D E C O R O U S D E C O R U M

PROLOGUE

Of some exertions of duty of a citizen or of social responsibility of a poet, I write this. I write of the reluctance of the generation we live in, I murmur at the possessors of power time Present, I lament the love and morality of time Past, I envision the extravagant hopes of time Future.

And thus We decenter, We deconstruct in Decorous Decorum Their mindless neocolonial discourse.

Narrative one: when law fails and constitution fades, the affairs of the nation(s) are distracted and moral wrongness becomes a full-blown ideal. Narrative two: by the contractualist account of theconstitution, for instance, one such wrong ideal is the principle that no one could reasonably rejectrather than everyone could reasonably accept. This principle would be said to be right, first, in the sense that all principles would be agreed to. Second, it would be right if the beneficiaries were provided with all equal rights and with all relevant true general beliefs to accept and / or to reject, temporarily.

Under such wrong ideals, people suffer severe hardships. However, they believe those hardships are avoidable by some alternative principles-principles under which no one is obliged to bear comparable burdens. Narrative three: the issue of legitimacy! When there is no rule of law, who is legitimate, who is not?

Many of us now stand at a point of crossroad: to this historical juncture, we have come with more than one cause, more than one moral tradition. We participate in relatively different moral communities, and thus we chant more than onenarratives – the narratives of unjust historical relationships and lawlessness. Forced to dance all at once to one drum beat of our dictators, but our song is reduced to mere hullabaloo.

Our rulers our dictators are our democrats. They rule us and rule over us by the very knowledge of our temper. Not by a judicious management of it but by a witty and manipulative skill of contravention. They work on our temper. In so doing, they dissolve our unity. Our rulers do not rule us with concern, that is, as human beings who are capable of suffering and frustration. Our rulers do not rule us with respect, that is, as human beings who are capable of forming and acting on intelligent conceptions of how our lives should be lived, They rather tame us unlike humane.

A conception of identity over time incorporates criteria of memory retention and bodily continuity. As an active being, an identity is not simply a given, but is created and recreated continuously through identifying with one’s projects. Identity is therefore a reflection of a given purposive dimension. In a continued scuffle between the statesmen and the public, in a series of contemptible victories of the government and scandalous submissions of few, that identity of the nationalist is smashed and ultimately misunderstood as a traitor, or a terrorist, at most.

Discontents now certainly here are: deliberate neglect of the causes of nationalist movements, a growing disregard of the violations of human rights. Experiences may justify that when popular discontents are prevalent, there is generally something amiss in the constitution or in the conduct of the government. If the wealth of the nation is the cause of its turbulence, I assume it nonsensical to introduce poverty. If the thirst for freedom is the root cause of disorder, I imagine it idiocy to propose servitude. Of the distributive justice, i.e. , to redistribute resources between more- and less- fortunate citizens, the nation(s) should be willing. In my tradition, Man should be willing, not forced. Unlawful and forceful measures inflame rather than allay the heats. If we are enemies let us confront, if we are rivals let us compete, if we are friends let us sit and compromise. Constitution alone does not make us One, policy alone does not unite us, nor does a divided defense force by itself. But One Love, My People.

Artists are responsible to nudge those who may act ill by design; art is commendable to put justice at least upon a par in favor of the people.

Or it is, If Youth knew, If Age could only! And so on…

A.T. D

Finfinne

2006           
___________________


(My People)

for him I sing

I raise the present on the past

(as some perennial tree out of its roots,)

the present on the past

with time and space I him dilate and fuse

the immortal laws

to make himself by them the law unto himself.

_____________________Walt Whitman in his Leaves of Grass

__(Prologue)

yaa Saba ko

yaa Saba Waaqayyoo,

(oh, my people,

oh, people of God!)

I sing in praise of you

of your political quietisim

of your dignified patience

of your decorous decorum

of the location of your politesse.

praise is not a praise

when sung by a thwarted fiddler,

a fiddler let down by friends and foes

alike. being insulted, humiliated, wretched

dehumanized, dispossessed, displaced

and depopulated, dingiered

my people’s eulogy is no more than a dirge

no more than faarsaa, an elegy for the dead.

there can be no praise song

like the geerarsa song of bygone times!

for nothing can be like the past—

should we extol, eulogize the past

with all its Imperfections!

your patience is so deep

as deep as Malkaa Irreessaa¹

as wide as Hora Arsadii² and waaqa³

my people,

how unfathomable

is the depth

of your sorrow

your grief

your tear and blood being shed

during these long nights?

and who can tell it

if not you, my people?

who can tell the depth of an ocean

if not the dolphin hunted in it,

if not the fish hooked in it

my people?

your hope is mistaken for fear

your patience for naive-ity

your repressed greed (for freedom)

is taken for narrow-ism

separatism, terrorism!

your vented national (liberation) movement 

is belittled to hooliganism

my people,

and your benign presence

is mistaken for your docile absence.

your terrible ordeal today

is taken for an effervescent orgy.

when the road already taken is wrong

the road not taken can be right

my people

now that you are

at the cul-de-sac, at an impasse

there is a cliff before you

roll the stones before you

and the rocks in your way

let them go down to their basics

than you live rolling them up

and down like Sisyphus.

or imagine how long it takes you

to the go-backs, to the no direct path—

to the starting point?

the journey cannot be   

the destination by itself,

my people,

or you don’t know the difference?

yes, difference?

have dreams

and let your dreams come true.

if you have dreams, my people,

why are your dreams so  blurred?

you don’t sleep well,

or you don’t dream well

or you don’t know the difference,

yes difference?

__(Of the Unended Quest)

my people,

think of your case in time

for you are only a heartbeat

away from your end.

and I beg you not to put off

this unended quest to another moment.

a great number of us

spend our days

without any thought

it seems.

you live as though you live

forever, my  people. 

this big world stretched before you

does have no duty to help

but, only obligation

not to cause harm to you,

to maintain global justice

and sustain demands of compatriots.

my people,

I feel like a raajii, a prophet

and live like a waloo, a poet.

a poet is always packing

his belongings! he is an emaltu⁴

a traveller always seeking an unended quest.

who said,

a person is what s/he does

and a person does what s/he is?         

every minute is like the last minute

and every day is like the last day—

for a poet in the least,

for a freedom fighter in the most!

and sure,

when the day comes

you will rally hand in hand

in the Freedom Square

and say hoo-qubaa!⁵

and sing, God bless this Land!

with the martyrs

with children of the deceased

with the bereaved mothers and wives

with those lame ducks: the gameeyi

and the gadaamoojii⁶    

with the destitute.

yes, that is regardless of

how you have lived today, my people!

others, both friends and foes,

do not hesitate to act insanely

to act on your behalf

or to stand in your way.

do not all these signal your ultimate end?

and yet, you do not deter them in the least

my people.

I say this of your widespread indifference,

of the negligence, indecision, reluctance

on the part of the multitudes.

__(The Dilemma of Pleasure and/in Pain)

you cannot eat and save

the same bread

at the same time,

my people.

you  need freedom, as well,

you need your children

to inherit the grand gada legacy⁷:

liberty, peace, abundance,

all that is kaawoo⁸ and finna⁹

and as yet, your daily prayer that

kill me not Waaqa,¹⁰

before I see bilisumma,¹¹

is your another irresistible selfishness.

another lightness of our being!  

oh, my people,

oh, people of God!

are you not tired of seeing a double vision

and hearing a double echo?

or are you not bored of

tuning and dancing to

same drumbeat of dictators?

tune to the beat of your dibbee¹² now

and dance if I sing

cry if I cry? or I would ask,

like the Lebanese poet,¹³

ask my countrymen,

yaa Saba Waaqayyoo, that

I have sung for you, but you did not

dance; I have wept before you, but

you did not cry. shall I sing and

weep at the same time?

__(Of Art/Artist as Liberator)

my people,

art does liberate,

as truth shall triumph!

a poet looks at the coming generation;

a stateswo/man looks at the coming election.

of their constituents:

the poet’s constituents are

generations to come

and those who have

memory of the past

hope for the future

but luck confidence in the present—

critical that they are!

of the stateswo/man,

the constituent is

the generation stuck in the present

looming in the here-and-now

the generation sandwiched

betwixt past and future

the generation shortsighted

by glittery empty words of hypocrites

the generation basking the sun

on the peak of an ivory tower

the generation sleeping fast

under siidaa¹⁴ roofed with fleeting dreams.

in the present,

oh, people of God,

those who presage, augur

are said, Those are borne before their time!

to be borne before one’s time is to precede time;

not to stillbirth! it is to dawn on the sleeping earth

and soon to set, as many did!

but, true, in the present generation are

those borne before their time:

scholars, poets, bards!

politicians are deficient,

and military geniuses or social architects

to clear the way

to lay the ground

to build a free nation.

when we are all thinkers,

we are not thinkers to the end:

men and women,

they foretell what is to come

they foresee what is to happen

they are emaltuu for generations to come

they are sage for the generation present

they are salt for this Land,

oh, people of God.

__(For if one starts from where one is, etc.)

where is the meeting point

of past, present and future,

my people?

if the center of the earth is here, where you stand,

so the meeting point of time

is now, in your hand. take your fate in your hand

and change your fate,

my people, or nothing changes!

others raise the present on the past

I raise the past on the present!

I am the tornado, the whirlwind

trapping like Caattoo,

the wild spirit of wild beasts

herding the living and the dead in one.

I tell in the vernacular

the telltales of poor hunters and herders—

of their misfortunes,

oh, my people! oh, people of God.

haunted by the nostalgic past

for him I sing who built this nation divided

but stand united in the face of adversities!

__(The Call)

my people,

I called you at midnight

to scare away the horde of beast in the farm

but you did not respond. you were making love

with your concubines in the farmhouse?

(or you were hanging out like spirit husbands?)

late when you woke up

all the three present at night

were no more: the farm, the beast, the woman.

I called you toward the crack of dawn,

my people,

to forage the oxen and plow,

the virgin land, but

you did not respond. you were settling disputes

or appeasing gods—gods in a rage

lifting their massive arms against you.

but, why, my people, you are not there indeed

in the time of need?

when I called you at noon

you did not respond. you were effervescing—

on a fabulous feast!

now that the gods are quieted

humankinds are reconciled

and all is too well, all is too corrupt—

your men, your women, your god?

you drink, you sing, you dance and make love

to lull the insatiable gods and goddesses

you don’t respond to calls!

and I called you in the evening,

when the  moon was hurrying westward

carrying honeycombs

of wisdom from the east

tucked in her thighs.

and I said: lets climb to the top

of those mountains

of Bale and Salale and Ilu

and give heera¹⁵ and seera¹⁶ to the world

and defy and sanctify

this Land.

and you answered: on the top of these mountains

in the valleys and plains beyond

our forefathers and mothers lived and sacrificed

worshiped and died. how can we claim

the mountains we abandoned

the valleys and plains we failed to honor

for long? 

and, I salute you, my people,

oh, people of God,

better later than never, my people!

come out of your comfort zone

make a bow and arrow out of my bone

make string and sling out of my skin

make a storm out of my anger

and tempest out of my tear and sorrow

make mud out of my flesh and blood

make a world out of my marrow

make glue out of my sweat

and protect this Land, bond this nation

before you die. if we are not dying,

my people, then why not we live?

but why ‘virtuous [men/women] pass mildly away’

when there are traitors, imposters, hypocrites,

you have some validation, my people?

oh, people of God! be honest to yourself

before you are honest to humankind!

__(Nostalgia)

in the homestead

where I crawled, toddled and

run after wild cats

where I put yoke on peers

ploughed as my father did

where my cock crowed

my hen cackled clutched hutched

where I chased mouse

cut a lizard her tail and laughed at her still pain

in the fields, in the hills across the rivers

where I lived, prayed as a herd boy 

now stand barracks and prison houses.

in the farms of wheat, barley, millet and maize

where I crept to weed, to hoe, to harvest are

stretched strongholds of standby alien forces.

in the fields of eela¹⁷ water heads/wells

where I watered my cattle

now play wolves, baboons, hyenas, foxes, monkeys:

all doing monkey businesses, and others. but

my calves are skinny

my heifers are so weak

my bullocks are impotent

my cows are barren,

oh, people of God!   

my people,

a lacuna in your finna

is a signal to a no strong breed in the Land.

there is no one panacea, no magic potion

to cure your myopia, my people.

but to raise the veil from your eyes

and find the lost footpath towards the future

to go back the track to the source

and to come forth with synergy

to go forward, on the right track hand in hand

faithfully and diligently

why, my people, why sit

your head in your breast

your mind locked

your spirit lowered

your heart split

your skin withered

your face haggard

your body languished

flogged, tormented

and your soul torn, stuck in the present?

why, my people,

why sit sandwiched

betwixt life and death?

you are now old and grey

bent on your walking stick,

my people, so old a nation

to defend itself, to build a free state?

so a mad dog can chase you?

a falling leaf can scare you?

a roaring mortar can faint you,

oh, my people?

you are defeated without war,

you are famished without famine

you are wretched without transgression

you are torn without conflict

you are slave without master,

oh, people of God.

__(If Chance is, it is where Preparation and Opportunity meet)

my dear country men and women

if Youth knew, if Age could,

elders could tell the past

they could not act

the Youth could tell the present

they could not act;

who can tell the future,

and who can act.

my people,

are you stagnant marshes

polluted with leeches, vampires, mosquitoes

or running waters of Gibe, Dabbus, Hawas¹⁸

feeding the Great Waters  of the world,

and then ebbing back into the source?

are you crooked vines, thorny bushes

hosting parasites

or sacred trees sanctified in your own being?

the location of chance is, my people,

where preparation and opportunity meet!

chance is not tossing time and waiting

if the head or the tail turns.

I hate you, my people, I hate you

because you hang yourself

on the  hook of chance,

and love a life of passivity, poverty

and servitude.

I love you, my people

you are peace loving and law abiding.

you are decorous. you are yes-men,

my people.

the answer is YES, but

what is the question,

my people?

you pose a puzzle

you do not know the solution yourself?

or you do not know the difference,

yes difference?

I hate, my people, I hate

your negligence, your reluctance,

your endless indecision,

not your dignified patience.

I hate your political quietude

your polite civil servitude

and unchanging indecision!

you are hot and cold, my people

you are hot only casually

and cold unmethodically

you are sightless. events  are your guide.

you are heartless. ill-bred rogues are your heads.

one can take a horse to the river, my people,

but one cannot force the horse to drink the water.

you raise your arm,

yaa Saba Waaqayyoo,

to hit the nail when it is still hot

but it is not there—

like a fleeting hope

like a slithering python

are you gods double-faced Janus-like¹⁹?

yesterday, you sadly fell,

my people,

and today, you morn much

more of the dirt than of the bruise?

today, your home is on a roaring fire,

my people,

and you chase rats and cockroaches

running away to escape fire

when your home is flaming?

what a daft, fatuous moral priority

urge you thus?

you are no more!

when your felt presence

becomes absent,

my people,

your felt absence,

becomes present.

here is a challenge

time has offered you in history

to tackle it temporal²⁰—make it or break it,

oh, people of God!

__(“I,” praise “Me”)

to end,

I sing thus in praise of my poor Self,

lest I should sing but once in a while

lest this be one last word,

oh, my people,

for my time is swift like all that is good and sublime!

I have a House

I have no Home

I have a Land

I have no Country

I have a People

I have no Nation

nor Nationality

or Citizenship,

oh, people of God,

We are Subject

on our Fatherland

We are distracted!

oh, my people,

oh, people of God,

where is my Home

what is my Country

who is ME²¹

why am I what I am

or, what is the difference?

NOTES

__________

1. River of Life, of Sacrifice

2. Hora Lake near Bushoftu, 45 km east of Finfinne. Site for the Irreecha Ceremony.

3. sky

4. messenger

5. thank You, Oh God. “Hoo-qubaa” is a thanksgiving prayer, esp. among the Macca Oromo

6. veterans

7. traditional (?) Oromo democracy

8. achievement and achievement behavior

9. peace, love, and life. All that is good for man and cattle

10. God

11. Freedom

12. drum

13. Kahlil Gibran Kahlil

14. altar, monument

15. constitution

16. Law

17. well water

18. rivers in Oromia. Hawas is in the east, Gibe is between Shawa and Wallaga (both Macca Oromo branch), Dabbus  is in the west

19. Janus is a double-face god, a guardian on the gate, a door-keeper on the Heaven’s gate facing in and out, West and East (European, Roman (?) tradition).

20. draws on Franz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks:

The architecture of this work (the book) is rooted in the temporal. Every human problem must be considered from the standpoint of time. So much is Decorous Decorum, My People, I think.

21. this is not by simple transformation of the heroic autonomous “I” to the accusative, receptive “ME”. 
It is a separation of the accusative, receptive self from the heroic self “so that the latter overflows the terms of its own identifications.”

_____Wendy C Hamblet, in her “The Geography of Goodness” (in The Monist, 2003:360), quotes Emmanuel Levinas as saying:

In thinking, a being which situates itself in the totality is not absorbed into it. It exists in relationship with a totality, but remains here, separated from the totality –ME.