Mr. McLachlan, while I've enjoyed your series of articles chronicling your recent trip to Ethiopia, I've noticed many instances in a number of your articles that seem to suggest your source of information on Ethiopia to have come from some biased and incomprehensive sources (Wikipedia, it seems, in this instance).

I'm not going to make a list of all the instances where you made historically inaccurate statements, but I feel obliged to make one correction regarding this article. Addis Abeba was not, as claimed in your article, founded by the named empress. It had existed long before that under the name of Finfinne (a name derived from the hot springs, and less formally known as Sheggar).

What the empress' husband did was to merely occupy (through the forced and brutal expulsion of its original inhabitants) it and rename it, as many other places had been renamed following the southern expansion of the empire into Oromian territory (e.g. Adama/Nazret, Bishoftu/Debre Zeit, etc.). It's no accident the names of Addis Abeba's sub-cities like Gullele, Bole-Bulbula, Lafto, Kality-Akaki, Yeka, Mekenisa, etc. still maintain Oromo names.

Not to jump the gun or anything, but just because you seem to have an affinity for the northern tribes doesn't mean you should make careless omissions of important facts; if it is in any way intentional, perhaps even subconsciously.

I kindly request you make this correction accordingly.

Thanks

Reply