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Haile Selassie I - Testimonies

Nelson Mandela, 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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I&I Rasta

Against Apartheid in Israel and South Africa

INTERVIEWER: “I understand that you were planning to tour Israel at the end of October (’83) What happened with that tour?”

TOSH: “Not me was planning to tour, they were trying to get me to go to Israel to tour or to do a couple shows there but then again my integrity will not take me there, cause what I stand for is equal rights and justice in the highest degree. There are many places I have been that I should not have been but then again that’s how the shitstem go. Jah say you have to get your bread out of desolate places so Israel has close ties with South Africa and Israel in this dispensation of time, is the continuation of apartheid and the racial injustice seen. They are the administrators, maybe the key administrators of racial injustice in South Africa to my people and I could not support that. There are many countries that really do support that still. But then again you still hear there are many places that really support it.”

INTERVIEWER: “Isn’t that ironic that the people that would suffer so much racial genocide 30 years ago would now be involved in the same kind?”

TOSH: “Yeah, but you see there is nothing happening on earth today that is a coincidence, everything was designed thousands of years ago, is only a pity that it is so ugly. And it’s only a pity that your eyes have to see it and your ears have to hear about it. But then again it was something that was designed, seen. Everyman is getting paid according to his work, seen. What’s going on in South Africa is very ugly, very, very, very ugly. Everyday you hear them talk about the Jewish holocaust and how much million blood clot Jews Hitler killed but you never hear them talk about how much bumba clot million people the South African regime kill daily, seen. & not only them, them don’t talk about the bloodclot invasion of the Italian into Ethiopia in the 1930s during the government of Emperor Haile Selassie I and how much bloodclot million people them kill. Them don’t talk about that no time. Them tell you about the Jewish bloodclot holocaust. Every bumbaclot you hear about the Jewish fuckin’ holocaust so what ago happen to we? Seen? And the shitstem I can’t take it no more. That’s why there will be so much disaster and destruction.

Ancient Ras Peter Tosh, Interview with Doug Wendt, San Francisco 1983