On Jan. 3, 2009 , the legendary Mahamud Ahmed will be in San Diego at a benefit concert organized by St. Gabriel Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Ticket are sold in San Diego at local Ethiopian restaurants, shops and cafes.
(For those of you who are out of state or may not make it for this event but want to help St. Gabriel Independent Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church, you can send your donation to the church and Mahamud Ahmed will announce your name during the concert. Church address is: 4808 Trojan Avenue, San diego, CA 92115).
Above:Michael Ince, River Bird Landing, 2008, black locust
wood, southern yellow pine, stone, glass, 84×96x36 inches.
(Photo: Zabby Scott).
Source: Skoto Gallery
New York - Skoto Gallery will present Visionaries and Outcasts, an exhibition of recent works by Michael Ince (USA), Olalekan B. Jeyifous (USA/Nigeria) and Pefura (France/Cameroon). The reception is Thursday, December 4th, 6-8pm and the artists will be present.
Despite their varied traditions and personal cultural backgrounds the three artists in this show respond to the challenges of developing strategies of survival and resistance in emerging societies, and in the process create aesthetic forms that respond to the consequences of political, economic and social crisis caused by policies of international financial organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank. Each of the artists explore issues such as the deterioration in standard of living, environmental degradation, renewable energy, unemployment and migration that are likely related to the contradictory result of globalization due to policies that force these societies to devalue their currencies against the dollar; lift import and export restrictions; balance their budgets and not overspend; and remove price controls and state subsidies. This has led to the formation of mass movements and protests in every continent as people organize to combat the pillaging of lands, resources and livelihood.
Michael Ince has always been motivated by a deep connection to nature, but over the years, the ability of social and economic policies to impact the natural world and its endangered state have become central to his practice. His sculpture installation River Bird Landing, 2008 is elegant in its poetic evocation of the fragility of our ecosystem as a result of the undermining of environmental rules and regulations. His forms, reduced to its essences are derived from nature and culture, and still suggest the actual objects to which they refer. They are the product of much thought and simple design that are meticulously crafted. He grew up in Brookhaven, Long Island where, when not in Paris, he lives with his family on a small farm surrounded by buildings of his making, planting carrots, rearing chickens, making prints and drawings, and birding. A 1964 graduate of Bowdoin College, he traveled to India as a Peace Corps, and has subsequently returned on a major pilgrimage. He is widely exhibited in galleries around the US and in Paris; and in several collections.
Olalekan B. Jeyifous draws from his background as an architect to create works in digital media that are expressive of architectural considerations and the vicissitudes of life that continue to shape and reflect the changing contours of urban landscapes such as the favelas of Brazil, overpopulated cities such as Lagos, Mexico City or Mumbai, as well as areas such as the oil-rich Niger Delta of Nigeria.
Above:Olalekan B. Jeyifous, The Outer-City Settlement, digital media on
paper, 40×60 inches.
His work does not seek to assert formal solutions to spatial problems, but instead exists as a vehicle for social critique and establishing unique visual languages, ultimately striking the balance between design informed by the notion of industrial production and design informed by the practical and psychological needs of the inhabitants of “contested” spaces. He was born 1977 in Ibadan, Nigeria, and graduated from Cornell University School of Architecture, Art and Planning, Ithaca, New York in 2000. Recent exhibitions include Studio Museum in Harlem and The Kitchen, NYC 2008, The Drawing Center, NYC 2006, International Architecture Biennale, Rotterdam, Netherlands 2005, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC 2003.
Pefura’s portraits of African immigrants living in the Parisian suburb of Montreuil are pleasingly complicated, and merge themes of race, migration and social identity with personal experience and art-historical references. They are layered with profound sociopolitical subtexts, combine painterly gestures of expressionism with the critical distance of conceptual art and provide insightful understanding of the human condition. Pefura was born 1967 in Paris to Cameroonian parents and obtained a diploma in Architecture from Ecole d’Architecture, Paris-Tolbiac in 1999. He has actively practiced as an artist since the early 1990s and is widely exhibited in Africa, Europe and USA. Residencies include Cite des Arts Internatiionale, Paris in 1999 and La Source – Atelier V. Guerolde in France. Collections include Fondation Guerlain, Paris and Conseil General de l’Europe, France.
Inside Oakland’s Albo African Gift shop, at the corner of Alcatraz and Telegraph, a deep herbal aroma wafts from a row of colorful bottles labeled ‘frankincense.’ Ethiopian Singer Hamelmal Abate’s mournful vibrato pours out of the stereo, crooning over an incongruously lively beat, while the store’s owner, Genet Asrat, sits behind the counter, her black sweater brightened by a bold patterned scarf with a yellow border. The phone rings nearly continuously, and Asrat switches back and forth between English and Amharic as she fields calls, raising her precisely-arched eyebrows and flashing a big, quick smile as she taps away at her keyboard.
The store is filled with baskets, scarves, jewelry and clothing in brilliant shades of orange, red, pink and purple. The walls are lined with African-themed carvings and paintings. Customers come in to browse racks of T-shirts and books with African themes. And while T-shirts are the store’s big sellers, the repeat customers, like the young man who stands shyly by the door until Asrat beckons him forward, are immigrants who come to the store to wire money back to their families in Ethiopia, a service Asrat offers at less than half the price Western Union charges.
Businesses like Asrat’s may provide a touch of the exotic to the neighborhood, but for Ethiopian immigrants, they create a familiar space, and serve as a valuable link to their native country. Some of the phone calls, Asrat explains, are from customers looking for help booking flights home. Asrat doesn’t just a keep a shop or send remittances. “I’m also a travel agent,” she says. Many immigrants, she says, “don’t have the know-how” to look for discounted tickets online and are uncomfortable working with an English-speaking agent. “It’s easier for them, and it’s convenient for them to call and buy them from me.”
Meanwhile, Asrat’s old friend Fetlework Tefferi — whose businesses, Café Colucci and Brundo grocery store, are located to either side of Asrat’s shop – works to source spices from businesses in Africa that use organic ingredients and employ women. “I want to help women preserve their culinary heritage,” says Tefferi, an energetic woman who runs between Colucci and Brundo donning and removing a pair of rubber gloves while supervising the cafe’s redecoration, signing forms, and tasting new batches of spices.
Businesses like these make North Oakland a hub for the Bay Area Ethiopian community, even though neither census data nor anecdotal evidence indicates there is a particularly high concentration of Ethiopian immigrants living in the neighborhood. “They live everywhere,” says Tefferi. “They just have their businesses on Telegraph.”
Inside Oakland’s Albo African Gift shop
According to the 2000 census, there are 1,444 foreign-born Ethiopians in Alameda County, and 228 living in north Oakland, although Rebecca Lakew, program director at the Ethiopian Community Center in Oakland, says that number is much too low. Some of the discrepancy may come from how people answer census takers or fill out government forms, Lakew says. “A lot of Ethiopian people, the people who are here as immigrants or refugees, they don’t say they are from there,” she says. “They mark ‘other’ or just ‘black.’”
Along with Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta and Houston, the Bay Area has one of the largest Ethiopian populations in the United States. Lakew estimates the number of Ethiopians in the Bay Area to be at least 20,000, and says the largest community event, the annual Ethiopian New Year festival, can draw as many as 40,000 people from Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose. “Every year it grows,” she says.
Large waves of Ethiopians began migrating to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, as the political and economic situation in Ethiopia deteriorated. Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, and was immediately faced with a series of counter-coups, uprisings and border skirmishes. In 1977 – 1978, Mengistu attempted to crush opposition with a massacre known as the “Red Terror,” during which human rights groups estimate as many as 500,000 people were killed, tortured or disappeared by government-sponsored militias.
Mengistu continued to spend heavily on the military, especially to counter rebellions in the country’s north. When a devastating series of droughts and famine hit the country in the 1980s, the government was ill-prepared for the crisis, and nearly 1 million Ethiopians starved to death in 1984 and 1985.
Mengistu was forced to flee the country in 1991, and the first multi-party elections were held in 1993, but problems in Ethiopia continue to push people to emigrate. “There is a lot of corruption, there are no jobs, the standard of education is low,” says Lakew. Many look for opportunities abroad, she says, for the same reasons as emigrants from anywhere in the world. “They have to eat,” she says. “They have to work, they have to support their families.”
The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program — which provides 55,000 Visas each year to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States — has opened up greater possibilities for Ethiopians wishing to immigrate. Nationally, Ethiopians have consistently been among the top groups receiving these visas, topping the list with 3,427 visas in 2005.
Lakew refers to the Diversity Visa program as “fortunate, but unfortunate.” Applicants are required to have either a high school diploma or at least two years experience in a skilled occupation, but many face still face high barriers when they arrive. “It’s the language, the lack of experience, even the cultural difference. They have a culture shock,” says Lakew. “The moment you arrive in the states, you expect everyone to be there for you. And they’re not.”
Newcomers are forced to rely on friends and relatives, and on community agencies like the Ethiopian Community Center, which provides job, housing and heath-care referrals, and works with Laney and Peralta college to get immigrants into English classes and career training.
This disorientation helps to explain why Ethiopian immigrants, no matter where in the Bay Area they live, congregate along Telegraph Avenue. “It’s creating a community in a way,” says Tefferi. “I think immigrants do that as a matter of course. We want to be all in the same neighborhood, so in case something happens, we can all be together, help each other.”
When Sheba Ethiopian restaurant opened on Telegraph in the 1980s, Tefferi says, local Ethiopians started going there to eat, and liked the area. The university, in particular, was a “natural draw,” Tefferi says. “Ethiopians congregate around schools. It’s like prestige, education.”
The diversity of the neighborhood was attractive as well, says Asrat. “It was very open, very international, it was very easy to mix.” So Asrat opened her shop in June 1991, and Tefferi followed, opening Café Colucci about two months later. “It just happened,” both Asrat and Tefferi say. “We congregate,” says Tefferi. “And the competition is not even spoken of as such.”
Tefferi, who lives in San Francisco, says she loves coming to work on Telegraph. “It’s like traveling to Ethiopia–I come here and it’s like I’m home,” she says. “I feel very complete when I’m here. I’m surrounded with the music, the spices, the food. I have the best of both worlds, and I’m always thankful for that.”
—-
In line with the regulation of the Civil Aviation Authority of Israel, any commercial flight is required to notify the Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) ten minutes before entering into the country’s air space.
Accordingly while the flight crew was trying to communicate with the Israeli Air Traffic Controllers there was misunderstanding in communication. As a result, the ATC has held the flight for 18 minutes until they confirmed that the aircraft was in fact Ethiopian Airlines flight ET-404/24 November 2008.
There after, the flight was cleared to land at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv as per its schedule. The passengers were also handled smoothly as usual.
Ethiopian has been operating to Tel Aviv since 1998. Currently it operates four weekly flights to Tel Aviv.
About Ethiopian Ethiopian Airlines, one of the largest and fastest growing airlines in Africa made its maiden flight to Cairo in 1946. The airline currently serves 53 destinations around the globe, 33 of which are in Africa.
In 2008 Ethiopian was the recipient of the Corporate Achievement Award from Aviation & Allied Business, the Brussels Airport Marketing Award on its long haul service, and Best Airline in Africa from the Africa Travel Award-Nigeria. In 2006 and 2007 Ethiopian also won awards as the African Airline of the Year 2006, Africa Business of the Year 2007 and Ghana Business and Financial Award 2007 from the African Aviation, the African Times/USA and the Government of Ghana respectively for its outstanding performance in the commercial air transport industry.
Ethiopian will be the first carrier to operate the 787 Dreamliner in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
Read the press release at Ethiopianairlines.com.
IAF jets scrambled to intercept unidentified plane
“Ethiopian aircraft pilot fails to identify himself on way
to Israel, apparently due to technical error in radio. Israel
Air Force jets identify plane, leading it to safe landing at
Ben Gurion Airport.”
Ynetnews.com
Eli Senyor
Published:
11.25.08, 08:00 / Israel News
Two Air Force jets were scrambled to intercept an Ethiopian plane approaching Israel’s airspace without identifying itself Tuesday morning.
The civilian aircraft, carrying some 200 passengers on its way to Israel, failed to follow safety regulations and did not identify itself, apparently due to a technical error in the plane’s radio device. Read More.
IAF jets scrambled to intercept unidentified plane
“Ethiopian aircraft pilot fails to identify himself on way
to Israel, apparently due to technical error in radio. Israel
Air Force jets identify plane, leading it to safe landing at
Ben Gurion Airport.”
Ynetnews.com
Eli Senyor
Published:
11.25.08, 08:00 / Israel News
Two Air Force jets were scrambled to intercept an Ethiopian plane approaching Israel’s airspace without identifying itself Tuesday morning.
The civilian aircraft, carrying some 200 passengers on its way to Israel, failed to follow safety regulations and did not identify itself, apparently due to a technical error in the plane’s radio device. Read More.
First Black Social Secretary Discusses Her New Job and
the Obamas
Cynthia Gordy
POSTED: NOVEMBER 25, 2008
Born and raised in New Orleans, Desiree Rogers knows a thing or two about throwing a party. The high-powered Chicago woman and longtime friend of the Obamas was named this week as the first African-American White House social secretary. She formerly served as president of social networking for Allstate Financial, and as president of Peoples and North Shore Gas. She will be responsible for staging every event or ceremony that occurs at the White House. Rogers, 49, talked to ESSENCE.com about how the Obamas plan to make their mark on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
ESSENCE.COM: What’s the first event you will be responsible for?
DESIREE ROGERS: Some of the inaugural events. We’re just getting started working on them, so I can’t really discuss it, but that’s the first series of events I’ll be working on. The first event we will have in the White House is the governor’s ball in February.
ESSENCE.COM: How long have you known the Obamas?
ROGERS: Probably about 20 years-Michelle, I’ve known for about 20 years. I met her through her brother, Craig Robinson. My ex-husband played basketball with him in college.
ESSENCE.COM: As a longtime friend of the Obamas who knows their personal tastes, what kind of affairs do you think they’ll want to have at the White House?
ROGERS: I think it will be important in this economic climate to be responsible, so we will certainly be thinking about that in any events that we have. At the same time, we want to be celebratory. This is history in the making. Americans have come together, as in no other time that I can recall, so there’s something to celebrate. There’s some value in bringing people together, and forming relationships with people-as President-elect Barack Obama has said, we have more in common than not. We will be creating opportunities where people can come together and celebrate the arts, cultural events, intellectual events, everyday events, like picnics with children. Michelle wants to be very involved with the work and family balance, as well as celebrating our military families.
Above:(Emperor Haile Selassie in his study at the palace in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - 1942. (Wikimedia Commons - Public
Domain)
By Ayele Bekerie
Published: Thursday, November 20, 2008
New York (Tadias) - Emperor Haile Selassie ruled Ethiopia for almost sixty years. He ruled Ethiopia as an autocrat, as an absolute ruler. His absolutist approach to power blocked sustainable reform movements that were intended to transform Ethiopia from a feudal to a modern polity. His absolute and long rule also resulted in his downfall and the end of the monarchy. I argue that absolute power is prone to endless war and conflict. It encourages rebellion, protest and banditry. Few intellectuals were courageous enough to criticize his style of rule. It took a massive uprising of students and soldiers, at the end, to irreversibly challenge the autocracy. Unfortunately, the absolutist culture he aggressively pursued is still with us. In fact, endless and senseless wars have frustrated economic, political and social development in Post-Haile Selassie Ethiopia.
To his credit, Emperor Haile Selassie presided over the establishment of institutions intended to usher modernization in the country. He established modern schools, universities, and military, naval, air force and police academies. He even donated one of his palaces to the first university in the country: Haile Selassie I University. He supervised the opening of transport, health, and recreational, financial institutions comparable to the institutions of the modern world.
In the international front, he defended the sovereign rights of Ethiopia at the then League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland in 1937 after Italy brutally invaded and occupied Ethiopia. He succeeded in uniting Eritrea with Ethiopia in 1951. In the same year, he formally broke the long tradition that allowed the Coptic Church of Egypt to appoint Egyptian Patriarchs for the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
The Emperor on the cover of Time Magazine, 1930.
(Wikimedia Commons - Public Domain)
“Ethiopia under the Emperor was a considerable force within the newly formed Non-Aligned Movement and a respected voice at the United Nations, preaching on issues of international morality and justice.” (BTT, 131-132)
Visit of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia on the United States Navy ship, USS Qunicy
in Great Bitter Lake, Egypt., February 13, 1945. (Wikimedia Commons - Public Domain)
In 1963, Ethiopia hosted the gathering of the heads of state and government of independent African states, which led to the signing of the charter to establish the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Emperor Haile Selassie chaired the first gathering of the African leaders. The Emperor played key role in the creation of the Pan-African organization. The creation of the OAU is a significant policy shift for Ethiopia. Royal solidarity is substituted with African Solidarity. The brutal invasion and occupation of Ethiopia by Italy for five years triggered his shift in orientation.
“The Emperor’s prestige and the prominent role that he started to play in international diplomacy led to Addis Ababa being chosen for the site of the headquarters of UN/ECA.” (BTT, 128)
Selassie in Jerusalem (between 1920 and 1946). Photo taken either by the American Colony
Photo Department or its successor, the Matson Photo Service. (Wikimedia Commons - Public Domain)
In 1972, he donated 500 acres of land in Shashemene to Ras Tafarians who repatriated to Ethiopia. The Emperor appeared on the front cover of Time magazine as the person of the year twice. He was recognized as an influential world leader with remarkable impact on Africa and the United Nations. The Emperor was flown to Camp David with President John F. Kennedy when he visited the United States in 1963. In 1966, he made a historic visit to Jamaica where the Rastafarians greeted him as their messiah.
Haile Selassie photographed during a radio
broadcast. Published between 1940 and
1946 by the United States Office of
War Information. Public domain.
His list of achievements, however, is overshadowed by his persistence to maintain a system of rule that frustrated dissent and reform. In 1974, an army created and organized by the Emperor carried out a revolt against his rule. He was deposed unceremoniously and a year later declared dead and buried in the palace of Emperor Menelik II. The last Emperor’s remains were later interred and buried at the Trinity Cathedral side by side with his wife, Empress Menen.
Haile Selassie’s legacy is both good and bad. His strong ambition to modernize Ethiopia failed to materialize fully because of his insistence in maintaining an absolute monarchy. Ethiopia’s rich legacy of independence and history remained incarcerated in a system that favored the royalty, nobility and few other dignitaries. The vast majority of the people were condemned into lives of serfdom, tenancy and abject poverty. Land belonged, in the main to the monarchy, the church or the nobility.
The Emperor did not come to power by legitimate means. In fact, he colluded with Shoan nobility to overthrow the heir of Emperor Menelik II. Lij Iyasu Mikael, the grandson of Menelik II was chosen for the crown and he was in his third year of rule when he was forced to abdicate under fabricated accusation. Later the legitimate king was killed. The same fate would fall on the Emperor in 1974.
The Emperor was the only child to his mother, Yeshimbet Ali, who died when he was eighteen months old. The Emperor was the only survivor; nine of his siblings died at birth. He was raised by a nurse and later home schooled by Jesuit missionaries, including Abba Samuel, who taught him French.
Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie in February
1934. Photo by Swiss pilot and photographer
Walter Mittelholzer (1894-1937).
(Wikimedia Commons - Public Domain)
The Emperor amassed enormous wealth and attempted to rule as a benevolent king, as a father figure, as the Conquering Lion of Judah, who rewarded loyalty and obedience and severely punished dissent. He made himself the major beneficiary of modernization, which was seen as antithetical to tradition.
The Emperor’s notion of Ethiopia is too narrow and did not allow the inclusion of the diverse Ethiopian population with their religions and languages. Christianity is privileged at the expense of other monotheistic traditions or indigenous religions. Languages are also suppressed thereby placing non-Amharic speakers at a great disadvantage.
Tafari Makonen, who was born in 1892, descended from the Shoa ruling dynasty of King Sahle Selassie, who claimed affiliation to the Solomonic Dynasty. Tafari Makonen became a governor of a district at the age of 13 with a rank of Dejazemach. In 1911, he married Empress Menen Asfaw, the grand daughter of Negus Mikael Ali of Wollo and the father of Lij Iyasu, the grand son of Emperor Menelik II and his heir. Tafari’s father, Ras Mekonnen Wolde Mikael was the cousin of Menelik II. His grand father Wolde Mikael was a nobleman from Tigray.
Tafari Mekonnen was elevated to a rank of Ras in 1916, the same year when Lij Iyasu was removed from power.
In 1930, he was crowned as the 225th Emperor of Ethiopia at the age of 37. In 1931, he issued a constitution that helped him to consolidate power. The constitution stated that the person of the Emperor is sacred, his dignity inviolate, and his power incontestable. It codified the supreme power of His Imperial Majesty, articulating his authority over all decisions and matters in Ethiopia. (BTT, 118)
The 1930 coronation was promoted and advertised throughout the world – Haile Selassie sent invitations to emperors, kings and presidents throughout the world. (Layers of Time, p. 205) The image of the coronation reached Jamaicans in the Caribbean. Its symbolism in relation to their colonial oppression was powerful enough to spark what later became the Rastafarian movement, a movement that defined Haile Selassie as a messianic figure.
The 1935 Italo-Ethiopian War made Emperor Haile Selassie one of the most popular and revered personalities in the African world. And yet Haile Selassie’s weak leadership and shortsightedness not only contributed to the quick defeat of the Ethiopian army and occupation of the country by the Italians.
Haile Selassie placed his faith in the League of Nations and European royal families. He resorted to all-out diplomacy and negotiations with the colonial powers. He deemphasized the need to prepare military for the war, even after he found out about Italy’s extensive preparation and decision to invade and occupy Ethiopia. Haile Selassie and his advisers learned no lessons from Emperor Menelik’s successful defense of Ethiopia’s sovereignty at Adwa in 1896. Internal dissension and perpetuation of absolute rule exposed the country and its people to naked aggression and rape by the Fascist Italian forces. In fact, Italy used weapons of mass destruction against innocent and defenseless Ethiopians.
Emperor Haile Selassie Speaking Before the League of Nations. (June 30, 1936)
Resistance fighters regarded Haile Selassie’s retreat and flight out of the country as a disgrace. Ethiopian patriotic forces were opposed to his retreat and some of these patriots were eliminated when Haile Selassie regained his monarchy with the help of the British army. Haile Selassie’s flight may have helped him to regain his power but the failure of his leadership finally came to an explosion during the 1974 massive upheaval.
Some suggest that Haile Selassie, like Charles DeGaule of France, managed to lead resistance forces from exile. His refusal to abdicate his throne and his campaign at the League of Nations in Geneva to expose the Italian atrocities in Ethiopia were regarded as indicators of a positive leadership. To his credit, Haile Selassie’s speech at the League of Nations was a prophetic speech; he predicted the fall of Europe and the rise of Nazi/fascist forces. (The Autocrat, p. 204) “If Europe reckons this matter to be an accomplished fact, then it is proper to consider this fate which awaits it and which is bound to come upon it.” (The Autocrat, p. 302)
However, other writers contend that Haile Selassie was at the mercy of his host country in exile – Britain, which decided to break ranks with Italy only after the plea of Mussolini not to ally with Hitler of Germany failed. When Britain felt its interest in the Horn of Africa was threatened by Italy’s new alliance with Germany, and then she decided to go to War against Italy. Haile Selassie was a pawn in the power game of Europe and failed to understand the motives of European countries like Britain and France.
“Ethiopia’s dismemberment was sought between 1906 and 1913 during the last years of Emperor Menelik II. Britain, Italy and France have reached agreement to rearrange Ethiopia thereby dividing up the territory into their respective sphere of influence.” (Markakis)
Pan-Africanist leaders, such as Jackson and Huggins were critical of the Ethiopian leaders, whom they characterized as living in a ‘racial fog.’ Their criticism is expressed in the following manner:
“The Ethiopian leaders still believe that they are of the White race, and so believing they doubly indict themselves. For, if they were of the White race, then in the nature of oppression, which they placed upon the Blacks, they should have been dispossessed long, long ago. But they have not read history alright. They did not read between the lines of the pseudo-scientific verbiage, which classified them as ‘White.’ They should have seen the crass fallacy, of such verbiage. They did not have sufficient psychology, or ordinary common cause, to understand that the ‘White complex’ drilled into them, paved the way for Europeans to get the inner-peace-time control of the country and finally, in a war, to utterly rend them and cast them aside.”
Haile Selassie’s policies ultimately forced Ethiopians to single-handedly face their enemies. His European ‘friends’ abandoned him or offered help that was not consistent with Ethiopia’s interest but with their colonial interests in the region.
A significant consequence of the Italian invasion, on the other hand, was the reawakening of the Pan-African movement globally. It paved the way for Ethiopia’s greater involvement in African affairs. In these respects, the War represented a critical watershed in aiding to ‘re-Africanize’ Ethiopia.
The Emperor managed to rule for almost sixty years, but in the process he also managed to bring the monarchy to an end. His lack of vision to modernize the monarchy itself contributed to its demise. In Post-Haile Selassie Ethiopia, there are struggles on many fronts to put the principle of unity in diversity into practice. The positive image of Haile Selassie, however, still lives on in some circles. The Rastafarians have turned him into a global religious-cultural icon through their ‘reasoning’ and lyrics.
About the Author: Ayele Bekerie, an Assistant Professor at the Africana Studies and Research Center of Cornell University, is the author of the award-winning book “Ethiopic, An African Writing System: Its History and Principles” (The Red Sea Press, 1997). Bekerie’s papers have been published in scholarly journals, such as ANKH: Journal of Egyptology and African Civilizations, Journal of the Horn of Africa, Journal of Black Studies, the International Journal of Africana Studies, and the International Journal of Ethiopian Studies. Bekerie is also the creator of the African Writing System web site and a contributing author in the highly acclaimed book, “ONE HOUSE: The Battle of Adwa 1896-100 Years.” Bekerie’s most recent published work includes “The Idea of Ethiopia: Ancient Roots, Modern African Diaspora Thoughts,” in Power and Nationalism in Modern Africa, published by Carolina Academic Press in 2008 and “The Ancient African Past and Africana Studies” in the Journal of Black Studies in 2007. Bekerie appears frequently on the Amharic Service of Voice of America and Radio Germany. He is a regular contributor to Tadias Magazine and other Ethiopian American electronic publications. His current book project is on the “Idea of Ethiopia.”
Above:Assegid Gessesse at Green Desk in Brooklyn’s
DUMBO neighborhood, Tuesday, November 18, 2008
(Tadias)
By Tadias Staff
Published: Friday, November 21, 2008
New York (Tadias) - The Green Desk Wall Space, in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood recently exhibited Assegid Gessesse’s spirited mixed media prints. “Working in a style that is both abstracted and photographic, Assegid, creates works of atmospheric beauty and emotional poignancy,” writes Gabriel Abraham, Production Designer and Art Director, in his short review of the artist’s work. “His work uses graphics, drawings, photographs and news clippings to create layers of images that evoke history, mythology, mystery and beauty along with conflict of dislocation and alienation.”
“I am a memory tourist,” Gessesse says referring to our favorite print entitled ‘Addis Abeba’ - a vivid collage reflecting architecture, the urban/rural dichotomy, and use of space.
Addis Abeba by Assegid Gessesse
“All the iconic images, including the Volkswagen, that are incorporated in that work are what I remember as a child. The woman represents the city. ‘Addis Abeba’ for me is a women. And the spelling is intentional, that’s the way I think Addis Abeba should be spelled. ”
Born in 1964 in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, and trained in Canada as an Artist and Designer, Gessesse draws from both African and Western influences - a blend of classical, secessionist, and contemporary. He has exhibited his work extensively in North America and Africa, and was recently commissioned by the Open Society Institute’s East Africa branch to create a series of images under the theme “Freedom Now.” Gessesse currently resides in New York City.
Reviewing Gessesse’s current exhibit, Abraham notes: “By definition, ephemeral, the quality of Assegid’s prints recalls the fleeting nature of life, and most importantly, memory. His prints eloquently capture the transience of diaspora, recollections of the past, preserving only hints of a moment in time, while allowing all but the scene’s essence to fade into abstraction. Assegid gives a particularly touching commentary on the passing of time and life.”
If you missed the Brooklyn show, you have another chance to view or purchase the art work at Settepanni’s in Harlem (196 Lenox Ave at 120th street, 917.492.4806). The show will be on display for one more week.
Above:Seyoum Shikuto shares a pastry with Yonas Eyassu,
left, at Dama Pastry & Cafe in Arlington, a hub for Ethiopians,
the day after the election. (Photos By Jahi Chikwendiu)
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 13, 2008; Page VA19
Ethiopian immigrants, who make up the largest contingent of African emigres in the Washington area, often gather after work at cafes such as Dukem’s in the District or Dama’s in Arlington to watch televised soccer, listen to lilting songs in their native Amharic language and rehash arguments about the ongoing political turmoil in their native Horn of Africa.
But ever since the night of Nov. 4, when Barack Obama clinched the presidency, the laid-back establishments have been buzzing with excitement, pride and purpose. Cabbies finishing their shifts greet each other with hugs and high-fives. Barflies are glued to televised replays of Obama’s victory speech. In the buzz of Amharic chatter, every other words seems to be “Obama.”
“He’s a descendant of Africa, like we are, so this means a great deal to all of us. But it’s not only because he’s black. It’s because of his message and his example,” said Donato Spinaci, an Ethiopian restaurant owner in the District who hosted several fundraisers for Obama’s campaign. “This election will open the door for all Americans, from every country, to become whatever they want.”
At Hailu Dama’s cafe and bakery on Columbia Pike, a social hub for Arlington County’s Ethiopian American community, last week’s election-night partying lasted until dawn, and the ebullient mood has continued.
“This has electrified our community like nothing I have ever seen,” said Dama, who came to the United States from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 30 years ago and is one of Arlington’s best-known immigrant entrepreneurs. “For the past eight years, America’s beacon of hope has grown dimmer and dimmer, but suddenly it seems brighter. We can’t stop celebrating.”
As sons and daughters of Africa, Ethiopian immigrants said, they had a special reason to savor the victory of Obama, whose father was Kenyan. More than 20,000 Ethiopian emigres live in the Washington area, along with thousands of their U.S.-born children. Many are longtime refugees who have become U.S. citizens. Immigrants from neighboring Eritrea and Somalia are also numerous and increasingly engaged in local politics.
In the summer, Spinaci and other African-born restaurant owners hosted fundraising events for Obama, contributing thousands to his campaign. A local group was formed, Ethiopians for Obama, which led campaign caravans to neighboring states and posted a promotional video on YouTube in Amharic.
“Many of us came to this country seeking freedom from dictatorship. We love democracy, but we never dreamed we would see an African American win the presidency,” said Binyam Yinesu, 49, a regular at Dama’s cafe who co-manages a gourmet shop in Alexandria. “Now, maybe America will have a foreign policy that does not help dictatorships in countries like mine.”
Ethiopia has been embroiled in decades of violent conflict, often involving Somalia and Eritrea, that has resulted in several million deaths and prompted hundreds of thousands to leave their country. In the past, U.S. administrations related to the region largely through the prism of anti-communism, propping up ruthless allied regimes, critics say.
Recently, Islamic radicalism has added a new element to the volatile mix. A brutal Islamic militia, forced from power in Addis Ababa, is terrorizing civilians. Dama, a Christian who fled Ethiopia’s wars in 1974, said many of his relatives and friends back home filled churches the night before the election, praying for Obama’s victory.
In addition to hopes that Obama would bring relief to their troubled homeland, cafe patrons said, his campaign theme of inclusiveness had touched them as immigrants and members of a racial minority who have staked their futures here.
“We don’t expect change to come overnight, but we will all get more respect now as African Americans. Obama will not only be an American president, he will be a world president,” said Getachelu Zewdie, the manager at Dukem’s restaurant on U Street NW, which was filled with Ethiopian songs, chants and dancing on election night.
“We’re ecstatic,” said Acham Mulugeta, 35, an education consultant. “His message has wiped out the idea that you can’t succeed if you’re black. This is not about color or policy or where you were born. It is about reaching across lines and working hard and getting things done. It is about unity. Yes we can, and yes I can,” she said.
As Mulugeta spoke, a knot of men around the coffee bar stared intently at TV replays of Obama’s victory speech and listened with rapt appreciation as Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga..) emotionally recounted his experiences in the civil rights movement, when police clubbed and dragged off unarmed demonstrators in the South.
“When I went to vote on Tuesday, it felt like when people in South Africa were voting for the first time for Nelson Mandela,” said Yonas Eyassu, 34, a U.N. employee from Eritrea who was sitting at the bar. “This is history. It is a great message of change, not just because I come from Africa, but for everyone.”
NAIROBI, Kenya: The U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia has warned American citizens against taking part in the Great Ethiopian Run because of the threat of terrorism.
Friday’s message says embassy staff and their families should not to take part in the 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) race set for Nov. 23. The message followed an unspecified terror warning from the Ethiopian government about the race featuring tens of thousands of runners from Ethiopia and around the world. The race is led by distance great Haile Gebrselassie.
The message did not say if the event was named as a specific target but reminded U.S. citizens of deadly bombings this year in the capital, Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia is fighting insurgent groups and supporting the U.N.-backed government in Somalia.
Though she was an African, she was a citizen of the world.
In Africa, particularly, the sorrow was too much to bear. Makeba was not fondly known as Mama Afrika for nothing. She had come to be an embodiment of the African cultural heritage. Her music transcended the artificial borders that divide the African continent.
From the backstreets of West Africa and East Africa to the hallowed halls of the African Union in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, Mama Afrika’s music has always been at home.
She was true to her African roots in that she successfully managed to share her African music with the world. She was indeed, one of the pioneers of what has come to be known as world music, but with a distinctively African feel.
Makeba’s career path should serve as a guidance and an inspiration to the current crop of African musicians and future generations. The lesson she has left behind is that African music can borrow from other genres, without losing its identity.
Another important aspect is the message in her song. In the true spirit of African heritage, Mama Afrika’s music entertained and caught the attention of listeners without the use of vulgar language. Nowadays production of good music has been supplemented with vulgarism. Obscene language is erroneously described as ‘artistic’. What a shame.
The last lesson Makeba has bestowed on the future African musical generations is that an artist can have a purpose in life. Makeba was part of the liberation struggle that was being waged in her homeland against the diabolical apartheid regime. Instead of using the gun, she used the best and effective weapon at her disposal - her voice and music.
May her soul rest in peace.
Today’s Thought:“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” - Norman Cousins
Above:PELVIC COMPARISONA rebuilt female
H. erectus pelvis is larger than that of Lucy (A. afarensis) and
that of a modern-day human female.Courtesy of Scott Simpson,
Case Western Reserve University.
By Bruce Bower
Web edition :
Thursday, November 13th, 2008
Fossil find suggests Homo erectus females delivered big-brained babies
She was short, squat and definitely not built for speed. On the plus side, this adult female Homo erectus, who lived in Africa roughly one million years ago, had hips wide enough to bear babies with brains nearly as big as those of newborn human infants.
That’s the evolutionary picture presented by researchers who have unearthed a rare find: a nearly complete female H. erectus pelvis. Pieces of the fossil were found at an Ethiopian site called Gona in 2001 and 2003.
H. erectus females evolved a pelvis of a size unprecedented among human ancestors because the females had to squeeze increasingly big-headed babies through their birth canals, concludes a team led by anthropologists Scott Simpson of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and Sileshi Semaw of Indiana University in Bloomington.
In the Nov. 14 Science, the researchers say that the new pelvis challenges an earlier proposal that both sexes of H. erectus evolved to grow relatively tall and slender in order to shed body heat efficiently in their tropical homelands. That idea was largely based on measurements of a 6-foot-2-inch H. erectus skeleton found in 1984 that has been attributed to a slim, 10- to 12-year-old boy who lived in eastern Africa 1.5 million years ago.
“It’s now apparent that body size range in H. erectus has been underestimated,” Simpson says. The Gona female lived between 1.4 million and 900,000 years ago and stood no taller than 4 feet, 9 inches. Fossil evidence of other small-bodied H. erectus individuals in Africa and Central Asia has accumulated over the past several years.
Simpson also views the broad, flaring Gona pelvis as a challenge to an earlier proposal that H. erectus individuals possessed narrow hips suitable for endurance running, a capacity that would have aided them in hunting.
The ancient Gona female, known to be an adult based on the development of the pelvis, had wider hips than virtually all women today. Given the size and shape of the new pelvis, H. erectus infants must have been more than 30 percent larger at birth than has usually been assumed, in the scientists’ view. During childhood, H. erectus brains grew at a faster pace than the brains of chimpanzees but at a slower rate than the brains of modern humans, the team estimates. And though the hips in H. erectus were bigger than the hips of H. sapiens, the size of the birth canal may have been similar for the two species.
Anatomical similarities link the Gona find to remains of other fossil female pelvises — including one from Lucy, a 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis individual found in eastern Africa, and another from a 2.5-million-year-old Australopithecus africanus individual unearthed in southern Africa.
“I do not see any major problems with either the reconstruction or the interpretation of this new specimen,” comments anthropologist Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University in Ohio.
“This pelvis is a nice addition to the fossil record, but it raises more questions than it answers,” remarks Harvard University anthropologist Daniel Lieberman, a proponent of endurance running as characteristic of H. erectus.
In his view, the new specimen might come from a comparably ancient species in the human evolutionary family, Australopithecus boisei. A big, and therefore probably male A. boisei, could have had hips as wide as those of the Gona individual, Lieberman suggests.
A. boisei fossils have not been recovered at or near Gona, Simpson responds. A stone tool recovered along with the new pelvis corresponds to those known to have been used by H. erectus, he adds.
Other researchers say the volumes of fossil brain cases provide reliable estimates that H. erectus females delivered babies with brains about 15 percent smaller than the maximum figure cited in the new study. But Simpson says that his team’s estimated range of possible brain sizes for H. erectus babies overlaps with others’ estimates.
Finally, Lieberman remains skeptical of Simpson and Semaw’s conclusion that H. erectus was characterized by extremely short and wide females and unusually tall and narrow males, as indicated by the boy’s skeleton. “I need to be convinced,” he says.
Intriguingly, Simpson notes, modern human females have evolved relatively short statures and broad hips in cold environments, not in hot ones similar to Gona. Although H. erectus inhabited a variety of environments, females of that species retained a broad pelvis wherever they lived, he hypothesizes.
Other H. erectus fossils display traits that would have enabled endurance running, such as attachment spots for large upper-leg muscles and enlarged inner-ear structures for improved balance, Lieberman says. Long-distance running enabled H. erectus to hunt effectively without spearheads and to obtain enough meat to support the evolution of increasingly large brains, he proposes.
Simpson disagrees. The endurance-running hypothesis crucially depends on the H. erectus boy’s reconstructed skeleton, he notes. But, he predicts, a revised reconstruction would show that this youth had a broader, more flared pelvis than has been claimed.
Above:Children have questions for Yohannes
Gebregeorgis, who spoke Wednesday at
Arrowwood Elementary School in Highlands
Ranch. Gebregeorgis is creating libraries in
Ethiopia - 17 so far - including one pulled
by a donkey to remote villages.
(George Kochaniec Jr / The Rocky)
By James B. Meadow
Published November 13, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Two hundred and twenty-five small bodies parade into a small gym to learn a big lesson from the Slayer of the Dragon of Illiteracy.
They listen raptly - a strangely attentive a group of 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds - to the words of the soft-spoken black man who grew up across the ocean, a million miles away from the comforts they take for granted. A man who had risked much to flee his turbulent land and then, 21 years later, sacrificed even more to return, to bring a precious gift for the “beautiful children” who lived in the Land of 1,000 Despairs.
The man is Yohannes Gebregeorgis. He is 60 years old. He is Ethiopian. He is on a crusade to spread literacy across a nation where 67 percent of the people can’t read. He is doing it with books, thousands and thousands of books. He is doing it by creating libraries, 17 to date - one pulled by a donkey to remote villages - each one bringing magic to young minds. He is doing it through Ethiopia Reads, the Denver-based nonprofit he founded 10 years ago.
Yohannes Gebregeorgis speaks to children Wednesday
at Arrowwood Elementary School in Highlands Ranch.
(Photo by George Kochaniec Jr / The Rocky)
He is also “a wonderful man. I love him. Ohmigosh, what he has done is amazing - bringing books to all those children. Going back to his native land. Nobody does that. Nobody goes back to that kind of poverty. But he did!”
The person speaking is Mary Beth Henze. She is a teacher at Arrowwood Elementary School in Highlands Ranch, a modern facility unlike anything in Ethiopia.
A penny, a nickel at a time
Henze is the one who galvanized the students into raising $2,300 for Ethiopia Reads, a penny, a nickel, a quarter at a time. She is the one “completely excited” that Gebregeorgis has come to her school on a bright Wednesday to speak.
But she isn’t alone.
“I believe in him! To bring books to so many children is phenomenal,” says Janet Lee, a librarian at Regis University.
Lee believed in Gebregeorgis so much she nominated him to be a CNN Hero, the cable news network’s competition to honor those who make outstanding contributions to the world. Out of 4,000 nominees, Gebregeorgis made the final 10, after online voting. Later this month, he will find out if he is the top vote-getter, the one who wins $100,000, the one who is 2008’s ultimate hero.
But he says, “The real heroes are the children who collect pennies, the people who help us bring books to Ethiopia.” His words are strung closely together, his voice strong but gentle, a waterfall washing over smooth stones. “Yes, it was my idea, my dream,” he says, “but the people who help us, they are the dream realizers.”
But it started with the dreamer.
Novel changed his life
He was born in the small town of Negelle Borena, the son of an illiterate cattle merchant who insisted his only child be educated. Gebregeorgis traveled 375 miles to the nearest high school. But it wasn’t textbooks that detonated his imagination.
When he was 19, a friend loaned him a copy of a romance novel called Love Kitten. It was the first book he ever read for “pleasure,” and it changed his life forever.
Now he began to read voraciously, any literature he could find, and “books became my friends.” Books “gave me strength, a purpose for living.” Gradually, he came to realize “literacy has the power to make people better.”
But before he could make others better, he had to save his own life. In 1981, a coup toppled the government. Gebregeorgis’ political stance didn’t fit in, and he fled Ethiopia. He made it to Sudan then to the U.S. Along the way to becoming a citizen in 1989, he earned a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees in library science.
Land of 1,000 Despairs
In 1995, he got a job at the San Francisco Library’s main branch, in the children’s library. He loved the job but was saddened to realize that while the library had children’s books in 75 languages, none were in Amharic, the official tongue of Ethiopia.
That changed in 2001 with Silly Mammo, Gebregeorgis’ retelling of an Ethiopian folk tale, the first Amharic-English book in the U.S. But by then, he was looking beyond San Francisco.
The rise of a less hostile government had allowed him to revisit Ethiopia. He saw a land “devastated” by years of war and decades of poverty. He saw “beautiful children” in tattered clothing, hungry, without hope, without toys. Without books.
He came back to the U.S. and founded Ethiopia Reads. Slowly, on a shoestring, he began collecting books and donations, finding backers. He found enough in Denver to base his headquarters here. But all along, he was preparing for his big move.
In 2002, with his two young sons and 15,000 books, he left behind the comforts of his adopted land moved back to his homeland. “People said, ‘Are you crazy?’ But this was my missionary calling.”
People were right to ask. Ethiopia was a world of wrenching poverty and famine. AIDS was rampant; the average life span was 41 years. Gebregeorgis called it “The Land of 1,000 Despairs.”
He rented a house in Addis Ababa, lived upstairs and turned the downstairs into the Shola Children’s Library, naming it for the fig tree, a traditional gathering place for Ethiopians. The first year alone, he brought books into the lives of 12,000 children.
Book Man of Africa
Over the years that number would grow to 100,000. He would create libraries in schools that never had them. He would take a donkey cart laden with books into the hinterlands, inspiring and dazzling children with the power of literacy. He became known by different names - Donkey Librarian, Book Man of Africa and Slayer of the Dragon of Illiteracy.
He smiles when he says that - and he doesn’t smile often. How can he? There is so much to do, the “need is huge, so vast,” his work is “only a drop in the ocean.”
In the next six months, he plans to stock a dozen more school libraries, create three more “donkey libraries.” He hopes to do this because “Only through literacy can we overcome poverty.” Because “We have seen so many kids transformed.”
Because “When people are literate they can understand humanity.”
meadowj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2606
If you go
* What: Yohannes Gebregeorgis speaks about Ethiopia Reads.
* When: 4:30 p.m. today
* Where: Boulder Public Library, 1000 Canyon Blvd.
Above photo: Jill Vexler, a New York City based anthropologist,
who specializes in curating exhibitions about cultural identity
and social history, with Tibarek, her seven year old adopted
daughter from Ethiopia, outside the polling station in Greenwich
Village, NYC.
A Mother’s Reflection:
What Obama’s victory means to my daughter from Ethiopia and me
BY Jill Vexler
Updated: Tuesday, November 11, 2008
New York (Tadias) - About six months ago, my then seven year old daughter, Tibarek, awakened early one morning and called out to me. “Jilly, I had a dream. Joe Biden won! And that means that if he wins, Obama will win, too. So, you don’t have to worry!” I told her that her dream was wonderful and I hoped she was right. “Kids just know these things. Adults just have to listen to us sometimes.”
My prescient daughter was right and on Nov. 5th, I awakened her to say, “OBAMA WON!” “Stop kidding me!” she responded with a smile. “You’re sure?” And we, like the vast majority of Americans and the world, started our day with a profound smile.
I’m still digesting Obama’s victory and what it means to me. Each time I hear someone on TV, I think “Oh, that’s what it means.” Optimism. Potential. The fruits of hard work. The core of what America means to the world. My elation that a man of high intelligence, calm and caring has won is reinforced by the flood of emails from friends around the world who are SO excited with us – the friend in Amsterdam who was invited to FIVE parties to watch the results, the friend in Tel Aviv who sees a new day in the Middle East, my “sister” in Mexico City who is crying with emotions for future generations.
There’s also a profoundly personal joy in Obama’s victory that I haven’t fully articulated, but it goes something like this: Because I am Tibarek’s mom, I feel an extra connection to the joy of the African American and African communities here and all over the world that a black man is the new leader of America. I am overjoyed that Tibarek has been in the US during this formidable time, when women leaders are the norm, Spanish is the language she hears and is picking up, and black faces are those of our leaders. She’s living a life in which news that “Uncle Bruce and Uncle Mitch are getting married!” is met with “I thought they already were.” Her visual vocabulary is vast with fluid definitions of who’s who and who can be what. Rabbis and Episcopal priests are women. Her elementary school teachers are Chinese American, African and Caribbean American, white, Latina, scarf-wearing Muslims. Her generation sees diversity as the norm while ours saw “white men” as the norm. She voted with me for Hillary for Senator and Obama for President; we canvassed for Obama in Pennsylvania; we talk about policy and fairness. I love it that she will see little girls who look like her living in the White House. I am proud to have participated in activities which show her in the importance of being involved.
Tibarek checking in at a polling station
Campaigning in Scranton, Pennsylvania
And herein, I feel an almost secret connection, perhaps my own little invention, of closeness to the man and his family. Obama’s white anthropologist mother brought him up in a world where different cultures, looks, languages, religions and nationalities were daily fair. This was formative. His deeply ingrained values are reflected in his ease with cultures, from his approach to foreign policy to his take on domestic diversity. Each time Obama talks about world cultures, diversity in America, intercultural understanding, his comfort with true multiculturalism exudes. Problems are not swept away but are approached under a larger umbrella of respect for the human experience and the need to understand multiple perspectives. With this in the forefront, Obama and his team bring new energy and intellect to find creative solutions. What a glorious contrast with the Republicans for whom an understanding of multiple perspectives was seen as unpatriotic.
I am Tibarek’s white anthropologist mother who also lives in the world where a huge embrace of “other” is the norm. Two years ago, Tibarek’s Ethiopian mother entrusted me to take her beyond the family’s limited resources, expand her world, grow and blossom. I promised her I would and am taking this amazing person along for every possible opportunity that comes our way or that we can create. I hope I am giving Tibarek the tools for living in a hugely diverse world, enjoying differences and learning from them. I want her to know and be comfortable with her many identities: African, Ethiopian, American, Texas, from a bi-racial Jewish family with Episcopalian god-parents and friends and family from every point on the globe. And I hope she, like Obama, will take the ball and run with it as she makes positive contributions to the world she will encounter.
From knocking on doors in Pennsylvania, I figure she’ll soon be knocking on another door on Pennsylvania Avenue, this time for a play date.
Above:Reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, current
head of the Abyssinia Baptist Church in Harlem, led a delegation of
150 to Ethiopia in 2007 as part of the church’s bicentennial
celebration and in honor of the Ethiopian Millennium.
(At Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on Sunday,
November 4, 2007. Tadias File).
PRNewswire
WASHINGTON, Nov 12, 2008 — The Abyssinian Baptist Church yesterday celebrated its 200th anniversary and its deep ties of friendship with Ethiopia. At a white-tie dinner gala at the uptown Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, Ethiopia’s Ambassador to the United States Samuel Assefa was recognized as a special guest by Abyssinian Baptist Church Leader Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III.
“I was thrilled to join the Abyssinian Baptist Church to celebrate its 200th anniversary,” said Ethiopian Ambassador to the United States Samuel Assefa. “For two centuries the Abyssinian Baptist Church has played an integral role in helping strengthen Ethiopia’s relations with the United States and with the African-American community.”
The 200th Anniversary of the Abyssinian Baptist Church coincides with the celebration of the Ethiopian Millennium. The gala affair drew an impressive roster of political and civic leaders and celebrities. Former President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Clinton and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined Rev. Butts at the podium as speakers. President-Elect Barack Obama sent his greetings, which were delivered on his behalf by Sen. Clinton.
President Clinton spoke passionately about America’s strong relationship with Ethiopia, calling for the two countries to continue working closely together. He talked about Ethiopia’s rich history and described the glories of ancient and modern Ethiopia, pointing to the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela as a fitting example of Ethiopia’s timeless treasures and living monuments.
Honorary and event chairs and members of the benefit committee included actor/comedian Chris Rock, his philanthropist wife Malaak Compton-Rock, American Express CEO Ken Chenault and his philanthropist wife Kathryn Chenault, actors Latanya R. and Samuel L. Jackson and Vogue editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley. Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated actress Cicely Tyson and accomplished stage, television and film actor Avery Brooks served as the gala’s emcees.
The bicentennial celebration — Abyssinian 200: True to Our God, True to Our Native Land — marked the Abyssinian Baptist Church’s distinction as one of the oldest and most prominent African-American institutions in America. The 18-month bicentennial commemoration included a pilgrimage to Ethiopia to meet with senior Ethiopian officials.
Above:The day Barack Obama was elected President,
a roar of joyful celebration broke out in the New York
neighborhood of Harlem, which is historically known as
the center for African American culture.
(Jeffrey Phipps for Tadias Magazine)
CNN
By Paul Steinhauser
CNN Deputy Political Director
WASHINGTON (CNN) — For most African-Americans, the election of Barack Obama as president was a dream come true that they didn’t think they would see in their lifetime, a national poll released Tuesday suggests.
Eighty percent of African-Americans questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey said that Obama’s election was a dream come true, and 71 percent said they never thought a black candidate for president would get elected in their lifetime.
A woman is overcome on November 4 after
hearing that Barack Obama had been
elected president.
The poll reflects anecdotal evidence that surfaced across the country last week as soon as Obama’s projected win was announced.
“It’s history,” said iReporter Tave Johnson, who spent Election Night at the Grant Park Obama rally in Chicago, Illinois. “I’m half-black and half-white. I talked to my grandparents today, and they told me this is historic. To be honest … I never would have guessed it would happen.”
Among white Americans, only 28 percent said Obama’s victory in the race for the White House was a dream come true, with the vast majority, 70 percent, saying it was not.
The poll also suggests a racial divide among people who thought a black candidate would be elected president in their lifetimes. Fifty-nine percent of white respondents said they thought a black president would be elected in their lifetime, but only 29 percent of black respondents agreed. Read more at CNN.
Above:In this June 6, 2008, file photo
Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., left, talks with then-Democratic
presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill. in Chicago.
Barack Obama’s fellow Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel, the
hard-charging No. 3 Democrat in the House, has accepted
the job White House chief of staff, Democratic officials said
Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Thousands of positions must be filled; volunteer or work your connections
By Eve Tahmincioglu
msnbc.com contributor
updated 1:09 p.m. ET, Mon., Nov. 10, 2008
If Barack Obama inspired you so much that after voting for him you now want to work for him, there are thousands of jobs to be had in the new administration.
There are coveted presidential appointments and a huge array of staff positions. But you have to start the ball rolling right now, especially if you weren’t an integral part of the presidential campaign.
You can head over to the newly minted Web site for the Obama transition team and fill out an application for a job right on the site. But like traditional job sites, this strategy probably won’t get you very far. Getting a job with the new administration is pretty much like getting any job: It’s all about connections. Read more at MSNBC.
ANGELINA JOLIE and BRAD PITT are planning to take their young family on a trip to Ethiopia - to show them how to help people in the Third World.
Jolie and Pitt adopted their three-year-old daughter Zahara from the country in 2005. They have two other adopted children - Maddox, seven, from Cambodia and Pax, four, from Vietnam - as well as three biological children - Shiloh, two, and baby twins Knox and Vivienne.
The couple has already taken the kids to visit Maddox’s home country of Cambodia and now they plan to take the whole family to see the work being done in Ethiopia by their charity, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, which is funding an AIDS centre there.
Jolie says, “They’ll (the children) be in Ethiopia in a few weeks and they won’t have everything they have here, so we show them different worlds.”
The actress hopes the experience will teach the youngsters to follow in their parents’ philanthropical footsteps.
She adds, “They help buy candy and shoes and water, then take it to the local people, hang out and talk to the kids. They see that the world isn’t balanced. Instead of preaching to them, we’re showing them and hope that sinks in - and they’ll find in themselves a desire to help strike a balance.”
Above: Election night in Harlem.
(Photo by Jeffrey Phipps for Tadias Magazine)
Updated: Tuesday, November 11, 2008
New York (Tadias) - How do you feel? That was the question we posed to some of our readers and contributors right after the historic election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States. Here are their reflections:
Taqiyya Haden (New York)
“OBAMA!” That’s my new greeting! Unfortunately I’m not sure of the meaning. It is rumored to mean ‘crooked, not a straight line’ and if so it is still appropriat
