The Oromo Nation – A Fait Accompli?

2009/2/20 (Ethiopian calendar)

2016/10/20 (European calendar)

[Note: An Amharic version of this post will appear sometime!]

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I've just read Dr Ezekiel Gebissa's reply to Dr Tedla Woldeyohannes' questions about the upcoming Oromo Leadership Convention in Atlanta. While answering the questions, Dr Ezekiel gives us some idea of his vision of the relationship between the Oromo nation and Ethiopia. In this article I'll take what I consider to be the best parts of his article – two major points – and expand on them.

The first is that Ethiopian history, in other words the story of Ethiopia, can be interpreted in various ways. It can be made to fit a story of a single nation albeit with different ethnic groups, or a nation of nations, or even prison of nations.

For what it's worth, I too agree that history and ethnic and national identity are to a large extent matters of interpretation. No one interpretation is the Gospel Truth. We can argue all we want about these, as we have done for decades, as laymen, as academicians, as politicians, in various contexts and within different paradigms; some of us might even change our minds; but at the end of the day, if we want live together in peace, we have to be able to agree to disagree.

Note that I say this as an ardent Ethiopian nationalist who considers the synthesis story of one multiethnic nation as the true story. Further, I consider the ethnic nationalist story not only untrue but that if it goes too far, it does not bode well for the nation as a whole. The mere fact that arguments for this story are often buttressed by claims of victimhood obviously makes for tensions, acrimony, and negative competition between ethnic groups. I would like to note that such claims are not at all necessary to build the ethnic nationalist story – it can be constructed quite well without them – but the fact that they are often used illustrates the risks that come with ethnic nationalism.

But I digress... There are valid differing opinions and they have to co-exist. In order to co-exist, I believe that we Ethiopian nationalists have not only to strive to understand these opinions, but beyond understanding we must try to empathize. Look, Oromo ethnic nationalism is not the first ethnic nationalism in the world! Plenty of other multiethnic nations are having to deal with ethnic nationalisms of different types. This alone should give one pause. We are not alone. As such I believe that humility requires that we Ethiopian nationalists step back re-assess our understanding and response to ethnic nationalism. Yes, we are right to stand and argue against it, but our position should not be as in the past, where we fought against the very right of ethnic nationalism to be politically expressed and advocated repressing it by force. That was then and is now not only an unwise but also, dare I say, an immoral course.

The second point of Dr Ezekiel's that I wish to discuss is the following: that all the arguments have been made and done, and today the Oromo nation, as part of an Ethiopian nation of nations, is a fait accompli. Ethnicity is enshrined in the Ethiopian constitution and a generation of Oromos have been taught, exclusively, ethnic nationalism. Again, this is true. Sad, for us Ethiopian nationalists, but true! We have to not only accept this new political reality, but we have to learn from how it came about so that we can avoid making the same mistakes as the past.

So, how did it come about? We Ethiopian nationalists played a huge role by mismanaging the country, by neglecting to make necessary accommodations, and perhaps worst of all, by committing political fratricide over the past half century. We managed to convert Eritrea from a region eager to join Ethiopia to a nation willing to sacrifice thousands to leave it. We made Ethiopia such an inhospitable and repressive country that some relatively few ethnic nationalist elites were able to leverage this into a vast expansion of ethnic nationalism. After the EPRDF gained power, rather than doing the obvious – conducting a self-examination to see how we could go so wrong as to leave the hands of the country in the hands of self-proclaimed ethnic nationalists – we concentrated on blaming the EPRDF for happening to fill a vacuum we created! And we bickered... Even after the EPRDF instituted today's radical ethnic nationalist constitution, we continued, in absentia, to argue amongst ourselves while the roots of ethnic nationalism spread!

Yet, despite the failures of the elite, Ethiopian nationalism still remained strong among the masses. You will recall that even just eleven years ago Kinijit demonstrated an unexpected amount of nation-wide support for at least some degree of de-ethnicization. However, our Ethiopian nationalist elites managed to make a right mess of that as well. Even today, there is no significant Ethiopian nationalist political movement – Ethiopian nationalism, as a story remains only in the hearts of the masses.

Now, we have to face Dr Ezekiel's fait accompli, not with denial, not by blaming others, and not with nostalgia, but by accepting reality and responding with a constructive agenda. Given the huge rise in Oromo ethnic nationalism and the confused state of the EPRDF, the nation of Ethiopia needs a strong Ethiopian nationalist movement to act as a counter-balance – to bring about a less risky equilibrium to the country's politics. The impediment to this is not the EPRDF nor Oromo ethnic nationalism, but the Ethiopian nationalist elite. It is time we pull ourselves up with our bootstraps before it is too late.