Oromo Community of Minnesota Elects New Board Members

(OPride) – The Oromo Community of Minnesota (OCM) elected a new board last weekend in a successful gathering hailed as ‘historic.’

At least 300 people attended the event, according to the organizers.
Minnesota is home to the largest Oromo diaspora community, estimated at more than 45,000 people. However, despite being the largest and one of oldest Oromo community organizations in the world, in recent years, OCM has struggled to energize and rally this thriving community for its activities. The latest election is said to be ‘historic and exemplary’ for two notable improvements over previous years.
First, the current leadership is the most diverse in terms of age and gender with three young leaders and three women making up the nine member board. According to eyewitnesses, for the first time, the three youth leaders – veterans of Oromia Youth Association and the International Oromo Youth Association – have come forward to voluntarily serve their community. In the past, both the youth and women were assigned one representative each to dedicated posts named “youth and women affairs.”
Secondly, in a procedural shift from the last few elections, those contending for leadership positions in the board were asked to make introductory remarks at the gathering. 

“This year’s election was a complete reversal of the previous norms,” said Falmata Bedasso, one of the three youth elected to the OCM board. “What turned the tide this year...was a short debate, where each of the nominated individuals were asked to introduce themselves and talk about their vision for the community.”

The readiness to serve their community on the part of the contestants rejuvenated a sense of unity among the attendants. The youth leaders are well attuned to the needs of the community, especially its growing youth base. This is expected to narrow the gap in understanding between OCM and its youth organ, OYA .

“The vibe I got from the community members, young and old, was a desire to change and bring in a different type of leadership that has  a clear vision for the growth and unification of our community,” Bedasso added.

The organization's finances and ability to execute programs has also shown a turnaround. OCM currently employees four people, a major change from a year ago when OCM was struggling to maintain its lone staffer. Moreover, the organization is able to pay off the mortgage on its building making the Oromo the only African immigrant group to own it's own community center.

=>opride

None dares to comment on the past mistakes so as to correct and brighten the future

From Ulluuqaa to oromia@ayyaantuu.com | October 12, 2013

Thank you everybody! I have read some of the comments and replies. They are very nice for the fact that they could engage a lot of Oromo elites. However the breadth and depth of these comments are the same as those in the early 1990s for many reasons. I couldn’t see any enlightenment and dynamism in their contents. None dares to comment on the past mistakes so as to correct and brighten the future. From hosts of weaknesses and mistakes of Oromo elites of which all emanating from ignorance, I prioritize three of them.

1) Deliberately avoiding commonalities and prompting points of difference among each other.

This is the most incapacitating psychology of Oromo elites or the so called “leaders”. They are like advertising agency for the fact that advertising agencies deliberately promote a point of difference of a business firm and ignore points of commonness. This is to say, when it wants to advertise a bank; all competitors’ banks might have good service, fast transfer of money, sound reliability, a lot of branches worldwide, etc. But the job of an advertising agency is to find the point of difference of its client and to intensively promote it.

One can also characterize the psychology of these “leaders” to the psychology of a leader of a troop of gorillas (or kodama jaldeessaa). A leader of a troop wants to kill every newly born male when it gets matured. The matured male gorilla should escape from the troop and make its own troop by attracting females from the old one.

Both psychologies (the psyco of troop leader and that of ads agency) emanate from the same outlook. That is, these “leaders” extremely focus on the goal of the Oromo struggle but not on the strategy and tactics of the struggle. The more they meditate about the goal the more it seems to them they are close to achieving it. The more they see the victory at close distance from their meditation point of view the more they forget the millions of obstacles on the way and the more they wish to just grab all the prestige, benefits and fames that might come with the victory.

Great leaders seem to highly focus on strategy and tactics so as to make simple, easy and smooth way to their goal. That is why they learn from past mistakes, they restlessly make dialogues with key stakeholders, they embrace proactive and supportive ideas, overcome the million obstacles on the way etc.

No one can estimate the cost paid by the Oromo people due to the above mentioned psychology of the elites. The disunity and fierce war without any difference between OLF and IFLO, the cold war between OLF and ONC etc arises from such psychology. Even the extreme focus on polarization rather than neutralization is the result of such psychology. The theory Gobanaism which improperly over stated is nothing but extreme focus on polarization which is vitally useful to strengthen the enemy’s camp, indeed without which the enemy is handicapped in Oromo land. When I was “a kid” (sixteen years ago),I made a simple research that might neutralize the fierceness of the so called Gobanaism and propose to one of OLF “leader”. Unfortunately that “leader” had no capacity to even understand the theory.

So in the future, the truly Ilma Orma elites must work on points of parity and not on points of difference. We all have million points of commonality but only one or two points of difference with some.

2) Not knowing self and the “enemies”.

What Oromo is and is not in Ethiopia? Perfectly finding the right answer to this question helps the Oromo elites to know self and know the “enemy” as well. Many elites marginalize themselves and narrow the scope of Oromumma to only those Afan Oromo speakers and even some elites have big doubt on those Oromo who speak mixed Afan Oromo about their truly Ilma Orma. Oromumma without Rayyumma,Jarsumma, Wallumma, etc is not full. Today the Rayya hardly speak Afan Oromo so as many Walloes and Jarsoes. If long ago the road map to Bilisumma of Oromumma was designed in such a way to include Rayyumma and other non Afan Oromo speakers Oromo, Tsadqan and Ayelom were not fire against it. Oromumma must be defined in such a broad manner to have broad and robust force. What Oromo is in Ethiopia is therefore, it can be Afan Oromo speaking, Amharic speaking, Tigrigna speaking, Guragigna speaking, Somali speaking and other southern people’s language speaking. This is very difficult to some Oromo elites to understand and believe this fact as a practicable theory. However the date will come in the near future that everybody will believe it.

The second problem under the category of this weakness is not knowing the “enemy” and over estimating and exaggerating the capacity of their enemies. What is the capacity of those “enemies” in the absence of Rayyumma, Wallumma etc along their side and at the same time the problem of deliberately avoiding points of parity & promoting the difference among each other is solved? They will become helpless children that must not be attacked but must be cared for. However, you must strongly tell them the reality that there is no as such Ethiopian nationalism for the fact that no Ethiopian national in real sense in today’s Ethiopia. The name Ethiopia is simply to mean the ancient vast continent of Cush (Africa). Today’s Ethiopian nationalism is simply ghostly nationalism. In fact to strengthen and establish new democratic Ethiopia it must be founded on Oromo nationalism because Oromumma is everything in Ethiopia. Tell those helpless & problem children that their fear and hatred from Oromo nationalism is nothing but phobia.

3) Parochialism.

Weak and ignorant leaders cannot speak loudly in front of the crowd to align the youth, the women, the poor, the rich, the farmers, the intelligentsia, etc along their side in a mass. Because they neither have clear vision nor articulate their reason in a proper manner and they neither have confidence. Ironically they want to have lots of supporters or followers. Henceforth they cannot attract rational supporters; they strive to attract emotional supporters. The strong weapon to attract emotional supporters is to use region, religion, music and other weak lobbying mechanisms which ultimately dismantle the unity and dwindle the power of the nation. This is what incapacitated the Oromo people in the last twenty or forty years. So my last advice to Oromo elites is not to consider weak and ignorant personnel as an Oromo leader.

Bye! Ulluqa, the sole liberal Diaspora.

=>ayyaantuu

Unity in Diversity vs. Disunity in Diversity in the Context of Ethiopia

Barii Ayano, PhD

1.  Introduction

Although successive dictatorial rulers of Ethiopia have tried to hide it from the world, Ethiopia is one of the most heterogeneous countries in the world. This diversity is reflected in the wide variety of languages spoken and values practiced in Ethiopia. Modern Ethiopia is increasingly forced to confront the growing demands and tensions arising from this fount of diversity.

We can divide the political groups in Ethiopia into 3 parts based on the ways they deal with unity and unity in diversity principles.

First, narrow Ethiopianists have utter disregard of the unity in diversity concept in the politics of the Ethiopian Empire. Integrating diversity into the mainstream Ethiopian politics has never been an agenda in the Ethiopian political culture. In other words, Ethiopianism is a clear manifestation of disunity in diversity. There is no embodiment of diversity in Ethiopianism; it’s the exclusive club of Amhara and Amharanized elites.

Second, the TPLF/EPRDF regime has perfected its divide-and-rule by using diversity. The TPLF thugs have developed an effective system that has led to disunity in diversity, including within the parties in the regime.

Third, political entities that represent the conquered people theoretically uphold unity in diversity within and across nations and nationalities for peaceful coexistence, and to nurture collaboration in the struggle for freedom. But the endorsement and experimentation of the principle has not yet yielded solid unity in diversity within and across nations and nationalities.

The differences between the political entities that deal with the Ethiopian Empire predicaments are many in number and have significant differences in their political philosophy (ideology). Yet, they all have one problem in common; it is a universal problem for all of them: they don’t have successful political models yet on how to handle diversity dynamics within and across nations and nationalities. Among others, this is the main reason why internal divisions abound within all political groups organized to deal with the political predicaments of the Ethiopian Empire. Moreover, mistrust among political parties runs extreme. The impasses within and among the various political groups have created extremely weak unifying conditions, with no end in sight. Although the attention given to unity in diversity significantly differs among political groups, the effective application of unity in diversity principle eluded all politicians from the Ethiopian Empire to solve feuding within and among nations and nationalities. All politicians across the divides have very little to show off as success in unity in diversity. It’s a universal problem for all.

Number reasons can be given for the universal failures to effectively deal with diversity within and across nations and nationalities. I will cite two reasons, which are usually mentioned, and skip to the purpose of this discussion. One reason, for the lack of effectively dealing with diversity issues, is related to the political culture of Ethiopia, which never respects and accommodates diversity. The second reason is the fact that the core politicians, Ethiopianists or representing nations and nationalities, are deeply influenced by the ideology of the Socialism that sees everything in black and white, with no compromise or never search for the middle ground. “With us or against us”, “mehalsafari yiwudem” etc. shaped the political views (mindset) of the leaders of 1960s and 1970s student movements, who are still at the helm of the leadership of the political parties, Ethiopianists or otherwise. Although few have ventured outside the realm, many of the politicians are stuck in 1960s and 1970s political mindset. This is self-evident. Political divisions are normal. What lacks normality is seeing diverse interest groups as enemies that must be eliminated.

I won’t delve into discussing the detail reasons why politicians from the Ethiopian Empire are universally challenged to implement “unity in diversity” within or across nations and nationalities. The purpose of this piece is just to raise few points in line with questions (issues) discussants raised under the discussions of “Debunking the Illusions and Confusions of Narrow Ethiopianism”.

=>Read more at bilisummaa

The growing anxiety of Ethiopian university students: The case of students with twisted mind

By Hawi Chala | October 12, 2013

Hawi Chala

The Ethiopian higher education system has shown a remarkable expansion in the last decade since Ethiopia has built over ten new universities, escalating the total number of the country’s universities to 21, and along side has emerged various private colleges and universities. Never in its history could Ethiopian universities enroll thousands of students annually as it is enrolling these days. The presence of these higher institutions has a significant role to the intellectual, social, political, economic and moral life of Ethiopia. The more a country has educated professionals, the easier can we tackle social, economic and political problems the country mired in for centuries.

Beyond its main role as educational mission (teaching & research), universities are also places where students create social network, involved in different socio-political movements and develop critical thinking. Naturally students go to university with various ideas in mind like enjoying the student life, meeting new people and perhaps getting a good degree.

However, nowadays since the current government brings fear to this equation in our campuses, the daily life of our students filled with anxiety. Rather than being a safe haven for students, Ethiopian universities are currently a place where anxiety is developed and became an arena of regular confrontation between government, students, and academics, particularly for Oromo students as history shows.

Ever since higher institution started in Ethiopia, in 1950 the Haileselassie university college, campuses have been root causes of changes happened in the country.

Rough looking of the past history, one can observe that university students have been the driving forces of major revolutions broke out in the country. The 1977, “Land to the Tiller“, movement that resulted immediate land reform program was led by university students. The student movement became the dominant factor in the fall of the absolute Haileselassie regime in 1974. It was intellectuals and university students who were the frontline victims of the Red terror holocaust, that killed thousands and forced many to flee from own country opening exodus of brain drain of that poor country, a situation which is chronic to this day. The movements that toppled the Derg regime was also initially provoked by university students, which later continued by the current ruling party of TPLF. The various protests, between 2001 to present, which initially started by Oromo university students and latter joined by other students across the country, were also the recent achievement ignited by university students.

It is clear from the above that if there is one single factor that explains the direction of Ethiopia history has taken in the last five decades or so, it is the role of the students. Shortly speaking these historical evidences show us that university students have been the pillar of socio-political changes brought in the country and became an enabling linkage between autocratic governments and the voiceless public.

Being this is the fact, however, the ideological policies adopted by the current TPLF regime have affected academic freedom in Ethiopia differently than in the past and brought fear and anxiety to the academic atmosphere.

Nowadays, the Ethiopian higher institutions severely lack educational freedom, i.e. freedom of association and expression, where students and staffs can freely express their ideas, freely associate and throw criticism against government.

Since the TPLF regime has good awareness on the historical role of universities as the center of social and political movements, EPRDF has used different strategies to stifle political movements in higher education institutions.

The serious measures undertaken by the TPLF regime was started when 41 professors were dismissed from Addis Ababa University in 1993 due to criticism on the country’s political situation. The regime has then refrained any move to make the universities autonomous in administering their own affairs. Until this day university presidents and other university officials are directly appointed by the Prime Minister rather than elected by the university community. The major task of the university officials is basically to hamper any political movement in the universities rather than working to bring a robust academic environment.

The case of twisted mind students

If you are/were student in one of Ethiopian universities or colleges, you might be a close friend of these twisted mind students without noticing the other side of their personality. These twisted mind students are those who in daylight seem normal students, but spy on the other side of their personalities against their mates. These students closely monitor the political activities of other students on behalf of the government. They are registered as students, attend lecture class and commonly share dormitory with other students, but their primarily task in the university is to spy over other students who have different political opinion.

Having a close social life with other innocent students to comfortably monitor their daily life, these government spy agent “students” could easily expose their friends whenever they noticed any activities opposing or criticizing the government. Well known among campus officials, these students closely work with security officials. They have full authority to report to police any one who pointed his/her finger at government and also any one whom they suspect have ideas against government.

Acting as coordinator, the big spies have also appointed counterspy fellows in each faculties and respective departments to closely monitor class session and similar activities from near distance.

The dire situation of our campus students does not stop here. To the worst, they are even forced in public to be member of the ruling party political organizations (OPDO, TPLF, ANDM and SEPDF) in accordance to their ethnic background. In addition, they are obliged to attend their respective parties’ biannual meetings. Those students, who resist joining party membership, will definitely be monitored from their footstep. They will be harassed, intimidated and beaten both physically and mentally. They might be referred to further torture if they are activists and involved in some movements in campus.

Seeking for better bonus and better promotion, the spying students will tirelessly monitor those students to endanger their innocent life.

Unfortunately, the yoke and the burden of this strategy always remain heavy to Oromo campus students more than other students due multicolored reasons.

1. First, the representation of Oromo people in Ethiopian history always causes bitterness and alarm among any ordinary Oromo let alone to a university level Oromo student. The question of power sharing is inevitable among every single Oromo.
2. Next, the Qubee generation of the Oromo students have inherited multifaceted questions ranging from self-identity to liberty question, that wait him/her to find an answer.
3. Thirdly, the majority f Oromo students came from rural areas and have observed the plight of Oromo people with their naked eyes, have grown up with injustice done against Oromo across generation and have moral responsibility to raise the voice of the voiceless.
4. Last not least, each Oromo students feel the pain of thousands of Oromo prisoners, who are suffering at the different prison camps across the country because of their struggle for the right of Oromo people.

Due to these moral responsibilities shared, the majority of Oromo students in colleges and universities are activist, advocating for the right of their oppressed nation and have no stony heart nor deaf blinded, that ignore to volume the plight of the voiceless. They have a justice question always running in her/his mind.

The TPLF regime is aware of the fact that these legitimate questions are implanted in the heart of every single Oromo, but by any means the regime needs to keep it buried, cover and unquestioned. To enforce this, the government has deployed many spies over Oromo students in campus areas.

Thousands of Oromo university students, who are either suffering at different notorious prison camps across the country, or those who fled their homeland, are the victims of this friendly spying strategy of the government. Our hero students, who lost their life for the cause of Oromo, from the recent death of Engineer Tesfahun Chemeda to many hundred, whom we can’t mention all here, were also the victim of these twisted mind students’ egoistic personality. Developing a stony-heart towards their own friends, it is these opportunistic students who have ended the dream of many brilliant students in prison.

The other anxiety of our Oromo university students comes during cultural ceremonies. If one usually enjoys wearing Oromo cultural clothes, he/she will join the list of the target group. Every single activity of the Oromo is exceptionally under their target though they don’t even give attention when it comes to others.

According to many human right organizations reports, there are multiple cases when Oromo students at the major university campuses dragged from their rooms by police at midnight and disappeared and their where about is unknown. Just imagine the feeling you would have when you found your self at prison in the morning when you were sure that you slept last night in your campus room after a long day stay at library.

Given the difficulty of academic subjects that require a hard work together with uncertainty of their life for feeling insecure, our university students have developed anxiety emanated from being monitored every single day. They have developed anxiety because they fear that they would be thrown to prison for they have asked a question about the plight of Oromo people or because they have posted on facebook or other social media about the violation of fundamental human right.

Since the last few years university students have been told that they will not be employed by government agencies unless they become members of EPRDF. Holding a university degree without TPLF party membership is a nightmare to many to secure a professional job. Since the government is the major employer in the country, students are therefore obliged to register for party membership. Once they become party members, they stop criticizing the government and are expected to spy on their teachers and other students who are against the regime.

The nightmare and anxiety still continue when it comes to scholarship opportunities abroad. Students from ruling party background will score high in the competition, while self merited students can´t come close to the competitions. Students from Tigray origin take the majority of scholarship that come from North America and Europe. It is neither because of their self-merit nor can they afford the costs. It is rather because of the scholarship committee is overwhelmed by Tigreans origin. This is why we don’t usually see many Oromo students winning scholarship abroad since they have already granted the TPLF scholarship of notorious Khality prison.

The five to one strategy

This is brand new strategy used by the Ethiopian government to effectively control and monitor people activities at a grassroot level. Effective at urban level, the strategy is becoming common even among rural farmers, just to monitor the rural farmer horrible life struggle, a struggle that unable to feed himself three times a day.

According to this strategy, people are supposed to be organized in to a group consisting of six members, where one of them is a spying to government in his/her other hidden personality. Based on many people to whom I have talked with, this strategy is very common currently especially among college/university lecturers, though it is also spreading among ordinary people.

I remained blown away when I learnt about this ridiculous idea is engineered by this government, especially when it is spying ordinary people, the farmers, the poor people who are working hard to win a bread of the day. When you realized how irrational the ideas is, you will have to join me to laugh at our blinded leaders since they don’t listen us if we tell them their mistakes.

The five to one strategy is designed to keep different groups of people opposing each other’s idea, so that they cannot bond together to criticize the government rather they fight to destroy one another forgetting the government behind.

The twisted mind students are everywhere even in social medias. You might have noticed in your facebook wall many people with hidden personality spamming under people posts and advocating for oppressors.

The nightmare and anxiety of our university students are multi faceted. The aforementioned few points are only the “peak of the iceberg”, which I believe will give some supporting hints to understand the growing anxiety of students.

References

• Zewde, Bahru : Documenting the Ethiopian student movement: An Exercise on oral history. Forum for Social Studies, 2010, Addis Ababa.
•  http://www.opride.com/oromsis/articles/jawars-corner/2788-the-causes-goals-and-impacts-of-ethiopias-notorious-campus-wars
• http://ayyaantuu.com/horn-of-africa-news/ethiopia/ethiopias-universities-educational-institutes-or-places-of-training-for-the-oppressive-tplf/
• http://ecadforum.com/2013/06/06/the-anguish-of-higher-education-students-in-ethiopia/

– Hawi Chala can be reached at hhunduma@ymail.com or haw chala, facebook page.

=>ayyaantuu