THE EMERGING COLD WAR WITH CHINA

The Emerging Cold War with China in the Horn of Africa

The Emerging Cold War with China in the Horn of Africa

In 1520, Portugal was expanding its interests in the Indian Ocean and the lands therein. Father Francisco Alvarez, a mission member of a Portuguese group who arrived in the area in the spring, was the first to write about the remote highland kingdom of Ethiopia. It was a world that had grown and lived in mystery to the rest of the world and its true history had not been forgotten…but lost. In Rome, however, interests in the land grew, and once again, Ethiopia was faced with a new intrusion. A Jesuit mission was dispatched from Rome and Pedro Paez, with patient tactics led in the conversion of two Ethiopian rulers. Sadly, for the Jesuit mission and Roman Catholicism, Paez died and a fanatic leader named Mendez took his place. Mendez forced the Roman church on the country forcing all to rebaptism, remodel the liturgy, and forbidding any ancient practices. This, of course, led to rebellion, blood and deportation of the Jesuit mission. One emperor succeeded the next, and by the eighteenth century, they had lost all power with the government seized to the hands of the Galla. Civil wars became abundant and by the mid 1800's, the disintegration of Ethiopia was inevitable.

The lands that reeked of potential to produce wonderful industries and vegetation were destroyed by locusts, taxes and rogue army bands.

Maybe it was the mountainous inaccessibility of the Abyssinian highlands that made for isolation, but most believe it was the rise of Islam that separated this great kingdom and culture from their connections in the Mediterranean and compelling them to move southward and to become self independent. In the seventh century, with the wide expansion of Islam, Egypt was falling. Persian empires were self-destructing as well, and Red Sea bases were being occupied by the Arabians. All of these factors created a domino effect cutting off and isolating Axum, which in turn cut off the view of Ethiopia from the West.

Axumites slowly began to migrate to the mountains to reestablish their kingdom but not without some contention directed from the pagan Agau people. Too strong at first, the Axumites had success in subduing and converting the Agau, but in the latter parts of the tenth century there was confusion, revolution and invasions by the Agau. The pillaging and ravaging was so great that it virtually completely annihilated the Christianity of the Axumites. Soon the monarchy would prevail through fusion not conquest. The Ague beliefs meshed with the Christianity of the Axumites and the Abyssinian aristocracy was formed. Later the fusion of the two people and their beliefs favored the Agau and they gained control of the monarchy and ruled the state for around 150 years and presided over religion and culture that would prove to be of great importance in the history of the Ethiopian ...