NATIONALISM AND CULTURAL RESISTANCE

the Case of the Oromo in Ethiopia

an Etic-Emic Approach

_______________________________________

Asafa Tafarra Dibaba

Indiana University

USA

January  2012

Abstract

To fight against Abyssinian domination the bedrock for Oromo nationalism has been resistance culture that involved (social and political) banditry from the early days of Oromo occupation by Menelik in the second half of the 19^th century and after. That is, it was late in the 1960s and onwards that urbanized Oromo nationalist elites, i.e., bureaucrats, military officers, students, professional groups, and the business class “facilitated the transformation of localized and scattered struggles and cultural resistance” (Jalata 1995:168) into organized national movement, i.e., “modern” nationalism. If this is right, it is emphasized that in the history of Oromo national movement, both “modern” nationalism and the ever ignored “traditional” cultural resistances, including social banditry, have been the characteristic settings of Oromo struggle.  As someone who has been involved in both forms of the struggle, though only peripherally like many other Oromo professionals, but harassed and persecuted for the same cause to come to live on a forced exile, I claim that in spite of its longstanding history, the emergent Oromo nationalism seems to be distracted by what Benedict Anderson (1992) calls “long-distance nationalism,” and distanced from its social base, the Oromo resistance culture and what Asafa Jalata (2007; 1998) calls Oromummaa (Oromoness), its guiding principle. The two concepts, namely, “long-distance nationalism” and “Oromummaa,” will make the conceptual framework in this analysis based on socio-historical and cultural context using etic-emic approach. The data used in this study mainly came from secondary sources and partly from my PhD field research in Salale, Ethiopia (September 2009-July 2010) through interviews, discussions and observations. While challenging scholars’ inattentiveness to resistance culture as a base for Oromo nationalism and suggesting some directions, it is also my purpose to contribute, however modest, to the existing but scanty literature. 

Key Words:

Resistance, Nationalism, Oromummaa, Etic-emic factors, Banditry, Liberation / Disintegration / (Re)integration paradoxes, Imagined home (Heimat)

Introduction

In a broad sense, developing understandings of nationalism and cultures of resistance has been a central theme of ‘modern’ nationalism, particularly in the case of the Oromo in 1990s and 2000s (Jalata 1998; 2007; Anderson 1983). Nevertheless, whilst scholars have been highly sensitive to the importance of acts of nationalism, as if outside of the context of broader social movements, they have focused less upon resistance culture in specific place-based case studies. Those concerned with past and present nationalism have focused overwhelmingly upon understanding the development of general social movements rather than constituting the ethnography of resistance culture and its social base. On the other hand, those who studied bandit and banditry in Ethiopia, particularly the Oromo, deliberately singled it out as purely social problem by ignoring its transformation and feeding into political movement¹. There has been negligence on the part of our scholars to pay serious attention to the rural poor as having capacity for political action and potential as participants in larger processes of social change which was/is a case with most African nations who fought against domination (Hobsbawm 1965; Isaacman 1977; Caulk 1984; Crummey 1986).

Rethinking Resistance Culture

Through focusing upon the hitherto ignored (re)conceptualization of peasant resistance and their practices of dissident culture (e.g., social/political banditry) as a basis for nationalism, one may come to an understanding that the value of retracing resistance culture is imperative to better understand the complexity of “modern” nationalist movement. It also helps to understand how, in periods of acute socio-economic and rapid political changes, the evolving relationship between the subordinat and the ruling class also affects the central discourse of both the dominant group and the oppressed and the reciprocal resistance practices (hidden and open). Such a theorizing effort often involves the practice of complex cultural understandings about the ways in which the oppressed challenge domination and structured violence by the oppressive state.  

In theory, however, to my best knowledge, scholars have been working on and proposing a variety of competing explanations of nationalism while peasants’ cultural resistance has been neglected as a source of nationalism in a variety of complex ways. Subsequent efforts at hypothesis refinement and testing reproduce and expand the scope of theoretical disagreements which arise from differences in the starting point and neglecting the conceptualization (and theorizing) of the key actor, i.e., the peasantry.

The study of nationalism that ignores the social base of national movement, namely, resistance culture, is rather the study of “long-distance nationalism,” which results, if anything, in a serious theoretical enigma. That is also to say that the concept of Oromummaa, an ideological map of Oromo nationalism, is clearly theorized but if it remains devoid of any pragmatic function instead of relocating Oromo nationalism back into its social base (Oromo resistance culture) it leaves adrift the total praxis of the liberation movement. Until that is resolved, i.e., the disjunction between theory/practice/praxis, the empirical resolution of competing explanations will be difficult and the construction of theoretical arguments as knowledge embodiment and the domains to which they can correctly apply remain unclear.

Etic-Emic Approach

To study a society from emic perspective is to study it from inside, from the pulse of its lived experience which avoids the projection of outsider concepts, Western/Eurocentric biases onto the Oromo reality in favor the Ethiopian oppressive state structure. Hence by emic approach, the Oromo resistance is not just one of liberation but also of survival, which could be impossible without etic factors and extracting some cure out of the poison itself. This necessitates an eclectic etic-emic approach, which sees in-and-out Janus-like and to the future via the past in an endeavor to adjust the major ethos of the Oromo society, namely, the cultural injunction of resistance for survival and liberation. This is to say that for the oppressed who chose to stay and voice, it is a resistance both for survival and liberation; whereas, for those of us who, as a matter of fact, forced to choose exit and voice, for we cannot stay and exit at the same time, we chose to exit and voice only peripherally but through a “long-distance nationalism” for here in exit our situation is now relatively much better than survival back home. Our divided cry is swamped into the dazzling marble of the White House like too many unheard voices.

To repeat Amilcar Cablar (1966), for our own experiences of the struggle and of a critical appreciation of the experiences of others before us, he told the Tri-continental gathering in his speech titled “The Weapon of Theory,” an African saying goes “When your house is burning, it’s no use beating the tom-toms,” that is, one cannot eliminate imperialism by shouting insults against it but by fighting it. To show the acute need for sacrifice, he adds an African proverbial metaphor that “no matter how hot the water from your well, it will not cook your rice,” which is “a fundamental principle, not only of physics, but also of political science,” Cabral insists, “We know that the development of a phenomenon in movement, whatever its external appearance, depends mainly on its internal characteristics.” In Cabral’s view  of African “Ethnophilosopiccal” folkloric analysis, our political reality—“however fine and attractive the reality of others may be—can only be transformed by detailed knowledge of it, by our own efforts, by our own sacrifices” (ibid).

This paper has two parts. In the first section we examine the concept of contemporary nationalism as a new variety of social theory and explore varieties of cultural resistance which underlie and keep on track the analysis of the praxis (and practice) of nationalism. In this section modern nationalism and examples of the consequent cultural trajectories are presented followed by the discussion of the case of Oromo nationalism and emic/etic factors that contributed into the deferment of the objectives set. In the second part of the paper, based on the dire situation and ideological context of the Oromo in Ethiopia, it is argued, the concept of nationalism and cultural resistance is an indispensable sociopolitical reality  one  which  makes  sense  of  the  cultural  world and underlies the analysis of Oromo nationalism on both emic and etic  provinces.

Since the aim of the paper is not to come to any hard and fast conclusion whatsoever, but to pose the problem in focus for further study, we theorize the oppressed nationalism that is uprooted from its social base and distanced from a corresponding resistance culture is also misinterpreted as a mere “long-distance nationalism”. Towards this understanding, I follow an etic-emic approach to integrate the various folkloric, socio-cultural and historical data obtained from a vast range of relevant secondary sources and, in part, based on the data gathered from my fieldwork in Salale, Ethiopia, in 2009-2010 for my ongoing PhD research on the ethnography of resistance poetics.    

-Part I-

Conceptualizing “Modern” Nationalism

Benedict Anderson (1992), in his The Wertheim Lecture,² gives us an excellent recount of a politician-historian Lord Acton in 1860s that there were three powerful and subversive ideas threatening ‘presently existing civilization’: “egalitarianism, aimed at the principle of aristocracy; communism…aimed at the principle of property; and nationalism or nationality aimed at the principle of Legitimacy” (p1).  Writing of nationalism, Anderson recounts, “it was ‘the most recent in its appearance, the most attractive at the present time, and the richest in promise of future power’” (ibid).  Anderson’s thoughtful critique of Acton’s prediction is important that 130 years later the great polyglot empires that ruled the earth for hundreds of years from Lisbon, London, Moscow, Vienna, Paris, Istanbul, Madrid, even Addis Ababa  (emphasis mine) have disintegrated leaving behind “only the residue of the Celestial Empire still more or less standing” (ibid). As this long process of disintegration is also a process of liberation, however, Anderson is right in questioning this double-faced nature of the process, namely, disintegration and (re)integration, as the world is more tightened to integrate into a single capitalist economy, or as it were. 

Nationalism in its modern sense has become a reaffirmation of one's self-identity more than ever, a response, an "identity-signifier," to world terrorism and to globalization imposing itself in a form of economics, politics, and human affairs. Whereas self-identity of individuals and groups has become more insecure and uncertain, humans draw closer to any collective union that is perceived as reducing insecurity, sheltering in their own heimats. Drawing on the Oromo experience in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia, a combination of cultural resistance practices and nationalism has become a powerful response to the top down rapid change and comparable uncertain future, and there have been more varieties of identity constructions in a form of religion, ethnicity, and culture than ever before from below during such crises of ontological insecurities. Within  the logic of cultural  reasoning and the  metaphors  through  which  resistance is expressed, assumptions  about  the  situation of  the Oromo society in present day Ethiopia make it relevant  to practice  and legitimize the study of peasant cultural resistance to date as a basis for nationalism.

Resistance Discourse

In a resistance discourse, the word "nation" today may refer to a country, an ethnic group, a religious sect, or some mix of those connections.  That is, a nation is whatever a person or a group happens to identify with, the people who are fundamentally "like them” in one quality or another.  We have people who identify with one another based on their religion and feel as if different from “others”. Such a nationalist sense of indifference and superiority might come from the moral code of the religion or the social group. From this perspective of modern nationalism people identify with one another thinking that their in-group connection and its moral code is equal or superior to the “others”/”outsiders”.

Pan-Africanism, for instance, as a direct response to the Eurocentric discourse of occupation by European powers had a unifying effect among African freedom fighters and later solidified as an organizational ideology of the OAU (Organization of African Union). Though pan-Africanist thought and activity was differing at times due to changing historical circumstances but it unified the different strands against one common enemy, namely, colonialism and imperialism. Among the key concepts unified the different strands were opposition to colonialism and “revitalization and promotion of African cultural ideals, the betterment and upliftment of black people and the importance of a free and united Africa for the furtherance of these ideals” (Bush 1999:14)   

It was a hybrid discourse rooted within European rationalism combining concepts of progress and cultural nationalism towards a radical black nationalism that aimed at establishing a racial cultural bond between Africa and its diaspora (ibid). Sidney Lemelle and Robin Kelley (1994) also share the view that the critiques of early pan-Africanism “were generally constrained by… a hybrid discourse that combined Christian rationalism and its attendant notions of ‘civilization’ or progress with a black prophetic tradition of Ethiopianism” (p3), then a black chorus line of imagining home! The radical Black Nationalism with a greater mass appeal was later influenced by Marxism to shape the radical nationalism into liberal pan-Africanism.

Marcus Garvey as the leading Black Nationalist concretized pan-Africanism using a symbolism of Ethiopia, considering it to be a source of liberation, a cradle of independent culture built around a black God, the religious symbolism later taken up by Jamaicans as Rastafarianism, another resistance discourse, on the basis of Garveyism, a secular, political movement. On the basis of black consciousness, to reclaim “Africa for Africans” fundamental concepts included “preaching black pride and the importance of diaspora Africans returning to Africa” (Bush, p14).

Gurvey has made it clear, however, in what he wrote in 1937 of his own disillusionment³ about Haile Selassie’s defeat and fleeing the country during the Italian invasion.

Pan-Africanism as ideology and resistance discourse manifested itself in a combination of forms of concrete political movement and expression of consciousness invigorated by cultural revivals, as black nationalists’ effort “to rediscover their shrines from the wreckage of history…a revolt against the Whiteman’s suzerainty in culture, politics, and historiography” (Lemelle 1994:2). The Gurveyan concept of black God overlaps with the Oromo worldview of “Waaqa gurraacha,” meaning, black God as coincidental, but the irony is that Ras Tafari, whom the Jamaicans worship as black God with mythic Zionist descent is an Oromo on his paternal line, the son of Mekonnen Guddisa, and Gurage, on his maternal side, far from the Solomonic (Zionist) dynasty by birth.

To reconstitute the Oromo past and present and keep on track the national movement and the corresponding resistance culture it necessitates an ideological principle that serves beyond a resistance discourse. 

Moral Legitimacy of Nationalism and Resistance

A moral universalist defines “nationalism” as a political favoritism, a discriminatory effort to turn toward those with whom one shares inherited cultural backgrounds that make one  “feel  at home  with  them  or  toward the  cultivation  of  that  cultural background” ( Miller 1997:168). However, by the principle of “universal free acceptability,” decision to support a nationalist movement in the interest of one's nationality is wrong. It is justifiable only if it responds to deep-rooted disrespect for persons which merit resistance by those who have no interest in the cultivation of that nationality. As a general  moral  doctrine  of  broad appeal, “universal  free acceptability”  “grounds a plausible, moderate position on patriotism, nationalism,  coercion  and  violence, in between  callous exclusivity and  the  worldwide  diffusion  of  concern” (p166).

In this regard, patriotism and nationalism can be coercive. That is, both can  “motivate support for  state-enforced  institutions  as mild  as  the  use  of  tax money to  celebrate patriotic  holidays and  as harsh  as  the  confinement  of  weaker  nationalities  to  concentration camps” (p168). In the history of Romantic Nationalism, the Nazi concept of the Volk Community as deeply rooted in the land of their heimat through their practice of agriculture and their ancestral lineage going back hundreds and thousands of years conceived as a classic xenophobia is another negative side of nationalism that, officially declared by the SS, “others” were "enemies of the volk community" and thus a threat to the integrity and security of the heimat. This misconception of nationalism as xenophobic discharge of hatred towards “others” rather than as an ideological tool in the quest for democracy, justice and freedom also misplaced folklore and its scholarship originally used by peasants as a cultural metaphor in Herderian view and later by the Grimm Brothers to maintain history, moral genealogy and human agency and to reconstitute national identity.

Though taken for ‘favoritism’ or morally ‘coercive’ by the universalist view, the moral turn toward one's nationality or one’s fellow-members involves cultivating shared cultural practices typically acquired during childhood and taken  to descend from  cultural  ancestors who  once  lived together and also believed maintained well if culture-shares live together. The cultural cultivation through celebrating shared distinctive ways, public activities, and artifacts will gradually grow into cultural revival as the offshoot of cultural resistance by promoting survival. Those vitally important cultural practices symbolizing their national identity, members of the group are expected under normal circumstances to cultivate and preserve vigilantly, as they wish that others also would uphold it,  as centrally "important  project in  a  rational person's life, part of  the way she gauges the  success  of  her  life  as  a whole” (Miller, p168).

Be that as it may, by way of laying a moral ground for resistance against domination, however, moral universalists strongly believe that one ought to be opposed for profound deep-rooted disrespect, whoever's nationality is, regardless of whether one  cares  about  the  cultivation  of  one's  own nationality (ibid).  Miller points out that the moral legitimacy of patriotism is different from that of nationalism as it reflects  a special  moral  need  to respect others' autonomy  when supporting  policies that they  would  be  forced  to obey. If  no  one  were initially  disposed to  favor compatriots (state collaborators) in political choices, the principle of  universal  free acceptability⁴  would give each  a reason  to do  so,  since  all, if rational,  want  there  to be  some government. However, nationalism strives to build its own political power so to build up an institutional power of itself and, in so doing to promote its cultural, economic, and social institutions by mobilizing its own human and material resources. 

Nationalism in Ethiopia

Nationalism in Ethiopia has different phases. Some would link its historical root mainly to the patriotic ardor of the people, “Ethiopianness,” to safeguard the sovereignty of the “nation” against external threats, from regional as well as global powers as during the colonial scramble for Africa, and by Egypt and Turkey, and later the multiple conflicts with Sudan and Somalia (Belachew 2009), which some believe it to have an internal unifying effect. The fact is that, however, it was/is not an easy task for the unionist political elites who “tried to “flock” all Ethiopians together through the construction of a sense of ‘Ethiopianness,’” as some would argue, during the imperial and the socialist period (Belachew, ibid, p80) and later. Though the political incorporation was designed to subdue internal nationalism and to mobilize the population against external aggressors, but that has never been a successful attempt, a far-reaching “unionist” agenda that maintained collective nationalism, “Ethiopianness,” as few claimed, by sacrificing nationalistic political goals and identity for nation-state unity, but rather aggravated the search for (ethno-)national identity among the oppressed.

The question of “Western Oromo Confederation” as a ‘classic Oromo nationalism’ began in 1936 during the Italian invasion is the case in point to be followed by the Bale peasants’ protest and the Salale resistance. The Raya-Asabo Oromo popular protest in north Ethiopia from 1928-1935 under the leadership of Ras Gugsa Wole came to an end only after repeated attempts by the Imperial army and after eight year defiance. George McCann (1985:601) describes it as a “political  symbol  of  the larger  pattern  of  violence” in the history of (Oromo) peasant resistance and as part of “a  series  of  localized responses  to  economic  and  environmental  conditions  in  Ethiopia's emerging  social  formation” (p602). On the whole, these are some of the localized and scattered Oromo resistances that consolidated eventually the “modern” Oromo nationalism against the neo-Abyssinian domination.

Modern Oromo nationalism

In the 1920s as Ras Tafari removed Menelik's loyalists from office and shook their power base, and then in 1930s, after his accession to the throne as Emperor Haile Sellassie, he strengthened his program of political centralization to end the limited autonomy of the regions that had maintained semi-independent status since their incorporation into Ethiopia under Emperor Menelik II. In so doing, Haile Selassie reversed the political arrangements of Emperor Menelik who “had ruled through a combination of “coercion and consent” by appointing military rulers where he encountered resistance and granting internal autonomy to hereditary rulers paying annual tributes (Ezkiel 2007).

The lack of autonomy under Emperor Haile Selassie, added to the already existing resentment under Menelik, led to brewing Oromo nationalism and challenge Amhara domination. Though not all encompassing, thirty-three local leaders from western Oromia founded the "Western Oromo Confederation." They refused to send troops to take part in the battle against the Italian invasion in the Northern front and rather sent delegations to appeal to the League of Nations through the British Consul based in Gore, Western Oromia, for recognition and membership as “Western Oromo Confederation” Ezkiel (2007) but the British Consul did not recognize the “Confederation”.

Well ahead, Oromo nationalism was infused on campus in the then HSI University in the 1960s as part of the ongoing university students’ movement against the monarchic rule. Oromo students were clandestinely meeting and discussing since the “official nationalist narrative of Ethiopian history and society that was promoted in the curriculum emphasized the civilizing mission of the Christian north and portrayed 'Galla' and other peoples of the south as less than noble savages and Muslims as threatening invaders” (Hultin 2003:407;1996 also citing  Zitelmann,  1996). The Struggle was the voice of the general revolutionary university students at the time while Kana Beektaa? that is, “Do You Know?” was the Oromo students’ issue to help escalate the cultural resistance with another clandestine issue, The Oromo: Voice Against Tyranny.

Unlike the Eritrean nationalism, it is argued, the  quest for identity  and  recognition  of  Oromo  culture  did  not amount  to the  kind  of  nationalism  that  demanded independence from Ethiopia and  in 1970s 'the idea  of an independent  Oromo  state was not  yet on the  agenda'  until  the  end  of  1976,  when  a small number  of dissident  Oromo  students joined the  armed  struggle  led by the  OLF (Oromo  Liberation Front)  (Hultin ibid; Mekuria  1997: 54).

It is agreed that “Oromo  national  movement  has  evolved  from scattered,  localized, and cultural resistances of Oromos to Ethiopian colonial  domination  and  its supporters” (Jalata 1995:165). Based on the first-hand data he gathered from previous members of the Macca-Tulama Association, OLF leaders, artists, and prominent Oromo community leaders, Asafa Jalata analyzes the nature of “emergent Oromo nationalism” and the Ethiopian discourses as a nonstop tag of war since the successive Ethiopian regimes have been very resistant to Oromo nationalism, as they mainly depend on the Oromo economic and labor resources (ibid; 1998).  Consequently, rather than deal democratically with the problem, Jalata rightly states, the Abyssinian oppressive forces tried to totally destroy Oromo movement, which they proved it impossible and tried “to shape it according to their respective interests via the creation of puppet organizations” (ibid; 1998).

The Ethiopian oppressive state has dominated the Oromo and exploited their resources, repressed their culture, and negated their history (Jalata, 1993), which Amilcar Cabral (1973:41) describes, colonial domination, as "the negation of the historical process of the dominated people by means of violently usurping the free operation of the process of development of the productive forces" (Jalata, p166). They have made unsuccessful reforms throughout history, reforms that Jan Hultin, recounting Benedict Anderson, calls “official nationalism” (Hultin 2003:404). As a result the Oromo have been denied institutional power for which they struggle to regain and “to re-create an Oromo political power that will enable them to have institutional power in the cultural, educational, and economic arenas (Jalata, p166).

“Official Nationalism:” the Abyssinian Version

Soon after the WWII and the end of Italian invasion, Haile Selassie was engaged in what Benedict Anderson (1983:80ff) calls “official nationalism” (Hultin 2003:404), that is, cosmetic changes in response to nationalist movements, modernization of a traditional polity (Markakis, 1974), the project which coincided in time with the era of territorial nationalism, de-colonisation and nation building in Africa. In Europe and Tsarist Russia it was an attempt at 'nation building' within the framework of a traditional polity, which Anderson illustrated the attempt as putting the thin skin over a large beast, since nationalism is incompatible with imperialism, that depicted the destruction of old polyglot empire, which shows the case of the 19th century Europe, in the era of popular, romantic nationalism (Anderson, 1983: 82). That can be understood as 'stretching the short, tight skin of the nation over the gigantic body of the empire' which Haile Selassie attempted to do after his return from exile, that is, airing new imperial decrees (Bulcha 1997) to ensure once again his presence and the Abyssinian domination on the Oromo and other (ethno)nations.  From the view of “official nationalist” discourse,” Hultin shares Walelegne Mekonnen’s critique that “state  and  history were  associated  with  the  culture  and society  of  Amhara  and  Tigrinya speakers, whilst other ethnic groups were disparaged and marginalized” (Hultin 2003) which had a profound influence on many Oromo students to create  an identity  crisis for many and “to start a search for roots  in  the history  of  their  own  people”  (Bulcha 1996: 63).

When modern education did not start in Ethiopia and in the capital, Addis Ababa, until 1908/9, the Oromo young evangelists led by Onesimus Nasib who studied in Sweden from 1876 to 1881 and again in 1899 had begun evangelism and a school in Oromo language at Najjo, Western Oromia, in 1904 followed by a number of schools established in Naqamte  and  other  places in Wollega (Hultin 2003:411, fn.5). Afaan Oromoo as a language of instruction was banned  by the government in 1942, including the  use  of  literature and Bible  studies  in the language (Bulcha,  1997; 1993; Baxter,  1978b:288; Mohammed  Hassen,  1998:187f. in Hultin 2003).

Thus nationalism can have a severe negative effect, particularly if it falls in the hand of expansionist pretensions contrary to the heroic spirit of nationalism that paints better memories when it is the engine behind an oppressed, ignored, and marginalized group. Nationalism is then seen, and often even justified as the case for asserting justice. As one can see in Anderson’s analysis, when an already powerful group harnesses the energy and creativity of nationalism, the destructive possibilities are countless, which the 20th Century came to show.

As "modern" Ethiopia has been created and maintained through the achievement of external legitimacy, such as the British colonial power and major interstate players in the 19^th century, resistance against the neo-Abyssinian supremacy intensified and gradually led into nationalism and organized political struggle. Suppressed social and cultural resistance eventually inflamed armed political struggle led by vanguard liberation organizations such as the Eritrean Liberation Front (EPLF), Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), and the Tigray Liberation Front (TPLF) which toppled the Dergue military regime in 1991 with the other two liberation organizations but only to prove itself another most awful dictatorial regime in the Horn of Africa at present.

However, like its predecessors and the successive neo-Abyssinian regimes before it, the TPLF-led government in Ethiopia has failed to achieve internal legitimacy among the more than 70 subjugated (ethno)nations in the country.  State-sponsored terror has been widely used with the help of foreign forces in an attempt to control oppositions by creating political instability. The structured violence against civilians can have broader consequences, as successive Ethiopian state elites have built their power and maintained their legitimacy and survival through external connections and domestic political violence (Jalata 2009:22) which requires a democratic paradigm that includes decolonization, self-determination, and popular sovereignty.

Towards this end, the OLF was founded in 1973 with a decisive goal set as just and legitimate⁵ to struggle for the right to self-determination for the Oromo people and the establishment of independent state of Oromia, as this is to be finally decided by referendum. However, the OLF notion of democracy, equality, justice and freedom has been misconstrued deliberately as secessionist and its objectives thwarted as divisive and the majority of the Oromo civilians have been persecuted, displaced, killed or put in jail without charge terrorized by government anti-terrorist taskforce in the last two decades (Dr. Trevor Trueman)⁶ (I am one of the victims survived) since the OLF was forced to boycott the Transitional Government⁷ before the 1992 national election.

The Oromo ardent quest for freedom and democracy against the neo-Abyssinian domination has been encumbered by externally induced pressures and internally motivated factors all fermenting internal schisms and suspicions among the comrades resulting in turn in quiescent factions less committed to fully engaging the mass and propelling the struggle. The fear is that unless an alternative way of dealing with the ‘problem of/for the Oromo’ is sought, this conundrum can have a devastating effect on the destiny of the Oromo people and other oppressed (ethno)nations and nationalities in the region. In the course of the struggle, though, the organization and the Oromo people have encountered and overcome various such internal and external challenges but rather this is more demanding. At this junction, it has become imperative more than ever now for all Oromo political forces to join hand in hand by peacefully resolving tactical differences and also with others for the continuous effort of liberating the Oromo and sustaining peace, justice, democracy and development in the region.

Neo-Abyssinian elites fan the difference rather than seeking a political solution. By mesmerizing that the era of classical colonialism lasted from 15th century to the 20th century, hence, what exists today, as they believe, is imperialism, that is, neocolonialism, imposed by capitalism that exploits small and weak states that have national flags and leaders. They deny the existence of nations and nationalities without states, such as the Oromo, the Somali, the Sidama, suffering double oppression, and the subjugation of those (ethno)nations and nationalities is not a “colony” since, by their definition, in Ethiopia, there is no any people, indigenous group⁸ territory, or a state separated from but subject to a ruling power (Kebede 1999). Thus, with the rise of the revolution and the intensification of resistance and nationalism, Messay Kebede openly sympathizes that the glorious tradition of Ethiopia is lost, “its pride, its confidence, even its identity—in a word, all the forces of life which had so far sustained its will to survive” is gone (1999:xxi).⁹

However, the fact is that, throughout the history of the country there has been political instabilities. Internally there have been serious conflicts and civil wars such as with Eritrea and Tigray in the North and the Somalis in Ogaden in the east and the Oromo in the center having distinct nationalist questions and separate political agenda of their own but destabilized by military power and western interventions, their political agenda could not achieve the intended goal. The reality of competing nationalisms came to be realized when Eritrea won its independence in 1991 after the thirty-year of bloody war, and Eritreans hoped once again to cherish their freedom as a free nation, but the hope was postponed indefinitely by another bloody war with Ethiopia between 1998 and 2000. But there is every form of public and hidden cultural resistance in Ethiopia since both with and without resistance the oppressed cannot cherish a meaningful survival until liberation is gained! This will be the subject of the section to follow.

-II-

Cultural Resistance  

Nationality, nation-ness, and nationalism are cultural artifacts (Anderson 1983). The problem of Black liberation movement, i.e., relations between the modern capitalist countries, their racial policies and economic exploitation, was at the center of pan-African “revisionist” historiography and its materialist analysis over the last three hundred years (Lemelle 1994:2). Despite its racist and ethnocentric origin in Western Enlightenment thought and Social Darwinism, in its broad analysis, ironically the nineteenth century liberal pan-Africanism was rooted in the liberal assumptions such as “beliefs in unity and goodness of humankind, benefits of liberal education, the power of reason and the possibility of uplift and progress within the capitalist system (ibid). As European romanticism and cultural nationalism generated the development of modern Black Nationalism and the latter also contributed into the “revisionist” historiography that triggered the question of national identity among the oppressed African nations and nationalities horded by neo-colonial agents into unity that is growing ramshackle.

After African ‘independence’ now over half a century, the problem of domination remains ever a festering wound for (ethno)nations to itch once again and the question for the right to self-determination necessitates indigenous ideological principle(s) rooted within indigenous (resistance) culture to lead the struggle and to free the oppressed from economic and political bondage and cultural subjection imposed indirectly by the “Whiteman” and capitalist world economy and directly by their kind.

The Principle of Oromo Cultural Resistance and Nationalism

In the case of the Oromo, Oromummaa, Oromoness has become a “modern” ideological guideline for the pan-Oromo nationalism built around the cultural revitalization of the Oromo both inside and outside Oromia (Jalata 2007; 1998).

                                                                                                                                      

As an Oromo cultural identity and a panacea for the oppressed nationalism, there is multi-dimensional impact of the concept on Oromo liberation, civic community organizations, the Oromo resistance, political and societal unity. Oromummaa as a principle of Oromo cultural resistance serves as a critique of engaging in destructive behavior and of the Oromo in the diaspora inattentive of the arrested nationalism. While it casts light on the uneven Oromo consciousness and nationalism, Oromummaa also enhances Oromo national power to overcome the oppressive powers of Ethiopia  and resist against all “systems that hinder the emergence of national self-determination and multinational democracy” (Jalata 2007:10). According to the Oromummaa principle, to achieve self-determination and human liberation, it is imperative for the Oromo to build an effective national political leadership and increase the organizational capacity of Oromo society.

As a “dynamic national and global project”, Jalata insists, Oromummaa works on two levels. On the national level, as Oromummaa develops, the Oromo will be able to “retrieve their cultural memories, assess the consequences of Ethiopian colonialism, give voice to their collective grievances, mobilize diverse cultural resources, interlink Oromo personal, interpersonal and collective (national) relationships, and assist in the development of Oromocentric political strategies and tactics that can mobilize the nation for collective action empowering the people for liberation (p12).  Whereas, on the global level, by this principle, the Oromo “form alliances with all political forces and social movements that accept the principles of national self-determination and multinational democracy in promotion of a global humanity free of all forms of oppression and exploitation” (ibid).

Towards this end the basis of Oromummaa must be built on “overarching principles of Oromo traditions and culture,” and identifying and nurturing those strategies of cultural resistance plays a major role in the fight against all forms of human injustices and domination. Equally important is that a universal relevance for all oppressed peoples on a global level as an egalitarian and democratic vision to “create mutual solidarity and cooperation among all peoples who accept the principles of self-determination and multinational democracy in order to remain congruent with its underlying values” (p13). This is true to the oppressed to have moral obligation to defend every nation’s resistance against domination and also to struggle against internal weakness. ¹⁰

Education as a Key to Self-knowledge

In 1916 when Ras Tafari Mekonnen was brought to power by the Showan nobility as the regent and heir apparent to the throne of the Ethiopian empire, evangelism and formal education in Oromo language was well underway in Western Oromia starting in 1904 despite all the pressures under Emperor Menelik II. Onesimos Nesib, Aster Ganno Salban and other Oromo young and enthusiastic evangelists were treated with great honor among the people in Wollega and by the governor, Dejazmach Gebre Egziabher re-baptized as protestant Christian converts and denounced Orthodox Christianity as a symbol of Abyssinian domination. Though it started relatively early, Oromo literacy and the development of its literary culture has been suppressed by the Abyssinian policy of linguistic homogenization, the attempt that “in many cases, faced both overt and covert resistance from the targeted groups” (Bulcha 1997).

One of the university revolutionary students and activist writer in the 1960s, Wolelegne Mekonnen, challenged the Amhra-Tigre hegemony in Ethiopia through his writings and nationalistic revolutionary thoughts. He outlined “nation” as people with a particular language, particular ways of dressing, history, particular social and economic organization of their own. In Ethiopia, he stated, there is the Oromo, the Tigrai, the Amhara, the Gurage, the Sidama, the Harari, the Somali nations and nationalities (1969). Moreover, by ridiculing the single cultural, linguistic and religious supremacy, he poses, be this a true picture of Ethiopia, then “what is this fake Nationalism? Is it not simply Amhara and to a certain extent Amhara-Tigre supremacy? Ask anybody what Ethiopian culture is? Ask anybody what Ethiopian language is? Ask anybody what Ethiopian music is? Ask anybody what the "national dress" is? It is either Amhara or Amhara-Tigre!!” (ibid). Hence, by this equation, to be a "genuine Ethiopian," Walelegne argued, “one has to speak Amharic, listen to Amharic music, accept the Amhara-Tigre religion, Orthodox Christianity, and  wear the Amhara-Tigre Shamma”¹¹ (ibid) the Abyssinian traditional costume.

However, for neo-Abyssinian elites who prefer(red) to see the Amhara domination intact, “racism or tribalism is unknown  in the Ethiopian political  administration,  past or present” and that “the  worst  one  can say is that the country is  administered  in  Amharic, the  non-tribal  national language for  centuries,  albeit  perceived to  belong to  one  particular ethnic group (Haile 1986:474).  We are already told that Amharic has over  700 years  of tradition  “in  a country  where  100 languages  are spoken,”  and that Amharic is the language that has  “rescued  the  Ethiopian state  from  the  fate of the  Tower  of Babel” (ibid, p471). By a simple equation, if one language became a literary language once in seven years, Ethiopia would be no less united. It must be with this humane concern, as it seems, to placate the nationalism and cultural resistance intensified by the time, that Getachew Haile suggests Oromo language to be considered by the Dergue as “a second  national language to be learnt in all schools at every level, from Borena (Sidamo) in the south to Eritrea  in  the  north” since it  is spoken  by  over  one-third  of  all  Ethiopians (p486).

As the university activist students consolidated it beginning in the 1960s, the Oromo question, however, was/is not just economic freedom or cultural autonomy as some would belittle Oromo nationalism to “ethnocentrism” and “provincial narrow-mindedness”. Rather it is the right to self-determination, not necessarily secession, as the practical solution for peace and justice to prevail in the Horn when the Oromo achieve political power and institutional powers will operate successfully by mobilizing both human and material resource.

Oromo Cultural Revival (1970s)

Historically, in 1975 some determined Oromo nationalists came together to form a cultural committee in Finfinne (Addis Ababa) and draft a constitution for the formation of an "Oromo Cultural Association," which was rejected by the Ethiopian government probably underrating it as narrowist, divisive, and ethnocentric.  However, the committee worked clandestinely and helped the formation of several cultural groups in Oromia such as Afran Qallo in Dirre Dawa and Guddattu Wollega in Naqamte. This was the time when several other Oromo cultural and political works took momentum both in the capital and in the region including the formation of the Oromo Liberation Front issuing its first manifesto in 1974 and the Macca-Tulama Self-Help Association augmenting the groundwork for the cultural resistance. The same year, the first Oromo weekly newspaper called "Barrisaa," meaning, Dawn, was inaugurated under the guidance of the Oromo"Cultural Committee” in the Sabean script, instead of the Roman script, as the government did not allow it, and "Barrisaa" as a first newspaper ever in Oromo language, gained popularity within a few months and became the largest newspaper in the Empire with over 20,000 copies per issue. In the following year peasants in Jibat and Macca, organized a (ritual) cultural festival at the hitherto ritual site called Bokku Tule, west of the capital and near Ambo, which hosted several other guests from different parts of Oromia.

The most politicized cultural event that caught the Ethiopian government with fear and shock and supporters of the Oromo cause with awe was the Oromo Cultural Show organized by the Cultural Committee in Finfinne (Addis Ababa) in 1977 attended by cultural bands from Arsi, Bale, Hararge, Illubbabor, Shawa, Wallagga and Wallo.  Organized on the pretext of raising funds for Bariisaa, the Oromo newspaper, the occasion served as an emotional reunion for the people in centuries in the history of the nation to get together in Finfinne, the Oromo heartland. The show staged in the National Theatre for two days was attended by thousands of Oromo from across the country. A few foreign journalists attended the festival while the Ethiopian News Agency, newspaper, radio and TV boycotted to report the event, and worse enough, all cultural groups in the regions were banned by the government following the cultural show.

Oromo intellectuals, after the long process of loss of self-identity into Amhara culture and Amharic language that Walelegn Mekonen critiqued in 1960s as systematic assimilation by Amhara supremacy, came to join in the cultural revival and the consequent emotional reunion in the early 1970s and after.  Back into the search for self-identity once again which many of them nearly dropped (Hultin 2003:403), Oromo intellectuals constituted the emerging Oromo nationalism and rooted it within cultural resistance to ignite the long repressed nationalist sentiment and keep it aglow.

Language as a “Rallying Symbol” for Cultural Identity

What fueled the Oromo liberation was the dominance of ruling elites who pursued the policy of “linguistic homogenization” as a strategy to bring about unity. Thus, Amharic has been a national language by prohibiting the use of other languages for official and instructional purposes. Fishman (2010) maintains that Oromo language being the main unifying element of the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia it is an obstacle to the Ethiopian identity and expansionist ideology (p385 citing Bulcha 1997:326). Consequently, as a “rallying symbol” for Oromo cultural identity, under the consecutive Ethiopian regimes, Oromo language “has been an object for proscription and sanctions by consecutive Ethiopian regimes for nearly a century (ibid). Hence one of the successes of the Oromo cultural resistance in the last two decades has been the development of Oromo Orthography called Qubee (Oromo script) by adopting the Latin script as opposed to the Geez script which “has greatly enhanced the psychological liberation of the Oromo people” (ibid).

The Oromo Writing and Orthography

The language of the Oromo is called “Oromo language,” “Afaan Oromoo,” or simply “Oromo,” while also the people are called the “Oromo”. It is the fourth most widely spoken language of Africa after Arabic, Hausa, and Swahili and a lingua franca in Ethiopia and the neighboring countries, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan. It is also understood that he linguistic affiliation of Oromo language is to the East Cushitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Some scholars (and linguists) agree that it is the second most widely spread indigenous language in Africa” as “more than two-thirds of the speakers of the Cushitic languages are Oromo or speak afaan Oromoo, which is also the third largest Afro-Asiatic language in the world (Mekuria 1995:36, also Gragg 1982).

Though important as a vernacular and widely spoken in the Horn of Africa the language lacks a developed literature as it was suppressed by the language policy of the successive Ethiopian regimes. As the Oromo were put under Abyssinian occupation it was almost impossible for the Oromo to build on the literary foundations that were laid down during the last two decades of the 19th century and to continue with the basic literature already existed in afaan Oromoo for the last 100 years.¹² Today, by the lack of freedom of expression in Ethiopia and undemocratic press policy of the government artists are harassed and the cultural revival is weakened.

Since the Oormo are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, a considerable number of dialectal variation exists for the language. Given the geographical distribution of the language, dialectal variation is inevitable, but, on the whole, giving the impression of dialectal uniformity, variation is minimal. That is, inter-dialectal comprehensibility is high; some dialects may seem to exhibit considerable differences, however. In Oromia, though Oromo language is an official and instructional language, no single Oromo dialect has been officially chosen to represent a standard dialect.

The Oromo alphabet Qubee is based on the Roman orthography, which was adopted after 1992. Under Haile Selassie regime, the Oromo language was banned from public use. Even the sermons of the mission churches had to be given in Amharic and then translated by interpreters into the vernacular (Hultin 2003 citing Baxter 1978b). The Holy Bible, which had been translated into  the Oromo language in 1894 by the ex-slave young Oromo evangelists educated in Sweden,  and  printed  and  distributed by  Protestant missions,  was banned from the 1940s to the  1970s. If allowed,   then it was only on condition that it was written in the Amharic script (Hultin 2003; Mekuria 1996).

“Galla” or “Oromo”: the “Native” as an “Insider/Other”

Prior to 1974, the Oromo were referred to as ‘Galla,’ a derogatory term with important implications that kept the Oromo for about a century and half as an “Insider/Other”. But following the intensification of Oromo nationalism and cultural resistance in the early 1970s, and the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974, the use of the name “Galla” has fallen into disfavor, though still its corollaries were hovering around and persisting until in 1991 and 1992, when the Transitional Government was founded by getting rid of the Derg military junta.

Starting with the change of the pejorative name, at the same time, there ceased to appear any publication whatsoever, books or article title, with that “G” word, but “Oromo” though some would still use interchangeably. John Hultin (2003:402 fn1) states that Stahl (1974) was “the first instance of a consistent use of the autodenomination 'Oromo'” that he was aware of¹³. He recommends Zitelmann (1996) for an analysis of the semantics and implications of both terms.

The Macha-Tulama  Association,  a  regional  cooperative  association  that  served as the center for the Oromo cultural revival and “used  the  Oromo language¹⁴ to  address  issues such  as literacy,  development  and  land  tenure  at public  meetings  with Oromo  peasants, was  banned  in 1967” (Hultin 2003:407). Further, in 1968 (Clapham, 1969: 81, 198) the leader of the association, General Tadesse Birru, a Salale Oromo of Tulama branch, “was sentenced to death, but was spared and sent to prison, while a young army lieutenant, Mamo Mazamir, an Oromo from Shoa, was hanged, and the association secretary, Haile Mariam Gamada, a lawyer, died soon after being arrested” (Hultin, p407ff. citing Markakis, 1987: 260; Gilkes, 1975: 225f.; Mekuria Bulcha, 1997: 43; Mohammed Hassen, 1998). Today, though the Oromo language education is developing as the medium of instruction in grades 1-8 and also taught in both secondary schools and in institutions of higher education, it is difficult to say it has achieved the status of literary language after 100 years literary history.

Why Latin Script and not the Ethiopic Geez?

Onesimos used the Ge'ez or Ethiopic (Sabean) orthography to transcribe afaan Oromoo though Krapf used the Latin script before him to translate the New Testament into Oromo language as more convenient than the Ethiopic Geez script as Krapf writes in his travel diaries, “in translating the New Testament into the [Oromo] language I made use of the Roman alphabet, which gave great displeasure to the Abyssinians” (Krapf 1860:22).¹⁵ Mekuria Bulcha also maintains that “some very crucial problems remained unresolved as the Ge'ez characters are hardly suitable to transcribe Oromo phonetics” (Mekuria 1995:44, also citing Gemta 1986:131-137). The Geez alphabet is short by only one consonant (dh) “to satisfy the sounds in afaan Oromoo as compared to six less in the Latin alphabet” but the problem with adopting the Ge'ez script for Oromo orthography is more “practical” than just “political” as most Amhara elites opposed to it. The problem is that Geez has no separate characters to represent vowel sounds and consonant gemination which makes it impossible to indicate the short and long vowel sounds and gemination that abound in afaan Oromoo as both length and germination is lexically distinctive both with vowels and consonants in Oromo language.¹⁶

The Oromo orthography and the subsequent literary development, the use of Oromo language both for official and instructional purposes, demarcation of the boundary of Oromia, and the relative freedom for the young generation to learn in their native language, though not still without some pitfalls, are all results of those Oromo nationalists who risked their lives to enhance both the political struggle and the cultural resistance against Abyssinian domination. The need to bring about fundamental change for the betterment of all citizens in the country and correct the wrong route of history than to leave it to generations to contemplate grudges and cultivate hatred and bitterness necessitates a paradigm shift in Ethiopian politics and urges all concerned democratic political parties to come together and discuss and plan. This mainly concerns the Oromo political parties today who have lowered themselves and the political question of the Oromo, the largest ethnic group in the Horn, to mere region and religion schisms. If the path taken is wrong, the path not taken can be right.

Doubtless to say, the “rural non-literate masses are the reservoir of Oromo cultural heritage,” including value systems and language, a synergy to keep on track both nationalism and the revival of culture and reconstruction of identity. The local people, Hultin argues, are the guardians of the 'cultural heritage' and also perceived as “less unresisting” (ibid). Thus, “the upholding of a 'traditional' and local Oromo value system may be interpreted as  an  active  and persistent form  of  “cultural resistance” against the state, as a subversive moral critique of illegitimate power” (Hultin 1994, ibid).

There is a fear of potentially negative influence of the western capitalist economy  and political project of “modernization” and a fierce resistance of the oppressed against this western  materialistic, consumer orientated,  capitalistic  and  secular  modernization  is through turning to cultural resistance in defense  of  their  own religion, culture  and identity. This cultural resistance in turn leads   into  a  "reinforcement  of religious traditions  and cultural  identities"  and  to  an  "intensification  of  national  and religious identifications" (Wagner 2003:192). 

One way to dismantle the Oromo resistance is by imposing “land grab” policy which the government uses to evict the Oromo from their home, displace the people and abuse their land through a structured violence. Oromia is the land of plenty. Foreign investors know that it is the most favorable regional state appropriate for investment because, added to its rich vast asset of land and human resources, its location is strategic for transportation, power and water supply close to the project sites since the federal capital, Addis Ababa, traditionally known as Finfinne, is at the heartland of Oromia.¹⁷ This “land grab” policy is a structural violence of globalization orchestrated with African dictators as a reward to their Western masters to remain in power.

“Land grab” can be framed as ‘the structural violence’ of globalization superimposed on indigenous peoples such as the Oromo in Ethiopia to misappropriate land by violating human rights of the indigenous peoples, ignoring impacts on social, economic and the environment, avoiding transparent contracts with clear and binding commitments on employment and benefit sharing, shunning democratic planning and meaningful participation (Oxfam 2011:2). This is a ‘structural violence’ (Galtung, 1969) because states and corporations follow it at faceless policy level and to be enacted by police force and militias which is a direct violence.¹⁸

The pro-western policy of the government and its negative attitudes towards “tradition” practically poses many problems to the indigenous peoples by leasing their lands to foreign investors and displacing the peoples from their home and desecrating ritual sites, cutting sacred trees and bulldozing their ancestral burial places which the natives commemorate.  This “anti-tradition” attitude of the government is religious as it is political and it could hassle  the cultural resistance in  the long  run  because  the government fears that its background is  a  renaissance  of  a cultural,  often religious nationalism.

The EPRDF was not prepared for this cultural revival and new variety of Oromo nationalism until it generally understood as a doctrine and a movement designed to promote and safeguard the existence of the nation. The government then decided to dominate unconditionally the Macca-Tulama Association founded in early 1970s and dismantle its foundation by hording the leaders and prominent members of the association in prison without charge now since 2003. 

According to the neo-Abyssinian murderous violence against the Oromo in Ethiopia, indeed Oromo nationalism and its revitalizing force, i.e. cultural resistance, was a phenomenon that was thought to have disappeared long ago. After  decades  of  an  unsuccessful underestimation  of  Oromo nationhood  and national pride and structured campaigns to debilitate the idea of the nation and  nationalism, the breathtaking  speed of  the spread of  Oromo national  and particularistic  movements reinforced by cultural resistance (revivals) hits  the Ethiopian dictatorial regime like  a  cultural  shock. 

Part of the emic factors that enriches nationalist sentiment is commitment to national heritage re-emerged as a cultural revival, as an emic component of Oromo national identity, and upheld mainly through celebrating the annual thanksgiving Irreecha festival and re-enacting divinity observances, particularly among the Macca and the Tulama Oromo branches. Among the Borana branches of the Sabbo-Gona Moieties and the Guji Oromo to the south, exogamy as a characteristic feature of moiety is still viable including other autochthonous ways of living such as the egalitarian gada practices though overhauled by the state power and, as a result, the power of the traditional chief, Abba Gada, now has become negligible and functions only under the regional and district political appointees.

Folklore as a Cultural Metaphor

The role of cultural metaphor in building national identity and nationalism can be best exemplified by the Kalevala of Finnish people. Not only in Finland but its transnational influence is also immense. When in 1985 the Kalevala was taken to China, the Chinese people "welcomed" the opportunity to join the Finnish people in celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of their national symbol in 1935, the event to be followed by the Chinese-Finnish seminar in 1986 on joint collection and recording of folklore (Tuhoy 1991:190, also citing Honko 1986). The value of cultural metaphor handed down to generations and the folklorization of the social matrix, particularly for a society engaged in resistance against domination, is crucial.  We benefit from Sue Tuhoy’s explanation that in China in the 1930s, some intellectuals worked on folklore with the government to mobilize  the  masses  to resist  Japanese  imperialism and also to push forward a political  reorganization  of society and  for the  realization of a state  in the  future, be  it  democratic,  nationalist,  or  socialist  one (ibid, p217, fn16).

If this is right, for our purpose, let us theorize two nation-building theses: hence, one based on acts of removal with its racial and stereotypical dehumanizing force to upsurge heteronomia (external rule) for colonial intent, and the other, based on democratic notions and institutions in search of freedom, equality and social justice leading onto autonomia (self-government) and “diversity in unity.” The latter thesis relates to the Herderian thought of nationalism (in folklore “study”) as heralded by the Grimm Brothers, and also by the Finish nationalists to reconstruct Kalevala as the nation’s heritage—the rallying symbol of cultural/national identity. 

Regina Bendix (1997) is right to describe folklore as a vehicle in the search for the authentic, satisfying a longing for an escape from “modernity” (p7). That is, one function of folklore not very vividly seen to a non-folklorist or to a folklorist indifferent to an emancipatory function of folklore, is its prompting change or reform in a less radical term “affirmatively in revolutions and negatively in counterrevolutions” (ibid). Another political function of folklore is serving nationalism as a modern political movement based on folklore and folk culture as native cultural (re)discovery, the purpose folklore has served since the Romantic era, in the move away from monarchic rule to democratic institutions (p8), the move from heteronomia to autonomia (Gauchet, 1999).   In this view, the “ideal folk” has been the “pure,” metaphorically speaking, the unspoiled by “modernity” and free from every evils of it (p7), i.e., authentic. 

The Narrative of Resistance against Domination

Among the Salale Oromo, the multidimensional function of folklore is immense. The social history about Salale popular songs of social banditry and resistance shows that they are handed down from the 1930s and before, during the Italian invasion, critiquing Haile Selassie’s defeat and fleeing the country. In the 1940s and onwards they chronicle his return from exile through Salale, and his reform policies that besieged the peasants, particularly the Salale under the descendants of Ras Darge,¹⁹ until toppled by the Dergue in 1974. The social banditry and popular resistance in Salale in the 1960s led by Agari Tullu²⁰ was weakened  only for a while as Agari was hunted down by the imperial security agents, captured in Naqamte and finally hanged with his two other brothers at Dagam town by Haile Selassie’s loyalists. The incident is a motif recaptured with tone of anger and revulsion in Salale songs of defiance. 

Songs of the resistance led by General Tadassa Berru, and later by Mulu Asanu, in the 1970s and the consequent executions of those leaders of the popular rebellion, including Baqala Gurre of Kuyyu, and many other civilians comprise the content of the Salale cultural metaphor and resistance narrative against domination.²¹ Full of remorse, antipathy and bitterness about the continuous repression, execution and displacement, the Salale Oromo resistance narrative serve as cultural metaphor and document the local history and lived-experience of the people.

Followed by the resistance led by Badhadha Dilgassa in the 1980s and early 1990s, issues of land and land grab, tax, fertilizer, famine and famine-food, human rights violations and displacement, the need for good governance and self-determination, to mention but a few, became the center of Salale resistance poetics under the present dictatorial regime during the last two decades.  Badhadha Dilgassa²² of Qarree Tokkee was another ethnic hero who led the Salale social banditry²³ and popular resistance in the 1980s and early 1990s and during a heavy fight in 1994 in Mogor valley he lastly shot himself than to surrender to the Wayane forces.

“Traditional” Religion as Cultural Metaphor

Ethiopia is considered as the island of Christianity surrounded by Islam and Pagans, since church and state are indivisible, that is, Orthodox Christianity being the official religion by constitution,²⁴ there has been no place for other religions, particularly traditional religion.²⁵ Among the Oromo, adopting Islam, Protestant Christianity or Catholic was a common behavior of opposition. When forced to convert to Orthodox Christianity as in the case of the Salale, they lived practicing covertly their traditional religion and rituals in the household and with neighbors at ritual sites as a form of cultural resistance. Sacred tree coronations and divinity observances called qallu institution are the common tradition viable to date among the Salale Oromo. To date, one such vibrant traditional religious practice among the Oromo is Irreecha.

The Irreecha Thanksgiving Festival

Irreecha is the all-encompassing Oromo festival celebrated on the last Sunday of September.²⁶ As a historic holiday originated among the Blue Nile bound Cushitic people of the Oromo Irreecha has been celebrated for thousands of years though highly suppressed during the successive brutal Abyssinian regimes following the colonial encounter in the 19^th century. As the cultural revival got momentum, Irreecha has become a popular mass event over recent years, and started dramatically spreading and regaining its lost position. At the national level, it is celebrated in Bishoftu town in Oromia state, 25 miles east of the capital, at the ritual site of Lake Hora Arsadi.

On the festival led by Abba Malka (father of the ritual and the site) Abba Gada, community leaders and all folks irrespective of ethnic bound, religion, age and gender, share their produces, blessings and peace and address thanks to Waaqa (God) for the blessed transition from the rainy season to the bright and colorful Birra (Fall) season. Accordingly, these days, millions of pilgrimages attend this sacred Oromo traditional holiday, especially, at Hora.

Despite a high level of media exposure (TV sets and radios in village towns and villages) and a spread of dominant assumptions by government cadres down to the grassroots level of villages and organized activities by major religious sects such as Orthodox Christianity, Catholic, Protestant churches and Islam, the indigenous people still practice both cultures, that is, the “traditional” and the “modern,” side by side, by way of a coping mechanism, and “tradition” is still lingering as the liberal ideology is also struggling. The commitment to preserving national heritage is thus associated with “traditionalism,” whereas “globalization” is related to “liberalism”.

Religious Conflicts in Ethiopia: Christianity vs. Islam

Traditional religion has been nonviolent in the history of Ethiopian religious rivalries but persecuted nowadays in Ethiopia as adversary, as easily inflammable to be used by nationalists to gain popular support. The continuous arrest of members of the Oromo Waaqeffanna,²⁷ traditional religion, is the case in point. There have been historical conflicts and sporadic skirmishes between Christianity and Islam in Ethiopia since the 16th century ravages of the Muslim assault by the forces of Imam Ahmad Gran, which was said to have plundered or destroyed many churches and other centers of Christianity in Abyssinia. Hence, “there had thus for centuries been religious elements in the various conflicts in the Ethiopian multinational empire” (Moller 2006:50).  The resistance of Emperor Lebna Dengel had virtually come to an end, and many Christians had chosen to convert to Islam. The victorious Imam's regime seemed there to stay but until Imam was killed in battle on February 21, 1543, whereupon his army almost immediately disintegrated after 15 years of bloody war (1528-1543).

For a long time, from the days of the revolt of Ahmed Gragn till the reign of Menelik II, Ethiopia did not recover from the religious war and remained fragmented during the era of the princes, Zemene Mesafnt, into kingdoms until the 19th century rise of Minilek II who conquered the Oromo, the Somali and the Southern Peoples in the pretext of nation-building but to fulfill the insatiable need for fertile land and cheap labor. This account of the early sixteenth century Jihad, or holy war in Ethiopia led by Imam Ahmad bin Ibrahim, better known as Ahmad Gran, or the left-handed, is an historical classic well documented by a Yemenite Sihab ad-Din Ahmad bin 'Abd al-Qader as Futuh Al-Habasha: The Conquest of Abyssinia  (2003). Implications of the tag of war between the two religions is far-reaching when different sects and religions open up sectarian conflicts as seen between Orthodox Christianity as a state religion and Islam as the second largest religion in the country.²⁸

In sum, the tag of war has been always there and seems never too far any time soon. The reason is that, if “modernization” is possible without viable civilization and sustainable development centering on “people” rather than just on “material” so it is in Africa only until the people’s heart gets hardened. And if “modernization”/“civilization” and/or “development” is not respect for “people” and quest for justice, freedom and equality irrespective of region or religion and ethnic bound, so there is an ongoing tension between “traditionality”  and “modernity” as myth confers a transcendent meaning of humanity and existence beyond the promised transcendence, which is another  manifestation of paralysis of “modernization”.

And the story goes on spinning….

Restorying the “Long-distance Nationalism”

I would like to close this article by Benedict Anderson’s critique of “Long-Distance Nationalism.” Anderson’s concept of “long-distance nationalism” draws from Acton’s aphorism that ‘exile is a nursery of nationalism’ (Anderson 1992:2) which he further supplements by the narrative of one lived experience an Indian Sikh, a Canadian citizen, told to Anderson’s friend, a professor from Indiana University (p11). This Sikh Indian is a successful businessman in Toronto, as Anderson was told, and also a financial supporter of the Khalistan nationalists fighting against non-Sikhs in Punjab, India. He invests large sums to buy guns and grenades on the international arms market, which is the most dreadful face of capitalism. Self-assured that he is, of his commercial future and the safety of his children here in Canada, this Sikh less cares to participate substantially in the Canadian political life. Rather he lives through e-mail, by “long-distance nationalism” Sihkfying himself. In other words, this businessman lives in an “imagined heimat,” where he belongs by birth, language and earliest childhood experiences, but “in which he does not intend to live, where he pays no taxes, where he cannot be arrested [for his political attitude and/or active participation], where he will not be brought before the courts… in effect, a politics without responsibility and accountability” (Anderson, p11).

In his book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty Albert Hirschman (1970) argues that people can either leave (exit) or stay and make their dissatisfaction known (voice) when faced with deterioration in circumstances and cannot bear it up anymore. There is a compromise between exit and voice in this regard, since people cannot both leave and stay and have their voice heard and understanding the differing effects that the choice of exit or voice will have on the deteriorating organization (in Herbert 1999:183; also Jalata 2008). Both exit and voice are forms of resistance to which there is another alternative choice, that is, acquiescence exhibited through loud silence! There could be different determinants for people to favor exit or voice at some point in time when their situation is worsening at home, but “there is good reason to believe that in large parts of Africa circumstances have overwhelmingly favored exit in the form of migration as the appropriate response for people faced with deteriorating economic and/or political fortunes” (ibid).  Those who favored loyalty too, rumors are that their song has become “Mana hin jirruu, ala hin jirru,” meaning, “We are at home, already not at home!”²⁹ Seeing in-and-out Janus-like or like the Oromo Atete Guyye, guardian of the door (of home), the oppressed is not here nor there, just looking to the future via the past. For the oppressed the Future is a forward movement into the Past!  For the oppressed, time never is, time was!

It is not without reason that I chose to close this paper by restorying the narrative of “long-distance nationalism.” By the “thick description” of the narrative one may rightly come to an understanding that as being Sikh in Toronto is made possible by mere “long-distance nationalism,” so much so being (and becoming) Oromo is possible in the Diaspora, no more no less, but the cumulative effect of such a less responsible, less accountable and partially committed nationalist activity (if any) by sheltering in one’s own “imagined heimat” is dubious. In exile our heimat is built on a firm rock and untouched by the wave of the struggle far back home, nor stirred by the troubled shouts of wailers riding cultural resistance. By the same token, if there is humanity aching behind barbed wires besieged in concentration camps in the 21^st century, wherever, (ethno)nations or nationalities are, I dare say the Nazi’s hiemat is not too far. 

An Imagined Heimat—the dream House is, the Home never built!

ENDNOTES

1. See Donald Crummey in Paula Burnett (ed.) Enter Text (2004/5:18). Crummey writes “African Banditry Revisited” writes a bandit or “shefta” is  a rebel, in some respects a “primitive rebel,” although in a sense somewhat different from that intended by Hobsbawm in his earlier work, Primitive Rebels, out of which Bandits emerged. To Crummey, Hobsbawm’s rebels were primitive by reference to the more secular, centrally focused rebels of the developing socialist movements of the European world.  But to him rebels were “primitive” in lacking all but the most elemental ideological motivation and in rebelling, primarily, in the interests of their own social and political advancement. However, he shares the view that banditry is “a product of historic Ethiopian society and its state” (p21). Crummey adds that the interest and challenge of Hobsbawm’s Bandits is to illuminate the obscure dynamics of rural protest and resistance and that Crummey’s chapter also took up this issue, exploring peasant political behavior as revealed by the same sources (ibid).

2. See Benedict’s Anderson’s The Wertheim Lecture 1992 at the post-graduate Center for Asian Studies Amsterdam (CASA) titled “Long-Distance nationalism: World Capitalism and the rise of identity politics” on http://213.207.98.211/asia/wertheim/lectures/WL_Anderson.pdf

3. In an Editorial to the Black Man Marcus Garvey wrote in 1937, every battle that the Italians won in Abyssinia resulted from the advanced charge of the Askaris [bandits]. It was black men fighting black men, and this was made possible in Abyssinia because the regime of Haile Selassie had given a bad taste to the mouth, not only of the blacks of Abyssinia but of those of the surrounding territories. They felt that they had a cause against the [Amhara] white loving Emperor who liked to chain and flog black men.

He adds that it was a piece of impertinence to suggest that black men should be held as slaves. We must admit that we glorified Haile Selassie when the war started, fought his battles to win international support, but we ever felt deep down in our hearts that he was a slave master. We had hoped that if Abyssinia had won that we would have forced the Government of Abyssinia to free the black whom they held as slaves. We would have preferred this than seeing the country taken by Mussolini or any European power; but now that the country is temporarily lost and the Emperor has cowardly exiled himself, the truth must be told.

http://www.jamaicans.com/culture/rasta/MarcusGarveyeditorial.shtml

4. As an extension of Kantian “categorical imperative” or a way of evaluating motivations for action, the fundamental premise for the principle of “universal free acceptability” is respect for persons  regardless of citizenship or nationality, and that a  choice  is morally  wrong if  it  conflicts  with  this commitment  to every total  set  of  rules  which any willing  cooperator would rationally willingly  accept as  rules  by which  all willing cooperators constrain  their pursuit of  self-interest (Miller 1997:168).

5. According to the objectives of the OLF and Oromo nationalists the Oromo people's quest for their right to self-determination is just and legitimate, the Oromo Liberation Front [OLF] is a political organization that is struggling for the realization of the nation self-determination for the Oromo people and establishment of independent state of Oromia. The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) is a political organization established in 1973 by Oromo nationalists to lead the national liberation struggle of the Oromo people against the Abyssinian colonial rule. The root cause of political problems in Ethiopia is national oppression by the Ethiopian empire state and refusal by the state to respect the rights of oppressed peoples to self-determination.

6. See Dr Trevor Trueman’s interview (Oromia Support Group)

http://gadaa.com/GadaaTube/2934/2011/12/17/dr-trevor-trueman-of-the-oromia-support-group-discusses-human-rights-conditions-in-zenawis-ethiopia/

What relates to Dr Trueman’s comment is Bjorn Moller’s excellent analysis of the Oromo situation in Ethiopia in the DII 2006 report. He writes that the traditional “representatives” of the Oromo have been the OLF, the goal of which is “to exercise the Oromo peoples’ inalienable right to national self-determination”. Moller makes it clear that the OLF agenda has not so much been a call for actual secession as for equal treatment, reflecting a sense of repression and exploitation of the Oromo by successive Amharic and Tigrayan rules in Addis and a desire for an influence proportional to the Oromo share of the total population. The OLF reserves for itself the right of armed struggle, but it claims “an unswerving anti-terrorism stand and opposes terrorism as means of struggle” (p52)

7. By the Transitional Period Charter of Ethiopia (1991), Part I, Article Two, each nation, nationality and people is guaranteed the right to a) preserve its identity and have it respected, promote its culture and history, and use and develop its language b)administer its own affairs within its own defined territory and effectively participate in the central government on the basis of freedom and fair and proper representation c) exercise  its right to self-determination of independence, when the concerned nation/nationality or people is convinced that the above rights are denied, abridged or abrogated

It is within this frame of reference to the Charter (1991) and the Constitution (1995) that the Oromo struggle for the right to self-determination against economic, cultural and/or political domination. The Constitution states in Article 39 The Right of Nations, Nationalities and Peoples that 1) Every nation, nationality or people in Ethiopia shall have the unrestricted right to self-determination up to secession and in Article 49, which clearly states that  (No. 4) “The special interest of the state of Oromia with respect to supply of services or the utilization of resources or administrative matters arising from the presence of the city of Addis Ababa within the state of Oromia shall be protected. However, there is a wider rift between the Constitutional design and Constitutional practice. The Western world is not critical about this gap between the constitutional design and the constitutional practice. During the Ethiopian Constitution of 1936, William Stern translated it into English and described the Imperial monarchical Constitution in In the preface to his translation that "It is worthy of note that this was the first instance in history where an absolute ruler had sought voluntarily to share sovereign power with the subjects of his realm” (William Stern, The Ethiopian Constitution (Washington: Ethiopian Research Council, 1936).

8. United Nations defines indigenous peoples in a background paper prepared by the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues New York, 19-21 January 2004 states as follows:

 Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those having a historical continuity and form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system. This historical continuity may consist of the continuation, for an extended period reaching into the present, of one or more of the following factors:

a) Occupation of ancestral lands, or at least of part of them; b) Common ancestry; c) Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such as religion, living under a tribal system, membership of an indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle, etc.); d) Language (whether used as the only language, as mother-tongue, as the habitual means of communication at home or in the family, or as the main, preferred, habitual, general or normal language); e) Residence on certain parts of the country, or in certain regions of the world; f) Other relevant factors.

On an individual basis, an indigenous person is one who belongs to these indigenous populations through self-identification as indigenous (group consciousness) and is recognized and accepted by these populations as one of its members (acceptance by the group).

This preserves for these communities the sovereign right and power to decide who belongs to them, without external interference.

www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/.../workshop_data_background.doc

(New York, 19-21 January 2004). THE CONCEPT OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. Background paper prepared. by the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum ...

9. Massay Kebede, arguing from a unionist perspective, in his recent critique of Ethiopia’s political stagnation, “Ethiopia: Unity in Diversity versus Diversity in Unity,” he analyses the country’s “Unity in Diversity-centric” policy as no less than to save from fragmentation! In his view, the alternative is “Diversity in Unity” than a mere amalgamation of weakened (ethno)nations into an assemblage of one unhappy big family!

“Unity in diversity” is an attempt to rewrite history by changing an outcome into a beginning. Whereas, diversity in unity” acknowledges the movement toward diversity by conceptualizing it as the basis of democratic unity, provided that it is not solidified by detrimental ideologies, notably by ethnonationalist beliefs. In this case, Ethiopia would thus evolve from territorial unity to democratic unity via bifurcation or internal differentiation. Differentiation is a mediation in the process of transition from imposed unity to diversified unity.

It is important that Ethiopian forces opposing ethnonationalist ideologies adopt the principle of “diversity in unity.” In so doing, they emphasize unity while integrating diversity in such a way that it is no longer antithetical to unity. Better still, by converting diversity into a construct triggered by elite conflicts, they counter its hypostatization, whose consequence is that diversity is approached as a political problem liable of a democratic solution, and not as a primordial attribute that is refractory to a sub-unit status. To say that diversity grew out of unity maintains the integrity of the whole, whereas the opposite, that is, the generation of unity from initial dispersion at best obtains a collection, which certainly does not amount to a nation.

http://www.ethiosun.com/2011/ethiopia-unity-in-diversity-versus-diversity-in-unity/

10. Amilcar Cabral declares it as a fundamental struggle “the struggle against our own weaknesses.” In his address to the Tri-continental gathering in Havana, he insisted the following: “Obviously, other cases differ from that of Guinea; but our experience has shown us that in the general framework of daily struggle this battle against ourselves —no matter what difficulties the enemy may create— is the most difficult of all, whether for the present or the future of our peoples. This battle is the expression of the internal contradictions in the economic, social, cultural (and therefore historical) reality of each of our countries. We are convinced that any national or social revolution which is not based on knowledge of this fundamental reality runs grave risk of being condemned to failure.”

11. Wolelegne explicitly depicts the Amhara-Tigre supremacy in the 1960s in Ethiopia as no less than the White  racist  ideology against the Black. He writes, “in some cases to be an "Ethiopian", you will even have to change your name. In short to be an Ethiopian, you will have to wear an Amhara mask (to use Fanon's expression). Start asserting your national identity and you are automatically a tribalist, that is if you are not blessed to be born an Amhara.  According to the constitution you will need Amharic to go to school, to get a job, to read books (however few) and even to listen to the news on Radio "Ethiopia" unless you are a Somali or an Eritrean in Asmara for obvious reason.”

12. The Munkullo Oromo Literary Team in the 1880s and 1890s was the most productive time ever in the history of Oromo literary development led by Onesimos Nasib and Aster Ganno Salban, two of the freed Oromo ex-slaves, at the mission's printing press in Munkullo, Eritrea (Bulcha 1997). The literary works were both religious and secular, wrote and/or translated most of them between 1885 and 1898. During those thirteen intensively active years Onesimos translated seven books, two of them with Aster Ganno, one of the young girls liberated and brought to the missionaries in 1886. Some of the books were short volumes. He wrote an Oromo-Swedish Dictionary of some 6000 words (Nordfelt 1947: 1). As a leader of an Oromo language team at Munkullo, Onesimos also contributed to other linguistic works.

13. According to Jan Hultin (2003:402 fn1), “to Asmarom  Legesse  (1973), the  terms  'Galla'  and  'Oromo'  seem  to  be interchangeable,” for example, Asmarom writes thus, “'the concrete object of our study is the Borana branch of the Oromo or Galla people'  (p.  6); 'nearly all the Oromo  ...  speak ...  dialects of the same language-Galliffia' (p. 7); 'I began my research into Galla culture in 1960' (p.  11).

14. Asafa jalata underscores the role of the language in Oromo nationalist movement as saying “the use of Oromiffa (the Oromo language) by Oromo urbanites became the first spontaneous expression of Oromo nationalism” (Jalata 1995:168)

 

15. See also Mekuria Bulcha (1997) the liberating power of language by stating that the development of Oromo Orthography called Qubee (Oromo script) by adopting the Latin script as opposed to the Geez script “has greatly enhanced the psychological liberation of the Oromo people” (326).

16. It would suffice in this regard to repeat the examples Mekuria Bulcha (1995:43) gives to show the convenience in using the Latin script or Qubee for Oromo orthography.  The pairs of words below are spelt the same when Ethiopic script is used:

(1)  dhufe                         he came

       dhuufe                      he farted

(2)  late                            is budding

      laate                           is giving

(3)  boba'e                       burnt

       bobba'e                    deployed

(4)  oolaa                        sheep

                                 ollaa                     neighbor.

17. However, by the Federal Constitution of Ethiopia (1995) “the special interest of the state of Oromia with respect to supply of services or the utilization of resources or administrative matters arising from the presence of the city of Addis Ababa within the state of Oromia shall be protected. Particulars shall be determined by law (Article 49:4, “The Capital City”).

18. See also on the Oromedia network “Land Grab in Africa: Structural Violence of Globalization in Oromia-Ethiopia” http://oromeida.com/landgrabbing-issues/land-grab-in-africa-structural-violence-of-globalization-in-oromia-ethiopia/

and also http://gadaa.com/GadaaTube/3067/2011/12/31/land-grab-in-oromia-leaves-many-without-food/

19. In 1868 Darge, the son of Sahla Selassie and Urgie, was released from captivity at Maqadalla and made Ras of Salale. Menelik assigned him the governor of Arsi Province in 1886, and he completed the conquest that his nephew (Menelik) had begun the year before. The conquest was infamous for its slaughter of the Arsi Oromo. Baxter describes him as "the Butcher Cumberland of the Arussi Highlands... whose name is still reviled there"

See P. T. W. Baxter’s (1978) "Ethiopia's Unacknowledged Problem: The Oromo", African Affairs, Vol. 77 (July, 1978), p. 291

20. The following is a popular elegy about the execution of Agari Tullu and his two brothers said to be sung by their mother recounting their heroic exploits and exalting the ethnic hero to the level of Waaqa:

yoo utubaa dhaabani

samaayit' jigen se'ee

yoo wadaroo hidhani

Waaqat' gad bu'en se'ee

Agarii yaa Agarii

edaa guyyaa keet' ga'ee

Salaaleen cidha ba'ee

seeing them erect a wooden pole

I thought the sky falling

seeing them tie a leather cord

I thought God descending

oh, Agari, my Agari

your day has come, your ‘wedding day’

for Salale to sing to dance and celebrate

This inspires my poetic reflexivity of the folkloric ethnography of Salale social bandit/ry, particularly commemorating the execution of Agari Tullu, the Salale Robin Hood.

21. Despite their longtime exposure to the hostile relationship with their Showan Amara despots and domination by the Coptic Orthodox Christian culture, the Salale sense of pride and self-conception remained fueled by their view of themselves as warriors. Throughout the history of their rebellion almost always misconstrued and sidelined to be non-nationalistic,  the Salale  have ethnic heroes to look up to like General Tadassa Birru, Agari Tullu and his two brothers, Mulu Asanu, Baqala Badhadha and Badhadha Dilgassa, to mention but a few. Contrary to the fact, the notable Menelik warlord, Ras Gobena Dachi, is considered to be a Quisling, a traitor, among the Oromo in general and the Salale in particular, among his native people.

22. Ironically, in many such instances the Salale Oromo historical bandits were actually in league with the forces of reaction and yet they have been portrayed as defenders of the oppressed. When the most feared rebel leader Badhadha Dilgassa of Qarre Tokke was surrounded by the EPRDF troops in 1994 in Mogor Valley and he shot himself to avoid captivity, the Salale sang with resentment,

yaa Badhoo kiyyaa

maaltu hammaannaan gante hiriyyaa

oh my dear Badho

how on earth you let down your comrades

Hence, to study banditry we need to look at both the heroes of the myths and the mythmakers, the heroes of the folksongs and the performers who to varying degrees have created these heroes.

23. James McCann (1985:620, fn. 59) gives an explanation of bandit and banditry in the northern Ethiopian context and relevant sources by Donald  Crummey and  Timothy  Fernyhough  who conclude  that bandit activity  in  the  north  was  less  an  avenue  of  social  mobility  or  social  protest  than  a way  for  disaffected  elites  to  regain  access  to  political  office.  McCann also recommends  Timothy  Fernyhough’s "Bandits  and  Banditry  in  Northern  Ethiopia  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,"  North- east African  Studies ; and  Donald  Crummey,  "Noble  and  Peasant:  Banditry and  Resistance  in  Nineteenth  Century  Ethiopia," in  Banditry,  Rebellion,  and  Protest in  Africa; and also Richard  Caulk’s work  "Bad  Men  of  the  Borders:  Shum  and Shefta  in  Northern  Ethiopia  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,"  International  Journal  of African  Historical  Studies,  17,2  (1984),  201-227.

See McCann’s “The Political Economy of Rural Rebellion in Ethiopia: Northern Resistance to ImperialExpansion, 1928-193

24. As opposed to Christianity, which embodied official/established religion, Islam was seen as anti-establishment religion and the religion of oppressed peoples. The Ethiopian ruling elites perceived it as their archenemy–and often presented the country as an “Island of Christianity in an Ocean of Muslims and pagans”. Thus, to those who were opposed to the Amhara, Islam served as a refuge. As Trimingham (1952: 101) noted, “[…] Islam’s force of expansion amongst pagans in Ethiopia was helped by the fact that it was the religion hostile to the Amharic race who lorded it over them.” For his part, Ethiopian historiographers of the last century and, in particular, Menelik’s contemporary, Astme, clearly confirms this point of view when describing the Islamisation of the Oromo. After giving the chronology of the Islamization of different Oromo groups before the end the last century Astme stated:  “Even now, the rest of the Galla prefer to be Muslim rather than Christian, because they hate the Amhara; the Amhara priests, the bishop and the clergy do not like the Galla. They believe that Christianity cannot be understood by those whose ancestors were not Christians. Therefore, they do not teach them” (Bairu Tafla 1987).

25. See (Moller 2003:11) who writes there are different terms for what is called “traditional religion”, some of which refer to different phenomena which it may not even be warranted to subsume under a single category. Leaving aside as politically incorrect as well as misleading the term “primitive religion”, terms such as “totemism”, “animism”, “ethnic religion” (as in Table 1 above), “ancestor worship”, magic and the like do not seem to cover the entire field

26. See the Ethiopia Review (Sat Sep 10, 2011) by by AFDist “Irreecha: a Thanksgiving Day in Oromia, Cushitic Ethiopia and Africa”. Irreecha is described as Oromia’s/Cushitic Ethiopia’s/Africa’s Thanksgiving Day, is a symbol for a day of a public freedom from the oppressive regimes like the brutal Abyssinian elites with colonialist mentality. On this day, the celebrating Oromo people do feel free, at least on this single day out of a year-round oppression, even though the security machine of the colonizers continue harassing this freedom-loving and pro-democracy nation. Irreechaa also signifies the victory of the Oromo liberation struggle – the reason why Oromo nationals say: Irreechi irree keenya! So much as Thanksgiving Day has been celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November as an annual official tradition in the United States since 1863; Irreecha is currently celebrated on the last Sunday in September among Moslem and Christian Oromo and Waaqeffata Oromo, i.e., those who do not belong to any religious denomination but believe in one God (Waaqa) in Oromia and among the Oromo in Diaspora.

(http://www.ethiopianreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=30861#p167690)

27. See Prof Mohammed’s and Getacho Nadhabasa’s comment on the web link below. According to this comment and others’ reactions, I believe the Oromo recognize the existence of a Supreme Being, a Transcendental Reality, Waaqa, and attribute to Him the symbolic quality of the color Gurraacha, literally, Black, but symbolically stands for Waaqa´s compassion, gracefulness, invisibility, purity, helpfulness, among other symbolic qualities ascribed to Him.  According to Oromo mythology, their early ancestors were inspired by Waaqa, guided by the Law, which Waaqa granted them - through the first Qaalluu Booranaa (Mana Booranaa) – and institutionalized a highly elaborate egalitarian social system known as Gadaa (see also Prof Asmarom Legesse’s Gada, 1973). Since then, Gadaa has been used not only as a system but as a method, as a program, and as an ideology in checking and balancing the entire lives of the Oromo nation as one family. Waaqeffannaa teaches that:

-Waaqa endowed the Oromos with the Avenue of Peace, Karaa Nagaa, to walk on,
-Waaqa blessed for them with the Gadaa Rule of Law, as promulgated and declared by the Supreme Legislative Organ, Caffee/Gumii,
-Waaqa blessed the Oromos to be men of justice and law-abiding citizens of the Republic of Gadaa Oromoland4. He blessed them to be a victorious and prosperous nation of numerous progenies, if they follow the Avenue of Peace,
-Waaqa strictly warned them never to cultivate persons of dictatorial ambitions nor to allow the growth of such person among them and so on.

These and other messages of Waaqa are believed to have been delivered through the mouth of the first Qaalluu Booranaa, who had been anointing Oromo pilgrims from all over Gadaa Oromoland at Haroo Walaabuu before colonization. The message has become a self-assertive declaration in rejecting and fighting any form of internally assumed dictators and the Abyssinian colonial rules and rulers.

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/60798

28. See these web links about the current horrific religious conflicts in Ethiopia:

The Christian Post. Fri, Dec. 09 2011 12:26 PM EDT

Muslim Mob Burns Down Church Targeted by Police in Ethiopia

By Luiza Oleszczuk | Christian Post Reporter

http://www.christianpost.com/news/muslim-mob-burns-down-church-targeted-by-police-in-ethiopia-64505/

VOA East Africa Desk  “Ethiopia Charges 130 in Church Burning Incidents”

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/east/Police-Make-Arrests-in-Ethiopia-Church-Burnings-117589944.html

29. The same can be reiterated as in the Salale ironic view of Home—"Mana hin jirruu, ala hin jirru"/“At Home We are Already Not at Home” (Gurmu B., my Informant) recapped in the collection of my poems published as The Hug September 2011).

  

In the aggregate, the warp and woof of the Salale narratives is made of the obscurity and glimmer of hope in their daily life as they soldier on resistance against those two neo-Abyssinian totalitarian forces: one, to maintain the Tigrayan control of power over Oromia and other regions for long; and another, of the same stock, to restore the Solomonic monarchic rule toppled by the Derg regime in 1974, and to rejuvenate it under the Amhara-led Abyssinian supremacy. Both forces have common goal of imposing the Abyssinian hegemony on Oromo and Oromia, the region covering nearly more than half of the total population of the country, and exploiting its natural and human resources and debilitating the economy of the people, not to mention other external pressures on the region as a base for strategic surveillance and war against terrorism based in the Horn.

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