Ten Points about the Ethiopia / Abyssinia Predicament

As a wider interest concerning the Amhara / Tigray Abyssinian usurpation of the name of Ethiopia has been expressed recently by many readers who wrote to me in this regard, I present here ten points, explaining why the historically false cannot be politically correct. It is essential to understand that the use of the name ‘Ethiopia’ by Abyssinia is an explicit wish of the Pan-Arabist rulers, as it helps ‘arabize’ Sudan, the real – geographically speaking – Ethiopia.
 
In fact, my rejection of the Abyssinian policy to usurp the name of Ethiopia – that belongs to Sudan geographically and to Eastern Kushites ethnically – is precisely the consequence of my rejection of the cruel Sudanese dictators’ efforts to impose an ‘Arab’ – ‘Arabist’ – ‘Pan-Arabist’ character to that country that was never invaded by any Arabic speaking person.

The Ethiopia / Abyssinia conundrum or rather predicament is definitely old.

If one wants to be within the limits of the academically correct and historically true, one has to consider the following:

Point 1 - Only Kush is Ethiopia.

Ethiopia was the black faced people (Aithiopia) country, a state at the southern border of Egypt. The Greco-Roman world interacted extensively with the phase called Meroitic (Meroe, Capital of Ethiopia, at Bagrawiyah, ca. 300 km northeastwards of Khartoum), 450 BCE – 360 CE.

Earlier, centered around Napata (nearby modern Karima, 750 km in the south of Wadi Halfa, counting the track alongside the Nile), was developed the Kushitic phase (800 – 500 BCE), during the most important moments of which Kush – or Cush – (the Septuaginta translation renders it as Aithiopia) ruled Egypt (Manetho’s so-called ‘Ethiopian’, 25th dynasty of Egypt).

Earlier phases of Kas (Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Kushite / Ethiopian name of the country – Kush in Hebrew being a deformation of it) go back to 3rd millennium, always with a strong Egyptian impact.

Farther we go in the past, ethnically cleaner Egypt is, and more undistinguishable Egypt looks from Ethiopia / Kush / Kas / today’s Sudan.

Point 2 – Ethiopia, term unrelated to Semites, never expanded over Abyssinian territory.

At no moment of its various phases did Ancient Ethiopia control any portion of modern Abyssinia’s territory, and in addition this, there were never Semitic populations included in Ethiopia’s territory.

Point 3 – Abyssinians: Yemenites on African soil

In the late BCE centuries, the Yemenite tribe Habashat (noticed in Ancient Yemenite, improperly called South Arabic as they are totally unrelated and predate Arabic by ca. 800 years) migrated - in several waves - to today’s Eritrean coast and gradually expanded inland up to the area of Axum.

Certainly Adulis, the small Abyssinian (Greek form of Habashat) kingdom’s harbour, was the main source of income, but at the times of Nero, Roman Emperor, Axum was still smaller and more modest in radiation, royal power, military exploits, and economic strength than either Meroitic Ethiopia or Sabaean / Himyarite Yemen.

Point 4 – Who will stretch a hand to God? 

Back to Pre-Christian times dates the Biblical verse (Psalm 68:31 - http://bible.cc/psalms/68-31.htm) that Ethiopia will stretch its hand to God.

There is no doubt that the Biblical author meant 
a. today’s Sudan’s territory
b. Kushites, not Semites.

Point 5 – Fallacious, paranoid justification of Abyssinia’s adhesion to Christianity

The Abyssinian voracity of the name Ethiopia is definitely old.

It pertains to two critical issues:

a. King Ezana’s partly invasion of Ethiopia (ca. 360 – 370 CE) and destruction of Meroe. This is a fact; as much as it is a fact that Ezana invaded Ethiopia, after he adhered to Christianity.

Following the habit of innumerable rulers of the Antiquity, he therefore named himself after his country of origin (Axum), and the lands he had conquered (notably Ethiopia).

One must have a clear understanding of historical events; for Ezana to invade Ethiopia (Sudan) the exploit was as great and incredible as if Ancient Illyria invaded the Roman Empire – in terms of both size and cultural heritage’s greatness.

b. The viciously erroneous and intentional interpretation of the Biblical verse as if it supposedly prophesied Abyssinia’s adhesion to Christianity. As such, it is comical and preposterous; how a verse referring to one specific country’s attitude (stretching the hand) can be attributed to another country’s attitude (adhesion to Christianity), especially if the latter antedates the former?

In other words, the Abyssinian change of religion cannot be related to Ethiopia’s stretching its hand, because Abyssinia had not conquered Ethiopia before adhering to Christianity.

Even worse, Ezana invaded only one fifth of Ethiopia’s vast territory. And even more comically for the Abyssinian paranoid interpretation, the Abyssinian occupation of that small portion of the Ethiopian territory did not last more than 50 years! And the Abyssinian rule was over a mostly deserted land as the outright majority of the inhabitants had migrated.  

In addition, of course, the interpretational equation is a vast issue: no one can suggest or accept that the Biblical verse meant Abyssinia’s – or even Ethiopia’s (Sudan’s) – adhesion to Christianity.

This is even more particularly highlighted by the reaction of the real Ethiopians, namely the descendants of Ancient Meroe, Sudan’s Kushites.

With the exception of those who migrated to the South, rejecting Christianity, the various populations of Ethiopia, either Nilo-Saharan (Nubians) or Kushitic (Meroitic Ethiopians), accepted Christianity ca. 75 years after Ezana’s invasion (not because of these invasion but through influence coming from the North, Egypt), used Coptic (in Nobatia, capital at Faras – near Wadi Halfa) and Greek (in Makkuria, capital at Dongola Aguza) as religious languages, and came to know the specific Psalm 68:31.

However, they did not interpret it as referring to their (as true Ethiopians) adhesion to Christianity.

Point 6 – A medieval kingdom’s confused royal propaganda

Axumite Abyssinian kings tried to brand and position their country in the World Politics of the last three pre-Islamic centuries by occasionally referring to themselves as ‘kings of Ethiopia’, but this claim was ludicrous and irrelevant for the reasons aforementioned, and due only to the political needs of the Axum Court – nothing more.

Point 7 – Axum’s anti-Persian alliance with the Eastern Roman Empire: ill-fated

The Axum kingdom of Abyssinia was never significant for / in Africa; at its highest strength, middle of 6th CE, at a moment Nobatia, Makkuria and Alodia were just rising as the three Ethiopian Christian kingdoms, Axum was influential in the Bab al Mandeb straits area, and it occasionally invaded Yemen once, under king Kaleb, who arranged an expedition until Mecca in the north.

However, Yemen was multi-divided, and at those days under Persian Sassanid imperial tutelage; that is why following Kaleb’s expedition, Persian army invaded Yemen (Oman had already been Iranian territory) and routed the impotent and poorly equipped Abyssinian army. Yemen was then annexed to Iran.

That affair highlighted the Axumite – Eastern Roman alliance, as it was undertaken in order to break the Sassanid Persian monopole of the sea route of the Silk and the Spices, and at the same time it underscored Axum’s special relationship and relevance to Yemen.

Point 8 – Invalid claims of Solomonic descent reveal the falsehood of the Abyssinian claims to the name of Ethiopia

Soon after the rise of Islam, the African coast of Axum became part of the Islamic Caliphate, and Axum slipped into oblivion, poverty, and extinction. Its end was followed by a political fragmentation and insignificance of no less than 500 years.

Overthrowing the Agaw Kushitic (non Abyssinian) dynasty, a new Abyssinian dynasty rose to power ca. 1270. Nationalistic and religious literature provided support to an extraordinary, absolutely fallacious royal propaganda that involved ridiculous claims to Ancient Israel, descent from Solomon (thence ‘Solomonic’), and last but not least mention of Psalm 68:31 as ‘imperial motto’.

Through various metamorphoses and mass crimes, that revengeful dynasty of bogus-history and forged claims promoted an unprecedented anti-Islamic hysteria that led to the Somali invasion of Abyssinia (by King Ahmed ibn Ibrahim). Portuguese superiority in terms of weaponry saved the Abyssinian kingdom from extinction (1543).

Point 9 – Barbaric and tyrannical rulers as puppets of the European colonials

Down to Haile Selassie times, the official name of the country was Abyssinia until the mid 1930s. It would probably have been the same until today, had Western (mainly British and French) Orientalists not prevailed over the young king to opt for ‘Ethiopia’.

This was not difficult for him as his throne’s motto was – as said – Psalm 68:31. The reasons the anti-Italian colonial powers demanded this name change need extensive analysis. However, it would be inaccurate to call the small kingdoms of the Amhara and Tigray modern Abyssinians around Gonder and Mekele as ‘Ethiopia’.

It’s all about the credit you offer to the propaganda claims of a criminal and barbaric tyrant; Yuhannes IV fighting against the Mahdists was self-styled as king of kings of Ethiopia in 1872 – clearly vindicating adjacent areas of Sudan.

But he also was self-styled king of Zion; shall we consider him as a king of Israel in exile at the Ottoman times?

Point 10 – There cannot be politically correct claims of a loathed Tyranny

Finally, accepting to name Abyssinia as ‘Ethiopia’, after the mid 30s and more definitely since the mid 50s, may sound ‘politically correct’, as this is the officially presented name of the country at the international levels, but by this way, we simply corroborate illegitimate claims, foreign name usurpation policies, colonial machinations, and last but not least totalitarian practices against the country’s outright majority that has full historical right to claim the national name of Ethiopia – contrarily to the Semitic, Abyssinian dictatorial rulers of the Amharas and the Tigrays. So, we cannot afford to take it seriously.
 
Note
Picture: Wall paintings from the Cathedral of Faras, capital of Nobatia, the northern of the three Sudanese Christian kingdoms - all unrelated to Axum.