Stuff You Should Know - Haile Selassie: Statesman, Colonizer, God?

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

If you grew up outside of Africa, you might know Haile Selassie’s name from reggae music - the man who ruled Ethiopia is considered a god in Jamaica. In Ethiopia opinions are more varied. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Josh and there's Chuck and it's just the two of us and we are here to just wrap it up. Wrap wrap wrap. Have a little chat, a little talk and just wrap. Just the two of us. We do that every time Jerry's not here. We sing that song? Every time. We reference it some way, shape, or form.

It's not that great of a song. Oh, God. Please tell me you're joking. No, I'm actually not. I think it's one of those ones I just heard too many times. Sorry. That's all right. I can't listen to Journey any longer either,

if that makes you feel any better. Well, this is Bill Withers, all right. I like Bill Withers. That's a tough one to swallow. But I'm sick of that song. Okay. I think Austin Powers was the one that put it over the top. Was it in that movie?

Yeah, they turned it into like a rap. What? Yeah, with him and Minimi. Oh God, no wonder. Who and Minimi. Oh, God. No wonder. Who thought Minimi was going to show up in the Highly Salasi episode? I did not until just now. Yeah, same here. This is a complicated episode about a complicated story. Yeah, and the reason why we should just come out of the gate and explain why this is so complicated.

Number one, we're talking about a human being who ruled a nation, one of the most powerful nations on the continent of Africa, for virtually his entire lifetime. There's a lot that can happen during that time. You can make a lot of enemies, you can become revered. And so as a consequence, the guy did a lot of stuff, a lot of good stuff, a lot of shady stuff, a lot of downright evil stuff. And over the course of the time that he was ruling and then beyond, some people came to venerate him as a God, like a God on earth. Other people came to loathe him as a murderous colonizer.

Other people saw him as a modernizer of a nation. There's so many different opinions about this guy that it's really gonna be tough to like cram it all in into this one episode, but we're gonna try. We're gonna make it if we try. Yeah, and I think aside from the God thing, which you know, we'll get to, I think he kind of was a lot of those things.

He did modernize Ethiopia and he was a progressive voice for Africans, but he also did a lot of bad things and it seemed like, I don't know, for my, it seemed like the last 20 years of his life, he did a lot more bad than the first like 40 years of his rule. That's what I got too. He started to phone it in, I think. And be awful. Well, that's a consequence of phoning it in, you know? Yeah, but when you,

if you do a little research on Hanley Selassie, you'll see a lot of articles like praising him like really strongly. And then a lot of articles that are like, why are we rewriting this, the history of this person to not include any of the bad stuff? Well, what's amazing is you can actually, there's an answer to that question. The reason why is because of Rege. You can thank Rege for reforming the image of Hylah Selassie across the world. It's amazing, it's astounding.

It's been really effective. Yeah. So, Chuck, we're gonna talk about Hylah Selassie, who is the ruler of Ethiopia, the emperor of Ethiopia. In fact, he had one of the most amazing titles of any ruler anywhere. When he became emperor, his official title was his Imperial Majesty, the conquering lion of the tribe of Judah, Highly Salassie, the first elect of God, emperor of Ethiopia.

That was his full title, which is just straight up impressive. Yeah. There were a lot of different titles that he had over the years and a lot of different names for the different titles. He gets kind of can get in the weeds with that stuff. I just did. No, well, but he also had another title at the same time, which I can't even find right now, but we'll get to. So let's talk a little bit about Ethiopia, the country that he ruled.

You know, those of us off the continent consider Ethiopia as like a cohesive whole nation. But like most nations across the world on any continent, it's actually an assemblage of different smaller units that were eventually brought together and unified into a nation like we recognize today. Yeah. And unified is sort of a, should be in quotes. Sure. Yeah. That's a good point.

Yeah. So it is in the Horn of Africa. And like you said, it was home to lots of civilizations over the course of, you know, ancient history and then, uh, you know, over through time. And it was, um, it was And it was a pretty big power. It is unique for that area in that it was one of the first Christian nations and remained a Christian nation despite being completely cut off from the rest of the Christian world on all sides basically. Yeah.

And it was one of the oldest around. It's state religion is Christianity. I think Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, that branch of the Christian church. And since like, I think the fourth century CE at least. So for a very long time, it's been a Christian nation. And that meant that it had like pretty good relations with other Christian nations around the world, but also it traded with

tribes in Arabia Traded with others in the Middle East like it was a really important power for a really long time Yeah, for sure. And we should probably talk about the Solomonic dynasty. Yeah for a while as in King Solomon the Salamonic dynasty for a while is in King Solomon, the coronation of Yicuno, and we're doing our best with a lot of these names. I tried to look most of these up, by the way. Well, how does this one go? Well, this one goes, Yicuno Amlok in 1270. And this is important because like I said,

as in King Solomon, this dynasty basically says, we are the direct as in King Solomon, this dynasty basically says we are the direct descendants of King Solomon and Queen of Sheba from the Bible and the line of Judah is our symbol. And you know, this is the sort of solemn line that as we'll see would, you know, eventually the Dehili Salasi. online that as we'll see would eventually be to Holly Salassie. Yeah, and it's found among the Amhara people, which are one of the groups of people living in the Ethiopian region at the time.

And some people say that this dynasty, this lineage of rulers is the oldest in the world. If you credit that as factual or even roughly factual that King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba produced Menelik the First as a son who became the first ruler of the Solomonic dynasty, then that's, we're talking like 3,000 years essentially of rule by this one group in this one area. Historians say that's a great story. Also, Menelik the First is said to have brought the Ark of the Covenant to Ethiopia where it's supposedly being hidden or kept. But really we can date it as far back as 1270, which is nothing to sneeze at. When Yakuno Amlak was definitely coronated since 1270, there've been nothing but solemonic rulers ever since then. That's a pretty good track record, frankly.

Yeah, for sure. But again, that's not to say that there was like complete unity under that rule throughout the years, in the 18th and early into the 19th century, Ethiopia was very fractured. There were a lot of feudal kingdoms, a lot of different, like you mentioned, religions and ethnicities are sort of,

you know, co-mingling with one another. And eventually, as far as our story goes, unification around the 1850s is when things really sort of get, well, more unified. And I was wondering what the answer is, like, if there is a definitive answer, is unification a good thing? Because it keeps formerly warring neighboring groups from warring, or is it a bad thing because these groups were warring for a reason and now they're kind of smushed together

whether they like it or not. You know, I wonder if it's a case by case basis or if there's a right way to do it or a wrong way to do it or that you shouldn't do it at all, I don't know. It's a good question. So by the 19th century, Emperor Menelik II, who took the throne six or so hundred years after his namesake did, who found the Solomonic dynasty, became the ruler of a unified Ethiopia. And that's really where the story kind of begins as far as where our protagonist,

Lige Tafari Mekonen, is concerned. That's right, because he was born July 23rd, 1892, just what, three years after Menelik, the second was crowned, right? Yep. So, you know, we're talking about Hali Selassie, but as you said, born Lidj Tafari, Lidj means child of, Tafari is one who is respected or feared.

So Lidj Tafari Makkonin is child of Makkonin who is respected and feared. Yeah, and his dad was Raz, which means prince Makkonin. So his dad was a prince already. It's a pretty good birthright, you know, especially in a feudal society that he was born into. But even more than that, his great-grandfather, Sahal-e-Silassi, had been emperor of the kingdom of Shuwa before Ethiopia was

unified. So this guy had like literal royal blood and was part of that Solomonic dynasty just by birth. Yeah, and you said his dad was Prince. The word there would be Ross and that's important to just put a pin in that because if you put Ross and Tafari together, you will eventually get Ross Tafari. Which I guess we'll talk about.

That sounds vaguely familiar, I can't put a finger on it. You already mentioned reggae music, so. That's where this is all leading. But Rass means prince, his father was a governor of the Harar province, advisor to the emperor, which at this point, I believe he already said was Minnellik II. And the first, during the Minnellik II years,

and when Tafari was young, this is when Italy had its sort of first push into trying to basically, you know, this is a period of rapid colonization from the Europeans all over Africa. I think it was called the Scramble for Africa. And this was Italy's first push because they had land on both sides of Ethiopia and Eritrea

and Italian Somaliland. And Ethiopia was kind of right there in the middle. But they were defeated that first time when 15,000 Italians were beaten back by about 75,000 Ethiopians in the Battle of Adwa. Yeah. And so Manilek II became just revered for that. Like this African country beat back a colonial power from Europe. And it was a huge national black eye on Italy that they carried huge national black eye on Italy that they carried a soreness for for decades afterwards as we'll see. But it was an enormous feather in the cap of Ethiopia

because at the time the scramble for Africa, one group after another was falling prey to these colonial powers who were just moving in, moving their people in and taking over, forcing a lot of these people into slavery, extracting their resources. In Ethiopia said, no, no, nice triadoli, we're going to remain self-sufficient and self-determined. Yeah, that's a good point. His mother, Yashim Abed, died when he was about two years old. And he went on to get a really sort of unusual and vast education under the teachings of French missionaries, other teachers and scholars

he learned, which was unusual at the time for where he was, a lot of European history and languages. And that education would set him up for his later life on the international stage. Yeah, for sure. I mean, his familiarity with Europe would be extraordinarily helpful because Europe, even though some of the former age of exploration powers lost their clout, Europe still remains super important in Africa because they were colonizers. So to have a rapport with European powers was very helpful at keeping them at bay and also making Ethiopia

a really treasured asset or ally to those European powers too. Yeah, for sure. It was just a good position for him to be in. Oh, absolutely. And he ingratiated himself. He was very much loved on the international stage for most of his life, which was kind of at odds with how he was viewed at home for the last couple of decades.

Yeah. So because he was born into that royal lineage, he kind of made moves throughout the court. At age 13, he was made a Dejause match, which is essentially like account. And from that point on, he just kept rising and rising further and further up in importance in the aristocracy, right? Because we should say at the time, and for a very long time, Ethiopia was a feudal agrarian society and economy where peasants worked the land and had to give a lot of their, the fruits of their, the fruits of their labor over to land owners who didn't do anything except extract labor and goods

from the peasantry. And then it went up and up and up. And then you had an aristocracy that was sitting at the top that was also tiered. And at the very top of this were the rulers of Ethiopia, of which Rastafari was rising in rank and influence. Yeah, for sure. And slavery played a big part in that and a big part in this story, as you'll see. So just sort of setting that up.

Over the next few years, he was, like you said, kind of rising through these different positions. He got married in 1911 to a noble woman named Menon Asfahl and had six kids and they stayed married until she died in 1962. And then in 1913, Menilek II died. And there was a very sort for the job, evidently. He was not a good manager. People didn't show a lot of promises, a ruler. And even more importantly, he was, I mean,

the rumor was that he actually converted to Islam. He was not friendly to the Ethiopian Orthodox church. And because of these rumors, he was deposed as emperor. He was arrested and spent the rest of his life in detention, wherein his, I believe in 1916, his aunt, Zuditu, was crowned Empress. Yeah, and then so I didn't get this.

I didn't understand why I couldn't find why. Maybe you know, simultaneously or shortly after Zuditu was Crown Empress, Tafari became Ras Tafari and the de facto ruler of Ethiopia as the supreme regent and heir apparent. Was it because he was young still? I guess he was 25 at the time. Was it because he was young still? I guess he was 25 at the time. Was it because he was a man and she was a woman and a woman to have? Okay, gotcha. Okay. So they were basically power sharing even though because he was a man, I'm guessing he was just deferred to over her in a society that requires an empress to have like a male in a society that requires an empress to have like a male regent with her, right?

Yeah, I mean, that's basically, I saw that in two or three different places that if he, I'm sorry, if Zuditu was a man, he may have still had that position, but he would not had nearly the power that he had as a man because she was a woman. Gotcha. So as this de facto ruler of Ethiopia,

he started making moves on the world stage. And there was a difference between his and Zuditu's politics from the outset. She was more conservative than he was. He was much more being younger, I think was a big part of it, much more progressive minded, much more interested in modernizing, much more interested in opening the country to internationalism. And so in 1923, Ethiopia became a member of the League of Nations, just the third African country to do so. And that was after South Africa and Liberia. And that was like 100% Tafaris doing from what I understand. Yeah, totally. Part of that required the pledge to abolish slavery. As we'll see, that was in 1923 and the abolition of slavery in Ethiopia

did not happen in full for many, many decades. So it was, that's another, it's sort of a thread that goes to this story of just how long it took to get slavery abolished there because it was such a part of their tiered system in Ethiopia. And it's worth saying too, I think Chuck, that African continental style slavery was much different

from the kind of slavery that was developed through the transatlantic trade that was established here in the United States and in the Americas. But at the same- Yeah, like literal human ownership was not the case. Yeah, I mean, there was still like a curtailment of liberty, but at the same time you lived in the same house and ate the same food that your putative owner ate. It was just, you were just treated much differently. And you don't wanna sanitize it

because you still didn't have freedom like an individual human being should have. But just compared to just the horrors of the transatlantic chattel slavery practices like the African slave trade was, it was just not like it at all in a lot of ways. Yeah, for sure.

So in 1928, he was named Nebus, which is a title equivalent to King, but it's not the same as the King as we would think because it's still below emperor. And he started traveling the world basically in every single way basically, becoming the face of Ethiopia, despite the fact. As you said that, you know, he had different politics than the Empress herself. And that combined with him sort of putting himself on the world stage in front of her essentially, did not sit well to the point where her husband, let a rebellion, Guqsa Wale,

where he wanted to install himself as emperor, but he was defeated by Tafari, was killed. And then within a couple of days later, Zuditu died of unclear circumstances. And I think we all know what that means. Well, yeah, there's a rumor that she died of shock at the news of her husband's death, but more likely there's just kind of this idea that Halle Selassie was not above poisoning opponents and rivals, and that it's entirely possible. That's how she went away. Yeah, for sure. And we should also point out prior to this, prior to 1930 through the late 1920s, he was really doing a lot of that progressive work, building roads, he established a national bank.

He redid the judicial system that kind of said, we need a more modern Western-based judicial system and not this, you steal a loaf of bread and we cut off your hand, biblical style. And yeah, he continued that on when he became ruler after Zudida was gone. On November 2nd, 1930, which is the holiest day of days for the Rasta religion, as we'll see, Tafari became Haley Selassie. Again, his Imperial Majesty, the Conquering

Line of the Tribe of Judah, Haley highly salacious of the first elect of God, Emperor of Ethiopia. And one of the first things he did was to write the first written constitution that Ethiopia ever had. And it was extremely progressive, especially considering, again, this is a feudal agrarian society we're talking about. Yeah, for sure. For them, it was a very much a step forward. He did create their first parliament, but it was pretty clear with this,

and even when they made further changes, I think in the 1950s to the constitution, that it was still, you know, the emperor had the last say over everything. Right. So I think that kind of goes to show the kind of governing he did. Like he was well aware of, if you, you know,

agree to something, but figure out a way to not do it or to keep it from taking any power away from you, it can really placate people a lot. He was kind of masterful with that. And that's a good example of that. All right. Is that a good long intro? Yeah. I forgot we haven't taken a break yet. So we'll take a break. We'll come back and we'll pick up with Italy's second push into Ethiopia in the world, there's a table in the corner.

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Okay, so about five years after Hale Selassie, or I should say Tafari Macanen became Hale Selassie, Italy came a call in again. Remember, you said that Italy had Eritrea to kind of the north and the east and Somaliland to the south and the east? Is that correct still? Yeah. And they wanted to build a railroad through Ethiopia to connect those. Okay. So, again, by this time Mussolini has come to power in Italy and he has revived national

pride. That's a big thing that you'll see in history. Fascism tends to follow a major humiliation of a country on a world stage. Like Germany was humiliated in the treaty after World War I and just really punished and fascism developed out of that. Italy lost a lot of standing as a colonial European power after it was beaten back by Ethiopia in the 19th century. Fascism followed after that. You really want to be careful about stuff like that, not addressing the fascism that can follow. And this is another example of that. So Mussolini came along and he's like, hey, you remember the time that Ethiopia defeated us? Well, we're going to make that up. We're going to go invade Ethiopia again, and this time we're going to do it with industrial warfare. Yeah, it was a much different deal this time. They had far better equipment and weaponry and

ammunition. I believe they were still maybe technically outnumbered, but the way Ethiopians were fighting was sort of outdated to the war machine of Italy at this point. So it was a real David versus Goliath kind of situation. So this is when Szilassie has a real chance to kind of take center stage internationally, even more so by, you know, started,, by starting sort of rattling the chains of the League of Nations,

which Italy was a member of as well, saying like, hey, what's going on here? Is it right? We need some help. It was called the Ebsenia Crisis, Ebsenia being the XNM for Ethiopia that I saw used basically more than Ethiopia in my research And it was it was a dark time in this war. They were they were getting beaten down really badly

He was Exiled because the Italians were literally encroaching to the capital. So he went to French Somali land in May of 1936, which effectively ended the war, like at least as far as Italy's concerned, they were like, the war is over and we won. Yeah, and now we're occupying Ethiopia. Like you said, we won.

The way that they won was through mustard gas. It was essentially a huge campaign of mustard gas. There were massacres, they set up concentration camps. It was a horrible occupation, just exactly the kind you would expect from like a first half of the 20th century colonizing power. And yet, historians still say that Ethiopia never was colonized. It was occupied by Italy, but they didn't get a chance to colonize, which often follows occupation. They just remained in the occupation stage for about five years. And over the course of that five years, Salassie was in exile. I think he was in Bath, England, where he ran a government in absentia and still kind

of tried to keep his rule going, but from outside the country, which was occupied by the Italians, which is tougher than it even sounds. Yeah, totally. So he is sort of rattling the saber to the League of Nations so much so that Time magazine named him Man of the Year in 1935. But the problem was is that Europe was still courting Italy at this point. They hadn't fully jumped over to Germany side. And so they were sort of on a sort of a high wire there trying to court Italy.

And even though they're a member of the League of Nations and they were attacking another member of the League of Nations, they didn't want to do anything to tick off Italy too much. So, the new British Foreign Secretary, a guy named Samuel Hoare, got into private talks with the French Prime Minister Pierre Laval and they came up with the Hoare-Laval pact, which essentially said, Ethiopia, if you give up basically half of your land to Italy, we can make the fighting stop. They never released it, but it was leaked to the press. And, you know, it was, there was outrage, of course, and it essentially was sort of the first blow

to what would be the death of the League of Nations. Yeah, I think another thing that, that Holly Salassi's speech did to contribute to the League of Nations? Yeah, I think another thing that Holly Salasis' speech did to contribute to the League of Nations was to basically point out like, hey, you guys aren't doing anything that you agreed to do. Like all of you condemned Italy's invasion as a straight up invasion. And here I am to ask you to help me buy arms.

Don't even give me arms, just give me money so I can go buy arms and you still won't do it. What's the use of this thing? So that was another blow to it. And then subsequently, Highly Celasti became even more, I guess, kind of respected on the world stage. That speech was a huge watershed moment in his rule, in his lifetime even. He became essentially a celebrity, like he said, Time Magazine named a man of the year. Apparently there was an expression in America around that time that developed that was, well, if that's so, then I'm highly salacy. And then there was a song

too. Liffey helped us with this. She turned up a mention of him in a shanty, an old shanty town. I'd be just as sassy as Haley Salassie if I were a king. So things are not going well. He is, like you said, he went from French Somaliland in exile to England. And then finally, in 1941, World War II was well underway, and this is well after Italy had joined up with the Germans. And England finally helps out, mainly because Italy and Germany

had threatened British territory in Africa. England finally steps up in 1941 and says, all right, we're gonna help you out here because we're sort of threatened as well. We have some area here in the Sudan. And so we're gonna help you assemble an army here and take back your capital. Yeah, so that was a huge deal.

It was not just the British army, but the British army working in conjunction with these fighters that were assembled in Somali land. And there was a guy who doesn't get his due, Lorenzo Teazaz, who on behalf of Salassie organized this basically guerrilla army that fought against the Italians and ended up winning, pushing the Italians out of Ethiopia Ethiopia back into Eritrea. That's right. And so he came back May 5th, 1941, returned to the capital, gave a big speech saying, you know, we need to get the Italians out of here, but we need to do it in a way that's not like they were doing things,

because, you know, we're above that kind of thing. And so he's finally back on his throne. He begins in the early 1940s to abolish slavery. I think in 1942 is when they say he officially abolished it, but it took a long time for it to completely get removed from the system. But like I said, in 1923 is when they said, hey, get rid of slavery. So that was a couple of decades. Yeah. And Marcus Garvey, who as we'll see played a huge role in the development of the cult of

personality for highly Salassie, turned out to be pretty critical of him. And for one reason was because Salassie allowed slavery to continue for decades after he became the ruler of Ethiopia. Garvey didn't sit well with Garvey. He also called the McHourd for leaving Ethiopia to go run the government in absentia. You can definitely see both points of view for him staying or going. And it worked out because he sat back on his throne again five years to the day after the Italians invaded. But regardless

of how that happened, when he came back to rule again in 1941, he was more well thought of by Ethiopians and the rest of the world alike than he was even before the Italian invasion. So he got back to modernizing again and he put his foot on the gas, I think, a little harder than he should. I think he was really trying to make up for the enormous setback that the Italian occupation had created? Yeah, there was also a lot of internal strife within Ethiopia after the United States actually stepped up and helped unite Eritrea with Ethiopia again in 1952. One thing it did was it gave Ethiopia access to the Red Sea, which was a big deal, but it wasn't a true like unification. Eritrea remained, had like an independent government

in a lot of ways still. Highly Salasse did not like this. He wanted more control. And in 1962, he dissolved their parliament and basically sort of annexed them, which led to the creation of the Eritrean Liberation Front, the ELF, and basically three decade internal civil war of kind of constant uprisings within Ethiopia

from the Eritreans. Yeah, Eritrea finally regained its independence in I think 1994, after years and years of essentially civil war. Because again, we were talking at the outset of this that these were groups of different people. These were different ethnic groups that had lived in the same area

but had now been put under unification. They were all now considered Ethiopians, but they had their own ethnic consciousness and a lot of them did not like being considered Ethiopians. I think the Ormo people in particular bristle that the idea the most because they had the largest population in Ethiopia and yet the Amhara people of which Haley Salassie was one and the whole Solomonic dynasty was from the Amhara people, they were the ones who were ruling things. So imagine that, imagine that this other group that you've been kind of rivals with for centuries,

now is telling your group exactly what to do, where to live, which taxing you is saying, you're with us now, whether you like it or not. That was the kind of like internal strife that was just kind of rubbing Ethiopia at the edges throughout the entirety of the highly Salasis rule. Yeah, for sure. And like you said, he's got his foot on the gas in the 1950s in particular. In 55, they passed a new, a brand new,

brand spanking new, very shiny constitution. Further modernizing the judiciary for one. This time parliament was elected by the people, more human rights were guaranteed, but it was still not like a Western style democracy. Highly Salasse was still very much in charge. And more popular than ever on the international stage. He's all of a sudden visiting the United States.

I believe FDR invited him after World War II, but he never went. So he finally came at Eisenhower's behest, had a ticker tape parade in Manhattan for Highly Salasse, went to a Yankees game, went to Yosemite National Park, just does this big like kind of PR tour through America. It's really interesting. Yeah, for sure.

And again, like this guy was like Americans couldn't believe what they were seeing. Like this was a time where there was still like segregation in America. And here's this black African leader who's just revered in the United States. It's just like cognitive dissonance, but they were just thrilled by this guy, right? So, Hailey Szilassie ate that stuff up. He loved that.

One of the big criticisms of him in retrospect, and I think even at the time, was that his preferred company were Europeans and Americans and other people of wealthy countries. That's who he liked to rub elbows with. That's who was invited to the parties that he threw in the royal palaces. He didn't seem to think that much about the people

he ruled and who essentially gave him all the power that he had that he went and used to basically Enrich himself in his own his own image. I think that's a great setup for a break Yeah, oh sure. Yeah, I don't like to toot my own horn. So you just put me on the spot. All right, we'll be right back after this. At one of the most famous restaurants in the world, there's a table in the corner. We're the most incredible conversations on the planet are happening every week with owner Ruthie Rogers, an amazing guest. Like Martha Stewart.

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Listen and subscribe to the Martha Stewart podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so when we left off, you were talking about the fact that Haley Salassi was very popular internationally, not so much or not as much at home, at least, like with everybody. He had factions of people who loved him in Ethiopia, but it was complicated. And they were probably mostly from the Amhara ethnic group too, remember? Yeah, for sure. So he's got a situation sort of where he's getting older. He's trying to push progressive ideals that are popular with the young people, not as

popular with the older guard, of course. And that just, that creates a lot of internal strife. And he's also got this sort of ongoing problem with the ELF, all these ethnicities mixed together. There's going to be some strife. And finally, in December 1960, he was in Brazil and members of his imperial bodyguard staged a coup. And they proclaimed that his son, the Salassie son, Crown Prince Osfal Wosen, was the new emperor. There were about four days of violence and about 300 deaths,

but it was suppressed and those leaders, the formal imperial bodyguards were killed. And this really changed things as far as sort of setting up the last couple of decades of Salassie's rule and reign as basically a police state. Yeah. And yet he still was a shrewd ruler, internal ruler, that the coup had set up shop in the royal palace while he was away. And he donated that royal palace to establish the university, the first university in Ethiopia,

which became Addis Ababa University, which is a highly respected university today. And so, like it was a really shrewd move on his part, basically placate the young intelligentsia who were definitely part of that, who if not physically, at least in spirit. So they were like, okay, we're getting a university. And at the same time, he knows he's taking his foot

off the modernizing gas, and he needs to basically consolidate his power even further, probably take some back and remind everybody that he's still emperor. Yeah, for sure. One of the truly seems like great things he did was in 1963 when he led the movement to establish the Organization of African Unity, the OAU, which was basically 32 African nations that had won independence at that time, getting together, establishing this union, I believe it's now called the African Union. And they had bold, pretty great objectives.

They wanted to improve life for Africans. They wanted to protect the sovereignty of the countries that have won their independence. And he was, of course, chosen as the first president of the OAU. And he was in his 70s at this point. Like he was getting on up there in age. Yeah. And it's ironic because he was like an elder statesman compared to the much younger, generally democratic leaders that were the other,

that made up the rest of the African Union countries, right? And they were there, all those younger rulers were there, or leaders I should say, they weren't rulers, because this wave of decolonization had been kicked off by Ghana and I think the early 60s. And so that was one of the purposes of the African Union or at first the OAU was to basically say,

okay, we need to like level set again. This is a new continent, we're taking it back, we're setting up new governments and all that. So it's kind of ironic that Haile Selassie was the first president of the organization of African unity because he was exactly the kind of person who was being toppled elsewhere around Africa, except he was not toppled

because he had never been colonized. Although other groups in Ethiopia considered him a colonizer, he managed to survive that wave and strangely was made the president of the OAU. Yeah, I think it was just because he was such a popular, a worldwide popular figure is what I can figure. So it almost seemed like it was, like it was just sort of destined to be

that he would be the first president, even though if they really thought about it, and I don't even know if they held a vote actually, I meant to look that up. Or if he was basically just like, I'll be president, right? Right, he called president first. I call it.

So, toward the end of his run, more criticism coming him way from within Ethiopia. Their inflation is really high, there are people living in poverty. Any dissent was squashed, squashed, leaders of dissent disappeared. He still had a positive view internationally through all of this somehow, but that was not the truth of the matter back home.

No, and that kind of stuff was making people bristle further and further, not just the other ethnic groups like the Oromo or the Somalis, but even people in his own group, they were, there was a huge problem, no matter how good a ruler he was viewed as, there was always going to be a people who were saying, it's the 1960s and we still have an emperor. Can we look any more backwards? Just that alone kind of put a time limit on how much longer he was going to rule. But then that whole kind of crackdown phase of his rule also really,

really had a huge hit on his popularity too, among other quarters. Yeah, he was like, when I was 13, man, emperors were all the rage. Yeah, that's a great point. That when he came into power, that was normal, but he stayed in power for so long that he outlived the age of emperors weirdly. 60 something years.

The other problem or another problem was the fact that he, as emperor, had a very lavish, luxurious, some say wasteful lifestyle, which was not a popular thing to do when your country is struggling in a lot of ways. Certainly, when they were hit by their second really huge famine their second really huge famine at the beginning of 1972. This was a famine in the Wallow Province where eventually over the course of three years, by 1975, more than I saw up to 250,000, maybe 200,000 people died. And how much was his birthday party?

30 something million dollars? He spent $35 million on his 80th birthday party in 1972 while this famine was going on. Yeah, right in the middle of this thing. There was actual food being, I'm not sure what, but there was food being produced in Wala and he was exporting it elsewhere at the time. Yeah, somebody pointed out,

I can't remember which article it was, maybe one from London School of Economics that said like, the areas that experienced famine in Ethiopia were the ones that were the most restless against his rule. How interesting. Like, there was one region that he asked the Brits to bomb in 1942 while they were there, like, hey, before you go, do you bombing this this restless region up to the north? I think it might have been the Waller region Yeah, like if you messed with him there was a good chance that you were going to suffer some sort of famine and exporting the

The food that you were producing again feudal society You could do that kind of thing that would be a great way to guarantee a famine and then even without meddling in it directly whether he did or not he Definitely tried to downplay it internally and externally because he didn't want it to tarnish his reputation Apparently he was mad at the the people in the famine stricken areas for starving because it looked it reflected badly on him Yeah, it's not a good look. So things are unraveling and it's pretty clear that it's unraveling. A lot of protests are happening all of a sudden.

The Union, the labor force has gone on strike. This is in 1974. And finally in the summer of 1974, a group called the DERG, the Provisional Military Administrative Council, which were, this wasn't upper military brass, they were relatively low-ranking officers and officials. They seized power in 1974, it was a coup. And in September of 1974, they deposed him, placed him under house arrest and said, your son, who previously was named emperor even though that never happened, was named emperor

once again for a very short time from the summer of 74 to March of 75 when the Durg abolished the Ethiopian monarchy altogether? Yes. So, Hale Selassie is still living in the Royal Palace, but now he's under house arrest, essentially. And the Durg, this new government is led by a guy named Mengistu Hale Mariam, and they created what was known as a red terror. Like, they essentially said, we're... Not a good guy. No. No. Committed tons and tons of war crimes,

like killed thousands of people, tortured tens of thousands of more. And basically said, we're not with the US any longer. We're not with the Soviet Union. And we're just redoing everything in the most bloody way possible. Unfortunately, they held power for the next 20 years. It wasn't until they were deposed in 1994 and replaced by a more democratic government that they were charged with all

the horrible atrocities that they had. But long before that happened, while the Durg was just brand new, Holly Szilassi was reported as dead. I think in August of 1975, he was found dead in his little apartment in the Royal Palace. And the Durg leaders were like, yeah, he had a prostate operation a couple of months ago and it probably was a complication from that. But anyway, it's Ethiopian tradition to bury people within 24 hours.

So we're gonna do it in 12. Yeah, it was, I think that the inside story was that he was strangled by Durg soldiers. It seems pretty obvious he was gotten rid of. I think there were some people that said that he was in the crown prince. Actually his son said, you know, he was in pretty good health as far as I knew before he died.

So I know he was 83, but he was not dying. No, there was another long-standing rumor that he had been smothered with a pillow. But yes, in just the way that he had dispatched the Empress before him, it seems, he had been dispatched as well by the Durg. And then in probably the most insulting way your remains can be handled, they found that after Merriam was deposed in 1992 that he had been buried under the lavatory in the royal palace. Yeah, with a V. Lavatory. Yeah, that's what I think. It sounded like you said laboratory.

No, no. So that is highly salacity. But we, of course, have to close by talking about rege, right? Yeah, because there's a lot of people out there, especially in Jamaica who said he didn't really die. And those weren't his bones that they found and reburied. Yeah. If you, you know, we mentioned early in the thing, Rastafari, Rastafarian theology is basically a reference to his identity as God, as the Messiah. African-descented people in Jamaica had combined elements of Christianity, other different religions in Africa. And this was also during the Back to Africa movement when there were, you know, potentially different religions in Africa. And this was also during the Back to Africa movement

when there were potentially some people in Jamaica that were like, no, we need to go back to the homeland. Yeah. And I said Marcus Garvey figures big into the cold of personality around Holly Salassie. That's largely because in the 1920s, Marcus Garvey predicted that when a black king shall be crowned in Africa, the day of deliverance is at hand, and that basically black people would be free. And that Ethiopia was that whole location that you wanted to go to if you were going back to Africa. And it just had a huge impact on Jamaica, in part because on coronation day,

the rains came that ended a long-standing drought in Jamaica. And they were like, man, this Garvey cat knows what he's talking about. And they became hyper focused on Holly Selassie. So Coronation Day was the holiest day or is the holiest day, November 2nd in the Rastafarian religion. And we keep saying religion and theology, that's because Rastafarians believe that that that Holly Silassie was God incarnate and still is if you believe that he didn't actually die and that he followed in a line of, I can't remember an ancient priest, Jesus and then Holly Silassie were the incarnations of God here on earth. Yeah, and he never claimed to be that.

I think I've seen that he didn't expressly deny it either. I think he only went to Jamaica one time though. Right. So it wasn't like, I don't know, it's a very interesting thing that I don't fully understand, to be honest. Well, the time that he went to Jamaica in 1963, that's the second holiest day in the Rastafarian religion. They call it groundation day,

and 100,000 Rastafarians showed up and were just like trying to tear the plane apart to get them out of there because they wanted to see him so badly. Like it was a big deal. And because, so the Rastafarians had generally been mocked and made fun of by other Jamaicans for the last few decades. Like they've been following Haile Selassie as their savior for 30 years by then. And after he came and Jamaica got to see,

like, oh, this guy's actually pretty cool. A lot more people became Rastafarians, including one woman named Rita Anderson, who converted after Holly Salassi's visit, and she became Rita Marley. Yeah. Oh man, this one was a lot. It was a lot. Yeah, and he lives on in Reggae. If you wanna learn more about Holly Salassi,

you can listen to a bunch of Reggae. You can go read historical accounts, you can read all sorts of stuff about them, and you'll get just this hugely complex, complicated picture. Yeah, for sure. I hope we did a good job. You know what this one did is it, as I was researching it, it laid bare

just how little African history you're taught in an American school. Yeah, I mean, that's one reason we wanted to do this is just to kind of shake that up a little bit at least. Oh no, for sure. But usually when we're researching other types of history, it's like, yeah, I've sort of heard this here and there.

I don't fully remember, but like this was a ground up learning experience for me. I knew nothing about the history of Ethiopia. So really interesting stuff. It is, it's also kind of exciting too, because that means that there's a whole continent with a rich history that we haven't even begun to tap into, you know?

Yeah, totally. Look out for more in 2024. That's right. If you wanna know more about Hylah Selassie, I think I'd just explain how you could do that, which means that we've already, I guess, begun listening to mail. That's right. This is on AP classes from our episode on...

What was that specifically about? I think that was the Pygmalion Effect episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Hey guys, I'm a high school teacher at a public school in suburban Cincinnati. I currently teach AP Human Geography and AP World History. I've also taught AP US History, AP Government, and AP Psychology in the past.

Just so you know, the big trend in AP across the country, the last decade plus has been to open it up to as many students as possible. We still have teacher recommendations for AP class at our school, but if any kid wants to take a certain AP class, they can for the most part. Classes like AP Human Geography are certainly more accessible for a lot of students in a class that requires a lot of prerequisite knowledge like AP Chemistry. In general though, AP classes have changed a lot since the 90s and are far less exclusive than they once were and of course I'm sure it was like

this and you were there. You had to test to get into an AP class right? Oh yeah. They just thought they didn't stink at all. That's right thanks for all you do guys listen to all the episodes and I include what I learned from you into my classes whenever I can, and that is from Connor, teacher in Cincinnati. That's awesome. I really hope that some of those AP teachers who thwarted me time and time again

are alive to see that our work is being used in AP classes. That's right. Man, what a turn of events, huh? You showed them. If you wanna be like Connor and give us some great information that'll just make our day, we love to hear that kind of stuff.

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We had a big bear of a man who was called Mal Evans, who was on roadie, and he was coming back on the plane and he said, will you pass the salt and pepper? And I miss herding. I said, what? Salt and pepper. Listen to season two of McCartney, a life in Lyrics on the iHeart radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This past season on my podcast, Here's the Thing. I spoke with more actors, musicians, policymakers and so many other fascinating people like

Jazz bassist Christian McBride. Jazz is based on improvisation, but there's very much a form to it. Most pop songs have a very strict structure, verse-verse course, whereas jazz, you get a melody with a set of chord changes. You play that melody with those chord changes. Now, once you do that, you have a conversation based on that melody and those chord changes. So it's kind of like giving someone a topic and say, okay, talk about this. And comedian and actor, Caroline Ray.

You're most comfortable when you're on stage. Probably. You really love it. Yeah, I feel like I always think my standup is a dinner party. I know what I'm gonna make. You're my guess. I don't know what's gonna happen.

But the thing about standup that amazes me is it's only gonna happen in that moment in time. Even if we film it, it's never gonna be what it feels like live. Listen to the new season of Here's the Thing on the iHeart Radio App Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. 47 years ago on a warm summer's night in Melbourne, Susan Bartlett and Suzanne Armstrong were stabbed to death in their home in Easy Street, Collingwood. Suzanne's 16-month-old son was asleep in his cot at the time. The double homicide left the community shocked, no one has ever been charged, and critical

questions remain unanswered. Listen to Casefar Presents, the Easy Street Murders, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.