Horn of Africa History, Colonial Plans, and the Outrageous Forger Mammo Muchie – Part IV
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
October 09, 2007
We then focused on an incredible and absolutely fallacious article of bogus-historical contents published as support of the aforementioned conference by Mammo Muchie (‘Unite the people from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean’ / http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article23512). In the present article, we will continue uncovering the fraudulent presentation of Eastern African History by Mammo Muchie in his article’s main part. The fact that the error analysis has become so long underscores the extraordinary character of the historical distortion of that article.
For the interested readers, we mention here the earlier articles on the subject, offering the respective links to them:
1. Colonial Plans for the Horn of Africa – ‘Ethiopia’ to border with Egypt? /
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=37960
2. Horn of Africa - Monstrous Colonial Plans Unveiled / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=37904
3. The Horn of Africa Conference Clique, and their Dark Plans for Egypt, Sudan, 'Ethiopia', and Somalia / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=38050
4. Horn of Africa History, Colonial Plans, and the Outrageous Forger Mammo Muchie /
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=38115, and
5. Horn of Africa History, Colonial Plans, and the Outrageous Forger Mammo Muchie – Part II /
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=38460
6. Horn of Africa History, Colonial Plans, and the Outrageous Forger Mammo Muchie – Part III /
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=38609
To help the reader, we will first publish the part of the text that is left to be commented (‘Myth of Origin’, part of Mammo Muchie’s article ‘Unite the people from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean’) , and then its refutation. Numbers encrusted in Mammo Muchie’s text refer to points of refutation. The first thirty seven (37) points have been already refuted and discussed analytically, so we will start with point 38.
Myth of Origin (Unite the people from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean) by M. Muchie
Nothing can be furthest from the truth than this preposterous claim that Ethiopia was part and parcel of the imperial and colonial system. 37 Ethiopia was a victim of the colonial-imperial order 38 and cannot be considered as part and parcel of the imperial system 39 even if it were to have allied with one sort or group of imperial powers 40 locked in rivalries with each other to retain a partially 41 carved state from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea.
In the Conference in Lund some delegates who should know better 42 tried to spread some unusual tales claiming that the current Somali invasion by the Ethiopian Government 43 was a continuation of the imperial colonial project of the Scramble for Africa 44 where they alleged Ethiopia participated by sending a delegation to the Berlin 1885 infamous meeting. 45 Even if Ethiopia sent an observer, it is a far cry from exaggerating such a presence into a role that Ethiopia was part of the forces that carved the African continent. 46
Conceptually such a claim is outrageous and bankrupt. 47 The Ethiopian emperor was clear that the people from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean are historically and culturally connected. 48 But he lamented the fact that the imperial project disrupted their unity 49 and appealed to God to restore their unity at some possible time in the future. 50 That prescient insight by emperor Menelik has nothing to do with a colonial project. 51 It has everything to do with redressing great power imperial and colonial injustice 52 visited upon not only on the people from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, but also Africa from the Mediterranean to the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. 53
In Ethiopia those who have legitimate demands to decentralise the states of the region particularly in Ethiopia by localising authority at the grassroots 54 by devolving power and empowering ordinary citizens 55 went overboard and created false ideologies 56 of Ethiopia as a’ colonial’ power. 57 This thesis has been loosely spread by books such as Addis Hiwot’s From Autocracy to Revolution, London, published by the Review of African Political Economy group, 1975, Bereket Habte Selassie, Conflict and Intervention in the Horn of Africa, MRP, New York, 1980, A . Jalata, Oromia and Ethiopia: State Formation and Ethnonational Conflict 1868-1992, Lynne Reinner, 1992, Sisay Ibsa et al The Invention of Ethiopia, Trenton, Red Sea press 1991. There are many articles and pamphleteering from the various fronts from the TPLF to OLF, ONLF, Sidama Liberation Front and others that spread loosely the false conception of Ethiopia ’s relations with the various communities both inside and outside the region as a colonial relation. 58 This sinister anti-intellectual 59 and devious misconstruction 60 must be rejected and the precise concept that truly characterises relations of oppressions involving the peoples of the region re- formulated by mounting an unsparing criticism of so much of the propaganda masquerading as science. 61 Ethiopia’s relations with Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti or Sudan has never been colonial 62 and is not colonial in the sense of a relationship that Britain, Italy or France had with these various states including Ethiopia. 63”
Refutation of Mammo Muchie’s Myth of Origin (Unite the people from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean)
Point 38 – Colonialism
As continuation from the previous sentence, Mammo Muchie undertakes an effort to diffuse his erroneous assumption that Abyssinia, fallaciously re-named Ethiopia, was not a colonial country, but a victim of the colonial powers. There is no systematic approach to the topic; in other words, Mammo Muchie says so because it so pleases him. It is an inconsistent effort to propagate the political aberrations and the bogus-historical dogmas of Africa’s most anachronistic, most dysfunctional, and most undeveloped country, Abyssinia.
To consider a country as colonial, one proceeds through evaluation of policies, examination of deeds, assessment of policies and attitudes, and analysis of facts. There are no geographical limits and predispositions; in any continent we can attest the existence of a colonial state; the phenomenon is certainly not European. Only its beginning within the historical context of the Modern Times is to be identified in Europe.
Colonialism hit Asia and America to worse extent than it did Africa; larger Asiatic territories were regrouped under colonial tutelage than the entire surface of the Black continent (30 m km2); if we count the surface of the Asiatic territories of Russia (more than 13 m km2), the Central Asiatic Republics (more than 4 m km2), England’s Indian colonies (more than 5 m km2), French Indochina (ca. 750000 km2), Holland’s Indonesia (more than 2 m km2), all the parts of the Ottoman Empire covered by British and French mandate following WW I (more than 3.9 m km2). and Japans’ colonial territories in Korea and China (more than 1.5 m km2), we draw the conclusion that ca. 32 m km2 of Asiatic have been under colonial control – either it lasted long or it ended quickly.
The same concerns America, as the entire continent was colony of European powers for centuries (more than 42 m km2).
Colonialism can take two forms, either an overseas adventure and settlement or land territorial expansion. Russia’s expansion in Transcaucasia, Central Asia, Siberia, and Northeast Asia gave birth to administrative subdivisions that are all colonial of character.
In Africa itself, whereby the European colonial states were foreign, Abyssinia was not the only indigenous colonial power. Egypt under the Viceroy (Khedive), nominally Ottoman, and virtually colonized by the French and the British, was also a colonial power, and its involvement in either the Sudan or the Horn of Africa, although inspired and guided by the British, was purely colonial of nature. Egypt’s colonial empire was the so-called Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (territorial expansion), whereas its adventures in the Horn of Africa were more ephemeral.
Winner or loser, a colonial empire is a colonial empire, and a colonial adventure is a colonial adventure. There cannot be a colonial empire ‘victim of another colonial empire’ as ridiculously Mammo Muchie assumes; this pertains to World politics, you play and either win or lose. Many colonial empires lost to their rivals and adversaries; France lost Egypt to Britain, Germany lost Cameroon to France, Abyssinia lost territories to Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, to France, and to Britain, and finally lost its independence (and its colonial acquisitions) to Italy, before the British managed to kick the Italians out of the Horn of Africa region, and so on.
As no one can say that Italy was a victim of England, it would be comical to consider Abyssinia as victim of Italy.
Point 39 – Why Amhara Abyssinia is a colonial power, and the Sidama Kingdom is not.
Insisting on the aforementioned, Abyssinia by virtue of the invasions of various independent kingdoms and territories by Menelik and others, and on the grounds of its cooperation with a greater colonial power, namely England, has to be considered as a genuinely colonial state.
Who could not be taken as “part and parcel of the imperial and colonial system” as Mammo Muchie puts it? Well, here we have a long list of states and kingdoms, namely the Sidamas, the Oromos, the Kaffas, all those various states that did not attempt any expansion over and occupation of adjacent and further lands and territories.
Political reality is in fact a simple phenomenon; as the Berbers of Algeria were oppressed by colonial France, following the French occupation of the western province of the Ottoman Empire, the Sidamas were oppressed by the invading Amhara forces that occupied the independent Sidama kingdom. The acts are absolutely parallel, and in the same way Sidamas and Berbers have been colonized, France and Abyssinia are by definition colonial powers; modern or old-fashioned, globally or regionally influential, less cruel or absolutely crueler are parameters of lesser importance in the definition of a colonial state.
That is why there is a definite bar that separates the invaders, the Amhara / Tigray Abyssinians, from the Oromos, the Sidamas, the Shekachos, the Afars, the Anuak, the Kaffas and the Ogadenis, placing the former among the colonial powers, and the latter among Africa’s oppressed and tyrannized nations.
The same tyrannical practices the French applied to the Algerians, the Tunisians and the Malians, the Abyssinians imposed on the Oromos, the Sidamas and all the rest. And contrarily to the former cases that have taken an end before many decades, the latter – cruelest – cases of national oppression and tyranny have persisted down to the beginning of the 21st century.
The Amhara / Tigray tyranny was the worst case scenario, and it lasted longer, depriving the oppressed peoples from their lands, natural resources, freedom, cultural, religious and linguistic integrity, national and physical independence, rightful sovereignty and lawful rule. It would be far better for today’s Sidamas, Oromos, Ogadenis and others to have fallen under British or French occupation, as it would last shorter.
And as far as the Amhara claim about preserving parts of Africa out of non-African colonial control is concerned, it is fallacious for two reasons; first, no one asked them to do so, and second, there cannot be preference of one tyranny instead of another from the part of any oppressed people, and more particularly from the part of the oppressed nations of the colonial relic of Abyssinia.
If we judge on the basis of colonial practices exercised over one people by another nation of the same continent, we are led to the conclusion that cruelty increases due to propinquity; the abhorrent Japanese tyranny over China between WW I and WW II is the closest paradigm for the Amhara continued occupation of the lands of Oromos, Afars, Ogadenis, Sidamas and others.
Point 40
The alliance with another colonial power, namely Britain, demonstrates perfectly well the colonial nature of Abyssinia. The bigoted expression “even if it were to have allied with one” would have a historical and moral validity, only if the Amharas defended their own territory; any act of invasion is a prelude to colonialism. If the Amhara Abyssinians invaded other lands for strategic anti-Italian purposes, then they failed tragically because Italy did finally invade and occupy Abyssinia in its entirety; if however this claim was rightful, the Amharas should quit voluntarily the invaded territories at the end of the colonial era.
Point 41
Speaking of a “partially carved state from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea”, Mammo Muchie, without understanding it, reveals the existing criminal plans of the Neo Nazi Amhara of the 21st century to annex to their tyranny Djibouti, Somalia, Eritrea, and parts of the (under decomposition) Sudan. The adverb ‘partially’ is in this case quite revelatory. What was ‘partial’ before 100 years, it is expected to be completed nowadays, this is what the instructors and secretive masters of Mammo Muchie seem to think.
Point 42
Following the previous points of this refutation and the subsequent revelation of the inconsistencies, inaccuracies and fallacies supported, declared and propagated by Mammo Muchie, it is clear that he has no academic stance and no moral stature to say to any other person that they “should know better”. Mammo Mushie should know better first. To do so, he must arrange a real transplantation of head; difficult surgery!
Point 43
The fact that many scholars, diplomats and political activists have detected a perpetuated Abyssinian interest of colonizing wider areas and further lands is real; it testifies to the criminal and inhuman needs of Africa’s worst monster. It is not a claim as Mammo Muchie wants to surmise; even worse for him and his mendacity, his overall effort, and the commitment of the Conference about which he wrote his article, many other indications testify to the extant colonial plans and projects. His suggestion – throughout the present article – for one state from Sudan to Somalia is a colonial project; only a demented person would be unable to assess this.
The participants he is referring to should reply to Mammo Muchie that he – in himself and by himself – is the best evidence “that the current Somali invasion by the Ethiopian Government was a continuation” of the old colonial project.
The invasion of a foreign land, inhabited by another people, historically inimical, is not a liberation; it is a colonial endeavour. Even if some unrepresentative traitors invite the invaders under any sort of disrespectful pretext.
Point 44 – Scramble for Africa
At this point, without denying the colonial nature of the Abyssinian effort, we believe we have to express a certain criticism of the wider-than-normal use of the term ‘Scramble for Africa’. Not everything can be related to the Scramble for Africa; not all the colonial projects machinated in order to be materialized on various territories of the Black Continent pertain to the Scramble for Africa.
Scholars have not provided thus far with a real clarification and proper dissociation of seemingly similar colonial projects undertaken and carried out on African soil. As a matter of fact, three different – all colonial of nature – projects have been undertaken on the Black Continent over the past 210 years, certainly interlinked up to a certain extent, but basically independent one from another.
Project 1 – The decomposition of the Ottoman Empire.
This project started with Napoleon, and certainly its origins go as back as the Crusades; this was not an Afro-centrist project, as it aimed at the invasion and occupation of the Land of Israel and various adjacent territories. It is a Christian – Roman project that pertains to the re-unification of the Roman Empire, attempted by its Western wing. In the process, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Red Sea African coastlands have been detached from the Ottoman Empire between 1798 and 1911. It all happened as preparatory work for the British expedition against Jerusalem in 1917; it started from ‘nearby’ Egypt. Without the preparatory work, the attempt, undertaken from Malta or Italy, would have poor chances to succeed.
Project 2 – The formation of the Coptic Republic of Ethiopia.
This project was envisioned by the Freemasonic part of the French and British elites in order to regroup, in a huge state, proselytized and / or manipulated East Africa’s Christians, newly Christianized Africans, and – as minority – Muslims and followers of African religions. Although the ostensible origins of the plan can be identified as early as Renaissance Europe, the project should come to surface relatively late; as it hinges on various critical points for the Freemasonic elites of colonial Europe, one needs a strong background in Ancient Hebrew and Judaic History, and in Classical Antiquity in order to possibly assess the real targets behind the meticulously promoted – thus far – project. From a superficial political standpoint, it may look as a Western European support to the Amhara / Tigray Abyssinians, but it is in fact disastrous for them as well – in the long run. In the future, we will expand on the issue.
Project 3 – This is the Scramble for Africa
In itself, it was never a project properly speaking. It was the result of the colonial powers’ search for rich resources in overseas territories. There is no doubt that the Scramble for Africa was the result of earlier developments in other continents, America, Asia and Oceania notably. In the former case, the early competition between Spain and Portugal left territories to be shared by others mainly in the North of Mexico (sizeable US territory was Spanish and then Mexican for some time). England, France and Holland entered the competition late, did not find worthy territory in America, and expanded the race in the Indian Ocean, Asia and the Pacific. It is only after 200 years of competition that Spain and Portugal entered into a decadence phase. Spain was very active in the Pacific as well, whereas Portugal played a critical role in Africa, having acquired vast territories long before Napoleon set foot in Egypt.
The Scramble for Africa was finally an affair shared among France, England, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Egypt (under nebulous semi-independent, semi-colonial), and Abyssinia. One does not consider the Ottoman Empire as a colonial empire in Africa, although the Ottoman rise in Africa coincides with the rise of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism (early 16th century), because it represents a reunification effort of countries that had been already united earlier (already since the Abbasid times).
The Scramble for Africa hinged on two important points, namely
a. the definition of the most successful axis for Colonial Africa (West to East French expansion in straight opposition to South – North British alignment), and
b. the division of non colonized territories to peripheries of the competing colonial powers.
After the termination of the Scramble for Africa, with the Italian colonization of Libya (1911), and the British annexation of Egypt (1914), only a war between two of the aforementioned race participants could lead to change of colonial hegemony.
As a matter of fact, by 1914, the entire world was divided into spheres of colonial influence. The only countries targeted but not yet invaded were the Ottoman Empire and China. If the WW I had not taken place, China’s division into zones of influence among France, Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Japan, England and the US would be a matter of brief time.
Point 45 – the Berlin Conference
Abyssinia participated in the Berlin November 1884 – November 1885 Conference, not 1885 ‘meeting’ as Mammo Muchie writes. The Principle of Effectivity that was officially stipulated in the Conference required colonial insignia (treaties with colonized kings and/or chieftains, flag, and administration), not nominal declarations from all the involved parts. This automatically implies colonial essence of rule. It bears witness to the colonial nature of abiding countries. The practices and the deeds of the Abyssinian invaders were therefore considered by the then colonial powers as colonial of nature; this is an irreversible reality.
After the Berlin Conference, Abyssinia invaded additional lands and territories where it applied the principle of effectivity, further pursuing its colonial projects. Worse than all the fourteen signatory powers, Abyssinia practiced slavery after 1885, as proven through various records.
The fact that the Abyssinian kingdom was a pariah state manipulated by mainly England is the reason it was not featured among the 14 signatory delegations, being sort of observer. However, as it was invited in the Conference, it is clear that it was not viewed as an African colonized but as a colonial administration.
Point 46 – Abyssinia: part of the forces that carved the African continent
Mammo Muchie seems to virtually misinterpret facts; the fact that Abyssinia was invited at the Berlin Conference is not the principal reason historians and scholars consider it as “part of the forces that carved the African continent”.
The main reason for this is the Abyssinian practice and strategy to create a vast empire, expanding outside the borders of the Gonder or the Shoa kingdoms that were already totalitarian territories whereby different nations were oppressed by the Amhara / Tigray tribes.
The main reasons for considering the Abyssinian kingdom as “part of the forces that carved the African continent” are the Abyssinian practice and strategy to
1) invade other peoples,
2) dissolve other kingdoms and states,
3) exterminate massively their populations,
4) impose forced policies of linguistic, cultural, socio-behavioural amharization,
5) enforce the tyrannical acceptance of the Abyssinian pseudo-Christian heresy of Monophysitism,
6) sell sizeable numbers of people as slaves,
7) practice a cruel policy of Amhara settlements in the occupied lands of Ogaden, Afar, Oromia, Sidama, Anuak, Shekacho, Kaffa, Kambata, etc.,
8) expropriate the local populations from their own lands,
9) strip these populations of any benefit ensuing from the rightful exploitation of their natural resources,
10) illegally exploit foreign lands occupied by force and through genocidal practices,
11) critically promote unlimited and unadulterated Racism – through all possible means – against the invaded nations, by methodically disparaging and denigrating them at all levels, national, religious, cultural, social, political, linguistic, socio-behavioural, involving appalling terms and inhuman concepts,
12) treacherously select and form renegades and traitors for further use by the established police state,
13) implement tyrannical policies to eliminate religions, obliterate languages and
eradicate social – behavioural habits and practices that were part of the National and Cultural Heritage of the occupied foreign lands, and last but not least
14) misrepresent the overwhelming majority of the colonial realm at the international level, therefore completing a sophisticated and multi-dimensional Genocide that started from Day 1 of the Amhara invasion of the foreign lands.
Point 47
The claim of colossal Abyssinian responsibility for a multi-national African Genocide as result of the Amhara / Tigray colonial expansion is neither outrageous nor bankrupt; it is a historical fact that none can deny. The tiny Amhara state of Gonder expanded during the 19th century, becoming more than ten times larger than before the colonization adventure; Amhara armies invaded foreign lands belonging to historical peoples, and destroyed a great number of different states; this is called Colonialism.
Point 48 – From the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean
Mammo Muchie refers probably to the Abyssinian king of the times of the Berlin Conference, namely Yohannes IV, for whom – he says – it was clear that ‘the people from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean are historically and culturally connected’. This is ridiculous!
It is as if we say that “the people from Spain to Poland are historically and culturally connected”! Of course, all the peoples living within a wider area are interconnected – as enemies, rivals, adversaries and warring parts. The long list of wars fought among the ‘people’ from Spain to Poland looks like a brief notice if compared to the Catalogue of hostilities, battles, invasions and fights engaged against one another by all the peoples living between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean on either Asia and Africa.
There is a critical grammatical mistake that was deliberately made by the forger Mammo Muchie in order to diffuse confusion and misunderstanding that are key to his bogus-historical synthesis and political aberration. It is about the word “people”.
Who are these vague and nebulous “people” from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean? Are they deprived of their identity? Are they an unidentified mass useful only to scorn?
People means a group of human beings gathered at a place. This is not the way for a person hired by or linked with a Danish University to speak of historical nations. The correction of this aberration imposes the addition of a final –s.
Mammo Muchie, when speaking about History and Culture spread throughout a vast area, must refer to the factors of Historical Evolution and Cultural Identity. History and Culture do not pertain to Mammo Muchie’s chimpanzees but to Peoples, Nations; accordingly, he has to speak of ”the peoples (not people) from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean are historically and culturally connected”.
Of course, the various nations that developed culture and civilization in the aforementioned area encountered one another; they did so as different entities, representing different identities, fighting for different values and ideas. More issues divided than united them in the past, and in the present; and so it will be in the future, unless free independent nations undergo rational nation-building procedures, boost education, promote cultural identity, and socio-economic development.
In the same way, Denmark and Belgium became partners with Germany within the European Union, the Oromos, the Ogadenis, the Sidamas, the Bejas, the Nuers, the Somalis, the Tigrays, the Afars, the Nubians, the Dinkas, the Amharas, the Egyptians, and so many others can eventually become partners within a Democratic and Humanist African Union.
But there will be first independent national states, as it happened in Europe; first Czech Republic and Slovakia separated from one another, and then they met one another again within a Democratic and Free European Union.
Mammo Muchie does not like the European Union way; he prefers Hitler’s way, deliberately falsifying History and promoting Amhara tyrannical and inhuman plans of expanded colonialism. And he projects his falsehood to the barbaric, ignorant and semi-cannibalistic bogus-king of Abyssinia Yuhannes IV.
Quite unfortunately for Mammo Muchie, the reality is far simpler; Dejazmach Kassay, as was the real name of that sham king, had no idea about the History and the Cultures of the various nations of Eastern Africa. He was an uneducated and barbaric, cruel tyrant, and his only capacity was limited to butchery unlimited. Apart from that, he knew nothing.
Point 49
As teddy boy (Lij in Gueze) Dejazmach Kassay was ignorant, Mammo Muchie proliferates his own mistakes. Notwithstanding the Abyssinian cruel tyrant’s lamentations, the “imperial project” (Mammo Muchie means the Scramble for Africa – from which he erroneously dissociates Abyssinia) did not disrupt the unity of the peoples of Eastern Africa, simply because they had already been divided over the centuries. It would be too lengthy tom offer here an abridged account of Eastern African History that comprises so many different nations, religions, cultures, and states.
The colonial game in Africa unified by force within the same colonial territory different peoples who had previously existed separately; this development was due to the balance of power among the colonial empires, and it was not based on a rationalistic evaluation of the terrain. It resulted in an incredible bloodshed (type of tribal, genocidal conflict Hutu vs. Tutsis) in many places, and within various colonial circumferences, Abyssinia included. And as a genuine gangster Mammo Muchie wants to repeat the story.
History is very simple; due to their different backgrounds, the colonized nations, which were illegally regrouped to cohabitate with those they had never had a symbiosis with in pre-colonial times, had traumatic experiences. They had not been united before the arrival of the colonials, and their unity was their tyrannical nightmare.
Point 50
When we start having God involved in the criminal deeds of a murderous and villainous pseudo-king, serious discussion is over, and evidence is automatically produced in order to throw the irrelevant Mammo Muchie out of Aalborg University, an otherwise respectable institution financed by the Danish people tax contribution.
Whether criminals like Yuhannes IV, Menelik, Hitler, Stalin, Ceausescu and Pol Pot “appealed to God” or not is not a subject in the World’s History.
We will complete the refutation in a forthcoming article.
Note
Picture: Elephantine Island - Aswan, Upper Egypt: a High Place in the Freemasonic Theory and Project 'Coptic Republic of Ethiopia'