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| Laureate Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin: the father of Ethiopian theatre | |||
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March 20, 2006 Laureate Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin: ‘The Father of Ethiopian Theatre’ By Fitsum G. No one in Ethiopia can claim to represent/impersonate Ethiopian theatre better than Laureate Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin just as no one could claim to impersonate Ethiopian painting more than the Honourable Maitre-Artist Laureate Afework Tekle. The comparison may seem a bit forced but there are undeniable similarities among the two. Both represent a certain generation of excellence and achievement in their respective fields. Both have been the pride of the country of origin. Both have a national fervour and respect for their traditional values and mores that goes beyond the ordinary. Their success has not been confined to the national fora but even at international platforms they have astonished people. Since my childhood days, I have always thought that Ethiopian theatre was synonymous with Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin and Ethiopian painting meant Afework Tekle. They were for me indistinguishable, indissoluble. Their influence is such that they impersonate the art itself. At times, it happens that we Ethiopians find some one in some art or vocation to identify with. When it came to vocalists it is Tilahun Gessesse, when it came to track and field it was Abebe Bikila, when it came to surgery it was Professor Asrat, when it came to diplomacy it was Ketema Yifru and so forth. We grow up with such stereotypes, identities. All unforgettable and not substitutable! Ethiopia unfortunately, has lost two prominent citizens of hers in the past few consecutive months. First, it was the US-based Astronomy-Scientist Ketaw Ejigu who passed away in his adoptive country under tragic circumstances, (due to an accident) at the early age of 58. And now it was ‘Blaten Geta Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin, Poet, Playwright, Anthropologist, Critic, Director and Civil Rights Activist of international stature. It has been reported that many people say that it is not easy to talk to or interview Laureate Tsegaye, nor is it easy to understand his works, his poetry. But on one count no one can disagree: Tsegaye’s love for his land, for Africa and for the culture that represents these lands. He had never doubted that the origin of man and hence of civilisation was in Africa. He studied anthropology out of passion for this science. He studied law; he studied literature and poetry; he studied languages. Tsegaye was an extremely versatile artist a prolific thinker and writer (in various languages including local ones) and at the same time a civil rights activist, a person who gave priority and attention to the respect of human rights. All his works depict some important social message. His famous pride for his origins has found him a good ally in the person of Statesman, Poet, Senegalese Leopold Sedar Sengor who died in 2001 at the venerated age of 95. Senghor and Tsegaye were friends and tried to develop the idea of ‘Negritude’ on similar premises. They moved along the same wavelength. While we mourn the death of Laureate Tsegaye, we also celebrate the centenary of Poet Leopold S. Senghor these days. We could assert that Laureate Tsegaye was an African first and foremost and an Ethiopian immediately later. He has always tried to express the maximum of ‘Ethiopianness’ wherever he went. His works remain a living testimony to his conviction, which stand against all forms of oppression and tyranny, and had thus never been favoured by any of the last three regimes in Ethiopia. Most of his plays mirror the miserable conditions of his people and cry for revenge, for change, for better conditions. That is why his works have often been subject to censorship, to prohibition from public view on free, open public platforms. He has not only faced punishments in terms of not receiving his deserved social position in Ethiopian society, at least from the point of view of the governments, but had even to endure imprisonment for his stand for freedom of expression. Laureate Tsegaye is hence a full fledged all rounded literary figure in Ethiopia and has remained the irreplaceable teacher of Ethiopian theatre, throughout his life. For almost five decades he has been engaged in this profession using all of his talent unsparingly, and was at the maximum of his creativity when his kidneys failed him and had to emigrate to the US seeking continuous special treatment. For more than five years, he lived there undergoing dialysis, but was stopped a few weeks ago due to complications that followed such prolonged treatment. Tracing back his life, the young Tsegaye first showed all of his talent in the theatrical art when he prepared a play and staged it at the early age of thirteen in his native Ambo during one of the then Emperor’s visit to schools. At the end of the play, the Emperor was so impressed that he gave him away his wrist watch! Since then Laureate Tsegaye has been conferred with several awards including international ones and has been invited to grace numerous conferences and assemblies of people of the profession throughout the world. Tsegaye was the youngest winner of the Haile Selassie I Prize Trust Award at 29 and the latest award he received was from Norway Writers Association called the ‘Freedom of Expression Award.’ I remember that both Deutschvelle Radio DW, and Voice of America VOA’s Amharic services dedicated their Arts and Culture programs to review such event extensively. Poet Aberra Lema from Norway gave an extensive interview on this issue and so did Laureate Tsegaye himself. Tsegaye was not in a position to collect the award at the ceremony held in Norway and a subsequent event was scheduled for sometime to come in the US but death preceded the ceremony! It was many of his admirers and friends’ opinion that one day Tsegaye should be honoured with the much coveted Nobel Prize for Literature. However, we have not heard yet of any such nomination. Certainly it would have introduced Ethiopian literature to the outside world in brilliant terms and it would have represented as a breakthrough for Ethiopian arts. Having written more than fifty plays, translated the classics of Shakespeare and Molière into Amharic, Laureate Tsegaye remains a unique prototype in Ethiopian literature. His poetry is of the finest type and its messages are crystal clear. Tsegaye has always characteristically believed in the freedom of humans, their equality, and loathed violence and oppression. He was candid and never had any fear of anything in expressing his ideas. In fact, this appears an inherent trait of all true artists. Their genius does not admit fear nor retreat. Laureate Tsegaye was born in 1936 into a family that could be defined as typical of many areas of central Ethiopia. Mixed family in terms of ethnicity; his mother was an Amhara while his father was an Oromo. He had a clergy and warrior background. He went to a church school and had the opportunity to learn traditional Ethiopian literary elements such as poetry (quine) and then joined the British School. He studied law in the US and then travelled through out Europe studying theatre in late 1950. Later on, he became Director of the then Haile Selassie I Theatre (Now National Theatre) and since then has transformed Ethiopian theatre introducing his own style for others to follow. So did he in Ethiopian poetry. He directed many plays beside writing his own works and engaging in translations. Laureate Tsegaye was also appointed Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Culture by the Military/Marxist regime that had followed the monarchy. He was jailed for leading a demonstration in favour of free speech in 1975. Five of his prominent works have been translated in languages such as Russian, French and English. It is to be recalled also that his composition of the lyrics ‘Proud To Be African’ for the Organisation of African Unity, the precursor of the current African Union (AU), has earned him an award. "It was Tsegaye who initiated a new style for Ethiopian drama," says Jane Plastow, a former professor of theatre at Addis Ababa University. A style that was "serious, highly poetic, but most importantly, no longer concerned with Church morality and the exploits of the aristocracy, but with the evils of life as experienced by the poor." As a result, the public attended his plays in droves and the government frequently censored them. Forced to resign from his post at the National Theatre in 1970, Tsegaye was reinstalled as the director in early 1974. By 1978, the Mengistu government was again banning Tsegaye's plays, as the current government is today. Laureate Tsegaye was not very readily available to interviewers and that is why any interview he gives becomes a precious reference. Here are excerpts of what he said in an interview a few years ago with an American journalist: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. The cradle of man is here, the beginning of man is here, there is no refuting that. Archaeologists, geologists have dug everywhere and they have come up with the bones to prove that man started here. And that man was not sleeping, from the moment he was created he started creating. The heritage of that man, of the ancestor, is the heritage of the world. You don't begin knowing yourself halfway. You don't start from Europe, because Europe started from Africa. It started in Ethiopia and Egypt. Mythology started from Ethiopia and Egypt. Even the pope wears a double crown, as the pharaohs did 5,000 years ago. We practice the same cultures and yet we deny it. I would tell an American friend to go to Washington for the July 4 celebrations, and see the Americans worshipping the temple of the sun at the Washington Monument [which looks like the Axum obelisks]. America borrowed the temple of the sun from the Romans, the Romans borrowed it from the Greeks, the Greeks borrowed it from Ethiopia and black Egypt. It's the same temple of the sun, whether you call it black Egyptian, Aksumite, or Ethiopian the bonfire for the temple of the sun is a black practice. It is my stone, my temple of the sun. A mutual heritage. So I tell the American friend that he came up with nothing new, you in the West simply repeated it with higher technology. You are still worshipping my temple of the sun, we are one. So, when he comes here, I will tell him to look for his heritage, for the heritage of the ancestors, for our mythology, to walk in the footprints of his ancestors. This land is a museum of man's ancient history. They look at us, they watch us, the Europeans, the Americans, the other nations, with this tremendous fascination. They are awestruck by the unique practices of our church, of our Islam, of our ancient pre-Judaic worship. So I'll tell my European friend, my American friend, not to steal the Ark of the Covenant, which the slaves stole and say they received from a cloud. They didn't receive it from the cloud, they took it. And Solomon returned it, he didn't give it to me, he returned it. This is the source, his source, this is his heritage, our heritage. He must come and walk in the footprints of the human ancestors. The American has gone to the moon and found dust, he's going farther away to look for other planets, very good. But know thyself first. That is what I would tell my American friend. Ethiopia shall come into her own again. Democracy shall triumph. The law will have the upper hand, not tribalism. With the law and with democracy, the people shall have the upper hand. We are suffering, we suffer because of littleness and because of greed, imperial greed, the partitioning again of Africa. But empires who consume with blind greed have throughout history been consumed by the power of the people. The Greeks have, the Romans have, so have many empires. But the nation by the people, to the people, and for the people will triumph again. A simple human being. Conscious of African history, African civilization, African culture. Conscious of world civilization, world culture, of equality, of world brotherhood, I think that has been what the ancient history of Africa, the ancient history of Ethiopia has meant to us. What it still means to us. So we, as we go to America to learn, the Americans must come here to learn. To humble themselves before the ancestors, not to be arrogant, that's what Ethiopia means.” What will be the legacy of Laureate Tsegaye in literary terms? That will be very difficult to gauge and decide at this precise moment, but his message as one of the fervent advocates of freedom and freedom of expression, his ideas of a democratically elected government that would give priority to the needs of the poor and the destitute is clear in the minds of all those who read his literature, his poetry, his drama, his interviews, his articles. His extreme hatred for oppression and tyranny, his sublime love for his nation as one nation, for the Black people of the world as a whole, are living testimony of his personality, his essence, his being Poet-Laureate-Human Rights Activist Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin. Some one was saying the other day at his funeral services: Tsegaye! you are not dead, you cannot die, forever; because your works of art continue to live with us. We will always discuss them, we will always raise them at any literary or academic venue, and your name shall always be called. ‘What would Tsegaye think of this or that piece ? will always be a query for all to venture on, and then perhaps justify citing here and there, from your style, from your work.’ Any one of the caliber of Laureate Tsegaye can never die. He has his place in the hearts and minds of people. Rather, his fame and popularity are bound to increase through the years, and become a myth! Can any one assert that Emperor Tewodros is dead? Can any one claim that even Aleka Gebrehana is dead? And yet he was just a traditional literary figure that would hardly match the glory and achievements of a Tsegaye Gerbre-Medhin! Can any one consider Marathon Champion Abebe Bikila dead? No way! So is the same with Tsegaye. And his involvement in society’s texture is so intimate that he is bound to be immortal! Tsegaye Lives! Long Live Tsegaye! |
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