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It was with great sadness that we learned that Professor Mesfin Wolde Mariam, who died on September 29, an indefatigable Ethiopian nationalist, no longer exists. Mesfin is a victim of Covid-19 at the age of 91.
For me, writing this In Memory is personal. Brings back decades of memories. The first time I remember seeing Professor Mesfin Wolde Mariam was when he came to General Wingate High School to recruit me and three other teenage colleagues to work at the Ethioamerican Institute of Cartography and Geography, of which he was co-director. He was removed from office due to his strong nationalist stance that made it difficult for him to work with his American counterpart and the then Minister of Education. Lij Endalkachew Makonnen appointed him as professor of geography at the University College of Addis Ababa. Together with my colleagues, we followed him there.
Later, when I, in particular, settled into a life of radical student movement and helped found “the Addis Ababa University Students Union” (USUAA) that he finally organized Earth at the helm In addition to the demand for the dismantling of the Shola camp, where the starving poor who flocked to Addis for mere survival were imprisoned, Mesfin was with the students. She was with us the whole time when we launched the radical student newspaper Difficult, that punished the feudal regime. During those tumultuous days at University College, Mesfin continued to be a mentor not only to me, but also to many of my radical colleagues, including Haile Fida, Berhane Meskel Reda, and Walelign Mekonnen. He continued to side with the students when student president Tilahun Gizaw was assassinated and his colleagues held a vigil with his body, but were brutally massacred by Haile Selassie police on the university campus of Sidista Weight.
It is important to note that a few years earlier, when during the abortion coup Led by Mengistu and Germame Neway, the university students who demonstrated in support of the uprising, Mesfin was the only faculty member to accompany the protesters since Skirt weight to La Garre offer advice to young protesters on what they should and should not do At the end of the day, he saved the student protesters from a certain massacre by warning them not to disobey the orders of the pro-monarchist soldiers led by General Merid Mengesha, whose heavily armed military police pointed their guns at the protesters and began to count down. since 10, ordering protesters to back off or face a mass slaughter. When the count reached 3, Mesfin jumped to the forefront and threw Shibiru Seifu, Tamiru Faisa, and Student President Teshome H. Gabriel who were preparing to martyr themselves and their colleagues for the cause of the revolution so that it would not continue. The protesters listened to their teacher’s advice and turned around, avoiding a certain carnage at the right time.
During his time on the faculty and even long after his retirement, Mesfin never rested from advancing the cause of the oppressed Ethiopian people. He had always been a giant of man, if not in body, in intellect, and in nationalistic spirit. His many books testify to his tenacity and tremendous intellectual acumen. He persevered through the pain and tragedy of Dreg’s murderous period. He stood his ground through Woyane excesses.
Due to Mesfin’s staunch opposition to ethnic fragmentation and his religious dedication to fair elections, equality, the protection of human rights and governance under the rule of law, he was a target of the EPRDF axes. He played a decisive role in the creation of the party “Coalition for Unity and Democracy” (CUD), which; According to the European Union election observer Anna Gómez, she won the general elections but was shamelessly overruled by Meles Zenawi who with the manipulation of a secret system known as 1 to 5 claimed to have won every seat in parliament in 2010. When in 2005 Mesfin refused to give in to the authoritarian dictate and stood his ground, he was thrown into Alem Beqagn jail with his companions, where he remained for almost two years. He stoically accepted this degrading treatment, not to satisfy personal ambition or vanity; not for wealth or power; but for the sake of cultivating democracy for the people of Ethiopia and for the country they loved from the bottom of their hearts.
Mesfin is now gone, guided by the same faith he placed in the multitudes of victims of the Wollo famine, whose plight helped draw the attention of the international community during the last days of Emperor Haile Selassie’s rule. He championed the cause of human rights victims under the TPLF government and sought to forge a democratic order for his people most recently using social media to which he contributed insightful ideas until his last breath. For these and many other achievements, as I mentioned in my book on Haile Selassie in 2010, I deserved to receive the award. Nobel Peace Prize.
Mesfin has finally joined those he fought for, leaving those of us who mourn his death with the memorials he left behind, the good he bequeathed to the current generation, the vision he left behind as a beacon of light. Mesfin will always remain a unique and enduring image of an indefatigable Ethiopian nationalist, who gave our hearts a living flame of love for the homeland, an adoration that we must pass on to our progeny. It was because he was a great Ethiopian nationalist who, in our darkest days, lit a candle of hope and tried to free many of his countrymen from the clutches of despair and repressive tyranny.
Whenever Mesfin spoke of the plight of his people in conference rooms or in political forums, his voice sounded with courage, boldness, hope, and rocky conviction. In fact, there has been no nationalist of his stature in our lifetime. So instead of grieving, we should strive to be worthy of his example.
May God bless Professor Mesfin Wolde Mariam and may he rest in eternal peace.
