To my knowledge, this linguistic usage has never been the case among our own nearly 50% Ethiopian Islamic population who do not speak Arabic. The story of our escape from the Red and White Terror in Ethiopia into the African Diaspora can now be told. In July of 1977, ten children, myself and six of my immediate family, plus four of my cousins, were smuggled out of Addis Ababa and airlifted to Nairobi, Kenya. The "mission impossible" of our escape was planned and developed by a small group of Christian philanthropists in Europe and carried out with great attention to detail by one courageous American missionary, Rev. Dale Collins, who gravely risked his own life for our safety. We were flown to the United States in August 1977 and began our residence in exile at the home of our maternal uncle, Dr. Zewdi Gabre- Sellassie, in Arlington, Virginia. Our uncle, of royal Tigrean blood, a direct descendant of Emperor Yohaness, and a man of deep democratic convictions, received a doctorate from Oxford University, England, for his dissertation, Yohaness, A Political Biography. He had served as Ethiopian Ambassador to the United Nations under H.I.M. Haile Sellassie I, in which post he remained until resigning in demonstrative protest during the period of the Red and White Terror. He remains ardently democratic in his political philosophy and we spent our formative years under his tutelage. Probably more than any other factor, it is to my uncle that I owe my passionate feelings of solidarity with the common people. My education had been interrupted for three years in Ethiopia, but finally I was able to graduate from high school in rural New York in June 1980. That fall I went on to New York University where I received my B.A. in Russian history and language, and in my senior year met and fell in love with my husband, Professor Anatoly Antohin. We were married March 2, 1984, and moved to Jersey City, New Jersey, where I first became so involved and committed to the well-being of my people – all my people, those who had recently left Ethiopia and Africa, and those whose forbears had come centuries before. With the assistance of Congressman Frank Guiarini of Jersey City and the good people of that city, I was able to raise $100,000 in five months for the Haile Sellassie Fund to help the victims of famine in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Our two children, Edjigaheu (sasha) and Tafari (Alexei), named after my saintly mother and great grandfather, "Ras Tafari," were born in Jersey City before my husband accepted employment in the Theater Department of Hollins College, Roanoke, Virginia. The rest of the story is really quite simple and the real story is only now beginning. There is so much work to be done "to bind up my nation's wounds," as Abraham Lincoln phrased it, and to better the lives of all Spiritual Children of Ethiopia. My great grandfather was such a man of love and peace, you may ask how could it be possible that he and his family should have become such martyrs. One way to understand it is this: the Children of Israel were in Egypt a little over 400 years and that same period time has transpired for the African Diaspora in the Americas. The Almighty in His infinite mercy has heard the cries of His children and taken pity upon them. In His great wisdom, He brought about the exile of the Solomonic Dynasty, my family, to become a strong voice of moral leadership and spiritual guidance in the African Diaspora. Not until all our Spiritual Children of Ethiopia can return to our beloved Africa in triumph, will my family or I ever think of again going back home to Ethiopia. Our family will not be redeemed from exile until we can see with our own eyes the redemption of all of our brothers and sisters in the Africa Diaspora. How are we to accomplish the tremendous work to be done? Four of the greatest political thinkers in history were: 1) Abraham Lincoln, for his vision of participatory democracy and equality before the law of all people, and for his vision of healing his nation after a terrible civil war; 2) Marcus Mosiah Garvey, for his vision of an Ethiopianist Utopia; 3) John F. Kennedy, who insisted: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country;"and 4) Martin Luther King, Jr., for his vision of liberating all races from the sickness of "internal colonialism." All of these great men saw the uniqueness of humanity's divine potential. Their writings are our manifesto, and it was the holy literature of the Jewish people, the Bible, that was their inspiration and guidebook in life. The Bible was also the guide throughout life for my great grandfather, Haile Sellassie I, Elect of God, Defender of the Faith, the Lion of Judah. The reader may ask whom we mean when we speak of our "Spiritual Children of Ethiopia." From the very beginning, we want to be explicitly clear about this principle. Ethiopian society has always been an "open" and "all-inclusive" society. We have many nationalities and ethnic groups, as well as Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Ethiopians. Throughout history we have consistently remained "color-blind," unable to find meaning in the shade of a person's skin, or the tint or texture of hair. In my own extended family, we have Ethiopians who look "Mediterranean" and others who are indistinguishable from the proud Maroons of Jamaica. All are included equally as unimpeachably Ethiopian, without distinction. As Gregory Copley correctly observes in Ethiopia Reaches Her Hand Unto God ( Alexandria: Pamela von Gruber Publisher, 1998, p.56:) "Ethiopia, by its emphasis throughout most of its history…has always been an "open crowd"…in which there has traditionally been enormous freedom of identity. In this respect, it has always been a society of different peoples who have come together out of pride in the symbolism of antiquity…and its collective culture and leadership." Copley (p. 74) goes on to write the following: "One of Ethiopia's most senior religious leaders, the Nibure-Id [of Axum-Zion, the highest autority responsible for ordination of priests] Ermias Kebede Wolde-Yesus, noted: `In Ge'ez, "Am" means people and "hara" means free. So the literal translation of Am-hara is Free People – one of the essential characteristics of true Ethiopians.' [We might compare the Biblical Hebrew equivalent `Am Hor , "Noble People."] He went on to say: `The name "Amhara" was not meant to identify a clan, a tribe or an ethnic group… As the connotation of the word implies, they, the Amhara, are an amalgamation of liberated people made up of different clans, tribes, or ethnic groups who inhabited Ethiopia and united, spiritually by Covenantal Faith in , and physically by intermarriage among themselves, for a common or eternal cause that is called Ethiopianism… "Thus, when an individual believes in Ethiopianism and accepts, of his or her free will, the membership initiation in that social order with the new concept of life, he or she is declared to be an Amhara'" [ cited from Ermias Kebede Wolde-Yesus, Nibure-Id: Ethiopia: the Classic Case, p.20.] From the proud Maroons of the High Country of Jamaica to the blond, blue-eyed European youth who "just loves Reggae," from the Black Nation of Islam of the United States (whom we count with our almost 50% Ethiopian Moslem population) to the One-Name Pentecostal congregations of the American Deep South, all are our "Spiritual Children," all are declared to be our "Free People of Ethiopia." To be continued Notes: The interested reader may enter the Sellassie Community via: http://members. linkopp.com/sellassie/list.html, "How to use the Sellassie Website." http://members.linkopp.com/sellassie/doc/secretar.html http://sellassie.ourfamily.com/academics/orthodoxy.html http://www.angelfire.com/ak/sellassie http://sellassie.ourfamily.com/rasta/rastafi.html www.RestorationFoundation.org Membership in the Sellassie Community is conveyed by a certificate bestowing hereditary Am Hara status. It integarates the individual spiritually into the Ethiopian diaspora, but cannot confer Ethiopian citizenship, for the constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia precludes dual citizenship. To apply send a $25.00 personal check to The Sellassie Educational Fund (non tax-exempt) with your full name and address to: Princess Edjigaheu Sellassie-Antohin, Registrar The Imperial House of Sellassie 115 Kelsan Way Fairbanks, AK 99709