GADAA AS THE FOUNTAIN OF OROMUMMAA AND THE THEORRTICAL BASE OF OROMO LIBERATION
By Asafa Jalata, Ph.D. | August 7, 2013
Every society has its unique central organizing and ruling ideology
and theoretical models in a given historical epoch that it uses as its
lenses to look at and interpret the world and to survive freely and
advance its civilization or ways of life without disruption from within
and without. Ideology plays many roles in a society, and its essential
function is to define and promote the political, material and cultural
interests of a group, a nation, a social class, a state or other
entities. Before the Oromo were colonized, they had also their central
organizing and ruling ideology and theoretical models that were embedded
in the
gadaa civilization that organized and guided them as a
society socially, culturally, religiously, politically, militarily, and
economically. I advance the idea that without retrieving and developing
the best elements of this civilization, the Oromo cannot fully develop
Oromummaa
(national culture, identity, and ideology) as their organizing and
central ideology and their theoretical models of liberation to empower
themselves as a nation in the twenty first century by recognizing and
overcoming the devastating ideologies, behaviors, and theoretical models
of their oppressors that have confused and disempowered them.
Despite the fact that Oromo nationalists are proud of their democratic tradition of the
gadaa
system and its egalitarian principles, they did not yet critically and
adequately study and ideologically and theoretically incorporate their
best elements of this tradition to their nationalist narratives and
practices. These nationalists have uncritically adapted the knowledge,
theories, and ideologies that they have learned from colonial education
and oppositional theories such as Marxism that do not neatly fit to the
Oromo condition. I argue that the major reason why Oromo liberation
organizations, particularly the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), could not
yet develop a coherent ideology and organization emerge from the
contradictions between the ideologies and theories that Oromo
nationalists have borrowed and the
gadaa ideology and theory that the Oromo masses manifest in their daily lives. Without developing an
Orommummaa ideology and a
gadaa theoretical model that will appeal to the ordinary Oromo, it is very difficult to raise their political consciousness,
organize
them, and build a formidable organizational capacity that can challenge
the Ethiopian colonial state that is supported by global imperialism
and the imperial interstate system.
The Oromo national movement is engaged in the politics of liberation
that is rooted on Oromo values, beliefs, ideas or ideologies that
reflect the Oromo national identity and political interests.
Oromummaa
as the Oromo national ideology defines and promotes the Oromo
political, material and cultural interests to develop an Oromo political
community and transform it into a state through destroying all powers
and ideologies, mainly Ethiopianism, that have been keeping the Oromo
society under colonialism and political slavery by all possible ways.
Ethiopianism has been imposed on the Oromo via physical coercion
including terrorism and mental genocide. All forms of domination,
including colonial domination, cannot be practiced without imposing “a
structure of meaning that [reflect] its leading beliefs, values, and
ideas;” the process through which the dominated internalizes the
ideology, worldview, culture, and mentality of the rulers as natural
order is called ideological hegemony. In order to consolidate the Oromo
national movement, it is necessary to recognize its ideological and
theoretical inadequacies and overcome them. The triple ideological
problems of the Oromo national movement are Ethiopianism and the failed
ideologies and theories of the East and the West in the Horn of Africa
that have victimized the Oromo people.
The Inadequacy of Borrowed Ideologies and Theories
The Oromo national struggle is taking place when the modern world
system is at a crossroads, and when the modernization perspective of the
West and the so-called socialist/communist model of the East have
drastically failed in the peripheral part of the world such as Oromia,
Ethiopia, and the Horn of Africa. On one hand, the modernization theory
that has claimed that all societies would gradually develop by becoming
“modern” under the leadership of powerful capitalist countries is proved
to be false and a self-serving ideology of Western countries and their
client states in the Rest of the world. On the other hand, the socialist
perspective that has asserted that since the capitalist world system
has been reactionary and exploitative and it should be overthrown by a
revolutionary means under the leadership of the working class
dictatorship has become a version of the modernization model and ended
up in failure in the peripheral part of the world.
As the policies of the West, particularly that of the US, have
promoted colonialism, neocolonialism and dictatorship and contributed to
underdevelopment and gross human rights violations, the policies of the
former Soviet Union and currently that of China have contributed to the
same problems in the Ethiopian Empire. For the Oromo both the
capitalist and the socialist ideological and theoretical models have
contributed to their colonization, terrorization, and impoverishment.
Western countries, particularly England, France, Italy, and later the
United States, and the so-called socialist countries, mainly the former
Soviet Union and China, have supported the successive colonial
governments of Ethiopia and immensely contributed to the dehumanization
and the suffering of the Oromo and other colonized and oppressed
peoples. So the question is: what has happened to the West’s proclaimed
liberal democracy and the protection of human rights and the East’s
socialist principles that have claimed to eliminate injustices and
exploitation under the dictatorship of the working class?
The Oromo case demonstrates that the idea that the West would advance
capitalist development, liberal democracy, and human freedoms and
rights in the Rest of the world is intended to hide the crimes committed
against humanity in different corners of the world by states and
transnational corporations. In the capitalist civilization, dominant
ethno-nations, classes, corporations, institutions, and powerful
individuals who have controlled state power for the last five hundred
years have created and maintained two sides of the same world: One of
version this world is “heavenly” or paradise, and the other one is
“hellish” or torturous. The process in the capitalist world system that
has created and maintained the wealthier and healthier societies is
metaphorically called above heavenly has also produced the impoverished
and suffering societies both in the West and the Rest through various
forms of violence and continued subjugation. The conditions of
indigenous Americans, Australians, Oromo, Palestinians, and others
demonstrate this reality.
Out of about 7 billion world population, more than “three billion
people live on less than two dollars a day… Eight hundred and forty
million people in the world don’t have enough to eat. Ten million
children die every year from easily preventable diseases. AIDS is
killing three million people a year and is still spreading. One billion
people in the world lack access to clean water; two billion lack access
to sanitation. One billion adults are illiterate. About a quarter of the
children in the poor countries do not finish primary school.” Most of
these impoverished and suffering peoples are the descendants of colonial
subjects. Those rich and powerful classes and well-to-do ethno-nations
ignore the devastating consequences of absolute poverty and associated
violence on the indigenous and stateless people in the world. The Oromo
as one of the colonized and stateless peoples are the most impoverished,
uneducated, and suffering colonial subjects.
In the capitalist world system, the processes of societal destruction
and construction have occurred and maintained through various forms of
violence and other mechanisms. The ways of the colonial state formations
and the destruction of indigenous peoples have simultaneously occurred.
Despite the fact that those who have created and maintained this kind
of unjust world have claimed to promote justice, democracy, security,
fairness, the rule of law, equality, fraternity, and human rights, the
processes that we have mentioned above have continued. Religious
ideologies such as Christianity and Islam and the political ideologies
of democracy and socialism could not help in overcoming human greediness
and ethno-national/racial, class and gender hierarchies and oppression
that have been established and maintained through various forms of
violence including terrorism and genocide. In fact, these ideologies are
sometimes used to hide terrorism, genocide and gross human rights
violation. Most people, including the Oromo, still cling to these failed
ideologies and theories because “every individual is … in a two-fold
sense predetermined by the fact of growing up in a society: on the one
hand he [or she] finds a ready-made situation and on the other he [or
she] in that situation performed patterns of thought and of conduct.” By
using the ideologies and theories of the oppressors, however, human
groups cannot bring about a fundamental social transformation to change
their deplorable conditions.
What is disappointing about humanity is that one time the so-called
revolutionaries and progressive forces that engaged in promoting the
ideology of revolution as an emancipatory project had changed their
minds after they captured state power in the former Soviet Union, China,
and other the so-called socialist countries and started to develop
state capitalism to accumulate more capital/wealth at any cost. These
countries implemented their ideological and economic policies through
all forms of violence including terror, torture, and genocide as
imperialist countries have done. As the system of the West, the
so-called socialist system has combined dictatorship, all forms of
violence and repression, and gross human rights violations and has
drastically failed to implement what it promised. As powerful capitalist
countries and their collaborators have practically opposed liberal
democracy in poor countries, the so-called socialist countries have
worked against democracy, equality, and social justice. Without an
egalitarian democracy and popular participation of ordinary people, a
society cannot build a better society. Knowingly or unknowingly, most
Oromo nationalists are influenced either by the failed ideologies of
liberal democracy or by the aborted ideology of socialism. Above all,
the Oromo national movement is going on when the capitalist world system
is facing deep crises because of its ideological and cultural crises,
when the models or perspectives of capitalism and socialism have failed
in the peripheral part of the world, when religious fundamentalism in
the form of Christianity or Islam is flourishing, and when the future of
this world system is not clear. All these factors raise fundamental
ideological and theoretical challenges to the Oromo national struggle.
The engineers of the capitalist world system have used modernization
theory, Christian absolutism, and the claim of Euro-American racial or
cultural superiority to explain and justify the capitalist civilization
that they have constructed and maintained on the destruction of world
indigenous peoples. The liberation and development of indigenous peoples
like the Oromo is impossible under these conditions because
“development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty
as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic
social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance
of or over activity of repressive states. Despite unprecedented
increases in over all opulence, the contemporary world denies elementary
freedom to vast numbers—perhaps even the majority—of people.” The Oromo
who enjoyed an egalitarian democracy, although not perfect, prior to
their colonization have been denied all forms of freedom by successive
Ethiopian colonial governments and their global supporters.
Unfortunately, the harsh socio-economic and political conditions are
also making the Oromo the targets of Christian and Islamic
fundamentalists. Consequently, currently there are Oromo who are
abandoning their culture and nationalism and imitate Franji or Arab
fundamentalists by claiming religious commitment and focusing on the
life after death.
Above all, the modern capitalist system is changing very fast and
drastically; existing national and international institutions, such as
states, international organizations, and transnational corporations are
incapable of adequately dealing with the emerging cultural, political,
ecological, economic and technological challenges. Those who are
immensely benefiting from the current system are trying to maintain
status quo by using all forms of violence, including terrorism, and
those who want reform or change are engaging in all forms of resistances
and different forms of social movements that deal with issues of
ethno-national/racial problems as well as environmental and human rights
issues. At the same time, religious fundamentalists, mainly Christian
and Islamic fundamentalists, try to pull back the wheel of history to
return societies to what they call “golden eras.” However, since most
people know about such golden eras, some fanatics and true believers buy
their narratives.
The fast changes that are taking place currently include developments
in communications and information technologies that collapse space and
time, changes in military technology and the nature of warfare, changes
in political and economic structures, processes of environmental
degradation and the possible depletion of natural resources, unbalanced
imperial interstate relations, and the declining of the legitimacy of
national and supranational governance, the emergence of national and
global forces as anti-systemic movements, and the failure or inadequacy
of some peripheral states because of their lack of domestic legitimacy
and external interventions. Similarly, the Oromo national movement is
confronted with global ideological and religious crises, and,
consequently, Oromo political and intellectual leaders and organizations
lack an ideological roadmap and a coherent theoretical model. The
attempts of Oromo nationalists and leaders to uncritically borrow
certain ideologies and theoretical models from the West and other
societies without knowing the social and cultural history, worldview,
philosophy, and political thought of their people have created a very
dangerous situation for the survival and liberation of the nation in the
twenty first century.
The Need for Ideological and theoretical Clarity
In their history, the Oromo have lived under two forms of
socio-political orders: The first one was sovereign, democratic, more or
less peaceful and secure although not perfect. The Oromo liberation
ideology and theoretical model must emerge from these socio-cultural and
historical foundations. Before they were colonized during the last
decades of the nineteenth century, the Oromo were governed by an
egalitarian democratic order called the
gadaa system that
encapsulated all aspects of Oromo cultural, political, military, social,
and economic, religious, and philosophical perspectives. The second one
has been a colonial order characterized by terror, physical and mental
genocide, political slavery, illiteracy, and impoverishment.
By committing “the genocide of the mind,” the intellectual
perspectives of the colonialists and imperialists have misled Oromo
intellectuals and nationalists to ignore their indigenous socio-cultural
foundations and borrow and the theoretical and ideological models of
the East or the West that do not have relevance for the Oromo situation.
Since the Oromo people have not been represented in academic, media,
and government institutions, their voices have been muzzled and hidden
and most people, including Oromo students, are still misinformed and
know little about the Oromo and their institutions. Explaining the
similar conditions of indigenous Americans, MariJo Moore argues, the
colonialists and their descendants have committed “genocide of the mind”
on the surviving indigenous Americans “to destroy and/or misrepresent
the histories, futures, languages, and traditional thoughts of Native
peoples.” Similarly, the Habasha colonialists not only occupied the
Oromo country, but they have also controlled the Oromo mind and framed
they way Oromo think, act, and behave. Consequently, some Oromo still
identify themselves with Ethiopians knowingly or unknowingly and work
against the Oromo national interest ideologically, politically,
militarily, and culturally.
Even most Oromo nationalists did not yet achieve total mental
liberation by overcoming the devastating effects of the genocide of the
mind that Ethiopian colonialism and its supporter, global imperialism,
have imposed on them. After studying many forms of civilizations, I have
reached to the conclusion that
Oromummaa that is based on the best elements of the
gadaa civilization,
worldview, egalitarian democracy, and justice for all can help Oromo
nationalists to overcome the ideological and theoretical confusions that
attempt to hijack or abort the Oromo struggle for liberation,
sovereignty, peace, and security. Since there are many external and
internal forces that directly or indirectly stifling the development of
Orommummaa through undermining the restoration of
gadaa, what should the genuine Oromo nationalists do?
Practicing Gadaa and Developing Oromummaa and the Theory of Liberation
Gadaa is the central source of Oromo politics, philosophy, wisdom, worldview, moral values, ethics, laws, and customs from which
Oromummaa emerges
and develops as the intellectual, ideological, and theoretical
powerhouse of the Oromo nation. Since Oromo nationalism is not yet fully
grounded in
gadaa, it is corrupted by alien ideologies and
theories that contradict the Oromo fundamental values and democratic
principles. Because of such corruption and the lack of a clear
ideological and theoretical approach, the Oromo national movement is
currently stifled and misused by misguided Oromo and other forces that
are against the Oromo national interest. Therefore, I am more convinced
that Oromo nationalists who are determined to advance the Oromo
liberation and emancipation must return to the source of the
gadaa civilization
that still survives in the minds and hearts of the ordinary Oromo. As
Amilcar Cabral notes, “the question of a ‘return to the source’ or of a
‘cultural renaissance’ doe not arise and could not arise for the masses
of these people, for it they who are the repository of the culture and
at the same time the only social sector who can preserve and build it up
and
make history.”
Since the Oromo society has been the repository of
gadaa
principles and practices, between 1991 and 1992, when the Oromo
Liberation Front (OLF) appeared on the Ethiopian political platform by
joining the Tigrayan-led Ethiopian Transitional Government, hearing
about democracy and
gadaa and seeing
Odaa on the OLF flag, the majority of the Oromo supported this organization claiming
kayyoon deebitee (our freedom returned). Unfortunately, the OLF had no adequate strategies and tactics and organizational capacity to use
gadaa principles
and practices in organizing and empowering the Oromo people to struggle
for their liberation and emancipation as a nation. Using these
weaknesses as a political opportunity and realizing and fearing the
Oromo political potential, with the support of Eritrea and the West,
particularly the US, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and
its surrogate organizations attacked the OLF and diminished its
capacity, humiliated the Oromo people, postponed the Oromo liberation
and emancipation, and continued Ethiopian colonialism under the Tigrayan
leadership.
Although a lot of progress has been made in developing
Oromummaa,
now the Oromo national movement must focus on the mental liberation of
the Oromo people to fundamentally break the colonization of their minds
and enable the entire society to own and engage in their own liberation
and emancipation project rather than being passive observers and
reluctant supporters. This is only possible by fully developing
Oromummaa by restoring
gadaa, building civic organizations, and improving Oromo political culture.
Oromummaa
is above the individual, regional and religious identities; it is the
foundation of Oromo survival, and without it, the Oromo cannot practice
their culture and religions freely and promote their national interests.
Based on the accumulated past traditions, knowledge, and wisdom,
Oromummaa
also introduces an ideological and theoretical innovation and
facilitates the emergence and development of new cultural elements. As
Gramsci explains, “Creating a new culture does not only mean one’s own
individual ‘original’ discoveries. It also … means the diffusion in a
critical form of truths already discovered … and even making them the
basis of vital action, an element of coordination and intellectual and
moral order.”
In reviving the best Oromo cultural elements and diffusing “a
critical form of truths already discovered” Oromo nationalist
intellectuals have a central role; such committed scholars must unearth
the Oromo past and provide a critical theoretical guidance for the
development of
Oromummaa. Again Gramsci asserts that “one could
only have cultural stability and an organic quality of thought if there
had existed the same unity between the intellectuals and the simple as
there should be between theory and practice. That is, if the
intellectuals had been organically the intellectuals of those masses,
and if they had worked out and made coherent the principles and the
problems raised by the masses in their practical activity, thus
constituting a cultural and social bloc.” Recognizing the role of
committed intellectuals at this time of tribulation in the Oromo
national struggle, some Oromo nationalists demand that the Oromo Studies
Association should find a solution by participating in the struggle.
Despite the fact that the Oromo recognize the values of competence,
intelligence, hard work, moral authority, patriotism, bravery,
self-sacrifice, respect for the rule of law, and achievements because of
their
gadaa tradition, in the contemporary Oromo society these qualities are dwindling. History demonstrates that all
gadaa leaders
emerged based on these values and other criteria, and these values and
other criteria are also very important for now and the future.
Unfortunately, many or some of these qualities are missing in most Oromo
intellectual and political leaders today. These Oromo leaders are
challenged to maintain organic unity with fellow Oromo to further
flourish
Oromummaa through developing political consciousness,
coherent ideology and theory, and worldview. It is very clear that Oromo
intellectuals and political leaders have been pulled away from their
people by the colonization of their minds, and they lack knowledge,
experience, wisdom, and expertize of organizing their people.
In order to develop their
Oromummaa and develop their
knowledge and skills for establishing organic unity with their society,
Oromo intellectual and political leaders and other activists should
overcome their internalization of victimization, alienation, arrogance,
individualism, and appreciate and promote team or collective work by
replacing the knowledge for domination and self-aggrandizement by the
knowledge for liberation and emancipation, which is congruent with
gadaa values and principles. The restoration of such
values
and principles for liberation and emancipation in movements are the
product of “heroic courage and contributions of thousands of largely
unsung heroes and heroines.” We know a few names of those leaders who
ignited the fire of
Oromummaa by sacrificing their precious
lives, but we do not know the names of thousands Oromo nationalists who
have been killed or assassinated, tortured, punished by life
imprisonments, crippled or blinded, and raped by the enemies of the
Oromo people.
In Oromia, the main road block for restoring
gadaa and developing
Oromummaa is
the Ethiopian colonial government that has imposed political slavery on
the Oromo by denying them the freedom of organization and association
for more than a century. But, the Ethiopian government did not or does
not have absolute power to prevent the Oromo people from organizing
themselves because Oromo nationalists could create the Macha Tulama
Self-Association in the early 1960s openly and the Oromo Liberation
Front in the early 1970s clandestinely. Hence, the Oromo have the power
to organize civic and political organizations in Oromia clandestinely,
despite the brutality of the Ethiopian political system, and in the
Diaspora openly and intensify the Oromo national struggle. So why don’t
the Oromo have effective civic institutions and political organizations
both at home and in the Diaspora today?
Lack of Effective Civic Institutions and Political Organizations
We need to critically and thoroughly answer the question asked above
to adequately know why the Oromo lack today effective civic institutions
and organizations. Four issues are identified and explained below in
answering this question. First, Oromo nationalists have made a serious
mistake to focus on politics without recognizing the importance of civic
institutional building and for subordinating civic culture to that of
politics. Consequently, when the politics went wrong after the early
1990s, there were no strong independent civic institutions that could
have challenged the Oromo political leadership and forced them to make a
transparent and accountable national decision. Without a strong civic
national association or civic organization, Oromo nationalists did not
have a platform for national debate and discussion to build national
consensus. Based on their narrow perspectives, different Oromo groups
started to take different ineffective actions. Under these conditions,
it was easy for the Oromo political leadership and the enemies to
divide, weaken and disorganize Oromo communities for different
objectives.
Second, since
Oromummaa as a national culture, nationalism,
and an ideology has not yet fully developed, some of the Oromo have been
easily manipulated by regional or clan or religious propagandas of
power hunger Oromo individuals and the enemies. The Oromo political and
intellectual leadership has ideologically, theoretically, and
organizationally spontaneous and in incoherent because it lacked
political maturity and experience. Under these conditions, competing
Oromo ideological narratives that are anarchist, contradictory, and
problematic stifled the development of the Oromo national movement.
Third, every society is organized and functions around its dominant
preferred self-image, which is determined by its dominant forces; this
self-image unites a people or a nation as an identifiable entity.
The ideological self-image on which all Oromo agree is Oromo democracy know as
gadaa and
Afaan Oromoo (the Oromo language) that must be recognized and celebrated in the national ideology of
Oromummaa.
Ideology mainly works in two ways: Social cement and social control. As
social cement, ideology is the social force that binds society together
by providing a framework in which social action can happen; as social
control, ideology has a more direct and coercive effects on social
actors by focusing on policing the social structure of a society.
Consequently, the development of national
Oromummaa facilitates
the consolidation of the Oromo unity and stops those forces that
undermine this unity from within and without. National ideology such as
Oromummaa “is
a process which links socio-economic reality to individual
consciousness. It establishes a conceptual framework, which results in
specific uses of mental concepts, and gives rises to our ideas of
ourselves. In other words, the structure of our thinking about the
social world, about ourselves and about our role within that world, is
related by ideology ultimately to socio-economic conditions.”
The Oromo nationalist ideology and national culture cannot be built
on simple emotions without the restoration of the best elements of the
Oromo traditions such as the
gadaa and its democratic principles
and the rule of law. The borrowed ideologies of modernization and
Marxism could not effectively help in organizing the Oromo society.
Third, Oromo intellectuals and politicians are not entirely modernists
or Marxists and do not know and practice their own democratic tradition.
If Oromo intellectuals and politicians want to promote the Oromo
national interest, they do not have choice except becoming organic
intellectuals that know their own traditions and develop them
intelligently and borrow other models that may help in facilitating the
liberation and emancipation of the Oromo society.
Fourth, existing Oromo institutions such as Churches and Mosques are
not Oromo-centric and they focus on the life after death as well as on
the culture, ideology, and values of the West and the Middle East
respectively. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther Kink criticized this
position by combining the social and otherworldly gospel in leading the
Civil Rights Movement and by expressing that the church has an
obligation to deal with moral and ethical issues in society as “the
voice of moral and spiritual authority on earth” and as “the guardian of
the moral and spiritual life in the community.” He seriously criticized
the white church for ignoring its social mission and supporting
American apartheid, colonialism, the racial caste system, and the
underdevelopment of Black America. Like Martin Luther King, Jr., the
Reverend Gudina Tumsa without fear of death stood up against Ethiopian
colonialism and dictatorship without hiding under the ideology of
Christian fundamentalism. The Ethiopian military regime imprisoned and
killed him. At this movement, the Oromo do not have other Gudina Tumsas.
As Martin Luther King did, Malcolm X developed revolutionary Black
nationalism and challenged the white establishment in the US by
mobilizing the African American material, intellectual, and ideological
resources and tried to develop a new direction for the African American
struggle. His Islam religion did not prevent him from fighting for the
liberation of his people. He insisted that African Americans should
rethink about their past experience in by recognizing the importance of
history and criticism and by overcoming “the confusion and inaction
which resulted from the internalization of the racist ruling class’s
view of the world.” The Oromo had also revolutionary religious Muslim
scholars such as Sheik Bakari Saphalo who died in a refugee camp in
Somalia and Dr. Sheik Muhammad Rashad Abdulle who recently passed away.
Such Oromo nationalist religious scholars are almost absent in Oromo
society today. Both Christian and Islam fundamentalists misdirect young
Oromo men and women by focusing on the otherworld or life after death at
the cost of ignoring the Oromo national struggle. In reality, all
European Christians and almost all Muslims have their own countries that
they rarely share with co-religionist refugees. If Christian and
Islamic fundamentalists believe in what they teach, they should have
struggled against their own governments and their geopolitical
boundaries to open them for other peoples. So why do they teach and
mislead innocent Oromo with something they do not believe in it? What
are the factors that pacified and disorganized the Oromo?
Public Passivism and Disorganization
We know that the Oromo were effectively organized in all aspects of
life and maintained their sovereignty, security, and peace for many
centuries until they were colonized. So what factors have prevented them
to repeat this history? There are many fundamental reasons for this,
but the main reason is the lack of national civic institutions and an
effective political organization or organizations that can raise their
political consciousness or
Oromummaa and organize them to fight
for their liberation and emancipation. Without effective national civic
institutions, political organizations, and an effective military
establishment, a society cannot defend itself from those who are
organized and ready to attack, terrorize, and kill to expropriate their
resources.
Almost all the Oromo love
gadaa because it empowered the Oromo
nation to have political freedom and their country. In the early 1990s,
most Oromo believed that the OLF would repeat this reality because it
restored some
gadaa symbols and declared about democracy, the
sacred principle of the Oromo nation. After bringing hope to the Oromo
people between 1991 and 1992, the OLF was attacked and weakened by the
TPLF, Eritrean and Western powers because it could not build an
organizational capacity both politically and militarily. Furthermore,
because of the ideological and political immaturity of the Oromo
political elites and the absence of the national leadership that could
build the OLF through dialogue and national consensus, the organization
that the Oromo people thought as the rebirth of
gadaa was
partitioned and owned by self-proclaimed leaders who started to see
themselves as organizations. In addition, several elites started to
create their mini-organizations to seek political power rather than
empowering the Oromo people.
All of these political factions have brought disgrace to themselves
and to the Oromo nation. When thousands of Oromo openly joined the Oromo
People’s Democrat Organization of the TPLF without any fear and shame,
most of the Oromo have become passive and demobilized. Consequently, the
TPLF has engaged in terrorism, genocide, and expropriation of Oromo
lands and other resources. One would expect that Oromo nationalists
would recognize these dangers and work in collective to overcome their
conflicts and divisions through national dialogue and consensus based on
the Oromo democratic traditions and revolutionary commitment. So what
should the Oromo nationalists do now to overcome public passivism and
institutional and organizational ineffectiveness in the Oromo society?
Overcoming Public Passivism and Institutional and Organizational Ineffectiveness
The raising of
Oromummaa consciousness and formulating the
theory of liberation to build of institutional and organizational
capacity and to empower the Oromo nation require some committed,
determined and hardworking activists who are ready to sacrifice their
intellectual and material resources and when it is necessary. Such
activists must engage in study and recognize in rebuilding Oromo
national civic institutions and political organizations based on the
rule of law and
gadaa principles.
I believe that we must reinvent the Macha Tulama Association and the OLF based on
gadaa principles,
and we cannot afford to be divided into different small political
organizations that follow different political trajectories. Above all,
all Oromo nationalists who left the OLF and formed other organizations
should engage in an open national dialogue and consensus building to
resolve existing political contradictions and try to reinvent the OLF
based on the principles of
gadaa and
Oromummaa. Furthermore,
Oromo communities should build independent associations in the Diaspora
and in Oromia that will be linked to national institutions and
organizations without being subordinated. The Oromo must avoid
subordinating their associations to political organizations to avoid
past mistakes. For example, the OLF misused the political goodwill of
the Union of Oromo Students in North America in the 1990s because its
members agreed to be its mass association. When the OLF opened its
office in Washington, DC, it started to discredit and disorganize the
union. Independent associations and civic institutions can stop
political organizations from making serious strategic and tactical
blunders. If the Oromo had strong associations and institutions, they
could have prevented the Oromo national movement, particularly the OLF,
from making tragic mistakes in the 1990s and later.
Discussion and Conclusion
History demonstrates that the survival of a people depends on their
collective consciousness, organization, and the capacity to militarily
defend themselves from their common enemies that would like to subjugate
them or commit genocide on them to expropriate their homeland and other
resources. Consequently, the survival and liberation of the Oromo
mainly depend on the capacity to fully develop
Oromummaa that is enshrined in
gadaa principles
to restore their accumulated historical and cultural knowledge for
developing strategies and tactics and for liberating Oromia. In other
words, the Oromo must fully develop
Oromummaa as their national
ideology and power in order to have economic, military, and
organizational resources that are required for empowering the nation and
restoring the Oromo state.
In order to defeat Ethiopianism and its colonial structures and determine their national destiny, the Oromo must first develop
Oromummaa
as their national ideological power. According to Mostafa Rejai,
ideology covers five dimensions, namely the cognitive, the affective,
the evaluative, the programmatic, and the social base.
Oromummaa as
the cognitive dimension helps in understanding the social and political
conditions of the Oromo; as a national ideology “it appeals to
sentiments and strives to elicit an emotional response from its
followers … ‘what gives ideology its force is its passion … in fact, the
most important, latent, function of ideology is to tap emotion.”
Ideology justifies or denounces an existing social and political order;
in its attempt to advance an alternative order, it “is designed to …
transform an existing social and political order, it attempts to evoke a
sense of rage, injustice, and moral protest against its counterparts.”
Similarly,
Oromumma as the embodiment of the
gadaa
democratic principles exposes the crimes of Ethiopianism and promotes
freedom and justice. The programmatic dimension of ideology “focuses on
how each ideology strives to translate values into active commitments.
Each ideology sets forth … a hierarchy of values and objectives, and
each sometimes includes statements of priorities identifying immediate,
intermediate, and ultimate goals.” In the same fashion,
Oromummaa provides
a plan of action in implementing Oromo democratic values and
revolutionary commitments in the Oromo national movement. As every
ideology has its social-base dimension to have mass appeal,
Oromummaa
has the Oromo national base that it mobilizes for action. The
transformation of Oromo resistance struggles to form the Macha Tulama
Self Association in the early 1960s and the OLF in the early 1970s and
the objective of the Oromo struggle for liberation and emancipation are
still correct objectives that have yielded some results for the Oromo
nation. The central objective of the Oromo struggle has been the
empowering of the Oromo people to determine their destiny by having
their political power that reflect and practice
gadaa principles.
The attempt to delegitimize the objective of the Oromo liberation
from without and within in the names of the pseudo objectives of
democracy, citizenship, and federation violates the vision of
Oromummaa that is engrained in the
gadaa philosophy,
values, and practices. The Oromo do not request democracy,
self-determination, and sovereignty from the Ethiopian colonial state
since they can only achieve them through fully developing
Oromummaa
and building the national organizational capacity based on the best
elements of their traditions. Borrowing ideologies without clearly
developing
Oromummaa and formulating a theory of liberation based
on the Oromo democratic tradition, the Oromo national movement cannot
overcome its current ideological crises and political paralysis.
Oromummaa
celebrates the Oromo collective self-interest that is built on the
foundation of Oromo social and political institutions. When we do not
understand that the individual and the collective self-interests of the
Oromo are interconnected, we ignore to engage in civic engagement for
public or greater good of the Oromo society assuming that we can achieve
our individual-interests. When an Oromo takes this position, he or she
develops an essentially destructive ideology and develops a rapacious
and predatory interest at the cost of other Oromo. Civic engagement
helps in going beyond a narrow circle and transcending the private by
engaging with a wider Oromo public for the Oromo national interest. It
refers to “people’s connections with the life of their communities”
through building trust among diverse individuals by overcoming their
suspicions and isolations. “Trustworthiness lubricates social life.
Frequent interaction among a diverse set of people tends to produce a
norm of generalized reciprocity. Civic engagement and social capital
entail mutual obligation and responsibility of action.”
Increased trust, social contact and interaction further develop and
widen “our awareness of the many ways in which we are linked” and
increase “tolerance and empathy.” Just mere connections are not enough
for building trust, but there must be the capacity for civic engagement
through participation in giving speeches, running meetings, managing
disagreements, and bearing administrative responsibilities. The
connections based in trust involve friendship, respect, truth, charity,
humanity, liberty, patriotism, benevolence, brotherly and sisterly love,
justice, and fairness. Political activism and civic engagement plays
two essential roles in society: First, they help identify and overcome
weaknesses of social institutions and social interaction. Second, they
empower citizens by overcoming a failure of institutions. They must be
practiced on a common denominator.
Civic engagement and the development of
Oromummaa are interconnected.
Oromummaa
must be built on a common ground since the Oromo people are a diverse
and a multi-religious society. “The more enduring and the more basic the
common ground, the more substantial the connection; the more we
identify with what is, or is felt to be, essential in the other, the
more meaningful we experience our connection to be. When this more
essential identification develops, then we no longer relate as
strangers. We feel secure in the connection with the other and less
alone in a world of people who are essentially different from us. While
the Oromo are fully developing
Oromummaa, engaging in civic
action, and building institutions, they can build alliance with other
colonized and oppressed peoples who are struggling for national
liberation. Finally, the Oromo should realize that in addition to
having developing their central ideology of
Oromummaa and
building organizational capacity “Victory has often come to the side of
the actor with the deepest commitment to a cause and the greatest
capacity to withstand exceedingly high costs for lengthy periods.”
Asafa Jalata is Professor of Sociology, Global Studies, and
Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He has
published and edited eight books and authored sixty refereed articles in
regional and international journals and several book chapters. For
further information, see
http://works.bepress.com/asafa_jalata/;
http://quest.utk.edu/2010/asafa-jalata/
August 7, 2013 (Google) — The 81st birthday of Abebe Bikila, Ethiopian marathon runner and the first Sub-Saharan African to win an Olympic gold medal, is being celebrated with Google Doodle.
In
1964, Bikila made history again, breaking the world record for the
marathon, coming in at 4 minutes and 8 seconds in front of the silver
medallist. He was the first athlete in history to win the Olympic
marathon twice.