First thank you for letting me air my opinion based on my perspective of the historical facts. What is written below is my personal opinion regarding Gragn and what he did to Ethiopia. I am basing my opinion below on the first hand chronicles of the Portuguese, which was eventually translated into English in the 1920's. The title of the book is "The Romance of the Portuguese in Abyssinia." I cannot remember all the bibliographical information at this point but I can make efforts to find it and relay the information, if desired.
It is my understanding that the idea of recognizing a man by the name of Ahmed Gragn as Ethiopia's "Man of the Year" was been proposed. First of all, when we discuss Gragn, we need to put matters into perspective. Yes, Gragn was a native of Harrer, and a Somali by birth, no one can contest that. However, what has become apparently confused is to whom Harrer belonged in the 15th and 16th Centuries?? It certainly was not Ethiopia. Ethiopia was ruled from Denkaz, the capital city at the time. Today, Denkaz is nothing more than ruins, but in it's heyday, it was a city located east of Lake Tana in Begemdir. As we all know, the Ethiopian Empire is ancient and as such has seen many trials and tribulations in its time. Its borders have expanded, as far as Egypt at times, and then contracted to just within its mountainous strongholds.
During the 15th Century, there existed a Sultanate called Adal in the area we now know as Harrer. This Sultanate had robust commercial and political relations with the Ottoman Empire, which controlled present day Yemen. Ethiopia and Adal were at constant war with each other, each side carrying out raids and campaigns into the other's territory. The wars were between two equals, so neither Ethiopia nor Adal had the capability to vanquish the other. The Ottoman Turks, themselves actively engaged in wars against European kingdoms, did not pay much attention to Ethiopia.
Things changed when the Portuguese paid a visit to the court of Emperor Lebne Dengel, in 1492 - yes, the very same year Columbus "discovered" America. However, the Emperor did not see much advantage in befriending the Portuguese or how he could form an alliance that would have benefited Ethiopia. The motive of the Portuguese was to 1) spread Catholicism and 2) form an alliance with this mysterious and powerful Christian empire, which they hoped would eventually enable them to fight the Turks. The visit of the Portuguese did not go unnoticed by the Turks, who were promptly informed by their spies in Denkaz.
To make a long story short, the Turks, who were in contact with Adal, found Gragn to be a formidable military person with a fanatic zeal for Islam. They made a deal with Gragn: he was to subjugate the Christian empire and convert it to Islam while they would thwart any possible alliance between Ethiopia and Europe, which would have dangerously out-flanked the Turks. Thus the campaign of Gragn against Ethiopia began, with the first battle fought on the fields of Shembera Kurey, not far from present day Addis Ababa.
The Turks provided the Adal and Gragn 900 Bombardiers, or what would be considered in today's military terminology, artillerymen. The war was, needless to say, a disaster to Ethiopia. Ethiopians were armed with only swords and spears while their enemies had guns and experienced Turkish troops under their command.
The story is very involved and long and I cannot possibly recount the entire tragedy in one email. But I would like to make a few points clear: 1) Adal was a Turkish satellite state; 2) Gragn was not Ethiopian, he was Adal of Somali origin; and 3) The Portuguese were both a blessing in disguise and the devil amongst us.
The Turks dominated Adal because the campaign under Gragn was not fought entirely by Adal soldiers but included very important Turkish elements. Furthermore, the untold treasures that were looted from the various monasteries, churches and palaces, did not end up in Gragn's coffers, or Adal's treasury. What treasure was not destroyed was transported to Zebid, present day Yemen, which was under Turkish control and all traces of the treasures disappear after that (In my opinion, they may have been sold to the Russians...anyone who has seen the Russian treasures that toured the US about 3 years ago, may be correct in deducing that there is something very odd indeed about the collection - some of the artefacts do not entirely jive with the rest of the collection or what I know about Russian history and culture......perhaps an issue for another discussion....?).
The main thrust of my argument here is that if Adal were indeed not a Turkish satellite, there would have been no logical reason for them to hand the looted treasures over to the Turks?
Gragn was a citizen of Adal, born in the City of Harrer. Yes, Harrer today falls within Ethiopia's borders, and anyone born in Harrer is, of course, undoubtedly considered Ethiopian, but we must be careful not to blur historical facts. In the 15th Century, anyone born in Harrer was not considered Ethiopian and as such was not subject to the laws of Denkaz or subject to the Emperor. As I had stated earlier, the Ethiopian Empire has expanded and contracted in its 7,000 years of history. Barely over 100 years ago, Harrer was considered to be part of Egypt; can we then argue that Gragn was Egyptian? (In another example not directly related to Ethiopia, the emperor of the Incan Empire in South America, which was thriving during the times of Ahmed Gragn, cannot be claimed to have been Peruvian, or Bolivian or any number of present day countries that the borders of the Empire spanned.) I hope I am being very clear on the follies of branding an historical figure with an identity he may not have readily agreed with. Yes, we can name Gragn, "Man of the Year" in the sense that his military advances into Ethiopian territory forever altered whatever other path(s) our history may have taken.
The third issue is the Oromo. It is very difficult to address anything Oromo without affecting some political wound, and therefore I will not skirt the issues but will tell it as it is. Please note that what is stated below is not my personal opinion, nor is it-altered facts to fit into some personal agenda. These are facts chronicled by the Portuguese some 500 years ago, who certainly had no knowledge of what was to happen in the future and, therefore, no identifiable agenda to support. They were outsiders, with no affinity for Orthodox Ethiopia, Muslim Adal or anyone else but their own wars against the Turks and their religious agenda of converting anyone and anything to Catholicism. That said...below is a recitation of what I was able to gather:
The Oromo, a nomadic and pastoral people, who were at the time living in what is present day Kenya and Tanzania, were on the move looking for greener pastures for their cattle, which were the backbone of their economy. The Oromo, contrary to current popular belief, were not organized into a single unitary state, but were a fractured society of nomads organized into Gadas. Each Gada had a leader and operated according to the interests of the Gada and not as part of a bigger entity or an Oromo nation. Some of the Gadas moved westward from present day Kenya, past Lake Victoria and ended up in what is now Rwanda and Burundi (they may have been the ancestors of the people currently known as the Tutsi, who have very close cultural ties to the Oromo that live in present day Kenya and Ethiopia).
Those Gadas that moved north into Ethiopia did so in staggered waves. According to the Portuguese, the Oromo first set foot in Ethiopia in the year 1522. But the Ethiopians checked their advances. Only after 10 years of destructive wars between Adal and Ethiopia, which weakened both nations, were the Oromo able to move deeper into Ethiopia and Adal unopposed. Some may not know this, but the reason that the Adals built the wall of Harrer, which still stands today, was to defend the capital from the advances of the Oromo. A very interesting point that I would like to make here is that, it was because of Gragn that the Oromo got what is now largely perceived as a derogatory name - Galla. From my understanding, when Gran realized that the Ethiopians were turning the tides of war against him, he needed allies quickly and approached the Oromo Gada that had settled closest to Adal, seeking a military alliance the complete details of which escape me. Upon the return of the messenger, Gragn asked him in Somali, "Gal-e?" meaning, "What did they say?" The response of the messengers was, "Gal-a" meaning, "They said, 'No'." Now, I'm not saying that my assertion cannot be refuted or disproved, only that from what I have heard and read, that's where the word Galla came from...the Somalis.
THE Cosmopolitan WORLD OF EAST AFRICA 93
In the south, but the Muslims were tireless in their opposition and needed only the unifying strength of effective leadership to shift the balance of power in their favour. Population pressure possibly originating in Somalia, a renewed sense of religious mission, and a developing Ottoman interest in East Africa finally came to a focus in the Muslim state of Adal during the early sixteenth century, and when Adal shortly produced a gifted general in the person of Ahmad ibn Ghazi (15o6-1543), the Ethiopians soon found themselves facing a crisis of survival.
Ahmed called Gran or left-handed, organized a powerful army, instilled it with the spirit of the jihad against the infidel, and in 1529 scored a decisive victory over the Ethiopian emperor, Lebna Dengel (1508-1540). This engagement was followed by a systematic devastation and occupation of Ethiopia which brought most of the country under Muslim control, laid waste to large areas, destroyed much of the intellectual and artistic heritage of the land, brought the forcible conversion of large numbers of people, and reduced the emperor to a hunted fugitive in the remote mountain districts of Tigre, Begemder, and Gojiam. In desperation, Lebna Dengel appealed to the Portuguese for help and in 1541, after his son had succeeded the emperor, Galawdewos (154o-1559), a contingent of four hundred musketeers arrived at Massawa and helped defeat the Muslims in an engagement near Lake Tana during which Gran himself was slain. Resting largely on the shoulders of one man, the Muslim menace was removed, suddenly, dramatically, and indeed, permanently.
The problems of the upland empire were by no means ended, however. The Muslim forces retiring to their capital at Harar were almost at once replaced by a new threat in the form of the pastoral Galla, Cushitic-speakers, who, in the middle of the sixteenth century, began to move northward from their nucleus in southern Ethiopia. They occupied the emirate of Harar, scaled the mountains on the east and south of the Abyssinian plateau and flooded Shoa, moving on to infiltrate Amhara and Lasta. Military action had no effect on this vast movement, nor was the Galla susceptible to assimilation into the more developed Ethiopian culture. Before their remorseless advance, the Ethiopians were forced to withdraw, and to share their country with the invaders with whom they lived side by side over the ensuing centuries, but always as strangers and potential enemies. Coincident with the beginning of the Galla migrations there.
ANCIENT AFRICA
Was a Turkish occupation of Massawa and other coastal points, which the emperor Sarsa Dengel (1563-1597) succeeded in neutralizing though not eliminating in 1589. Staggered and depressed by incessant invasion, the Ethiopian nation now faced yet another intrusion of a different sort. Portuguese aid against Ahmad Gran had caused renewed interest at Rome in converting the Ethiopians, and a Jesuit mission was soon dispatched with this end in view. At first success was slow in coming, but through the patient tact of Pedro Paez, the mission ultimately gained the conversion of the emperors Za Dengel (16o3-16o4) and Susenyos (16o7-163z).
Unfortunately for the cause of Roman Catholicism, Paez died in 1626 and was replaced by a zealot, Alphonso Mendez, who sought at once to impose the Roman church on the whole country, forcing the emperor to do him public homage, robotizing the population, remodelling the liturgy, forbidding many ancient practices, and introducing others anathema to local custom. Such a move led straight to bloody rebellion, anarchy, and eventually to the deportation of the Jesuit mission. For a time Susenyos stoutly supported the Latin reforms as his country sank in self-destruction, but finally he could endure the spectacle no longer. In x632, the emperor re-established the Ethiopian church. "Hear ye! Hear ye!" read his proclamation. "We first gave you this faith believing that it was good. But innumerable people have been slain . . . For which reason we restore to you the faith of your forefathers. Let the former clergy return to their churches . . . And do ye rejoice." Susenyos then abdicated in favour of his son, Fasiladas (163z-1667), and soon after died despondent still embracing the faith his people had rejected.
For the next two centuries Ethiopia withdrew into a sullen xenophobia in which regionalism, palace intrigue, and the unrelenting pressure of the Galla population led to internal decay, political fragmentation, and ultimate collapse of the central authority. Fasiladas established a fixed capital at Gondar, an inaccessible retreat in the mountains of Amhara, and this move effectively divorced the emperors from their people. The royal line in its growing weakness appealed for Galla support which further discounted imperial authority in the eyes of each local prince, or ras, only too ready to exercise independent rule. Galla mercenaries came to dominate the monarchy, and in 1755 a half-Galla king mounted the throne. The Galla were too divided among themselves, however, to impose national unity through their own rule, while the Ethiopians found them.
THE COSMOPOLITAN WORLD OF EAST AFRICA
Selves pressed into isolated islands by the expanding sea of Galla intruders. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the throne had lost all authority, maintaining its existence only through the tradition of its sacred origin while de facto government rested in the hands of the Galla leaders and provincial chiefs. Civil war was continuous, and separatism steadily gained strength. Only the church remained national in identity, but its authority was at low ebb and its influence negligible in the face of militant warlords. By 184o, although the number of independent provinces had been reduced to four---Shoa, Gojjam, Amhara, and Tigre--the disintegration of Ethiopia appeared permanent.
Beyond the divisive thrust of the Galla intrusion acting on a land of mountainous inaccessibility, there was another factor, which both aided and hindered national unity. A highland environment in which remoteness spawned parochialism and conservatism in a static society had shaped the Ethiopian character. The difficult years of isolation following the seventh century rise of Islam had forced the Ethiopians to come together in political unity and religious communion, but the process was long and difficult and had not been completed when Ahmad Gran's armies devastated the land and brought on the awesome apostasy to Islam. Eventually the old order was restored, but restoration came at a price. The church was no longer receptive to ideas from without--Roman or otherwise--and settled down to a defence of the status quo which could only lead to ignorance and inbreeding. The royal house abandoned the strength and flexibility of its peripatetic court for the brooding isolation of Gondar, and thus permitted each provincial fast gradually to establish his own local rule, protected by his mountain inaccessibility and the apathy of effete kings. Divorced from the outside world, Ethiopian society languished and the Ethiopian spirit atrophied.
In part III of this article I presented two of the six points I believe would contribute to peaceful co-existence. Starting with my third point, I now discus the remaining four points and conclude the article.
Third, I am saddened by the time and energy wasted as a result of the laughable points of argument on which the two camps deliberately fail to agree. The Oromo extremists often talk about the empire, in an attempt to imply that Ethiopia colonized sovereign states, one of which they believe was Oromia, though they lack the evidence for that. The Amhara extremists on their part do not surprisingly want to hear such words as emperor or governor, as though they were not proudly using those terms in the past. We did not know they meant that the emperors existed without an empire. Those who say Habesha-Abyssinia-Ethiopia_Finfin�-Addis Ababa are not, however, trapped as easily. Unless we know the historical genesis and meanings of these five terms as well as contextualise their use and purposely continue to confuse, then we will end up fighting not just against history but also against our own conscience. We know that it is not a mystery why foreign Zionist names are attached to Nazareth-Adama, Debre Zeit [Mt. of Olives]-Bishoftu, Hossa?ena, Debre Sina, Ephesson, Wollisso-Ghion. And those who chose those names are not alive today. It is laughable that our extremists are wasting time and energy fighting over the right to inherit names that have no claimants. This is so insignificant that this generation does not have to get absorbed in it. It is comparable to a situation where a family christines a child with two names and uses which ever of the two names to refer to the child; similarly, it is advisable that we use the place names of our own preference and leave the matter at that. Some deny the reality that was; others tend to become pretenders to the throne that is long gone. Still others seem to be preparing to settle scores against names they once scrambled to adopt, realizing that they have failed to fulfil their wishes. But had the OLF managed to enter Menelik?s Palace, it would not have had time for such trivial issues. It would never have made references to the empire, for opportunity never knocks twice at any man?s door. It cannot cleanse itself of the secessionist taboo. Neither will it develop into a nation nor is it showing efforts to work with other organizations that have an Ethiopian agenda. It is failing to realize that it cannot succeed without working with popular forces. The OLF is likely to go into the dustbin of history without benefiting either itself or others it claims to serve. I think it is persisting with its secessionist agenda as a protest against its failure to enter Menelik?s Palace and a sign of despondency. It is the responsibility of the Oromo to force it into correcting this weakness. Other Ethiopians, too, have the responsibility of helping by responding positively to its genuine demands.
Fourthly, we were eyewitnesses to the fact that Ethiopians in the South were losing their land ownership rights to henchmen of the system at the time under the smallest of pretexts until the practice (of communal ownership, usufructory rights, tenancy, church endowments-s�mon-) was abolished by the Dergue?s land proclamation of 1975. I know, for instance, that in Bal� Region, no less than 100 gashas of the Sinana-D�bisa plains were in the hands of three families, including that of the Emperor?s mouthpiece. Though we are not privy to their true identity, they all passed by as Amharas. When we saw them come from afar, we used to say: attend to the cattle the Amhara are coming. The reason was that if one of the local herdsmen (I was one of them) failed to be attentive and allowed the cattle to stray into those lands, the local inhabitants had to pay birr 2-3 per beast. Note that at that time a heifer cost birr 20-30. The main purpose of owning a chunk of the plains was to use it as a trap for tress-passing; imagine how many heifers a local owner of, say, 60 cattle would pay if one of them trespassed. The cruelty of the landowners and all the ordeal the locals had to go through as well as the disciplinary actions a family would take against the herdsmen were all trivials. Who would blame them if children grow up hating Amharas? The Oromo of the area did not normally treat the poor Amhara that used to suffer with them as Amharas, but often at times of trouble. The reason for all that sordid situation was the owners of that extensive land, who neither bought nor inherited it. But then, how did they manage to get hold of it? It would be too much if they tell us that they deserved it as a favour. In this connection, we would be grateful if one of the children of those landowners, who in 1971 was my teacher at Azmatch Deglehan (Batu Terarra) High School and who is still alive, could impart his thoughts to us on the matter. The reason for the 1964 uprising of Bal� Oromos, led by Waqo Gutuu and Waqo Lugo, was the forced confiscation of the rich lands of Arena-Buluq and the Dello Menna Jungle, famous for its wild coffee, timber, etc., and its distribution to ministers, senior army officers, the royal family, etc. The ordinary Amhara did no harm. It is one thing to call for a contextual analysis of the situation, but quite another to trivialise the truth. Another shameful behaviour is to try to champion a dead cause. Our reference to the past should not aim at killing what has already died, but to enable us to come to terms with the truth so that we can chart the future together.
Fifth, although the war between Christian Emperors Libne Dengil and his successor Gelawdios, on the one side, and the leader of the Adal, Imam Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al Ghazi (Mohamed Gragn) in 1529-1543 ended in the latter?s death and defeat at the battle of Woina Dega in Wollo, it is known that the debilitating effects of the war enabled Barentu and Borena Oromos initially and, starting 1543, the Metcha-Tullema branch of the latter (Borena) from the southeastern part of our country in a second round, conducted an extensive and coercive expansion to the west and north and managed to settle in areas which today are inhabited by Oromifa speakers. Those who do not today speak Oromifa, due to assimilation into the majority local population in such regions as Wollo, Gonder, and Gojjam are known as Amhara. In other regions, too, such ?Oromos? are identified by the names of the local ethnic groups. Putting aside, for the moment, the main question of as to whom Oromia belongs, what would one feel being regarded as an immigrant in one?s own country one example of which is ?the Oromo Migration?? Bear in mind that this word [immigrant] has subjected us to humiliation. Fable turned into history: over time, the word filsset [immigration /migration] gave birth to felasha [immigrant] and led in 1991 to the loss of our kin and kith who adhered to the Old Testament, under the pretext that they were Israeli Jews. Judaism may have come to Ethiopia by way of immigrants, traders, etc., but the term felasha gave the impression that even Ethiopian converts to Judaism were foreigners, providing a perfect excuse for, on the one hand, the Israelis who mainly wanted the Ethiopians to supplement their meagre manpower resources in their never ending confrontation with the Arabs and the Woyan�, on the other, for making money out of the misery of the Ethiopians. Moreover, who is to blame if a marginalized people chooses to deny its identity and opts for another? I am saying this in the context where we have bolted out of our political sleep to realize the sly political interpretations of the time, not to relish the stretched version of filsset that taunts the people of Wollo Region as ?eternal migrants?. My point is that we have to desist from and correct expressions and acts of marginalisation or misconception that hurt the feelings of others. It is not unusual to listen to Amhara extremists brag about civilizing and not harming others, about letting others go if they wish and about the fictitiousness of Oromia, etc. The trash about civilizing others is a result of ignorance about one?s history. While one born in Debre Marqos calls those across the Abay River Galla and baria, slaves, a Moslem Oromo from Bal� calls the Amhara flat-headed infidels, while those who come from the central parts of the country refer to the Amhara in the north as buda, evil-eyed. Such name-calling may cancel out each other, but it has to be corrected for, firstly, we know it is being exploited to create and /or aggravate contradictions among the people and, secondly, for it does not encourage mutual respect. Telling others to go (secede) and trivializing the name of a region are harmful practices. The term ?Oromia? may not be a historically well-grounded name, but accepting it ? so far as the Oromos themselves like it ? is the least non-Oromos can do both as a gesture of respect to them, considering the derogatory connotations with which the term ?Galla? or ?the land of Galla? was used, and a matter of minor compromise. The term may be fictitious, but every nation is built on its own bit of myth and fiction. We have to pay attention to such practices, as in fact, they form the foundation to correcting similar shortcomings in the interest of coexistence. In the first place who are they [the Amhara extremists] to tell others to go or to stay, to even dare choose names for others? One has to know that a united Ethiopia where the integrity of any nationals and regions - let alone that of such a huge section as the Oromo or of Tigray, an important part of our history - is questioned is another destructive characteristic of the Woyan�. Let alone fundamental matters of history and identity relating to the names of a people or a region, who is to impose their will even on an individual who opts for a name of his or her own choice so long as he or she fulfils relevant legal requirements? We have to remember that reciprocity is fundamental to respect and love being mutual. We, too, have to get used to the political correctness practiced in the west.
Sixth, The expansion of Amhara and Tigre Emperors is often regarded positively as an expression of their strength and of pacification. Emperor Menelk?s southward expansion by defeating local leaders and kings (in Arsi, Harar, Wolayta, Keffa, etc.,) is seen as a territorial expansion intertwined with sovereignty, an act of centralization, and of defending the system of the time and of pacification. I have no problem with that, as no nation in the world came into being without the sword and the spear. Ethiopia should not be expected to be an exception. My problem is the tendency to regard other aspirants to political power than the Amhara and Tigre as demons. We know, for instance, that the explanations given to Imam al Ghazi?s (Gragn Mohamed?s) northward expansion were not the same as those given to Menelik?s. The former was described in both oral and written history as an invader, an infidel and a Satan-sent messenger of destruction. Why? What was the rational behind describing the expansion of Amhara and Tigr� Emperors in a positive light while demonising that of Mohamed Gragn?s? For obvious reasons, it was meaningless to raise such a question in the past. My argument is that we have to be ready to correct this misconception and distortion now. Corollary to this is the tendency to regard the formation of the modern Ethiopian state as a result of a uni-directional southward expansion, rather than a synthesis of a collision-collusion process involving actors from all directions, including Mohamed Gragn?s northward expansion. The bullets of Mohamed Gragn and Emperor Menelik were equally deadly. What is the difference between the former burning Churches in the 16th century and the latter Mosques in the 19th century, other than an indication of the influence of religion on the outlook of those leaders, seen from a perspective of human rights violation? What would have happened if Gragn Mohamed succeeded in his efforts other than making Islam a state religion, just like Menelik and his predecessors made Orthodox Christianity a state religion, for reasons of political expediency, and hence pre-empting Emperor Yohanness IV following in the foot-steps of Menelik? I even have a hunch that Gragn Mohamed might have continued with Amharic as a working language by virtue of its written script. It is not unreasonable to think that he could have also been tempted by Arabic, though it would have been limited to religious use, just like Ge'ez, considering the fact that the people did not speak it. But because of religious affinity, the relations with the Arab world would have been much different. And if we could have been better off than today because of closer ties with Arabs is a moot question, which even experts may have problem knowing with certainty. Incidentally, though, there is little doubt, contrary to conventional wisdom, that we are closer to the Arabs than to the Jews (historically, culturally/psychologically, linguistically, in belief systems, in geo-political and economic ties and in appearance). The problem is bad politics.
I do not believe that our situation would have been significantly different if from the centre or the south, for example, that King Tona of Wolayta, Abba Jiffar of Jimma or the King of Keffa defeated Menelik and took control of the central government. The lessons from the failure of Emperor Yohanness and of Gragn Mohamed to impose a single religion and the development that gradually led to a virtual evening out of the number of Christians and Moslems could have perforce resulted in a seminal realisation of a common country and of leaving religion to the private sphere. One can assume that the social-psychological influences of the communities in the centre coupled with the lax manners and limited opportunities they had, relative to Gragn Mohamed, could have constricted their chances of imposing the will of a single group, leading to a sense of Ethiopiannes similar to that we have today. This, too, is what happened under Menelik, without prejudice to the fact that the culture of those at the helm imposed itself on others. As such, the administrative ability and dexterity of individuals, the role of their advisors and foreign influences, especially as pertains to religion, determined the length of one?s reign at that time.
Although the best evidence they can provide is mythology, the Solomonites had a reason to re-trace the genealogy of the Emperors since the beginning (1270) of the reign of Yekuno Amlak, who dethroned the Zaguw� dynasty, until the end of the reign of Emperor Haile-Silass� I (1974), to King Solomon and the Lion of Judah. Though we were told that Menelik?s father was from Ankober, we knew little about his mother being a southerner (perhaps from the Bulgo or Menzo tribes of Wolayta or Bulgo. Likewise, Emperor Haile-Silass� I tried day and night through out his life to inculcate in our minds that he was a Lion of Judah while he kept us in the dark about his mother being a Gurag� or about the Oromo blood of his father, Ras Mekonnen. This was a ploy to convince political rivals from the Sultanat
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