Asfa-Wossen Asserate

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Asfa-Wossen Asserate (2012)

Asfa-Wossen Asserate ( Ethiop . አስፋ-ዎሠን አሠርዓተ; born October 31, 1948 in Addis Ababa , Ethiopia ) is an Ethiopian-German management consultant, bestselling author and political analyst .

As the great-nephew of the last Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie , great-grandson of Empress Menen Asfaw and son of the last President of the Imperial Privy Council , Colonel Leul Ras (Duke) Asserate Kassa (1922–1974) and his wife Leult (Princess) Zuriash Worq Gabre-Iqziabher (* 1930) he is a member of a branch of the dethroned Ethiopian imperial family. His book Manners (2003) made him widely known .

Life

Lij (Infant) Asfa-Wossen Asserate attended the German School Addis Ababa . After graduating from high school, he studied law , economics and history at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and at Magdalene College . He followed a suggestion from Paulus von Stolzmann , the German ambassador in Addis Ababa, and joined the Corps Suevia Tübingen . Since Asfa-Wossen, as a member of a governing house, was not allowed to fencing scales , he became a corps bow bearer of Suevia. In his autobiography (2007) he devotes an entire chapter to his active time ( Gaudeamus igitur ).

1978 Asfa-Wossen was at Eike Haberland at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main with a historical work about an aspect of Ethiopian history for Dr. phil. PhD .

When the communist revolution in Ethiopia began and the Derg military junta came to power in 1974, his father was executed without trial and his family arrested. For years, his mother and most of his siblings were held incommunicado and under frequent threats. Asfa-Wossen, on the other hand, was forced to stay in the Federal Republic and was unable to return to his home country until the fall of the Mengistu regime in 1991. In 1976 he founded the first human rights organization for Ethiopia, the Council for Civil Liberties in Ethiopia . He campaigned for the release of political prisoners in Ethiopia and his family members who were held in kin .

From 1980 to 1983 he was head of the press department at Messe Düsseldorf . Since then he has been working as an independent management consultant on Africa and the Middle East.

He has had German citizenship since 1981 . Since 1991 he has been able to visit the country of his birth again. He tries to improve his foreign trade . In 1994 he founded Orbis Aethiopicus , the Society for the Preservation and Promotion of Ethiopian Culture , which is dedicated to preserving and nurturing Ethiopian culture, monuments and passing on Ethiopian history to the new generation. Asfa-Wossen Asserate is also committed to spreading knowledge about Ethiopia and its traditional past in Germany and fights for Ethiopian studies . Their institutional existence is at risk across Europe.

Title and salutation

The Ethiopian title "Lij" ("Infant", "Prince") was given to descendants of the Solomon dynasty until the fall of the imperial family in 1974 . The father's name (transliterated as Asserate or Asrate) follows the Ethiopian naming rules according to the first, actual name. There are no given names and surnames in Ethiopia .

The full salutation is Dr. Asfa-Wossen Asserate, alternatively Dr. Asfa-Wossen (not "Mr. Asserate" or similar, as this was his father's name). If you want to follow international aristocratic conventions, Dr. Address Asfa-Wossen Asserate with “Imperial Highness” or with “Prince” or the former Ethiopian “Lij”, followed by the name.

Books

manners

Asfa-Wossen Asserate 's book Manners , which was presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2003 and deals with European and especially German manners , quickly became a bestseller. It first appeared in the series Die Andere Bibliothek , edited by Hans Magnus Enzensberger . A highly acclaimed preprint appeared in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung .

At the beginning of 2004, doubts were expressed as to whether Asfa-Wossen Asserate really wrote the book himself. When asked, Asfa-Wossen Asserate himself pointed out from the start that the book had been edited by his friend, the writer Martin Mosebach .

Some reviewers put Asfa-Wossen Asserate's book in a row with the Knigge of 1788 and the Schönfeldt of 1987, although strictly speaking the book is not a binding guide to manners. It was also praised that the author is well versed in the international arena , incorporating social phenomena from other peoples and cultures as well as historical developments. Asfa-Wossen Asserate's book was seen in some feature pages as an attack on the generation of the " 68ers ".

The "Manners" are not a textbook or a guide to good behavior. Rather, it is a question of sociological and cultural-historical considerations of the behavior of European people. However, since the author's opinion on a specific problem is usually echoed, the book certainly provides orientation.

In January 2004 he was awarded the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize for manners , which is awarded to authors who write in German but whose mother tongue is not German.

In April 2007, part of the chapter The Honor was part of the Abitur examination in Baden-Württemberg.

Asfa-Wossen was the patron of the Manners exhibition, which opened in the Focke Museum in December 2009 . Tales of decency and morals from seven centuries .

A prince from the house of David

The title of Asfa-Wossen Asserate's memoirs A prince from the house of David and why he stayed in Germany wants to indicate his descent from David , the ruler of the Davidic-Solomonic empire and father of Solomon (this is, however, based more on the historical self- image of the Ethiopian imperial dynasty than on concrete, historically secured facts). According to a legend, the so-called Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia is said to have descended from Menelik , an alleged son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba ; in fact, however, the genealogy of the imperial family can only be regarded as more secure from the year 1270 AD, almost 2300 years after the time of Solomon, than the Zagwe dynasty of the ancestors Asfa-Wossen Asserates, which had ruled up to that time, in this year was replaced.

Outside only jugs

A Tübingen anecdote that took place on the market square in front of the Café Pfuderer there gave the title of this book. While looking for a good cup of coffee, Asfa-Wossen Asserate identified what was then Café Pfuderer on the market square, which, according to the prince, “was known for the beauty of its waitresses”.

“Only jugs outside!” One of the gastronomic beauties taught him at the time. In doing so, she pushed the young Ethiopian into the middle of the strange rites of German coffee house culture and street cafes.

According to Eike Freese , his book Draußen nur Kännchen , published in autumn 2010, is “a lovingly compiled cabinet of curiosities from German (in) culture - funny, witty and interesting”. Asfa-Wossen Asserate draws a portrait of his adopted home in Tübingen, its inhabitants and their peculiarities in anecdotes and excursions into history.

Fonts

Honorary positions

  • Member of the Innovation Advisory Board of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
  • Member of the Alumni Council of the J. W. Goethe University
  • Founder and chairman of the board of trustees of ORBIS AETHIOPICUS, the society for the preservation and promotion of Ethiopian culture
  • Chairman of the Board of Trustees "Society for the Promotion of Museums in Ethiopia"
  • Chairman of the Advisory Board of the German-Ethiopian Student and Academic Association eV (DÄSAV eV)
  • Patron of Project E (Ethiopia, Education, English)
  • Patron of the Society for the Promotion of the Ethiopian Arts
  • Member of the Board of Trustees " Youth Debate "
  • Patron of the MoveForwardProject to support sustainable education for young people in Africa
  • Honorary Advisory Board at Stay, Foundation for Multiplicative Development, Stay Foundation
  • Patron of Opportunity International Germany, Opportunity

Awards

Web links

Commons : Asfa-Wossen Asserate  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Royal Ark
  2. ↑ Suevia Tübingen 1831–2011 . Volume 6: Members 1950–2011, Life Pictures 1956–2011 . Tübingen 2011. p. 69.
  3. ^ Corps student Prince Asfa Wossen Asserate of Ethiopia (YouTube) .
  4. ↑ Dissertation: The History of Šawā (Ethiopia) 1700–1865; after d. Tārika nagaśt d. Bēlattēn ḡetā Ḫeruy Walda Šellāsē .
  5. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 161, July 15, 2009, p. N3.
  6. ↑ Sybil Countess Schönfeldt: 1 × 1 of the good tone: the new etiquette . Munich 1987, ISBN 3-570-03149-7 .
  7. ^ Eike Freese: Melitta, Manners - Asfa-Wossen Asserate read in the Tübingen museum halls . Tagblatt, September 18, 2010.
  8. ↑ Article page to Outside only jug '.
  9. ↑ Asfa-Wossen Asserate: Outside only jugs - My German finds . Scherz, 2010, ISBN 3-502-15157-1 .
  10. ↑ see review by Wilfried von Bredow Hardly any optimism for Africa Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung May 2, 2017, accessed December 6, 2017
  11. ↑ https://www.jugend-debattiert.de/idee/schirmherr-foerderer-und-partner/
  12. ↑ Two new honorary senators of the University of Tübingen: Asfa-Wossen Asserate and Valdo Lehari jun. , in: Informationsdienst Wissenschaft from November 25, 2010.
  13. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of July 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Press release No. 84 of the BMZ of May 26, 2011.
  14. ↑ Listros
personal data
SURNAME Asserate, Asfa-Wossen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ethiopian aristocratic descendant; Management consultant and German-speaking author
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Addis Ababa , Ethiopia