Page 133 - Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization

Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization
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which practiced slavery, semislavery (the naftanya-gabbar system), tenancy and share-
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cropping,forced villagization,and collectivization for a little over one century. In the
capitalist world economy, only those peoples who have state sovereignty or meaning-
ful access to state power enjoy relatively various political, economic, and cultural ad-
vantages.They are recognized internationally and regionally by the imperial interstate
system, by multinational organizations and corporations. Business and state elites who
get resources from these linkages and who control domestic resources suppress the
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colonized peoples and deny them meaningful access to state power. During slavery,
African Americans were under the firm control of plantation and slave owners and the
White government and its various institutions.After slavery was abolished, they were
totally dominated and controlled by White society and its government. Similarly, Oro-
mos have been dominated and tightly controlled by Ethiopian colonial settlers and
their government and other institutions.
The incorporation of Oromia into Ethiopia made Oromos invisible in the world.
Oromos were identified with Ethiopians, the very colonizers who suppressed an
Oromo identity, and robbed of their cultural and economic resources.As a result, the
existence of Oromos and their national liberation struggle were largely hidden until
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the early 1990s. The situation of African Americans was different.Their enslavement,
segregation, and struggle were widely known to the world. Particularly the Soviet
Union and its bloc and China, and almost all revolutionary countries, exposed the fal-
lacy of American democracy by citing the condition of African Americans.The media
in the world paid great attention to the struggle of the Black people because they
struggled against the United States, one of the hegemonic world powers. Although
they have been racist, the American “democracy” and the media made the African
American organizations and leaders known nationally and globally. But the Ethiopian
racist/ethnonational dictatorship and its media tried its best to hide Oromos and their
organizations and leaders in order to destroy them. Let alone known to the world, it
took a long time for the Oromo organizations and leaders to be known to their own
people whom they attempt to liberate.While Oromos still lack sympathizers and al-
lies because of the lack of recognition,African Americans enjoyed sympathy and sup-
port from the oppressed people and revolutionary and democratic forces.The same
instruments of American media that spread racist stereotypes also contributed to the
recognition of the African American movement. Until recently, however, the world
media did not even recognize the existence and the struggle of the Oromo people.
Even today Oromos in the diaspora are having difficulty introducing themselves and
their peoplehood to the world.The lack of media (television and newspapers) and the
absence of communication technologies (telephone, direct mail, etc.) have negatively
affected the Oromo movement, whereas African Americans used them to “play an im-
portant role in movement efforts to attract members, discredit opponents, and influ-
ence . . . the general public.” 98
Both White and Ethiopian societies and their institutions have justified the hierar-
chical organization of peoples and the firm control of African American and Oromo
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societies with racist discourses. As explained above, both the African American and
Oromo movements were produced by similar social structural and conjunctural fac-
tors. According to McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald,“While broad political, economic,
and organizational factors may combine to create a certain ‘macro potential’ for col-
lective action, that potential can only be realized through complex mobilization dy-
namics that unfold at either the micro or some intermediate institutional level.At the