By Rundassa Asheetee Hundee
Ginchi town, the epicentre of #OromoProtests, started November 12, 2015
Everything around the TPLF power started shifting in 2014 and it continues with an accelerated pace thanks to the inevitable revolution that started in the Jibaat & Maccaa county of Gincii town. This revolution has influenced the entire Oromo attitude and reduced the Amharas discomfort about the Oromo people. Also the recent events in the Amhara region have, understandably so, contributed to the demise of the TPLF in a dramatic way, there is no doubt this tremendous change would have been impossible without the thousands of Oromo youth who lost their lives while fighting the Tigre colonial rule, or while trying to cross endless ocean and the Arabian dessert. One way or the other, the Tigrean colonial rule has ended even if these frog looking TPLF killers are still lingering around 4 kilo.
Another version change that every Oromo here in diaspora embraced and run around with is the acceptance of UNITED Ethiopia for which they are rushing around to form some sort of organization so that they could represent that organization and share power in the dreamed transitional government of UNITED Ethiopia. These groups have already started to make proper preparation; meeting with the Amharas, rub shoulders with well known Habasha elites, give commentaries on TV and face book networks etc.
While this is going on here in diaspora, the TPLF murderers who were trashed by the mass revolt are investing their time and energy to accomplish the following.
1. Try to create rift between the Oromians and the Somalis who had been killing the Oromo people in south and easter part of Oromia
2. Prepare the Tigreans for the worst by preaching about Rwanda and Germany like genocide
3. Encourage university teachers and independent journalists to criticize the TPLF so that the mass would believe that the TPLF is democratic government worthy to keep
4. Assist the Somali groups with ideas, with fund and with guns so that the Oromo unity strengthened by the protest would gradually deteriorate
5. Inspire division among the Oromians by inter injecting name calling by pretending as the supporters certain group or men such as Junadin Saddo
6. Accept the idea similar to what Tasgayee Araarsaa talks about and writes regarding forgiveness and understanding of COMMON mistakes. By doing so, stay in power and prepare for a change with no consequences for the thousands they have killed and for the hundreds of thousands they jailed and still torture in harsh desserts and jungles.
Now the question that the proponents of UNITED Ethiopia have to answer is;
A) Is it possible to form a democratic state with people who see their ideas as divine that should not change? For example, the Amharas think that their flag, their language and their culture are divine. Hence, they will not change. Plus they are entitled to share others people’s lands but their’s remain to be their’s if we want to live with them in harmony. Further more, this divine thinking requires us to free our minds from our Oromo feelings and become true Ethiopians by accepting their divine believes. To become worthy of this idea that they think is “perfect”, one has to appear on the conferences and meetings they organize and speak in Amharic.
B) Was the “Change and Progress” that the founders of the Oromo Liberation proponents envisioned back in the days is just the transitional government that some diaspora Oromos are excited to sustain? In other words, can conversion from free Oromia to UNITED Ethiopia be considered as change? Is it possible to live with complete harmony with the Habashas who never accept change about the divinity of their Ethiopia?
Now, lets assume that old united Ethiopia is restored and every power hungry Oromo is given certain position in the transitional government. But was this the future that the pro free Oromia proponents envisioned? A redemption from being an Oromo to become an Ethiopian is what we were crying for all along? Is this really the journey all those who were killed and tortured wanted to take or our anger against the Tigre rulers changed us to the degree of forgetting what we’ve worked for for 25 years or more.
Well, we become free as we take, knowingly, full responsibility for our own future and as we stop blaming the actions of those who take advantage of us. For me, the liberation movement that is going on now for two years happened because of those who fought for our freedom without any hesitation: it is the consequence of their bravery and it is because of their determination to restore the knowledge of the long-lost and nearly forgotten truth about the Oromo, US!: the knowledge about who we are, where we need to go in the future, what the meaning of being an Oromo, why we experienced so much misery and injustice.
What then does it mean to be free? Freedom means to assume responsibilities as a human being. We have learned that everything we do, and even say or think, has consequences. We have said that we were victims of the Ethiopian empire and wanted to restore everything we’ve lost. It is also true that our people live under so much misery, pain, suffering, and even starvation today. When many of us here in diaspora said that freeing ourselves from the Tigre colonial rule is impossible, young kids loosened the false bondages of slavery and now such narrow thinking born out of the tragedies of inferiority have disappeared. If we understand the smallness of the TPLF and start seeing ourselves unbroken brave men and women, our little enemy will gladly submit to our vast power in no time. But we just have to understand that there is a big difference between mere desire and conviction. It seems to me that, many of us have a desire for which we don’t want to work towards achieving it.
One thing, of course, we know: having “freedom to” means that we have the potential of making wrong choices. Wrong choices have their merciless consequences, and when they are not stopped and corrected they lead us into misery and pain. Wrong choices, if not corrected, will lead us to the ultimate possible disaster. I think that is where the pro transitional government formation groups are heading to.