By Nigussie B Gemechu
History tells us that some nations including Ethiopia are built by creating unnatural sense of belongingness through dismissal and denial of the uniqueness existing among various populations. The core purpose of building a monolithic brand serves the interest of the builder, class of the builder (even if not claimed) and servant of the builder (to some extent). This brand is not only used as a formula to manipulate the status quo but teaches the almightiness and godly power of the nation builder ((refers to the yesterday’s and today’s forged nation architect/engineer Pseudo-Ethiopianists) in public and religious institutions. The nation builder establishes ways of sustaining this power by creatingunquestioning & unreasoning mentality in the subjects (the people). The nation (aka Ethiopia) builder creates a society that perceives or believes that: ‘its’ nation does not fail; a nation builder assumes power from God; a nation builder is always right and does not make mistakes; a nation builder protects the rights of everyone; a nation builder is fair; a nation builder knows everything; a nation builder lives forever; and so on (list of good and positive – entitling perfectionism)
The nation builder creates ‘national identity’ for the people of ‘its’ nation regardless of the uniqueness and diverse segments of the population in terms of language, culture and values. The nation builder writes and re-writes history and dictionary of ‘its’ own while writing and re-writing a separate history and dictionary of ‘others’ in the same ‘nation’. The story lines of the writings go along with praising the ‘highness’ of the nation builder versus demoting the segments categorically known as ‘uncivilized’ and backward ‘others’. Questioning the godly nation builder is considered disloyalty and would result in condemnation and dehumanization. The people live on the ‘Good Will’ of the nation builder. That’s how the nation named Ethiopia is built by the minority ‘unifying’ nation builders. This pattern has continued to 21st century Ethiopia. Not just that, a self-proclaimed habesha ‘elites’ work day and night to build similar ‘homogenous nation’ implemented by their forefathers.
The reality is these people (Pseudo-Ethiopianists) can never exist in a democratic society. That’s the main reason they only give lip service to building a democratic nation. That’s is the main reason they buried Gada System in their homestead when the other part of the world institutes this huge asset indigenous to the Oromo people. It’s laughable to look at these illusionist comparing the nation their fathers and grandfathers built with the United States of America. How elite should an ‘elite’ be to understand the conceptual and contextual ground on which the United States of America was constituted? They think the word ‘uniting’ is enough to line them up with the USA as a democratic nation. I wouldn’t be saying anything today if the bad- intentioned nation builders of yesterday and today have adopted a well-tested wisdom and values of the Cushitic people in creating a democratic and humanly society. Despite the systematic nation builder’s silencer, incredibly brave and forward-looking people were born to challenge their conspiracies at different times in the past 130 years of the ‘nation’. And now, we need a nation builder that recognizes and believes in the diversity of
Conspiracy-1: Pseudo-Ethiopianists don’t want to recognize the giant Cushitic majority (Oromo & Southern People), a society whose principles of life are love, mutual respect, fairness, truth, caring and valuing every person equally as human. They do their best to reduce any sort of majority quest for a sensible, all-inclusive, participatory and real nation building.
Conspiracy-2: Pseudo-Ethiopianist have their own doctrine and believe their God has created them ‘Special’ to lead ‘others’, not to be led; to be light for ‘others’ living in darkness; to educate ‘others’.
Conspiracy-3: Pseudo-Ethiopianists believe they are superior, more intelligent, gifted, and naturally privileged to build a nation and in fact listens to and works with no one but themselves and people in their circle. They present themselves as the only architect to build a nation and re-writes books and history like their forefathers to justify their perfectionism.
Conspiracy-4: Pseudo-Ethiopianists portray any other concerned individuals or groups who want to build a real nation as enemy of the a ‘nation’, perceive them as a threat and do their best to eliminate them.
Conspiracy-5: Pseudo-Ethiopianists, while priding themselves as true ‘believers’ and ‘chosen people of God’, use condemnation and dehumanization, mainly manifested in the form of insult as a big tool to demoralize and silence those genuinely questioning and challenging them.
Conspiracy-6: Pseudo-Ethiopianists want to build a nation on the ideology of protecting individual rights by assuming and ensuring homogeneity – a hypothesis that couldn’t be proved by any means when there are practical very distinctive nations equally demanding group rights. This has been implemented and experimented against the will of the people for over a century but failed again and again but the conspirators want to keep it alive.
Conspiracy-7: Pseudo-Ethiopianists believe assimilation and humiliation worked in the past for the nation builders and it should work now rather than having a commonsense and reasonable reconciliation.
Conspiracy-8: Pseudo-Ethiopianists still believe they are nation builders – an imaginary nation, a falsehood nation, exclusionist nation, foundationless nation, a nation of assimilation, a nation of denial, a nation of few/minority, a nation not based on love, mutual respect, mutual understanding, truth, commonsense and participation, a nation of inequality, a nation of poor mentality, a nation of unfairness, a nation of destruction,
Pseudo-Ethiopianists invest quite a significant amount of resources to make sure their conspiracies look real and good. They sing about them; they loudly & proudly talk about them; they preach about them; they teach about them; they write and re-write about them; they idolize about them; they do daily propagandas about them; they enforce them; they count on the unquestioning and unreasoning followers (remember: they worked hard on creating this mentality); and so on…………………..
I’m sure you have come across most of the conspiracies and the conspirators. They live with us and they pretend to care for us. They tell us they are working day & night to ‘free’ us. They still think and believe they are the right and only people to build a ‘perfect’ nation. They go after and attack potential real nation-makers. They gently approach us as long as we are subject to their conspiracies with unquestioning and unreasoning mind. Otherwise, it’s very easy for them to easily categorize us to a ‘threat’ to their fake nation building.
Here is the simple truth: no one was born Oromo, Amhara, Tigre, Sidama, Hadiya, etc by his/her choice. However, once that happens, we have to accept everyone as is. The identity of a person comes with a language, culture, and values associated with his/her being Oromo, Amhara, Tigre, Sidama, Hadiya, etc. These identity features (language, culture, and values) give an individual or a group a unique psychology up on which a character of a person is developed. It is not just easy like dressing someone’s cloth, eating someone’s food, or singing someone’s song. It’s much more than that. Denying someone or a group these basic natural ingredients is like abusing his/her humanity. This is one reason why group right is as equally important as individual right. A society plays an enormous role in shaping the character of the member of that group.
Therefore, IT’S TIME to stop the Pseudo-Ethiopianists and permanently thrash their fictitious identity and nation. Let’s build a real nation for all, by all. Yes, that’s what we want – a real nation! I think any ordinary person, other than the manipulative Pseudo-Ethiopianist conspirators, understands what a real nation means. It’s time to filter them out and isolate them; it’s time to call them nation-abolishers instead of nation builders; it’s time to teach their unquestioning & unreasoning blind-followers to question and follow commonsense to the least; it’s time to carefully identify and bring good and genuine people together to build a common nation. Regardless of the extensive class imposition in many ways, the Oromo people lived with everyone giving their utmost love and respect. I would like to call up on the good and genuine people of other ethnic groups to denounce these conspirators, appreciate the fact and work for a bigger vision where everybody sees and enjoys a shared interest. Otherwise, the Oromo nation is a much bigger & better nation than Ethiopia falling in the hands of nation-abolishers.