The Courier

Orthodox priests during the festival of the cross (Meskel).

© Tsigue Shiferaw

The painter Geta Makonnen loved to say, “In this country, when you travel in space, you travel in time”. Lucy, our common ancestor australopithecus afarensis, lived several hundred kilometres from Addis Ababa in the Rift Valley. The National Museum of Ethiopia recently discovered traces of our distant relative, a hominid who lived 3.9 million years ago. And, in the north of the country, the Pount civilisation flourished in the 3rd millennium BC between what is now Eritrea and the region of Tigray. The Egyptians of the lowlands spoke highly of their myrrh, incense and ivory and, according to Ethiopian tradition, it was also in Tigray where Menelik I, son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, founded the civilisation of Axum in the 1st millennium BC. Their steles and obelisks, cut from blocks of stone, are still defying the laws of gravity today (one that was taken by Mussolini’s army in 1937, 24 metres high weighing 170 tonnes, was returned in 2005 to rejoin its fellows). It was also in this mountainous area that Ethiopia became one of the cradles of Christianity after the conversion of King Ezana about 330 AD. It had its own rites and doctrines, which affirmed the union of the divine and mankind in Christ as a single being, its own Ge’ez alphabet and its own Julian calendar enriched by contributions from the Syrians, Armenians and Egyptian Copts. Much later, it was also in the Kingdom of Axum that the disciples of Mohammed found refuge in the 7th century after being driven out of Mecca.

Nearby, in what is now the province of Wollo, the King Lalibela of the Zague dynasty built the famous monolithic churches in the 7th century, which UNESCO defined as a World Heritage Site in 1978. Currently, the EU is funding work to conserve them.

A history of fascination

Axum and the Kingdom of Prester John have fascinated the Europeans, Greeks, Germans and Portuguese for many years. In the 16th century, the Vatican acquired manuscripts, from which, together with other treasures, art historian Jacques Mercier is drawing up an inventory thanks to financial assistance from the EU. An invaluable heritage is also an irresistible temptation for illicit dealers.

European fascination is also underlined by the solidarity shown by the Portuguese arquebusiers who fought to save the kingdom from attack in the 16th Century by the Emir of Harar, Ahmed Gragn, known as ‘the left-handed’. They inspired the splendid castles of Gondar with their great crenulated walls.

However, Ethiopia’s cultural heritage is not based solely on Christian contributions. The country is also an ancient home to two other major monotheistic religions, Islam and Judaism. According to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the members of the falasha community are the descendants of the lost tribe of Dan. Ethiopia was also home to the Muslim Kingdom of Shoa between the 10th and 16th centuries, the vestiges of which were discovered in 2006. Rimbaud was enchanted by Harar – a holy city of Islam – the walls of which are still standing.

The country’s rich cultural heritage includes the traditions of the Afar shepherds, driving their camels through the most arid plains, Somalis and Surma dancers from the Sudan border region whose animistic rites go back to the mists of time. No fewer than 80 ethnic groups inhabit this vast country with such varied landscapes from the scorching lowlands of Danakil to Mount Ras Dashen (4,620 metres).

New forms of spirituality

In this eternal Ethiopia, which is celebrating its second millennium in the Christian era (Julian calendar), spirituality – manifest in the furtive sign of the cross made by the taxi driver on the way to every church – is being expressed in new forms that are very much part of the 21st century. In his own way, this peace activist, a 23-year-old farmer, is the embodiment of these new forms of spirituality. He had walked more than 1,600 kilometres from his native village of Humara in Tigray when we met him on the road across the Metahara plain, displaying the Ethiopian flag and a white flag on his rucksack. He expressed the wish of many of his compatriots to see an end to the cycle of wars that have ravaged the region.

Ethiopia is also the holy land of the Rastafarians and home to the Shashemene community, 240 kilometres from Addis Ababa. Three hundred thousand Rastafarians, fans and tourists flocked to Meskel Square in Addis Ababa in February 2005 for a concert which paid homage to Bob Marley. The display of devotion shown to the late Negus Haile Selassie, revered as a god, left the locals a little bewildered.

The modern age has witnessed a strange paradox of Ethiopia opening up to the world, but also withdrawing into itself. Ethiopia has seen some heady days since the explosion of jazz in the 1950s, followed by the arrival of rumba, rock and calypso. The Academy of Fine Arts was established in 1957. One of its figureheads was the Armenian-Ethiopian, Skunder Boghossian, the founder of abstract art in the country. However, the ‘red terror’ of the Derg regime (1974–1991), under which a curfew was enforced, put an end to the effervescence of the Addis Ababa Nights, a story told by the novelist Sebhat Guèbrè-Egziabhér . The regime completely suppressed the creative spirit that had flourished in the last decades of the empire. The only forms of art permitted had to take their inspiration from the socialism of the day, as illustrated by this Gebre Luel Gebre Mariam painting (1979), depicting a revolutionary patrol. This is to painting what the Red Detachment of Women was to the work of Mao.

The one hundred flowers of Addis Ababa

Since the end of the regime, we have seen the dawn of an eclectic range of artistic expression, ranging from naïve art inspired by icons and applied to profane subjects, like these paintings by Getachew Berhanou, to scenes of everyday life depicting the hustle and bustle of Addis Ababa and the markets of Harar in the most diverse forms (symbolism, impressionism, neo-cubism, etc.).

Berhanou, himself the son of a master of iconography, paints the Surma fighting with donga sticks just as well as a slightly risqué scene of intoxication by Rimbaud. Artistic developments are not unlike those in another great orthodox nation, Russia, with whom Ethiopia has much in common – iconography, an imperial tradition and Stalinism, before experiencing a ‘new wave since the end of the 1990s’ One of the most original new wave works is that of Geta Makonnen whose self-portrait contains pages from the Bible, mirrors, parts of a Kalashnikov rifle and a skeleton, symbolising the fear and intimidation that is part of the modern Ethiopian identity.

From Swinging Addis to cinema

Francis Falceto, the author of a number of books on Ethiopian music, laments the fact that since the end of the dark days of Derg, modern music is a long way from rediscovering its éclat of yesteryear and in particular of Swinging Addis. But the existence of a local record industry, which distributes the work of the veteran Mahmoud Ahmed, may herald a renaissance. Ahmed’s mixture of jazz and oriental music is held in high esteem by fellow musicians and music lovers abroad. We have also seen the emergence of talent like the melody-maker Gigi and Teddy Afro, the new king of the Ethiopian protest song, appealing to his compatriots for reconciliation. This industry, which sells CDs at US$3 each, provides an economic foundation for artistic development. The same goes for cinema. Of course, the purists turn up their noses and are critical of the lack of quality. But just remember how Indian cinema, which had to go through a similar process, developed. One of the latest releases is Hermela, a kind of ‘injera  thriller’, directed by Yonas Berhane Mewa and produced by Ethiofilm plc.

It is the story of a man whose assiduous pursuit of a girl around town and the campus is quite disturbing. The filmmaker Haile Gerima also picked up an award at the Fespaco film festival. Around a dozen films are produced each year, and, according to the African critics, the film industry is performing well. The 2,000-seat Kobeb cinema opened on 8 July, adding to the dozen or so that already exist in the capital. All the national productions are shown, and with tickets priced at around 15 birrs (US$1.7), there is a significant cinema-going public. Eternal Ethiopia, nation of icons and crosses-- will it experience a cinema boom? The new millennium holds the answers.

1 Sebhat Guèbrè-Egziabhér, Les nuits d’Addis-Abeba, Actes Sud, Paris 2004
2 “Splendeurs et misères de la musique éthiopienne”, in L’Ethiopie contemporaine, CFEE and Karthala, Addis-Abeba - Paris 2007.
3 Injera: national Ethiopian dish.

The salvation of the churches of Lalibela

Created from pink volcanic rock under the reign of Lalibela between 1167 and 1207 AD, the 11 churches are the most important place of pilgrimage for Ethiopians. The names of the surrounding hills – Mount Tabor, Mount of Olives and Mount Sinai and the nearby River Jordan are an indication of the royal will to create a ‘second holy land’ in these areas to spare their subjects the dangerous journey to Palestine at a time when crusaders and Muslims confronted one another there. The churches’ design was heavily influenced by Axumite style, but also by Syro-Palestinian and Copt styles.

Through the centuries, these places of worship, interconnected by underground passages, have endured wind, rain and climate change, causing severe wear and tear. After several attempts of restoration, the Ethiopian government called on the assistance of the European Union to help save them. The work, which is being carried out by the Italian company Teprin at a total cost of €9 million, was inaugurated by the patriarch Abuna Paulos in February 2007 and should be completed by the end of this year. The restoration includes the construction of new covers for the monuments, the erection of support columns and the building of a new conference centre and security barriers around the site. The programme also involves conservation work, the creation of a documentation centre and the involvement of the local population in this salvage mission.

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