God Save the King… Somewhere Else: Why the idea of a new constitutional monarchy in Ethiopia is a bad idea.

There are some who keep campaigning for the restoration of the old Ethiopian monarchy, but it’s not necessary and there’s a better alternative scheme for a head of state in a post-Abiy Ethiopia.

Today, I got an email invitation to an Ethiopia diaspora event later this month south of the border. I had to decline because I’m supposed to go to a wedding of a friend that weekend, and contrary to what folks might think, I’m not made of money and even a flight into the U.S. is a lot of cash these days.

Then in the follow-up exchange, the point person asked what I thought of the idea of restoring the Ethiopian monarchy, one that would preside over a parliamentary or presidential democracy.

Interesting question. I’m not so sure it’s a question for me, as I’m neither an Ethiopian in Ethiopia nor in the diaspora. I quite literally have no skin in the game. But since I often get asked this question, maybe it’s time I put out my own view so that least if it comes up in the future, I can just send a link and be done with it.

I have a feeling many folks won’t like my answer. Too bad. See, I consider even asking me is absurd. No, not because I’m ferenji — not because I’m white and an outsider — but because you’re bothering to ask someone else. It would be equally absurd if you asked a mother out in Harar or a bricklayer in Gojjam. Because the whole premise of monarchy is that somebody — by the virtue of their family lineage — is better than you and me. All of us “little people.” We, the ordinary human beings.

And if that’s your premise, how funny it is that you seek our consent or endorsement at all! Because you sure as hell never used to. My ancestors in England had to go along with aristocratic nonsense because there were a bunch of guys with pikes and swords who showed up in the Midlands (my family’s region) and said, “Or else.”

And so it was as well for Ethiopians who had to put up with rule by the various rases and their emperors.

Don’t get me wrong. Racist, ignorant idiots have ignored a ton of history, unfairly depicting African kingdoms as more despotic than European ones. Well, a strong case can be made that they were often better. Many had councils of nobles and advisors who could kick out the monarch who behaved like an asshole. Many African kings had to adhere to unspoken traditional principles of rule of law.

Ethiopia, in fact, even when it arguably had one of the most despotic imperial systems on the continent, still had the Fetha Nagast, which as I’ve written elsewhere was a remarkable legal achievement that doesn’t get enough attention. I’m on record as pointing out that it included the lines that liberty was “in accord with the law of reason, for all men share liberty on the basis of natural law,” and I consider this as brilliant and eloquent as the cherished American assertion that “all men are created equal.”

But yep, there is that problematic contradiction: if human beings are entitled to natural liberty, you can’t have one person lording it over them.

I have been a fierce anti-monarchist in principle since I was 16-years-old and pissed off the judges at a provincial speech competition, calling for Canada to ditch Queen Elizabeth II as our head of state. It was the 1970s, and you just didn’t have teenagers saying in so many words that Liz and her brood were a bunch of in-bred, morons of the Saxe-Coburg clan who were a drain on public finances.

I’ve never altered my view on this, so it’s funny as hell to me that I have wound up interacting with several members of the Ethiopian royal family. In the same way that being an agnostic-atheist, I have ironically ended up defending persecuted members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Ethiopian Muslims.

A few Ethiopian royals, though they use their titles, are wonderfully pleasant, even delightful individuals who don’t put on airs. One is a crashing boor. This guy, who shall go nameless, sent me his self-published book in which he went on and on and on on his back cover over every permutation of his family tree, how he could trace his ancestry right back to the rulers of Aksum and restoration of the Solomonic line, etc. and… sigh.

I am very suspicious of any pompous ass who conflates the dubious achievements of his family with his own.

Just for the record, I come from dirt. Both my parents were born in Winnipeg, and my paternal grandfather was a barber for the Eaton’s department store for many years after he moved with his Birmingham bride from Stratford-upon-Avon to Canada. My great-grandfather, according to family lore, was an alcoholic butcher, and that’s about it. That’s all the Pearce family knows, more or less. So, yes, I look at all this from an unapologetically peasant perspective.

It’s no surprise that there’s been steady, low-volume chatter about the possible restoration of the Ethiopian monarchy, in the same way, I suppose, that Russian nobles, working as bellhops and chambermaids in Paris hotels in the 1920s, thought one day they’d get their Tsar back and be buying tickets to Saint Petersburg. Both Haile Selassie and Nicholas II were paternalistic autocrats. The marked differences between them, of course, were that Haile Selassie — a pious, bookish intellectual by nature — worked his way into power but actually gave a damn about his people while Nicholas — who was dumber than a paint can and hung on the words of a psychotic rapist monk — never wanted his throne at the start but ended up hoarding power while not caring at all about the average Russian.

Nobody sane has asked for an Ethiopian ruler to get back all the powers lost after Haile Selassie was brutally murdered in 1974. No, the party line these days is that a descendant would be a fixture of a constitutional democracy. The idea isn’t so far-fetched when you consider that Europe still has kings and queens in Belgium, Monaco, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, etc. Thailand still has its monarchy. So does Japan (because the Americans didn’t dare get rid of Hirohito, knowing they could use him during the post-war Occupation).

So, let’s say Fano wins, and Abiy Ahmed jumps on a plane and joins Mengistu in exile (the two becoming “roomies” for the worst African TV buddy sitcom ever). Or the creep gets what’s coming to him and is hauled in front of a court for crimes against his own people. A new constitution is introduced, and Ethiopians decide, hey, let’s bring back a royal as a head of state.

Is it the worst idea? No. But it’s not that great either.

As a Canadian, I was raised in the tradition of the British model of parliamentary democracy. There was ol’ Liz, way out past the ocean as our head of state, and now ugh, we have Charles III (and when he finally shows up on my money, I plan to fold a big crease in the idiot’s head on every bill). Because the monarch can’t be here, we have their stand-in, a Governor General who serves as our head of state. Mostly what the Governor General does is show up for ribbon cuttings at hospital openings, attend formal dinners, and preside over the openings of parliament.

In Canada, we’ve had good governors general and lousy ones, inspiring ones like Haitian-Canadian Michaëlle Jean and truly terrible ones like Adrienne Clarkson. Clarkson seemed to think she was a queen herself and spent a lot of our taxpayer money flitting around the world on what amounted to extended vacations. But here’s the wonderful thing. We can replace that person. While their term in office can be indefinite, the tradition has been that they serve for about five years.

See where I’m going with this? That is infinitely preferable to a member of the Ethiopian royal family getting a job for life. And should it be a job for life at all? If not, will they take a hint when it’s time to retire? What happens if they do physically or mentally decline?

As much as you can bluster about having the right mix of diplomatic acumen and charm and intelligence, all that doesn’t matter because merit is ultimately beside the point — your single top criterion is still that they’re somebody’s uncle. Or nephew. Or aunt.

But part and parcel of the revolution now gathering steady momentum in Ethiopia today is that those in charge must be accountable. Right now, Amhara are getting ethnically cleansed, the Afar are marginalized, followers of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church are getting brutalized, journalists are tossed into jail, people tossed out of their homes, which are soon bulldozed… and where? Where is the accountability?

Whatever else, what replaces the horror-fest of Abiy Ahmed and has any hope of being truly representative of the Ethiopian people must be a government that takes responsibility and must always, always face the criticisms, votes and will of the people. And that must include all of its administrative practices and trappings.

But a king or emperor, by definition, is a being above reproach, and even the Fetha Nagast didn’t turn out to be very helpful when Mikal Sehul set himself up as a dictator during the Zemene Mesafint or when a group of conspirators, with Western diplomats cheering them on, ousted Lij Iyasu (who to be fair, was in my humble historical opinion, a complete disaster).

To establish a king even in a symbolic role is to set that king (or queen) always in potential conflict with the rule of law. Because you are saying that person is the most important fixture of your democracy unto themselves, not your constitution. That is very different from an appointed head of state who serves for a fixed or indefinite term.

The name of the game for centuries in Ethiopia was who had the right title and family connection, who had the arms, and who had the force of personality. But we live in an era of oligarchs, of megalomaniacal narcissists who believe running a tech empire entitles them to say who should run a country. We live in an era when a president in Russia thinks nothing of having a political challenger gunned down on a bridge or assassinated in prison. We live in an era in which the Supreme Court of the United States just recently declared that the highest-elected official can act like a despot.

Ethiopia can be different, once Abiy is driven out, once Fano wins. It should be different. Yes, you should celebrate the grandeur of the past, but the continuity of the state and the ensuring of democratic practice doesn’t mean you need the anachronisms of a bygone era.

For what it’s worth, I recommend that under a new constitution, a head of state for a fixed term be chosen from among the ranks of accomplished Ethiopian artists, writers, musicians, painters, university professors, and journalists.

In other words, since the job function is largely symbolic anyway, why not draw from the ranks of those who are already some of Ethiopia’s greatest exponents and ambassadors of culture?

Besides choosing on merit, one of the other advantages of such a system is that it would completely derail the stupid propaganda that’s regularly hurled against the old Ethiopian monarchy and the aristocracy, the tired charge that it was an “Amhara elite.” (What makes this so infuriatingly dumb is that Ethiopia’s ruling class never had a single ethnic identity — it’s has had Oromo emperors, Tigrayan emperors, mixed-heritage emperors, and so on.)

Once you open up the office to distinguished individuals who could be of any ethnic heritage, you send a powerful message of tolerance not only to all the citizens of the country but also to the rest of Africa and the world.

When the Patriots were fighting the Fascist Italians, some of the guerrillas gave their leaders the title of ras. Why not? The old feudal hierarchy was getting wiped out, and the emperor was in exile. The arbegnoch leader Belay Zeleke scorned this practice. When his men tried to call him a ras, he told them, “The name my mother gave me was Belay — it is enough.”

There is a lesson in that for those who want to pull out thrones when a simple chair will do.