I am optimistic as ever despite the general gloom that characterizes our time. I do believe the most burning issues and conflicts of our day, whether political, economic and military, have underlying causes that can and must be addressed mainly through peaceful dialogues and cooperation. This can happen even within the framework of the global capitalist system that serves primarily corporate exploitative interests, provided there is enough political space for moderate conscious leaderships that are committed to world peace and a more fair world, a world in which basic human and democratic rights are respected. This is not happening mainly because powerful circles and interest groups are benefiting from and fuelling conflicts directly or indirectly in regions where they do not have to reckon with a strong response. I am not just dreaming of socialist utopia. We need to accommodate the realities of this world, appreciating its diversity without harming others and nature itself.
Here is where the factor of political awareness on the part of ordinary citizens is vital to press for changes in positive directions and caring to inform politely those who are open to the influence of the demagogues of the extreme right wing individuals and groups. The power of truly conscious people who cannot be bribed one way or another can, if well organized, change the course of history.
That such people do exist I have no doubt at all. Otherwise I would not be living here in peace to post my articles on this site periodically. Most probably, the enemies of the Oromo people who fear freedom of expression and the truth that goes with it more than anything else did hack bariisa com recently. With the help of my German friends bariisa is back again as you see. It is bound to stay here. I am more encouraged and determined as ever to struggle for freedom of expression and freedom from tyranny and repression. Oromos are not alone in this troubled world.. The Abyssinian reactionary, tyrannical cyberphobia must be defeated conclusively. The general Abyssinian academic pretensions to democratic values must be exposed for what it really is: flashy gimmickry, saying exactly the opposite of what they do in broad daylight.
Thanks to people who defend the democratic free breathing space , no one can gag today a human being determined to tell the truth. Yet let us not kid ourselves: the rising influence of the extreme right wing is a threat to the remaining democratic free space of tolerance, and to the world peace.
The Abyssinian absolutist regimes have tried for almost two centuries without a letup to keep the Oromos and other oppressed peoples of their empire completely invisible with the full complicity of world powers. The present Oromo protest movement has shown if anything the futility of their endeavors. Yet instead of making reasonable concessions to the just and peaceful demands of our people, the Abyssinian elites have opted, as is always the case in their tyrannical empire throughout history, for violent military solutions to intimidate us with their arsenal of destruction. Tens of thousands of our people are being jailed and tortured in all parts of the country with total impunity under the emergency military rule. Sadly, the main organs of world media are dead silent on the issue.
The aim is to humiliate the Oromo people and instill more terror in their hearts. Will it succeed at least temporarily? It depends on how far the Oromos have learned their lessons properly from the mistakes of their peaceful protest movement and what organizational response they are going to make to the Abyssinian violence. One major weakness of the protest movement is that it has been infiltrated by the Oromo puppet group, the OPDO, pretending to support it from the outset…only to betray the protest at a critical time. The result is that a new generation of educated young Oromo activists are located, identified and exposed to be stifled for ever. This is a very sad moment in the history of our struggle. I really wonder if we are capable now of thinking and acting more seriously than ever.
How many of us can ever overcome our phenomenal naivety and our hanker for a short cut to real changes short of full liberation from the tyranny, which makes us act haphazardly, even at times, with sheer lunacy? Can we stand the test of our mettle for the big challenge? The struggle for liberation demands life commitments from us for which we are mostly not ready. Can we eventually see the more serious causes of our failures as people and as individuals to produce a political leadership that represents our aspiration by remaining rooted in the struggle of our people inside Oromia under all circumstances instead of blindly following the propaganda of the demagogues outside the country?
I think we can, only if we use our heaven given flexible brains properly. Heaven is a state of clarity, creativity, vigilance love and happiness. We can experience it even while we are suffering if we are willing and make some efforts wholeheartedly. To understand this, we must check our herd instincts and our worship of materialistic individuals and values. Solidarity is not merely moving in the same directions like others, with empty hands, without defining our minimal true objectives and aims, without assessing the consequences of our actions. One of the more serious causes of our failures to make a breakthrough in our long struggle lies in the fact that from the beginning there were and still are elements in OLF leadership whose hidden thirst was and is after democratizing the Abyssinian empire of Ethiopia out of ungrounded fear and illusion even though they know the virtual impossibility of democratizing the fascistic empire. They have pretended and still do pretend to defend the right of the Oromo people to self determination mostly in order to be able to arrest and contain our struggle. They do not trust their own people. Betrayed were members who paid with their lives for our liberation, not knowing the real intention of their own leadership. A massive tragedy. That may not be exactly what the Abyssinians wanted them to do. So far the entrenched opportunists in the leadership have succeeded beyond expectation. Also, their old connection to Isayas Afewerki who, having led Eritrea to independence, is determined to keep Oromia within the Abyssinian empire, is among testaments to their Ethiopian agenda. Afewerki is determined to mischievously keep Ethiopia in the hands of the Tigrayans who are completely loyal to him. He is doing all he can to reorganize them day and night. If he succeeds we will have another transitional government soon in Ethiopia. A replica of replica, a repetition od repetition. The OLF factions know this very well.
Lenco Lata and his followers finally came out in the open with their real agenda after decades of pretending otherwise. In 1991 , when I went back to Ethiopia I tried, to explain to many Oromos especially from my own Arsi area the real agenda of Lenco Lata and his followers. People just kept staring at the void as if they were not listening, including those who never questioned my personal inegtrity.
Lenco and his followers have the right to pursuse their aims and to do what they are doing today instead of remaining in the liberation struggle camp to undermine it from inside. Betrayal is betrayal.
I am not also against those Oromo groups based in Ethiopia who agitate for genuine autonomy. Only I am not part of them because I believe the Abyssinian dominated empire cannot be democratized at all. Those who believe it can are entitled to struggle openly for their convictions. Only time will show who is right. But we have to think freely for ourselves and act on our convictions instead of leaving the issue to time. Convictions on which we do not act are useless. They serve only the purpose of an unauthentic social consumption in which most of us are experts. I take the view that most Abyssinian elites and people will not tolerate in the foreseeable future anyone else who tries to claim Ethiopia on the basis of equality with them. This is so throughout their history. They think that the empire is their property and it must remain so by all means, come what may..
Most of our serious problems can be dealt with effectively only by looking at what people do in practice rather than trusting their words and paper works, including my own statements here. Our nationalism is a slippery road if we are not fully aware of its problems. It will not be easy for any of us to leave our historical conditioning behind us even though most of us do pay lip-service to the Gada values. In my conviction (I speak from some experience) let us make benevolent actions our primary starting point in our struggle for justice. Let us concentrate on this. It will produce new chemistry in our blood and help us in countless ways in sorting out our problems and dealing with our dilemma. It will help us to take risks together creating trust in one another and promoting true mutuality in all unexpected ways. True discipline comes into being that way rather than through authoritarian drilling.
The war cries of Tigray/Amhara chauvinism is on the rise despite the pretensions to the contrary. This must be seen also in the context of the rise of extreme right wing forces in the West. John Stuart Mill (1806- 1873) coined the word “dystopia” to describe an imaginary place where everything is as bad as it can be. I find no better description for the Abyssinian empire of Ethiopia. Let us call it the real dystopia of Africa today. The Abyssinian political and military elites hardly look likely to become true champions of democracy and civilian rule; if anything the rise in the temperature of their chauvinism seems to augur a return to the darker days of their empire under Amhara hegemony. It cannot be repeated enough that it must be seen in the context of the rise of extreme right wing forces in the West. Abyssinian colonialism came into existence in the first place only in the context of Western aggrandizement.
Having failed in making us invisible, the Abyssinian political and military elites are now trying the opposite tactic on propaganda level. Accordingly, Oromos have become suddenly the backbone of their Ethiopia. Not the Gallas who came from Madagascar in the 16th century. Oromo puppets are repeating this night and day. But their propaganda is not addressed mainly to the Oromo people who know them well but to the outside world, especially the superpowers. Since the Abyssinian elites are not ready to make concrete and real concessions whatsoever, their propaganda will only fall on dead ears and is bound to misfire inside their empire. Even if they are not defeated right away they can never consolidate their power with their war machines terrorizing the population indefinitely. A tremendous sense of fatigue and fear is sweeping today over the Abyssinian empire.
The Abyssinian hegemony depends for its existence on superpowers who misuse it to advance their own interests. Once these superpowers become more enlightened to use better and more civilized means to advance their legitimate interests, the Abyssinian dominated empire will fall apart automatically. But we cannot wait for that to happen by itself. We have to quicken the downfall of the oppressive empire to the best interests of our people, all oppressed peoples… This demands organized and not spontaneous struggle.
Sitting in comfortable studios outside the country and agitating innocent, disorganized and defenseless masses into action, without going down and organizing them on the ground, without taking the risks with them, is, in my opinion, callousness. We are blessed with mostly callous elites. Let each of us Oromos sensibly contemplate why this is so. We will find the main causes in ourselves and not just in our enemies. Unless we see this clearly, there will be no breakthrough in our struggle. This must change if we want to avoid further disarray in our struggle for justice and democracy. Hiding the cracks in our reality and concealing our internal problems is mostly part of the Abyssinian tradition planted in us under oppression since the overthrow of the Gada era. We must use the media with a sense of responsibility and ethics far from cheap popularity and self-advertisement. The price is too high and counterproductive.
Also, I think we must articulate our demands with more precision and clarity: it is clear from the Atlanta convention that some Oromo individuals or groups tried to come out with a document that renounces the right of our people to self determination to the satisfaction of the Abyssinian political elites. Our struggle should not be a game in the hands of self appointed academics and cliques who serve international circles eager to contain our struggle for liberation in the interests of the Abyssinian domination…
Abyssinian academics are saying nowadays the proof that the Oromos are Ethiopians is that they have not raised the issue of their independence or their right to self determination during their massive protests. Here, let us think, they have a point. Could it be that they have influenced or remote controlled the protest in some ways?
Among individuals I like to listen to in Walxajjii paltalk room is Faarsi. I agree with him in saying those naive Oromos who finance OMN without questioning some of its misreadings of the Oromo question, especially its attempts to underplay and appease Amhara chauvinism, promoting Ethiopian identity, should work to remove Jawar Mohammed immediately from its administration and entrust the work to a committee of people who advance clearly the right of the Oromo people to self determination unequivocally including their right to a referendum that could lead to independence. There are respected Oromo academics in the United States who can be consulted on the issue. I do not mean, however, that Jawar Mohammed and his likes should not express their ideas on the network. And I must add that I am thankful for their work in exposing the tyrannical and fascist TPLF regime in Ethiopia though I disagree with them on other important issues of our struggle. While TPLF is grabbing our lands and subjecting us to its brutal repressive machines, it has been forced to accept, to some extent, our culture and identity as a nation. The Amhara elites with whom Jawar has been trying to strike a rapprochement are determined to make the Oromo nation totally invisible again within their dystopia, simulating practically meaningless lofty ideals with which they succeeded to package their perfidious influence for centuries.
Most of us are still beginners in exercising organizational democracy. The problem is nobody can teach us democracy in this conflict ridden world from outside if we are incapable of listening to the heart beat and basic aspirations of the great majority of our people. So let us be humble and begin from below again and again with self confidence. Justice is on our side . We do not need to rush mindlessly. We have nothing to fear. Even today’s dictators such as EPLF and TPLF went down to their people at the beginning before they changed course. We can do it better learning from their treachery and bullying so that this will not be repeated in different form again.
Finally, the powerful states of this world, including Germany, have special responsibility for what is happening in Ethiopia today. They cannot ignore the right of the Oromo people to self determination indefinitely without eroding further and further what is left from their claim to democracy-after the Arab Spring has been systematically sabotaged in the interests of the Arab oligarchy- by eternally supporting the repressive hegemony of the Abyssinian minority in Ethiopia. Can they change their focus in the interests of the silenced majority of peoples in Ethiopia?
I have strong reasons to be hopeful no matter what the present situation may be. The world is changing in ways nobody has expected. I do appreciate deeply the fact that no power can fully control this world only with the iron-fists, or even with good intentions alone for that matter. That is one good reason why the world is unpredictable. Why do we fail to grasp the reality that this earth is a sacred place? It is not a Muslim or Christian or Hebrew or Hindu sacred place vying violently with one another for self-righteousness and illusory influence etcetera. It is sacred for all sentient beings, irrespective of their creeds, who know how to keep their conflicts within the bounds of acceptable possibility. Therefore, both the invisible and visible brutal Abyssinian iron Curtains must also fall and the tyrannical Ethiopia must disappear into its fantasy world where it had rested for long time harmlessly before it was taken up by the empire builders of Abyssinia. I wish you all a happy Christmas and a good new year.