Who was Haile Selassie?
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Haile Selassie was born in 1892 and became emperor of Ethiopia in 1930. He was imprisoned in 1974 by revolutionaries, and died the following year under mysterious circumstances. Many believe he was murdered.
The emperor's body was exhumed in 1992, and his funeral finally took place on November 5, 2000. Haile Selassie was Ethiopia's last emperor. Today Ethiopia is a federal republic.
Emperor Haile Selassie ruled Ethiopia for almost sixty years. He ruled Ethiopia as an autocrat, as an absolute ruler. His absolutist approach to power blocked sustainable reform movements that were intended to transform Ethiopia from a feudal to a modern polity. His absolute and long rule also resulted in his downfall and the end of the monarchy.
He established modern schools, universities, and military, naval, air force and police academies. He even donated one of his palaces to the first university in the country: Haile Selassie I University. He supervised the opening of transport, health, and recreational, financial institutions comparable to the institutions of the modern world.
In the international front, he defended the sovereign rights of Ethiopia at the then League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland in 1937 after Italy brutally invaded and occupied Ethiopia. He succeeded in uniting Eritrea with Ethiopia in 1951. In the same year, he formally broke the long tradition that allowed the Coptic Church of Egypt to appoint Egyptian Patriarchs for the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
Haile Selassie’s legacy is both good and bad. His strong ambition to modernize Ethiopia failed to materialize fully because of his insistence in maintaining an absolute monarchy. Ethiopia’s rich legacy of independence and history remained incarcerated in a system that favored the royalty, nobility and few other dignitaries. The vast majority of the people were condemned into lives of serfdom, tenancy and abject poverty. Land belonged, in the main to the monarchy, the church or the nobility.
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Haile Selassi I was emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974.
Three main areas of his legacy are these:
1. He worked to bring Ethiopia into modern international politics by initiating efforts to join and participate in the United Nations and the League of Nations.
2. Rastafarians in Jamaica believed he was the messiah and wanted to move to Ethiopia.
3. He fought to retain the absulutist form of government in Ethiopia which is a negative mark on his legacy.
Here is an interesting video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ma3yBnD3P0
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