CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS: ETHIOPIA AND THE U.S. AT THE CROSSROAD (Part I)
Ethiopia is a civilization, NOT a country.
What is happening in the relationship between Ethiopia and the U.S. is a “clash of civilizations”.
It is a clash between a civilization founded on white European supremacy and an African civilization deeply rooted in black independency.
The United States of America was born on June 21, 1788 when its Constitution became the official framework of the government of the United States of America after New Hampshire became the ninth of thirteen states to ratify it.
Ethiopia, the cradle of humankind, has existed since time immemorial.
The U.S. wants to divide Ethiopia ethnically and control its destiny.
Ethiopians responded to U.S. imperial and neocolonial ambitions with total defiance and heroic audacity as they always have when faced with white supremacy.
They responded with steadfast unity and proved to the world united they will never be defeated by white supremacy civilization. They proved it in 1896 and 1941 and now in 2021.
Ethiopia today is the tip of the spear and steel shield in confronting white supremacy brazenly baring its neocolonial and imperialist fangs at the African continent.
Today, the world is witnessing a titanic struggle — a David versus Goliath contest — between a small and ancient civilization that sustains itself on pride, dignity and sovereignty and a superpower civilization driven mad by a toxic doctrine of global hegemony as its manifest destiny.
Ethiopian Civilization today is the African battleground in the struggle between white supremacy, conspiracy, belligerency, idiocy and lunacy on the one hand, and black African primacy, independency, democracy, resiliency, prophesy and decency, on the other.
Ethiopians value personal dignity and national sovereignty above life itself. That is why they have ALWAYS defeated white supremacy and kept their nation free and independent for over 3 thousand years! — Alemayehu G. Mariam
Read more below…
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Why does the U.S. (Biden administration) treat Ethiopia like a “s**t hole” country?
Hardly a day goes by without someone asking me why the U.S. treats Ethiopia and Ethiopians like dirt or a “s**t hole country”?
I am interrogated.
Why does the U.S. flagrantly and contemptuously disrespect Ethiopia’s sovereignty? Wage a relentless campaign of lies, disinformation and demonization against Ethiopia? Impose sanctions, deny aid and block loans to force Ethiopia to “negotiate” with the terrorist Tigray People’s Liberation Front? What bad thing did Ethiopia ever do to America to deserve such contempt, insult and humiliation? Why does the U.S. try to remove a democratically elected government in Ethiopia?”
The spokesperson for the U.S. proxy terrorist TPLF offers some insights into these questions.
[Transcription] China’s intention is clear so I can understand it. Whereas the intention of the Americans is for us to enter Addis. Some European countries also have similar interest. But they told us to forge an alliance with different groups to avoid chaos when our forces entered Addis. America’s concern is ridiculous and transactional. It looks like the Americans couldn’t make up their mind about us capturing Addis Ababa. There are interest groups who want Abiy to continue putting the country up for sale and who do not want him to stop the country’s indispensable resources recklessly.
The same Terrorist spokesman testifies the “U.S. made them do it” by promising help once the TPLF captures power and hoodwinks other opposition elements to join it.
I don’t have a quick satisfactory answer to those who ask me such questions.
Of course, the simple and brutally honest answer was given in former President Donald Trump’s vulgar expression. “Africa is a continent of s**t hole countries.”
In 2017, Trump complained 40 thousand Nigerians had come to the U.S. and would never “go back to their huts”.
Trump unabashedly asked, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” He lamented, “We need more people from Norway.”
Therein lies the answer.
Regardless of the party affiliation of the U.S. administration in power, including the Biden administration, they all think Africa is a continent of “s**t hole countries.”
So, the short answer is, “The Biden administration treats Ethiopia like dirt because it believes Ethiopia is just another “s**t hole African country.”
Of course, Biden, unlike Trump, would never say it publicly as he owes his presidency to black voters!
But Biden is a dyed-in-the-wool racist who masquerades as a “liberal”.
When Biden passed the largest crime bill in American history, he said young black men were dangerous wild animals.
Biden said, “It does not matter if they are victims of society. I don’t care. They are predators. We have predators in our streets”.
The Great White Shark is a predator.
The Black Mamba snake is a predator.
To Biden, young black men are predators in “s**t hole” American urban areas.
I spent nearly a quarter of a century defending Joe Biden’s “predators” in America’s courts!
Joe Biden in 2021 wants to do to Black Ethiopians what he did to Black Americans in 1993.
Biden wants to impose his white supremacist neocolonial rule on Ethiopian savages/predators living in huts in a “s**t hole” country.
But I don’t want to single out Joe.
For U.S. administrations, Democrat or Republican, Africa is a “s**t hole” continent of beggars, deadbeats, poverty, pestilence, disease and illiteracy.
Africa is cursed by the gods and condemned to be run by corrupt, crooked and atrocious two-bit vampiric dictators who suck the blood of their impoverished citizens.
For U.S. administrations, Africa is a continent in endless turmoil fueled by ethnic hatred and doomed to suffer in eternal division and bloodshed.
In the first year of the new century, The Economist, arguably one of the most influential magazines in the West declared, “Hopeless Africa”.
The Economist’s prescription to rescue Africa was to use “first-world soldiers” with a “mandate to fight” and liberate Africans from their oppressive rulers.
The real question is, “Who made Africa a content of s**t hold countries?”
The singularly destructive legacy of white European colonialism in Africa was the creation of a continent of beggars.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the great Nigerian nationalist and statesman who played a key role in Nigeria’s independence movement in 1967 warned:
Today, Africa is a Continent of COMPETING BEGGAR NATIONS. We vie with one another for favors from our former colonial masters; and we deliberately fall over one another to invite neocolonialists to come to our different territories to preside over our economic fortunes…
… We may continue and indeed we will be right to continue to use the power and influence which sovereignty confers, as well as the tactics and maneuvers which international diplomacy legitimatizes, to extract more and more alms from our benefactors. But the inherent evil remains—and it remains with us and with no one else: unless a beggar shakes off and irrevocably turns his back on, his begging habit, he will forever remain a beggar. For, the more he begs the more he develops the beggar characteristics of lack of initiative, courage, drive and self-reliance.
The real question is , “Who made Ethiopia a beggar “s**t hole” country?”
The answer is:
Who supported, installed and maintained the TPLF in power and out of power since the early 1980s?
Who is using the TPLF to wage a proxy war on Ethiopia, fight tooth and nail today to restore the TPLF to power using sanctions, global disinformation and coordinated diplomatic action?
Who brags about giving Ethiopia billons in development and humanitarian aid for decades but has absolutely NOTHING to show for it?
U.S.A.! That’s who!
The ultimate proof of how the U.S. treats Ethiopia as a “s**t hole country”: Ethiopian lives don’t matter!
Washington, D.C. U.S. Congress
On January 6, 2020, shortly after 1 p.m., as Congress prepared to affirm President-elect Joe Biden, hundreds of pro-Trump protesters pushed through barriers set up along the perimeter of the Capitol and tussled with officers in full riot gear. Less than two hours later, demonstrators got into the building by busting down doors and breaking windows.
As the protesters entered the House chamber, lawmakers scrambled to get away many wearing gas masks, They were taken to secure areas and the House was evacuated.
Did an “insurrection” occur on January 6?
Not according to FBI Director Christopher Wray who said, “The violence and destruction of property at the U.S. Capitol building on January 6 showed a blatant and appalling disregard for our institutions of government and the orderly administration of the democratic process.”
The FBI later confirmed it was “not an insurrection” because firearms were not used by the rioters.
On the six-month anniversary of the insurrection Joe Biden issued a Statement expressing outrage at the January 6 “insurrection”:
Not even during the Civil War did insurrectionists breach our Capitol, the citadel of our democracy. But six months ago today, insurrectionists did. They launched a violent and deadly assault on the people’s house, on the people’s representatives, and on the Capitol police sworn to protect them, as our duly elected Congress carried out the sacred ritual of our republic and certified the Electoral College vote.
As of September 29, 2021, over 650 people who were involved in the Capitol riots have been arrested and facing vigorous prosecution.
One defendant was sentenced to 41 months in prison. Many others received sentences in the range of 8 -12 months.
November 3, 2020: Tigray, Ethiopia
On the evening of November 3, 2020, the TPLF mounted a coordinated attack on the Ethiopian National Defense Force Northern Command military bases in Tigray region.
A TPLF leader explained in meticulous detail how the TPLF tried to grab power using a “blitzkrieg/thunderbolt” (“mebreqawi”) attack on the Federal Northern Command. The aim was to capture regional capitals and swiftly and triumphantly march on the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
In the Northern Command attack, the TPLF massacred several thousand federal soldiers and wounded and tortured many more.
On November 9, 2020, the TPLF committed the Mai-Kadra Massacres killing over 1,600 innocent citizens.
On November 12, 2020, Amnesty International reported “scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death in Mai-Kadra (May Cadra) town in the South West Zone of Ethiopia’s Tigray Region on the night of 9 November.” The “forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) were responsible for the mass killings, apparently after they suffered defeat from the federal EDF [Ethiopia Defense Forces].”
Almost exactly to the day on November 9, 2021, Amnesty International reported another one of many TPLF atrocities: “Survivors of TPLF attack in Amhara describe gang rape, looting and physical assaults.”
On August 5, 2021, the TPLF committed another heinous massacre in the village of Galikoma in Afar region.
So many other atrocities committed by the TPLF.
The TPLF has long been listed in the Global Terrorism Database for documented acts of terrorism.
The TPLF is also registered as a terrorist organization listed in the Terror Research and Analysis Consortium (TRAC).
The U.S. government had classified the TPLF as a “tier III” terrorist organization until 2014 when it issued an exemption in a policy memorandum.
Despite the notorious crimes against humanity committed by the TPLF and ongoing terrorist enterprise, the U.S. insists the Ethiopian government must negotiate with them without preconditions.
On November 21, 2021, Special Envoy Feltman declared, “it should be clear that there is no military solution.”
On August 7, 2021, Samantha Power declared, “There is no military solution to this conflict.”
On November 19, 2021, Secretary of State Blinken declared, “There is no military solution to the challenges facing Ethiopia.”
The U.S. has used the mantra of “no military solution” to legitimize the terrorist TPLF, absolve it of its massive crimes against humanity and restore it to power without any accountability.
The U.S. has never condemned the TPLF for starting the war, committing untold atrocities and for its invasion of Amhara and Afar regions.
The laughable irony U.S. can vigorously prosecute 600 protesters for breaking doors and windows but Ethiopia must negotiate with the TPLF that has massacred so many Ethiopian citizens over the past year.
What is good for the U.S. in dealing with terrorists and insurrectionists is not good enough for Ethiopia.
THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS THAT THE U.S. IS A STATE-SPONSOR OF TERRORISM IN ITS TPLF PROXY WAR ON ETHIOPIA.
Ultimately, the Biden administration has proven ETHIOPIAN LIVES DON’T MATTER!
Cakewalk: “Ethiopia is just another “s**t hole” African country…”
The Biden administration treats Ethiopia like dirt because Susan Rice, Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Samantha Power (“Gang of Four’) and their clones believe Ethiopia is just another “s**t hole” African country.
The Gang of Four is convinced Ethiopia is a pushover. Breaking her back, cutting off her knees and restoring the TPLF to power will be a cakewalk.
Truth be told, Joe Biden has no policy for Ethiopia.
Susan Rice (DUCHESS OF DARKNESS), is the sugar mommy and long-time supporter of the TPLF and is in charge of U.S. policy in Ethiopia.
Susan Rice is the puppet master of the Gang of Four trying to restore the TPLF to power and using the TPLF to impose American imperialism and neocolonialism on Ethiopia.
I knew what tricks Susan Rice had up her sleeve beginning on day 1.
In a 5-part set of commentaries entitled the “Five Pillars of U.S. Foreign Policy”, launched five days after Joe Biden was inaugurated, I began exposing Susan Rice’s nefarious plans to 1) restore the TPLF and reestablish a comprador regime that will carry out the U.S.’ commands no questions asked, 2) prevent the rise of a nationalist government that gives primacy and defends Ethiopian sovereignty, and 3) ensure Ethiopia will not become a regional power that could in any way undermine American hegemony in the Horn of Africa.
In the introductory commentary in the series on January 25, 2021, I asked Joe Biden to “Undeclare the Diplomatic War Your Secretary of State Anthony Blinken Declared on Ethiopia!”
In my first commentary in the series on January 31, 2021 (11 days after Joe Biden was inaugurated), I announced the first step in the Rice-driven Biden policy in Ethiopia was to swiftly undertake regime change and restore the TPLF to power by dialogue, negotiation or any means necessary.
In my second commentary on February 8, 2021 (19 days after Joe Biden was inaugurated), I proclaimed the second cornerstone of U.S. policy in Ethiopia is to “Make Ethiopia China’s Graveyard in Africa”.
In my third commentary on February 14, 2021 (25 days after Joe Biden was inaugurated), I proclaimed the U.S. will do everything it can to sabotage democratic reform in Ethiopia and undermine confidence in the 2021 Election.
In my fourth commentary on February 23, 2021 (one month and 3 days after Joe Biden was inaugurated, I proclaimed the U.S. will try to pull the plug on a rising and Shining Ethiopia. I warned, “A specter is haunting the Biden Administration, the European Union, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, Egypt and the Western media in the Horn of Africa. The specter of a rising and shining Ethiopia regional and continental power!”
In my fifth commentary on March 29, 2021 (69 days after Joe Biden was inaugurated), I proclaimed the U.S. will try and “strangle Ethiopian and Eritrean sovereignty by coordinating with the European Union and imposing illegal and outrageous demands and by waging a relentless campaign of demonization in the international media.
On March 18, 2021 (58 days after Joe Biden was inaugurated) I issued a final warning, “The Americans are Coming to Impose Their Imperial Pax Americana on Ethiopia and Eritrea.”
I am proud to say I was 100 percent right in my predictions. All of them.
I am proud not to congratulate myself but because I was able to figure out their dirty tricks, monkey business, conspiracies and intrigues through intense study and analysis.
“Theory” of Clash of Civilizations
In a seminal 1993 article, later expanded into a book, Professor Samuel Huntington argued future wars and conflict will be fought not between countries but between civilizations.
Huntington was responding to Francis Fukuyama’s contention in a 1998 article, later parlayed into a book, “The End of History and the Last Man”.
Fukuyama argued the world had reached the “end of history” in a Hegelian sense, that is the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution.
Hegel’s conception of history postulated a dialectal progression towards “the consciousness of freedom”.
He believed each generation struggles to become more and more free, until eventually a perfectly rational society of freedom is achieved.
For Hegel, 18th century Prussian constitutional monarchy was the “end of history.”
Fukuyama argued capitalist liberal democracy was the “end of history” because it had successfully removed the “internal contradictions” that had ruptured past schemes for ordering society.
Under capitalism, advancements in science had produced technological innovation and military competition, urbanization and bureaucratization which had maximized productive efficiency and satisfied man’s desire for material wealth.
Fukuyama believed capitalism met the material needs of mankind while liberal democracy satisfied the universal human desire for recognition by merit and achievement.
Fukuyama suggested human rights, liberal democracy, and the capitalist free market economy are the only remaining ideological alternatives for nations of the world in the post–Cold War world.
Huntington shares Fukuyama’s view that the age of ideology had ended with the old War period.
But Huntington argued ideological conflict will be replaced by cultural (civilizational) conflict. That is because cultural identity shall become the core of civilizations in conflict.
Huntington’s conception of “clash of civilizations” puts the old Western world history revolving around the struggles between monarchs, nations and ideologies on its head.
In a clash of civilizations, non-Western civilizations resist and will only critically accept elements of Western values into their civilizations. They will assert their position on the global stage as equal actors, just like the West, capable of shaping and moving world history.
Huntington proposes other core arguments in expounding his “hypotheses of the clash of civilizations”:
1) The Western belief in the universality of the West’s values and insistence on Western-style democratization is not only outdated but a recipe for antagonism and conflict with non-Western civilizations.
2) Non-Western civilizations will increasingly resist and refuse to accept the structure of the international system, including the U.N., built and maintained to preserve the West’s dominant status quo.
As Exhibit A, on December 8, 2021, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed tweeted: “I join other African leaders in reiterating that a continent of around 1.3 billion people needs a permanent voice and seat at the UNSC represented through a bloc. Issues and decisions that concern the continent cannot continue being addressed without continental representation.” Africans are claiming our place in the sun!
3) There will be major shifts of economic, military, and political power from the West to the other civilizations, specifically “challenger civilizations”, manifestly China.
Clash of Civilizations in Ethiopia-U.S. relations
Ethiopia is a civilization, NOT a country.
What is happening in the relationship between Ethiopia and the U.S. is a “clash of civilizations”.
It is a clash between a civilization founded on white European supremacy and an African civilization deeply rooted in black independency.
The United States of America was born on June 21, 1788 when its Constitution became the official framework of the government of the United States of America after New Hampshire became the ninth of thirteen states to ratify it.
Ethiopia, the cradle of humankind, has existed since time immemorial.
The U.S. wants to divide Ethiopia ethnically and control its destiny.
Ethiopians responded to U.S. imperial and neocolonial ambitions with total defiance and heroic audacity as they always have when faced with white supremacy.
They responded with steadfast unity and proved to the world united they will never be defeated by white supremacy civilization. They proved it in 1896 and 1941 and now in 2021.
Ethiopia today is the tip of the spear and steel shield in confronting white supremacy brazenly baring its neocolonial and imperialist fangs at the African continent.
Today, the world is witnessing a titanic struggle — a David versus Goliath contest — between a small and ancient civilization that sustains itself on pride, dignity and sovereignty and a superpower civilization driven mad by a toxic doctrine of global hegemony as its manifest destiny.
Ethiopian Civilization today is the African battleground in the struggle between white supremacy, conspiracy, belligerency, idiocy and lunacy on the one hand, and black African primacy, independency, democracy, resiliency, prophesy and decency, on the other.
Ethiopians value personal dignity and national sovereignty above life itself. That is why they have ALWAYS defeated white supremacy and kept their nation free and independent for over 3 thousand years!
In defending their dignity and sovereignty against an imperialist, neocolonial proxy war, Ethiopians from all part of the country — from shoeshine boys to old women in their 80s — volunteered by the hundreds of thousands to fight against the U.S.-sponsored terrorist TPLF.
Hundreds of thousands of volunteers who begged to join were turned back totally disappointed because the Ethiopian National Defense Force could not accommodate them.
America’s proxy terrorist warriors, the TPLF, had to force families to turn over one child at gunpoint and used child soldiers as part of its human wave military strategy making so many cannon fodder.
Ethiopia remained free of white colonial rule because every Ethiopian man, woman and child was prepared to lay down their lives to defend their country.
The U.S., after nearly 125 years of bilateral relations with Ethiopia does not know Ethiopians.
Now, it does.
There are two types of Ethiopians. A few that are willing to sell Ethiopia for thirty pieces of silver and 115 million who are ready to die for Ethiopia 30 times over!
The U.S. thought the real Ethiopians were the ones willing to sell Ethiopia for 30 pieces of silver. What a monumental blunder!!
Ethiopians believe their country is one of the oldest civilizations on earth.
Ethiopians believe they are unique and exceptional because they have never been colonized by white Europeans. Indeed, the Europeans who tried to colonize them got their behinds kicked, badly!
The United States of America was created in 1788 and is only 233 years old.
America is a young civilization and a land of immigrants.
America’s Constitution is a great charter of liberty writ large against tyranny.
As a civilization, Ethiopians see themselves as having a way of life unlike any others.
I have often written about “Ethiopian exceptionalism” to convey the idea that Ethiopia has certain unique and positive qualities that make it different (but in no way better or superior to any others) from other nations in the world.
That exceptionalism is best expressed in the verse “Ethiopia Shall Rise” written by the great Pan Africanist and first president of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah.
Nkrumah described Ethiopia as “Africa’s bright gem”, “land of the wise”, the “bold cradle of Africa’s ancient rule” and as “Africa’s hopes and destiny.”
Beyond Africa, Ethiopia is the cradle of humanity.
So says the Smithsonian and backs it up with irrefutable archeological evidence. “Ethiopia may well deserve the title Cradle of Humankind. Some of the most famous, most iconic hominid fossils have been discovered within the country’s borders. Ethiopia can claim many ‘firsts’ in the hominid record book, including first stone tools and the first Homo sapiens.”
I mean exceptional not only in the grand things of life such as the “Cradle of Humankind.”
I also mean exceptional in the ordinary things of life.
A reporter for the Mail & Guardian who visited Ethiopia in May 2018 yearned for a speedy return: “But the thing to return for with the greatest urgency is the country’s hospitable people. It is as though Ethiopians have been schooled in being pleasant. Coupled with their sense of humility is a stirring physical beauty. Their humility, hospitality and beauty make Ethiopians exceptionally civilized people.”
Ethiopian exceptionalism also in matters great for human civilization.
But for the Axumite king who welcomed persecuted Muslims, protected and refused to return them to their persecutors, Islam may not have survived. The Axumite king assured the survival of Islam as a religion.
The Aksumite kings of Ethiopia minted gold coins around 270 CE to conduct international trade and were big players on trade taking place on the Indian Ocean.
Ethiopia was the first civilization anywhere to use the cross of Christ on its coins around 330 CE, long before the Romans.
During the First Hijra, the Prophet Muhammad directed his persecuted followers “to leave Makkah and seek sanctuary in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) ruled by a Christian king, well-known for being a just and God-fearing man.”
Ethiopia is one of the few countries in the world where Christians and Muslims have lived side by side with mutual respect and appreciation for hundreds of years.
That is true even today despite the relentless efforts of domestic and foreign conspirators to create sectarian strife between members of the two religions.
How about Ethiopia’s Christian Civilization?
Ethiopia has a special place in the Old Testament.
Few are aware that Ethiopia is the first country mentioned in the Old Testament. “And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. Genesis 2:13, King James Version).
The “River Gihon” is none other than Abay River in Ethiopia. Foreigners call Abay “The Nile”.
It is on the River Ghion that Ethiopia today is building its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
The Ethiopian Bible is the oldest and most complete bible on earth written in the ancient language of Ge’ez which is still used today in the liturgies of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Coptic Orthodox Church.
The Ethiopian Bible is nearly 800 years older than the King James Version and contains over 100 books compared to 66 of the Protestant Bible.
Ethiopia is mentioned at least 38 times in the Bible.
In the Book of Psalms 68:31 is written, “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.” God always lifts those who stretch their hands to Him.
As far as I can ascertain, there are no European countries that are mentioned in the Bible except for Greece and Rome in the Epistles.
The 11 medieval monolithic Christian churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia built in the 13th-century as the “New Jerusalem” are a marvel of human ingenuity.
The Lalibela churches were hewn from solid blocks of rock with doors, windows, columns and roofs meticulously carved out and complemented with an extensive system of drainage ditches, trenches and ceremonial passages.
UNESCO described the Lalibela churches as “a gigantic accomplishment in engineering and architecture”.
In December 2019, a team of archaeologists uncovered in Ethiopia the oldest known Christian church in sub-Saharan Africa, dating back to “about the same time when Roman Emperor Constantine I legalized Christianity in 313 CE and then converted on his deathbed in 337 CE.”
Ethiopia had a highly sophisticated system of governance and administration long before America was conceived.
Indeed, when the English barons slapped King John with the Magna Carta, arguably the legal foundation for modern Western legal systems, in 1215 demanding that he subordinate himself to the “law of the land” (rule of law), Ethiopian kings were practicing the rule of law in the Fetha Nagast in 1240, 547 years before the U.S. Constitution was written (1787).
The Fetha Negast remained Ethiopia’s Constitution and supreme law of the land until it was replaced by the 1931 Constitution of Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is the only country in Africa with its own complete indigenous written alphabet and numerals and the only actively used native African writing system, still in use after 2000 years with a syllabary of some 500 letters.
Ethiopia has its own calendar with 13 months.
Ethiopia has its own native unique food grain unavailable anywhere else in the world. Some audacious Western companies even tried to patent it through bio-piracy.
Ethiopia was the only African country to sit on equal terms with the great powers of the world and became an original signatory to the Covenant of the League of Nations in 1922. H.I.M. Haile Selassie was the only world leader to address the League of Nations in June 1936 when Italy invaded Ethiopia.
After the European countries turned a deaf ear to his pleas, he said, “It is us today. It will be you tomorrow.” Three years later, the Nazi war machine began gobbling up Europe.
Between 1936-1941 during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, Ethiopia did not have a national leader.
The people and their local leaders waged the struggle against the Italian colonial enemy on their own. They did all of the heavy lifting against the Italian colonial army until H.I.M. Haile Selassie returned in 1941. Simply amazing!
Ethiopia was the only African country to sign the U.N. Charter in 1945.
Ethiopia was the only African country to become an original signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the Geneva Conventions in 1948.
Ethiopia was the principal architect of the Organization of African Union in 1963 which established its headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
In his autobiography, Nelson Mandela wrote Ethiopia “has always held a special place in my own imagination and the prospect of visiting… attracted me more strongly than a trip to France, England and America combined. I felt I would be visiting my own genesis, unearthing the roots of what made me an African.”
Ethiopia defeated the mighty Italian Army on March 1, 1896 in a battle that lasted for one-half day but reported as lasting two days.
Emperor Menelik II’s victory at Adwa has been described as “one of the great military campaigns of modern history.”
Italy’s defeat sent tectonic shockwaves throughout Europe. “How can barefooted African savages vanquish a modern European army in just a few hours?”
Menelik, befitting the great Ethiopian Civilization, did not mistreat the Italian POWs of Adwa. He pardoned and sent them back to Italy.
That was how the war on “savage” Ethiopia by “civilized” Italy ended!
The Battle of Adwa marked a watershed in the unraveling of European colonial exploitation and domination of Africa.
Adwa became a symbol not only for liberation throughout colonial Africa but also for African American liberation. To summarize:
Ethiopia stood in for Africa as a whole, Adwa fused this symbolic Ethiopia with the contemporary Ethiopian state in the minds and hearts of the African diaspora. It produced and proliferated a particular idea of Ethiopia in Pan-Africanist thought, one that saw Ethiopia as the vestige of black freedom in a world where black people – whether in the Americas, Europe, or Africa – were subject to racial domination and exploitation. Indeed, at the first Pan-African Conference in 1900 – where W.E.B. Du Bois uttered his famous statement that ‘the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,’ delegates declared the Ethiopian emperor a “Great Protector” of African peoples everywhere.
Ethiopia defeated Italy again in 1941.
Even in matters of daily life, Ethiopia’s contribution as a civilization is enormous.
Coffee that courses in the bloodstreams of billions of humans every day in every nook and cranny of the planet originated in the Kaffa region of Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Airlines, established in 1945 when nearly all of Africa was under colonial rule, is the premier carrier unrivalled in Africa for efficiency and operational success, turning profits for almost all the years of its existence.
When airlines of the world were shut down by Covid, on February 6, 2021, “Ethiopian Airlines carried the first COVID-19 vaccine shipment to Africa.” Ethiopian Airlines became the first responder for Covid in Africa.
When the world was gripped in fear with Covid lurking everywhere, it was the courageous pilots and employees of Ethiopian Airlines who laid their lives on the line and became Africa’s and the world’s first responder.
In February 2020, Ethiopian Airlines delivered the first Covid-19 vaccine shipment to Africa.
In April 2020, Ethiopian Airlines transported 3.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine from Shanghai to São Paulo, Brazil and saved lives.
On December 2, 2021, Ethiopian Airlines won “Best African Airline Award.”
Simply put, Ethiopian civilization operates in its own time and space.
Ethiopia is a different civilization.
Ethiopia is a civilization that holds a special place in the hearts and minds of all Africans.
Destroy Ethiopian Civilization and you will have destroyed African Civilization
Divide Ethiopia and you will have divided Africa.
Cripple Ethiopia and you will have crippled Africa.
Pull the plug on Ethiopia and the “Dark Continent” will be enveloped in darkness once again.
That is why I believe the U.S. and the E.U. and Western media will do everything they can to make Ethiopia their imperial/neocolonial battleground in Africa.
But with the Almighty on her side, it shall prevail.
Ethiopia Invictus (Unconquerable).
Africa Invictus.
Ethiopia free.
Africa free.
Ethiopia victorious.
Africa victorious.
Clash of White Supremacy v. Black Independency on the African Continent
If the Biden Administration wants to understand how Ethiopians feel about America TODAY, it must understand that Ethiopians view Ethiopian-U.S. relations as a bitter struggle between White Supremacy and Black Independency.
U.S. mistreatment of Ethiopia, its arrogance and hubris in trying to restore the TPLF and neocolonize Ethiopia, its contempt-filled orders to provide “unfettered access”, “negotiate with the TPLF without preconditions”, etc. are perceived by all Ethiopians as a manifestation of White Supremacy in Ethiopia.
White supremacy in Ethiopia has a unique history in Ethiopia.
The Austrian Nazi Roman Prochazka in his brief 1936 (same year Italy invaded Ethiopia) book, “Abyssinia: The Powder Barrel: A Book on the Most Burning Question of the Day” bitterly described Ethiopians’ utter contempt for white supremacy.
Prochazka’s basic argument in his book was that Europe should deal with Ethiopia, to choose a contemporary phrase, like a “s**t hole African country.”
Prochazka launches an angry attack on Ethiopians that predates the vilification of Jews in Germany in the late 1930s.
Prochazka describes Ethiopians as “vermin-ridden illiterates” afflicted by some of the worst vices of humanity. Prochazka proclaims,
The chief traits of the moral character of the Abyssinians are indolence, drunkenness, irresponsibility, a high degree of dissoluteness, perfidy, a thieving tendency, superstition, stupidly-proud selfishness, great skill in deception, ingratitude, impudence in demanding gratuities, and a degree of mendacity worthy of becoming proverbial.”
Prochazka vents, “The Abyssinians are a people without desire for knowledge or love of learning, and incapable of comprehending that what you are trying to do is for their good. What they want is a share of your possessions, and nothing else!”
He prescribes the only way to keep Ethiopia under European rule and prevent her from threatening European interests in Africa was to divide her along ethnic, tribal, linguistic and regional lines.
Prochazka was the first person ever to propose the idea of “self-determination” as a means to dismantle Ethiopia “not so much by military operations as by constant efforts towards establishing a friendly understanding with the border tribes and by proclaiming development, free of all barbaric oppression, under the rule of the native chiefs.”
Prochazka’s final solution for Ethiopia: “The present Ethiopian Empire is not fit and will presumably for many decades to come not be fit to develop or follow a policy of its own; and that to allow it to attempt to do so would be counter to the interests of all civilized nations and would seriously endanger the peace of the world.”
Having dehumanized, demonized, denigrated and vilified Ethiopians, Prochazka simply could not figure out how “vermin ridden and barbaric people” could be filled with so much self-confidence and audacity to believe white people are inferior to them.
Prochazka was deeply offended by the ostentatious self-pride of the “stupendously conceited Ethiopians” and angered by their defiance and contempt for white people.
Prochazka lamented:
As soon as the white man sets foot in the last sovereign native state of Africa, the foreigner realizes that he is not treated as an esteemed or welcome guest. In the country of the “Conquering Lion of Judah” the white man is looked upon merely as a tolerated alien. He is being looked upon with less and less regard as time goes on, – not without a measure of blame being due to the various white inhabitants of Abyssinia… It is hardly possible to imagine a more unhappy situation for a white man than to have to live under the oppression of an Abyssinian grandee. Everyone then feels entitled to look down on him and to treat him as they like, and he finally sinks to a condition of moral abjectness, robbed even of despair – the last source of strength left to human being. There are Greeks and Armenians that have been living for a long time in Abyssinia in this hopeless condition, a picture of utter misery to the human observer. (Bold face added.)
Prochazka bitterly complains about discrimination, mistreatment and abuse of white people by Ethiopians.
He is outraged by the fact that whites have a lower status than domestic servants and are legally precluded from property ownership. He complained:
Under Abyssinian law, a white man is not allowed to acquire property in real estate but remains entirely at the mercy of the arbitrariness and usual chicanery of the landlord or house owner whose property he is obliged to lease or rent. In his dealings with his servants, the European may not in any respect make the same claims or apply the same very necessary punishments, as the native.
Prochazka claims ordinary Ethiopians are totally disrespectful and contemptuous of whites. He is outraged Ethiopians treat whites like dogs.
It is common for natives to utter invectives at passing white men and women without the slightest reason and generally with impunity. The words “Koshasha” and “Ferenji usha” or “Netsh usha” (“dirty dog” and “dog of a foreigner” or ”white dog”) are often the first words of the Amharic language a foreign traveller hears. Among the Abyssinians the word “netsh” meaning “white” is a common term of abuse. The reason being probably that the white face is in some way associated with the painful white light of the glaring tropical sun and is therefore instinctively an object of dislike.
Discrimination against whites by Ethiopians is visible everywhere, according to Prochazka. “Even in the train which takes him from Jibuti in French Somaliland to Addis-Ababa, [the white man] has to pay the highest prices and a multiple of the fare charged to the natives.”
He is indignant over the fact that the “Abyssinian grandees [nobility], who spread themselves out in an overbearing manner with their often filthy and vermin-ridden clothing, in the first and second classes, are the lords in the land, and that there can be no question of the foreigner having equal rights with the native, still less of his being in any way entitled to preferential treatment.”
Prochazka also complains of legal discrimination in the way the rights of whites are subordinated to the lowliest Ethiopian citizen.
It is a principle that is universally observed in Abyssinia, to mete out judgment with two different measures. Natives who assault white people generally go unpunished, and many of them “escape”. But if ever a foreigner makes use of the right accorded to him by law to administer corporal punishment to his Abyssinian employees who cannot be kept in hand for long by patient treatment and warnings alone, he is at once hailed before the court.
Every Abyssinian has a deep-rooted conviction of the superiority of the Abyssinian soldier and army over the armies of the European colonizing powers of whose importance, size, and population the average Abyssinian has but the vaguest conceptions; and this conviction is strengthened of course by the memory of the Battle of Adowa (1896).”
Ethiopians had utter contempt for white supremacy 86 years ago when Prochazka wrote his little book and that contempt remains intact today!
Today, the U.S. is offering the Ethiopian people and their leaders of Ethiopia the Prochazka Prescription.
They must submit to white supremacy and surrender their sovereignty or they shall perish in a blitkrieg of sanctions, economic warfare, global disinformation and campaign of demonization.
Prochazka wrote:
The leaders of the Ethiopian Empire have to choose between either at last fitting in with the system of European influence in Africa, willingly serving cultural progress and civilization by loyal co-operation with the white peoples, or – urged on by senseless resentment and racial mania – carrying to extremes a disastrous policy which can merely exaggerate all the causes of antagonism between the coloured and the white peoples and thus lead to a poisoning of the international atmosphere, to the serious detriment of civilized and peaceable progress in the world….Nothing but the dominion of white races can maintain order and security in Africa, and ensure progress and development in the native population. To establish and to strengthen this dominion is work done in the service of world peace. The threatening signs of a coloured rising in all parts of Africa call urgently for decisive action.” (Italics added.)
The “Other Face” of Ethiopians
When America declared independence in 1776, Edward Gibbon, the great historian of Western civilization, wrote of the need to defend the Ethiopians, then called “Abyssinians, an unwarlike people from the Barbarians who ravaged the inland country and the Turks and Arabs who advanced from the sea-coast in more formidable array.”
Gibbon wrote the Abyssinians were interested in a “rational project of importing the arts and ingenuity of Europe; and their ambassadors at Rome and Lisbon were instructed to solicit a colony of smiths, carpenters, tilers, masons, printers, surgeons, and physicians, for the use of their country.”
In 1896, Rome did not send a “colony of smiths”. Rome sent a colonial army to subjugate Ethiopia. That colonial army suffered ignominious defeat at the Battle of Adwa.
Gibbon was right. Ethiopians have always been about three things: PEACE, PROSPERITY and PROGRESS!
In 2021, America sends homegrown terrorists to fight its proxy neocolonial war in Ethiopia. America threatens so send its “Red Dragon” military force to invade Ethiopia.
The outcome of American imperial and neocolonial ambitions will be no different than Italy’s in 1896 and 1936. DEFEAT at the hands of patriotic Ethiopians.
But the U.S. should know Ethiopians are an “unwarlike people”.
Ethiopia is open for business not only for “colony of smiths carpenters, masons and surgeons” but also startup technology companies and foreign direct investments in all sectors of its economy.
But Ethiopia is ABSOLUTELY closed for the business of meddling in its internal affairs, lies and disinformation and sanctions and threats of punitive measures by self-appointed caretakers of Ethiopia.
Ethiopia today is a beacon of peace, prosperity and progress in the Horn of Africa and all of Africa
Ethiopia is led by Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace Laureate, the 100th person to receive the award since the establishment of the prize in 1895, the same year colonial Italy declared war on Ethiopia and was defeated at the Battle of Adwa in 1896.
Ethiopia is constantly looking for opportunities to strengthen peaceful relations with its neighbors, the U.S. and all countries who respect its integrity and sovereignty.
Ethiopia knows its peace cannot be preserved if her neighbors are at war.
In August 2019, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed played a central role in bringing together different factions of the Sudanese government to a power sharing agreement preventing civil war in Sudan.
Ethiopia has an army of peace, not war. The TPLF declared war on Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) is an army that is never the aggressor but a defender against unjust wars.
The ENDF did not go into Tigray to occupy or impose its rule.
The ENDF went into Tigray for the single purpose of enforcing the law, to apprehend and bring to justice the leaders of the criminal insurrection that attacked the Northern Command and to establish peace and uphold and enforce the rule of law.
The world is witnessing a clash of civilizations in Ethiopia-U.S. relations
I believe the massive outrage expressed by Ethiopians in the country and in the diaspora against the U.S. is a manifestation of Ethiopian civilization culturally asserting itself and its values against Biden’s misguided imperialism and neocolonialism.
Huntington was right!
Under the leadership of PM Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopians believe they are a beacon of hope and prosperity for Africa and have a strong role to play in the Horn region and beyond.
The rise of Ethiopia with China – the alliance between Ethiopian Civilization and Chinese Civilization — is perceived by the Biden administration as a significant threat to the historic hegemony of America and the West in Africa in general.
In the clash of civilizations, Ethiopian-U.S. relations will continue to deteriorate. Simultaneously, the affinity between Ethiopian and Chinese Civilizations will continue to become stronger.
That is the mandate of history.
Within the framework of Huntington’s “clash of civilization”, Ethiopia and China as non-Western societies share common goals of economic development.
The U.S. has deprived Ethiopia of a choice anyway.
China offers a welcome embrace to Ethiopia as the U.S. tries to break Ethiopia’s back with its childish and vindictively punitive sanctions, global disinformation campaigns and state-sponsored terrorism on behalf of the TPLF.
I regret to say there are few areas of cooperation left between Ethiopia and the U.S. Very few indeed!
Ethiopians no longer share the Biden administration’s concern for human rights, democracy, good governance, etc.
They view them all as crocodile songs to justify meddling in Ethiopia’s internal affairs, and trojan horses for implementation of its imperialist and neocolonialists ambitions.
On December 9, 2021, Biden opened his Summit for Democracy.
Talking about democracy recently, Biden said, “We have fewer democracies in the world today than we did 15 years ago. Fewer — not more. Fewer!”
But how democratic is the U.S.?
According to World Population Review, the U.S. did not even make the top ten cut of democratic countries in the world. The U.S. was dropped from “full democracy” in 2016 to “flawed democracy” in 2020.
Ethiopia was not invited to Biden’s “demo-hypocrisy” party. What a magnificent way Biden has chosen to increase the number of democracies in the world!
I am not sure Ethiopia would have attended Biden’s democracy dog and pony show had it been invited.
Suffice it to say, Ethiopia a few months ago had an election certified by the African Union “as free and fair”. Not a single shot was fired during or immediately after the election. A rare event in Africa.
But as Biden points an accusatory finger at Ethiopia, he fails to see three fingers are pointing at him and at American democracy which is in deep crises.
The November 2020 presidential election is still being litigated in American state courts!
Republicans in state legislatures are using redistricting to disenfranchise African Americans and other minorities.
Restrictive laws are passed in many American states aimed at suppressing and diluting the voting power of people of color in America.
Ethiopia rejects Western universalism, the view that all civilizations should adopt Western values.
Ethiopia has its own “civilization consciousness” about human rights, democracy, etc., to borrow Huntington’s phrase.
Ethiopia has its own identity which transcends Western values.
Let’s face it. Times have changed.
Non-Western countries are increasingly showing they have the desire, the will and the resources to shape the world in non-Western ways.
The U.S. must accept the fact that the future of Ethiopia and Africa and non-Western world will not pivot on the central axis of Western hegemony.
The increasing power of non-Western civilizations will define the future of global politics and economics.
Ethiopia and the U.S. at the crossroad: Still time to mend fences between Ethiopia and the U.S.
It is best for the U.S. to reassess its relations with Ethiopia and restructure its relations by understanding the cultural fundamentals of Ethiopian Civilization built on personal dignity and national sovereignty.
Bob Dylan said, “When you ain’t got nothing, you ain’t got nothing to lose.”
Ethiopia, compared to America, is poor and some may feel it ain’t got nothing to lose.
But Ethiopia has something more valuable than all the money in the world: DIGNITY and SOVEREIGNTY.
Without dignity and sovereignty, neither a person nor a nation has anything of value.
I say to the Biden administration, let’s mend fences before it is too, too late.
Let’s bury the hatchet and the TPLF together and on that graveyard build a harmony of civilizations!
Let’s not cast to the East wind relations built over 120 years.
We can get along as equals, as sovereigns and as peoples with shared goals for the good of humanity.
The ball is in Biden’s court.
He can play a game of Chicken Little and chicken brinksmanship and try to plunge Ethiopia into economic and political turmoil.
That, like all of the intrigues and conspiracies the U.S. has undertaken over the past year to sabotage Ethiopia, will FAIL!
Ethiopian, on whose behalf the great historian of Western Civilization Gibbon testified, are “an unwarlike people who are interested in a rational project of importing the arts and ingenuity of Europe; and their ambassadors at Rome and Lisbon were instructed to solicit a colony of smiths, carpenters, tilers, masons, printers, surgeons, and physicians, for the use of their country.”
Change Europe to America and Gibbon’s description holds true today.
As I have said time and again, there is no power on earth that can stop Ethiopia from taking its rightful place in the African Sun.
There is no need Ethiopia-U.S. relations should remain in the darkness because of the intrigues and wicked schemes of Susan Rice, the DUCHESS OF DARKNESS!
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest.”
In my own verse:
Ethiopia is a land of dignity
America a land of liberty
We can come together in unity
After all, Ethiopia is the cradle of humanity.
America must respect Ethiopia’s sovereignty
Treat its citizens with respect and dignity
It is the only to avoid enmity
And live in beautiful mutuality.
Ethiopians don’t need no white supremacy
They will die to maintain their independency
Ethiopians are committed to human rights and democracy
But not the kind enforced by white supremacy.
Two great civilizations can live together
In equality and sovereignty as sister and brother
Ethiopia, the cradle of humanity
America land of the brave and fraternity
We can partner together in dignity.
TO BE CONTINUED…
POSTSCRIPT:
Many American friends have asked me about my “sudden” and “radical” change of views on U.S. foreign policy. They ask me “You spent so much of your time doing grassroots advocacy in Congress and writing about American democracy and defending its Constitution…, why have you become so bitter?”
Righteous indignation should not be misconstrued as “bitterness”.
America was a beacon of liberty to me. I once cherished it as the last best hope of humanity.
When the Biden administration cast its fate with the terrorist TPLF, I knew I could not save the last best hope of humanity which has chosen the path of insanity.
Then, I cast my fate to uphold my Ethiopian dignity.
I, an immigrant, who lived in America for over one-half century, defended its Constitution in the courts of the land with pride and dignity and taught tens of thousands of young Americans in the intricacies of American constitutional democracy yet had barely lived 18 years in Ethiopia when caught in a clash of civilizations and forced to choose, I chose my Ethiopian dignity over my American liberty.
It is a choice I never imagined I would have to make.
But I gladly chose my Ethiopian dignity over my American liberty because I was born and raised in a great civilization, a society that placed personal dignity and national sovereignty above life itself. I could not help it.
A nation plagued by poverty may be rich, infinitely rich in dignity while a nation wallowing in prosperity may suffer a poverty of dignity.
The great Miguel de Cervantes, author of “Don Quixote”, arguably the world’s best work of fiction, said, “A man without dignity is worse than dead.”
I say, a life without dignity, like Socrates’ unexamined life, is not worth living.
When the Biden administration stood with the TPLF and prosecuted its proxy war on Ethiopia, it spat on my face – let me be crude — pissed on my dignity.
The very dignity that is in my genes.
I am righteously indignant, but not bitter against America.
I love America just as much as I love Ethiopia.
I am lucky to have Ethiopia and America as a mother.
If the U.S. Constitution represents the essence and greatness of America, then for my unflagging defense of the Constitution, even in the face of the equal protection of the law mandate of the Constitution being mangled and distorted and denied to people of color in America, I shall be considered among the leading Americans alive.
Truth be told, I am bitter against the Biden administration who is manipulated to do wrong in Ethiopia by the Princess of Darkness Susan Rice.
The Biden administration (manipulated by Susan Rice) has degraded the dignity and sovereignty of Ethiopia, the “cradle of humanity”.
Phylogeny determines progeny. Dignity is the one common gene in the Ethiopian genome.
Sovereignty is the one common gene in the Ethiopian body politics genome.
A man or a woman has dignity.
A nation’s dignity is its sovereignty.
Susan Rice and her Gang of Four refuse to acknowledge Ethiopia is a land and a civilization of dignity whose citizens will defend with their lives their country’s sovereignty.
What a pity! Susan Rice’s Gang of Four has no clue Ethiopia is a civilization, NOT a country.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said, “Truth is with us. We shall be victorious. Because we do our work armed with the truth, the God of Ethiopia will help us.”
To that I will only add the Almighty will make our enemies our footstools!
TO BE CONTINUED…
