Ethiopia, the largest country in the “Horn of Africa”, has maintained a period of rapid economic growth due to its attempts to imitate the East Asian development model in the past ten years, and is sometimes compared with the “Four East Asian Tigers”. In fact, Ethiopia was often compared to Japan earlier. This is because Ethiopia was a monarchy before 1974, and in the early 20th century, it learned from Japan in terms of constitutional monarchy, and it also established good relations with Japan at that time.
Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that has not been colonized for a long time. The President of Kenya has recently described Ethiopia as the “Mother of African Freedom”; the former Jamaican folk belief “Rastafarianism” refers to the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Serra. West as the savior. Some people will also compare Ethiopia’s special status with Japan, which is also a monarchy. Especially in the early 20th century, when Japan’s foreign aggression had not been widely criticized by the international community, many Africans regarded Japan as an opposition to European and American aggression. As an example, Ethiopia is the pride of African countries in safeguarding their sovereignty.
In 1896, the Ethiopian army defeated the Italian colonial army in the Battle of Adwa, which was the biggest victory for African countries against European and American troops in modern history, so it is one of the proudest historical memories of Ethiopia.
Recently, the civil war in Ethiopia has continued to be fierce. The rebel “Tigray People’s Liberation Front” called the counterattack “Operation Alura”. ngida. However, the supporters of the government army also said that they should inherit the spirit of this battle and defeat the TPF army, because they believed that the TPF had the support of European and American countries and had the color of foreign interference.
The significance of the Battle of Adwa is actually controversial. If you only look at the defeat of the Italian colonial invasion, this is of course a great victory. However, if you look closely at how the Ethiopian Melnik II achieved this victory at that time, you will find that his army captured slaves among the Oromo people, forced the people, recruited a large number of livestock, and used the obtained resources to buy Western Firearms (the middleman is the French Symbolist poet Han Bo). Although there are also some Oromo generals who agree with the Ethiopian royal family, forcibly extracting the Oromo people is an important foundation. Without these, it is impossible to form a large army enough to defeat the Italians.
This is why many Oromos now admit that the Battle of Adwa was a victory over the colonists, but do not fully agree with it. This is especially true after the rise of the Oromo political movement in recent years. Many people simply say that the Ethiopian royal family with the Amhara as the main body is colonizing the Oromo itself, and then exploiting them to fight against the more powerful Italian colonists.
Opponents of this argument will point out that without the unity of the various ethnic groups, the end result is the colonization of all ethnic groups. What’s more, there are also many Oromo people who have entered the high level of the Ethiopian royal family, not all of them are lowly servants. Didn’t the Oromo people themselves turn other ethnic groups into servants?
Looking at this period of history, you will find that from the Italian colonists, the Ethiopian royal family, to the Oromo and Tigray tribes… There are layers of anxious competition for resources and power. If we examine the colonial motives of the Italian government, Italy, which had just been unified and was a weak country at the time, could not be left behind in the colonial trend. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia again, which also brought unease to Japan’s friendship with Ethiopia in the 1930s. Each force strives for more power in this, hoping that it will be in a more equal position with its opponents in the competitive situation.
All races are afraid of falling behind and try to catch up, but each time other races gain a dominant position, the next round of competition is sparked. Ethnic groups need to appreciate each other instead of trampling on each other, but a lot of pain has accumulated between various ethnic groups, how can they truly look at each other?
