A brief reflection on “The Selected works of Berhanou Dinke,” compiled by Ezra Ejigu
At the height of the civil rights movement in the United States—when the cruel reality of segregation still gripped the nation—a young Black man walked into a barbershop for a haircut. The barber looked him up and down and said, “You’re in the wrong place.”
The young man calmly replied that he was exactly where he needed to be and asked again for a haircut. The barber repeated his “wrong place” refrain. Unfazed by the tension—and the potential danger his insistence might provoke—the young man pressed, “Why? Why am I in the wrong place?”
That’s when the barber delivered the unvarnished truth: “This place is for whites, not for colored people.”
Those words were meant to send the young man fleeing in humiliation. But he stood his ground.
“What do you mean by ‘colored people’?” he asked. “You are colored—you are white. I am colored—I am Black. We all have color. Thank God, there is no one on this earth without color.”
Words that must have sucked the air out of the segregationist’s lungs. Words not spoken in anger, but in conviction—the conviction of a man who believed, deeply and unshakably, that all human beings are created equal.
That young man was none other than Berhanou Dinke—a proud citizen of Ethiopia, a nation never colonized, who carried himself with dignity even in the most trying of circumstances, far from home. A dedicated civil servant, an accomplished diplomat, and a prolific writer, Berhanou embodied the values of courage, intellect, and integrity.
He was born in 1917 at Entoto Raguel Church in Addis Ababa, the son of Aleka Dinke Aboset and Emahoy Ehete Gebre Berhanou. He was the fourth child among three brothers and six sisters. His childhood unfolded under the watchful eye of his father, whose strictness was both a burden and a blessing.
“My father always manifested his affection toward my brothers and sisters and treated them with tenderness,” Berhanou wrote. “When it came to me, however, he was quite a different person. On various occasions, he used to beat me.”
It is not hard to imagine how lonely and misunderstood a boy in such a situation might have felt. But one day, a chance moment of eavesdropping changed everything. Young Berhanou overheard his father confiding to a friend, Woldegiorgis Woldeyesus, “You know how much I love Berhanou, don’t you? And yet I have never shown him my affection, nor have I embraced him as I do the others, lest he be spoiled.”
For the boy, it was a revelation—a “Eureka!” moment that redefined his understanding of love and discipline.
Later, his father’s devotion became evident in another way: he left two-thirds of his property to Berhanou, with the remaining third divided among the rest of the family. “Such action, of course, caused my brothers and sisters to be angry with my father and jealous of me,” Berhanou recalled.
Dinke, a respected scholar and religious teacher, held the distinguished title of Like-Tebebet. “My father’s burning desire was to see his son become a minister like himself,” Berhanou wrote. “It was with extreme hardship and privation that he succeeded in securing his education. He became a professor of Haddis (the New Testament) and Kine (poetry) in the Ge’ez language. His poems were so highly regarded that they were preserved in the book Medbel.”
“I am indeed fortunate to be the child of Like-Tebebet Dinke, who endured all those difficulties to secure his education,” the ambassador later reflected.
After years of both traditional and modern education, Berhanou Dinke emerged as a scholar of rare discipline and grace. His love for poetry, nurtured by his father, became a lifelong passion.
As a regular contributor to local newspapers, Berhanou’s writings drew attention—sometimes from the most unexpected quarters.
One day, a man came to his house and asked, “Is there a person here named Berhanou Dinke?”
“It is I,” he replied. “You are called to the palace,” the man said.
The words were as startling as they were unsettling. In those days, a summons from the Emperor could mean anything—from honor to accusation. For a moment, Berhanou feared the worst. But what awaited him was not condemnation—it was recognition.
The Emperor and the Civil Servant
The Emperor—an avid reader—came across one of Berhanou’s writings and was so impressed that he summoned the young author to the palace. In the Emperor’s presence, Berhanou listened as His Majesty read one of his poems aloud.
Then came the question that would alter the course of Berhanou’s life.
“What are you doing now?” the Emperor asked. “I spend my time reading and writing poetry,” Berhanou replied.
The royal response was swift and decisive: “We will give you a position that will help you broaden your experience.”
Two weeks later, Berhanou Dinke was appointed Secretary General of the Province of Welamo—the beginning of a distinguished public service career that would span decades.
It was a rare appointment, one based not on lineage but on merit. Years later, writing to Derg Chairman Teferi Benti, Berhanou would reflect: “I do not belong to those blue-blooded aristocrats who claim high position by virtue of their birth. I am the son of a church minister, with no ambition to enter government service.”
His rise through the ranks proved that ability—not ancestry—earned him every post he held. Over the years, he served as Secretary General and Acting Governor of Welamo Province, Director General of the State Domain, Vice Minister and later Acting Minister of Posts, Telegraph and Telephone, and Chairman of the Telecommunications Board.
He went on to become Secretary General of the Historical Department in the Ministry of Pen, Director General of the Ministry of Health, General Manager and later Vice Mayor (and Acting Mayor) of Addis Ababa, Counselor at the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and several Middle Eastern countries, Delegate to the United Nations, and finally Ambassador to the United States.
In every role, Ambassador Berhanou earned the respect and admiration of his colleagues. He remained a model of integrity—unyielding in his principles, unswayed by privilege, and unwavering in his commitment to Ethiopia and its people. He refused to remain silent in the face of abuse of power, bureaucratic excess, or corruption.
This fearless honesty often placed him at odds with the powerful. One of his most daring acts came during his tenure as Chairman of the Telecommunications Board. Two groups—members of the royal family and senior officials—had failed to pay their telephone bills for eight or nine years. Berhanou issued an ultimatum: settle the arrears within two weeks, or service would be cut off.
It was an unprecedented move—one that could easily have ended his career. When the deadline passed without payment, Berhanou followed through and disconnected the lines of some of the most untouchable people in the country.
The uproar in the corridors of power was immediate and deafening. From the President of the Senate to the powerful Prime Minister Aklilu Habte-Wold, pressure mounted on Berhanou to reverse his decision. He refused. The matter escalated all the way to the Emperor himself—who, to everyone’s surprise, sided with Berhanou.
During the failed coup attempt of December 1960, when rebel forces sought to overthrow the Emperor, fate—or perhaps divine intervention—spared Berhanou’s life. As chaos spread, high officials and members of the aristocracy fled to the palace, seeking refuge. Despite his senior government rank, Berhanou was denied entry—a humiliation at first, but one that soon proved to be a blessing.
When the coup collapsed, the desperate plotters opened fire on those who had sought sanctuary inside the palace. Many perished.
Berhanou’s survival, however, raised eyebrows. The Emperor himself questioned him closely about how he had escaped the bloodshed. “I told His Majesty where I was, what I did, whom I met, and what I saw and heard,” Berhanou later wrote. The Emperor listened, then said softly, “The God of your father has saved you.”
A Conscience Against the Crown
Despite holding some of the highest offices in government, Ambassador Berhanou never regarded Haile Selassie I as the untouchable, divinely chosen ruler many others believed him to be. His view of the monarch was critical—respectful but unflinching.
The Emperor’s flight to Europe during Mussolini’s invasion in 1935 remained, in Berhanou’s eyes, a sticking point. He wrote candidly: “He became a hero in spite of having run away from the invaders of his country. This, of course, is quite incompatible with the Ethiopian tradition, as it is expressed in many Ethiopian epics. The Ethiopian heroic motto: Win or die.”
Even after the Emperor’s celebrated 1963 visit to the United States, Berhanou saw little change back home. Disillusioned, he began to contemplate resignation. He asked himself whether other Ethiopians might join him in demanding change. The answer, he later wrote, “was an absolute negative.”
“At that time, most Ethiopians were busy making money, acquiring property, building houses, getting married, celebrating big feasts, competing for positions, spying on each other.”
His criticism of the era’s moral decay was sharp and unsparing: “The generation in Ethiopia was arrogant, too proud to admit mistakes until history passes its inevitable and irrevocable judgment.”
He captured his despair in verse: O God, how long is this dark, gloomy, and chilly night to last?
And yet, despite the indifference surrounding him, he chose the harder path. In 1965, Berhanou resigned from his post.
He later wrote: “For Your Majesty to transfer political power to the people should not be taken as a sign of weakness, nor as a withdrawal from responsibility. It is rather an act of heroic sacrifice, honorably offered to save the country from future catastrophe.”
The catastrophe he warned of, of course, did come—devastating the nation and scarring generations to follow.
His resignation was not a simple act of defiance; it was a leap into uncertainty. He knew it would alienate him from the royal establishment and cost him friends. He hoped that, in the United States—the bastion of democracy—his decision would be understood. But reality proved otherwise.
“A month after leaving the Embassy,” he wrote, “I felt the negative attitude of all the officials in the State Department with whom I came into contact. The cold indifference of some who had professed to be my close friends, and the disappointing experience with the press, left me with no alternative but to withdraw from the Washington scene. Because of the emotional strain, I was exhausted, even though physically nothing was wrong with me. I realized the need for a quiet place where I could read my Bible and meditate.”
A devout man of faith, Berhanou expected compassion from his fellow believers. What he received was silence. “No sympathy was offered,” he lamented, “not a single word of consolation such as a person in my situation expects from a fellow human being—even if he were a criminal.”
Faith became his only refuge. “I lived by faith, and by faith alone. Without it, I would have been a candidate for suicide. After having suffered many misfortunes—having lost all my possessions, being rejected by so-called friends, persecuted and maligned by my countrymen, mocked by many, marked to be assassinated or kidnapped at any moment—without a country, without family, without a home I could call my own—I thank God I am still alive, facing the challenges of life patiently and peacefully.”
He also wrote, with searing tenderness, about his mother’s anguish over her son’s defiance of the powerful. His words were both loving and devastating: “I am convinced, Mama, that your case will not be ignored before the august throne of justice, where the actions of men will be weighed in the sacred balance at the gates of eternity.”
A Life That Gave Everything
In retrospect, as President John F. Kennedy sat across from the Ambassador, he likely never imagined that the man before him embodied, in flesh and spirit, the very essence of his own immortal words: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
Berhanou never asked what Ethiopia could do for him. He gave all he could for his country—and paid dearly for it. That alone places him head and shoulders above many who served in government or public life.
Throughout his life, Berhanou was also a prolific writer. Among his many works are A Short History of Five Years of Suffering (on the Italian occupation, 1936–41), A Sermon to the Children, Sahle Selassie: King of Shoa, Caesar and Revolution, A Short History of Ethiopia (used in schools), From Wal Wal to Mai Chew (a detailed account of the Italian invasion), Queen Saba (a play in verse), I Stand Alone, I Am Not Alone, and Albo Zemed, his later philosophical reflection on solitude, faith, and resilience.
It was Albo Zemed—a slim but profound volume—that reintroduced him to new readers in recent years. In it, he urges preparation to stand by yourself. “Child, brother, sister, relatives—They are decorations and cheerleaders of better times.”
His opposition to Emperor Haile Selassie’s rule was never personal. He made that clear, even as he recalled his early encounters with the monarch:
“At this point, I ought to mention Emperor Haile Selassie—the man whom I publicly opposed and criticized before anyone dared to challenge him. This, of course, does not mean that I deny his place in history as a notable figure of Ethiopian literature. As far as I remember, he never missed reading a book authored by an Ethiopian, and he never failed to express his compliments or extend assistance whenever there was genuine need.”
Even after the Emperor’s fall, Ambassador Berhanou continued to speak out with the same moral clarity. During the Derg regime, writing to General Teferi Benti, he expressed both restraint and alarm: “At first, I was careful not to jump to conclusions about the government’s policies. But having seen what was happening, I must say—unfortunately, these bright expectations have been blotted out by the sudden appearance of a thick dark cloud. Freedom of the press has been erased; the commitment to issue a new constitution forgotten; people live haunted by fear, afraid even to greet one another. From time to time, we hear of persons being arrested or killed without knowing their crimes or the laws under which they were punished.”
In a later essay titled My Credo, he articulated the essence of his political philosophy: “As far as I am concerned, I am not a royalist; I am not a capitalist; I am not a Marxist. However—without hesitation or doubt—I believe in freedom. I believe in equality. I believe in justice for all. Any government, by whatever name it is called, which respects these fundamental rights, I accept.”
Ambassador Berhanou Dinke passed away in Jefferson City, Missouri, in 1992—his shadow still stretching long across Ethiopia’s political and literary landscapes. His life remains a story of faith tested, courage proven, and patriotism lived without expectation of reward.
This brief reflection cannot claim to be even a bird’s-eye view of the man’s extraordinary life. It falls to Ethiopian scholars, historians, and citizens to undertake the deeper, more comprehensive study he deserves—so that one of Ethiopia’s truest sons may finally take his rightful place in the nation’s collective memory.
Ephrem Endale is a seasoned journalist with extensive experience contributing to various publications. He is also the founder of The Sun, a weekly English newspaper.
Contributed by Ephrem Endale
