A slew of official public processions, albeit almost all of them for former Ethiopian leaders, passed through our city streets in the last few months. Ethiopians are not accustomed to witnessing military parade pageantries and processions. The re-inception of the whole idea of military pageantry comes after a hiatus of several decades following the fall of the imperial regime. It was resurrected at the funeral procession of the late prime minister, Meles Zenawi in 2012.

Last week, however, the funeral procession for the Former President Negaso Gidada and the coronation pageant of Thailand’s newly crowned King, Maha Vajiralongkorn, made for a spectacular and stark juxtaposition of public ceremonies across two worlds.

The funeral cortege for Negasso started somewhere in the Mekanissa area attended by a military honour guard, a military brass band and an assortment of federal and city police officers in regular uniforms. The black hearse limousine was draped with flowers and images of the former president, somehow placed askew around the hearse, and was followed by close family members and friends. The tail was made up of a contingent of armed Federal Police on a military Toyota truck, also in regular uniforms, who preceded a long line of three-deep Land Cruisers.

At the front of the procession, there was another contingent of an army platoon in dress uniforms that took position to the right and left of the cortege, a military band placed at the centre, a few mounted officers, and a lone white police vehicle and a group of motorcycled-officers with flashing lights leading the procession. It all seemed a little bit too hurried, unpracticed, more like a New Orleans funeral jazz band than a public, state-sanctioned ceremony.

In Bangkok, the King appeared seated on a golden palanquin carried by soldiers in immaculate ancient fighting uniforms. The procession was a precision drill carried out by well-practiced, well-trained soldiers schooled and choreographed on their performance - for that is what it was, a performance. They were aligned and arranged to display their colours and movements to the fullest advantage, the soldiers veering nigh an inch out of their formations. There was almost a mesmerising sense of unity and discipline. The different brigades flowed synchronously as if they were in a battlefield manoeuvre, one formation taking the place of another without the slightest hitch.

The parade seemed like a hypnotic show where the individual Thai soldier in the drill has surrendered himself to the unified group of his comrades in total obedience to orders - as every soldier should. They also seem to be aware that they are invoking the awe and admiration of an entire world and the pride of an adoring nation.

In Addis Abeba, when the procession reached Karl Square, named for Karlheinz Böhm, the Austrian-German actor and philanthropist who worked in Erer Valley and laid the foundation for his “help for self-help” program, the whole cortege came to a standstill.Here, the military band and the honour guards dispersed rapidly, the mounted guards shooed their stallions to the side and the Land Cruisers picked up the mourners from the rear. Now, the procession assumed its typical urban expression, and the motorcade sped to Millennium Hall, where officials and dignitaries are assembled for a formal memorial.

Ethiopia is straining to have a proper state ceremony for formal occasions including its national holidays. Military drill as part of public pageantry can instill pride and show the citizens how modern and disciplined their military really is. Although a regular parade in public display does not provide any useful function on the battlefield, it instills the public with confidence in the nation's military functions.