Page 79 - Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization

Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization
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cultural resources and started to develop a liberation knowledge that has challenged
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Ethiopianist scholarship by exposing the fallacy of its discourse.
Oromo scholars and
other students of Oromo society agree that the Oromo democratic heritage still exists
in Oromo cultural memory, language, religion, folklore, ritual, and custom and influ-
ence Oromo lives in private and public affairs.That is why Oromo nationalism cannot
be understood adequately without its cultural foundations.
The emergence of Oromo nationalism and the attempt the Ethiopian state made
to destroy it forced some Oromos to flee their homeland and disperse in Europe, the
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United States,Australia, the Middle East, and elsewhere.
Some Oromo refugees and
other Oromos who left Oromia for education started to organize themselves in for-
eign countries. Politically conscious elements of the Oromo diaspora started to break
down the isolation imposed on the Oromo nation by the alliance of Ethiopian colo-
nialism and global imperialism;they organized themselves in groups such as the Union
of Oromos in North America, the Union of Oromo Students in Europe, the Oromo
Studies Association, the Oromo Relief Association, and Oromo community and sup-
port organizations.This new condition brought Oromos of diverse backgrounds “in
the world beyond Oromia where communication was unrestricted” at the same time
that globalism was intensifying revolutions in communication, technology, transporta-
tion, and finance. 125 The Oromo diaspora has begun to have access to political and
cultural opportunities by being beyond Ethiopian state censorship and by producing
and disseminating liberation knowledge via books, journals, pamphlets, newspapers,
telephones, e-mail, the Internet, and the fax machine.
The issue of the return to the culture’s sources is debated openly and routinely
among the diaspora Oromos.As Holcomb says,“For the first time, Oromo in Europe
and America have experienced the freedom of openly forming organizations and ex-
pressing themselves. . . .The Oromo started getting to know one another and working
together in the outside world in ways that had never been allowed in Ethiopia.These
organizations, through different mechanisms and media available to them, enabled the
old and new arrivals to express their Oromumma [Oromo nationalism] and, in concert
with others from all over Oromia, they raised the voice of the Oromo in the First
World.” 126 The Oromo diaspora has the potential to create a durable bridge between
the Oromo nation and the world community, provided that it can develop an organi-
zational capacity. This process may help to challenge the isolation imposed on the
Oromo and their culture by the alliance of Ethiopian and global structures. Despite the
fact that most Oromo intellectuals and activists and liberation organizations lack a pro-
found knowledge of Oromo culture and democratic traditions, a few thinkers, activists,
and artists have initiated the Oromo cultural movement. This movement embodies
concepts such as Oromumma (Oromo cultural identity), gootuma (bravery and patrio-
tism), bilisumma (emancipation), gada (Oromo popular democracy), mootumma (govern-
ment), nagaa (peace), kayyo (fullness and richness), and finna (sustainable
development). 127 These cultural and historical ideas must be linked to other chains of
factors, as we shall see, that facilitated the development of Oromo nationalism.
The Development of Oromo Nationalism
The first factors to facilitate the emergence of Oromo nationalism were a collective
grievance and the hope of freedom. However, colonization, dehumanization, subjuga-
tion, cultural destruction, and suppression by themselves cannot cause the emergence