Yonas Biru, PhD
Eyasped Tesfaye is one of the young Ethiopian analysts I honestly respect even when I strongly disagree with his points and conclusions.
He and I were on Moges Teshome’s Buffets of Idea. Our discussion tangentially addressed Gadda/Oromummaa.
Eyasped is the only person in the Gadda/Oromummaa cult system who admitts Gadaa warriors have forcefully መጨፍለቅed over 30 tribes and some are still fighting to reclaim their forcefully decimated identities.
The challenge Eyasped has is the following. Why are then Oromos whining and bitching about Menilik if they have committed similar crimes with more atrocities.
Eyasped’s answer was that we cannot compare the atrocities of the Gadaa era in the 16th century with Menilik’s era because Menilik’s atrocities were committed by a government while the Gadda era Mogassa was committed be nongovernmental forces.
This does not square with Jawar’s documented claim that Oromo had a functioning Gadaa government for thousands of years before Menilik. Nor does it square with Asafa Jalata’s claim that Gadaa was not only a well-developed system of democratic governance but also a cradle of African civilization. No one questions the fact that 16th century Oromo expansion was done during the Gadaa era.
The Onus is on Eyasped to marry the two: (1) Gadaa is a nongovernmental force and (2) Gadaa is not only a well-developed governant system but also a cradle of civilization.
During the same discussion Eyasped said he “likes” Asafa Jalata because he is not afraid to say what he believes. Let me present some of what Jalata has written and ask Tesfaye what parts of Jalara’s fabricated narratives he like or see as an intellectual statement.
- “The Ethiopian colonial terrorism and genocide that started during the last decades of the 19th century still continue in the 21st century.”
- “Emperor Menelik massacred half of the Oromo population (5 million out of 10 million) and their leadership during its colonial expansion.” [for the record during Menilik’s era the total population of Oromo was estimated to be between 2 million to 4 million depending the source.]
- “Emperor Menelik controlled slave trade (an estimated 25,000 slaves per year in the 1880s); with his wife he owned 70,000 enslaved Africans; he became one of the richest capitalists.”
- “Amhara supremacy and that glorifies the genocide that occurred against Oromo communities in Annole, Chalanqo, and other parts. Ethio-Amhara colonialists devastated these communities and others by cutting the breasts of thousands of women and the hands of the men who survived Abyssinian colonial terrorism and genocidal massacre.”
For the sake of pushing the discussion further let us switch off our moral compass and accept all the Oromummaa false claims about breast cutting and Oromo genocide and the rest on face value. Let us hear what Mohammed Hassan says about the savagery committed by Gadda warriors during the Mogassa northward expansion.
- Mogassa warriors are the devils who attack in the evening… They fought with frenzied determination that astonished the elite of the Christian and Muslim states and terrorized the populace…
- When new areas were attacked, the men were killed, and animals were captured. Probably the killing was intended to spread terror among the resisting population while the taking of cattle booty was to enrich themselves…
- Most of the conquered people who had earlier submitted with little or no resistance, found that they were no longer equal members of a clan within which they were incorporated, but slaves who were used as gifts and commodities for sale… Enslaving the vanquished people was an economic as well as military necessity…
What Mohammed tells us is that, while the frontier of the Christian kingdom was shrinking, a new nation was being formed out of its debris.
The question is: If the Oromo kingdom was formed out of the debris of a demolished Christian kingdom of Amhara through “terror” and “slavery”, and if this is praised as nation building, why the fuck would Menilik’s state building through mass killings and cultural subjugation be a source of Oromo whining and bitching.
Eyasped may tell us on what ground he likes Asafa Jalata’s scholarship on Oromummaa and Gadaa.