Groups of Oromo Liberation Activity – Ground Work for the Liberation of Oromia (Part VII)

By: Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
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[ Posted On: 2008-09-17 ]

In six previous articles ('A Transcendental Approach to the Need for Oromo Leadership – Part I' / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/72787 - 'A Transcendental Approach to the Need for Oromo Leadership – Part II' / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/72897 - 'A Transcendental Approach to the Need for Oromo Leadership – Part III' / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/73014 - 'Every Oromo: A Leader in the Oromia Liberation Struggle (Part IV)' / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/73524 - 'Groups of Oromo Liberation Activity (GOLA) and the Liberation of Oromia (Part V)' / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/74211 - 'What the Groups of Oromo Liberation Activity (GOLA) Must Do to Liberate Oromia (Part VI)' / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/74356), I emphasized the need for all the Oromos to take the initiative of leadership, and just put aside any discussion about, and consideration of, the current political formations, liberation fronts and independence movements that proved definitely unable to materialize the supreme goal of the Oromo Nation: Independent Oromia.

To mend the present situation, I suggested that all Oromos contribute to the formation of Groups of Oromo Liberation Activity – GOLA, as the best means to achieve Liberation and National Independence. I then examined how the GOLA can be incepted, and how they can keep Amhara intruders faraway; I subsequently expanded on the function of the Groups of Oromo Liberation Activity (GOLA), outlining four basic directions of activities of the GOLA members. In this article, I will focalize on possible projects and endeavours (the list is not exhaustive), starting by direction no 3 in the previous article of the series.

Collection of Information Pertaining to the Oromo Nation

As I already said, this covers a very wide range of issues and topics from Human Rights violations to cultural, historical, economic, political and social issues. This direction is of seminal importance because the result of activities deployed in this circle will greatly affect those working in the propagation of the Oromo Cause at the international level (referred to as direction no 1 – external, in the previous article).

The following points are just indicative of what can be delivered by small groups of Oromo activists working within a Group of Oromo Liberation Activity (GOLA) unit.

Point 1. A Repertory of All Oppressive Acts Carried Out (in a Particular Area) Against the Oromos on Daily Basis

It goes without saying that a single GOLA unit cannot cover the entire Oromia. In fact, many GOLA units must be established, perhaps one per town, and at times one per village. They must set up a list in chronological order, starting with the day of the GOLA unit inception; the list must contain every act of oppression, every action of discrimination carried out by governmental authorities (of any level – federal, regional, local) against every single Oromo. The area for which the task will be assigned by the GOLA unit members must be screened and monitored on daily basis. In regard with the area concerned, the GOLA unit must become the primary and most authoritative source of information.

The list must be linked with the repertory's main part in which analytical description of every case listed will be available in Afaan Oromo; if the GOLA unit members working on the Human Rights violations repertory project are able to translate the material to English, it will be fine.

Otherwise, beyond their ceaseless and careful monitoring, beyond their vast contacts with local people (who will be their real source of information), and beyond their analytical description of every case (involving eventually pictures and video clips), all they have to do is to put everything on the web.

This means that it would be perfect if this type of GOLA units consisted of 2 or 3 Oromos living in occupied Oromia (preferably in provinces) and 1 Oromo from the Diaspora, who would help with the website (or blog) without the cruel and inhuman, totalitarian authorities of the Abyssinian tyranny being able to control anything.

If the founding members of a GOLA unit happen not to know any Oromo living abroad, and they are not residents in a large city, everything is still possible. They will have to raise a small fund that will enable one member to travel to a big city with Internet connection, and there manage to upload everything on the web. Contacting Oromo websites' and portals' webmasters and bloggers will be the way for the little experienced in the Internet to get familiarized and manage to upload their critical importance data and work on the web. Uploading could be periodical on weekly or bi-monthly basis.

One may contend that it would be enough for the GOLA unit member to upload the data in the form of an article written in Afaan Oromo, which could be published in any major Oromo portal, like Ayyaantuu, Bilisummaa, Oromoindex, oromiatimes.multiply.com, free-oromia-free-oromia.blogspot.com, etc. Although this would be logical and sensible, it is not advisable. The reason is simple. The number of existing Oromo websites, fora, portals and blogspots is very small. It must get increased tenfold as soon as possible. That's why a new Oromo website, particularly if it is specialized in a subject, matters much. The big Oromo portals and selected world media, and NGOs must be contacted and informed at a later stage, but this would be the work of another GOLA unit.

The danger in this sort of work is the normal inclination of everyone to deliver more, to cover a wider span, and to demonstrate a more comprehensive data record. There will always be the tendency to set up a GOLA unit with focus on a very wide area, let's say the entire Borana Land or Arsi Land, instead of a particular - geographically small – area. This attitude does not offer more, as many may surmise, because more width signifies less depth, and this is particularly wrong.

In fact, when it comes to reports of Human Rights violations perpetrated against Oromos, what matters is in-depth monitoring, complete cataloging of every act, and analytical narrative of every case. This can be successfully done by a small group of 3 or 4 Oromos only if they focalize on daily basis on a very small part of Oromia.

The entire Oromia may need more than 3000 GOLA units to be properly covered, with every unit being specialized on a small part of the country's territory.

But, what level of global awareness about the Oromos would we have already reached, had 3000 websites (specialized on Human Rights violations perpetrated against Oromos) been established by (just 12000) Oromo activists ready to dedicate 4 or 5 hours from their daily program to the Oromo Cause?

Point 2. Oppression Against Oromos - Repertory Classification

This is a secondary level of work, executed on the aforementioned, but it can be done as soon as Point 1 activities have admittedly been undertaken by several hundreds of GOLA units.

The Repertory Classification (per type of oppression and discrimination) would provide with a classification of the different types of Abyssinian oppression and discrimination practiced against the Oromos; with the acts of tyranny and oppression presented under this form, the Abyssinian tyranny, which is exercised throughout Occupied Oromia, would become known allover the world. As the Point 1 repertories would be getting enlarged on daily basis, the classified repertory should be adjusted on daily basis as well.

Point 3. A Black Book of the Illegal Abyssinian Occupation of Oromia

This does not concern the present and the future but the past; instead of representing a type of scholarly research made on the basis of the existing bibliographical documentation and historical sources, it should emanate out of an ethological – sociological approach, involving the collection of hundreds of thousands of interviews with Oromos who experienced the vicious and inhuman, perfidious and pernicious, racist character of the Abyssinian tyranny and illegal occupation.

Before its liberation from the barbaric and evil Abyssinian pestilence, the Oromo Nation needs to deliver this historical opus to posterior Oromo generations. In fact, all the Oromos should participate in this project that can support the establishment of 25000 GOLA units (so, a total number of 100000 Oromo activists may be needed to work on this).

The project should start with the recording of memories of the elders and the experience of the aged people, involving pictures, tape recording and video clips. Any personal memorabilia related to Oromos' personal exposure to the Abyssinian tyranny should also be mentioned and photographed. In fact, the entire Oromo Nation must speak out narrating all types of experience they have been exposed to. The project could easily reach the level of millions of printed pages, and it will be of unsurpassed impact at the international level.

Interviewees should also be asked about tyranny and oppressive policies practiced against their ancestors; killings, tortures, humiliation, imprisonment, land expropriation, property usurpation and any denial of Civil and Human Rights must be recorded and classified separately from every interviewee's confessions.

The best way to carry out this enormous project is to focus on personal, family and neighborhood levels; several GOLA units may assign to themselves the task of examining whether remote villages and hamlets have been taken in charge by locally established GOLA units; if not, GOLA units established by Oromos in big cities must take care of the remote villages' populations and of their experience of the Abyssinian tyranny.

Useless to add, the collection of material should be here followed by the uploading of all the data on separate websites of blogs on the web. The overall project is perhaps the largest to be undertaken, and could thus take up to five (5) years to be completed for several parts of Oromia.

Point 4. Aspects of Cultural and Spiritual Genocide Perpetrated against the Oromos

Contrarily to the previous project that evolves around people and their experience (as well as that of their ancestors), this project concerns facts pertaining to cultural and spiritual genocide that took place in the past.

Desecration of Oromo shrines and holy places, perturbation of Oromo religious ceremonies, illegal building of Abyssinian churches, prohibition of Oromo religious practices, interruption of social traditions and practices, governmental acts contradicting the Oromo social hierarchy and its rules and regulations are to be recorded and related narratives collected, properly classified, and finally uploaded on the Internet. The correct approach would be topographical. Every GOLA unit should concentrate their efforts in collecting data and narrations from a certain limited area, some villages or a town. As this category of data involves narratives, pictures, tape recording and video clips should become a matter of concern.

This project can be very widely publicized on the web; in fact every event – act of genocide – for which a long narrative is collected, along with pictures and possible audio and video files, could be accommodated in a separate website or blog.

Point 5. Oromo Literary Heritage

This point can become the reason of existence for a great number of GOLA units. It should involve the complete recording of the Oromo Oral Literature. Popular wisdom (proverbs, sayings, admonitions, and narratives), all types of prose and poetry, from fairy tales to wedding songs, and from popular prayers to any type of incantations has to be collected and comprehensively made available on the web. Here, I do not mean academic recording for further philological research; I simply stress the need of just writing down in Afaan Oromo what risks being lost with the disappearance of the elder generations.

Point 6. Oromo Cultural Heritage

This is an even vaster subject; it involves the complete recording of the Oromo traditional social and family life. The work needed should not be of academic standards as it will not be the source of an ethnographical research. What is needed is proper recording – at the very first level only in Afaan Oromo – of what risks being lost with the disappearance of the elder generations.

Records should encompass narratives about the traditional professional activities (written down as performed on annual basis), the social events and circumstances, the private life dealings and actions, interpretations of social and personal phenomena, descriptions of traditions and customs, historical records, and the personal memoirs of the elders. Every act related to the last Oromo kings should be recorded as kept in the memory of Oromo elders who are still alive.

Point 7. Oromo Religious Heritage

Another critical circle of topics that have to be recorded thanks to the volunteering work of a great number of GOLA units is Waaqeffannaa, the historical Oromo religion. Recording traditional beliefs narrated by elder Oromos, writing down prayers and rituals, expanding on religious interpretations of natural phenomena, and offering polarizations around any topic of theoretical context are some of the tasks numerous GOLA units can ascribe to themselves, launching a great number of related websites and blogs.

Point 8. The Pantheon of the Oromo Resistance

Any nation, particularly if still not independent, has to honour heroes and pioneering leaders who contributed greatly to the nation's survival, progress and reassertion. At this very moment, there are still alive a few Oromos, who may have lived as young children and/or adolescents at the times of Abba Jifar II (died 1932), and even more numerous Oromos who may remember details from the days of Abba Jofir (died in the 60s); furthermore, the memory of Oromo poets, like Jaarso Waaqo, and generals, like Waaqo Guutuu, must be kept alive forever. The collection of narratives from the part of people who lived along with these immortal Oromos has great value, and should be undertaken by several GOLA units.

With respect to the Collection of Information Pertaining to the Oromo Nation, the aforementioned eight points are of seminal importance, without being however exhaustive.

Resistance and national liberation groups and fighters must understand that a subjugated nation does not have the privilege of waiting the independence day in order to save its historical records.

On the other hand, these historical records, properly and adequately diffused worldwide, consist in the best branding for a nation in struggle for independence.

Instead of waiting to be known as rebel groups fighting against the invader's army, the Oromos must first do their ingenious best to become worldwide known as the custodians of Africa's Supreme Originality and the paragons of the Kushitic Ethiopian Heritage that the barbaric, cannibalistic Amhara Monophysitic Abyssinians cannot and should not be allowed to further sully by usurping it, fallaciously portraying it as relevant to them, and illegally evoking it.

In a forthcoming article, I will expand on the remaining three directions of activities that other Group of Oromo Liberation Activity (GOLA) units should be committed to support and promote.

Note: Heroic Oromo women transporting water for the Oromo fighters under unsafe circumstances; perhaps you are not as strong as they are; then, respect them! From: http://www.winne.com/ethiopia/articles2006/olf/index.php

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis - is Orientalist, Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, Islamologist, Historian and Political Scientist. Dr. Megalommatis, 51, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages.

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