“Ethiopia has always been good at reinventing herself.

Green is for the high emerald fields, yellow is for the scorched nomad’s lands and red is for the colour of the Eritrean sea.

History, however, tells us that the Ethiopian flag, the emblem of Rastafarianism and a symbol of anti-colonialism, was invented in the 19th century by a military instructor with an eye for colour. Asked by Dejazmatch Wube, the pretender to the Ethiopian throne, to provide his army with a flag, the painter and erstwhile drill sergeant

Edward Zender paid homage to his native Germany through the flag of the dukedom in which he was born. Apparently he substituted the yellow for the original white band of Anhalt, a colour he disliked because of the egg whites his mother made him eat as a child – but such are the vagaries of the triumphant march of nations.

Then again, Sheba was probably a Yemeni, and the Lion of Judah originally roared in Israel.

Happy 2,000th birthday”

- an excerpt from a British in flight magazine article I found on Addis Journal

ok so the writer of this article plays with a specific perspective implicitly praising the other man with the tone of his article. Most probably seeing himself as an objective man who has all the facts right, his whiteness invisible to him, since such is the nature of race. The “happy 2000th bday” sounds like a satirical crack to imply happy 100th, 5000th or 2 millionth birthday would all have been accurate given Ethiopia’s constant metamorphosis.

Most importantly to me though is how I responded to this possible “fact” about the flag with emotional resistance. I reacted with a defiant “how dare a white British man claim the Ethiopian flag, a symbol of black power, independence and anti-colonialism , the artwork of a white German man?!” The symbol of black defiance was inspired by a German Duchy? in current day Saxony-Anhalt?…and of all preposterousness: egg-white dislikes by a little boy?

Then it dawned on me that I was reacting with the highly emotional nature of patriotism and pride.

Nobody knows the past, history is written by someone with his/her own prejudices and the fact of the matter lies in that the Ethiopian Imperial Dynasty & the Orthodox Church were successful architects of a “common consciousness” that served the rulers’ purposes. And because of patriotism, things like colors printed on pieces of cloth irk me out of my stable state. I now ask myself why I had never thought to go looking for the “recorded” history of the Ethiopian Flag. I had no desire to do so because assumption served my identity and pride. Its a fantastic tale; Ethiopians came up with their own flag which is a source of pride; many African nations adapted it as a symbol of independence! …In all honestly, I was cool with inflated pride- feels more comfortable than the rocky beds of a western world transcribing the vagaries of its ‘western’ authors!

below’s an image from saxony, germany