Thomas Jefferson should have known about Ethiopia.  That was what the late, great Pan-Africanist scholar Ali Mazrui suggested in his keynote address to a conference held at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 2007.  I assisted Mazrui with research for that address and was honoured to travel with him to Ithaca and listen to his presentation as he reflected on Ethiopia with characteristic imagination and historical sensitivity.  

The author analyses the implications of the on-going reforms by the reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed not only in Ethiopia, but also in the entire Eastern African region and the whole continent of Africa in general. 

The rise of Abiy Ahmed in Ethiopia and the revival of Africa’s short memory of hate are inseparably linked.

The Oromo people have not been able to dominate the politics of Ethiopia, as the Amhara and Tigrinya people have dominated the empire's  governance. Nonetheless, the Oromo's ancestral principle of democracy--a transitional principle of eight years as a generational unit--has influenced many countries and could one time influence Ethiopia's politics.  

The North Korean situation may be (turned into) a blessing in disguise for humanity if we can let it usher in a global movement for universal nuclear disarmament.

Prof Ali Mazrui was known for making penetrating comparisons of seemingly unrelated individuals, things and groups. It is fair to say that he was also a great classifier in general; nothing was unclassifiable for Mazrui whether it was racism, sexism, Africanity or slavery.

In order to understand the broader significance of President Barack Obama’s July 2015 visit to Ethiopia more fully, we must put it in a historical perspective, argues Professor Seifudein Adem, associate director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University, United States. Tracing back the history of Ethio-American relationship is one step in that direction.

What was Prof Mazrui’s most favorite quote? It was from a book by his mentor at Oxford, John Plamenatz: “The sins of the powerful acquire some of the prestige of power.”

Mazrui’s scholarship is vast thematically and theoretically, but above all, challenges positivist conceptions of hegemonic, universal and objective truths. His early work revealed the political, social and cultural function and limitations in established knowledge; later, Mazrui actively challenged and undermined constructed truths.