Times were when a dissenting Polish lecturer of ‘Scientific’ Marxism-Leninism told his students: For the natural sciences, one plus one makes two; but in society, one and one has only a tendency to make two. He was not merely objecting to a forlorn attempt scholars of the social studies aping the methodologies of studying nature and natural phenomena, he was also pointing out to the risks of predicting the social dynamics with mathematical precision. Yet to many scholars of societies, there appeared to be a conviction that, in time, nationalism will be worn out. In the very book being reviewed, John Soresnon portrays this sense when he writes that ‘a fervent commitment to nationalism seems like a quaint holdover from the past’ (p.223). However, the proliferation of movements for national self-determination and dedication for national causes continues to puzzle many observers.

The ambivalence to nationalist projects emanates, first, from their progressive change-oriented outcomes it entails, and second, as a reaction to horrendous events that engendered two European wars fought under the banners of nations and empires. In the face of the latter, some looked forward to fast and vast information and communication age, the era of economic globalisation and, indeed, restrained migration, foreclosing the ‘past’ for the sake of an uneasy embrace of a ‘brave new world’. Yet again, pretty little 'new' is emerging of this ‘new’ world save greater degree of sophistication in justifying human actions, past and present.

On the other hand, many still recognise that nationalism remains a powerful ideology of modern statehood. It once offered vitality to territorially defined state and ‘imagined communities’. For people under colonial rule, it highlighted their cause and, perhaps, their solution; yet the conditions that mobilise nationalist feelings varied from place to place. In much of Africa, colonial rule based on European powers gave way to ill-defined states that are hardly nations. Following a devastating war, colonial powers found it easy to dispense with the ‘with of change’ (i.e. growing national consciousness and resistance) than the continuation of ‘unreformed’ past. In many instances, the feelings of authentic nationalism in these cases dissipated as the incumbents, following the advice of Kwame Nkrumah, took over the political kingdom without ferreting deeper into its contents. Elsewhere in Africa, and in Ethiopia to be specific, crude and archaic form of colonialism remained. Like all forms of colonial rule, it superimposed itself as the law of the land, it oppressed and repressed cultures and languages, it denied history to people; it controlled their self-expression and identity.

The book under review is about one of the national struggles to end this colonialism. The contributors amply demonstrate that Oromo nationalism nourishes from shared feelings of oppression, exploitation, denigration, and subordination of Oromos and great many other nations to the mainly Abyssinian (Amharic and Tigrean) Others. In these times of chronic collective problem, nationalism offers a vision and strategy for liberation and freedom. The main objectives of the national movement include the restoration of gada, decolonisation and social transformation. The attainment of these aims is opposed by Ethiopian empire state system and some of its external supporters. Most agree that this opposition has only helped the maturation of the national struggle.

The book consists of ten essays uncovering the elements behind Oromo nationalism and the struggle for national self-determination. The contributors are scholars from different backgrounds; there are also two essays from a leading participant and practitioner in the national liberation movement. In Chapter 1 and 2 Asefa Jalata, a sociologist and prolific author on Oromo nation and its relation to Ethiopian empire state, articulates that since the times of the conquest of the Oromo and other peoples of the south in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, resistance of different degrees had been in operation. Yet the contributors argue that the emergence of Oromo nationalism is a recent phenomenon of the sixties associated with the emergence of intellectuals, revolutionaries, and professional groups with roots in Oromo traditions and culture. This process involved the migration of Oromos to urban areas where they confronted a reality that was concealed in the past, the knowledge of the cultural, linguistic and political Others. In the urban atmosphere was also the knowledge centre of the empire (Addis Ababa University) in which nationalism inevitably obtained a seat as well as an audience that developed critical understanding of the Oromo condition. Many a nationalists resent the fact that while being a numeric majority, Oromos are a political minority treated as second class citizens, if not subjects. The empire state denied them access to political power, economic opportunities and cultural resources. The collective feeling of past and present misdeeds led many to stipulate the mechanisms of solving the national exigency.

Keenly aware of the past that had wrought about the depravation and denigration of their folk, nationalists designed ways to deal with the problem. Ethno-national self-help associations were formed, an exemplar of which was Mecha-Tulama Association. Through time the cultural phase of nationalism was transformed to political struggle. The association included people from all walks of life and it was successful in its goals by challenging the Ethiopian colonial policy of divide and rule ‘on the bases of region and religion’ (p.6). It helped rediscover the Oromo collective name; it exposed Ethiopianist ‘distortion of Oromo history (p.8); and it was therefore banned by Ethiopian government in 1967, by which time the movement went underground.

Then came the open and forceful expression of nationalism, the armed struggle for national self-determination, whose aim is to empower the Oromo people to decide their future through referendum and democracy. As part of the national resistance and struggle, the Oromo scholars undermined the Ethiopianist discourse that reduces them to ‘peoples without history and civilisation’ (p.1). The Ethiopian empire state, incapable of dealing positively with the ‘problem’, resorted to force, assimilation, and recently to co-optation via what are called the Peoples Democratic Organisations (PDOs).

In chapter 3, Leenco Lata, an intellectual and one of the top leaders of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), makes an impressive attempt at mixing, in a very interesting way, scholarship with real politic by offering an insider’s view of a movement, its causes, its achievements and the challenges. By then a deputy head of the OLF, he explains how the Front drafted, alongside other nationalist fronts, the transitional charter, and why it joined the transitional government of Ethiopia dominated by the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF). In this task, Lata is doing much of the answering to questions that haunt many a nationalist. Why it took no more than one year for a coalition with Abyssinians to dissolve and why it did not work, it does not work and it won’t work with reasonable degree of social consensus. A historic mistake, even blunder, was committed by the TPLF/EPRDF by intimidating and trying to silence the Oromo voice, a historic mistake equivalent only to Haile Selassie’s demolition of Eritrean federation in the early sixties paving a way for protracted struggle and inevitable independence of Eritrea.

The word crossroad is often used in explaining the events of 1974 and 1991 in Ethiopia. In 1991 nationalist forces won in Eritrea leading to its independence, while in the rest of the empire policy changes were conceptualised. Explaining the pre-1991 events, Lata argues that what common cause or mutual suspicion exited between the national liberation fronts including OLF, the EPLF, and the TPLF. A number of internal and external precedents exerted pressure on the OLF to join the transition including the neighbouring countries, the US and donor governments alongside international scenarios of the end of Cold War. More revealing is what has happened during the brief interlude of the transition. For all its characteristics, the TPLF/EPRDF became a derg-like regime, which left the OLF with no option but to leave the ‘power-sharing’ arrangement. He warns of catastrophic consequences that follow this regime’s operations and holds the regime and its external backers for responsibility.

In chapter 4, Lemmu Baisa, a scholar on political economy, examines the features of contending nationalisms in Ethiopian empire. The empire now faces not one or two but more contending nationalisms from Amhara, Tigrai, Oromo, Somali, Sidamas and others. Now more than ever, the struggle is for control of resources and state power. He sees both Amhara and Tigrai nationalism as having similar objectives ‘except tactical differences: ‘both oppose Oromo and other national groups wanting complete democratic rights and genuine power-sharing’ (p.82). He briefly touches upon the Somali, Afar and Sidama nationalisms and examines in detail the Oromo quest for national self-determination, its theoretical bases and its applicability in the context of Ethiopia are widely discussed. He also looked into different arrangements short of forming an independent statehood. He argues that the Nigerian federal framework does not fit to the demands of the contemporary Oromia. He considers strong political autonomy as beneficial to Oromos but this is impractical given the actions and interests of Tigrean and Amhara elite. The conclusion is that short of complete and genuine democratisation, the ‘Oromos cannot be satisfied with less than full independence and sovereignty…’ (p.104).

Edmond Keller, an American scholar, observes Ethiopian empire as experiencing yet another revolution (Chapter 5). This time the transition is not only from Empire to Republic but to ‘federal republic’ in which the new rulers want to ‘construct society along new foundations’ (109). The recurrent theme in this and other works of Keller centre on the ‘national question’. He notes that Menelik’s colonisation led to the Oromo mode of governance inculcated in the gada system. Thus, the imperial regime (of Haile Selassie) devoted its energies toward destroying the culture, language, and religions of non-Amhara ethnic groups, particularly those in the south and the east of the empire’ while at the same time, Amhara culture was implicitly presented as a defining trait of ‘Ethiopian’ nationality (pp.110-1). The gada system was undermined by the prohibitions of colonising Amharas and by ‘social stratification …and coming of Christianity and Islam’. An interesting revelation in terms of religious dimension is that Oromos took in Islam as a way of reacting against Orthodox-based Amharisation.

Apart from forms of resistance to colonial campaign, clear signs of Oromo nationalism emerged with Macha-Tulama Association, the Bale revolt and grew with the OLF. When the military derg was overthrown in 1991, the OLF invested faith in the transitional government. But the government dominated by TPLF and Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) pursued statist policies. Keller notes quite rightly that EPRDF’s ‘conception of self-determination for constituent states is much closer to that of Stalin than to anything else [with the belief] that ethnic states have the right to self-determination but not the right to exercise that right. (p.114). On the face of this, he identifies three options for the Oromo national movement: co-operating with the EPRDF, opposing it through constitutional means, or waging an armed struggle. Like any western liberal he is less sanguine about the prospects for armed struggle. He also sees constitutional means being frustrated by the EPRDF. The other option worth pondering ‘is the formation of a coalition to challenge EPRDF behemoth.’ This is an option the Oromo, Sidama, Ogandenian and Afar nationalists need to consider seriously, not necessarily with the empire framework but outside its parameters of domination and repression.

The challenges to Oromo nationalism is what Lata reverts in his second essay, in chapter 6. Here he asks why the world powers remained oblivious of the Oromo people and of the OLF until 1991. He relates this problem with hitherto projections of Ethiopianist scholarship that overvalues one side and devalues Oromo history. This was compounded by lack, until recent times, of Oromo scholars. Others, and eminently ‘Ethiopianist scholars’, staked their prestige on a certain image of the Oromos as dispersed, disunited, assimilated, etc people – elements that are more common among Abyssinian societies than in Oromo.

He finally notes the opportunistic use of Oromo nationalism by Abyssinians who employed continuous aggression, conquest and ethnocide. Assimilation of Oromo individuals to Amhara culture did not better their individual and collective life. Those who joined the revolutionary ‘class struggle’ in the seventies were sacrificed while at the same time those who held the opposite stance were used by Somalian ruling classes. Yet the ‘most radical attempt’ of joining the transition was abused by Tigrean elite. This leaves ‘Oromos to depend only on them selves’. The conclusion reached is sharp and logical: ‘Only the scrapping of the Ethiopian colonialism will enable the creation of a new democratic order in the Horn of Africa’ (p.149) to which fact the world powers are urged to reconsider their attitudes and approaches. While the bitterness is understandable, it is still possible to search and find a viable relationship and co-operation among different ethno-national groups, mainly among those who shared similar historical burden.

Without questioning the validity of this conclusion, Kuwee Kumsa (a journalist who spent nearly a decade Ethiopian prison for writing in Oromo language and for being an Oromo nationalist) notes (in chapter 7) the multiple problems facing part of the Oromo society: the Oromo women. Approaching the subject from a feminist perspective, her contribution evokes slightly different aspects of oppression of ‘classes, races and ethno-nations’ (p.153). Her analysis focuses on the status of women in the Oromo Liberation Front. Indeed, throughout the literature, the role of the OLF is closely linked with the overall nationalist cause, not so much as other groups have been irrelevant, but for its sharp articulation of the causes of the problem, and for its secular, pan-Oromo embrace making it a target of concerted assault by historical opponents. In Kuwee Kumsa’s words, the OLF ‘has played a central role in shaping Oromo thought and affecting those far-reaching changes in Oromo national consciousness that posed a challenge to Ethiopian colonialism’ (p.154). She brings to focus a number of facts that are ‘often conveniently overlooked’ about the contribution, the dilemmas and the problems of women. She mentions individual Oromo women and their contribution to cultural resistance and armed struggle. The veracity of her arguments lies not only in emphasising what liberation entails, i.e. getting rid of national oppression, but also in foreseeing the events that lie ahead. She reminiscences Basil Davidson’s note of dismay with ‘post-liberation’ elite in Africa and Franz Fanon’s warning against ‘the risks of projecting a fetishtic denial of difference on to a conveniently abstracted "collective will"’. In this regard, contemporary nationalism and national liberation movements have plenty of lessons from the Africa of fifties and the sixties where all that mattered was taking over the political kingdom with the belief that all ‘else will be added unto you’. While liberation remains a desirable and necessary goal in the context of the Oromos and other colonised peoples, there are multiple issues that need learned consideration from people of all wakes of life.

With all its subtleties, and despite its dominantly western Marxist feminism, Kumsa’s approach reminds that the liberation struggle ought to consider diverse aspects of human interaction. After all, the struggle for national liberation is a struggle to emancipate society, of which women are an important part. Their conscious participation and fair representation is vital to create a society at ease with itself. There is also a point about adulating a warrior past inculcated in geraarsa that makes nationalism increasingly a masculine project. In this respect her views may be seen as distracting from the more pressing dimensions of the nationalist cause, but her personal experience of Ethiopian colonialism and her participation in the Oromo national struggle demands that the concerns she raises should be addressed in a meaningful way. In fact, any society needs its prophets, warners and trend-setters. Hers is a voice not to be dissented but to be listened, not to be overlooked but to be looked after. One way of doing this is by allowing possible participation so as to enable fellow beings realise their potential. For one, she calls for a wise handling of ‘diversities across gender, class, age, occupation, region, religion and politics’ (p. 178). One may add that critical understanding and education of hitherto neglected sections of population (including women) need to be promoted for equitable and just participation in society. For women are bearers and carers of future generations, not to mention of the languages and the culture, they were subjected to covert repression; they were circumscribed to customary duties without having the chance to participate in intellectual enterprise. While Ethiopian colonial culture is largely to blame, the contemporary nationalisms should be as good to their parts as to their whole. This, like nationalism itself, is a long-term social project.

Most of the contributors of the book agree that the contemporary Oromo nationalism owes its development to Macha-Tulama Association (MTA). For Mohammed Hassen (chapter 8), a notable Oromo historian, this association was founded in 1963 and banned after three years by Emperor Haile Selassie just like the OLF was effectivey banned by Meles Zenawi within a year. In a brief period of time, the MTA transformed itself from a circumscribed self-help initiative to a pan-Oromo movement constituting ‘the most important landmark in Modern Oromo history’ (p.184). This success was meted out with jealousy and brutality from the imperial elite.

The author gives four reasons why Oromo nationalism grew in the mid-twentieth century. The first is the specific nature of Ethiopian colonialism, which is based within the country itself compared to western European colonialism that was based on distant metropoles. The rulers were backward and they dealt with developing nationalism in crudely undeveloped manners. Secondly, while nationalism is a complex and slow process, the lack of intellectual class that informs the national consciousness contributed its part. Thirdly, and related to the first two, is the attempt of Ethiopian ruling elite ‘to prevent the development of Oromo nationalism by co-opting and liquidating Oromo leadership’ (p.187). Fourth, and equally important to the opposition from the Ethiopian elites of the ‘prison house nations’, is the intent of Somalian elite’s, Said Bare’s regime in particular, with its notion, or even a dream borrowed from imperialists, of a ‘Greater Somalia’. That regime saw Oromo nationalism as frustrating to the realisation of ‘its’ dream.

Despite these obstacles, and like other inevitabilities, nationalism among the colonised Oromo got its leaders from the founders and followers of the MTA. He cites personalities from MTA and latter the founders of the OLF in 1974. Taddasa Biru, Mamo Mezamir and Baro Tumsa figure prominently among the martyred nationalist leaders. He links the MTA not only with the formation of the OLF but also the Bale armed rebellion. The poorly planned assassination attempt of the emperor in 1967, the demise of the Mecha Tulama Association, the death and the message of Mamo Mezamir are all included in absorbing account. The latter is revealing for Oromo nationalists but a bombshell for Ethiopian ruling classes and their external backers. This explains the fact that ‘the Ethiopian government’s cruelty and brutality’ which in effect ‘produced the Oromo elite’s rejection of Ethiopian identity itself’ (p.212)

John Sorenson, a scholar with broad understanding of the Ethiopian empire and its surroundings, is better remembered for his critical approach to the understanding of Ethiopian and Ethiopianist discourse and its treatment of other people in the empire. In Imagining Ethiopia he described how some voices were ignored and others were given prominence in the western discourse about Ethiopia. Those who were given and held the history writing machine wrote their own version and erased others not only of their identity but also distorted their culture and history. He argues, in, chapter 9, of the potency of ethnicity and nationalism in Ethiopia ethnicity is further complicated by the fact that an erstwhile dominant elite identifies itself with Amhara, speaking Amharic language and professing Orthodox Christianity. Currently the problems associated with Abyssinian fundamentalism (vocal in North America today) that valorises Amhara identity and denigrates other groups continues to employ racist discourse as part of power struggle.

Sorenson offers a dispassionate discourse on elements of Oromo nationalism from a point of view of a crucial observer never given to acceptance of one version that has cursed western discourse on Ethiopia. He is of the view that the problem with western scholarship on Ethiopia has been that ‘it accepted and embellished particular version of the past and neglected others. Many western scholars uncritically adopted the discursive constructions of local hegemonic forces, reproducing (and strengthening) a narrative that valorises an ancient, centralised stare that formed the basis of a greater Ethiopia, under the leadership of the elite of the northern highlands of Abyssinaia…’ (230). The process of knowledge creation has been dominated and repressed reflecting and complementing the political, social and economic domination. The Oromo nationalists and scholars are only reclaiming their denied space, overtaking the history writing machine so that Others would not write about them in foreign and hostile terms.

There is more than one curious point Sorenson raises to which indistinct answer needs to be given. The issues of delineation of the borders of the nation go beyond what Leenco Lata once noted of Oromia as ‘anywhere Oromo people live’. The concerns raised are legitimate and quite appropriate to all nationalists, Oromos and their neighbours alike. Serious thinking also goes to this aspect of the struggle to national self-determination.

Asafa Jalata provides a final touch to the book (in chapter 10) by invoking how knowledge can be created, disseminated and distorted to suit a dominant elite. In this essay, first published in 1996 in the African Studies Review, he demonstrates the domination of sphere of knowledge creation by Ethiopian elite and outside scholars who took the latter’s account. Some Ethiopian and Ethiopianist scholars distorted Oromo history. In Ethiopia, the process of knowledge creation and dissemination about Oromo society is strictly restricted while it is growing in Europe and North America. He takes the struggle to national self-determination to include the sphere of knowledge and scholarship, and one would only add that a lot more need to be done in this respect. More information and critical understanding is needed about the Ethiopian empire, or the ‘prison house of nations’ whose sentry considers a slight hint of light as outright danger or even poisonous. This is perhaps the only part of the world where ideas are feared more than missiles. One should not go any further than looking into reports about a number of writers, journalists and opinion formers incarcerated for self-expression and for addressing the fundamental problems of their respective societies.

Such research agendas may look into, among others, to the application of the gada culture. While one would easily recognise the symbolic importance of the gada democracy as a valid alternative to abysmal colonial mode of thinking and rule, serious reckoning ought to be given for practical application of modes of operations that have thrived in slightly different socio-economic frameworks. The desire to claim the lost ground, the nostalgia for a homeland that was taken over by aliens is a befitting nationalist feeling; yet to develop the national project, it needs more than feelings and emotions. There are also other considerations of this project that need close treatment. Provided that the political aspect is nearly accomplished, a task remains of delineating the boundaries of identity, namely, the relation with neighbouring people and people within Oromia, as well as the issues of physical boundaries that may flare spontaneous and damaging long term effects. One must also note the need to work out formulas of co-operation of the social forces that shared historic barbarism for it needs more than a vision to make the future relationships durable, acceptable and humane. The time is right to build intellectual as well as emotional bridges for challenging periods ahead.

For all what it implies and the forces it musters, the Oromo nationalism is one of the most potent in Africa, and one which is posed to bear fruit in the very foreseeable future. Here lies an effort to provide an introduction to a history of a people that have been used and abused. The book is an excellent addition to Oromo studies constituting an essential reading for students of contemporary nationalism not only in Africa but also throughout the world. For Africanists in general, and Africans, in particular, it is a recommended reading.

Seyoum Hameso

November 1998