Tower in the Sky: Book Review

Published by Addis Ababa University Press, Tower in the
Sky is truly a riveting personal account of how Hiwot Teffera embarked up
on a rocky revolutionary path in the waning days of Haile Selassie’s Government
in the mid 1970’s.  It also includes
material about her tumultuous romance with Getachow Maru, a key revolutionary
figure, who was murdered in a gruesome manner due to internal dissent within
the party by his “comrades-in-arms”. But there is much more to this book.

Unmistakably from a petite bourgeoisie family, Hiwot
was born and reared in the old walled city of Harrar, where one encounters a
great diversity of vibrant peoples, 525 kilometers away from the capital, Addis
Ababa. She was educated there up through secondary school. A great turning
point in her life came when she was chosen to be a member of the Student
Council in her high-school junior year. After matriculating at Medhani Alem,
she entered Haile Selassie I University, the epicenter of revolutionary
agitation in the zesty early 1970’s to study European languages, for which she
had conceived a passion since her early teens.

Scoundrel
Times

During
her freshman year, she befriended Azeb Girma Tilhaun, a native of Addis Ababa.
Like Hiwot, Azeb was already swept up in the revolutionary mood of the time;
and no one who met her could forget her beauty or her ferocious intelligence
and force of character. Azeb introduced her to a flow of stimulating friends
who strove to bring about constructive and desperately needed changes to a nation
ruled by a despotic feudal system for centuries. Passionate enthusiasm grabbed
her. Here one gets the distinct impression that Azeb open her eyes to “social
issues “in addition to a much more vibrant and vital life than she would
otherwise have had at that particular point in time.

In the ensuing years, Azeb and Hiwot became inseparable as
both moved in the intellectual circles with a rich variety of “Revos”
who happily prated on the elaborate theoretical basis of Marxism-Leninism. Some
had genuine socialist principles. And some were educated beyond their
abilities. That much has to be said. Since then the world has changed, but the
opportunistic bombast has not. The late Theodore W.  Adorno, a popular cultural critic, in his
seminal writings gave a vivid account of the regressive psychology of those
organized secretive fringe groups which aptly and accurately fits the ethos of
those pseudo-revolutionaries, who are now in an ironic twist willing to eat
crumbs from the table of socially corrupted fat cat Woyannies. It was
impossible to know how seriously these endlessly callow “Revos” took
their pretension beyond the defiance of bourgeois values with no clear-cut,
well-defined, practical objectives. Nor did they seem to have learned with
passage of so many years to avoid in mid-life (perhaps a bit battered by now)
that kind of repugnant behavior using threats and smear tactics to destroy
their critics and unremitting hostility to other ethnic groups. Such at any
rate, was the pivotal experience, which that generation encountered,
exemplified by this exciting story from the variety of those days.

With this in the backdrop, an interesting and somewhat
unusual thing had just happened to Hiwot. On a “blind date” arranged by a
friend on campus, that she described lyrically with vibrant enthusiasm how she
succumbed to the magnetic lure of the late Getachow Maru. He had earned his
reputation as one of his generations arguably committed Marxists and a fervent
admirer of Mao Zedong theories of guerrilla tactics.  The charm was palpable on both sides despite
their age differences. She was bowled over by his exuberant vitality, eloquence
and ardent political commitment. As time goes on she “learned to love him
passionately as their relationship grew and deepened.” She was imbued with
passion then and there that as the poet John Milton had once brilliantly put
it: “so dear I love him that with him all deaths I could endure, without him no
life”. This is, one must say, not remotely surprising. But her earnestness when
she made this statement at the heyday of the power of the Party makes one
wonder if she meant it.

Falling
on the sword

Tower in the Sky, like many other books on EPRP
revisits things in a fairly critical manner to fill gaps and pose interesting
question concerning the dismal direction the Party had taken in sanctioning
violent solutions to the country’s complex and troubled political problems. The
upshot was that the Party ultimately met partially its inglorious end in Addis Ababa a little before the final death blow in Assimba.
The bonhomie in comrade-to-comrades atmosphere was merely an eyewash. It was at
this incredibly tense moment that there arose a sharp and direct challenge to
the Party’s rickety structure from Berhane Meskel Redda, Getachow Maru, Getahun
Sissay, Yirga Tessema, Abiyu Arsamo and Girma Geberyesus (boona/coffee) and
many others -that led to division over tactics and goals. Each of others made a
special contribution at the expense of their blood. This is now common
knowledge in Ethiopia that EPRP has had a precarious existence due to dissent
from day one. In fact, things had not happened quite suddenly. However, what
makes matter worth noting is that Berhane Meskel Redda had a long lingering
intellectual blood feud particularly with the party ideologue Zeru Kehishen and
Kiflue Teffera, as documented by several published comments before the Anjas
became monsters in the collective
imagination of the of the League CC members. Sadly, this was
also, where the Central Committee manifested its inability to understand
Ethiopia’s integrative history while external the nation was at stake, and
continued to make horrible mistake after mistake by escalating the political
violence against those who stood in their way to power. What should have been obvious
to Yebtach Akalat was utterly
ignored, and the rest is history.

In Tower in the Sky, Hiowt demonstrated an
encyclopedic –recall thick with factual details of decades ago. Her writing
style is inimitable: interspersed with quotations from the New American
Standard Bible, Lao Tzu, Arthur Koestler, Simon Weil, P. Diry, Albert Camus, Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn among others. This is a strange and bizarre collection, given the
nature of her book. Nevertheless, she is far from being pedantic; nor has she a
Joan of Arc complex. Nor does she make Getachow’s life a fairy tale or turn her
own life story as a cautionary tale for future “Revos”. She really approached
her subject with magnificent élan and courage risking opprobrium on behalf of Anjas without any fear of reprisals.
This in itself may not be surprising. In the interim, she gives unreserved
impression to the reader, perhaps wrongly, that her EPRP credentials are in
excellent order when she refers derisively to, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Meison, Echat, Waz, Malieried and Abyot
Tabakis, who came off as kooky and creepy, as “fascists” on a scale
scarcely imaginable. How long this kind of attitude persist vitrolically?  From all appearances, it seems infinitely
better before than it is now under the brutal occupation of TPLF.  One has to wonder what could possibly be
motivating the EPRDF’s interest in publishing, advertising, marketing and rave reviews.
What is even more that she abides by a “kind of unspoken contract” not to
reveal to her readers specifically the name of Dr. Hagos Beyene, in whose
residence she was caught.

In her writing, Hiwot carries Ethiopia’s burden as she
rhapsodically states, “As atlas did the vault of the sky”. Looking back in
Orwellian sense, from the murder of Getachow and from her own imprisonment for
many years under extreme conditions in the infamous carcere, that early
experience of EPRP was Hiwot’s idea of paradise as she rose quickly through the
revolving-door as alternate Inter Zone CC member. Furthermore, She sketches the
historical context to understand the turbulent political tides particularly
between in 1976- to 1978, when the almost-forgotten urban youth from ethnically
marginalized and mostly poor family  offered
their fervor and blood in pursuit of their realization to bring a democratic
change against the well-entrenched Derg and its mighty military forces.  Names like Adinew Kairo an engineer, Elias
Waldemariam a student of pure math, a rare soul who clearly knew Das Kapital thoroughly, Negatwa Tulu, Lieutenant
Merid Tassaw, Yoseph Adana and Tadeleach Issayas, Gerti Chala, Abdi Sandelo,
Solomon Girma Tilhaun (Azeb’s brother) and Slishi Zewde Tilhaun, who had the
world at their feet simply sacrificed themselves for a genuine social ideal. While
others, from poor family raised by single parents like Getachow Tsegi , Zewdu Tamuru
and the old lady, the mother of the play writer, Mengestu Lemma were left to
face death squads.

Into the Abyss

Of foremost importance is her tribute to particular
greatness of Azeb Girma. According to one widely believed story she was
subjected to relentless interrogation after being sold down the river by a
professed and “dear friend”.  Azeb, like
Aklilu Hiruey was tortured to death without shopping any of her
comrades-in-arms like. As a matter of fact, 17 of them made their escape route
with their dear life to the US via. Assimba. That notwithstanding, the handful
of the god-kings (Yebelay Akalat)  with a sense of absolute power and importance
have sacrificed more than a thousand to a veritable people “insurrection” on
the eve of May Day in 1977 out of vanity and hubris in order to control the
county’s political life. To this day, tears still come to people’s eyes as they
remembered 12-year –old innocent boys and girls mown down by machine-guns. The
loss of life was tremendous. Nothing like this had been seen since the massacre
of unarmed peaceful demonstrators during fraud election by TPLF in May 2005. Even
Kiflue Tadesse, a veteran EPRP, whom people are expecting a masterful
explanation for this pretty sordid story does not yet explain for years

Hiwot also describes prison life in excruciating detail and
the wretched condition that exist in carcere. It is here also that the author sympathizes how Berhane’s
widow, Tadeleach Hailemicheal Wakeney, who was imprisoned for more than twelve
solid years where she delivered her healthy daughter. At about the same time, Naamat
Issa, a political prisoner, after difficult labor delivered her son, Amansissa
Mulugeta. How does one explain the situation of Naamat and her son which by
almost any measure was far worse than that of Tadleach? Hiwot does not comment on
this difference which reflects on her sense of woman solidarity. It is just sufficient
to say Naamat Issa, who is as a result of unrelenting torture in her early
pregnancy delivered a boy, Amansiisa with mental illness for life in the woman
ward. Almost all the prisoners including the prison guards poignantly remember
the sheer awfulness of this inhumanity perpetrated by the Derg to Naamat and particularly
her little boy. What makes it even more disheartening is that Naamat is
banished today by the “benevolent” EPRDF with her son to a life of dehumanizing
circumstance as a refugee from her ancestral home, whereas Tadelach is rewarded
with plush job and lives in garish style with her pretty daughter in a posh
neighborhood in Paris.

That there is no mention of the leading role played by
Lieutenant Abebe Jimma is also a bit puzzling. He was a singular figure readers
ought to know about. Like Makonen Bayissa, Abebe came to prominence as a
president of the student council in high school in Bisheoftu; before
that he also attended the University and then joined the Police Academy, where
he graduated with flying colors. It was because of Abebe that the Anjas
were able to get a large number of automatic weapons from the Civil Aviation
Authority. At one time he was the most wanted man nationwide. He went
underground in Merhabete where he soon had an acrimonious falling out
with the “legendary” Berhane Meskel Redda and disenchanted, left in disgust and
later joined the shiftas where the
region was rife with bandits until he eventually ended up as a refugee in
Nairobi, Kenya. A natural born leader with unimpeachable integrity, he was
always committed throughout his life to the broadest democratic and social
principles. Evidence for this is supplied, inter
alia, by Hugh Pilkington Charitable Trust based in Oxford, England.

There is so much to admire in this book even though no
family members were interviewed for the segment on Getachow’s complex and
colorful life, where his kin folks are like poppy seeds scattered everywhere
between Washington and Addis Ababa, including the former Derg member, Melese
Maru. Aside from his siblings, talking to people like Dr. Mulushowa Mulaat and Fekermariam
Hiruy from way back from Patriot Elementary School and to Science Faculty,
Tarriku Debertsion, Assefa Endeshaw (an instructor at Mekele University) and
most of all, Sirak Belayneh an EPRP mole, who penetrated the highest reaches of
Meison (who resides now in DC) would
have given the readers to gain to shed light on the life and times of Getachow
Maru. People like Gezahane Endale, Tesfaye Mekonen and Ammanuel Geberyesus knew
Berhane Mesqal Redda inside out. I am not questioning here the integrity of
Shimilis Retta and Nebiyu Aynalem, these fringe acquaintances as credible and
reliable resources for forming the scaffolding of Getachow’s life. However, it is
quite obvious that the portrait lacks dimension while it has a gossipy quality.
It is imperative that for Getachow’s life to be reconstructed, almost all the
information has to be dredged up by painstaking efforts; for example his
writings. At any rate, I would endorse   Milan Kundera’s famous lines, “the struggle of
man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting” It is in the
nature of things, that dementia set in over the years! Most people have no
memory of those dreadful occasions.

 Perplexingly enough,
one of Getachow’s friend is the one who unwittingly revealed to the security
chief of the party, Kiflu Teffera a germane information told to him confidentially,
as a trusted “friend” and against all reasons, about the assassination attempt
on the PMAC Chairman which was in the offing, a little before it occurred on 23^rd
September 23, 1976.  What is one to make all
of this? Apart from that,, how could as prisoners Nebiyue and Shimilis forget
the traumatic event where 37 Alem Bekagn
inmates were massacred in cold blood, not to mention the wounded, in the  rainy night by Major Kassaye Aragaw for
raising the issue of reform within the prison system which was called for by   those  university students. Contrary to Nebiyue and
Shimilis account, it was an incident that had a mark bearing in their political
outlook. To cite one example that I know of personally: the same incident made  Nolawi Abebe ill disposed towards the
government., who was recognized by his contemporaries as one of the most
remarkable and truly dedicated revolutionary of that generation.   The omission of the crucial role played by
TPLF to destroy EPRP is simply too egregious to be disregarded; and
consistently colluded in the early years with the Derg by giving valuable
information on fellow EPRP members who were fleeing the repression on their way
to Assimba. This is by no means to suggest that this book tries to reinforce
the position of EPRDF nor  that the
publisher slanted the narrative by controlling all relevant information that
could reflect negatively, reflect poorly on the Tigryan elite at the helm of
“federal” power.

With that written, people especially the young generations,
should read Tower in The Sky.
It fills out the knowledge of an otherwise forgotten EPRP/Anja. It is highly
informative and best of all well written. Do not miss it!