In general there are large sections of human population in every part of Africa who assume politics is entirely a dirty business and that there is nothing they can do about it.
By contrast, in western democracies, there are those who assume that, high in the ladder of power, there are enough intelligent, responsible and humane human beings who are taking care of vital issues of peace and war as well as the problems of economy and social justice. In either case, the implication is, there is nothing urgent that common people need to do about those vital issues. There are always high prices to be paid for such assumptions. How much did such assumptions contribute to the inter-capitalist conflict that plunged the world twice in destructive world wars, even though it was finally blamed mainly on one country- Germany? How come that today clearly fascist and totalitarian inhuman regimes and cliques such as the ones in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Egypt etc, where any genuine parliamentary process is non-existent, are tolerated and even enjoy different degrees of direct or indirect support by world powers and the so-called international community? These are countries where innocent human beings are treated far worse than animals. Many people wrongly think that the exaggerated threat posed by Islamic terror justifies the existence of these regimes.
Most Muslims suffer from extremely dangerous self- delusions. They think the Anglo-American power is targeting them because they are Muslims. The truth is they are targeted, because they are weak. They are weak because they are mostly stupid- refusing to see the reality as it is, not as they want it to be. The thin veneer of American democracy cannot conceal American hunger for more military hegemony and for controlling economic resources in weak and defenseless countries by all possible means including military intervention. I think the present mania to isolate Russia on Ukraine must be seen in this context. The American system seems determined as ever to increasingly make use of its military muscle to achieve its aims. I think, had it not been for the Russian nuclear deterrent, Americans would have already invaded Russia.
Now, is it not clear that in case of a protracted conflict with Russia European peoples will suffer much more than the USA? Actually a weakened Europe will more readily obey American imperialism than it is already doing.
Oromos in Ethiopia do not need to be told what it is like to be on the receiving end of Anglo-American politics. The recent killings of peaceful Oromo demonstrators by the security forces of the Tigray dominated regime in Ambo, Bale, Harar etc is not an isolated event. Demonstrations have been ignited on land grabbing issue around the capital. But we do not need to deceive ourselves. Under Menlik and Haile Sellassie the conquered lands belonged to the crown. That way our lands were parceled out among the Abyssinian settlers and the clergy. Under Mangistu and the present Tigray militaristic regime that same policy has been advanced in different form, under the cover of nationalization.. Oppressed peoples are still practically landless in real terms. As we all know land grabbing has taken more dangerous global dimension at present.
There is no way we can have our lands and our human dignity back short of dismantling the Abyssinian empire altogether. Lack of solidarity among the conquered peoples was one factor among many that led to the Abyssinian victory in the first place. We do not seem to have learned the lesson.
Extra judicial killings and systematic use of torture in Abyssinian dominated Ethiopia has always been exceptionally tolerated by western democracies. Today, it is part of an attempt to demoralize especially Oromos and destroy the right of forty million people to self determination to save the Abyssinian empire from disintegration.
Even the likewise Tigray dominated Eritrea, which freed itself through bitter struggle from brutal Amhara despotism and militarism, is mobilizing its meager resources to keep Oromia inside Ethiopia by all means. Certain Oromo factions ignore this fact, serving EPLF in the same way as OPDO serves TPLF. Abyssinian chauvinists and militarists under Tigray supremacy in both countries are raising, like their emperors, the specter of Islam to keep the whole region in permanent turmoil under their control.
All Amhara opposition groups, despite lip-service to democracy, are still unanimously rejecting the right of the Oromo and other peoples of the empire to self-determination while calling on us to accept their leadership in the struggle against the Tigrayan regime. On Oromo issue they are one with TPLF and EPLF.
In all this, all Abyssinian elites, Tigrayans as well as Amharas, are counting as ever on the Anglo-American support. With the exception of Professor Tecola Hagos. To my knowledge, he is the only Abyssinian academic who speaks his mind directly. Others try desperately to conceal their aggressive motives behind hackneyed expressions of fake Ethiopian patriotism or under democracy rhetoric. In one of his articles posted on Ethiomedia, the Professor says Ethiopia cannot rely for ever on the West, even on USA, for its effective maintenance. Israel, according to him, is the only friend Ethiopia has in the world. Then he proposes changes in the “Ethiopian constitution” to accept Israelis as Ethiopian citizens! Israel, he says, has military technology and Ethiopia has land. For him all Muslims are demons including the Saudi billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi, who financed his scholarship. Tecola wants to embroil Israel in the problems of the Abyssinian dominated Ethiopia. Which land is he promising to Israel? Is there a fertile primordial swamp hidden somewhere in old Abyssinia? Principally he means of course Oromoland. But let me ask him why should Israel which is not an empire itself gets involved in maintaining a rotten unjust empire? I think Israelis and Palestinians will solve their problems amicably at some point before Abyssinia wakes up to the facts of its empire and comes to terms with its reality. But shall we have to wait till then?
Most Amharas and Tigrayans do not know how closely related Arabs and Jews are despite the old conflict. Israel has never denied the existence of Muslims and Arabs in its midst as Abyssinia denied our humanity and our existence as Oromos for long time.. I have never seen an Abyssinian capable of honestly criticizing the politics of Abyssinian domination against the conquered peoples of the empire. There are many Jews in Israel and outside it who respect Arab Palestinian identity and are capable of denouncing the brutal politics of their government against the Palestinians. Not so in Abyssinia. Even the Abyssinian pseudo leftists of yesterday have metamorphosed into the hard line chauvinists of today. The proclivity of Abyssinian political and military elites to dramatize historical conflicts to mobilize the Abyssinian masses for endless wars is self-serving. That way they have kept themselves in power for centuries. Contrary to their propaganda, they are determined to keep playing this game for ever. So from time to time they keep vomiting forth the dark smoke of hatred. The truth is they are addicted to the stimuli of hatred and ethnic cleansing that no amount of logic cam make them rethink their position.
When the regime now in power allows peaceful demonstrations, it does so not to meet public demands even half way but to show its global backers how democratic it is. Perhaps it is advised to do so by these backers themselves for public consumption at home.
I hope Muslims in Ethiopia have learned finally from their naive and innocent attempts at peaceful change in the Abyssinian dominated Ethiopia. It is not that I am against a serious peaceful struggle for change if the arrests and killings of its leadership do not not lead to the derailment and end of the movement…. I had tried here a number of times to warn the Muslim activists in Ethiopia against placing great hopes exclusively on their peaceful protests and against Abyssinian infiltration. We must know what to expect from fascists. Any way, the most important point now is that the majority of Muslims in Ethiopia belong to the oppressed nations and nationalities. They should see their struggle as inseparable from the struggle for national liberation. And that means, in my conviction, a long struggle to dismantle the Abyssinian empire itself. It also means solid solidarity across religious lines to overcome the Abyssinian and imperialist tactics to divide and rule.
Indeed under present conditions, Abyssinian militarism cannot be defeated in the near future. More difficult to defeat are the deep illusions in our own minds: Illusions about democratic Ethiopia, illusions about personal careers and getting rich individually, illusions about religious self-righteousness, illusions about marriage and sex, illusions that feed on clan ideology and regionalism. Pretended mass religiosity only intensifies these illusions and exacerbates our division, weakness and ordeal.
Let me say, no one among us is powerless who is awake to reality and is free from certain forms of illusions if we collectively work with what is already available here and now. Working together with brains that are free from big illusions will never fail us to find appropriate solutions. Our resources are endless. But fears and illusions make it impossible for us to use them properly. We are our own enemies. We can be also our own friends if we raise our awareness and act accordingly. But we need wisdom born out of our own experience. Otherwise no amount of sophisticated intellectual thinking and preaching will help. I want to end this statement by saying this: despite the intensity of the brutalities that we see daily, the power of goodness in this universe is still at work as ever. I believe it is essentially indestructible. Basically, I am convinced that our dictators and tyrants in Africa and those powerful figures in most powerful states who stand behind them will pay in this life in some way for their crimes. The question is whether the rest of us are willing to open ourselves as individuals and together collectively to goodness that is as real as the air we breathe.