Continued Debate on Abyssinia / Ethiopia, History, and Human Rights Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis Orientalist, Historian, Political Scientist, Dr. Megalommatis, 50, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages. He refuted Greek nationalism, supported Martin Bernal’s Black Athena, and rejected the Greco-Romano-centric version of History. He pleaded for the European History by J. B. Duroselle, and defended the rights of the Turkish, Pomak, Macedonian, Vlachian, Arvanitic, Latin Catholic, and Jewish minorities of Greece. Born Christian Orthodox, he adhered to Islam when 36, devoted to ideas of Muhyieldin Ibn al Arabi. Greek citizen of Turkish origin, Prof. Megalommatis studied and/or worked in Turkey, Greece, France, England, Belgium, Germany, Syria, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Russia, and carried out research trips throughout the Middle East, Northeastern Africa and Central Asia. His career extended from Research & Education, Journalism, Publications, Photography, and Translation to Website Development, Human Rights Advocacy, Marketing, Sales & Brokerage. He traveled in more than 80 countries in 5 continents. He defends the Right of Aramaeans, Oromos, Ogadenis, Sidamas, Berbers, Darfuris, and Bejas to National Independence, demands international recognition for Kosovo, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and Transnistria, calls for National Unity in Somalia, and denounces Islamic Terrorism. author's email author's web site view author's other articles Join this author's mailing list Your Name: E-mail Address: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis September 10, 2007 It is with great pleasure that I got from many readers an enthusiastic feedback about the earlier publication of a letter, sent to me by an Eritrean Tigrinya speaking reader, and related comments contributed by Sidama and Ogadeni natives, along with my answer. I believe that only positive outcome can be obtained through this interaction that was prohibited for more than twelve (12) decades by the successive ruthless and inhuman rulers of Abyssinia, who invaded so many nations (Oromos, Ogadenis, Sidamas, Afars, Shekachos, Gambellas, etc.), and mercilessly attempted to obliterate their cultures, religions, languages and social systems of organizations. I am even happier to see that the original correspondent, Mr. Eremias Woldemikael, answered back, commenting on several issues that need further reply. For those who did not read the first part of the debate, the title of the article was ‘A Debate on Abyssinia / Ethiopia with Tigray, Ogadeni and Sidama participation’ (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/a-debate-on-abyssinia-ethiopia-with-tigray-ogadeni-and-sidama-participation.html). In this article, I will publish Mr. Eremias Woldemikael’s letter and my answer, whereas in a forthcoming article, I will comment on the interesting Sidama – Tigray debate, publishing Mr. Mr. Eremias Woldemikael’s answer to Sidama National Liberation Organization Chairman Kambata Xola, Mr. Xola’s reply, and my comments on either. Mr. Mr. Eremias Woldemikael’s letter Dear Dr. Megalommatis, Thanks for your reply. I must first say that I am quite surprised that you had chosen to publish and share my simple letter with so many of your friends without asking for my consent. I was caught unprepared for the barrage of e-mails and responses my e-mail has generated from Sidama and Oromo colleagues of yours. Your decision is in a way a double-edged sword. While I was disappointed by the way you and your colleagues had responded to my simple comment for moderation in rhetoric and choice of words, I was at the same time delighted that I was able to communicate with my Sidama and Oromo brothers in such a way. I was especially happy by the Sidama brothers' communication because I had never had an opportunity to interact with them. Anyhow, I am fine and don't mind if you share my writings in public from now on. All of you seem to be consumed with a burning anger at the rulers and perpetrators of injustice to a section of the people of Today's Ethiopia. As any fair minded person might do, I stand with you in condemning past and current injustices against any people, including in today's Ethiopia regardless of the victim or the perpetrator. History, in today's Ethiopia or elsewhere is filled with so many such instances. My view tends to be that those errors of the past need to be acknowledged and learned. My point in writing you simply is that one need not be vengeful or increase ethnic hatred through inflammatory rhetoric. I am not saying that leaders, regimes or governments, and parties ought not be judged and condemned for acting and governing badly. I am simply saying that inadequacies of rulers simply need to be just that. They are not and need not be an entire nation's or peoples. Now, some of you have questioned whether I am an Eritrean as I claim. Well, I was in Eritrea this summer, and you will hopefully see a report of my trip soon. More than that, I do not know how I will convince you. You are just going to have to take my word for it. As to my opposition to the president of the Transitional Government of Eritrea, Yes indeed, I oppose Issaias Afeworki and his cronies vehemently for suffocating and leading a promising and hopeful nation down to a dark abyss. Dr. Megalommatis, you seem to have wanted me to say something about colonialism or your extensive writing on it because I said I was an Eritrean. My purpose was not to write about colonialism and you were perhaps right to say that I was not familiar with your writings on this subject. I will admit to you that I do not read all your writings. This time however, I was prompted and alarmed by your rhetoric which I thought might fuel ethnic hatred. My purpose in writing you is to simply ask you to consider possible consequences and outcomes of your choice of words in reporting current and past injustices against any people. As far as your articles on the correct use of the name of Ethiopia, I could careless, but I think you have some unproved hypothesis you take for granted. Although you may be right in claiming that the Ancient name did not belong to Aksumites, I submit to you that it has to yet be proven that it now belongs to Oromos. The Meroitic language is mostly thought of as one that belongs to the Nilo-Saharan family of languages or as an Isolate. Therefore none of the Cushitic speaking peoples would be qualified as descendants of Meroe's Cushitic peoples. On your view that Abyssinians are Yemenite, further research needs to be done but eminent scholars such as Tadesse Tamrat, R. Pankhurst, and others have theorized that. the Yemenite migration was more in culture than in population. Abyssinians are probably Sabeanized (Semitized) Agaws, Sahos or other Cushitic peoples. I am not going to argue this but I thought I make you aware of it because I see very little physical differences between Abyssinians and other Cushitic peoples of today's Ethiopia. As to your claim that Abyssinia's name was changed to Ethiopia by Haile Sellasie, upon the advice of French scholars, I need to point out to you that successive Ethiopian Emperors ever since Ezana's first use of the word in the Greek stone, have been stylizing themselves as Neguse Negest Ze Ityopia (King of Kings of Ethiopia) at least in the Geez scripts. Titles and seals on letters sent to European leaders at least in the late 19th C. by the three emperors (Tewodros, Yohannes IV, and Menelik II) make this clear. Based on the articles you sent me, I got the sense that you are particularly obsessive about the past names being used in a correct manner. Now, as to your current advocacy of the Oromo people's rights, I am not quite sure about your motive although it is your right to do so. Is "Ethiopia" one of the incorrectly used names that must be corrected at any cost? Are the Oromo the accidental people you stumbled on in your research and are being used to fulfill your obsession of correcting inaccurate use of archaic names that no one cares about? Or are you a person who is first and foremost concerned about human rights and Justice, but happens to know ancient peoples and cultures who happen to be oppressed? Based on your long description of yourself on your bio, I think you are the former one who is hell bent on achieving "correct-name" obsession by any means necessary including using once victimized people and breaking apart a modern Nation-state. Finally, I would like to remind every one that the African World order still goes by colonial borders. As much as I hate it, that seems to be the existing fact. I do not know what will happen in the future (perhaps breaking up of Sudan) to change that, but Ethiopia has had an article (39) in its constitution that allows nations to secede from the Federation. To my Oromo brothers, If I were you, I would think very hard about what the best interest of your people is, i.e., Secession or Federation? Discuss the subject with the political parties of Oromia (OFDN, OPDO, ONC OLF) etc. Economically and politically, is it wise to secede from the Federation created in the early 90's? Or does the constitution of Ethiopia need to be amended to further accommodate nations and peoples rights? After considering such questions, if you still want to secede, all you have to do is invoke Article 39 and go from there. Personally, I think secession is not probably not the best idea. The best thing for Ethiopians is probably to stick together in a brotherhood of respect for each individual and ethnicities. In that spirit, the course for all Ethiopians might be to know and learn their collective histories, reconcile and move forward together. Note: I do not know why you sent me the note on Yeha Thanks for your time. Sincerely Eremias Woldemikael Comments on Mr. Mr. Eremias Woldemikael’s letter Dear Eremias, it is greatly satisfactory that you truly understood my motives in rendering the discussion public, and responded promptly. Your answer is heavily personal, and I feel it as an interview (you repeatedly ask about my motives); however, I have been used to impersonal debates whereby this sort of questions is absent as it matters not – ideas and interpretations do. On the other hand, I must admit that my publications are not limited exclusively within the sphere of History, Humanities and Politics but expand on issues pertaining to Human Rights, involving interviews, publication of reports and press releases (with a brief introduction written by me), and in addition, presentation of articles written by intellectuals and activists with whom I share the same vision, and whose texts I fully adopt. This is not a common academic behaviour, and therefore I find it necessary to address these points as well. Perhaps, it would be more appropriate to start with them. Consequently, my Point 1 is dedicated to personal intentions and attitudes, leaving space thereafter for historical – political points. Point 1. – My Commitment in Diffusing Knowledge As I have to answer to you about my motives, it would be proper to deliberately let you know first some of my ideas about my profession. I am convinced that the professionalism of the late 20th century academia has been replaced by a minimal careerism, involving impermissible socializing, disastrous conformism, and unethical indifference for the Mankind. The 19th century academia’s pioneering work had certainly its own limits; the scholars of those days were certainly characterized by their preconceived ideas, their farfetched inconsistencies, their projection of unrestrained imagination and different thought methodology on the (then or earlier discovered) textual and archeological evidence, their limited background, sources, and lack of interdisciplinary approach, but they were still concerned with the diffusion of the scientific knowledge, considering their role as key to the world’s masses’ enlightenment. For them, it was important to clarify issues to average readership, not to academic colleagues only. All this has by now gone; today’s so-called scholars are happy to publish per year three articles, of 10 pages each, on an over-specialized point that is understood just by 10 to 20 academic colleagues usually ready just to congratulate, to give two communications to international congresses, to teach for 3 or 4 hours per week, and then to isolate themselves in libraries or socialize in lobbies. For today’s scholars, the great masses of the average people simply do not exist; they are abandoned to the idiocy of the TV programs, the sports and the spectacles. I personally reject this, and I have always pursued my commitment to widen the average knowledge, sharing my erudition with many, and to attract average people to Education, Search for their Culture and Identity, and Self-improvement. Contrarily to my colleagues, I am greatly concerned with shedding more light, and with leading people to the direction of the Truth. Do not take this as a ‘crusade’; it is not! However, it is certainly a lifestyle, and I stick to it. I faced many times a publisher’s question type: ‘who will read this?’; you understand of course that I cannot possibly care about this, as I do not know personally (nobody does) the outright majority of 6 billion people living on Earth! What makes me happy is to notice that many people in many countries appreciate my commitment, learn a lot, and are happy to finally find in my texts what was not offered to them by either the colonial historians or the cruel Abyssinian dictators. Do not think that I met enthusiastic support among only the oppressed peoples of Abyssinia and Somalia; people from Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen, Macedonia, America, Scotland, Kosovo, Algeria, Morocco, Transnistria and other places write to me with great love. Beyond my academic and journalistic background, knowledge and experience, I am a free thinker. I did not have enough time to write systematically my thoughts as to what can be possibly valued as scholarship or statesmanship today, but this does not mean that I do not have my convictions. Truth and Moral Values: the World’s Only Possible Survival Science and scholarship mean Truth, Search for Truth, and imply an entire set of Moral Values serviced by scholars in their path; we cannot and will not afford the lie. The same Moral Values must prevail in politics and statesmanship. It is an illusion to think that anything can survive without Truth and Moral Values. And it is an aberration to think that anybody can survive without Truth and Moral Values. Perhaps quite unpleasantly to many, this is not just my belief and conviction. This is how it will be. Top Moral Obligation: the Complete and Final Destruction of the ‘Ethiopian’ Tyranny Compared with this point, what you are saying about “breaking apart a modern Nation-state” is at least ridiculous; nation-states do not represent any value. Most of them have risen out of murder, felony, vicious machinations, and criminally antihuman and virtually inhuman plans; states in most of the cases consist in the most repugnant Coffin of the Mankind’s most illustrious and ingenious minds and hearts. Comparing Human Moral Values to filthy interests of thugs and gangs that managed to impose themselves and assert their perversion, condemning entire populations, and the Mankind in general, to darkness is similar to making a parallel between the most exquisite jewel and the most impoverished slum’s malodorous sewerage. Shifting the discussion on the absolutely unacceptable Abyssinian squalor, you understand that, to defend Human Values, one has to denounce in the most categorically stated way the outrageous and absolutely disreputable formation of the illegal state of the monstrous bandits Menelik and Haile Selassie, and to utterly demand its immediate and irreversible dissolution, as simple corroboration of the righteous fighters’ blood shed over all the surface of that lawless state. Only Ignorance justifies Neutrality and/or Indifference as regards Abyssinia’s scandalous record of inhuman acts, thoughts, intentions, policies, strategies, plans and deeds. For those who know, it is an imperative moral obligation to utterly, ceaselessly, and expansively inform the uniformed and the unaware allover the world, to denounce the Abyssinian elites’ inhuman deeds, and to demand the ultimate split and collapse of the monstrous state of Abyssinia – shamefully and comically re-baptized ‘Ethiopia’. As state, the 120-year old, most loathed tyranny is the world’s worst and most perilous vampire that still consists in a lethal threat against all its oppressed peoples and various neighbors. Point 2. Sticking to Moral Standards is not an Obsession! Believing that I made my position clear, I have to stress the point that I am not concerned with any sort of ‘obsession’ you may think I am inclined to; you must come to terms with the reality that carrying out moral obligations and abiding by moral standards cannot possibly be called “obsession” – except if we live in a jungle whereby we are allowed to eat one another, imitating the cannibalistic deeds of Haile Selassie, MenElik, Jauditu, Mengistu and other Amhara criminals. To tell, propagate and impose the universally accepted truth that colonial professors teach in Paris and London among the small circle of their European students, whereas they say otherwise in the presence of Africans, Middle Easterners, and Asiatics, is not and cannot – by definition – be called ‘obsession’, except by an immoral person of filthy purposes and malignant intentions. I want to believe that you are not one of them. Point 3. – Avoid over-generalizations while focusing on a Name and its Importance Over-generalizing is not a good advice; when one focuses on one subject during a discussion, it is always wise to avoid diversions of any sort. Certainly, ‘Ethiopia’ is not the only incorrectly used name; there are many other equally unacceptable misnomers. I published a lot about the falsehood of the name ‘Arab’ or ‘Arabic’ for countries spanning from the African Atlas to the Indian Ocean. Greece entered a catastrophic and meaningless dispute with Macedonia, demanding that the newly established Balkan state selects another name; very, very wrong. What you ask about correcting a misnomer ‘at any cost’ lets me understand that you are a simple conformist disregarding any moral dimension and principle in this world. You actually cannot use the term “at any cost” because there is no “cost” involved when it comes to Truth, and Moral Values. In addition, you don’t understand that All is included in a Name. The widely misunderstood, theoretical question ‘What is in a Name?” signifies precisely this; at the play’s end, Romeo and Juliet die because precisely within the that plot’s context their names were Montague and Capulet. At a national level, only true and real cultural and national identity guarantees progress, prosperity and real development. The ‘cost’ you are talking about is so insignificant as the infinitesimal importance of the ‘Relative’. Human rights and Justice are not folders of politicians in electoral campaign; before all the rest, they are Moral Values; they pre-exist the Creation, and therefore Human Beings, either Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian or anything else, justify their existence when abiding by them. Any person sticking to Moral Values does precisely this; and how can one claim to be Human without justifying his/her existence? What you try to assume about me, namely my supposed attempt to use a victimized people in order to pursue scholarly obsessions, would be immoral; and although it could plainly justify the destruction of a far more immoral entity, i.e. the scandalous tyranny of Abyssinia, it would be meaningless to attack an immoral entity through immoral procedures and means. Point 4. No to Relativism: Amharas bear Collective Historical Responsibility In several cases in your letter I detect a latent relativism, and if I am true in detecting it, this is absolutely immoral, and cannot lead anywhere. You say “History, in today's Ethiopia or elsewhere is filled with so many such instances”; this is true and is not true. For instance, Iceland or Denmark are not concerned with “such instances”; and why bother? Here, we discuss Abyssinia; so, we must focus on Abyssinia. When your relativism does not concern the past, it does relate to the future! This is incredible! You say “need not be vengeful or increase ethnic hatred through inflammatory rhetoric”; I agree with you that revenge is a truly negative feeling that can be very dangerous and truly disastrous for the hosting person (or group, people, nation). However, it is odd for you to bother for this now; and it is to some extent immoral too. Let me explain to you why; every action causes reaction, and you cannot avoid this. It is not you who should bother about the eventual Oromo, Ogadeni, Sidama, Afar, Shekacho, Gambella reaction and revengeful feelings now, and their acts tomorrow; Menelik and Haile Selassie, Mengistu and Zenawi should have bothered first. As long as they slaughtered the tyrannized Kushitic Ethiopians whom they had illegally invaded and shamelessly dehumanized, they did not bother to think “about the possible consequences”; they did not care, being drunken in their immoral monstrosity and lawless bestiality. Along with them, their unchallenged elites, their unmatched feudal masters (the repugnant ‘ras’) and their permanently uneducated masses. Amharas will not avoid the Consequences of their deeds There might have been Amharas who envisioned another political regime, not tyrannical monarchy, let’s say a republican system or a communist administration (like that of Mengistu) but its privileges would be reserved for the Amharas exclusively. There has never been a repentant Amhara, a righteous Amhara, who would stand up to condemn the oppression of the tyrannized populations of so many other nations. I understand that he would have been eliminated within seconds, but the records would have preserved his name. He would have had to be courageous As a matter of fact, the Amharas bear collective responsibility for a Permanent Crime against the Mankind, and so lawless they are that they dare express either questions as regards the reason of my texts or publish their insults as an ultimate proof of their inability to seize the importance of Penitence for a Christian. I therefore do not find strange at all what the Catholic Encyclopedia in the entry ‘Abyssinia’ (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01075e.htm) states with respect to them: “The Catholic apostolate in Abyssinia must always exercise a courageous discretion and an unfailing mildness. The missionaries will have to contend for many years against the Eutychian fanaticism of the monks, and the quarrelsome nature of the inhabitants. Moreover, the frequent political revolutions of the past give little hope of settled peace and continued security…………… ………. The present clergy are buried in a state of deplorable ignorance. Little is required of secular priests beyond the ability to read and to recite the Nicene creed, and a knowledge of the most necessary liturgical rites”. When you are met with a situation like this, you have to abide by moral standards, and you cannot care more about the possibly revengeful feelings of the oppressed Ethiopian nations, and less about the long lasting barbaric deeds of the cruel and analphabetic Amharas. 1945 – What matters most? Jewish possible revengeful feelings of Nazi deeds? It is as if, in the aftermath of WW II, you care more about the possibly revengeful feelings of the survived European Jewry than about the execrable deeds of the Nazi establishment; it is not normal after all! You then try to say that the inadequacies of the elites and the leaders are their exclusive responsibility (‘They are not and need not be an entire nation's or peoples’); well, no! Absolutely not! There is always collective responsibility for a people engaged in scandalously racist and inhuman policies. A tyranny can be the matter of just a ruling class (a regime) or an entire people; it is easy to understand. Elites and peoples: accomplices or not? When you have inner resistance, extermination of masses, jails and gulags, you understand that the country’s populations dissociate themselves from the elite. Whatever Jaruzelski may have pursued as policy in 80s Poland, you cannot attribute it to the Poles collectively, because they expressed overwhelming support and commitment within Lech Walesa’s Solidarnosc. Solzhenitsyn gives an idea of the Russians’ resistance to the Soviet regime. For Germans in Nazi Germany we have but certainly more fragmentary evidence of anti-Nazi resistance. That’s why the Allied forces viewed post-Nazi Germany as collectively responsible. -In what did the Amharas dissociate themselves from the outrageously barbaric and inhuman policies and deeds of their either monarchical or communist rulers and elites? The answer is simple: in nothing, and never. And the conclusion is even easier: the Amharas are lost. Nothing can be expected from them, and the sooner their criminal and inhuman state is dissolved to ten pieces the better. Amharas have to be kicked out of the illegally occupied Finfinne (not Addis), and isolated in their Amhara territory. So dangerous the unrepentant Amhara are that UN rule must apply to them and for the cruel treatment of so many nations for so many long decades, the International Court of Justice must decide on how much of the Amhara annual income must be paid as recompense to the independent states of the Oromos, the Ogadenis, the Sidamas, the Afars, the Gambellas and the Shekachos – and for how long. Point 5. Eritrean or not? Many people considered you as a Tigray supporter of tyrant Meles Zenawi, saying that you prefer to impersonate an Eritrean to possible extract an advantageous position in the debate; personally, I do not think so! I take for granted that you are as you say. And as I am a human being, and I may make a mistake, if I am proven wrong, this will harm you and the overall reputation of the Tigrays – not me. It would extremely ludicrous to belong to the ruling circle of a country, and have no guts to say it explicitly. If this happened to me, I would commit suicide! Of course, it sounds strange how an Eritrean, who got liberated from the Amhara cruel rule, still loves being subjugated by them, and thus tolerates and forgets their cruel past deeds – in order not to be so revengeful – but, if you want my opinion, the human soul is an abyss, and anything exists in this world. Eritrea’s poor record of Human Rights respect and implementation certainly renders you possibly credible. What I find strange is why you care more about another country’s internal problems and ethnic groups, and less about your own country’s ethnic groups, religious minorities, and educational, cultural and political issues. I have been in Eritrea and, long before that, I studied its past. I would therefore like to know what you would suggest about the Bejas, the Kunamas and the Afars of Eritrea. I would rather advise you to forget the collapsing tyranny of Abyssinia that will find the monstrous end it deserves, either the Amharas like it or not, and focus on development needs of your own country. Point 6. - Colonialism Yes, as you have correctly guessed, I would like to have your opinion about European and Amhara colonialism; I want to know whether you are an African Original. The accurate evaluation of Colonialism’s nefarious impact serves as litmus paper for the African states’ progress and development possibilities. Of course, a correct approach to political colonialism could be the basis for a later greater consideration as regards cultural and educational colonialism - the epicenter of evil work carried out on African soil. I would therefore like you to explain to me how you view the Amhara expansion on Oromo, Sidama, Afar, Ogadeni, Shekacho and Gambella territories in the last decades of the 19th century; I would also like you to make a comparison between the Russian colonial expansionism in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia and Northeastern Asia (that international bibliography has long characterized as Colonialism) and the tiny Amhara state’s abnormal augmentation in the Horn of Africa region. Point 7. – ‘Fueling ethnic hatred’? “Fueling ethnic hatred”? I think you should know that I do not need to fuel anything; the outright majority of the Abyssinian Hell of Oppression, the Oromos, the Ogadenis, the Shekachos, the Afars, the Sidamas, the Gambellas and others consist in a righteous and real Volcano turning directly and very accurately against the inhuman and criminal Amhara and Tigray Abyssinians for the curse they have been in the vast and wealthy lands they illegally invaded and turned to immense wasteland of trash and inhuman barbarism and exploitation. For many long and unacceptable decades you, Eremias, did not hear and did not see anything, and you dare say now that I ‘fuel’ ethnic hatred? The outrageous and cannibalistic deeds of the cruel tyrants whom the entire population of the Amharas accepted and enjoyed, cheered and supported, these deeds fueled ‘ethnic hatred’ – as rightful reaction. You should know that. -You will not kill people and expect the survivors to tell you thanks! Nothing can burn the Amharas more effectively than the antihuman deeds perpetrated and thoughts developed by Menelik, Jauditu, Haile Selassie, and Mengistu; and these deeds have been carelessly, indifferently, inanely and sadistically performed long ago. By personalizing the issue around me, you gain nothing; no one is irreplaceable. If I did not speak in the way you consider as ethnic hatred fueling (but it is not), someone else would say the very same words I use. If nobody spoke, again the cruel and monstrous deeds would function as fuel, and nothing would be avoided. You seem to forget basic rules of the Nature that stipulate and encapsulate everything; nothing is lost within the Universe, and every act meets its correct antidote. Have you not heard anything about the Word ‘Consequence’? Why don’t you travel to India, to get some clue about Karma? By what they did, the Amharas have mortgaged their own future and ultimate fate. Only penitence may be a solution to possibly apply to them. Point 8. Ancient Meroitic Kushites, Egyptians, and Nubians Your approach to the issue of Meroe is totally conditioned by your political and ideological choices; this is not called History. You know nothing about the Ancient Kushites except some titles you may have found in wikipedia, this is not called ‘scientific approach’, it is called intellectual misery. Just forget it, my dear! The Meroites as Nuilo-Saharan people? How funny! And then what were the Nubians who interacted with the Egyptians and the Meroites? And we know for sure that Nubian vocabulary was totally different from Kushitic Meoitic and Egyptian. Plus, all the archeological evidence that shows how strikingly different the Nubians were in terms of material culture. What is even worse is that you dare think that I have said all I know about the Meroitic – Oromo continuity, which is a very wide subject including History of Religion, Mythology and Cosmology as well. The Ancient Meroites were ‘an Isolate’ for you? No! You can say better! They were from Mars, extraterrestrials who came from other galaxies, say anything you can imagine! Locate them within a Black Hole and abjure them in the most excruciating way! Why not? You reveal like this that you fear – I am sorry, your panic I mean – because of the forthcoming rise of Kush throughout Africa, Somalia to Mauritania and Nigeria. You have very little chance to avoid it. The only thing we still do not know is whether it will be an authentic Kush or an Islamic Terror Caliphate as the Americans do their ingenious best to help Ossama Bin Laden achieve in Africa what he was not able to deliver in Asia. Point 9. - All the Kushites’ Heritage How little you know about History! All African Khammitic – Kushitic peoples qualify as descendents of the Meroites and the Ancient Egyptians; and Cultural Originality is the criterion or, if you want, the Key to the Sacred Gates of Kush! Certainly, the ethnic, racial, linguistic dimension matters but in the same way the descendents of Dacians in Europe name today their country Romania – after the Roman Empire – the Oromos, the Haussa, the Sidama, the Fulanis, the Berbers, the Somalis and so many others will name their vast confederation Kush and Ethiopia. Your beloved Amharas will not tarnish anymore the Fair Name of Ethiopia. Point 10. - Tadesse Tamrat and R. Pankhurst: irrelevant, inconsistent and ignorant I totally reject your suggestion about both Tadesse Tamrat and R. Pankhurst; if one day I decide to deal with their works, and probably I will spare some time for this, I will publish an encyclopedia out of the list of their mistakes. Venerated figures of Africa’s most atrocious and deleterious tyranny, they are both ignorant of the sources to which they should resort for accurate and convincing scholarly work in a great number of fields. No one takes them seriously as they are well known apologists of cruel and bloodthirsty dictators. Pankhurst certainly enjoys the British diplomacy’s backing, but the good words of ashamed liars like the British colonial ambassadors does not inspire many among the specialists of the following disciplines that cover various aspects of the History of Eastern Africa and the adjacent seas: - Egyptology - Coptology - Meroitic Studies and Archeology - Sudan Christian Archeology - Gueze and Axumite Archeology and History - History of Early Christianithy - Classical Greco-Roman Sources about Ethiopia - Classical Greco-Roman Sources about Axumite Abyssinia - Medieval Greek Sources about Eastern Africa - Classical Greco-Roman Sources about the Navigation and the Trade in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean during the Late Antiquity down to the Rise of Islam - South Arabic (Yemenite) Archeology, Epigraphy and History - Semitic Linguistics with focus on South Arabic (Yemenite) and Gueze In all these fields that are critical for the topic you discuss, Tadesse Tamrat and R. Pankhurst are not accepted as specialists, and their knowledge is limited and confused. If I decide to write an article about Pankhurst’s misunderstandings and misinterpretations of Cosmas Indicopleustes’ Christian Topography and the Periplus of the Red Sea, I will need to write more than 10000 words to plainly narrate and correct. What about Tadesse? Can he read and interpret the Nomoi Homeriton (the Laws of the Himyarites) a valuable text that sheds light in the Yemenite – Abyssinian interactions at the times of Caleb, or analyze some Gueze passages from the famous text Fisalgos (Physiologos)? If they can’t do this, how do you dare imagine that these apologists of inhuman murderers like the Abyssinian dictators, Tadesse Tamrat, and R. Pankhurst, can possibly have an idea about Ancient Yemenite sources pertaining to the very original Abyssinians, the Habashat of Yemen? And how comical it is to viciously distort the Human Mind in order to monstrously pretend that the Axumites are Sabaeanized (say rather Yemenitized to crash your racist complex of inferiority) Agaws! How did cultural but not racial / ethnic Sabaeanization occur? Did the Ancient Yemenites send you …… emails and telegrams to culturally influence you? Did Zoskales king of Axum watch the TV programs of Karibael, King of Saba or did he get cultural contents’ files in some flash memories sold at the emporeion / port of call Adulis? That’s ridiculous. There were massive waves of Habashat – Abyssinian – Yemenite migrations in Africa; there were no Agaws in the 1st millennium BCE in Africa, and we cannot identify them. We can certainly identify the independent Abyssinians around Adulis, Avalites (Assab), Koloe and Axum. Point 11 – If Abyssinia can be named ‘Ethiopia’, then Italy is ‘Egypt’! Your references to king Ezana do not end up in the correct interpretation; I said repeatedly that in the Antiquity every king invading a country was expected to become king of the invaded country. Even Roman generals attributed to themselves names as Germanicus and Africanus. This means nothing, except to vicious minds who are keen to historical distortions. If you dare advance the paranoia of ‘Abyssinia being rightfully called Ethiopia today’, I say to you that in this way Italy should be called Egypt. For far longer period of time Egypt was part of the Roman empire (in its territorial totality) than Meroitic Ethiopia was occupied by the Yemenite origin Abyssinian king Ezanas and his successor. In the first case, we have uninterrupted 672 years of Roman (pre-Christian and Christian) rule (from Augustus until the arrival of Amr Ibn al Aas and the Islamic armies); in the second case, we have at the most 30 to 40 years partly occupation of less than one fourth (1/4) of Meroitic Ethiopia’s territory, until the Christian Ethiopian states rose to powerin the territories of today’s Northern Sudan and Southern Egypt, Nobatia, Makkuria and Alodia. Particularly Makkuria was far more developed state than Axumite Abyssinia, and it survived against the Islamic Caliphate far longer and far more successfully than the tiny, isolated on the mountains of Axum, state of Abyssinia that for many long centuries disintegrated and plunged in anarchy, misery and chaos, as the coast was cut off and prospered as part of the Islamic Caliphate. Of course, when after 7 centuries of darkness, ignorance and disarray, a small Christian kingdom was shaped again, they tried to reuse the past royal titles, but again this did not entitle them to the name of Ethiopia. Point 12 – Con-federal Eritrea to absorb ‘Ethiopian’ provinces of Afar and Tigray? What you say about the still existing colonial borders on African territory is true. So, I suggest you to prepare to die in order to terminate this criminal and inhuman situation of Injustice and Racism, instead of living an entire life ashamed and servile. Instead of getting involved in another state’s affairs, why don’t you try to convince Isaias Afeworki to launch a federative state in Eritrea to offer the Kunamas and the Bejas federal status, and to call Abyssinia’s terrorized Afars to start a revolution in order to secede from that terrorist state and merge with Eritrea. A federal state of Eritrea with Kunama, Beja, Afar, Tigray, and Tigrinya as official languages could even be called Abyssinia. At the end, you could convince the guys of Mekele to join you, abandoning therefore the sinking boat of bogus-Ethiopia. Note Civilization was diffused from Yemen to Abyssinia. The monuments of Marib demonstrate the origin of the Axumite Hawaltis (steles); massive successive waves of Habashat Yemenites crossed the Bab el Mandeb straits during the 2nd half of the 1st millennium BCE.