“Menelik Syndrome” captures a recurring pattern in Ethiopia’s political imagination: the selective revival of an idealized imperial past as a solution to present crises. Framed around the legacy of Menelik II, it elevates symbols of unity, strength, and state consolidation while downplaying the coercive foundations on which that unity was built. In contemporary discourse, this manifests in calls to “restore Ethiopia’s past glory”—a narrative that resonates emotionally but risks reopening unresolved historical contradictions. As a political lens, Menelik Syndrome helps explain how nostalgia, when filtered through power, can shape national identity, influence policy direction, and—paradoxically—intensify fragmentation rather than resolve it.