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Haile Selassie I on African Unity and Liberation
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The events of the past hundred and fifty years require no extended
recitation from Us. The period of colonialism into which we were
plunged culminated with our continent fettered and bound; with our once
proud and free peoples reduced to humiliation and slavery; with Africa's
terrain cross-hatched and checker-boarded by artificial and arbitrary
boundaries.
Many of us, during those bitter years, were overwhelmed in battle, and
those who escaped conquest did so at the cost of desperate resistance
and bloodshed. Others were sold into bondage as the price extracted by
the colonialist for the protection which they extended and the
possessions of which they disposed.
Africa was a physical resource to be exploited and Africans were chattels
to be purchased bodily or, at best, peoples to be reduced to vassalage and
lackeyhood. Africa was the market for the produce of other nations and
the source of the raw materials with which their factories were fed.
Today, Africa has emerged from this dark passage. Our Armageddon is
past. Africa has been reborn as a free continent and Africans have been
reborn as free men. The blood that was shed and the sufferings that were
endured are today Africa's advocates for freedom and unity. Those men
who refused to accept the judgment passed upon them by the colonizers,
who held unswervingly through the darkest hours to a vision of an African
emancipated from political, economic, and spiritual domination will be
remembered and revered wherever African meet. Many of them never set
foot on this continent. Others were born, and died here. What we may
utter today can add little to the heroic struggle of those who, by their
example, have shown us how precious are freedom and human dignity
and of how little value is life without them. Their deeds are written in
history.
Africa's victory, although proclaimed, is not yet total, and areas of
resistance still remain. Today, We name as our first great task the final
liberating of those Africans still dominated by foreign exploitation and
control. With the goal in sight, and unqualified triumph within our grasp,
let us not now falter or lag or relax. We must make one final supreme
effort; now when the struggle grows weary, when so much has been won
that the thrilling sense of achievement has brought us near satiation. Our
liberty is meaningless unless all Africans are free. Our brothers in the
Rhodesias, in Mozambique, in Angola, in South Africa, cry out in anguish
for our support and assistance. We must urge on their behalf their
peaceful accession to independence. We must align and identify
ourselves with all aspects of their struggle.
It would be a betrayal were we to pay only lip service to the cause of their
liberation and fail to back our words with action. To them we say, your
pleas shall not go unheeded. The resources of Africa and of all freedom
loving nations are marshaled in your service. Be of good heart, for your
deliverance is at hand. As we renew our vows that all Africa shall be free,
let us also resolve that old wounds shall be healed and past scars
forgotten. It was thus that Ethiopia treated the invader nearly
twenty-five years ago, and Ethiopians found peace with honor in this
course. Memories of past injustice should not divert us from the more
pressing business at hand. We must live in peace with our former
colonizers, shunning recrimination and bitterness and forswearing the
luxury of vengeance and retaliation, lest the acid of hatred erode our
souls and poison our hearts. Let us act as befit the dignity which we claim
for ourselves as Africans, proud of our own special qualities, distinctions
and abilities. Our efforts as free men must be to establish new
relationships, devoid of any resentment and hostility, resorting to our
belief and faith in ourselves as individuals, dealing on a basis of equality
with other equally free peoples.
Today, we look at the future calmly, confidently and courageously. We
look to the vision of an Africa not mearly free, but United. In facing this
new challenge we can take comfort and encouragement from the lessons
of the past. We know that there are differences among us. African enjoy
different cultures, distinctive values, special attributes. But we also know
that unity can be and has been attained among men of the most disparate
origins; that differences of race, of religion, of culture, of tradition, are no
insuperable obstacle to the coming together of a people...
(Words of Haile Selassie I, Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Zion,
Light of the World)
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