The Universal Ethiopian Students’ Association, 1927–1948 Mobilizing DiasporaLike Ho Chi Minh! Like Che Guevara! The Revolutionary Left in Ethiopia, 1969–1979

Histories on Ethiopia's symbolism often read parallel to, or outside of the history of the nation. Focused on documenting the trajectory of Ethiopia's modernism from within, histories of the state are typically written about people and events within the state in relation to the extraneous world. On the other hand, works on Ethiopianism typically chronicle the history of Ethiopia's symbolism to the outside world, and engage little with the implications of the symbolism within the actual state. Two recent publications that contribute to the existing canons are demonstrative of attempts to tie the two conventions of writing Ethiopian history together.Takeia N. Anthony's The Universal Ethiopian Students’ Association, 1927–1948 Mobilizing Diaspora examines activities of the Universal Ethiopian Students’ Association (UESA) from 1927 to 1948. This well-researched historical monograph revisits Black political activism in the early twentieth century, centered around Ethiopianism, Communism, and Pan-Africanism, primarily through the prism of the literary organ The African. By following the lead actors of the UESA, Anthony demonstrates the ways in which Ethiopianism influenced Black youth leaders in the United States and the Atlantic, at a critical juncture in the twentieth century. Through this work, scholars of African American history and Black Internationalism are afforded insights into the precedents for the more renown and staunch Black Power and Pan-Africanist movements of the mid-twentieth century.Anthony successfully demonstrates the ways in which previously un-examined or under examined activists such as Willis N. Huggins, Charles Henry Alston, Elton C. Fax, Victoria Johnson Schaak, Gladys P. Graham, and Akiki K. Nyabongo mobilized an African diaspora dispersed across the globe into solidarity. This study effectively showcases how members of the UESA rallied like-minded people, irrespective of social class, to mobilize and exert political pressure on elected officials (2). The monograph also underscores ties of the UESA, to the more renown Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and Garveyism. Anthony makes critical connections between the UESA and the UNIA that underscore the fervor of a period and affirm the existence of a mass movement of Black intellectuals and loyalists, premised on the central tenet of African emancipation from European imperialism. The latter is a strength of the work.The centrality of Ethiopianism to the concepts of racial uplift and Pan-Africanism during interwar and post-World War II period is emphasized throughout. Ethiopian victory at the Battle of Adowa (1896) is reaffirmed in this monograph as the propellant for the form of Black nationalism that was evidenced in the teachings and actions of the UESA. However, what is noticeably lacking from this work is an establishment of the strong connection of the movement to the Ethiopian intelligentsia of the period. Ethiopianism has traditionally been examined by historians, and other scholars, as a phenomenon embraced by members of the Black Diaspora from outside of the nation state of Ethiopia. With Ethiopianism established as the central driving tenet of the UESA, the liminal presence or absence of Ethiopians and Ethiopian intellectuals in the “triadic” relations examined throughout this work raises important questions about the Ethiopian response to this particular Black solidarity movement.It is clear that the activism of the transnational/ international Diaspora was in support of preserving the autonomy of both Ethiopia, and Liberia during the period in question. Yet, when reading such studies of the movements of the period, one cannot help but be struck by the disconnect or the mostly one-sided dialogue which emerges. Harkening back to Bahru Zewde's Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia (2002) and “The Ethiopian Intelligenstia and the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–1941,”1 there was an integral group of Ethiopians who engaged with the discourses of the period. If this work is indeed an exploration of how the various “members and article contributors were among the pioneers of the foreign relations movement” (125), then one is left wondering: What was the response of the Ethiopian intellectuals and state officials engaged by the UESA activists during this period?Although the emotive connection between Blacks and Ethiopianism is clearly established within scholarship, more work will need to be done to understand the presumably dialogical relationship between the ideological concept and the actors for the nation. This holds particularly true for understanding the role of Blacks from the Diaspora in the technical advancement of the Ethiopian nation state in the postwar years (115). Being mindful of the dearth of primary resources that might constrain the full exploration of such relations, one can hope that future works will deal with filling in this gap in our understanding of the associations between the activists in the transatlantic world, and the beneficiaries of their activism within the distant land.In the end, The Universal Ethiopian Students’ Association, 1927–1948 Mobilizing Diaspora is well-researched and offers students of African, African American, and Black Diaspora studies an enriching look into past transnational engagements. Readers are drawn into the inner worlds of people, places, and things that inspired a generation. The idealism that fueled the leaders and proponents of the movement was felt with the turn of every page.In the same vein, Ian Scott Horst's Like Ho Chi Minh! Like Che Guevara! The Revolutionary Left in Ethiopia, 1969–1979 offers unique insights into the ideological impetus for the Ethiopian student movement, which was instrumental in unseating a 3,000-year old historical legacy. Scott contextualizes the zealousness of the Ethiopian movement within the geopolitical climate. In August 1969, Scott argues that every corner of the world was aflame with revolution (22). Through the course of thirteen aptly titled and argued chapters, Scott informs the reader of the ways in which Ethiopia was heralded as “the Black Vietnam” in this period, taking on a new form of symbolism to the world at large.In this work, Scott draws parallels between the student liberation movements of the Americas and Ethiopia in the 1969–1979 period to underscore the overarching ideological shifts and geopolitical influences of the movement. He successfully structures a transnational narrative that centers the reader in the middle of a global political movement that played out in a key African nation. Marxism, Scott argues, was common tongue in Western universities and spaces determined “to overcome the depravities of colonialism and imperialism” (99). Through a revisitation of archival resources and firsthand testimonials, the reader is transported back into the ethos of an emblematic and revolutionary past. A past which Scott argues, “is steeped in tragedy and disappointment,” but “is not ancient, dead history” (16).Through a focus on the leaders of a movement, and other agents of history, Scott engages with the popular memory and lore surrounding the events of four decades ago. By evoking the names and memories of “saints and sinners” from the period, Scott makes a compelling case to recall and reexamine the actions and writings of: Tilahun Gizaw, Wallelign Mekonnen, Martha Mebrahtu, Berhane Meskel Redda, Haile Fida, Mesfin Habtu, Meles Tekle, Senay Likke, Tesfaye Debessay, Nega Ayele, Daro Negash, Markos Hagos, Kiflu Teferra, Getachew Maru, Girmachew Lemma, Tito Hiruy, and Nigist Adane.Scott makes a compelling case for how Marxism explained why things were the way they were, and how it “offered roadmaps to a better, more liberated future” (99). From the outset, Scott is clear about his politics and his relationship to the subject matter explored. Scott's political perspectives are evidenced in his declaration that “Marxism is now often recalled as the alien sin at the root of all the horror and conflict in Ethiopia's recent past” (13). Instead, by naming the actors of the revolution and tracing the hallmark moments of the Ethiopian student movement from inception to revolution, Scott makes it clear for the reader that there was indeed “symbolic confusion” that eventually subsumed the ideals of a generation and obfuscated the goals of a movement.Overall, this is an impassioned read, one cannot help but to be drawn into the past. Through this work, I finally understood the global energy by which the actors I knew were motivated. In the end, Scott laments that “an anti-communist narrative of Marxian socialism as an ideology of authoritarian—indeed totalitarian—rule is the lens through which most people now view capitalism's defeated twentieth-century competitor” (148). In contrast, his determination to engage the Western left in reexamining the Ethiopian student movement is established early in the book. His assertion that the Ethiopian movement was “not a demonstration of the failure of socialism, but of those who misuse the liberatory ideals of socialism in the service of something else” (11) drives his narrative. In the end, there is value in this work for anybody interested in Ethiopian history or the history of leftist movements across the globe.A commonality between the two works is Ethiopia's vacillating symbolism within the paradigm of the times. Ethiopianism fueled resistance to global imperialism in the period 1927–48. Ethiopia then became a symbol of resistance to capitalist control in period 1969–79 as the “Black Vietnam.” In both works, the symbolic and militant resistance of actors for the Horn of African nation is located within a transnational lens. Both works explore the role of educated youth in promulgating the au courant utility of communism as a liberatory ideological ideal to advance the conditions of the masses, whether it be in Harlem, New York, and the Atlantic in the period 1927–48 or in Ethiopia in the period 1969–79. What emerges in each narrative is a transnational underpinning that provides a critical perspective to understanding the impact of what was happening to, or within Ethiopia, from a global vantage point.

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