WI Emperor Haille Selasse fled to Jamaica in 1974?

[riggerrob]

WI the Ethiopian famine of 1973 forced Emperor Haille Selasse to resign and flee to Jamaica?
How would that change Ethiopian history?
How would that change Jamaican history?
How would that change the Rastafarian faith?

 

[Lalli]

Why he would flee to Jamaica? UK, France or Switzerland seem more plausible places. Rastafarism was developing in Jamaica but still I doubt that ex-emperor would flee there.

For Ethiopia this hardly would change anything.

 

[Simon]

Rastafarism was developing in Jamaica but still I doubt that ex-emperor would flee there.

IIRC didn't he find the whole Rastafarism thing to be somewhat odd? Considering how involved he was with the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church it wouldn't be all that surprising.

 

[overoceans]

The PM of Jamaica at that time was the socialist Michael Manley. Not sure how keen he would have been on giving sanctuary to a right-wing, pro-western dictator, regardless of that dictator's deification among a Jamaican religious sect(which has never actually amounted to more than a tiny fraction of Jamaica's population).

My understanding is that the rastafarians worshipped HS because they thought his biography fulfilled some obscure prophecies about a king rising in Africa. The connection sorta breaks down when you try to take it into the geopolitical realm, ie. allying a right-wing, Orthodox Christian dictator with an anti-establishment, black-nationalist faith promoting vague anti-imperialist teachings.

 

[Quintuplicate]

Aren't there a ton of Lutherans in Ethiopia?

 

[Hagre]

Why would he have gone to Jamaica of all places? If Haile Selassie had been forced to abdicate and been replaced by his son as a puppet of the Derg, I don't think he can really afford to go abroad at his age.