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OROMO NARRATIVES
Donald N. Levine
University of Chicago
Published in Journal of Oromo Studies Vol. 14. no 2 (July 2007)
Debates among Oromo citizens frequently turn about questions of identity and political action. In considering those questions, inquiries into views of the past may
not be out of place. I support such inquiries on the basis of considerations spelled out in my book on the future of social theory, Visions of the Sociological Tradition (1995). Drawing on work by several social scientists, I argued there that narratives of the past held by human communities, no less than individual autobiographies, form an essential condition for constituting identity in the present and projecting meaningful action in the future. The point draws on a half century of discourse about the ways in which organizations of subjective meanings affect action, including the now classic text of Berger and Luckmann, which stresses the role of symbolic universes that locate all events “in a cohesive unity that includes past, present, and future” (1966, 103), and the seminal paper of psychologist Bertram Cohler (1982), which shows how narratives help persons make sense of their lives in times of change and how they revise earlier memories continually as a function of subsequent experience.
More concretely, at the communal level, French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs famously demonstrated, collective memories prove indispensable for the functioning of social groups of all kinds, for in recalling signal events of the past, they offer a focus for group solidarity, and during periods of routine activity they keep alive a group’s connection to its ideals and symbols of identity. Group memories also function defensively, to justify claims and to valorize aggressive actions triggered by aspirations to pursue those claims. And just as when actors grow and change, altered narratives about the self mediate changes of structure and commitment, so do alterations of collective autobiographies mediate changes in the lives of groups. One way to track the changes in the lives of communities, I argued in Visions of the Sociological Tradition, is to trace the sequence of narratives they tell about their own past as they evolve.
It is thus no accident that recent Ethiopian history has seen an outpouring of novel narratives in different communities. The massive introduction of Marxist ideas among educated Ethiopians in the 1960s engendered a number of new ways of telling the story of Ethiopia's past./1/ Such narratives need not be fully articulated or written down even; they may be vague and inchoate; but they play a necessary part in orienting Ethiopian actors, like any others, to a changing world. These new histories were most conspicuous – and consequential – in the case of Eritrean intellectuals, who developed a novel narrative of their past in the course of moving toward independence from Ethiopia, and by Tigrayan insurgents of the 1980s, whose distinctive narrative of Ethiopia's past helped to justify an ideology of ethnic federalism. In his perspicuous account of perspectival changes during the Derg years, Donald Donham notes that the effect of Derg policies was to alter the imaginations of Ethiopians –“their sense of their place in the world and the shape of their pasts and their futures.” What is needed to follow these changes, he asserts, is “an ethnography of local historical imaginations” (Donham 1999, xviii)./2/
The comparison of collective narratives forms a theoretically fascinating subject for historical sociology. It can have practical benefits as well. On the one hand, by attending to the diverging narratives of groups in conflict, analysts can play a mediating role, by giving each group a sense that it is being heard and understood, and by helping ease the intensity of antagonisms through helping each group listen to the stories of the other. This was the use of narratives that I pursued in my little article, “Two Tales of One City” (2006a), in which I talked about the contrasting narratives of the polarized groups among Ethiopians following the post-election bedlam in 2005. On the other hand, the analyst may wish to reconstruct narratives in order to clarify options for the future, since visions of the future necessarily imply and flow from narratives of the past. That is the use of narratives I shall pursue in this paper. My aim here is to clarify Oromo options today by sketching in broad strokes some of the main types of narratives told by Oromos about themselves.
Although my analysis does not have the benefit of the fine-grained ethnographic reportage that Donham advocates, it may aid our understanding of these perspectives through a systematic articulation of their central assumptions and projections. I present these narrative perspectives in a form that sociologists refer to as “ideal types” – intellectual abstractions that rarely appear in pure form in reality but which are useful for teasing out the logic of various intellectual and normative positions.
I refer to these narrative types as the Traditionalist Narrative, the Colonialist Narrative, and the Ethiopianist Narrative. I do not attempt to provide a social location for the persons and groups subscribing more or less to each of these narratives. It should be noted, however, that the Oromo population I have in mind does not include the Oromos living in Kenya, but does include all the Ethiopian Oromoswho live in the Diaspora and are thereby part of the reconfigured Ethiopian nation that I have depicted elsewhere (Levine 2004). As an approximation to those representing these ideal-typical narratives, I would suggest the names, respectively, of Gemetchu Megerssa, Asafa Jalata, and Fikre Tolossa.
Whatever form these Oromo narratives take, they presume a tradition of political culture that includes reference to common themes. These themes are common for being derived ultimately from the traditional institutions of the gadaa-qaaluu system. Among Oromo groups that have diverged radically from the traditional culture, these themes have been altered to some extent. These groups would include the five Ghibe kingdoms of the southwest and the Leeqaa Neqamtee and Leeqaa Qellem kingdoms in Wallaga, which switched to a more traditional type of African monarchical system; those who converted recently to a radical Evangelical Christian belief system; and those who converted recently to a radical fundamentalist type of Islam. But the great majority of the Oromo in Ethiopia–those who did not convert to authoritarian political or religious systems–manifest each of the cultural themes, which I gloss below as egalitarian ethos, communal solidarity, democratic structures, separation of powers, and civility in deliberation.
THEMES OF OROMO POLITICAL CULTURE
Egalitarian Ethos
In nearly all areas of social relations, Oromo tradition deflates hierarchy in favor of egalitarian norms. Although differentials of rank and power exist throughout Oromo society, Oromo custom tends to minimize their significance. Delegated authority tends to be balanced by a countervailing authority held by others. Those who occupy prestigious positions tend to be regarded ambivalently, and are treated with humor if not ridicule. Thus, although the father in Oromo families plays the role of patriarchal figure, good-humored, bantering relationships with his wife and children offset the deference due him. Men with high status in local communities are not deferred to obsequiously or automatically, nor are they entitled to order anyone about other than their own wives and children. Among the Matcha, when neighbors meet to discuss problems of communal interest or settle disputes, they are guided by the notion of qite, an extension of the word for ‘equal.’ In the words of Herbert Lewis, qite
stresses the ideal that when they come together, all the members of the group are equal. In fact, some men have more influence and esteem than others; they speak more, they direct the flow of the discussion, and their words count more heavily than those of others present. But the ideal does reflect important aspects of the reality: each member of the community is invited to and expected to take part in community affairs. (Lewis [1970]2000, 173)
The institutions of the gadaa system promoted an ethos of egalitarianism in many ways. By keeping adjacent generations at a distance from one another, gadaa protects the filial generation from excessive control by the paternal.
As soon as the paternal luba class comes to power, their sons receive their own separate identity by being initiated and given names. As the paternal class goes through the grades of semiretirement, the filial class becomes more independent and better organized. By the time the filial generation is ready to assume power, the paternal class proceeds to a grade of full retirement. (Levine [1974]2000, 138)
Gadaa also structures political relations in an anti-authoritarian direction. It does so through the regular circulation of elites, such that no ruling class is in power for more than eight years. The Tulema Oromo represent this in a traditional ceremony where the leader of the ruling class, after several years in office, climbs a platform of stones to proclaim the laws as usual only to be shouted down and ceremonially pushed off: a reminder that his rule is soon to end (Knutsson 1967, 174-5). Another respect in which powers are balanced appears in the positioning of moieties. Thus, the constitution of the Borana ruling council assures a painstaking balance of representatives from the two moieties. And throughout gadaa younger men, who on the basis of age alone should defer to older men, often hold more prestigious positions than their elders. In sum, Oromo customs see to it that no position of superiority puts a man beyond control or criticism from his fellows .
Communal Solidarity
The weaving of Oromo relations into so many corporate bodies – patrilineal families, local communities, age sets, generational classes – has traditionally had the effect of heightening the Oromos’ sense of membership in solidary groups. The pursuit of individual interests among the Oromo has tended not to be obtained at the expense of their neighbors –as was the case typically in the North due to competition over land and for honorific appointments–and the satisfaction of personal success often redounds to the greater glory of their lineage.
As I noted in Greater Ethiopia, numerous observers describe a cooperative spirit in which most activities are carried out:
Settlements are constructed and cattle are grazed and watered by members of the olla groups working in concert. Among the agricultural Guji, sowing and harvesting similarly are carried out on a communal, cooperative basis. Comparable cooperative patterns appear in Oromo military expeditions. The Oromo formed age regimens, or chibra, which collectively undertook to collect supplies for the campaign, elect leaders recruit scouts, and distribute booty. (Levine [1974]2000, 141)
A disposition toward social inclusiveness forms a corollary to the theme of solidarity. It has enabled Oromos who converted to Christianity and to Islam to live amiably together, even intermarry, among themselves and with those who adhere to traditional Oromo beliefs. This is manifest notably in the Oromo practice of incorporation through adoption (guddiffachaa). Over generations this practice enabled Oromos to integrate groups from other ethnies such as Konso and Wolleyta and assimilate immigrants, through their “genius for assimilation” (Hassen 1994, 21.
Democratic Structures
Recent accounts of the gadaa assemblies by Asmarom Legesse (2000) and Marco Bassi (2005) identify several respects in which traditional Oromo institutions exhibit exemplary democratic procedures. Laws stand above all men – even the Abba Gadaa is subject to same punishments as other citizens if he transgresses. Historic precedent in both judicial and legislative matters is taken as exemplary model for future action. Despite this, laws are always considered man-made institutions, not god-given; therefore they are mutable, amendable, open to discussion and reevaluation. Accountability of leaders is paramount: constituents judge the competence of their leaders, and when found lacking leaders are subject to penalty.
In the gadaa system, hereditary and elected leaders serve complementary but separate roles. Leaders are elected for a single term of finite length, with the expectation that they will turn over the reigns of governance smoothly to a properly appointed successor cohort. A trial period between election and investiture, during which leaders are elected to lower office and promoted to higher office on confirmation of competence, ensures that no politician takes office on the basis of campaign bluster alone. Strict rules regarding representation maintain balanced opposition and distribution of power between moieties. A rule of staggered succession prevents transitional crises; discontinuity of authority subverts entrenchment of a single party, while oversight and counseling help prevent dilettantism and the errors of inexperience. Alternate age set groups form alliances with one another, transforming linear hierarchy into balanced opposition.
Separation of Powers
Traditional Oromo structures ensure that power can never be concentrated at a single spot. They embody a unique system of allocating political power equitably across generations: systematic allocation of responsibility to those in childhood, adulthood, and old age ensures access for all people and brings balance to the public realm.
Most tellingly, ritual and political spheres are maintained in a dynamic relationship of separation and interaction. The ritual sphere is headed by a qaaluu, who stays in office for life, whose office is hereditary, and who holds authority over one moiety, that is, only half of the tribe. Ritual participants are barred from carrying weapons and indeed wholly excluded from military deliberation. The political sphere is headed by an elected body, known as the gadaa class, strictly speaking. This class holds authority over the entire Borana population, yet holds office for eight years only. Participants in political ceremonies are required to bring weapons with them and take full responsibility for warfare.
Ritual and political elements commingle in varying degrees. The authority hierarchy between the Abba Gadaa and the Qaaluu varies according to the context of their interaction. The institutions themselves have spatial organizations that are separate from their functional roles: the Gadaa, for example, is a mobile institution, while the Qaaluu is traditionally sedentary.
Civility in Deliberation
To facilitate mutual respect in democratic deliberations, various customs encourage civility in public discourse. The opening language in the traditional gadaa assemblies encourages speakers to avoid provoking resentments and to promote peace (nagaa). Proverbial saying about right conduct enjoin participants not to be provocative or use the floor to upstage or "score points" against others. Speakers are expected not to make accusations or to show anger./3/ What is more, the pacing of decision-making in deliberative assemblies ensures that decisions to go on the warpath are not rash or hot-headed, and the fact that policy decisions are necessarily made with serious regard to precedent iterates the injunction to base deliberations on a highly respectful discursive field.
VIEWS OF THE OROMO PAST
Even apart from the need to fashion functional narratives in the present period, it was always of particular importance for Oromo males to possess a living sense of the past. Oromo tradition draws nourishment not only from Oromo language and culture, but also to a substantial extent on myths of origins, historical memories, and a vivid sense of the continuing impact of the past on present events and fortunes.
The Traditionalist Narrative
What I present as the Traditionalist narrative focuses on the sociocultural system embodied by the Oromo in their ancestral homeland in the south central part of present-day Ethiopia. The chief features of this system are well known and need not be repeated here./4/ Suffice it to say that this narrative hinges on a narrative that was embedded in its key institutions, the gadaa system of generational classes with a duration of eight years, the core symbolic status of the qaaluu, and an octennial general assembly, the gumi gayo, that constituted the ultimate authority for all groups represented in it.
The gadaa system was nourished by the recollection of genealogical lines involving multiples of eighty years, since each new ruling class was obliged to function with reference to its antecedent class, located a remove of two hemicycles of eight years each. Oromo time-keepers (ayyantu) and learned laymen have reckoned genealogical lineages with depths of up to four to five centuries. The centerpiece of these narratives concerns the sequence of leaders installed and the special laws proclaimed in gadaa assemblies every eight years for as far back as the best memories of the oldest elders can reconstruct. Associated with each of the ruling luba classes might be some special events, or laws that distinguished their regime.
The main channel that links present and past generations flows through a structure formed by the ties between the classes of fathers and sons across many generations. This structure – the gogessa, or patriclass – constitutes a collective entity worthy of special homage. The gogessa carries a significant shared past and bears a special historical destiny. The historical destiny of the gogessa is represented by the concept of dachi, “the mystical influence of history on the present course of events,” as Asmarom Legesse described it in his first brilliant analysis of this complex system (Legesse 1973, 194). Dachi is transmitted either from specific ancestors or from an entire ancestral gadaa class to one of its successors. Indeed, one particular ancestral gadaa class–-the one that was in power thirty-five gadaa periods, or 280 years, earlier–is thought to have a determining influence (dachi) upon the fate of its latter-day successor.
The class currently in power is obliged to avoid the chief misfortunes which befell its ancestors or to repeat the outstanding successes. At the same time it is setting a precedent which will affect its patriclass descendants thirty-six gada generations in the future. (Levine [1974]2000, 136)
As Legesse demonstrated, the operation of this system over time made it increasingly difficult to follow the norms that enabled it to function. Because of the two rules that governed recruitment into the gadaa classes – the rule of a forty-year interval between paternal and filial classes and the rule that no sons could be born before the man reached the fortieth year of the cycle – there was a cumulative tendency for the population to be distributed into classes occupying increasingly advanced grades in the gadaa cycle. This led both to the creation of age-homogeneous groups, the hariyya, needed to provide an ample supply of young warriors, and to the designation of new roles for the semi-retired grades, whereby they serve as ritual experts and "junior" councilors, a sort of cadre of eminences grises.
Such adaptations enabled the gadaa system to continue, in spite of internal strains it generated, among the Boran, the Guji, and the Wallaga Oromo. To my knowledge, there are no reliable studies about how changes of the past half-century have affected their historical outlook. Nevertheless, it will be articulated by any contemporary narrative recounted by an Oromo elder that presents Oromo tradition in some idealized form and represents the central features of contemporary Oromo life as so many efforts to preserve and sustain it. A Traditionalist narrative of that sort would recount the playing out of gadaa customary practices over generations, and would reconstruct the great Oromo expansions since the 16th century as driven by an injunction to go on butta (raiding wars) every eight years, which led to a series of conquests to the north, west, and east of their traditional homeland in and around the Bali region.
This narrative mode can be found as well among Oromo who have replaced traditional Oromo institutions and beliefs, referring to their paramount deity Waaqa as Allah or Egziabher instead. For many Muslim Oromo, the institutional pilgrimage every eight years to the great Qaaluu was replaced by the custom of annual pilgrimages in honor of the cult of Shaikh Hussein (Gnamo 1991). Certain Sharia laws could be enfolded as part of the Oromo legal complex known as seera. Even the founder of an Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromia changed his name to Sheikh Jaarraa, taking thereby the name that forms the basis of the traditional Oromo calendar, since the term jaarraa represents the ceremony that marks the end of the gadaa cycle, where the outgoing, luba class, passes power to the incoming gadaa class. And among Muslim Oromo the community of True Believers (umma) has been folded into the notion of the community of all Oromo (oromumma) (Gnamo 2002).
The Colonialist Narrative
While the Traditionalist celebrates the time-honored and continued functioning of whatever can be retrieved and protected of the sacred practices of the Oromo past, the Colonialist Narrative emphasizes the suppression of this past and the people who bore it. This narrative resembles what has been called a lachrymose narrative in accounts of Jewish history, one that makes episodes of victimization and suffering the benchmarks of their historical experience. As such it attends to a different order of facts than that of the Traditionalist narrative, which focuses rather on positive accomplishments.
The time frame of the Colonialist narrative is necessarily shorter, although its "prehistory" can be lengthy. The extreme version would hold that since time immemorial, the Oromo people inhabited vast areas of Ethiopia. From the sixteenth century onward, they migrated into north, east, and western parts of the country. In the course of the nineteenth century, however, the Oromo were overrun, their traditions suppressed, and their status reduced to that of serfs. They remained in this unrelieved suppressed status for the next hundred years. Despite the egalitarian pretensions of the regimes of the Derg and EPRDF, the Oromo to this day remain second-class citizens in a country of which they constitute the second largest if not the largest ethnic minority and have arguably become victims of a disproportionate percentage of human rights violations.
The benchmarks of this narrative would include the martial victories of Tewodros against the Oromo in the 1860s, the defeat of autonomous Oromo groups thanks to superior military technology acquired by Yohannes and Menelik from the British in the wake of efforts to curb Tewodros, and the consequent appropriation of vast Oromo lands by Amhara and Tigrayan nefteññas and the exploitation of Oromo who became tenants. They include the centralizing efforts of Haile Selassie who carried out an extensive program of Amharization, which led to such changes as the erasure of traditional Oromo names (Finfine to Addis Ababa, Bishoftu to Debra Zeit, and the like) and laws forbidding the use of Oromiffa in publications. An effort to redress these grievances was carried out with the Mecha-Tulema Association in the 1960s, but it was brutally suppressed.
The Ethiopianist Narrative
This narrative presumes a broader perspective both in time and in space than the first two. It views the emergence of distinctive Oromo language and culture through a multi-millennial process of differentiation and interaction from a common Semito-Cushitic cultural matrix. More proximately, it views the Oromo expansions of the sixteenth century as advancing the process of building a modern multiethnic national state.
Thanks to their openness for adoption, assimilation, and intermarriage, Oromo settlers blended readily with the peoples living in the areas that they penetrated. Their characteristic openness and friendliness made it easy for newcomers to join their communities. They readily found ways of relating to peoples near whom they settled once the antagonisms of battle were temporarily or permanently set aside. Their penchant for affiliating with others disposed them to adopt the cultures of other as well as to share their own culture with outsiders. Oromos became Christians in the north and Muslims in the east; they established kingdoms in the southwest and farming communities in Shoa. It was thanks to their interaction with Amharic-speakers with whom they came in contact that Amharic, originally a purely Semitic language derived from Ge’ez, Tigrinya, Arabic, and Hebrew, came to incorporate significant East Cushitic linguistic elements–syntax, vocabularies, and idioms–from Oromiffa.
In the south, these intermixtures involved whole groups. Thus, Oromos who settled near Gurage adopted the ensete culture of their neighbors and came to be teased by other Oromo as “half-Gurage.” The Otu branch of the Guji assimilated Sidamo culture so thoroughly that many came to speak only Sidaminya. On the other hand, the Guji Oromo readily incorporated groups of Sidamo and Wallayta people through the fiction of adoptive patrilineal affiliation. As Legesse summarizes this process,
The Oromo seemed to assimilate the conquered populations as frequently as they were absorbed by them. In this process the [Oromiffa]-speaking region of central Ethiopia developed into a veritable cultural corridor. It opened up extensive cultural exchanges between societies, which would otherwise have remained isolated and atomistic. (1973, 9)
Beyond this steady stream of cultural intermixing with other peoples of Ethiopia, the Oromo moved to become significant actors at the national level. The Ethiopianist Narrative highlights the fact that Oromos penetrated the national political arena centered at the Imperial Court from the late 16th century onward. They served already in the army of Emperor Sertsa Dingil (1563-97) in his battles against the Turkish invader, and it was only with the help of his Oromo friends and followers that Susneyos recovered the throne in 1603 (Hassen 1994). And from the eighteenth century on,” Abir notes, “they became enmeshed in the already intricate web of the country (1968, 73)(
Although the Oromo and Amhara interacted in many ways for generations, the process gathered momentum with the escape of future Emperor Bakaffa from the prison fortress at Wohni, from whence he went to live among the Yejju Oromo of Gojjam. Bakaffa grew up in accordance with the Oromo culture and became fluent in Oromiffa. As emperor (1721-30) he filled the court with his Oromo friends and soldiers, and sent Oromo fighters to rule over rebellious Amhara in Begemdir and Gojjam. His wife Empress Mentwab arranged for their son Emperor Iyasu II to marry an Oromo princess, Wubit (Wabi), daughter of the Wallo Oromo chief Amito. Their son, Iyoas, thereby became Ethiopia’s first emperor with Oromo blood. Iyoas grew up speaking Oromiffa more fluently than Amharic. On reaching adulthood he assembled a Royal Guard consisting of three thousand Oromo soldiers and placed them under the command of his Oromo uncles Biralle and Lubo. Queen Wubit also appointed her brothers and other kinsmen to high positions throughout the empire.
When imperial power declined following Iyoas (during the Era of the Princes, zemene mesafint), power shifted to the Tigrean lord Ras Mikael Sehul; after Mikael’s death, the power behind the throne was lodged in the court of a Yejju Oromo chieftain Ras Ali I, whose power derived from the support of Oromos in many provinces. W. Cornwallis Harris observed in 1840 that the Wallo Oromo “form the stoutest bulwark of the decayed empire” (1844, 354-5). Ras Ali’s brother and then his nephew, Ras Gugsa, continued to form a strong political center, with the support of both Amhara and Oromo fighters. Later royal figures with Oromo blood included Negus Tekle Haymanot of Gojam, Atse Menelik II, Itege Taitu Betul, Atse Haile Selassie I, and Itege Mennen.
From intermarriage with royal lines, high honorific positions, and military appointments, the Oromo became central to the creation of the modern Ethiopian nation under Emperor Menelik. Menelik’s historic encounter with invading Italians, just as Haile Selassie’s four decades later, depended enormously on the hearty participation of Oromo generals and Oromo soldiers and supporters, including Ras Gobena, Ras Mekonnen Gugsa, Dejjach Balcha Safo, and Negus Michael of Wallo . The fact that eminent Oromo figures like General Mulugeta Buli and Minister Yilma Deressa played such central roles in his regime was not anomalous or tokenism, but a natural expression of what had come be a multiethnic mix of the new ruling elite.
OPTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
As a result of the tumultuous changers that their country experienced over the past half century, all Ethiopians today confront a need to make decisions about the direction of their future political engagement. How they construe the past has implications for current and future political realities. For many, those decisions will be colored by an identity that is primarily Ethiopian, not ethnic. These citizens include the millions of Ethiopians who do not identify with any single ethnic identity because of their mixed parentage and/or because they have grown up with patriotic sentiments oriented toward strong national symbols.
The options of those whose self-concept is primarily ethnic are likely to reflect diverse narratives, as among the Maale studied by Donham. This is surely the case for Oromo people, given the complexity of their historical experience. I have tried here to describe ideal types of three narratives that apply to Oromo citizens. Awareness of the different paths embodied in the three narratives I have sketched may be useful in facilitating personal and communal deliberations. In making these choices, it may be of further value to consider the symbolic and normative implications of each one of those paths.
The Traditionalist Narrative identifies Oromo culture-bearers as carrying a distinctive legacy of important sacred values. It enjoins a course of action directed at sustaining and strengthening whatever can be preserved of the traditional institutions of the Oromo Gadaa system. Toward that end they should maintain a certain distance from the political center of the Ethiopian nation. They should do whatever can be done to resist the alienation of their land, and to promote the survival and rebirth of herds so important to their traditional lifestyle. The Traditionalist path could take a purely cultural form, with emphasis on the rituals associated with qaaluu and ceremonies that symbolize the continuing values of loyalty to gogessa and beyond that to the community of Oromo (oromumma). It could take political form, but that is only ambiguously Oromo. Their penchant, after all, although particularistic, is also be inclusive; separatism would be one plausible path; but so would one in which the notion of adoption were pushed much wider context. As Gemetchu Megerssa reflects, Oromo tradition should “not only be viewed as part of a static traditional past, but rather as an area that is being continually and dynamically constructed by the wider experience that is part of the present” (Megerssa 1996, 98).
The Colonialist Narrative identifies the Oromo experience as essentially one of victims of a century-and-a-half of unrelieved subjugation. Unlike the Traditionalist Narrative, it encourages actions that engage fully in contest with the Ethiopian national center. At the very least, it promotes a struggle to ensure adequate representation in the Ethiopian Parliament and in the federal bureaucracy, and to maximize full and genuine autonomy for the Oromia region. In the words of one of its most eloquent proponents, it enjoins a "national liberation struggle [that] will continue between Oromia and Ethiopia until the Oromo nation freely decides its political future by uprooting Ethiopian settler colonialism" (Jalata 1993, 197).
The Ethiopianist Narrative identifies the Oromo as participants in a five-century process in which diverse ethnies interacted to form a multiethnic national society. In this view, differences among diverse Oromo groups are not to be suppressed or denied as compromising an integral Oromo nation, but as constituting strands of the tapestry of ethnies that constitute Ethiopia and the Horn. The opportunities for Oromo to contribute to the building of this nation have never been greater. In a period struggling to institutionalize pluralistic democracy and multicultural diversity, Oromo rhetoric and self-understanding should be revised to include appreciation of the many Oromo contributions to building the modern Ethiopian nation, and Oromo customs could be deliberately invoked and adopted to civilize the conduct of members of the national parliament and other deliberative bodies.
If something like this variety of narratives is acknowledged–and other narratives, which I have not articulated as such–the question remains: how are those committed to this array of narratives to relate to one another? In some contexts–Greeks versus Turks, Arabs versus Jews, Pakistanis versus Indians, and even, some might say, among extremist EPRDFers versus CUDers–differences of this sort have engendered mutual hatreds and uncompromising assertions of theirs being the only right point of view. But that is not the Oromo way to dealing with differences. Oromos generally insist on listening to each voice, to hearing everyone's story. As Gnamo wisely points out, "Oromo do have a centuries-long culture of tolerance and, as evidence, one can say that the Oromo do not have pejorative terms [such] as aramane (heathens) to qualify others" (2002, n.4).
Suppose Oromos listen to one another as participants in a Gumi Gayo. It might appear then that each of these narratives reflects the actual experience of important actors; that each retains important values; and that exclusive attention to just one neglects the values embodied in the others. If the airing of diverse narratives is carried out in that spirit, then perhaps Oromos can contribute not only constructively to the organization of discourse in Northeast Africa, but in an unparalleled way to contemporary efforts to organize dialogue in the global community.
NOTES
1 In the words of Merera Gudina, “History [had] to be re-written so that it would serve the political interests of the hitherto marginalized groups” (2003, 94)
2 Donham himself proposes a typology of divergent responses to modernist interventions: Traditionalist, Anti-Modernist, and Modernist. This typology bears a family resemblance to the five-fold typology that I proposed in Wax and Gold: the Traditionalist, the Modernist, the Skeptic, the Conciliatory, and the Pragmatist (Levine 1965, 12-13). It is even closer to the typology I shall present in this paper.
3 When tempers flared during a large public meeting of Diasporan Oromo in Minneapolis in 2006, the session chair called upon one of the elders to bless the assembly. The elder obliged, showering the assembly with a very long stream of benedictory oration, following which the debate resumed in a more even-tempered way.
4 For a summary of the system and related literature, see Levine [1974]2000, 129-34.
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