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Ethiopia The Postwar Period, 1945-60: Reform and Opposition
Despite criticism of the emperor's 1936 decision to go into
exile, the concept of the monarchy remained widely accepted
after World War II. The country's leaders and the church
assumed that victory over the Italians essentially meant the
restoration of their traditional privileges. Before long,
however, new social classes stirred into life by Haile
Selassie's centralizing policies, as well as a younger
generation full of frustrated expectations, clashed with
forces bent on maintaining the traditional system.
Change and Resistance
The expansion of central authority by appointed officials
required a dependable tax base, and that in turn encroached
on the established prerogatives of those who had been
granted large holdings in the south and of gult-holders of
the Amhara-Tigray highlands. Consequently, in March 1942,
without reference to the restored parliament, the emperor
decreed a taxation system that divided all land into one of
three categories: fertile, semifertile, and poor. A fixed
levy, depending on category, was imposed for each gasha
(forty hectares) of land.
The nobles of Gojam, Tigray, and Begemdir refused to accept
any limitation upon the prevailing land tenure system and
successfully battled the government over the issue. The
emperor acknowledged defeat by excluding those provinces
from the tax. When landlords elsewhere also protested the
tax, the emperor exempted them as well, contenting himself
with a flat 10 percent tithe on all but church land. But
this tax, traditionally collected by landlords, was simply
passed on to the tenants. In short, the emperor pursued
policies that did not infringe on the rights of the nobility
and other large landholders. In 1951, in response to
additional pressure from the landlords, Haile Selassie
further reduced the land tax payable by landlords and not
covered by previous exemptions; the peasant cultivator, as
in centuries past, continued to carry the entire taxation
burden.
Some reform was also effected within the Ethiopian Orthodox
Church. In July 1948, Haile Selassie initiated steps,
completed in 1956, by which he, rather than the patriarch of
Alexandria, would appoint the abun, or patriarch, of the
Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Thus, for the first time in
sixteen centuries of Ethiopian Christianity, an Ethiopian
rather than an Egyptian served as head of the national
church. The Ethiopian church, however, continued to
recognize the primacy of the Alexandrian
see. This appointment was followed by the creation of enough
new bishoprics to allow the Ethiopians to elect their own
patriarch. Abuna Basilios, the first Ethiopian archbishop,
was elevated to the status of patriarch in 1959. The postwar
years also saw a change in the church-state relationship;
the vast church landholdings became subject to tax
legislation, and the clergy lost the right to try fellow
church officials for civil offenses in their own court.
Acutely aware of his international image, Haile Selassie
also was active on the diplomatic front (see
Foreign Policy,
ch. 4). Ethiopia was a founding member of the United Nations
(UN) and the Organization of African Unity (OAU). After the
postwar relationship with Britain wound down, the emperor in
1953 asked the United States for military assistance and
economic support. Although his dependence on Washington
grew, Haile Selassie diversified the sources of his
international assistance, which included such disparate
nations as Italy, China, the Federal Republic of Germany
(West Germany), Taiwan, Yugoslavia, Sweden, and the Soviet
Union.
Data as of 1991
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