Emperor Haile Selassie by Bereket Habte Selassie-review

Emperor Haile Selassie by Bereket Habte Selassie-review

Emperor Haile Selassie. By Bereket Habte Selassie. (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2014. Pp. 147. $14.95.)

Reviewed by Charles W. McClellan

This slim volume by distinguished scholar of African studies and law, Bereket Habte Selassie is part of Ohio University Press’s “Short Histories of Africa” series. This offering evinces the OUP’s progression from its usual focus on South African personalities.
Unquestionably, Emperor Haile Selassie is among the preeminent figures of twentieth-century Africa, although today’s students know little of him. Excellent biographies exist of the emperor, including a dictated two-volume autobiography, but need for a work oriented specifically for students in introductory courses on world and African history remained. Bereket Selassie’s offering fills that void. As an insider, Bereket possesses intimate knowledge of the emperor’s administrative style but also finds himself at odds with the pace of change and the emperor’s Eritrean policy. Bereket’s personal recollections may appear self-serving to some, but overall they are more instructive than detracting.

Editorial restrictions undoubtedly limit Bereket’s breadth of content and analysis of issues, but he has done well in capturing the essence of the man and the challenges he confronted. An earlier generation perceived the emperor as a stoic, enigmatic character intent on modernizing his country while defending it against the last vestiges of European colonialism. The younger generation knows little of this, and its references to Ethiopia revolve more around images of drought, famine, Live Aid, and Jamaica’s Ras Tefarians.
As successor to visionaries like Tewodros and Menilek II (some would include Lij Iyasu), Haile Selassie conceptualized modernization more by what his European travels suggested than by any deep understanding of the complex processes involved. For that, he placed great faith in the Ethiopian youth he would educate, trusting in their knowledge, experience, and loyalty. He could be harsh on and admonishing of those who failed or resisted his charge. Building upon a rudimentary Italian inheritance, he brought considerable change to administrative and tax structures and expanded communications by air, land, and electronics. But agriculture and land reform were largely untouched. The capital, Addis Ababa, generally reflected his legacy: a record that was rather spotty—more facade than reality. His constitution, though introducing limited democracy, nevertheless left him firmly in charge; he seemed genuinely surprised and aggrieved by the failed 1960 coup and by the subsequent student movement questioning Ethiopia’s progress.

Even after the disaster of the Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–1941), he remained committed to collective security, supporting the United Nations’ efforts with Ethiopian troops in Korea and the Congo. He embraced the American Peace Corps early on; widely admired, they too became a target and fulcrum for the emerging student movement. Inspired by Ethiopia as a symbol of pan-Africanism, the emperor utilized his prestige to establish the Organization of African Unity (now African Union) headquarters in his capital, although he certainly found Nkrumah’s vision for the continent suspect.

The emperor’s vision of modernization, commitment to collective security, and methods of utilizing authority are all fundamental issues that ideally promote student intellectual engagement; Bereket Selassie carefully frames the basic issues of Ethiopian historiography for debate. Despite omissions, this work should stimulate broader discussion and therefore be widely recommended to student examination.

Charles W. McClellan Radford University

Originally published in The Historian, Volume 78, 2016-Issue 4

Main Image: Emperor Haile Selassie in Geneva in 1935. Photograph: Lucien Aigner/Corbis

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9 thoughts on “Emperor Haile Selassie by Bereket Habte Selassie-review

  1. Abebe Haregewoin
    2.0 out of 5 stars perhaps with better clarity. His book adds no more information than …
    December 15, 2015
    Format: Paperback
    This slim volume is meant to briefly skim over the life of Emperor Haile Selassie about whom so many books and articles have been written in many languages. The author on the back of the slim volume is actually supposed to have had very close access to the Emperor, having lived in Ethiopia for most of his life and been one of the people who were early collaborators with the military junta, called the Derg, who overthrew the Emperor. With this vintage one expects to get a glimpse of what the author himself witnessed during that tumultuous period to be at least one original contribution to the story of the emperor. But Professor Bereket disappoints miserably and has written a book that a motivated high school student or a college freshman might write as a term paper, perhaps with better clarity. His book adds no more information than many Google articles, and has much let detail than the wikipedia article on Emperor Haile Selassie.

    It is not clear why Prof. Berekt wrote this book and he does not adequately explain why he wrote this inadequate book, when so many books are available out there. Perhaps he is trying to expel some nagging guilt about his role as the chief prosecutor of the Deg as a member of the kangaroo court euphemistically known then as “The Inquiry Commission” of the emperor’s top officials with his grand inquisitors zeal to verbally assault and prepare minimize individuals who in one way or another had contributed to the history of their country and prepare them for execution. Indeed as expected many of them were slaughtered before even the commissions inquiry was completed. One would have also hoped that Bereket would have explained his undercover role for the liberation of Eritrea prior to the breakup of Ethiopia. When Eritrea became a new country the mercurial Bereket joined forces with it’s new president for life of that country and became known as “the father of the Eritrean constitution” One would have hoped he could exorcise his demons from his rather fluent life of movement between loyalties and give us a clue as to his motivation and what makes a man like him tic. But none of this is included in the book. At the end of the day this will be a book for those who are looking for a yellow book version of the life of Emperor Haile Selassie from one who betrayed him and perhaps is feeling a pang of guilt at also being the legitimizer of the dictatorial regime of Isayas’ who had since became the pariah of Africa who has turned his country into the South Korea of Africa.

    P.S. This is a reader review from amazon.Cheers!!!

    1. The Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski has never met emperor Haile Selassie. He came to Ethiopia after the demise of the monarchy. Yet he wrote a whole book on the emperor and it is a reference book by the western world, even though most of it pure invention and fabrication. To say that Bereket, who had been sent to UK for education by the Emperor and later actively participated in the Ethiopian student movements and worked as a legal advisor for prime minister Aklilu couldn’t be knowledgeable enough to write is ridiculous. And the fact that he later participated in the committee that probed the former Haile Selassie officials and that would make him an unreliable witness is also as much illogical. (i know that we are not that friends with logic) So who should be writing about the period if not people like him? Should we be waiting for visiting ferengis to enlighten us on our own emperor?

    2. “Isayas’ who had since became the pariah of Africa who has turned his country into the South Korea of Africa.”

      You mean “North Korea” of Africa?

  2. The Eritrean Bereket Habte Selassie (unashamedly calling himself Ethiopian) wrote this book purely for personal gain. Sale of book goes to him. He is well aware the market is ripe for such a book and that Ethiopians are too lazy or too distracted to take on the subject. Check these: Emperor Haileselassie was recently reinstated to his place in both Ethiopia and Africa. Rastafarians have a growing and cultic interest in the subject. With a marriage recently of a descendant of the Emperor to an African American lady and the event covered in major news outlets another market segment was created. Bereket is one fellow who would do anything to advance himself.

    Also, someone not acquainted with Ethiopia would be (mis)led to believe Bereket Habte Selassie is related to Emperor Haile Selassie. Of course he is not!

    Bereket was on the Commission of Inquiry during the dark days of Derg’s reign. His plan then was very simple. To work from within and with Derg Chair and Eritrean General Aman Andom to prepare the way for Eritrea’s independence. The plot took place at Aman Andom’s residence in Addis with a Sudanese general and Bereket present. Unbeknownest to them the meeting was wiretapped. Andom was later killed. Bereket had already fled by night to cross few days later into war-zone Eritrea! Shortly thereafter he made his way to Washington, D.C., where he continued to earn his living from a job Ethiopia had secured for him at the World Bank. During the intervening absence from the Bank he was receiving $2000 per month from the Ethiopian government (this is all verifiable)–a huge sum for someone who pretended to have been answering the call of the Motherland at a time drought and starvation had claimed over 100,000 lives!

    Consequent to Bereket’s role in the Commission of Inquiry 60 ministers and generals were massacred on that fateful day in 1974. Bereket has been evading the topic ever since, preferring to link the crime solely to the notorious Mengistu Hailemariam. Guess what? It is not too late to bring Bereket, in his late-80s, to account before he dies. There are witnesses still around.

    Bereket is presently discredited by Eritrea though he was the architect of the fable that Ethiopia was a colonial power in relation to Eritrea. He it was who devised a referendum that presented Eritreans with “freedom” or “slavery” option. The irony is that the “freedom” choice resulted in a new nation but in fact a new slavery under the once “George Washington” Isaias Afewerki.

    As for Bereket he would like Eritreans to remember him as the “Father of Eritrea’s Constitution!”

      1. I have read all his books. Bereket is a fine writer though he seemed to embellish his relationship with the Emperor in The Crown and The Pen. Interesting also is his obsession with Emperor Haile Selassie as several of his books are directly or indirectly about him.

        Have you read any of his books?

  3. Haile Selassie wrote in the preface:

    “A house built on granite and strong foundations, not even the onslaught of pouring rain, gushing torrents and strong winds will be able to pull down. Some people have written the story of my life representing as truth what in fact derives from ignorance, error or envy; but they cannot shake the truth from its place, even if they attempt to make others believe it.”

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