Page 138 - Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization

Comparing the African American and Oromo Movements
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ements that did try to maintain their Oromo identity and promote the interests of
their people were systematically suppressed or liquidated. A few journals and maga-
zines (The Voice, Kana Bekta, Bakkalcha Oromo, Oromia,Warraqa, and Gucca Dargago) that
emerged in the 1960s and 1970s were produced clandestinely. Explaining how writ-
ing about Oromo by Oromos in Ethiopia can lead to death, Hassen says: “Mamo
wrote History of the Oromo, which was confiscated by the government when his
house was searched in 1966. In addition to writing history, Mamo prepared a plan for
a new government, a new constitution and distribution of land among the landless
tenants.This was too much for the ruling Amhara elites,and Mamo Mazamir was mar-
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The denial of intellectual freedom still prevents
tyred for producing that document.”
Oromo scholars and Oromo society from developing freely an alternative knowledge
in Oromia.The Oromo literature that started to mushroom when the OLF joined the
Transitional Government of Ethiopia between 1991 and 1992 was suppressed. Oromo
scholars, journalists, and musicians who tried to express themselves at that juncture
and today have perished in Ethiopian prisons or have been assassinated.Today Oromo
scholars in the diaspora produce and disseminate an alternative knowledge that is con-
sidered illegal in Ethiopia and Oromia.
Challenging how the Ethiopian knowledge elites and Ethiopianists treated Oro-
mos,diaspora publications on Oromo cultural and social history challenge a top-down
paradigm of historiography and make the Oromo subjects rather than objects of his-
tory. Studying people as subjects or agents helps scholars avoid producing false knowl-
edge. The Ethiopian elites and the Euro-American scholars who supported them
erased Oromo history and culture from the world map.Therefore, until Oromos in-
tensified their struggle between the 1960s and the 1990s, the world did not even rec-
ognize the existence of 30 million Oromos. “The lack of critical scholarship has
inadvertently distorted the human achievements of conquered peoples like the
Oromo,”W.A. Shack notes,“including transformations of their social, cultural, and po-
litical institutions.” 114 Oromo nationalism influenced several Oromo scholars and
friends of Oromos to produce and disseminate an alternative knowledge in Oromo
studies.The emergence of Oromo studies in North America and Europe and the cre-
ation of the Oromo Studies Association in the late 1980s in the diaspora attest to this
reality. 115 The Ethiopian colonial elites and their state are keeping Oromos in the
darkness of ignorance and political slavery to maintain the Ethiopian colonial system.
The conditions in which the Oromo struggle takes place in Oromia have been hos-
tile and brutal.The intensification of globalization and the maturation of the Oromo
struggle may change these conditions fundamentally.
Even if they were segregated and oppressed and even if they were terrorized by or-
ganizations like the Ku Klux Klan, freed African Americans could openly organize
themselves and engage in peaceful struggle for their rights. Oromos in Oromia still
have no such rights because of the dictatorial and violent nature of the Ethiopian state.
The colonial government allowed organizations, such as “Galla Gaday,” the killer of
Oromos, to assassinate prominent Oromo activists. Since Oromo organizations are se-
cret organizations, they cannot practice democracy within themselves and among
themselves.The idea of tolerating diverse ideologies and diverse approaches and form-
ing a unity of purpose is just getting started in the Oromo movement. But African
Americans had the freedom among themselves to talk freely and openly and form a
unity of purpose among most of the forces of the African American struggle.Whereas
the African American movement reached its peak in the 1950s and the 1960s and won