December 28, 2019 • 28 mins
Haile Selassie wasn't just the last emperor of Ethiopia -- he is also hailed as a messiah. In this classic episode from 2011, previous hosts Deblina and Sarah explore the astonishing life of Haile Selassie.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Happy Saturday, everybody. Earlier this week, we talked about the
rock hun churches in Lollibela, Ethiopia, and we mentioned the
Solomonic dynasty and its last emperor, Highly Selassie, and previous
hosts Sarah and Bablina did an episode on him, including
his connection to the Rastafarian movement in February, so we're
going to share that episode today. We hope you enjoy.
(00:27):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Deblina chokate Boardy.
And it seems like we're gradually stumbling upon kind of
a sub theme for the podcast here. It seems like
(00:49):
situations keep cropping up in history in which someone's remains
are discovered, uncovered, identified, and then buried elsewhere. Yeah, like
a variation of our main exlimation theme, Mama exactly. For example,
take Ava Perrone. I think that before our time, Stephanamiston
History Class did a podcast on Ava Perrone and how
(01:09):
it took more than twenty years to bury her and
it was for political reasons. Her body traveled kind of
all over the place Italy, Spain, before finding its final
resting place in Buenos Aires, And that was a little
different because I think they kind of knew where her
body was the whole time. They were always afraid it
was going to get stolen, though, I think that was
always a concern, right. And then of course there was
our recent podcast about Henry the Fourth. We talked about
(01:32):
him to kick off our Bourbon series that has been ongoing,
and his head was recently identified and will be reintered
this year with full state honors. So kind of along
the same lines, and with today's episode, we have a
similar sort of situation, though with a very different set
of circumstances. The subject of this episode is highly Selassie.
(01:54):
He was the last Emperor of Ethiopia, sometimes known to
his subjects as the King of Kings and the Lion
of Judah, and Time magazine once even made him their
Man of the Year. Members of the Rastafarian movement um,
which is how a lot of people know them. They
even think of him as their messiah. Yet he didn't
receive a proper burial when he died in ninety five. Yeah,
(02:14):
it's always surprising the people who don't get the proper
burial um, so his remains were exhumed from a makeshift
tomb in nineteen um but his official funeral didn't take
place until the year two thousands, so a pretty long
gap between those two dates. And even then when the
funeral finally did happen, it was pretty controversial. It was
(02:37):
tough to pull off. There was a lot of debate
with the current government of Ethiopia of how it should happen. Yeah,
so why did it take nearly thirty years to bury
a world renowned leader. That's just part of what we're
going to look at today, as well as the conflict
between Ethiopia and Italy that put highly Selassie on the
map in the first place, on the international stage out
(02:58):
there for everyone to his name and see. Yeah. But
you know, of course, before we talk about what put
him on the map, we're going to talk about how
he got to be Emperor of Ethiopia in the first place,
because he was not heir to the throne. It was
not his destiny at least, so it seemed. He was
born to fire mcconan on July two, and he was
(03:21):
the son of a Prince Ros mcconan. Ros means Prince
Um and his father was also a noted general and
the chief advisor to the emperor, who was Emperor men
of Like the second Um in power at the time
that too far I was born Um and he was
related to the emperor, but not that closely. He was
(03:42):
the emperor's grand nephew, and there were kids and grandkids
who were in line to take the emperor's place, so
it didn't seem like this relatively distant Um Kien would
eventually rise to the throne. But little did they know,
Too far I was pretty intelligent and he impressed the
Emperor Menelik very early on, and so the Emperor started
(04:02):
appointing to Far to these provincial governorships at the young
age of fourteen, and he became governor first of Sadamo
and then of the Hare province. So he's governing and
his policies at the time were considered pretty progressive compared
to what was out there. He wanted to decrease the
power of the local nobility by pumping up the power
(04:23):
of the central government. So, for example, one of the
things that he did was develop a salaried civil service. Yeah,
we have our minds so much on bourbons to this
kind of reminded us of Richelieu and Louis the fourteenth,
centralizing the government with the with the king, with the
emperor um. But meanwhile, while the young Tafari is working
(04:45):
on all this, the emperor dies in nineteen thirteen and
his grandson li Jiahsu takes the throne um. But this
young man is not very popular and not popular right
from the start. Part of it was that he had
converted to Islam, and the majority of Ethiopians at this
time we're Christians, so his subjects weren't particularly happy with
(05:07):
that point. Tafari, on the other hand, who was a
devout orthodox Christian, he comes to represent the Christian resistance
at this time, so the country's younger generation they support
him for this, and also because they're becoming enamored by
his progressive tendencies. So with both of these things working
(05:27):
for him, he's able to depose le Jasu in nineteen sixteen,
and that makes men a like the Second's Daughter's ad
two empress. But there's a problem with that because at
the time it was considered unseemly for a woman to
rule in her own rights. So Rastafari is named regent
and heir apparent to the throne. Yeah, and it's interesting too, because, um,
(05:51):
you normally think of our region and a ruler working
at least somewhat in tandem, especially if they're two adults,
But this was not the case the rulers. Why you
two is a pretty conservative empress compared to Rastafari, But
he seemed to be the one who was really pulling
a lot of the strings. He was the one moving
his more progressive agenda forward. And it is pretty it
(06:14):
is pretty progressive. In nineteen three, he gets Ethiopia admitted
into the League of Nations, the relatively new League of
Nations at that point. In nineteen twenty four, he becomes
the first Ethiopian ruler to ever go abroad. He visits
Rome and Paris and London, and by nineteen twenty eight
he's sort of elevated this regent position a little bit
(06:37):
and he takes the title King of Ethiopia. A little
funny to have a king and an empress here, um,
and it sort of shows you where the true power falls,
and his power is elevated even more. In nineteen thirty
Whensaud two dies, making Rastafari emperor. It's then that he
takes the name Highly Selassie, which means might of the Trinity.
(06:59):
So now he's in truly in power. He's the emperor.
He is the emperor. But something else is happening at
the same time in a land far away in Jamaica,
about the last thing you could expect to happen. Yeah. Now,
of course a lot of us know the story, but
at the time it would have been maybe kind of
surprising to some people's ears. When Highly Selassie became emperor,
(07:24):
it fulfilled a prophecy or a prediction that black leader
and founder of the Back to Africa movement Marcus Garvey
had made years before. What he had said at that
time was look to Africa for the crowning of a
black king. He shall be the redeemer. So when this
comes true, so to speak, in Highly Selassie, Rastafarianism is
(07:46):
born obvious now where that name comes from Rastafari. So
a couple of primary Rastafarian beliefs are that the only
true God is the late Ethiopian emperor Highly Selassie, and
that Ethiopius the true Zion, which was kind of a
paradise on Earth. And one of the key doctrines is
that they'll someday return to Africa from which their ancestors
(08:08):
were taken a slave. So those of you who may
be are fans of Bob Marley have heard some of
this before. Bob Marley was very famous for being Rastafarian.
So yeah, but there's a there's a weird element to
all of this, and that's that Hilie Selassie himself, who
is being revered as the Messiah or is um the
(08:28):
only true God by Rastafarians, doesn't really go along with
it himself because he's a devout Christian. So he never
really accepts his status as a messiah, as a deliverer
um that these people sort of thrust upon him. I
think that's such a what a strange uh, what a
strange deal to have going on there. Yeah, And I
(08:50):
think when he was alive, people asked him about it,
you know, did you did you know about this? Did
you know that you're considered a messiah? And he was
just kind of like, yeah, I've heard that, but you know,
I don't think I'm just a man. Yeah, he just said,
I'm just a man. And he also, I mean, at
the time, at least he had some major problems to
deal with that without thinking about how he was considered
(09:12):
a messiah by some yep. Pretty much as soon as
he became emperor, he had some issues, primarily the rising
tensions with Italy. Here's just a little bit of background
on the situation between Italy and Ethiopia. Italy, which had
(09:32):
colonized most of the Red Sea coast in the nineteenth century,
had tried to invade Ethiopia before Menelick's army had defeated
the Italians back in eighteen ninety six the Battle of Ottawa,
and this was considered a big victory for Ethiopians and
for Africa at the time. I think many sources have
said that this was the first time in African army
had actually met and defeated a European army in conventional battle.
(09:54):
So big deal. Yeah, definitely a big deal. So if
we fast forward though to highly Lassi's reign, we have
Benito Mussolini in power. He has by this point become
dictator of Italy in ninety two, and initially it seems
like he's not that interested in Africa. In nine he
even signed this Treaty of Friendship with Ethiopia, which at
(10:18):
the time was the last African region that was free
from some sort of European control. So it seemed like
Italy was backing off. Maybe Ethiopian Italy would be cool
with each other. That was not the case, though, And
it wasn't long before Mussolini started changing his opinion about
the country and his intentions. Uh. And that may have
(10:40):
happened for a few different reasons. Yeah. For one thing,
it's possible that he wanted to avenge the eighteen nine defeat.
Some people suggest that, um just conjecture at this point,
but also Mussolini, as we know, was a fascist and
part of the whole fascist doctrine as the state should
try to expand its sphere of power and influence. So
(11:03):
that was one thing. Another thing was he kind of
just wanted to stick it to the rest of Europe
At that point, he thought Italy had gotten a raw
deal at the end of World War One. Great Britain
and France had both increased their colonial holdings and Italy
didn't really get a share of the spoils from his
point of view, Yeah, so he was he was looking
to make some gains. Um. And the trouble officially started
(11:25):
in December nineteen thirty four and that's when a Royal
Ethiopian force drove out this Italian encampment that was stationed
at Wawall, which was an oasis on the Ethiopian territory. Um,
it seemed maybe from the Ethiopian perspective, like the Italians
were a little too close, maybe they shouldn't have been there. Uh,
(11:48):
they were certainly a threatening presence, but the Italians really
used it as an excuse to go after Ethiopia. Like, look,
they're not they're not treating this treaty in good faith,
they're not following it. This is not a treaty of
friendship if they're driving us away from this oasis. And
so they start to gather up their forces in East
(12:09):
Africa or the East African colonies to eventually mount an
attack on Ethiopia. Right. So Higlie Celassie sees this coming
and he's pretty freaked out about it. He appeals to
the League of Nations at this point, but they really
don't take any serious steps to stop the Italians from
waging an attack. They issue kind of slaps on the hands,
(12:33):
threats and promises. At one point they restrict trade with Italy,
but this doesn't really work either because countries involved, especially
Britain and France, won't really commit to it. And there's
a reason for that. There is it's mostly because members
of the League, particularly Great Britain and France, as I mentioned,
don't want to upset Mussolini too much. They wanted to
(12:55):
keep up an alliance against with Italy against Nazi Germany,
so they didn't even really consider taking military action to
defend Ethiopia at the time. You know, they don't want
to alienate Italy. Um and their own European concerns seemed
to trump those of Ethiopia. So on October third, nineteen
thirty five, Italian troops start making their way to Ethiopia
(13:17):
into Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian army faced them, but they
were just not prepared for modern European warfare at this point. Um,
the Italians used air power and this this kind of
sounds like it's right out of World War One combined
with World War Two almost but the Italians basically crop
(13:37):
dust to the Ethiopian troops with mustard gas and um
the Ethiopians suffered three times as many casualties as the Italians.
A lot of the world, though, considers the stand made
by highly Selassian Ethiopian, really brave and noble. Though it's
what makes highly Selassie Time Magazines Man of the Year
(13:57):
in nineteen thirty five. People are impressed that, uh, they're
they're mounting a fight against something so overpowering. Yeah, I
think they almost saw it as like him taking a
stand against the whole Nazi fascist power out there. Um.
By May of ninety six, though, the Italians made their
(14:18):
way into the Ethiopian capital and they proclaimed Ethiopia part
of the Italian Empire. So Highly Selassie was forced into exile. Yeah,
and that June he goes back to the League, and
this time he's a little more ominous. He says, quote,
it is us today, it will be you tomorrow, which
(14:38):
is extremely prophetic coming in nineteen thirty six on the
eve of World War two. Um. So, of course in
exile he has to take refuge somewhere outside of Ethiopia,
so he goes to England for about five years. But
it's interesting Mussolini's own ambition to um fulfill that fascist
(14:59):
doctrine and acquire a more territory is eventually his undoing
in Ethiopia, at least right in he sends this enormous
army to invade neighboring Somali land, which was a British
territory at the time, and the British, though they had
fewer troops, actually answered with a pretty well organized and
well played counter offensive. I think the Italians lost something
(15:21):
like two thousand soldiers through either being killed, captured, or wounded,
and this managed to drive the Italians out of East
Africa altogether, including Ethiopia. Yeah. So with Britain triumphant highly
Selassie got to return home and he was restored to
the throne and proceeded to govern for forty years, and
(15:44):
he was welcomed home by Winston Churchill himself. He sent
a welcome home cable in which he said, quote, your majesty,
it was the first of the lawful sovereigns to be
driven from his throne in country by the fascist Nazi criminals,
and you're the first to return triumph. Um. So that
would make a really nice end for a podcast, A
(16:06):
nice positive note. Yeah, kind of a fairytale podcast. Um.
But unfortunately it's it's gonna keep going for better or worth. Yes,
there are more twists and turns to this story, definitely,
so highly Selassie as emperor does a lot of good things.
In his time as ruler of Ethiopia, he implemented some social, economic,
(16:29):
and educational reforms. For example, Um established sanitation programs, provincial schools,
national universities, and even encourage some students to study abroad
and continue their studies there. Intend to. That's partly his undoing. Yes,
it is UM. And he also played a significant role
in the later years in establishing the organization of African Unity.
(16:49):
He established a constitutional government as well that the constitution,
and this is part of the problem too, is that
it gave him most of the power. Yeah, it's kind
of an outward constitutional government. UM. So you know, we've
got some reforms in there, some good things happening. Yeah,
some things to give him credit for. But some people
didn't like the way he was running things. And part
(17:12):
of that was that the regional rulers, or at least
a lot of them, felt threatened by his centralization of government.
He felt like or they felt like Selassie was taking
power away from them and giving it to the lawmakers
in Ethiopes capital Um and a lot of Ethiopians who
lived in developing areas, you know, lived outside of the cities,
(17:36):
thought that too many privileges were going to the nobility, which,
to make matters worse, a lot of these um landlords.
These the nobility, the people who owned much of Ethiopia
and were largely absent, also happened to be related to
the emperor, So so nobody likes to see that. No,
(17:56):
not at all. To add to this, there were some
people who thought that the strides that the government did
make were just too slow and unevenly distributed. Students in particular,
especially those students we mentioned who studied abroad. They complained
(18:18):
that ethiopia social political, and economic developments were way too slow.
They had studied marks and had all kinds of ideas
of their own about land reform and equality, but they
were the only ones. Workers, teachers, soldiers. They all wanted
Ethiopia to catch up to modern times too. So it's ironic,
we see sort of from the beginning too of our
(18:39):
podcast too. Now he seems to have come full circle.
At first he was thought of as the progressive leader,
modernizing the country, and now he's the exact opposite. Yeah,
everyone advanced beyond him, it seemed to to some people.
I guess that's what happens when you rule for forty
years or or more. Um. So there were a few
(19:00):
revolts and rebellions, of course, if if you have these
unhappy people. But the most serious of these revolts occurred
in nineteen sixty up the Emperor was away visiting Brazil,
and his imperial bodyguard staged a coup. A lot of
university students supported it, and they even managed to seize
the imperial palace. Fortunately for highly Selassie, the army in
(19:23):
the air force remained loyal to him and they squashed
the rebellion pretty quickly. Um but he knew that that
things weren't stable, that his position was no longer stable
to no. Even before this, he tells an American committee
in nineteen sixty and this is a quote from him,
the tide which is sweeping Africa today cannot be stayed.
(19:44):
No power on earth is great enough to halt or
reverse the trend. It's march is as relentless and as
inexorable as the passage of time. Yea. So so he
knows he's at risk and Ethiopia is at risk. And
as the nineteen sixties were on, this resul meant really
just continued to grow, and there were a few issues
added to that. One was Eritrea, which, even though it
(20:07):
was legally an independent country, it was absorbed by Ethiopia
in nineteen sixty two. And for Ethiopia this seemed like
a pretty good deal because it gave them access to
the sea, which everybody wants their country to have access
to the sea. How you can defend yourself better. Yeah,
But a lot of Eritreans opposed it from the start,
(20:29):
and they formed the Militant Eritrean Liberation Front which the
acronym for that is elf UM to to protest this
being absorbed into a country that they didn't want to
be part of. Right. And there was something else that
happened that kind of added to Highly Selassie's unpopularity at
(20:49):
that time. Majorly added to it. There was a famine
caused by drought, which wasn't that unusual in Ethiopia, but
the famine that occurred between nineteen seventy two and nineteen
seventy four killed some rule hundred thousand Ethiopians, and many
felt that Highly Selassie just didn't really do enough to
help people. He They suggested also that the government had
tried to cover the whole situation up. Yeah, and so
(21:12):
there were protests and the situation became really desperate, I mean,
starving people, and potentially a government cover up is going
to make the populace really angry. And on September twelfth,
nineteen seventy four, the emperor was deposed, finally successfully deposed
in a revolution led by a Marxist colonel named Mingustu
(21:36):
highly Marium and some accounts say that Highly Selassie was
driven from the Imperial Palace in the back of a
Volkswagen with people in the streets jeering at him. So
really undignified exit for this emperor of forty years. Yeah,
and eleven months later, Highly Selassie was dead at the
age of eighty three. At the time, reports said that
(21:57):
he died of natural causes, but many actually suspect that
he was murdered in his Valets testified in court that
when they found his body, there was a strong smell
of ether in the room, which suggested to them that
he had been suffocated or perhaps strangled. Yeah, and m.
Gistu does give the emperor burial, so it's it's not
as though Polly Slassie's body is destroyed or lost immediately. Um.
(22:22):
But he's said to have interred the body vertically head
down next to his office latrine and then covered it
with two feet of concrete. To quote Deter, a ghost
who has reason to be restless. And this is pretty unrelated,
but I couldn't help but think of Dante's inferno. This
is the punishment for simony, which I guess if you
(22:44):
think about it long enough, with Messiah and Emperor staff
thrown in you could you would work out some sort
of connection there. But Um, clearly a very undignified burial.
No it wasn't, but he did get a more dignified
burial later on. His body was exhumed in after the
fall of Mangistu's government, and at that time he wasn't
(23:06):
buried right away. His body, his remains, I should say,
there wasn't a body at that point. His remains were
put into a small coffin that said do not open.
They put a sign that said do not open, because
they weren't quite sure what was going to happen. Really weird,
isn't it, I mean strange? Um. And there are a
few attempts to bury him, you know, get this do
not open box in the ground somewhere, but things just
(23:29):
catch on getting in the way. There were arguments about
how the funeral should be run, you know, whether it
should be this state funeral for a former emperor or
some sort of hush hush private family affair. And I
think once when they tried to hold it, elections got
in the way, so things kind of kept putting it off.
But it finally happened in November of two thousand and
(23:51):
it was attended by one of his daughters and many
many grandkids, and Bob Marley's widow is even there. There
are a few Rastafari is there, although it's interesting to
note that most Rastafarians don't believe that highly Selassie is dead.
Oh yeah, how about that? But Bob Marley's widow does.
If she was at the funeral, I would assume, well,
(24:14):
maybe she just came to pay her respects in general,
but in addition to them, I think there were somewhere
around ten thousand to fifteen thousand people as the total turnout,
so not nearly as large as you might think. It
would be decent, I guess, but not a tiny family
funeral either, right, And there was this great uh two
thousand one story in the Canadian magazine Saturday Night, and
(24:35):
it follows one of Highly Selassie's grandsons, Beta mcconan, who
was living in Canada at the time, through all the
events of the funeral, and he kind of recounts his
time growing up with the Emperor. And I just wanted
to mention it because I thought it was a really
cool story and it really, I think, shut a lot
of light on who Highly Selassie was. I mean, we've
(24:58):
been recounting throughout this episode what he did, but what
kind of man was What kind of man was he?
So just to end off the podcast, since it's been
kind of a sort of depressing end and decline, we
wanted to just say a few things about who this
guy was. Yeah, he was a workaholic. That's probably not
too surprising. Um, he was friendly with President Tito of Yugoslavia,
(25:20):
who would actually convince him to take vacation. So that's
it's pretty bad if you have like a fellow president
having to tell you to to kick off at the
end of the day. Yeah, but he did do it.
He would go on vacation and take all his grandsons
and daughters with him. Are the ones that were around
at the time, and um, so he had a little
fun now and again I guess he also was said
(25:42):
to have a gravitas that made even close members of
his family fall silent. So imposing president. He was also
very concerned about decorum. He didn't want you to interrupt
his morning exercises, for example, because he thought that no
one should see the emperor doing something so undignify. So
his grandson and this article relates like running in in
(26:03):
the morning to go visit him, and he said, sometimes
I'd be great and you'd run in there and everything
would be cool. But if you interrupted him during his exercises,
you would definitely get in trouble for that, just imagining
the barbell's dropping or something hollering. Um. But he he
did like his grandchildren. I mean that has priority come
across with these family visits and stuff. Um. He spent
(26:24):
a lot of time with the kids. And his grandson said, quote,
you could ask him about the most serious aspect of
politics when you were seven. He would answer you as
if you were his equal, and he'd question you and
challenge you so you could see the other side. So, um,
I guess he does seem to have an interest in
youth and education. That's pretty consistent throughout his reign. And um,
(26:47):
that goes along with treating a kid like somebody who
can converse as an equal with you, and a really
caring side too, I think. And I was telling Sarah
earlier about the story and how he mentions the emperor
himself would pour the grandkids milk in the evenings, so
they would all kind of gather and he would give
(27:07):
them their evening milk himself and the milk ceremony. Right,
But the grandson mentioned that most people had left by
the time the revolt came around, so you know, he
he had thought he would leave too, But then when
he came down to get the milk one night, there
were only two of them, and highly Selassie said, two
grandkids left, right, And highly Selassie said, is it just
(27:29):
you two tonight? And he said the grandson and the
story Vieta. He he realized at that point that he
had to stay because there wasn't anyone else. So quite touching,
very loyal grandson. And so just that's just to kind
of give you, I guess, show that there are two
sides to the story. Some people still disagree with his
policies during his reign. But there may have been another
(27:52):
side to him too. Yeah, so you can have the
family man, the popular ruler, the unpopular ruler, and the
Messiah going on. Yeah, a lot going on. A very
complex man, but really interesting when to research. Thank you
so much for joining us today for this Saturday classic.
(28:12):
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(28:35):
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listen to your favorite shows.
Happy Saturday, everybody. Earlier this week, we talked about the
rock hun churches in Lollibela, Ethiopia, and we mentioned the
Solomonic dynasty and its last emperor, Highly Selassie, and previous
hosts Sarah and Bablina did an episode on him, including
his connection to the Rastafarian movement in February, so we're
going to share that episode today. We hope you enjoy.
(00:27):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Deblina chokate Boardy.
And it seems like we're gradually stumbling upon kind of
a sub theme for the podcast here. It seems like
(00:49):
situations keep cropping up in history in which someone's remains
are discovered, uncovered, identified, and then buried elsewhere. Yeah, like
a variation of our main exlimation theme, Mama exactly. For example,
take Ava Perrone. I think that before our time, Stephanamiston
History Class did a podcast on Ava Perrone and how
(01:09):
it took more than twenty years to bury her and
it was for political reasons. Her body traveled kind of
all over the place Italy, Spain, before finding its final
resting place in Buenos Aires, And that was a little
different because I think they kind of knew where her
body was the whole time. They were always afraid it
was going to get stolen, though, I think that was
always a concern, right. And then of course there was
our recent podcast about Henry the Fourth. We talked about
(01:32):
him to kick off our Bourbon series that has been ongoing,
and his head was recently identified and will be reintered
this year with full state honors. So kind of along
the same lines, and with today's episode, we have a
similar sort of situation, though with a very different set
of circumstances. The subject of this episode is highly Selassie.
(01:54):
He was the last Emperor of Ethiopia, sometimes known to
his subjects as the King of Kings and the Lion
of Judah, and Time magazine once even made him their
Man of the Year. Members of the Rastafarian movement um,
which is how a lot of people know them. They
even think of him as their messiah. Yet he didn't
receive a proper burial when he died in ninety five. Yeah,
(02:14):
it's always surprising the people who don't get the proper
burial um, so his remains were exhumed from a makeshift
tomb in nineteen um but his official funeral didn't take
place until the year two thousands, so a pretty long
gap between those two dates. And even then when the
funeral finally did happen, it was pretty controversial. It was
(02:37):
tough to pull off. There was a lot of debate
with the current government of Ethiopia of how it should happen. Yeah,
so why did it take nearly thirty years to bury
a world renowned leader. That's just part of what we're
going to look at today, as well as the conflict
between Ethiopia and Italy that put highly Selassie on the
map in the first place, on the international stage out
(02:58):
there for everyone to his name and see. Yeah. But
you know, of course, before we talk about what put
him on the map, we're going to talk about how
he got to be Emperor of Ethiopia in the first place,
because he was not heir to the throne. It was
not his destiny at least, so it seemed. He was
born to fire mcconan on July two, and he was
(03:21):
the son of a Prince Ros mcconan. Ros means Prince
Um and his father was also a noted general and
the chief advisor to the emperor, who was Emperor men
of Like the second Um in power at the time
that too far I was born Um and he was
related to the emperor, but not that closely. He was
(03:42):
the emperor's grand nephew, and there were kids and grandkids
who were in line to take the emperor's place, so
it didn't seem like this relatively distant Um Kien would
eventually rise to the throne. But little did they know,
Too far I was pretty intelligent and he impressed the
Emperor Menelik very early on, and so the Emperor started
(04:02):
appointing to Far to these provincial governorships at the young
age of fourteen, and he became governor first of Sadamo
and then of the Hare province. So he's governing and
his policies at the time were considered pretty progressive compared
to what was out there. He wanted to decrease the
power of the local nobility by pumping up the power
(04:23):
of the central government. So, for example, one of the
things that he did was develop a salaried civil service. Yeah,
we have our minds so much on bourbons to this
kind of reminded us of Richelieu and Louis the fourteenth,
centralizing the government with the with the king, with the
emperor um. But meanwhile, while the young Tafari is working
(04:45):
on all this, the emperor dies in nineteen thirteen and
his grandson li Jiahsu takes the throne um. But this
young man is not very popular and not popular right
from the start. Part of it was that he had
converted to Islam, and the majority of Ethiopians at this
time we're Christians, so his subjects weren't particularly happy with
(05:07):
that point. Tafari, on the other hand, who was a
devout orthodox Christian, he comes to represent the Christian resistance
at this time, so the country's younger generation they support
him for this, and also because they're becoming enamored by
his progressive tendencies. So with both of these things working
(05:27):
for him, he's able to depose le Jasu in nineteen sixteen,
and that makes men a like the Second's Daughter's ad
two empress. But there's a problem with that because at
the time it was considered unseemly for a woman to
rule in her own rights. So Rastafari is named regent
and heir apparent to the throne. Yeah, and it's interesting too, because, um,
(05:51):
you normally think of our region and a ruler working
at least somewhat in tandem, especially if they're two adults,
But this was not the case the rulers. Why you
two is a pretty conservative empress compared to Rastafari, But
he seemed to be the one who was really pulling
a lot of the strings. He was the one moving
his more progressive agenda forward. And it is pretty it
(06:14):
is pretty progressive. In nineteen three, he gets Ethiopia admitted
into the League of Nations, the relatively new League of
Nations at that point. In nineteen twenty four, he becomes
the first Ethiopian ruler to ever go abroad. He visits
Rome and Paris and London, and by nineteen twenty eight
he's sort of elevated this regent position a little bit
(06:37):
and he takes the title King of Ethiopia. A little
funny to have a king and an empress here, um,
and it sort of shows you where the true power falls,
and his power is elevated even more. In nineteen thirty
Whensaud two dies, making Rastafari emperor. It's then that he
takes the name Highly Selassie, which means might of the Trinity.
(06:59):
So now he's in truly in power. He's the emperor.
He is the emperor. But something else is happening at
the same time in a land far away in Jamaica,
about the last thing you could expect to happen. Yeah. Now,
of course a lot of us know the story, but
at the time it would have been maybe kind of
surprising to some people's ears. When Highly Selassie became emperor,
(07:24):
it fulfilled a prophecy or a prediction that black leader
and founder of the Back to Africa movement Marcus Garvey
had made years before. What he had said at that
time was look to Africa for the crowning of a
black king. He shall be the redeemer. So when this
comes true, so to speak, in Highly Selassie, Rastafarianism is
(07:46):
born obvious now where that name comes from Rastafari. So
a couple of primary Rastafarian beliefs are that the only
true God is the late Ethiopian emperor Highly Selassie, and
that Ethiopius the true Zion, which was kind of a
paradise on Earth. And one of the key doctrines is
that they'll someday return to Africa from which their ancestors
(08:08):
were taken a slave. So those of you who may
be are fans of Bob Marley have heard some of
this before. Bob Marley was very famous for being Rastafarian.
So yeah, but there's a there's a weird element to
all of this, and that's that Hilie Selassie himself, who
is being revered as the Messiah or is um the
(08:28):
only true God by Rastafarians, doesn't really go along with
it himself because he's a devout Christian. So he never
really accepts his status as a messiah, as a deliverer
um that these people sort of thrust upon him. I
think that's such a what a strange uh, what a
strange deal to have going on there. Yeah, And I
(08:50):
think when he was alive, people asked him about it,
you know, did you did you know about this? Did
you know that you're considered a messiah? And he was
just kind of like, yeah, I've heard that, but you know,
I don't think I'm just a man. Yeah, he just said,
I'm just a man. And he also, I mean, at
the time, at least he had some major problems to
deal with that without thinking about how he was considered
(09:12):
a messiah by some yep. Pretty much as soon as
he became emperor, he had some issues, primarily the rising
tensions with Italy. Here's just a little bit of background
on the situation between Italy and Ethiopia. Italy, which had
(09:32):
colonized most of the Red Sea coast in the nineteenth century,
had tried to invade Ethiopia before Menelick's army had defeated
the Italians back in eighteen ninety six the Battle of Ottawa,
and this was considered a big victory for Ethiopians and
for Africa at the time. I think many sources have
said that this was the first time in African army
had actually met and defeated a European army in conventional battle.
(09:54):
So big deal. Yeah, definitely a big deal. So if
we fast forward though to highly Lassi's reign, we have
Benito Mussolini in power. He has by this point become
dictator of Italy in ninety two, and initially it seems
like he's not that interested in Africa. In nine he
even signed this Treaty of Friendship with Ethiopia, which at
(10:18):
the time was the last African region that was free
from some sort of European control. So it seemed like
Italy was backing off. Maybe Ethiopian Italy would be cool
with each other. That was not the case, though, And
it wasn't long before Mussolini started changing his opinion about
the country and his intentions. Uh. And that may have
(10:40):
happened for a few different reasons. Yeah. For one thing,
it's possible that he wanted to avenge the eighteen nine defeat.
Some people suggest that, um just conjecture at this point,
but also Mussolini, as we know, was a fascist and
part of the whole fascist doctrine as the state should
try to expand its sphere of power and influence. So
(11:03):
that was one thing. Another thing was he kind of
just wanted to stick it to the rest of Europe
At that point, he thought Italy had gotten a raw
deal at the end of World War One. Great Britain
and France had both increased their colonial holdings and Italy
didn't really get a share of the spoils from his
point of view, Yeah, so he was he was looking
to make some gains. Um. And the trouble officially started
(11:25):
in December nineteen thirty four and that's when a Royal
Ethiopian force drove out this Italian encampment that was stationed
at Wawall, which was an oasis on the Ethiopian territory. Um,
it seemed maybe from the Ethiopian perspective, like the Italians
were a little too close, maybe they shouldn't have been there. Uh,
(11:48):
they were certainly a threatening presence, but the Italians really
used it as an excuse to go after Ethiopia. Like, look,
they're not they're not treating this treaty in good faith,
they're not following it. This is not a treaty of
friendship if they're driving us away from this oasis. And
so they start to gather up their forces in East
(12:09):
Africa or the East African colonies to eventually mount an
attack on Ethiopia. Right. So Higlie Celassie sees this coming
and he's pretty freaked out about it. He appeals to
the League of Nations at this point, but they really
don't take any serious steps to stop the Italians from
waging an attack. They issue kind of slaps on the hands,
(12:33):
threats and promises. At one point they restrict trade with Italy,
but this doesn't really work either because countries involved, especially
Britain and France, won't really commit to it. And there's
a reason for that. There is it's mostly because members
of the League, particularly Great Britain and France, as I mentioned,
don't want to upset Mussolini too much. They wanted to
(12:55):
keep up an alliance against with Italy against Nazi Germany,
so they didn't even really consider taking military action to
defend Ethiopia at the time. You know, they don't want
to alienate Italy. Um and their own European concerns seemed
to trump those of Ethiopia. So on October third, nineteen
thirty five, Italian troops start making their way to Ethiopia
(13:17):
into Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian army faced them, but they
were just not prepared for modern European warfare at this point. Um,
the Italians used air power and this this kind of
sounds like it's right out of World War One combined
with World War Two almost but the Italians basically crop
(13:37):
dust to the Ethiopian troops with mustard gas and um
the Ethiopians suffered three times as many casualties as the Italians.
A lot of the world, though, considers the stand made
by highly Selassian Ethiopian, really brave and noble. Though it's
what makes highly Selassie Time Magazines Man of the Year
(13:57):
in nineteen thirty five. People are impressed that, uh, they're
they're mounting a fight against something so overpowering. Yeah, I
think they almost saw it as like him taking a
stand against the whole Nazi fascist power out there. Um.
By May of ninety six, though, the Italians made their
(14:18):
way into the Ethiopian capital and they proclaimed Ethiopia part
of the Italian Empire. So Highly Selassie was forced into exile. Yeah,
and that June he goes back to the League, and
this time he's a little more ominous. He says, quote,
it is us today, it will be you tomorrow, which
(14:38):
is extremely prophetic coming in nineteen thirty six on the
eve of World War two. Um. So, of course in
exile he has to take refuge somewhere outside of Ethiopia,
so he goes to England for about five years. But
it's interesting Mussolini's own ambition to um fulfill that fascist
(14:59):
doctrine and acquire a more territory is eventually his undoing
in Ethiopia, at least right in he sends this enormous
army to invade neighboring Somali land, which was a British
territory at the time, and the British, though they had
fewer troops, actually answered with a pretty well organized and
well played counter offensive. I think the Italians lost something
(15:21):
like two thousand soldiers through either being killed, captured, or wounded,
and this managed to drive the Italians out of East
Africa altogether, including Ethiopia. Yeah. So with Britain triumphant highly
Selassie got to return home and he was restored to
the throne and proceeded to govern for forty years, and
(15:44):
he was welcomed home by Winston Churchill himself. He sent
a welcome home cable in which he said, quote, your majesty,
it was the first of the lawful sovereigns to be
driven from his throne in country by the fascist Nazi criminals,
and you're the first to return triumph. Um. So that
would make a really nice end for a podcast, A
(16:06):
nice positive note. Yeah, kind of a fairytale podcast. Um.
But unfortunately it's it's gonna keep going for better or worth. Yes,
there are more twists and turns to this story, definitely,
so highly Selassie as emperor does a lot of good things.
In his time as ruler of Ethiopia, he implemented some social, economic,
(16:29):
and educational reforms. For example, Um established sanitation programs, provincial schools,
national universities, and even encourage some students to study abroad
and continue their studies there. Intend to. That's partly his undoing. Yes,
it is UM. And he also played a significant role
in the later years in establishing the organization of African Unity.
(16:49):
He established a constitutional government as well that the constitution,
and this is part of the problem too, is that
it gave him most of the power. Yeah, it's kind
of an outward constitutional government. UM. So you know, we've
got some reforms in there, some good things happening. Yeah,
some things to give him credit for. But some people
didn't like the way he was running things. And part
(17:12):
of that was that the regional rulers, or at least
a lot of them, felt threatened by his centralization of government.
He felt like or they felt like Selassie was taking
power away from them and giving it to the lawmakers
in Ethiopes capital Um and a lot of Ethiopians who
lived in developing areas, you know, lived outside of the cities,
(17:36):
thought that too many privileges were going to the nobility, which,
to make matters worse, a lot of these um landlords.
These the nobility, the people who owned much of Ethiopia
and were largely absent, also happened to be related to
the emperor, So so nobody likes to see that. No,
(17:56):
not at all. To add to this, there were some
people who thought that the strides that the government did
make were just too slow and unevenly distributed. Students in particular,
especially those students we mentioned who studied abroad. They complained
(18:18):
that ethiopia social political, and economic developments were way too slow.
They had studied marks and had all kinds of ideas
of their own about land reform and equality, but they
were the only ones. Workers, teachers, soldiers. They all wanted
Ethiopia to catch up to modern times too. So it's ironic,
we see sort of from the beginning too of our
(18:39):
podcast too. Now he seems to have come full circle.
At first he was thought of as the progressive leader,
modernizing the country, and now he's the exact opposite. Yeah,
everyone advanced beyond him, it seemed to to some people.
I guess that's what happens when you rule for forty
years or or more. Um. So there were a few
(19:00):
revolts and rebellions, of course, if if you have these
unhappy people. But the most serious of these revolts occurred
in nineteen sixty up the Emperor was away visiting Brazil,
and his imperial bodyguard staged a coup. A lot of
university students supported it, and they even managed to seize
the imperial palace. Fortunately for highly Selassie, the army in
(19:23):
the air force remained loyal to him and they squashed
the rebellion pretty quickly. Um but he knew that that
things weren't stable, that his position was no longer stable
to no. Even before this, he tells an American committee
in nineteen sixty and this is a quote from him,
the tide which is sweeping Africa today cannot be stayed.
(19:44):
No power on earth is great enough to halt or
reverse the trend. It's march is as relentless and as
inexorable as the passage of time. Yea. So so he
knows he's at risk and Ethiopia is at risk. And
as the nineteen sixties were on, this resul meant really
just continued to grow, and there were a few issues
added to that. One was Eritrea, which, even though it
(20:07):
was legally an independent country, it was absorbed by Ethiopia
in nineteen sixty two. And for Ethiopia this seemed like
a pretty good deal because it gave them access to
the sea, which everybody wants their country to have access
to the sea. How you can defend yourself better. Yeah,
But a lot of Eritreans opposed it from the start,
(20:29):
and they formed the Militant Eritrean Liberation Front which the
acronym for that is elf UM to to protest this
being absorbed into a country that they didn't want to
be part of. Right. And there was something else that
happened that kind of added to Highly Selassie's unpopularity at
(20:49):
that time. Majorly added to it. There was a famine
caused by drought, which wasn't that unusual in Ethiopia, but
the famine that occurred between nineteen seventy two and nineteen
seventy four killed some rule hundred thousand Ethiopians, and many
felt that Highly Selassie just didn't really do enough to
help people. He They suggested also that the government had
tried to cover the whole situation up. Yeah, and so
(21:12):
there were protests and the situation became really desperate, I mean,
starving people, and potentially a government cover up is going
to make the populace really angry. And on September twelfth,
nineteen seventy four, the emperor was deposed, finally successfully deposed
in a revolution led by a Marxist colonel named Mingustu
(21:36):
highly Marium and some accounts say that Highly Selassie was
driven from the Imperial Palace in the back of a
Volkswagen with people in the streets jeering at him. So
really undignified exit for this emperor of forty years. Yeah,
and eleven months later, Highly Selassie was dead at the
age of eighty three. At the time, reports said that
(21:57):
he died of natural causes, but many actually suspect that
he was murdered in his Valets testified in court that
when they found his body, there was a strong smell
of ether in the room, which suggested to them that
he had been suffocated or perhaps strangled. Yeah, and m.
Gistu does give the emperor burial, so it's it's not
as though Polly Slassie's body is destroyed or lost immediately. Um.
(22:22):
But he's said to have interred the body vertically head
down next to his office latrine and then covered it
with two feet of concrete. To quote Deter, a ghost
who has reason to be restless. And this is pretty unrelated,
but I couldn't help but think of Dante's inferno. This
is the punishment for simony, which I guess if you
(22:44):
think about it long enough, with Messiah and Emperor staff
thrown in you could you would work out some sort
of connection there. But Um, clearly a very undignified burial.
No it wasn't, but he did get a more dignified
burial later on. His body was exhumed in after the
fall of Mangistu's government, and at that time he wasn't
(23:06):
buried right away. His body, his remains, I should say,
there wasn't a body at that point. His remains were
put into a small coffin that said do not open.
They put a sign that said do not open, because
they weren't quite sure what was going to happen. Really weird,
isn't it, I mean strange? Um. And there are a
few attempts to bury him, you know, get this do
not open box in the ground somewhere, but things just
(23:29):
catch on getting in the way. There were arguments about
how the funeral should be run, you know, whether it
should be this state funeral for a former emperor or
some sort of hush hush private family affair. And I
think once when they tried to hold it, elections got
in the way, so things kind of kept putting it off.
But it finally happened in November of two thousand and
(23:51):
it was attended by one of his daughters and many
many grandkids, and Bob Marley's widow is even there. There
are a few Rastafari is there, although it's interesting to
note that most Rastafarians don't believe that highly Selassie is dead.
Oh yeah, how about that? But Bob Marley's widow does.
If she was at the funeral, I would assume, well,
(24:14):
maybe she just came to pay her respects in general,
but in addition to them, I think there were somewhere
around ten thousand to fifteen thousand people as the total turnout,
so not nearly as large as you might think. It
would be decent, I guess, but not a tiny family
funeral either, right, And there was this great uh two
thousand one story in the Canadian magazine Saturday Night, and
(24:35):
it follows one of Highly Selassie's grandsons, Beta mcconan, who
was living in Canada at the time, through all the
events of the funeral, and he kind of recounts his
time growing up with the Emperor. And I just wanted
to mention it because I thought it was a really
cool story and it really, I think, shut a lot
of light on who Highly Selassie was. I mean, we've
(24:58):
been recounting throughout this episode what he did, but what
kind of man was What kind of man was he?
So just to end off the podcast, since it's been
kind of a sort of depressing end and decline, we
wanted to just say a few things about who this
guy was. Yeah, he was a workaholic. That's probably not
too surprising. Um, he was friendly with President Tito of Yugoslavia,
(25:20):
who would actually convince him to take vacation. So that's
it's pretty bad if you have like a fellow president
having to tell you to to kick off at the
end of the day. Yeah, but he did do it.
He would go on vacation and take all his grandsons
and daughters with him. Are the ones that were around
at the time, and um, so he had a little
fun now and again I guess he also was said
(25:42):
to have a gravitas that made even close members of
his family fall silent. So imposing president. He was also
very concerned about decorum. He didn't want you to interrupt
his morning exercises, for example, because he thought that no
one should see the emperor doing something so undignify. So
his grandson and this article relates like running in in
(26:03):
the morning to go visit him, and he said, sometimes
I'd be great and you'd run in there and everything
would be cool. But if you interrupted him during his exercises,
you would definitely get in trouble for that, just imagining
the barbell's dropping or something hollering. Um. But he he
did like his grandchildren. I mean that has priority come
across with these family visits and stuff. Um. He spent
(26:24):
a lot of time with the kids. And his grandson said, quote,
you could ask him about the most serious aspect of
politics when you were seven. He would answer you as
if you were his equal, and he'd question you and
challenge you so you could see the other side. So, um,
I guess he does seem to have an interest in
youth and education. That's pretty consistent throughout his reign. And um,
(26:47):
that goes along with treating a kid like somebody who
can converse as an equal with you, and a really
caring side too, I think. And I was telling Sarah
earlier about the story and how he mentions the emperor
himself would pour the grandkids milk in the evenings, so
they would all kind of gather and he would give
(27:07):
them their evening milk himself and the milk ceremony. Right,
But the grandson mentioned that most people had left by
the time the revolt came around, so you know, he
he had thought he would leave too, But then when
he came down to get the milk one night, there
were only two of them, and highly Selassie said, two
grandkids left, right, And highly Selassie said, is it just
(27:29):
you two tonight? And he said the grandson and the
story Vieta. He he realized at that point that he
had to stay because there wasn't anyone else. So quite touching,
very loyal grandson. And so just that's just to kind
of give you, I guess, show that there are two
sides to the story. Some people still disagree with his
policies during his reign. But there may have been another
(27:52):
side to him too. Yeah, so you can have the
family man, the popular ruler, the unpopular ruler, and the
Messiah going on. Yeah, a lot going on. A very
complex man, but really interesting when to research. Thank you
so much for joining us today for this Saturday classic.
(28:12):
If you have heard any kind of email address or
maybe a Facebook you are l during the course of
the episode, that might be obsolete. It might be doubly
obsolete because we have changed our email address again. You
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(28:35):
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