Nigiste Negestatt Zewditu at her coronation with her husband, Ras Gugsa Welle
The Great Metropolis Part 2
Mind of a Wise Man,
Heart of a Fool
"Absolutely not, your majesty!" Habte Giyorgis Dinagde exclaimed, before he could stop himself. He was a man of 55 years, tall and a little plump, beardless and with cropped hair that retained its full density despite his age and the stresses of governance. He was wearing a traditional gabi dress made out of white cloth, embroidered with the imperial colors of green, red, and gold. It has been a few weeks since Zewditu's meeting with Makonnen Alemayehu, the union congressman working at the Imperial Armory. She had completely failed to meet with him due to the business of leading a nation of twenty million. One factory laborer's petition just wasn't at the top of her priorities. The trade congressman understood this, and gave instructions to the empress' chief of staff on how to contact him in the meantime.
They were at the front steps of the palace, waiting for the Roman prince to arrive after his parade through the streets of Addis Ababa. People were gathering by the thousands, positively enthralled by the supposed beauty of Prince Konstantinos, a
purple born, or whatever that meant. Zewditu herself had never understood it, as the whole extended family of the House of Solomon has been fighting for the throne for centuries before her. Any notion that one person has a better claim based on the color of the room they were born in would be laughed at. Power, military, economic, or political, was what brought a
Negusa Nagast to the throne.
Noticing his lack of decorum, the
Reise Mekwanint bowed low. "Apologies, your majesty, but nobody will accept this proposal. It is ludicrous! Addis Ababa is your capital, your
home. To let its people have seats in the
Mekwanint would leave the fate of your home in the hands of other men, men who you might not trust or know explicitly, men who have other agendas. Addis Ababa must be ruled by yourself alone."
"I believe there is merit in the proposal of the tradesmen," Zewditu responded.
"There is no merit in the howling of the hyenas, your majesty," said Habte Giyorgis. "They are rabble. Factory workers, day laborers. You reside in Addis Ababa, a central location in the Horn, in order to properly rule your empire on their behalf, and your
Kantiba,
Bitwoded Goshu rules Addis Ababa in your behalf."
"Speaking of the
Kantiba, where is he?" she asked, looking around. Nothing but guards. They stood at the very top of the palace steps, where they had a clear view of the long avenue lined with trees and a clear, open field that led from the palace to the rest of Addis Ababa proper. From atop these steps, they would be able to catch sight of the Roman procession.
"Here, your majesty! Apologies!" said a voice from behind her. It was the lord-mayor of Addis Ababa himself,
Bitwoded Wolde Tsadik Goshu, clearly sweating, running from wherever he came from inside the palace. He was a forty-year old man, tall and thin, with a balding head and a full beard.
"What on earth are you wearing?" Zewditu said, looking him up to down, appalled.
The
Kantiba hesitated for a moment, before bowing low and saying "It's western dress, your majesty. I figured it would appeal to them more."
"These men aren't Latins, they're Greeks," Zewditu responded, "but do avoid calling them Greeks, will you? From what I'm told, they don't take too kindly to it. Now, where is my husband?"
"When it comes to dress, we're more modern than them, I'm afraid," Habte Giyorgis responded to the
Kantiba. "The
Ras Gugsa Welle is unavailable, your majesty." This was now routine for him. The empress constantly asked, out of tradition, where her husband was, for it was improper to have the Queen of Kings meet with foreign ambassadors without her consort. Sadly, she has met every single foreign diplomat without her husband since she was crowned empress.
"Ah," Zewditu said, remembering. "Right. Of course. I was hoping..." She stopped herself from continuing. The
Reise Mekwanint and the
Kantiba, loyal to a fault, pretended not to hear her try and continue that sentence and merely looked on at the avenue leading to the palace, waiting for the procession. Gugsa Welle, Zewditu's husband, has not seen her in close to a year now. They have barely spoken several sentences to each other since her coronation, when they left on poor terms because a queen of kings, according to traditional Ethiopian law, could not rule with a king of kings as a consort, and thus Gugsa Welle could not be crowned
Negusa Nagast, something which the Oromo
Ras has resented since forever. How did he show this resentment? By simply refusing to continue residing in the same residence as the empress. Habte Giyorgis himself has informed Zewditu that her husband has made it clear that he plans to outlive her, and to not provide her with any heirs. It was a childish move, and she responded as such by simply continuing to rule, all the while with no male heir - as he would take precedence over Zewditu's only daughter.
Her daughter,
Le'elt Woizero Zenebework, born from a previous marriage, was now turning thirteen this year, and she had not been seen in Ethiopia since she was a baby, having grown up a hostage in Constantinople. Zewditu receives regular reports on the state of her daughter, and she writes to her regularly as a mother would write to a missed loved one. She has sent various tutors to Constantinople, as part of the imperial delegation, to make sure that the princess receives a proper Ethiopian education, but no other contact has been made between empress and princess.
Their group was now ready, just in time as the tops of the banners of the Romans could now be seen, and they could hear the jubilant cheers of the crowd following them. The prince was well liked by the people of Addis Ababa, it seemed. Beside her, Habte Giyorgis, and the
Kantiba were
Abuna Mattheos X, the Primate of the Ethiopian Church, and a Copt from Alexandria, so technically a subject of the Romans, and the
Negadras Haile Giyorgis Woldemikael, the leader of the merchants (both Ethiopian and European) of Addis Ababa. Both of whom seem to be on separate missions to exact other kinds of deals with the Romans.
The procession was coming closer. They still hadn't entered the gates of the palace, but they were already in the open fields surrounding it. The crowd was quite large, perhaps at least a thousand men, women, and children all following the curious foreigners. She was getting rather nervous, as she has never had to deal with someone who could realistically be considered her equal. European businessmen, intellectuals, and diplomats were leagues beneath her. This man, Konstantinos, could one day be her equal, and is already way above most, if not all, of the statesmen in the palace. She was constantly smoothing out imaginary creases in her ornate habesha kemis until she was satisfied.
After several more minutes of their delegation simply watching the Romans slowly get through the Ethiopian crowds, they passed the gates of the Imperial Palace, away from the crowds who were now beginning to disperse, with a large portion of them simply sticking around and looking through the grates of the walls surrounding the palace. Their pace was a lot quicker now - no, not quicker. Just one man. One man urging the two horses of his chariot forward. It was a startlingly handsome, rugged man, perhaps only a few years younger than the empress herself, in what looked like a medieval Roman tunic. Knowing fully well that Ethiopian and Roman dress had barely changed in the centuries, she figured this would have been normal - not like her own dress was modern, she had no cause to judge his outfit. His purple cloak was flowing in the breeze as he galloped forward, far from the rest of his imperial entourage. He was obviously showing off. She caught on to this quick, and as Habte Giyorgis sighed in defeat and the
Kantiba merely gave a puzzled expression, Zewditu was chuckling to herself.
When Prince Konstantinos got to the bottom of the steps, the rest of his procession was still several meters behind him, but they had also hurried on and quickened their pace to catch up to him, clearly surprised by the sudden shift in decorum of a prince galloping ahead of his own procession. By the time they got to the bottom of the steps, the athletic young man had already disembarked from his chariot and was already near to the top of the steps, where she could judge his appearance for herself - she found that he truly was not lacking in physical beauty. His skin tone was a darker shade, closer to Egyptian than to Greek from her eyes, and he was wearing some simple jewelry to show off with his bright purple cloak.
The both of them dressed their best, Zewditu thought. She, in her own white
habesha kemis with patterns of the imperial colors of green, red, and gold, and no jewelry save for the simple version of her crown that she wears on a day-to-day basis; and he in his purple dress with several golden pieces of jewelry, and what looked like a golden headband wrapped around his head that she regularly saw on Roman paintings, illustrations, and old coins.
She was so enamored by his appearance, in fact, that she found herself smiling at the man, who was in turn smiling back, both of them saying nothing. He was several steps below her, but his tall stature compared to her diminutive frame barely made him look up from where he was to gaze right into her eyes. It took her
Reise Mekwanint clearing his throat to get her out of her own daze.
"You like making entrances now, do you?" she said, smiling at the prince, who bowed low. It was clear that he didn't understand her. Zewditu's own translator, lurking just behind her, was unsure of whether or not to tell him what she had said. Behind the two of them, a member of the prince's entourage, the translator no doubt, was now shouting at the top of his lungs in Amharic, loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear, the myriad of titles that came with the rank of prince. Purple born... Despot of Morea... so on and so forth. After which, the
Reise Mekwanint, feeling a little bit threatened at the impropriety of the situation, took it upon himself to shout out the many titles of the queen of kings herself - in Amharic, of course, which the translator then began shouting out in turn.
"The Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah!" the translator shouted. Zewditu was totally oblivious to how loud the man was being as he was shouting out her titles in Greek right behind her right ear. She was busy locking eyes with the handsome Roman prince in front of her. "Her Imperial Majesty! Queen of Kings of Ethiopia! Queen of Shewa! Queen of Zion! And Queen of All Ethiopians! Zewditu! Of the House of Solomon! Supreme Commander! Of the Imperial Guard! and the Imperial Army of Ethiopia! Elect of God! And Defe-" the translator's voice rose, up to a squeak. He cleared his throat as both Zewditu and Prince Konstantinos shared a chuckle at the misery of the poor translator. "And Defender of the One True Orthodox Tewahedo Faith."
The two were still chuckling to themselves when Habte Giyorgis gave the empress a stern look. "Right," she said, clearing her own throat and looking at the prince directly. "Shall we get started?"
"Your majesty!" a man said, running towards the empress. He was a young messenger, panting and sweating as he came up. "Your majesty, it appears you have other guests." He pointed to the imperial grounds. Just outside the gates of the palace there stood another, smaller procession, which was also being surrounded by adoring Ethiopians, no doubt still believing that this was merely a continuation of the earlier Roman procession. This one was led by another man in another chariot, with banners surrounding him bearing not holy icons, but the Latin letters S-P-Q-R, which Zewditu could only barely recognize.
Shocked beyond belief, Zewditu turned to Habte Giyorgis and said, "I thought the Latins weren't arriving until tomorrow?" She had remembered the reports that a senator was coming in, straight from Rome.
"Yes, your majesty," Habte Giyorgis said without looking at his empress, staring with his jaw dropped at the smaller embassy of the Western Roman Empire. "We should meet with them."
"To the detriment of the Romans?" answered Zewditu, shocked at the suggestion.
"We may offend them-"
"Do we wish to offend a senator, or a crown prince? The Latins can wait. You and the
Kantiba shall act as my imperial representatives. Stay here now, and meet with them while I shall handle the prince and his embassy myself."
Zewditu proceeded to continue walking into the palace with the prince and the members of the Roman embassy when Habte Giyorgis came up, leaned into the ear of the empress and whispered to her: "Your majesty, this is
highly inappropriate. I would advise you to remember that you are a married woman."
"Married to a man I never see," she said, continuing to smile to make sure nobody suspects anything wrong. "He is ruling the rest of Shewa in my name. He more than likely has access to dozens upon dozens of
courtiers. He is well off and he is well loved in Shewa. He can even meet this Latin embassy if you so choose and if they demand to meet one of Ethiopia's rulers. If he finds this inappropriate then he can come to Addis Ababa and weep at my feet."
A few days after the whole fanfare of the arrival of a Roman prince from Constantinople gripped the city, Makonnen Alemayehu received word that he should head for the palace. His fellow trade congressmen have been growing impatient. He had promised them an answer within a week, before the end of
Taḫišaši (December 10 - January 8 ). He had been desperately trying again and again to secure a meeting with the empress, to get updates on the situation, but it was growing clearer and clearer to Makonnen that his petition and the concerns of the laborers of the city were being ignored. He was losing hope when he received word that he should make a stop at the palace.
When he went to the palace however, he was stopped at the gates by the guards, who told him to wait out there, in the shivering cold of the late afternoon winter sun. He stood there waiting for a few minutes before the empress'
Tsehafi Taezaz. He was a young man, too young to have served in the civil war, and wore the garments of court officials. "I am Seyoum Aklilu,
Tsehafi Taezaz to the
Nigiste Negestatt. You are Makonnen Alemayehu, trade congressman working in the Imperial Armory?"
"I am," Makonnen said, bowing his head slightly.
"No need to bow," the chief of staff answered, "I am not a noble." Makonnen apologized. "The
Atse will not be seeing you today."
"What? But I was told-"
"You were told to come to the palace, which you have." There was a pause. The trade congressman was unsure of what to say, and so the empress' chief of staff continued. "Your petition has been answered. Knowing fully well that nobody in either the
Mesafint nor the
Mekwanint would accept the entrance of common laborers into their halls, the
Atse has used her prerogative as queen of kings to accept your petition."
Makonnen's face lit up with joy at these words. "That's wonderful!"
"Her majesty has accepted your petition and has granted the laborers and common people of Addis Ababa one seat in the
Mekwanint, the minister of which shall be allowed to take his seat in the next election."
Makonnen's happiness disappeared almost instantly. "One?" he asked, disbelief etched into his very bones. "Just one seat?"
"Yes," Seyoum Aklilu answered curtly. "Just one."
"My lord- I mean, sir - the Aussa province is home to twenty thousand people, and they get two seats in the
Mekwanint, and their emir has a reserved place in the
Mesafint. Is it not common practice in the
Mekwanint that one minister should represent an average of around ten to twenty thousand Ethiopians?"
"It has not been codified into law," Seyoum answered, in his voice was a hint of disdain for the common laborer attempting to argue with him in front of the gates of the Imperial Palace. "But, it is how the previous ministers of the
Mekwanint were elected, yes."
"Then it would follow
tradition that more than one minister should come from Addis Ababa. There more than a million people in this city and tens of thousands of men - and even women - working in the factories, perhaps as much as a hundred thousand! Sir, how-"
"What
would truly follow tradition, Makonnen," said Seyoum, now visibly irritated, "is that there would be
no such thing as representation for the common rabble of Ethiopia, much less of some factory worker living in a slum in Addis Ababa!" Makonnen was more shocked than angered at this outburst. He was being wronged, he knew it - but he also knew that there were several heavily-armed guards flanking the gates and the
Tsehafi Taezaz. One wrong move and they could gut him like a fish or shoot him full of holes.
"You have no right to demand of anything, and yet you were able to make a petition in front of the Queen of Kings of the Horn. Her council, her advisers all warned her that this proposal would be rejected by all if it were ever to make its way into the
Mekwanint, and yet she
still used her own imperial prerogative to accept your petition and grant the laborers of Addis Ababa a place in her Council of Ministers. And yet you still
dare to demand more?" He wasn't just disdainful now. He was angry. His teeth were out, his nostrils were flaring, his eyes were wide open and fixed upon him, like a dog ready to charge and bite at its master's command.
"The Trade Congress would never accept this!" Makonnen said, fighting back.
"The Trade Congress is an organization of rabble who have been given a seat at the table but wish to replace the one at the head!" Seyoum spat back. "There will be no further petitions, no negotiations, no other compromise other than what has been given to you. The
Mekwanint and the
Mesafint are willing to look the other way when one
peasant steps into their hallowed halls. It will revolt and sell the Horn to the Europeans before it accepts a hundred!"
Makonnen was quiet. He thought about it. He was right. These were the best terms the Trade Congress can perhaps get without any more push back. Makonnen had to back down. There would be no negotiation until
after they were able to take their seat in the
Mekwanint. One seat today could mean a dozen or even, as the
Tsehafi Taezaz has said, a hundred, tomorrow.
"Does the Imperial Trade Congress of Ethiopia accept these terms, or shall we scrap them all and let you continue rotting in your factories without anybody to fight for your privileges?" Seyoum Aklilu said, disdain in his voice.
Defeated, Makonnen nodded, unable to say any more. Seyoum Aklilu accepted this nod as an acceptance, however reluctant it may be, of their terms. He held his head high and left without saying another word, the guards looking at Makonnen menacingly as the gates of the palace closed in behind the chief of staff, urging him with their steely gaze to leave lest anything untoward happen to the labor organizer.
Makonnen Alemayehu was heading home after work when he was accosted by fellow members of the trade congress, now a growing underground organization in Addis Ababa of five factories - the Imperial Armory, the Shewa Balambaras Coffee Company, the Liqawint, and the two factories of the European-Ethiopian East African Company. These five factories account for the whole population of the main trade congress of Addis Ababa - the Imperial Trade Congress, which has a population of several thousands of members, to which Makonnen is one of the principal leaders of. It is, at present, a legal organization that has not run into much push back from the bosses and factory owners and Europeans, although its powers are very diminished to the point of nonexistence outside of their respective factories and outside of Addis Ababa, and while armed men have not been dispatched to ban and dismantle the unions, their ability to expand to other factories has been curtailed extremely.
"You promised us an answer within a week of your meeting with the
Atse, Makonnen," said a man who came out of a corner as he was walking home. He was on guard, as the sun was setting and the bustling city was now settling in to its less ideal nightlife. But he had no reason to be afraid, because it was his friend, Tekeda Garima, a trade congressman from the Shewa Balambaras Union, and another leader of the Imperial Trade Congress. The Shewa Balambaras Coffee Company, in charge of the hundreds of miles of lucrative coffee plantations across the province of Shewa, was the most struggling member of the trade congress due to active efforts by its leaders and the
Ras of Shewa, Gugsa Welle, the husband of the empress, to defang the labor organizers.
"
Yekatīti is here. It's been a whole month, brother. We need an answer, will the empress accede to our petition or not?"
Makonnen looked sullen, but he nodded. Confused, Tekeda asked: "Why are you not happy about this?"
"The empress has agreed to give the Trade Congress one seat in the
Mekwanint."
"
One?" Tekeda repeated incredulously. "The Worji have one representative. Two if you count their emir in the
Mesafint. This is outrageous! What did you say?"
"They wouldn't budge. There was to be no negotiation. We would either accept one trade congressman in the
Mekwanint, or we would get nothing."
"Pity," Tekeda said, not surprised. "Well, we don't seem to be getting much luck anywhere, brother."
"Why?" Makonnen asked. "How goes it in the rest of Shewa?"
"Not great, brother.
Ras Gugsa Welle has been cracking down on us attempting to expand and organize our union. It may be peaceful here in Addis Ababa, but he has been harassing and imprisoning organizers outside it. If we don't keep our work inside Shewa Balambaras, Gugsa Welle sends his men."
"Good god," Makonnen said, his eyes wide in shock. "Have men died?"
Tekeda nodded. "A few."
"Shit!" Makonnen said, kicking a nearby lamppost. "What have you been doing now?"
"We've been going back to work, brother. Attempts to organize have been slowed down significantly, but we've been sending out men to preach." Preaching was what the Trade Congress did to hide their activities. They would use the Holy Bible as a way of getting the common people to recognize the dignity of their labor. It was a slower process, but it was more effective and much less likely to attract undue attention.
"We don't know what happened, brother," Tekeda said sullenly, "we were doing fine! We were making so much progress. We got a lot of pushback, of course, that was to be expected, but it never got violent. They used to just pay off floor managers and plantation workers to turn a blind eye when we came preaching, but now they've begun taking out the batons and beating us to a pulp. They say the
Ras is going mad."
"Mad? Mad how?" Makonnen said, taking out his pipe tobacco and lighting it to fortify himself against the cold winter night.
"I don't know, brother," Tekeda said, accepting the pipe tobacco Makonnen offered, taking a whiff of it before returning it. "A preacher we had to send to the physician reports that Gugsa Welle himself came at him with a baton. He never used to do that before! They would be lectured, arrested, and even deported back into Addis Ababa or worse, out of Shewa entirely, but he was never violent. Something's happened, brother, and I would make a bet that it has to do with the
Atse."
They were quiet, passing the pipe to and fro for a moment, taking in everything that's happening around them. They used to just be talking about how to better the lives of laborers in cafés and salons. Now, their own people were being harassed, threatened, and outright being murdered. "And, I have some more bad news," Tekeda said, passing the pipe back to Makonnen and rubbing his hands together.
"What?"
"The Trade Congress isn't happy, brother. They're going be even more unhappy after they find out the
Atse has fucked us. They have decided to move forward."
"Move forward? What?" Makonnen said. "Without consulting me?"
"Majority opinion was that your attempts to reach out to the
Nigiste Negestatt have failed," Tekeda said, not backing down despite hearing the rising anger in Makonnen's voice. His brother was nearly a foot taller than him and could easily beat him to the ground, but he knew Makonnen better than that, they had served together after all. "Several diplomatic missions were leaving for Europe. Brittany, Sweden, Rome-"
"France?" Makonnen asked, to which Tekeda nodded. "Shit, Tekeda. This was supposed to be a last resort. A
last resort, do you understand what that means?"
"The Congress was becoming impatient, brother. In the weeks that you have been trying to schedule a meeting with the
Atse, a factory opened up, several fledgling unions were quietly dismantled, and several thousand people believed to have sympathies for the Trade Congress were removed from their work. People are starving as you try to enter the Imperial Palace."
"Give me more time-"
"I tried to argue the same, brother, but there is no more time," Tekeda said. He was still calm. This was not his decision, this was the decision of the Congress and he was the messenger. "And even if there were, it's too late. The diplomatic missions left weeks before the Romans arrived. Several of our people were with the embassy heading for Paris. We've already sent word of the arrival of our 'agents' before the embassy left. They have already agreed to a meeting. Hell, their meeting has probably already concluded. It doesn't take that long to reach France in a European steamship."
"Fuck," said Makonnen, throwing out the burnt contents of his pipe onto the ground. "Fuck!" Several passing heads turned, but nobody lingered.
"This is a good thing, Makonnen," Tekeda said, attempting to reassure his dear friend - no, his brother. "We were able to get a meeting with
a member of the French government! Imagine that, brother! This never would have happened if it weren't for you."
"'If it weren't for me.' Nonsense, Tekeda, I never wanted
any of this," Makonnen said, stuffing his pipe back into his coat.
"Yes, you did.
You got us together,
you organized the Imperial Armory into a proper labor union,
you reached out to several other newfound unions in other factories and banded us together,
you taught us how to preach, how to use the word of God to rally the common man to our side. This is all
your doing, brother. And we need you." Tekeda drew close, and from some unknown pocket in his trousers, he pulled out a revolver. It was loaded, it was new, and it was stamped with the logo of the Imperial Armory - the roaring Lion of Judah with a bayoneted rifle gripped in its paw instead of the cross scepter of more traditional depictions.
"Put that away, you bloody fool, you want to get us executed?" Makonnen said, rushing towards Tekeda and urging him to hide the revolver. "Who are they meeting?"
"Joseph Beaulieu, the foreign minister of the Commonwealth," Tekeda said, smiling slightly over the shocked expression in Makonnen's face. "This goes higher than you would believe, brother. We didn't just get a meeting with some union organizer or some random parliamentarian. This is the foreign minister of the French."
"Good God," Makonnen said, collapsing on a step leading up to an abandoned home behind him. It was a European-style house, as are many others in this street. Addis Ababa is prepared for the sudden influx of Europeans looking for profitable work, it would seem. Makonnen was able to steady himself with the cold, iron railing of the steps.
"That's not all," Tekeda said, unable to hide his grin. "In the morning, several of our people are meeting with the Deputy Consul of the French. Here! Right here in Addis Ababa. We're going to be giving him a report of the conditions of laborers in Addis and Shewa. We're hoping the Deputy Consul will be sympathetic and...
allow that information to reach the French commons."
"Are you mad, Tekeda?" Makonnen replied after seeing the happiness in his comrade's face. "This is it," his voice was now defeated as he said this. "There's no turning back now."
"Yes," Tekeda said, "which is why we have to be ready now, more than ever, brother. More rifles need to be smuggled out of the Imperial Armory, ammunition caches need to be hidden and prepared, men need to be trained, and plans need to be drawn up. We need a leader, Makonnen, and like it or not, you're the veteran with the most experience." He took the revolver out of his trousers one again, and sat down next to Makonnen on the steps before inviting his brother to take the weapon out of his hands.
Makonnen stared at it for a few seconds before, with great hesitation, taking the weapon. It was heavy in his hand, the steel was cold and it made him shiver a little - but it felt familiar, more familiar than Makonnen would have liked and would ever admit. By the time he was an adult he was fighting for the late
Negusa Nagast Menelik II the Great in his civil war against traditionalist nobles, nobles who fought against the rapid modernization of the country, nobles who fought against new opportunities for the common people to advance in society. He was a
metoaleqa, the highest rank a commoner could aspire to in those days, and he lead a platoon of a hundred men through the sands of the Ogaden in the offensive that finally broke the traditionalists. With an old, single-shot breechloading rifle in his hands and a shotel sword strapped to his hip, he and his platoon fought with distinction He worked with Somalis, Oromos, Tigrayans alike. He fought for a cause, he believed that and he continues to believe that. Now, it seems, he is destined to do the same thing, fighting against more nobles standing in the way of progress for the common laborer.
He gripped the revolver, stretched out his arm, and aimed down the sight of the gun in his hand. He pulled back the hammer, and mimed shooting at the streetlight at the other side of the street before putting the hammer back in its place. Beside him, Tekeda couldn't help but hide his smile as he saw his friend, his brother, the man he fought beside in dozens of battles and skirmishes, was now handling the revolver like it was an extension of his own arm. Their soon-to-be uprising now has a commander.
In Paris, the Ethiopian embassy was just now finishing its first round of talks with Joseph Beaulieu, the foreign minister of the French. There was no fanfare with the arrival of the men of the Horn. Paris, after all, was
the modern city. It received its fair share of foreign embassies every now and again, and for a veteran like Joseph Beaulieu, meetings concerning trade and the like would have been routine.
The meeting that just concluded, the one that included pretty much the whole embassy, save for several members of the household retinues, was conducted in the Chancellerie, and was very fruitful for both countries - deals have been made on the opening of more factories in Ethiopia, trade has been expanded, and several more possible investments in Addis Ababa are in the works. For several members of the embassy, however, this was not why they went here.
Birhanu Kidan, an aide to one of the many ministers that came to Paris, was ushered into a private room along with three other men - two other clandestine representatives of the Imperial Trade Congress posing as government officials, and one sympathetic soul who works as a translator. The whole embassy had, fortunately, refused Beaulieu's invitation for a nightcap at his own private office - the French foreign minister must have been briefed on the fast that the largely Tewahedo Orthodox embassy was going through. Birhanu and his two compatriots, however, were not Tewahedo Orthodox, but Catholic - a remnant of the Horn's Jesuit past. The translator, however, was Tewahedo Orthodox, but was unfortunately compelled to join them through prior arrangements with the Imperial Trade Congress.
Beaulieu's office was much smaller than the grand meeting hall that they had just used. There was a distinct lack of space, apart from the seating area around his own desk from where he can entertain guests. Bookcases lined almost every single wall in his office, filled with an assortment of tomes and manuscripts, and the few empty spaces in the walls featured various paintings of foreign cities - they could make out a painting of what appeared to be Rome and Constantinople in two of the paintings, the rest were unknown to them. Beaulieu cleared away several books and stacks of papers from his own desk, procured five wine glasses from under his desk and a bottle of wine. He asked the Ethiopians to sit, and poured them all glasses of a brandy which smelled like apples.
He sat down at his own desk, and simply stared at the Ethiopians. Taking this as a cue, Birhanu Kidan, through the translator, began his case.
"The Imperial Trade Congress is the largest union fighting for the rights of the common man in Ethiopia, but even with our status as the largest single defender of the common laborer, we are still largely ignored by the Queen of Kings." The translator was working overtime, and Beaulieu just sat there at his desk staring at a painting in his office. "Several weeks ago, one of our own was able to meet with the Queen of Kings and submit to her a personal petition for the representation of the Trade Congress in the Council of Ministers."
At this, Beaulieu stared at the translator, and then at Birhanu. The idea of a sector of society being represented in a nation's parliament was something that the Ethiopians, consciously or unconsciously, lifted from the French. The French foreign minister now looked at the representative of the Trade Congress straight in the eyes. Emboldened, Birhanu continued, through the translator.
"We were promised an answer within a week of that meeting," Birhanu said, "but we were unfortunately ignored for weeks on end, and we are probably going to keep being ignored, as the government of the Queen of KIngs simply does not care to listen to the pleas of its lowliest members." Birhanu paused. He paused for so long that even the translator was now looking at him with eyes that were begging him to continue. The next part was difficult, and he had to choose his words carefully, lest the translation somehow suggest something different from what Birhanu is proposing.
"We are," Birhanu began, slowly again, "prepared to go further should the Queen of Kings continue to ignore our pleas. Protests and strikes have done little, as they have either been broken upon, in the case of protests, or simply worked around, in the case of strikes - plenty of people in Addis Ababa are unemployed and looking for any opportunity to fill their bellies with good food, even for poor wages. The common laborer is suffering daily, and we the Imperial Trade Congress are begging you for aid, be it in the form of advisers, materiel, or even just armed men. We want to bring good news to the poor, as Christ had done, we want them to have the dignity they should be afforded in their labors. What say you, then, monsieur?"
In the morning after Makonnen's fateful meeting with the
Tsehafi Taezaz, a tall, Amharic-speaking Oromo man in a European suit was secretly ushered into the embassy building of the French Commonwealth in the middle of Addis Ababa. The Imperial Trade Congress chose him due to his fluency in French (due to working in a factory owned by a French-speaking European), and due to his lighter-than-usual skin tone which might, to the general onlooker, mistake him for a Mediterranean man rather than an Ethiopian one. The man entered through a back door, away from the prying eyes of the several other European nations that litter the Diplomatic Quarter, a relatively quiet and unpopulated (compared to the rest of Addis Ababa) part of the city, just north of the Imperial Palace and the Parliament House. He was ushered into a small, windowless room with a plain cross on the wall, emblematic of the Protestant Christian faith of the French, and two plain chairs facing each other.
The man sat there for perhaps less than five minutes before the door opened once again to reveal Augustin Chaput, one of several deputy consuls working for the French embassy. He was a short man, much shorter than the Oromo man standing in front of him, and he was sweating profusely in the heat - despite it being the middle of February in the Gregorian calendar. The Oromo man himself was still wearing his own European-style coat inside this room. Augustin Chaput, he figured, was still relatively new to Ethiopia, as most of the long-time diplomats have already properly acclimatized to the African heat.
In French, Augustin Chaput orders the Oromo man to sit. The frenchman pulls his chair closer to the Ethiopian's, and begs the man to introduce himself.
"Peace be upon you," the man said in French, "I am Ali Gobana Birru. I am an Oromo Muslim, and I represent the Imperial Trade Congress of Ethiopia." Ali paused, waiting for a response of Chaput. When none came, he continued. He pulled out a letter from his coat pocket and handed it to Chaput. "This letter has been compiled through several personal accounts of the past few weeks, going in full detail the abuses the common laborer of Ethiopia has to face on a daily basis. We are hoping, through the good graces of the French government, that this letter...
makes its way into the hands of the French people."
Chaput takes the letter envelope and violently tears it open to read the letter inside. It reads:
To the laborers of France who work with the protection of their dignity,
Hail!
We, the laborers of the Empire of Ethiopia write this in the hopes of pleading to you and your government to come to our aid. The workers of Addis Ababa and the Kingdom of Shewa toil under the boot of oppressive lords daily. They work from sunrise to sunset, they are paid barely enough to feed themselves, let alone their entire families, and they are routinely beaten into submission whenever they attempt to fight to reclaim their dignity from those who have taken it from them.
A representative of the Imperial Trade Congress, upon being allowed a meeting with the Queen of Kings, was summarily ignored after he petitioned for greater representation for the working men of Ethiopia in her imperial majesty's government. The trade congressman stood outside the gates of the imperial palace for weeks on end attempting to meet with the Queen of Kings as she had promised him, and to accept the petition of the laborers of Addis Ababa, but to no avail. To this day, the trade congressman is still holding out hope that the Queen of Kings will no longer be held back by the corrupt landlords and businessmen who are trying to stop her from meeting with her subjects who love and miss her tremendously.
A factory owned by a rich Ethiopian landlord for the manufacturing of leather goods had, a month prior to the writing of this letter, been opened in the imperial capital of Addis Ababa. Almost immediately, its workers attempted to organize and join the myriad of trade groups that form the Imperial Trade Congress of Ethiopia, and almost immediately, every single worker that was even suspected of having ties to the Trade Congress was kicked out of the factory and barred from returning, with all of their unpaid wages kept from them. To this day, the workers of that factory continue to toil under extremely tiring and unhealthy conditions, and at least ten people have already died since that factory has opened due to the work demanded from them by their lords.
A week prior to the writing of this letter, a man by the name of Lemma got into contact with the Imperial Trade Congress in an attempt to organize himself and his fellow workers in a coffee plantation in the Kingdom of Shewa. Upon meeting with several labor representatives, he was summarily taken away from his workplace, beaten to within an inch of his life, strung up and left for dead on the side of the road to the plantation as a warning against others who would like to organize. His wife found his body had missing fingernails on both arms, several teeth pulled out, and laceration scars etched across his back. Lemma died in his wife's arms a day later, and she is now out in the street begging for scraps to feed her infant son, who has to grow up without a father to nurture and protect him.
In the spirit of brotherhood among all the world's children of God, we implore you to beg of your government to send us aid, to stop our oppressive lords from ruling over the common man with an iron fist. We love our country, and we love our Queen of Kings, but we fear that she is being controlled much like a puppet by those who would want to cruelly and unjustly profit off the backs of Ethiopians. Let the world know that the French people stand in solidarity with the laborers of the world, may those who would dare oppress the poor quake in their boots and may their whips be taken from their hands. May these oppressive rich men weep and wail because of the misery that is coming to them.
Signed,
The laborers of Ethiopia, begging their French brothers to stand with them in their yearning for dignity