Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. Earlier this week, we talked about the
Speaker 1: rock hun churches in Lollibela, Ethiopia, and we mentioned the
Speaker 1: Solomonic dynasty and its last emperor, Highly Selassie, and previous
Speaker 1: hosts Sarah and Bablina did an episode on him, including
Speaker 1: his connection to the Rastafarian movement in February, so we're
Speaker 1: going to share that episode today. We hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Deblina chokate Boardy.
Speaker 1: And it seems like we're gradually stumbling upon kind of
Speaker 1: a sub theme for the podcast here. It seems like
Speaker 1: situations keep cropping up in history in which someone's remains
Speaker 1: are discovered, uncovered, identified, and then buried elsewhere. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: a variation of our main exlimation theme, Mama exactly. For example,
Speaker 1: take Ava Perrone. I think that before our time, Stephanamiston
Speaker 1: History Class did a podcast on Ava Perrone and how
Speaker 1: it took more than twenty years to bury her and
Speaker 1: it was for political reasons. Her body traveled kind of
Speaker 1: all over the place Italy, Spain, before finding its final
Speaker 1: resting place in Buenos Aires, And that was a little
Speaker 1: different because I think they kind of knew where her
Speaker 1: body was the whole time. They were always afraid it
Speaker 1: was going to get stolen, though, I think that was
Speaker 1: always a concern, right. And then of course there was
Speaker 1: our recent podcast about Henry the Fourth. We talked about
Speaker 1: him to kick off our Bourbon series that has been ongoing,
Speaker 1: and his head was recently identified and will be reintered
Speaker 1: this year with full state honors. So kind of along
Speaker 1: the same lines, and with today's episode, we have a
Speaker 1: similar sort of situation, though with a very different set
Speaker 1: of circumstances. The subject of this episode is highly Selassie.
Speaker 1: He was the last Emperor of Ethiopia, sometimes known to
Speaker 1: his subjects as the King of Kings and the Lion
Speaker 1: of Judah, and Time magazine once even made him their
Speaker 1: Man of the Year. Members of the Rastafarian movement um,
Speaker 1: which is how a lot of people know them. They
Speaker 1: even think of him as their messiah. Yet he didn't
Speaker 1: receive a proper burial when he died in ninety five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's always surprising the people who don't get the proper
Speaker 1: burial um, so his remains were exhumed from a makeshift
Speaker 1: tomb in nineteen um but his official funeral didn't take
Speaker 1: place until the year two thousands, so a pretty long
Speaker 1: gap between those two dates. And even then when the
Speaker 1: funeral finally did happen, it was pretty controversial. It was
Speaker 1: tough to pull off. There was a lot of debate
Speaker 1: with the current government of Ethiopia of how it should happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so why did it take nearly thirty years to bury
Speaker 1: a world renowned leader. That's just part of what we're
Speaker 1: going to look at today, as well as the conflict
Speaker 1: between Ethiopia and Italy that put highly Selassie on the
Speaker 1: map in the first place, on the international stage out
Speaker 1: there for everyone to his name and see. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: you know, of course, before we talk about what put
Speaker 1: him on the map, we're going to talk about how
Speaker 1: he got to be Emperor of Ethiopia in the first place,
Speaker 1: because he was not heir to the throne. It was
Speaker 1: not his destiny at least, so it seemed. He was
Speaker 1: born to fire mcconan on July two, and he was
Speaker 1: the son of a Prince Ros mcconan. Ros means Prince
Speaker 1: Um and his father was also a noted general and
Speaker 1: the chief advisor to the emperor, who was Emperor men
Speaker 1: of Like the second Um in power at the time
Speaker 1: that too far I was born Um and he was
Speaker 1: related to the emperor, but not that closely. He was
Speaker 1: the emperor's grand nephew, and there were kids and grandkids
Speaker 1: who were in line to take the emperor's place, so
Speaker 1: it didn't seem like this relatively distant Um Kien would
Speaker 1: eventually rise to the throne. But little did they know,
Speaker 1: Too far I was pretty intelligent and he impressed the
Speaker 1: Emperor Menelik very early on, and so the Emperor started
Speaker 1: appointing to Far to these provincial governorships at the young
Speaker 1: age of fourteen, and he became governor first of Sadamo
Speaker 1: and then of the Hare province. So he's governing and
Speaker 1: his policies at the time were considered pretty progressive compared
Speaker 1: to what was out there. He wanted to decrease the
Speaker 1: power of the local nobility by pumping up the power
Speaker 1: of the central government. So, for example, one of the
Speaker 1: things that he did was develop a salaried civil service. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have our minds so much on bourbons to this
Speaker 1: kind of reminded us of Richelieu and Louis the fourteenth,
Speaker 1: centralizing the government with the with the king, with the
Speaker 1: emperor um. But meanwhile, while the young Tafari is working
Speaker 1: on all this, the emperor dies in nineteen thirteen and
Speaker 1: his grandson li Jiahsu takes the throne um. But this
Speaker 1: young man is not very popular and not popular right
Speaker 1: from the start. Part of it was that he had
Speaker 1: converted to Islam, and the majority of Ethiopians at this
Speaker 1: time we're Christians, so his subjects weren't particularly happy with
Speaker 1: that point. Tafari, on the other hand, who was a
Speaker 1: devout orthodox Christian, he comes to represent the Christian resistance
Speaker 1: at this time, so the country's younger generation they support
Speaker 1: him for this, and also because they're becoming enamored by
Speaker 1: his progressive tendencies. So with both of these things working
Speaker 1: for him, he's able to depose le Jasu in nineteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: and that makes men a like the Second's Daughter's ad
Speaker 1: two empress. But there's a problem with that because at
Speaker 1: the time it was considered unseemly for a woman to
Speaker 1: rule in her own rights. So Rastafari is named regent
Speaker 1: and heir apparent to the throne. Yeah, and it's interesting too, because, um,
Speaker 1: you normally think of our region and a ruler working
Speaker 1: at least somewhat in tandem, especially if they're two adults,
Speaker 1: But this was not the case the rulers. Why you
Speaker 1: two is a pretty conservative empress compared to Rastafari, But
Speaker 1: he seemed to be the one who was really pulling
Speaker 1: a lot of the strings. He was the one moving
Speaker 1: his more progressive agenda forward. And it is pretty it
Speaker 1: is pretty progressive. In nineteen three, he gets Ethiopia admitted
Speaker 1: into the League of Nations, the relatively new League of
Speaker 1: Nations at that point. In nineteen twenty four, he becomes
Speaker 1: the first Ethiopian ruler to ever go abroad. He visits
Speaker 1: Rome and Paris and London, and by nineteen twenty eight
Speaker 1: he's sort of elevated this regent position a little bit
Speaker 1: and he takes the title King of Ethiopia. A little
Speaker 1: funny to have a king and an empress here, um,
Speaker 1: and it sort of shows you where the true power falls,
Speaker 1: and his power is elevated even more. In nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: Whensaud two dies, making Rastafari emperor. It's then that he
Speaker 1: takes the name Highly Selassie, which means might of the Trinity.
Speaker 1: So now he's in truly in power. He's the emperor.
Speaker 1: He is the emperor. But something else is happening at
Speaker 1: the same time in a land far away in Jamaica,
Speaker 1: about the last thing you could expect to happen. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: of course a lot of us know the story, but
Speaker 1: at the time it would have been maybe kind of
Speaker 1: surprising to some people's ears. When Highly Selassie became emperor,
Speaker 1: it fulfilled a prophecy or a prediction that black leader
Speaker 1: and founder of the Back to Africa movement Marcus Garvey
Speaker 1: had made years before. What he had said at that
Speaker 1: time was look to Africa for the crowning of a
Speaker 1: black king. He shall be the redeemer. So when this
Speaker 1: comes true, so to speak, in Highly Selassie, Rastafarianism is
Speaker 1: born obvious now where that name comes from Rastafari. So
Speaker 1: a couple of primary Rastafarian beliefs are that the only
Speaker 1: true God is the late Ethiopian emperor Highly Selassie, and
Speaker 1: that Ethiopius the true Zion, which was kind of a
Speaker 1: paradise on Earth. And one of the key doctrines is
Speaker 1: that they'll someday return to Africa from which their ancestors
Speaker 1: were taken a slave. So those of you who may
Speaker 1: be are fans of Bob Marley have heard some of
Speaker 1: this before. Bob Marley was very famous for being Rastafarian.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but there's a there's a weird element to
Speaker 1: all of this, and that's that Hilie Selassie himself, who
Speaker 1: is being revered as the Messiah or is um the
Speaker 1: only true God by Rastafarians, doesn't really go along with
Speaker 1: it himself because he's a devout Christian. So he never
Speaker 1: really accepts his status as a messiah, as a deliverer
Speaker 1: um that these people sort of thrust upon him. I
Speaker 1: think that's such a what a strange uh, what a
Speaker 1: strange deal to have going on there. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think when he was alive, people asked him about it,
Speaker 1: you know, did you did you know about this? Did
Speaker 1: you know that you're considered a messiah? And he was
Speaker 1: just kind of like, yeah, I've heard that, but you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm just a man. Yeah, he just said,
Speaker 1: I'm just a man. And he also, I mean, at
Speaker 1: the time, at least he had some major problems to
Speaker 1: deal with that without thinking about how he was considered
Speaker 1: a messiah by some yep. Pretty much as soon as
Speaker 1: he became emperor, he had some issues, primarily the rising
Speaker 1: tensions with Italy. Here's just a little bit of background
Speaker 1: on the situation between Italy and Ethiopia. Italy, which had
Speaker 1: colonized most of the Red Sea coast in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: had tried to invade Ethiopia before Menelick's army had defeated
Speaker 1: the Italians back in eighteen ninety six the Battle of Ottawa,
Speaker 1: and this was considered a big victory for Ethiopians and
Speaker 1: for Africa at the time. I think many sources have
Speaker 1: said that this was the first time in African army
Speaker 1: had actually met and defeated a European army in conventional battle.
Speaker 1: So big deal. Yeah, definitely a big deal. So if
Speaker 1: we fast forward though to highly Lassi's reign, we have
Speaker 1: Benito Mussolini in power. He has by this point become
Speaker 1: dictator of Italy in ninety two, and initially it seems
Speaker 1: like he's not that interested in Africa. In nine he
Speaker 1: even signed this Treaty of Friendship with Ethiopia, which at
Speaker 1: the time was the last African region that was free
Speaker 1: from some sort of European control. So it seemed like
Speaker 1: Italy was backing off. Maybe Ethiopian Italy would be cool
Speaker 1: with each other. That was not the case, though, And
Speaker 1: it wasn't long before Mussolini started changing his opinion about
Speaker 1: the country and his intentions. Uh. And that may have
Speaker 1: happened for a few different reasons. Yeah. For one thing,
Speaker 1: it's possible that he wanted to avenge the eighteen nine defeat.
Speaker 1: Some people suggest that, um just conjecture at this point,
Speaker 1: but also Mussolini, as we know, was a fascist and
Speaker 1: part of the whole fascist doctrine as the state should
Speaker 1: try to expand its sphere of power and influence. So
Speaker 1: that was one thing. Another thing was he kind of
Speaker 1: just wanted to stick it to the rest of Europe
Speaker 1: At that point, he thought Italy had gotten a raw
Speaker 1: deal at the end of World War One. Great Britain
Speaker 1: and France had both increased their colonial holdings and Italy
Speaker 1: didn't really get a share of the spoils from his
Speaker 1: point of view, Yeah, so he was he was looking
Speaker 1: to make some gains. Um. And the trouble officially started
Speaker 1: in December nineteen thirty four and that's when a Royal
Speaker 1: Ethiopian force drove out this Italian encampment that was stationed
Speaker 1: at Wawall, which was an oasis on the Ethiopian territory. Um,
Speaker 1: it seemed maybe from the Ethiopian perspective, like the Italians
Speaker 1: were a little too close, maybe they shouldn't have been there. Uh,
Speaker 1: they were certainly a threatening presence, but the Italians really
Speaker 1: used it as an excuse to go after Ethiopia. Like, look,
Speaker 1: they're not they're not treating this treaty in good faith,
Speaker 1: they're not following it. This is not a treaty of
Speaker 1: friendship if they're driving us away from this oasis. And
Speaker 1: so they start to gather up their forces in East
Speaker 1: Africa or the East African colonies to eventually mount an
Speaker 1: attack on Ethiopia. Right. So Higlie Celassie sees this coming
Speaker 1: and he's pretty freaked out about it. He appeals to
Speaker 1: the League of Nations at this point, but they really
Speaker 1: don't take any serious steps to stop the Italians from
Speaker 1: waging an attack. They issue kind of slaps on the hands,
Speaker 1: threats and promises. At one point they restrict trade with Italy,
Speaker 1: but this doesn't really work either because countries involved, especially
Speaker 1: Britain and France, won't really commit to it. And there's
Speaker 1: a reason for that. There is it's mostly because members
Speaker 1: of the League, particularly Great Britain and France, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: don't want to upset Mussolini too much. They wanted to
Speaker 1: keep up an alliance against with Italy against Nazi Germany,
Speaker 1: so they didn't even really consider taking military action to
Speaker 1: defend Ethiopia at the time. You know, they don't want
Speaker 1: to alienate Italy. Um and their own European concerns seemed
Speaker 1: to trump those of Ethiopia. So on October third, nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty five, Italian troops start making their way to Ethiopia
Speaker 1: into Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian army faced them, but they
Speaker 1: were just not prepared for modern European warfare at this point. Um,
Speaker 1: the Italians used air power and this this kind of
Speaker 1: sounds like it's right out of World War One combined
Speaker 1: with World War Two almost but the Italians basically crop
Speaker 1: dust to the Ethiopian troops with mustard gas and um
Speaker 1: the Ethiopians suffered three times as many casualties as the Italians.
Speaker 1: A lot of the world, though, considers the stand made
Speaker 1: by highly Selassian Ethiopian, really brave and noble. Though it's
Speaker 1: what makes highly Selassie Time Magazines Man of the Year
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty five. People are impressed that, uh, they're
Speaker 1: they're mounting a fight against something so overpowering. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think they almost saw it as like him taking a
Speaker 1: stand against the whole Nazi fascist power out there. Um.
Speaker 1: By May of ninety six, though, the Italians made their
Speaker 1: way into the Ethiopian capital and they proclaimed Ethiopia part
Speaker 1: of the Italian Empire. So Highly Selassie was forced into exile. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that June he goes back to the League, and
Speaker 1: this time he's a little more ominous. He says, quote,
Speaker 1: it is us today, it will be you tomorrow, which
Speaker 1: is extremely prophetic coming in nineteen thirty six on the
Speaker 1: eve of World War two. Um. So, of course in
Speaker 1: exile he has to take refuge somewhere outside of Ethiopia,
Speaker 1: so he goes to England for about five years. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting Mussolini's own ambition to um fulfill that fascist
Speaker 1: doctrine and acquire a more territory is eventually his undoing
Speaker 1: in Ethiopia, at least right in he sends this enormous
Speaker 1: army to invade neighboring Somali land, which was a British
Speaker 1: territory at the time, and the British, though they had
Speaker 1: fewer troops, actually answered with a pretty well organized and
Speaker 1: well played counter offensive. I think the Italians lost something
Speaker 1: like two thousand soldiers through either being killed, captured, or wounded,
Speaker 1: and this managed to drive the Italians out of East
Speaker 1: Africa altogether, including Ethiopia. Yeah. So with Britain triumphant highly
Speaker 1: Selassie got to return home and he was restored to
Speaker 1: the throne and proceeded to govern for forty years, and
Speaker 1: he was welcomed home by Winston Churchill himself. He sent
Speaker 1: a welcome home cable in which he said, quote, your majesty,
Speaker 1: it was the first of the lawful sovereigns to be
Speaker 1: driven from his throne in country by the fascist Nazi criminals,
Speaker 1: and you're the first to return triumph. Um. So that
Speaker 1: would make a really nice end for a podcast, A
Speaker 1: nice positive note. Yeah, kind of a fairytale podcast. Um.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately it's it's gonna keep going for better or worth. Yes,
Speaker 1: there are more twists and turns to this story, definitely,
Speaker 1: so highly Selassie as emperor does a lot of good things.
Speaker 1: In his time as ruler of Ethiopia, he implemented some social, economic,
Speaker 1: and educational reforms. For example, Um established sanitation programs, provincial schools,
Speaker 1: national universities, and even encourage some students to study abroad
Speaker 1: and continue their studies there. Intend to. That's partly his undoing. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is UM. And he also played a significant role
Speaker 1: in the later years in establishing the organization of African Unity.
Speaker 1: He established a constitutional government as well that the constitution,
Speaker 1: and this is part of the problem too, is that
Speaker 1: it gave him most of the power. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of an outward constitutional government. UM. So you know, we've
Speaker 1: got some reforms in there, some good things happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some things to give him credit for. But some people
Speaker 1: didn't like the way he was running things. And part
Speaker 1: of that was that the regional rulers, or at least
Speaker 1: a lot of them, felt threatened by his centralization of government.
Speaker 1: He felt like or they felt like Selassie was taking
Speaker 1: power away from them and giving it to the lawmakers
Speaker 1: in Ethiopes capital Um and a lot of Ethiopians who
Speaker 1: lived in developing areas, you know, lived outside of the cities,
Speaker 1: thought that too many privileges were going to the nobility, which,
Speaker 1: to make matters worse, a lot of these um landlords.
Speaker 1: These the nobility, the people who owned much of Ethiopia
Speaker 1: and were largely absent, also happened to be related to
Speaker 1: the emperor, So so nobody likes to see that. No,
Speaker 1: not at all. To add to this, there were some
Speaker 1: people who thought that the strides that the government did
Speaker 1: make were just too slow and unevenly distributed. Students in particular,
Speaker 1: especially those students we mentioned who studied abroad. They complained
Speaker 1: that ethiopia social political, and economic developments were way too slow.
Speaker 1: They had studied marks and had all kinds of ideas
Speaker 1: of their own about land reform and equality, but they
Speaker 1: were the only ones. Workers, teachers, soldiers. They all wanted
Speaker 1: Ethiopia to catch up to modern times too. So it's ironic,
Speaker 1: we see sort of from the beginning too of our
Speaker 1: podcast too. Now he seems to have come full circle.
Speaker 1: At first he was thought of as the progressive leader,
Speaker 1: modernizing the country, and now he's the exact opposite. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone advanced beyond him, it seemed to to some people.
Speaker 1: I guess that's what happens when you rule for forty
Speaker 1: years or or more. Um. So there were a few
Speaker 1: revolts and rebellions, of course, if if you have these
Speaker 1: unhappy people. But the most serious of these revolts occurred
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty up the Emperor was away visiting Brazil,
Speaker 1: and his imperial bodyguard staged a coup. A lot of
Speaker 1: university students supported it, and they even managed to seize
Speaker 1: the imperial palace. Fortunately for highly Selassie, the army in
Speaker 1: the air force remained loyal to him and they squashed
Speaker 1: the rebellion pretty quickly. Um but he knew that that
Speaker 1: things weren't stable, that his position was no longer stable
Speaker 1: to no. Even before this, he tells an American committee
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty and this is a quote from him,
Speaker 1: the tide which is sweeping Africa today cannot be stayed.
Speaker 1: No power on earth is great enough to halt or
Speaker 1: reverse the trend. It's march is as relentless and as
Speaker 1: inexorable as the passage of time. Yea. So so he
Speaker 1: knows he's at risk and Ethiopia is at risk. And
Speaker 1: as the nineteen sixties were on, this resul meant really
Speaker 1: just continued to grow, and there were a few issues
Speaker 1: added to that. One was Eritrea, which, even though it
Speaker 1: was legally an independent country, it was absorbed by Ethiopia
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two. And for Ethiopia this seemed like
Speaker 1: a pretty good deal because it gave them access to
Speaker 1: the sea, which everybody wants their country to have access
Speaker 1: to the sea. How you can defend yourself better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But a lot of Eritreans opposed it from the start,
Speaker 1: and they formed the Militant Eritrean Liberation Front which the
Speaker 1: acronym for that is elf UM to to protest this
Speaker 1: being absorbed into a country that they didn't want to
Speaker 1: be part of. Right. And there was something else that
Speaker 1: happened that kind of added to Highly Selassie's unpopularity at
Speaker 1: that time. Majorly added to it. There was a famine
Speaker 1: caused by drought, which wasn't that unusual in Ethiopia, but
Speaker 1: the famine that occurred between nineteen seventy two and nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four killed some rule hundred thousand Ethiopians, and many
Speaker 1: felt that Highly Selassie just didn't really do enough to
Speaker 1: help people. He They suggested also that the government had
Speaker 1: tried to cover the whole situation up. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: there were protests and the situation became really desperate, I mean,
Speaker 1: starving people, and potentially a government cover up is going
Speaker 1: to make the populace really angry. And on September twelfth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, the emperor was deposed, finally successfully deposed
Speaker 1: in a revolution led by a Marxist colonel named Mingustu
Speaker 1: highly Marium and some accounts say that Highly Selassie was
Speaker 1: driven from the Imperial Palace in the back of a
Speaker 1: Volkswagen with people in the streets jeering at him. So
Speaker 1: really undignified exit for this emperor of forty years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and eleven months later, Highly Selassie was dead at the
Speaker 1: age of eighty three. At the time, reports said that
Speaker 1: he died of natural causes, but many actually suspect that
Speaker 1: he was murdered in his Valets testified in court that
Speaker 1: when they found his body, there was a strong smell
Speaker 1: of ether in the room, which suggested to them that
Speaker 1: he had been suffocated or perhaps strangled. Yeah, and m.
Speaker 1: Gistu does give the emperor burial, so it's it's not
Speaker 1: as though Polly Slassie's body is destroyed or lost immediately. Um.
Speaker 1: But he's said to have interred the body vertically head
Speaker 1: down next to his office latrine and then covered it
Speaker 1: with two feet of concrete. To quote Deter, a ghost
Speaker 1: who has reason to be restless. And this is pretty unrelated,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't help but think of Dante's inferno. This
Speaker 1: is the punishment for simony, which I guess if you
Speaker 1: think about it long enough, with Messiah and Emperor staff
Speaker 1: thrown in you could you would work out some sort
Speaker 1: of connection there. But Um, clearly a very undignified burial.
Speaker 1: No it wasn't, but he did get a more dignified
Speaker 1: burial later on. His body was exhumed in after the
Speaker 1: fall of Mangistu's government, and at that time he wasn't
Speaker 1: buried right away. His body, his remains, I should say,
Speaker 1: there wasn't a body at that point. His remains were
Speaker 1: put into a small coffin that said do not open.
Speaker 1: They put a sign that said do not open, because
Speaker 1: they weren't quite sure what was going to happen. Really weird,
Speaker 1: isn't it, I mean strange? Um. And there are a
Speaker 1: few attempts to bury him, you know, get this do
Speaker 1: not open box in the ground somewhere, but things just
Speaker 1: catch on getting in the way. There were arguments about
Speaker 1: how the funeral should be run, you know, whether it
Speaker 1: should be this state funeral for a former emperor or
Speaker 1: some sort of hush hush private family affair. And I
Speaker 1: think once when they tried to hold it, elections got
Speaker 1: in the way, so things kind of kept putting it off.
Speaker 1: But it finally happened in November of two thousand and
Speaker 1: it was attended by one of his daughters and many
Speaker 1: many grandkids, and Bob Marley's widow is even there. There
Speaker 1: are a few Rastafari is there, although it's interesting to
Speaker 1: note that most Rastafarians don't believe that highly Selassie is dead.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, how about that? But Bob Marley's widow does.
Speaker 1: If she was at the funeral, I would assume, well,
Speaker 1: maybe she just came to pay her respects in general,
Speaker 1: but in addition to them, I think there were somewhere
Speaker 1: around ten thousand to fifteen thousand people as the total turnout,
Speaker 1: so not nearly as large as you might think. It
Speaker 1: would be decent, I guess, but not a tiny family
Speaker 1: funeral either, right, And there was this great uh two
Speaker 1: thousand one story in the Canadian magazine Saturday Night, and
Speaker 1: it follows one of Highly Selassie's grandsons, Beta mcconan, who
Speaker 1: was living in Canada at the time, through all the
Speaker 1: events of the funeral, and he kind of recounts his
Speaker 1: time growing up with the Emperor. And I just wanted
Speaker 1: to mention it because I thought it was a really
Speaker 1: cool story and it really, I think, shut a lot
Speaker 1: of light on who Highly Selassie was. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: been recounting throughout this episode what he did, but what
Speaker 1: kind of man was What kind of man was he?
Speaker 1: So just to end off the podcast, since it's been
Speaker 1: kind of a sort of depressing end and decline, we
Speaker 1: wanted to just say a few things about who this
Speaker 1: guy was. Yeah, he was a workaholic. That's probably not
Speaker 1: too surprising. Um, he was friendly with President Tito of Yugoslavia,
Speaker 1: who would actually convince him to take vacation. So that's
Speaker 1: it's pretty bad if you have like a fellow president
Speaker 1: having to tell you to to kick off at the
Speaker 1: end of the day. Yeah, but he did do it.
Speaker 1: He would go on vacation and take all his grandsons
Speaker 1: and daughters with him. Are the ones that were around
Speaker 1: at the time, and um, so he had a little
Speaker 1: fun now and again I guess he also was said
Speaker 1: to have a gravitas that made even close members of
Speaker 1: his family fall silent. So imposing president. He was also
Speaker 1: very concerned about decorum. He didn't want you to interrupt
Speaker 1: his morning exercises, for example, because he thought that no
Speaker 1: one should see the emperor doing something so undignify. So
Speaker 1: his grandson and this article relates like running in in
Speaker 1: the morning to go visit him, and he said, sometimes
Speaker 1: I'd be great and you'd run in there and everything
Speaker 1: would be cool. But if you interrupted him during his exercises,
Speaker 1: you would definitely get in trouble for that, just imagining
Speaker 1: the barbell's dropping or something hollering. Um. But he he
Speaker 1: did like his grandchildren. I mean that has priority come
Speaker 1: across with these family visits and stuff. Um. He spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time with the kids. And his grandson said, quote,
Speaker 1: you could ask him about the most serious aspect of
Speaker 1: politics when you were seven. He would answer you as
Speaker 1: if you were his equal, and he'd question you and
Speaker 1: challenge you so you could see the other side. So, um,
Speaker 1: I guess he does seem to have an interest in
Speaker 1: youth and education. That's pretty consistent throughout his reign. And um,
Speaker 1: that goes along with treating a kid like somebody who
Speaker 1: can converse as an equal with you, and a really
Speaker 1: caring side too, I think. And I was telling Sarah
Speaker 1: earlier about the story and how he mentions the emperor
Speaker 1: himself would pour the grandkids milk in the evenings, so
Speaker 1: they would all kind of gather and he would give
Speaker 1: them their evening milk himself and the milk ceremony. Right,
Speaker 1: But the grandson mentioned that most people had left by
Speaker 1: the time the revolt came around, so you know, he
Speaker 1: he had thought he would leave too, But then when
Speaker 1: he came down to get the milk one night, there
Speaker 1: were only two of them, and highly Selassie said, two
Speaker 1: grandkids left, right, And highly Selassie said, is it just
Speaker 1: you two tonight? And he said the grandson and the
Speaker 1: story Vieta. He he realized at that point that he
Speaker 1: had to stay because there wasn't anyone else. So quite touching,
Speaker 1: very loyal grandson. And so just that's just to kind
Speaker 1: of give you, I guess, show that there are two
Speaker 1: sides to the story. Some people still disagree with his
Speaker 1: policies during his reign. But there may have been another
Speaker 1: side to him too. Yeah, so you can have the
Speaker 1: family man, the popular ruler, the unpopular ruler, and the
Speaker 1: Messiah going on. Yeah, a lot going on. A very
Speaker 1: complex man, but really interesting when to research. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us today for this Saturday classic.
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