Ideology in Sahle Sellassie's Firebrands

Ideology in Sahle Sellassie's Firebrands Taddesse Adera Mary Washington College Five years after the bloody Ethiopian revolution, B.M. Sahle Sellassie's fourth novel in English, Firebrands, was published. It was quite a considerable achievement for Sahle Sellassie to have published these books, considering the fact that he writes in a country where the number of novels written in English totals fewer than ten, and his works account for nearly half of that number. In addition to his works in English, he has written two other novels, one in Chaha and the other in Amharic. Firebrands is primarily preoccupied with castigating an Ethiopian feudal social order characterized by rampant corruption, greed, and degradation and dehumanization of the Ethiopian people. Just as Ayi Kwei Armah takes an uncompromising stand against Ghanian politicians and other corrupt civil servants in his novel The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Sahle Sellassie fearlessly attacks the decadent social structure that has forced people to live in squalor. In fact, there are many similarities between the two novels. Bezuneh reminds us of "the man" who struggles to keep his conscience clear despite tempting and difficult circumstances. Kebret and Dejazmatch Azbte parallel Koomson and the other corrupt Ghanian inner party circle officials. If the "Teacher" in Armah's novel is a concerned but a rather resigned and uncommitted individual, so is Dr. Mandefrot, who is practically inactive in the midst of a revolution. Furthermore, Kofi Billy, Maanan, and their friends, who represent the strong desire for change and the disillusionment created among the youth in the rapidly changing Ghanian society, can be compared to Worku, Takori, and the general student movement in Ethiopia. The protagonist of Firebrands, Bezuneh, is a fresh graduate from college with no family of his own and thus none of the concomitant responsibilities. When he starts to work for an unnamed Corporation, we® Northeast African Studies (ISSN 0740-9133) Vol. 3, No. 3 (New Series) 1996, pp. 127-137127 128 Taddesse Adera are told that "he came with a clean mind and a clean heart to fight . . . corruption in government office and public corporations" (31). Five months after his appointment, however, Bezuneh is offered a bribe, a pen and pencil made of silver, from "a wealthy car dealer" and a "foreign national," Mr. Richardson. Bezuneh declines the offer just as "the man" does in Armah's novel several times. However, we learn that Richardson and Bezuneh's boss, His Excellency Ato Kebret, are "long-standing business friends," (18) Richardson providing the bribes and Kebret giving him the business. Bezuneh's determination "to do things right" leads him to clash with the immediate interests of his own boss, ultimately leading to his dismissal from his job. It is interesting to note here that both "the man" in Armah's novel and Bezuneh in Sahle Sellassie's stand up for their principles to the extent that they and their friends are hurt. They see corruption in their respective societies and take their own individualized actions against it. "The man" thinks that a life sustained by bribery and corruption, no matter how luxurious it may be, "has more rottenness in it than the slime at the bottom of a garbage dump" (Armah, 44). Similarly, Bezuneh believes that "the stink" surrounding his corporation and the country at large "has to be cleared" (41). If, in Ghana, "stealing by means of employment . . . [is] the national game," (129) in Ethiopia, "theft not discovered is no theft" at all (31). We are told that in such countries, for a person in "a government corporation or in the civil service to carry out one's duty is to do others a favor" (Sahle Sellassie, 53). In both countries, corruption is so deeply ingrained in the very fabric of their societal structures that even "a simple clerk in the town hall could block a big transaction if he wished to" (Sahle Sellassie, 54). According to the narrator of Firebrands, the case of Ethiopia is even worse: A civil servant or an employee of a corporation was a mini-emperor at his own level. Just as senior officials had to pay tribute to the emperor, and just as the junior officials had...