Legacy of the Lion King

But beyond all that, little is popularly known about the man seen by many as the fount of all things Rasta: Haile Selassie. Time magazine made him its man of the year in 1930 but when Selassie died in 1975 from the after-effects of a prostate operation, he had been deposed and was living under house arrest in Addis Ababa. As war raged in Vietnam, and America reeled from the Watergate fallout, the world seemed to have forgotten the man whose royal epithets included the titles Conquering Lion Of The Tribe Of Judah, King Of Kings and Elect Of God and who was 225th in a line of emperors said to stretch back 3000 years to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

Selassie was born Lij Tafari Makonnen in Harar province, Ethiopia on July 23 1892. The country was the oldest independent state in Africa and had been Christian since the fourth century. When the Portuguese sent emissaries 1200 years later, they thought they had finally found the land of Prester John, the mythical Christian kingdom said to lie in the east. Instead they found a country ruled over by an emperor, nobles and priests rooted in the eastern orthodox tradition. It wouldn’t be the first time that Ethiopia was hailed as a mythical promised land.

Selassie was born into a noble family. The name Lij indicated this and he inherited his imperial blood through his grandmother. Accordingly, from his early teens he was involved in court intrigues. In 1916, three years after the death of the modernising Menelik II, he was involved in a movement which deposed the sitting ruler, Lij Iyasu, and appointed the Empress Zauditu instead. She in turn made him regent and raised him to the level of Ras (equivalent to duke).

Ras Tafari travelled in Europe and won admittance to the League of Nations in 1923. So when the Empress died suddenly in April 1930 – there were mutterings about another coup – Ras Tafari, who was already de facto ruler of Ethiopia, became anointed leader. He was crowned emperor on November 2, 1930. In attendance were representatives from 12 countries, among them George V’s son Henry, Duke of Gloucester. Also looking on was Waugh. His description of the coronation is comic if patronising: he dwells on its length, describes the strained faces of the European dignitaries in unflattering terms (“I have seen just that look in crowded second-hand railway carriages, at dawn, between Avignon and Marseilles”) and moans about the lunch he is offered in his hotel afterwards. “There were tinned chunks of pineapple and three courses of salt beef … the waiters had gone out the night before to get drunk and had not yet woken up.”

Waugh could mock but the world was fascinated. Ethiopia seemed to have it all: an ancient civilisation, an educated and charismatic ruler and a recent history which had seen it fend off the attentions of several colonial powers.

The Time edition of November 3, 1930, bore Selassie’s face on the cover and a week later it carried a coronation report. “Swaying their supple bodies violently, Coptic Christian priests followed their Archbishop up the aisle of St George’s Cathedral in Addis Ababa,” it observed. “The chill air, blue with incense, reeked with the smoke of native tallow candles, throbbed to wild strains. Cried the Archbishop, lifting high the crown, “God has anointed thee to rule with justice!”

The heavy gold crown was studded with sapphires, rubies and diamonds. Five lions were chained to the coronation dias. While Waugh enjoyed his pineapple chunks, Selassie’s troopers tore into a feast of ox’s blood and raw meat. It was a fantastic sight and the newsmen lapped it up.

But perhaps the most unusual result of the coronation was the galvanising effect it had on the growing black political consciousness in the US and the Caribbean. The Back To Africa Movement founded by influential Jamaican union leader Marcus Garvey had already floated the idea of repatriation to Africa and Selassie’s appearance was taken by some as a signal that he was the Black Messiah. On November 8, 1930, Jamaican newspaper The Blackman ran an article written by Garvey saying: “The Psalmist prophesied that Princes would come out of Egypt and Ethiopia would stretch forth her hands unto God. We have no doubt that the time is now come.”

To the Rastafari movement in Jamaica, Selassie became God incarnate; to him would fall the task of leading the black diaspora out of Babylon and into Zion, the promised land. Jamaica’s Prime Minister Sir Alexander Bustamente would later quip: “We must protect them [the Rastas]. They would just get out there in the jungle and be trampled by elephants and eaten by the lions.”

Selassie was bemused by the accolade. When he finally visited Jamaica in 1966 – 11 days after Waugh’s death – he was met at the airport by thousands of Rastas carrying placards saying “Selassie is Christ” and “Welcome to our God and King”. Rattled, Selassie refused to get off the plane until he had met with a Rasta leader, one Mortimer Planner, and been assured that it was safe. It was this visit which converted Marley.

A year later, Selassie – who remained a member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church – stated that no man could be an emanation of God. Still, perhaps fired by Garvey’s ideal, he donated land 250 kilometres south of Addis Ababa to the Rasta. Some made the journey and a community exists there today.

After his coronation, Selassie set about modernising the country. He oversaw the writing of a constitution, embarked on road-building schemes, and even had a national anthem composed. He also tackled slavery, endemic in Ethiopian society. But if the ceremony had been an attempt to stress Ethiopia’s sovereignty, it didn’t work. In 1935, Mussolini invaded. Once again Selassie visited the League of Nations where, on June 30 1936, he made a famous speech. “I am here today to claim the justice that is due to my people,” he raged. “It is us today, it will be you tomorrow.”

The League did nothing and so began a period of exile for Selassie. Between 1936 and 1941, when Italian troops were finally thrown out of Ethiopia, he lived in England in a large pile outside Bath called Fairfield House, where he languished with his wife and sons. From time to time he would travel, a curio from an earlier decade. He visited Malvern. He went to Brighton, where he met the mayor, Herbert Hone. In photographs of the event Selassie cuts a sorry figure: small, thin, bearded, intense and swamped by a greatcoat and a huge trilby hat.

Still, from 1941 until 1974, Selassie hung on to power. Ethiopia became a charter member of the United Nations and in 1963 Selassie oversaw the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity.

To men like Marley, Selassie’s legacy was clear. He was a man to be venerated. Accordingly, Marley took a speech Selassie gave to the UN in 1963 and turned it into a song: “Until the colour of a man’s skin is of no more importance than the colour of his eyes … until the basic human rights are guaranteed to all without regard to race … until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained.” Marley christened his song War and to Selassie’s words he added this chilling coda: “And until that day, the African continent will not know peace.”

To others Selassie’s legacy is less benign. In 1960 there was a coup attempt. Progressive elements viewed Selassie as a despot. In the mid-1960s, students and intellectuals began gravitating towards Marxism and agitating for change, and in the early 1970s the country was hit by famine. Stories that Selassie’s pet lions were fed while the people starved did nothing to help the emperor.

Events came to a head in 1974. On September 12, Selassie was driven from the palace in a Volkswagen and imprisoned in a three-room mud hut. Later he was removed to his palace under house arrest. His servants still addressed him as “Your Imperial Majesty” – but the world had turned and left the old monarch behind. Go to SOURCE of article