Yonas Biru, PhD
Oromummaa is engineered to destroy the “Ethiopian Empire.” But to do so, it must first change the Oromo tribal land beyond recognition. Before we go to the topic at hand, allow me to reintroduce you to two books.
The True Believer was written by Eric Hofer in 1951. Intrigued by the Nazi movement, the philosopher Hoffer studied and decoded the human psychology that explained how otherwise normal and intelligent people signed up for the Nazi movement. The book has become a useful handbook to those who want to create blind followers who are ready to sacrifice themselves for a movement they are indoctrinated and primed for.
The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson was published in 1965. The book developed an original theory to build an effective organizational system that overcomes what economists call the free-rider problem. The free-ride problem signifies a phenomenon whereby people want change but want others to bear the cost for the desired change.
Where Hoffer’s book serves as a handbook to brainwash and prime individuals to join a movement, Olson’s book helps as an administrative manual to organize them effectively. Not surprisingly, Professor Jalata, the Godfather of Oromummaa, refers to both books in several of his articles. At a close examination, it becomes clear Oromummaa follows the same indoctrination and organizational methods that Adolph Hitler used.
Metamorphosis from Cultural Expression to Political and Religious Annihilation
First, Professor Jalata and his intellectual partners claimed Oromummaa is a concept to embrace and cherish being Oromo or Oromoness. Professor Mirgissa Kaba and Girma Gutema insist it is “a fundamental concept of being Oromo or Oromoness.” Professor Milkessa M. Gemechu describe it as a “broader concept that is explained by the totality of Oromo culture.”
Once concept got traction and won followers as a cultural expression, its architects smuggled political ideology into it. Professor Jalata declared Oromummaa goes “beyond culture and history.” All of a sudden, it became a “political project” with national and global aspirations.
The third step in Oromummaa’s transformation was putting Gadda center stage, “at the heart of Oromo tradition and culture, which shapes the basis of Oromummaa.” Gadaa, they said, reflects Oromo’s cultural, political, economic, social, and religious traditions. Consequently, Oromummaa became a wholistic movement.
Anyone who has read The True Believer understands, such a wholistic movement will bring political and religious aspects of the movement to the fore. Professor Jalata makes this clear, stating: “Establishing political and religious leadership” is key in “organizing Oromo society around economic, cultural and religious institutions.”
The Consequences of Political and Religious Leadership
Oromummaa has very little to do with the Oromo culture. In fact, its violence, malice, and bestiality are the antithesis of Oromo’s ethos of welcoming outsiders with a sense of community value and welfare.
At bottom, Oromummaa signifies political and religious conflicts. The political conflict is constantly hovering between Federalist vs. Pan Ethiopianist and Oromo Independence vs. Ethiopian Unity. The religious conflict is between Waaqeffanna (an indigenous Oromo religion) and two popular Abrahamic religions (Christianity and Islam).
Here is the problem both on the political and religious fronts. The majority of the people of Oromo see themselves as proud Ethiopians. In contrast, Professor Jalata accuse Ethiopia of “terrorizing and committing genocide on the Oromo people during the Scramble for Africa with the help of European imperial powers such as England, France, and Italy.”
Further, Waaqeffanna preaches the first man that God created is an Oromo and he is made of water. This stands in conflict with the Bible and the Quran that 90 percent of the people of Oromo follow.
In the Bible, Genesis 1:27 states “God created man in His own image.” According to Genesis 2:7 “God formed man of the dust of the ground.” The Qur’an (15:26) describes how Allah created Adam as follows: “We created man from sounding clay, from mud molded into shape…” Neither Holy book assigns race, tribe, or creed to God’s first human creation.
Professor Jalata is keenly aware that the odds are stalked against Oromummaa both on the political and religious fronts. He makes this clear in a 2010 presentation titled “Oromummaa: National Identity and Liberation Politics.” On the political front, he sated:
“Pro-Ethiopians Oromos are the majority in the Ethiopian rubber-stamp parliament, the Ethiopian army, and security networks; they work as colonial agents…; they are mercenaries, and they live for money and food.”
On the religious front, the Professor condemns Oromos who embrace their Islamic or Christian religion as follows:
“Oromos, [who] like their Habasha masters have been the defenders of the Habasha culture, religion, and the Amharic language and haters of the Oromo history, culture, institutions.”
His venomous attack against Islam and Christianity is laser focused and constant. He sees churches and mosques as Ethiopian “Empire Builders,” and “Colonial Institutions” with genocidal record against the Oromo.
Oromummaa: A Crusade Against Islam and Christianity
At its core, Oromummaa is a national “political project” to liberate the Oromo identity from Christianity and Islam. In this regard, Professor Jalata proposes a two-pronged approach. The first prong requires Christians and Muslims to “adapt to national Oromummaa.” This means they are expected to differ to Waaqeffanna when their beliefs contradict with it. For example, they need to accept Adam was Oromo and he was created from water, not of dust or mud.
The second prong aims to deal with Oromos “who have internalized these externally imposed religious identities because of their low level of political consciousness or because of their political opportunism.”
Over 90 percent of the Oromo population that follow Islam and Christianity is portrayed as either of “low level consciousness” or as an opportunist. In like manner, the majority of Oromos who see themselves as Ethiopians are condemned as “colonial agents and mercenaries” who have sold their Oromoness “for money and food.”
The Oromummaa doctrine portrays people like Laureate Tsegaye Gebremedhin, who is proudly Oromo and unabashedly Ethiopian, as suffering from low-level consciousness. Laureate Gebremedhin, choice to write poems in Amharic makes him a “hater of the Oromo history, culture, and institutions.” In like manner, Abuna Petros who sacrificed his life for Ethiopia is a “colonial agent and mercenary” who sold his Oromoness “for money and food.”
On the other hand, Bekele Gerba who proposed “not to do business with anyone who does not speak Afaan Oromo” and who attributed the decline of the Oromo language to intertribal marriage has high-level consciousness. Similarly, Jawar Mohammed and Shimelis Abdissa who declared that their allegiance to their Oromoness comes before their ecclesiastical allegiance to their respective religions is considered to be of high-level consciousness.
Professor Jalata insists Gadaa is a democratic system and signifies an example of classical African civilization. The 3.3 percent population of Oromo who follow the Waaqeffanna religion and lives under the tenets of Gadaa are the model on whose image he aspires to recreate the Oromo population.
If Gadaa is truly democratic and if Professor Jalata’s plan is to revive the democratic Gadaa system, how can he impose the religious practices of 3.3 percent of the population over the followers of Islam and Christianity?
Oromummaa intellectuals believe they have no chance of achieving their goal with over 90 percent of the Oromo population following of Islam and Christianity. What is their option? Gadaa as a democratic institution is no different from 16th century Mogassa that used violence, malice, and bestiality.
Over ninety percent of the Oromo population has its back marked as a mercenary, anti-Oromo, and agent of colonialism. The gun is cocked, locked and ready to draw. The trigger is waiting to be pulled. It will not be long before the Oromummaa movement reaches a critical mass to assert itself across the Oromo land. Those who doubt this must ask themselves why were Oromummaa intellectuals chosen by the Oromo Liberation Army as its delegation to negotiate with the Abiy government in Tanzania?
For further reading read my articles titled:
- The Oromummaa Politics: Weaponized with Lies and Soaked in Blood
- Oromummaa is a Low Grade Nazification Movement
- Oromummaa’s Religion Cleansing and Cultural Evilization Project
Once again I am crestfallen to see our intellectuals produced by that gem of the colored have chosen not to see eye to eye and to spend their valuable energy arguing. It has become a rancor. Such rancor will help divide the community into two or more groups hostile to each other. What the peoples of that country desperately need is the know-better to lead them in their grueling effort to drag themselves out of abject destitution that has been bedeviling them since antiquities. Do you think that member of the Borona clan will be interested in someone lecturing him/her about this system or that while his/her cattle being decimated by devastating drought? Will he be listening if someone tells him certain traditional system is full of fallacies? This is just a total misplacement of priorities. I say to my dear intellectuals this. You will need to reset your thought process for the sake of more than 120 million noble people. Division among our intellectuals had helped create and strengthen the bloodthirsty Mengistu in the 1970’s and such lingering division has helped those with dictatorship behavior and runaway malfeasance to keep on ruling that country seemingly with no end insight. I’m terribly afraid that the revolving door has been revolving with tweedle dum going out and tweedle dee going in. It has been just a vicious cycle thanks to the divided elites.
Shimelis Abdisa’s statement that 650 more religious institutions will be demolished in just around Addis Ababa (mainly inside the noose-city called Shegger City – inaugurated with the official resolve to strangulate the life out of Addis) is very revealing as to the magnitude of Oromumma’s anti-religious ambition.
The Oromumma movement will not march simultaneously against all Oromos described as its detractors by Dr. Yonas. It will do it in stages.
While it is not clear if it is due to its Oromo leaders or expatriate patrons, mentors, advisors, this movement has been one of the shrewdest political movements in recent African History. So far, it attacks its enemies one by one, choosing to clip all the branches on a tree before going for the axing of the trunk.
Most likely, Oromumma would take on the Orthodox Christian Oromos first, much as the OLF had done throughout its five-decade long history. In fact, this is being done vigorously; overtly and covertly. The attack on the Ethiopian Orthodox Synod is meant to isolate the Oromo from the rest of the Ethiopian followers and overwhelm them as a minority in the Oromo tribal land. Simultaneously, Oromumma works to discredit the faith and dislodge the faithful. Why else would one illegally ordain illegitimate monks, Muslims and unbelievers as Orthodox bishops to preside over the Oromo faithful?
Please allow me to give you some history on the destructive disarray of our intellectuals. Please note that almost all of them were educated with taxes paid mostly by the poor peasants and urban dwellers that country of noble people. They went all the luxury/convenience of grow schools all the way to college. Many of them had the rare chance of advancing their education after being granted the much sought after scholarships to European countries and many universities here in the USA. That was all fine and dandy, right? That is what you may be naively think. Most of them did not take them too long to busy themselves into associating themselves with ultra leftist elements in their host countries. It did not also take too long for ‘beauty contests’ to begin among them for the ‘coveted’ title of who the best commie among them. It made you think that you are watching ‘Taming of The Shrew’ again and again. You could hear/listen the commotion ‘that one is the righteous commie; no he is not but this one is the one’. That split them into two groups in Europe with disgusting/rude name calling flying in all directions. That was when I decided to distance myself from those groupings. I thought those in USA were in better shape. That was what I naively thought. It did not take me too long to find out there was a low key silly argument was raging behind meeting doors on what applies to the old country: regionalism or nationalism. Later on the rancor was all about whether there was a two or three world. To be honest with you, to this day I never understood what the fuss was all about the ‘two or three world’ thing. Did the question about region or nation hold the keys for the solutions to the economic problems that country faced then or now? Two or three world? Forget about it! I still don’t get it and am not interested in it. Those intellectuals went back to the old country still blabbering with ‘Down with feudalism and imperialism’ huddling around two hostile groups. Some of them taught Mengistu how to talk and chicken scratch in their style. They butchered each other like savage rival pride of lionesses. Do you think the few survivors have learned any lesson from the mistakes of their role models of the 1960’s and 70’s? No!!! Ladies and gentlemen! They are now busy spew around divisive poison among the ordinary countrymen/women so as an Oromo I should always be at guard with every Amhara brother and sister; so every Amhara brother/sister should be on a ‘lookout’ for every Oromo like me. One has the ‘neftegna’ as an epithet to demonize every Amhara and the other one seems not to be able to make his/her mind which one of two, ‘Extremist or Orommumaa’ to criminalize the whole ethnic group and across the board. But that country which produced us all is still at a loss how to get rid of the scabby that has annoyingly kept its citizens scratching since antiquities. O you commies! You unrepentant possessed by demons commies! Do I have utter disdain for you or what!!!!!
Make that: They went through all the luxury/convenience of going to schools all the way to college.
If Asefa Jalata is formulating a fascistic project in the name of Oromumma, he is not inventing a new thing, but just arousing a dormant spirit – for the Oromo, in their previous name, are known for having committed the grandest African genocide and ethnic cleansing project as they ruined an entire civilization and crushed numerous tribes and peoples in less than a century. In other words, all the elements required for mass psychosis are already existent in the culture and political history of the people.
By attacking the Abrahamic faiths, Asefa Jalata is adopting the correct strategy to achieve his objective; for it was Christianity and Islam that tamed the coercive assimilationist, genocidal and ethnic cleaning praxis of the Borena and Bereytumma (two branches of the Oromo ancestry). If genocide, forced assimilation and ethnic cleansing are to be carried out unhindered against the subject people of the Ethiopian state, these pacifying obstacles (Ethiopian Christianity and Islam) have to be attacked, destroyed or co-opted. Aware of this, proponents of Oromumma are not sparing any energy as they systematically and brazenly try to totally dominate or disintegrate the religious institutions as well as their mores. In this respect, Abiy Ahmed’s achievement has been stellar.
Such displacement of the African from his psychological and spiritual mooring, is something that detractors of Africa support feverishly. The coaching and patronage of colonial and neocolonial forces that have their own designs for Africa are very apparent.
Sadly, the present generation has been so blinded by miseducation and so continuously distracted by intentionally fabricated chaos/terror that keep disorienting and weakening it, to be able to realize what is transpiring.
Dr, Yonas, is Oromumma’s violence really non-innate?
“In fact, its violence, malice, and bestiality are the antithesis of Oromo’s ethos of welcoming outsiders with a sense of community value and welfare.”
Really?
In view of the impending genocide that Oromumma is about to unleash on the grandest of scales, the days for obfuscation or sugar-coating should be over. The truth should be told.
Who was it that said, “Violence is as American as apple pie?”. Yes, it was Malcolm X. In our context we could say, “Violence is as Oromo as CheChebsa”. A great part of the history of the Oromo since their advent into Ethiopia has been one of excessive, bestial and extreme violence. We find this first recorded more than four hundred years ago and then several times since. Hordes of Oromo men of various clans have for centuries descended upon the peaceful agricultural communities of Ethiopia, totally exterminating or swallowing up more than twenty distinct ethnic groups and inheriting their land.
The Oromo departed more and more from their violent and barbaric manners after they embraced the monotheistic religious traditions of Ethiopia. However, even before their reversal to the present full-force barbarism, the Red Terror was a violent chapter of modern Ethiopian history thanks to the predominantly Oromo cadres of Meison and Oromo officers of the Derg. Each of the political parties during the Derg, with the exception of the hunted EPRP, were headed by Oromo politicians; Haile Fida, Sennay Likke, Tesfaye Mekonnen, Baro Tumsa and Mengistu Hailemariam.