BOOK FREVIEW
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
It is one thing to observe or face the vicissitudes of life with courage and quite a different thing to survive the tempest and produce an artistic masterpiece out of it. This is what author Makonnen G/Egzi has done with his first novel entitled “1974-Red Flags and White Sheets” a more than 400-long narration of one of the darkest periods in the long existence of Ethiopia as a united polity. It was a surprise of history. Not the first but the most formidable one, worse than the so-called Era of Princes when political differences were settled with brute force. No one saw the last one coming. Many people considered it a kind of divine punishment. Others saw it as a curse.
The revolution of 1974 gave birth, among other things, to what was then known as the Zamacha, a national campaign led by 60 000 high school and university volunteers who were moved by the sudden emotional and political energy the revolution had generated. Their hearts and minds were bleeding with a genuine quest to visit their long-forgotten compatriots from the countryside as direct witnesses. They entertained a long-nurtured vision of seeing peasants tilling their own lands, seeing them freed from tenancy. That was also the noblest vision of the revolution.
The Zamacha was controversial. Some people interpreted it as an attempt by the new authorities to send the restive youngsters away from the boiling cauldron of radicalism in the capital until the new authorities consolidated their powers, while others looked at it as a genuine effort to implement the land reform program initiated by the military. These views led to heated arguments but nobody expected them to claim the lives of tens of thousands of innocent youths in the greatest extermination campaign the country witnessed in its history.
Makonnen’s novel starts at the beginning of the Zamacha, as the young volunteers accepted the national call and decided to manage it in their own radical ways. He takes us through the maze of events that led an otherwise peaceful call for change into one of the most brutal events in our history. Makonnen seems to say that “Even if we could not avoid that cataclysm from happening, let us know about it in greater detail so that we will not repeat it again in the future.”
The two main protagonists of the novel, Daniel and Ghenet, are youngsters in their early twenties who were part of the 60 000-strong army of youths who descended on the countryside with much energy, enthusiasm, optimism and a budding love for one another. The two were fortunate to be assigned to the same locality somewhere in the then Wellega province, at a place called Innango.
The journey starts with so much optimism with romantic moments mixing up with optimistic visions about their future as well as the future of the country. They came from a poor neighborhood in Addis whose families were living close to one another, sharing bad times and good ones. It was the first time that the youngsters left their neighborhoods in Addis and travelled to a remote part of the country, not only to distribute land to the peasants, but also to teach them how to read and write for the first time in their entire history. They wanted to use this rare opportunity to know each other better as lovers, students and members of the new generation. But things soon took a rough turn and the unexpected nightmare surprised as a bolt from the blue.
The novel starts with the hidden love story between two youths that slowly came to the surface. They stayed together for almost half of the novel. Unfortunately, Ghenet dies prematurely at the Janmeda protest rally, her life cut short by fate, her dreams of marriage, family life, children dying with her. Daniel decided to continue the legacy of their love and dreams. He had no time to mourn his fallen lover and comrade. It was not a time of mourning but that of fighting. He was heartbroken and desperate. He vowed to avenge his loss by joining the battle for freedom.
Addis Ababa was on fire. Daniel went underground and in an act of vengeance he killed the official who was in charge of the Janmeda event where Ghenet lost her life. Daniel spent a horrible time in prison, tortured day and night. He survived execution at the killing fields, rescued by his comrades. As a brutal twist of fate, he lost his life at the end of the book after taking part in a clandestine operation he took part and lost. What a tragic fate of history. The revolution devoured its children. Let us try to get a bird’s eye view of the novel from an objective Point of view.
The characterization in the novel is not only clear but also plausible as the characters are easily recognizable. The author shows us the characters in action instead of telling us through description. Thus, we can see, feel, and almost touch the characters that come to life. The characters are not individuals taken right out of real life but as a composite of attributes and characteristics that they share in common or differentiate them. For this reason, the novel follows the rules of characterization as the personalities are multidimensional instead of one dimensional.
The plot is fast-moving both geographically from the point of view of narrative pace. It moved from Addis Ababa to Wellega in the west then to the north where a large-scale battle was under way. Then the plot moves back to Addis where the fate of the revolution was sealed. The plot is tight and each chapter ends with a cliff-hanger, forcing the reader to continue reading because their curiosity is triggered every time they start a new chapter. This is a kind of book you wish you would not finish soon. The climax and the ending are well-wrapped up. After the defeat of the EPRP, the leaders disperse, some of them to the north while others take the road of exile.
The novel is structured into three main parts and the plot moves between the war in the north, the struggles within Addis Ababa and the Zamacha proper in the countryside. These elements are however carefully intertwined, interdependent, feeding one another. The transition from one part to the other is not only smooth but also suspenseful, full of actions that bear the quality of an action movie without cinematic exaggerations
The prose of the novel flows so smoothly that it leads the reader from one chapter to another without anyone being aware of. As they say, simplicity is beauty. The language of the novel is not only simple but also expressive and that is its beauty. It hardly sounds like a novel written by an author who speaks English as their second language. The dialogues are short and clear to the point that it makes the reading not only breathtaking but also memorable. The author’s voice or authorial intervention is minimal and the scenes are entirely left for the characters to act, think, and talk freely. The overall atmosphere of the novel is not only entertaining but also intimidating. The characters move from battlefronts to urban warfare. EPRP’s squads are active, the revolutionary guards kill, the officials escape assassination attempts. Prisons are filled with militants, torture, executions, daring escapes. Death is following everywhere. Death had become the daily breaking news, expected every morning with breathtaking suspense.
The reader may have the impression that Ghenet’s death was premature because she is one of the pillars of the story, a love story that many readers may expect to remain alive until the end of the book, maybe both lovers dying while fighting side by side. But, this is simply speculation. Ghenet’s death has somehow deprived the story of its vital momentum. The post-Ghenet narrative has become somewhat slack and veers into a different direction. It lost its spicy taste and the plot fully assumes the quality of a full-fledged political thriller where the smell of gunpowder mixed with the dust and sewerage Addis Ababa’s streets.
Like the revolution itself, the novel is set in Addis Ababa, the nerve centre where the political explosion took place, where initially the interests of the military converged with those of the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, the workers and the intellectuals. Then, it diverged to give birth to one of the ugly monsters of a failed revolution whose victims and victimizers brushed shoulders in the bloody atmosphere characterized by ideological dogmatism, twisted ambitions, the instincts of vengeance, with zero compromise whose outcomes were determined not by intelligent decisions but by gut feelings.
The outcome of the power struggles depended on who controlled more resources, was better organized, was more vocal, more armed and more deadly in their intentions. That was a rare moment when the fate of the country was intertwined with that of its people and the actors in the political drama, namely the young firebrands who dedicated their innocence, their goodwill, their passion, their love and their lives to the revolution. Meanwhile, violence knocked at every door in the neighborhoods, claimed thousands of victims, reaching its climax sometime in 1977. Its tempo slowly died down as there was almost no one left to be killed or arrested.
“1974 -Red Flags and White Sheets” is by far the best historical novel written in the thriller genre on the Ethiopian revolution. It is a firsthand account of the events that read almost like a personal diary. Makonnen’s novel is so successful that it appeared recently for the second time, in a new edition published by Amazon. It is the revised and refined edition of the original, improved beyond recognition. It is so well-polished that it shines like a diamond.
This is a novel about many things: the war in the north, the terror, families torn apart, bloodshed galore, revolutionaries, counterrevolutionaries, factions, betrayals, the power struggles, the love story cut short by death. This novel is one of the literary gifts the author has dedicated to posterity as both a reminder of the past and a warning to the future. It is also an invitation to the new generation to know its history or meditate on what their fathers and grandfathers went through, on the hardships and torments that may now feel improbable but were real.
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It’s quite insightful review.. I agree that Ghenet’s early death is a bold and risky narrative choice. By removing one of the emotional characters of the story, the author sacrifices a continuous romantic tension that could have sustained suspense in a different way. Ghenet’s early death changes the story in a big way. She was one of the main emotional forces, and her presence created hope and suspense. When she dies, that part of the story ends suddenly. However, her loss becomes the new driving force. Daniel’s pain and anger push the story forward, even as the romantic tension is reduced. After Ghenet’s death , the story picks momentum as Daniel brother, Samson takes over the central roll. The rescue operation he stages undoubtedly is breathtaking.
I didn’t expect a novel to hit me this hard. 1974 – Red Flags and White Sheets follows two hopeful students, Daniel and Ghenet—sent on the Zemecha campaign, and you can feel the innocence in the beginning—then watch it get crushed as the revolution turns its rage at the very people who promoted it. When Daniel is condemned without a real trial, his brother Samson, an Eritrean freedom fighter walks into the capital alone to try to save him, and the tension is relentless.
What stayed with me most is the warning behind the story: when a government is removed violently—especially by the military—without a clear replacement, the trauma can last for generations. This book makes that lesson feel real because it’s carried by ordinary people: Daniel and Ghenet; Samson and Gashaw; Abinet and Askale, not speeches.