Gold Chains to Rusty Shackles: Justice and Defiance in  Imperial Ethiopia

In the 1916 Battle of Segele, a select body of Ethiopian aristocrats overthrew Emperor Lidj Iyasu.  They believed that the Emperor’s commitment to social and political change threatened the very fabric of Christian Orthodox Ethiopia.  The battle culminated in the Emperor being led away in gold chains, a scripted ritual of shaming that demonstrated the Ethiopian understanding of forgiveness and atonement.  But the Emperor abused the terms of restorative justice tied to his luxurious house arrest.  His recidivism forced the verdict to be changed, resulting in his being shackled in rusty irons in a common prison. 

This case demonstrates the conditionality of restorative justice. Today restorative justice is equated with “forgive and forget,” where perpetrators are granted irrevocable amnesty.  But the historical application of restorative justice in Ethiopia reveals that the terms under which it was granted were never forgotten.