1 JAHPS Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 1-12 Gestures of Power or the Power of Gestures as employed by Haile Sillasie I of Ethiopia 1 Hanna Rubinkowska-Anioł Haile Sillasie, Emperor of Ethiopia, was a ruler who has gone down in world history as one of the most renowned politicians of the twentieth century. He was in power for over forty years, bringing Ethiopia, the only independent African country during the colonial era, into the post-colonial period. He was one of the continent’s most inluential political leaders who helped shape modern Africa. He was also a man of exceptional charisma, while the Rastafarians believed, and still believe, that he was an incarnation of God himself. Thus, if we take all this into consideration, it is not surprising that Haile Sillasie has fascinated historians and artists alike. The Emperor provoked strong and diverse feelings, while his times and his reign have been described by both Ethiopians and foreigners from different perspectives and on the basis of various approaches. However, it is beyond discussion that he was an outstanding politician, successful in creating an image of himself which was in accordance with what he desired it to be. As a monarch, Haile Sillasie developed and made use of a rich system of Ethiopian symbols of power. The aim of this article is to analyse one group of those symbols: gestures. Gestures constituted an important part of constructing Haile Sillasie’s image, which was an obvious element of the message of power and of imperial propaganda. I would like to argue that Haile Sillasie’s choice of gestures, including a picture of himself as still and motionless, was supposed to carry certain information about the ruler and the country. The set of gestures evolved together with the changes introduced to the country over the years of Haile Sillasie’s rule. There are three major issues to be analysed in this article. The irst question concerns the traditional background according to which the person of an emperor was perceived in Ethiopia, in terms of poses and gestures. It also concerns the relation of this tradition towards the gestures employed by Haile Sillasie I. To put this more simply I will ask what the base was upon which the Emperor built his self-image. The question to be asked here is to what extent the image of Ethiopia’s rulers before Haile Sillasie included gestures at all. In other words, if the person of a ruler was supposed to be solely perceived as motionless and eleveted to the non-human level, or if in earlier periods we can trace certain gestures of power. The second aspect involves a description of certain gestures Haile Sillasie employed to create the image he desired. Finally, I would like to analyse how the gestures applied by Haile Sillasie evolved over the sixty years of his reign, and if this process can be interpreted as relecting changes in the Empire. A change itself is one of the most important elements characteristic to Haile Sillasie’s period. He ruled in the times of transformation - both in Ethiopia and abroad, also his political programme together with propaganda employed a notion of ‟modernity” among main slogans. Relection of this in Haile Sillasie’s oficial behaviour served to achieve particular aims, i.e. to stress that both the empire and its emperor are ‟modern”. Being ‟modern” together with showing respect towards tradition constituted important part of the Emperor’s image. 1 In this article the name of the Emperor Haile Sillasie I decided to write according to popular English spelling of his name.