“At the beginning of the Revolution all of us had utterly rejected anything to do with the past. We would no longer drive cars, or wear suits; neckties were considered criminal. Anything that made you look well-off or bourgeois, anything that smacked of affluence or sophistication, was scorned as a part of the old order. They, around 1978, all that began to change. Gradually materialism became accepted, then required. Designer clothes from the best European tailors were the uniforms of all senior government officials and members of the Military Council. We had the best of everything: the best homes, the best cars, the best whiskey, champagne, food. It was a complete reversal of the ideals of the Revolution.”
From the Memoir of Dawit Wolde Giorgis.