Pan-Africanism Doesn't Make Any Sense
By history, language, and DNA, a singular "African" identity is a geographical absurdity. Some of us didn't even know one another existed until very recently in history. Pan-Africanism is largely a post-colonial romanticization built by the victims of the Atlantic slave trade who didn't know where they came from, and fueled by figures like Haile Selassie (Ras Tafari—Rastafarianism). Not biological or historical reality.
Most Ethiopians don't even know exactly why they're Pan-Africanist beyond a knee-jerk reaction due to externally enforced generalization of "Black" or "African"—even when "Black" means entirely different things to different people. (To those who might say Ethiopia literally means Black people: it's actually a synonym for Cush in the Bible, and the majority of the world's Cushites live in Ethiopia.)
Ancient HOA + Late Natufian = Cushitic. Cushitic + 3,000-year-old Levantine Semitic = Habesha. That is the simplification. However, the point is: Habeshas are genetically closer to a Middle Eastern reference population than to West, Central, or South Africans.
The physical distance from East to West Africa is roughly from Rome to Pakistan. Rome and Pakistan at least share an Indo-European ancestral thread by DNA and language. What thread connects East, West, Central, and South Africa? There isn't one. Copying the European Union onto a continent large enough to swallow China, India, and the US combined, with virtually no connecting infrastructure, is simply infeasible.
Modern Pan-Africanism's only real glue is a trauma response: don't get colonized again. But when Abyssinia faced the Mahdists, Ottomans, and European empires, no continental brotherhood came. It survived through one thing: competence.
There's a common misconception that European powers were working together against Africa. In reality, they were mostly trying not to step on each other's toes. When Italy was defeated at Adwa, European powers scrambled to increase relations with Abyssinia instead of coordinating any unified response against it. That tells you everything about the so-called "European alliance." They were always focused on their individual interests with whoever the next most competent person was.
People say geography saved Ethiopia. That's like saying mountains defeated empires in Afghanistan, not the people. Terrain is a tool. Menelik didn't just defeat Italy at Adwa. He halted at the Mareb River afterwards, knowing that pushing into Italian Eritrea would overextend his logistics and increase the likelihood of a drawn-out war. He had already won. That restraint is the highest form of military genius—knowing when to fight. How many people do you think know that?
Ironically, one of the funniest instances in Ethiopian history is the banning of Europeans for nearly 200 years due to dislike for Catholicism and Jesuits. Did you even know that? But some consider the conflicts with Italy our most notable chapter. The whole Italy thing gets objectively more significance than it deserves. It's really just hyped-up sentimentalism relative to the other things we've gone through. There's more to this country than that. If you actually pay attention to the history, we had far more difficult times that sharpened the blade long before any European arrived. Adwa was not a miracle. It was a product of many prior experiences.
It's not what you have. It's what you make of what you have. That is the lesson Abyssinia should've given the world. Not romanticized continental solidarity, but simply competence.
We are not without fault. But never being colonized gets consistently misread in a way that fundamentally and negatively shapes the beliefs of those who look up to it. The lesson isn't to admire the outcome. It's to understand what produced it.