Habesha LA a link as a feastful robin. A badger is a workshop's correspondent. This is not to discredit the idea that some neuron productions are thought of simply as zones.
Feb 16th, 2015

Ethiopian Women Resisting the European Powers

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By: Alemayehu Bahta

For all the talk of Ethiopia’s beauty, there is little talk about the ugly, more to the point the continual oppression of women. From the recent horrific gang rape of Hanna Lalango in Addis Ababa, to countless unnamed victims of domestic violence, both in Ethiopia and abroad, the Ethiopian people have not come to terms with their patriarchal society. This is not even mentioning the oppression that has been placed on women in the name of religious purity. All this to make the point that women in Ethiopia have still not been able to have their lives valued, their voices heard or their experiences appreciated. The oppressive spirit is so deeply engrained into the Ethiopian psyche that even those in the diaspora hang on to patriarchal ideologies for the sake of Ethiopianism.

Despite this, there is an increasing awareness among native women, particularly through music that the lives, concerns and interests of women must be taken seriously. One song that has caught the attention of Ethiopian women during the past two years was the song by Aster Aweke and Yë’nna entitled Yë’nna Tä’itu. This song attempted to connect the powerful Empress Tä’itu (ጣይቱ ብጡል), who yielded much political power and made strategic steps to stop the Italian invasion, with the modern disenfranchised women of Ethiopia. The song uplifted a voice from the past to empower modern women.

Another instance of a powerful Ethiopian woman dominating historical discourse is much less known, but may be of equal importance. Long before the Italian invasion of the 20th century there was the Jesuit mission of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Jesuits were on a colonial like mission to convert the Habesha people, and if they couldn’t win their hearts over through persuasive preaching then they were going to demand their souls into submission via military power.

The story is that it is well documented; yet no one talks about it. Conversion in Ethiopian history generally started with the Emperor and his family, followed by the noble and elite, proceeded by tribal leaders, until the local village people were converted. So initially the Jesuits made attempts to convert the emperor and his cabinet, but the priests and scholars made sure that he would not participate in such madness. But after about six months of vicious public and private debates with the emperor and the countries highest ranking scholars, the Jesuits eventually convinced them that the Roman Catholic faith was the only true faith of Christ. This led the entire royal cabinet and the high-ranking church officials to denunciate Orthodoxy in favor of Catholicism; they were now members of the Roman Catholic Church.

In the midst of these conversions, there was a group of people that refused to obey the Jesuits on the grounds that they would never convert to the ‘devilish’ religion of the outsiders. The women of the royal cabinet made up this group, more specifically their names were Adära Maryam (emperor’s Daughter-in-law), Wängelawit (emperor’s eldest daughter), The emperor’s niece, Wäld Sä‘ala (Emperor’s wife). Now let’s step into one of these women’s stories to see what it was like to stand as one of the first African women to resist European powers.

The Emperor’s Niece, who remained nameless, caused the Jesuits a great deal of anger because of her refusal to convert. The Jesuits knew that if they could not get her to convert then their entire mission would fall apart because of the great influence she yielded. After their first failed attempt of conversion, the Emperor’s Niece immediately began spreading a rumor among the locals that the Jesuits mixed the blood of unclean animals into the communion wine, making it polluted. This caused a huge problem for the Jesuits because not only were they shut out of the local communities, but they believed the Emperor’s Niece’s words and they refused to convert unless she did. The Jesuits then tried to convert the Emperor’s Niece through her husband, but that didn’t work so they left her alone for a while only to come back and try again, but she left them with four phrases that they didn’t quite understand.

First she said, the hour of her conversion had not come. Second, she would ask God to enlighten her. Third, she said that she was an ignorant woman who could not even lay out her own thoughts. Fourth, that she was too young to debate with them.

Well if you know anything about Amharic indirectness or basic sarcasm, then you can see what she was trying to do. Her hour of conversion would never actually arrive; this was just her way of irritating the Jesuits who wanted her immediate conversion. The fact that she says God would enlighten her is her skillful way of pointing to the fact that there was an authority that was even beyond the Jesuits’. The third claim draws on irony because here was a so-called ignorant woman who couldn’t even speak clear words, but the supposed wise Jesuits were not even able to convince her, not only that, but her ignorant words were capable of keeping thousands of locals in the Orthodox faith while their wise words had no affect. Lastly, the woman was clearly middle aged and the Jesuits knew this and her claim to be young infuriated the men so much that they began ranting about the illogical nature of the woman and even about her fatness, which she clearly wanted them to do, to point out just how uneducated and undisciplined the men actually were.

So how could this woman, a woman from Ethiopia, be given so much effort in the Portuguese mission? They spent countless months attempting to convert her, which points to the fact that she was something important, she was a figure of something beyond herself. It may be because the Jesuits understood the Emperor’s Niece to be “lettered”, meaning a scholar by their own standards. The Emperor’s Niece was not only a scholar at a time when the majority of people were illiterate, but she was also one of the first African women to resist colonial powers. This is just one of five other documented stories from the exact same period; imagine if we did more research how many other things we might discover in the repertoire of Ethiopian history. So this brief work may open another avenue for modern Ethiopian artists to once again uplift the voice of women through those figures from the past.

Much of this article was made possible by the research conducted by Wendy Laura Belcher in her Article “Sisters Debating with Jesuits” published in Northeast African Studies 13.1, Spring 2013, Michigan State University..

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