Category: Haile Selassie I – Testimonies

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Haile Selassie I - Testimonies

Nelson Mandela, Conversation with Richard Stengel

Nelson Mandela, Conversation with Richard Stengel about meeting Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia
“That was an impressive fellow man, very impressive. It was my first time to watch…a head of state going through the formalities… the motions of formality. This chap came wearing a uniform and he then came and bowed. But it was a bow which was not a bow – he stood erect, you see, but just brought down his head…then…took his seat and addressed us, but he spoke in Amharic…Then, at the end of the conference, he saw every, each delegation…and Comrade Oliver Tambo asked me to speak for our delegation, to speak to Him And I explained to Him very briefly what was happening in South Africa…He was seated on his chair, listening like a log…not nodding, just immovable, you know, like a statue…The next time I saw Him was when we attended a military parade, and that was very impressive, absolutely impressive. And he was then giving awards…to the soldiers; everyone who had graduated got a certificate… A very fine ceremony – a very dignified chap – and he also gave medals. There were American military advisors and groups of military advisers from various countries…And so he gave medals to these chaps too. But to see whites going to a Black Monarch Emperor and bowing was also very interesting.”
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Haile Selassie I - Testimonies

Sri Aurobindo – Important Indian Mystic

Poetical Work of Sri Aurobindo, important Indian mystic, inspirator of “Auroville”. Probably written during the Italo-Ethiopian War.

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Haile Selassie I - Testimonies

Uk Evening Express, 17th of January 1941

“HAILE SELASSIE – PROPHET

It was a lovely night, the skies were blue and the moon shone with rare brilliance. I had the unique honour of listening to the Emperor Haile Selassie in his modestly furnished reception room in the ancient city of Bath.

How prophetic of the Black Emperor that he should choose Bath for his residence in Britain – a city made famous by the Romans for their baths.

It was in June of the last year, before Benito Mussolini, the destroyer of Abyssinia’s freedom, declared war on Britain.

The world knew nothing about the plans and intentions of the Emperor when he told me that:

‘The hour of my country’s liberation is coming and you will see me soon leaving this country.

Don’t think that I was wasting my time here pushing my bicycle on the streets of Bath all these days. My faithful rasses all over the country were carefully knitting a net of revolutionary activity, keeping the people informed about my doings here and their duty to their motherland.

I have received definitive news from Ras Kassa that my people are awaiting my arrival in the country with expectancy.

I will not rest until the last Italian is driven away from my country. I live and I die for the liberation of Ethiopia. I am confident that in less than a year I will ride on my snow-white charger at the head of my people and enter Addis Ababa.’ “

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Haile Selassie I - Testimonies

Indro Montanelli – Italian Journalist and Fascist Soldier – 1982

Interview with Enzo Biagi, taken from “1935 e dintorni”, E.Biagi, Mondadori 1982.

“I feel a great admiration for the negus, a real man without doubts, and the abyssinians were very lovable people, they had never been our enemies, even during the conflict, everywhere we were welcomed with feasts“. (…)

“I remember Haile Selassie as a man full of dignity, I knew him when I returned there: suspicious, smart, very shrewd, surely a head fitting for his country, that never accepted our offers. As you know, we wanted to give him a huge appanage, to make him king of Rhodes or one island in the Aegean Sea, that was surely easier than going to London in exile, poor, for he didn’t own exported money. Instead, he was able to keep his rank, his style, and above all he had this high merit: once returned in Addis Abeba, he started to protect the Italian people, he never felt any rancour.“

 

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Haile Selassie I - Testimonies

Daily Colonist – Canadian Newspaper – 1961

The Daily Colonist (Canada), 15th January 1961

“Weak Emperors Don’t Last – Little Haile Selassie Always Comes Out on Top”

“Weeping Ethiopians fell on their faces and kissed the ground as the imperial automobile drove past. Then they went to their churches and sang hymns of rejoicing and thanksgiving to their emperor and, incidentally, to God.” (…)

“Haile Selassie is a little man physically. He is 5 1/2 feet tall and slightly built. His jet-black beard now has a few grey hairs as he goes into his 70th year.

But he is strong, physically and morally.”

 

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Haile Selassie I - Testimonies

Pastor Oswald Hoffmann – “The Lutheran Hour” Radio Programme – 1968

“Your Imperial Majesty, it is a great honour to be permitted to speak with you today and also to have you as a guest on this special Christmas programme which will be broadcast to people all over the world.” (…)
“His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie The First ascended the throne of Ethiopia in November in the year 1930. Now, in the year 1968, Haile Selassie has been in the forefront in mediating the crisis in Biafra. Some of the intervening years have been stormy ones. But there are few Statesmen who can retrace a career of more resolute leadership in both internal and world affairs. Few can claim greater unbroken continuity with the past that nevertheless moves methodically into the twentieth century. At the same time, few have seen more anguish and defeat than Haile Selassie, of whom biographer Leonard Mosley has written in projected epitaph, ‘He shaped, rather than waited upon events’.
Just seven months after He became Emperor in 1930, He gave the people of Ethiopia their first written Constitution. His plea before the League of Nations in 1936 as His country was ravaged by Mussolini’s armies, and His anguished exile during the following years, are etched in the memory of the world. When He regained His throne in 1941, His refusal to allow retaliation against the defeated invader was viewed with disbelief.
‘On this day‘, He said, ‘I owe thanks unutterable by the mouth of man to the living God who has enabled me to be present among you. Today is the beginning of a new era in the history of Ethiopia. Since this is so, do not reward evil for evil…do not commit any act of cruelty like those which the enemy committed against us up to this present time‘.
When the United Nations Charter was drawn up after World War II His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie was one of its original drafters. In 1963, He established the Organization of African Unity, to encourage co-operation among African States and co-ordinate their efforts to build a better life for the people of all Africa.
Constitutional reforms in 1956 guaranteed all the rights of the people of Ethiopia, though the Emperor retains much personal power in governing His agricultural nation of 22 million people, all the time seeking to lead His nation toward a fully modern way of life.
At 76 years of age, His Imperial Majesty continues to work a twenty hour day, with three hours for sleep and one devoted to prayer. Emperor Haile Selassie and I talked about many things on that day during the rainy season.” (…)
“Your Imperial Majesty, as a figure of world importance and probably one of the best known man in the world today…
(…) “Your Imperial Majesty, You have done us great honour and also all the people who will listen to this broadcast by giving us the opportunity to speak with You this day. And all those who are listening should know that this conversation was held in the Imperial Palace at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I, and we thank You and wish you God’s blessing in all the days to come.”
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Haile Selassie I - Testimonies

Nelson Mandela, Liberator of South Africa – 1994

Taken from his autobiography “The Long Walk to Freedom”, 1994:

“Ethiopia has always held a special place in my own imagination and the prospect of visiting Ethiopia attracted me more strongly than a trip to France, England, and America combined. I felt I would be visiting my own genesis, unearthing the roots of what made me an African. Meeting the emperor himself would be like shaking hands with history.” (…) 

“Suddenly we heard the distant music of a lone bugle and then the strains of a brass band accompanied by the steady beating of African drums. As the music came closer, I could hear — and feel — the rumbling of hundreds of marching feet. From behind a building at the edge of the square, an officer appeared brandishing a gleaming sword; at his heels marched five hundred black soldiers in rows four across, each carrying a polished rifle against his uniformed shoulder. When the troops had marched directly in front of the grandstand, an order rang out in Amharic, and the five hundred soldiers halted as one man, spun around, and executed a precise salute to an elderly man in a dazzling uniform, His Highness the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, the Lion of Judah. 

Here, for the first time in my life, I was witnessing black soldiers commanded by black generals applauded by black leaders who were all guests of a black head of state. It was a heady moment. I only hoped it was a vision of what lay in the future for my own country.” (…) 

“The conference was officially opened by our host, His Imperial Majesty, who was dressed in an elaborate brocaded army uniform. I was surprised by how small the emperor appeared, but his dignity and confidence made him seem like the African giant that he was. It was the first time I had witnessed a head of state go through the formalities of his office, and I was fascinated. He stood perfectly straight, and inclined his head only slightly to indicate that he was listening. Dignity was the hallmark of all his actions.

 

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Haile Selassie I - Testimonies

S. Radhakrishnan, President of India – 1965

Addis Abeba, 10th of October 1965

“Your Imperial Majesty, Your Excellencies, and Distinguished Guests: it has been a source of great pleasure for me and the members of my party, to have been able to accept the kind invitation of His Imperial Majesty and be with you just now.

In our country and in many parts of the world, His Imperial Majesty is admired affectionately and treated as a great and good man. He has suffered for the people of Ethiopia. He led the people in the battlefield, and when calamity overtook them, he appealed to the conscience of the world. He pleaded with the League of Nations, suffered exile and came back to power, and since then he has been trying to modernise Ethiopia, to bring to it all the great benefits which modern industry, economic progress and modem reforms can offer to a people.

We have been greatly struck by the fact that though he is a devout Christian, he allows freedom of thought, expression and belief to the Muslims, to the Jews and others who inhabit this land. The calamities which intolerance brings, racial and religious, are to be seen in different parts of the world and are overcome only by the growth of tolerance and understanding, the spirit which His Imperial Majesty is showing in the administration of his country.”