I am curious, what exactly do you all know about Ethiopia?
 

I study this country and people and its history in depth. beyond depth actually. It turns out most people dont know anything about this country at all, nor its people, nor especially its rich, dynamic and complicted geopolitical history with the rest of the world as a major world power up until 1936, and realistically even up unto today, because as poor as we think of ethiopia as, they have the largest, strongest and most advanced military force in Africa, and is the US primary ally economically and militarily in the Middle East (aside from Israelis)

so what do you'll know or have heard about Ethiopia in general? I am curious what the average understanding is amongst normal people, who are not quite as obsessed as I am..

I've got a few mates from Ethiopia. Nice lads.

Why single out Ethiopia, I wonder? Why not Greenlandish Inuits? Or the Romani of the Balkans? Or the Brahmin? Or the Mesopatamian Sufis?
Weird.

i like the injera and the lentils with berbere.

i know italy tried to colonize it for a while & eventually failed. fucking mussolini.

i know the ethiopian jews are real jews, despite of what some people will say.

i know ethiopian coffee is great-- coffee probably was "discovered there".

i know aids is pretty bad there.

this guy i know adopted a kid from an ethiopian orphanage-- the mother died of aids.

i know they've been fighting the eritreans, but they used to be one country.

i know decades ago they had huge famines, so "ethiopian food" was something of an oxymoron.

i've seen their alphabet which looks pretty cool.

i know the rastas worship haile selassie, who was overthrown by communists, and then eventually the communists were gone but i'm not sure when.

other random facts like that.

edit: oh, abebe bikila was ethiopian-- i've seen movies of him running, he was amazing

my grocer across the street was an eritrean, but his parents were 1 ethiopian 1 eritrean, forget which one. he told me about eritrea stopping the ethiopian advance for the red sea.

I single out Ethiopia because I personally love Ethiopia. that is all. I love the language, the culture, the dress, the food, the music, the history, and especially the people. could I love the others you mentioned? perhaps, but I am rather Ethio-centric now, for better or worse. and to glice, it is interesting to me just how many people actually know an Ethiopian or two, considering they are quite a minority in the United States (for example, in the US there are more Africans from Cape Verde then Ethiopia, and yet most people know an ethiopian but have never even remotely heard of Cape Verde)

Ethiopia is a country in Africa, which is a continent. I've heard it referred to as the place where humans originated. Haile Selassie was the president or something of Ethiopia around the times of the League of Nations.. post WW1, at least. He's also the second coming, according to Rastafarian religion. I think.

:/

that was a lot of info, you have a fairly good understanding of Ethiopia indeed. I myself dont like injera (much to the disgust of my ethiopian friends) and prefer to each european breads with my Ethiopian food, which is actually becoming quite popular thing to do in Addis Ababa.

yeah i edited a couple of additional facts. i'm sure more would surface as i jog my memory.

injera is yummy. i think the sour taste makes it good for you.

oh yea, their beer-- st george is it?

also hm it appears a favorite beverage is this honey wine. i'm not a big fan.

etc.

haile salasie thouht rastafarianism was rubbish

Ethiopia.

I know that the Coptic church of Ethiopia is one of the oldest Christian denominations, founded very very early in the history of the christian church.
I know that the church fathers claim the ark of the covenant is situated in ethiopia, which is a perfect hiding place.

Ethiopia provides the athletic world with some fine runners (Haile Gebreselassie, Abebe Bikila, and Meseret Defar, to name a few) as far as I know.

i knew this one kids from ethopia. he got really drunk one night and died in a car crash.

someone told me in middle school that the ethopians had wooden planes and tanks when italy invaded.

honey wine= tej and it can be as potent as moonshine apparently, but I haven't had a drink in over six years and dont plan to for some years to come so I wouldn't/couldn't know. in fact, I dont even remember what alcohol feels like anymore.

Talkin Lemurs?





To the topic: here is what I know about Ethiopia:
It is in Eastern Africa
Rastafarianism started there because of Sealassie
Rastas have dreads because of the Nazarite Vow, that is also why Samson is a name Rastas like
It is a poor country
Religiously it is mainly Christian and Rasta
There is a church there that claims to have some Indiana Jonesish sort of religious item (I think it is the Arc of the Covenant, but I might be wrong)

Isms are schisms, remember? It's rastafari, you racist.

Curried goat is fucking awesome, there's an Ethiopian place in the Camden Lock Sunday market that you simple must check out blood.

actually they had anti-aircraft cannons, 20 odd aircraft used mostly for recon, nearly 500,000 troops, and over 250,000 modern rifles. the trouble was that Italy blockaded Ethiopian trade from the Red Sea, and when that didn't fully work, they rained mustard gas on the troops. you have to remember that Ethiopian men think shoes are for pussies, and Ethiopian soldiers prided themselves and their barefoot abilities, and so the mustard gas was especially effective at immobilizing Ethiopian troops, the gas residue left on the ground burns the shit out of bare skin and leaves blisters that last for weeks..

uncalled for, seriously.

It's like they Xeroxed that part of my brain and put into the compter.

haha

And ranting about racism to a bunch of people who are mostly white liberals is called for, right? Or ranting about a religion which is, as with all religion, entirely your own choice and NOT to be rammed down people's throats is called for? Would you like it if our Jewish members started posting Zionist threads? Or our Christian ones (a majority, by default) started proselytising about Christ the saviour?

By the way, the Jewish example was unfair because Judaism is not synonymous with Zionism.