Abstract
The paper explains how Oromo leadership and organizational deficits, and the low and uneven development of Oromummaa or Oromo nationalism, have delayed the mobilization of a substantial number of Oromos required to achieve freedom, security, and sovereignty for Oromo society. It also identifies strategies and tactics for mobilizing more Oromos to build a national organizational capacity essential to accomplishing the objectives of the Oromo national movement.
Keywords: Oromo freedom, national self-determination, Oromummaa, mobilization, Oromo Liberation Front, the Oromo Liberation Army, and leadership and organizational deficits.
Introduction
Without mobilizing a substantial number of Oromos to overcome leadership and ideological deficits, the Oromo nation cannot build its national organization capacity to achieve its freedom to live in peace by protecting the security and sovereignty of its citizens. Nothing is more degrading and humiliating than seeing the butchering, cutting of throats, and shooting or lynching of young Oromos in front of parents and communities, and leaving their corpses on streets for dogs or in forests for hyenas by preventing their burials at gunpoint. Ethiopian colonial forces and their Oromo mercenaries have terrorized and humiliated Oromo families and communities by raping their children, girls, and boys or conscripting young Oromos to fight for them, robbing properties, burning Oromos houses, pregnant women and elderly individuals, and displacing from their homes and communities for being Oromo and manifesting their Oromo identity and culture or for supporting the struggle for their liberation and freedom.
This paper asks and answers four complex and central questions: (1) What is freedom, and how does it apply to the terrorized and victimized Oromo society? (2) Why did Oromos fail for almost one and a half centuries to defend themselves from violence and human rights violations? (3) What significant factors incapacitated Oromo elites from effectively mobilizing and organizing themselves to contribute to the Oromo’s emancipation and freedom? (4)What are the significant ways of mobilizing large numbers of Oromos to build effective national institutions and organizations for achieving Oromo security, freedom, and national sovereignty?
Imagining Oromo Freedom
I define Oromo freedom on individual and societal levels. On a personal level, it involves freedom of choice, freedom of self-expression and self-definition, increased skills and knowledge, capacity, freedom of knowledge production and dissemination, creativity, self-discipline, individual and social responsibility, improved material well-being, cultural development, equality of opportunity, security, and political and economic freedom. Having self-determination to determine one’s destiny as a society, having the technological capacity to produce wealth, fighting against enemies or competitors, and forming a democratic government. Economically speaking, freedom involves development, which includes scientific and technological progress, improved organizational capacity, and increased economic productivity. For the last century and a half, the Oromo people have lacked individual and societal freedom, and they are underdeveloped, which is a Lack of independence/autonomy to determine one’s destiny characterized by poverty, colonial dictatorship, illiteracy, powerlessness, lack of democracy, recurrent wars and famines, and different forms of social crises.
Colonized, enslaved, and subjugated people do not have the freedom to produce and disseminate their knowledge for liberation. Boaventura de Sousa Santos notes the necessity of democratizing knowledge and calls this kind of knowledge emancipatory or decolonizing knowledge.[1] The absence of emancipatory knowledge causes political ignorance, fatalism, and unfreedom. Freedom is central to a society’s survival, continuation, and meaningful social development. It allows people to assess their condition and increase their effectiveness as free agents.[2] Emancipatory knowledge and freedom allow individuals and people to determine their destiny and “to live long and well.”[3] Since the Oromo live impoverished lives under the Ethiopian colonial state, they do not live long and well, and they suffer from recurrent famines, undernutrition, lack of access to health care, clean water, or sanitary facilities, morbidity, premature mortality, and lack of meaningful education. Since many Oromos have been prevented from receiving quality education and free political expression and participation, some lack the political consciousness needed to fight for their rights.
With their colonization and incorporation into Ethiopia, the Oromo could not restore or develop their independent institutions to freely produce and disseminate authentic historical and cultural knowledge. Ethiopian knowledge elites and their global supporters have treated the Oromo as historical objects because of their powerlessness. These elites, with the support of the Ethiopian state, produced false or racist knowledge of the Oromo and other colonized peoples. Developing political consciousness and building capabilities in Oromo society are prerequisites for achieving Oromo liberation and freedom. Achieving the Oromo’s intellectual and political objectives requires mobilizing more Oromos. Oromos lack political freedom, which Amartya Sen calls “the basic building blocks” of society.[4] He also argues that freedom is necessary to expand the capabilities of individuals to live a better life. The Ethiopian colonial system has stagnated or limited Oromo capabilities, and their economic and labor resources are used in their oppression and dehumanization. Without liberation knowledge, the Oromo cannot achieve freedom; without freedom, they cannot acquire fundamental political and civil rights.
Sen lists four fundamental political and civil rights essential to attaining and expanding human freedoms. The political and civil rights include (1) the right to determine who should govern and on what principles, (2) the right to scrutinize and criticize authorities, (3) the right to political expression and an uncensored press, and (4) the freedom to choose between different political parties, etc. First, these rights expand human capabilities, including political and social participation, to live a better life. Second, they enhance the people’s hearing from authorities, including their economic needs. Third, these rights assist people in defining their social and economic needs by actively increasing their agency. Fourth and fifth, they increase their human creativity and potential to solve their problems individually and collectively to overcome their ignorance, fatalism, and powerlessness by critically understanding the role of social and political systems. The Ethiopian colonial system has denied the Oromo these rights and the right to produce their liberation knowledge so that they participate in their oppression and dehumanization.
Colonized and underdeveloped people face significant challenges in developing liberation knowledge and protecting their freedom. If a nation is denied national self-determination, its universal human rights and freedom cannot be protected.The principle of national self-determination is based on the four pillars of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights: (1) the right to life, liberty, and security, (2) civil liberty and property rights, (3) political and social rights, and (4)economic, social, and cultural rights.[5] The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights expands human freedoms if implemented and practiced. Based on the spirit of human rights, Amartya Sen suggests five types of instrumental freedoms: 1) political freedom, 2) economic freedom, 3) social opportunities, 4) transparency guarantees, and 5) protective security.[6] Economic freedoms and rights entail (1) freely participating in markets and generating wealth and public resources, (2) the availability and access to finance, (3) utilizing economic resources for consumption, production, or exchange, and (4) basic economic security and entitlement.
Social opportunities involve (1) social arrangements such as education and health care; (2) the services that influence the individual’s substantive freedom to live healthy, better, and longer; and (3) increasing more effective participation in socio-economic and political activities. Similarly, transparency guarantees consist of (1) the freedom to be open and deal with one another, (2) the right to disclose corruption and financial irresponsibility and prevent underhand dealings, and (3) increasing accountability of institutions, governments, and corporations and building institutions of unemployment benefits and income supplements, famine relief or emergency, and public employment. The denial of national self-determination denies the colonized nation, such as the Oromo, all these rights and the development of human freedoms and capabilities.
Martha Nussbaum writes about the principle of the capability approach, which enables all individuals in society to develop their abilities.[7] She lists ten points to promote human rights for developing human capabilities: (1) Life – preventing premature death; (2) Bodily health and integrity – having good health; being adequately nourished; having necessities; (3) Bodily integrity – having personal safety and security; enjoying life without any restriction; (4) Senses, imagination, and thought – imagining, thinking, reasoning, and expressing ideas without any restrictions; these capabilities must be developed through an adequate education, scientific reasoning; (5) Emotions – having rights to develop attachment to persons and things; caring and loving those who care and love you; (6) Practical reason – engaging in critical reflection about one’s own life; (7) Affiliation – showing empathy and concern for others; having capability for friendship and justice; having the right to be respected not to be humiliated; not to be discriminated by others; (8) Other Species – living with and protecting animals, plants, and nature; (9) Play – being able to laugh, play, and enjoy recreational activities; and (10) Control over one’s environment: (a) political – having the right to associate, organize and make political choices; having the rights of political participation and free speech; and (b) material – having the right to own property; having the right to have jobs and livable wages. The Ethiopian colonial state has denied the Oromo people all political, economic, cultural, and social rights that the U.N., Amartya Sen, and Martha Nussbaum describe above.
Understanding the complexity of the Oromo’s problems, Oromo nationalists initiated the production and dissemination of liberation knowledge to empower the Oromo nation. Ethiopian colonialism has imposed on Oromo society underdevelopment and unfreedoms; hence, it suffers from ignorance, fatalism, poverty, powerlessness, social deprivation, dictatorship, repression, violence, terrorism, and tight social control. In addition to owning and controlling the Oromo’s economic resources, such as land and labor, the Ethiopian colonial government banned learning, writing, and publishing in the Oromo language until 1991.[8] The Oromo were denied the right to produce and disseminate knowledge through Afaan Oromoo (the Oromo language) until a few decades ago. The Ethiopian state, religious and knowledge elites, and their global supporters have treated the Oromo as ignorant and historical objects because of their powerlessness.
The Oromo name, history, and culture were repressed or erased from history. Their name was replaced by the derogatory term Galla, which means ignorant, savage, cruel, orderless, destructive, enslaved person, inferior, and uncultured. With their colonization and incorporation into Ethiopia, the Oromo could not develop independent institutions and, therefore, could not produce and disseminate their knowledge freely. However, as mentioned above, a few Oromo intellectuals have overcome this shortcoming in the diaspora by creating OSA and JOS and developing emergent Oromo studies since the late 1980s.
Racist and harmful views about the Oromo have prevented Ethiopian and most Ethiopianist scholars from understanding the Oromo’s historical and cultural knowledge; records on the Oromo reflect some elements of racist ideology and have a tremendous influence on some of the scholars of modern Ethiopian history. Critical Oromo scholars have realized the necessity of a plurality of knowledge production and dissemination. These innovative scholars have recognized the importance of looking at a society from different cultural centers and have developed emergent Oromo studies. Oromo studies illustrate that the Oromo are transforming their historical defeat into victory through intellectual and political struggle (in addition to the ongoing armed struggle) because of the emergence of an Oromo-educated class that started to develop an Oromo national consciousness.
However, Oromo scholars and others interested in Oromo studies have been discouraged by the Ethiopian state from studying Oromo culture and history in Oromia. Consequently, Oromo studies have developed more in Europe and North America than in Oromia. Some of the Oromo and others in the diaspora have committed themselves to serious scholarship; their works are becoming stepping-stones in writing the social and cultural history of the Oromo people to produce and disseminate social scientific knowledge. Contemporary publications on Oromo cultural and social history and indigenous knowledge challenge a top-down paradigm of historiography and require that the object of knowledge be pictured as an actor. In the racist capitalist world system, indigenous peoples who do not have states cannot fully develop their institutions, including educational institutions, and promote social justice for their societies. Therefore, to promote their human rights that are enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, colonized peoples like the Oromo must intensify their national struggle to achieve national self-determination, statehood, and multinational democracy.
Limited Cognitive Liberation and Leadership and Organizational Deficits
Leaders and their organizations cannot effectively fulfill their objectives without developing cognitive liberation or transforming their consciousness and behavior. Cognitive liberation is the process of understanding and challenging beliefs or ideological systems that legitimize existing authorities[9] and develop liberatory narratives. To what extent have Oromo elites, leaders, and organizations succeeded in developing cognitive liberation and the capacity to mobilize a substantial number of Oromos to engage in the Oromo liberation struggle by building effective organizations with multiple spokespersons and know-how and by formulating adequate framing to break the Ethiopian colonial system? A few nationalist Oromo intellectuals framed Oromo issues as Ethiopian settler colonialism and the necessity of liberating Oromo society from it. They produced articles and magazines, such as The Oromos: Voice Against Tyranny in 1971, the OLF political program in 1976, and other publications, such as Warraqaa, Bakkalcha Oromiyyaa, Oromiyaa, and Guca Dargaagoo in the 1970s. Other publications include Sagalee Oromoo: Journal of the Union of Oromo Students in Europe, Waldhaansso: Journal of the Union of Oromos in North America, and Oromia Speaks: A Publication of the Oromo Liberation Front from the OLF Foreign Relations Office.
In addition, Gadaa Melbaa (a pseudonym for Dr. Taddassa Eeba), a scientist and prominent OLF leader, published Oromia: An Introduction in 1980. Starting in 1990, a few Oromo critical scholars also began to publish books and refereed articles in national, regional, and international journals. These publications have produced original Oromo liberation knowledge that facilitated the development of cognitive liberation in Oromo society. Then, in 1993, OSA started to publish The Journal of Oromo Studies. Since Oromos are socially, historically, and culturally connected and since they have been collectively colonized, brutalized, and oppressed, they are potentially or more likely to join the Oromo national movement to defend their collective national interest.[10] However, the Oromo collective identity, solidarity, and the possibility of joining the Oromo movement are not naturally given, but they result from agitation and critical education by nationalists and leaders and their organizations.
Since most Oromo elites and the masses are not effectively organized and critically educated in the politics and psychology of liberation, they have remained primarily passive participants in the Oromo national movement. They have been waiting to receive their liberation as a gift from Oromo political organizations. This is a grave mistake. Oromo liberation can only be achieved by the active participation of an adequate portion of Oromo elites and the masses. As Gilly Adolfo states, “Liberation does not come as a gift from anybody; the masses seize it with their own hands. And by seizing it, they are transformed; confidence in their strength soars, and they turn their energy and experience to the tasks of building, governing, and deciding their own lives for themselves.”[11] Developing Oromummaa or Oromo nationalism among the Oromo elites and the masses is required to increase the Oromo’s self-discovery and self-acceptance through liberation education. Without overcoming inadequate political consciousness and passivity among all sectors of Oromo society, the Oromo national movement continues to face multi-faceted problems.
The Oromo can challenge and overcome multiple levels of domination and dehumanization through numerous approaches and actions. As Patricia Hill Collins puts it, “People experience and resist oppression on three levels: the level of personal biography; the group or community level of the cultural context … and the systematic level of social institutions.”[12]Developing individual political consciousness through liberation knowledge generates social change. This action is essential to creating a sphere of freedom by increasing the power of self-definition, which is necessary to liberate the mind. Without a liberated and free mind, we cannot resist oppression on multiple levels. The dominant groups are against mental liberation, and they use institutions such as schools, churches, or mosques, the media, and other formal organizations to teach their oppressive worldviews. Collins states, “Domination operates by seducing, pressuring, or forcing … members of subordinated groups to replace individual and cultural ways of knowing with the dominant group’s specialized thought. As a result … ‘the true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situation which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us.’ Or …‘revolution begins with the self, in the self.’”[13]
The Oromo have been objectified and exploited for one and a half centuries. Understanding the complex problems of Oromo society and the importance of self-definition is central to the Oromo national movement to promote “the revolution of mind” and culture. A mental and cultural revolution will enable the Oromo to define themselves without limitation. The Oromo people can develop a collective consciousness and pride and empower themselves to struggle for their freedom and power through self-definition, self-discovery, and self-legitimation. The need to critically educate Oromos to challenge Habasha’s cultural hegemony through Oromo self-actualization by recognizing and accepting Oromummaa as a healthy psychosocial consciousness and being proud of one’s identity, culture, and history.[14] People who have acquired liberation knowledge and achieved mental liberation can freely define themselves and determine their destiny. According to Stokely Carmichael, “The first need of a free people is to define their terms.” [15]
The Oromo liberation struggle started by restoring their collective name by rejecting the derogatory name Galla. However, we can observe that certain ideological and political positions that some have taken to conflate Ethiopianismand Oromummmaa or localism and Oromo nationalism demonstrate that mental liberation in Oromia and the diaspora has not yet been adequately achieved.[16] One symptom of this challenge is that more Oromos are organized in Afoshas (local self-help associations) than in national political and civil organizations. Without using the tool of liberation knowledge to build political consciousness and restore their usurped biographies and history, the Oromo cannot confront and defeat the oppressor within. The Oromo national movement still suffers from internal oppression and a lack of effective leadership and organization. Therefore, the Oromo national movement has not yet developed a strong front with a capable bureaucratic organization that can provide combat readiness and unity to engage in collective political action.[17] Why did Oromo nationalists in the OLF and the OLA fail to build a capable organization that can unite Oromo nationalists and masses to confront and defeat the neo-nafxanya government of Abiy Ahmed?
According to one theory of social movements, four factors increase a mobilization process in social movements; these factors are the availability of resources (in forms of human power and finance, skills and know-how, and intellectual capacity), the capacity of mobilizing resources for collective action, the availability of preexisting organizations and institutions, and the availability of crises (socio-economic and political crises).[18] Of all these factors, only one thing is missing in the Oromo national movement. This factor is the inability of Oromo elites and leaders to build a strong organizational capacity to mobilize Oromo society in Oromia and the diaspora. This absence has enabled Oromo political entrepreneurs and opportunists to use the ideology of localism and Ethiopianism to undermine the role of Oromo nationalists and their organizations, such as the OLF, OLA, and OFC.
The success of a social or national movement depends on the level of cognitive liberation in a society and the strength of indigenous political and civic organizations.[19] As mentioned above, the level of cognitive liberation in Oromo society has been low and uneven, and Oromo nationalism has not yet matured. Consequently, Oromo elites, leaders, and organizations could not effectively fulfill their political objectives. Some Oromos are influenced and abused by Oromo nafxanyas, political entrepreneurs, and opportunists, and sometimes work against the Oromo national movement. Oromo liberation organizations lack substantial members and financial resources. Even though many Oromo political and military leaders are committed and ready to sacrifice their lives for the Oromo national cause, their political know-how and their level of cognitive liberation have prevented them from uniting and leading Oromo nationalists. The lack of critical political education in Oromo society has negatively affected the level of mental liberation. Oromo’s cognitive liberation did not yet reach the level of understanding and challenging belief systems that legitimized existing authorities.
The effectiveness of movement organizations depends on their members’ size, their solidarity and cohesion, effective communication networks, the level of cognitive liberation, and effective leadership cadres.[20] The assassinations, killings, and imprisonment of some effective Oromo cadres and leaders have introduced leadership and organizational deficits from the beginning until the present. The Ethiopian colonial state has targeted politically and culturally conscious Oromos to hinder the development of Oromo nationalism. Under the Ethiopian reign of terror, Oromo society has faced monumental challenges to develop its leadership and organizational capacity.
Problems of Oromo Elites and Limited Mobilization of Oromo Society
From Menelik to Abiy Ahmed, the successive nafxanya governments of Ethiopia have effectively organized and controlled the military, bureaucracy, financial resources, and the process of opinion and decision-making, and dominated, brutalized, and exploited Oromo society. Most Oromos have been excluded from the nafxanya institutions, governments, and decision-making, atomized and disengaged from politics, and reduced to producers and consumers. Even though the Ethiopian colonial state has been successful to a certain degree in producing some educationally, religiously, and culturally assimilated Oromos by implementing its colonial policies, the Ethiopian colonial system has denied education to most of the Oromo people.[21]
The Ethiopian colonial government has intentionally limited the access of Oromo masses and other colonized peoples to education and positions of authority in government, knowledge production, and business.[22] For instance, in the late 1960s, the Oromo and the other colonized peoples comprised less than 10 percent of the students at Haile Selassie University (currently Addis Ababa University). In comparison, the number of Habasha students at the university was more than 80 percent.[23] Until the 1960s, most of the children of colonial settlers attended schools in Oromia and the other colonized areas. As M. A. Rahman asserts, “domination of masses by elites is rooted not only in the polarization of control over the means of material production but also over the means of knowledge production, including control over social power to determine what is useful knowledge.”[24]
Overcoming several obstacles, the founding fathers and mothers of modern Oromummaa (Oromo national history, culture, and nationalism) created two pioneering organizations in the 1960s and 1970s: the Macha-Tulama Self-Help Association and the Oromo Liberation Front, respectively. These organizations acted as a roadmap for the burgeoning Oromo national movement. Unfortunately, the national movement has since been confronted externally by the forces of Ethiopian colonialism, with assistance from their global supporters, and internally by an Oromo collaborator class that has served the interests of the oppressor of the Oromo people.[25] For instance, some Oromo elites had become raw materials for the Tigrayan-led Ethiopian regime and implemented its terrorist and genocidal policies in the puppet parliament, the administration, and the army, and participated in imprisoning and killing Oromo nationalists between 1991 and 2018.
These and other internal agents of the Ethiopian government have participated in robbing the Oromos’ economic resources. As Frantz Fanon notes, “The intermediary does not lighten the oppression, nor seek to hide the domination…he is the bringer of violence into the home and the mind of the native.”[26] The Oromo national struggle must solve the internal problem of Oromo society before it can fully confront and defeat its joint external enemies. It is estimated that the Oromo intermediary elites are the numerical majority at the lower echelons of the Ethiopian colonial institutions. These intermediaries joined the Tigrayan-created and -led organization known as the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) to satisfy their interests at the cost of the Oromo nation. Every colonized nation indeed has a collaborator class that fulfills its interests and the interests of its colonial masters. However, a few elements of this class clandestinely defend the interests of their people. For example, some Eritrean and Tigrayan intermediaries under the Amhara-led Ethiopia protected the interests of their respective people. However, what makes the Oromo collaborator class different is its commitment to serve the oppressor (except in a few cases) without being sympathetic to their people.
While imprisoning or killing independent Oromo leaders, the successive Ethiopian regimes have promoted to positions of authority less competent Oromo collaborators who have internalized and manifested their masters’ worldviews. The Oromo collaborator elites are politically ignorant and harbor an inferiority complex that has been imposed on them by the Amhara-Tigray colonial institutions. According to Hussein Abdilahi Bulhan, “Prolonged oppression reduces the oppressed into mere individuals without a community or a history, fostering a tendency to privatize a shared victimization.”[27] Since they have been cut from their biographies and the collective Oromo history, members of the Oromo collaborator class only know what Amhara or Tigrayans have taught them and, as a result, they constantly wear “Ethiopian masks” that have damaged their psycheThe colonizer was never content with occupying the land of indigenous peoples and expropriating their labor; he also declared war on the psyches of the oppressed.[28]
By introducing an inferiority complex, the Amhara-Tigray state attacked the Oromo culture and worldview to alter the perspective of the colonized Oromo from independence to dependence; consequently, every colonized Oromo subject who has not yet liberated their mind wears an Ethiopian mask by associating his/herself with Ethiopian culture and identity. As Fanon asserts, “All colonized people—in other words, people in whom an inferiority complex has taken root, whose local cultural originality has been committed to the grave—position themselves about the civilizing language…. The more the colonized has assimilated the cultural values of [the colonizer], the more he [or she] will have” imitated their masters.[29] As European colonialists did, the Amhara-Tigrayan colonizers manufactured the Oromo collaborator elites to use them in their colonial projects. According to Bulhan, “in prolonged oppression, the oppressed group willy-nilly internalizes the oppressor without. They adopt his guidelines and prohibitions, they assimilate his image and his social behavior, and they become agents of their oppression. The oppressor without becomes … an oppressor within…. They become auto-oppressors as they engage in self-destructive behavior injurious to themselves, their loved ones, and their neighbors.”[30]
It is no wonder that some members of the OPDO, from ordinary individuals to high officials, engaged in imprisoning, killing, and robbing members of Oromo society, particularly those whom they suspect of sympathizing with or supporting the Oromo national struggle. The Oromo self has been attacked and distorted by Ethiopian colonial institutions. The attack on Oromo selves at personal, interpersonal, and collective levels has undermined the self-confidence of some Oromo individuals by creating an inferiority complex within them. Consequently, the manufactured Oromo elites are abusive to their people, and they confuse their ambitions and interests with those of the Oromo nation. What Fanon says about other colonial intermediary native elites applies to the Oromo elites: “The European elite undertook to manufacture native elite. They picked out promising adolescents; they branded them, as with a red-hot iron, with the principles of Western culture; they stuffed their mouths full with high-sounding phrases, grand glutinous words that stuck to the teeth.”[31] Since most Oromo elites who have passed through Ethiopian colonial institutions have not yet achieved psychological liberation, they consciously or unconsciously prefer to be passive or to work for their colonial masters rather than work as a team on the Oromo liberation project. Walter Rodney says that “colonial education corrupted the thinking and sensibilities of the African and filled him with abnormal complexes.”[32]
Similarly, some Oromo intermediaries who have passed through the Ethiopian colonial education system have been de-Oromized and Ethiopianized and have opposed the Oromo struggle for national liberation, or they have become politically passive. Colonial education creates submissive leaders who facilitate underdevelopment through subordination and exploitation. Considering the condition of African Americans in the first half of the 20th century, Carter G. Woodson characterized the educated Black as “a hopeless liability of the race” and schools for Blacks as “places where they must be convinced of their inferiority.”[33] He demonstrated how White oppressors controlled the minds of Blacks through education: “When you control a man’s [or a woman’s] thinking, you do not have to worry about his [or her] actions. You do not have to tell him [her] not to stand here or go yonder. He [or she] will find his [or her] ‘proper place’ and will stay in it.”[34]
The behaviors and actions of the educated Oromo intermediaries parallel what Woodson claims about the educated African Americans. But, starting in the mid-20th century, most African American elites developed nationalist political consciousness by overcoming their inferiority complex and participating in their national struggle for liberation. Most biologically and culturally assimilated former Oromos, like their Habasha masters, are the defenders of Habasha culture, religion, and the Amharic language and the haters of Oromo history, culture, institutions, and Afaan Oromoo. Explaining similar circumstances, Fanon notes, “The individual who climbs up into white, civilized society tends to reject his black, uncivilized family at the level of the imagination.”[35] The slave psychology of such assimilated Oromos has caused them also to prefer the leadership of the Amhara or Tigrayan oppressor.[36] Through his seven years of experimentation and observation in Martinique, Frantz Fanon concluded that the dominant “black man’s behavior is similar to an obsessive neurosis…. There is an attempt by the colored man to escape his individuality, to reduce his being in the world to nothing…. The [psychologically affected] black man goes from humiliating insecurity to self-accusation and even despair.”[37]
Furthermore, the attack on Oromo families and national structures introduced psychological disorientations to Oromo individuals and incapacitated their collective personality. As an essential institution of any society, the family guides values, norms, and worldviews and acts as the educational and training ground for entry into that society.[38] Because Oromo families have lived for more than a century under colonial occupation and because Oromo national institutions were intentionally destroyed or disfigured by Ethiopian colonial institutions, the Oromo people lack the educational, cultural, ideological, and experiential resources to guide their children in the process of building national institutions and organizational capacity. Oromo individuals who have lived under such conditions face social, cultural, and psychological crises and become conflict-ridden. Due to these complex problems, the low level of political consciousness, and an imposed inferiority complex, those who claim that they are nationalists sometimes confuse their sub-identities with the Oromo national identity or with Ethiopian identity. According to Fanon, “The neurotic structure of an individual is precisely the elaboration, the formation, and the birth of conflicting knots in the ego, stemming on the one hand from the environment and the other from the entirely personal way this individual reacts to these influences.”[39] In one way or another, these factors negatively affected the confidence and ability of Oromo elites, leaders, and organizations.
Mobilization for Security, Freedom, and Sovereignty
The mobilization of Oromo nationalists by overcoming divisions based on Oromo nationalist organizations must be the immediate priority. The OLA must unite all Oromo nationalists rather than create and depend on small cliques. This approach has dwindled all forms of support, mainly financial, psychological, and moral support for the organization in the diaspora. Divisions gradually undermine the legitimacy of the OLA. The OLA leadership must receive correct and adequate information on Oromo diaspora communities. Members of the OLF and OFC need to recognize the military paradigm shift that the OLA has introduced, despite the political, strategic, and tactical errors of the leadership of this organization. All Oromo nationalist organizations must engage in cognitive liberation to transform political consciousness and behavior. The old ways of political fragmentation, my way or no way, political naivety, and illusion must be abandoned.
The second priority deals with the issues of Oromo elites, who are nationalists and non-nationalists. Oromo elites have moral and ethical responsibilities to stand with their terrorized and humiliated people and participate in the Oromo struggle for their security, freedom, and sovereignty. While involved in the Oromo movement in one way or another, engaging in cognitive liberation and transformation of politics and behavior is necessary. Such actions can happen through organizing workshops, seminars, conversations, and debates on Oromummaa, which involves national history, culture, and Oromo nationalism.
The third priority is mobilizing all sectors of Oromo society in Oromia and the diaspora, particularly Oromo youth and women. How can this be done? It can be done by developing cognitive liberation or emancipatory knowledge to promote and implement a revolution of mind for developing Oromummaa, consolidating collectivity and solidarity, and building national organizational capacity. Oromo collective and solidarity are not naturally given but the result of hard work and effort. Oromo nationalists, leaders, and organizations must formulate policies, frameworks, and programs to develop and expand the Oromo’s collective solidarity. Expanding political consciousness and loyalty to the Oromo national movement is necessary.
Implementing these priorities requires determination, political will, skills, and knowledge from Oromo nationalists, leaders, and organizations. Knowledge and expertise are necessary to formulate action plans by developing short- and long-term strategies and tactics. So, we members of the Oromo intellectual and professional groups establish specific action plans and start working on them. Success belongs to those who are determined to plan and take concrete actions step by step.
Conclusion
The paper demonstrates the strengths, weaknesses, and potentials of the Oromo national movement to achieve Oromo freedom, security, and sovereignty by defeating the Ethiopian colonial state and stopping its terrorism and gross human rights violations. Specifically, it shows the necessity of mobilizing substantial numbers of Oromos by developing their nationalism to overcome localism and Ethiopianism, which undermine the development of national Oromummaa and assist in overcoming leadership and organizational deficits. The effective mobilization of Oromos through cognitive liberation, political transformation, and behavioral changes unleashes the ideological and material resources to increase the Oromo national organization’s capacity to dismantle Ethiopian settler colonialism and its institutions to liberate Oromo society. The piece indicates that the OLA has introduced a paradigm shift in the Oromo national struggle by mobilizing, training, and dispatching Oromo fighters to most corners of Oromia to militarily and politically confront the Abiy neo-nafxanya government and recommends that this organization should mobilize and unite all Oromo nationalists in Oromia and the diaspora through developing short- and long-term strategies and tactics that appeal to freedom-loving Oromos.
Notes
[1] Boaventura de Sousa Santos, “opening Up the Canon of Knowledge and Recognition of Difference,” pp. xviii-lxii. Another Knowledge is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies, edited, Verso: London, 2007.
[2] See Amarta Sen, Development as Freedom, Anchor Books, 1998.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] M. Ishay, The Human Rights Reader: Major Political Essays, Speeches and Documents from Ancient Times to the Present, 2nd Edition, 2007.
[6] Amarta Sen,ibid
[7] Martha Nussbaum, “Women and Cultural Universalism,” in The Human Rights Reader: Major Political Essays, Speeches and Documents from Ancient Times to the Present 2nd Edition, 2007, pp. 423-430.
[8] P. T. W. Baxter, ” Ethiopia’s Unacknowledged Problem: The Oromo,” African Affairs, Vol. 77, No. 308 (Jul., 1978), pp. 283-296.
[9] For further understanding the concept of cognitive liberation, see M. Buechler, Understanding Social Movements: Theories from the Classical Era to the Present, (New York: Routledge, 2011).
[10] For understanding social movements, see Steven M. Buechler, Understanding Social Movements: Theories from the Classical Era to the Present, (New York: Routledge, 2011).
[11] Gilly Adolfo. [1965] 1967. “Introduction,” A Dying Colonialism, ibid. p. 2.
[12] Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought, (New York: Routledge, 1990), p. 227.
[13] Patricia Hill Collins, ibid., p. 229.
[14] See Asafa Jalata, Oromummaa: ibid.
[15] William L. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975, Chicago: The University of Chicago, pp. 29-62.
[16] Asafa Jalata, Oromummaa: ibid.
[17] For understand of the role o strong bureaucratic organization for movement, see Steven M. Buechler, ibid.
[18] See Steven M. Buechler, ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] See Hamdes Tuso,.”‘Minority Education in Ethiopia, “Africa(Rome),1982, 37/3:270-93 ; Johan, Markakis, Ethiopia: Anatomy of a Traditional Polity. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.
[22]Asafa Jalata, “The Struggle for Knowledge: The Case of Emergent Oromo
Studies,” The African Studies Review, 1996, 39/2: 95-123.
[23] Hamdes Tuso,. ibid.; ; Johan,Markakis thiopiaa: Anatomy of a Traditional Polity. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974; John Markakis and N.Ayele,.Class and Revolution in Ethiopia N.ottingham:Spokesman,Press, 1978. M. A.
[24]M. A. Rahman, M. A. 1993. “The Theoretical Standpoint of PAR [Participatory Action- Research],”in Olando-Fals-Borda and M. A. Rahman(eds.) Action and Knowledge:
Breaking the Monopoly with Participatory Action-Research, New York: Apex Press, 1993, 13-23.
[25] See Asafa Jalata, Oromia & Ethiopia: State Formation and Ethnonational Conflict, 1868-2004, (Lawrenceville, NJ: The Red Sea Press, 2005).
[26] Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, translated by Constance Farrington, (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1963[1961]), p. 38.
[27] Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, translated by Constance Farrington, (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1963[1961]), p. 38.
[28] Fanon, Frantz, A Dying Colonialism, translated by Haakon Chevalier, (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1967[1965]), p. 65.
[29] Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, translated by Richard Philcox, (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 2008[1952]), pp. 2-3.
[30] Hussein Abdilahi Bulihan, ibid. pp. 125-126.
[31] Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 7.
[32] Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press,), pp. 248-249.
[33] Carter G. Woodson, The Miseducation of the Negro, (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, Inc., 1990 [1933], pp. xiii, 2.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Walter Rodney, Ibid. p. 42
[36] Carter G. Woodson explains similar conditions in the African American society, ibid.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid. p. 127.
[39] Ibid. p. 62.
