Saving Ethopia’s heritage
Sylvia Pankhurst’s son is as campaigning as his mother
WORDS | ALEX RAYNER
PROFESSOR RICHARD PANKHURST DENIES HAVING A LIFELONG CALLING. “I’ve lived hand-to-mouth,” says the 81-year-old academic, seated in his garden in Addis Ababa, “I came to Ethiopia on a three-year contract.”
Despite his protests, Professor Pankhurst has devoted the past half-century to recording and preserving Ethiopia’s history. He founded the Institute for Ethiopian Studies, the country’s leading museum and academic institution, and has lobbied foreign establishments for the return of Ethiopian artefacts. This month he takes part in three academic conferences in the city.
He says of his achievements in general and the foundation of the institute in particular: “It was a challenge, but we took it day by day.”
Was he the ideal person to do it? “Well,” he replies, “I had done quite a lot of research.”
Such dedication shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s familiar with Pankhurst’s bloodline. Richard is the grandson of Emmeline Pankhurst, the founding member of the Women’s Social and Political Union, known as the suffragettes, who campaigned for British women’s voting rights from the beginning of the 20th century through to their partial enfranchisement in 1918. His mother, Sylvia Pankhurst, also took up the suffrage cause before turning her attention first towards fascism and then Ethiopia.
Though she was born in Manchester, Sylvia was awarded a scholarship to study art in Venice. Her Italian sojourn coincided with Mussolini’s rise to power, and so, as Richard says, “she was quite an active anti-fascist before almost everyone else.”
When Il Duce’s attentions turned towards the Horn of Africa, so did Sylvia’s.
“Mussolini knew nothing about Ethiopia until he invaded,” he says, “and my mother knew nothing until she tried to defend it.”
Yet Sylvia’s interest endured long after the Italian occupation. Having campaigned on the nation’s behalf since 1934, she first visited Addis in 1943, three years after Mussolini’s regime fell. She returned some years later with her son. His recollection of the city back then remains vivid.
“There were very few buildings and a strong smell of eucalyptus as well as cooking. The palace of Menelik lay in the centre and the buildings of the principal lords stood around that. Around them were the houses of the common people, and of course a lot of space was kept for mules and horses.”
Pankhurst went on to study at the prestigious London School of Economics, before settling in Addis Ababa alongside his mother in 1956. With scholarship coming to him naturally, he planned to teach local history and write an economic history of the country. “Well, it was initially to be economic then social history, and finally cultural history. I started studying Ethiopia in ancient times and worked my way down.”
Pankhurst founded the Institute for Ethiopian Studies in 1963, three years after his mother’s death (Sylvia is buried in Addis’s Holy Trinity cathedral).
“As I went on researching, I saw that a number of important artefacts were taken out of the country.” Given his background, it was no surprise that the scholar soon turned activist, lobbying various overseas institutions for the return of these objects.
Pankhurst’s greatest victory to date is the return of the obelisk of Axum, a 1,700-year-old, 24-metre-tall granite stele taken by the Italians from the ancient Ethiopian capital in 1937.
After years of campaigning, he witnessed the final piece of ancient rock slide from the nose of a cargo plane and on to Ethiopian turf in April 2005. It now towers above the city where it was first erected, in Ethiopia’s northern highlands.
But Pankhurst continues to push for more returns, though the octogenarian often works from home, keeping in touch with colleagues via the internet. “Though I’m semi-retired I’m working harder than when I was fully employed.”
And he travels where the cause leads him, holding both British and Ethiopian passports. “Only because it’s much more convenient to travel with a British passport,” Pankhurst tells me. “Because I’m happy to criticise the British government or any other government for that matter. I feel I’m a citizen of the world really.”
ARTFUL ETHIOPIA
The Institute of Ethiopian Studies museum (Yekatit 12 Square, Addis Ababa) is open Tuesday – Sunday from 8am – 5pm (10am Sundays). The entrance fee is 20 birr.
The 17th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies takes place 1-7 November 2009.
The Seventh International Conference on the History of Ethiopian Art and a conference on an early 20th-century ruler, Lij Iyasu, also take place towards the beginning of November. www.aau.edu.et/ies
