Oromo journalist, Lalise Wodajo, reunited with family after 8 years

by Sinke Wesho

(OPride) – Jiitu Wakjira was only five years old when Ethiopian security forces took away her father, Dhabasa Wakjira, from their home in April 2004. Jiitu understood very little at the time, but remembers missing her father, whom she visited at Ethiopia's notorious Kaliti prison every weekend – for nearly three years.

On Saturday Aug. 10 2013, Jiitu, 14, described her family’s ordeals, in a heartfelt speech that read much like a movie script, before a captive Oromo and Australian audience. Exposed to politics, suppression, oppression and loss at a young age, Jiitu’s is a story of love, perseverance, resilience, and courage.

“This is my way of taking everyone here back to when everything started,” Jiitu told her audience as she began speaking. “Every adult in my family has had a rough patch with the Ethiopian government. I didn’t understand what was happening when the police came to take my dad…I can’t explain how I felt. I guess I was scared. I mean, who wouldn’t be?”

The event was organized by members of the Australian Oromo Community Association in Victoria to celebrate a reunion of a family torn apart by years of injustice. Lalise Wadajo, Jiitu’s mother and former journalist with the state-run Ethiopian Television, was arrested on October 30, 2008 and later sentenced to 10 years without parole for alleged associations with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). Lalise arrived in Australia early this month after serving nearly three years in prison.

At Waltz Matilda hotel in Springvale ballroom, where the event was held, a family photo of the Wakjira’s beamed from two screens. The iconic photo shows Dhabasa and his children hugging Lalise as if to never let go off her again.

The story of the Wakjira’s resonates with many in the Oromo diaspora – separation from loved ones, despair and triumph of longing to see each other again. Tables were filled with Oromo traditional food, decorated with an Oromo flag and Oromo attires greeted entrants from all directions.

The auspicious dinner was followed by remarks from the family and a Skype call from Dr. Trevor Truman, human rights advocate and chairman of the UK-based Oromo Support Group. “Galatooma,” said Dr. Truman thanking the organizers in Afan Oromo. “Lalise ani gammade jira” – I am so happy for you, Lalise. Dr. Truman said he was thrilled about Lalise’s release and subsequent reunion with her family. He then commended Lalise for her patience and perseverance in the face of harsh and inhumane treatment in the hands of Ethiopian authorities – something he knows all too well having worked with Oromo refugees over the last two decades.

Unable to finish her five-page speech, Jiitu sat next to her parents, wiping tears off her angelic face. As Toltu Tufa – who campaigned and lobbied the Australian government on Lalise’s behalf for years – narrated the rest of her story, Jiitu fought back tears and as did everyone else in the room. Even in such an emotional moment, the teenage Jiitu was humble and graceful. The roomful audience was sniffing in tears.

Jiitu described how confused and lost she was to witness the alternative imprisonment of her parents. She recalled the first time her father was arrested – with no warrants or accusations. Jiitu remembers the federal police breaking into their house, interrogating her father, and confiscating her video games, tapes of her parent’s wedding and certain newspapers.

“I remember sitting on dad’s lap, watching the policemen open wardrobe after wardrobe,” Jiitu wrote. “My memories of that time are hazy, all I remember is that it was Friday and the next day when I woke up and asked mom where dad was, she said he was, in simple words, gone.”

For the next two years, every time she visited her father in prison, the impressionable Jiitu saw hundreds of Oromos at Kaliti prison.

“My dad told me that I once asked [him], ‘Did you know Qaliti is Oromia’s ‘capital’ city?’ He had asked ‘Why?’ to which I replied, “Because all Oromo[s] are here. They all speak Afaan Oromo.’ I’m guessing I didn’t view it as a prison back then but more like a meeting hall for all Oromo people to converse,” Jiitu said of the infamous prison on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. The room was dead silent, filled only with sniffles, as Jiitu chronologically detailed the harrowing story of the Wakjira’s.

When Dhabasa was released in 2008, the young Jiitu hoped for a normal and steady family. “It came as a shock,” Jiitu recalled in her remarks. “My brother, Bonsen [a toddler when Dhabasa was arrested] believed that a picture of dad was his dad. When dad came home, he didn’t believe us when we told him that dad was really dad. It took him a while to understand that a picture was incapable of fathering him.”

But Jiitu’s excitement did not last long as Dhabasa soon escaped a probable arrest and left for exile first to Kenya, and eventually resettled to Australia. Hopelessness set in for Jiitu not knowing if she would ever see him again. “I didn’t understand that he was gone for his own safety, in fact, back then, I preferred the first departure than the second. At least then, I got to see him weekly [in prison],” Jiitu wrote. Then the police took her mother – literally leaving her and two younger siblings without parents.

The day Lalise was arrested, Jiitu was returning home from school, after taking a major exam, to tell her mother how easy it was. Upon arrival though, Jiitu watched in horror and confusion as her mother was whisked away by uniformed security personnel. Jiitu screamed and cried for her mother as the officers slamming the door on the pickup truck. “I will be back,’’ Jiitu recalled her mother saying as the truck drove off. “Who was going to take care of us...Where’s mom going?” Jiitu remembered pondering as she embraced her baby brother, Bonsen. Jiitu once again found herself trekking back to Kaliti, this time to visit her mother, unlawfully convicted for no other reason than being Oromo.

Separated from both her parents, Jiitu had to learn to be an adult at a young age. But there was another hurdle. She attended school six days a week. This meant she could only see her mother on Sundays, missing church, which upset her aunt Mastawot. Jiitu remembers seeing girls younger than her age living in prison quarters whenever she visited her mother. In one instance, Jiitu describes how her eyes were fixated on a young girl, about seven or eight years old, apparently living in prison, until Jiitu's mother distracted her with a candy. Unable to comprehend why a girl her age was doing at Kaliti prison, Jiitu asked her mother for explanation. “To this day, I do not understand why an innocent young girl who was obviously not capable of doing any harm to the government [was] in prison,” Jiitu said in her speech.  

Jiitu eventually joined her father in exile but with some misgivings. “When I found out that we were going to be with dad, I felt like I was in a dilemma,” she recalled. “I was happy, I mean I was going to see dad but then I was sad too. I was leaving mom. I was going one way or another. It was like a transition, from both parents to mom to both parents and then to none.”

In Nairobi, I had a better understanding to why my parents were arrested. It turned out they were not an exception, they were just Oromo people. I couldn’t get my head around why they were arrested though. Taking pride in one’s country shouldn’t have been a crime. It shouldn’t have been frowned upon; it should be accepted and encouraged.

Even after her mother was released, Jiitu still had to wait for over a year to see her mother. But after learning her mother was granted the family reunion visa to Ausralia, “I literally had a hand-made calendar counting down the days on the back of my school diary and had different scenarios of how I would greet her in my head.”

Jiitu’s father, Dhabasa, a former journalist and community activist, spoke next. He admitted that when he lodged the family reunification application in August 2011, he did not believe that this day would come; a day when he would see his beloved wife sitting next to him with all her family. On July 3, 2013, Lalise was granted a visa to travel to Australia. After a long torturous eight years of waiting, they were reunited on in Melbourne on the morning of Aug. 8, 2013.

Dhabasa told a heartbreaking tale of losing a sister, brother, and mother in a matter of weeks. And in all these grief, Dhabasa was unable to mourn for his loved ones since he could not return home. “I inherited the strength of this woman,” he said of his wife, Lalise. “She stood by me, my children, my family all these years that I was missing. She became father and mother of my children, and ensured that they were educated, she went on hungry stomach to feed our family and today she is still strong.”

The mood in the room turned somber.

Next, Lalise took the stage to a standing ovation – beaming in an Oromo cloth painted with Odaa, the symbol of Oromo democracy, with beads around her neck and forehead. Her confidence and charisma was contagious. “Galatooma,” she told members of the Australian Oromo Community for standing by her family during the long ordeal. She was humble but clear and eloquent; Lalise spoke about ongoing systematic oppression of the Oromo people and the quandary of Oromo political prisoners. A remarkable storyteller, by the time Lalise was done speaking, the crowd seemed as if wanting to hear more.

As a woman and young person, I was filled with feelings of love and rage. I was enraged because an innocent woman was dehumanized, separated from her family, her husband and nation with no reason. But I also fall in love with her, in part because this was the first time I saw my community celebrating a heroine. Although women have been the backbone of Oromo struggle, little has been said about their contribution and ordeals. Even when recognized, there is little or no follow up. Women’s place still feels at the house while men carry the flag of advocacy. Celebrating Lalise I felt I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Witnessing Lalise’s and Jiitu’s journey, I felt this was the beginning of ‘bilisummaa’ or freedom for Oromo – by embracing half of its population.

Families and invited guests joined in celebratory Oromo dance after the formal event. Lalise looks like every Oromo daughter, mother and a wife. But she has borne too much a loss just for being an Oromo. For the Oromo nation though, Lalise’s children – the fruits of long and arduous struggle – are now the hope and leaders of tomorrow. I have no doubt her story of both struggle and triumph, when and if told, will inspire millions across the globe.

Jiitu, now an Oromo rights activist, ended her speech with a quote from Martin Luther King: Freedom is not voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed . She urged those in the room to fight injustice and support the Oromo people’s struggle.

Here’s a short except from her remarks:

In the airport, I started getting worried because she was one of the last people to arrive. Our eyes were darting around looking for her until Bontu yelled ‘She’s here’ and they started running towards her. I didn’t greet her until I got over the fact that she was there. I did try to stop myself from crying but how could I not? The minute we hugged, my hands were just tight around her neck and I was tearing up. I knew people wanted to greet her too but I didn’t want to let go.

Even though mom is here with us and the missing puzzle to our family was complete, there are still others suffering under the Ethiopian government. There are still parents with children like me suffering and yet putting their children’s safety in front of theirs …We owe them, I owe them a lot of things and we should never take our freedom here for granted.

I still remember Hawi, Aberash, Faxe, Muda, Mesfin and many others in Ethiopian prison because of their identity, their background and political views. I wish that they could all be here with us away from the dictatorship but they’re not. I really hope one day that we could unite and live life as the big family we are without fear.

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*The writer, Sinqe Wesho, is a Melbourne-based human rights activist and former public relations officer for the Australian Oromo Community in Victoria. She can be reached for comments at arfasabill@yahoo.com.au. Photos by Alula Mosisa, an engineering student and freelance photographer based in Melbourne, Australia. He can be reached at falmata430@hotmail.com.

>opride

A lynching mob or authentic patriots?

A rejoinder to Tedla Asfaw, Yilam Bekele and other Habesha bloggers

By Dumessa Diimmaa | August 12, 2013

After Al Jazeera produced a show in its weekly scheduled program called “The Stream” about the predicament of the Oromo nation in the Ethiopian empire, the Habesha iliterati went apoplectic! A certain Tedla Asfaw inflamed and soured the cyber sphere by posting a muddled and ignoble article accusing Jawar Mohammed for not declaring himself an Ethiopian first and an Oromo second!

Tedla’s nefarious aims and acrimonious intentions were to out Jawar as closet Oromo nationalist owing loyalty to   ethnocentric politics while on numerous occasions before a large or important Habesha political, religious and social gatherings, he was masquerading as bona fide Ethiopian devoid of any ethnic hypocrisy or pretense!   This is a total canard, I know Jawar and I have never observed him disguising nor concealing his identity to fit to the Habesha notion of Ethiopiawinet! He may have given speeches and analysis in Amharic depending on the nature and scale of the gathering, or composition of the audience.

Jawar Mohammed burst on the Habesha political scene when he authored a series of infantile articles criticizing the Oromo Liberation Front and its leadership. The Habesha cacophonous bunch were afflicted by his intellect and got giddy to the extent of wallowing and basking in the notion that they came across this Oromo kid who contrived the ineffectiveness of OLF and its politics. His analysis in those articles did fit to the venomous views that some of the domineering Habesha intellectuals espoused about the Oromo struggle for self determination and national liberation. They put him on the pedestal so high that he became one of the biggest celeb on the speaking circuit on issues relevant to the Horn of Africa!

His celebrity status among the Habeshas notwithstanding, Jawar never forgot his Oromo heritage, cultural memory or the construction of identity. His Ethiopian universalism is mediated by his Oromo particularism. He is aware of how the Oromo nation was conquered by Emperor Minelk and incorporated into the Abyssinian Empire during the scramble for Africa!

To this these extent, Tedla, Yilma and all the Habeshas who savagely attacked Jawar did not understand the maturity and density of Oromo struggle. Yilma’s solipsistic arguments about some leadership qualities (by quoting an Ivy League Prof), statistics and distortion of facts by the Oromo Panelist on the Aljezeera Stream are bogus! All the available data about the Oromo predicament in the Empire’s jails indicates that the overwhelming majority of the political prisoners are Oromo nationals.  Sye Abreha, the Former Defense Minister of Ethiopia who was an inmate at the Qalitti Prison was quoted saying that the language of the Empire’s Prison is Afaan Oromo! Today, the Qalittii prison is euphemistically called “Oromia Kilil”!

The reticence of Oromos to speak their language in urban centers is a simple self preservation! The Wayannee government considers those Oromos who insist to speak their mother tongue anywhere, anytime, as militants and possible members or sympathizer of OLF! Hence, there may be no legislation to ban Afaan Oromo, but the hostile environment and harsh political realities faced by the bulk of Oromo nation in present day Ethiopia is undeniably dreadful.

Now, let’s consider this notion of Ethiopiawinet, Yilma et al are lecturing us about on how we were  all “mixed blood”, lived together in peace and harmony, and everything was hunky-dory in the land of the Queen of Sheba and Emperors, Minelick, Haile Selassie etc.. until the diabolical Wayannee (walinyannee: the term was initially coined by the Raya and Azebo Oromos in the 1940s when the Imperial Army campaigned against these pastoral communities to no avail and had to call in British Royal Air Force from Aden to surgically bomb hamlets and livestock to crush them to silence and pacify the North South high way that went through the Raya-Azebo territories. Hence, the 1^st Walinyanee, the Afaan Oromo term: we’re united/joined together to fend off the external aggressor was used) mafia arrived and contrived the ethnic Kilil to suit their objective of divide- and- rule!  This is utterly untrue and if we glance at a cursory history of Ethiopia in late nineteen and early 20^th century, the incessant campaign to build the Empire from independent polities in the south and east by successive Abyssinian monarchs is the result of this present conflict among subject peoples and Abyssinia/Ethiopian state. The esoteric history of Ethiopia peddled and espoused by the likes of Yilam and Tedla lacks intellectual integrity and historical coherence. The inability of Ethiopian elite to understand the rising tide of Oromo nationalism and the democratic aspirations of all subject peoples of the Empire illustrates the crude stage of their political and democratic development!

Jawar Mohammed may have done some dalliance with Ethiopiawinet in several fora that he delivered analysis of politics on the Horn Africa and Ethiopia, but hardly ever did he forgot his Oromummaa. He mediated the need for ethno-nationalism with that of Pan Africanism/Pan Ethiopianism! What else could he be except an Oromo man from Bale, born to and reared among a given Gossaa/clan of the Oromo Nation! The centrality and locus of his Oromo heritage transcends his ethiopiawinet ! As indicated above, his cultural memories are that of an Oromo person whose identities are linked to hisgossaa and then to Oromummaa. It is an account of oneself and others; it seems natural to us to consider ourselves Oromo first, as Oromummaa evokes our origins, defines us in relations to other polities of the Empire. It binds our identity inextricably with democratic culture and ethos (at least it was until the colonizing structure disrupted our democratic karma, culture and history) democracy permeated every aspect of Oromo culture – Gadda is a system that has an organizing structure, thoughts, concept, doctrine, and tenets which provides for and- upon which identities constructed by the Oromo.

The entire hullabaloo by all these Habeshas regarding Jawars comments and a very disturbing ad hominem and gratuitous vilification, unnecessary and pointless rants, are not a panacea for the Empire’s insurmountable social and political dilemmas. The vitriolic commentaries that pervaded the Ethio-centric websites about Jawar are all craven canards and will not elevate the debate an iota about identity, nationality nor citizenship.  We are not surprise by fusillade of abusive invectives. It has been said that, the usage of invectives, overt and coded name-calling and verbal abuses are time honored Habesha virtues!

We either succumb or rise above our chauvinism regarding other polities of the Empire. To fit with what is universal among us or to construct a durable of bonds as a citizens of the Empire that transcend boundaries, cultural heritage and ethnicity/nationality, we need to embrace and employ mutual trust! It is the confidence forged by continuous dialogues about the shifting paradigms in the various communities of the Empire that will endow us to shape the destiny of the region, not innuendoes or abusive words when our views diverge.     Debates about the Ethiopian State, about citizenship, about unity of the Empire should not need to be marred by virulent attacks and distortions. All the content less platitude about the glories and indivisibly of the Empire will not spare the Ethiopian State as it is politically arranged now.  It is necessary that we make a profound reassessment of the political and social struggle and call for unity against the entrenched Wayannee regime. Nuanced and often noxious commentaries about Oromo activists and Oromia as an entity will only constitute discords, disunity and impediment to the essential process of solidarity of struggle against the formidable Ethiopian police state.

We Oromos had come a long way to this matrix of struggle, our dream of freedom in our own land seems so close, we cannot fail to seize upon and we must keep our eyes on the prize! We should direct our energy to ward altering the conditions of our people as well as refining ourselves, redefining the history of the country and relationships between polities of the Empire! We must secure support and solidarity with all the polities in the Empire, our armed, political and social struggle will reach a point when it will be sufficiently developed to meet the Wayannee forces in a “Dien Bian Phu” type of confrontation. Taking into consideration the justness of struggle, prudent preparation, and our victory inevitable!

Finally, the Oromo Nations struggle is a momentous process that cannot be scuttled by individual or group assault on our activist, collective body, or luminaries of our cause! Either through bullet or ballot, the liberation of our people will come. It is an historic inevitability that the struggle of the Oromo people and all the subject peoples of the Empire will succeed

Dumeesaa  Diimmaa is an Oromo Activist.

He could be reached at: Diimmaa@hotmail.com

>ayyaantuu

Muslim Protests in Ethiopia and the Symbolism of Human Rights

By Professor  Steven Thomas 

Almost every week since 2011, American news corporations have reported on the non-violent grassroots democratic movements in Egypt and Tunisia and the violent, U.S.-supported movements in Syria and Libya — the so-called “Arab Spring.” However, almost never reported are the conditions for a viable democracy in Ethiopia, and even in those few reports about Ethiopia such as this one, what remains missing is any account of the religious, ethnic, and ideological complexities of that country and the changing multifaceted history of that region. In other words, what remains missing is precisely the information one might need to really understand what is happening. How do we understand human rights and democracy? I’d like to begin with this photography here taken on Thursday, August 8th that quickly circulated on various forms of social media and eventually was posted on Al Jazeera last night along with some earlier photographs and Twitter feeds.

The picture is of a young man in the capital city of Addis Ababa, confronting Ethiopian police non-violently by kneeling in prayer before them. Some conversation began on Facebook and Twitter about the symbolic meaning of the photo, and what I’d like to suggest to the readers of my blog is that, for many Americans, the way “democracy” in other countries is understood is largely through images such as this one. It is worth thinking about such images because they often take on a symbolic significance that may be emotionally moving but also may obscure many of the political details and actual functioning of democratic social movements.

But before I continue to think about my questions about how we understand the images that come to symbolize democratic ideals and social movements, I should provide some context for the photograph. Last week, as the month of fasting for Ramadan came to a close and the feast-day of Eid al Fitre was celebrated across the world, Muslims in Ethiopia were protesting the government’s closing of some mosques and arrest of Muslim community organizers and journalists. The Ethiopian government’s heavy-handed responses to those protests in various towns across the country and in the capital city of Addis Ababa left many dead and more injured. The government’s position is that these are violent Muslim extremists, but against this view, the Muslim community organizers argue that they represent the moderate form of Islam that has existed in Ethiopia for over a thousand years and that their movement that started in 2011 is non-violent.  On Thursday, August 8th, in support of the Muslim protesters, Amnesty International filed this complaint against the Ethiopian government for human rights violations. Muslims make up about one third of the population of Ethiopia, but the state government has been dominated by Orthodox Christians since the incorporation of Muslim territory at the end of the nineteenth century. The entire history is a long one, and considering that the protest movement started about two years ago, I don’t want to dwell on all the details in this blog post; you can read or hear more about the past week’s conflict by following these links to OPride, BBC Africa, Reuters, and a United Nations brief. One frustrating thing is that the place where you won’t hear anything about these events is on the major sources of information in the United States: The New York Times and National Public Radio.

Coincidentally, exactly when this conflict started in the Oromia region of Ethiopia, I was listening to Oromo intellectuals at the Oromo Studies Association conference at Howard University in Washington DC who were engaging in a debate about the complex historical relationship between religious organizations (namely Islam and protestant Christianity), cultural self-determination, and democratic movements. One of my students and I were at that conference to give presentations on a panel about international education, media and film along with OPride‘s editor and the Oromo-language journalist for Voice of America.

So, drawing on what I learned at that conference and what I had already learned before going to it, we can deepen the context for this single photo to go so far as to suggest a context of a thousand year history of political involvement from Turkey, Portugal, England, France, Italy, the United States, and most recently Saudi Arabia, China, and India. The cultural divisions in Ethiopia are not merely religious but also ethnic, and this is complicated because the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, the Oromo, are a mix of Christian, Islam, and older forms of religious practice. Earlier this year, on June 25, Al Jazeera became the first global television news network to focus on these issues in a segment that you can watch here. But there are other factors to consider too, not mentioned on that segment of Al Jazeera. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, both Christian and Islamic religious institutions participated with other organizations in a broad-based revolutionary democratic movements that eventually led to the revolutions in 1974 and 1991, but since the 1990s, new forms of Christianity and Islam have emerged that claim to be fundamentalist but whose funding and ideology seem to come from outside the country.  We might consider too that for almost a century Ethiopian law prohibits religious practices (such as burial and marriage) that do not fall under the jurisdiction of sanctioned Christian or Muslim institutions (e.g., the Oromo’s traditional Waaqeffannaa), and these new forms of fundamentalism (not only Christian and Muslim fundamentalisms, but also western neoliberal fundamentalism) appear to be suppressing some of the older forms of ethnic culture that predate the adoption of the world religions, including older forms of ethnic culture that give women some important forms of agency in their communities (e.g., addoyyee and siiqqee.)

So, now that I’ve summarized that context, let’s return to the photo. The non-violent gesture of the man engaging in “salat” (prayer) seems to have stopped the police officers. The image might remind us of other champions of non-violent action such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., who argued for the effectiveness of moral persuasion through non-violent action that exposes the hypocrisy of the ruling regime whose excessive use of force undermines the legitimacy of the state.  The action of this man engaging in salat is not passive, but firmly active non-violent practice. However, noticeably, other forms of non-violent protest (e.g., marches and assemblies) did not have the same effect on the police. Two things seem special about this photo: first, that it is an act of prayer and second that it is a solitary individual putting his body at risk. This does two things. First, there is a bias in western media that tends to read Islamic practice and liberal human rights in opposition to each other, and indeed, the Ethiopian government’s rhetoric to the outside world seems to deliberately capitalize on that bias in order to discredit their political opponents. But for Muslim Oromos living in the United States, Australia, and elsewhere, the meaning of this photo would seem to suggest that liberal human rights and Islamic practice can function together. Second, it foregrounds the decision of an individual to put himself at risk for the greater good rather than a group identity or mobilized mob. It creates a hero.

Thinking theoretically, and reflecting on this interesting question about the structural relationship between the practices of Islam and the idea of human rights, might all of this illustrate the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai’s inquiry into the nature of globalization? In his book Modernity at Large, he argues that various ethnoscapes, technoscapes, mediascapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes all play a role in social formations and local cultures — sometimes functioning together, but sometimes functioning in contradiction to each other. These global “scapes” are  in tense dialectic with thelocal (i.e., the actual lived experience and social organization of communities.) My presentation at the Oromo Studies Association conference alluded to Appadurai’s theory to argue that today’s international education is very much enmeshed in these different “scapes.” In the case of the photo that is the subject of this blog, we see the ethnic identity of Oromos, the practice of Islam, the ideology of human rights, and the technologies of social media.  The photo might seem to fuse these various “scapes” into a singular image that celebrates a global sense of local freedom.

However, what we do not see in this symbolic image, of course, is the economics, and this includes the distribution of wealth and Ethiopia’s GDP that Jawar Mohammed emphasizes in the interview with Al Jazeera, but also the daily labor of individuals that Dr. Ezekiel Gebissa talks about in his book on coffee and khat production, as well as the speculative labor of financial institutions (what Appadurai calls financescapes), and even more basically the home-making of families. What do we make of this absence? Might it be important for how we read the effectiveness of symbolic images that come to represent such ideologically loaded concepts of freedom and democracy for American consumers of media?

We might compare this image to another one, the famous Tiananmen Square demonstration in 1989 when a single individual stopped military tanks from interrupting a public protest.

In fact, Oromos on social media (e.g., here) have explicitly made the comparison between the recent event in Addis Ababa in 2013 and that event in Beijing in 1989, and it is precisely the making of such comparisons between different movements that is the point of my blog post today, because in the media these images can become filtered through a western ideology of human rights that may not be fully attentive to some of the local cultural practices and understandings of what was happening. For instance, the American and European media all understood the Tiananmen Square demonstration to be a pro-democratic and anti-communist demonstration. What the media failed to appreciate is how communism and democracy are not inherently antithetical, and that one could protest the government for other reasons. In an important book written by one of the leaders of the Tiananmen demonstration, Wang Hui, and published by Harvard University Press in 2006, entitled China’s New Order, it is revealed just how incorrectly the western media understood this event when they filtered it through the global ideoscape of human rights and democracy. Wang Hui outlines the variety of economic and social issues that concerned the Chinese people and the demonstrators, and how all these issues did not neatly fit under a single ideological perspective. Importantly, for many of the demonstrators, instead of protesting communism, what they were actually protesting was the capitalist reforms, opening relations to American and European capital markets, and the “financescapes” being dictated by the government that were causing some forms of economic displacement of peoples (e.g., working conditions) and general uncertainty. In other words, in a sense, the movement was actually in some ways a conservative one, exactly the opposite of what the western media assumed.

So, what lessons do we learn from Arjun Appadurai and Wang Hui’s inquiries into the nature of democratic practice in a globalized world order? What further questions might we raise about this photograph of a man kneeling in prayer before police in riot gear? How might we untangle the tangled relationship between the Islamic practice of salat, the local demands of various religious and ethnic institutions, and the international ideology of human rights and non-violent political practice that the photograph seems to symbolically fuse?

One of Appadurai’s points about using the terms “ethnoscape” and “ideoscape” instead of the more ordinary terms “ethnic group” and “ideology” is that the neologistic “scape” alerts us to the ways that the meaning of ideas changes depending on the contexts. For instance, African American civil rights activists in the 1960s, the U.S. government in the 1980s, and leaders of the democracy movement in Tunisia today might all use the same ideas of freedom, democracy, and human rights but mean slightly different things by them. Gandhi’s practice of non-violence is connected to a Hindu tradition whereas Martin Luther King, Jr.’s is to a Christian one.  Scholars of the civil rights movement in America have long expressed frustration about the way Martin Luther King, Jr.’s political message has been watered down in the popular media and high school history textbooks and grafted onto the ideology of American patriotism. Likewise, the Ethiopian government’s branding opposition groups as “terrorists” appropriates the inflammatory rhetoric of U.S. president George W. Bush a decade ago, but does so for its own ends, and when Oromo’s speak of genocide and ethnic cleansing, they are using legal terms formulated by the United Nations in the context of the Jewish Holocaust in ways that may or may not be slightly different from the way a UN legal team might use them. Hence, we are dealing not with ideologies, but with ideoscapes whose very signifying power is supposed to be part of a universal language that everyone in the world can understand but is actually quite local and context specific. Similarly, just as ideas are not pure and stable concepts, ethnicity is not a pure identity based merely on territory or authentic culture, because the lived experience of ethnicity and cultural practices have a dialectical relation to the global transformations and movements of peoples due to financial speculation, colonialism, etc. For instance, a little over a century ago, the Oromo were a rather diffuse ethnicity of many tribes, kingdoms, religious practices, and dialects who were forced to unify as a singular political liberation movement only after their rights and their land were threatened by a newly formed Ethiopian imperial state and global capitalism. Notably, an ethnic group’s right to self-determination is usually argued with terminology borrowed the European enlightenment’s discourse on “rights” but applied to local cultures who may have a different language for talking about such things. During the conference, one Oromo feminist community organizer said she preferred to think of women’s empowerment in terms of “social balance” and traditional Oromo culture rather than in terms of “rights” and western ideas. Hence, the lived experience of “ethnicity” changes depending on context and also depending on the “ethnoscapes” relation to other “scapes.”

And so, in the case of this photo, we might need to think harder about what human rights and non-violent protest really mean in the context of Islamic practices within Ethiopia that are themselves undergoing a transformation due to various global forces such as the competing ideoscapes of religious fundamentalism and liberalism and also such as the ways in which finance capital transforms territory, the use of land, and a community’s access to natural resources such as water.

>gulelepost

Lelise Wodajo, an Oromo Journalist, finally free

August 12, 2013

Lelise Wodajo and two of her three children

Do you remember an Oromo female journalist arrested only for being only Oromo in 2008? Yes, Lelise Wodajo is our heroine. She is finally free and rejoined her family in Australia.

The case of Mrs. Lelise Wodajo, a mother of three dependent children and wife of former ETV journalist Mr. Dhabasa Wakjira was arrested after her husband fled the country to escape further persecutions after three years in prison without trial. She was sentenced for 10 years without parole.

While we are rejoicing Lelise’s freedom, let us remember also thousands and thousands of Oromo languishing in every Tigre prisons around the Empire for similar reason.

Below is background information about Lelise Wodajo:

CPJ: Two Ethiopian state TV journalists under arrest

Amnesty International Appeals for Detained/Tortured Oromo Prisoners

Unforgettable happy moment, Melbourne, Australia, August 2013

Spectacular family reunion, August 2013

>ayyaantuu

Emergency requires Urgency

Organized struggle for liberation started to take the first step with sacrifice of Oromo martyrs. With that many remarkable achievements were registered. They gave for their people the only precious thing they had, their lives to enable all Oromo say, “I am an Oromo” instead of identifying themselves first with a tribe, region or religion. That broke colonialists spell put on them. That was one of the achievements in the first chapter of the struggle. It does not mean the objectives of activists and aspirations of the people had reached their desired goal with all the sacrifices. Those that survived the carnage and the new generation is expected to make more efforts and sacrifices to reach a victorious end. Reminiscing on past achievements alone cannot take one there. It requires urgency to secure the gains and proceed to the second chapter. When the struggle started activists had clear objective and were indefatigable. But with time there were interferences that blurred their vision and sucked their strength. Some among pioneers that rebelled against the “kaayyoo” had no alternative to offer in overcoming the difficulties encountered than whitewashing obsolete ideas. That proved OLF as the standard bearer of Oromo revolution. OLF is spirit of the people that no one was able to corrupt though able to put it off balance.  At this juncture of sluggishness, old enemies thought they got the opportune time to dismantle the nation. Oromo youth came out from all corners and told them that they can no more be silenced. All from northern to southern hemisphere told them in one voice “We are Oromo first”.

There are many peoples under the Ethiopian empire. For the enemy Oromo does not have difference from all the rest to claim exclusive right. For this reason they say Oromo have no different question as a separate entity. For them the Oromo are what they are and where they are because providence ordained it and so should not try to mess up with the status quo.  Another view is that the Oromo have historical, territorial, and world vision difference from all others. Their question is based on historical facts of having had independence existence from their neighbors. It is question of birth right, of identity and national self determination up to and including independence. There are few sycophants that accept most of these but could not swallow the right for independence and difference of world vision. According to the first to question Oromo being Ethiopian is absurd. According to the second being Ethiopian was imposed on them by force. It is only a parasite to suck their blood and they have never been part of it from free will. Their patriotism emanates from Oromummaa, pride of distinct history, culture and tradition that came down from generation to generation. 

Those that disfavor independence do not deny that there is a burden imposed on the Oromo. But they want others to join them in a struggle to democratize the empire and live in it as equals. The other says they have to get rid of the imposed relation of victor and vanquished, colonized and colonizer and determine their destiny without fear or threat from external body. They take attempt to democratize an empire as a joke. O LF has put in its program the possibility of voluntary alliance based on their free will with those colonized like them.  But to initiate struggle is right of those concerned. The struggle initiated by OLF has its objective for the Oromo to attain independence by utilizing their right to national self determination.  That is to be consummated by establishing democratic republic Oromiyaa. Some that claim to conduct research to bring to light the plight of Oromo gloss over this fact. Oromo liberation movement had never had being Ethiopian as its objective. The Oromo look up on all African peoples as siblings. Unless they also take them as such, the Oromo will not accept being viewed as any ones subordinate or appendage. It considers the Habashaa as one among African peoples. Until they take Oromo as an equal that have authority on own territory and rights it is difficult for the region to have peace and stability. That may require democratizing their system. The choice is their own and concerns no one. As the saying goes, “When they said let it be cut for it is too long, the snake replied, it is up to one to roll oneself.”

Oromo had history of democracy. These days all in power claims to be democratic. One that anointed oneself and that is elected by the people equally brag with it. For Oromo democracy was inbuilt into their life structure. For that reason to transfer power at a given time had never raised bickering and fighting. All generations had position and role in society at different levels. The group that is its turn to take power may have in-party competition to be elected to leadership. That does not overflow that period.  

According to Western democracy candidates spend much wealth to run for election. For this reason only the have or one sponsored by the haves could compete for power.  Parties in competition publicize through media or rallies and get themselves accepted without physical fight.  They were able to lay down a system of transferring power peacefully and with tolerance without killing and hurting each other much. That made voters the decision makers. Those defeated start to gather mistakes of the elected immediately to help them win in the next election. They never stop exposing their rival’s mistakes at every turn. It is good to understand that to go against each other is a part of Western modern democracy. This is the state of people that have completed national struggle and have bound themselves by a constitution. Those that are still struggling have no law that covers them in common. It is only safuu (ethical consideration) that is in between them. Oromo politician of the day ask, “Why do we go against each other sparing the enemy?” They forget that the relation between them is not that of friends but opponents. It would not be easy to differentiate opponent from enemy in the field of struggle, when both are in cahoots for the same purpose, opposing kaayyoo of independence. That may be waived between those that believe the possibility of travelling a distance together.  That sort of agreement may stop adversarial attacks. Overall it cannot be denied that cooperation is better than confrontation.

To get organized in parties and teams and entertain any outlook and express oneself in any manner is a human right. That means it is appropriate to promote ones outlook and tear down that of a rival. According to Oromoo tradition to fight on issues and denounce each other is legitimate. However the human person is considered sacred. Except for issue he/she presented to insult ones honor is safuu (unethical).  For these reason to attack a person for ones ideas when one did not cross a line to slander is despicable. But in competition to analyze in detail the issues one presented and show the harm it could bring to the people’s interest is a norm. It is good to understand that rivalry between those that are under same constitutions and others under different discipline could be different. Western people accepted democracy because they saw no alternative to competing under peaceful and stable situation.  For this reason putting each other off balance to grab power under supremacy of one constitution cannot be taken as greed in absolute terms. Legitimate power is necessary to reach required goal. It is greed when it emanates from breaking the law with selfish arrogance and feeling of superiority. 

Westerners adopted the concept of ancient Greek city state democracy after realizing that stable governance is indispensable for development. Earlier it was the powerful that exterminated several to come to power. It was after that that they started tolerating each other and lay structures for transfer of power peacefully. They accepted that only for its advantage of saving life and property from catastrophe; otherwise still traces of the gene for wasting one another is observable. That is why the powerful befriend tyrants of the third world to do for them what their laws do not allow at home. Even in their own country many are exposed at times, when stealing from each other, fighting underground and sabotaging one another’s efforts. We have said that supremacy of the law is a culture for the Oromo. That means they have a tradition to fall back to when they secure their country in order for different parties to compete peacefully and harmoniously in a modern setting. If interested Gadaa is a rich source.

Even for the West there is no common blue print for democracy. But all accept the rule of law. Human character is many and complicated. Unless it is agreed to bridle it could lead to what is known as “survival of the fittest”. The situation in the Horn of Africa at present seems that. It is one that historical accident gave it power that is pulverizing those that were unprepared. Unless they find solution soon it is inevitable that the one over them will continue thriving and getting more strength while they are emaciating and growing weaker. Habashaa elites do not dream to accept the rule of law even for their own people. For this reason the colonized have no other solution than fighting back or accept the status quo and live by it. Some may try to get acceptance into their fold by cajoling the colonizers. They fail to understand that they are under spell of greater conspiracy and contempt against weak peoples of Africa. There is also lack of self confidence.

No organization remains in its original form because of constant change in nature. If society does not keep on adopting changes in science and technology it is destined for decay. For this reason public and private organizations are seen when changing methods to renew themselves. Even colonizers from Minilik to the present survived by adjusting tactics to demands of the times. The refresher courses everywhere in the world, regarding education and training signify that. No less is expected from political organizations. Many technologically manufactured types of equipment are being introduced. Unless one acquaints oneself with changes in communication and diplomatic systems and war instruments being produced it will be difficult to challenge an enemy that already adopted them. Even if one has no access to these instruments to know their existence and how they function can save one from danger. It could also make it easy to capture from the enemy and use it. For this reason it is good to remember the saying of our ancestors that, “One will not live with dirty hands and old methods.” 

It is a must not a choice to keep on changing on how one thinks and functions. That does not mean to change the fundamental objective when the cause still remains but to sharpen what one already has.  There are those that say you say “kaayyoo kaayyoo something that did not bring any change in two decades”. Kaayyoo is an outlook that reflects people’s aspirations and interests not something that translates itself into work by miracle. It would be better to ask, could it be the people supposed to implement it that failed? EPLF and TPLF were liberation fronts why did they succeed while OLF lost. Did anyone investigate that? It is after investigation that they ruled out kaayyoo as impracticable or by sheer whim? Eritrean liberation movement brought forth EPLF. It succeeded without changing the objectives of liberation, except for tactics of war. It is only after it captured Tigray that TPLF was prompted to change its strategy for there was no one to confront it. Tigreans are as Habashaa as the government in Shaggar. Their rebellion was for not getting their proper share. Oromo are people different from them that were colonized by their ancestors. Their complaint was not about share but about losing their country and rights. How can it be wrong to struggle in order to disentangle oneself from empires rule? The Tigrian crossed to the south finding it weak to challenge them; otherwise didn’t they keep on swearing not to be ruled by Shawaa?  What is wrong if Oromo say to them we will not be ruled by you? To say we will roll and put in the armpits of minority such a great nation would be nauseating not only for the people but for those that are listening.   

        

Some cadres of OLF want to negotiate with their masters before building strong organization and dependable force. It can be guessed from experience that the enemy in its thought would say “Wadeet kafkaff” (How dare you)? It was for the benefit they want to get from their southern colonies in particular Oromiyaa that they were tearing each other down to grab power. As long as they have superior power why would they negotiate with them? If not as a lackey the facts do not show to force they negotiate as equals.  Those cadres call the ones that still yearn for independence as “those that froze in history” without shame. Instead of laboring in history of slavery wouldn’t it be better to get freeze in where they say? Folks, shouldn’t the Oromo people freely, in one voice demand what they want? Are the Oromo a nation that could present themselves as one people or are they collection of riffraff? The later would be contemptible, the Oromo are people that claim one country and one destiny. Before jumping to international relations they have to determine their destiny. The road to be laid down by activists should be one that takes there straight not falls short. Those that chose such a road can form alliance.

To say more on Oromo struggle it seems those of us that claim to struggle for one people are missing the big picture. The big picture is for our people to put away the yoke of colonialism and become masters of their own destiny. The pioneer youth gave themselves for the cause and started struggle that cost their lives. To advance the struggle structure was laid down and assignments were shared. It was assumed that periodical assessments and how to transit to the following level was visualized. Unfortunately there was a flaw in the process and the big picture was lost. Trust between activists started to melt away. The condition became conducive for revisionists and infiltrators. The hullabaloos of past few years, the rallying of opportunists and agents, the “melting to each other” phrase coinage is a grim reminder of how situations can be manipulated to create confusions and derail people’s struggle. For over five years they had been frisking claiming there are no revolutionary like them, no expert in independence and freedom was born except them, but today we know where they stand. It was to divert us from the road we started and were never concerned for freedom and independence. We just realized that. They were such overt and covert conditions that stunted the struggle. It was the clear kaayyoo and nationalists who stood their ground that kept the struggle alive staggering. Past activists have brought it so far. Yesterday only paves the road to totoday but cannot help the present thrive and cross to the tomorrow. Each generation of an era has a role to play to make the interconnections. To join liberation struggle and wage internal and external struggle does not wait for a call.

The calamities and the changes faced by a people can be understood better if one lives among them and share the hardship they are subjected to. Those who claim to struggle for them must live and experience whatever they are going through. Otherwise it will be like the saying, “One that became deaf during Abbaa Gadaa’s reign will remain swearing in Abbaa Gadaa’s name long after his demise”.  One cannot make correct decision on what one cannot see or feel. Oromo are being herded to prisons, killed, and disappear without trace for remaining with their conscience.  Their land is given to others and they are chased out of their ancestral grounds to become paupers. They are denied freedom of worship in the manner they chose. Enemies are attacking the nation from all directions to keep them in bondage as usual. The people have nowhere to run from atrocities. There is no exist or safe heaven to escape to.

For this reason they are running to wherever their legs take them, some jumping into sinking ships to be devoured by sharks, others die from sun stroke, scorpion bites in deserts and eaten by wild beasts.  Those that are able to cross borders are only better than the dead. Even under that circumstance many did not lose hope. They are facing repression gallantly. We are also encouraged by the effort of our artists, writers, students and intellectuals that are keeping the spirit of Oromummaa alive under such dire situation. The youth are daily showing more political consciousness, mental maturity and revolutionary stances. Because of that culture and language the enemy thought to have destroyed is regenerating. Vigor and concern the youth are showing assures us that there is no turn back. But that alone is not enough. There must be an organization that coordinates their efforts and give proper guidance.

OLF is a political organization that for the first time came out with kaayyoo reflecting interest of the people. It did not draw a road map for the vision of one generation alone but relevant for generations to come as well. For this reason the kaayyoo is not subject to change though leaders may be deposed, die or betray, as long as the people remain under oppression. In the second millennium OLF had suffered from crisis that made its constitution null and void. The power with which to impose discipline had slipped from its hands. Solution for it is expected from revolutionaries. It would be appropriate to draw guidelines until a legitimate constitution is reinstituted. The time is time of emergency. At a time when there is no constitution what should be discussed is not about defunct constitutions but on how to survive from marginalization. Integrating grassroots under one objective needs priority. If the mutual understanding at the top is not reflected at the bottom it could mean there is a problem. It demands quick attention. If those that claimed to reach understanding still approach the people separately it means things are still raw. People want to see ripe products. If still there are those who say “we and you” it means there is more to clean up. Not to understand that could be inviting more disintegration. For this reason, better to be aware of what is going around and courageously get out with selflessness and determination to take necessary action.

Patriots have to take responsibility to transcend the crisis and put the organization on its proper path. Such a move requires selflessness and magnanimity. It is possible for anyone to have external pressures from different directions as individuals or groups. But to give ears to each other more than they do for others is what patriotism requires. To overcome distractions from outside transparent deliberations are required not petty intrigues. They can heal together if they together find panacea for their pains. Program for short term domestic and diplomatic struggle have priority. If there is positive outlook it will be possible to lay down provisional structure to implement those. Sharing of responsibilities must be open to consensus and must not be something to be contested among the dignified. The exercise is assumed not to be buying individual glory but to dismantle conspiracy against the nation and come out of the crisis victoriously. The nation and members are eagerly waiting for the day they are told that the activists have agreed to form provisional unified revolutionary leadership.  That leadership is expected to call the Kora to resolve outstanding issues and to carry out its revolutionary tasks in the interim period. That only would heal the shattered hopes of the people. The measures that this provisional leadership of OLF takes are crucial for rallying organizations with similar outlook. For that the experience gained during formation of ULFO could be the starting point. 

There are dangers aimed at gains registered by sacrifices of Oromo martyrs. Though one chapter of the struggle is concluded with commendable gains the second got into deep crisis. It is testing the integrity of the vanguard of Oromo struggle, the OLF. But OLF is one and can never be divided. OLF is “Oromo First” and cannot be Ethiopian. To maintain this oneness nationalists in the leadership have historic accountability. OLF will fill the gap created by breaking of its laws and its work will not stop. The time is one of emergency. To cross over known procedures and save the nation, nationalists and the kaayyoo from debacle is of at most urgency. It must be now!! Success of the struggle is in the hands of Oromo revolutionaries that are duty bound to take it to the finish line. Emergency requires urgency. The Oromo shall disentangle themselves from all machinations by their struggle. Unity of Oromo independence movement shall flourish. The struggle will continue!

Ibsaa Guutama
July 2013

>gubirmans

Warra eenyummaa saba tokkoo hin kabajne wajjin biyya waloo takka ijaaruun hin danda’amu

Abdii Boruutiin

 Gara qabiyyee barreeffama kiyyaatti otuu hin seenin dura, duula nafxanyoonni yeroo ammaa Oromummaarratti godhaa jiran ilaalchisee, deebii mooraa keenya keessaa kennamaa jiruuf akka waliigalaatti; keessumaayuu ammoo Sabboonaan keenya Dargaggoo Abdii Fiixee dandeettii isaa addaa kanaan deebii inni kennaa jiruhttp://ayyaantuu.com/horn-of-africa-news/ethiopia/we-dont-expect-a-dove-from-snake-egg-ke-ibab-inkulal-irgib-antebikim/ baayi’see galatteffachuun barbaada. Asirratti gootummaa Dhaloota Qubee yoon dinqisiifadhu, waan Sabboonaan keenya Obboo Jawaar godhaa jiru hin daganne. Gaafii fi deebii inni EthioTube wajjin dhiyoo kana godhes http://gadaa.com/GadaaTube/8609/2013/08/07/ethiotube-presents-obbo-jawar-mohammed   yoomiyyuu caalaa kutannoo dhaloota haaraa agarsiisa. Akka waliigalaatti yoo ilaalame, haalli yeroo ammaa kun waan adda addaa akka hubatan nama taasisa. Inni tokko Oromoon Oromummaadhaan bilchaatani fi Sabboonummaan isaanii cimaa ta’e, akkamitti gamtaadhaan dhimma saba Oromoo akka ittisan agarsiisa. Karaa biraatiin ammoo, tuffiis haa ta’u sodaa qabanirraayis haa maddu; sababni kanaa waanuma fedhes haa ta’u, jibbi Habashootni keessumaayuu nafxanyoonni Oromummaaf qaban ukkaamamee fi iitayee ture amma akka dhodhowaa jiru agarsiisa.

 Gara mata dureetti deebi’uudhaaf, mee dura gaafiilee tokko tokkon kaasuu barbaada: Haala yeroo ammaa kanarraa Oromoon maal barata?Keessumaayuu warri Habashoota wajjin waliigallee, hojjennee biyya takka waliin ijaarra jedhanii yaadan, dhugumatti projektiin isaanii kun ni milkaaya jedhanii amauu? Makmaaksi: “Diinni diina kiyyaa michuu kiyya” jedhu akka waliigalaatti dhugaa haa ta’u malee, qabsoo bilisummaa Oromoo keessatti waan hojjetu hin fakkaatu. Har’a, diina hamaa, Wayyaanee nama-nyaata kana injifachuuf jedhanii, Habshoota biroo, kan yoo haalli mijateef sirna dulloomaa durii sana deebisanii ijaaruuf hawwi qaban, wajjin tumsa uumuuf yaaduun ykn yaaluun deebiin isaa akkuma weellisaan keenya Adam Haruu ”Waraaboon narraa bu’ee, qeerransi narra bayus, bineensi bineensumaa,…”  jedhe sana ta’a. Oromoon diinota hamaa lama akka qabu yoomiyyuu caalaa hubachuu qaba. Isaanis nafxanyoota haaraa (Wayyaanota) kan nu nyaachaa jirani fi nafxanyoota moofaa, kan muuxatanii bifa haaraadhaan nutti deebi’anii nu nyaachuuf hamuummachaa jiran; kanaafis halkanii fi guyyaa hojjechaa jirani dha.

 Warra, maaliif eenyummaa keessan himattu? Maaliif maqaa kanaan of waamtu (yaamtu)? Kan nuti isinirratti feene (Ethiopiawinet) dhiistanii maaliif eenyummaa keessaniif dursa kennitu? jedhanii duula nurratti oofaa jiran wajjin, akkamitti biyya takka biyya waloo kan hundaafuu taatu ijaaruun danda’ama? Yoomuma shirri Habashootaa kun nutti mul’ata laata? Hanga yoomiitti gara gara faffacaanee; akka diinni kophaa kophaatti nu rukutu carraa kenninaaf? Kaayyoo hin milkoofneef ykn milkaayuu hin dandeenyeef maaliif yeroo keenya gubna? Maaliif beekumsa, dandeettii fi qabeenya Oromoos waan hin taanerra oolchina?Otuu nu arrabsaa fi nu abaaraa jiranuu, akkamitti isaanitti deemnee isaan wajjin hojjechuu yaadna? Namni bilisummaa namarraa fudhate akkamitti deebisee namaaf kenna jennee waayee bilisummaatuu isaan wajjin haasofna? Oromoo, jarri kun warra injifannoolee QBOn hanga ammaatti argamsiise kanaayyuu balleessuu barbaadaniidhaa bar. Mee hubadhaa waan isaan jechaa jiran. Mee ilaalaa waan tajaajiltootni isaanii barreessaa jiran. Mee ittiyaadaa akkamitti isaan seenaa saba keenyaa xureessaa jiran. Waan isaan nurratti dalagaa jiran lakkaawamee hin dhumu. Egaa, jara akkanaa wajjinii kan biyya takka waliin ijaarree nagaan wajjin jiraachuu dandeenyu?

 Erga waayeen uummata ykn saba Oromoo TV Aljaziraa irratti mariitti dhiyaate fi achirratti Obboo Jawar “I am Oromo first!” jedhee dubbate booda, dhimmi kun nafxanyoota haaraa fi moofaallee tokko isaan taasise. Oromummaadhaan falumuun yookaanis Oromummaa dura dhaabbachuun kaayyoo jara lamaaniituu waan ta’eef, asirratti gamaa gamanaa waliif mirmatan (dirmatan). Oromoon hoo maal godhaa jira? Hanga yoomiitti callisanii taa’uun filatama? Oromoo fi Oromummaarratti karaalee adda addaatiin duulamaa jira. Biyya keessatti duguuginsi sanyii Oromoo akka jalqabetti ittifufaa jira. Wanti Oromiyaa bahaatti yeroo ammaa ta’aa jiru kun diraamaa fiilmii otuu hin taane, badii uummata keenyarratti banamee dha. Kan yeroo dhiyoo kana naannoo Arsiitti musliimota Oromoorra gaye; hojii sukkaneessaan kun, kan Apaartaayidiin Aafrikaa Kibbaa yeroo duri sana uummata gurraacha irraan gahaa ture sana wajjin walfakkaata. Uummata keenyarratti rasaasa dhukaasaa duuban itti kuflaa akka jiran waan viidiyoorratti mul’atee dha. Asirratti waayee kana yoon kaasu, dubbii gamaa gamanaa walitti fiduuf otuu hin taane, duulli nurratti godhamaa jiru kun hunduu kaayyoo tokko waan qabuufi.

 Biyya alaatti, nafxanyoonni har’a kan Oromummaarratti duulaniif maaliif jennee yoo ofgaafanne, deebiin isaa ulfaataa waan ta’u natti hin fakkaatu. Habashootni, karaa tokkoon sodaan isaan Oromoorraa qaban akkuma jirutti ta’ee, karaa biraatiin garuu tuffii nuuf qabnirraa akka maddus dagachuu hin qabnu. Haa ta’u malee, maaliif nu tuffatu jennees ofgaafachuu qabna. Sababni inni tokko Oromoodhumatu Oromoo tuffachiisa. Oromootni mooraa ofii dhiisanii mooraa diinaatti ykn alagaatti kaachuun Habshootaaf hamilee kenna. Asirratti, sirbi Artistin keenya Haacaaluu Hundeessaa: “Alagaan alagumaa maaltu alagaadhaan fira jedhe…” jedhee weellise qabiyyee fi dhaamsi isaa Oromoota hundaafuu waan gale natti hin fakkaatu. Karaa siyaasaatiinis yoo ilaalame, impaayara dulloomtee kufuudhaaf dhiyaatte tana diimookraatessinee haaraa ijaarra warri jedhanii, asii fi achi dhama’anis akkasuma Habashootaaf hamilee akka ta’an waan nama mamsiisuu miti. Itoophiyummaa faarsuun jara keenyaa kunis, akka mooraan QBO laaffatte waan mul’isuuf, warra Oromummaarratti cichan kophaatti dadhabsiisuuf akka itti tolu waan hubataniif, sababa kanaan Sabboontota keenyarratti duula oofu.

 Diinni silaa diinuma, alagaanis akkasuma, wanti isaan dalagan nama hin dinqu kan nama dinqu garuu, eenyummaa keessan hin himatinaa jedhanii yoo akkanatti nurratti duulan kana, warri nuti Oromoo dha; bilisummaa Oromootiif qabsoofna jedhanii dubbatan, karaa biraatiin garuu Habshoota akkanaa wajjin biyya takka ijaaruuf kaayyoo qaban, akkamitti of ilaalu? Eenyummaa ofii duubatti hanbisaniiti bilisummaa Oromootiif qabsaa’u moo Itoophiyaatu dursa jechaa; garuu maqaa saba Oromootiin fedhii dhuunfaa bakkaan gahuu barbaaduu? Waayee yeroo ammaa deemaa jiru kanarratti ejjannoon namoota keenyaa kun maali? Oromummaa dha moo Itoophiyummaatu dursa jedhanii otuu gaafatamanii, deebiin isaanii maal ta’ina laata? Namni eenyummaa ofiitiif hin quuqamne, eenyummaa isaa/ishii akkamitti ilaala? Nafxanyootni, kan dubbiin “Ani dura Oromoo dha” jedhu kun akkanatti isaan maraache, eenyummaa saba Oromoo kabajanii; biyya waloo hundaafuu taatu ijaaruu akka hin barbaadne yoomiyyuu caalaa ifa godhanii jiru. Kanaafuu, dhaamsi ani akka ilma Oromoo tokkootti Oromoota kaayyoo Oromummaarratti hin hundoofne qabaniif dabarsuu barbaadu: Tokkummaa ilmaan Oromoo, tokkummaa Oromummaa malee karaan biraa isinis ta’ee uummata Oromoo kan gabrummaa keessaa baasuu danda’u hin jiru.

Dhumarratti, carraa kanaan waan tokko ibsuun barbaada. Akkan Raadiyoo Simbirtuu (08/08/2013) irraa dhagayetti, Obboo Jawaar Mohaammad Prezidaantii Waldaa Qorannoo Oromoo (Oromo Studies Association – OSA) ta’ee filatamuun isaa baay’ee na gammachiise. Kun karaa adda addaatiin ilaalama. Tokkoffaa, Sabboonaan keenya kun, yeroo abaarsi fi arrabni Habshootaan irratti roobamaa jiru kanatti ittigaafatama knaaaf filatamuun isaa, isaafis ta’ee uummata keenyaaf kabaja guddaa dha.Lammaffaa, dargaggoo beekaa, xiinxalaa fi kutataan kun hogganummaa jaarmayaa kanaa fudhachuun isaa dhaloota haaraadhaaf fakkeenya gaarii ta’a. Jaarmayaan kunis bara itti aanee dhufu kana keessatti kan dur caalaa waan guddaa tokko dalagee; mooraa keenya keessatti jijjiirama fi bu’aa tokko akka fidu abdiin qaba. Obboo Jawaar, dandeettii kee kana uummata Oromootiif akka oolchitu, Waaqni/Rabbi fi Ayyaanni Oromoo si haa gargaaru, jabaadhu Sabboonaa keenya jechuun barbaada. Dargaggoo Abdii Fiixees akkasuma dandeettii qabdu kanaan uummata kee caalaatti akka tajaajiltu fi qabsoo kana keessattis gahee guddaa akka taphattu abdiin qaba. Atis jabaadhu. Hundi keessanuu dhaloota haaraaf fakkeenya gaarii ta’uu qabdu. Oromoon isinnii boona. Nuti yoomiyyuu dura Oromoo dha!

 Galatoomaa!

Abdii Boruu: aboruu@gmail.com

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