Oromo First
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Oromo First
I just read a very thoughtful article titled “Are you Oromo First or Ethiopian First?”Authored by Awol Allo and published by The web of Legal Theory Group of Glasgow University. The piece enabled me to distance myself from the cantankerous exchanges as seen on social media between those of us who are proponents of raw Ethiopian patriotism and raw Oromo liberation activism.Accordingly,I was forced to reflect on my own position and give it articulation. In the process, I even found it difficult to prevent myself from delving into my diverse background. From this perspective and some of the powerful points that Awol raised, I not only enjoyed his piece. I also shared some of his sentiments such as how a narrative of history is determined by those who hold power to the extent of making its subjects believe that the narrative is a common history shared by all and sundry. His suggestion for Ethiopia to be conceived as “a creation of a grand historical narrative and Ethiopiawinet as an ideology” per se poses no threat to my own Ethiopiawinet either. Since I have been convinced long ago by other scholars that Ethiopia like the United States of America, Great Britian, France etc, has “crafted beautiful lies of its own aimed at creating a ‘historical knowledge’ that serves as a weapon of power,” that too didn’t impress me as a revelation nor had it left the effect of any shock therapy. Thus, up to that point I went along with the writer’s thesis that projected proponents of Ethiopiawinet as neurotic when challenged with historical grievances cited by opponents of Oromumma .Yet,Mr.Awol neglected to show the other side of the coin when he went into great length to quote writers such as Michael Foucault and Semir Yusuf. While I find no fault with these writers observation of history or Ethiopia, Mr.Awol should also have been aware of Howard Zinn, an American historian who authored A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. Howard Zinn was someone considered as far left to the despair of the mainstream America. He succeeded to upset the narrative of the American history that was held so dear not only by so many Americans but also by a multitude of suckers throughout the world.Zinn presented a different version so compelling to the extent of making it difficult for his detractors to dismiss the scholarly work whose title mentioned above. Although, Howard Zinn stated his viewpoint in telling the history of the United States as follows; “–we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities, and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex.And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested not to be on the side of the executioners.” Yet, he also hastened to add, for the sake of a balanced account of history, that “the cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don’t listen to it, you will never know what justice is.” In light of the above, therefore, is it only Ethiopiawinet that tends to be neurotic when challenged by those who feel historically aggrieved? In fact, are proponents of Oromumma justified to the extent of coming up with a centrifugal demand that further threatens to rent the Ethiopian state asunder? My own diverse family background that consists of “Amhara,”Eritrean and Oromo extraction, not to speak of the religious background, informs me without reading into any fancy scholarly work that the elites of this three ethnic groups have always been fierce power contenders who succeeded at one time or another and directly or indirectly to monopolize the national cake. In so doing, they excluded other Ethiopians such as the people of Wolayita, Gambella, Gurage e
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