Page 78 - Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization

The Oromo National Movement
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Oromo culture, and the Oromo people did not find any reference point in it. In ad-
dition, the Ethiopian military regime and the Ethiopian left misused and abused this
Marxist paradigm to continue the exploitation and oppression of the Oromo nation.
Gradually, Oromo nationalists started to realize that they did not capture the hearts
and the minds of the Oromo, whom they struggled to liberate by using the Marxist-
Leninist-Maoist approach. Since then, at least on ideological level, the Oromo politi-
cal discourse has started to manifest Oromo cultural values and the Oromo democratic
tradition. Recognizing that the Oromo democratic tradition had the potential to mo-
bilize their people, “The Oromo national liberation fronts had chosen to champion
specific components of popular democracy identified with the pre-colonial Gada sys-
tem of government” when they joined the Transition al Government of Ethiopia be-
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tween 1991 and 1992.
The OLF, the main Oromo liberation organization, began to realize the power of
Oromo culture and values, such as gada, after it failed to mobilize Oromos by using
the alien ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Some Oromo farmers accepted the
OLF and its objectives after this organization used gada political discourse, which is
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engraved in their minds.
OLF officials and cadres learned through trial and error
that embracing the principles of the Oromo democratic tradition and using symbols,
such as the odaa (sycamore) tree, were necessary to mobilize the Oromo nation.When
the OLF became part of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia, most Oromos saw
the odaa symbol on its flag and accepted this organization, believing that it would re-
store the Oromo democratic tradition that would allow the Oromo to have the power
of decision making to determine their destiny as a nation. Holcomb writes, “The
overwhelming positive response of the Oromo population to the call for democracy
was stimulated by seeing the symbol of Gada, the odaa tree under which Oromo for-
mally deliberated and fashioned their law, flying on the flag of the largest of the inde-
pendent Oromo organizations (OLF), as these once-underground organizations were
invited and then welcomed into the Transitional Government of Ethiopia.” 119 Because
of the symbol of the odaa on the OLF flag and because of the articulation of the
Oromo democratic tradition by some Oromo nationalists, most Oromos openly as-
serted,“Kun dhaba Keenya.” 120 Literally, this means:“The OLF is our organization.”
The OLF that was known to only a few activist circles before 1991 became the pop-
ular national front, mobilizing the entire Oromo nation by using the Oromo democ-
ratic tradition and symbols.
Before the OLF was pushed from the transitional government by the Tigrayan-led
government in 1992, as will see, OLF leaders, cadres, and community leaders and el-
ders established a common political reference point by using Oromo democratic tradi-
tions and by openly discussing what Oromos should do to determine the future of their
nation, Oromia. 121 The blossoming of Oromo nationalism, the re-emergence of
Oromo unity, and the potential of Oromo cultural and political power angered the
Tigrayan minority regime. 122 Consequently, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front
(TPLF) and its surrogate organization, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democ-
ratic Front (EPRDF), abolished the transitional government by violently suppressing
the Oromo struggle and by establishing the Tigrayan ethnocratic state with the help of
the imperial interstate system, particularly the United States. Despite the suppression of
the Oromo national movement by this racialized state,the Oromo national struggle and
its democratic discourse have continued both in Oromia and in the world.The Oromo
scholarship that was unleashed by the Oromo national struggle has mobilized Oromo