Research Essay: Ethiopia
The African nation of Ethiopia is well-known for its rich resources, yielding coffee, gold and other expensive products that the world consumes. Ethiopia is not well-known for strife and genocide. But behind the picture that the media paints of Africa as a whole, ethnic groups in Ethiopia are suffering from extreme prejudice and violence. The same is true in many other African nations. Most of this ethnicism can be blamed almost entirely on the European nations that colonized the African nations, putting a certain ethnic group in charge of all the others. Ethiopia, however, was never colonized the way almost every other African nation was. While Ethiopia fended off the European settlers who spelled doom for the nations that couldn’t keep them out, the country still experienced many of the same adverse effects of colonization, including a drastically changed culture, and more recently, the same strife and genocide that challenge many other African nations.
From 3500 BCE to around 200 CE, Ethiopia experienced a huge rise in culture and technology. Arabian traders created a booming economy, trading in myrrh, gold, frankincense, grain, animal skins, rhino horns, apes and huge amounts of ivory. "The early prosperity and grandeur of Ethiopia sprang from the carrying trade of which it was the center, between India and Arabia on the one hand and the interior of Africa and especially Egypt on the other” (Houston). The Arab trade increased; the culture influencing that of Ethiopia. Huge civilizations grew, causing a mushrooming of specialist crafts, skills and technology (Phillips). “Here industry, parent of enjoyments, collected the riches of all climes, and the purple of Tyre was exchanged for the precious thread of Serica; the soft tissues of Cassimere for the sumptuous tapestry of Lydia; the amber of the Baltic for the pearls and perfumes of Arabia; the gold of Ophir for the tin of Thule” (Volney).
During the third century, Christianity found its way into Ethiopian society. According to some legends, the religion arrived completely by accident, when a Christian merchant stopped for water on the Ethiopian coast. Other accounts tell of missionaries arriving from outside the country, coming to convert the great cities of Ethiopia into Christianity. Whichever way the religion arrived to Ethiopia, Christianity took hold, not without effort, but far less violently than in most other African nations. The Ethiopian king accepted the religion some time in the 4th century, causing it to become the official state religion (Phillips). This change to Christianity marked a monumental change in the history of Ethiopia. Europeans began to travel to Ethiopia, and Ethiopians began to make pilgrimages to Europe. The religion influenced the country’s culture greatly, through art, food and architecture, and even today the majority of Ethiopians are Orthodox Christian (“Imperial”).
Although the religion was accepted without an excess of violence, the religious wars that plagued almost every nation on the planet were not going to exempt Ethiopia. The Muslim religion had been gaining followers in Ethiopia, and power across the Red Sea. When the Muslim-Christian wars began, they all but wiped out the Ethiopian Christian monarchy, causing some of the most costly, bloody and wasteful fighting in the nation’s history (Phillips). Other strife ensued during and after these wars, causing over 200 years worth of fighting and the deaths of tens of thousands of people.
The optimism of the nation after this strife built up the country into something of its former glory. A great capital, known as Gonder, rose up, attracting visitors from around the world, and as time progressed, leaders of the country worked to make the nation modern and progressive (“Imperial”).
This modern Ethiopia, however, faced more problems. The Italians had conquered both the territory of Eritrea (to the north of Ethiopia) and Somalia (to the east and south), and they believed Ethiopia to be the next prize. In 1935, they invaded and occupied, causing tens of thousands of deaths with illegal forms of warfare (“General”).
The Ethiopians, however, were not so easily defeated. Resistance fighters, many of them women, stood up to Italy’s dictatorial rule. Although Italy had conquered the major cities and towns in Ethiopia, they never succeeded in taking over the whole nation. After Italy declared war on Britain during World War II, Britain offered Ethiopia assistance for their goal of liberation from Italy. With the help of the British forces, Ethiopians took back their country from the Italians (Phillips). The British, however, seemed to just have replaced the Italians as as occupiers. After several years, treaties were crafted and agreements made, which finally returned Ethiopia to independence (Phillips).
While Ethiopia is popularly known for never having been colonized, the Italian and British occupation could, and probably should, be qualified as just that. In the cases of almost every other African nation, European powers overtook the land, upending forms of civilization that were already in place. Because Ethiopia’s colonization happened after what’s popularly known as the “Scramble for Africa” (when European countries began mass-colonizing African countries), the country had a chance to acclimate itself to the onslaught on European culture. While countries like Nigeria had no chance to prepare themselves for the incoming settlers and missionaries, the conversion of Ethiopia happened much more naturally. It is because of this easier transition that Ethiopia is known for never being colonized. However, the definition of colonization, especially when put into the context of the events in Africa, doesn’t just mean settlers from other countries coming to make a home. Colonization, when applied to African nations’ pasts, can be synonymous with the murder of culture, the wiping out of a nation’s rich history, to replace the ideals with those of another, totally different country. The Italian and British occupation of Ethiopia caused many aspects of cultural change, especially through the art and food (Italian dishes are extremely popular). However, because Ethiopia’s colonization happened much more slowly than any other nation’s, much of the rich history of the country has been preserved, and is still considered important, which is not the case for many other countries in Africa.
Ethiopia today is very different from what it has been in the past. Because of changes in how governments have been run all over the world, Ethiopia has faced difficulty in its goals for democracy and modernization. Leaders of Ethiopia experimented with many different forms of government. In 1974, because of political uprisings supporting democracy, the emperor, Haile Selassie, the form of leader Ethiopia had had since the beginning of civilization, “...was deposed, unceremoniously dumped in the back of a Volkswagen, and driven away to prison” (Phillips).
The subsequent leaders experimented with creating a socialist state, which was met with great approval by many foreign groups. However, an invasion by Somalia into Eritrea devolved into extreme violence, encouraged by the Soviet Union. Over 100,000 people were killed, and thousands more fled Ethiopia and Eritrea (Phillips).
Almost as soon as this strife was over, another war broke out: this time for Ethiopia’s liberation. Famines and villagization programs (initiatives to group displaced people and families into new villages) exacerbated the problems, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of people. However, once the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front had conquered the dictatorial leader of Ethiopia, Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, causing him to flee the country, the new leaders of both Ethiopia and Eritrea were determined to rebuild their countries (Phillips).
Recently, strife between Ethiopia and Eritrea has caused destruction and death on both sides of the border, and the May 2005 elections in Ethiopia have cast doubt on whether or not it will continue into the future as a democratic freedom fighter. That, coupled with the genocide that has been occurring for the past thirty years in Ethiopia, is alerting the rest of the world to the problems that have been escalating.
Many of the problems that are occurring in the nation, especially the genocide, are being largely ignored by the government. In fact, many of the problems Ethiopia is facing, most prominently the genocide, are caused directly by the government. This genocide is the killing of the Anuak tribe, for the gain of the government.
The Anuak are an ethnic minority living in the rich Gambela region of Western Ethiopia. The land is filled with natural resources, such as gold and oil reserves, that the Ethiopian government covets (McGill). Over the past years, the Anuak have pressed the government for a share in the projected development of these resources, but has been answered in political subjugation, physical beatings and a government-led mob attack (McGill).
The Gambela region has been taken by the Ethiopian government for a large-scale agricultural project. The government has forced the Anuak to relocate, to be replaced by the Amhara, the ethnic group that is in control of the nation (“Anuak”). After clearing their lands at the end of the last harvest, many Anuak saw their lands seized by the government. Their animals were also appropriated as food for the Ethiopian army. Landless and destitute, many Anuak fled to the bush and tried to make their way to Sudan. However, having driven the Anuak from their lands, the government is not willing to permit the Anuak easy access to Sudan (“Anuak”).
This problem was addressed by a spokesman at the Ethiopian embassy in Washington said the eyewitness accounts of uniformed Ethiopian soldiers killing Anuak were “completely false and unfounded. The defense forces are doing their level best to look for those people who were involved in this sad event” (McGill). When asked why 2,000 Anuak had fled Ethiopia as refugees, the spokesman said they had not fled ethnic cleansing. Rather, “they are enjoying the right of movement to live anywhere they like and to enjoy their own pursuit of life” (McGill). The strife that is caused by the government mirrors that of many other African nations, whose attempts at ethnic cleansing were directly or indirectly the result of European occupation. While it is not clear whether Ethiopia’s genocide is a product of the European occupation, it certainly shows that, even though Ethiopia was colonized far later and far more passively than any other nation, the strife is still the same.
The Anuak’s “right of movement” is hindered greatly by the government’s internal permit system, which prohibits movement from one village to another. Hundreds of Anuak have been killed when they attempt to reach Sudan, and hundreds more have been killed by government bombs as they try to shelter in the bush (“Anuak”). A villagization program was created to group the scattered Anuak farmers into small villages, to change their lifestyles and provide better access to necessary things like food, education and medical help. However, the government has forcibly relocated over 70,000 people from their homeland in order to lease the land for foreign investment, due to the rich gold mines and agricultural land, and almost no headway has been made on the villagization goal (Stanton).
The Ethiopian government continues to deny, downplay and mischaracterize the massacres as justifiable responses to an Anuak attack. The fact is that most of the victims have been unarmed Anuak civilians who were hunted down and murdered (Today). Until the government began their systematic killing of the Anuak tribe, most of the violence came from the Anuak’s ancient tribal enemies, the Nuer (McGill).
When Nuer refugees from the Sudanese civil war were displaced onto Anuak land, it upset the traditional ways. “Anthropologists and missionaries say the Anuak and the Nuer in previous decades had evolved ritualistic peaceful ways to solve the inevitable disputes that arose between their tribes” (McGill). When a flood of small arms poured into the Nuer camps from the government, the Anuaks became sitting ducks (McGill). The Anuak have claimed for years that the Ethiopian government was using the Anuak/Nuer rivalry as its main tool for Anuak extermination, giving Nuers weapons and taking weapons away from Anuaks, and then standing by passively as the inevitable happened. However, on December 13, 2003, for the first time, hundreds of uniformed Ethiopian soldiers were seen marching through the main streets of Gambella, killing Anuak, and cordoning off the town to prevent Anuaks from escaping (McGill).
This government involvement in genocide is being largely ignored by the rest of the political world. The politics and definition of genocide are too messy for the United Nations to get mixed up in, and most believe that no real help will come from other nations until it’s too late. An Anuak leader who had fled to the United States sent an email to his friends saying “May we learn from the bitter experiences of life and look into the future with hope. This hope is our unity. No one is going to stand up for us, so we must stand up for ourselves” (McGill). The Anuaks in the United States have been working to get the U.S. government to become aware of the crisis, and to send help.
Foreign aid, however, is a topic that is up to interpretation. Certainly, while the theory of sending help from one country to another that is in need is certainly a gallant and selfless ideal, it more than usually does not have the desired effect. The corporations that deal with foreign aid usually have little to no dealings with the country in question, and send items and help that inflates the problem. Take, for example, the Rwandan genocide, during which foreign countries sent food to help the targeted group. The food ended up piled in a village, feeding those who were doing the killing (Dowden). The ethics of foreign aid are very complicated, especially with the bureaucratic nightmare that is the United Nations. When a group of nations who have laid down laws stating that they are duty-bound to prevent genocide anywhere in the world argue about the semantics of genocide while it is occurring on the other side of the world, it is very easy to agree that foreign aid is not what it is portrayed to be. The topic is up for much debate, but the ethics of sending help for a problem that a country could figure out on its own are very different from a country sending military help to stop the extermination of a group of people.
So far, help from any country is not forthcoming. Many Anuak refugees have moved to the United States, and are working to make the U.S. aware of the crisis in Ethiopia, with not much success. The crisis grows worse with each passing day, and the refugees can do nothing but hope that powerful governments will become aware of the crisis and send help. The former Sudanese ambassador to the United Kingdom stated, “I think that somebody somewhere conceived an idea, that the best thing is—finish with the Anuaks. How they do it, is what I can't understand. How they really came to this conclusion, at a time when we have had the experience of Rwanda, I can’t understand…” (“Today”).
Ethiopia’s culture has been heavily influenced by the whole world. It started thousands of years ago, when the first Arab traders helped make the first great civilization, and continued as sea trade made the country great. There, the influx of Christianity and other religions was far more peaceful than in almost any other African nation, which allowed the culture of Ethiopia to change gradually. Many bloody wars were fought over religion and freedom, but the country emerged each time with new leaders who were determined to make the country a better place. Certainly, the genocide that is currently happening, and that has been happening for the past thirty years, is disheartening, but people can make a difference. The Anuak refugees who have come to the United States are working to get this country aware of the strife in order to save thousands upon thousands of lives. In the same email to his friends, the Anuak leader sent the message that “...we all need to come together and tell the whole world, and our enemies too, that the Anuak people have a right to live in this, God's world. It is our birth place, just like the rest of the human species” (McGill).
No country has had a perfect past, and Ethiopia’s certainly isn’t the worst. Other countries have faced tougher challenges with liberation (like France) and more devastating losses of human life (like Rwanda). Most African nations have shown amazing regenerative capabilities, both in the leadership and in the citizens. Truth be told, most nations across the rest of the world can learn important lessons from these African nations that can bounce back better than ever from setbacks that could utterly destroy any other country.
From 3500 BCE to around 200 CE, Ethiopia experienced a huge rise in culture and technology. Arabian traders created a booming economy, trading in myrrh, gold, frankincense, grain, animal skins, rhino horns, apes and huge amounts of ivory. "The early prosperity and grandeur of Ethiopia sprang from the carrying trade of which it was the center, between India and Arabia on the one hand and the interior of Africa and especially Egypt on the other” (Houston). The Arab trade increased; the culture influencing that of Ethiopia. Huge civilizations grew, causing a mushrooming of specialist crafts, skills and technology (Phillips). “Here industry, parent of enjoyments, collected the riches of all climes, and the purple of Tyre was exchanged for the precious thread of Serica; the soft tissues of Cassimere for the sumptuous tapestry of Lydia; the amber of the Baltic for the pearls and perfumes of Arabia; the gold of Ophir for the tin of Thule” (Volney).
During the third century, Christianity found its way into Ethiopian society. According to some legends, the religion arrived completely by accident, when a Christian merchant stopped for water on the Ethiopian coast. Other accounts tell of missionaries arriving from outside the country, coming to convert the great cities of Ethiopia into Christianity. Whichever way the religion arrived to Ethiopia, Christianity took hold, not without effort, but far less violently than in most other African nations. The Ethiopian king accepted the religion some time in the 4th century, causing it to become the official state religion (Phillips). This change to Christianity marked a monumental change in the history of Ethiopia. Europeans began to travel to Ethiopia, and Ethiopians began to make pilgrimages to Europe. The religion influenced the country’s culture greatly, through art, food and architecture, and even today the majority of Ethiopians are Orthodox Christian (“Imperial”).
Although the religion was accepted without an excess of violence, the religious wars that plagued almost every nation on the planet were not going to exempt Ethiopia. The Muslim religion had been gaining followers in Ethiopia, and power across the Red Sea. When the Muslim-Christian wars began, they all but wiped out the Ethiopian Christian monarchy, causing some of the most costly, bloody and wasteful fighting in the nation’s history (Phillips). Other strife ensued during and after these wars, causing over 200 years worth of fighting and the deaths of tens of thousands of people.
The optimism of the nation after this strife built up the country into something of its former glory. A great capital, known as Gonder, rose up, attracting visitors from around the world, and as time progressed, leaders of the country worked to make the nation modern and progressive (“Imperial”).
This modern Ethiopia, however, faced more problems. The Italians had conquered both the territory of Eritrea (to the north of Ethiopia) and Somalia (to the east and south), and they believed Ethiopia to be the next prize. In 1935, they invaded and occupied, causing tens of thousands of deaths with illegal forms of warfare (“General”).
The Ethiopians, however, were not so easily defeated. Resistance fighters, many of them women, stood up to Italy’s dictatorial rule. Although Italy had conquered the major cities and towns in Ethiopia, they never succeeded in taking over the whole nation. After Italy declared war on Britain during World War II, Britain offered Ethiopia assistance for their goal of liberation from Italy. With the help of the British forces, Ethiopians took back their country from the Italians (Phillips). The British, however, seemed to just have replaced the Italians as as occupiers. After several years, treaties were crafted and agreements made, which finally returned Ethiopia to independence (Phillips).
While Ethiopia is popularly known for never having been colonized, the Italian and British occupation could, and probably should, be qualified as just that. In the cases of almost every other African nation, European powers overtook the land, upending forms of civilization that were already in place. Because Ethiopia’s colonization happened after what’s popularly known as the “Scramble for Africa” (when European countries began mass-colonizing African countries), the country had a chance to acclimate itself to the onslaught on European culture. While countries like Nigeria had no chance to prepare themselves for the incoming settlers and missionaries, the conversion of Ethiopia happened much more naturally. It is because of this easier transition that Ethiopia is known for never being colonized. However, the definition of colonization, especially when put into the context of the events in Africa, doesn’t just mean settlers from other countries coming to make a home. Colonization, when applied to African nations’ pasts, can be synonymous with the murder of culture, the wiping out of a nation’s rich history, to replace the ideals with those of another, totally different country. The Italian and British occupation of Ethiopia caused many aspects of cultural change, especially through the art and food (Italian dishes are extremely popular). However, because Ethiopia’s colonization happened much more slowly than any other nation’s, much of the rich history of the country has been preserved, and is still considered important, which is not the case for many other countries in Africa.
Ethiopia today is very different from what it has been in the past. Because of changes in how governments have been run all over the world, Ethiopia has faced difficulty in its goals for democracy and modernization. Leaders of Ethiopia experimented with many different forms of government. In 1974, because of political uprisings supporting democracy, the emperor, Haile Selassie, the form of leader Ethiopia had had since the beginning of civilization, “...was deposed, unceremoniously dumped in the back of a Volkswagen, and driven away to prison” (Phillips).
The subsequent leaders experimented with creating a socialist state, which was met with great approval by many foreign groups. However, an invasion by Somalia into Eritrea devolved into extreme violence, encouraged by the Soviet Union. Over 100,000 people were killed, and thousands more fled Ethiopia and Eritrea (Phillips).
Almost as soon as this strife was over, another war broke out: this time for Ethiopia’s liberation. Famines and villagization programs (initiatives to group displaced people and families into new villages) exacerbated the problems, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of people. However, once the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front had conquered the dictatorial leader of Ethiopia, Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, causing him to flee the country, the new leaders of both Ethiopia and Eritrea were determined to rebuild their countries (Phillips).
Recently, strife between Ethiopia and Eritrea has caused destruction and death on both sides of the border, and the May 2005 elections in Ethiopia have cast doubt on whether or not it will continue into the future as a democratic freedom fighter. That, coupled with the genocide that has been occurring for the past thirty years in Ethiopia, is alerting the rest of the world to the problems that have been escalating.
Many of the problems that are occurring in the nation, especially the genocide, are being largely ignored by the government. In fact, many of the problems Ethiopia is facing, most prominently the genocide, are caused directly by the government. This genocide is the killing of the Anuak tribe, for the gain of the government.
The Anuak are an ethnic minority living in the rich Gambela region of Western Ethiopia. The land is filled with natural resources, such as gold and oil reserves, that the Ethiopian government covets (McGill). Over the past years, the Anuak have pressed the government for a share in the projected development of these resources, but has been answered in political subjugation, physical beatings and a government-led mob attack (McGill).
The Gambela region has been taken by the Ethiopian government for a large-scale agricultural project. The government has forced the Anuak to relocate, to be replaced by the Amhara, the ethnic group that is in control of the nation (“Anuak”). After clearing their lands at the end of the last harvest, many Anuak saw their lands seized by the government. Their animals were also appropriated as food for the Ethiopian army. Landless and destitute, many Anuak fled to the bush and tried to make their way to Sudan. However, having driven the Anuak from their lands, the government is not willing to permit the Anuak easy access to Sudan (“Anuak”).
This problem was addressed by a spokesman at the Ethiopian embassy in Washington said the eyewitness accounts of uniformed Ethiopian soldiers killing Anuak were “completely false and unfounded. The defense forces are doing their level best to look for those people who were involved in this sad event” (McGill). When asked why 2,000 Anuak had fled Ethiopia as refugees, the spokesman said they had not fled ethnic cleansing. Rather, “they are enjoying the right of movement to live anywhere they like and to enjoy their own pursuit of life” (McGill). The strife that is caused by the government mirrors that of many other African nations, whose attempts at ethnic cleansing were directly or indirectly the result of European occupation. While it is not clear whether Ethiopia’s genocide is a product of the European occupation, it certainly shows that, even though Ethiopia was colonized far later and far more passively than any other nation, the strife is still the same.
The Anuak’s “right of movement” is hindered greatly by the government’s internal permit system, which prohibits movement from one village to another. Hundreds of Anuak have been killed when they attempt to reach Sudan, and hundreds more have been killed by government bombs as they try to shelter in the bush (“Anuak”). A villagization program was created to group the scattered Anuak farmers into small villages, to change their lifestyles and provide better access to necessary things like food, education and medical help. However, the government has forcibly relocated over 70,000 people from their homeland in order to lease the land for foreign investment, due to the rich gold mines and agricultural land, and almost no headway has been made on the villagization goal (Stanton).
The Ethiopian government continues to deny, downplay and mischaracterize the massacres as justifiable responses to an Anuak attack. The fact is that most of the victims have been unarmed Anuak civilians who were hunted down and murdered (Today). Until the government began their systematic killing of the Anuak tribe, most of the violence came from the Anuak’s ancient tribal enemies, the Nuer (McGill).
When Nuer refugees from the Sudanese civil war were displaced onto Anuak land, it upset the traditional ways. “Anthropologists and missionaries say the Anuak and the Nuer in previous decades had evolved ritualistic peaceful ways to solve the inevitable disputes that arose between their tribes” (McGill). When a flood of small arms poured into the Nuer camps from the government, the Anuaks became sitting ducks (McGill). The Anuak have claimed for years that the Ethiopian government was using the Anuak/Nuer rivalry as its main tool for Anuak extermination, giving Nuers weapons and taking weapons away from Anuaks, and then standing by passively as the inevitable happened. However, on December 13, 2003, for the first time, hundreds of uniformed Ethiopian soldiers were seen marching through the main streets of Gambella, killing Anuak, and cordoning off the town to prevent Anuaks from escaping (McGill).
This government involvement in genocide is being largely ignored by the rest of the political world. The politics and definition of genocide are too messy for the United Nations to get mixed up in, and most believe that no real help will come from other nations until it’s too late. An Anuak leader who had fled to the United States sent an email to his friends saying “May we learn from the bitter experiences of life and look into the future with hope. This hope is our unity. No one is going to stand up for us, so we must stand up for ourselves” (McGill). The Anuaks in the United States have been working to get the U.S. government to become aware of the crisis, and to send help.
Foreign aid, however, is a topic that is up to interpretation. Certainly, while the theory of sending help from one country to another that is in need is certainly a gallant and selfless ideal, it more than usually does not have the desired effect. The corporations that deal with foreign aid usually have little to no dealings with the country in question, and send items and help that inflates the problem. Take, for example, the Rwandan genocide, during which foreign countries sent food to help the targeted group. The food ended up piled in a village, feeding those who were doing the killing (Dowden). The ethics of foreign aid are very complicated, especially with the bureaucratic nightmare that is the United Nations. When a group of nations who have laid down laws stating that they are duty-bound to prevent genocide anywhere in the world argue about the semantics of genocide while it is occurring on the other side of the world, it is very easy to agree that foreign aid is not what it is portrayed to be. The topic is up for much debate, but the ethics of sending help for a problem that a country could figure out on its own are very different from a country sending military help to stop the extermination of a group of people.
So far, help from any country is not forthcoming. Many Anuak refugees have moved to the United States, and are working to make the U.S. aware of the crisis in Ethiopia, with not much success. The crisis grows worse with each passing day, and the refugees can do nothing but hope that powerful governments will become aware of the crisis and send help. The former Sudanese ambassador to the United Kingdom stated, “I think that somebody somewhere conceived an idea, that the best thing is—finish with the Anuaks. How they do it, is what I can't understand. How they really came to this conclusion, at a time when we have had the experience of Rwanda, I can’t understand…” (“Today”).
Ethiopia’s culture has been heavily influenced by the whole world. It started thousands of years ago, when the first Arab traders helped make the first great civilization, and continued as sea trade made the country great. There, the influx of Christianity and other religions was far more peaceful than in almost any other African nation, which allowed the culture of Ethiopia to change gradually. Many bloody wars were fought over religion and freedom, but the country emerged each time with new leaders who were determined to make the country a better place. Certainly, the genocide that is currently happening, and that has been happening for the past thirty years, is disheartening, but people can make a difference. The Anuak refugees who have come to the United States are working to get this country aware of the strife in order to save thousands upon thousands of lives. In the same email to his friends, the Anuak leader sent the message that “...we all need to come together and tell the whole world, and our enemies too, that the Anuak people have a right to live in this, God's world. It is our birth place, just like the rest of the human species” (McGill).
No country has had a perfect past, and Ethiopia’s certainly isn’t the worst. Other countries have faced tougher challenges with liberation (like France) and more devastating losses of human life (like Rwanda). Most African nations have shown amazing regenerative capabilities, both in the leadership and in the citizens. Truth be told, most nations across the rest of the world can learn important lessons from these African nations that can bounce back better than ever from setbacks that could utterly destroy any other country.
Works Cited
"Anuak Decimated By Ethiopian Government." Cultural Survival Quarterly 5.3 (1981): n. pag. Genocide Watch. Genocide Watch, Inc., 31 July 1981. Web. 7 Mar. 2013. <http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/
Ethiopia_31_Jul_81_Anuak_Decimated_by_Ethiopian_Government.pdf>
Dowden, Richard. Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles. New York: Public Affairs, 2009. Print.
"General South African History Timeline: 1930s | South African History Online." South African History Online. South African History Online, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2013. <http://www.sahistory.org.za/1900s/1930s>.
Houston, Drusilla Dunjee. Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire. N.p.: n.p., 1926. Internet Sacred Text Archive. Web. 15 Mar. 2013. <http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/we/index.htm>.
"Imperial Ethiopia" Imperial Ethiopia. Imperial House of Ethiopia, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2013. <http://www.imperialethiopia.org/religions.htm>.
McGill, Doug. "On Bloody Saturday, Ethiopia Chose Genocide." The McGill Report. The McGill Report, 1 Jan. 2003. Web. 22 Feb. 2013. <http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/
Ethiopia_1_Jan_03_On_Bloody_Saturday,_Ethiopia_Chose_Genocide.pdf>
Phillips, Matt, and Jean-Bernard Carillet. Ethiopia & Eritrea. 3rd ed. London: Lonely Planet, 2006. Print.
Stanton, Gregory H., Charles A. Pillsbury, and Lonnie Turner. "Genocide Watch." Genocide Watch. The International Alliance to End Genocide, 9 Jan. 2013. Web. 19 Feb. 2013. <http://www.genocidewatch.org/ethiopia.html>
Today Is the Day of Killing Anuaks. Rep. Genocide Watch and Survival Rights International, 25 Feb. 2004. Web. 7 Mar. 2013 <http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/
Ethiopia25Feb04TodayIsTheDayOfKillingAnuaks.pdf>
Volney, Constantin Francois. The Ruins, Or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires: And the Law of Nature. New York: Twentieth Century Pub., 1890. Project Gutenburg. Web. 15 Mar. 2013. <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1397/1397-h/1397-h.htm>.
Ethiopia_31_Jul_81_Anuak_Decimated_by_Ethiopian_Government.pdf>
Dowden, Richard. Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles. New York: Public Affairs, 2009. Print.
"General South African History Timeline: 1930s | South African History Online." South African History Online. South African History Online, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2013. <http://www.sahistory.org.za/1900s/1930s>.
Houston, Drusilla Dunjee. Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire. N.p.: n.p., 1926. Internet Sacred Text Archive. Web. 15 Mar. 2013. <http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/we/index.htm>.
"Imperial Ethiopia" Imperial Ethiopia. Imperial House of Ethiopia, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2013. <http://www.imperialethiopia.org/religions.htm>.
McGill, Doug. "On Bloody Saturday, Ethiopia Chose Genocide." The McGill Report. The McGill Report, 1 Jan. 2003. Web. 22 Feb. 2013. <http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/
Ethiopia_1_Jan_03_On_Bloody_Saturday,_Ethiopia_Chose_Genocide.pdf>
Phillips, Matt, and Jean-Bernard Carillet. Ethiopia & Eritrea. 3rd ed. London: Lonely Planet, 2006. Print.
Stanton, Gregory H., Charles A. Pillsbury, and Lonnie Turner. "Genocide Watch." Genocide Watch. The International Alliance to End Genocide, 9 Jan. 2013. Web. 19 Feb. 2013. <http://www.genocidewatch.org/ethiopia.html>
Today Is the Day of Killing Anuaks. Rep. Genocide Watch and Survival Rights International, 25 Feb. 2004. Web. 7 Mar. 2013 <http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/
Ethiopia25Feb04TodayIsTheDayOfKillingAnuaks.pdf>
Volney, Constantin Francois. The Ruins, Or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires: And the Law of Nature. New York: Twentieth Century Pub., 1890. Project Gutenburg. Web. 15 Mar. 2013. <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1397/1397-h/1397-h.htm>.