The Torsion in the Horn

By Aschalew Kebede Abebe

It didn’t begin after the arrival of the colonial power in Africa. The situation is best described in an Amharic saying, “A Cactus that is close to a thorny bush, Agam, will leave forever weeping.”

The horn of Africa, which consists of four countries Ethiopia, Eretria, Djibouti and Somalia, is depicted on the world map as a rhinoceros horn. The whole coastal area from the Red sea to the Indian ocean passes through Bab-el-Mandeb reaching the Gulf of Aden to the left.

As the Arabic meaning of Bab-el-Mandeb, the gate of tears, describes the window to see the politics of the horn opens right there. There are so many variables that make the political equation so complex to be solved in the region. On top of the internal power struggles and the environmental deterioration, so many foreign invasions and conquests were conducted in this region.

It started soon after the death of prophet Mohamed. The conquest started with the caliphates and then came Ottoman Turks followed by British, Italian and French. At the beginning of the new millennium there was an African gathering in Addis Ababa. It was about reparation. Among the African diaspora there were some who brought into attention the question whether Ethiopia should get the reparation money for slavery and colonialism, because Ethiopia has never been colonized.

A beautiful answer was reflected in that meeting which says, “since Ethiopia was engulfed by colonial powers which are French, British and Italian, it was breathing colonial air and became suffocated. So, Ethiopia is eligible to raise the question of indemnity money for black people suffrage in slavery and colonialism.”

Ethiopia has been breathing suffocated air since the caliphate’s time. Soon after the Axumite lost its territory in Yemen the trade route started to be compromised because of the caliphates. Ethiopia and Eritrea are unique countries where all the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, introduced and preached peacefully.

After the death of prophet Mohamed and the rise of the caliphates 632 A.D., the coastal area across the red sea starting from Yemen to Saudi Arabia and all the way to Egypt was controlled by the caliphates. This also includes Jerusalem (Israel).

Ethiopia and Eritrea have strong historical and cultural relationships with Israel, Yemen, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria. For millennia, from the time of queen Sheba and king Solomon up to the present-day Ethiopia has had land possessions in Israel (Jerusalem). And the Ethiopians managed to build churches on these lands.

When the caliphates took over Jerusalem (Israel) Ethiopia’s interest was compromised. When Egypt was taken by the caliphates and later by Salahudin the Ethiopian Orthodox mother church in Egypt fell under the rule of the caliphates. From the 9th century onwards thousands of Egyptian Christians fled to Ethiopia and settled in the present-day Eritrea, Tigray and Amhara regions.

In 1187 A.D. When Salahudin expelled all Easter Christians from Jerusalem that included Ethiopians, they had to flee and temporarily settle in Cyprus. But later the then king of Ethiopia, Lalibela, pursued Salahudin and the Ethiopians managed to get back to their possession.

When the cursed war was in favor of the Saracen a myth started to circulate in Europe. It was about a mythical Christian king by the name Prester John who lives beyond the Muslim’s border. That definitely implicated the Ethiopian. Ever since then that left the Muslim world to feel anxiety about the existence of the Ethiopian kings.

The caliphates were taken over by the Ottoman Turks. The Abyssinian (Ethiopian) kings fought with the Ottoman Turks joining the then Bahir Negash (Today’s Eritrean) rulers. Ever since the 16th century the Ottoman Turks’ incursion could somehow manage to control the coastal area of Eritrea and its islands.

In the 16^th century, Ethiopian lowlanders were getting help from Ottoman Turks and the Highlanders from the Portuguese. In Coming the aid of the Highlanders and searching for the mythical king Prester John, Christopher Da Gama the son of Vasco Da Dama and military leader of the four hundred musketeers killed by The Adal sultanates in the coastal area of Afar and Somalia.

After the Ottoman Turks then the British, French and Italian showed up in East African horn politics. When the British first came into contact with Ethiopians military wise during the reign of emperor Theodoros II, the French were trying to persuade   the king of Tigray Kassa Mircha (Yohans) and the British with king Menelik of Shewa.

The reason for the British to send thirty thousand soldiers, mostly Indian, to Ethiopia to fight emperor Tewodros was a gift from Queen Victoria. Emperor Tewodros sent letters to Queen Victoria expecting a letter from an emissary that heralds cooperation and alliance between the two countries. In return he received a gift, a Persian carpet, delivered by Corens from Great Britain.

On the carpet; an Arab killing a lion with the aid of the European army was depicted. The king interpreted it that the lion represents Ethiopia and the European army is none other than the French. Then he said,” When the Arabs are killing Ethiopia, where is the British army?” Following this he imprisoned all white people in his kingdom. And then the British sent an army to free them and in the war the emperor killed himself.

Even though the British army didn’t stay in Ethiopia for long, the Italian came and took Eritrea as its colony. Along with southern Somalia, Eritrea remained an Italian colony until both gained their independence. The French took Djibouti and Somaliland was taken by the British. Both Sudan and Egypt were in the British domain.

All these three colonial powers during their stay in the horn of Africa were practicing the divide and rule policy. This policy may be defined as” The conscious effort of an Imperialist power to create and/or turn to its own advantage the ethnic, linguistic, cultural, tribal, or religious differences within the population of a subjugated colony.”

The whole essence of this policy is diminishing enemies into smaller groups and avoiding a united front. In doing so It fosters division, making preexisting division lines very bold… Anything that divides a united front is a means to its end. During colonization hate speech was used to dehumanize and justify the subjugation of colonized people.

For instance, in Eritrea there is a road in Karen which is called “Kem lbi Tigray” (Twisted like a Tigrayan (Ethiopian one) heart. The high land of Eritrea is inhabited by Tigrigna people, as is the north part of Ethiopia. These two people are the same in culture, the division was crafted when Eritrea was colonized by Italians.

This hate speech was boldened during colonial times. Imagine the enmity such hate speeches foster for the present generation. The fascist Italian did a lot of propaganda to dehumanize the Amharas and they succeeded. Continually the same thing has been propagated for the past fifty years by the Eritrean People Liberation Front (EPLF), Tigrayan People Liberation Front (TPLF), Oromo Liberation Front (OLF)…But EPLF took the first step to ask for an apology. Although Africa is free for at least more than half a century, the enmity seed that was sown during the colonial era has now ripened and we kill each other even without knowing the root cause.

Now European countries are coming out to ask for an apology for the crime they committed during the colonial era; German, Belgium and Great Britain took the initiative. It is one thing to acknowledge the crime committed against humanity, but that isn’t enough. For their divide and rule policy still actively creating deadly wars, Africa needs to be compensated.

The reparation could be paid in different ways. It could be paid in facilitating platforms to up root the very cause of continuous war so that peace prevails, by building infrastructures that connects regions in Africa that alleviate poverty, debt reliving…All these equity measures should be taken so that Africa can have equal pace in building the global economy and become beneficiary too. Stable and prosperous Africa can give to the world thousand-fold more than the unstable one.

In 2021, the German government agreed to pay 1.1 billion euro for Namibia for the Herero-Nama ethnic group genocide which was committed during its colonial rule. In a way it is exemplary because the money goes into existing aid programs. The money shouldn’t end up in the pocket of corrupt African leaders. Otherwise like we see in the Ethiopian case the leaders will buy drones and armaments, and continue killing their own people.

It is sad to see a prime minister in the seat of the African Union who brags about using the capital budget of the country, ten billion dollars, into war machines.  This man, Abiy, who is a diplomatic dwarf in East Africa is on the verge of taking the horn into a chaotic abyss.

As the saying goes “Where angels fear to tread fools rush in.” Ethiopia, given its history and being located near to the Red sea which is a very delicate place, faces a lot of challenges that compromise its existence.  Alkaid, Al-Shabaab, the Shia – Suni war orchestrated by Saudi Arabia and Iran, the drift of running Ethnic based politics…make the political equation difficult to be solved. And prime minister Abiy wants to be a catalyst of destruction between the shear forces and the torsion in the horn.

It is imminent that the world is going to be a global village. All the sciences and technology, human evolution in searching the common ground, religion as a knotting point…proves the same assertion. Very soon humanity will be born into space. The agony is while other brothers do so we are still fighting following the political dwarfs who can’t see further than the length of their height.

The question is what do you want the horn to be? And what do you want to be called in it? Self-awareness takes the lead in answering these questions. Know your history. With all the pushes and pulls we have in the region an answer can’t come from an individual, it must be from the collective effort; no need for a messiah, “we are the leaders we have been looking for”.

Our ancestors managed to control Yemen, but their descendants in Yemen, the same Axumite people are called Akdams (The Servants) and these people are the most discriminated and deprived. The Arabs call them Abduls (Servant or Slave). In the streets of Jerusalem, the racists call the Beta-Israel Koshi (Nigro).

So, the question is again, by what name do you want to go in the horn? And how can we change the torsion in the horn into something productive? It starts with finding the great denominator…

Aschalew Kebede Abebe

Metro Vancouver, Canada