(Iii) Tenant Cultivation Is Not Associated with Economies of Scale, Higher Product Ivity Per Acre, Or Capital Intensification
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296 JOURNAL OF ASIAN AND AFRICAN STUDIES (iii) Tenant cultivation is not associated with economies of scale, higher product ivity per acre, or capital intensification. There is no significant positive correlation between holding size and productivity or between asset-owner ship size and the rates of capital formation. Furthermore there is a negative association between holding size and the intensity with which land is cropped. Additional corroborative evidence is provided in the study of a U.N. economist who notes, "Increase in the supplies of technical inputs without strengthening the base of the agrarian society to utilize them is likely to benefit only the rich and the well-to-do peasants. Even when this would succeed in raising their agricultural output, its influence on widening the economic in equality in the countryside, creating basis for social tension, and over the long run limiting the expansion of the rural market ... need not be overlooked."! The agrarian crisis of India, now assuming famine proportions, is therefore no accidental phenomenon but rather the manifest result of specific policies followed by the representatives of a small yet entrenched and influential minor ity. In order to fundamentally overcome the dire and prolonged consequences of such a policy it is well to ponder carefully the following comment of a Dutch sociologist with an extensive experience in Asia: "Betting on the strong is bound to fail in the prevailing conditions of most countries of Asia. The policy to be pur sued instead is one of betting on the many-who will be made strong, mainly through organization and intensive education toward efficiency and self reliance. "But only through a grasp of the basic idea of the dialectics of progress could be acquired a firm belief that the backward masses actually are a poten tial strength; and that they will soon be able to outdo the former kulak not only in devotion to society but in technical and administrative ability as well. Since the beginning of the twentieth century throughout the non-Western world those who are betting on the many, that is to say, who truly believe in human beings and promote their emancipation from all kinds of bondages are patently on the winning side."2 3. Ethiopian Historiography in English R. PANKHURST Haile Sellassie I University, Ethiopia The history of Ethiopia is richer than that of many parts of Mrica because of the country's royal chronicles which have been produced for well over half a millenium. These works, which describe the reigns of individual kings, afford us 1 Patel, s. J. "Towards More Intensive Farming" Mainstream. Nov. 6, 1965, p. 22. 2 Wertheim, W. F. East-West Parallels: Sociological Approaches to Modern Asia. The Hague, 1964, pp. 276-277. RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS 297 invaluable documentation on the events of the past as well as an insight into the modes of thought of the court for whom they were written, and an under standing of traditional Ethiopian concepts of historiography. The chronicles, like all Ethiopian writings, were traditionally composed in Geez, the country's classical language, the use of Amharic, the modern literary language, taking its place only in the nineteenth century. An important feature of the chronicles is that they were written during or shortly after the times they describe. They were thus composed by persons, usually churchmen, who had lived through the events about which they wrote. The contemporary or near contemporary character of the chronicles had, how ever, its disadvantages as well as it is advantages. The author could, of course, write on the basis of experience rather than legend, but, being a scribe in the service of the ruler, could seldom have been very objective. Thus the chronicle of Amda Seyon (1314-1344), now translated with great skill by G. W. B. Huntingford*, is largely concerned with the victories of the king, but contains no reference to the fact, asserted in other Ethiopian sources, that he was ex communicated for marrying one of his father's concubines. The choice of Amda Seyon's chronicle for inclusion in the "Oxford Library of Mrican Literature" is, however, felicitous. Amda Seyon, who is renowned as having been a great warrior, is one of the big names in Ethiopian history and an obvious candidate for any volume of Mrican biographies. One of the early rulers of the "Solmonic Restoration" -he was the grandson of its founder Yekuno Amlak-he lived at a formative period. As Dr. Huntingford shows in a scholarly Introduction this was a period in which the Ethiopian church appears to have begun a long drawn out struggle to eradicate pagan practices. The Life of a contemporary saint, Ewostatewos, declares, for example, that its hero "having heard that there were certain woodland shrines of idols where idolatrous men worshipped, he went there and cut these woods and burned them with fire until they became ashes, and the wind scattered them where they were." Amda Seyon's reign seems likewise to have witnessed the first major fighting with the Muslims who in this period had begun for the first time to challenge the security of the Christian highlands. It is not without significance that the chronicler should quote the prophecy of David, to be recalled half a millenium later by the Emperor Menelik II, also at a time of dire peril, that "Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands unto God." Amda Seyon's resistance, which is the central theme of the chronicle, was recognised by a contemporary Egyptian writer, Ibn Fadl Allah (d. 1349) who called this ruler "a most valiant king." The reign was also significant from the cultural point of view. The church, according to tradition, had recently obtained great wealth and was fast develop ing as a major patron of the arts. The literature composed in this period includes the Kebra Nagast, or "Glory of Kings," one of the most important literary works in Ethiopian history, which contains a lengthy exposition of the traditional Ethiopian version of the Queen of Sheba story, as well as the Zena Eskender, or "History of Alexander the Great", another major literary work, which inci dentally throws interesting light on Ethiopian concepts of government. * G. W. B. Huntingford, The Glorious Victories of Amda Seyon, King of Ethiopia (Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1965) 38/-. .