As urban development picks up pace, familiar landmarks are disappearing all too fast, along with structures of priceless historical value. Addis Ababa lacking an official list of its historically significant buildings, developers alone can not be blamed. This week’s Pankhurst’s corner sheds light on this significant heritage loss.
Belehu: Patriot and Martyr
Qanyazmach Belehu Degefe, popularly known as Shaka, was an Ethiopian Patriot who opposed the Italian Fascist invasion of Ethiopia in 1935-6. When resistance on the northern front failed he joined Ras Imru Haile Selassie in the struggle to keep Ethiopian resistance alive in the west of the country. Belehu, then serving as a Chamberlain, is mentioned in a letter which the Emperor despatched to the Ras, reproduced in Haile Sellassie’s Autobiography (Harold Marcus translation, page 8) Belehu later returned to Addis Ababa, where he was arrested immediately after the attempt on the life of the Italian viceroy Rodolfo Graziani. He was almost immediately shot, and is considered one of the Ethiopian martyrs of the Fascist era.
His House
Belehu had a house in the Arat Kilo quarter of the city. This building has long been regarded as a structure of some historical interest. It was listed as such by the Addis Ababa Municipality, and also figures in Milena Batistoni and Gian Paolo Chiari’s admirable book Old Tracks in the New Flower. A Historical Guide to Addis Ababa, which was published in the city in 2004. (page 114).
The Preservation Cause
The building was also architecturally interesting in that it belonged to the fast disappearing structures, which historians describe as of the Menilek-Iyasu-Zawditu style. This style is characterized by the abandonment of round buildings, and the use of worked stone, with wooden balconies, and often steep roof gables. Though in some ways reminiscent of Indian architecture – which is not surprising in that many of the city’s early builders hailed from the Sub-continent, the Ethiopian architecture of the era in question is unique: in fact nothing exactly like it is found anywhere in the world.
Such structures represent an important type of architecture about which the country could feel proud.
Several of these buildings have won high praise from architectural scholars, both in Ethiopia and abroad. The need to preserve them is recognized in a recent Addis Ababa City Government policy statement which claims that thir preservation is of major importance:
– to give the next generation “a profound and extensive awareness” of its historic and cultural heritage.
– to remind society at large of “the level of civilization” it attained in the past.
– to attract tourism, which is expected to become increasingly significant in the years ahead.
The significance of the city’s historic buildings – and the need to preserve them as part of Ethiopia’s cultural heritage – has led to founding, by Princess Mariam Senna, of an interesting Addis Ababa-based NGO: Addis Wubet which is committed to the city’s cultural preservtion.
Destruction
Belehu’s house, sad to say, has recently been destroyed: nothing whatsoever remains of it. The wood out of which it was made has been sold.
This destruction, which some might consider an act of vandalism, raises two important but related questions:
1. When is the Municipality going to issue a definitive list of Historic Buildings?
2. When is the Government going to introduce legislation for the legal protection of such listed buildings?
If and when historic buildings are to be demolished, the least we can expect is that the structure so condemned is scientifically photographed, and proper architectural drawings of it prepared; and that any parts of the building of cultural interest (roof decorations, lamp installations, window frames. perhaps part of the wallpaper, etc) be preserved for possible museum display. Failure to do this would constitute lack of respect for Ethiopian history and culture.
One last question deserves to be asked: Which is the next historic building to be destroyed?
(Originally published in Capital newspaper)
Richard Pankhurst 
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