WI Challenge: Most prominent possible Ethiopia

Yesterday evening, I ended a day with a friend with Toronto with Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant, a long-established Ethiopian restaurant on Bloor Street West. We split one of their $C 25 platters, served on a round sheet of injera bread, and pronounced ourselves quite satisfied.



Ethiopian cuisine, we agreed, deseres to be known worldwide as one of the great cuisines. Ethiopia the country generally seems to be doing pretty well, now in the second decade of the 21st century. Rural areas remain vulnerable to famine, but the Ethiopian economy seems to be on the verge of takeoff, as investors from around the world make investments in a stable African countries with a large domestic market within easy reach of other world markets. (The Chinese model actually seems to be working.)

As Ethiopia's economy continues its development, it wouldn't be very surprising to me if elements of Ethiopian culture--the food, for instance, or the music--get picked up by discerning consumers. Ethiopia may be starting to move away from its grim reputation in the 1980s as a country of lethal poverty towards something more nuanced. India may be further along in its own similar transition, having shifted in the Western imagination from being a place notable for its poverty towards a more mixed and favourable perception, as a burgeoning superpower with both unattractive and attractive features.

Is there any way Ethiopia can be made to have the transition that India made, and that Ethiopia OTL is only having now, with a post-1900 POD? Probably a prerequisite is to have the Ethiopian monarchy of the mid-20th century more capably rule the country, at least to the point of preventing revolution and the rise of the Derg. Was Haile Selassie at all capable of this?
 
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Nivelle offensive get's out of control
Germany crushes france in 1917
Ethiopia joins the central powers
Ethiopia captures eritrea and somalia from italy
Then germany invests heavily in ethiopia in the post war years

This is the easiest way can think of
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Yesterday evening, I ended a day with a friend with Toronto with Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant, a long-established Ethiopian restaurant on Bloor Street West. We split one of their $C 25 platters, served on a round sheet of injera bread, and pronounced ourselves quite satisfied.



Ethiopian cuisine, we agreed, deseres to be known worldwide as one of the great cuisines. Ethiopia the country generally seems to be doing pretty well, now in the second decade of the 21st century. Rural areas remain vulnerable to famine, but the Ethiopian economy seems to be on the verge of takeoff, as investors from around the world make investments in a stable African countries with a large domestic market within easy reach of other world markets. (The Chinese model actually seems to be working.)

As Ethiopia's economy continues its development, it wouldn't be very surprising to me if elements of Ethiopian culture--the food, for instance, or the music--get picked up by discerning consumers. Ethiopia may be starting to move away from its grim reputation in the 1980s as a country of lethal poverty towards something more nuanced. India may be further along in its own similar transition, having shifted in the Western imagination from being a place notable for its poverty towards a more mixed and favourable perception, as a burgeoning superpower with both unattractive and attractive features.

Is there any way Ethiopia can be made to have the transition that India made, and that Ethiopia OTL is only having now, with a post-1900 POD? Probably a prerequisite is to have the Ethiopian monarchy of the mid-20th century more capably rule the country, at least to the point of preventing revolution and the rise of the Derg. Was Haile Selassie at all capable of this?

Haile Selassie was as capable as you can get as a Ethiopian monach, i.e. really good at elminating pretenders to the throne and scheming himself to power. He also had some understanding of the need to modernize, such as abolishing slavery and the gabbar system, instituting a professional army that was paid in salaries as well as trying to institute a paid bureaucracy. However obviously he had no interest to seriously damage the aristocracy's hold on the country (except for the part of the aristocracy that were his political rivals), which was his downfall. And no, I don't think another Emperor would have done a better job.
 
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As Ethiopia's economy continues its development, it wouldn't be very surprising to me if elements of Ethiopian culture--the food, for instance, or the music--get picked up by discerning consumers. Ethiopia may be starting to move away from its grim reputation in the 1980s as a country of lethal poverty towards something more nuanced. India may be further along in its own similar transition, having shifted in the Western imagination from being a place notable for its poverty towards a more mixed and favourable perception, as a burgeoning superpower with both unattractive and attractive features.

Ethiopia is pretty decently known for its food (lots of Ethiopian restaurants in the US operated by actual Ethiopians), and amongst music fans, Ethiopian jazz is well-known and often critically praised as some of the best music from Africa. Mulatu Astatke, Mahmoud Ahmed, Getatchew Mekurya, are all decently known internationally, probably approaching that of a lot of India's more famous musicians.

I think it's definitely interesting that Ethiopia is regarded as a place of absolute poverty, but Ethiopia is a country that by all means should have made it in history but never really did. Ethiopia (with Eritrea incorporated, which is doable) could be a major player in Africa along the lines of a Nigeria (similar situation, but arguably Nigeria is further along than Ethiopia). If you were looking at the situation 150 years ago with a bit of knowledge of today, you'd expect Ethiopia to at least as developed as a place like Thailand or Indonesia. Or India, for that matter, and you definitely wouldn't expect it to be among the poorest countries in the world and a byword for poverty and famine.
 

sprite

Donor
Monthly Donor
Maybe Ethiopia can get Italian Somaliland along with Eritrea in 1951 (they were claiming both). 1960 coup removes Haile Selassie and his successor, Amha Selassie is more amendable to federation and the middle classes.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Maybe Ethiopia can get Italian Somaliland along with Eritrea in 1951 (they were claiming both). 1960 coup removes Haile Selassie and his successor, Amha Selassie is more amendable to federation and the middle classes.
Somaliland, nah. They'd collapse fast if they had to contain rebellions both in Somaliland and Eritrea. Basically all of their resources would go towards fighting insurgencies, and it's not like Ethiopia didn't have enough insurgencies already (Eritreans, various Soviet backed groups, various Oromo nationalist organizations, Somalia backed Somali separatist, as well as rival aristocrats wanting the crown etc.) So, no. Italian Somaliland would weaken Ethiopia more than strengthen it.
 
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