by ASRAT DEFERES
Emperor Haile Selassie PHOTO/Flickr
An open letter to acting AU Commission Chairperson
H.E. Mr. Erastus Mwencha
Acting Chairperson of AU Commission
African Union Head Office
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Chairperson@africa-union.org
Your Excellency,
The Ethiopian Pan-African Society would like to express its views on the demands by Ethiopian individuals forwarded to you to consider the erection of the statue of ex-emperor Haile Selassie along with that of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah at the premises of the new AU headquarters. We strongly urge you not to consider this demand as the ex-emperor was neither a pan-Africanist nor a model head of state to be emulated.
Whether or not the ex-emperor of Ethiopia has contributed to Pan-Africanism cannot be judged:
• out of abstract sentiment or out of opposition to the current regime in Ethiopia
• through the songs of Bob Marley, other Rasta reggae singers or through the Ethiopian singer, Tewodros Kassahun
• through sentimental anecdotes on such as what happened at the founding conference of the OAU in 1963 as a certain Mismaku did recently.
1. Africa is in a deep crisis emanating from a prevailing system of governance that is corrupt and dictatorial through and through. That calls for an egalitarian system of governance that takes the crying plights of the ordinary African into consideration. Cultivating the new generation of Africans imbued with the spirit of Pan-Africanism that springs from the plight of the poor and with freedom and democracy in the first place is an absolute pre-requisite. Construction of Africa’s own history can be part of this process of cultivating such a new generation. The place we give to past heads of state in the contemporary history of Africa is as crucial. This is where our serious objection to the eulogy paid to the ex-emperor of Ethiopia.
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