African Americans’ ongoing struggle for equality should be seen as an inspiring lesson for other subjugated peoples.
Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, who came to power primarily as the result of the Oromo youth protest movement known as Qeerroo, has talked about cultural attitudes behind different communities’ relative success twice in the last two years by comparing the development of Jewish Americans and the underdevelopment of African Americans.
Abiy argued that Jews have become prosperous and powerful Americans by forgetting their past oppression, while Blacks have caused their own suffering and underdevelopment by focusing on their past victimization.
The 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner asserted that American Jews collectively decided to avoid dwelling on their past mistreatment and to look forward to their future achievement. On the contrary, he said, by focusing on their racial oppression and exploitation and by ignoring their future, African Americans have remained at the bottom of U.S. society.
Presumably to try and encourage Oromo to look forward and not backwards, this is a translation of what Abiy said in Afaan Oromo on 30 October 2019 a town hall meeting in eastern Oromia following violence earlier that month:
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