first
person you really kind of runinto when you start looking at
(26:11):
this area was the queen of Meroe, amon Arenas, and she was the
one Rome fought with her overthe trade routes, right?
So these were the first peoplethat had the trade routes, the
people from Rome.
So in order for Rome to gainaccess and dominate the trade
routes, they had to fight withher.
But honestly, she might havewon more wars against Rome than
(26:36):
anybody.
Just saying that's what Ilearned.
Yeah, I'm an Arenas, and itwasn't until Oxum.
You know the people that werekind of, I guess you would say,
garrisoned by the Rome.
You know the Council of Nicaeathat they were able to actually
dismantle Mero.
You feel me, but it was a long,hard fight because she was
(26:59):
getting at him.
You know, if any of y'all get achance, read up on Queen.
I'm an arena's first century,you know.
But I see that when I see a lotof the fighting feminine
fighting forces of the EastAfrica.
I see her spirit, so you knowthat's still alive.
And what is it like?
30 percent of the fightingforces in Eritrea are women.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
Yes, so the 30 year long armed struggle for
liberation, which was between1961 and 1991, 30 percent of our
fighting forces were women.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
I want to ask this question before we go into the
next one.
Mike, you got the.
You got the next question,right my brother, I don't have
it.
I told you I text you okay, allright, all right, all right, um
no, I okay.
Now I want to ask this question.
So, uh, yemenis, eritrean andand ethiopians, kind of sort of,
(28:03):
have, like this, a similar lookthat's what I'll be saying too.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Yeah, that's exactly what I'll be saying too family
right.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
So like what's the history in in those areas, did
they all come together at somepoint?
Speaker 5 (28:21):
Yeah, there's a lot of history and there are
actually some families inEritrea that identify as
descendants of you know peoplethat came from Yemen.
And then, to just give you acontext, so my name, if you look
at it, it says Kunama Nagari.
Kunama is one of the nineethnic groups in Eritrea and
Kunama is the most indigenous,and so, and then there's
(28:46):
Tigrinya, which I'm from,there's Tigre, bilan, sajo,
hadarib, afarnara, and then sothose are mixtures of you know,
different groups, but Kunama wasthe original black people in
that area.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Wait a minute.
So you said in this area hasnine ethnic groups.
Yes, can you run down thosenine ethnic groups?
Speaker 5 (29:17):
Oh boy, you're going to get me in trouble.
I'm going to forget, I'm notgoing to forget.
Okay, so there's KunamaTigrinya, tigre Bilen, hedarib
Rashida.
Afar.
Saho.
Did.
I say Tigre.
Speaker 6 (29:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
What am I forgetting?
I said Rashida Bilan.
My baby's name.
My firstborn is named Bilan.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Okay, now, what's the significant?
What is it?
I asked because that region,the people there, they don't
look anything like the peoplefrom the Congo and West.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
Africa.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
The Kunamadu and the Nara do.
So Eritrea, compared toEthiopia, is tiny, right.
So in Ethiopia there areactually over 80 different
ethnic groups.
But when you look at Ethiopianimages that are popularized, you
(30:24):
see, you know mostly Amhara andTigrinya, right, and Oromo Now
we have a lot of Oromos here,right.
So you know it's like if you goto like South Rand Ethiopia and
you see the Omo people, likeyou know that's like dark and
they still have the, you knowthe indigenous African spiritual
practice there.
You know they're, you knowthey're not like in the cities
(30:47):
and they're not, I would say,culturally colonized, right.
So it's important to keep inmind, like we have certain
tribes or ethnic groups thathave gone global and that are
more visible, but that doesn'trepresent the whole country or
(31:09):
even the whole.
You know are probably likelight-skinned and have you know
certain, you know features thatare like common with somalis but
, there's a bantu somalicommunity in seattle and the
bantu somali are very dark andhave a lot of the non okay, so
(31:33):
let me just be careful, becausethat's okay, say it because you
know the history of Somalia andthe civil war and after that
fell like it's not I don't feellike, from my experience it's
not common knowledge but theArab world, especially Saudi
jihadi Muslim, went after theyoung people and completely like
(32:00):
there was a a cultural uhimperialism that took place in
somalia and because there was avoid right.
But somali culture, if you like, connect, was like you know, I
call it the classical somaliculture.
It's so poetic, it's so african, it's so you know, it's
beautiful you, that's put.
(32:21):
You know land, ancient land,right.
So it's important to keep inmind that you know our
communities and our nations, youknow, have been so brutalized,
culturally Right In so many waysthat, like what, what might be
popularized does not representthe wholeness of you know of
(32:41):
that area or that nation or thatcommunity.
Speaker 6 (32:44):
From my experience, that is so deep because Eritrea
and you know Eritrea andEthiopia have been under
constant attack from differentgroups.
Like you had the British, youhad a British invasion, you had
some part of the Persians andyou had the Italian, at the time
(33:05):
.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
What's it called?
Ottoman Empire as well.
They don't get talked about toomuch.
I'm so glad you brought up theBantu.
Speaker 6 (33:18):
A lot of people don't speak about the banter when
people talk about rules andstuff like that.
That's why I love this show somuch, because this show we don't
only do it for education andpurposes, also we learn as well.
I'm learning about the banterbecause I did the DNA and I've
seen some of that in my DNA.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
It's funny that you said that, Mike, because today's
show, this one right here, whenyou came on, it just reminded
me why we started this show.
Exactly.
It reminded me why we startedthis show.
Let's go to the next one.
(34:06):
How did the Tawaido Churchcontribute to the people's
liberation struggle of Eritrea?
Speaker 5 (34:16):
Oh, that's a good question.
So I mentioned earlier thatthere was no conflict.
You know, for us, as you knowrevolutionaries or people that
wanted to liberate themselves,you know to be so immersed in
the, in the Tuaharo church, oryou know the, also Islam, right,
because Eritrea is officially,they say, 50% Muslim, 50%
(34:42):
Christian, and you know 10%African traditional practice
which is mainly like the Kunamapeople and the more indigenous.
You know tribes, right, so thewe had, you know, tauono priests
, that that picked up guns andwent to the field and you know
(35:06):
there were also times where themonasteries had to shelter our
freedom fighters.
You know our president.
You know he's still, you knowcommunes with, with the, with
the, with the Tohono priests,but he also sits and communes
with the imams.
You know he's Tojado, he still,you know, communes with the
Tojado priest, but he also sitsand communes with the imams.
You know, and actually two ofour founding fathers, aboy
(35:28):
Woldeab Woldemariam, right, aboyWoldeab Woldemariam.
So, aboy, when you put Aboy infront of an elder's name, you're
saying father, like ourcommunal father right, our
collective father, abu WadabWadumariam and Abu Ibrahim's son
.
So Wadab Wadumariam wasChristian, um and and Ibrahim
(35:50):
Sultan was Muslim.
You know, and to give you alittle bit of a context, after
the Italians were defeated inthe late 40s and the British,
you know, took their territoriesthat they won from the Italians
, the British and the US, andthe US agreed that it was in
(36:14):
their best benefit to annexEritrea with Ethiopia.
So they put Haile Selassie, whowas the ruler of Ethiopia at
that time, over Eritrea and itwas supposed to be a 10 year
transitional time, which endedup being, you know, honest Wait,
wait, wait.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Hold on hold on, rewind that okay.
So America in, hold on hold onhold on Rewind that.
Okay, so America, and I thinkyou said Britain, yes, the
British, the British, theybasically annexed Eritrea and
Ethiopia and they made HaileSelassie pretty much run, that
(36:55):
King of Kings.
Speaker 5 (36:59):
So what that did to Eritreans, is that it basically
so.
Then, you know, we went to theUN.
We are very diplomatic, we'rewell studied, we're ancient
people, so we did everything bythe book and our case was not
even heard Right.
So it was after all that effortthat in 1960, in 1961, you know
(37:27):
, we decided we had to bear armsin order to liberate ourselves.
And it was.
It was not an easy decision.
It was not, you know, it wasvery costly.
You know there's no Iritianfamily who has not lost a child,
or there are families that havelost all seven children or nine
children.
You know so it wasn't somethingthat, you know, easily decided
(37:50):
and you know, throughout my, myupbringing, um, because I was
part of a movement like theyouth movement called the red
flowers, we were called the,which translates to the red
flowers, and that was we were.
We were like, born andcultivated in the blood of our,
of our heroes, our parents.
You know, my dad went frombeing a farmer and a chief to
(38:13):
being a freedom fighter.
His whole world just turnedupside down.
Speaker 6 (38:22):
That's deep it comes to show.
They basically propped up HaileSelassie.
They backed him.
That's why some people wouldsay that he left his people
behind when the Italians came heleft them behind.
Speaker 5 (38:40):
He literally did.
He went to London.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Yeah, he went to London Because the Europeans
turned their back on him.
That's from what I know.
The Europeans turned their backon him.
Mussolini took over, he went toLondon and then he came back
and, I guess you know, took overagain.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
If you think about London, you think about the lion
, right yeah, and then they callhim the Lion of Judah right he
was really the Lion of London.
Yeah, because all the worklondon wanted to do he did for
them in africa.
Speaker 6 (39:20):
Yeah, so it kind of makes you question that speech
he gave at the un, though nowlike, was it really sincere?
Speaker 4 (39:26):
I think somebody wrote that for him, bro.
I mean because when the moreyou learn about tawa hetedo and
you study the stuff he did,you'll see the contradictions, I
promise you you'll see.
Speaker 6 (39:37):
The philosophy was bring one race to the nation,
superior to another inferior,and all that by the colors of a
man.
Damn that's crazy.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
You have to look at that story within the context of
the global Black struggle,right?
He's not unique to you knowbeing manipulated and and uh,
propped up or bought off.
You know, like we we could namea whole bunch of names of our,
of our ancestors that have beencompromised.
(40:08):
There were compromises withinthe, you know, liberation
movement in eritrea.
There are compromises right nowin many of our movements, right
.
So just keep that in mind.
He is just an archetype, right.
There are archetypes in ourcommunities and amongst us that
play different roles, right Wow?
Speaker 6 (40:30):
So, Catherine, what were some of their
accomplishments?
Speaker 5 (40:41):
OK.
So he was OK.
How do I describe him?
He was this is the Christianone.
He was this is the Christianone.
And then, even though he wasKenesha which I guess the
equivalent in the US or in theWestern world would be Lutheran,
but within the East Africancontext they would always say
(41:05):
Tawaharo, kenesha right.
So the culture is stillTawaharo right, you know.
And so he was a journalist, sohe advocated for his people.
He wrote about what HaileSelassie was doing.
He was exposing what theEnglish were doing, because part
of what the English did afterthey put Haile Selassie in power
(41:25):
was that they wanted to put allthe Muslims with Sudan and all
the Christians with Ethiopia.
And Abu Dhamariam and AbuIbrahim Sultan were like hell,
no, we're one people, we areEritreans, before we're Muslim
or Christian.
So they kind of mobilized andunified and, like I mentioned
(41:48):
earlier, we have nine ethnicgroups and some of them are
Muslim, some of them areChristian, some of them are
indigenous, some of them areChristian, some of our, you know
, indigenous practitioners.
And these two men galvanizedand mobilized the people to say
like one, eritrea Right.
And then our movement, even tothis day, like because the
struggle is not over, there's somany sabotage I can't even tell
(42:11):
you how many attempts ofassassination there have been
and continue to be on.
You know, president IssaZaforpi, because the history,
the story of Eritrea is sopowerful, they don't want that
to be common.
You know practice in Africa oranywhere where people are.
Let me calm myself down.
So those two men literallyunified the people and to this
(42:37):
day, one of our mottos is Oneheart, one people.
Right, and we say so, we putthe fist on and we say Victory
to the masses.
Right, so that oneness, thefist united, all these fingers
united, are like powerful right.
So you know that oneness likethe fist united, all these
(42:58):
fingers united, are likepowerful right.
Speaker 6 (42:59):
So that's what they do.
Wow, it's an assault on ourpeople.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
man, no matter where, catching hell from all corners
and yet so resilient and sojoyful and so powerful and so
spiritual and so humane.
Yeah, that's the part that Ilove and want to celebrate and
uplift and just galvanize ourpeople around.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Can you talk to us about the principles of Tawahedo
?
Speaker 5 (43:32):
Oh boy, I'm like an infant in this practice, okay,
so I don't want to like.
I want you to keep in mind thatI'm sharing what I know, not I
don't know everything.
Principles of like, I mean,like I said, I'm like like the,
(43:52):
you know, the father, the son,the Holy Spirit, one amen.
And it's like you know, there'sthis reverence for life, first
of all, right, and thiscommitment to the collective
good, to the collectivewell-being, right, it's?
(44:15):
It's, it's a culture, it's away of life, it's an everyday
practice.
Like you know, one of myfavorite tigrinya words is
temesgan, and temesgan means,you know, to be in gratitude, to
say thank, I'm thankful, right.
So you know, as I reflect on,you know, the tohono culture,
and like my, just, my family andmy community, and like the
(44:38):
language, how immersed thelanguage is in the spirituality,
right, they say Temescan whenthey get up.
They say Temescan when they,you know, after they eat, they
say Temescan for the food that'sprovided.
They say, like, if someone asksme, which means how, how are
you doing, how's your day, I sayI'm lucky, meskin, thanks be to
god, right?
so there's this reference thislike oneness, like it's not.
(45:01):
Like you know, god is out thereand like you know, for me it's
it.
It's about unifying andactivating the Christ within me.
Right, mm-hmm.
That's what God is for me.
Speaker 6 (45:17):
That's beautiful Reverence, the universe being
thankful, forever grateful.
That's true.
You know what I'm saying.
Living Christ, talk about itevery day.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
People got to be grateful.
My next question is my favoritequestion.
Speaker 6 (45:31):
I was going to hit that one yeah.
Go ahead this one right here.
How did the Council of Nicaea,325 AD, change and alter the
course of the Tawito Church?
Tawaito, sir, tawaito.
Yeah, we're all learning, we'repracticing.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
Professor, amen, can you take this one?
Sure, I will take a nice shotat it.
In 325 AD, a guy by the name ofFrumentius who had been
shipwrecked in Ethiopia and wastaken into the royal court of
King Izana, he was sent to thatcouncil.
Now, he was from Tyree and hewas like a pirate, but for some
(46:19):
reason they took him into thecourt of King Izana, who was the
king or the Negus at that time.
But he was sent to the councilof Nisia.
Okay, so when he came back fromthe council of Nisia, a lot of
weird things happened.
Okay, so, when he came backfrom the Council of Nicaea, a
lot of weird things happened.
Ok, the way in which theypracticed the religion in Aksum
was changed and it was alteredto the Roman version.
(46:41):
You know meaning that.
You know it's not so much Godis within, it's more like you're
worshiping this trinity.
Number one, and then, of course, the color of who they was
talking about changed.
One, and then, of course, thecolor of who they was talking
about changed, and then, numberthree they became a garrison for
the uh, for rome, and then theyattacked the civilization of
(47:01):
merrow because, remember, weremember we was talking about
merrow and rome was at war,right, so they was fighting.
So this was the way theyinducted Aksum into their
Christian political court, youknow what I mean.
And then sick Aksum on Mero,and we kind of still see a lot
of that from a lot of theleaders in that area.
(47:22):
You know where they're beinggarrisons for the West.
But this was the beginning ofit.
Speaker 6 (47:27):
So yeah, so you're saying he crossed paths with
Constantine and all that.
Yeah, so you're saying hecrossed paths with um
constantine and all that.
They all sat down and saidwe're gonna just completely
european, europeanize the images.
Brainwash.
It make the people of arkahewlook inferior.
We're the superior, we're gonnawell, it was, it was they took
religion.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
This is one of the good examples of taking religion
and using it as a politicaltool of conquering conquest.
You know yeah, you know,they've done the same with islam
as well.
The thing I really takingreligion and using it as a
political tool of conquer andconquest yeah, you know, they've
done the same with Islam aswell.
The thing I really like aboutTawahedo is that it crosses into
Islam and it crosses intoChristianity and it talks about
the oneness of God and it bringspeople even out of these
(48:08):
political silos and out of thesereligious silos into a oneness
and knowing that god is in allliving things and all people.
You know, but at the same timelet's keep it a buck the devil
is too, and then you know.
So nothing is all good or allbad, you know it's a balance.
Speaker 6 (48:26):
It's a balance.
There you go very very youngdegrees and so 325 was a very
pivotal year.
Yes, sir.
Attack on the masses, basicallyon the religious, spiritual
aspect and political.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
Yes sir, and that's right before the coming of Islam
that this happened, you know.
So you know, it's really atreasure and a pleasure man to
go back to the Tawahedo, reallya treasure and a pleasure man to
go back to the Tawahedo,because that the Tauhid,
specifically Tauhid and Tawahedoare specifically things that
Africa contributed toChristianity, the world of
(49:04):
Christianity and to the world ofIslam.
Those are specifically Africancontributions, you know, and
I've heard some interpretationswhere when they spoke of Heru,
they put Tawahedo on his name aswell.
So you know, and Ge'ez isabsolutely one of the Kemetic
languages and we get a lot ofwhat was lost in hieroglyphic
through the Ge'ez you know whatI mean and through the culture
(49:27):
of Tawahedo.
Go ahead, babe.
Speaker 5 (49:30):
Is everyone familiar with the Ge'ez alphabets?
I have a poster that I couldshow you guys.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
Just yeah, sure, sure okay and it's, it's, it's their
own characters.
That's what's so beautifulabout it.
You know, it's not the englishcharacters, you know, and
honestly, there's a whole lot ofwords and the characters in
there that we don't really havein the English language.
So you have to reorientate yourspeech, yeah.
Speaker 5 (49:58):
Up here it says Fidala Tigrinya, meaning letters
of Tigrinya, basically one ofthe children of Giz, right?
So Tigrinya, tigre and Amharicare the three languages and
Tigre is older than Tigrinya andAmharic and you can see the G
(50:21):
is a lot more closer to Tigrethan the other two, but the same
alphabet, the same letters usedto make the words in those
languages.
Speaker 4 (50:33):
And it's 36 letters right Kunama.
Speaker 5 (50:38):
Yeah, and then there are a few like these letters.
So if you see, each letter hasseven sounds be bu bi ba, be bi
bo, and it goes down all the way.
But these over here haveexceptional they don't have
seven, they only have one, two,three, four, and they're more
(51:00):
common in than they are in theother languages.
That's why they're down herethat's dope, man, that's dope
before we close, I want to dothe last question.
Speaker 3 (51:14):
How can we learn the true Revolutionary principles of
Tawaido and use them To unifyour people and clarify the true
legacy of Christianity?
Speaker 5 (51:26):
By doing more of this .
You know, a few years ago I waspart of a Collective that was
called Black Star Line AfricanCentered Family Educational
Collective.
It was started by six families.
I was the only continentallyborn black woman in that
collective.
The other five, you know, weresisters from here and we had to
(51:54):
go through a transition where itwasn't supported.
You know, we live in Seattle.
I don't know how well you arefamiliar with Seattle, but
Blackness is not celebrated, youknow, uplifted and supported.
Anyways, in that transition Ihad to go back to working for
mainstream agency that stillfocused on education and early
(52:18):
learning and culturalenhancement, but it wasn't Black
Star Line.
And I was heartbroken because Ifelt like I was letting our
children down.
I felt like my vision was beingsabotaged and our collective
vision was being sabotaged.
But in that process, you know,I was told by three different
(52:38):
African spiritual, you know,people guides that said your
purpose is to go back and bringthe East African spirituality to
the people.
Go back and bring the EastAfrican spirituality to the
people.
And I felt at that time, Iliterally thought that meant I
(52:59):
have to relocate to East Africaand study there and then come
back, you know, and but I, Iprayed about it, I meditated
about it and I was like you know, we have some powerful Tohono,
you know church and Tawahedopriests and Tawahedo scholars
here and you know my thoughtsstarted to shift and I was like
(53:21):
I need to intentionally learnand continue to build and
continue to create.
You know these circles oflearning and healing and
transformation for me, and youknow we are communal beings, so
we thrive and we heal and wetransform collectively, because
the trauma is collective, right,um and um, professor, I mean it
(53:45):
reminded me of that.
When we got together I was likeI need to heal and I have had a
lot of.
You know, I went through da dada.
He was like well, how are yousupposed to heal if not together
, you know?
and I was like he stopped me,you know, on my tracks, and so I
started really thinking aboutOK, how much do I know and how
(54:05):
can I share that?
Right?
So I started creating certainevents and programs.
So I founded something calledAfro Moves Learning Institute,
you know, and that was somethinglike a placeholder for me
because I didn't want thatvision to die and I didn't want
to abandon my purpose.
So through Afro Moves LearningInstitute, I started doing, you
(54:27):
know, cultural enrichment,educational programming with
children of African descent,where I teach the language and
the history of it and how youknow, and then you know, talk
about the alphabet and how it'sa functioning like thriving
language and I can teach itbecause I'm immersed in it.
You know, which I had taken forgranted.
(54:47):
I also do what is called Boonand Books and you know I'm so
grateful to share that.
I just finished, you know,confirming that I've been
approved and supported toactually do the first Friday and
the last Friday.
(55:07):
Well, starting in June, thelast Friday, but starting in
July, it will be the firstFriday and the last Friday where
I actually do.
In july, it'll be the firstfriday and the last friday where
I I actually do the coffeeceremony and I call it boone and
books, because I'm using theconcept of the coffee ceremony
but I'm creating it the conceptof like also book club, you know
, because you gotta tell themwhat boone means.
Uh sorry boone is the word forcoffee.
(55:29):
So in East Africa, coffeeceremony is a simple daily event
, but it's a very powerfulspiritual ceremony and
throughout the war and thedestruction and the trauma, we
always had coffee ceremony.
Right, that's Jebena, that'swhere we boil the coffee.
(55:50):
So you roast these green coffeebeans that come from back home.
You know, coffee was, you know,born in in Ethiopia, right?
So I get the coffee from backhome, I wrote.
And then when you roast it, itbecomes dark.
And then you grind it and thenyou boil it in the pot that, um,
we just saw was just some water.
And then, but it's not aboutjust the consumption of coffee,
(56:14):
it's about the circle that'screated.
And then we have three servingsof it.
The first one is awal.
When we boil it first, awaljust means the beginning, you
know, and you'll hear that a lotmore in Arabic awal.
And then kala'i.
Kala'i means second serving.
And then barakah.
Barakah is the third servingand the final serving, and
(56:37):
Barakah means the blessing.
So when we finish we say BethBarakah, beth Shishai, which
means may this be a house ofblessing, a house of abundance,
right.
Speaker 4 (56:49):
To me the first time when I had, when I experienced
that that was like the Africanlast supper, Because most of the
time they serve it with bread,hambasha and I was like I see
where the real last supperstarted.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
Let me I don't mean to cut you, cut you brother and
sister off.
We got a podcast in threeminutes coming up.
We would love to have you back,sister.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (57:14):
Love to have you back On that note.
Peace to everybody out there.
Peace, we'll see you in threeminutes.
Thank you, man it was apleasure, Mag.
Speaker 6 (57:23):
It was a pleasure, sister.
Speaker 3 (57:24):
It was a pleasure, always a pleasure y'all, Peace.
Speaker 4 (57:29):
We're going to revisit this subject.
Yes, we're going to come back,indeed Peace.
We're going to revisit thissubject.
We're going to come back,indeed peace.
Thanks for watching.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I come here tonight to leave you with me, to leave
in yourself and believe thatyou're somebody.
I said to the group last nightnobody else can do this for us,
no document can do this for us,no Lincolnian Emancipation
(01:04):
Proclamation can do this for us,no Kennesonian or Johnsonian
Civil Rights Bill can do thisfor us.
If a Negro is to be free, hemust move down into the inner
resources of his own soul andsign, with a pen and ink of
self-assertive manhood, his ownemancipation covenant.
(01:27):
Let anybody take your manhood.
Don't let anybody take your man.
(01:48):
Be proud of our heritage.
Somebody said earlier tonight wedon't have anything to be
ashamed of.
Somebody told a lie.
They couched it in language.
They made everything black,ugly and evil.
(02:11):
Look in your dictionary and seethe synonyms of the word black.
There's always somethingdegrading and low and sinister.
Look at the word white there'salways something pure.
(02:31):
I'm a man, but I want to getthe language right.
I want to get the language soright that everybody here will
cry out yes, I'm black, I'mproud of it, I'm black and
beautiful.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
All right, man, that was deep right there.
I felt that one that was a goodidea.
That was a good idea.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, man.
That was deep right there.
I felt that one that was a goodidea.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
That was a good idea.
Thank you, sir.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Thank you, sir.
That's the black pism.
All right, so thank you forcoming out, Brother Mag, and you
know I have some questions foryou and we're going to bring the
sister on right now.
How are you doing?
Speaker 5 (03:43):
I'm doing well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
You're welcome.
I don't want to mispronounceyou.
What's how you say your nameagain, even though Mag told me
that a thousand times just now?
Speaker 5 (03:53):
It's Mehret and it's a Tigrinya name.
Tigrinya is one of the manyEast African languages which is
my first language of five Mehret, and it means either blessing
or mercy, based on how you useit.
And then it goes back toKemetic as well, and it means
she who brings blessings fromthe gods to the people.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Okay, so you said you speak five languages.
Okay, so English is one, andwhat are the other four?
Speaker 5 (04:23):
So Tigrinya is my first, and then Amharic, which
is spoken official language inEthiopia, and then Arabic,
because I lived in Sudan forfour years.
It's also spoken in Eritrea,and then English, and then in
college I did study abroad andstudied Spanish.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Nice, all right, all right, hold on, all right.
All right, hold on, all right.
So now let's, I want to goright into it.
I mean, before we go into it, Ilike for people to introduce
themselves, and you already toldus that you have.
You speak five languages, andcan you give it a little bit of
(05:02):
your background?
Speaker 5 (05:04):
And can you give a little bit of your background?
Sure, yeah.
So just to give you a context,I was born and raised in East
Africa, starting with Eritrea,where my family is from.
We are from a highland farmingfamily that goes back for
generations farming family thatgoes back for generations.
(05:25):
Both sides of my family were incommunity leadership.
My grandparents were chiefs andleaders, and then my dad
inherited that and my mom was aherbalist and a natural healer
and a midwife, so very involvedin community life.
And then when the liberationmovement well, when I was born,
the liberation armed strugglefor liberation in Eritrea was
(05:47):
already 15 years into it.
It started in 61.
So when I was born it was likeour house was, like you know,
organizing headquarters, sothat's where my foundation is.
And then because the war keptescalating and it was really,
really bad, and because of mydad's involvement in the
(06:08):
liberation movement, my familywas targeted.
So we had to flee, and then somy mom, myself and three younger
siblings.
It took us two months to walkfrom Eritrea to northern
Ethiopia, the Tigray region, andthen to Sudan.
(06:28):
And we had to walk at nightbecause there were bombings,
bombing jets made in the USduring the day.
So I got to Sudan.
So I learned Tigray and Amharicin Eritrea, because once the
Eritrean liberation movement waspushed and things escalated, we
(06:49):
were forbidden to speak ournative language, which is
Tigrinya, and so the language ofinstruction became Amharic.
So I learned Amharic from theage of six to 12.
Then at 12, we went to Sudan.
So I picked up Arabic becausewe lived there for four years,
and at 16, I came here.
So I picked up Arabic becausewe lived there for four years,
and at 16, I came here so Ipicked up English.
And then I got curious aboutSpanish, not only the Spanish
(07:11):
language, but I was interestedin what role does culture play
in education?
Because I saw that the publicschool system here is very
negating of cultural heritageand I just didn't believe that
it was like that in the rest ofthe world.
So I traveled to Ecuador and Istudied there for a quarter.
(07:36):
And then I went to Kenya andstudied with the Maasai people.
And then I also went to NewZealand and was very lucky and
privileged to study with theMaori people, the indigenous
people of New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
So my BA is in education and cultural
understanding and a master's insocial work.
Nice, nice, that's peace,that's peace.
So now that's your education, Imean.
I mean, we have some questionshere.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
However, I would like to ask more about your
background, but let's go intothe questions.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
So how old is the?
How old is?
Speaker 5 (08:23):
the church of Tawahedo, tawahado, tawahado,
which a lot of people in the USor in the Western world also
refer to it as Coptic.
I didn't know it was called.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Coptic Right?
Yeah, I know it now.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
Yeah, tawahado first of all is practiced in Ethiopia,
eritrea, sudan and Egypt,although in Egypt and Sudan they
refer to it as coptic.
We call it uh just means theoneness of god, um and uh.
You know, if you google it itwill say you know, it goes back
(08:56):
to 330 um.
But the like, the principlesand the the that is Tawahedo, I
think, is as ancient as ourpeople in East Africa.
Because what I'm realizing as Istudy more, you know, the
Tawahedo principles and even thecolors and the symbols and even
(09:18):
the language, is that, like,there's so much comedic culture
within Tawahedo.
Indeed, yeah, so much comedicculture within.
Tawahedo Indeed.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
And like when we have discussions, she'll say a word,
right, and I'll be like, wait aminute, that's like in the Metu
Neta.
And she'll be like, oh yeah,that is in the Metu Neta and
there's a lot of stuff like thatin the East African culture and
the Tawahedo religion.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Okay, all right, man Mag, man, I'm impressed, I'm
impressed man.
I'm impressed by this man, wow.
Okay, all right, a little.
A bit more about that church,because I know about the Coptic
church and, you know, over mystudy I learned about the Coptic
(10:05):
church and, um, you know, overmy study, I learned about the
Coptic church through, uh,watching Asherah Kwesi and um,
and and that's what I learnedabout it you know um that church
through through, through him.
So is it close to Christianityor?
Speaker 5 (10:23):
it is Christianity.
I mean, you know the um.
So in Tawahado, um, they, youknow, they believe in the birth
of the Christ, they believe in,you know, the uh.
So when we say well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well,
well, well, it basically meansin the name of the Father, the
Son, the Holy Spirit, amen,right, so, and then Tawaharo
(10:47):
just means the.
So, you know, and I have been soprivileged to have traveled and
also just been in the US andbeing, like, you know, such a
like a lifelong learner andhaving such appreciation for
learning.
I have studied, you know,buddhism.
I have looked at Hinduism.
I have studied, you know,buddhism.
I have looked at Hinduism.
And one of my favorite, youknow, saints she's considered
(11:08):
the Haging Saint is from SouthIndia.
You know Amma.
So, like, when I look at thesedifferent things, the idea of
oneness of God is, in all,different, you know.
And then I'm a yogapractitioner, I'm a certified
yoga teacher.
So the unity, yoga just meansthe unity of mind, soul and body
, right?
So for me, tawani is just, youknow, an ancient concept and
(11:33):
this concept that our peoplehave lived in so many different
cultures have, you know manydifferent languages to say it.
But just to give you an idea,during the liberation movement
there was no conflict of likereligion and political
resistance and armed strugglefor our people.
Right, and my dad being like achief, he was also very immersed
(11:56):
in the Tohono, you know cultureand then he became like one of
the main organizers.
In fact he was at some point hewas the organizer for a whole
province, our province, and youknow there were times where he
would like squash conflictsbetween Muslims and Christians
and, you know, just using theidea of oneness.
(12:18):
So Wahado Integri Nyata Hid inIslam right, and Eritrea has
such a like, you know uniquehistory in that right and
Eritrea has such a like, youknow unique history in that
right, because our foundingfathers in the liberation
movement were both Muslim,christian as well as traditional
African practitioners.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yes, yes, there's so much with just this one question
Now.
So, eritrea, eritrea, I'mthinking Nipsey Hussle.
I'm also thinking I knowSelassie.
I'm thinking about Selassie,you know, as far as the Tawahadu
(13:01):
church so, and there wasanother one I had, but let's
just go with those two.
Well, we don't have to askabout Nipsey, because we already
know who that is Now.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
So my dad and his dad were in the same movement, just
to.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
What, oh man, hold on , that's a All right.
Wow, that is deep.
Oh man, we, we okay, we gottahave her on more often.
Man, this is not enough for foruh, uh, you know this, we only
got an hour, man.
Um, all right, so Okay now.
(13:41):
Selassie the Tawahedo did hehave anything to do with?
Speaker 5 (13:46):
that I mean he benefited from it and he used
the Tawahedo church to, you know, to gain power and to like
Haile Selassie.
The word means Haile, right.
In Amharic, haile meansstrength, right, and Selassie is
(14:09):
the Trinity.
Selassie means three, selassiemeans Trinity.
So he, like you know, hebasically had the Tawaharo
Church crown him and name himHaile Selassie.
So he used, you know, he usedthe Tohono O'odham Church in
that way.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Okay, now would Christianity come from this, or
what came first, this orChristianity?
Speaker 5 (14:54):
I mean because Tohono is such, you know, culturally,
so immersed in, you know, inBlack culture, in African
culture, in ancient you knowspirituality of our people.
I would say you know that wasalready and that's why, like it
was very and still is hard, foryou know, saboteurs to come and
like dismantle it because it'simmersed in the culture.
So I would say that was youknow, that was already in our
culture.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
And that's actually what Akhenaten taught anyway.
Oneness, you know, and Atenrepresents the oneness as well,
the one God or the oneness ofGod.
So, you know, I woulddefinitely say Tawahedo as well.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
I have a question.
He said, tawahedo, how youdoing peace, sister?
How you doing peace?
My brother Bron, when she wasspeaking about that, it sounds
like some Kibra Nagas stuff.
Kibra Nagas.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Okay, my brother, my brother, you know some stuff I
see, so that term itself, kibrit.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Kibrit in Ge'ez means honor, right, kibrit, honor or
reverence, and the Negus is theword Nugusat kings, nugus king,
so actually Eritrea.
Before its current name, if yougo back, it was known as Bahri
(16:06):
Nagasi, meaning the kings of thesea right.
Yes.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Now think about that y'all real quick.
The kings of the sea.
What does that say?
And you know, I told you shehas the picture of her
grandfathers with the phazon,with the tassel, with the moon
and the star.
Okay, you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (16:28):
You're from Ethiopia.
Eritrea, oh, next door toEthiopia.
I was going to say they have agood name, they have Besh and
all that, yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
I also claim Sudan as my home because when we were
fleeing the war in Eritrea, youknow, my family was sheltered in
Sudan and you know, so Sudan isalso my home.
Like I mean, I'm aPan-Africanist, so you know.
I think the whole continent andthen all of humanity.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
Beautiful, beautiful sister.
That's an honor man.
This is beautiful man we're soconnected, we get so lost man
and it's like um, it's similar.
When you study, like religion,you go even to the bible itself.
When you go to acts one, um,was it, was it.
Acts one acts three acts 13,verse 1, they say they called
(17:25):
them Niger or Niger the black inthe Antioch church.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, because we're
definitely going to talk aboutsome of Christianity's black
roots, you know, within thisdiscussion.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
So yeah, alright, so let's go to the next question.
Mike, you got the next question.
Speaker 6 (17:46):
Nah, I don't have it on me God.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
You do, you do.
But anyway, how old is thelanguage of G-G's?
Speaker 5 (18:00):
G-I's is at least 6,000 years old, I'm from
America.
I'm thinking jeez.
That's what it means, jeez youguys yeah At least 6,000 years
old.
And then I don't know if you'refamiliar with the characters or
(18:23):
the written form of it.
I don't know if you're familiarwith the characters or the
written form of it, but it islike a lot of the letters have.
You know their foundation incomedic characters, right?
So, and that's why, like I keep, I keep bringing that up that
you know we talk about, you knowI've been to conferences with
(18:45):
ASCAC, right and different.
You know scholarly settingswhere we talk about ancient
African civilization and howgreat our people were, and then
we talk about, you know, thetransatlantic, you know slave
trade and and our people hereand then, um, I don't think we
really talk about the fact thatyou know a lot of our greatness
(19:12):
survived and still is survivinglike goodness, is 6 000 years
old, but it's a language that'sfunctional, that's in the church
, that's in the schools, that'sin the government, that's like
you know, it's thriving and thatis like our like, you know,
like ancient and great, but alsofunctioning and now and
thriving, right.
(19:32):
So I think when we can claimthat and when we can really
embrace that, then we we'reputting Osiris back together
Like all I feel like every timeI learn something about you know
, like learning Capoeira and theculture in Brazil.
It's like I'm finding things ofmyself, right.
Um, yeah, so um beautiful.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yeah, y'all like most of the stuff when you look at
arabic, a lot of the words fromarabic um, come from gaz and all
of the afro-asiatic languagesoriginate with gaz.
Hebrew, you know aramaic.
All of these, what they call umswahili yep.
(20:18):
All of them come out of Gez,but Gez have better definition
for the words.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
It's very true, because there was an Ethiopian
church I have visited and youknow this was back in the days
like 98 or something with myfather and it was so deep, Like
when they go deep into, like youknow, studying with the, with
the Kibber and the Gask, and thereal understanding, the real
Falashin Judaic religion, theportion of it.
(20:49):
It's so real, Like the wordsare powerful, even down to what
you said with the Giz language,how it was written, the
characters, like there was likesome kind of how, there was like
some kind of um, how should?
we put the speculative likelanguage of flames, like how it
was written, language of light.
So it's pretty, that's dopeyeah all right, all right, uh.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
who was queen amarinas?
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Amarinas.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Amarinas.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
Queen Amarinas is one of the greatest revolutionaries
, to use a current word ancientyou know leaders.
Amazing you know defenders.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
I don't mean to cut you off.
What would you?
You said in current languagewhat would be the old language.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
What would she would be considered, uh, she would
just be a great queen.
I mean, it wasn't, it wasn'tforeign or it wasn't like you
know um, unheard of for ourgreat you know black women all
over the the world to to to beas great as she was, you know um
, but she stands out because ofhow she, you know she stood for
(22:04):
her people.
She was the queen of Moreau,and Moreau is a place that I
have been to.
You know it's a ruin.
It's, you know, something thathas been dismantled by Rome and
by you know so many otherinvaders from across the sea.
But I have been there and youcan feel the spirit.
This is in Sudan.
(22:24):
You know there's a city calledKassela, where we first arrived.
Well, we settled, and then,because I was part of a cultural
performing arts group of, youknow, irish refugees, we would
go to the rural areas andmobilize our people and kind of
like we were generators of joy,right, because we had to process
(22:46):
all that trauma, but at thesame time it just made us feel
significant to be in service toour people.
And I think that you know partof the resilience of black
spirit globally is that we justgenerate joy and we know how to
like really take something sodevastating, you know, and make
(23:07):
the best out of it, and not onlyfor ourselves but to the rest
of the world.
Um, so I've been to those ruinsand you can feel the spirit,
you can feel the energy in those.
You know like a lot of thegreatness is covered in sand and
it's, you know, in pieces.
You can still feel that.
So she was the queen of Nero.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
That's so dope Ron.
It's so crazy because I'msurprised when she told my reach
in the Ethiopian culture.
Because it's funny because Igot this picture right here of
John the Baptistist but it's theethiopian drawing how they look
like those characters I likethat yeah, so it's just the
universe.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
I mean liking that always be always responding I
didn't know why people hadanything to do with christianity
until I came here.
Because all the like you know,because I learned how to read by
reading the bible into grinyato my mom Right, so I didn't, I
didn't have any concept of likewhite people.
And then now, when I see white,images of Jesus, mary and Moses
(24:15):
and all you know.
I'm like, yeah, that's not it.
Speaker 6 (24:16):
I catch a lot of flack for that, because I have a
lot of those pictures in myhome of the Ethiopian depiction.
I'm like I keep it like thatbecause that's the original.
There it is.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Beautiful history of our people, man Is she
celebrated by the Tawahedochurch.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Not from my experience.
And so here's the thing WithTawahedo.
Remember what I was saying Alot of our ancient wisdom and
spirituality has survived inTawahedo, but because of a lot
of the bombardment that Tawahedo, but because of a lot of the
bombardment that Tawahedo wasgetting and continued to get for
centuries.
(25:05):
There was an inward.
They had to protect certainthings.
There are monasteries whereancient books exist, where
they're guarded by certain monksand only certain people can
access them.
It might be celebrated withinthe circles, but not publicly,
(25:27):
which is sad because honestlyand I'm sad to admit this, but I
didn't learn about her until Ilearned from Professor Amen.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Nice.
What do you know, ProfessorAmen?
Nice, nice.
So what do you know about her?
Speaker 5 (25:45):
What I know is that, sorry, I'm mad.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
She stood out to me finally because there's the
religion of Christianity.
But then there's the regionwhere Christianity happened and
the history that really happened.
You know the religion.
Much of it is myth.
So when I studied the timeperiod first century, the first
person you really kind of runinto when you start looking at
(26:11):
this area was the queen of Meroe, amon Arenas, and she was the
one Rome fought with her overthe trade routes, right?
So these were the first peoplethat had the trade routes, the
people from Rome.
So in order for Rome to gainaccess and dominate the trade
routes, they had to fight withher.
But honestly, she might havewon more wars against Rome than
(26:36):
anybody.
Just saying that's what Ilearned.
Yeah, I'm an Arenas, and itwasn't until Oxum.
You know the people that werekind of, I guess you would say,
garrisoned by the Rome.
You know the Council of Nicaeathat they were able to actually
dismantle Mero.
You feel me, but it was a long,hard fight because she was
(26:59):
getting at him.
You know, if any of y'all get achance, read up on Queen.
I'm an arena's first century,you know.
But I see that when I see a lotof the fighting feminine
fighting forces of the EastAfrica.
I see her spirit, so you knowthat's still alive.
And what is it like?
30 percent of the fightingforces in Eritrea are women.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
Yes, so the 30 year long armed struggle for
liberation, which was between1961 and 1991, 30 percent of our
fighting forces were women.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
I want to ask this question before we go into the
next one.
Mike, you got the.
You got the next question,right my brother, I don't have
it.
I told you I text you okay, allright, all right, all right, um
no, I okay.
Now I want to ask this question.
So, uh, yemenis, eritrean andand ethiopians, kind of sort of,
(28:03):
have, like this, a similar lookthat's what I'll be saying too.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Yeah, that's exactly what I'll be saying too family
right.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
So like what's the history in in those areas, did
they all come together at somepoint?
Speaker 5 (28:21):
Yeah, there's a lot of history and there are
actually some families inEritrea that identify as
descendants of you know peoplethat came from Yemen.
And then, to just give you acontext, so my name, if you look
at it, it says Kunama Nagari.
Kunama is one of the nineethnic groups in Eritrea and
Kunama is the most indigenous,and so, and then there's
(28:46):
Tigrinya, which I'm from,there's Tigre, bilan, sajo,
hadarib, afarnara, and then sothose are mixtures of you know,
different groups, but Kunama wasthe original black people in
that area.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Wait a minute.
So you said in this area hasnine ethnic groups.
Yes, can you run down thosenine ethnic groups?
Speaker 5 (29:17):
Oh boy, you're going to get me in trouble.
I'm going to forget, I'm notgoing to forget.
Okay, so there's KunamaTigrinya, tigre Bilen, hedarib
Rashida.
Afar.
Saho.
Did.
I say Tigre.
Speaker 6 (29:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
What am I forgetting?
I said Rashida Bilan.
My baby's name.
My firstborn is named Bilan.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Okay, now, what's the significant?
What is it?
I asked because that region,the people there, they don't
look anything like the peoplefrom the Congo and West.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
Africa.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
The Kunamadu and the Nara do.
So Eritrea, compared toEthiopia, is tiny, right.
So in Ethiopia there areactually over 80 different
ethnic groups.
But when you look at Ethiopianimages that are popularized, you
(30:24):
see, you know mostly Amhara andTigrinya, right, and Oromo Now
we have a lot of Oromos here,right.
So you know it's like if you goto like South Rand Ethiopia and
you see the Omo people, likeyou know that's like dark and
they still have the, you knowthe indigenous African spiritual
practice there.
You know they're, you knowthey're not like in the cities
(30:47):
and they're not, I would say,culturally colonized, right.
So it's important to keep inmind, like we have certain
tribes or ethnic groups thathave gone global and that are
more visible, but that doesn'trepresent the whole country or
(31:09):
even the whole.
You know are probably likelight-skinned and have you know
certain, you know features thatare like common with somalis but
, there's a bantu somalicommunity in seattle and the
bantu somali are very dark andhave a lot of the non okay, so
(31:33):
let me just be careful, becausethat's okay, say it because you
know the history of Somalia andthe civil war and after that
fell like it's not I don't feellike, from my experience it's
not common knowledge but theArab world, especially Saudi
jihadi Muslim, went after theyoung people and completely like
(32:00):
there was a a cultural uhimperialism that took place in
somalia and because there was avoid right.
But somali culture, if you like, connect, was like you know, I
call it the classical somaliculture.
It's so poetic, it's so african, it's so you know, it's
beautiful you, that's put.
(32:21):
You know land, ancient land,right.
So it's important to keep inmind that you know our
communities and our nations, youknow, have been so brutalized,
culturally Right In so many waysthat, like what, what might be
popularized does not representthe wholeness of you know of
(32:41):
that area or that nation or thatcommunity.
Speaker 6 (32:44):
From my experience, that is so deep because Eritrea
and you know Eritrea andEthiopia have been under
constant attack from differentgroups.
Like you had the British, youhad a British invasion, you had
some part of the Persians andyou had the Italian, at the time
(33:05):
.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
What's it called?
Ottoman Empire as well.
They don't get talked about toomuch.
I'm so glad you brought up theBantu.
Speaker 6 (33:18):
A lot of people don't speak about the banter when
people talk about rules andstuff like that.
That's why I love this show somuch, because this show we don't
only do it for education andpurposes, also we learn as well.
I'm learning about the banterbecause I did the DNA and I've
seen some of that in my DNA.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
It's funny that you said that, Mike, because today's
show, this one right here, whenyou came on, it just reminded
me why we started this show.
Exactly.
It reminded me why we startedthis show.
Let's go to the next one.
(34:06):
How did the Tawaido Churchcontribute to the people's
liberation struggle of Eritrea?
Speaker 5 (34:16):
Oh, that's a good question.
So I mentioned earlier thatthere was no conflict.
You know, for us, as you knowrevolutionaries or people that
wanted to liberate themselves,you know to be so immersed in
the, in the Tuaharo church, oryou know the, also Islam, right,
because Eritrea is officially,they say, 50% Muslim, 50%
(34:42):
Christian, and you know 10%African traditional practice
which is mainly like the Kunamapeople and the more indigenous.
You know tribes, right, so thewe had, you know, tauono priests
, that that picked up guns andwent to the field and you know
(35:06):
there were also times where themonasteries had to shelter our
freedom fighters.
You know our president.
You know he's still, you knowcommunes with, with the, with
the, with the Tohono priests,but he also sits and communes
with the imams.
You know he's Tojado, he still,you know, communes with the
Tojado priest, but he also sitsand communes with the imams.
You know, and actually two ofour founding fathers, aboy
(35:28):
Woldeab Woldemariam, right, aboyWoldeab Woldemariam.
So, aboy, when you put Aboy infront of an elder's name, you're
saying father, like ourcommunal father right, our
collective father, abu WadabWadumariam and Abu Ibrahim's son
.
So Wadab Wadumariam wasChristian, um and and Ibrahim
(35:50):
Sultan was Muslim.
You know, and to give you alittle bit of a context, after
the Italians were defeated inthe late 40s and the British,
you know, took their territoriesthat they won from the Italians
, the British and the US, andthe US agreed that it was in
(36:14):
their best benefit to annexEritrea with Ethiopia.
So they put Haile Selassie, whowas the ruler of Ethiopia at
that time, over Eritrea and itwas supposed to be a 10 year
transitional time, which endedup being, you know, honest Wait,
wait, wait.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Hold on hold on, rewind that okay.
So America in, hold on hold onhold on Rewind that.
Okay, so America, and I thinkyou said Britain, yes, the
British, the British, theybasically annexed Eritrea and
Ethiopia and they made HaileSelassie pretty much run, that
(36:55):
King of Kings.
Speaker 5 (36:59):
So what that did to Eritreans, is that it basically
so.
Then, you know, we went to theUN.
We are very diplomatic, we'rewell studied, we're ancient
people, so we did everything bythe book and our case was not
even heard Right.
So it was after all that effortthat in 1960, in 1961, you know
(37:27):
, we decided we had to bear armsin order to liberate ourselves.
And it was.
It was not an easy decision.
It was not, you know, it wasvery costly.
You know there's no Iritianfamily who has not lost a child,
or there are families that havelost all seven children or nine
children.
You know so it wasn't somethingthat, you know, easily decided
(37:50):
and you know, throughout my, myupbringing, um, because I was
part of a movement like theyouth movement called the red
flowers, we were called the,which translates to the red
flowers, and that was we were.
We were like, born andcultivated in the blood of our,
of our heroes, our parents.
You know, my dad went frombeing a farmer and a chief to
(38:13):
being a freedom fighter.
His whole world just turnedupside down.
Speaker 6 (38:22):
That's deep it comes to show.
They basically propped up HaileSelassie.
They backed him.
That's why some people wouldsay that he left his people
behind when the Italians came heleft them behind.
Speaker 5 (38:40):
He literally did.
He went to London.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Yeah, he went to London Because the Europeans
turned their back on him.
That's from what I know.
The Europeans turned their backon him.
Mussolini took over, he went toLondon and then he came back
and, I guess you know, took overagain.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
If you think about London, you think about the lion
, right yeah, and then they callhim the Lion of Judah right he
was really the Lion of London.
Yeah, because all the worklondon wanted to do he did for
them in africa.
Speaker 6 (39:20):
Yeah, so it kind of makes you question that speech
he gave at the un, though nowlike, was it really sincere?
Speaker 4 (39:26):
I think somebody wrote that for him, bro.
I mean because when the moreyou learn about tawa hetedo and
you study the stuff he did,you'll see the contradictions, I
promise you you'll see.
Speaker 6 (39:37):
The philosophy was bring one race to the nation,
superior to another inferior,and all that by the colors of a
man.
Damn that's crazy.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
You have to look at that story within the context of
the global Black struggle,right?
He's not unique to you knowbeing manipulated and and uh,
propped up or bought off.
You know, like we we could namea whole bunch of names of our,
of our ancestors that have beencompromised.
(40:08):
There were compromises withinthe, you know, liberation
movement in eritrea.
There are compromises right nowin many of our movements, right
.
So just keep that in mind.
He is just an archetype, right.
There are archetypes in ourcommunities and amongst us that
play different roles, right Wow?
Speaker 6 (40:30):
So, Catherine, what were some of their
accomplishments?
Speaker 5 (40:41):
OK.
So he was OK.
How do I describe him?
He was this is the Christianone.
He was this is the Christianone.
And then, even though he wasKenesha which I guess the
equivalent in the US or in theWestern world would be Lutheran,
but within the East Africancontext they would always say
(41:05):
Tawaharo, kenesha right.
So the culture is stillTawaharo right, you know.
And so he was a journalist, sohe advocated for his people.
He wrote about what HaileSelassie was doing.
He was exposing what theEnglish were doing, because part
of what the English did afterthey put Haile Selassie in power
(41:25):
was that they wanted to put allthe Muslims with Sudan and all
the Christians with Ethiopia.
And Abu Dhamariam and AbuIbrahim Sultan were like hell,
no, we're one people, we areEritreans, before we're Muslim
or Christian.
So they kind of mobilized andunified and, like I mentioned
(41:48):
earlier, we have nine ethnicgroups and some of them are
Muslim, some of them areChristian, some of them are
indigenous, some of them areChristian, some of our, you know
, indigenous practitioners.
And these two men galvanizedand mobilized the people to say
like one, eritrea Right.
And then our movement, even tothis day, like because the
struggle is not over, there's somany sabotage I can't even tell
(42:11):
you how many attempts ofassassination there have been
and continue to be on.
You know, president IssaZaforpi, because the history,
the story of Eritrea is sopowerful, they don't want that
to be common.
You know practice in Africa oranywhere where people are.
Let me calm myself down.
So those two men literallyunified the people and to this
(42:37):
day, one of our mottos is Oneheart, one people.
Right, and we say so, we putthe fist on and we say Victory
to the masses.
Right, so that oneness, thefist united, all these fingers
united, are like powerful right.
So you know that oneness likethe fist united, all these
(42:58):
fingers united, are likepowerful right.
Speaker 6 (42:59):
So that's what they do.
Wow, it's an assault on ourpeople.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
man, no matter where, catching hell from all corners
and yet so resilient and sojoyful and so powerful and so
spiritual and so humane.
Yeah, that's the part that Ilove and want to celebrate and
uplift and just galvanize ourpeople around.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Can you talk to us about the principles of Tawahedo
?
Speaker 5 (43:32):
Oh boy, I'm like an infant in this practice, okay,
so I don't want to like.
I want you to keep in mind thatI'm sharing what I know, not I
don't know everything.
Principles of like, I mean,like I said, I'm like like the,
(43:52):
you know, the father, the son,the Holy Spirit, one amen.
And it's like you know, there'sthis reverence for life, first
of all, right, and thiscommitment to the collective
good, to the collectivewell-being, right, it's?
(44:15):
It's, it's a culture, it's away of life, it's an everyday
practice.
Like you know, one of myfavorite tigrinya words is
temesgan, and temesgan means,you know, to be in gratitude, to
say thank, I'm thankful, right.
So you know, as I reflect on,you know, the tohono culture,
and like my, just, my family andmy community, and like the
(44:38):
language, how immersed thelanguage is in the spirituality,
right, they say Temescan whenthey get up.
They say Temescan when they,you know, after they eat, they
say Temescan for the food that'sprovided.
They say, like, if someone asksme, which means how, how are
you doing, how's your day, I sayI'm lucky, meskin, thanks be to
god, right?
so there's this reference thislike oneness, like it's not.
(45:01):
Like you know, god is out thereand like you know, for me it's
it.
It's about unifying andactivating the Christ within me.
Right, mm-hmm.
That's what God is for me.
Speaker 6 (45:17):
That's beautiful Reverence, the universe being
thankful, forever grateful.
That's true.
You know what I'm saying.
Living Christ, talk about itevery day.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
People got to be grateful.
My next question is my favoritequestion.
Speaker 6 (45:31):
I was going to hit that one yeah.
Go ahead this one right here.
How did the Council of Nicaea,325 AD, change and alter the
course of the Tawito Church?
Tawaito, sir, tawaito.
Yeah, we're all learning, we'repracticing.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
Professor, amen, can you take this one?
Sure, I will take a nice shotat it.
In 325 AD, a guy by the name ofFrumentius who had been
shipwrecked in Ethiopia and wastaken into the royal court of
King Izana, he was sent to thatcouncil.
Now, he was from Tyree and hewas like a pirate, but for some
(46:19):
reason they took him into thecourt of King Izana, who was the
king or the Negus at that time.
But he was sent to the councilof Nisia.
Okay, so when he came back fromthe council of Nisia, a lot of
weird things happened.
Okay, so, when he came backfrom the Council of Nicaea, a
lot of weird things happened.
Ok, the way in which theypracticed the religion in Aksum
was changed and it was alteredto the Roman version.
(46:41):
You know meaning that.
You know it's not so much Godis within, it's more like you're
worshiping this trinity.
Number one, and then, of course, the color of who they was
talking about changed.
One, and then, of course, thecolor of who they was talking
about changed, and then, numberthree they became a garrison for
the uh, for rome, and then theyattacked the civilization of
(47:01):
merrow because, remember, weremember we was talking about
merrow and rome was at war,right, so they was fighting.
So this was the way theyinducted Aksum into their
Christian political court, youknow what I mean.
And then sick Aksum on Mero,and we kind of still see a lot
of that from a lot of theleaders in that area.
(47:22):
You know where they're beinggarrisons for the West.
But this was the beginning ofit.
Speaker 6 (47:27):
So yeah, so you're saying he crossed paths with
Constantine and all that.
Yeah, so you're saying hecrossed paths with um
constantine and all that.
They all sat down and saidwe're gonna just completely
european, europeanize the images.
Brainwash.
It make the people of arkahewlook inferior.
We're the superior, we're gonnawell, it was, it was they took
religion.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
This is one of the good examples of taking religion
and using it as a politicaltool of conquering conquest.
You know yeah, you know,they've done the same with islam
as well.
The thing I really takingreligion and using it as a
political tool of conquer andconquest yeah, you know, they've
done the same with Islam aswell.
The thing I really like aboutTawahedo is that it crosses into
Islam and it crosses intoChristianity and it talks about
the oneness of God and it bringspeople even out of these
(48:08):
political silos and out of thesereligious silos into a oneness
and knowing that god is in allliving things and all people.
You know, but at the same timelet's keep it a buck the devil
is too, and then you know.
So nothing is all good or allbad, you know it's a balance.
Speaker 6 (48:26):
It's a balance.
There you go very very youngdegrees and so 325 was a very
pivotal year.
Yes, sir.
Attack on the masses, basicallyon the religious, spiritual
aspect and political.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
Yes sir, and that's right before the coming of Islam
that this happened, you know.
So you know, it's really atreasure and a pleasure man to
go back to the Tawahedo, reallya treasure and a pleasure man to
go back to the Tawahedo,because that the Tauhid,
specifically Tauhid and Tawahedoare specifically things that
Africa contributed toChristianity, the world of
(49:04):
Christianity and to the world ofIslam.
Those are specifically Africancontributions, you know, and
I've heard some interpretationswhere when they spoke of Heru,
they put Tawahedo on his name aswell.
So you know, and Ge'ez isabsolutely one of the Kemetic
languages and we get a lot ofwhat was lost in hieroglyphic
through the Ge'ez you know whatI mean and through the culture
(49:27):
of Tawahedo.
Go ahead, babe.
Speaker 5 (49:30):
Is everyone familiar with the Ge'ez alphabets?
I have a poster that I couldshow you guys.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
Just yeah, sure, sure okay and it's, it's, it's their
own characters.
That's what's so beautifulabout it.
You know, it's not the englishcharacters, you know, and
honestly, there's a whole lot ofwords and the characters in
there that we don't really havein the English language.
So you have to reorientate yourspeech, yeah.
Speaker 5 (49:58):
Up here it says Fidala Tigrinya, meaning letters
of Tigrinya, basically one ofthe children of Giz, right?
So Tigrinya, tigre and Amharicare the three languages and
Tigre is older than Tigrinya andAmharic and you can see the G
(50:21):
is a lot more closer to Tigrethan the other two, but the same
alphabet, the same letters usedto make the words in those
languages.
Speaker 4 (50:33):
And it's 36 letters right Kunama.
Speaker 5 (50:38):
Yeah, and then there are a few like these letters.
So if you see, each letter hasseven sounds be bu bi ba, be bi
bo, and it goes down all the way.
But these over here haveexceptional they don't have
seven, they only have one, two,three, four, and they're more
(51:00):
common in than they are in theother languages.
That's why they're down herethat's dope, man, that's dope
before we close, I want to dothe last question.
Speaker 3 (51:14):
How can we learn the true Revolutionary principles of
Tawaido and use them To unifyour people and clarify the true
legacy of Christianity?
Speaker 5 (51:26):
By doing more of this .
You know, a few years ago I waspart of a Collective that was
called Black Star Line AfricanCentered Family Educational
Collective.
It was started by six families.
I was the only continentallyborn black woman in that
collective.
The other five, you know, weresisters from here and we had to
(51:54):
go through a transition where itwasn't supported.
You know, we live in Seattle.
I don't know how well you arefamiliar with Seattle, but
Blackness is not celebrated, youknow, uplifted and supported.
Anyways, in that transition Ihad to go back to working for
mainstream agency that stillfocused on education and early
(52:18):
learning and culturalenhancement, but it wasn't Black
Star Line.
And I was heartbroken because Ifelt like I was letting our
children down.
I felt like my vision was beingsabotaged and our collective
vision was being sabotaged.
But in that process, you know,I was told by three different
(52:38):
African spiritual, you know,people guides that said your
purpose is to go back and bringthe East African spirituality to
the people.
Go back and bring the EastAfrican spirituality to the
people.
And I felt at that time, Iliterally thought that meant I
(52:59):
have to relocate to East Africaand study there and then come
back, you know, and but I, Iprayed about it, I meditated
about it and I was like you know, we have some powerful Tohono,
you know church and Tawahedopriests and Tawahedo scholars
here and you know my thoughtsstarted to shift and I was like
(53:21):
I need to intentionally learnand continue to build and
continue to create.
You know these circles oflearning and healing and
transformation for me, and youknow we are communal beings, so
we thrive and we heal and wetransform collectively, because
the trauma is collective, right,um and um, professor, I mean it
(53:45):
reminded me of that.
When we got together I was likeI need to heal and I have had a
lot of.
You know, I went through da dada.
He was like well, how are yousupposed to heal if not together
, you know?
and I was like he stopped me,you know, on my tracks, and so I
started really thinking aboutOK, how much do I know and how
(54:05):
can I share that?
Right?
So I started creating certainevents and programs.
So I founded something calledAfro Moves Learning Institute,
you know, and that was somethinglike a placeholder for me
because I didn't want thatvision to die and I didn't want
to abandon my purpose.
So through Afro Moves LearningInstitute, I started doing, you
(54:27):
know, cultural enrichment,educational programming with
children of African descent,where I teach the language and
the history of it and how youknow, and then you know, talk
about the alphabet and how it'sa functioning like thriving
language and I can teach itbecause I'm immersed in it.
You know, which I had taken forgranted.
(54:47):
I also do what is called Boonand Books and you know I'm so
grateful to share that.
I just finished, you know,confirming that I've been
approved and supported toactually do the first Friday and
the last Friday.
(55:07):
Well, starting in June, thelast Friday, but starting in
July, it will be the firstFriday and the last Friday where
I actually do.
In july, it'll be the firstfriday and the last friday where
I I actually do the coffeeceremony and I call it boone and
books, because I'm using theconcept of the coffee ceremony
but I'm creating it the conceptof like also book club, you know
, because you gotta tell themwhat boone means.
Uh sorry boone is the word forcoffee.
(55:29):
So in East Africa, coffeeceremony is a simple daily event
, but it's a very powerfulspiritual ceremony and
throughout the war and thedestruction and the trauma, we
always had coffee ceremony.
Right, that's Jebena, that'swhere we boil the coffee.
(55:50):
So you roast these green coffeebeans that come from back home.
You know, coffee was, you know,born in in Ethiopia, right?
So I get the coffee from backhome, I wrote.
And then when you roast it, itbecomes dark.
And then you grind it and thenyou boil it in the pot that, um,
we just saw was just some water.
And then, but it's not aboutjust the consumption of coffee,
(56:14):
it's about the circle that'screated.
And then we have three servingsof it.
The first one is awal.
When we boil it first, awaljust means the beginning, you
know, and you'll hear that a lotmore in Arabic awal.
And then kala'i.
Kala'i means second serving.
And then barakah.
Barakah is the third servingand the final serving, and
(56:37):
Barakah means the blessing.
So when we finish we say BethBarakah, beth Shishai, which
means may this be a house ofblessing, a house of abundance,
right.
Speaker 4 (56:49):
To me the first time when I had, when I experienced
that that was like the Africanlast supper, Because most of the
time they serve it with bread,hambasha and I was like I see
where the real last supperstarted.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
Let me I don't mean to cut you, cut you brother and
sister off.
We got a podcast in threeminutes coming up.
We would love to have you back,sister.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (57:14):
Love to have you back On that note.
Peace to everybody out there.
Peace, we'll see you in threeminutes.
Thank you, man it was apleasure, Mag.
Speaker 6 (57:23):
It was a pleasure, sister.
Speaker 3 (57:24):
It was a pleasure, always a pleasure y'all, Peace.
Speaker 4 (57:29):
We're going to revisit this subject.
Yes, we're going to come back,indeed Peace.
We're going to revisit thissubject.
We're going to come back,indeed peace.
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