The research effort embodied in Wax and Gold occupied a period of five years, from 1957 to 1962, three in Ethiopia and two in the libraries of Europe and the United States. At the time this work began, publications of research carried out in Ethiopia after World War II were limited to a few philological, historical, and ethnographic studies. In the decade since that research has completed, however, the field of Ethiopian studies has been extraordinarily productive. Amhara culture has been further elucidated by the more specialized inquiries of Allan Hoben, Wolfgang Weissleder, Ronald Reminick, and Allan Young. Pioneering anthropological studies have been carried out elsewhere in Ethiopia and the Horn by Asmarom Legesse (Borana Galla), K. E. Knutsson (Macha Galla), Herbert Lewis (Jimma and Shoa Galla), John Hinnant (Guji Galla), William Shack (Gurage), Sidney Waldron (Harar), Amnon Orent (Kafa), C. R. Hallpike (Konso), Jack Stauder (Majangir), Frederick Gamst (Qemant), John Hamer (Sidamo), I. M. Lewis (Somali), and Dan Bauer (Tigre), while a three-volume survey of some of the peoples of southern Ethiopia has been produced by associates of the Frobenius Institut.
In addition, knowledge of the crucially formative events of the nineteenth century has been extended, thanks to the monographs of Mordechai Abir, Sven Rubenson, Zewde Gabre-Sellassie, Harold Marcus, and Richard Pankhurst. Important new insights on the medieval period have come from the work of Tadesse Tamrat and Eike Haberland, and on the ancient period from Edward Ullendorff and Sergew Hable-Selassie. Major archeological discoveries were made in the Omo River valley by an international team directed by F. Clark Howell, at the paleolithic site of Melka-Konture by G. D. Dekker, G. Bailloud, and other French scholars, and in the Blue Nile valley by M. G. Spratling. Wolf Leslau has produced a nwnber of invaluable linguistic studies .. Existing classifications of the languages of Ethiopia have been challenged by the work of Joseph Greenberg, Harold Fleming, R. Hetzron, and M. L. Bender, while a comprehensive survey of languages and language use in Ethiopia has been carried out by a research team under the direction of Charles Ferguson. Works that add to the understanding of problems of economic and political development in Ethiopia have been prepared by Christopher Clapham, Assefa Bequele and Eshetu Chole, E. Ginzberg and H. Smith, David Korten, and John Markakis. Republication of two modern landmarks, Trimingham's Islam in Ethiopia and Perham's The Government of Ethiopia, and the convocation of two well-attended and stimulating inter- national conferences on Ethiopian studies in 1963 and 1966 testify in different ways to a renewal of vitality in the area of Ethiopianist scholarship.Ethiopia, too, has changed during this decade, if not so dramatically as has the field of Ethiopian studies. There has been a limited expansion of the scale of developments in the modernizing sector which were noted in Wax and Gold. Addis Ababa remains the center of efforts to step up the pace of Ethiopia's modernization. The capital city has grown rapidly, from about 440,000 in 1961 to nearly a million in 1971. It has acquired handsome modern buildings, spacious new boulevards, a jet airport, and the agonies of sudden urban con-gestion. Advances have been made in the development field by a revitalized planning commission, and efforts to rationalize procedures in a few of the ministries have proven moderately successful. Members of Parliament have come to take a much more active role in supervising various administrative operations of the government: There have been modest improvements in agricultural and industrial production and the delivery of health services, though with relatively little impact as yet on the vast problems of chronic disease and widespread malnutrition.
The leadership, ideology, and organization required for a "takeoff" toward modernity remain beyond the horizon. A student movement has grown from amorphous beginnings into an extensive association with national and international branches. This movement has raised the level of political consciousness among many Ethiopians and has achieved some minor reforms, though at times its tactics have backfired and led to tragic consequences. The issue of solidarity has become increasingly salient for modern-educated Ethiopians at both the national and organizational levels. The capacity for trust, cooperation, and shared sacrifice has grown but continues to be limited by factors discussed in these chapters.
In one respect which will be relevant for readers of this book, my own view about Ethiopia have also changed in recent years. This change concerns misconception of the position of Amhara culture as the dominant tradition in Ethiopia. From this conception it followed that a thorough grasp of traditional Amhara ways of life would provide an economical means of comprehending the patterns of Ethiopian culture at the national level. While this conceptioin remains useful for understanding Ethiopia today, if left unqualified it can be misleading; for it tends to exaggerate the extent to which Amhara culture stands apart from all other Ethiopian traditions and to ignore the extent to which a national popular and intellectual culture independent of traditional ethnic lines has been emerging-albeit, much of the time, through the medium of the Amharic language.
Those distortions have particularly' unfortunate implications for thinking about the issue of national integration, an issue which was raised in Wax and Gold but deliberately set aside for treatment at a later date. The view of Greater Ethiopia which I now hold, and which informs a new manuscript on the evolution of a national society in Ethiopia that I am currently completing, sets the Arnhara experience in a broader historical and cultural context.This perspective begins Ethiopian history not three but six thousand year ago; not in Arabia but in Africa; not with the Semitic immigration but with the Ethiopian peoples at horne. In this view the Arnhara.appear not only a bearers of a distinctive dominant culture but also as one of a number of people who, by virtue of having lived in the same region, spoken related ancestral languages, shared similar cultural features, and interacted with one another for millennia, can be said to inhabit a single culture area and to possess; common historical experience.
If the general image of Ethiopia presented in this book is revised in this manner, its account of Arnhara tradition and Ethiopia's modernization will not be misleading. Indeed, subsequent research and social developments alikehave confirmed the main lines of observation and interpretation which I presents.
Of all the changes of the last decade, one of the most interesting has beer an increase in the readiness of many Ethiopians to discuss their current social problems more openly and searchingly. If 'Wax and Gold has contriburec something to that process, I am deeply gratified. I must in turn express my abiding appreciation to those Ethiopians and Ethiopianists who have continued to enlighten me about the past, present, and future of a country which, now as before, impresses me as endlessly fascinating.
D.N.L |
