The 1896 Battle of Adwa, Ethiopia: Insights on Africa’s Contemporary Challenges

Webinar with Experts on the Battle of Adwa and Contemporary Lessons for Africa today

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, USA, April 24, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ -- The Anti-Racism Initiative of the G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20), the world’s leading organization focused on the intersection of faith and policy, in collaboration with the International Academy for Multicultural Cooperation, is gathering world-renowned experts on the Battle of Adwa in Ethiopia. This year marks the 127th anniversary of one of the greatest victories in the annals of military history -- the Battle of Adwa, on March 1, 1896, when Ethiopia, led by the courageous Empress Taytu Betul and her husband Emperor Menelik II defeated an invading Italian army seeking to colonize the country.

Battle of Adwa

As a result of the historic victory, Ethiopia survived as the only African country not colonized by a European power during the "Scramble for Africa" between 1880 and 1900. Ethiopia was able to guide its own socioeconomic and political destiny during a period when all other African territories had lost their sovereignty and suffered under the repressive and destructive thumb of European imperialism.

“The Ethiopian victory against European imperialism and white supremacy at the Battle of Adwa was on behalf of the entire African continent and it even inspired Africans all over the world in areas where the news was disseminated,” says Milton Allimadi, author of ADWA: Empress Taytu & Emperor Menelik in Love & War. “What makes it even more noteworthy is the role that Empress Taytu played, going to the frontlines with her husband, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice by risking her life. The role of African women is often marginalized in history. That’s why, even more so, the victory at Adwa needs to be more widely known.”

So, it came as no surprise that in 1963, when rapid formal decolonization from European rule started in Africa, the first meeting of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was held in Addis Ababa the Ethiopian capital. The OAU was superseded by the African Union (AU) in 2002. Yet, 60 years after the inaugural OAU meeting there is still no United States of Africa.

Contemporary Lessons

The African continent remains marginalized, and dependent on the economies of the industrialized Western countries and on China. Multinational corporations continue to exploit Africa's resources to build prosperity while impoverishing Africa. There are armed conflicts in every region of the continent and Ethiopia itself has just experienced a devastating civil war.

Dr. Mohammed Nurhussein, MD, National Chairman of the United African Congress says, “Within an African diaspora the famous Battle of Adwa has become almost a synonym for black purity. It also energized the Pan-African movement not only in order to imagine a decolonial project, but to point to black sovereignty in the world. Ethiopia’s defeat over Italy has shaped Ethiopia’s self-understanding as a black empire. Yet it’s often overlooked that this event was also consequential within the region. Adwa has become a signifier for an imperial project to occupy land and to subjugate people within the boundaries of contemporary Ethiopia. This tension and double bind of what and where Adwa lies, is one that still informs our perception of Ethiopia, on one hand as a black empire and on the other as a self-declared multi-ethnic state in crisis. For Pan-Africanist movements this tension has been a challenging task and requires us to reflect on the modalities of solidarity.”

Are there lessons to be drawn from Ethiopia's victory at Adwa to guide the African continent in its struggle to free itself from neo-colonialism and contemporary exploitation? Our panel of African Scholars will address that question in a webinar scheduled for Thursday, April 27, 2023, at 10:00 A.M. EDT.

Register for the free webinar on Thursday, April 27, 2023 at 10:00 A.M. EDT:

https://bit.ly/battle-of-adwa-ethiopia

Speakers will include:

• Milton Allimadi is an Adjunct Professor of History at John Jay College of the City University of New York. He is the publisher of blackstarnews.com a Pan-African oriented media outlet. Allimadi hosts the weekly “Black Star News Show” on WBAI 99.5 FM Radio. He is the author of “Manufacturing Hate—How Africa Was Demonized in Western Media” and “ADWA: Empress Taytu & Emperor Menelik in Love & War," (2023).

• Dr. Mohammed Nurhussein, the national chairman of the United African Congress (UAC) served as chief of Geriatrics at State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn until his retirement as Associate Professor of Medicine Emeritus. He is on the executive Board of Ethio-American Doctors Group (EADG), a consortium of some 350 Ethiopian doctors in the US and Canada committed to building state of the art $100 million project, internationally accredited hospital in Addis Ababa.

• Sabine Mohamed is Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department at Johns Hopkins University. She is a political, urban, and economic anthropologist. She received her doctorate in Anthropology from the University of Heidelberg in 2021. Her dissertation and current book project, entitled Losing Ground: Emergent Black Empire and Counter-Futures in Urban Ethiopia, ethnographically explores how categories of blackness and race, as well as experiences of urban and national dispossession are attached to an infrastructure of emergent empire in East Africa.

• Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja is a professor of African and Global Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 2007. His book, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History (London and New York: Zed Books, 2002), won the 2004 Best book Award from the African Politics Conference Group (APCG).

Marianna Richardson
G20 Interfaith Forum
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