Sylvia Pankhurst: Counsel for Ethiopia

by Richard Pankhurst Professor

Overview

Sylvia Pankhurst, the former British Suffragette, devoted the last forty years of her life to Anti-Fascism and support for Ethiopia, for many centuries Africa's principal independent state. She responded to Mussolini's invasion of the country in 1935 by founding a weekly newspaper New Times and Ethiopia News, which she was to edit for twenty years. She protested against the Fascist use of poison-gas in Ethiopia, and published news of the Ethiopian patriot resistance. Her paper condemned Britain's "appeasement" of the Axis Dictators, and supported the Republican Government in the Spanish Civil War. After Mussolini's entry into the European War, on the side of Nazi Germany, she agitated against the return to Italy of her African colonies. Ever against colonialism, she clashed with the British Government in demanding the full restoration of Ethiopian independence, and advocated the "reunion" of the former Italian colony of Eritrea with Ethiopia. She raised funds for Ethiopia's first teaching hospital, and wrote extensively on Ethiopian art and culture. Having moved to Addis Ababa in 1956, with her son, the author, she founded a monthly journal, Ethiopia Observer, on many aspects of Ethiopian life and development. She died in 1960, and was buried with the Ethiopian Patriots, in front of Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, in the presence of the Emperor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780972317238
Publisher:	Tsehai Publishers
Publication date:	01/05/2003
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Professor Richard Pankhurst is Sylvia Pankhurst's only child and was an adult throughout much of the period covered by this book. Using largely unpublished materials, he traces his mother's opposition to Italian Fascism and advocacy of Ethiopian independence. The author, who bore witness to his mother's political activities on behalf of Ethiopia, and other victims of Fascism, is a historian of the country where he resides with his wife Rita. He has written extensively on many aspects of Ethiopian history, and is the author of a biography of his mother's earlier life, Sylvia Pankhurst: Artist.