Ethiopia: HOW THE PAST MUST PREVAIL

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Note: Jeff is the author of the new book The Inspiring Story of Ethiopia’s Victory over Mussolini’s Invasion, 1935–1941.

HOW THE PAST MUST PREVAIL

I think it’s about time the world learned something else about Ethiopia. And when I say “world,” I really mean the cozy Western media in London, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and Paris – you know the one. That whole system that thinks it can tell you what the rest of the planet is about. We have just passed a Super Bowl in which Fox News gas-bags can spew the notion that if you sing “America the Beautiful” in another language you must be an illegal immigrant. This same divided America is still having trouble with movies like 12 Years a Slave, and you can find a sadly ignorant white girl on Facebook who honestly believes there are “two sides” to 400 years of using human beings as farm implements. Captain Phillips – a movie where even the real crew disputes its accuracy – is teaching a new generation that the only thing interesting about Somalia is its pirates.

And as Girum has pointed out, some moron can make a joke out of Ethiopia on Twitter and get 10,000 people passing it along.
Yes, 12 Years a Slave is great, and I will watch Chiwetel Ejiofor in anything – ever since the movie, Serenity, I knew this guy is fantastic. America needs more films about Black History. But we should also have movies about the triumphant African experience, and that’s more than Mandela. As everyone who regularly visits Sodere knows, no white colonial power ever conquered Ethiopia. Not one. Ever. And if you want to jump up and say Italy, I am here to tell you that you’d be wrong. Because I’ve written a book about the Italian-Ethiopian War, and I am convinced that everyone – American, Canadian, British, French, wherever – should learn this story. My book is called Prevail, and I am hoping the world takes notice. I also hope in a humble way that I even have something for Ethiopians to learn about their beautiful country.

I have been to Washa-Mikael and stood in the cave where the Ark of the Covenant was once hidden by priests to keep it from invading Italian troops. I have walked the narrow alleys of Harar, and people don’t know that the Fascist planes came there and bombed the oldest mosque in Africa out of existence – and that the bombing of Harar was front page news. Around the world! You had “Guernica” – the bombing of civilians to create terror – before there even was a Guernica in Spain.

There was once a play on Broadway about your country. There were marches in Harlem and Detroit and Chicago over your country. There were protests in London and Paris on your behalf. Celebrities made passionate comments about Ethiopia. If there were cruel jokes and cartoons, they were at Mussolini’s expense. Nelson Mandela was 17 years old and inspired by your fight. Kwame Nkrumah was inspired. The great writer James Baldwin was a boy of 12, watching it unfold on newsreels in a cinema. Young Ethiopian women fought by their brothers and husbands in the mountains, some with children on their backs as they lugged rifles. And in the end, they won. Yes, with a little help from the British and other African troops, but more through their own efforts. I go into all this in the book.

It’s an astonishing, breathtaking epic, and I thank my lucky stars that I got to sit in a bedroom this past October to interview retired general, Jagama Kello, who was there, who fought so that today Ethiopia is free. I am grateful every day that I can call “friend” a man of 90 in Virginia, retired diplomat Imru Zelleke, who was there – who watched Yekatit 12 unfold as a child and who survived the Danane concentration camp. These men are national treasures who should be honored, who are witnesses to your past, and I am trying to make the world know about them. And I am not alone. Richard Pankhurst has written the forword for my book. Mr. Ian Campbell of the World Bank, who’s done more brilliant new research on Yekatit 12 than anyone you can think of, helped me. Andrew Hilton has written a wonderful book in which many of the Patriots speak for themselves.

There is so much history to be reclaimed. So much pride should be felt over this chapter in history, and also sorrow for those killed. The world should know.

Imagine what a great movie that would be! The story of Ethiopia’s resistance against the Italian invasion, a story in which a great people prevail in the end. And instead of having white Hollywood actors “rescue” everyone, show black people rescuing themselves. Which they did.

People keep asking why I am interested in this, why I wrote this… It is such a great story, why wouldn’t I want to tell it? Richard Pankhurst has devoted his life to the history of Ethiopia, and I am nowhere close to being in his league, but I think I am beginning to understand why he finds Ethiopia so compelling. Because it is. The world should know.

When I tried to sell this book, I was told again and again by certain editors in New York and London that they didn’t think “there was a wide enough audience for it.” This is obviously ridiculous it’s both sad and funny. African-Americans have buying power now of more than a trillion dollars, and they care about their history. And there are about half a million, if not more, Ethiopians living in the Washington, D.C. area alone. We have thousands of Ethiopians in Toronto, plus small communities in Calgary, Winnipeg, elsewhere. Fortunately, I found a big publishing company that has an open mind. But I still must convince the “mainstream.”

And so I am going to break a rule here. No writer should shamelessly ask people to buy his book. It looks kind of sad and desperate. But I happen to think this story is bigger than me. I don’t matter. The history is what matters. I hope you buy my book, but even if you do, it won’t make me rich (trust me, that’s not how publishing works!), and I have spent thousands of my own money to get this story out, far in excess of what I’ve been paid so far for it.

What I do hope is that even if you can’t afford to buy it or pre-order it (it’s out in September), you will mention it to friends who might be interested and who will want to read it. You will spread the word of how Ethiopia prevailed. Together, we will change the stupid image that ignorant people have of famines and conflict, and we will remind the young that there was a time when warriors picked up antique rifles and faced planes and mustard gas. They used their mountains as castle fortresses and defied a dictator. They prevailed.

It’s a legend that’s true, and it’s about time the world was taught this legend.

You can pre-order PREVAIL through Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Prevail-Inspiring-Ethiopias-Mussolinis-1935%C…

You can like PREVAIL on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ethiopianwar?ref=hl

by Jeff Pearce