Book review
Asafa Jalata. Baro Tumsa: The Principal Architect of the Oromo Liberation Front. Palgrave Macmillan, Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland, 2024, pp. 289. Price $115. Format: Hard Copy
Baro Tumsa: The Principal Architect of the Oromo Liberation Front explains the political biography of Baro Tumsa by integrating it with the history of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). This front has been leading the Oromo national movement since the early 1970s. Based on four reasons, the author wrote this impressive book:
The first reason is that Baro’s story is not a simple biography. His life story and rich experiences are an integral part of Oromo history. The second reason is that we cannot thoroughly learn and write about Baro without relating his account to the history of the Reverend Gudina Tumsa, his older brother, mentor, and the one who played a fatherly role in raising and educating Baro . . . The third reason . . . is that Baro coordinated and facilitated the creation of the OLF clandestinely. These factors created challenging conditions for fully understanding, reflecting on, and writing about his contributions. The fourth reason is that writing about Baro cannot be accomplished without linking his story to the history of the OLF, which is the symbol and embodiment of the national Oromummaa (Oromo national history, culture, and nationalism)” (pp. 1-3).
The book is divided into nine chapters. By introducing conceptual, methodological, and theoretical issues, Chapter 1 outlines the book’s organising themes. Chapter 2 introduces and examines leadership theories concerning Baro’s leadership qualities. By providing an understanding of Baro’s family and Oromo cultural backgrounds, Chapter 3 explains his attitudes and behavior toward leadership. This chapter also explains the role of his older brother, the Reverend Gudina Tumsa, in raising, educating, and mentoring him. The same chapter identifies and analyzes the types of literature Baro read and how what he read helped him develop his critical knowledge and thinking concerning the struggle of the Oromo people.
Chapter 4 describes Baro’s student life and political activism at Addis Ababa College, which was later named Haile Selassie I University (HSIU). Chapter 5 explores the formation and objectives of the Macha Tulama Association (MTA), identifies its prominent leaders, and describes the challenges these leaders faced and the accomplishments they made. It also explains what the young Baro learned from other leaders and his roles in the association. By networking and laying the groundwork, he facilitated the formation of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) in the 1970s, following Haile Selassie’s government’s ban on the MTA in 1967.
Chapter 6 focuses on Baro’s varied professional experiences as a pharmacist and a lawyer, explaining how he utilized his profession to become acquainted with more Oromo professionals and intellectuals, thereby building underground social and political networks. This effort contributed to the establishment of an underground Oromo movement, which became involved in the Ethiopian political crisis of the early 1970s. It explains Baro’s and his colleagues’ roles in popularizing two important slogans: “Land to the Tillers” and “The National or Nationality Question.” This chapter also explains why the land issue and the national question became the central organizing themes for overthrowing the Haile Selassie regime, which ultimately led to the rise of the military government.
This chapter also explores Baro’s role in influencing the new military government to declare land reform by dismantling the private landholding system in the colonized territories, such as Oromia. In addition, the same chapter explores the politics of networking and forming secret study circles, detailing how Baro circumvented security structures and spies while recruiting Oromo students, professionals, military officers, and intellectuals into underground study groups. It identifies issues raised and discussed during such study circles, such as revolutions, national movements, historical and current regional and global issues, Marxism, democracy, and armed struggle, and explores them concerning the formation of the OLF and the Oromo national movement.
Chapter 7 focuses on the central role Baro played in forming the OLF by mobilizing secret study cells, political networks, and preexisting institutions to create and build the OLF in the 1970s. Chapter 8 identifies and explores opportunities and dangers for the survival of the OLF. It further explores why Baro joined the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), the military wing of the OLF, in November 1977 by severing his relationship with the Ethiopian military regime. It also explains how he was assassinated in the jungle and how his murder impacted the OLA and the OLF. The final chapter examines the historical successes and challenges of the OLF over nearly half a century, exploring how and why it has endured for such an extended period, and predicts its future direction. This chapter also assesses the OLF’s half-century-long journey, its achievements, and Baro’s profound legacy in the Oromo national movement.
The book has four admirable qualities: First, based on the complex histories, archival data, cultural information, in-depth interviews, and social movement theories, the author wrote this persuasive and ground-breaking book, which is essential for Oromo activists and nationalists and others who are interested in the politics of the Ethiopian Empire and the Horn of Africa. Second, by integrating critical theoretical and methodological approaches and by using socio-scientific analysis, the book raises serious questions to address the concerns of the Oromo people. Third, it refutes the Ethiopianist intellectual paradigm that perpetuates racist narratives on the Oromo. Ultimately, the book showcases the advancement and quality of Oromo scholarship on an international level. This feat is impossible in Oromia due to the lack of intellectual and political freedom.
Furthermore, the author acknowledges that writing this book would have been impossible due to the security issues that would have prevented him from conducting research in Oromia and Ethiopia. Unfortunately, Oromo society still faces Ethiopian State terrorism, war, and gross human rights violations.
The book can be used by undergraduate and graduate students in history, political economy, political science, sociology, anthropology, international relations, and students of human rights and democracy. By writing this book, Professor Asafa Jalata has expanded the frontiers of Oromo knowledge production and studies. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in social and national movements, as well as in comprehending the complex Oromo question and its impact on the declining Ethiopian Empire.
Mekbib Gebeyehu, PhD (Geology and Geochemistry)
