Mereja.Forum

[OPFist]

The Oromo are Incrementally Victorious!

No question that the Oromo national liberation movement is incrementally victorious. We achieved 25% of our freedom during the first revolution of 1974, we increased the victory to 50% in 1991 defeat of Derg and of course we got 75% of our liberty due to the 2018 change. Simply put, Oromo liberation struggle already won the first phase: getting freedom from Abyssinian domination. Now, we are in the transition phase towards democracy in order to choose the type of sovereignty we want: an independent Oromia or an integrative Oropia (Oromumma led Ethiopia). By getting rid of the existing dictatorial Biltsigina regime, we surely will be 100% free. But our activists and ruling politicians seem to act still as victims, not yes as victors:
– still they beg for Oromo’s right on Finfinne
– still they cry for Afaan Oromo as federal working language
– still they persecute and imprison OLF members as if they are getting order from Meles Zenawi
– still they are not free to tell both our foes and friends that the Oromo are free to make no compromise on our fundamental rights
– etc
Read more: https://fayyisoromia.wordpress.com/2019 ... -a-victim/

[OPFist]

Why should they hesitate to answer all these Oromo questions? Is there any Abyssinian force still hindering them from implementing their program for the Oromo? I don’t think so. I think Dr. Abiy’s OPP and his adminstration are yet in the mode of “learned helplessness”. Psychologists describe this phenomen with the following metaphor: you close certain animal in a fence and hinder it from escaping by electrifying the fence. The animal tries repeatedly to escape and gets shocked with the strom. Then it learns the helplessness and give up. After a while you make the fence free from the strom and even open some parts of the fence and wait for the animal to scape, but the learned animal never attempts, for it already believed that the scape is impossible. This is called “learned helplessness”. Oromo leaders current behaviour seems to be like this; they are already victors, but still act like victims.

[Union]

You are an Arab

You ain't even black


ጥቁር ሰው

[Somaliman]

You are an Arab

You ain't even black


ጥቁር ሰው

It doesn't matter whether he's an Arab, Chinese, or an alien from Mars, as what he's sharing that matters, and whether you like it or not, what he's discussing makes sense.


OPFist,

I believe the problem with Oromo is that they're mentally colonised by Habesha due to the fact that Habesha have been dominating Ethiopia's politics to their own taste to date.

[OPFist]

To achieve this victory, an alliance of the Oromo with others was not necessarily mandatory, but beneficial. The situation in the past was good for TPLF to rule us further. One of the best instruments it used was the “divide and rule” mechanism. The TPLF regime used this instrument for about 27 years and it is using further. Oromo organizations and other freedom fighters should have taken away this card by any means possible. Thus, we had advocated alliance against the TPLF untiredly. For the alliance to be materalized, we needed a compromise position as a solution. Sticking to an independence or unitary corner didn’t help us in this purpose. That is why the TPLF loved, when we uncompromisingly be fixed in these two polar positions.

[Union]

We know it does not matter to you. But it does matter to Ethiopians and black people in general

We would not listen to no ferenjis and Arabs. We have history with you people. Your interest is to see Ethiopians fight eachother but as you can see the people never fight eachother, the people are not divided even after all you tried!!

You are an Arab

You ain't even black


ጥቁር ሰው

It doesn't matter whether he's an Arab, Chinese, or an alien from Mars, as what he's sharing that matters, and whether you like it or not, what he's discussing makes sense.


OPFist,

I believe the problem with Oromo is that they're mentally colonised by Habesha due to the fact that Habesha have been dominating Ethiopia's politics to their own taste to date.

[OPFist]

.
It is true that the Oromo were more than enough to achieve our goal alone, but we didn’t forget that even the USA wanted alliance of the world states in order to fight against the mini-states like Iraq. Alliance helped us to be efficient. Only bragging about our potential and number was not enough. I tried to persuade the Oromo elites think otherwise. No matter if some of them percieved me as Oromo or non-Oromo, having different approach from theirs doesn’t make me a person with weak/loser psychology. They don’t have to try to win the arguement by labelling me with any thing negative, but by rational arguement regarding the issue we discussed.

[OPFist]

Bank and tank of the TPLF could be broken with an equivalent or stronger bank and tank, which we unfortunately lacked at first. Only commitiment of the oppressed nations and peoples was not enough. Behind the victory of peoples in Soviet union, Ethiopian empire and Yugoslavia in the 1990ies, there were bank and tank of the Western powers. Did we have that bank and tank of the cold war behind us? Remember even our neighbours, Eritrea and South Sudan had banks and tanks of those Western forces. We had to be pragmatic, not only principled. We needed to have an objective, which we could sell to those who could provide us that necessary bank and tank. Have we ever seen one of our leaders who boldy tried to sell the goal of “independence” to international community? Be it leaders or followers, the pro-independence Oromo usually brag about the “holy objective ” only when they act against their fellow Oromo, but they never did tell it to an enemy directly or to an international power players.

[OPFist]

By the way, pro-union forces are not necessarily anti-independence, but their approach to achieve that independence is smarter; with out rigid positioning and self-righteos boasting about the “pure objective”. The question of independence is achievable not in a rigid way, which hindered us from getting bank and tank. We then came up with an approach, which we could sell to those, who would provide these two important instruments to us. Weobserved how the TPLF, despite its oppressive character, got that support from both the Eastern and Western powers.
Yes, nothing was impossible under the sun, but we needed to be smarter to look for what is more feasible and possible in political context of the globe. Sticking to one ideology we believed in once in our life didn’t make us good politicians. To open the door of our problem, we needed a key with a fitting design to the respective key hole (political contex at hand). I think some of us were trying to open the door with an old key in a new key hole (with changed design).

[OPFist]

Did we think over why we couldn’t quickly take the struggle to next stage? I think we lacked that necessary bank and tank. Can just being self-righteous and being fixed to one corner of independence goal helped us get them? I doubt! Well, we did comfort ourselves by saying “the Oromo are keeping the TPLF at corner”. If we had that power of influence initially, we wouldn’t see the TPLF all over Oromia exploiting us and taking away our land and life. The TPLF was not only pushing us to that corner, but driving us away from our resources. Then, we faced the reality and seeked a solution, rather than trying to massage our mind with good words. To be a winner, we needed a flexible and winning strategy, not only a fixed and “holy objective”.

[OPFist]

Lately, we the pro-independence and pro-union Oromo could agree on the common goal of free Oromia from Abyssinian domination and agreed to leave the decision regarding the type of sovereignty: ‘within a union vs without a union’ for public verdict per referendum after accomplishing the transition to democracy. Now, we need to realize that we are no more victims of Abyssinian elites, but victors. The struggle now is between the liberal Oromos of OPP and republican Oromos of the OLF. Unfortunately the liberals are still persecuting the republicans, so that we see hundreds of Oromo fredom fighters in prison. It seems that the OPP is not yet totally free from TPLF mindset. I hope that it will clear itself from such elements and be as free as the OLF in order to act like victors, not like helpless victim regarding Oromo peoples’ questions. May Waaqa help them!