Lewy The Enigma of Horn of Africa and its meaning

Monsoon, 2024

The Horn of Africa, located on the western edge of the Indian Ocean, is a zone of extreme weather. Often figuring within discourses of geopolitical fragmentation and environmental disaster, the Horn is also home to rich literary traditions that bear witness to its long history as a site of cultural exchange and imperial ambition. This article presents a close reading of Igabia Scego's Italian-language novel Adua (2015), arguing that a localized iteration of the Indian Ocean monsoon, the rainstorm, organizes the novel's narrative, structure, and epistemology. This "storm form" embedded in the novel is a mode of archipelagic thinking that indexes situated African environmental epistemes and the climatological and embodied effects of empire while dispelling reductive or romanticized representations. As an alternate mode of organizing spatiotemporal relations and a method of inquiry into them, the storm is a situated Horn of Africa contribution to the theorization of the Indian Ocean as monsoonal archipelago.

This is an updated English summary of my dissertation which is written in German. It was published in 2018 in German by Peter Lang.

2019

This report is the outcome of a workshop organised by the Africa Foundation in collaboration with Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TİKA) in Ankara. The workshop, entitled ‘The Horn of Africa at the Crossroads’, sheds light on the current socio-economic, political and security changes taking place in the Horn of Africa. For decades, the peninsula has comprised a confusing mixture of political and economic systems, ranging from failed states to isolationism, rentierism and development based on authoritarian dictate. In this circumstance, relations between and within states have been uneasy at best, influenced by border conflicts, ethnic tensions and fierce competition for power. Since the rise of the new Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, new reforms have been introduced in the Horn. However, ethnic tensions are still on the rise and the stakes are high with elections to due next year. The prime minister faces a da-unting task of stopping ethnic tensions from spiralling out of control. Uncertainty looms on the extent to which Ahmed’s transformative policies can drive meaningful changes in Ethiopia, in the relationships among the Horn countries and beyond. Some analysts welcomed these changes and their possible spillover effects on easing tensions in the region, whereas others insisted that the results and outcomes of such changes have yet to be determined. This report proffers the views expressed by political analysts, diplomats and academicians from the Horn of Africa who took part in the workshop. It examines the political, socio-economic and security reforms currently implemented in the region,evaluates the roles played by regional and global actors and develop future projections for the region. African Foundation would like to extend its appreciation to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency for their immense support and valuable contributions. We also like to express our sincere gratitude to the political analysts, experts, diplomats, academicians and bureaucrats from the Horn of Africa who participated in the workshop. In our quest to recommend tangible solutions to the numerous problems in the Horn of Africa, we are committed to keep working with experts, academicians and stakeholders from the region.

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2017

304)'; ghwàvíɗá gù (p. 75 a) n'bot Fluggea virosa Baill. small bush (eaten by goats); arbuste (appété par les chèvres) = F caami (Noye 1989: 299)'. The items are often paired with photos, which indicates that the photographs are available in the Lexus database (http://lux17.mpi.nl/lex/lexus/index.html). These items are of different types: búɗá (p. 55 b) n 'bracelet, armlet, bangle'; dàɗúwì (p. 58 a) n 'nose or lip ornament for women'; fwá ghàbà (p. 67 a) n'bot Faidherbia (Acacia) albida tree, Apple-ring acacia, winter-thornʼ; gáŋ (p. 68 a) n 'squirrel; a head-dress made from skin of a sqirrel'; xàsú'ù (p. 118 a) n 'wood'. The only forgetfulness, we notice, is the absence of a Hdi-English-French Index (pp. 54-125) in the Contents (p. vi). We should be grateful to the authors for this valuable dictionary, which will enhance the documentation of a rather minority Central Chadic language, considering the fact that H. Ekkehard Wolff has recently published The Lamang Language and Dictionary (Köln: Rüdiger Köppe 2015), a language very close to Hdi.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1962

https://megalommatis.wordpress.com, 2025

First published in the American Chronicle, Buzzle and AfroArticles on the 19th September 2007 First republished on the 1st January 2025 here: https://megalommatis.wordpress.com/horn-of-africa-history-colonial-plans-and-the-outrageous-forger-mammo-muchie-2007/ ---------------- This article is the 4th of a series of articles that comprises also the following: Colonial Plans for the Horn of Africa – ‘Ethiopia’ to border with Egypt? (2007) https://www.academia.edu/126618791/Colonial_Plans_for_the_Horn_of_Africa_Ethiopia_to_border_with_Egypt_2007_ Horn of Africa – Monstrous Colonial Plans Unveiled (2007) https://www.academia.edu/126618943/Horn_of_Africa_Monstrous_Colonial_Plans_Unveiled_2007_ The Horn of Africa Conference Clique, and their Dark Plans for Egypt, Sudan, ‘Ethiopia’, and Somalia https://www.academia.edu/126662570/The_Horn_of_Africa_Conference_Clique_and_their_Dark_Plans_for_Egypt_Sudan_Ethiopia_and_SomaliaEthiopia_and_Somalia

A review of Christopher Clapham's first monograph in two decades, which examines Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Somaliland.

SSRN, 2024

In 1913, “The voice of Africa” by Leo Frobenius has been published. It was an account of the travels of the German Inner African Exploration Expedition in the years 1910-1912, made under Frobenius’ leadership. Frobenius carried out excavations at the ancient Yoruba city of Ife in Nigeria, theorizing that the Ife bronze and terracotta sculptures were relics from Atlantis. Here, we are not concerned with the Frobenius’ Atlantic Africa theory. We want to stress the fact that Frobenius knew the theory by Heinrich Nissen of the Templum, published in 1869. He used the Nissen’s templum as evidence of an Atlantic Africa connection with the Mediterranean world.

The Journal of African History, 2002

The end of the last century and beginning of a new millennium have provided the excuse for many of us, of whatever profession, to inundate ourselves with summings up of the past and dire warnings and prophesies for the future. Whether or not this publication was intended to coincide with the beginning of the new millennium, it remains timely. The volume presents nine papers revised from a conference at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) in , together with a tenth to round out its geographical scope. All the contributors except for one co-author are American. This is important, for only in the United States could a volume be produced with the stated aim of taking issue with both Eurocentric and Afrocentric interpretations of the subject. While undoubtedly an important issue in the US, it has a curiously hollow ring to this reviewer, who found little that could be seen as controversial. For a text attempting to bridge these two polar views of ancient Africa, it is a rather odd mixture. Many of the papers are general introductory regional outlines (Egypt and Nubia, Egypt and Kush, Meroe$ , Ballan4 a, Berbers and Carthage, Cyrenaica and Marmarica) by acknowledged experts on each (Frank Yurco, Edna Russmann, Stanley Burstein, William Adams, Reuben Bullard and Donald White, respectively), following the title and its historical theme and fitting together well. These are allied with topical essays (colour prejudice, linguistics, state formation, modern archaeological disinformation) that, with the exception of the first, do not fit so well. Most authors assume the reader has only a general knowledge of his or her region, and so provide a basic background and overview. These, then, are excellent summary introductions to the geographical region and chronological period(s) they encompass, and could be required reading for students of their subject. They are basic enough to be understood by both layman and student, yet sufficiently interesting to profit scholars of more comprehensive background : few of the latter are well versed in all the civilizations, chronological periods and geographical regions covered here, and reading the papers beyond one's area of expertise will prove rewarding. Some, however, require previous specialist knowledge in order to comprehend the arguments put forth. Non-linguists can get through the technical half of Carlton Hodge's ' Afroasiatic ' paper with a little struggle, but Bullard's essay on the Berbers requires detailed knowledge of geological terminology in order to comprehend the importance he himself places on its geology for cultural development in the region. Frank Snowdon's paper is a slightly updated encapsulation of his excellent Before Color Prejudice (), but readers are advised to consult the book before (rather than ?) reading the essay ; the latter is far too concise. It would have been far better if Rodolfo Fattovich and Kathryn Bard, in the only paper not presented at the conference, had penned an overview of Ethiopian civilizations through Classical and indigenous evidence, in keeping with the volume's theme and the majority of its other essays, rather than a comparison of state formation in      Egypt and Ethiopia. The only apparent excuse for inclusion of Maynard Swanson's essay on Great Zimbabwe seems to be the early colonialist assumption of a nonindigenous and specifically Semitic origin. Nonetheless, this last paper serves as the volume's best, or at least its most overt, statement of how historical research, archaeology and interpretation have evolved over the past century (fittingly, the volume is dedicated to his memory) ; and as a warning against distortion of evidence for political or aggrandizing motives in the next. Euroand Afrocentrists, both take heed. Unfortunately, some essays were not fully brought up to date for publication. To give but two examples, Hodge cites the first () volume only of the Dictionary of Late Egyptian and the remainder as ' in progress ' (p. ), when the fifth and last already had appeared in , a year before the original conference. And Bard and Fattovich cite their ' Proto-Aksumite ' levels as the earliest at Aksum (pp. -), when concurrent BIEA excavations in - had already unearthed clear and substantial ' Pre-Aksumite ' occupation levels dating a half-millennium earlier ; see Azania  (), -; D. W. Phillipson, Archaeology at Aksum, Ethiopia,-(). It must be said that little actually new is presented here. The essays are essentially summations of the current status quo in the various fields discussed. For this reason, if no other, the volume is a useful addition to one's library.