Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Ati dura Oromoo moo itophiyaa dhaa? Gaaffii juujuu akkamiiti? | Are you first Oromo or Ethiopian? What question of a naïve?
| Ibsaa Guutama | Hagayya 13, 2013 | Ibsaa Guutama | August 13, 2013 |
Ati dura Oromoo moo itophiyaa dhaa? Gaaffii juujuu akkamiiti? | Are you first Oromo or Ethiopian? What question of a naïve? |
| Oromiyaan waggoota dhibbaa oliif qabaa Itophiyaa humnaan itt fe’ame jala jirti. Kanaaf sabaawoti Oromoo waan hariiroo sabgidduu ilaalutt kelladarbii (passport) nambiyyummaa see qabatanii deemu. Oromoma keessaa illee mammiin Oromoon saba of danda’e ta’uu kan keessaa hin baane jiru. Jireenyi saanii daddaaqinaa fi dudhama dhabuutu keessa guute. Alii republika Oromiyaa walaba dhaabuuf kan kutatan waliin joga’u. Alii walqixxummaan nambiyyummaan Itophiyaa nu hayyamamnaan nu gaha jedhu. Eessa akka isaan ijaajjan baruun hammuma eessa akka isaan hin ijaajjinee baruu dhibaa dha. Sun tuffii nyaaphaf karaa bane. | Oromiyaa is under forced Ethiopian occupation for over a century. For this reason Oromo nationals carry her passport for concerns of international relations. Among the Oromo there are some that are not yet liberated from doubt that Oromiyaa can be a self sustaining entity. For this reason their lives are filled with wavering and lack of commitment. At times they roll on with those determined to establish independent republic of Oromiyaa. At other times they say it would be enough for us if we are granted Ethiopian citizenship as equals. To know where they stand is becoming as baffling as where they are not. |
| Hobbaati kolonummaa bara dheeraa fi hanqina birmadumma sammuutu haala akkasii uuma. Nyaaphi jara akkasii ilaaluun gargar baasee rukutuuf anjaa kan argate itt fakkaata. Mamtuun ati dura Oromoo moo Itophiyaa dha yoo jedhaman isa lammaffaatu afanitt dhufaa. Jarri akkasii jara Amerkanoti “Uncle Tom”, yk Oromoon “Galtuu” jedhaniini. Jara akkasitt kan baratantu Oromo argan hunda gaaffii tuffii “ati dura mali?” jedhu kan gaafatan. Oromo an dura Oromoo dha jedhanii fi an dura Itophiyaa dha jedhaniitt hiranii waldura dhaabbachiisuu tattaafatu. Gidduu darbe mooraa Habashaa fi Oromo keessatt waca kan kaase gaaffi ati dura Itophiyaa moo Oromoo dha jedhuuf deebii kenname ture. Oromtichi “An dura Oromoo dha” jechuu saatiif mooraa Habashaatii haddheessaa fi arrabsoon itt robe agarreerra. Sana irratt sabboonaan Oromoo biraa yaada ofii ifsatee ture. Biyyi inni keessa jiru mirgi of ifsuu heeraan kan eegame. Habashooti ala jiran “mirga ilmoo namaatu Wayyaaneen tuqame, abalu faatu maaf of ifsitan jedhamanii hidhaman” jechuun Mootummaa Itophiyaa amma angoo irra jiru balaaleffataa, hiriira itt bahaa oolu.
Yero isaanitt dhufu garuu biyya olhantummaaan seeraa jiru hamaa jalaa itt baqatan kana keessatt Oromoon maaf xiixa jechuun burququ. Si’ana burquqquun hin dhiifnee Oromticha yaada ifsate jenne butanii gorra’uuf yoo aggaman nammi itt baanaan dhiisanii baqachuu dhageenye. Oromoon alaaba ofii balalisuu erga jalqabanii fi qasaawoti ifatt nuti Itophiyaa miti jedhanii erga labsanii kurnan lama darbaniiru. Gurguddoon Habashaa haala wareegama Ilmaan Oromoo kumaa fi kitilaan uumame kana utuma arganii haaluu yaalu. Gubbaatt Oromoon eenyummaa ofii maman akka jiran himuu yaallee jira. Jara fuula itt agarsiisan akkasii irraa ka’anii Oromoo hundi kaayyoo walabummaa akka hin utubnett fudhatani. “An dura Oromoo dha” jechuunuu akka waan raajiitt itt dhagahame. Sanan akaakuun tuffii nyaaphaa bara abbaa lafaa kulkulfataa jirachuu hubanna. Ija laafuu fi harka kennachuun bakkatt hin deebisu. Gaaffiin “Ati dura Oromoo dhaa?” jedhu ofirrummaa fi wa’ee Oromo irratt beekumsa dhabina iyyaafatichi qabu beekama agarsiisa.
Oromoon of baran buuba nyaapha kana akka afuuffee uratee afuura baafachaa jiruutt fudhatu. Nama dhiibbaa haala naannaa jala dhaabbachuu hin dandeenye, damaqina malbulchaa hin qabneetu akkas ta’a. Nammi lammiin Oromoo ta’e dura Oromoo dha, boodas Oromoo dha. Eenyummaa sabummaa, sabummaa saa waliin dorgomu hin qabu. Kanaaf dhaadannoon saa “An dura Oromoo dhaa” utuu hin ta’in silaa “An yoomuu Oromoo dha” kan jedhu ta’a jechuu dha. Habashaan waggaa dhibbaa oliif dhiddhiitanii, rirritanii eenyuma saanii haquuf hedduu dhama’ani. Seera, aadaa, dudhaa fi afaan saa akka dhimma itt hin baane waanjallaa godhani. Sun hunduu ta’ee galati qotee bulaa saanii hin badinii irraa oolfatanii yoonaan ga’ani. Amma erga ijoollee ofii barsifatanii booda sun caalaatt misa malee duubatt deebi’a jedhanii yaaduun ofirrummaa ija baase. Hololli maqaa balleessaa fi busheessaa gurguddoo Habashaa angoo irra konkolaataniin oofamaa jiru itt fufa imaammata abboolii saanii kan Oromoo hoggansa dhabsiisuuf godhamaa tureen adda miti. Yoo akka abboolii itt tole isaanis ajjeechaa eegaluu danda’u, akkuma dhiheenya yaalanii.
Yeroon imaammati darban hundi geengoo seenaa dhaabuu akka hin dandeenye mirkaneesseera.. Haa ta’u malee wal amantee fi walqixxummaan hidhata fedha bilisa irratt hundaawe ollaan ummachuu hin danda’u hin jedhamu. Bakka sana hin ummatinitt gaffii “Ati jalqaba maanni?” jedhu kan wal hin beeknetu walgaafata. Garuu roorrisaa fi kan itt roorrifame yoo akka wal hin beeknee ta’an nama dhibuu hin dhiisu. Oromtichi itt roorrifama bahe akka itti of ilaalu himachuun maal nama oriisisa? Dammaquu saa arganii “Ati nuwi malee of hin taatuu deebi’ii rafi” jechuu kajeelanii. “Kan lafatt jibban ka’ee sitt sirbuu jedha” isa intalli jette sana ta’a. Dhaadannoo “an dura Oromoo dha” jedhu si’ana golee baaqulaa Oromoon itt argamu hunda keessaa wal jalaa qabamaa jira. Jechi kun filmata biraaf banaa kan dhiisu fakkaata. Kanaaf kutannoo dhabinni kan keessa jiru akka hin fakkanne rimsama an yoomuu Oromoo dha jedhu calaqisuun yoo dandahame dansa. Oromoo fi ummatoota kibbaa irratt fanfanni yoo jiraate iyyuu akka seera addunyaa fi empayerichaatt nambiyyumaa (citizenship) koloneeffataa saaniitt lakaawamu. Itophiyyummaan kan humnaan itt fe’ame malee fedha bilisaan kan filatan miti. Qabsaawotis sana akka filmaata lammaffaati hin fudhatani. Kan walabummaa Oromiyaa akka abjuutt ilaalan sun bifa jijjiirratee akka itt fufu fedhu.
Oromtich dardara ta’ullee naamusa qabeessa. Wan gaafatame damboobaan deebise malee nokkorroo hin seenne. “An dura Oromoo dha” jedhe malee kan jedhamuu qabu “An Itophiyaa miti” hin jenneenii. Utuu sana jedheenii maaltu ta’a ture laata? Homtuu hin ta’u, tarii isa ifatt Oromoof walabummaa malee filmaati biraa akka hin baafne ejjennoo fudhachiisuun yoo dudhama galchu, gara saaniitiin kan amma akka saree gadoodan akka harree halaaksisaan ta’a. Naamusi dardaricha ilaalcha saanii “atsummaa” saxile. Oromoon qoccolloo ganda keessaa bira darbee bara baaquleessaa kana saboota addunyaa waliin karaa itt dorgomu karoorfataa jira. Yeroof malee bittaa empayera ofirraa fonqolchuun fagoo hin ta’u. Of hin beeknee fi bor hin hedneetuu eenyummaa Oromoo gaafata. Oromoon ummata ollaa saa hunda obbolummaan ilaala. Kan ilaalcha saanii akkasii akka dadhabinaatt fudhatan itt bahi saa maal akka tahuu danda’u dursanii heduu qabu. Naannaa keenyatt nagaa fi tasgabii yoo buufne qofa akka Afrikaa kabajchiifnu beekamuun dansa.
Ummatooti naannaa nagaa barbaaduu. Duulli samichaa fi bololli aangoo gurguddoon Habashaa kara karaan itt jiran bu’aa hundee qabu waan argamsiisuufi miti. Ollaa waliin qayyabannoo naga qabeessa yoo tolfatan jireenya guddinnaa fi gammachuun keessa guute ummatoota saanii argamsiisuu danda’u. Kanaaf hundi saanii ofiif ulfina yoo fedhan mirga ummatoota hundaa beekuu qabu. Bakka duriitt deebi’uuf yaada qaban dhaaban kolonoota durii akka miltoo wal qixxeett fudhachuu qabu. Ummatooti sun isaan jaallatanis jibbanis ifaajee ofiin mirgaa fi ulfina saanii kabajchiifachuun hin oolu. Haa ta’u malee nagaan gargar ba’uun hundaaf anjaa qaba. Kiniinii hadhooftu kan Oromummaa saaniin boonan duras boodas Oromoo akka ta’an liqimsuuf qophii ta’uun barbaachisaa dha. Akka sabaa fi lammii addaanjiroott Oromummaa saanii kan mulquu; yooka nambiyyummaan Itophiyaa fedha saanii bilisa malee itt fufaa akka deemu gochuu kan danda’u hin jiru. Oromoon yoomiyyuu Oromoo malee kan biraa hin taa’anii!! Qabsoon Oromoo kallattii halleen hanga injifannoott itt fufa!!!
Ibsaa Guutama
Hagayya 2013 | It opened the way for contempt of the enemy. Their condition is the result of more than a hundred years of occupation and lack of mental liberation. Observing those types enemies thought they got advantage to divide and attack Oromo. They know if they are asked “are you first Oromo or Ethiopian?” what first come to running dogs lips will be the second one. Such are those Americans call “Uncle Tom” and Oromo call “Galtuu”. The adversary took for granted that all Oromo are like them and ask those they come across, “who are you first Ethiopian or?” with contempt. They wanted to set Oromoo against each other by dividing them into those that say “first Oromo” and “first Ethiopia”. The cacophony heard recently in reactionary Habashaa camp and Oromo camps was the result of the question “are you Oromo or Ethiopian first?” Some days ago we have also seen the barrage of insults and defamations poured over an Oromo from Habashaa camp for saying “I am first an Oromo”.
Another Oromoo nationalist had expressed himself on this issue. In the country he resides the right of expressing oneself is protected by constitution. Habashaa in the Diaspora are seen daily condemning the incumbent Ethiopian Government through mass media and street demonstrations for breach of human rights and the right of self expression. But when it comes to them, in this country where rule of law is supreme and in which they took shelter fleeing from injustice it does not work. They become furious and do not tolerate even a hissing sound from an Oromo. This time they did not stop with fury but kidnapped the Oromo that commented on the issue and were ready to hack him when unexpectedly someone appeared on the scene and they run away before they performed the operation. It is now over two decades since the Oromo started to fly their own colors and activists officially declared that they are not Ethiopians. Habashaa elites are taking Oromo struggle that thousands were sacrificed for, as if nothing happened. Judging from few conformists they have convinced themselves that all Oromo have no objective for independence. They were surprised hearing “I am Oromo first” from their historic serf. Enemy contempt of the feudal days is relapsing. Shying and surrendering cannot make it to rest. Asking questions “Are you Oromo first?” shows only arrogance and ignorance as ever of the interviewer about Oromo struggle.
Conscious Oromo take violent acts of the enemy for a leaking balloon. It is only one that is unable to stand surrounding pressure and does not have political consciousness that behaves in that manner. An ethnically Oromoo is first Oromo and then after too. One also does not have a competing nationality at the same time. For this reason the slogan is not “I am first Oromo” but will be “I am an Oromo ever”. The Habashaa had pounded and rubbed down for over a hundred years to delete their identity but in vain. They made it crime to use one’s law, culture, religion, tradition and language. Thanks to their peasants they are able to preserve it and save so long under all that happened. Now to expect going back after their children are educated rather than developing more is naked arrogance. Propaganda for defamation and denigrating being advanced by Habashaa elites that fell down from grace is not new; it is continuation of the policy of their fathers that was aimed at denying Oromo viable leadership. If they get a fitting time, they will follow their footsteps and continue assassinations like one tried recently. .
Time has proved that all past policies were unable to stop the wheel of history. However it cannot be said that neighbors cannot form relations based on trust and equality based on free will. At a time when such relations were not formed it is only strangers that ask “What are you first?” But it will be strange for oppressor and the oppressed to behave like one. What makes one rant if an oppressed Oromo tell how he views himself? Seeing that he is awake they wished to tell him “go back to sleep you are us and cannot be yourself”. It is like the Oromo girl said “One that one abhors his sight even when sited, gets up and asks for a dance”. The slogan “I am first Oromo” is being chanted in all corners of the glob where Oromo are found. This saying seems to leave an opening to another alternative. If possible it would be better for it to reflect the concept that I am Oromo at all times so that it is not interpreted as having inbuilt lack of determination. Even if there is discrimination against Oromo and the Southern peoples they are considered Ethiopian citizens according to International and law of the empire. Being Ethiopian is not by choice but imposed on them by force against their free will. Therefore that is not to be considered as a second choice by activists. If there are those that advocate keeping that with some face changes, they will be only those that are against kaayyoo of independence.
The Oromo mentioned above though youthful is disciplined. He answered what he was asked politely without squabble. He said only “I am first Oromo” and did not say what should have been replied for such arrogant question “I am not an Ethiopian”. What would have happened had he said so? Nothing, but it would commit him publicly to independence of Oromiyaa as the only position on his part and on their side that could have made them bray like asinine rather than howl like a dog. By his civility the young Oromo exposed their imperatorial arrogance. Oromo had gone far beyond local verbal skirmishes at this age of globalization and started to think how to compete with nations of the world. Only short time is left before they get rid of the empire’s rule once and for all. It is only the unconscious and one who does not take tomorrow into account that question Oromo identity. Oromo views all neighboring peoples as siblings. Those that take such view as weakness should pause and consider consequences before hand. It is only if we bring peace and stability to our region that we bestow respect on Africa.
Peoples in the region desire peace. The campaign from all directions for plundering and power mongering by Habashaa elites will not have any lasting benefit. They can achieve a life of progress and happiness for their people if only they could reach peaceful understanding with neighboring peoples. For this reason if all expect respect for themselves they should recognize the right of all peoples. They have to cease nostalgia for their past and start to consider their old colonies as their equal partners. Whether they like it or not those peoples are going to force their rights respected by their own efforts. But smooth break can have advantage for all. The must be ready to swallow the bitter pill that those that are proud of their Oromummaa are first and last Oromo. No one can deprive them their Oromummaa as a national and ethnic entity; or for Ethiopian citizenship to continue ad infinitum without their free consent. Oromo will always be only Oromo!! Oromo struggle shall continue in all dimensions until victory!!!
Ibsaa Guutama
August 2013 |
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
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.
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.
Monday, August 12, 2013
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 1st 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 20th 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
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.
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:
Unforgettable happy moment, Melbourne, Australia, August 2013
- Spectacular family reunion, August 2013
- >ayyaantuu
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