Nathan Levy relates some results of his recent university research
Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1975, is probably one of the most curious characters of 20th-century history.
Most people recognise that he greatly influenced the course of Ethiopian and wider African history, but to some 1 million people he is the Lord incarnate. Contrarily, and above all things, however, this was a national figurehead of immense faith, who would have rejected – and did reject – any such notion that he was the Messiah.
Exile in Britain
Since May 2014, as part of my history degree, I have been working at a house in Bath of a somewhat unlikely significance to a yet more unlikely people. In a city which even in 2011’s Census was nearly 95% white, Fairfield House is something of a shrine for the world’s Ethiopian and Rastafarian diasporas. This was the house where Haile Selassie spent his exile between 1936 and 1941 as Italy occupied what was then still called Abyssinia. He campaigned for international denunciation of the Italian occupation and also wrote his autobiography during this period, based in Bath.
Accompanied by his family and entourage, the Emperor came into great financial and material difficulty whilst in Britain, despite being removed from the immediate danger of the Italians (his exile was something which was decided to be for the nation’s good among his inner circles and advisors). However, he always recog-nized what he himself called ‘the warm and courteous hospitality of the people of Bath’ that was extended to him. In 1954 he was awarded the Freedom of the City in a memorable civic spectacle. In 1958 he donated the house, which he’d purchased in September 1936, to the city ‘to serve as a home for the aged’. While, due to regulation changes in the 1990s, the house cannot be used for exactly that, it still primarily functions as the meeting place and hub of the Bath Ethnic Minorities Senior Citizens’ Association (BEMSCA).
Ruth Haskins
The work I have been involved in is the development of the house so that it can function as an accredited museum. I am involved in the process of applying for HLF funding to collect and relay oral history accounts of Haile Selassie’s time there, and of people who came into contact with the house in its other epochs. It seems that everybody who was around in Bath when the Emperor lived there, or even when he returned in 1954, has a story to tell about him!
None more so, perhaps, than Ruth Haskins, who I recently had the privilege of interviewing. She worked at the house in the summer of 1937 as a nanny to the Emperor’s grandchildren and recalls how wonderful he and the family were to her during this time. She thinks that she is probably the only person alive from Bath who really knew the Emperor.
One of the things she stressed most in the interview was that ‘he was a man of faith… very faithful’. When I asked her of what he would make of being regarded as the Messiah, she was adamant: ‘he wouldn’t like that, he wouldn’t like that, I know he wouldn’t like that’.
Rastafarianism
Indeed, when the Emperor himself was approached on this issue in a radio interview in 1967, this was his response: ‘I have heard of that idea [of being considered Messiah]. I also met certain Rastafarians. I told them clearly that I am a man, that I am mortal and that they should never make a mistake in assuming or pretending that a human being has emanated from a deity.’
I have no interest in disrespecting or agitating the Rastafari movement. Those whom I have had the pleasure of meeting whilst working at Fairfield have been open, friendly, loving people who are very well-informed on current world affairs.
We have had some brilliant discussions. Some I have spoken to even acknowledge the legitimacy of the gospel, and merely see Selassie as a ‘good role model’. Many others, however, see him as the Messiah, but he rejected such notions; however well-inten-tioned it is, the notion that this man was the Messiah is blasphemous, and he himself acknowledged that.
The words quoted are instead the words of a man who would sleep only three hours a night so that he could fit one hour of prayer into his inevitably busy life; a man who had a chapel built in the garden of Fairfield House. A world leader acting in such faithfulness and reverence seems almost impossible in an age where, in the oft-quoted words of Alastair Campbell, we allegedly ‘don’t do God’.
Man of prayer
In times of both political and personal stress, Haile Selassie remained fervent in prayer and faith: ‘our faith in God was firm’, he wrote, in his autobiography, of a difficult period during the Italian occupation. During this time, one of the most powerful abiding images Mrs Haskins has was seeing him crying for his people’s plight, with pools of tears filling dimples from mustard gas damage on the backs of his hands, such was his compassion.
In an interview with the Lutheran TV presenter, Dr Oswald Hoffman, on Christmas Day 1968, the Emperor stated that it was God who sustained him in times of difficulty such as these. Can we imagine our leaders, or indeed ourselves, speaking and acting with such sincerity?
Importance of the gospel
In that same interview, he emphasized the central importance of the gospel in our lives, and the consequent need for us to strive to be like Christ: ‘When Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, from that time on he lived an exemplary life, a life which men everywhere must emulate. This life and the faith which he has taught us assures us of salvation…
‘It’s quite true that there is no perfection in humanity. From time to time we make mistakes. We do commit sins, but even as we do that, deep in our hearts as Christians we know we have a chance of forgiveness from the Almighty. He taught us that all men are equal regardless of sex, their national origin and tribe. And he also taught us all who seek him shall find him’.
Four pillars
He later went on to explain that the four gospels ‘are pillars for all men on the earth’, and also that the Bible should be considered in its entirety and ‘not be cut into portions’. He emphasized the beauty of church unity in Christ: ‘Christianity is not restricted to a given church and I stress above all that we do not wish to make distinctions’.
Central to all this, however, was Calvary. This was emphasized in the Emperor’s ‘Building an Enduring Tower’ speech at the World Evangelical Congress in Berlin in 1966. He declared that ‘this age above all ages is a period of history when it should be our prime duty to preach the gospel of grace to all our fellow men and women’. That message was one of a Saviour who offered and offers ‘forgiveness to all including those that crucified him’.
Grace offered to all
Believed to be the 225th direct descendant of King Solomon, Haile Selassie was indeed regarded – almost universally – as a man of great wisdom. He was also, however, a man of great humility who rejected the blasphemous notion that he was God incarnate. His greatest wisdom was in his unwavering faith in the Living God and the gospel. Crucially, he was a human saved by a grace offered to all. We should pray that our leaders, our society, and indeed we ourselves can gladly and boldly declare that, like Haile Selassie, ‘I glory in the Bible’.
Nathan Levy is a third-year history student in Bath whose work at Fairfield House has included developing a GPS-based app of places of interest related to Haile Selassie’s time in the South West. His home church is Ebenezer in Swansea.
