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 Paulos Assefa
TOWER IN THE SKY by Hiwot Teffera: Published by Adds Ababa University Press, 2013, 437 pp. 74.00 Birr
“In this world there are two tragedies, one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it†Oscar Wild.
Published by Addis Ababa University Press, Tower in the Sky is truly a riveting personal account of how Hiwot Teffera embarked up on a rocky revolutionary path in the waning days of Haile Selassie’s Government in the mid 1970’s. It also includes material about her tumultuous romance with Getachow Maru, a key revolutionary figure, who was murdered in a gruesome manner due to internal dissent within the party by his “comrades-in-armsâ€. But there is much more to this book.
Unmistakably from a petite bourgeoisie family, Hiwot was born and reared in the old walled city of Harrar, where one encounters a great diversity of vibrant peoples, 525 kilometers away from the capital, Addis Ababa. She was educated there up through secondary school. A great turning point in her life came when she was chosen to be a member of the Student Council in her high-school junior year. After matriculating at Medhani Alem, she entered Haile Selassie I University, the epicenter of revolutionary agitation in the zesty early 1970’s to study European languages, for which she had conceived a passion since her early teens.
Scoundrel Times
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During her freshman year, she befriended Azeb Girma Tilhaun, a native of Addis Ababa. Like Hiwot, Azeb was already swept up in the revolutionary mood of the time; and no one who met her could forget her beauty or her ferocious intelligence and force of character. Azeb introduced her to a flow of stimulating friends who strove to bring about constructive and desperately needed changes to a nation ruled by a despotic feudal system for centuries. Passionate enthusiasm grabbed her. Here one gets the distinct impression that Azeb open her eyes to “social issues “in addition to a much more vibrant and vital life than she would otherwise have had at that particular point in time.
In the ensuing years, Azeb and Hiwot became inseparable as both moved in the intellectual circles with a rich variety of “Revos†who happily prated on the elaborate theoretical basis of Marxism-Leninism. Some had genuine socialist principles. And some were educated beyond their abilities. That much has to be said. Since then the world has changed, but the opportunistic bombast has not. The late Theodore W. Adorno, a popular cultural critic, in his seminal writings gave a vivid account of the regressive psychology of those organized secretive fringe groups which aptly and accurately fits the ethos of those pseudo-revolutionaries, who are now in an ironic twist willing to eat crumbs from the table of socially corrupted fat cat Woyannies. It was impossible to know how seriously these endlessly callow “Revos†took their pretension beyond the defiance of bourgeois values with no clear-cut, well-defined, practical objectives. Nor did they seem to have learned with passage of so many years to avoid in mid-life (perhaps a bit battered by now) that kind of repugnant behavior using threats and smear tactics to destroy their critics and unremitting hostility to other ethnic groups. Such at any rate, was the pivotal experience, which that generation encountered, exemplified by this exciting story from the variety of those days.
With this in the backdrop, an interesting and somewhat unusual thing had just happened to Hiwot. On a “blind date†arranged by a friend on campus, that she described lyrically with vibrant enthusiasm how she succumbed to the magnetic lure of the late Getachow Maru. He had earned his reputation as one of his generations arguably committed Marxists and a fervent admirer of Mao Zedong theories of guerrilla tactics. The charm was palpable on both sides despite their age differences. She was bowled over by his exuberant vitality, eloquence and ardent political commitment. As time goes on she “learned to love him passionately as their relationship grew and deepened.†She was imbued with passion then and there that as the poet John Milton had once brilliantly put it: “so dear I love him that with him all deaths I could endure, without him no lifeâ€. This is, one must say, not remotely surprising. But her earnestness when she made this statement at the heyday of the power of the Party makes one wonder if she meant it.
Falling on the sword
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Tower in the Sky, like many other books on EPRP revisits things in a fairly critical manner to fill gaps and pose interesting question concerning the dismal direction the Party had taken in sanctioning violent solutions to the country’s complex and troubled political problems. The upshot was that the Party ultimately met partially its inglorious end in Addis Ababa a little before the final death blow in Assimba. The bonhomie in comrade-to-comrades atmosphere was merely an eyewash. It was at this incredibly tense moment that there arose a sharp and direct challenge to the Party’s rickety structure from Berhane Meskel Redda, Getachow Maru, Getahun Sissay, Yirga Tessema, Abiyu Arsamo and Girma Geberyesus (boona/coffee) and many others -that led to division over tactics and goals. Each of others made a special contribution at the expense of their blood. This is now common knowledge in Ethiopia that EPRP has had a precarious existence due to dissent from day one. In fact, things had not happened quite suddenly. However, what makes matter worth noting is that Berhane Meskel Redda had a long lingering intellectual blood feud particularly with the party ideologue Zeru Kehishen and Kiflue Teffera, as documented by several published comments before the Anjas became monsters in the collective imagination of the of the League CC members. Sadly, this was also, where the Central Committee manifested its inability to understand Ethiopia’s integrative history while external the nation was at stake, and continued to make horrible mistake after mistake by escalating the political violence against those who stood in their way to power. What should have been obvious to Yebtach Akalat was utterly ignored, and the rest is history.
In Tower in the Sky, Hiowt demonstrated an encyclopedic –recall thick with factual details of decades ago. Her writing style is inimitable: interspersed with quotations from the New American Standard Bible, Lao Tzu, Arthur Koestler, Simon Weil, P. Diry, Albert Camus, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn among others. This is a strange and bizarre collection, given the nature of her book. Nevertheless, she is far from being pedantic; nor has she a Joan of Arc complex. Nor does she make Getachow’s life a fairy tale or turn her own life story as a cautionary tale for future “Revosâ€. She really approached her subject with magnificent élan and courage risking opprobrium on behalf of Anjas without any fear of reprisals. This in itself may not be surprising. In the interim, she gives unreserved impression to the reader, perhaps wrongly, that her EPRP credentials are in excellent order when she refers derisively to, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Meison, Echat, Waz, Malieried and Abyot Tabakis, who came off as kooky and creepy, as “fascists†on a scale scarcely imaginable. How long this kind of attitude persist vitrolically?  From all appearances, it seems infinitely better before than it is now under the brutal occupation of TPLF.  One has to wonder what could possibly be motivating the EPRDF’s interest in publishing, advertising, marketing and rave reviews. What is even more that she abides by a “kind of unspoken contract†not to reveal to her readers specifically the name of Dr. Hagos Beyene, in whose residence she was caught.
In her writing, Hiwot carries Ethiopia’s burden as she rhapsodically states, “As atlas did the vault of the skyâ€. Looking back in Orwellian sense, from the murder of Getachow and from her own imprisonment for many years under extreme conditions in the infamous carcere, that early experience of EPRP was Hiwot’s idea of paradise as she rose quickly through the revolving-door as alternate Inter Zone CC member. Furthermore, She sketches the historical context to understand the turbulent political tides particularly between in 1976- to 1978, when the almost-forgotten urban youth from ethnically marginalized and mostly poor family  offered their fervor and blood in pursuit of their realization to bring a democratic change against the well-entrenched Derg and its mighty military forces.  Names like Adinew Kairo an engineer, Elias Waldemariam a student of pure math, a rare soul who clearly knew Das Kapital thoroughly, Negatwa Tulu, Lieutenant Merid Tassaw, Yoseph Adana and Tadeleach Issayas, Gerti Chala, Abdi Sandelo, Solomon Girma Tilhaun (Azeb’s brother) and Slishi Zewde Tilhaun, who had the world at their feet simply sacrificed themselves for a genuine social ideal. While others, from poor family raised by single parents like Getachow Tsegi , Zewdu Tamuru and the old lady, the mother of the play writer, Mengestu Lemma were left to face death squads.
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Into the Abyss
Of foremost importance is her tribute to particular greatness of Azeb Girma. According to one widely believed story she was subjected to relentless interrogation after being sold down the river by a professed and “dear friendâ€. Azeb, like Aklilu Hiruey was tortured to death without shopping any of her comrades-in-arms like. As a matter of fact, 17 of them made their escape route with their dear life to the US via. Assimba. That notwithstanding, the handful of the god-kings (Yebelay Akalat) with a sense of absolute power and importance have sacrificed more than a thousand to a veritable people “insurrection†on the eve of May Day in 1977 out of vanity and hubris in order to control the county’s political life. To this day, tears still come to people’s eyes as they remembered 12-year –old innocent boys and girls mown down by machine-guns. The loss of life was tremendous. Nothing like this had been seen since the massacre of unarmed peaceful demonstrators during fraud election by TPLF in May 2005. Even Kiflue Tadesse, a veteran EPRP, whom people are expecting a masterful explanation for this pretty sordid story does not yet explain for years
Hiwot also describes prison life in excruciating detail and the wretched condition that exist in carcere. It is here also that the author sympathizes how Berhane’s widow, Tadeleach Hailemicheal Wakeney, who was imprisoned for more than twelve solid years where she delivered her healthy daughter. At about the same time, Naamat Issa, a political prisoner, after difficult labor delivered her son, Amansissa Mulugeta. How does one explain the situation of Naamat and her son which by almost any measure was far worse than that of Tadleach? Hiwot does not comment on this difference which reflects on her sense of woman solidarity. It is just sufficient to say Naamat Issa, who is as a result of unrelenting torture in her early pregnancy delivered a boy, Amansiisa with mental illness for life in the woman ward. Almost all the prisoners including the prison guards poignantly remember the sheer awfulness of this inhumanity perpetrated by the Derg to Naamat and particularly her little boy. What makes it even more disheartening is that Naamat is banished today by the “benevolent†EPRDF with her son to a life of dehumanizing circumstance as a refugee from her ancestral home, whereas Tadelach is rewarded with plush job and lives in garish style with her pretty daughter in a posh neighborhood in Paris.
That there is no mention of the leading role played by Lieutenant Abebe Jimma is also a bit puzzling. He was a singular figure readers ought to know about. Like Makonen Bayissa, Abebe came to prominence as a president of the student council in high school in Bisheoftu; before that he also attended the University and then joined the Police Academy, where he graduated with flying colors. It was because of Abebe that the Anjas were able to get a large number of automatic weapons from the Civil Aviation Authority. At one time he was the most wanted man nationwide. He went underground in Merhabete where he soon had an acrimonious falling out with the “legendary†Berhane Meskel Redda and disenchanted, left in disgust and later joined the shiftas where the region was rife with bandits until he eventually ended up as a refugee in Nairobi, Kenya. A natural born leader with unimpeachable integrity, he was always committed throughout his life to the broadest democratic and social principles. Evidence for this is supplied, inter alia, by Hugh Pilkington Charitable Trust based in Oxford, England.
There is so much to admire in this book even though no family members were interviewed for the segment on Getachow’s complex and colorful life, where his kin folks are like poppy seeds scattered everywhere between Washington and Addis Ababa, including the former Derg member, Melese Maru. Aside from his siblings, talking to people like Dr. Mulushowa Mulaat and Fekermariam Hiruy from way back from Patriot Elementary School and to Science Faculty, Tarriku Debertsion, Assefa Endeshaw (an instructor at Mekele University) and most of all, Sirak Belayneh an EPRP mole, who penetrated the highest reaches of Meison (who resides now in DC) would have given the readers to gain to shed light on the life and times of Getachow Maru. People like Gezahane Endale, Tesfaye Mekonen and Ammanuel Geberyesus knew Berhane Mesqal Redda inside out. I am not questioning here the integrity of Shimilis Retta and Nebiyu Aynalem, these fringe acquaintances as credible and reliable resources for forming the scaffolding of Getachow’s life. However, it is quite obvious that the portrait lacks dimension while it has a gossipy quality. It is imperative that for Getachow’s life to be reconstructed, almost all the information has to be dredged up by painstaking efforts; for example his writings. At any rate, I would endorse  Milan Kundera’s famous lines, “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting†It is in the nature of things, that dementia set in over the years! Most people have no memory of those dreadful occasions.
Perplexingly enough, one of Getachow’s friend is the one who unwittingly revealed to the security chief of the party, Kiflu Teffera a germane information told to him confidentially, as a trusted “friend†and against all reasons, about the assassination attempt on the PMAC Chairman which was in the offing, a little before it occurred on 23rd September 23, 1976.  What is one to make all of this? Apart from that,, how could as prisoners Nebiyue and Shimilis forget the traumatic event where 37 Alem Bekagn inmates were massacred in cold blood, not to mention the wounded, in the rainy night by Major Kassaye Aragaw for raising the issue of reform within the prison system which was called for by   those  university students. Contrary to Nebiyue and Shimilis account, it was an incident that had a mark bearing in their political outlook. To cite one example that I know of personally: the same incident made  Nolawi Abebe ill disposed towards the government., who was recognized by his contemporaries as one of the most remarkable and truly dedicated revolutionary of that generation.   The omission of the crucial role played by TPLF to destroy EPRP is simply too egregious to be disregarded; and consistently colluded in the early years with the Derg by giving valuable information on fellow EPRP members who were fleeing the repression on their way to Assimba. This is by no means to suggest that this book tries to reinforce the position of EPRDF nor  that the publisher slanted the narrative by controlling all relevant information that could reflect negatively, reflect poorly on the Tigryan elite at the helm of “federal†power.
With that written, people especially the young generations, should read Tower in The Sky. It fills out the knowledge of an otherwise forgotten EPRP/Anja. It is highly informative and best of all well written. Do not miss it!
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