Biography of Empress Menen Book Launch on April 3, 2012
The Book Launch of the new Biography of Empress Menen was hosted by Empress Isis Tafari of RootsFM in Jamaica. What follows are some key excerpts from the speakers, Ras Ivi, a Priestman from Scottspass Nyabhingi Center, Mitzie Tafari Williams, the current Administrator of the Nyabhingi Order in Jamaica, and Mutabaruka, renowned dub poet and ‘The Cutting Edge” IrieFM program host, as well as the author, Anjahli Parnell. Many of the topics raised give insight into the current mindset of Rastafari.

Empress Isis Tafari of RootsFM in Jamaica

You all know by now that today is the 121st birthday of Empress Menen Asfaw, and also the launching of this beautiful book, The Biography of Empress Menen. All during the time of the faith of Rastafari, we didn’t really have enough information, as I would have liked to on Empress Menen. Of course we know that she is the mother of all mothers, the queen of all queen, but we didn’t have that much information. I got the book and once you get this book, you can’t seem to put it down. You are so absorbed with the book. To this day, I have had it for about a month now, I have not completed the book. When you read a chapter, or even a paragraph or a line, you want to read it over and over again. And that’s okay because we have enough time to read it and absorb it. It’s our Queen Mother for sure, so we can take our time.

I invited Anjahli to come to RootsFM along with Sister Mitzie to partake in a reasoning. It was International Woman’s Month and I wanted them in for an hour to sit and talk about Empress Menen and about Anjahli Parnell’s journey. And we did this and it was the most amazing hour I have had on radio. This lady, Anjahli, lived in Hawaii, and in South Africa, came to Jamaica, and was in awe of Jamaica and the land and the people and found her Kingman here, Rastafari, and that was how she was introduced to the faith. She and her Kingman went back to Africa and went to Ethiopia and did a major research there on His Imperial Majesty, and of course the library had little information about Empress Menen. She did find a biography and what she has done is enhance that, by compiling and editing this - we truly give thanks for this information at this time.

Anjahli Parnell: Editor / Compiler of the Biography of Empress Menen

Greetings in the name of the most High - the Creator. I feel very blessed that I’ve been able to go on this journey with Empress Menen and to bring this book forth. It’s taken a long time. I went to Ethiopia in 2009, and I met this young man John Abbey on my first day in Ethiopia at Holy Trinity Cathedral. Then off I went with my Kingman, he was my super strength over there because anywhere you go they were working on the road so there was lot’s of gravel and lot’s of dust. We were supposed to fly from Addis Ababa to Lalibela for Timkat but the flights were booked so we ended up driving. I was coughing like mad, I could hardly breath at times with the altitude and I had a bit of a cold. All of a sudden I look out of the van and here’s this green, luscious area, and I’d had a dream about a month before that about this. They grow a lot of different grains in Ethiopia, and they were harvesting grain, and there were cows - behind that was a lake, and behind that was a mountain covered in cloud. And I said, “Where are we?” And our guide said, “This is Ambessel. This is where Empress Menen was born.” So then I knew I must have been on the right track. This is before the book came to me.

When I came back to Addis Ababa, we met the same kid at Trinity Church and he pulls this red book out of his satchel, which had been hidden by the clerics of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. And here was the book, in Ge’ez, the old ecclesiastic language. It was more than I expected, because I’d spent a day in the library before we left on this journey, there was very little written in English. And of course I went on the internet and found a very short biography about Empress Menen - she went here, she went there. This red edition of her biography was the most complete book written about Empress Menen published just after she passed in 1962.

I asked the Ethiopian Crown Council, and was given permission to go ahead and redo this book. It was translated into Amharic and then to English by a group of people associated with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. There were so many references to things I’d never heard of, as I’m not an Ethiopian scholar - The Battle of Segele or Lej Yasu, I never heard of this young man who was on the throne prior to Zewditu and then Ras Tafari. And so I researched and added enough information to really fill out the story so it made sense to someone who was not from Ethiopia. I added in all of Menen’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren that came along during her lifetime.

Then I just discovered how beautiful this woman was and how many good works she did in her life, building schools, building churches, building childcare centers, going around and just talking to people. She wasn’t a queen who sat in a castle; she was out with the people. She and Haile Sellassie had so many new ideas to bring Ethiopia into the modern world, and they started schools and churches and brought missionaries in.

The other book that was invaluable was the book that Della Hanson, who was a missionary, and her husband wrote. I found that it had the most information about Empress Menen. Della was the palace supervisor and she looked a lot like me. She was a Seventh-Day Adventist and served the royal family. She often helped Empress Menen pick out an outfit for a special occasion when there was a group a foreign dignitaries visiting. That book was really interesting; it was a behind the scenes look at what happened at the palace.

And who am I? I like to swim and I like chocolate. I really enjoyed doing this research and putting this book together and I hope people read it. Nana Faraika, who was one of the first ones to do an early book on Empress Menen blessed the idea and said, “Read it, use this information to inspire one and one to get together to talk about women’s issues that every woman needs to talk about.” Issues like how her children are educated, and how we are going to make our way forward. Many of Menen’s institutions were self-sustaining. She had property and she gave the money from different businesses that she had started and the royal family started to sustain the many works that she did. They are most still running today, they might have gone down during the Derg years, but they are still running.

I would like to thank the Marley family for letting us use this venue. There are so many people to thank, all our divine speakers and Jah, Almighty, I can say that every time, (“Sellassie I”) Sellassie I.

Ras Ivi: Priestman of Scottspass Nyabhingi Center
Hail the I, (Rastafari) Hail the I. (Rastafari) Hail the I. (Rastafari)
Ras Ivi - Empress Menen Earthday Congretized:
We give thanks. It is indeed a very special occasion. I remember 2001 in Maypen, the Cutting Edge Cultural Inity put on the first Empress Manan Award Ceremony. Here me say, Manan, I take the pronunciation from the first autobiography that says Manan, instead of Menen. As in T-e-f-e-r-I –Tafari. I just need to check the Ethiopian scholars to see if the autobiography had the correct pronunciation of Manan from Amharic to English. So in 2001 we had the first Empress Menen Award Ceremony, because based on our research, we found that the Empress Menen was born in 1890. In Anjahli’s research, it came out to 1891. You know how you can have a one-year difference. So we took it that it was the 111 Earthday in 2001 and we had the first Empress Menen Award Ceremony. That in itself was like setting a landmark.

When we got the first biography from Ethiopia, my bredren Ras Kuri brought, it highlighted the fact that the Empress was born 25th of Megabit. So I questioned the bredren if the translation from the Ethiopian Calendar to the Western Calendar was already done. And the bredren said yes, so we took it that the 25th of Megabit would have been the 25th of March. It was years later when I found another book in French, and I think it must have been some Rases in France that did this translation. And it came out to be the 3rd of April, and I questioned this. Now let me call my brother, when it is the 3rd of April here, to find out what date it is in Ethiopia, and it came down to the 25th of Megabit. I had the results saying let us change now, let us reinstate the day as the 3rd of April. I was privileged one morning, we were doing the Iliebration at the Scottspass Nyabhingi Center and Sister Anjahli was on IrieFM with Sister Andrea (Running Africa Broadcast April 3, 2011) and she confirmed the date based on research. I say now, we as Rases must accept when we find the truth and no matter what tradition we didda hold to, make we just put things where the truth lies. Hence, I am saying InI must concretize this day the 3rd of April as the Earthday of Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Menen. We want to ensure that we send it out internationally, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Rome, England, Canada, everywhere - that today will be celebrated as the Earthday of our Imperial Majesty, Empress Menen. Hail the I. (Rastafari) Hail the I. (Rastafari) Hail the I. (Rastafari)

Ras Ivi - Coronation Reenactment:

So in 2005, in the Diamond Jubilee Year of His Imperial Majesty, I think it was the first time anyone had ever attempted to reenact the coronation with a representative Emperor and Empress, with the thrones, the garments, the Psalms that were read, and all, and to give the Empress her role. So we give thanks.

The coronation event, although it was in the headlines in the major newspapers of the world, it was the first event in Africa that brought all media to one geographical area in Africa. That coronation 1930, it was the first time that dignitaries of major powers had to journey to a remote corner in Africa to go to a Black King and a Black Queen in a climate when race hatred and prejudice and all that was rampant in the world. The black man, and the black woman were nothing on the social ladder, everybody looked down upon Black as ‘The scum of the earth’. If our people would have known the fullness of the coronation back in the time that it took place when the Marcus Garvey Movement was so vibrant. Can you imagine the impact it would have had on the world; if our people were privileged to overstand it. When Howell came back with this knowledge in 1932, he was seen as a man that was seditious by the Jamaican government. And dem set the police on the people to end it. Even Garvey couldn’t take the power of that voice, because Howell was saying, King George is not the Black man’s king, but the Black man’s king is Emperor Haile Sellassie I. He was not only King, he was King of all Kings. Hail the I (Rastafari).

When Haile Sellassie was crowned in 1930, he received seven sacred symbols, and seven different anointments, and seven different priests had to read seven different Psalms to bestow one of the symbols of the coronation. This ceremony went on for hours just for the His Majesty alone. And Anjahli brought the fact that the Empress was with child at that time, that was Sahle Sellassie - child number six. And when it was time for the queen to be crowned, she was bestowed with a diamond-encrusted ring, a sword of steel that was brought to her from England. And when she received the crown, this moment was special, because the King always crowned his Empress, but not on the day of his coronation. So Menelik would have not have crowned his Empress on that day of his coronation, nor any of the other kings. But His Majesty, prior to the coronation, as King of Kings, he went into consultation with the priesthood. He sat with them and influenced them and showed them why it is important for his queen to be crowned on the same day. This was a serious breach in tradition, but His Majesty, through consultation, came to an agreement that the Empress of Zion will be crowned on the day. But something happened when the Abuna came forward with the crown. He gave it his blessing and bowed before the Emperor, and gave the Emperor the crown. So the Emperor took it from his hands and said to the Abuna, “As I have been blessed to receive from your hands, this crown, granted me by God, I ask you Your Holiness to place this crown upon the head of the Empress.” So the Abuna, feel say, it never him a go do it, him had to take the crown and walk over to the Empress, and place the crown upon her head. (“lu-lu-lu-lu”) Hail the I (“SellassieI”)

Ras Ivi - Visiting Ethiopia in the Centenary Year of 1992

Even going into Ethiopian in the centenary year, 1992, just a year after Mengistu run out of Ethiopia, so portraits of Haile Sellassie, the Empress and the Royal Family were hidden away. When Bongo Rockie step on the plane steps and open out the Ethiopian flag, we see multitudes start to run towards the plane. Sister Fay was a witness to that. Ma Ashanti was a witness to that. Ethiopians start to run to the plane when we take a stand. The aviation workers left their duties, and you know what airline duty is all about, timing, because a flight is supposed to refuel and leave on time. Every man was at the plane steps to meet the elder, to meet InI. And then we have a bredren start to give out some buttons with His Majesty. You want to see Ethiopians start stretch forth their hand, you want to see it manifest. You want to see Ethiopians start stretch forth their hands to get a picture of Haile Sellassie I, because during the Mengistu regime you could die for that. Because when the Mengistu army come in and see a picture of Haile Sellassie upon the wall, they just lock the door, pour oil around the house and light it up, and any man run out get gunned down. That happened in Ethiopia during the reign of Mengistu Haile Mariam.

Ras Ivi – Menens’ Marriages and Children before Haile Sellessie I
Also, I find some real interesting pieces within the book. I find things I question and I say this needs a little more research, to dig a deeper into it. You can’t tell no Rastaman that the Empress had three or four different husbands, that’s a serious thing to say. This came out in the book, and it came out in other books too. But I have always questioned that this young princess grown in this Orthodox Christian home, I think she was well-sheltered, she was not like the other girls in the society because she grew up in a noble family. For the same things to happen to her as the average Ethiopian girls, I kind of question it too. And then me say, alright, she was married at twelve, and it took a time to get to know him before marriage, although we understand that Ethiopia don’t afford young girls the time. Dem marry early, you know. [Menen actually was betrothed at age nine in the year 1900, and had her first child when she was eleven.]

Ras Ivi - Anjahli Parnell Writing the Biography of Empress Menen

The only books I know were written by Talbot, Butler, and James Dugan wrote “The Emperor and Crown”. James Dugan quoted that Haile Sellassie, was like a son of Ezekial and Jeremiah, and said, “He is a man of peace, but if war comes, he will lead his armies onto the battlefield with the Ark of the Covenant born at his side.” And if you talk about David Talbot, and his book “The Silver Jubilee”, and the Pankhurst family, Richard and Sylvia. So put aside when it comes to this race thing. When it comes to truth, any person who honors truth, yes, I will accept that truth.

Anjahli, I want to thank you for taking time out. If you went to Addis Ababa in search of Rastafari and you don’t meet Mr King, Ras Agasa, you have to make another journey. Ras Agasa, a Rastaman who went to Ethiopian in the time of Mengistu’s regime, could have done what you did, but it wasn’t his mission. His mission was trying to get his family settled, get a job, get his wife a job, and he had the duties of the Ethiopian World Federation on his head. Probably Muta never find time to do it. The pioneer settlers who were there never find time to do it. You (Anjahli Parnell) found time to do it, and you did it.

It’s for InI now, Rasta people to read this book because it tells you about our mother and how gracious she was, how kind she was, how divine she was, how she was about the nation above self. And you think she was only spiritual, she was an entrepreneur, a shrewd businesswoman, she was organized and set up her business because she knew that the spirituality alone can’t feed the hungry, it can’t cloth the naked, it can’t take care of the sick. The Empress had a balance. And we set up the daughters then, you all have a great mother, emulate her, look upon her from the King of Irites. Look at her for her work and say - yes she did it as an example and we can also do it too.

Mitzie Tafari Williams: Administrator - Nyabhingi Order of Jamaica
Greetings everyone, we want to give thanks to be part of this blessed celebration of Empress Menen. It’s a very easy book to read. You did some translation from Ethiopian and you recorded that, and you gave your own input in the book, and it’s wonderful! As Ras IvI said, there are things that we will look at and we question because we did not know it before, and that’s natural. But you have given us something that we can continue to build on and I give thanks for that. This book allowed me the space to find my mother again. Knowing everything about Haile Sellassie, after a time being exposed to his biographies and his autobiographies, and reading and seeing that this was the man of the millennium, the man of every space that you could hold in terms of what history honors. It was wonderful after so much obscurity as to who Empress Menen was. It’s like finding your mother and her reintroducing you to your family, because a lot of what happened with the writing of His Imperial Majesty was that the family aspect of it was missing. After reading the biography, you can see now the other side of His Majesty himself, you see where the two of them connected as husband and wife, as mother as father, in the home, in the nation, so that is good.

Mitzie Tafari - Empress Menen is Real

But my most important message to Rastafari at this time, as far as Empress Menen is concerned, is that Empress Menen is real. I think that is the most important thing we need to understand because sometimes, even in relation to His Majesty and all our great heroes - Marcus Garvey and everybody. We tend to put them on pedestals, way up on some shelves, and we are not applying what we have learned from them to our everyday life. So Empress Menen is real, her life was real one, and her legacy remains a real one. So as Rastafari, I think the best way we can celebrate her is to be learning more about her and embracing everything that is so good about her. As Ras IvI said, she stood as a tower of strength to everyone around her. Her name Menen means light, and she shone that light in every area that that light needed to be shone.

Before she became Empress Menen, she had a life of nobility and was taught by her mother that although living a very privileged life, she had a responsibility of always caring for the welfare of Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian people. She grew up with this understanding, knowing that she never stood above the nation of Ethiopia. That anything she was going to do for the Ethiopian people, she had to be able to be sensitive and to be understanding of their needs, respond to the times, and just be there for the people at what ever times that she was required to be, in good times and in bad.

So we find a woman in growing up and going through all the things, as Ras IvI said, marriage and relationship and having children, and meeting the man she was to live with, to grow with, and to die with - Emperor Haile Sellassie. Her life was a very rounded one, a very challenging one, but a very fulfilling one. As a mother, she had ten children, but only six in the palace with her, those that she had with His Imperial Majesty. She had to find a way as the Empress of Ethiopia, when she became that, to balance her life as a mother, as a wife, in her office, in the schools, where she played a very large role. In the Empress Menen School, she often visited the children just for encouragement, and she attended functions there. She had to play a very balanced role within the Ethiopian nation.

When the challenges for Ethiopian came during the Italian invasion, the Empress had to be out there in the battlefield before she went into exile, giving strength and support to the brave Ethiopian soldiers who were defending their precious nation of Ethiopia. And within all of that she had health issues, and she had the challenges of loosing her children, six [in actuality - seven] of her ten children before she passed. That’s not ordinary for any mother, to experience, to have ten children and to have six [seven] of them die before you die, especially her beloved Prince Mekonnen, the gem of the family. That was a sad moment for her as a mother, where she had to grieve for herself, for her husband, for her family, and for people of Ethiopia who loved him so much.

So I’m asking everyone here to give out the message that Empress Menen is real and we just need to learn about her. She’s the woman who His Majesty chose to stand beside him, the perfect balance for him, the woman who he lived until she passed, the woman who he honored so much who gave him his six children, the woman who stood beside him in the building of Ethiopia. She is real! We don’t have to just chant Haile Sellassie I and Empress Menen and we don’t know who we‘re speaking about. Let us learn about her and know that when we walk in the likeness and the image of this woman, and we walk in perfection. Why who wouldn’t want to walk with someone like that, at any level - as a mother, a teacher, as a friend to somebody, she taught us everything that we would need to know.

Mitzie Tafari - The Virtues of the Empress
Humility - As a Rastafari woman, I admire Empress Menen for her humility. No one ever spoke of her behaving arrogantly, boastfully, as Ras IvI mentioned before. She always maintained a very humble spirit.
Loyalty - She was extremely loyal, not only to country, but to her husband as well. In times when she needed to be and loyalty was required, she knew where her loyalties lay, with her husband. When the time came for them to go into exile, when the Italian invasion came, she had to make very wise decisions immediately on behalf of the nation of Ethiopia, alongside her husband. And at the same time, she had to stand as the Empress of Ethiopia and appeal to the women of the rest of the world, who she had by that time become an example to. That the woman of the world needed to come together and stand for justice, stand against war at that time and when they were feeling so helpless, she was pleading to the women of the world, to understand that when war exists in any country it effects all the women, it effects all the families. We lose our brothers, we lose sons, and we lose our husbands.
Kindness - Empress Menen was also a very kind woman, somebody who was very selfless, used her own money for national development. She was taught from very early that in embracing modern technology and what was called civilization, she had to learn to balance it and maintain the traditions of Ethiopia. While she was opening up schools for young Ethiopian girls to be able to be educated and be able assist them to play their part in national development in Ethiopia. She gave young girls a chance to stand beside their brothers equally, and to be able to empower themselves to know that the Ethiopian nation depended on them, just a much as it depended on the boys of Ethiopia. So that example for me as a teacher and a mother has been a good one.
Modesty - I think as sisters especially, we must understand is that, Empress Menen is one of those women that shone a light of modesty. A light that the Rastafari woman has shone to the world as well, just by our visibility, everywhere you go in the world that you see a Rastafari woman – she stands out. And it’s just like Empress Menen, whenever you see her, she’s not only royally presented, but she’s modestly dressed. And I think that is something that as Rastafari woman we must not compromise that, because that’s what makes us different and that’s what makes us special. It’s not something that we must ever feel like it’s not the way that it should be. I’ve heard sisters say that they are not dressing in a certain way anymore because they are now liberated. Our liberation is us! Our liberation is expression of our self as Rastafari, which is a unique expression. And just like how we gave a unique culture to the world, the Rastafari woman has given a unique expression to the world in terms of her visibility. I think Empress Menen in every single aspect of her life lived this. She lived humility, she had a ‘livity’ to support it and as a woman, as a mother, she had the integrity that went along with it.

Mitzie Tafari - Anjahli Parnell

Anjahli Parnell, and everyone who has taken the time to give us back our history, they are all our humble servants, and all we can do is give thanks to them, no matter what color they are. Empress Menen is no one else’s history but InI. InI claim Ethiopia as our spiritual home, claim Haile Sellassie I as our spiritual father, and Empress Menen is our mother and she’s real. So I’m asking everyone to find this book, to find information anywhere there is to be found about this remarkable woman - the mother of the Ethiopian nation, the mother of InI Rastafari, and the mother of Iration. Learn about her and trod within her footsteps.

Empress Menen has given us a space in our lives where we can celebrate ourselves as women honorably. As I was telling Isis the other day, “I don’t have to be a Rastafari woman to be feel good about Empress Menen.” This is why I’m happy for this book. Any woman at all in this world, reading this book, learning about this woman, seeing the example that she has set, at a time when there were so many challenges in the world, at a time when her nation was at threat by some invaders. She stood up and she gave the world an example, and she shone a light, she was an example to the woman of Ethiopian.

Mutabaruka: Renowned Dub Poet and IrieFM DJ

Greetings. Last week I was attending an Empress Menen Earthday celebration in the Virgin Islands, and there was many sisters there from the other islands, and it was so wonderful!

Mutabaruka - Empress Menen had Children before Haile Sellassie

I want to go back to IvI reasoning. I remember the first time I read a little pamphlet I got in Ethiopia about Empress Menen and her children before Haile Sellassie. And when I say Emperor Haile Sellassie wife had children before Haile Sellassie, automatically I was no longer a Rasta, because the Rasta dem who call me was saying, “How come me could say such a thing, that Emperor Haile Sellassie married to a woman who have pickney before.” Now, this biography, I must say I read half of the book – went through. This book is showing us the biography of a real woman, an empress, who was married to a man that we say is our redeemer. So this is really a serious thing.

There’s a lot of things that were said in the past Rastafari say it, because of lack of information, it was presented as knowledge, but it was a belief, it was just trying to cement Judeo-Christian mindset with new idea of Rastafari, but not letting off of the Judeo-Christian mindset. So the confusion come when you try to engraft what we believe and what is now presented to us as reality. Haile Sellassie wife was with child, with children, before she married Haile Sellassie. This is something that I know a whole heap of elders who, if dem did here right now, dem walk out. IvI know that too. It was certain times in our development as Rasta youth, we get up and say that, dem walk out and say that we no’ Rasta. That is how terrible it was. After getting this information, what are we going to do with it to enhance the perception of Rastafari in this time? And not make Rasta look like - a little people dem who just a make up things as we go along. Because we don’t want to look like people who make up things because we get up one day and boy we say we see a Haile Sellassie vision and it come out as if is a real thing him a talk about, so when he sit down amongst the youth dem, he talk these things like, yes Haile Sellassie come and tell him say A this, B dat, and true he’s an elder, you can’t say nuttin’, you have to just go and run with it.

But information is very important ina this time here to the development of Rastafari, Rastafari Movement and how far we’re going to take it, and how far we’re going to carry come. Lack of information and investigation don’t present itself if we continue to believe. And we have to realize and accept the truth that a lot of things that we hold fast to, we believe we believe it. We have to confront that in our consciousness. We have to sit down in the deepest part of wi belly and say, “Why am I believing this thing and it no real. What did I do to come to this conclusion? But guess what, we never investigate the circumstances about the time when it was written.

Mutabaruka - Beyond the Judeo-Christian Mindset

The sister wrote a biography of Empress Menen, and there’s a lot of things that are in this book, that if we go into religion and the perception of Rastafari – we might not accept it, if we stay into that box that say, our religion is defined through Judeo-Christianity, therefore there are certain things that we are not going to accept, even though the thing a stare in front of we. Rastafari is real, Rastafari is not a illusion penetrated by some form of philosophy in this sky. (“RastafarI!”) We was so presumptuous to bring what most people call God in our sphere in our environment and say, “This is God, Emperor Haile Sellassie I. That is a really a serious thing to say that in Earth, and a group of people in Jamaica come say that - it’s a serious thing. And we have people accept, and people a follow it, and people live according to it. Dem still hold on upon some little story, like them storybook children, (“True.”) when the reality is now confronting us?

Just like how you hear a Rastaman say, “The wages of sin is death.” Him take it more literal than a Christian. So when a bredren dead, dem say, “Dem no choose fi do it. Something wrong make him dead.” Of course something wrong make him dead - all of we a go dead. But how much men want to say that? The idea, just the thought of saying that is not in the consciousness of Rastafari. Yes, guess what? It’s a real thing. (“We all go dead.”) You see what I mean, is a real thing. (Laugh) What’s that him say, for a couple years, “So man na go dead.” You know, so it never an overstanding. So him never did age enough, because Rasta just start so there was no one who was dieing who was Rasta, until now when them is 70, or 80 year-old and you see them die. So when them die now, how can we living in the same world identify Emperor Haile Sellassie and Empress Menen - and Haile Sellassie crying at her funeral. And when we look now, we still have the same mentality, the same thinking, after the information. The elders is dieing in front of us. Why should we hold on upon the old way of thinking that is saying, “Why the wages of sin is death.” So whadya tell me? Everybody who is dead a sin, him sin? Circumstances make people dead, yes. (“Sin! You should sin and live!” Ma Ashanti)

Mutabaruka - Rastafari Honors the Ethiopian Imperial Family

We go to Ethiopia, and just like Ras IvI talk about the flag, it’s Rasta who make them start to take out the speeches of Haile Sellassie. (“True.”) That time me have the book store, me say, “Me want the ‘Selected Speeches of Haile Sellassie’.” You have to walk all a mile with a man, and go ina one place and him go into one corner and check out one box. And we say, “Blood bath!” Him feel good when he know say he get rid of them, because in Mengistu time every one of them books have to go underground, you couldn’t go sell them in a shop and bookstore. So dem dead there! And we who know the relevance of this will never feel no way to buy the whole box. We get it in Amharic, even though we can’t read it, because we say, no this must be preserved because them don’t know the fullness of it. Which Rasta ever read anything from the “Selected Speeches of Haile Sellassie”? Now you see publishers of Rastamind are breaking it down who have little booklet, that say, “Haile Sellassie say this and Haile Sellassie say that.” If we have all of these things now, bredren and sistren, how is that every time a Rasta talk about Haile Sellassie and Empress Menen him have to say something that Haile Sellassie never say, because him take it out of the Jewish Bible or the Christian Bible. Sometimes Rasta talk and them quote so much Bible you know, it’s like them have people quote back the bible to them and it creates so much confusion. So I say now lift the consciousness. This book is just to enhance our ability to express weself in a real way, when it come onto the king and queen of Ethiopia. (“IlieI”) That is all it is. We must not go out there, instead of we quoting what Haile Sellassie say, and then quote Jeremiah, we say Haile Sellassie say, and then quote Isaiah. Instead of quoting what Haile Sellassie say.

Mutabaruka - Information and Superstition

It is very important and significant now that we rise up, even though we raise Haile Sellassie to a level, that when we speak and when we articulate Rastafari it is coming from this new understanding because of information, through books like the biography, the autobiography, “The Selected Speeches”, and all some other books. I have about two books that Ethiopians write about Haile Sellassie. Serious books. The two sweetest pictures I have ever seen of Haile Sellassie and Empress Menen is in that book. And trust me - I don’t want a man to get high and tear the book so I just keep out of his way. I don’t want dem book to go out of my hand at all. Because we know say - information get us out of superstition. Knowledge is power, and we have to understand how powerful a man be or a woman be when knowledge quit them consciousness and them can articulate in such a way that men and people have to bow to what them a say.

And before we never had the information, so we have to create certain things to move we. We have to put it into perspective bredren and sistren. Ethiopia is a real place. Man fly there upon a plane. Somebody tell I say, “Haile Sellassie came here in a plane.” Them say, “No Haile Sellassie God, Haile Sellassie no fly upon a plane.” You know how many Rasta did say that? We can’t come say that again - He come upon a lightning bolt. After going through all of that and reaching this point in our life, there are a lot of things that were said, that we have to shake it off and come to a new realization that is going to enhance Rastafari creativity and understanding of life. Because the youth dem are going to ask you some questions that is wide of what the elders did hold off on.

The first time I come upon radio and say Rastaman must hail Empress Menen, someone call me and say, “Muta, whadya try do, make Empress Menen God too? And me a say, “Why not? A we a made Haile Sellassie God in the first place.” Understand? So the problem now arise where we show that an ancient African tradition where the male and female exist in the God state, if you want to call it that, that consciousness always have the feminine and the masculine. Because there is a chant, a female chant, by the Howelites, called “Mother of Creation.” but no Bhingi sing that. Just like how woman is forbidden to play the drum. And some important things you know - women must cover them head when approaching the tabernacle. Is Howel who say that you know. It’s the same Howel tell you say, “It’s a shame for man have long hair.” We never hear elders say, “Cut off nuttin’.” You see?

We balance it now without animosity, and we have to balance it through education and intelligence. We are going to hail Haile Sellassie I and Empress Menen, because it’s not a man thing. Read African History and know say what we a say is not new to African perception and philosophy. It’s not something new we a say, this was said thousands of years before us. As a matter of fact the Roman Catholic Church come and say, Hail Mary Mother of God, or God of Mother, because them a go to an ancient African perception about Isis being the mother of Horace, which is the sun in the sky. That’s why them say, “Jesus ina the sky, the sun in the sky.” Because the sun them a hail and don’t even understand that. So we come now and we recognize that.

Mutabaruka - Emperor Haile Sellassie’s Mother Yashimet Ali

When we read the heart of the biography of Haile Sellassie I and now we’re reading the biography of Empress Menen, and we still don’t really touch Yashimet Ali, well nobody know nuttin’ about her because she dead when Haile Sellassie was a little 2 year-old, 3 year-old, whatsoever. If you ask most Rasta about whose Yashimet, dem a say, “Who?” Dem never know say Haile Sellassie did have a mother. And you still have Rasta say Haile Sellassie never have no mother or father, nor elders because him from the order of Malchezidek. (“True”) It’s madness (“Never born, Never born.”) You have Rasta who will tell you that. (“Yes I”) And if you tell them that say, “Haile Sellassie have a mother.” Dem say, “Whadya say, Muta? You never read the bible? That Him is from the order of Malchezidek, neither have him mother, nor father.” And him mean it literal, him no mean it upon a little metaphysical level. And we look upon the perception of Yashmabet Ali, whose to tell maybe Yashmabet Ali was a Moslem. Think about that!