Looking Back Critically at the Myths of Ethiopian Historical and Natural Rights to own sea-access in the Red Sea.
One must question not only the reckless course charted by Abiy Ahmed Ali and his Prosperity Party, but also the deeper, unspoken intentions that may lie beneath their rhetoric. At times, their words and actions appear less like nation-building and more like the deliberate acceleration of Ethiopia’s fragmentation. Their recent claim to a “historical and natural right” to Red Sea access is a striking example—an assertion that risks reopening long-suppressed historical wounds, wounds that cannot be healed with cosmetic “economic corridors” or symbolic resort projects.
Ethiopia’s political narrative has often been built on selective memory, avoiding uncomfortable truths. Yet, to understand the present crisis, we must confront those suppressed chapters. Consider the complex and little-discussed relationship between Sylvia Pankhurst—a British suffragette turned anti-fascist activist—and Emperor Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen).
Pankhurst, a committed Marxist-Leninist who once debated Lenin himself, dedicated the latter part of her life to fighting Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia. She met Haile Selassie during his exile in the 1930s and became his most vocal advocate in Britain, organizing public demonstrations and publishing a weekly newspaper, New Times and Ethiopia News, from her modest East London home. Her relentless lobbying kept Ethiopia in the British public eye, even as the British government—eager not to alienate Mussolini—treated Haile Selassie as an awkward guest and formally recognized Italy’s occupation.
The partnership between Pankhurst and Haile Selassie was, in many ways, an odd one. He was a monarch claiming divine descent from Solomon and Sheba, enshrining his “God-given” authority into the 1955 constitution. She was a nonconformist socialist with little use for monarchy. Yet Haile Selassie rewarded her loyalty extravagantly: granting her Ethiopian citizenship, naming a street after her, giving her a villa in Addis Ababa, and ensuring she was buried with state honors beside members of the royal family—renaming her Wolete-Kristos (“Child of Christ”). She is the only foreign citizen to be awarded a patriots medal and the Order of the Queen of Sheba, by Hailesellasie, an honor usually reserved for foreign Queens.
When Sylvia had the opportunity to fly for the very first time in her life, her journey took her to Eritrea. There, in Asmara, she stood alongside the Union Party, delivering speeches and campaigning for Eritrea’s merger with Ethiopia. Though she had little understanding of the complex politics between the two nations, she became—much to the delight of Haile Selassie—the leading voice for a ‘Greater Ethiopia,’ to the deep disappointment of many in the Horn of Africa who had lived for centuries with their own distinct identities and histories.
Today, her name is largely absent from Ethiopian historical memory. This is no accident—her story forces Ethiopia to recall the six years of Italian occupation, shattering the official claim that Ethiopia was “never colonized.”
Nor do popular narratives acknowledge Ethiopia’s political geography before the mid-20th century. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, regions such as Shoa, Tigray, Gojam, Wollo, Gondar, and even Harar (where Hailesellasie was born) existed under shifting alliances, betrayals, and rivalries. Yohannes betrayed Tewodros; Menelik betrayed Yohannes. Hailesellasie usurped Lij Eyassu…etc. Centralized control was tenuous, and vast territories like Tigray, Ogaden and Oromo lands lay outside any firm imperial authority. Eritrea, in particular, had no history of Abyssinian administration until after World War II, when geopolitical interests—especially those of the United States—enabled Haile Selassie to federate Eritrea with Ethiopia.
Against this historical backdrop, Abiy Ahmed’s assertion of an “inherent” Ethiopian right to Red Sea access is not just historically unsupported—it is a dangerous fabrication. It invokes a mythical past to justify present-day ambitions that risk violating international law and destabilizing the Horn of Africa.
The truth is more complex, and far less flattering, than the state’s official myths allow. Until Ethiopia reckons with this layered, often inconvenient history—rather than romanticizing a selectively remembered past—it will remain vulnerable to leaders who weaponize myth to serve short-term political ends.
Abiy Ahmed Ali exemplifies this tendency today. His actions suggest a deliberate drive to return Ethiopia to its 19th-century patchwork of ethnic fiefdoms, distracting the public with pipe dreams of Red Sea access and grandiose projects, even as the nation endures economic hardship, ongoing wars, and deepening instability.