Oliver Benjamin
and hundreds of thousands of villagers had been displaced as a
result. They were at an impasse and the United Nations proved as
powerless as always to intervene. When Italy invaded Ethiopia in
1936, the UN’s predecessor—the League of Nations—proved equally
powerless to help Ethiopia.
Haile Selassie had performed an historical feat by getting Ethiopia
inducted into the League as its first African representative, but when
Italy threatening to attack them soon afterwards, their new European
allies refused to help. Selassie admonished the League in an
impassioned speech that prophesized, “God and history will
remember your judgment. It is us today. It will be you tomorrow.”
He was correct, of course. With the impotence of the League
apparent to all, it soon disbanded, allowing fascist Italy and Germany
to develop an alliance and terrorize Europe for the next ten years.
One might say therefore that World War II actually began with the
invasion of Ethiopia, not Poland. Had Europe showed a unified and
determined front in Africa, it’s unlikely that the Axis would have been
so audacious later on.
Selassie fled the Italian invasion, settling in London for a five-
year exile. But things were never the same for him after that. The
heady optimism that followed the Emperor in his early years had
dried up by the time he returned to Ethiopia and his subjects no
longer held him in high esteem. Burgeoning doubts and his
subsequent need to impose a correspondingly stern and paranoid
hand locked into a spiraling death-dance up until his deposition in
1974.
The unbroken dynasty from Sheba and Solomon to Selassie
finally lay shattered and buried like the skeleton of the obsolescent
species unearthed only months before. The final straw that broke its
back? A terrible drought that the king failed to take seriously in that
same year. Frequently there must be a beverage. We drink, therefore
we are.Ethiopian hopes dried up along with its skies. Its day in the
sun, which dawned with Selassie’s coronation in 1930, drew to a close
in 1974. Now, a generation later, with Selassie’s brutal successor
finally overthrown and the economy on the mend, the first
glimmerings of progress had already been eclipsed by sandstorms.
Ultimately Webele made a few calls, pulled a few strings, and tickets
were issued. They had some hours to kill so Webele took Roy for a
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