Let me start this article by making clear that most of what I write on this site from day one up to now is not what most adults from Oromo people and other oppressed nations and nationalities in Ethiopia do not know. It is what they know very well but do not like to be reminded of. To look at bitter reality and see the truth in the face is really painful. But if we want to develop and grow in every way, we have to do it. Otherwise history will repeat itself at our expense, as, indeed, it has been doing to us since the foundation of the Abyssinian dominated empire of Ethiopia. Looking at the scenes of carnage in Bishoftu on Sunday by the Abyssinian Tigray regime against a peaceful Oromo mass protest on the occasion of Irreecha celebration, I wonder if the organizers of the protest did no expect such brutality. If they did, what did they do in advance to organize themselves in self defence, no matter how symbolic and small? Irreecha is a religious occasion. For me traditional prayer is absolutely useless if we do not act upon ourselves in the process. True prayer, I think, is a process of self evaluation and re-examination that helps us to define and re-define our identities, roles and tasks in the light of our needs and genuine purposes in life.
Do we aspire to take the diplomatic world by storm by showing how the regime can be brutal against us? There is something terribly wrong headed here. Once I did hear Baqqale Gerba saying that all Oromos should peacefully go to jail. On another occasion he said that, as a Christian, he believed only in a peaceful struggle against the regime. These remarks caught my attention. I believe that energy flows where attention goes. From time to to time I keep thinking about it.
Most of the time I try to keep silent with friends and enemies in empathy and compassion. But certainly this does not work when I think of helpless people facing Abyssinian fascism or any fascism for that matter.
The early founders of Abyssinia found the name “Ethiopia” mentioned in the Bible and seized on it exploiting it effectively in their project of building an empire. The modern Abyssinian emperors and dictators have followed and are still following that trajectory with ever growing violence and brutality. The myths of Ethiopia are maintained only by naked violence and by primitive brainwash.
We must break with what we think about ourselves if we want real changes. With all my respect to Baqqale Gerba. I disagree with him. The Oromo masses participating in the ongoing protests seem to have taken his views to heart expecting some breakthrough in their struggle. I know that this seems like a contradiction in terms. There must be a new way to think about everything. Right now I am not thinking in terms of dreams but of setting new trajectories in motion. But who cares? Whether under the cover of war on terrorism or without it, the Abyssinian political and military elites have always benefited and are still benefiting from blind western backing despite their indiscriminate and barbaric violence. Armed to the teeth, they are not ready to make any concession whatsoever. They think their special claims on Ethiopia are immutable. Let us not delude ourselves for ever.
For me the real problem is that many of us, Oromos, whether we admit it or not, think and act opportunistically under the implicit or explicit influence of the Abyssinian myths to satisfy our own small ego. I am talking of all Oromos who are aspiring to solve the Oromo question within the framework of Ethiopia by working with the Amhara elites. Jawar Mohammed is only the latest linchpin of this idea in the chain of Oromos who put their personal ambitions above the interests of their own people.. He is just a civil Kamal Galchu in disguise or even worse. Do we want to pay more and more prices following them? Even most Oromo groups who apparently uphold the right of our people to self determination are tolerating Jawar Mohammed because he reflects their secret agenda. By making such statement, I know I am offending an entire generation of the Oromo petty-bourgeoisie in a hurry to achieve petty aims.
In my last article I tried to refute an argument comparing the Oromo struggle with the Amhara protests. Inter Abyssinian power struggles are not new, and they have nothing to do with the struggles of the oppressed peoples of the empire for liberation. Those who want to confuse us on this issue have many reasons that I do not want to go into in detail in this article. I am concentrating only on the main reason in the Oromo context.
In 1972 I was mandated by our group in Damascus to approach Oromos in ESUE so as to convince them to join the struggle. We needed well educated Oromos badly. I outlined our plan in a night long discussion with Haile Fidda: Once the educated Oromos joined us, they would receive training mostly in Palestinian camps. We would call a congress in less than a year so that they could be part of a new effective leadership. Haile Fidda seemed impressed. He said he could facilitate the process only informally as Oromos in ESUE should be approached individually. At one point he came to me where I stood smoking under a balustrade and asked me pointedly, if we would allow Abyssinians to fully join the struggle at some point. My answer was, yes, I thought we would do so once the Oromo struggle and a legitimate Oromo power was consolidated beyond a shadow of doubt, if they ( the Abyssinians) are not opposed to the right of the Oromo people to self-determination. I said the final decision would lie with the leadership. Today I can only say in retrospect that Haile Fidda and many other Oromos in ESUE did not take us seriously then. Most of them thought we were planning to destroy Ethiopia with the Arab help. When the DERG came they rushed back home without informing us to support it and became its cadres alongside Oromo elements who later formed the OLF. That was at a time when educated Eritreans from the lowlands and the highlands were paying heavy price for the independence of Eritrea to get rid of the extremely brutal Amhara domination!
Picasso said that art is a lie that leads to truth. But this can happen only if we act with a trained spontaneity. It requires mastery of an activity. Spontaneous mass protests are all right. But they need independent organization and leadership. Let us not fall repeatedly into the trap of seeing ourselves through one fixed perspective. Only then can we spot the shifts that make a dynamic and successful struggle possible.
Up to now our struggles have been and still are remote controlled predominantly by non Oromos or Oromos working for Abyssinia or Somalia or Eritrea or elements serving an Anglo-American agenda. Are we in a position to learn from the experience? Far from it. Most of us are not interested in the vital issues of our struggle. Old Oromo political groups are waiting for an imaginary vacuum of power in Ethiopia to jump on the back of the present popular protests into office. Up to now most of the educated Oromos have served most of the time their own private interests. I can only hope that the new generation of educated Oromos involved in the present protest movement will break with this legacy without wavering and develop a new vision with new optimistic options that do not need to be marketed in the media.