Tag: Ethiopian history.
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From center to periphery: Eritrea’s forced disengagement from Ethiopia
Disparate notes on the long and short history of Eritrea Introduction: A great deal is being said and written about Ethiopia’s loud claim of access to the Red Sea. Ever since 2024, the Ethiopian prime minister has on numerous occasions warned his neighboring seacoast countries, namely Eritrea and Somalia, that they ought to allow Ethiopia…
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The Hewett Treaty and the Road to Adwa
This is a two-part story about Gerald Portal’s delegation to King Yohannes IV, based on Portal’s own book of 144 pages. It’s from a paperback copy of an Arabic Translation by Abdul Hamid Al Hassen and published by “Dar Al Kunuz AlAdabia” in Beirut (1978). Portal’s narration reads like a travelogue and an adventure series.…
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Roots of Resistance: The History of the Arsi Oromo Movement in Building Educational Resistance (1950s–1980s)
BOOK REVIEW Author: Dr. Gemechu Abraham Kurfessa Publisher: The Red Sea Press Publication Year: 2026 Length: 563 pages Roots of Resistance is one of those rare works that doesn’t simply recount history—it unsettles what you thought you understood. Centering on how the Arsi Oromo people used education as a form of resistance from the 1950s…
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Giants and Lilliputians: Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival (IV)
Giants and Lilliputians: Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival Emperor Haile Selassie and President Isaias Afwerki (Part IV) The Seeds of Division within the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) Imperial Mythology and the Weaponization of Religion To understand the fragmentation of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), the eventual triumph of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), and…
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Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival: Emperor Haile Selassie and President Isaias Afwerki
Two Towering Figures–Giants and Lilliputians (Part 1) Across the sorrowful and entangled histories of Ethiopia and Eritrea, two figures loom with spectral intensity: Emperor Haile Selassie I and President Isaias Afwerki. Their shadows stretch across generations, ideologies, and geopolitical fault lines—each a master of power, each a paradox incarnate. At the outset of their reigns,…