Travel abroad[edit] In 1924, Ras Tafari toured Europe and the Middle East visiting Jerusalem, Cairo, Alexandria, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Stockholm, London, Geneva, and Athens. With him on his tour was a group that included Ras Seyum Mangasha of western Tigre Province; Ras Hailu Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam Province; Ras Mulugeta Yeggazu of Illubabor Province; Ras Makonnen Endelkachew; and Blattengeta Heruy Welde Sellase. The primary goal of the trip to Europe was for Ethiopia to gain access to the sea. In Paris, Tafari was to find out from the French Foreign Ministry (Quai dOrsay) that this goal would not be realized.[40] However, failing this, he and his retinue inspected schools, hospitals, factories, and churches. Although patterning many reforms after European models, Tafari remained wary of European pressure. To guard against economic imperialism, Tafari required that all enterprises have at least partial local ownership.[41] Of his modernization campaign, he remarked, We need European progress only because we are surrounded by it. That is at once a benefit and a misfortune.[42] Throughout Ras Tafaris travels in Europe, the Levant, and Egypt, he and his entourage were greeted with enthusiasm and fascination. He was accompanied by Seyum Mangasha and Hailu Tekle Haymanot who, like Tafari, were sons of generals who contributed to the victorious war against Italy a quarter century earlier at the Battle of Adwa.[43] Another member of his entourage, Mulugeta Yeggazu, actually fought at Adwa as a young man. The Oriental Dignity of the Ethiopians[44] and their rich, picturesque court dress[45] were sensationalized in the media; among his entourage he even included a pride of lions, which he distributed as gifts to President Alexandre Millerand and Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré of France, to King George V of the United Kingdom, and to the Zoological Garden (Jardin Zoologique) of Paris.[43] As one historian noted, Rarely can a tour have inspired so many anecdotes.[43] In return for two lions, the United Kingdom presented Ras Tafari with the imperial crown of Emperor Tewodros II for its safe return to Empress Zewditu. The crown had been taken by Robert Napier during the 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia.[46] In this period, the Crown Prince visited the Armenian monastery of Jerusalem. There, he adopted 40 Armenian orphans (አርባ ልጆች Arba Lijoch, forty children), who had lost their parents in Ottoman massacres. Ras Tafari arranged for the musical education of the youths, and they came to form the imperial brass b
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 16:08:14 +0000
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