Page 150 - Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization

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Beyond Nationalism
strategy of the Black struggle.The future Black movement also will need to broaden
its political foundation on national, regional, and international levels based on the
principle of revolutionary democratic multiculturalism.This will require to form an
alliance with antiracist, anticolonial, and other progressive forces in order to expose
and remove obstacles to social justice, popular development, and self-determination
through educational mechanisms and organized struggle. Since the African American
and Oromo movements have different experiences and outcomes, they can learn from
each other a lot.
Because the Oromo movement is militarily, intellectually, and politically sup-
pressed, it has not yet forced the Ethiopian colonial state to pass and implement laws
that would improve the condition of the Oromo people. Since there is no rule of law
in Ethiopia in actual practice, the rulers do not have any obligation to enforce or im-
plement laws that restrict their tyrannical rule. Because successive Ethiopian govern-
ments have come to power through the barrel of the gun that they received from their
international supporters, the current ethnocratic state will most likely be replaced
through the barrel of the gun.Although popular forces created conducive conditions
for overthrowing the Ethiopian governments in 1972 and 1991, the regimes that
emerged through these processes have not been different from the previous regimes
except that they used “socialist” and “democratic” discourses while they imposed eth-
nic-based dictatorships.The Oromo people are still under political slavery and denied
the freedom of organization, association, and expression, and the right to bear arms.
We have established that successive Ethiopian regimes and their global supporters
claim that Ethiopia is unique in Africa due to Ethiopians’ presumed linkage to the
Middle East, with racial and cultural superiority to that of the peoples whom they
conquered and dominated, a feat they could not have accomplished without the as-
sistance of the West. Nevertheless, Ethiopia is actually known for recurrent famine
crises, institutional violence and war, underdevelopment, and poverty from the time of
its creation.The current rulers of Ethiopia, the TPLF/EPRDF, have not solved these
fundamental problems.
Although they have attempted to hide their true nature behind “socialist” and “de-
mocratic” discourses, they have remained racist and dictatorial like their forefathers,
and have continued to pursue destructive policies that intensify state terrorism, war,
underdevelopment,and poverty.Successive Ethiopian ruling classes have been “pimps”
and “parasites.”They have conspicuously consumed the available wealth brought from
colonies. In order to maintain the status quo and their privileges, they have also in-
vested meager resources in military and administrative expenditures.The Oromo peo-
ple were forced to transfer most of their wealth to these global pimps and structural
parasites.As a result, today Ethiopia is one of the three poorest countries in the world
and its per capita income is only 100 U.S. dollars; Niger and Sierra Leone are the only
two countries below Ethiopia in the level of their life expectancy, education, and per
capita income. 38
Economic and health indicators of Ethiopia show the hardship that Oromos and
others face in this empire. 39 Life expectancy is only 49 years.The mortality rate for
children under five years is 177 per 1,000 live births.The infant mortality rate is 113
per 1,000 live births.The maternal mortality rate is 1,400 per 100,000 births.Less than
half of the population (about 46 percent) has access to basic health service, only 19
percent of the population has access to basic sanitation, and only 25 percent of the
population has access to clean water. 40 Further, Ethiopia has only 85 hospitals, 187