Page 181 - Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization

Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization
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62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. P. T. W. Baxter, “Oromo Blessings and Greetings,” in The Creative Communion: African
Folk Models of Fertility and the Regeneration of Life, ed.A. Jacobson-Widding and W.Van
Beek (Uppsala:Acta Universitatis Upsalienis, 1990), p. 238.
65. Practically, there were mixed results on the application of this theory to other societies.
It is true that when Oromos expanded their territories between 1522 and 1618 and es-
tablished Oromia’s present boundaries, increased their numbers by also expanding their
cultural boundaries through the process known as mogasa or gudifacha (adoption to the
Oromo clan). Despite the fact that the conquered and adopted groups at the beginning
had limited cultural and political rights, as Asmarom Legesse (1989 pp. 12–13) notes,
“Conquest, in the history of the Oromo has never given rise to sharp stratification be-
tween the conquerors and the conquered.The latter were given all the rights and re-
sponsibilities of citizenship.”Therefore, today it is impossible to differentiate the Oromo
who expanded and the Oromo who were assimilated.Although there is historical evi-
dence that preclass Oromo society used Oromo democracy to integrate conquered
peoples through adoption to clans, marriage and structural assimilation, there are schol-
ars who, without periodizing Oromo history, emphasize the existence of ethnic strati-
fication during the gada administration in Oromo society. Based on the Habasaha royal
chronicles, scholars such as Abba Barey, Merid Wolde Aregay, and Alessandro Triulzi
focus on ethnic stratification in precolonial Oromia.There is no doubt that the disin-
tegration of the gada system in the early nineteenth century and the processes of class
and state formation led to ethnic stratification in Western and central Oromia.Although
we recognize the need for further study, it is wrong to universalize Oromo history
without periodization. The egalitarian nature of the gada system did not allow the
emergence of ethnic stratification despite its limitations, until classes emerged in
Oromo society. See Asafa Jalata, Oromia and Ethiopia, p. 16; Mohammed Hassen,“The
Historian Abba Bahrey and the Importance of His ‘History of the Galla,’”Horn of Africa,
vol. 13, nos. 3 and 4, and vol. 8, nos. 1and 2, 1991, p. 93; Asmarom Legesse, “Oromo
Democracy,” paper presented at Oromo Studies Conference, August 12–13, 1989,
Toronto, Canada; Abba Bahrey, “History of the Galla,” in Some Records of Ethiopia,
1593–1646, ed. C. Beckingham and G.W. B. Huntington, (London: Hakluyt Society,
1954), pp. 111–139; Merid Wolde Aregay, Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom,
1508–1708:With Special Reference to the Galla Migrations and their Consequences, Ph.D.
Thesis, University of London, 1971), p. 417; Mohammed Hassen, op. cit.; Alessandro
Triulzi,“United and Divided: Boorana and Gabro among the Macha Oromo in West-
ern Ethiopia,” in Being and Becoming Oromo, pp. 251–264.
66. See Asmarom Legesse, Gada:Three Approaches to the Study of African Society.
67. See Abba Bahrey,“History of the Galla,” pp. 111–139. See also Baissa Lemmu, The De-
mocratic Political System of the Galla [Oromo] of Ethiopia and the Possibility of its Use in Na-
tion-Building (M.A. thesis, George Washington University, 1971); B. Lemmu, “The
Political Culture of Gada: Building Blocks of Oromo Power.”
68. Bonnie K.Holcomb,“Akka Gadaatti:The Unfolding of Oromo Nationalism—Keynote
Remarks,” Proceedings of the 1991 Conference on Oromia, University of Toronto, Canada,
August, 3–4, pp. 1–10.
69. Asmarom Legesse,“Oromo Democracy,” p. 2.
70. Baissa Lemmu,“The Political Culture of Gada.”
71. See Yilma Deressa, Yee Ethiopia Tarik (Addis Ababa, 1959 Ethiopian Calendar); Baissa
Lemmu, The Democratic Political System; Dinsa Lepisa, The Gada System of Government and
Sera Cafee Oromo (LL.B. thesis, Addis Ababa University, 1975); Sisai Ibssa,“Implications
of Party and Set for Oromo Political Survival,” paper Presented at the 35th Annual
Meeting of the African Studies Association, Seatle,Washington, November 20–23, 1992.