True humility must be a natural product of true understanding
If they are not consciously managed changes can overwhelm the oppressors and the oppressed alike. Life seems to be
unkind to those who refuse to obey its laws, to those who do not enquire into its meaning and refuse to develop their awareness. If we apply this to our political reality, it means each of us must take responsibility for his/her political behaviour, action and inaction not only as a member of a community, a nation or a culture but as an individual. It is in our best interests to live in conformity with natural laws. But this means also that we human beings cannot live like animals innocently. Try to do that, there is a price to pay. The pattern of change in the empire of Ethiopia is clear even to the blind- it is the pattern of a long standing dysfunctional relationship between the rulers and the ruled, with unmanageable destructive periodic eruptions leading to more vicious circles than before. Most of its peoples have learned to take in everything so that constant despair and misery became the norm.
Last time I went to lunch with a friend who read my last article in bariisa.com in which I raised the question of the misuse of myths and beliefs in the paternalistic Abyssinian political culture. As we sat down she said mirthfully, “These Abyssinians or Ethiopians you talk about in your article must have not only invented their own alphabets but must have been the first to sail round Africa, and the first to discover America even before the Vikings.” I smiled back for seconds without saying a word but was finally tempted to say that perhaps they also gave Europe its name. This led us to talking briefly about ancient and modern cultures and great empires, which went down while resisting changes- from the Phoenician, the Sumerian, the Greek, the Roman, the Persian, the Ottoman down to the modern era of Soviet times. Of course the Abyssinian empire, as it stands today or in its older form, is not comparable to these and has almost nothing of real significance to contribute by way of sciences and arts to human civilization. It is a feudal empire erected with the help of colonial powers during their scramble for Africa as a result of a stalemate among themselves. Some Abyssinian, especially, Amhara writers go into ecstasy even nowadays talking about stable dynasties with moral justifications, with established and acceptable code of behaviour etc, passed on with perfect regularity from generation to generation. The present reality does not seem to concern them as much as the past. Of course their aim is to go on misleading the masses of Abyssinian peoples by invoking imaginary glories of distant past with the intention of misusing them in the power struggle going on now, reinforcing the already existing mass conditioning constantly.
I personally talk about the Abyssinian history only inasmuch as it concerns the process of building the presently existing real empire of Ethiopia. I am not dealing in my website with the old Abyssinia or, if you like, Ethiopia. I am not one of those who dig into the dead and distant past to make a point when dealing with our present reality. Yet on the whole I do enjoy reading human history and appreciate it with sympathy with its positive and negative sides. There is a lot not only to learn but also to unlearn. When we deal with the real Ethiopia it is almost impossible for rational persons of minimal integrity to talk about stable and benevolent dynasties. Mostly we have to do with Amhara warlords who raised themselves through treachery and violence to the status of kings or emperors gaining respectability in the course of time among the Abyssinian people with the help of the military and the Orthodox Church.
Let us be clear, I am not against the Amhara and the Tigrayan political elites, to say nothing of their peoples and their achievements what ever they are, if they want to keep the name Ethiopia for themselves, if they really love it, applying it to themselves alone but not to the lands and peoples they conquered violently with the help of European colonialists and whom they treat summarily like second class citizens. Then they would not need to rave about their dear Ethiopia belligerently as no one would threaten them. They should accept our rights to self-determination, and try to build new relations with us based on equality and mutual respect. That is the only plausible way that has future as far as I am concerned. Am I dreaming? In the light of the reality I do admit that I am only dreaming. Not only their political elites but also the overwhelming majority of the Tigray and Amhara peoples are not ready to recognise the right of self-determination of the oppressed nations and nationalities of the Ethiopian empire, even though the Abyssinian peoples themselves are also exposed to numerous forms of oppression and repression by their own ruling elites.
But first and foremost I am some times amazed at how little most of us, members of the oppressed nations and nationalities in Ethiopia, know really the Abyssinian political mentality or mind-set from inside even though we are its victims. I have tried at different times in my life over relatively long period of time and I still do try to gain a grounded understanding of it from cultural, psychological and political perspectives. Realising that reading extensively on the culture is not enough I tried to get close to the problem through personal contacts and communication with Abyssinian intellectuals and non-intellectuals at different times. Each time I tried this I found myself before an intangible impasse no matter how well intentioned I may be. Cross-cultural comparative study in Ethiopia of this matter would, I am sure, produce interesting insights and results.
Finally I am stunned to realise that most Abyssinians have no individual political views and opinions at all on basic issues concerning the Ethiopian empire. Their political reaction, their thinking, their rash decision-making and behaviour seem to me for the most part collectively, culturally and ideologically determined and fixed for a long time once and for all, within a stereotyped paradigm without a shift. Politics was left to the kings, the emperors and finally to dictators and bureaucrats serving the empire under Mengistu Haile Maiam and Meles Zenawi .Of course, the role of the Orthodox Church is always crucial . Since political concepts are fixed and widely shared, there is no need for individuals to think for themselves. Individual preferences, feelings and reasonings are systematically discouraged and suspended for centuries. Even the Abyssinian leftists of the sixties and seventies could not break out of this cultural wall. They jointly refused mostly discussing the true history of the Ethiopian empire under the pretext that they were more interested in social and political transformation right then than in the past. They often repeated Carl Marx’s famous statement that philosophers interpreted the world in different ways but the point is to transform it. Those who survived physical liquidation by the DERG have declared themselves democrats at present without really changing their fixed pattern of political thinking. Today they even do not pretend to recognize the rights of the oppressed nations and nationalities to self-determination. For them the unity of the empire is not even discussable. It is like a religion that needs bloodshed to defend. Does God the almighty need defending by the miserable greedy human beings who are out for land grabbing?
Yesterday I watched a video conference on Ethiomedia.com. A guy by the name of Juneid, introduced as the Secretary General of one of OLF’s factions, was prompted to recite litanies pleasant to the Abyssinian ears. Notwithstanding their pretensions about, and lip-service to multi-cultural Ethiopia most of the Abyssinian political elites really mean only the Amharas and the Tigrayans when they speak and write about Ethiopia. They truly believe they are the creators of this empire and must defend it. They seem to respond more to the call and spirit of their dead emperors and living dictators than to the real needs of their peoples at present. The problem is there are so many really stupid, extremely selfish, unthinking, hired and brainwashed Oromos inside the country and in the Diaspora. Some of them underplay the threat posed by the Amhara chauvinist forces within the Tigray dominated regime and outside it. For these chauvinists such fops like Juneid are only footmen crying for attention or Gobenites to be used, discarded and forgotten when their task and time is over. Who will remember, for example, in a few years the Abbaa Dulas and the Kuma Dammaksas of today no matter how faithfully they serve their masters? Do those Oromo opposition groups fare better who are thirsting for diluting the Oromo question with their tongues hanging out to get some concessions from the Abyssinian elite? I am thinking not only of the OLF but groups such as OFDM or OPC. What is happening now to many members or sympathizers of the pacifist Metcha Tulama association?
We don’t seem to learn not only from our past but also from our present daily realities under the Woyane regime. At times I cannot help thinking most of the Oromo political elites in opposition at present are directly or indirectly guided by the Abyssinian mental software. They have no other models. Most of us are products of Abyssinian education. Like the Abyssinian political elites most of us believe in the validity of political intrigues and conspiratorial methods rather than transparency and organizational democracy.. It is not impossible, for example, that Juneid is playing a role assigned to him by the OLF as whole. The different factions within OLF seem to me to be products of sick imagination working with the Abyssinian model. It seems to me that OLF has left its visiting cards everywhere fostering political apathy and feelings of powerlessness that are becoming a norm among the masses of the Oromo people even as repression increases. We have reached a dead end. How can we get out of it?
I cannot pretend to have easy solutions even at theoretical level, let alone practice.. Yet I know for sure that for an oppressed nation such as the Oromo nation avoiding conflicts in the face of the barbaric Abyssinian brutality will only aggravate and worsen the condition. We are victims of the worst form of oppression and conspiracy that mankind has ever known. We need to realise clearly four fundamental points of reality:
First, we have to learn to understand and seriously appreciate the positive sides of open minded conflict. This means to see conflict from a wider perspective to advance the cause of justice and durable peace. Conflict, if well managed, can energise and enrich human experience, reawakening a new awareness and mobilizing untapped creative material and spiritual resources and new ways of looking at things in the real interest of all the parties involved, thereby clarifying illusive aspirations and destructive agendas on all sides, especially the agenda of preserving the status quo.
Second, we have to give up the illusions of spontaneous revolts and mass uprisings in the near future leading somehow to the end of Abyssinian domination by some tricks. This means we have to use all legitimate forms of struggle and organization both open and clandestine simultaneously based on unambiguous and clear short term and long term political programs and strategies..
Third, we should struggle in sync and solidarity with all nations and nationalities who, like us, are victims of the Abyssinian conquest. Especially we should unequivocally recognize the right of the so-called minorities living within Oromoland to self-determination including complete independence.
Fourth, we should never despair from explaining our cause to the peoples and governments of the countries of the world including the peoples and the governments of Western democracies who blindly support the present Ethiopian regime, thus exposing the ongoing Abyssinian war of propaganda, systematic disinformation and demagogy by both the government and the so-called Abyssinian opposition, especially the Amhara opposition. The Abyssinian arrogance is expressing itself today more than ever in clinging to the past. We must move in the opposite direction trying to open up to the great possibilities of the future through our own struggle for liberation.