Rundassa Eshete and the Oromos rebuff ‘Ethiopianism’ and the Abyssinian Racism

By: Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
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[ Posted On: 2008-05-23 ]

Two parts of the interview of the Oromo free thinker and intellectual Mr. Rundassa Eshete, Chairman of the Oromian National Academy, have already been published in two previous articles that can be reached here: Forced Public March with Amputated Members Tied on Your Neck: Only in Neo-Nazi ‘Ethiopia’ / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/61084, and The National Scope of the Oromian National Academy / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/61470.

The first part was focused mostly on his life experience in the jails of the tyrannical colonial state of Abyssinia, as well as his trips and studies until the moment he reached America. The second article evolved mainly around the scope and the deeds of the Oromian National Academy. In the present third part of the interview, Mr. Rundassa Eshete reveals some of the most abhorrent aspects of discrimination and cultural genocide practiced against of the subjugated nations of Abyssinia, and mainly against the Oromos, by the tyrannical Amhara and Tigray Abyssinian administrations over the span of the last 150 years.

Interview with Mr. Rundassa Eshete, Chairman of the Oromian National Academy – Part III

Are the governmental authorities trying to impose the Abyssinian historical model, the Abyssinian version of History, and to diffuse Abyssinian cultural values through the manuals written in Afaan Oromo? Would you expand on this subject?

Mr. Rundassa Eshete - Before the Tigrays started controlling the resources of the Oromos and the other subjugated Southern nations, the Tigrays openly claimed that they had been colonized by the Amhara, and that they were fighting to liberate the Tigrays from this colonial yoke.

But soon after they controlled the resources of the Oromians and the subjugated Southern nations in general, they came to realize the great importance of the use of force and the establishment of an extensive bureaucratic network in exploiting the natural resources that belong to other nations. As a result, the Tigrays have been caught between the two blades of a twin bladed razor, namely the global politics of our times, which require the re-configuration of the cultural lines of all the ethnic groups and nations, and the tendency to secure extraordinary economic benefits for the Tigray ethnic group.

After carefully evaluating the options available to them, the Tigrays decided to claim the ‘Ethiopian’ identity instead of their own Tigray Abyssinian identity because the penchant for the ‘Ethiopian’ identity provided them with a stronger chance to align themselves with America, the superpower that defines in our days the meaning of ‘culture’, ‘religion’, and ‘civilization’, while drawing the political boundary of every other nation.

The opportunistic alliance of the Tigray Junta with America provided them with the possibility to hold onto political power and this in turn granted unlimited opportunities in plundering the natural resources of all the subjugated peoples included in the colonial empire ‘Ethiopia’. As a consequence, this choice forced the Tigrays to attach themselves to the ‘Ethiopian’ / Amhara identity the foundations of which are based on a discriminatory theoretical system that propagates and promotes the replacement of all the other nations’ identities and cultures with the Amhara culture.

The fact that this reality remains still unknown to most people allover the world is due to an extraordinary effort displayed by the ‘Ethiopian’ diplomats; as you know very well, the thieves need quietness to strip their victims from their belongings and property. However, the subjugated and oppressed nations and ethnic – religious groups who have been the victims of the “Ethiopian Empire” are by now very conscious and they will not give the Tigrays a quiet time. A great effort of self-identification and self-knowledge is underway, and it has become clear to many that countries with similar cultures are coming together and countries with different cultures are coming apart.

So, as cultural identities are replacing the old Cold War blocs, by creating fault lines in several countries, such as Russia, while bringing other together, like Germany, the Tigrays have been forced not only to form an alliance with their former oppressors, the Amharas, whom they had once blamed for destroying the Tigray identity, but to develop a deeper attachment to their ancestral Abyssinian roots; this attitude bonds them together in a dialectical repulsion and attraction.

To nurture their Abyssinian roots and their fictional stories that they present as “history” and use as main gluing factor with the Western World, they were constrained to deploy all efforts needed to destroy the identity of the Oromians. This became their first priority, and of course, this task could not take place without the formation of a huge army ready to suppress any sort of popular revolt.

As a result, the Tigray colonizers of Oromia have been busy in building additional infrastructures geared to provide link and quick access to resources of the oppressed nations and ethnic-religious groups of the Abyssinian empire.

Beyond and above the continuous purchase of modern and updated systems of weaponry (to be used for suppression), further practices involve the installation of dummy parties and dummy leaders, and the training of a massive number of agents and spies among school kids and families.

Because of the bondage that existed between themselves and the Amharas, the Tigrays made an extreme emotional effort in which they spent millions of dollars on corrupt foreign consultants, famous American entertainers and diplomats from allover the world, in order to promote their Abyssinian legacy via the so called “Ethiopian millennium”.

When the Tigray Junta of Meles Zenawi and their followers were struggling for freedom, they used to called the Amhara rivals ”Neftenyas” (settlers). But after they rose to power, as if sitting on Menelik's throne, they started plundering the natural resources of Oromia and the South, all these lands that are foreign to them and have been invaded by Menelik and Haile Selassie.

As they become as confident rulers as Mengistu and his communists, they started hating their Tigray identity, and have been assimilated within the fabricated “Ethiopiyawinet” identity, which has been propagated by people like Haile Silase and Habte Giworgise, an Oromian by birth, who has hated his Oromo identity and the Oromo nation more than anything else in the world.

Having deprived themselves from their proper Tigray identity, they deeply hated the Oromos who proved able to resist and keep resisting, and they did all they could to shamelessly destroy Oromians cultural organizations, such as Macca & Tulama Association which promoted the Oromo identity.

As the Tigray are now in command, they demonstrated their adherence to the concept that “to be is to have”. Their imperialistic attitude and character pushed them to focus on all measures needed to destroy the Oromo identity; they are currently ordering schools not to teach Afaan Oromo in Oromia.

As for the OPDO, the Afaan Oromo-speaking Tigray made puppets, their fundamental concept "to be means to be like your masters"; thus both, the master and the slave, have lost their identities, and they don’t want others to preserve theirs.

Would you say that there is discrimination as regards the Oromos and other nations in Abyssinia? To whose favor?

Mr. Rundassa Eshete - When we talk about cultural discrimination, it is very important to understand one critical reality. We live in the 21st century; our global economy requires diplomats, businessmen, scientists, tourists and the entire tourism sector, airline pilots and air traffic controllers to share a means of efficient communication, and this is the English language, the prevalent international language and means of communication. This reality implies that English is only a means of communication among people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, and this automatically entails the existence of a great number of individual languages and cultures. This does not necessarily mean that the other languages should be destroyed.

However, according to the Abyssinians, all the different cultures and languages in the Ethiopian empire must be destroyed. What is even more extraordinary is that their few puppets resonate and reproduce this incredible mentality and approach. For example, a former OPDO chairman, Junadin Sado, said once in an interview given to a TV channel that one day the entire world is going to speak only one language and thus, it would sound that fighting for a national Oromo identity is simply a stupidity.

Following this line of deception, the Tigray leaders and their “made in Tigray” bogus-parties use terms such as “globalization” to confuse the uneducated segments of the nations and ethnic-religious groups of the Ethiopian empire. Through the misinterpretation of the notion of globalization, they diffuse the totalitarian concept that only one language and culture will prevail, and that consequently identity preservation and accentuation equals failure to correctly perceive the meaning of globalization.

Similarly with the aforementioned, many other tactics are used in order to carry out the most comprehensive discrimination against the national Oromo identity and to favor the Abyssinian concept of Ethiopiyawinet. All these misleading arguments, promoted by the Tigray colonizers and their puppet parties, are intentional; they are machinated and absolutely false, and the truth is that the process of globalization did not destroy either Chinese or Hindi but on the contrary it brought them to the forefront. It is also true that people with similar cultures are coming together whereas those with dissimilar cultures are coming apart. In our global societies, world politics is being re-configured along cultural lines.

This means that political boundaries are in the process of being redrawn in order to coincide with cultural, ethnic, and religious lines. No more than 18 years ago, the colonial empire ‘Ethiopia’, under an Amhara communist regime, was aligned with the former Soviet Union; now, the colonial empire ‘Ethiopia’, under a Tigray pseudo-republican regime is working with superpower America.

Actually, the central fault line in this seemingly global economy is not an ideology of capitalism and communism but ethnicity, religion, and culture. If what the Tigrays and their “made in Tigray” parties are arguing about had been true, the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis would have become a mere matter of land division, and the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein would have satisfied the Kurds; however, this is not the case. Therefore, in this New World Order, cultural identity is by definition the central factor in nation building and in determining the relationship or even the antagonism among countries. And this is also true for Ethiopia.

What is happening in Ethiopia today is precisely this; people are asking themselves questions of the type “who are we?”, “where do we belong in?” and “who are we not?”. This is an effort to cope with an enduring identity crisis that people have undergone for over a century; this is not a reason to be dealt with in the customary Abyssinian method by their presumptive Tigray masters.

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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