Ydnekatchew Tessema, Forgotten Hero Of African Soccer

National team player, national team coach for his country’s only major international triumph, co-founder of his continent’s FIFA confederation, president of that confederation for 15 years, and in many ways the man who set in motion the whole chain of events that led to South Africa becoming the first African nation to host the World Cup: the late Ethiopian visionary Ydnekatchew Tessema deserves greater prominence in the annals of soccer history than he has received.

Tessema’s remarkable story intertwined with deconolisation, the fight against apartheid in South Africa and the battle for respect and opportunities for African soccer in the face of a Eurocentric FIFA.

Tessema, born in 1921, was a hell of a player (scorer of 318 goals in 365 games for Saint-George SA) and a coach: in the latter role, he took his native Ethiopia to their sole major tournament triumph, at the 1962 Africa Cup of Nations.

But it was as an administrator that Tessema left his true imprint on the sport. In 1953, four African nations attended the FIFA Congress for the first time: Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa and Sudan. At first, FIFA resisted African claims for representation on its Executive Committee; in The Ball Is Round, David Goldblatt says “Initially their efforts had been brusquely rebuffed by FIFA’s European majority on the grounds of a barely disguised and contemptuous racism.”

World’s oldest manuscript found in Ethiopian monastery

Manuscript found in Ethiopian monastery could be world’s oldest illustrated Christian work.A manuscript found in a remote Ethiopian monastery could be the oldest illustrated Christian work in the world, experts have claimed. Originally thought to be from around the 11th century, new carbon dating techniques place the Garima Gospels between 330 and 650 AD.The 1,600 year-old texts are named after a monk, Abba Garima, who arrived in Ethiopia in the fifth century.

According to legend, he copied out the Gospels in just one day after founding the Garima Monastery, near Adwa in the north of the country.The vividly illustrated pages have been conserved by the Ethiopian Heritage Fund and it is hoped that the two volumes will be made available to visitors to the monastery which is in discussions to start a museum there.Illustrations of the saints Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all included in the book along with what may be the first ever Christian illustration of a building, the Temple of the Jews.

Menghestu Lemma’s two marriages

By Richard Pankhurst

When we were students in England at the London School of Economics (LSE,  one of our dear friends, and object of great admiration, was an Ethiopian student named Menghestu Lemma. Not yet renowned on the wider stage he was already propounding his view that Ethiopia shouId not be classed only in relation to neighbouring Middle Eastern or African countries, but should aim higher, and seek to be compared with the most progressive countries of the world. *** Menghestu, the son of the notable Ethiopian Church scholar Alaqa Lemma, was by then, dear Reader, also expounding his thesis that Ethiopian poetry should be “traditional in form, but progressive in content”. He tended to be critical of African writers who wrote in “colonial languages’’, declaring that he for his part preferred to write in Amharic, the language he learned while drinking his mother’s milk – and he contended that his writings could always be translated into foreign languages later.

Prof. Mesfin Wolde-Maryam

Mesfin Wolde-Maryam toyed with the notion of becoming a boxer and has had a friend give him training. But he had to give it up when he had nose bleed, which persisted and eventually forced him to quit his university education. Mesfn’s belief in the strength of his body later gave way to his growing revolutionary zeal and activism. Such stirrings started to reveal themselves at young age of 21 when he took up a teaching job at Empress Menen Girl’s High School. Witnessing the problem students faced with textbooks and sport equipment, he wrote a letter to Ministry of Education for a solution, though he was nothing more than ordinary teacher. His efforts bore some result but displeased the then school headmistress Woizero Senedu Gebru who was out of country. Upon her return, the two had a confrontational argument and Mesfin eventually left the work.
Then he was appointed as an associate director of the Imperial Ethiopian Mapping and Geographical Institute which was established as department in the Ministry of Education. The institute, then led by an American whom Mesfin suspected of having connection with CIA, was controversially given persimmon to conduct aerial survey of the Abay gorges.

The 84 Ethiopian Languages

The 84 Ethiopian Languages

Aari

[aiz] 158,857 (1998 census). 129,350 monolinguals. Ethnic population: 155,002 (1989 census). North central Omo Region, southern tip of Ethiopian plateau, near the Hamer-Banna. Alternate names: Ari, Ara, Aro, Aarai, “Shankilla”, “Shankillinya”, “Shankilligna”. Dialects: Gozza, Bako (Baco), Biyo (Bio), Galila, Laydo, Seyki, Shangama, Sido, Wubahamer (Ubamer), Zeddo. Galila is a significantly divergent dialect. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Omotic, South.

Afar
[aar] 979,367 in Ethiopia . 905,872 monolinguals (1998 census). Population total all countries: 1,439,367. Eastern lowlands, Afar Region. May also be in Somalia . Also spoken in Djibouti , Eritrea . Alternate names: Afaraf, ” Danakil “, “Denkel”, `Afar Af, Adal. Dialects: Northern Afar, Central Afar, Aussa, Baadu (Ba`adu). Related to Saho. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic, East, Saho-Afar.

Alaba
[alw] 126,257 (1998 census). 95,388 monolinguals (1998 census). Ethnic population: 125,900 (1998 census). Rift Valley southwest of Lake Shala . Separated by a river from the Kambatta. Alternate names: Allaaba, Halaba. Dialects: Lexical similarity 81% with Kambaata, 64% with Sidamo, 56% with Libido, 54% with Hadiyya. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic, East, Highland .

The Word ‘Ethiopia’ in the Bible

The Word ‘Ethiopia’ in the Bible

The word Ethiopia appears in the King James Bible version 45 times. When the word Ethiopia is used in the bible, it most of the time refers to all the land south of Egypt:

Gen.2

[13] And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

Num.12

[1] And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.

The Not-So-Lost Ark of the Covenant: Hymns to an Ethiopian Religious Tradition

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Tadias Magazin
By Ayele Bekerie, PhD

Published: Monday, December 21, 2009

New York (Tadias) – “We don’t have to prove it to anyone. [If] you want to believe, it’s your privilege. If you don’t want to believe, it’s your own privilege again.”

The Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), offered the above response to Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard University when asked to provide ‘a piece of evidence’ for the Ark of the Covenant during an interview for a PBS documentary film in 2003 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Patriarch, in perhaps most memorable moment of the interview, reminded the learned professor from Harvard that the Ark and its meaning to Ethiopians, is a matter of faith and not proof.

The Ark of the Covenant, which registers close to three thousand years (one thousand years of amete alem or zemene bluei (Old Testament) and two thousand years of amete mehret or zemene hadis (New Testament)) of history, beginning with the period of Queen Makeda (also known as Queen of Sheba) of Aksum. The Ark has been established as a central tenet of Christianity in Ethiopia. It captures the true essence of faith to at least 40 million believers in the ancient-centered Ethiopia and the EOTC’s dioceses all over the world. Its people’s communication to Igziabher is mediated through this sacred prescribed relic. The purpose of this essay is to narrate a history of the Ark and its relevance from a perspective of Ethiopian history and culture.

The EOTC, according to Abuna Yesehaq teaches, “Igziahaber is one Creator, one Savior, and redeemer for all humankind.” It also teaches, based on the ecumenical council’s confessions that Jesus Christ was not in two natures but rather one. The two natures were one nature united without any degree of separation, thus, making Christ both perfect God and perfect person simultaneously.

The Fascinating Lava Lake in Ethiopia

Collection of photographs of Erta Ale

Erta Ale is a continuously active basaltic shield volcano in the Afar Region of northeastern Ethiopia. It is the most active volcano in Ethiopia. Erta Ale is 613 metres (2,011 ft) high, with one or sometimes two active lava lakes, one of only five in the world, at the summit. These lava lakes occasionally overflow on the south side of Erta Ale.[1] It is notable for being the longest existing lava lake, present since the early years of the twentieth century (1906). It is located in the Afar Depression, a badlandish desert area spanning the border with Eritrea, and the volcano itself is surrounded completely by an area below sea level, making it one of the lowest volcanoes in the world.

Erta Ale’s last major eruption was on September 25, 2005, which killed 250 head of livestock and forced thousands of nearby residents to flee. Additional lava flow activity took place in August 2007, forcing the evacuation of hundreds and leaving two missing. Not much is known about Erta Ale, as the surrounding terrain is some of the worst on earth and the native Danakils are not friendly.

The name of the volcano means “smoking mountain” in the local Afar language and its southerly pit is known locally as “the gateway to hell”. It has recently been mapped by a team from the BBC using three dimensional laser techniques. These types of volcanoes are very rare and have searingly hot temperatures. For that reason the laser was used, as it has the capability to map any surface.

Ethiopia & Black America: The Forgotten Story of Melaku & Robinson

Ethiopian & African American Relations
The Case of Melaku E. Bayen and John Robinson

By Ayele Bekerie

In 1935, African Americans of all classes, regions, genders, and beliefs expressed their opposition to and outrage over the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in various forms and various means. The invasion aroused African Americans – from intellectuals to common people in the street – more than any other Pan-African-oriented historical events or movements had. It fired the imagination of African Americans and brought to the surface the organic link to their ancestral land and peoples.

The time was indeed a turning point in the relations between Ethiopia and the African Diaspora. Harris calls 1935 a watershed in the history of African peoples. It was a year when the relations substantively shifted from symbolic to actual interactions. The massive expression of support for the Ethiopian cause by African Americans has also contributed, in my opinion, to the re-Africanization of Ethiopia. This article attempts to examine the history of the relations between Ethiopians and African Americans by focusing on brief biographies of two great leaders, one from Ethiopia and another one from African America, who made extraordinary contributions to these relations.

The Africans who fought in WWII

Jagamo Kello, middle, left home at just 15 to fight Italian invaders

The 70th anniversary of World War II is being commemorated around the world, but the contribution of one group of soldiers is almost universally ignored. How many now recall the role of more than one million African troops?

Yet they fought in the deserts of North Africa, the jungles of Burma and over the skies of Germany. A shrinking band of veterans, many now living in poverty, bitterly resent being written out of history.

For Africa, World War II began not in 1939, but in 1935.