Tag: Ethiopia stamp

Finding out where a people come from goes a good distance to providing a national identity. Many areas of the world were not writing down history. Ethiopia has such a history, the Kebra Nagast, that ties the history of Ethiopia to ancient Israel and the Old Testament. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

No this stamp doesn’t show Emperor Menelik. It instead shows Menelik’s Bushback, a variety of cape antelope native to Ethiopian highlands. It’s fur is darker than other antelopes and is not endangered. Ethiopia was coming out of a long period of troubles in 2003 and their stamps were taking a recognizable style with a certain font and simple but effective renderings of local subjects. This continuity continues on Ethiopia’s present day issues and much of the credit goes to local stamp designer Bogale Belachew.

Todays stamp is issue A351, a 45 cent stamp issued by Ethiopia on December 12th, 2002. It was a 25 stamp issue in various denominations that showed this rendering of Menelik’s Bushback with different color framing. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents with a postal cancelation.

Ethiopian tradition believes that the country was ruled by the Solomonic Dynasty for  3000 years up until the fall of last Emperor Hailie Selassie in 1974. To back this up, there are many old copies of the  Kebra Nagast written in ancient Ethiopian. The book begins with a debate question for the Fathers of the Ethiopian Orthadox Christian Church. The question is, Of what doth the Glory of Kings consist? The book then retells many stories of the Old Testament but then a new twist that brings Ethiopia into the picture.

It states there was a Royal visit of the Queen of Sheba to ancient Israel at the time of King Solomon and that he tricked her into sleeping with him. She returned to Ethiopia and raised the resulting son Menelik alone. When Menelik was in his twenties, he traveled to Israel to meet his father. King Solomon was overjoyed to meet his prodigal son and begged him to take over and rule Israel. Menelik refused as his true love was Ethiopia. To insure his son’s success, Solomon sent him home with a group of Israelite advisors and the original Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant is thought to contain the stone tablets with the 10 Commandments as given to Moses by God. The book goes on to chronical Ethiopian Emperors through time. The book ends with a prophesy that the power of Ethiopia would eventually eclipse that of Europe.

At the Church of our Lady Mary of Zion in the ancient Ethiopian capital of Axum, they claim to process the Ark of the Covenant. During the reign of Haile Selassie in the 1950s,  Empress Menen had a new Chapel built next to the ancient one to safely house the Ark. She stated that heat giving off from the Ark was cracking the stones under it. The new chapel also allowed in females to pray. The old church by tradition only allowed males in with the exception of Mary herself. They don’t allow anyone to see the Ark but a British soldier claims to have seen it in 1941 when the area was being retaken from the Italians. He claimed it was an empty wooden box that appeared to be of middle ages construction.

Well my drink is empty and the Indiana Jones movies suggest it would be better to leave the Ark alone, whether in Ethiopia or not. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Ethiopia was the only African nation to not give in to colonialism. So it was natural to look to them for leadership, even if their style was not what was intended for Africa’s future. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

When viewing this stamp, it must be remembered how hopeful the 1960s were for Africa. Country after country was achieving independence, and with that came the hope of a better future. With that in mind, look at the vast sugar refinery on todays stamp. Not constructed by a colonizer, with the output going to Europe, but African, with the dignified Emperor Haile Selassie looking on where other countries would have Queen Elizabeth. This was heady stuff then, even if the factory was constructed by a Dutch firm with aid.

Todays stamp is issue A81 a 10 cent stamp issued by the Kingdom of Ethiopia on July 19th, 1965. It was part of a 7 stamp issue in various denominations that displayed industrial progress in Ethiopia. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

In the late fifties, many states in Africa were achieving independence. Their new leaders were for the most part western educated Africans chosen by the colonies and indoctrinated by the then fashionable socialism. Emporer Haile Selassie was from a different tradition as his Royal house had grown in power from the indigenous tribal system. Ethiopia tried to offer leadership to Africa and hosted/lead the newly formed Organization of African Unity in Abbes Ababa. The goal was African political unity but beyond help  for remaining anti white rule forces in Southern Africa, it was mainly a debating society. The new nations could not agree on forming a joint military force and how to replace aid and influence from outside Africa. So a pan African union became an elusive goal.

The sugar refinery on the stamp showed promise. Prior to this plant and one other, all sugar in Ethiopia had to be imported. The factories provided much employment and freed up valueable foreign currency that otherwise went abroad. The sugar refineries eventually closed around 2010 after years of low output after the Selassie regime was deposed. There is currently a program to build 6 new sugar refineries that if everything went well would employ 300,000 workers and see Ethiopia become an exporter of sugar. The project is late, over budget, and is beset with claims of corruption.

The Emperor had a long rule but by the 70s he was quite old and perhaps less vigorous. A British ITV documentary “The Unknown Famine” showed graphically a famine in 1974. This discredited the government which responded by elevating more left wing political figures. The documentary was hoped to attract foreign aid. Newly empowered, the left began showing the documentary over and over on Ethiopian TV interspersed with video of the Emperor’s grand lifestyle and finery. Soon the whole country was in rebellion with riots and strikes in the capital and an army mutiny lead by Marxist young officers. 60 former officials including a Prince, several ex Prime Ministers, and the General staff were summarily executed in September 1974. The Emperor was confined to the Jubilee Palace where he died under mysterious circumstances in 1975. His remains were put beneath a latrine on the palace grounds. The country was run terribly by a Marxist junta for the next 16 years. Much aid flowed to the country, most famously Live Aid, but it was squandered.

The Organization of African Unity was succeeded by the African Union that grew out of the work of former Libyan head of state Muammar Gaddafi. It is still based in Abbes Ababa and has a fancy new headquarters  built by Africans themselves. I kid of course, it was built  as a gift of China.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast self reliance. The Emperor was not a perfect exemplar of that but his efforts toward it give  a dignity so lacking among his successors. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Since Ethiopia mostly avoided colonization, it should be an example of how an African country can succeed on it’s own. Well they do try. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Todays stamp is a later rendering of the international United Nations stamp. It functions as a somewhat less successful rival to British Commonwealth stamp issues. I don’t say less successful in terms of the messaging of the stamps. It is just that such issues do not have a similar following to collectors. Ethiopia however has been a big part of African and indeed wider third world maters. The African Union for example is based in Abbes Ababa. To see the country embrace at least the ideal of universal human rights is heartening. This is not the African tradition, and logically Ethiopia should be a bastion of African tradition.

Todays stamp is issue A322, a one Birr stamp issued by Ethiopia on December 23rd 1998. It honors the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. It was a a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 75 cents mint.

Between 1932 and 2012, Ethiopia only had 3 leaders. That is not to say there was stability. All faced the threat of coup and insurrection and despite their long rules, none left office of their own accord. Hailie Selassie styled himself as an Emperor, while the 1975-91 leader Mengistu and the 1991-2012 leader Meles styled themselves President.  The Emperor is best remembered and Mengistu the worst.

Mengistu took over from the Emperor in a coup and had him killed in his palace. He then gave a speech where he promised death to counterrevolutionaries. He then dramatized his point by smashing 3 bottles of blood on the ground. For the next several years child soldier age boys showed up dead in the gutter of Abbes Ababa, there bodies not even buried but gradually consumed by the wild hyenas that roamed the capital. There was also a war with Somalia and an independence movement in coastal Eritrea.

Naturally Mengistu’s economic policies of thievery with a Marxist tinge were unsuccessful. So when Soviet Bloc aid dried up, the many opposition forces closed in and Mengistu fled to friendlier areas in Zimbabwe, where he still lives. The next President Meles faced a big mess to clean up and against all odds made some progress at least economically. He was more modern though and as such put himself up regularly for elections. He always won them however dubious but it was always an excuse for foment and violence. The issue always seem to be that a small group benefit from any success and the masses don’t participate. The is true though each leaders aristocracy was different entirely from the previously privileged.

What Meles will never be forgiven for is losing Eritrea and returning Ethiopia to being landlocked. Eritrea was formally Italian and given to Ethiopia as  a reward after the British expelled the Italians from East Africa during World War II. Meles was of half Eritrean decent and this was thought to play a role. Meles died in office in 2012.

Ethiopia has never fully succeeded in being the African leader it should naturally be. It remains to be seen what a truly African leadership would look like. The fear of course is the natural state of things is a despotic strongman in power while hyenas roam the crumbling streets. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.