Ethiopia: Protecting Ethiopia?

Ethiopia: Protecting Ethiopia?

By Donald Levine
Living in the Ethiopian countryside in the late 1950s, I heard festive youths chant the following words – proudly.
“Min ale teqel min ale? ‘Agarén le-sew agarén le-sew – alsetem’ ale”; literally translated as “What did Teqel [horse name of Emperor Haile Selassie] say, what did he say? ‘I’ll not hand my country’s land to foreigners,’ he said.”
They symbolized the deep Ethiopian aversion to letting outsiders grab land belonging to Behere Etyopiya. Of many expressions of this sentiment over the centuries, my favorite is that of Emperor Tewodros IV, who reportedly told his troops to make sure that when British visitors departed they should have their boots cleaned: “Far more valuable than gold is a particle of Ethiopia’s earth.”

With the notable exception of the Aksumite conquest of portions of present-day Yemen in the sixth century, Ethiopia has not invaded foreign countries. Rather, it has repeatedly been a victim of such incursions -from Turkey and Turk-supported Adalis; from the Sudan; and from Italy. And in spite of EPRDF’s initial acquiescence in the cession of Assab to Eritrea, and then of Western borderlands to Sudan, the present regime boldly, if not tragically, repulsed the Eritrean invaders of 1998 and maintains a strong force committed to the protection of Ethiopian territory.