Savagery OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት by Koki Abesolome
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OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት
Koki Abesolome
During the Emperor Haile Selassie era (an era that Oromo elites and laymen alike lament to be an Amhara government) the revolutionary campaigns of “land for the tiller” and “the rights of nations and nationalities” were primarily led by Amhara and Tigray university students. The “rights of nations and nationalities” doctrine that the Oromo political class swears by is authored by an Amhara. Many Amhara revolutionaries have died advancing several campaigns whose primary beneficiaries were Oromos.
More recently, the Amhara unanimously voted in the national Parliament to elevate an Oromo candidate to the prime ministership position. Today, as the Oromo-led government unleashes a Mogassa-brand savagery on the Amhara, the Oromo public is either taking part, cheering on from the sideline or in a radio silent mode.
ኩክኒያም Oromummaa Intellectuals are Bottom Feeders
Talking to current Oromummaa intellectuals is like time-traveling to the medieval era and conversing with the peasants of past centuries. There are many reasons for this.
First, Oromummaa embraces tribalism as a political theology - a system fitting for medieval peasantry. This entails intellectual stunting and leads to moral degeneration and reverse evolution. Like science, morality develops over time because of human progress, cultural assimilations, enlightened reasoning, and the erosion of dogmatic value judgment that is grounded on antiquated and superstitious belief instead of logic.
This is why the moral and ethical standards of the medieval period is different from those of our generation. This is also why our generation has animal rights movement, not to mention human rights movements. The people who are attracted to tribal politics are those who harbor the moral and ethical values of centuries past. Their moral and value system allows them fueling tribal conflicts and profiting from tribal bloodletting. As it turned out a medieval peasant mentality powered by a social media era of technology is a deadly combination.
The Facts are Irrefutable
The two primary demands of the Oromo movement were: “The Rights of Nations and Nationalities” and “Land for the Tiller.” The “rights of nations and nationalities” doctrine that the Oromo political class swears by is authored by Walelegn Mekonen, an Amhara from Wello. History stands as witness to those Amhara and Tigrayans who died advancing numerous political demands that benefited the Oromo more than any other tribe.
There were two prominent political groups that grew out of the student movement and changed Ethiopia for good or bad. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and Meason. The top EPRP founding leaders included, six Amharas (Getachew Maru, Germachew Lema, Samuel Abebe, Abebech Bekele, Keflu Tadesse and Tsegaye Gebremedhin); five Tigryans (Tesfaye Debesay, Teselote Ezkias, Zeru Kishen, Berhane Meskel Reda, and Yosef Adane); and two Oromos (Abera Wakdjira and Feseha Wolde Michael).
Meason’s founding leaders included ten Amharas (Worku Ferede, Kebede Mengesha, Negede Gobeze, Andargachew Assegid, Yayerhad Kitaw, Fikre Merid, Endrias Eshete, Mesfin Kassu, Tamrat Kebede and Amare Tegbaru); four Tigryans (Dereje Alemayehu, Tadesse Gessese, Nigist Adane, and Hagos Gebreyesus, ); three Oromos (Haile Fida, Kebede Diriba, and Terefe Weldetsadeq); one Gurage (Desta Taddesse) and one Eritrean (Haile Merkorios)
I may have missed a name or two or may have added a name or two by mistake, but the general picture holds that Oromos were underrepresented in the student movement leadership and subsequent revolutionary parties that advanced the Oromo political demands.
The seeds that the student movement planted in the 1970 culminated to Oromo’s ascension to the apex of that political power architecture in 2018. Thanks to a large part to Amhara and Southern People representatives who voted for the Oromo candidate. Majority of the Southern People and 100% of Amhara representatives vote for the Oromo candidate.
Acknowledging this is not by any means undermining the role Oromo liberation forces and Jawar himself played in expediting the collapse of the TPLF regime. The fact that the Oromummaa cult totally ignores the role that Student movement and recent non-Oromo youth movements such as Fano, Zerma, Egeto and Woro played in bringing the Oromo to the apex of national power manifests the hallmark of its theology of ውሸት and ክህደት.
People who are interested in reading more about Oromummaa can read my articles that are a Google search away by title. The articles contain over 50 references of published articles and books. None of the references come from Ethiopianist authors. They are all from Oromo and foreign authors.
1. Oromummaa’s Religion Cleansing and Cultural Evilgelization Project
2. The Oromummaa Politics is Weaponized with Lies and Soaked in Blood.
3. Oromummaa is a Low-Grade Nazification Movement
4. Slavery and Terror Were Integral Parts of the Gadaa System
5. Oromummaa’s First Targets of Destruction are the Oromo People and Culture
OROMUMMAA's Ideology and Savagery Explained: Savagery OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት by Koki Abesolome
Last edited by Wedi on 29 Jun 2025, 14:50, edited 5 times in total.
Re: Savagery OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት by Koki Abesolome
Oromummaa’s Religion Cleansing and Cultural Evilgelization Project
Yonas Biru, PhD
In Summary
This is my third article on the topic of Oromummaa in four weeks. Some of my readers wonder why I am “so focused on Oromummaa.” We should focus on it because it is a metastasizing ነቀርሳ. It is led by tribal intellectuals who are guided by Hitler’s mass indoctrination and mobilization processes to create Oromo nationalism. Those who ignore Oromummaa do so at their peril like people who ignored the Nazi movement in its formative years.
What makes Oromummaa dangerous is that it is anti-Christianity and anti-Islam in a country where the two Abrahamic religions account for over 90 percent of the nation’s population. In recent days Oromummaa’s ethnic cleansing endeavor has been elevated to religion/religious cleansing crusade. A 398-page study from the University of South Africa notes Professor Asafa Jalata, the Godfather of Oromummaa, “is
hesitant to affirm Islam as having any rightful place within Oromo identity” and blames the processes of “Abyssinianization and Christianization” of Oromos as racist endeavors.
In an article titled “Promoting and Developing Oromummaa, professor Jalata characterizes Christians and Muslims as Ethiopian “Empire Builders” and describes Mosques and Churches as “Colonial Institutions.” At its core, Oromummaa is a national “political project” to liberate the Oromo identity from Christianity and Islam. In this regard, Professor Jalata’s position is that Christianity and Islam “need to adapt to national Oromummaa.” In this lies irreconcilable conflict between Oromummaa and the two Abrahamic religions.
In pursuit of adopting the Bible to the Oromo identity, Oromummaa scholars have published a new version of the Bible. For example, Psalms 68:31 read’s “Ethiopia is extending her hands to God.” The Oromummaa version reads: “Cush is extending her hands to God.”
In like manner, the famous statement of Prophet Mohammed “If you were to go to Abyssinia (it would be better for you), for the king will not tolerate injustice and it is a
friendly country, until such time as Allah shall relieve you from your distress” has been modified. The word Abyssinia is replaced by Oromia.
Professor Jalata condemns Oromos who embrace and venerate their Islamic or Christian religion as “assimilated former Oromos, [who] like their Habasha masters have been the defenders of the Habasha culture, religion, and the Amharic language and haters of the Oromo history, culture, institutions.” This is why Tulema Oromos are lumped up with Amharas, Gurages, Amaro’s, etc and targeted by Oromummaa mobsters.
The diabolical cruelty that the Oromo political class is unleashing on Christians and Muslims is the result of the evilgelization of Oromummaa. My first article on the topic was titled “The Oromummaa Politics: Weaponized with Lies and Soaked in Blood” and the second was headlined “Oromummaa is a Low Grade Nazification Movement.”
The two articles prompted three rebuttals on Addis Standard, the social media epicenter of the Oromummaa movement. The first rebuttal was penned by Professor Mirgissa Kaba and Girma Gutema. They started off their rejoinder with characterizing my article as a “hostile rhetoric” of a “disgruntled Amhara elite in the diaspora.”
Ironically, they said Oromummaa advocates “do not have traditions of engaging in hollow debates [because] such engagements are counterproductive.” Nonetheless, they felt obliged to respond to my article. They said they needed to set the record straight “as a reference to the future history.” The fact is that my articles unglued the Oromummaa narrative and left it naked. They are on the defensive.
I have four intertwined purposes in writing the present article. First and foremost, it is to show how the evangelization of Oromummaa has led to evilgelization signified by unprecedented inhuman cruelty against Muslims and Christians.
The second purpose is to expose Oromummaa’s futile effort to subjugate Islam and Orthodox Christianity with the aim of resurrecting and elevating Gadaa, Irrecha, and Waaqeffanna as unifying national identities of Oromo.
The third is to show how the rebuttals to my article fail to address the crux of the matter, choosing instead to engage in shameful lies.
The fourth purpose is to explain the reason behind the scaling and speeding up of the Oromummaa sadistic cruelty we have been witnessing lately.
I. The Essence of Oromummaa
Though my two earlier articles were entirely focused on political Oromummaa, all three rebuttals completely steered clear of it. Instead, they bent backward to convince us that Oromummaa is nothing more than an Oromo culture. Professor Mirgissa Kaba and Girma Gutema insist it is “a fundamental concept of being Oromo or Oromoness.” Professor Milkessa M. Gemechu describe it as a “broader concept that is explained by the totality of Oromo culture.”
Unlike his proteges, Professor Jalata is not afraid tells the truth. In an article titled Oromummaa as the master ideology of the Oromo national movement, he admits “Oromummaa goes beyond culture and history.” In a number of articles he admits Oromummaa is a “political project,” and characterizes it as “complex and dynamic” with national and global reach. He believes “global Oromummaa” is important in the “promotion of a global humanity that is free of all forms oppression and exploitation,” which he associates with Christian and Islamic colonial institutions.
As a political project, Oromummaa does not follow a peaceful path. It aims to achieve its goal by any means necessary, including violence. Professor Jalata is on the record, stating: “Oromummaa leadership can mobilize financial resources to support the OLA.”
The OLA is the Oromo Liberation Army that is involved in mass murder mass murder of women and children and kidnapping of Ethiopian and foreigners for ransom.
Here are some international headlines. “The horrific killings of 400 in Tole, allegedly at the hands of the OLA reveal its perpetrators’ utter disregard for human life” (Amnesty International, July 21, 2022). “OLA has been engaging in kidnapping activity, with 20 reported incidents claimed by the group in Oromia in 2022. Kidnap ransoms have helped to raise financial resources to fund the OLA.” (SRM, April 13, 2023). .” “As many as 320 dead in Ethiopia gun attack, witnesses say victims of massacre in country’s western Oromia region were ethnic Amharas” (The Guardian, June 20, 2022). “At least 54 killed [by OLA] in Ethiopia massacre” (Amnesty International, November 2, 2020).
What makes Oromummaa dangerous is that it aspires to change the cultural and social landscape to promote uniquely Oromo traditions and values where the diverse components of cultural, political, economic, and social aspects of life converge. There is nothing wrong with this, but for the fact that Oromummaa wants to achieve its goal by Nazifying its movement.
Just like the Third Reich for Nazi Germany was the restoration of the country to its former glory by purifying and unifying its racial identity, Oromummaa attempts to restore “the Gadaa glory days” by purifying and unifying the Oromo tribal identity.
I.1. The Effort to Crown Gadaa, Irrecha and Waaqeffanna as Unifying Cultures
As a tribal society, Oromo is culturally, religiously, and socially diversified and fragmented. The Oromo of Shewa has a lot more in common with the Amhara of Shewa than with the Oromo of Wellega. The same way, the Muslim Oromos of Arsi have little in common with the Oromo of Shewa or Wellega who are mostly Christians. There is no Oromo-centric culture that ties all Oromos together. The social engineers of Oromummaa saw this as a hurdle to build a unified national movement.
In “The Concept of Oromummaa and Identity Formation in Contemporary Oromo Society,” Professor Jalata states: “As the ideology of the Oromo national movement, national Oromummaa enables the Oromo to retrieve their cultural memories.”
The cultural memories they want to retrieve to make them suitable for Oromummaa as a national and global project are: Gadaa, Irrecha and Waaqeffanna. But this is not an easy task because all three of them are rituals and stand in conflict with the tenets and principles of Islam and Christianity that are followed by 90 percent of the population.
The Gadaa system that was practiced in limited areas of the Oromo tribal land has long been “reduced to a ritual system,” as documented by Professor Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa. Here is how he put it: “Due to the geographical expansion of the Oromo territory and an increasing population, the central Gadaa government declined beginning in the mid-17th century and autonomous regional and local republics took its place.”
This is echoed by Professor Jalata as follows: “The nonfederal nature of the Gadaa System, lack of Strong Central government, lack of regular meeting of Gadaa official and long distance of Gumii (assembly) from political center made Gadaa system less Competent”.
As a governance system Gadaa is a dead social artifact. Furthermore, it faces an insurmountable problem to serve as a unifying Oromo culture because it conflicts with Sharia that nearly 50 percent of the population of Oromo follows.
Similarly, both Muslims and Christians do not see Irrecha as a unifying Oromo culture because at its core it is Idolatry (a belief system that violates the core principles and tenets of the two Abrahamic religions).
This is how it is described in a Tourist website: “Oromo people travel to the shore of Lake Hora, near Debre Zeyit, to thank their god and to request good fortune, health, and fertility for the coming sowing season. Perfumes and [deleted] are smeared on trunks of ancient fig trees.”
There is debate within the Oromo community whether Irrecha is religion or tradition. Dr. Gemechu Megersa, a leading Oromummaa intellectual insists it is religion and those who believe otherwise are “አቃጣሪ.” Listen to his two segment interview on the LTV Show here and here.
Waaqeffanna is an indigenous Oromo religion that is followed by 3.3 percent of the population in the Oromo tribal land. In general, very little is known about it. In the above referenced LTV Show interview, Dr. Megersa failed to give details about it. The interviewer asked him four times if Waaqeffanna has a Holy Book, institutional framework equivalent to Churches or Mosques, bishops and priests or religious practices such as lenting and fasting.
Dr. Megersa dodged the question four times. Finally, because of the persistence of the interviewer he acknowledged Waaqeffanna does not have institutions. He claimed this was because followers of the religion were not allowed to have religious institutions by successive Ethiopian governments. This is, of course, a shameful lie. Waaqeffanna was around for over 400 years before non-Oromo governments ruled the Oromo tribal land. This takes us to the second question. From whom is Oromummaa “retrieving Oromo’s cultural memories”? The answer to this question helps us understand Oromummaa’s similarity with Hitler’s Nazification process.
I.2. Unifying the Oromo Culture Requires Purifying It
In Nazi Germany, unifying Germans required purifying their thoughts and culture from negative influences. Oromummaa is following the same process. This necessitates actively promoting the Oromo culture as a superior culture and maligning and destroying other cultures.
The Oromummaa process includes purifying the social psychology of the Oromo by creating a high-level “Oromo consciousness” and “emancipating Oromo individuals and groups from inferiority complex.” Part of this drive includes introducing Gadaa as a “Classical African Civilization” and revising the Bible and Quran to Oromize them.
Political propaganda or psychological indoctrination is not sufficient to dust up Gadaa and Irrecha from the dead. Similarly, bolstering Waaqeffanna with political steroid is not enough to make it a unifying religion. Waaqeffanna cannot survive where there are competing religions. Therefore, maligning and suppressing or destroying other cultures and religions is a critical part of the Oromummaa purification process.
Professor Jalata’s voluminous writings revolve around one theme: “Externally imposed cultural and religious identities.” More specifically, he argues “Turks, Arabs, Habashas and the Europeans imposed both Islam and Christianity on Oromos.” He does not stop there. He characterizes Christians and Muslims as “empire builders” and sees churches and mosques as “colonialist institutions.”
The attempt to Oromize the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC) was the result of this. The conflict between Muslims that took regional dimension was Oromummaa driven. Recent demolitions of Mosques and Churches are not accidental incidents. They are an integral part of Oromummaa’s agenda to purify the Oromo tribal land from what “borrowed cultural and religious identities.”
I.3. Oromummaa is Sadist with a Mogassa Mindset
Over the centuries, the Oromos have assimilated others into their tribal communities and have been assimilated by others. On both sides brute forces, persuasions, and economic interests incentivized by fear and/or favor played significant part in the assimilation process.
Professor Mohammed Hassen (the most renowned Oromo historian and a member of the OLA delegation in international negotiations) acknowledges “Oromos assimilated more than they were assimilated by others.” He goes further to state that the Mogassa assimilation process was “inspired by political, military, and economic considerations on both sides.”
He acknowledges the Mogassa practice “included absorbing defeated tribes as clients or serfs into the [Oromo] tribal structure… The vanquished, still owners of their plots of land became the serfs or clients of the pastoral Oromo, who demanded service and tribute from them. The Oromo term for the conquered people was Gabbro.” Professor Mohammed is not shy to document the use of slaves as part of the Oromo expansion. Here is how he explained it.
While the Gadaa leaders marched with men and cattle from pasture to pasture as soon as the forage of a place was consumed, the wealthy individuals settled permanently on the lands. Their cattle were looked after by Oromo servants and non-Oromo slaves. By the beginning of the nineteenth century in the Gibe region of western Oromoland the term Borana had already acquired the meaning of noblemen, rich in cattle and slaves.
Yet, the Oromummaa mobsters led by Professor Jalata lament about the forced assimilation of Oromos into other societies while celebrating, glorifying, and canonizing the forced assimilation of other societies into the Oromo tribal structure that benefited from slavery.
Allow me to reintroduce you to Mogassa as seen in the eyes of foreign writers. Here is what C. F. Rey published in 1924 on Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol.23, No. 90. His article was titled “The Arussi and the Other [Oromo] of Abyssinia.” The term he used was the “G” word, which I replaced with Oromo.
“It must be borne in mind that they are and have been for nearly four hundred years, invaders on strange soil… Their methods of warfare were cruel even for that age, and it was they who introduced the horrible practice mutilating the dead, and even the wounded and prisoners.”
Pedro Paez added:
“The Oromo slaughtered many people and carried out extraordinary cruelties, because they cut to pieces the men and many of the boys and girls that they seized, and they opened up pregnant women with their spearheads and pulled the babies out of their wombs. The people of that land therefore came to fear them so much that nobody dared resist them.”
Despite providing other equally negative picture of the Oromo, C. F. Rey provided a boarder perspective, stating:
“I do not wish to suggest that the [Oromo] exhibit these [negative] traits generally, or even to any appreciable extent to-day… But I mention the facts in order that the lamb-like pictures which have been presented of Oromo folks since their subjection by the Abyssinians may be taken at the proper value, and that it may be understood why the Abyssinians have been somewhat harsh in dealing with their century old enemies when their turn came.”
II. The Evilgelization of Oromummaa
Oromummaa is the 21st century equivalent of the 16th century Mogassa empowered by the social psychology of Nazism. Hitler was highly successful in creating, nurturing and weaponizing the population’s anger and fear against designated enemies. They targeted the Jews as arch enemies.
Oromummaa uses the Amhara as well as Christians and Muslims as Oromo’s arch enemies to rile up their followers in anger. The root cause of the Oromo cruelty is the venomous political narrative and nazified political strategy of Oromummaa that claims
“The Ethiopian colonial terrorism and genocide that started during the last decades of the 19th century still continue in the 21st century.”
The Ethiopian empire that Muslims and Christians allegedly built is accused of “brutaliz[ing], murder[ing], terroriz[ing], and introducing an inferiority complex [on the Oromo by] attacking the Oromo culture.” In revenge and vengeance, Oromummaa foot soldiers are primed for retribution with unquenchable thirsty for blood.
Just like Hitler used hate and anger as social energy to create the Aryan race as an alpha race, Oromummaa intellectuals are doing the same. Just like Hitler was able to create followers with repulsively subhuman qualities, Professor Jalata and his Oromummaa mobster intellectuals have created a repulsively subhuman murderers with no moral fiber.
Please listen to helpless women in Hara crying.
“Who will stand up for Harar. They have chased us. It is Over. At this rate, we won’t find means to even be buried.” Click Here for a video clip.
You can also listen to the Amaro representative pleading to the Prime Minister at the 11th Ordinary session of the national Parliament:
“The people of Amaro are surrounded by Oromo on three directions. We are denied access to other regions. It is hard to explain our suffering in words. We are invaded and butchered, and our existence as an ethnic group is in peril.”
One can also see with horror a three minute video clip that shows the inhumanity that the Oromummaa culture manifests. Who would throw a nursing mother out in the cold, deny a Muslim father to collect his properties from his demolished house, and issue directives that anyone who rents a space to non-Oromos and “assimilated former Oromos” (aka Tulema Oromos) will be fined 15,000 Birr?
You may also look at the video clip showing Islamic leaders explaining the injustice they faced. They were not even allowed to collect their Holy Book, the Quran, before their mosque was demolished. Their mosque was legally built but that did not save it from demolition.
These are not isolated cases. According to the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, 111,118 families were forcefully displaced by the Oromo government. The Ethiopian Statistics Service suggests that one-quarter of households are headed by women and the average household size is 4.6 members. This means well over half a million people were forcefully displaced by the Oromo government in the last few months alone.
I highlighted such atrocities in my first two articles. The three rebuttals neither denied nor confirmed them. They ignored the people’s cry. Instead, they tried to paint the Oromo culture as saintly. The term shameful does not begin to explain them.
III. Three Coordinated Rebuttals to My Earlier Articles on Oromummaa
I believe the Oromummaa mobsters found my article damaging; hence their decision to break from tradition and organize multiple responses. Though my articles were entirely focused on political Oromummaa, the three rebuttals completely steered clear from it.
They were in a dilemma. Addressing my presentation of Political Oromummaa would require them to either support it in public or reject it. They could not support political Oromummaa in public because they know it is a Nazification movement. In the meantime, they could not reject it because they support (or are indifferent to) the annihilation and Oromoization of other tribal lands. Par for the course for cult intellectuals, lacking moral standing and bereft of principled guide – they tried to launder the evil political movement with the holy water of the Oromo culture.
The rejoinder to my second article on the Nazification of a tribal political doctrine was penned by a certain Professor Milkessa M. Gemechu. He started his rebuttal suggesting the intention of my articles was a “misinforming framing” of Oromummaa to:
“Advance the long-established hatred and phobia of the Oromo people (they had a derogatory name for the Oromo). They know that there is no Oromo without Oromummaa or Oromo identity.”
I do not know why he had to mention the derogatory name for Oromo. None of my articles has used such a name. His rebuttal was lacking intellectual integrity.
The “Oromo Haters” and “Oromo Phobia” Defense
Interestingly, in his rebuttal to my second article, Professor Gemechu accused me of having “Oromo Phobia.”
Let me introduce him to my heritage. Let us start with Weizero Senait. One of her daughters was Weizero Menen, who was the mother of Dejazmach Kasim, whose son was Dejazmach Biru, my father.
Who was this mysterious Weizero Senait? She was the sister of Negus (King) Michael who came from an Oromo heritage. He was married to one of the daughters of Emperor Menelik. My father’s body rests in Tenta Michael Church, where the King Michael’s body rests. Our Oromo ancestry is traced generations back.
Not to forget my mother’s side, let me introduce the Oromummaa community to her paternal heritage, starting with my grandfather Kegnazmach Habte-Michael Biru Mohammed TanTie (ጣንጤ). On his father’s side he was an Oromo ዘብሄረ ርቄ. His mother Weizero Likemyelesh was Emperor Haile Selassie’s first cousin. Her father Dejazmach Haile-Mariam was the son of Dejazmach Welde Michael Gudissa and the brother of Ras Mekonen, the father of Haile Selassie. My maternal grandmother was Desta Mekonnen Degfe Demo Bunie Buta. She was an Oromo through and through. I am married to a mixed Amhara and Oromo woman.
At times my Oromo ancestors whipped the asses of my Amhara ancestors and at other times their asses were whipped by my Amhara ancestors as it was par for the course of their time. During those days, tribes did not settle differences democratically or file complaints with international courts. They just brutalized each other. The Americans have done the same, just like European before them went through the same brutalization process. That is how states were formed.
The moral of this story is several. First, the Oromo and Amhara intermarriage is very common. Second, no Oromummaa intellectual can pull the “Oromo Phobia” crap on me. Third, Oromos were part of the Ethiopian dynasty. Ethiopian ruling class has always been of hybrid stock, never ethnically [deleted]. Fourth, if the Oromummaa claim that Oromo was colonized by Amhara is true, that makes the Amhara the only colonizer in history that thrones members of its colony to rule it. The fifth and most
important message is that Oromummaa intellectuals are suffering from an incurable psychological trauma caused by their own lies.
My advice to the Oromummaa clan is to get their sorry [deleted] out of grievance politics. If they wish to indulge themselves with grievance politics, they should remember Oromo was a victim as well as a victimizer. No amount of fiction they fabricate will launder the stained blood from the canvases of Oromo historical record.
IV. The Recent Speeding and Scaling Up of Ethnic and Religious Cleansing
Understanding the speeding and scaling up of Oromummaa’s religious cleaning and the heightening of its ruthless inhumanity requires understanding the political dynamics in the Oromo and Amhara tribal lands.
Let me start with some excerpts from an email message I sent to the leadership of the National Movement of Amhara (NAMA/አብን) on October 8, 2019. It read in part:
Currently, Ethiopia is at a crossroad. The conflict within the Oromo political parties seems to favor Abiy, i.e., pro-Ethiopian forces. Oromo hardliner activists such as Bekele Gerba, Ezekiel Gabissa and Tsegaye Arrarsa have lost all credibility and clout in the Oromo tribal land. This means the Oromo liberation theology has lost its spiritual muster at the national level. What happens next is determined by how the Amhara and Oromo political landscapes unfold.
In the current tribal system, there are two potential anchors that can hold the center for Ethiopia: (1) The group that is being led by Abiy, and (2) the Amhara.
We need to do whatever it takes to ensure Amhara tribal extremism does not take root. If Amhara ጎጠኝነት takes roots and grows, Oromo ጎጠኝነት will get oxygen. Such developments will force Abiy to retreat to his Oromo roots. If this happens, the center weakens, and tribalism will hold roots and rejuvenate.
In an article titled “Ethiopia in an Existential Crisis Without a Leader, But This, Too, Shall Pass.” I wrote:
The Amhara-Shene is an out-of-wedlock and [deleted] product of the hermitized intellectual Amhara class. Unlike Oromo Shane that is well organized, Amhara-Shene is more of an off-grid and high-bandwidth network of activists. Its aim is to dial back to the time when the Amhara played a dominant role in state politics. The network’s ideological doctrine coalesces around Amhara nationalism at its nucleus from whence a unitary mindset radiates outward and expresses itself as a national identity. The network has neither a written manifesto nor an organizational platform. Instead, it pushes a passive-aggressive strategy to take the Ethiopian political center stage, using grievance politics both as the power cylinder and transmission belt of its political machinery.
The Amhara Morondum kingdom both at home and in the diaspora failed to differentiate between moderate and extremist Oromos. They attacked Lemma Megersa and Takele Uma with the same ferocity they attacked Ezekiel Gabissa and Tsegaye Arrarsa. I remember the vitriolic I was subjected to when I defended Lemma from false accusations and supported Takele Uma’s appointment. What we are witnessing now is the outcome of such a moronic politics.
Let us understand the Oromo political dynamics from 2018 to 2023. Up until mid 2022, there were three groups in the Oromo political landscape.
• Moderate Forces: Ethiopianist Oromos led by the Prime Minister. This was evident in 2018 when he dissolved OPDO and created ODP, purging all hardliner Oromos. In 2019 December, he dissolved ODP and Created Oromo-PP. This is when he brought pro-Ethiopianist forces and defeated Jawar and company.
In Foreign Policy magazine, Professor Milkessa M. Gemechu complained about it under the headline: “How Abiy Ahmed Betrayed Oromia and Endangered Ethiopia.” The Professor who is a former member of the Central Committee of the Oromo Democratic Party wrote: “Not even one year into his premiership, he was openly regarded as a traitor in Oromia.” Milkessa accused the PM of: (1) purging “hardcore Oromo
nationalists from any role in his government at federal, regional, and local government levels”; (2) demonizing the Qeerroo as an “ungovernable pestilence that must be dealt with”; and (3) shifting the Oromo Democratic Party “dramatically toward the public dominance of Ethiopian nationalists who are organized around Amharic language and culture…”
• Extremist Forces: Shene-Oromo and its Oromummaa intellectuals who dream of giving birth to an independent Greater Oromia by force or referendum.
• Opportunist Forces: A shadow government within Oromo-PP that wants to recreate an Ethiopia under an Oromo hegemonic rule. This groups tolerated and even supported Shene-Oromo as an insurance policy to thwart the Prime Minister’s pan Ethiopianist reform agenda. In the meantime, it tried to ensure Oromo-Shene would not be strong enough to topple Oromo-PP.
Sadly, Amhara extremists helped the Oromummaa community to weaken the Prime Minister. As I feared he retreated to his Oromo root. The Oromummaa camp is heightening its tribal and religious cleansing to push the country to a point of no return. The Prime Minister is now struggling to cling to power. He is rolling with the winning group.
Ethiopian intellectuals, particularly those from Oromo, Amhara and Tigray tribal lands are a curse to the nation. They each claim to be a source of civilization. Tigrayans cannot see their past, present, and future outside on the Axum obelisk. The Amhara are stuck with Lalibela and believe there is no civilization before or after. The Oromo is now jumping through a clown’s hoop to register Gadda (an obsolete Oromo ritual) as a great civilization. In the meantime, their people live a destitute life sharing drinking-water with wild animals.
With the grace of God, Tigray intellectuals have self-destructed beyond redemption and resuscitation. Ethiopia’s future depends largely by what happens in the Oromummaa and Amhara tribal lands.
Sometimes, I wonder if Oromo and Amhara intellectuals are even aware that two decades have gone by since the world welcomed the 21st century. By Amhara I am talking about a plethora of clowns running the gamut from Vision Ethiopia to Amhara Association of America and many in between.
In May of this month alone, two different groups invited Memhir Fantahun Wakie to give speeches. I summoned the courage to watch his speech for two minutes. In those two minutes he talked a tone of አቱቶ ቡቱቶ and some አያ ሰባት ቀንዶ stuff.
Ethiopians must fight the Oromummaa empire under construction, but they cannot do so without first (or at the very least simultaneously) addressing the አያ ሰባት ቀንዶ morondum kingdom.
Recently an all-day conference was organized to discuss the state of the nation and find a path forward. One of the main recent articles that has led to an international sanction campaign was a 20-page manifesto I authored with input from several prominent opposition groups. I was asked to present it at the conference. I agreed. My name was removed from the list of presenters because some members of the morondum community of #NoMore, Amhara-Shene and hermitized አያ ሰባት ቀንዶ intellectuals demanded I be removed.
If you want to see the reason why Ethiopia has failed to counter Oromummaa’s part primitive and part cult and unquestionably savage movement, look no further than the morondum kingdom. It gives me no pleasure to talk about it, but there is no way Ethiopia can get out of its existential threat until it deals with its intellectually stunted
and morally malnourished morondum kingdom.
To close it with a positive note, it must be noted that the #NoMore establishment has taken a turn for the better. One can only hope the hermitized አያ ሰባት ቀንዶ clan will come to realize it is unfit to function in the 21st century and follow Eskinder Nega to ገዳም.
ካጠፋሁ ይቅርታ
PS: Most of Asafa Jalata’s articles are published by University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The University must be held accountable for providing him with a venue to spread lies. I have sent a copy of this article to the provost (provost@utk.edu) to investigate if Jalata’s writings violate the University’s publication standard. For example, most of his articles are reruns using different titles. They contain easily verifiable lies and propagate anti Christianity and anti-Islam crimes. If you agree please send this article with a request to investigate him.
https://borkena.com/2023/06/03/oromumma ... n-project/
Yonas Biru, PhD
In Summary
This is my third article on the topic of Oromummaa in four weeks. Some of my readers wonder why I am “so focused on Oromummaa.” We should focus on it because it is a metastasizing ነቀርሳ. It is led by tribal intellectuals who are guided by Hitler’s mass indoctrination and mobilization processes to create Oromo nationalism. Those who ignore Oromummaa do so at their peril like people who ignored the Nazi movement in its formative years.
What makes Oromummaa dangerous is that it is anti-Christianity and anti-Islam in a country where the two Abrahamic religions account for over 90 percent of the nation’s population. In recent days Oromummaa’s ethnic cleansing endeavor has been elevated to religion/religious cleansing crusade. A 398-page study from the University of South Africa notes Professor Asafa Jalata, the Godfather of Oromummaa, “is
hesitant to affirm Islam as having any rightful place within Oromo identity” and blames the processes of “Abyssinianization and Christianization” of Oromos as racist endeavors.
In an article titled “Promoting and Developing Oromummaa, professor Jalata characterizes Christians and Muslims as Ethiopian “Empire Builders” and describes Mosques and Churches as “Colonial Institutions.” At its core, Oromummaa is a national “political project” to liberate the Oromo identity from Christianity and Islam. In this regard, Professor Jalata’s position is that Christianity and Islam “need to adapt to national Oromummaa.” In this lies irreconcilable conflict between Oromummaa and the two Abrahamic religions.
In pursuit of adopting the Bible to the Oromo identity, Oromummaa scholars have published a new version of the Bible. For example, Psalms 68:31 read’s “Ethiopia is extending her hands to God.” The Oromummaa version reads: “Cush is extending her hands to God.”
In like manner, the famous statement of Prophet Mohammed “If you were to go to Abyssinia (it would be better for you), for the king will not tolerate injustice and it is a
friendly country, until such time as Allah shall relieve you from your distress” has been modified. The word Abyssinia is replaced by Oromia.
Professor Jalata condemns Oromos who embrace and venerate their Islamic or Christian religion as “assimilated former Oromos, [who] like their Habasha masters have been the defenders of the Habasha culture, religion, and the Amharic language and haters of the Oromo history, culture, institutions.” This is why Tulema Oromos are lumped up with Amharas, Gurages, Amaro’s, etc and targeted by Oromummaa mobsters.
The diabolical cruelty that the Oromo political class is unleashing on Christians and Muslims is the result of the evilgelization of Oromummaa. My first article on the topic was titled “The Oromummaa Politics: Weaponized with Lies and Soaked in Blood” and the second was headlined “Oromummaa is a Low Grade Nazification Movement.”
The two articles prompted three rebuttals on Addis Standard, the social media epicenter of the Oromummaa movement. The first rebuttal was penned by Professor Mirgissa Kaba and Girma Gutema. They started off their rejoinder with characterizing my article as a “hostile rhetoric” of a “disgruntled Amhara elite in the diaspora.”
Ironically, they said Oromummaa advocates “do not have traditions of engaging in hollow debates [because] such engagements are counterproductive.” Nonetheless, they felt obliged to respond to my article. They said they needed to set the record straight “as a reference to the future history.” The fact is that my articles unglued the Oromummaa narrative and left it naked. They are on the defensive.
I have four intertwined purposes in writing the present article. First and foremost, it is to show how the evangelization of Oromummaa has led to evilgelization signified by unprecedented inhuman cruelty against Muslims and Christians.
The second purpose is to expose Oromummaa’s futile effort to subjugate Islam and Orthodox Christianity with the aim of resurrecting and elevating Gadaa, Irrecha, and Waaqeffanna as unifying national identities of Oromo.
The third is to show how the rebuttals to my article fail to address the crux of the matter, choosing instead to engage in shameful lies.
The fourth purpose is to explain the reason behind the scaling and speeding up of the Oromummaa sadistic cruelty we have been witnessing lately.
I. The Essence of Oromummaa
Though my two earlier articles were entirely focused on political Oromummaa, all three rebuttals completely steered clear of it. Instead, they bent backward to convince us that Oromummaa is nothing more than an Oromo culture. Professor Mirgissa Kaba and Girma Gutema insist it is “a fundamental concept of being Oromo or Oromoness.” Professor Milkessa M. Gemechu describe it as a “broader concept that is explained by the totality of Oromo culture.”
Unlike his proteges, Professor Jalata is not afraid tells the truth. In an article titled Oromummaa as the master ideology of the Oromo national movement, he admits “Oromummaa goes beyond culture and history.” In a number of articles he admits Oromummaa is a “political project,” and characterizes it as “complex and dynamic” with national and global reach. He believes “global Oromummaa” is important in the “promotion of a global humanity that is free of all forms oppression and exploitation,” which he associates with Christian and Islamic colonial institutions.
As a political project, Oromummaa does not follow a peaceful path. It aims to achieve its goal by any means necessary, including violence. Professor Jalata is on the record, stating: “Oromummaa leadership can mobilize financial resources to support the OLA.”
The OLA is the Oromo Liberation Army that is involved in mass murder mass murder of women and children and kidnapping of Ethiopian and foreigners for ransom.
Here are some international headlines. “The horrific killings of 400 in Tole, allegedly at the hands of the OLA reveal its perpetrators’ utter disregard for human life” (Amnesty International, July 21, 2022). “OLA has been engaging in kidnapping activity, with 20 reported incidents claimed by the group in Oromia in 2022. Kidnap ransoms have helped to raise financial resources to fund the OLA.” (SRM, April 13, 2023). .” “As many as 320 dead in Ethiopia gun attack, witnesses say victims of massacre in country’s western Oromia region were ethnic Amharas” (The Guardian, June 20, 2022). “At least 54 killed [by OLA] in Ethiopia massacre” (Amnesty International, November 2, 2020).
What makes Oromummaa dangerous is that it aspires to change the cultural and social landscape to promote uniquely Oromo traditions and values where the diverse components of cultural, political, economic, and social aspects of life converge. There is nothing wrong with this, but for the fact that Oromummaa wants to achieve its goal by Nazifying its movement.
Just like the Third Reich for Nazi Germany was the restoration of the country to its former glory by purifying and unifying its racial identity, Oromummaa attempts to restore “the Gadaa glory days” by purifying and unifying the Oromo tribal identity.
I.1. The Effort to Crown Gadaa, Irrecha and Waaqeffanna as Unifying Cultures
As a tribal society, Oromo is culturally, religiously, and socially diversified and fragmented. The Oromo of Shewa has a lot more in common with the Amhara of Shewa than with the Oromo of Wellega. The same way, the Muslim Oromos of Arsi have little in common with the Oromo of Shewa or Wellega who are mostly Christians. There is no Oromo-centric culture that ties all Oromos together. The social engineers of Oromummaa saw this as a hurdle to build a unified national movement.
In “The Concept of Oromummaa and Identity Formation in Contemporary Oromo Society,” Professor Jalata states: “As the ideology of the Oromo national movement, national Oromummaa enables the Oromo to retrieve their cultural memories.”
The cultural memories they want to retrieve to make them suitable for Oromummaa as a national and global project are: Gadaa, Irrecha and Waaqeffanna. But this is not an easy task because all three of them are rituals and stand in conflict with the tenets and principles of Islam and Christianity that are followed by 90 percent of the population.
The Gadaa system that was practiced in limited areas of the Oromo tribal land has long been “reduced to a ritual system,” as documented by Professor Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa. Here is how he put it: “Due to the geographical expansion of the Oromo territory and an increasing population, the central Gadaa government declined beginning in the mid-17th century and autonomous regional and local republics took its place.”
This is echoed by Professor Jalata as follows: “The nonfederal nature of the Gadaa System, lack of Strong Central government, lack of regular meeting of Gadaa official and long distance of Gumii (assembly) from political center made Gadaa system less Competent”.
As a governance system Gadaa is a dead social artifact. Furthermore, it faces an insurmountable problem to serve as a unifying Oromo culture because it conflicts with Sharia that nearly 50 percent of the population of Oromo follows.
Similarly, both Muslims and Christians do not see Irrecha as a unifying Oromo culture because at its core it is Idolatry (a belief system that violates the core principles and tenets of the two Abrahamic religions).
This is how it is described in a Tourist website: “Oromo people travel to the shore of Lake Hora, near Debre Zeyit, to thank their god and to request good fortune, health, and fertility for the coming sowing season. Perfumes and [deleted] are smeared on trunks of ancient fig trees.”
There is debate within the Oromo community whether Irrecha is religion or tradition. Dr. Gemechu Megersa, a leading Oromummaa intellectual insists it is religion and those who believe otherwise are “አቃጣሪ.” Listen to his two segment interview on the LTV Show here and here.
Waaqeffanna is an indigenous Oromo religion that is followed by 3.3 percent of the population in the Oromo tribal land. In general, very little is known about it. In the above referenced LTV Show interview, Dr. Megersa failed to give details about it. The interviewer asked him four times if Waaqeffanna has a Holy Book, institutional framework equivalent to Churches or Mosques, bishops and priests or religious practices such as lenting and fasting.
Dr. Megersa dodged the question four times. Finally, because of the persistence of the interviewer he acknowledged Waaqeffanna does not have institutions. He claimed this was because followers of the religion were not allowed to have religious institutions by successive Ethiopian governments. This is, of course, a shameful lie. Waaqeffanna was around for over 400 years before non-Oromo governments ruled the Oromo tribal land. This takes us to the second question. From whom is Oromummaa “retrieving Oromo’s cultural memories”? The answer to this question helps us understand Oromummaa’s similarity with Hitler’s Nazification process.
I.2. Unifying the Oromo Culture Requires Purifying It
In Nazi Germany, unifying Germans required purifying their thoughts and culture from negative influences. Oromummaa is following the same process. This necessitates actively promoting the Oromo culture as a superior culture and maligning and destroying other cultures.
The Oromummaa process includes purifying the social psychology of the Oromo by creating a high-level “Oromo consciousness” and “emancipating Oromo individuals and groups from inferiority complex.” Part of this drive includes introducing Gadaa as a “Classical African Civilization” and revising the Bible and Quran to Oromize them.
Political propaganda or psychological indoctrination is not sufficient to dust up Gadaa and Irrecha from the dead. Similarly, bolstering Waaqeffanna with political steroid is not enough to make it a unifying religion. Waaqeffanna cannot survive where there are competing religions. Therefore, maligning and suppressing or destroying other cultures and religions is a critical part of the Oromummaa purification process.
Professor Jalata’s voluminous writings revolve around one theme: “Externally imposed cultural and religious identities.” More specifically, he argues “Turks, Arabs, Habashas and the Europeans imposed both Islam and Christianity on Oromos.” He does not stop there. He characterizes Christians and Muslims as “empire builders” and sees churches and mosques as “colonialist institutions.”
The attempt to Oromize the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC) was the result of this. The conflict between Muslims that took regional dimension was Oromummaa driven. Recent demolitions of Mosques and Churches are not accidental incidents. They are an integral part of Oromummaa’s agenda to purify the Oromo tribal land from what “borrowed cultural and religious identities.”
I.3. Oromummaa is Sadist with a Mogassa Mindset
Over the centuries, the Oromos have assimilated others into their tribal communities and have been assimilated by others. On both sides brute forces, persuasions, and economic interests incentivized by fear and/or favor played significant part in the assimilation process.
Professor Mohammed Hassen (the most renowned Oromo historian and a member of the OLA delegation in international negotiations) acknowledges “Oromos assimilated more than they were assimilated by others.” He goes further to state that the Mogassa assimilation process was “inspired by political, military, and economic considerations on both sides.”
He acknowledges the Mogassa practice “included absorbing defeated tribes as clients or serfs into the [Oromo] tribal structure… The vanquished, still owners of their plots of land became the serfs or clients of the pastoral Oromo, who demanded service and tribute from them. The Oromo term for the conquered people was Gabbro.” Professor Mohammed is not shy to document the use of slaves as part of the Oromo expansion. Here is how he explained it.
While the Gadaa leaders marched with men and cattle from pasture to pasture as soon as the forage of a place was consumed, the wealthy individuals settled permanently on the lands. Their cattle were looked after by Oromo servants and non-Oromo slaves. By the beginning of the nineteenth century in the Gibe region of western Oromoland the term Borana had already acquired the meaning of noblemen, rich in cattle and slaves.
Yet, the Oromummaa mobsters led by Professor Jalata lament about the forced assimilation of Oromos into other societies while celebrating, glorifying, and canonizing the forced assimilation of other societies into the Oromo tribal structure that benefited from slavery.
Allow me to reintroduce you to Mogassa as seen in the eyes of foreign writers. Here is what C. F. Rey published in 1924 on Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol.23, No. 90. His article was titled “The Arussi and the Other [Oromo] of Abyssinia.” The term he used was the “G” word, which I replaced with Oromo.
“It must be borne in mind that they are and have been for nearly four hundred years, invaders on strange soil… Their methods of warfare were cruel even for that age, and it was they who introduced the horrible practice mutilating the dead, and even the wounded and prisoners.”
Pedro Paez added:
“The Oromo slaughtered many people and carried out extraordinary cruelties, because they cut to pieces the men and many of the boys and girls that they seized, and they opened up pregnant women with their spearheads and pulled the babies out of their wombs. The people of that land therefore came to fear them so much that nobody dared resist them.”
Despite providing other equally negative picture of the Oromo, C. F. Rey provided a boarder perspective, stating:
“I do not wish to suggest that the [Oromo] exhibit these [negative] traits generally, or even to any appreciable extent to-day… But I mention the facts in order that the lamb-like pictures which have been presented of Oromo folks since their subjection by the Abyssinians may be taken at the proper value, and that it may be understood why the Abyssinians have been somewhat harsh in dealing with their century old enemies when their turn came.”
II. The Evilgelization of Oromummaa
Oromummaa is the 21st century equivalent of the 16th century Mogassa empowered by the social psychology of Nazism. Hitler was highly successful in creating, nurturing and weaponizing the population’s anger and fear against designated enemies. They targeted the Jews as arch enemies.
Oromummaa uses the Amhara as well as Christians and Muslims as Oromo’s arch enemies to rile up their followers in anger. The root cause of the Oromo cruelty is the venomous political narrative and nazified political strategy of Oromummaa that claims
“The Ethiopian colonial terrorism and genocide that started during the last decades of the 19th century still continue in the 21st century.”
The Ethiopian empire that Muslims and Christians allegedly built is accused of “brutaliz[ing], murder[ing], terroriz[ing], and introducing an inferiority complex [on the Oromo by] attacking the Oromo culture.” In revenge and vengeance, Oromummaa foot soldiers are primed for retribution with unquenchable thirsty for blood.
Just like Hitler used hate and anger as social energy to create the Aryan race as an alpha race, Oromummaa intellectuals are doing the same. Just like Hitler was able to create followers with repulsively subhuman qualities, Professor Jalata and his Oromummaa mobster intellectuals have created a repulsively subhuman murderers with no moral fiber.
Please listen to helpless women in Hara crying.
“Who will stand up for Harar. They have chased us. It is Over. At this rate, we won’t find means to even be buried.” Click Here for a video clip.
You can also listen to the Amaro representative pleading to the Prime Minister at the 11th Ordinary session of the national Parliament:
“The people of Amaro are surrounded by Oromo on three directions. We are denied access to other regions. It is hard to explain our suffering in words. We are invaded and butchered, and our existence as an ethnic group is in peril.”
One can also see with horror a three minute video clip that shows the inhumanity that the Oromummaa culture manifests. Who would throw a nursing mother out in the cold, deny a Muslim father to collect his properties from his demolished house, and issue directives that anyone who rents a space to non-Oromos and “assimilated former Oromos” (aka Tulema Oromos) will be fined 15,000 Birr?
You may also look at the video clip showing Islamic leaders explaining the injustice they faced. They were not even allowed to collect their Holy Book, the Quran, before their mosque was demolished. Their mosque was legally built but that did not save it from demolition.
These are not isolated cases. According to the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, 111,118 families were forcefully displaced by the Oromo government. The Ethiopian Statistics Service suggests that one-quarter of households are headed by women and the average household size is 4.6 members. This means well over half a million people were forcefully displaced by the Oromo government in the last few months alone.
I highlighted such atrocities in my first two articles. The three rebuttals neither denied nor confirmed them. They ignored the people’s cry. Instead, they tried to paint the Oromo culture as saintly. The term shameful does not begin to explain them.
III. Three Coordinated Rebuttals to My Earlier Articles on Oromummaa
I believe the Oromummaa mobsters found my article damaging; hence their decision to break from tradition and organize multiple responses. Though my articles were entirely focused on political Oromummaa, the three rebuttals completely steered clear from it.
They were in a dilemma. Addressing my presentation of Political Oromummaa would require them to either support it in public or reject it. They could not support political Oromummaa in public because they know it is a Nazification movement. In the meantime, they could not reject it because they support (or are indifferent to) the annihilation and Oromoization of other tribal lands. Par for the course for cult intellectuals, lacking moral standing and bereft of principled guide – they tried to launder the evil political movement with the holy water of the Oromo culture.
The rejoinder to my second article on the Nazification of a tribal political doctrine was penned by a certain Professor Milkessa M. Gemechu. He started his rebuttal suggesting the intention of my articles was a “misinforming framing” of Oromummaa to:
“Advance the long-established hatred and phobia of the Oromo people (they had a derogatory name for the Oromo). They know that there is no Oromo without Oromummaa or Oromo identity.”
I do not know why he had to mention the derogatory name for Oromo. None of my articles has used such a name. His rebuttal was lacking intellectual integrity.
The “Oromo Haters” and “Oromo Phobia” Defense
Interestingly, in his rebuttal to my second article, Professor Gemechu accused me of having “Oromo Phobia.”
Let me introduce him to my heritage. Let us start with Weizero Senait. One of her daughters was Weizero Menen, who was the mother of Dejazmach Kasim, whose son was Dejazmach Biru, my father.
Who was this mysterious Weizero Senait? She was the sister of Negus (King) Michael who came from an Oromo heritage. He was married to one of the daughters of Emperor Menelik. My father’s body rests in Tenta Michael Church, where the King Michael’s body rests. Our Oromo ancestry is traced generations back.
Not to forget my mother’s side, let me introduce the Oromummaa community to her paternal heritage, starting with my grandfather Kegnazmach Habte-Michael Biru Mohammed TanTie (ጣንጤ). On his father’s side he was an Oromo ዘብሄረ ርቄ. His mother Weizero Likemyelesh was Emperor Haile Selassie’s first cousin. Her father Dejazmach Haile-Mariam was the son of Dejazmach Welde Michael Gudissa and the brother of Ras Mekonen, the father of Haile Selassie. My maternal grandmother was Desta Mekonnen Degfe Demo Bunie Buta. She was an Oromo through and through. I am married to a mixed Amhara and Oromo woman.
At times my Oromo ancestors whipped the asses of my Amhara ancestors and at other times their asses were whipped by my Amhara ancestors as it was par for the course of their time. During those days, tribes did not settle differences democratically or file complaints with international courts. They just brutalized each other. The Americans have done the same, just like European before them went through the same brutalization process. That is how states were formed.
The moral of this story is several. First, the Oromo and Amhara intermarriage is very common. Second, no Oromummaa intellectual can pull the “Oromo Phobia” crap on me. Third, Oromos were part of the Ethiopian dynasty. Ethiopian ruling class has always been of hybrid stock, never ethnically [deleted]. Fourth, if the Oromummaa claim that Oromo was colonized by Amhara is true, that makes the Amhara the only colonizer in history that thrones members of its colony to rule it. The fifth and most
important message is that Oromummaa intellectuals are suffering from an incurable psychological trauma caused by their own lies.
My advice to the Oromummaa clan is to get their sorry [deleted] out of grievance politics. If they wish to indulge themselves with grievance politics, they should remember Oromo was a victim as well as a victimizer. No amount of fiction they fabricate will launder the stained blood from the canvases of Oromo historical record.
IV. The Recent Speeding and Scaling Up of Ethnic and Religious Cleansing
Understanding the speeding and scaling up of Oromummaa’s religious cleaning and the heightening of its ruthless inhumanity requires understanding the political dynamics in the Oromo and Amhara tribal lands.
Let me start with some excerpts from an email message I sent to the leadership of the National Movement of Amhara (NAMA/አብን) on October 8, 2019. It read in part:
Currently, Ethiopia is at a crossroad. The conflict within the Oromo political parties seems to favor Abiy, i.e., pro-Ethiopian forces. Oromo hardliner activists such as Bekele Gerba, Ezekiel Gabissa and Tsegaye Arrarsa have lost all credibility and clout in the Oromo tribal land. This means the Oromo liberation theology has lost its spiritual muster at the national level. What happens next is determined by how the Amhara and Oromo political landscapes unfold.
In the current tribal system, there are two potential anchors that can hold the center for Ethiopia: (1) The group that is being led by Abiy, and (2) the Amhara.
We need to do whatever it takes to ensure Amhara tribal extremism does not take root. If Amhara ጎጠኝነት takes roots and grows, Oromo ጎጠኝነት will get oxygen. Such developments will force Abiy to retreat to his Oromo roots. If this happens, the center weakens, and tribalism will hold roots and rejuvenate.
In an article titled “Ethiopia in an Existential Crisis Without a Leader, But This, Too, Shall Pass.” I wrote:
The Amhara-Shene is an out-of-wedlock and [deleted] product of the hermitized intellectual Amhara class. Unlike Oromo Shane that is well organized, Amhara-Shene is more of an off-grid and high-bandwidth network of activists. Its aim is to dial back to the time when the Amhara played a dominant role in state politics. The network’s ideological doctrine coalesces around Amhara nationalism at its nucleus from whence a unitary mindset radiates outward and expresses itself as a national identity. The network has neither a written manifesto nor an organizational platform. Instead, it pushes a passive-aggressive strategy to take the Ethiopian political center stage, using grievance politics both as the power cylinder and transmission belt of its political machinery.
The Amhara Morondum kingdom both at home and in the diaspora failed to differentiate between moderate and extremist Oromos. They attacked Lemma Megersa and Takele Uma with the same ferocity they attacked Ezekiel Gabissa and Tsegaye Arrarsa. I remember the vitriolic I was subjected to when I defended Lemma from false accusations and supported Takele Uma’s appointment. What we are witnessing now is the outcome of such a moronic politics.
Let us understand the Oromo political dynamics from 2018 to 2023. Up until mid 2022, there were three groups in the Oromo political landscape.
• Moderate Forces: Ethiopianist Oromos led by the Prime Minister. This was evident in 2018 when he dissolved OPDO and created ODP, purging all hardliner Oromos. In 2019 December, he dissolved ODP and Created Oromo-PP. This is when he brought pro-Ethiopianist forces and defeated Jawar and company.
In Foreign Policy magazine, Professor Milkessa M. Gemechu complained about it under the headline: “How Abiy Ahmed Betrayed Oromia and Endangered Ethiopia.” The Professor who is a former member of the Central Committee of the Oromo Democratic Party wrote: “Not even one year into his premiership, he was openly regarded as a traitor in Oromia.” Milkessa accused the PM of: (1) purging “hardcore Oromo
nationalists from any role in his government at federal, regional, and local government levels”; (2) demonizing the Qeerroo as an “ungovernable pestilence that must be dealt with”; and (3) shifting the Oromo Democratic Party “dramatically toward the public dominance of Ethiopian nationalists who are organized around Amharic language and culture…”
• Extremist Forces: Shene-Oromo and its Oromummaa intellectuals who dream of giving birth to an independent Greater Oromia by force or referendum.
• Opportunist Forces: A shadow government within Oromo-PP that wants to recreate an Ethiopia under an Oromo hegemonic rule. This groups tolerated and even supported Shene-Oromo as an insurance policy to thwart the Prime Minister’s pan Ethiopianist reform agenda. In the meantime, it tried to ensure Oromo-Shene would not be strong enough to topple Oromo-PP.
Sadly, Amhara extremists helped the Oromummaa community to weaken the Prime Minister. As I feared he retreated to his Oromo root. The Oromummaa camp is heightening its tribal and religious cleansing to push the country to a point of no return. The Prime Minister is now struggling to cling to power. He is rolling with the winning group.
Ethiopian intellectuals, particularly those from Oromo, Amhara and Tigray tribal lands are a curse to the nation. They each claim to be a source of civilization. Tigrayans cannot see their past, present, and future outside on the Axum obelisk. The Amhara are stuck with Lalibela and believe there is no civilization before or after. The Oromo is now jumping through a clown’s hoop to register Gadda (an obsolete Oromo ritual) as a great civilization. In the meantime, their people live a destitute life sharing drinking-water with wild animals.
With the grace of God, Tigray intellectuals have self-destructed beyond redemption and resuscitation. Ethiopia’s future depends largely by what happens in the Oromummaa and Amhara tribal lands.
Sometimes, I wonder if Oromo and Amhara intellectuals are even aware that two decades have gone by since the world welcomed the 21st century. By Amhara I am talking about a plethora of clowns running the gamut from Vision Ethiopia to Amhara Association of America and many in between.
In May of this month alone, two different groups invited Memhir Fantahun Wakie to give speeches. I summoned the courage to watch his speech for two minutes. In those two minutes he talked a tone of አቱቶ ቡቱቶ and some አያ ሰባት ቀንዶ stuff.
Ethiopians must fight the Oromummaa empire under construction, but they cannot do so without first (or at the very least simultaneously) addressing the አያ ሰባት ቀንዶ morondum kingdom.
Recently an all-day conference was organized to discuss the state of the nation and find a path forward. One of the main recent articles that has led to an international sanction campaign was a 20-page manifesto I authored with input from several prominent opposition groups. I was asked to present it at the conference. I agreed. My name was removed from the list of presenters because some members of the morondum community of #NoMore, Amhara-Shene and hermitized አያ ሰባት ቀንዶ intellectuals demanded I be removed.
If you want to see the reason why Ethiopia has failed to counter Oromummaa’s part primitive and part cult and unquestionably savage movement, look no further than the morondum kingdom. It gives me no pleasure to talk about it, but there is no way Ethiopia can get out of its existential threat until it deals with its intellectually stunted
and morally malnourished morondum kingdom.
To close it with a positive note, it must be noted that the #NoMore establishment has taken a turn for the better. One can only hope the hermitized አያ ሰባት ቀንዶ clan will come to realize it is unfit to function in the 21st century and follow Eskinder Nega to ገዳም.
ካጠፋሁ ይቅርታ
PS: Most of Asafa Jalata’s articles are published by University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The University must be held accountable for providing him with a venue to spread lies. I have sent a copy of this article to the provost (provost@utk.edu) to investigate if Jalata’s writings violate the University’s publication standard. For example, most of his articles are reruns using different titles. They contain easily verifiable lies and propagate anti Christianity and anti-Islam crimes. If you agree please send this article with a request to investigate him.
https://borkena.com/2023/06/03/oromumma ... n-project/
Re: Savagery OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት by Koki Abesolome
The Oromummaa Politics is Weaponized with Lies and Soaked in Blood
Yonas Biru, PhD
This article is inspired by a recent op-ed on Addis Standard online titled “Critiquing the anti-Oromo nascent narrative of disgruntled Amhara elite in the diaspora: A rejoinder to the wrong manifesto.” The Manifesto in reference is my proposal titled “Averting Civil War in Ethiopia: An Emergency Manifesto.”
Speaking of my manifesto, the authors of the op-ed, Professor Mirgissa Kaba and Girma Gutema (MK & GG), started with an eyebrow raising statement. “In our view, the Oromo as well as all nations and nationalities that have suffered under the subjugation of the Amhara political elites in Ethiopia often do not give much attention to such hostile rhetoric as well as intentionally corrupted writings.”
Evidently, every general statement allows an exception or two. Hence their attempt at rebutting my Manifesto, fearing that if left unchecked the “nascent narrative” can become “a reference to the future history.” They added: “Individuals and their narrow groupings like that of Dr Yonas Biru still appear to influence the process through their writing, advocacy and twisting their alike in foreign government system.”
My Manifesto aimed at four broad areas: (1) bringing to light the worsening political and economic crises under the Oromo-led government; (2) uncovering the underlying causes of the crises, namely recycled Gedaa and emboldened Oromummaa; (3) exploring a win-win nexus for an all-inclusive dialogue, and (4) promoting domestic and international campaigns to pressure the government towards a peaceful resolution. The rejoinder is focused on defending Gedaa and Oromummaa. No effort was made to address items 3 and 4 at all.
I need to flag three caveats from the outset in the interest of clarity. First, the term Oromummaa has two dimensions: social and political. The social meaning of the term is “being Oromo.” It reflects Oromo’s humane traditions and ethos of welcoming outsiders with a sense of community value and welfare. As a political doctrine, Oromummaa imposes the Oromo language, culture, and identity on other tribal communities through coercion – political, economic, and military.
Second, when critics of the Oromummaa political aggression pen legitimate exposés, the common Oromummaa scholars’ response is intentionally muddling the political and social aspects of Oromummaa and accusing their critics of tarnishing the Oromo social standing. This is what MK & GG did in their deceptively crafted and lie-ridden rejoinder.
Third, as noted in my manifesto, since its formation, the Oromo Prosperity Party (Oromo-PP) has gone through subtle but intense infighting between Ethiopianist and Oromummaa factions. Over the last year-and-half, the Oromummaa doctrine has increasingly controlled the levers of power and the PM has progressively become a part of it.
As noted in my Manifesto, Oromummaa is in equal measure part cult and part political dogma. Its adherents uphold it above religion and family. Oromo leaders, including the President of the Oromo land have publicly accused Oromos with Biblical and Islamic names of undermining their Oromummaa roots. We have witnessed one of the most prominent Oromo political leaders, Bekele Gerba, attributing the decline of the Oromo language to interethnic marriage. We have also heard Oromo activists calling for a mass divorce to free Oromos from their Amhara wives and husbands, leaving behind their half-cast children.
The purpose of this article is to show the extent that Oromummaa scholars go to weaponize false claims and outright lies as a strategic defense of the Oromummaa cult. A rudimentary fact checking would have led to the rejection of the rejoinder. Its publication shows not only of the saddening lack of intellectual ethics on the part of the authors, but also the absence of journalistic integrity on the part of the editors of Addis Standard.
My manifesto was clear in its disposition and objectives in all four broad areas noted above. Let us briefly revisit the key issues.
Crisis Under the Oromo-Led Government
The economic and political crises highlighted in my manifesto were data driven and well documented with 17 references from credible international agencies. They include the IMF, the World Bank, the UN, Transparency International (the most authoritative institution on corruption indexes), Heritage Foundation (known for its economic freedom index), the Hong Kong based Fitch Rating (globally recognized for rating a nation’s ability to meet its financial obligations), VOA, and NPR, among others.
Referring to me, the response in the rejoinder is: “His manifesto, in our view, is essentially an opinion of individuals or at best people in the same circle who may have their own dream which has nothing to do with what the general public believes it should rather be.” The reference to “people in the same circle” represents “disgruntled Amhara elite in the diaspora”. Diaspora, I may be. But the Amhara designation needs further clarification. I am part Oromo and part Amhara. Besides, the current political, economic, and geopolitical crises are flagged by all Ethiopians, including Oromos. In a 67-page document, Jawar Mohammed, arguably the most prominent Oromo politician, did not hesitate to speak candidly.
The Causes of the Crises: Recycled Gedaa and Emboldened Oromummaa
In the noted manifesto, I highlighted two causes for the crises. First is the effort to resurrect Gedaa from the tomb and rinse and recycle it for current use. The second is the Oromummaa political doctrine. These are the two issues that MK & GG focused on because they saw them as daggers at the heart of the Gedaa inspired Oromummaa political doctrine.
Gedaa was a 16th century Oromo tradition practiced in limited areas of the current day Oromo tribal land, governing the community’s economic, political, social, and religious traditions. It was an effective governance system when people lived in small clans in the same area for generations. The system became outdated and unfit for purpose after the advent of population growth. Its demise was further exacerbated by migration, following the Oromo conquest of new tribal lands. As a governance system it started its decline in the 16th century. After the dawn of the 19th century, “it was reduced to a ritual system.”
The reason for the transformation of Gedaa into a ritual system was articulated by none other than Asafa Jalata (the intellectual Godfather of the Oromummaa political doctrine). In his view, the culprits were: “The nonfederal nature of the Gadaa System, lack of Strong Central government, lack of regular meeting of Gadaa official and long distance of Gumii (assembly) from political center made Gadaa system less Competent”.
Other Oromo scholars such Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa attribute the transformation of Gedaa from a governance system to a traditional to the “spread of Islam and Christianity [that] undermined the political and military roles of the Gadaa system.” Jawar Mohammed, in his 76-page recent report, argued the Gedaa system was weakened by “population expansion and the advent of migration.”
With total disregard for the truth, MK & GG wrote: “Gadaa is governance system of the Oromo that has survived the subjugation and annihilation for 600 years despite brutal crackdown under the different state of this country.” This was unmitigated and uncircumcised lie. Allow me to summon Jawar Mohammed as my primary witness.
In his above-noted 76-page document, Jawar asserts: “የኦሮሞ ትግልን ብንመለከት፤ ከምኒልክ ወረራ በፊት ያለው ዘመን የነፃነት እና የብልጽግና ተደርጎ ይወሰዳል።” [Before Menilik’s invasion, Oromo was free and prosperous and Gedaa was the emblem of our pride.] Menelik’s reign was between the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century.
I will let MK & GG settle their fictional narrative of 600 years of subjugation and annihilation of the Oromo by the Ethiopian state with Jawar’s narrative of a free and prosperous Oromo before Menelik’s reign.
How Gedaa was reduced to a state of ritual practice is not the most important question. The most important question is: If Gedaa lost its competence in the 19th century as Asafa Jalala noted, what purpose will Gedaa serve in a globalized world in the 21st century? Using Gedaa at the national and regional level in the 21st century is akin to forcing grown up [deleted] man or women to wear the ጥብቆ he or she used as a toddler.
Japan and China had far more developed and sophisticated traditional institutions and governance infrastructures than the Oromo Gedaa. However, Japan under the Meiji Restoration Period (in the 19th century) and China under Deng Xiaoping (in the 20th century) figured out one cannot go forward in a reverse gear. They enacted policies to ban old traditions and adopted western practices, just like the founding fathers of the US in the 18th century modeled their democracy after Greece’s system of self-government. It is sad to see Oromo tribalists are tickling their fancy to resurrect and recycle an expired ritual when modern societies are exploring best practices from around the world.
In all fairness, clinging to the past is not only an Oromo elite problem. Amhara and Tigray elites are inflicted with the same social illness. The Amhara spent their waking hours regurgitating the global significance of Adwa and Lalibela. Tigrayans still believe the sun and its galaxy revolve around the Axumite civilization whose heyday was somewhere between the 4th and 5th century.
The hermitized and tribalized Amhara, Oromo and Tigray scholars never get tired of fighting about who has the best tradition, who stole from whom in centuries past, who killed whose old traditions is the staple of their political life.
This is nowhere clearer than in MK & GG’s pregnant statement: “Ethiopia unfortunately do not have anything of its own that it could proudly claim to have as relevant to the world, except the monuments in the rocky lands of the habasha Old Testament Biblical belt. The good ones coming from the South including Oromia are shunned down as indigenous etc.”
Anyone with access to Google can see what are the most important Ethiopian iconic legacies that have their hand and footprint on the world stage. A Google search for Adwa fetches 4,150,000 results, followed by Axum (3,880,000), and Lalibela (3,850,000). Gedaa fetches 58,800 entries. Alas, at a closer examination, MK & GG’s pregnant statement was stillborn.
The Mogassa Legacy: Military Subjugation followed by Mass Adoption Under Duress
One issue that got the attention of MK & GG is my narrative of the Oromo Mogassa tradition. Sadly, they tried to launder the blood soaked Mogassa using the Oromo Guddifachaa tradition (voluntary and humane adoption) as a detergent. In the Oromo Guddifachaa tradition, an adopted child is treated like a biological child. The process is voluntary, and the practice is common to this day.
Mogassa is different in form and substance. Unlike Guddifachaa that involves individual adoptions by a family, Mogassa was the practice of the mass adoption of conquered tribes. It is a forced assimilation of other tribes into the Oromummaa galaxy.
Mogassa had a three-step process. First, in the quest to take lands inhabited by other tribes, Oromo warriors decimated other tribal lands. Second, once they took over new territories, the Oromo conquerors adopted women, elders, children and surrendered fighters of the conquered tribe. Third, the conquered tribes were assimilated into Oromummaa under duress. The adopted communities were forced to abandon, their names, languages, and traditions, and were politically and militarily baptized to become Oromo in every facet of their existence.
The adoption is undertaken under “political, military and economic considerations” as documented by one of the most prominent Oromo historians (Mohammed Hassan) in a book published by Oxford University. Mohammed notes: Historically, the Oromo has “assimilated more than they were assimilated by others.” This included absorbing defeated tribes “as clients or serfs (gabbaro) into the [Oromo] tribal structure.”
To top it off, Mohammed’s book reveals that new fictitious Oromo genealogies were created for the forcefully assimilated tribes so they can count “their ancestors several generations back” to a “hypothetical” Oromo lineage. It was a complete dissolution of culture, tradition, name, and even genealogy.
Mohammed further informs us that the assimilation process culminated with an oath taking ceremony led by an Oromo Aba Gadaa, repeating: “I hate what you hate, I like what you like, I fight whom you fight, I go where you go, I chase whom you chase.” Those who refused to Oromize their body, spirit, soul, and genealogy were wiped out of existence in a bloodshed. The punishment included amputation of [ deleted ]. Yet, MK & GG falsely present Mogassa as a noble and human practice of adoption, narrating it under the rubric of Guddifachaa.
Mogassa 2.0 in the 21st Century
The President of the Oromo region, Shimelis Abdisa, did not mince words when announcing that Oromo-PP’s plan for “the Future of Ethiopia” is Gedaa. In another speech he revealed that as part of this grand strategy the “Prosperity Party is built in such a way to advance the interest of Oromo. The
head of the Party will always be an Oromo or an Oromo plant.” This was upped in a different speech. To rejuvenate and spread the Gadaa system, the Oromo government is “spending billions and erecting Oromummaa markers in Addis Ababa.”
A detailed strategic plan is provided in a report titled “We Need Modern Version of the OLF With High Confidence Politics of Haile Fida!”
“It is time to foster a modern version of the OLF with high confidence politics of Haile Fida. Dr Haile was the one, who envisioned that Ethiopia using primarly Afaan Oromo as the working language can slowly, but surely, be transformed to Gadaa democratic Ethiopia, i.e. de facto Great Oromia… The aim of an independent Gadaa Oromia is Oromo politics of the past, the goal of an ethnic federation is that of present status quo and the objective of an integrated Gadaa Ethiopia (de facto Great Oromia)… we surely will move to the level of high confidence in order to own the whole Ethiopia…”
This is not a wishful plan. The plan is already under implementation. During the Regular Session of the Parliament on March 28, 2023, the Honorable Hassan Sheikh, the representative of a small tribe bordering the Oromo tribal land expressed fear that the survival of his ethnic group (አማሮ) is in danger.
[The people of Amaro are encircled by Oromo on three directions. We are denied access to other regions. It is hard to explain our suffering in words. We are invaded and butchered, and our existence as an ethnic group is in peril.]
Non-Oromo residents of Addis Ababa, accounting for 81 percent of the population including the Amhara representing 47 percent of Addis Ababans feel the same threat. The President of Oromo did not hesitate to validate their fear. In a speech to the Oromo-PP youth squad, he explained why he was building a new city completely encircling Addis Ababa, stating: “Some naive Oromos may not understand the strategy behind building Sheger City encircling [Addis Ababa]. Our enemies understand our intentions.” Having seen this in my Manifesto including the links for the quotes, MK & GG wrote:
“We understand that there are units who are working with the divisive mentality of the Amhara elites in every part of the country. Such units orchestrate events that bring people who live together peacefully into conflict. Now, what are presented by the author in our view are simple allegation of dramatized act by themselves.”
They were not satisfied with their brazen obfuscation. They needed to lie blatantly, stating “The Oromo lived peacefully and has never enticed any wrong to any peoples whom they live with as neighbors.” Let us see just a few samples of what international human rights organizations and the international media says.
Human Rights Watch, August 2022: “An armed group killed several hundred Amhara civilians in western Oromia in June 2022 while the Ethiopian security forces did little to protect them.” The Oromo-PP led government and the armed Oromo fighter blame each other for the mass murder. It may be obvious, but it warrants reminding MK & GG that either way it is an Oromo group that is engaged in mass killings of innocent and defenseless people.
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, February 2023: “[We are] alarmed by the ongoing massacres of ethnic Amhara men, women, and children in the Oromia region of Ethiopia.”
UNICIEF 2018: “Severe ethnic conflict broke out in July and August in the border zones of Oromia and SNNP regions, leading to large scale displacement of nearly one million people.”
Reuters, June 2022: “On June 18 gunmen killed at least 200 people in the Gimbi district of Western Wollega Zone… “Per data I have received from the Oromiya region yesterday, the number of victims identified so far rests at 338,” the prime minister’s spokesperson Billene Seyoum told reporters.
Amnesty International July 2022 – “These horrific killings in Tole, allegedly at the hands of the Oromo Liberation Army, reveal its perpetrators’ utter disregard for human life.”
What we are witnessing is a Mogassa tradition not a Guddifachaa one. The PM’s repeated threats “to slaughter hundreds of thousands of people over night” (2021) and “unleashing violence that will be many times bloodier than the red terror”(2023) reflect the inherent tendency of Oromummaa politics using terror as a tool of subjugation.
At the practical level, the Oromummaa political culture is bloodletting. At an intellectual level, Oromummaa is a lie-fomenting doctrine. MK & GG’s rejoinder proved this far more than my manifesto achieved.
https://borkena.com/2023/05/05/oromumma ... -in-blood/
Yonas Biru, PhD
This article is inspired by a recent op-ed on Addis Standard online titled “Critiquing the anti-Oromo nascent narrative of disgruntled Amhara elite in the diaspora: A rejoinder to the wrong manifesto.” The Manifesto in reference is my proposal titled “Averting Civil War in Ethiopia: An Emergency Manifesto.”
Speaking of my manifesto, the authors of the op-ed, Professor Mirgissa Kaba and Girma Gutema (MK & GG), started with an eyebrow raising statement. “In our view, the Oromo as well as all nations and nationalities that have suffered under the subjugation of the Amhara political elites in Ethiopia often do not give much attention to such hostile rhetoric as well as intentionally corrupted writings.”
Evidently, every general statement allows an exception or two. Hence their attempt at rebutting my Manifesto, fearing that if left unchecked the “nascent narrative” can become “a reference to the future history.” They added: “Individuals and their narrow groupings like that of Dr Yonas Biru still appear to influence the process through their writing, advocacy and twisting their alike in foreign government system.”
My Manifesto aimed at four broad areas: (1) bringing to light the worsening political and economic crises under the Oromo-led government; (2) uncovering the underlying causes of the crises, namely recycled Gedaa and emboldened Oromummaa; (3) exploring a win-win nexus for an all-inclusive dialogue, and (4) promoting domestic and international campaigns to pressure the government towards a peaceful resolution. The rejoinder is focused on defending Gedaa and Oromummaa. No effort was made to address items 3 and 4 at all.
I need to flag three caveats from the outset in the interest of clarity. First, the term Oromummaa has two dimensions: social and political. The social meaning of the term is “being Oromo.” It reflects Oromo’s humane traditions and ethos of welcoming outsiders with a sense of community value and welfare. As a political doctrine, Oromummaa imposes the Oromo language, culture, and identity on other tribal communities through coercion – political, economic, and military.
Second, when critics of the Oromummaa political aggression pen legitimate exposés, the common Oromummaa scholars’ response is intentionally muddling the political and social aspects of Oromummaa and accusing their critics of tarnishing the Oromo social standing. This is what MK & GG did in their deceptively crafted and lie-ridden rejoinder.
Third, as noted in my manifesto, since its formation, the Oromo Prosperity Party (Oromo-PP) has gone through subtle but intense infighting between Ethiopianist and Oromummaa factions. Over the last year-and-half, the Oromummaa doctrine has increasingly controlled the levers of power and the PM has progressively become a part of it.
As noted in my Manifesto, Oromummaa is in equal measure part cult and part political dogma. Its adherents uphold it above religion and family. Oromo leaders, including the President of the Oromo land have publicly accused Oromos with Biblical and Islamic names of undermining their Oromummaa roots. We have witnessed one of the most prominent Oromo political leaders, Bekele Gerba, attributing the decline of the Oromo language to interethnic marriage. We have also heard Oromo activists calling for a mass divorce to free Oromos from their Amhara wives and husbands, leaving behind their half-cast children.
The purpose of this article is to show the extent that Oromummaa scholars go to weaponize false claims and outright lies as a strategic defense of the Oromummaa cult. A rudimentary fact checking would have led to the rejection of the rejoinder. Its publication shows not only of the saddening lack of intellectual ethics on the part of the authors, but also the absence of journalistic integrity on the part of the editors of Addis Standard.
My manifesto was clear in its disposition and objectives in all four broad areas noted above. Let us briefly revisit the key issues.
Crisis Under the Oromo-Led Government
The economic and political crises highlighted in my manifesto were data driven and well documented with 17 references from credible international agencies. They include the IMF, the World Bank, the UN, Transparency International (the most authoritative institution on corruption indexes), Heritage Foundation (known for its economic freedom index), the Hong Kong based Fitch Rating (globally recognized for rating a nation’s ability to meet its financial obligations), VOA, and NPR, among others.
Referring to me, the response in the rejoinder is: “His manifesto, in our view, is essentially an opinion of individuals or at best people in the same circle who may have their own dream which has nothing to do with what the general public believes it should rather be.” The reference to “people in the same circle” represents “disgruntled Amhara elite in the diaspora”. Diaspora, I may be. But the Amhara designation needs further clarification. I am part Oromo and part Amhara. Besides, the current political, economic, and geopolitical crises are flagged by all Ethiopians, including Oromos. In a 67-page document, Jawar Mohammed, arguably the most prominent Oromo politician, did not hesitate to speak candidly.
The Causes of the Crises: Recycled Gedaa and Emboldened Oromummaa
In the noted manifesto, I highlighted two causes for the crises. First is the effort to resurrect Gedaa from the tomb and rinse and recycle it for current use. The second is the Oromummaa political doctrine. These are the two issues that MK & GG focused on because they saw them as daggers at the heart of the Gedaa inspired Oromummaa political doctrine.
Gedaa was a 16th century Oromo tradition practiced in limited areas of the current day Oromo tribal land, governing the community’s economic, political, social, and religious traditions. It was an effective governance system when people lived in small clans in the same area for generations. The system became outdated and unfit for purpose after the advent of population growth. Its demise was further exacerbated by migration, following the Oromo conquest of new tribal lands. As a governance system it started its decline in the 16th century. After the dawn of the 19th century, “it was reduced to a ritual system.”
The reason for the transformation of Gedaa into a ritual system was articulated by none other than Asafa Jalata (the intellectual Godfather of the Oromummaa political doctrine). In his view, the culprits were: “The nonfederal nature of the Gadaa System, lack of Strong Central government, lack of regular meeting of Gadaa official and long distance of Gumii (assembly) from political center made Gadaa system less Competent”.
Other Oromo scholars such Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa attribute the transformation of Gedaa from a governance system to a traditional to the “spread of Islam and Christianity [that] undermined the political and military roles of the Gadaa system.” Jawar Mohammed, in his 76-page recent report, argued the Gedaa system was weakened by “population expansion and the advent of migration.”
With total disregard for the truth, MK & GG wrote: “Gadaa is governance system of the Oromo that has survived the subjugation and annihilation for 600 years despite brutal crackdown under the different state of this country.” This was unmitigated and uncircumcised lie. Allow me to summon Jawar Mohammed as my primary witness.
In his above-noted 76-page document, Jawar asserts: “የኦሮሞ ትግልን ብንመለከት፤ ከምኒልክ ወረራ በፊት ያለው ዘመን የነፃነት እና የብልጽግና ተደርጎ ይወሰዳል።” [Before Menilik’s invasion, Oromo was free and prosperous and Gedaa was the emblem of our pride.] Menelik’s reign was between the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century.
I will let MK & GG settle their fictional narrative of 600 years of subjugation and annihilation of the Oromo by the Ethiopian state with Jawar’s narrative of a free and prosperous Oromo before Menelik’s reign.
How Gedaa was reduced to a state of ritual practice is not the most important question. The most important question is: If Gedaa lost its competence in the 19th century as Asafa Jalala noted, what purpose will Gedaa serve in a globalized world in the 21st century? Using Gedaa at the national and regional level in the 21st century is akin to forcing grown up [deleted] man or women to wear the ጥብቆ he or she used as a toddler.
Japan and China had far more developed and sophisticated traditional institutions and governance infrastructures than the Oromo Gedaa. However, Japan under the Meiji Restoration Period (in the 19th century) and China under Deng Xiaoping (in the 20th century) figured out one cannot go forward in a reverse gear. They enacted policies to ban old traditions and adopted western practices, just like the founding fathers of the US in the 18th century modeled their democracy after Greece’s system of self-government. It is sad to see Oromo tribalists are tickling their fancy to resurrect and recycle an expired ritual when modern societies are exploring best practices from around the world.
In all fairness, clinging to the past is not only an Oromo elite problem. Amhara and Tigray elites are inflicted with the same social illness. The Amhara spent their waking hours regurgitating the global significance of Adwa and Lalibela. Tigrayans still believe the sun and its galaxy revolve around the Axumite civilization whose heyday was somewhere between the 4th and 5th century.
The hermitized and tribalized Amhara, Oromo and Tigray scholars never get tired of fighting about who has the best tradition, who stole from whom in centuries past, who killed whose old traditions is the staple of their political life.
This is nowhere clearer than in MK & GG’s pregnant statement: “Ethiopia unfortunately do not have anything of its own that it could proudly claim to have as relevant to the world, except the monuments in the rocky lands of the habasha Old Testament Biblical belt. The good ones coming from the South including Oromia are shunned down as indigenous etc.”
Anyone with access to Google can see what are the most important Ethiopian iconic legacies that have their hand and footprint on the world stage. A Google search for Adwa fetches 4,150,000 results, followed by Axum (3,880,000), and Lalibela (3,850,000). Gedaa fetches 58,800 entries. Alas, at a closer examination, MK & GG’s pregnant statement was stillborn.
The Mogassa Legacy: Military Subjugation followed by Mass Adoption Under Duress
One issue that got the attention of MK & GG is my narrative of the Oromo Mogassa tradition. Sadly, they tried to launder the blood soaked Mogassa using the Oromo Guddifachaa tradition (voluntary and humane adoption) as a detergent. In the Oromo Guddifachaa tradition, an adopted child is treated like a biological child. The process is voluntary, and the practice is common to this day.
Mogassa is different in form and substance. Unlike Guddifachaa that involves individual adoptions by a family, Mogassa was the practice of the mass adoption of conquered tribes. It is a forced assimilation of other tribes into the Oromummaa galaxy.
Mogassa had a three-step process. First, in the quest to take lands inhabited by other tribes, Oromo warriors decimated other tribal lands. Second, once they took over new territories, the Oromo conquerors adopted women, elders, children and surrendered fighters of the conquered tribe. Third, the conquered tribes were assimilated into Oromummaa under duress. The adopted communities were forced to abandon, their names, languages, and traditions, and were politically and militarily baptized to become Oromo in every facet of their existence.
The adoption is undertaken under “political, military and economic considerations” as documented by one of the most prominent Oromo historians (Mohammed Hassan) in a book published by Oxford University. Mohammed notes: Historically, the Oromo has “assimilated more than they were assimilated by others.” This included absorbing defeated tribes “as clients or serfs (gabbaro) into the [Oromo] tribal structure.”
To top it off, Mohammed’s book reveals that new fictitious Oromo genealogies were created for the forcefully assimilated tribes so they can count “their ancestors several generations back” to a “hypothetical” Oromo lineage. It was a complete dissolution of culture, tradition, name, and even genealogy.
Mohammed further informs us that the assimilation process culminated with an oath taking ceremony led by an Oromo Aba Gadaa, repeating: “I hate what you hate, I like what you like, I fight whom you fight, I go where you go, I chase whom you chase.” Those who refused to Oromize their body, spirit, soul, and genealogy were wiped out of existence in a bloodshed. The punishment included amputation of [ deleted ]. Yet, MK & GG falsely present Mogassa as a noble and human practice of adoption, narrating it under the rubric of Guddifachaa.
Mogassa 2.0 in the 21st Century
The President of the Oromo region, Shimelis Abdisa, did not mince words when announcing that Oromo-PP’s plan for “the Future of Ethiopia” is Gedaa. In another speech he revealed that as part of this grand strategy the “Prosperity Party is built in such a way to advance the interest of Oromo. The
head of the Party will always be an Oromo or an Oromo plant.” This was upped in a different speech. To rejuvenate and spread the Gadaa system, the Oromo government is “spending billions and erecting Oromummaa markers in Addis Ababa.”
A detailed strategic plan is provided in a report titled “We Need Modern Version of the OLF With High Confidence Politics of Haile Fida!”
“It is time to foster a modern version of the OLF with high confidence politics of Haile Fida. Dr Haile was the one, who envisioned that Ethiopia using primarly Afaan Oromo as the working language can slowly, but surely, be transformed to Gadaa democratic Ethiopia, i.e. de facto Great Oromia… The aim of an independent Gadaa Oromia is Oromo politics of the past, the goal of an ethnic federation is that of present status quo and the objective of an integrated Gadaa Ethiopia (de facto Great Oromia)… we surely will move to the level of high confidence in order to own the whole Ethiopia…”
This is not a wishful plan. The plan is already under implementation. During the Regular Session of the Parliament on March 28, 2023, the Honorable Hassan Sheikh, the representative of a small tribe bordering the Oromo tribal land expressed fear that the survival of his ethnic group (አማሮ) is in danger.
[The people of Amaro are encircled by Oromo on three directions. We are denied access to other regions. It is hard to explain our suffering in words. We are invaded and butchered, and our existence as an ethnic group is in peril.]
Non-Oromo residents of Addis Ababa, accounting for 81 percent of the population including the Amhara representing 47 percent of Addis Ababans feel the same threat. The President of Oromo did not hesitate to validate their fear. In a speech to the Oromo-PP youth squad, he explained why he was building a new city completely encircling Addis Ababa, stating: “Some naive Oromos may not understand the strategy behind building Sheger City encircling [Addis Ababa]. Our enemies understand our intentions.” Having seen this in my Manifesto including the links for the quotes, MK & GG wrote:
“We understand that there are units who are working with the divisive mentality of the Amhara elites in every part of the country. Such units orchestrate events that bring people who live together peacefully into conflict. Now, what are presented by the author in our view are simple allegation of dramatized act by themselves.”
They were not satisfied with their brazen obfuscation. They needed to lie blatantly, stating “The Oromo lived peacefully and has never enticed any wrong to any peoples whom they live with as neighbors.” Let us see just a few samples of what international human rights organizations and the international media says.
Human Rights Watch, August 2022: “An armed group killed several hundred Amhara civilians in western Oromia in June 2022 while the Ethiopian security forces did little to protect them.” The Oromo-PP led government and the armed Oromo fighter blame each other for the mass murder. It may be obvious, but it warrants reminding MK & GG that either way it is an Oromo group that is engaged in mass killings of innocent and defenseless people.
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, February 2023: “[We are] alarmed by the ongoing massacres of ethnic Amhara men, women, and children in the Oromia region of Ethiopia.”
UNICIEF 2018: “Severe ethnic conflict broke out in July and August in the border zones of Oromia and SNNP regions, leading to large scale displacement of nearly one million people.”
Reuters, June 2022: “On June 18 gunmen killed at least 200 people in the Gimbi district of Western Wollega Zone… “Per data I have received from the Oromiya region yesterday, the number of victims identified so far rests at 338,” the prime minister’s spokesperson Billene Seyoum told reporters.
Amnesty International July 2022 – “These horrific killings in Tole, allegedly at the hands of the Oromo Liberation Army, reveal its perpetrators’ utter disregard for human life.”
What we are witnessing is a Mogassa tradition not a Guddifachaa one. The PM’s repeated threats “to slaughter hundreds of thousands of people over night” (2021) and “unleashing violence that will be many times bloodier than the red terror”(2023) reflect the inherent tendency of Oromummaa politics using terror as a tool of subjugation.
At the practical level, the Oromummaa political culture is bloodletting. At an intellectual level, Oromummaa is a lie-fomenting doctrine. MK & GG’s rejoinder proved this far more than my manifesto achieved.
https://borkena.com/2023/05/05/oromumma ... -in-blood/
Re: Savagery OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት by Koki Abesolome
Oromummaa is a Low Grade Nazification Movement
This document is prepared to help the international community (IC) realize that PM Abiy and the Oromummaa clan that he is increasingly pandering to are posing an existential threat to the very existence of Ethiopia. Oromummaa is an imitation of Nazism perpetuated by Oromo tribal fanatics. Unfortunately, the PM lacks the political maturity to understand that neither he nor the architects of the Oromummaa can control the consequences of the tribe-based criminal enterprise. The IC must use the full force of its geo-political and financial influences to stop the imitation of Nazism by Oromummaa fanatics before it is too late.
Yonas Biru, PhD
Let me reiterate two important caveats. First, the term Oromummaa has two dimensions: social and political. The social meaning of the term is “being Oromo.” It reflects Oromo’s traditions and ethos of welcoming outsiders with a sense of community value and welfare. In contrast, Political Oromummaa aspires to impose the Oromo identity, culture, and political beliefs on other tribes. This article is focused on the political dimension of Oromummaa.
Second, advocates of Political Oromummaa intentionally hide their political motives behind the draperies of carefully curated Oromo social narrative. When their critics expose the façade, their responses run the gamut from intentionally confusing Oromummaa’s political and social dimensions to labeling their critics as “anti-Oromo.”
Oromummaa’s Bad Attempt at Cloning the Nazification of Germany
Hitler’s ultimate objective was making the Aryan race superior to all other races. The Aryan race refers to a mythical race that some European white supremacists imagined it to be “the highest race of humankind, the only one capable of producing a higher civilization.” Hitler vowed to restore and glorify the Aryan race while denigrating Jews, blacks, Romani (Gypsies), and other races.
At the beginning, his agenda was not as much focused on building a military might as it was on creating what he called a “spiritual energy.” He saw this as a prerequisite to build an army of fanatical followers. The process of activating, evangelizing, and mobilizing faithful followers was an important part of the Nazification process.
In a classic book “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, Erik Hoffer identified three factors that were crucial for mobilizing Nazi-devotees.
First, perpetuating a strong hatred towards non-Aryan races (particularly Jews) was the key unifying factor in galvanizing a mass following. Germans were humiliated after they suffered a crashing defeat in the First World War for which Hitler accused the Jews of being backstabbers that caused Germany’s defeat. He railed his followers to avenge Jews and the nations who defeated and humiliated Germany.
Second, promising a glorious future or an imagined castle-in-the-air was what gave Nazi’s followers a sense of a divine mission and turned them into what Hitler called “divine-creations.” The castle in the sky was making the Aryan race the supreme race and making Germany the most powerful nation on earth.
Third, there was no room for non-participation. Anyone who did not fully subscribe to Hitler’s ideology were lumped up with the enemy. The concept of “You are with us or against us” was the order of the Nazi movement.
The Creation of Aryan Spiritual Consciousness and Nazism
Let us delve into the process of Nazification to better understand the Oromummaa-ization process. Hitler’s strategy of first importance was promoting a new German consciousness and an “affinity with the spirit of the new Germany.” He conceived and propagated the Nazi movement as a “spiritual movement” with a “higher mission.” Sadly, his “spiritual movement” was fueled by hate and anger against the enemy.
He was highly successful in creating, nurturing and weaponizing the population’s anger and fear against the Jews, Marxists, [deleted], and Nazi’s domestic political opponents.
The Nazis did not like Communists because they provided an alternative ideology to proletarians of all countries to unite against capitalism in the conflict of class interests. This undermined Nazi’s aim of uniting the Aryan race of all classes against all classes of other races. They want Aryan proletariat to hate proletariats of other races, not to unite with them.
Hitler tolerated Churches to the extent they aligned and subsumed themselves to the Nazi ideology of creating a superior Aryan race.
The Parallel Between the Nazi and Oromummaa Doctrines
Professor Asafa Jalata is the Godfather of the Oromummaa movement. His manifesto “The Concept of Oromummaa and Identity Formation in Contemporary Oromo Society” is focused on creating “Oromo consciousness” in line with Hitler’s German Consciousness. Oromummaa was engineered to serve as unified mass movement to restore the Oromo society to its glory days of 16th century Gedaa.
Anyone who has read Eric Hoffer’s description of the evangelization process of a mass movement and Mancur Olson’s classic work on “The Logic of Collective Action” cannot miss the parallel between Nazi’s and Oromummaa’s modus operandi.
Professor Asafa is well versed in the Nazi literature as shown in his writings. Out of curiosity, I googled if he is familiar with Hoffer’s and Olson’s classic works because his Oromummaa strategy seemed a canning replica of Hitler’s Nazification blueprint. Lo and behold, he is very familiar with both works. He refers to them in some of his writings.
Hitler’s aims of restoring the Aryan race as a hegemonic race and conquering the world constituted his higher mission. In like manner, Oromummaa’s higher mission or castle in the air aspires to reinvent and idolize the Gadaa system as a “dynamic global project.” Professor Asafa envisions the Oromummaa movement to “contribute to the solidarity of all oppressed peoples and promote the struggle for national self-determination, statehood, sovereignty, and multinational democracy.” His followers (scholars and laymen alike) bough his vision lock, stock, and barrel. Making Oromo Great Again became the higher purpose and the divine obsession of the Oromummaa true believers.
The Oromummaa divine castle in the sky is constructed NOT by building on the virtues and strengths of Oromo culture and value but by creating and nurturing negative image of those the movement designates as enemies of the people of Oromo.
Professor Asafa’s 12-page Oromummaa manifesto uses the term colonialist Ethiopia 18 times in different forms. Allegations of brutal colonization are used to create and sustain anger. The Anole statue of amputated breast epitomizes the desire to feed the beasts of hate with angry and tumultuous thoughts constantly.
In the hate-engendering endeavor, all aspects of Ethiopia’s political, economic, social, and religious institutions are weaponized to demonize Oromummaa’s designated enemies.
The people of Oromo see Christianity and Islam as part of their integral culture. In contrast, the Oromummaa doctrine portrays the two Abrahamian religions as Ethiopian “empire builders.” The Ethiopian empire that Muslims and Christians allegedly built is accused of “brutaliz[ing], murder[ing], terroriz[ing], and introducing an inferiority complex [on the Oromo] by attacking the Oromo culture.”
Professor Asafa adds more fuel to the fire. “Turks, Arabs, Habashas and the Europeans imposed both Islam and Christianity on Oromos while at the same time suppressing indigenous Oromo religion in order to psychologically control and dominate them… The Oromo self was attacked and distorted by Ethiopian colonial institutions.”
As outlandish as it may be, professor Asafa’s narrative is not an exception. It is consistent with the narrative of tribalist Oromo class. Professor Mirgissa Kaba and Girma Gutema equate Menilik’s incursion into the Oromo tribal land to “enslavement of the Oromo.” They further claim the Oromo language was turned into a “’prison language’ to show the incarceration of the Oromo which has continued to date.”
Dr. Gemechu Megersa’s outlook is even more dramatic. He describes a three-step process that purported enemies of Oromo used to introduce Islam and Christianity. First was taking the land of the Oromo. He described it as “occupying the physical space.” Second was “domesticating the native’s mind” using Islam or Christianity as a tool of subjugation by persuasion or force (“በካልቾና በጥፊ”). This, Dr. Gemechu suggests, was used to purify, and cleanse the Oromo because the people of Oromo were treated as an unholy (“እርኩስ”). The third and final stage was creating a new history for the subjugated people.
Perhaps the most venomous lie is the claim that adherents of Oromummaa parrot, claiming “between 1868 and 1900, half of all Oromo were killed, around 5 million people.” This makes the Oromo population at the time 10 million.
According to Statista, the population of the entire Ethiopia in 1868 was 5.8 million. By 1900, it was estimated to be 8 million. The Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency put the 1900 total population figure at 10,742,000 . Oromo intellectuals know the population of Oromo at the time was far less than 5 million. But they still use the 5 million genocide figure to demonize Menilik and Amhara as the two most hated enemies.
Just as was the case in Nazi Germany, the concept of “You are with us or against us” is the order of the Oromummaa movement. Those who do not subscribe to the Oromummaa ideology and political belief system are outcasted as enemies. In a two series LTV Show interview (here and here), Dr. Gemechu Megersa called Oromos who do not conform to the Oromummaa doctrine “አቃጣሪ” [[deleted]].
Dr. Asafa Jalata characterizes those who do not follow his destructive agenda as “Ethiopianists and collaborationists” and “assimilated former Oromos, [who] like their Habasha masters… and haters of the Oromo history, culture, institutions.”
Oromummaa Precedes Religion, Family & Individual Liberty
Professor Asafa admits “the Oromo have religious plurality,” accepting the spread of Christianity and Islam. He has no choice because Islam and Christianity constitute the overwhelming majority of Oromos. However, he insists that these religions “need to adapt to national Oromummaa” because “the concept of Waqaa [Oromo God] lies at the heart of Oromo tradition and culture, which shapes the basis of Oromummaa.”
This line gives Waqaa precedence over the so-called “borrowed religions” of Islam and Christianity. In it lies irreconcilable conflict with other religions. For example, Islam is a way of life. As such, it defines and forms the overarching and over-encompassing identity of all Muslims around the world. The Quran recognizes the diversity in peoples’ color, language, tradition, and culture (30:22). However, any tradition or culture that contradicts the teachings of Islam (including Islam as a complete way of life) is rejected (4:115).
How do adherents of Oromummaa resolve the conundrum of reconciling Islam and Christianity with Oromummaa as Oromo’s overarching and over-encompassing identity?
They do so by giving Oromummaa precedence over Islam and Christianity. That is precisely why Jawar Mohammed announced he is first Oromo before he is Muslim. That is why Shimeles Abdissa criticized Oromos who took Christian and Muslim names as an affront to their Oromummaa identity.
Sadly, that is also why Muslim adherents of Oromummaa keep quite when Mosques are burned, and Amhara Muslims are subjected to mass murder and thousands of non-Oromo Muslims are forcefully displaced out of the Oromo tribal land.
Religion is not the only institutional victim of Oromummaa. Intertribal families such as mine are targets of the Oromummaa craze. We have witnessed one of the most prominent Oromo political leaders, Professor Bekele Gerba, attributing the decline of the Oromo language to interethnic marriage. We have also seen Oromummaa followers calling for a mass divorce to free Oromos from their Amhara spouses, leaving their tribally mixed children behind.
And then there is Oromummaa’s assault on the right to uphold an independent political view. Professor Asafa makes this clear. “Oromummaa as an intellectual and ideological vision rejects the position of Ethiopianists, collaborationists, modernists, and mainstream Marxists and places the Oromo man and woman at the center of analysis…”
As noted above, Nazi rejected Marxists to avoid an alternative narrative to his race-based conflict. For the same reason, Oromummaa rejects Marxism. They do not want Oromo peasants to sympathize and unite with Amhara peasants.
The more interesting question is: Why does Professor Asafa reject modernism? Political Oromummaa needs an Oromo institution that culturally and institutionally ties all Oromos. In 2019, they tried to make Irrecha a unifying Oromo identity. It was celebrated in Addis Ababa with a bang.
A year after, it disappeared from national scene with a whimper. To begin with, Oromos could not agree whether it is an Oromo religion, or a ritual practiced by non-believers. In the above-mentioned LTV Show interview, Dr. Gemechu insisted that Irrecha is an Oromo religion and called those Oromos who think otherwise as “ignorant” and “አቃጣሪ”.
The other question is: Why does Professor Asafa loathe modernism? Modernism undermines parts of uniquely Oromo traditions around which he wants to unite all Oromos under one identity. Another social institution that Oromummaa tries to ride is Gadaa – a 16th century political, economic, social, and religious governing system.
Unfortunate to the peddlers of Oromummaa, the Gedaa system has long been “reduced to a ritual system,” as documented by Professor Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa. Even Professor Asafa acknowledge Gedaa is a system whose time has long passed. He believes that “due to the geographical expansion of the Oromo territory and an increasing population, the central Gadaa government declined beginning in the mid-17th century and autonomous regional and local republics took its place. But he still wants to revive Gadaa. The question is: Why?
With the expansion of Islam and Christianity and since Menilik’s regime, Oromo was vastly integrated with the rest of Ethiopia, socially, politically, and economically. Oromos in Wello have a ton more similarity with the Amhara of Wello than with the Oromos of Wellega or Arsi. Similarly, Oromos in Shewa share far more with the Amharas of Shewa than with the Oromos of Bale or Jimma.
The aim of Oromummaa is to reverse this development using a two-pronged approach. The first prong harasses, humiliates and attacks Oromos who do not chain themselves with antiquated Gadaa system. They are labeled as “assimilated former Oromos, [who] like their Habasha masters… and haters of the Oromo history.” If one is an Oromo and a born-again Protestant Christian who aspires to live like Christ and does not accept Gedaa‘s religious tenets, he/she is labeled “former Oromo” and an “አቃጣሪ” to boot.
The second prong is to use the leavers of political power to resuscitate the pre-modern Gadaa system as the overarching identity of Oromo. The only chance they can reintroduce a 16th century antiquated Gedaa is by rejecting the modernism of the 21st century. This is a futile enterprise to go forward in a reverse gear.
Political Oromummaa a Project of Wholesale Grievance and Lies
The politics of grievance-fueled hate is the sine qua none of Oromummaa, just like wind is a sine qua non for flying a kite. Sadly, the politics of grievance-fueled hate is sustained by a wholesale lie-infested narrative both about Oromummaa and about its designated enemies. While noting that one can write volumes on this, I will limit my presentation to a few examples in the interest of space.
Allow me to reiterate Shimelis Abdissa’s 2019 Irrecha celebration speech to show the wholesale lie is the foundational anchor of Oromummaa’s hate-driven movement. At his speech, he said: “We have taken the levers of power after we broke the backbone of our enemies in the same place where they broke us.” The enemy he mentioned was “Neftegna” aka Amhara.
The truth is that the Oromo-led governing party was voted into office with a unanimous vote from members of the Amhara Democratic Party, in 2018. Had the Amhara casted their block vote with the nominee of the Southern People candidate, the leavers of power would have gone to a non-Oromo candidate. Oromo did not break the backbone of Amhara. It climbed to power on the supporting shoulders of Amhara.
Let us move to Professor Mirgissa Kaba’s and Girma Gutema’s rejoinder to my Emergency Manifesto. I had to read some of their remarks twice to make sure that my eyes were not playing tricks on me. In an unabashed lack of intellectual integrity laced with brazen audacity, the two defenders of Oromummaa wrote: “The Oromo lived peacefully and has never enticed any wrong to any peoples whom they live with as neighbors.”
This is the same Oromo tribal land where people are hanged upside down alive and stoned to death that the two Oromummaa scholars are talking about. They are talking about the land of Mogassa where in centuries past Oromo warriors cut the [ deleted ] of men who refused to accept Oromoness and then hacked their neck with a hatchet. The cruelty is manifested in the decision to chop their [ deleted ] first and then hack their neck rather than hacking their neck first and then chop their [ deleted ].
Recent reports by credible international agencies show the Oromo tribal land is the epicenter of recurring forced displacement and race-based mass murders. Yet, the two scholars boldly claim the Oromo has never done any wrong to any people.”
Further, in a tweet Professor Mirgissa suggested Oromummaa does not infringe on “other group’s rights”. Let us start with Shimelis Abdissa, the President of the Oromo region the second most powerful person in current Oromo politics, next only to the Prime Minister.
He is on the record announcing Oromo-PP’s plan for “the Future of Ethiopia” is Gedaa and “Prosperity Party is built in such a way to advance the interest of Oromo. The head of the Party will always be an Oromo or an Oromo plant.” Jawar Mohammed, one of the most prominent Oromo politicians, acknowledges the resentment that Oromo-PP’s attempt at establishing an Oromo hegemony has inspired, noting:
Once again, in a 2023 speech to Oromo-PP youth league, President Shimelis made both the enemy and the imagined castle in the air components of Oromummaa clear:
Leaders such as Shimelis, Gemechu, Asafa, and their ilk use pens, papers, and megaphones to herald their lies. However, their lies germinate violent actions as they percolate down to the restless youth. Sticks, stones, matchets and guns become the political lingua franca of the systematically nurtured and curated resentment of Political Oromummaa.
Let me add some more examples of Oromummaa’s institutionalized lies from Professor Asafa’s articles. Professor Asafa’s ability to fabricate false narrative seems to know no limits. Speaking of the Oromo Mogassa system he wrote:
“The principles of justice and democracy guided the Oromo worldview and value. Oromo society rejected hierarchies based on race/ethnicity, class, and gender. Therefore, when the Oromo fought wars and defeated their competitors, they integrated them into their society through the processes known as guudifacha and moogafacha. When other peoples or groups were interested to join Oromo society, they were allowed to join the society through these processes.”
Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa, a well-known quantity in the Oromummaa universe acknowledges the Oromo used the “Gadaa system both militarily and administratively to expand their territories.” Mohammed Hassen, another well-regarded Oromummaa leader debunking Professor Asafa’s claim that the Mogassa undertaking was guided by “the principles of justice and democracy.” Mohammed wrote: the Mogassa practice “included absorbing defeated tribes “as clients or serfs (gabbaro) into the [Oromo] tribal structure.”
For ease of explanation, let me present a hypothetical version of Chinese Mogassa. Here are the steps.
1. China invaded Ethiopia.
2. Converted all Ethiopians to Chinese citizens in a national ceremony under the threat of mass murder.
3. Required every Ethiopian to stop speaking in his/her mother tongue and start speaking in Mandarin only.
4. Forced all Ethiopians to adopt Chinese names such as 静 for women, and 燕 for men.
5. Gave Ethiopia a new name, say 无为市.
6. Required all former Ethiopians to denounce their traditions and cultures
7. Cut the [ deleted ] of men who refused to accept their Chinese-ness and hack their heads in front of their community.
8. Allowed the newly minted Chinese to live freely with Chinese Culture and language.
9. In the process of Chinese Mogassa millions of Ethiopians were murdered for refusing to comply, but the Chinese government argues the end justifies the means.
Professor Asafa brazenly claims “When [non-Oromos] were interested to join Oromo society, they were allowed to join the society.” He forgot to mention those who were not interested had their [ deleted ] chopped and their neck hacked.
Oromos Were an Integral Part of Ethiopia’s Governance Architecture
The Oromummaa camp’s claim that Oromo has been colonized by Ethiopia is an outright lie. If one must judge Ethiopia’s state building of past centuries by current democratic standards, the Oromo will come out both as colonizer and colonized – if one must use such words.
One can go as far back as Emperror Susenyos’s era (early 1600s) to see the role the Oromo played as kings, king makers and military leaders of a succession of Ethiopian eras. There were Oromo governors in Amhara tribal land way before Menilik’s time. Under Menilik’s era and beyond, there were Oromo generals, governors, Ambassadors, and members of the Nobility.
Empress Taitu Betul (the great granddaughter of Ras Gugssa) was Emperor Menelik’s wife. She was Ras Gugssa an Oromo was married to Zewditu, the daughter of Emperor Menelik. Negus Mikael (aka Ali) of Wollo was an Oromo king of Wollo. His father was Ali Aba Bula. The wife of Emperor Haile Selassie, Empress Menen is the granddaughter of Ras Mikael of Wello whose an Oromo. Prince Sahle Selassie, the youngest son of Emperor Haile Selassie was married to an Oromo.
Dejazmach Balcha Aba Nefsso was another great Oromo general. He was one of the most talked about and revered war leader during the Adwa war. Interestingly, the Gurage in Ethiopia claim he is a Gurage. The Oromos claim him to be a naturalized Oromo through Mogassa.
Ras Abebe Aregay, one of the kingmakers of Ethiopia was half Oromo on his mother’s side. He was the Prime Minister of Ethiopia (1957-1960).
In the early days of Mengistu Hailemariam’s era, Teferi Benti (an Oromo) was the head of state. Mengistu Haile Mariam himself was an Oromo. His principal intellectual Gidfather was Haile Fida, an Oromo. His last Prime Minster Tesfaye Dinka, another Oromo. Other high-level officials included Demise Bulto and Tesfaye Gebre Kidan Geletu (who served as the Acting President of Ethiopia after Mengistu fled the nation).
What Needs to Be Done?
For the last 50 years, since the time of Mengistu, Ethiopia been led by Oromos, Southern People (PM Haile Mariam) and Tigrayans. And yet Oromummaa targets the Amhara because the movement is built on passionate hate for the Amhara.
The lie-inspired and hate-driven Oromummaa movement is pushing the nation to the brink. In the immediate short-term the only force that the PM responds to is the IC. The IC must use the full force of its sanction tools to stop Oromummaa before it is too late. See “Averting Civil War in Ethiopia: An Emergency Manifesto.” --- https://eastafricanist.com/averting-civ ... -ethiopia/
https://borkena.com/2023/05/15/oromumma ... -movement/
This document is prepared to help the international community (IC) realize that PM Abiy and the Oromummaa clan that he is increasingly pandering to are posing an existential threat to the very existence of Ethiopia. Oromummaa is an imitation of Nazism perpetuated by Oromo tribal fanatics. Unfortunately, the PM lacks the political maturity to understand that neither he nor the architects of the Oromummaa can control the consequences of the tribe-based criminal enterprise. The IC must use the full force of its geo-political and financial influences to stop the imitation of Nazism by Oromummaa fanatics before it is too late.
Yonas Biru, PhD
Let me reiterate two important caveats. First, the term Oromummaa has two dimensions: social and political. The social meaning of the term is “being Oromo.” It reflects Oromo’s traditions and ethos of welcoming outsiders with a sense of community value and welfare. In contrast, Political Oromummaa aspires to impose the Oromo identity, culture, and political beliefs on other tribes. This article is focused on the political dimension of Oromummaa.
Second, advocates of Political Oromummaa intentionally hide their political motives behind the draperies of carefully curated Oromo social narrative. When their critics expose the façade, their responses run the gamut from intentionally confusing Oromummaa’s political and social dimensions to labeling their critics as “anti-Oromo.”
Oromummaa’s Bad Attempt at Cloning the Nazification of Germany
Hitler’s ultimate objective was making the Aryan race superior to all other races. The Aryan race refers to a mythical race that some European white supremacists imagined it to be “the highest race of humankind, the only one capable of producing a higher civilization.” Hitler vowed to restore and glorify the Aryan race while denigrating Jews, blacks, Romani (Gypsies), and other races.
At the beginning, his agenda was not as much focused on building a military might as it was on creating what he called a “spiritual energy.” He saw this as a prerequisite to build an army of fanatical followers. The process of activating, evangelizing, and mobilizing faithful followers was an important part of the Nazification process.
In a classic book “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, Erik Hoffer identified three factors that were crucial for mobilizing Nazi-devotees.
First, perpetuating a strong hatred towards non-Aryan races (particularly Jews) was the key unifying factor in galvanizing a mass following. Germans were humiliated after they suffered a crashing defeat in the First World War for which Hitler accused the Jews of being backstabbers that caused Germany’s defeat. He railed his followers to avenge Jews and the nations who defeated and humiliated Germany.
Second, promising a glorious future or an imagined castle-in-the-air was what gave Nazi’s followers a sense of a divine mission and turned them into what Hitler called “divine-creations.” The castle in the sky was making the Aryan race the supreme race and making Germany the most powerful nation on earth.
Third, there was no room for non-participation. Anyone who did not fully subscribe to Hitler’s ideology were lumped up with the enemy. The concept of “You are with us or against us” was the order of the Nazi movement.
The Creation of Aryan Spiritual Consciousness and Nazism
Let us delve into the process of Nazification to better understand the Oromummaa-ization process. Hitler’s strategy of first importance was promoting a new German consciousness and an “affinity with the spirit of the new Germany.” He conceived and propagated the Nazi movement as a “spiritual movement” with a “higher mission.” Sadly, his “spiritual movement” was fueled by hate and anger against the enemy.
He was highly successful in creating, nurturing and weaponizing the population’s anger and fear against the Jews, Marxists, [deleted], and Nazi’s domestic political opponents.
The Nazis did not like Communists because they provided an alternative ideology to proletarians of all countries to unite against capitalism in the conflict of class interests. This undermined Nazi’s aim of uniting the Aryan race of all classes against all classes of other races. They want Aryan proletariat to hate proletariats of other races, not to unite with them.
Hitler tolerated Churches to the extent they aligned and subsumed themselves to the Nazi ideology of creating a superior Aryan race.
The Parallel Between the Nazi and Oromummaa Doctrines
Professor Asafa Jalata is the Godfather of the Oromummaa movement. His manifesto “The Concept of Oromummaa and Identity Formation in Contemporary Oromo Society” is focused on creating “Oromo consciousness” in line with Hitler’s German Consciousness. Oromummaa was engineered to serve as unified mass movement to restore the Oromo society to its glory days of 16th century Gedaa.
Anyone who has read Eric Hoffer’s description of the evangelization process of a mass movement and Mancur Olson’s classic work on “The Logic of Collective Action” cannot miss the parallel between Nazi’s and Oromummaa’s modus operandi.
Professor Asafa is well versed in the Nazi literature as shown in his writings. Out of curiosity, I googled if he is familiar with Hoffer’s and Olson’s classic works because his Oromummaa strategy seemed a canning replica of Hitler’s Nazification blueprint. Lo and behold, he is very familiar with both works. He refers to them in some of his writings.
Hitler’s aims of restoring the Aryan race as a hegemonic race and conquering the world constituted his higher mission. In like manner, Oromummaa’s higher mission or castle in the air aspires to reinvent and idolize the Gadaa system as a “dynamic global project.” Professor Asafa envisions the Oromummaa movement to “contribute to the solidarity of all oppressed peoples and promote the struggle for national self-determination, statehood, sovereignty, and multinational democracy.” His followers (scholars and laymen alike) bough his vision lock, stock, and barrel. Making Oromo Great Again became the higher purpose and the divine obsession of the Oromummaa true believers.
The Oromummaa divine castle in the sky is constructed NOT by building on the virtues and strengths of Oromo culture and value but by creating and nurturing negative image of those the movement designates as enemies of the people of Oromo.
Professor Asafa’s 12-page Oromummaa manifesto uses the term colonialist Ethiopia 18 times in different forms. Allegations of brutal colonization are used to create and sustain anger. The Anole statue of amputated breast epitomizes the desire to feed the beasts of hate with angry and tumultuous thoughts constantly.
In the hate-engendering endeavor, all aspects of Ethiopia’s political, economic, social, and religious institutions are weaponized to demonize Oromummaa’s designated enemies.
The people of Oromo see Christianity and Islam as part of their integral culture. In contrast, the Oromummaa doctrine portrays the two Abrahamian religions as Ethiopian “empire builders.” The Ethiopian empire that Muslims and Christians allegedly built is accused of “brutaliz[ing], murder[ing], terroriz[ing], and introducing an inferiority complex [on the Oromo] by attacking the Oromo culture.”
Professor Asafa adds more fuel to the fire. “Turks, Arabs, Habashas and the Europeans imposed both Islam and Christianity on Oromos while at the same time suppressing indigenous Oromo religion in order to psychologically control and dominate them… The Oromo self was attacked and distorted by Ethiopian colonial institutions.”
As outlandish as it may be, professor Asafa’s narrative is not an exception. It is consistent with the narrative of tribalist Oromo class. Professor Mirgissa Kaba and Girma Gutema equate Menilik’s incursion into the Oromo tribal land to “enslavement of the Oromo.” They further claim the Oromo language was turned into a “’prison language’ to show the incarceration of the Oromo which has continued to date.”
Dr. Gemechu Megersa’s outlook is even more dramatic. He describes a three-step process that purported enemies of Oromo used to introduce Islam and Christianity. First was taking the land of the Oromo. He described it as “occupying the physical space.” Second was “domesticating the native’s mind” using Islam or Christianity as a tool of subjugation by persuasion or force (“በካልቾና በጥፊ”). This, Dr. Gemechu suggests, was used to purify, and cleanse the Oromo because the people of Oromo were treated as an unholy (“እርኩስ”). The third and final stage was creating a new history for the subjugated people.
Perhaps the most venomous lie is the claim that adherents of Oromummaa parrot, claiming “between 1868 and 1900, half of all Oromo were killed, around 5 million people.” This makes the Oromo population at the time 10 million.
According to Statista, the population of the entire Ethiopia in 1868 was 5.8 million. By 1900, it was estimated to be 8 million. The Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency put the 1900 total population figure at 10,742,000 . Oromo intellectuals know the population of Oromo at the time was far less than 5 million. But they still use the 5 million genocide figure to demonize Menilik and Amhara as the two most hated enemies.
Just as was the case in Nazi Germany, the concept of “You are with us or against us” is the order of the Oromummaa movement. Those who do not subscribe to the Oromummaa ideology and political belief system are outcasted as enemies. In a two series LTV Show interview (here and here), Dr. Gemechu Megersa called Oromos who do not conform to the Oromummaa doctrine “አቃጣሪ” [[deleted]].
Dr. Asafa Jalata characterizes those who do not follow his destructive agenda as “Ethiopianists and collaborationists” and “assimilated former Oromos, [who] like their Habasha masters… and haters of the Oromo history, culture, institutions.”
Oromummaa Precedes Religion, Family & Individual Liberty
Professor Asafa admits “the Oromo have religious plurality,” accepting the spread of Christianity and Islam. He has no choice because Islam and Christianity constitute the overwhelming majority of Oromos. However, he insists that these religions “need to adapt to national Oromummaa” because “the concept of Waqaa [Oromo God] lies at the heart of Oromo tradition and culture, which shapes the basis of Oromummaa.”
This line gives Waqaa precedence over the so-called “borrowed religions” of Islam and Christianity. In it lies irreconcilable conflict with other religions. For example, Islam is a way of life. As such, it defines and forms the overarching and over-encompassing identity of all Muslims around the world. The Quran recognizes the diversity in peoples’ color, language, tradition, and culture (30:22). However, any tradition or culture that contradicts the teachings of Islam (including Islam as a complete way of life) is rejected (4:115).
How do adherents of Oromummaa resolve the conundrum of reconciling Islam and Christianity with Oromummaa as Oromo’s overarching and over-encompassing identity?
They do so by giving Oromummaa precedence over Islam and Christianity. That is precisely why Jawar Mohammed announced he is first Oromo before he is Muslim. That is why Shimeles Abdissa criticized Oromos who took Christian and Muslim names as an affront to their Oromummaa identity.
Sadly, that is also why Muslim adherents of Oromummaa keep quite when Mosques are burned, and Amhara Muslims are subjected to mass murder and thousands of non-Oromo Muslims are forcefully displaced out of the Oromo tribal land.
Religion is not the only institutional victim of Oromummaa. Intertribal families such as mine are targets of the Oromummaa craze. We have witnessed one of the most prominent Oromo political leaders, Professor Bekele Gerba, attributing the decline of the Oromo language to interethnic marriage. We have also seen Oromummaa followers calling for a mass divorce to free Oromos from their Amhara spouses, leaving their tribally mixed children behind.
And then there is Oromummaa’s assault on the right to uphold an independent political view. Professor Asafa makes this clear. “Oromummaa as an intellectual and ideological vision rejects the position of Ethiopianists, collaborationists, modernists, and mainstream Marxists and places the Oromo man and woman at the center of analysis…”
As noted above, Nazi rejected Marxists to avoid an alternative narrative to his race-based conflict. For the same reason, Oromummaa rejects Marxism. They do not want Oromo peasants to sympathize and unite with Amhara peasants.
The more interesting question is: Why does Professor Asafa reject modernism? Political Oromummaa needs an Oromo institution that culturally and institutionally ties all Oromos. In 2019, they tried to make Irrecha a unifying Oromo identity. It was celebrated in Addis Ababa with a bang.
A year after, it disappeared from national scene with a whimper. To begin with, Oromos could not agree whether it is an Oromo religion, or a ritual practiced by non-believers. In the above-mentioned LTV Show interview, Dr. Gemechu insisted that Irrecha is an Oromo religion and called those Oromos who think otherwise as “ignorant” and “አቃጣሪ”.
The other question is: Why does Professor Asafa loathe modernism? Modernism undermines parts of uniquely Oromo traditions around which he wants to unite all Oromos under one identity. Another social institution that Oromummaa tries to ride is Gadaa – a 16th century political, economic, social, and religious governing system.
Unfortunate to the peddlers of Oromummaa, the Gedaa system has long been “reduced to a ritual system,” as documented by Professor Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa. Even Professor Asafa acknowledge Gedaa is a system whose time has long passed. He believes that “due to the geographical expansion of the Oromo territory and an increasing population, the central Gadaa government declined beginning in the mid-17th century and autonomous regional and local republics took its place. But he still wants to revive Gadaa. The question is: Why?
With the expansion of Islam and Christianity and since Menilik’s regime, Oromo was vastly integrated with the rest of Ethiopia, socially, politically, and economically. Oromos in Wello have a ton more similarity with the Amhara of Wello than with the Oromos of Wellega or Arsi. Similarly, Oromos in Shewa share far more with the Amharas of Shewa than with the Oromos of Bale or Jimma.
The aim of Oromummaa is to reverse this development using a two-pronged approach. The first prong harasses, humiliates and attacks Oromos who do not chain themselves with antiquated Gadaa system. They are labeled as “assimilated former Oromos, [who] like their Habasha masters… and haters of the Oromo history.” If one is an Oromo and a born-again Protestant Christian who aspires to live like Christ and does not accept Gedaa‘s religious tenets, he/she is labeled “former Oromo” and an “አቃጣሪ” to boot.
The second prong is to use the leavers of political power to resuscitate the pre-modern Gadaa system as the overarching identity of Oromo. The only chance they can reintroduce a 16th century antiquated Gedaa is by rejecting the modernism of the 21st century. This is a futile enterprise to go forward in a reverse gear.
Political Oromummaa a Project of Wholesale Grievance and Lies
The politics of grievance-fueled hate is the sine qua none of Oromummaa, just like wind is a sine qua non for flying a kite. Sadly, the politics of grievance-fueled hate is sustained by a wholesale lie-infested narrative both about Oromummaa and about its designated enemies. While noting that one can write volumes on this, I will limit my presentation to a few examples in the interest of space.
Allow me to reiterate Shimelis Abdissa’s 2019 Irrecha celebration speech to show the wholesale lie is the foundational anchor of Oromummaa’s hate-driven movement. At his speech, he said: “We have taken the levers of power after we broke the backbone of our enemies in the same place where they broke us.” The enemy he mentioned was “Neftegna” aka Amhara.
The truth is that the Oromo-led governing party was voted into office with a unanimous vote from members of the Amhara Democratic Party, in 2018. Had the Amhara casted their block vote with the nominee of the Southern People candidate, the leavers of power would have gone to a non-Oromo candidate. Oromo did not break the backbone of Amhara. It climbed to power on the supporting shoulders of Amhara.
Let us move to Professor Mirgissa Kaba’s and Girma Gutema’s rejoinder to my Emergency Manifesto. I had to read some of their remarks twice to make sure that my eyes were not playing tricks on me. In an unabashed lack of intellectual integrity laced with brazen audacity, the two defenders of Oromummaa wrote: “The Oromo lived peacefully and has never enticed any wrong to any peoples whom they live with as neighbors.”
This is the same Oromo tribal land where people are hanged upside down alive and stoned to death that the two Oromummaa scholars are talking about. They are talking about the land of Mogassa where in centuries past Oromo warriors cut the [ deleted ] of men who refused to accept Oromoness and then hacked their neck with a hatchet. The cruelty is manifested in the decision to chop their [ deleted ] first and then hack their neck rather than hacking their neck first and then chop their [ deleted ].
Recent reports by credible international agencies show the Oromo tribal land is the epicenter of recurring forced displacement and race-based mass murders. Yet, the two scholars boldly claim the Oromo has never done any wrong to any people.”
Further, in a tweet Professor Mirgissa suggested Oromummaa does not infringe on “other group’s rights”. Let us start with Shimelis Abdissa, the President of the Oromo region the second most powerful person in current Oromo politics, next only to the Prime Minister.
He is on the record announcing Oromo-PP’s plan for “the Future of Ethiopia” is Gedaa and “Prosperity Party is built in such a way to advance the interest of Oromo. The head of the Party will always be an Oromo or an Oromo plant.” Jawar Mohammed, one of the most prominent Oromo politicians, acknowledges the resentment that Oromo-PP’s attempt at establishing an Oromo hegemony has inspired, noting:
Once again, in a 2023 speech to Oromo-PP youth league, President Shimelis made both the enemy and the imagined castle in the air components of Oromummaa clear:
Leaders such as Shimelis, Gemechu, Asafa, and their ilk use pens, papers, and megaphones to herald their lies. However, their lies germinate violent actions as they percolate down to the restless youth. Sticks, stones, matchets and guns become the political lingua franca of the systematically nurtured and curated resentment of Political Oromummaa.
Let me add some more examples of Oromummaa’s institutionalized lies from Professor Asafa’s articles. Professor Asafa’s ability to fabricate false narrative seems to know no limits. Speaking of the Oromo Mogassa system he wrote:
“The principles of justice and democracy guided the Oromo worldview and value. Oromo society rejected hierarchies based on race/ethnicity, class, and gender. Therefore, when the Oromo fought wars and defeated their competitors, they integrated them into their society through the processes known as guudifacha and moogafacha. When other peoples or groups were interested to join Oromo society, they were allowed to join the society through these processes.”
Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa, a well-known quantity in the Oromummaa universe acknowledges the Oromo used the “Gadaa system both militarily and administratively to expand their territories.” Mohammed Hassen, another well-regarded Oromummaa leader debunking Professor Asafa’s claim that the Mogassa undertaking was guided by “the principles of justice and democracy.” Mohammed wrote: the Mogassa practice “included absorbing defeated tribes “as clients or serfs (gabbaro) into the [Oromo] tribal structure.”
For ease of explanation, let me present a hypothetical version of Chinese Mogassa. Here are the steps.
1. China invaded Ethiopia.
2. Converted all Ethiopians to Chinese citizens in a national ceremony under the threat of mass murder.
3. Required every Ethiopian to stop speaking in his/her mother tongue and start speaking in Mandarin only.
4. Forced all Ethiopians to adopt Chinese names such as 静 for women, and 燕 for men.
5. Gave Ethiopia a new name, say 无为市.
6. Required all former Ethiopians to denounce their traditions and cultures
7. Cut the [ deleted ] of men who refused to accept their Chinese-ness and hack their heads in front of their community.
8. Allowed the newly minted Chinese to live freely with Chinese Culture and language.
9. In the process of Chinese Mogassa millions of Ethiopians were murdered for refusing to comply, but the Chinese government argues the end justifies the means.
Professor Asafa brazenly claims “When [non-Oromos] were interested to join Oromo society, they were allowed to join the society.” He forgot to mention those who were not interested had their [ deleted ] chopped and their neck hacked.
Oromos Were an Integral Part of Ethiopia’s Governance Architecture
The Oromummaa camp’s claim that Oromo has been colonized by Ethiopia is an outright lie. If one must judge Ethiopia’s state building of past centuries by current democratic standards, the Oromo will come out both as colonizer and colonized – if one must use such words.
One can go as far back as Emperror Susenyos’s era (early 1600s) to see the role the Oromo played as kings, king makers and military leaders of a succession of Ethiopian eras. There were Oromo governors in Amhara tribal land way before Menilik’s time. Under Menilik’s era and beyond, there were Oromo generals, governors, Ambassadors, and members of the Nobility.
Empress Taitu Betul (the great granddaughter of Ras Gugssa) was Emperor Menelik’s wife. She was Ras Gugssa an Oromo was married to Zewditu, the daughter of Emperor Menelik. Negus Mikael (aka Ali) of Wollo was an Oromo king of Wollo. His father was Ali Aba Bula. The wife of Emperor Haile Selassie, Empress Menen is the granddaughter of Ras Mikael of Wello whose an Oromo. Prince Sahle Selassie, the youngest son of Emperor Haile Selassie was married to an Oromo.
Dejazmach Balcha Aba Nefsso was another great Oromo general. He was one of the most talked about and revered war leader during the Adwa war. Interestingly, the Gurage in Ethiopia claim he is a Gurage. The Oromos claim him to be a naturalized Oromo through Mogassa.
Ras Abebe Aregay, one of the kingmakers of Ethiopia was half Oromo on his mother’s side. He was the Prime Minister of Ethiopia (1957-1960).
In the early days of Mengistu Hailemariam’s era, Teferi Benti (an Oromo) was the head of state. Mengistu Haile Mariam himself was an Oromo. His principal intellectual Gidfather was Haile Fida, an Oromo. His last Prime Minster Tesfaye Dinka, another Oromo. Other high-level officials included Demise Bulto and Tesfaye Gebre Kidan Geletu (who served as the Acting President of Ethiopia after Mengistu fled the nation).
What Needs to Be Done?
For the last 50 years, since the time of Mengistu, Ethiopia been led by Oromos, Southern People (PM Haile Mariam) and Tigrayans. And yet Oromummaa targets the Amhara because the movement is built on passionate hate for the Amhara.
The lie-inspired and hate-driven Oromummaa movement is pushing the nation to the brink. In the immediate short-term the only force that the PM responds to is the IC. The IC must use the full force of its sanction tools to stop Oromummaa before it is too late. See “Averting Civil War in Ethiopia: An Emergency Manifesto.” --- https://eastafricanist.com/averting-civ ... -ethiopia/
https://borkena.com/2023/05/15/oromumma ... -movement/
Re: OROMUMMAA Explained: Savagery OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት by Koki Abesolome
Slavery and Terror Were Integral Parts of the Gadaa System
Yonas Biru, PhD
Let me at the outset flag two caveats to avoid misunderstanding and shed light on the aim of this article for those who wonder.
First, historically, the story of Ethiopian politics is a story of different political groups brutalizing each other. In most cases the predator and victim relationship continue for many decades even after the vanquished fully submitted. The Amhara, the Oromo, Tigray, Somali/Afar, etc. have done it in turn. Followers of Christianity, Islam, Waaqeffanna have gone through it both as perpetrators and victims. There is no nation that has not gone through such a brutal chapter in its quest for nationhood and socio-economic development.
Second, judging what happened in centuries past based on the moral and judicial norms of the 21st century is a futile exercise that often polarizes and encourages those who would use hate as a tool of division and conflict.
The raison d’être for the article is neither to condemn nor lament about Gadaa’s past. It is to refute the false narrative about Gadaa that Oromummaa intellectuals are peddling as a historical fact. The story of Gadaa is more like the proverbial parable of blind men and the elephant as told by Buddhist since before the birth of Christ. The story goes as follows:
A group of blind men heard about a strange animal. The animal was an elephant that wandered into their village. They wanted to know what the fuss surrounding it was all about. Each blind man was allowed to touch only one part of the elephant and describe what the animal felt like.
The first blind man who touched the elephant’s leg, said the animal was like a tree. The man who touched the body, believed it was like a wall. Another who reached out to touch its tail had the misfortune of touching and smelling its dung. He believed the animal was made of smelly dung. The blind man who grabbed the elephant’s tusk insisted all his friends were wrong. The animal was like a long smooth and slippery rock in a river.
Likewise, Gadaa for some is the most humane and embracing system of assimilation. For others it is the definition of unmitigated human cruelty whose land is soaked in blood and gore, smelling like an elephant’s dung.
To name just a few examples, Asafa Jalata insists Gadaa is a democratic system and signifies an example of classical African civilization. He puts Gadda center stage, “at the heart of Oromo tradition and culture, which shapes the basis of Oromummaa.” His narrative elevates Oromummaa and Gadaa as foundations of individual and collective freedom, justice, popular democracy, and human liberation.” He even talks about the concept of safuu as Gadaa’s and Oromummaa’s “moral and ethical order.”
In “The Oromo of Ethiopia: A History 1570-1860” published by Cambridge University Press, Professor Mohammed Hassen, the most popular Oromo historian, presents tribal assimilation under Gadda as follows. “The Oromo genius for assimilation quickly claimed any non-Oromo, defeated or otherwise not only through force but also through the “process called moggaasa (adoption)”
Let us now turn to the dung version of Gadaa. Pedro Paez described Gadaa warriors as follows.
“The Oromo slaughtered many people and carried out extraordinary cruelties, because they cut to pieces the men and many of the boys and girls that they seized, and they opened up pregnant women with their spearheads and pulled the babies out of their wombs. The people of that land therefore came to fear them so much that nobody dared resist them.”
In the 1924 issue of the Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol.23, No. 90, C. F. Rey wrote:
“Gadaa’s methods of warfare were cruel even for that age, and it was they who introduced the horrible practice mutilating the dead, and even the wounded and prisoners.”
Despite providing other equally characteristics of the Oromo, C. F. Rey provided a boarder perspective, stating:
“I do not wish to suggest that the [Oromo] exhibit these [negative] traits generally, or even to any appreciable extent to-day… But I mention the facts in order that the lamb-like pictures which have been presented of Oromo folks since their subjection by the Abyssinians may be taken at the proper value, and that it may be understood why the Abyssians have been somewhat harsh in dealing with their century old enemies when their turn came.”
The purpose of this article is twofold. First is to show that C. F. Rey’s narrative of the cruelty of Gadaa militarism reflects the truth and that Mohammed Hassen and Asafa Jalata are aware of it. Second is to show the Gadaa era was brought to end by the excesses of its cruelty not by Abyssinian governments as the likes of Jawar Mohammed and Asafa Jalata claim.
Allow me to call Mohammed Hassen as an alibi to drive my point home on both issues. Mohamed is the perfect alibi for three reasons.
First, he is the most prominent Oromo historian. His most referenced book on Gadaa was published by the Cambridge University Press. This means the veracity of his historic account has gone through the rigors of academic editing for professional quality.
Second, politically, he is among the leading peddler of the Oromummaa cult and political dogma.
Third, he is a member of the international delegation of Oromo Shene.
Therefore, his historical account cannot be shrugged off as either Oromo mania or Oromo phobia because it was vetted by one of the world’s premier publishing houses.
The Terror of Gadaa: In Mohammed’s Own Words
In his 530-pages long documentary titled “The Oromo Ethiopia, 1500-1850,” Mohammed documented Gadaa conquest required the vanquished to adopt Oromo language, culture, and identity and even Oromo genealogical heritage. Those who refused to Oromize their body, spirit, soul, and genealogy were wiped out of existence in a bloodshed. Let us hear it firsthand from him.
The Oromo warrior classes which fought with frenzied determination astonished the elite of the Christian and Muslim states and terrorized the populace.
When new areas were attacked, the men were killed, and animals were captured. Probably the killing was intended to spread terror among the resisting population while the taking of cattle booty was to enrich themselves. Once the newly conquered areas were turned into safe bases coupled with the increase of animal population, extra hands were needed for herding the cattle, producing grain and contributing fighting men. Now enslaving the vanquished people was an economic as well as military necessity.
The Oromo term for the conquered people was Gabbro (“those who serve”), The Oromo adopted the gabbro into the gada system, giving them a clan genealogy, while the able-bodied men were recruited for military service. What all this tells us is that, while the frontier of the Christian kingdom was shrinking, a new nation was being formed out of its debris.
Mohammed goes on in more detail
[Gadaa warriors] are the devils who attack in the evening. This sophisticated form of guerilla tactics, which from the Arab chronicler’s report seem to have been highly developed and used in Bali, was very similar, if not identical, with the type of guerilla warfare with which the pastoral Oromo terrorized the entire region during their epoch-making migration.
Wealthy Oromo men substituted the noble institution of adoption into the gada system with an entirely new element of slavery and servitude of the vanquished people. Most of the conquered people who had earlier submitted with little or no resistance to the Macha, found that they were no longer equal members of a clan within which they were incorporated, but slaves who were used as gifts and commodities for sale.
The End of Gadaa: In Mohammed’s Own Words
Let us give Mohammed time and space to tell us the truth in his own words.
As a historian, Mohammed is a different person from Mohammed the politician and Oromummaa peddler. As a politician he accuses successive Ethiopian rulers as the primary culprits for the end of the Gadaa system.
As a historian, he provides two primary reasons for the beginning of the end of the Gadaa system: (1) societal progress, and (2) Gadaa’s slave trading cruel legacy.
Mohammed the historian presents Oromo during the Gadaa era as pastoralists whose way of life was typically nomadic. In his above-mentioned book, he wrote:
“The Oromo moved from place to place with their flocks and herds, always in search of pasture and avoiding its loss… They seem to have fully developed their Gada system, the institution which seems to be more suited for pastoral society than for sedentary agriculturalists… In short, the Gada system seems to have flourished among that part of the society engaged in the pastoral economy.”
As a result, with social progress and the advent of agriculture as a predominant source of food, Gadaa lost its muster and competence and died of natural causes, having reached the end of its life cycle. This is consistent with what other Oromummaa peddling and Gadaa worshiping intellectuals have written. Professor Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa puts it as follows.
“Due to the geographical expansion of the Oromo territory and an increasing population, the central Gadaa government declined beginning in the mid-17th century and autonomous regional and local republics took its place.”
This is echoed by Professor Jalata as follows:
“The nonfederal nature of the Gadaa System, lack of Strong Central government, lack of regular meeting of Gadaa official and long distance of Gumii (assembly) from political center made Gadaa system less Competent”.
Despite this Mohammed the politician, along with Asafa and Jawar is the co-author of modern-day Oromo bloodletting that foments conflict and unleashes Oromummaa’s savagery against innocent people. This group is not only shameful, but also criminal and accountable for the millions of non-Oromos who have been displaced from the Oromo tribal land and tens of thousands who have become victims of Gadaa inspired mass murder.
The Slave Trader and Terrorist Legacies of Gadaa: In Mohammed’s Own Words
Speaking of the collapse of the Gadaa system, Mohammed wrote: “By the beginning of the seventeenth century, Oromo social organization was starting to break down.” This is centuries before Menilik’s armies stepped a foot in the Oromo tribal land. This, however, has not stopped Oromummaa criminal intellectuals including Mohammed Hassan the politician from accusing Menilik of killing Gadaa.
Mohammed the historian captured the cruelty of Gadda that led to its break down in one pregnant sentence in his above-referenced book.
“Their sixteenth century capacity to terrorize was second only to their inexhaustible talent for self-mutilation during the seventeenth and subsequent centuries.”
He explained in more detail.
The factors which made for the strength of the Oromo society in the previous century were becoming a source of weakness for a society which had spread over such a large area. When the Oromo were on the move, fighting for individual honor unleashed a dynamic spirit to push forward; but once they began settling down, fighting for individual honor became the source of perpetual anarchy, the cause for endless war among themselves. Common interest united them and made them a terror to their enemies. With their spread over wider * territory, it became very difficult to reconcile the interests of various groups. In the absence of a binding interest, they turned against each other. Clan interest replaced the wider interest of the confederacy.
Disharmony undermined their unity and their fighting capacity. With the break-up of confederacies, different groups fought against each other as much as they fought their enemies. By turning against each other, they gave some breathing space to their enemies, and encouraged the rebellion of their subject people.
Clearly then, the Oromization of the conquered did not exclude their subjection to extractive and exploitive relations despite the fact that they were incorporated in the gada system. Indeed, the rights of the gabbaro were trampled upon, their women and children sold into slavery by their Oromo masters” leading to rebellion “all over the Matcha land.
Consequently, gada governance was not able to resolve its internal contradictions, which, for example, led to the gabbaro uprising of 1618, and eventually to the demise of gada governance in the Gibe states in the nineteenth century.
The conquered people, whose pride was humbled in the dust of slavery, and whose number was reduced through sale realized that the only hope of safety was open rebellion against their arrogant masters.
The morally malnourished and ethically devoid Oromummaa political elites will continue their bloodletting false narrative about Gadaa until Ethiopians push back with forceful rebuttal. But Ethiopian intellectuals are screwed up. They believe rejecting the bloodletting false narrative of the morally malnourished and ethically devoid Oromo intellectual clan will anger Oromos. What a screwed-up line of thinking it is I do not understand.
https://borkena.com/2024/02/12/ethiopia ... aa-system/
Yonas Biru, PhD
Let me at the outset flag two caveats to avoid misunderstanding and shed light on the aim of this article for those who wonder.
First, historically, the story of Ethiopian politics is a story of different political groups brutalizing each other. In most cases the predator and victim relationship continue for many decades even after the vanquished fully submitted. The Amhara, the Oromo, Tigray, Somali/Afar, etc. have done it in turn. Followers of Christianity, Islam, Waaqeffanna have gone through it both as perpetrators and victims. There is no nation that has not gone through such a brutal chapter in its quest for nationhood and socio-economic development.
Second, judging what happened in centuries past based on the moral and judicial norms of the 21st century is a futile exercise that often polarizes and encourages those who would use hate as a tool of division and conflict.
The raison d’être for the article is neither to condemn nor lament about Gadaa’s past. It is to refute the false narrative about Gadaa that Oromummaa intellectuals are peddling as a historical fact. The story of Gadaa is more like the proverbial parable of blind men and the elephant as told by Buddhist since before the birth of Christ. The story goes as follows:
A group of blind men heard about a strange animal. The animal was an elephant that wandered into their village. They wanted to know what the fuss surrounding it was all about. Each blind man was allowed to touch only one part of the elephant and describe what the animal felt like.
The first blind man who touched the elephant’s leg, said the animal was like a tree. The man who touched the body, believed it was like a wall. Another who reached out to touch its tail had the misfortune of touching and smelling its dung. He believed the animal was made of smelly dung. The blind man who grabbed the elephant’s tusk insisted all his friends were wrong. The animal was like a long smooth and slippery rock in a river.
Likewise, Gadaa for some is the most humane and embracing system of assimilation. For others it is the definition of unmitigated human cruelty whose land is soaked in blood and gore, smelling like an elephant’s dung.
To name just a few examples, Asafa Jalata insists Gadaa is a democratic system and signifies an example of classical African civilization. He puts Gadda center stage, “at the heart of Oromo tradition and culture, which shapes the basis of Oromummaa.” His narrative elevates Oromummaa and Gadaa as foundations of individual and collective freedom, justice, popular democracy, and human liberation.” He even talks about the concept of safuu as Gadaa’s and Oromummaa’s “moral and ethical order.”
In “The Oromo of Ethiopia: A History 1570-1860” published by Cambridge University Press, Professor Mohammed Hassen, the most popular Oromo historian, presents tribal assimilation under Gadda as follows. “The Oromo genius for assimilation quickly claimed any non-Oromo, defeated or otherwise not only through force but also through the “process called moggaasa (adoption)”
Let us now turn to the dung version of Gadaa. Pedro Paez described Gadaa warriors as follows.
“The Oromo slaughtered many people and carried out extraordinary cruelties, because they cut to pieces the men and many of the boys and girls that they seized, and they opened up pregnant women with their spearheads and pulled the babies out of their wombs. The people of that land therefore came to fear them so much that nobody dared resist them.”
In the 1924 issue of the Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol.23, No. 90, C. F. Rey wrote:
“Gadaa’s methods of warfare were cruel even for that age, and it was they who introduced the horrible practice mutilating the dead, and even the wounded and prisoners.”
Despite providing other equally characteristics of the Oromo, C. F. Rey provided a boarder perspective, stating:
“I do not wish to suggest that the [Oromo] exhibit these [negative] traits generally, or even to any appreciable extent to-day… But I mention the facts in order that the lamb-like pictures which have been presented of Oromo folks since their subjection by the Abyssinians may be taken at the proper value, and that it may be understood why the Abyssians have been somewhat harsh in dealing with their century old enemies when their turn came.”
The purpose of this article is twofold. First is to show that C. F. Rey’s narrative of the cruelty of Gadaa militarism reflects the truth and that Mohammed Hassen and Asafa Jalata are aware of it. Second is to show the Gadaa era was brought to end by the excesses of its cruelty not by Abyssinian governments as the likes of Jawar Mohammed and Asafa Jalata claim.
Allow me to call Mohammed Hassen as an alibi to drive my point home on both issues. Mohamed is the perfect alibi for three reasons.
First, he is the most prominent Oromo historian. His most referenced book on Gadaa was published by the Cambridge University Press. This means the veracity of his historic account has gone through the rigors of academic editing for professional quality.
Second, politically, he is among the leading peddler of the Oromummaa cult and political dogma.
Third, he is a member of the international delegation of Oromo Shene.
Therefore, his historical account cannot be shrugged off as either Oromo mania or Oromo phobia because it was vetted by one of the world’s premier publishing houses.
The Terror of Gadaa: In Mohammed’s Own Words
In his 530-pages long documentary titled “The Oromo Ethiopia, 1500-1850,” Mohammed documented Gadaa conquest required the vanquished to adopt Oromo language, culture, and identity and even Oromo genealogical heritage. Those who refused to Oromize their body, spirit, soul, and genealogy were wiped out of existence in a bloodshed. Let us hear it firsthand from him.
The Oromo warrior classes which fought with frenzied determination astonished the elite of the Christian and Muslim states and terrorized the populace.
When new areas were attacked, the men were killed, and animals were captured. Probably the killing was intended to spread terror among the resisting population while the taking of cattle booty was to enrich themselves. Once the newly conquered areas were turned into safe bases coupled with the increase of animal population, extra hands were needed for herding the cattle, producing grain and contributing fighting men. Now enslaving the vanquished people was an economic as well as military necessity.
The Oromo term for the conquered people was Gabbro (“those who serve”), The Oromo adopted the gabbro into the gada system, giving them a clan genealogy, while the able-bodied men were recruited for military service. What all this tells us is that, while the frontier of the Christian kingdom was shrinking, a new nation was being formed out of its debris.
Mohammed goes on in more detail
[Gadaa warriors] are the devils who attack in the evening. This sophisticated form of guerilla tactics, which from the Arab chronicler’s report seem to have been highly developed and used in Bali, was very similar, if not identical, with the type of guerilla warfare with which the pastoral Oromo terrorized the entire region during their epoch-making migration.
Wealthy Oromo men substituted the noble institution of adoption into the gada system with an entirely new element of slavery and servitude of the vanquished people. Most of the conquered people who had earlier submitted with little or no resistance to the Macha, found that they were no longer equal members of a clan within which they were incorporated, but slaves who were used as gifts and commodities for sale.
The End of Gadaa: In Mohammed’s Own Words
Let us give Mohammed time and space to tell us the truth in his own words.
As a historian, Mohammed is a different person from Mohammed the politician and Oromummaa peddler. As a politician he accuses successive Ethiopian rulers as the primary culprits for the end of the Gadaa system.
As a historian, he provides two primary reasons for the beginning of the end of the Gadaa system: (1) societal progress, and (2) Gadaa’s slave trading cruel legacy.
Mohammed the historian presents Oromo during the Gadaa era as pastoralists whose way of life was typically nomadic. In his above-mentioned book, he wrote:
“The Oromo moved from place to place with their flocks and herds, always in search of pasture and avoiding its loss… They seem to have fully developed their Gada system, the institution which seems to be more suited for pastoral society than for sedentary agriculturalists… In short, the Gada system seems to have flourished among that part of the society engaged in the pastoral economy.”
As a result, with social progress and the advent of agriculture as a predominant source of food, Gadaa lost its muster and competence and died of natural causes, having reached the end of its life cycle. This is consistent with what other Oromummaa peddling and Gadaa worshiping intellectuals have written. Professor Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa puts it as follows.
“Due to the geographical expansion of the Oromo territory and an increasing population, the central Gadaa government declined beginning in the mid-17th century and autonomous regional and local republics took its place.”
This is echoed by Professor Jalata as follows:
“The nonfederal nature of the Gadaa System, lack of Strong Central government, lack of regular meeting of Gadaa official and long distance of Gumii (assembly) from political center made Gadaa system less Competent”.
Despite this Mohammed the politician, along with Asafa and Jawar is the co-author of modern-day Oromo bloodletting that foments conflict and unleashes Oromummaa’s savagery against innocent people. This group is not only shameful, but also criminal and accountable for the millions of non-Oromos who have been displaced from the Oromo tribal land and tens of thousands who have become victims of Gadaa inspired mass murder.
The Slave Trader and Terrorist Legacies of Gadaa: In Mohammed’s Own Words
Speaking of the collapse of the Gadaa system, Mohammed wrote: “By the beginning of the seventeenth century, Oromo social organization was starting to break down.” This is centuries before Menilik’s armies stepped a foot in the Oromo tribal land. This, however, has not stopped Oromummaa criminal intellectuals including Mohammed Hassan the politician from accusing Menilik of killing Gadaa.
Mohammed the historian captured the cruelty of Gadda that led to its break down in one pregnant sentence in his above-referenced book.
“Their sixteenth century capacity to terrorize was second only to their inexhaustible talent for self-mutilation during the seventeenth and subsequent centuries.”
He explained in more detail.
The factors which made for the strength of the Oromo society in the previous century were becoming a source of weakness for a society which had spread over such a large area. When the Oromo were on the move, fighting for individual honor unleashed a dynamic spirit to push forward; but once they began settling down, fighting for individual honor became the source of perpetual anarchy, the cause for endless war among themselves. Common interest united them and made them a terror to their enemies. With their spread over wider * territory, it became very difficult to reconcile the interests of various groups. In the absence of a binding interest, they turned against each other. Clan interest replaced the wider interest of the confederacy.
Disharmony undermined their unity and their fighting capacity. With the break-up of confederacies, different groups fought against each other as much as they fought their enemies. By turning against each other, they gave some breathing space to their enemies, and encouraged the rebellion of their subject people.
Clearly then, the Oromization of the conquered did not exclude their subjection to extractive and exploitive relations despite the fact that they were incorporated in the gada system. Indeed, the rights of the gabbaro were trampled upon, their women and children sold into slavery by their Oromo masters” leading to rebellion “all over the Matcha land.
Consequently, gada governance was not able to resolve its internal contradictions, which, for example, led to the gabbaro uprising of 1618, and eventually to the demise of gada governance in the Gibe states in the nineteenth century.
The conquered people, whose pride was humbled in the dust of slavery, and whose number was reduced through sale realized that the only hope of safety was open rebellion against their arrogant masters.
The morally malnourished and ethically devoid Oromummaa political elites will continue their bloodletting false narrative about Gadaa until Ethiopians push back with forceful rebuttal. But Ethiopian intellectuals are screwed up. They believe rejecting the bloodletting false narrative of the morally malnourished and ethically devoid Oromo intellectual clan will anger Oromos. What a screwed-up line of thinking it is I do not understand.
https://borkena.com/2024/02/12/ethiopia ... aa-system/
Re: OROMUMMAA's Ideology znd Savagery Explained: Savagery OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት by Koki Abesolom
Oromummaa’s First Targets of Destruction are the Oromo People and Culture
Yonas Biru, PhD
Oromummaa is engineered to destroy the “Ethiopian Empire.” But to do so, it must first change the Oromo tribal land beyond recognition. Before we go to the topic at hand, allow me to reintroduce you to two books.
The True Believer was written by Eric Hofer in 1951. Intrigued by the Nazi movement, the philosopher Hoffer studied and decoded the human psychology that explained how otherwise normal and intelligent people signed up for the Nazi movement. The book has become a useful handbook to those who want to create blind followers who are ready to sacrifice themselves for a movement they are indoctrinated and primed for.
The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson was published in 1965. The book developed an original theory to build an effective organizational system that overcomes what economists call the free-rider problem. The free-ride problem signifies a phenomenon whereby people want change but want others to bear the cost for the desired change.
Where Hoffer’s book serves as a handbook to brainwash and prime individuals to join a movement, Olson’s book helps as an administrative manual to organize them effectively. Not surprisingly, Professor Jalata, the Godfather of Oromummaa, refers to both books in several of his articles. At a close examination, it becomes clear Oromummaa follows the same indoctrination and organizational methods that Adolph Hitler used.
Metamorphosis from Cultural Expression to Political and Religious Annihilation
First, Professor Jalata and his intellectual partners claimed Oromummaa is a concept to embrace and cherish being Oromo or Oromoness. Professor Mirgissa Kaba and Girma Gutema insist it is “a fundamental concept of being Oromo or Oromoness.” Professor Milkessa M. Gemechu describe it as a “broader concept that is explained by the totality of Oromo culture.”
Once concept got traction and won followers as a cultural expression, its architects smuggled political ideology into it. Professor Jalata declared Oromummaa goes “beyond culture and history.” All of a sudden, it became a “political project” with national and global aspirations.
The third step in Oromummaa’s transformation was putting Gadda center stage, “at the heart of Oromo tradition and culture, which shapes the basis of Oromummaa.” Gadaa, they said, reflects Oromo’s cultural, political, economic, social, and religious traditions. Consequently, Oromummaa became a wholistic movement.
Anyone who has read The True Believer understands, such a wholistic movement will bring political and religious aspects of the movement to the fore. Professor Jalata makes this clear, stating: “Establishing political and religious leadership” is key in “organizing Oromo society around economic, cultural and religious institutions.”
The Consequences of Political and Religious Leadership
Oromummaa has very little to do with the Oromo culture. In fact, its violence, malice, and bestiality are the antithesis of Oromo’s ethos of welcoming outsiders with a sense of community value and welfare.
At bottom, Oromummaa signifies political and religious conflicts. The political conflict is constantly hovering between Federalist vs. Pan Ethiopianist and Oromo Independence vs. Ethiopian Unity. The religious conflict is between Waaqeffanna (an indigenous Oromo religion) and two popular Abrahamic religions (Christianity and Islam).
Here is the problem both on the political and religious fronts. The majority of the people of Oromo see themselves as proud Ethiopians. In contrast, Professor Jalata accuse Ethiopia of “terrorizing and committing genocide on the Oromo people during the Scramble for Africa with the help of European imperial powers such as England, France, and Italy.”
Further, Waaqeffanna preaches the first man that God created is an Oromo and he is made of water. This stands in conflict with the Bible and the Quran that 90 percent of the people of Oromo follow.
In the Bible, Genesis 1:27 states “God created man in His own image.” According to Genesis 2:7 “God formed man of the dust of the ground.” The Qur’an (15:26) describes how Allah created Adam as follows: “We created man from sounding clay, from mud molded into shape…” Neither Holy book assigns race, tribe, or creed to God’s first human creation.
Professor Jalata is keenly aware that the odds are stalked against Oromummaa both on the political and religious fronts. He makes this clear in a 2010 presentation titled “Oromummaa: National Identity and Liberation Politics.” On the political front, he sated:
“Pro-Ethiopians Oromos are the majority in the Ethiopian rubber-stamp parliament, the Ethiopian army, and security networks; they work as colonial agents…; they are mercenaries, and they live for money and food.”
On the religious front, the Professor condemns Oromos who embrace their Islamic or Christian religion as follows:
“Oromos, [who] like their Habasha masters have been the defenders of the Habasha culture, religion, and the Amharic language and haters of the Oromo history, culture, institutions.”
His venomous attack against Islam and Christianity is laser focused and constant. He sees churches and mosques as Ethiopian “Empire Builders,” and “Colonial Institutions” with genocidal record against the Oromo.
Oromummaa: A Crusade Against Islam and Christianity
At its core, Oromummaa is a national “political project” to liberate the Oromo identity from Christianity and Islam. In this regard, Professor Jalata proposes a two-pronged approach. The first prong requires Christians and Muslims to “adapt to national Oromummaa.” This means they are expected to differ to Waaqeffanna when their beliefs contradict with it. For example, they need to accept Adam was Oromo and he was created from water, not of dust or mud.
The second prong aims to deal with Oromos “who have internalized these externally imposed religious identities because of their low level of political consciousness or because of their political opportunism.”
Over 90 percent of the Oromo population that follow Islam and Christianity is portrayed as either of “low level consciousness” or as an opportunist. In like manner, the majority of Oromos who see themselves as Ethiopians are condemned as “colonial agents and mercenaries” who have sold their Oromoness “for money and food.”
The Oromummaa doctrine portrays people like Laureate Tsegaye Gebremedhin, who is proudly Oromo and unabashedly Ethiopian, as suffering from low-level consciousness. Laureate Gebremedhin, choice to write poems in Amharic makes him a “hater of the Oromo history, culture, and institutions.” In like manner, Abuna Petros who sacrificed his life for Ethiopia is a “colonial agent and mercenary” who sold his Oromoness “for money and food.”
On the other hand, Bekele Gerba who proposed “not to do business with anyone who does not speak Afaan Oromo” and who attributed the decline of the Oromo language to intertribal marriage has high-level consciousness. Similarly, Jawar Mohammed and Shimelis Abdissa who declared that their allegiance to their Oromoness comes before their ecclesiastical allegiance to their respective religions is considered to be of high-level consciousness.
Professor Jalata insists Gadaa is a democratic system and signifies an example of classical African civilization. The 3.3 percent population of Oromo who follow the Waaqeffanna religion and lives under the tenets of Gadaa are the model on whose image he aspires to recreate the Oromo population.
If Gadaa is truly democratic and if Professor Jalata’s plan is to revive the democratic Gadaa system, how can he impose the religious practices of 3.3 percent of the population over the followers of Islam and Christianity?
Oromummaa intellectuals believe they have no chance of achieving their goal with over 90 percent of the Oromo population following of Islam and Christianity. What is their option? Gadaa as a democratic institution is no different from 16th century Mogassa that used violence, malice, and bestiality.
Over ninety percent of the Oromo population has its back marked as a mercenary, anti-Oromo, and agent of colonialism. The gun is cocked, locked and ready to draw. The trigger is waiting to be pulled. It will not be long before the Oromummaa movement reaches a critical mass to assert itself across the Oromo land. Those who doubt this must ask themselves why were Oromummaa intellectuals chosen by the Oromo Liberation Army as its delegation to negotiate with the Abiy government in Tanzania?
For further reading read my articles titled:
- The Oromummaa Politics: Weaponized with Lies and Soaked in Blood
- Oromummaa is a Low Grade Nazification Movement
- Oromummaa’s Religion Cleansing and Cultural Evilization Project
Related readings :
- Oromummaa’s Religion Cleansing and Cultural Evilgelization Project
- Oromummaa is a Low Grade Nazification Movement
https://borkena.com/2023/06/08/oromumma ... d-culture/
Yonas Biru, PhD
Oromummaa is engineered to destroy the “Ethiopian Empire.” But to do so, it must first change the Oromo tribal land beyond recognition. Before we go to the topic at hand, allow me to reintroduce you to two books.
The True Believer was written by Eric Hofer in 1951. Intrigued by the Nazi movement, the philosopher Hoffer studied and decoded the human psychology that explained how otherwise normal and intelligent people signed up for the Nazi movement. The book has become a useful handbook to those who want to create blind followers who are ready to sacrifice themselves for a movement they are indoctrinated and primed for.
The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson was published in 1965. The book developed an original theory to build an effective organizational system that overcomes what economists call the free-rider problem. The free-ride problem signifies a phenomenon whereby people want change but want others to bear the cost for the desired change.
Where Hoffer’s book serves as a handbook to brainwash and prime individuals to join a movement, Olson’s book helps as an administrative manual to organize them effectively. Not surprisingly, Professor Jalata, the Godfather of Oromummaa, refers to both books in several of his articles. At a close examination, it becomes clear Oromummaa follows the same indoctrination and organizational methods that Adolph Hitler used.
Metamorphosis from Cultural Expression to Political and Religious Annihilation
First, Professor Jalata and his intellectual partners claimed Oromummaa is a concept to embrace and cherish being Oromo or Oromoness. Professor Mirgissa Kaba and Girma Gutema insist it is “a fundamental concept of being Oromo or Oromoness.” Professor Milkessa M. Gemechu describe it as a “broader concept that is explained by the totality of Oromo culture.”
Once concept got traction and won followers as a cultural expression, its architects smuggled political ideology into it. Professor Jalata declared Oromummaa goes “beyond culture and history.” All of a sudden, it became a “political project” with national and global aspirations.
The third step in Oromummaa’s transformation was putting Gadda center stage, “at the heart of Oromo tradition and culture, which shapes the basis of Oromummaa.” Gadaa, they said, reflects Oromo’s cultural, political, economic, social, and religious traditions. Consequently, Oromummaa became a wholistic movement.
Anyone who has read The True Believer understands, such a wholistic movement will bring political and religious aspects of the movement to the fore. Professor Jalata makes this clear, stating: “Establishing political and religious leadership” is key in “organizing Oromo society around economic, cultural and religious institutions.”
The Consequences of Political and Religious Leadership
Oromummaa has very little to do with the Oromo culture. In fact, its violence, malice, and bestiality are the antithesis of Oromo’s ethos of welcoming outsiders with a sense of community value and welfare.
At bottom, Oromummaa signifies political and religious conflicts. The political conflict is constantly hovering between Federalist vs. Pan Ethiopianist and Oromo Independence vs. Ethiopian Unity. The religious conflict is between Waaqeffanna (an indigenous Oromo religion) and two popular Abrahamic religions (Christianity and Islam).
Here is the problem both on the political and religious fronts. The majority of the people of Oromo see themselves as proud Ethiopians. In contrast, Professor Jalata accuse Ethiopia of “terrorizing and committing genocide on the Oromo people during the Scramble for Africa with the help of European imperial powers such as England, France, and Italy.”
Further, Waaqeffanna preaches the first man that God created is an Oromo and he is made of water. This stands in conflict with the Bible and the Quran that 90 percent of the people of Oromo follow.
In the Bible, Genesis 1:27 states “God created man in His own image.” According to Genesis 2:7 “God formed man of the dust of the ground.” The Qur’an (15:26) describes how Allah created Adam as follows: “We created man from sounding clay, from mud molded into shape…” Neither Holy book assigns race, tribe, or creed to God’s first human creation.
Professor Jalata is keenly aware that the odds are stalked against Oromummaa both on the political and religious fronts. He makes this clear in a 2010 presentation titled “Oromummaa: National Identity and Liberation Politics.” On the political front, he sated:
“Pro-Ethiopians Oromos are the majority in the Ethiopian rubber-stamp parliament, the Ethiopian army, and security networks; they work as colonial agents…; they are mercenaries, and they live for money and food.”
On the religious front, the Professor condemns Oromos who embrace their Islamic or Christian religion as follows:
“Oromos, [who] like their Habasha masters have been the defenders of the Habasha culture, religion, and the Amharic language and haters of the Oromo history, culture, institutions.”
His venomous attack against Islam and Christianity is laser focused and constant. He sees churches and mosques as Ethiopian “Empire Builders,” and “Colonial Institutions” with genocidal record against the Oromo.
Oromummaa: A Crusade Against Islam and Christianity
At its core, Oromummaa is a national “political project” to liberate the Oromo identity from Christianity and Islam. In this regard, Professor Jalata proposes a two-pronged approach. The first prong requires Christians and Muslims to “adapt to national Oromummaa.” This means they are expected to differ to Waaqeffanna when their beliefs contradict with it. For example, they need to accept Adam was Oromo and he was created from water, not of dust or mud.
The second prong aims to deal with Oromos “who have internalized these externally imposed religious identities because of their low level of political consciousness or because of their political opportunism.”
Over 90 percent of the Oromo population that follow Islam and Christianity is portrayed as either of “low level consciousness” or as an opportunist. In like manner, the majority of Oromos who see themselves as Ethiopians are condemned as “colonial agents and mercenaries” who have sold their Oromoness “for money and food.”
The Oromummaa doctrine portrays people like Laureate Tsegaye Gebremedhin, who is proudly Oromo and unabashedly Ethiopian, as suffering from low-level consciousness. Laureate Gebremedhin, choice to write poems in Amharic makes him a “hater of the Oromo history, culture, and institutions.” In like manner, Abuna Petros who sacrificed his life for Ethiopia is a “colonial agent and mercenary” who sold his Oromoness “for money and food.”
On the other hand, Bekele Gerba who proposed “not to do business with anyone who does not speak Afaan Oromo” and who attributed the decline of the Oromo language to intertribal marriage has high-level consciousness. Similarly, Jawar Mohammed and Shimelis Abdissa who declared that their allegiance to their Oromoness comes before their ecclesiastical allegiance to their respective religions is considered to be of high-level consciousness.
Professor Jalata insists Gadaa is a democratic system and signifies an example of classical African civilization. The 3.3 percent population of Oromo who follow the Waaqeffanna religion and lives under the tenets of Gadaa are the model on whose image he aspires to recreate the Oromo population.
If Gadaa is truly democratic and if Professor Jalata’s plan is to revive the democratic Gadaa system, how can he impose the religious practices of 3.3 percent of the population over the followers of Islam and Christianity?
Oromummaa intellectuals believe they have no chance of achieving their goal with over 90 percent of the Oromo population following of Islam and Christianity. What is their option? Gadaa as a democratic institution is no different from 16th century Mogassa that used violence, malice, and bestiality.
Over ninety percent of the Oromo population has its back marked as a mercenary, anti-Oromo, and agent of colonialism. The gun is cocked, locked and ready to draw. The trigger is waiting to be pulled. It will not be long before the Oromummaa movement reaches a critical mass to assert itself across the Oromo land. Those who doubt this must ask themselves why were Oromummaa intellectuals chosen by the Oromo Liberation Army as its delegation to negotiate with the Abiy government in Tanzania?
For further reading read my articles titled:
- The Oromummaa Politics: Weaponized with Lies and Soaked in Blood
- Oromummaa is a Low Grade Nazification Movement
- Oromummaa’s Religion Cleansing and Cultural Evilization Project
Related readings :
- Oromummaa’s Religion Cleansing and Cultural Evilgelization Project
- Oromummaa is a Low Grade Nazification Movement
https://borkena.com/2023/06/08/oromumma ... d-culture/
Re: OROMUMMAA's Ideology and Savagery Explained: Savagery OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት by Koki Abesolom
Koki Abesolome
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ኦሮሞ ታሟል
THIS IS MY ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN SEPTEMBER 2023
Its core messages are two:
FIRST: "The Oromo political class suffers from a self-inflicted psychological trauma. Its 50-year victimhood politics has made it unable to break out of a victim mentality and adopt a frame of mind befitting the solemnity of leading a nation as a governing body. "
SECOND: "As a matter of political narrative, Oromo political leaders do not publicly accuse the Amhara masses. Their political narrative targets Amhara elites, whom they brand as ነፍጠኛ (war monger), ትምክህተኛ (arrogant with a superiority complex), and/or ጽንፈኛ (extremist). In practice, their victims are always the Amhara masses. The thousands of people that Oromo-Shene murdered are not Amhara elites. They are very poor members of the Amhara masses. When Shimelis Abdisa said our enemies know what our intentions are with Sheger City, the enemies he targeted his wrath were not the Amhara elite. They were the Amhara masses."
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ኦሮሞ ታሟል
Allow me to introduce myself again, for the first time. Heritage wise, I am of an Oromo and Amhara construct. I have been disowned, ostracized, and condemned by both for being “Oromo phobic” and “anti-Amhara.” My opposition to the idiotic #NoMore movement has also earned me the honorable badge of “A CIA agent.” Welcome to the uniquely Ethiopian politics where ኩክኒያም goons reign supreme.
The purpose of this article is to enter the blind spot of the Oromo social psychology and converse with the demons that have turned its politics savage in its violence, virulent in its outlook, and self-destructive in is mode of operation. What Ethiopians and the world at large are witnessing is the Oromo political class degrading and destroying the very government whose political levers of power it controls.
In 1993, Bill Clinton won the presidency of the US by wrapping his campaign around one phrase: “It is the Economy, Stupid!”. The message was that America’s political ills could be cured with economic pills.
The 21st century Oromo political reality can be encapsulated in one phrase: “It is the Psychology, Stupid!” The Oromo political class suffers from self-inflicted psychological trauma. Its 50-year victimhood politics has made it unable to break out of victim mentality and adopt a frame of mind befitting the solemnity of leading a nation as a governing body. Necessarily, we must put political correctness aside in the interest of salvaging the Oromo soul from the psychological clutches of the evil spirits of the past.
The Evils of Psychological Horror
Ethiopia has never seen the brand of brutality manifested by the Oromo-led government in its modern history. Stop and watch this video. Look also at this and this. Look at the below pictures as well.
The first picture shows rounded up people waiting to be processed in the concentration camp. The second picture shows a small fraction of the nearly one million Amharas who were forcefully evicted out of the Oromo tribal and. They include pregnant women and elders who could hardly walk. The third picture shows Amhara concentration camp where tuberculosis and diarrhea has claimed countless lives. The fourth picture shows children rounded up and waiting to be transported to concentration camps.
Look at this video also. An Amhara Orthodox priest is being paraded on the streets of Oromo with dead chicken hanging on his neck. The crowd is shouting “hung him”. The crime is deep rooted in the Oromo political class that accuses the Orthodox Church of being a voodoo religion; hence the dead black chicken that he was forced to hung on his neck.
The perpetrators are not Oromo political elites. They are ordinary Oromos from different walks of life. You must also look at the pictures below, showing innocent Amhara prisoners being treated for tuberculosis in a makeshift Oromo concentration camp and a grieving child whose parents are either locked in a concentration camp or killed.
Only the Oromo psyche with damaged social psychology can comfortably hide behind a “hear-no-evil and see-no-evil” political position under such inhuman circumstances. Do not try to find a political solution for this. The problem is with the Oromo social psychology.
ኦሮሞ ታሟል: It is the Psychology Stupid
One pregnant phrase defines the Oromo political problem as described by the Godfather of Oromummaa, Asafa Jalata: “Deep Rooted Psychological Inferiority.”
The Oromummaa literature stands on three legs in the order they are listed: Fist comes psychological liberation, followed by Oromo unity, and leading to self-determination. According to Jalata, Oromo psychological liberation requires “fighting against the Oromo external oppressor and the internalized oppressive values.”
Stripped of their sociological jargon, what Jalata’s books and articles tell us is that consciously or unconsciously Oromo is a psychologically damaged good. In this regard, Jalata argues, Oromo intellectuals “have not yet achieved psychological liberation, they consciously or unconsciously prefer to work for their colonial masters rather than promoting the Oromo liberation project.”
Jalata identifies the main problem to be “low level of political consciousness and an imposed inferiority complex…” As a result, he argues “Ethiopianism replaced Oromummaa.” The solution, he believes, is to reverse this phenomenon. Oromummaa must replace Ethiopianism. The savagery we are witnessing is a result of Jawar Mohammed’s “Ethiopia out of Oromia” doctrine and Asafa Jalata’s political theology of replacing Ethiopia by Oromummaa.
Morally Malnourished Leadership Borne Out of a Psychologically Damaged Political Class
As part of Oromummaa-ization of the entire Ethiopia, the Oromo President said the “Prosperity Party is built in such a way to advance the interest of Oromo. The head of the Party will always be an Oromo or an Oromo plant.” A detailed strategic plan is provided in a report titled “We Need Modern Version of the OLF With High Confidence Politics of Haile Fida!.” Here is how it is described: “The aim of an independent Gadaa Oromia is Oromo politics of the past… We surely will move to the level of high confidence in order to own the whole Ethiopia…”
The Prime Minister shares the belief that the head of the prosperity party will always be an Oromo or an Oromo plant. He is on national TV threatening the public that if his position is threatened, it will lead to “the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people over night” and the consequence will be “deadlier than the red terror in the 1970s” is par for the course for a narcissist psychopath.
What makes his leadership worse is the incompetence the Gedaa system that the Oromo political class institutionalized as the basis of Ethiopia’s governance principles. The Oromo President is on the record, saying “the Future of Ethiopia” is Gedaa. The Problem with Gedaa, as Professor Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa put it is: “Due to the geographical expansion of the Oromo territory and an increasing population, the central Gadaa government declined beginning in the mid-17th century and autonomous regional and local republics took its place.”
This is echoed by Professor Jalata as follows: “The nonfederal nature of the Gadaa System, lack of Strong Central government, lack of regular meeting of Gadaa official and long distance of Gumii (assembly) from political center made Gadaa system less Competent”.
A system that is seen less competent to govern 17th century Oromo villages is what the Oromo political class is using to administer 120 million Ethiopians in the 21st century. The result is economic, political and law and order catastrophe. Professor Derese Kassa (@nestaneth), who just returned from Ethiopia, tweeted 14 observations. Let me share three of them.
• The loss of law and order and the level of insecurity in the nation is staggering. Kidnappings, detentions, torture, and killings by state actors, by rebels and criminal syndicates have hit the rooftop.
• The level of corruption by government officials and the extent of state capture is unprecedented. Business owners are asked to pay bribes in millions, or they will be subject to inexorable fake taxes. Ministers have a coterie of concubines who also broker kickbacks
• The middle class is no more. Civil servants, teachers, doctors, and engineers are now reduced to the underclass. It’s heartbreaking to see our former educators wait for handouts and alms from relatives and kinfolk abroad.
Dr. Hangaasa Ibrahim (a member of the National Parliamentarian representing the Oromo tribal land) and Taye Dandea (State Minister of Peace) are on the record, accusing the government of the Oromo tribal land of rampant corruption. They both expressed fear for their lives for speaking up. Taye went further referring to high-level Oromo party and government officials as “mafia groups.”
On May 27, Taye went further on his official Facebook page: “Everybody knows what happened in the outskirts of Finfinne (Addis Ababa), over the last four years. Who stole the land in the name of Oromo farmers? Who sold the land of the Tulema and used the money to tip millions of dollars to prostitutes?”
A widely circulating rumor has it that the Prime Minister’s concubines are the most sought-after business brokers, wealth arbiters, and government appointment traffickers.
Small wonder why Jawar Mohammed (the self-acclaimed “inventor of the Oromo political calculator”) felt obliged to wonder aloud in his published manifesto if the claim that “Oromo is incapable of leading the country” has merits.
Silence in the Face of Genocidal Threat is a Generational Moral Tragedy of Epic Proportions!
During the Emperor Haile Selassie era (an era that Oromo elites and laymen alike lament to be an Amhara government) the revolutionary campaigns of “land for the tiller” and “the rights of nations and nationalities” were led by Amhara and Tigray university students. The “rights of nations and nationalities” doctrine that the Oromo political class swears by is authored by an Amhara. Many Amhara revolutionaries have died advancing a campaign whose primary beneficiaries were Oromos in the eyes of the revolutionaries.
Today, as the Oromo-led government unleashes a Mogassa 2.0 brand savagery on the Amhara, the Oromo public is either taking part, cheering on or in a radio silent mode. Allow me to reintroduce you to Mogassa as seen in the eyes of foreign writers. Here is what C. F. Rey published in 1924 on Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol.23, No. 90. His article was titled “The Arussi and the Other [Oromo] of Abyssinia.” The term he used was the “G” word, which I replaced with Oromo.
“It must be borne in mind that they are and have been for nearly four hundred years, invaders on strange soil… Their methods of warfare were cruel even for that age, and it was they who introduced the horrible practice mutilating the dead, and even the wounded and prisoners.”
Pedro Paez added:
“The Oromo slaughtered many people and carried out extraordinary cruelties, because they cut to pieces the men and many of the boys and girls that they seized, and they opened up pregnant women with their spearheads and pulled the babies out of their wombs. The people of that land therefore came to fear them so much that nobody dared resist them.”
Mogassa was administered by the military wing of Gedaa. It is this system today’s Oromo political class wishes to reintroduce in Ethiopia. Gedaa is embraced by the overwhelming majority of Oromo. The narrative that the problem is with the Oromo elite is an epitomic adoption of the proverbial ostrich strategy when faced with danger.
When we see rank-and-file street police officers slapping an Orthodox priest or beating an Islamic Imam, we cannot see them as Oromo elites. When Oromo Street gagsters harass people speaking Amharic or wearing cloth with the Ethiopian flag, we cannot designate them as Oromo elites. When civilian Oromos take part in the demolitions of Amhara houses and forcefully evict Amhara people, we cannot insist that they are part of the Oromo elite class. They are not.
The head of an Oromo delegation who, recently, spoke at the Mekele Stadium was not shy to announce Gedaa elders were a willful part of the war campaign against the Amhara. He publicly announced that the delegation he led at the behest of the Oromo President included Gedaa elders. In his speech, he proposed Oromo and Tigray must join forces to fight the Amhara.
Gedaa elders are supposedly the moral conscious of the Oromo. Members of the Oromo Gedaa who often mediate when Oromo factions fight against each other are active supporters of the war against Amhara. To date, neither he Aba Gedaa’s in attendance during the Mekele speech nor high-level leaders of the Gedaa establishment has condemned the speech.
Above all, a large swath of the Oromo society is willfully oblivious to the savage atrocities committed in the name of Oromo. They are quite when the Voice of America reported close to a million Amhara were forcefully evicted from the Oromo region. They are silent when Amhara are hunted like animals and slaughtered in thousands in the Oromo region. They remained silent, despite a recent public warning by one of Prime Minister’s Senior Advisors that “Today’s Ethiopia is at a juncture similar to that of Rwanda when it found itself at the dawn of genocide.” The question of “genocide again whom” was answered in the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention’s Red Flag Alert that “The Amhara are in a perilous discursive position that could easily devolve into genocide.”
Silence in the face of injustice is complicity. Silence in the face of crime against humanity that is creeping toward and bordering on genocide is beyond complicity. It is a generational moral tragedy of epic proportions!
There is a legitimate reason why the German government issued an official apology to the Holocaust victims in the name of all Germans. They did so because the Nazi crime was committed in the name of building Greater Germany and the people of Germany failed to speak up and defend the victims of the Nazi regime.
The Oromo regime is aspiring to build Greater Oromia on the ashes of Ethiopia. Oromo cannot escape historical responsible and condemnation for its deafening silence while an Oromo-led political class in the government and outside of it commits crime against humanity in its name. Oromo is malfeasant or nonfeasant. The difference may be in legal jurisdiction. Morally, there is no difference.
Yes, the War is Between Oromo and Amhara
Many people who saw the introduction part of the first draft of this article were shocked by the title. One suggested to change it to “Oromo-PP’s war Against Amhara…” That can be poetically correct to their hearts content, but the truth is the war is between Oromo and Amhara. The perpetrator is Oromo, and the victim is Amhara. Reducing the people-to-people war to an elite-to-elite conflict will mitigate the problem and sustains it beyond its expiration date.
The Prime Minister is using the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) as a façade in his pursuit of an Oromo war against Amhara. Let us not forget that 74% percent of the people of Oromo who were eligible to vote took part in the 2021 elections. A staggering over 95% of them voted for Oromo-PP, despite Oromo-Shene’s threat to blow them if they dared to come to the election stations and Oromo opposition party’s call to boycott the election.
There is a pregnant question that imposes itself on the people of Oromo. If they manifested bravery and valor to vote, ignoring Oromo-Shene’s threat, why are they silent when the government they voted into office commits savagery against the Amhara without so much as a blink?
To date, there is no Oromo voice of any significance in volume or scope opposing the war against the Amhara. To the contrary, the support for the war in the Oromo region is significant in volume and scope, running the gamut from Oromo intellectuals to political activists; from Oromo military officers to Oromo opposition parties; from members of the Aba Gadaa establishment to the herd of street gangsters; and from the Abiy administration to religious leaders and many demographic groups in between. Oromos who oppose the war are exceptions - few and far between.
The war between Amhara and Oromo is no different from the war between Amhara and Tigray. Those who call the war between Amhara and Tigray as a war between Fanno and Amhara Militia vs. TPLF and TDF are lying to themselves.
The people of Amhara were supporting the war against Tigray, preparing food, and contributing money. Amhara religious leaders were encouraging their congregation to dust up their rifles and hatchets and join the war. Housewives were feeding both Fanno and the Ethiopian army. Every facet of the community from shoe-shiners to farmers and merchants small and large was a part of the war. Musicians were singing war songs and artists were glorifying the war with poems and paintings.
Members of the Amhara diaspora community were providing financial and moral support. They were also engaged in diplomatic አቱቶ ቡቱቶ with their misguided #NoMore አንከስ ፈንደንስ street dance, while blasting Mehari Degefaw’s war song ግጠም አለኝ. They knew Tigray was bleeding - children, pregnant as well as nursing women and elders were suffering. Yet, they were pushing for more war, while dancing with Menbere Mengistu’s war song መች ተነካና ያሸዋል ገና.
The same was true with the people of Tigray. Members of the Ethiopian Defense Forces who hailed from Tigray betrayed their oath to defend the Ethiopian Constitution and joined the TDF and TPLF war. Tigrayan university professors and students alike joined the TDF and TPLF military establishment. The Tigrayan diaspora contributed millions to the war front and became TPLF’s geopolitical street diplomats. They performed street shows alternating between public grieving and victory dancing.
One day they did their signature protest, including ደም ተቀብቶ አስፋልት ላይ እያለቀሱ መንከባለል. The next day, they performed Tigrayan victory dance with ከበሮ, ፊሽካ and all, as they salivated to enter Addis Ababa in victory. Every Tigrayan was behind the war lock, stock, and barrel.
Par for the Tigrayan political culture of the TPLF era, Tigrayan bishops who publicly and vocally supported TPLF and TDF, divorced their region from the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), accusing the Ethiopian Church of supporting the war’s atrocities against the people of Tigray.
In sum, to say the war was between TPLF/TDF vs. ENDF/Fano/Eritrea is to willfully deceive ourselves. The same is true with the Amhara and Oromo war. It is a war Oromo waged against the people of Amhara. The Amhara are defending themselves as people, not as elite forces. That is why the people are supporting Fanno warriors.
Oromo’s Targets are the Amhara Masses, Not Amhara Political Elites
As a matter of political narrative, neither Tigray nor Oromo political leaders publicly accuse(d) the Amhara masses. Their political narrative targets Amhara elites, whom they brand as ነፍጠኛ (war monger), ትምክህተኛ (arrogant with a superiority complex), and/or ጽንፈኛ (extremist).
In practice, their victims are always the Amhara masses. The thousands of people that Oromo-Shene murdered are not Amhara elites. They are very poor members of the Amhara masses. When Shimelis Abdisa said our enemies know what our intentions are with Sheger City, the enemies he targeted his wrath were not the Amhara elite. They were the Amhara masses.
When the Oromo government and Oromo-Shene forcefully displaced nearly one million people, the victims were not Amhara elites but the Amhara masses. When Abiy, Adanech and Shimeles deny Amharas from entering Addis Ababa, it was the masses that they targeted, including poor framers, hard-working merchants, the sick who needed treatment in the nation’s primary hospitals. Their targets were not the Amhara elites.
When TPLF and OLF used population census in 1994 to statistically depopulate Amhara by three to four million, the target was not the Amhara elite, but the Amhara masses. During the 1984 census under Mengistu, the Amhara accounted for over 28.3% of the total population of Ethiopia. The corresponding figure for Oromo was 29.1%.
In 2023, Oromo accounts for 34%, a 17% increase from 1984. In contrast, in 2023, Amhara accounts for 22%, a 29% decrease from 1984. This is a crime against the Amhara masses with systemic voting rights disenfranchisement. Amhara’s allocation of seats in the national parliament is far less than what they are intitled to according to their true population size.
It also has significant budgetary implications. In the 2023-24 fiscal year, the federal government distributed budgetary support to the tribal homelands according to their population. The Oromo tribal land got 34% of the federal budgetary subsidy and Amhara got 22%. This denies the Amhara tribal land badly needed resources for school, hospitals, roads etc. The victims are Amhara masses not the Amhara elite class.
During the TPLF era. Amhara was the least developed region by any standard, road density, hospitals, schools, access to electric city, poverty rate. The data from international agencies, the World Bank, UN, Africa Development Bank leave no doubt about the favorable treatment of Tigray region and the targeted discriminatory treatment against the Amhara masses. The Tigray political class did not isolate and target the so-called Amhara ነፍጠኛ, ትምክህተኛ, and/or ጽንፈኛ elite. Its target was the Amhara masses. The Oromo political class is doing the same with far more viciousness and cruelty that they have inherited from Mogassa tradition.
Oromo-PP and TPLF were able to do such crimes using their tribal home as their power center. For years we were told TPLF is Tigray and Tigray is TPLF. The Oromo reality is a bit different in form, but not in substance.
Oromo-Shene (the military arm of OLF) and the Oromo People's Congress (the largest Oromo opposition party) may have different view from Oromo-PP. The difference is that Oromo-Shene and the Oromo People's Congress want more of the anti-Amhara and anti-Ethiopia policies. Merera Gudina (the President of Oromo People's Congress) is on the record promising to replace all non-Oromo statutes in Addis Ababa by Oromo statues. Gudina’s statement was in response to the Prime Minister’s decision to put Menilik’s statute in the Unity Park.
Oromo’s War Against Amhara is Guided Neither by Political nor Military Strategy
Let us put the unjust Oromo war against the Amhara aside and see if it makes political or military sense. It helps us to see the source of the war is psychological. First let us briefly discuss the difference between the war against Amhara and Tigray.
An Imperative Comparative Between the War Against Tigray and Amhara
The Tigray war was triggered by TPLF. First, the TPLF refused to allow Federal forces to move federal weapons out of Tigray that accounted for up to 70% of the ENDF’s firepower. Second, the TPLF shot first, killing members of the ENDF in their sleep and confiscating their weapons. Third, using the confiscated weapons as a leverage, TPLF demanded to form a transition government.
The people of Ethiopia stood together against the TPLF instigated war. People from every region of the country provided logistical and moral support. News such as the following were staple to the daily news. “ግንባር ለሚገኘው ጥምር ጦር 12 ላምና በሬ 112 በግና ፍየል በመደገፍ የምስራቅ ደምቢያ ወረዳ ማህበረሰብ የሗላ ደጀንነቱን አሳየ” and “ጦርነት ግንባር እየተፋለመ ላለው ጥምር ሃይላችን ዉሃ, ብስኩት, የእርድ በግና ፍየል መላክ መቻሉን የእንጅባራ ከተማ አስተዳደር ገለፀ.”
There is no such broad support to the current war against Amhara because the war was triggered by the Oromo-led government’s systemic atrocities to subjugate the people of Amhara in pursuit of building Greater Oromia. The other tribal lands are facing similar atrocities and have no intention of supporting the Oromo criminal enterprise. The proverbial last straw that triggered the war in Amhara was the Oromo-led government’s decision to disarm the Amhara special forces and militia.
The Interim Tigray President is on the record, stating he has 200,000 strong fighters and he has no intention of putting down small weapons such as rifles and Kalashnikov. The Oromo-led government did not go after Tigray but declared war against Amhara that has far less fighters than Tigray. To the contrary, the Oromo government sent a delegation to Mekele to form a military pact between Oromo and Tigray that will allow Tigrayans use those weapons against Amhara.
Does the War Make Sense form a Political and Economic Strategy Perspective?
The war against Tigray was devastating to the nation both in terms of human life and national treasure. The estimate for fatality ranges from 600,000 to a million, not counting the wounded and maimed. The number of children who are orphaned and adults who are widowed by the war remains unknown. It makes no sense to launch another war before the nation pulls itself halfway out of the abyss the war-torn country is sinking into.
The role of the governing party can be broadly classified into two fundamental duties: the protective state and the productive state. As a protective state its duty is protecting the human and civil rights of the people. This involves, among other things, mitigating conflicts, stabilizing the political system, and maintaining the social order. Its role as productive state, its duty includes creating a conducive environment for business, and building the economy.
To the contrary, the Oromo-led government is instigating conflicts, destroying the economy, giving the Prime Minister’s and his Cabinet Minister’s concubines more power in economic decisions than line managers in the bureaucracy. Once again, what Ethiopians and the world at large are witnessing is the Oromo political class degrading and destroying the very government whose political levers of power it controls.
Does the War Make Sense form a Military Strategy Perspective?
For 27 years, the TPLF built Ethiopia’s military in a way that served Tigray, putting the strategic, operational, intelligence and logistics management under the tight control of Ethiopians of Tigrayan origin. When the war, started all Tigrayans either joined TPLF or were removed from their posts by the ENDF. Ethiopia was building its military while fighting against TPLF and TDF.
During the war, the ETDF lost a significant number of its midlevel military leaders and experienced rank and file fighters. After the Pretoria settlement, Ethiopia started once again building its military from the ground up.
The Amhara accounts 30% of the population, ignoring the statistical depopulation instigated by TPLF and the Oromo political class. Let us go along with the 22% statistically manipulated figure. This suggests Amhara soldiers are likely to constitute about 22% of the military, give or take a few percentages. Launching a war on Amhara will not sit well with the Amhara soldier. According to the Ethiopian peace minister, 50% of the Amhara special forces who were under the Amhara government left camp and are believed to have joined the uprising.
The government is building army without soldiers. The army looks regal it is making war on society as a whole. There is little prospect of the violence ending, let alone the prosecution of the perpetrators for a litany of crimes against their people.
Meanwhile it is finding it hard to recruit or even conscript new troops, risking becoming in the long term an “army without soldiers”. It is also struggling to pay wages and is resorting to printing money, which is fueling inflation that feeds into public discontent.
Amhara accounts for over 30 percent of the population. It is fair to assume Amhara constitutes about 30 percent of the rank-and-file of the military – give or take some percentages. What kind of idiot will wage war against Amhara? From a political point of view the war makes no sense.
Aside from the solidarity in the resistance movement and the increasingly fragile position of the military, there are grounds for optimism in the robust response of many foreign governments. The UN security council issued a resolution in December 2022 calling for an immediate cessation to all forms of violence (Russia, China and India abstained).
The US has imposed escalating sanctions targeting generals, arms suppliers and cronies. In December 2022, the National Defense Authorization Act provided support for democratic groups in Myanmar, including training and non-lethal assistance.
The EU passed its fifth package of sanctions against the junta in November 2022, targeting arms exports. This international pressure has increased to the extent where it appears even China is becoming embarrassed by its association with the junta.
The civil war will undoubtedly continue for some time, and when it eventually ends the scars will take even longer to heal. What would make the pain bearable for many would be a just peace in which the menace of the Tatmadaw, after more than 60 years of violence, is removed, and the wealth of the generals, their cronies and the military companies used to alleviate poverty.
In the absence of direct military assistance, foreign governments and organizations should consider supporting the national unity government to help alleviate the suffering of Myanmar’s people. Key to this will be the coordination of health, education, and financial services – now widely absent – as well as the groundwork to help civil society to restore democracy when the time comes.
For the last two years the oxygen of the Ethiopian political life has been sucked by Shene-Oromo and Shene-Amhara. By the grace of God, the rise of the Fanno uprising has dominated the political bandwidth. There are grounds for optimism.
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ኦሮሞ ታሟል
THIS IS MY ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN SEPTEMBER 2023
Its core messages are two:
FIRST: "The Oromo political class suffers from a self-inflicted psychological trauma. Its 50-year victimhood politics has made it unable to break out of a victim mentality and adopt a frame of mind befitting the solemnity of leading a nation as a governing body. "
SECOND: "As a matter of political narrative, Oromo political leaders do not publicly accuse the Amhara masses. Their political narrative targets Amhara elites, whom they brand as ነፍጠኛ (war monger), ትምክህተኛ (arrogant with a superiority complex), and/or ጽንፈኛ (extremist). In practice, their victims are always the Amhara masses. The thousands of people that Oromo-Shene murdered are not Amhara elites. They are very poor members of the Amhara masses. When Shimelis Abdisa said our enemies know what our intentions are with Sheger City, the enemies he targeted his wrath were not the Amhara elite. They were the Amhara masses."
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ኦሮሞ ታሟል
Allow me to introduce myself again, for the first time. Heritage wise, I am of an Oromo and Amhara construct. I have been disowned, ostracized, and condemned by both for being “Oromo phobic” and “anti-Amhara.” My opposition to the idiotic #NoMore movement has also earned me the honorable badge of “A CIA agent.” Welcome to the uniquely Ethiopian politics where ኩክኒያም goons reign supreme.
The purpose of this article is to enter the blind spot of the Oromo social psychology and converse with the demons that have turned its politics savage in its violence, virulent in its outlook, and self-destructive in is mode of operation. What Ethiopians and the world at large are witnessing is the Oromo political class degrading and destroying the very government whose political levers of power it controls.
In 1993, Bill Clinton won the presidency of the US by wrapping his campaign around one phrase: “It is the Economy, Stupid!”. The message was that America’s political ills could be cured with economic pills.
The 21st century Oromo political reality can be encapsulated in one phrase: “It is the Psychology, Stupid!” The Oromo political class suffers from self-inflicted psychological trauma. Its 50-year victimhood politics has made it unable to break out of victim mentality and adopt a frame of mind befitting the solemnity of leading a nation as a governing body. Necessarily, we must put political correctness aside in the interest of salvaging the Oromo soul from the psychological clutches of the evil spirits of the past.
The Evils of Psychological Horror
Ethiopia has never seen the brand of brutality manifested by the Oromo-led government in its modern history. Stop and watch this video. Look also at this and this. Look at the below pictures as well.
The first picture shows rounded up people waiting to be processed in the concentration camp. The second picture shows a small fraction of the nearly one million Amharas who were forcefully evicted out of the Oromo tribal and. They include pregnant women and elders who could hardly walk. The third picture shows Amhara concentration camp where tuberculosis and diarrhea has claimed countless lives. The fourth picture shows children rounded up and waiting to be transported to concentration camps.
Look at this video also. An Amhara Orthodox priest is being paraded on the streets of Oromo with dead chicken hanging on his neck. The crowd is shouting “hung him”. The crime is deep rooted in the Oromo political class that accuses the Orthodox Church of being a voodoo religion; hence the dead black chicken that he was forced to hung on his neck.
The perpetrators are not Oromo political elites. They are ordinary Oromos from different walks of life. You must also look at the pictures below, showing innocent Amhara prisoners being treated for tuberculosis in a makeshift Oromo concentration camp and a grieving child whose parents are either locked in a concentration camp or killed.
Only the Oromo psyche with damaged social psychology can comfortably hide behind a “hear-no-evil and see-no-evil” political position under such inhuman circumstances. Do not try to find a political solution for this. The problem is with the Oromo social psychology.
ኦሮሞ ታሟል: It is the Psychology Stupid
One pregnant phrase defines the Oromo political problem as described by the Godfather of Oromummaa, Asafa Jalata: “Deep Rooted Psychological Inferiority.”
The Oromummaa literature stands on three legs in the order they are listed: Fist comes psychological liberation, followed by Oromo unity, and leading to self-determination. According to Jalata, Oromo psychological liberation requires “fighting against the Oromo external oppressor and the internalized oppressive values.”
Stripped of their sociological jargon, what Jalata’s books and articles tell us is that consciously or unconsciously Oromo is a psychologically damaged good. In this regard, Jalata argues, Oromo intellectuals “have not yet achieved psychological liberation, they consciously or unconsciously prefer to work for their colonial masters rather than promoting the Oromo liberation project.”
Jalata identifies the main problem to be “low level of political consciousness and an imposed inferiority complex…” As a result, he argues “Ethiopianism replaced Oromummaa.” The solution, he believes, is to reverse this phenomenon. Oromummaa must replace Ethiopianism. The savagery we are witnessing is a result of Jawar Mohammed’s “Ethiopia out of Oromia” doctrine and Asafa Jalata’s political theology of replacing Ethiopia by Oromummaa.
Morally Malnourished Leadership Borne Out of a Psychologically Damaged Political Class
As part of Oromummaa-ization of the entire Ethiopia, the Oromo President said the “Prosperity Party is built in such a way to advance the interest of Oromo. The head of the Party will always be an Oromo or an Oromo plant.” A detailed strategic plan is provided in a report titled “We Need Modern Version of the OLF With High Confidence Politics of Haile Fida!.” Here is how it is described: “The aim of an independent Gadaa Oromia is Oromo politics of the past… We surely will move to the level of high confidence in order to own the whole Ethiopia…”
The Prime Minister shares the belief that the head of the prosperity party will always be an Oromo or an Oromo plant. He is on national TV threatening the public that if his position is threatened, it will lead to “the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people over night” and the consequence will be “deadlier than the red terror in the 1970s” is par for the course for a narcissist psychopath.
What makes his leadership worse is the incompetence the Gedaa system that the Oromo political class institutionalized as the basis of Ethiopia’s governance principles. The Oromo President is on the record, saying “the Future of Ethiopia” is Gedaa. The Problem with Gedaa, as Professor Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa put it is: “Due to the geographical expansion of the Oromo territory and an increasing population, the central Gadaa government declined beginning in the mid-17th century and autonomous regional and local republics took its place.”
This is echoed by Professor Jalata as follows: “The nonfederal nature of the Gadaa System, lack of Strong Central government, lack of regular meeting of Gadaa official and long distance of Gumii (assembly) from political center made Gadaa system less Competent”.
A system that is seen less competent to govern 17th century Oromo villages is what the Oromo political class is using to administer 120 million Ethiopians in the 21st century. The result is economic, political and law and order catastrophe. Professor Derese Kassa (@nestaneth), who just returned from Ethiopia, tweeted 14 observations. Let me share three of them.
• The loss of law and order and the level of insecurity in the nation is staggering. Kidnappings, detentions, torture, and killings by state actors, by rebels and criminal syndicates have hit the rooftop.
• The level of corruption by government officials and the extent of state capture is unprecedented. Business owners are asked to pay bribes in millions, or they will be subject to inexorable fake taxes. Ministers have a coterie of concubines who also broker kickbacks
• The middle class is no more. Civil servants, teachers, doctors, and engineers are now reduced to the underclass. It’s heartbreaking to see our former educators wait for handouts and alms from relatives and kinfolk abroad.
Dr. Hangaasa Ibrahim (a member of the National Parliamentarian representing the Oromo tribal land) and Taye Dandea (State Minister of Peace) are on the record, accusing the government of the Oromo tribal land of rampant corruption. They both expressed fear for their lives for speaking up. Taye went further referring to high-level Oromo party and government officials as “mafia groups.”
On May 27, Taye went further on his official Facebook page: “Everybody knows what happened in the outskirts of Finfinne (Addis Ababa), over the last four years. Who stole the land in the name of Oromo farmers? Who sold the land of the Tulema and used the money to tip millions of dollars to prostitutes?”
A widely circulating rumor has it that the Prime Minister’s concubines are the most sought-after business brokers, wealth arbiters, and government appointment traffickers.
Small wonder why Jawar Mohammed (the self-acclaimed “inventor of the Oromo political calculator”) felt obliged to wonder aloud in his published manifesto if the claim that “Oromo is incapable of leading the country” has merits.
Silence in the Face of Genocidal Threat is a Generational Moral Tragedy of Epic Proportions!
During the Emperor Haile Selassie era (an era that Oromo elites and laymen alike lament to be an Amhara government) the revolutionary campaigns of “land for the tiller” and “the rights of nations and nationalities” were led by Amhara and Tigray university students. The “rights of nations and nationalities” doctrine that the Oromo political class swears by is authored by an Amhara. Many Amhara revolutionaries have died advancing a campaign whose primary beneficiaries were Oromos in the eyes of the revolutionaries.
Today, as the Oromo-led government unleashes a Mogassa 2.0 brand savagery on the Amhara, the Oromo public is either taking part, cheering on or in a radio silent mode. Allow me to reintroduce you to Mogassa as seen in the eyes of foreign writers. Here is what C. F. Rey published in 1924 on Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol.23, No. 90. His article was titled “The Arussi and the Other [Oromo] of Abyssinia.” The term he used was the “G” word, which I replaced with Oromo.
“It must be borne in mind that they are and have been for nearly four hundred years, invaders on strange soil… Their methods of warfare were cruel even for that age, and it was they who introduced the horrible practice mutilating the dead, and even the wounded and prisoners.”
Pedro Paez added:
“The Oromo slaughtered many people and carried out extraordinary cruelties, because they cut to pieces the men and many of the boys and girls that they seized, and they opened up pregnant women with their spearheads and pulled the babies out of their wombs. The people of that land therefore came to fear them so much that nobody dared resist them.”
Mogassa was administered by the military wing of Gedaa. It is this system today’s Oromo political class wishes to reintroduce in Ethiopia. Gedaa is embraced by the overwhelming majority of Oromo. The narrative that the problem is with the Oromo elite is an epitomic adoption of the proverbial ostrich strategy when faced with danger.
When we see rank-and-file street police officers slapping an Orthodox priest or beating an Islamic Imam, we cannot see them as Oromo elites. When Oromo Street gagsters harass people speaking Amharic or wearing cloth with the Ethiopian flag, we cannot designate them as Oromo elites. When civilian Oromos take part in the demolitions of Amhara houses and forcefully evict Amhara people, we cannot insist that they are part of the Oromo elite class. They are not.
The head of an Oromo delegation who, recently, spoke at the Mekele Stadium was not shy to announce Gedaa elders were a willful part of the war campaign against the Amhara. He publicly announced that the delegation he led at the behest of the Oromo President included Gedaa elders. In his speech, he proposed Oromo and Tigray must join forces to fight the Amhara.
Gedaa elders are supposedly the moral conscious of the Oromo. Members of the Oromo Gedaa who often mediate when Oromo factions fight against each other are active supporters of the war against Amhara. To date, neither he Aba Gedaa’s in attendance during the Mekele speech nor high-level leaders of the Gedaa establishment has condemned the speech.
Above all, a large swath of the Oromo society is willfully oblivious to the savage atrocities committed in the name of Oromo. They are quite when the Voice of America reported close to a million Amhara were forcefully evicted from the Oromo region. They are silent when Amhara are hunted like animals and slaughtered in thousands in the Oromo region. They remained silent, despite a recent public warning by one of Prime Minister’s Senior Advisors that “Today’s Ethiopia is at a juncture similar to that of Rwanda when it found itself at the dawn of genocide.” The question of “genocide again whom” was answered in the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention’s Red Flag Alert that “The Amhara are in a perilous discursive position that could easily devolve into genocide.”
Silence in the face of injustice is complicity. Silence in the face of crime against humanity that is creeping toward and bordering on genocide is beyond complicity. It is a generational moral tragedy of epic proportions!
There is a legitimate reason why the German government issued an official apology to the Holocaust victims in the name of all Germans. They did so because the Nazi crime was committed in the name of building Greater Germany and the people of Germany failed to speak up and defend the victims of the Nazi regime.
The Oromo regime is aspiring to build Greater Oromia on the ashes of Ethiopia. Oromo cannot escape historical responsible and condemnation for its deafening silence while an Oromo-led political class in the government and outside of it commits crime against humanity in its name. Oromo is malfeasant or nonfeasant. The difference may be in legal jurisdiction. Morally, there is no difference.
Yes, the War is Between Oromo and Amhara
Many people who saw the introduction part of the first draft of this article were shocked by the title. One suggested to change it to “Oromo-PP’s war Against Amhara…” That can be poetically correct to their hearts content, but the truth is the war is between Oromo and Amhara. The perpetrator is Oromo, and the victim is Amhara. Reducing the people-to-people war to an elite-to-elite conflict will mitigate the problem and sustains it beyond its expiration date.
The Prime Minister is using the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) as a façade in his pursuit of an Oromo war against Amhara. Let us not forget that 74% percent of the people of Oromo who were eligible to vote took part in the 2021 elections. A staggering over 95% of them voted for Oromo-PP, despite Oromo-Shene’s threat to blow them if they dared to come to the election stations and Oromo opposition party’s call to boycott the election.
There is a pregnant question that imposes itself on the people of Oromo. If they manifested bravery and valor to vote, ignoring Oromo-Shene’s threat, why are they silent when the government they voted into office commits savagery against the Amhara without so much as a blink?
To date, there is no Oromo voice of any significance in volume or scope opposing the war against the Amhara. To the contrary, the support for the war in the Oromo region is significant in volume and scope, running the gamut from Oromo intellectuals to political activists; from Oromo military officers to Oromo opposition parties; from members of the Aba Gadaa establishment to the herd of street gangsters; and from the Abiy administration to religious leaders and many demographic groups in between. Oromos who oppose the war are exceptions - few and far between.
The war between Amhara and Oromo is no different from the war between Amhara and Tigray. Those who call the war between Amhara and Tigray as a war between Fanno and Amhara Militia vs. TPLF and TDF are lying to themselves.
The people of Amhara were supporting the war against Tigray, preparing food, and contributing money. Amhara religious leaders were encouraging their congregation to dust up their rifles and hatchets and join the war. Housewives were feeding both Fanno and the Ethiopian army. Every facet of the community from shoe-shiners to farmers and merchants small and large was a part of the war. Musicians were singing war songs and artists were glorifying the war with poems and paintings.
Members of the Amhara diaspora community were providing financial and moral support. They were also engaged in diplomatic አቱቶ ቡቱቶ with their misguided #NoMore አንከስ ፈንደንስ street dance, while blasting Mehari Degefaw’s war song ግጠም አለኝ. They knew Tigray was bleeding - children, pregnant as well as nursing women and elders were suffering. Yet, they were pushing for more war, while dancing with Menbere Mengistu’s war song መች ተነካና ያሸዋል ገና.
The same was true with the people of Tigray. Members of the Ethiopian Defense Forces who hailed from Tigray betrayed their oath to defend the Ethiopian Constitution and joined the TDF and TPLF war. Tigrayan university professors and students alike joined the TDF and TPLF military establishment. The Tigrayan diaspora contributed millions to the war front and became TPLF’s geopolitical street diplomats. They performed street shows alternating between public grieving and victory dancing.
One day they did their signature protest, including ደም ተቀብቶ አስፋልት ላይ እያለቀሱ መንከባለል. The next day, they performed Tigrayan victory dance with ከበሮ, ፊሽካ and all, as they salivated to enter Addis Ababa in victory. Every Tigrayan was behind the war lock, stock, and barrel.
Par for the Tigrayan political culture of the TPLF era, Tigrayan bishops who publicly and vocally supported TPLF and TDF, divorced their region from the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), accusing the Ethiopian Church of supporting the war’s atrocities against the people of Tigray.
In sum, to say the war was between TPLF/TDF vs. ENDF/Fano/Eritrea is to willfully deceive ourselves. The same is true with the Amhara and Oromo war. It is a war Oromo waged against the people of Amhara. The Amhara are defending themselves as people, not as elite forces. That is why the people are supporting Fanno warriors.
Oromo’s Targets are the Amhara Masses, Not Amhara Political Elites
As a matter of political narrative, neither Tigray nor Oromo political leaders publicly accuse(d) the Amhara masses. Their political narrative targets Amhara elites, whom they brand as ነፍጠኛ (war monger), ትምክህተኛ (arrogant with a superiority complex), and/or ጽንፈኛ (extremist).
In practice, their victims are always the Amhara masses. The thousands of people that Oromo-Shene murdered are not Amhara elites. They are very poor members of the Amhara masses. When Shimelis Abdisa said our enemies know what our intentions are with Sheger City, the enemies he targeted his wrath were not the Amhara elite. They were the Amhara masses.
When the Oromo government and Oromo-Shene forcefully displaced nearly one million people, the victims were not Amhara elites but the Amhara masses. When Abiy, Adanech and Shimeles deny Amharas from entering Addis Ababa, it was the masses that they targeted, including poor framers, hard-working merchants, the sick who needed treatment in the nation’s primary hospitals. Their targets were not the Amhara elites.
When TPLF and OLF used population census in 1994 to statistically depopulate Amhara by three to four million, the target was not the Amhara elite, but the Amhara masses. During the 1984 census under Mengistu, the Amhara accounted for over 28.3% of the total population of Ethiopia. The corresponding figure for Oromo was 29.1%.
In 2023, Oromo accounts for 34%, a 17% increase from 1984. In contrast, in 2023, Amhara accounts for 22%, a 29% decrease from 1984. This is a crime against the Amhara masses with systemic voting rights disenfranchisement. Amhara’s allocation of seats in the national parliament is far less than what they are intitled to according to their true population size.
It also has significant budgetary implications. In the 2023-24 fiscal year, the federal government distributed budgetary support to the tribal homelands according to their population. The Oromo tribal land got 34% of the federal budgetary subsidy and Amhara got 22%. This denies the Amhara tribal land badly needed resources for school, hospitals, roads etc. The victims are Amhara masses not the Amhara elite class.
During the TPLF era. Amhara was the least developed region by any standard, road density, hospitals, schools, access to electric city, poverty rate. The data from international agencies, the World Bank, UN, Africa Development Bank leave no doubt about the favorable treatment of Tigray region and the targeted discriminatory treatment against the Amhara masses. The Tigray political class did not isolate and target the so-called Amhara ነፍጠኛ, ትምክህተኛ, and/or ጽንፈኛ elite. Its target was the Amhara masses. The Oromo political class is doing the same with far more viciousness and cruelty that they have inherited from Mogassa tradition.
Oromo-PP and TPLF were able to do such crimes using their tribal home as their power center. For years we were told TPLF is Tigray and Tigray is TPLF. The Oromo reality is a bit different in form, but not in substance.
Oromo-Shene (the military arm of OLF) and the Oromo People's Congress (the largest Oromo opposition party) may have different view from Oromo-PP. The difference is that Oromo-Shene and the Oromo People's Congress want more of the anti-Amhara and anti-Ethiopia policies. Merera Gudina (the President of Oromo People's Congress) is on the record promising to replace all non-Oromo statutes in Addis Ababa by Oromo statues. Gudina’s statement was in response to the Prime Minister’s decision to put Menilik’s statute in the Unity Park.
Oromo’s War Against Amhara is Guided Neither by Political nor Military Strategy
Let us put the unjust Oromo war against the Amhara aside and see if it makes political or military sense. It helps us to see the source of the war is psychological. First let us briefly discuss the difference between the war against Amhara and Tigray.
An Imperative Comparative Between the War Against Tigray and Amhara
The Tigray war was triggered by TPLF. First, the TPLF refused to allow Federal forces to move federal weapons out of Tigray that accounted for up to 70% of the ENDF’s firepower. Second, the TPLF shot first, killing members of the ENDF in their sleep and confiscating their weapons. Third, using the confiscated weapons as a leverage, TPLF demanded to form a transition government.
The people of Ethiopia stood together against the TPLF instigated war. People from every region of the country provided logistical and moral support. News such as the following were staple to the daily news. “ግንባር ለሚገኘው ጥምር ጦር 12 ላምና በሬ 112 በግና ፍየል በመደገፍ የምስራቅ ደምቢያ ወረዳ ማህበረሰብ የሗላ ደጀንነቱን አሳየ” and “ጦርነት ግንባር እየተፋለመ ላለው ጥምር ሃይላችን ዉሃ, ብስኩት, የእርድ በግና ፍየል መላክ መቻሉን የእንጅባራ ከተማ አስተዳደር ገለፀ.”
There is no such broad support to the current war against Amhara because the war was triggered by the Oromo-led government’s systemic atrocities to subjugate the people of Amhara in pursuit of building Greater Oromia. The other tribal lands are facing similar atrocities and have no intention of supporting the Oromo criminal enterprise. The proverbial last straw that triggered the war in Amhara was the Oromo-led government’s decision to disarm the Amhara special forces and militia.
The Interim Tigray President is on the record, stating he has 200,000 strong fighters and he has no intention of putting down small weapons such as rifles and Kalashnikov. The Oromo-led government did not go after Tigray but declared war against Amhara that has far less fighters than Tigray. To the contrary, the Oromo government sent a delegation to Mekele to form a military pact between Oromo and Tigray that will allow Tigrayans use those weapons against Amhara.
Does the War Make Sense form a Political and Economic Strategy Perspective?
The war against Tigray was devastating to the nation both in terms of human life and national treasure. The estimate for fatality ranges from 600,000 to a million, not counting the wounded and maimed. The number of children who are orphaned and adults who are widowed by the war remains unknown. It makes no sense to launch another war before the nation pulls itself halfway out of the abyss the war-torn country is sinking into.
The role of the governing party can be broadly classified into two fundamental duties: the protective state and the productive state. As a protective state its duty is protecting the human and civil rights of the people. This involves, among other things, mitigating conflicts, stabilizing the political system, and maintaining the social order. Its role as productive state, its duty includes creating a conducive environment for business, and building the economy.
To the contrary, the Oromo-led government is instigating conflicts, destroying the economy, giving the Prime Minister’s and his Cabinet Minister’s concubines more power in economic decisions than line managers in the bureaucracy. Once again, what Ethiopians and the world at large are witnessing is the Oromo political class degrading and destroying the very government whose political levers of power it controls.
Does the War Make Sense form a Military Strategy Perspective?
For 27 years, the TPLF built Ethiopia’s military in a way that served Tigray, putting the strategic, operational, intelligence and logistics management under the tight control of Ethiopians of Tigrayan origin. When the war, started all Tigrayans either joined TPLF or were removed from their posts by the ENDF. Ethiopia was building its military while fighting against TPLF and TDF.
During the war, the ETDF lost a significant number of its midlevel military leaders and experienced rank and file fighters. After the Pretoria settlement, Ethiopia started once again building its military from the ground up.
The Amhara accounts 30% of the population, ignoring the statistical depopulation instigated by TPLF and the Oromo political class. Let us go along with the 22% statistically manipulated figure. This suggests Amhara soldiers are likely to constitute about 22% of the military, give or take a few percentages. Launching a war on Amhara will not sit well with the Amhara soldier. According to the Ethiopian peace minister, 50% of the Amhara special forces who were under the Amhara government left camp and are believed to have joined the uprising.
The government is building army without soldiers. The army looks regal it is making war on society as a whole. There is little prospect of the violence ending, let alone the prosecution of the perpetrators for a litany of crimes against their people.
Meanwhile it is finding it hard to recruit or even conscript new troops, risking becoming in the long term an “army without soldiers”. It is also struggling to pay wages and is resorting to printing money, which is fueling inflation that feeds into public discontent.
Amhara accounts for over 30 percent of the population. It is fair to assume Amhara constitutes about 30 percent of the rank-and-file of the military – give or take some percentages. What kind of idiot will wage war against Amhara? From a political point of view the war makes no sense.
Aside from the solidarity in the resistance movement and the increasingly fragile position of the military, there are grounds for optimism in the robust response of many foreign governments. The UN security council issued a resolution in December 2022 calling for an immediate cessation to all forms of violence (Russia, China and India abstained).
The US has imposed escalating sanctions targeting generals, arms suppliers and cronies. In December 2022, the National Defense Authorization Act provided support for democratic groups in Myanmar, including training and non-lethal assistance.
The EU passed its fifth package of sanctions against the junta in November 2022, targeting arms exports. This international pressure has increased to the extent where it appears even China is becoming embarrassed by its association with the junta.
The civil war will undoubtedly continue for some time, and when it eventually ends the scars will take even longer to heal. What would make the pain bearable for many would be a just peace in which the menace of the Tatmadaw, after more than 60 years of violence, is removed, and the wealth of the generals, their cronies and the military companies used to alleviate poverty.
In the absence of direct military assistance, foreign governments and organizations should consider supporting the national unity government to help alleviate the suffering of Myanmar’s people. Key to this will be the coordination of health, education, and financial services – now widely absent – as well as the groundwork to help civil society to restore democracy when the time comes.
For the last two years the oxygen of the Ethiopian political life has been sucked by Shene-Oromo and Shene-Amhara. By the grace of God, the rise of the Fanno uprising has dominated the political bandwidth. There are grounds for optimism.