Page 83 - Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization

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Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization
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Because of the Oromo numerical weight, Ethiopian elites feared to
ethnonations.
structurally assimilate Oromos.
The third dilemma is that the major economic resources on which Ethiopians de-
pend are located in Oromia.Ethiopian elites know that Oromos are aware of their sec-
ond-class status in Ethiopia, their numerical weight, and the richness of Oromian
resources.They fear the Oromo political potential, and hence they are determined to
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prevent Oromo access to state power by any means necessary.
The Ethiopian colo-
nial ruling class and its state have aspired to maintain an ethnonational class hierarchy
by culturally assimilating Oromos as second-class citizens, dominating the Ethiopian
political economy through preventing structural assimilation of the majority popula-
tion. As a result, Oromos are not integrated into Ethiopian society. Since assimilated
Oromos have not been accepted as equals by Ethiopians and since they have been re-
jected by Oromo society as collaborators, they cannot become an effective force ex-
cept when promoting their class interests and that of the Ethiopian and global
colonizing structures. As we will see shortly, a few elements of this class initiated
Oromo nationalism by rejecting their collaborative status, siding with the exploited
and oppressed Oromo majority, and transforming the Oromo resistance to Ethiopian
colonialism into a national movement.
Urbanization and formal education played key roles in transforming Oromo resis-
tance to Ethiopian colonialism into Oromo nationalism in the early 1960s. A few
young Oromos, who either moved voluntarily or were brought to garrison cities from
different areas of Oromia as students and soldiers, gradually became bureaucrats, politi-
cians, professionals, and intellectuals and “able to see more clearly the similarity of their
experiences and commonality of their aspirations.” 157 As the development of colonial
capitalism intensified in Oromia, the processes of urbanization, education, and com-
munication increased. 158 As a result, two interlinked and contradictory social processes
developed. One is the process of subordination and Ethiopianization or Amharization.
The second one is the process of resistance to subordination and the development of
Oromo political consciousness. The Ethiopian colonial ruling class assumed that
Oromo identity could be dissolved through cultural assimilation.According to Herbert
Lewis,“By claiming that Oromo ethnic identity is unauthentic, that it never existed,
that Oromo have too many different local and cultural varieties to ever agree on any-
thing and have no overarching sense of ‘nationhood,’or that they are inextricably mixed
with many other peoples, the opponents believe that they can divide, destroy, or, per-
haps,wish away Oromo nationalism.” 159 Successive Ethiopian regimes have tried to de-
stroy or suppress Oromo national identity through different colonial policies. Oromo
nationalism emerged in opposition to Ethiopian colonial policies and ethnocratic pol-
itics that targeted their identity and cultural and economic resources. 160 Originally,
Oromo politics emerged as reform nationalism,which had as its goal to change the sta-
tus of Oromos within the Ethiopian context.The organization that manifested this as-
pect of Oromo nationalism was the Macha-Tulama Self-Help Association.
The Macha-Tulama Self-Help Association
The Macha-Tulama Association was formed as a social movement in 1963 by
urban-based Oromo intellectuals, army officers, soldiers, students, and merchants
who were frustrated by their status of second-class citizenship, colonial mistreat-
ment, and discrimination due to their ethnonational origin. The year 1963 was a