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Professor
Asmerom Legesse’s A
historical Analysis and Psychological Profile of
Emperor Yohannes IV
Professor
Desta, Asayehgn
As a student in high school, it
was unfortunate that I had no opportunity to relate and apply my studies
to my locality or Ethiopia at large, because I was schooled under the
curriculum and books written for the British colonies in East Africa.
Given this, I resorted to rote memory all the subjects I sat for the
Ethiopian School Leaving Certificate Exam (ESLCE), needed for the entrance
to the Ethiopian University.
When I entered the Addis Ababa University, I had to
register for the interdisciplinary courses in Ethiopian studies that were
mandatory requirements for the General Education core. I
vividly remember the textbooks that gave me groundwork and offered
me thought-provoking and meaningful learning experiences. Included were: Donald
Levine’s “ Wax and Gold: Tradition and innovation in Ethiopian
Culture” (1965), William
Shack’s “The Gurage: A People of the Ensete Culture” (1969), Richard
Pankhurst’s “Economic
History of Ethiopia” (1968), and Mesfin
Woldemariam’s “ An
Introductory Geography of Ethiopia” (1968).
In retrospect, I would say that
the instructors who taught me the introduction of Ethiopian Studies
courses were not only well-prepared but also caring. They went beyond
their call of duty to give me challenging feedback and sharpened my
critically thinking. Furthermore,
in contrary to the conventional socialization process I had undergone in
both primary and secondary schools, the instructors of the courses in
Ethiopian studies provided me with the necessary tools to critically
examine the status quo and realize that Ethiopia was a mosaic, inhabited
by distinct historical cultures, and a land of linguistic groups.
My interaction with talented and
knowledge driven students from different ethnicities, social class
backgrounds, and involvement in student government and extra-curricular
activities served me as eye-openers and gave me meaningful learning
experiences to master the Ethiopian landscape. Still, I cherish what I
gained at the university in Addis Ababa as part of my personal growth and
development.
In addition, the nine-months in
the Addis Ababa University Service Program that I had to go through before
my senior year helped me to seriously examine the various class
disruptions and student demonstrations, allowing me to objectively reflect
on the relevance surrounding the content of the various socialist-based
slogans that students were uttering at the university. Painfully, I
arrived at the conclusion that, except for our demands for land reform, I
actively helped the organizers of the demonstration in collecting factual
information about land ownership around Worailu, Wello, where I was
teaching, and thereby got me arrested
until I was pardoned by the then Emperor Haieselassie; I
found the other student demands that we verbalized over the years at the
university in Addis Ababa were irrelevant to bringing fundamental changes,
instead they cause upheavals and disharmony in Ethiopia. Thereby, I
resorted reading and assessing the relevance of democratic values to the
Ethiopian socio-political system.
Upon consultation with two of the
university professors of Ethiopian Studies who supervised me while I was
engaged in the Ethiopian University service at Dawrewa, Eritrea,
for the first time, I learned that some Ethiopian societies practiced
democracy starting in the 16th century. One professor who came
to supervise was kind enough to bring to my attention that the Oromos of
Ethiopia used a full-fledged egalitarian democratic system, or Gada,
to govern themselves. For further reading, on the Oromo Gada system, the
professor referred me to read Professor Asmerom Legesse’s (hereafter
referred to Asmerom) research on the Oromo Gada system of egalitarian
democracy.
Except what I read here and there,
or heard about Asmerom’s piece of work, it took me a while to get
Asmerom’s book: “Gada: Three Approaches to the Study of African
Society (1973). To understand in depth about Asmerom’s research, I
registered to take the emic (insider’s) and etic (outsider’s)
qualitative anthropological research methods offered by well-known
anthropology instructors at Stanford University of California. Since then,
I would say that Asmerom’s work still resonates and remains entangled in
my mind. I am happy and thrilled to see that my former employer, the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, (UNESCO)
has adopted and displayed the Gada system as one of the world’s
intangible heritages. I am sure that many member countries of UNESCO will
draw great lessons from the African Oromo Gada system of democracy.
Having said that, I was looking
for the time when Asmerom would be at liberty to supervise research that
focused not only on the etic (outsider’s) approach but use the emic-based
(insider’s perspective) anthropological methodology to investigate
democratic practices that prevailed within the Wajarate people of Tigray,
Ethiopia. I am sure that this would have been a golden opportunity for
Asmerom to take his study to heart, and without a direct interpreter, use
Tigrigna as a vehicle to investigate the Wajarate people’s democratic
culture.
As a footnote, I need to be
intellectually honest to mention that I found Asmerom’s earlier study
about the Oromo Gada democratic culture slightly flawed. Instead of using
an emic anthropological qualitative methodology, Asmerom only relied on
etic perspective because he was not well versed in Afaan Oromo. He relied
too much on an interpreter and maybe he involved his hyphenated Oromo life
partner at the time to help him identify the prevalence of Democracy
within the Oromo culture of Ethiopia and Kenya.
Put differently, it needs to be
understood that the emic perspective requires knowledge of local language
to communicate and do participant observation to understand the culturally
acceptable ways of the local realities and possibly mitigate potential
researcher’s obtrusiveness and bias. On
the other hand, the etic anthropological perspective that Asmerom heavily
used to study the Oromo Gada system was focused on the study group from
the outside, and then systematically analyzed the collected data to arrive
at a conclusion. That is, I am
sure Asmerom would agree that his study would have been more authentic had
he used emic in conjunction with the etic approach.
In recent times, it is unfortunate
that Asmerom has been demonstrating some deviations from sound and
rigorous academic work. As convincingly stated by the Eritrean Movement
for Democracy and Human Rights, Asmerom unfortunately is in the process of
displaying some type of “Intellectual dishonesty”. He has ended up
becoming one of the speakers and apologists for the brutal regime of
Isaias Afeworki (EMDHR, August 2016). In addition, without using any sound
methodological framework, I am astonished to see that Asmerom is
galvanizing a political propaganda and deep hatred towards the Tegaru and
drawing psychological profiles of dead heroes, like Emperor Yohannes IV.
It is quite surprising to hear
that Asmerom’s claim that the impregnable hero, Emperor Yohannes IV, use
to suffer from “inferiority complex,” or lacked self-esteem, because
during his reign, Emperor Yohannes used Amharic rather than the Tigrigna
language as the official language of the Ethiopian Empire,. In addition,
Asmerom asserts that Emperor Yohannes IV used Amharic in the palace and
daily life. At this juncture, what could be said is that had Asmerom
thoroughly referred to the Ethiopian History, he could have known in
advance, that is before he opens his mouth to articulate this nonsense,
that Amharic was made as the national language during Emperor Tewodros’
(1855-1868) era rather than during Atse Yohannes IV’s (1872-1889)
period. Consequently, Emperor
Yohannes IV, as wise as he was, diligently pursued the footsteps of
Tewodros using Amharic rather than Tigrigna as a national language.
Leaving aside Asmerom’s hub hazard argument, it is worth underling that
because Emperor Yohannes IV prudently followed the footsteps of Emperor
Tewodros, he wisely maintained stability and pursued the integration of
the then, the semi-federated Ethiopia Empire.
Though it is very
trivial, Asmerom’s characterization that Atse Yohannes IV suffered from
inferiority complex syndrome seems to be contrary to the interview he gave
to President Isaias’s propaganda machine, the ERiXpress, on April 20,
2019 about his family’s guiltlessness. During the interview process,
Asmerom outrightly praised Emperor Yohannes IV for releasing members of
his family from prison because they were arrested by the Orthodox Church
for being indulged in the translation of the Holy Bible from Geez to
Tigrigna. Alas, when we compare Asmerom’s
earlier statement that Emperor Yohannes IV was suffering from
“inferiority complex” with the positive excitement that he expressed
about Emperor Yohannes’ positive verdict that he
gave about his family member’s
innocence, we
rest the case that Asmerom is losing his sense of
judgment or Asmerom seems to be undergoing through sign and symptoms of
diminution. If not, he should have told his viewers that some members of
his family were arrested and persecuted by the Orthodox Church not because
they were translating the Bible from Geeze to the Tigrigna language, but
unfortunately they were attempting to introduce a foreign religion (most
probably, Protestantism) to the country.
Leaving aside Asmerom’s
illusionary and ahistorical statements about Emperor Yohannes IV,
authoritative political historian Dr, Ghelawdewos Araia ascertains that
Emperor Yohannes IV is the greatest ruler and depicts him as the hero of
heroes in Ethiopian history. He brilliantly put,
…inferiority complex cannot
at all depict the greatness Emperor’s persona; this Emperor, after all,
was courageous, defiant, and no nonsense king of kings when it comes to
the defense of Ethiopia; he led battles in which he crashed the Ottoman
Egyptian troops at Gundet (1875), and Gura’e (1876), and routed and
defeated the Italians two times; first at Sehati in 1885 and then at
Dogali (led by his General Ras Alula) in 1887. A person with the highest
sense of self-sacrifice cannot suffer from inferiority complex (Araia,
April 30, 2019).
It is shameful that Asmerom
charges Tegaru as evasive in nature and he gives his advice that the
Eritrean brother and sisters shouldn’t honestly deal with them. Although,
going one step further, he presents his arm-chair panacea that if the
existing conflicts between Tegaru and the Eritreans is at all to be
resolved permanently, Asmerom strongly asserts that both Eritreans and
Tegaru need to undergo through a thorough conflict resolution process.
Understandably, except for the
summer vacations that he used to go to Asmera and wander aimlessly through
the beautiful streets, starting thirteen years of age, Asmerom grew up in
the fortunate neighborhoods of Dessie, Addis Ababa, Kampala (Uganda), and
then in the United States of America. Given this upbringing, one wonders
why Asmerom has volunteered to be re-socialized and live in Eritrea under
servitude of the murderous government that has no regard for human rights.
Thus, we can say that Asmerom is ignorant of the deep relationship that
exists between Eritreans and Tegaru. For minor family disagreements that
might arise among members, Asmerom should be aware that except from
1998-2018, no major irreconcilable differences existed between Eritreans
and Tegaru. Blood wise, they are brothers and sisters.
What is more, as he claims, if
Asmerom was a student of the honorable Woldeab Woldemariam, he should have
remained polished enough to show decency to Tegaru. After all, the
Honorable Woldeab Woldemariam was a strong proponent of Tigray-Tigrigne
because he believed that Eritreans and Tegaru are endowed with inalienable
blood linkages.
A case in point is, for about
twenty years (1998-2018) the boarders between Eritrea and Ethiopia
remained closed. Recently, without any official protocol, the borders
between Ethiopia and Eritrea were opened. I don’t know if Asmerom’s
eyes were open; we saw that thousands from both sides: Eritrea and
Ethiopia, flocked to see their relatives, loved ones, and friends. From
this obvious case, Asmerom should have an understanding that though
leaders have been deliberately using irresponsible propaganda for the last
twenty years to create permanent enmity, from their heart, Eritreans and
Tegaru know they are brothers and sisters. That is why, they fought
together the war of insurgency against the atrocious Dergue and finally
marched victoriously together into Addis Ababa in May of 1991.
Once more it is worth mentioning
that it was perplexing for me to hear from the interview Asmerom
unashamedly asserted to ERiXpress ( April 20, 2019), that if Ethiopia had
ultimately defeated the Eritrean forces during the during the 1998-2000
war conflict, the late Prime Minister Meles had the desire to install
Tegaru in the Eritrean power structure. It is sad that Asmerom had closed
his mind to what everybody knew and what was ascertained by the then
Eritrean Foreign Minister, Halie (Deru’e) Weldetensae, that the Eritrean
forces were overpowered. If the late Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles did
not call for the withdrawal of the Ethiopian forces from Eritrea, the
Ethiopian forces would have easily marched to Asmara and then relieved the
Eritrean people from the agony of suffering under the yoke of Isaias’
authoritarian leadership.
Finally, Asmerom claims to be a
human rights advocate because he did a survey research that dealt with the
Eritrean deportees from Ethiopia. I strongly empathize with the 1998
Eritrean deportees. It is my stand that the Ethiopian Government should
haven’t deported the Eritrean citizens without allowing them to undergo
the substantive due process of law stipulated in the Ethiopian
Constitution. Though Asmerom has titled it: “A Scientific Survey of
Ethnic Eritrean Deportees from Ethiopia Conducted with Regard to Human
Rights Violations”, I feel that the word “Scientific” is a misnomer.
Asmerom’s research is highly emotional. For example, Legesse (February
22, 1999) states that “…[the] purpose of the study is to examine
whether and what kind of human rights violations have been committed in
the process of those deportations”.
If Asmerom was to pursue a scientific point of view, in his
introduction, he should have objectively documented why the Eritreans were
deported and narrated the deportation process. Once
that was systematically established, Asmerom could then review the
literature and establish a theoretic framework to systematically analyze
whether the Eritrean deportees faced human rights violations.
Similarly,
though not part of his research endeavor, Asmerom emotionally defends that
no atrocities were committed on Ethiopians living in Eritrea by stating
that “…in contrast to the mass deportations from Ethiopia, Eritrea has
a declared policy of not harassing or expelling the larger Ethiopian
population that lives in its territory.” Obsessed by emotions and
personal feelings, Asmerom (February 22,1999) stated that the United
Nations (UNDP, UNICEF) and the US
State Department, have “nearly” established that there was no
“significant or extensive evidence of human rights violations on the
Eritrean side or that most Ethiopians who left Eritrea did so voluntarily
or because of changes in the labor market,” (Legesse, February 22,
1999).
Although
Asmerom attempts to give the impression to his readers that he followed
the scientific method to conduct his research, the finding and methodology
indicate that the so called “research” was purposely selected to prove
his point and to defend the indefensible and reprehensible crimes and
failures of his patron regime (EMDHR,
August 2016). In reality, the testimony given by the Human Rights
Watch Eritrea & Ethiopia (June 1998 – April 2002) documents that the
Eritrean
authorities insisted that the departure of the 21,000 Ethiopians from
Eritrea were voluntary. Nonetheless, the Human Rights Watch cleverly
narrates that the Eritrean Government used too much coercion against
Ethiopian residents in Eritrea. Many of the Ethiopians deported from
Eritrea to Ethiopia complained upon arrival that they faced beatings,
rape, and the confiscation of their properties. Furthermore, those
Ethiopians who stayed over forty years and were either given permanent
resident cards or, if they wished, they could be Eritrean citizens. Still,
these groups remain under surveillance and their daily activities are
monitored.
To
conclude, instead of voluntarily undergoing oppression and
conducting a historical and unscientifically research, if mental sound and
age does not catch up, it is
high time that Asmerom goes back to apply the hallmarks of scientific
investigation techniques in conjunction with intellectual ethical standard
to thoroughly investigate the reasons why Eritreans are forced to live “
…behind
one of the world’s fastest-emptying nations: a country of about 4.5
million on the Horn of Africa, governed by a secretive dictatorship
accused of human-rights violations,” (Matina Stevis and Joe Parkinson,
Feb. 2, 2016). To
reiterate, rather than being the defender for an autocrat, let us hope
that Asmerom wakes up one day and makes concerted efforts to
rescue the subdued Eritrean masses.
References:
Araia,
G. (April 30, 2019). “Asmerom Legesse’s Babbling Stereotype Against
the People of Tigray.” Institute of Development & Education for
Africa, Inc. Retrieved from Https://www.africanidea.org/
Asmerom_Legesse_Babbling.htm/.
Legesse,
A. (February 22, 1999). “A
Scientific Survey of Ethnic Eritrean Deportees from Ethiopia Conducted
with Regard to Human Right Violations. Retrieved from dehai.org/conflict/uprooted/uprooted2.html,
accessed 5/30/2019.
EMDHR,
Eritrean Movement for Democracy and Human Rights (August 2016).
Stevis,
M. and Parkison, J. (February 2, 2016). “African Dictatorship Fuels
Migrant Crisis: Thousands Flee Isolated Eritrea to Escape Life of
Conscription and Poverty”. The Wallstreet Journal.
Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/artices/eritreans-flee-conscrpition-and
-poverty-adding-to-the-migrant-crisis-in-europe-1445391364.
Human
Rights Watch Eritrea and Ethiopia (June 1998 – April 2002). “The Horn
of African War: Mass Expulsions and the Nationality Issue.” 350 Fifth
Ave 34th Floor New York, N.Y. 10118-3299. Retrieved from http://www.hrw.org.
(212) 290-4700 1630.
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