Let us try to come to grips with it
Years back when I lived in Düsseldorf I once listened during the winter to a program on the radio where some scientists discussed the possibility of clearing the sky from clouds by using certain chemicals so that people would get enough sun light ending the gloom of winter. The idea was intriguing indeed. But I did not like the reference to using of chemicals. Later though I wanted to follow up the topic it was never raised again at least on the same station as far as I know. But the idea reappears now and then in my mind whenever I see or think about clouds especially in winter. Today I am not going to discuss about clouds in the sky but the equally real clouds in our heads. The clouds in nature give us rain and are useful also in other ways whereas the clouds in our heads can lead to psychological problems or even to open and devastating wars.
I cannot claim the ability to dispel all the troubles that cloud our minds in the empire-state of Ethiopia. I mean political clouds. But as a free human being I can fly through them making use of bariisa.com thanks to all those who removed the barriers of communication between human beings technologically ushering in the internet age. We live in a period where freedom of expression is no more the monopoly of the self-appointed few. The age of the absolute dictators capable of blacking out ideas and information seems to be coming to an end soon. The world is changing dynamically in ways no one expected. Not just class struggle as Marx postulated but, more important, ecological issues are going to challenge more effectively and more humanely the greed of capitalism. I tend to despair when I look at the dilemma facing oppressed nations and nationalities in the Abyssinian dominated empire of Ethiopia that calls itself a federal republic. But when I look at the world as a whole I see no reason to despair whatsoever. This encourages me to fly faster through our mental clouds inviting all those who relish such a flight inwards. It is hopeless to try to do this at once. I do it piecemeal, one by one. My topic is of current interest, related to our present day problems.
I have just read an article posted on May 9, 2011 in Ethiomedia.com under the heading, “Youth eyes Ethiopian spring.” As far as the language used is concerned we have before us well articulated statements. But anyone who looks at it with some objectivity will see immediately how it is motivated by diplomacy (In Ethiopian politics there is little difference between diplomacy and intrigues any way) and the need to create more clouds in the heads rather than dispelling them so that truth shines through. The stated aim of the article is to prepare for a peaceful protest movement by the so called Ethiopian Youth Movement (EYM) benefiting from the experiences of the upheavals in the region. The article looks back to praise and appreciate highly the struggle of the Ethiopian student movement in the sixties and the seventies as a classic example of revolutionary struggle and sacrifice in Ethiopia. But when surveying and referring to the basic issues raised by that very student movement, the article ominously and dishonestly omits to mention the right of nations and nationalities to self-determination by watering it down to general, vague statements about democracy- part of typical neo-Abyssinian especially Amhara tactics and strategy to hold the empire together by all means at their disposal, and to please the so called international community in order to mobilise its support. This is not the work of a youth movement but clientele of opportunist intellectuals in a hurry to join a new ruling class to serve, like every Abyssinian ruling elite so far, foreign powers who can support their tyranny, a never ending dirty game going on for centuries since the formation of this empire. Important issues become blurred and more clouds are created in the heads always intentionally, single mindedly to confuse ordinary people, typical of our inglorious Ethiopia.
I do not want to waste my time discussing this article in detail, except to say the following: I am for a peaceful mass protest to bring down the Woyane regime of terror only if the principle and the slogan of the right of nations and nationalities to self-determination including full independence is clearly stated, and if the Abyssinian chauvinist forces cannot dominate the protest movement in any way. The protest can effectively take place without them altogether, if it can take place at all under the the western backed brutal Woyane regime.. There is no need to call, besides, on armed groups engaged in the struggle against the Woyane regime to declare cease fire. How odd!!! Before that happens the Woyane regime must make major concessions to democratic demands of the mass movement. Even then it is up to the political leaderships of the armed groups, if there are any, to decide the question of cease fire. Confusing the activities of political organisations and youth movement creates only more clouds in the minds.
So far I am mostly talking of the clouds created by the Abyssinian groups and their traditional slaves, especially Oromo slaves.. But there are also clouds created by other elements that cut across ethnic, religious and geographical lines in general. I am thinking especially of those elements and groups who have one foot in Woyane camp and another in opposition camp. These are groups and individuals who benefit in some way from the Woyane regime. Woyane makes use of them directly and indirectly in various ways effectively. It uses the benefits it gives, among other things, to neutralise potential or real opposition to its rule. The classical example is that of people at home and in Diaspora to whom the regime allotted construction sites, lands etc and those who have other forms of business dealings with the regime openly or secretly. They create huge clouds in opposition ranks and are overwhelmingly untrustworthy….I think many of the opposition groups, including our good old OLF, are full of such human beings. They are in the shackles of their own making. Opportunism is the whole mark of politics in Ethiopia. Open opportunism is, however, less dangerous than hidden one because you see it and take care. Just look at Nagasu Gidada, for example, moving from pretended extreme Oromo nationalism before 1991, then over the puppet OPDO, to full-blown Ethiopian chauvinism now, coming full circle. Could it be that he aspires to make a comeback as a nominal or even a virtual head of state through his present day Tigray and Amhara promotors in the so-called opposition close to the Woyane? There is no end to the fantasies of a born egoist. He plays his cards cool and openly. He comes off much better than those Oromos who deeply believe in the unity of the Ethiopian empire but profess otherwise to contain, control and sabotage the struggle of the Oromo people from within mainly to their own advantage.
In sum, Ethiopia is, to call a spade a spade, a militaristic empire where generation after generation innocent human beings in large numbers are led off to their graves periodically on mere suspicion by the most cruel masters of treacherous intrigues and absolutely blind violence motivated by hatred, the forces of selfishness and darkness, supported by powerful aggressive foreign forces. That is part of the reason why even relatively honest human beings in this empire mostly distrust one another, making the birth of strong political organisations impossible. There is a gaping chasm between the images believers in Ethiopia ( most Amharas and Tigrayans ) project on it forcibly by intention or through ignorance, on the one hand, and its true recorded history and present days reality, on the other. Paradoxically they go wild in denials when ethnic oppression is mentioned while systematically advancing their ethnic domination for centuries under the cover of Ethiopian identity!!! Their dramatized performances and pretensions are too many to count here. Centuries of their most brutal and abject form of feudalism in the service of colonialism and imperialism in Africa has its indelible and debilitating effect on every culture in this incurably sick empire down to the present day under militarized, fascistic semi-intelligentsia. It is a unique problem without a parallel in Africa that demands unique solution. It is part of historical irony in itself that Addis Ababa is the headquarters of the AU, formerly the OAU. More ironic still is that it is situated in the heartland of Oromia, given an Abyssinian designation, not Finfinne, its original Oromo name. All this shows, among other things, how little other black Africans know the true political identity of historical Abyssinia, which is colonialist, racist and permanently warmongering.
I would like to narrow down my statement to our own clouds as Oromos the way I see it. There is no use constantly pointing the finger at others, the clouds out there, being carried away by our own demagogues covering up our own ingrained dirt and failures, venting our anger on the enemies outside us so that we cannot see the enemies within, and working at other times, when it suits them, with the same enemies at home and abroad depending on the dictates of their own self-interest and the mission and task assigned to them by those sponsoring them internationally, the same forces upholding the Abyssinian supremacy and power.
Frantz Fanon, as a psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary, explored the psychological effect of colonization on the psyche of a nation as well as its broadest implication for organising a revolutionary front to achieve decolonisation and liberation. He raises the question of revolutionary violence as a means of liberation and a catharsis to humiliation and loss of human dignity. His psychological training enabled him to see that many problems from which the oppressed suffer are of psychological nature due to domination in colonial, socio-political atmosphere. The colonizer’s presence, he postulates, is based on sheer military strength. But, if I remember well, he says also that sometimes what the oppressed do to themselves is worse, especially in psychological sense, indeed, much worse, than what their tormentors, meaning their rulers, do to them. Is this not relevant to our dilemma under the Abyssinian colonialism backed mainly by Anglo-American circles. OLF wants to convince our international tormentors through diplomacy and by spreading their ideology and propaganda among Oromo people, singing at the same time about waaqeffata and the Gada system, with which it lulls us to sleep. We must learn how to value our personal freedom of thought and action before we initiate it among our people. We cannot give to our people what we, as individuals and as political organisations, do not have ourselves here and now, and we cannot achieve our freedom by begging for it saying haa iyyannu, haa iyyannu!! ooh, ooh!!!
Paltalk rooms, I sometimes think, match and fit the prevailing Oromo psychology perfectly. There we can make, to excess, non-binding statements, without obligation, non-committal, detached, nomadic, hiding our identities from one another mostly, with our enemies participating sometimes even as friends. We can give expert advice to others from distance on how to struggle without ever practising it ourselves. We can keep boasting that we can never be defeated, while we are already on the ground, all without doing anything of substance. We can constantly boast of having developed the best system in the world- the great Gada system. If we make statements in ordinary, normal media , such as posting articles in websites or to news papers or radio we have to register our e-mail. It is dangerous. Is it not? Mostly we do not like to have our oral statements recorded in writing or print. We cannot go back on them. We cannot deny or easily withdraw them at will, plagued with hesitation so that we usually dare not articulate our own conviction, fearing fear so to speak… Do they commit us to something? There may be some responsibility, even if we do not know what it really is, something lurking in darkness. Legally also we have to answer for irresponsible statements .Most of us are not ready to shoulder any serious real responsibility if it involves the slightest risk even though we see daily how our enemies take risks boldly for their unjust cause and aggressive supremacy. Most of us live, most of the time, in a state of suspended animation, alive but mostly only half conscious, except when it comes to our selfish individual pursuits, suspicious of one’s own creative initiatives as if completely unresourceful and lame, in matters concerning our struggle against the most horrible form of tyranny in the world.
Does this mean I am against the paltalk rooms? I am not at all. The problems are not in paltalk rooms. It is the clouds in our own heads. Do not be offended! I am one of you, making mostly blah, hot air, in written form. I do not exactly know why we are mostly like that. But I do not deny facts about our tragedy and I remain at least by my statements and principles, determined not to please anyone for trivial, petty motives and demagogy. Please let us be ashamed of ourselves. Why are we so stingy with what we have to ourselves while we give everything in abundance, including our lives, unwillingly to our enemies? What kind of human beings are we? There are many non Oromos, friends of, and sympathisers with our just cause, especially from our region, who feel ashamed for us, of our lack of courage, of our lethargy, our lethal and destructive petty selfishness and our hypocrisy.
It remains to say any resistance to Abyssinian ruling thugs and their sworn Oromo slaves and puppets must not rule out at any time revolutionary violence because it is the only language they fear and respect. Their indiscriminate and blind violence full of hate must be met with highly selective and precise revolutionary violence. Personally I have no illusion left that the Abyssinian ruling elite will easily accept peaceful and democratic dialogue leading to peaceful and democratic solutions. But I hope time will prove me wrong. What can we do when all else have already failed?. Most of Fanon’s ideas are still valid and apply to the situation in our reality. “Les damnès de la terre”, (translated into English, as The Wretched of the Earth) is still relevant to a great degree because it posits a new concept of revolutionary consciousness and discusses the role of the peasants and the lumpenproletariat, meaning the poorest of the poor , the homeless vagrants and revolutionary intellectuals. It examines how they can gradually transform themselves into united, invincible revolutionary power, capable of mobilizing all socially responsible democratic forces in the countryside as well as in the cities.. In our situation, he seems to say, it is not the academics or even the manual labourers in the factories but the widest section of the oppressed majority that constitute the revolutionary force.
Those of us who expect an easy and quick fix or victory live in illusion. We have to start a really organised struggle on all fronts even if our victory takes generations. We have to reach a point of no return where the energies of the entire Oromo people are practically mobilised and organised at many levels beyond wishful thinking so that the vanguard and the rearguard work together and complement each other effectively as much as possible. When in the transitional government from 1991 till its departure, OLF mobilised the masses emotionally in the most superficial opportunistic way to achieve quick results( bureaucratic concessions from Woyane) for its own sake without organising them at all . It could have undertaken extensive underground organisational work if it had really wanted, creating different secret structures and networks which could not be destroyed easily. But that has never been part of its agenda because that would smack of communism in in the eyes of its extremely right wing leaders. What a nice thing that the extreme right wingers with confused missionary background try to lead Oromo revolution! Today our people are being reduced to poverty by the Tigray ruling elite and its international backers so that we surrender to them in order not to starve and to get their handouts, allowing them to herd us into kabelle cantons and control us completely . The idea is to destroy what is left of our self respect totally so that we mostly live only for bread. This policy has been extensively used in Somalia too to break the will of the Somali people and force them to surrender to the Abyssinian supremacy backed by the Anglo-American circles.
If we want to clear the internal psychological clouds in our heads we must stop hiding behind non-existent and corrupt political organisations and entities. We must stop singing their mantra and do what we can to bring about real changes. A political leadership in the field, not in foreign capitals, not only open but also underground work- these are absolute necessities. For all this we must build through hard work and consistent struggle a new political organisation with great determination and resolve. There is no question of first building such an organisation in order then to start the struggle. Such an organisation can be built only in the course of revolutionary struggle. Besides, people who, when thinking about struggle, imagine and fantasise only suffering do not understand what real and well organised struggle is about and they spread false ideas without knowing. It ( revolutionary struggle ) is not just suffering; actually it is more joy, born of daily achievement and ever growing self-confidence, a joy that makes us forget suffering and that propels us forward from weakness to strength, from ignorance to knowledge. It is renewal gained through familiarity, observation and by direct experience. It shows us what constructive energy can do. It transforms us into different human beings capable of overcoming their ego, capable of empathy and true love, capable of doing great things for themselves and for others at the same time. It shows us how individual-and social- psychology are interdependent. Most of us go through life without experiencing genuine commitment, and that is why we are mostly bored or depressed. We seem to have forgotten mostly what real commitment and discipline is. There is no place in true love born of true commitment for demoralising sorrow and fear. Selfishness can be transformed into its opposite- sympathy and benevolence. Our ego which is full of fear, doubts and false self-respect can disappear altogether. Only then can we learn great things and grow quickly. Let us not forget for one moment that revolutionary struggle is becoming science. For that to happen, it is not enough to have a clear political program. It is necessary that ordinary members, in the first place, the fighters, who are at the forefront of the struggle, choose periodically, from among themselves, the best elements as their leaders, following and controlling their activities by being together in the ups and downs of life. Nothing of the kind has ever happened in the empire of Ethiopia as far as I know. Should I not say in this light let us start, if not from the scratch, then, from where we are, taking necessary but calculated risks and making necessary sacrifices?
Down with Abyssinian domination!