By T Tolera | August 24, 2013
I don’t think we do have a luxury to talk else or audacity to fight each other while the people we struggle for, peacefully or armed, suffer murder and misery. Agazi militia guns down innocent demonstrators, dissents and activists tagging them extremist Muslims, OLF supporters, ONLF affiliates, G7 sympathizers and whatnot. In case of Oromos, the killing, disappearance, torture and imprisonment can only be termed as genocide in progress. It is of on the interest of all nations and nationalities to put an end to this hegemony. Of course challenges remain.
I don’t think we should ignore the fact that, following the ‘
I’m Oromo First’ awakening, and intensification of resentment with some hard-liner Abyssinians, our common oppressor is laughing out loud; fuelling the increasing hostility, labelling, opposition infighting and a quest just to dominate one another. I believe records should be set straight, trust established, and we have to understand cooperation is the only way out of reign of terror and darkness. We have to move on and use this high time for change. I say high time because the dictatorship in the empire has intensified and the political engagement, often within, has reached a decisive chapter.
For the last three month, I have followed almost all articles from all sides, comments, talks and individual encounters. While I can say I have learned a lot about erratic human emotions, spreading political spectrums and chauvinistic conservatism, it is rather disappointing I could not see integration geared at cooperation between individuals and organizations of ideological diversity. The cyber war seems not to reach any consensuses and progress, or closure of any sort at all for that matter. We lack discipline and civilized conversation. People tend to move away, often stubbornly, from looking at parts and the whole and miss out important truth only to remain in profound state of inertia. As such, they are resistance for change and pursue on disgracing one another; insulting and badmouthing. You would understand the magnitude of such behaviour if you see White American academic and
contributor to Gulelepost use the f word on social media to express his disappointment and anger. We all need to recognize that fundamental changes must be pending. You might all be probably sick of the word ‘compromise’ but it is still the one thing, probably the only thing, we all have at disposal and need to embrace to bring about the much needed change to ‘Ethiopia’.
Over the last three moth, it has emerged that the Oromo cause is getting clearer and brighter to all Oromos and even to some hard-liner Abyssinians who can pass barriers to patiently listen. More Oromos are now committed and determined to pursue it. There are more bloggers, activists and people willing to die for it. It has been high agenda among the Oromos of all walks, the QEERROO youth especially at the forefront, to further tell the world the repression against the Oromos and the quest for self-rule, self-use and self-expression. Most have understood that the Oromo cause is rather a fundamental human right question than a simple quest to seek power. Yet it has been hard to work with hard-liner Abyssinians as they further distance themselves from cooperation and fail to understand the noble Oromo cause.
The ‘I’m Oromo first’ debate continues. The hatred and cyber atrocities against the Oromos could not be halted. As Oromos say ‘Oromon fira hin qabu’ which is to mean Oromos are alone for the fight. But nobody taught the ‘Oromophobia’ would be this deep-seated, contemporary and outrageously. Even after months of debate, it has become literally impossible to defuse the issue and move on. The hard-liner Abyssinians have refused to listen to the genuine questions of the Oromos. It is pertinent the Oromos just respectfully ignore them and work with who is sensible and compromising setting the records straight.
So let’s set the record straight before I free ‘Ethiopia’ out of quotation and resuscitate it from its comma. Like any other Oromo and southern citizen, for me, this ‘Ethiopia’ has three faces, bound by time and space. Oromos and other oppressed people in the south have long described the ‘Ethiopia’ that most hard-liner Abyssinians die calling as remnant of an old empire, a haunting ghost if you will, that would only scare the hell out of themselves. Not so long ago, the same ‘Ethiopia’ was sucking on blood of millions of people forcing them and annexing them in to an empire of unwilling. It built its muscle and grown its territory swirling outward to eat nations and nationalities towards itself. It grew uncontrolled and unchecked to self-destruct; and it died leaving evil spirit among us. The evil spirit might persist for some time but it certainly fades away in time. As a curious observer, I would like to mention some of the ubiquitous mottos and slogans behind this ‘Ethiopia’. Actually, some of them are not bad at all; it is just the context they are used in or the underlying meaning that is troubling.
እናቴ ኦሮሞ ናት;እኔ ግን ኢትዮጵያዊ ነኝ [the thesis to the futile notion that we are so much ‘mixed’]
ኦሮሚያ ምትባል ሃገር የለችም [please check our beloved constitution
and probably some historical maps if you care further]
እኛ ማንነታችን ኢትዮጵያዊያዊ ነው [my passport says so, but I don’t]
የጎሳ ፖሎቲካ ይገርሰስ [another attempt to undermine ethnic federalism]
ኢትዮጵያ ለዘላለም ትኑር [well, this is fine for me, because I have to live anyway]
ኢትዮጵያ እናት ሀገሬ [hang on or hang yourself, not now]
ኢትዮጵያ ትቅደም [these are the direct descendants of Mengistu himself]
አሀዳዊ ኢትዮጵያ [as opposed to federalism, I don’t see this happening in million years]
የኢትዮጵያ ድንበር ቀይ ባህር ነው [lol what about Eretria?]
እምዪ ሚኒሊክ የኢትዮጵያ አባት [Please come join us to inaugurate statue to our martyrs at Callii Callanqo]
እኝ ኣንከፋፈልም; አንድ ሃገር; አንድ ሕዝብ [let me rephrase for you, you must be saying Abyssinian language and culture?]
The ‘Ethiopia’, as we know it, is not much different from the old empire of evil spirit self. TPLF built this ‘Ethiopia’ based on divide and rule, blame and hate, lose and win, and subordinate and rule. Over the last two decades, ethnic self-awareness and conciseness has reached to the point of irreversibility while the identity [if there is any] of ‘Ethiopiawinet’ has been proportionally weakened and eroded. And it is not surprising that secessionist nationalists and ‘Ethiopianistic’ nationalists are diverging fast while TPLF is trying to realign itself at the centre. This ‘Ethiopia’ is pretty much fake without its presence on the ground, only limited as propaganda and events served as an excuse to loot resources, repress nations and deny the full right to self-expression and self-rule. Let’s see some of the slogans making up this ‘Ethiopia’.
Ethiopia a country of tolerance [while it, TPLF, incites conflict between Muslims and Christians]
Unity in diversity [while it incites violence between the Oromos and Somalis, the Oromos and Afars, the Oromos and Amharas, the Oromos and Benishangul etc]
Religions freedom [while it tries to nominate its own delegates at the cenode and Majlis and impose Ahbash]
Ethnic equality [while it advances the language and culture of the Abyssinians in print and audio-visual media]
Decentralized power [while it creates satellite organizations such as OPDO and puts puppet to control the nation of Oromo]
In a cheap attempt to halt or dishonour cooperation between the Amharas and Oromos, TPLF brands Oromos as secessionists while it portrays Amharas as on the quest of resetting Ethiopia to a backup state of the imperial eras.
ኦሮሞ ኢትዮጵያን ይበታትናታል [as if Oromos were/are not leading figures in whatever ‘Ethiopia’ was/is]
ኦሮሞ ሀገር አፍራሽ ነው [ኦሮሞ ያልገነባውን ኣያፈርስም]
አማራው ህዝብ የቀድሞ ስርአትን ሊመልስ ነው [we specify them as hard-liner Abyssinians]
አማራው ባህልህና ቐንቐህን እንዳታሳድግ እንቅፋት ነው [while TPLF denied to promote Afaan Oromoo to federal working language]
Countries evolve and societies change. There was not English 200 years ago in Africa; there was not French or Portuguese either. There was not Amharic in Wallo and Raya around same time. So much has changed and so much more has to change. Change is desired but does not come easy particularly in this epoch of time of cultural and linguistic reclamation. Change is successful if only among the willing built on trust. As an Oromo and citizen of the empire, I believe fundamental changes are essential to bring about socioeconomic and political reform in creating a country for all. A country that all would be proud about and with. A country that respects its people equally; that represents its people equally and that is protected by all citizens, all in one and one in all. This is what I call the New Ethiopia.
The New Ethiopia project is simple 5 point plan in 5 step processes. I don’t want to further complicate things by bringing the mythological fairy-tale of
Dr. Fikre Tolosa and its propositional derivation by
Fayis Oromia [gadaacom]. I don’t want to go to the moment of Big Bang and pull out history to support my steps or points. I believe current conditions on the ground dictate the best approach is step-wise with no step skipped.
- Fight it out- the cyber world has shown as how fierce a battle can be inflicting a bruise within. We fight it behind PCs and behind a cover. I think we need to bring the fight out in to mid-air and midday and see who would fall in to the ground and who would remain in darkness. The truth prevails. There was a good start in South Africa but has short lived since.
- Reconcile –people don’t only go in to reconciliation following brutal civil war or conflict; it is also instrumental to bring about a common ideological basis in a fragmented polity. It is where one compromises to give way to the popular idea and gets respect as worthy alternative in turn.
- Forum and discourse- an idea remains, however defeated, old, ill or unpopular it is. Who taughtWaleling’s piece of writing and federalist tendencies would come to be in 1991? Who taught Afaan Oromoo would be written in Qubee to drive the entire bureaucracy? A discourse should allow the tolerance of ideological differences whereby they are debated over and over again to establish a dichotomous [or trichotomous] politics we see in UK [labour and tories] and USA [democrats and republicans].
- National interests [uniting factors]- construct some assets that worth to be a national interest of all citizens of the New Ethiopia. This is not about waging war on Somalia or Egypt. This is about reconstructing Ethiopian values that are common across ethnic boundaries and political ideologies. It is an issue of highest volatility and should be dealt with maximum restraint.
- Let the people decide [things that might change]- this is probably the toughest part that is divisive. In my view, there are things we can’t do more than just debate on. There are things that require the vote of every citizen of the New Ethiopia. The most we can do is to short list the alternatives to the people. For example, weather to establish an Autonomous or Independent or Federal Oromia is of an issue of the people of Oromia and should be decided upon accordingly through referendum.
TPLF is aware it does not have much of a time to loot and kill, divide and rule. It is on a desperate attempt to stay on power by firing whatever it gets. I believe we use this high time to build a united front and confront TPLF and dislodge it from its power and establish fair Ethiopia for all.
(OPride) – Engineer Tesfahun Chemeda, a fierce Oromo rights advocate and a former UNHCR recognized refugee, died yesterday of undisclosed cause at Kaliti prison, where he was serving a life sentence