A Tale of Two Drum Beats
By Tariku Abas Etenesh
(First appeared on www.theethiopianamerican.com)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(First appeared on www.theethiopianamerican.com)
ቅዳሴ እና አዛኑን አጥር ቢለያቸው፡
ፈጣሪ ከሠማይ አንድነት ሰማቸው፡፡
……
“Liturgy and Azan(Salah), apart by a thin fence*,
The Almighty of Heavens heard them as one voice .
(Teddy Afro)
Whenever I hear Tewordros Kassahun (aka) Teddy Afro’s classic song ‘Shemedefer’it reminds me of my friend Mohammad Ali. Did the name Ali click on a time line of your memory and brought to life a picture of a legend? I thought so. Well, let me save you the surprise; the young, flamboyant, greatest boxer of all time ‘king of the world’ (as he used to deservedly call himself) is not the Ali I am writing about. My friend Ali wasn’t yet born when the great boxer became the champion of not only of professional boxing but also of the struggle against the grim reality of racial segregation in the USA of 1960's. The legendary Ali got his name, in the vein of Malcolm X, when he converted to Islam and renounced his former name Caicus Marcelus Clay as a Slave name. My friend, however, got his name from his Christian parents.
For the champ, his name was a central part of his fight against the political and social realities of his time that justified itself along predetermined racial lines. For the Ali, who happens to be my friend, his name has a totally different implication devoid of the preconceived meaning most people attach to it. For the legendary Ali knockout of his contenders by drumming them like sacks full of sand used to be his hallmark, while for my friend Ali, the actual drum is his expertise.
Are you from Wollo?
One thing my friend Mohammed Ali is currently getting used to when he meets people from outside Ethiopia is a frequently asked question. In such circles where he has to sometimes reveal about his religious background and say his name after that, he gladly has to answer the most frequent query: “how could that be?” When the same revelation for Ethiopian triggers another common question: “are you from Wollo?” Though he was born and raised in Addis Ababa, hundreds of kilometer away from Wollo, I understand why people make such connection of a name-to-place-to-religious background.
Wollo, located in the North East Ethiopia, in the Amhara regional state, has a distinctive characteristic that makes it known to many as a place of tolerance and harmony. In addition to the exemplary coexistence of different ethnic groups, such as Oromo, Amhara, Tigre and Afar, for centuries, Wollo is known most importantly for the religious harmony with a degree that looks impossible to pick a parallel for in other parts of the world except almost everywhere in Ethiopia.
If the legendary Ali happened to be in Wollo during his high time of championship and heard the names Mohammed, Edris, or Ali, and he automatically guessed he had heard Muslim names, the chances of his guesses being right might only be fifty-fifty. Surprised? Don’t be. And this is why you should not be surprised. It is commonly said, in Wollo one can meet a Christian priest called Ali and an Imam called Gebre Meskel (which can be translated as Servant of the cross). This tradition in the region which has flourished out of century’s long tolerance and intermarriage of different ethnic groups transcending religious lines has created current generation in Wollo, like my friend Muhammad Ali, who could certainly have a Muslim name and be a follower of Christianity and have a Christian name while being Muslim. As one mark of its colourful tradition that signifies the apparent chemistry and of brotherhood of the two (Abrahamic) religions should have had due to their very inceptions in the Arabian Peninsula as religions embraced by two branches of the same family (Ishmael and Isaac). Unlike other parts of the world where religion, at its best, seems to be vested in the hard-line discriminatory and hate fostering rhetoric, it is unheard of and of remote and peripheral importance in Wollo to label one’s neighbour as ‘the lethal other” for a mundane reason of having a different name of the Almighty as the destination for its prayers. For the religious in Wollo religion is one that makes men act humanly towards one another. That seems why there are countless instances of Muslims willingly contributing money for the construction of Churches in their vicinity and Christians participating in the celebration of Muslim festivities at will.
Well my friend was not born in Wollo but he is one example of the religious tolerance that manifests itself in a country. Like in case I mentioned in Wollo he has many in his genealogy bearing both Muslim and Christian names. That is why his being a Christian with Muslim name is no new thing for his parents. But that didn't save him from some eyes getting wider with surprise when he speaks of his family heritage and say his name in circles around church where he serves as member of the choir in a Sunday school and after service at church he goes home to his wife who is a Muslim. “What world are you talking about?” did you ask? Well that is the routine, but by no means inclusive of all, reality of religions in Ethiopia, especially in Wollo.
Beating your drum?
My friend Mohammed Ali is an expert in drums. If you can imagine the typical big drum with small and big surfaces at either ends and played usually during religious festivities of Ethiopian Orthodox Church, well, assume Ali beating it with excellence with the heart throbbing and exhilarating beats. For him, the drum has very different meaning than just a musical instrument. According to the Orthodox Church tradition the drum’s meaning is not just a musical instrument as it is more of a representation of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He has told me that the straps of leather that run between the smaller and the bigger faced of the drum are reminiscence of the lashes the saviour has born before he was crucified. I have heard the same detailed explanation of the meaning of the beats and the rhythmic sequencing of the drum as representation of the act of wailing and of declaring the good news of resurrection. It is thus with care and of understanding that he beats the drums.
But if you have thought the detailed meanings given to drums and their religious implication during the dictated propitiations to only Christianity, well you succeeded in missing one guess. I have witnessed this during one of the visits by Ali's parents-in-laws from the countryside, who are Muslim. I was present at his place eager to take part in the ‘Dua’, (music accompanied to praise the Almighty and ask for providence) I was astounded by the art of beating ‘Debbe’ (two small drums one bigger than the other (as if the Christian drums two ends were presented as separate entities) aligned side by side and beaten following the rhythmic songs by Ali's Muslim parents-in-law. The experiences were one that always gives me confidence in the human strength and the openness of the social-self that could live with tolerance with no limits.
“Kidase ena Azanun” -Liturgy and Azan (salah)
I am always intrigued by the intimacy of music, in its various forms, to the sublimities claimed by religion and mysticism which is more evident in most of the cultures in Ethiopia as in other parts of Africa. Songs in Christian, menzuma in Islam, could be cases in point for how the fibers of religious moralities could be interwoven like various threads well stitched in the social chemistry of people.
Arguably the drum could be one of the most ancient musical instruments our species mastered. More than any other musical instruments drums seem to be apparently common among most cultures and peoples around the world. Different versions of the drums all fashioned and beaten after some rhythm and with meanings attached the shapes, colors. And that seems why it is one of the few commonalities that transcend the artificially erected differences manifested in the form of cultural, religious, geographical justifications.
Most of the earliest attempts of our species, including religion, towards interpreting nature and in doing so defining man’s place and purpose on this planet, despite the eons that passed since their initial impulsive demeanor, still linger on as factors shaping every facet of life. And they do so in a paradoxical firmness of a Stone Age illumination, competing in the market of ideals of the current century, to still be factors to shape the path man should take into the future. Music and all its accompanying instruments is still the way most spiritual and mystical manifestation of man’s quest for meaning is still being communicated around the world.
If one asked me what music is and if that question doesn’t consider me as an expert in music, I would have a layman’s audacity to say that music is one of the myriads of attempts of our species towards transcendence. “What transcendence?” you may ask. I mean transcendence of the physical into the recognition of the inner, or the transcendence of the human into the recognition of the ‘supposed’ or ‘felt’ superhuman. Well let’s see it simple by imagining the first strings that were unintentionally tuned by one of our late ancestors somewhere on this planet. A loner in the woods, suddenly realizing that strings he stretched between two poles (may be to trap wild animals) producing unique sounds which was unlike the thunder, the buzz woods, and the chirp of the birds and the gushing of the water falls. And in that sudden recognition he realizes those sounds as his first volitional interaction with his surrounding to produce. It was his first transformation of the perceptive self to a productive self; marking one of the myriads of first steps we took as a species on our departure from the monotonous past.
Have you found yourself, as I sometimes do, after looking at the display of happiness and ecstasy in religious festivities, of various religious groups dedicated for one reason or another, bringing out the jovial in their followers and wish that religion could only radiate only the tune of happiness?
But it must be understood that I am not under the wrong impression that religion has always been playing the ‘Wollo model’ in Ethiopia. There were and still are some pockets of regrettable realities in the country where religions, both Christianity and Islam, have inspired the worst in men not the best. I am only interested in stating the fact that the delicacies involved in religious teaching and beliefs should always be used to help the inherent tendencies in human being for human togetherness as in the case in Wollo. As eddy Afro sang in his classic song ‘Shemendefer’, religious leaders and believers should not fall prey to the hard-line discriminatory and hate fostering rhetoric rather than the brotherhood of men on earth that they should be preaching like Mohammed Ali.
I say so because as one Nigerian proverb puts it quite eloquently, ‘When the music changes, so does the dance’, in the current context of the religious rhetoric in Ethiopia, any miss-step by any group be it named ‘government intervention’ or ‘religious groups’ to belittle and degrade the age old tolerance, and carelessly allow the positive tempo of tolerance and coexistence among religious groups change, the ensuing dance could become alien and disastrous.
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Liturgy and Azan(Salah), apart by a thin fence*The biggest and famous Mosque in Ethiopia(Grand Anwar Mosque) is separated by a narrow lane from one of the biggest Churches in Addis Ababa (Raguel Cathedral), signifying the deep seated religious tolerance in the country.
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TAE
