By DJ | November 25, 2014
I listened to Engineer Daniel Namara’s long tales of his involvements in the political and social struggle of the Oromo nation. I’m sure Daniel has played a major role in some of the events that transpired in Oromia and within the Oromo Diaspora communities. It is often challenging to navigate tapestry of memories, weaving together anecdotes, images and incidents. His narratives of Minnesota days are rather selective and self-serving.
Prior to Engineer Daniel Namara’s arrival in Minnesota, there were many of us Oromos at the University of Minnesota begging in fall of academic 1973- 1974. I believe it was the begging of the revolution in the Empire and those of us who departed that wretched land remember being horrified by the random slaughter of students and members of the Imperial regime. Obbo Daniel was lucky to be a part of those brief renaissances of Oromo cultural and political episodes and was also lucky to have escaped the horror that engulfed the Empire! The continuing saga of Oromo tragedy in the Empire, the disruption of our sense, the dislocation of our people and our conflicted identity in the diaspora from generation upon generation is a story to be told. However, having selective memories is ahistorical.
After fleeing to Sweden from the Empire and then to America, Obbo Daniel remembers arriving in Minneapolis at midnight to a strange and unfamiliar country. He was lucky to have known one of the Oromo trail blazers of the Oromo Diaspora in the Twin Cities, my friend Obbo Tasissa Motti. He summons him to come to the airport where he just arrived and Obbo Tassisa without hesitation goes to the airport and welcomes him to the Land of Ten Thousand lakes with the amenable manner only Tasisa can evoke!
Welcome to America and Minnesota obbo Daniel! A bit of history about the Oromos in Minneapolis/St. Paul(Twin Cities) prior to your arrival is proper. You see, those of us who were at U of M during the early seventies were urban kids who primarily hailed from Addis or other medium size cities in the Empire. We were keenly aware of our Orommuma but were also receptive to the multi-ethnic Ethiopian students at the University. Some of us were high school friends, others we just met at the U of M. Those of us who came from the Oromo nation knew each other well, socialized together and occasionally spoke in Afaan Oromo. Academic life was demanding but we had time to bond as Oromos and also as “Ethiopians”
I distinctly remember students who were 100 % Oromo at U of M during those years: Obbo Tassissa Motti, (from western Oromia) obbo Gudataa Asfaw, (from central Oromia) obbo Sisay Tilahun (from western Oromia) obbo Qetselaa Fayissa (from central Oromia) obbo Bisratt Alemayeh, (from Addis) Obbos Hassan and Elias Gonjji from eastern Oromia) and this writer from Addis by way of Rift Valley! We all knew each other well and sat at round-tables in Belegan Hall between classes and bantered about myriad of issues that was engulfing the Empire! We spoke in Afaan Oromo, English and Amharic. Some of our friends who came from multiple heritage whom we jokingly called Okappiis (an African antelope that has shades of giraffe but body of antelope) (half Oromo and half other ethnicity) were our friends, were receptive to favorite topics of the Empires politics we expounded. Our senses of cultural and national identities were conveyed through speaking Affan Oromo. We were in our teens and were also awestruck by the glittery imagery of America. The Empire was in the throes of revolution, for the Americans, the war in Vietnam was entering the final phases of its horrific violence and the hippie counter-culture of youth movement of drug use, boundless free love and the social-political tensions that arose in the 1960s was ebbing!
For those of us from the Empire, the brutality demonstrated by the “revolutionaries” toward former Imperial regime members and student activists were of despair and we disdained the military junta that usurped the power from the ruling elites. Most of us were members of the Ethiopian Students Union of North America, or as it was popularly known ESUNA. The only non-member Oromo at that time was Obbo Tasissa Motti and he was never bamboozled by those Ethiopian honchos of new left movements at U of M. Even those of us who were willingly joined ESUNA later on found out that the stance of non-Oromo members regarding the subject citizens of the Empire was awfully patronizing!
The whirlwinds of social movements and political insurrections of the 1960s and 1970s that was blowing globally and, in our context, in the Horn of Africa, was a harbinger of larger events and incoherent episodes that culminated in the destruction of the best and brightest generation that the miserable Empire had produced! Through the student movement, we sought to negotiate the differing perspectives we held about the raisondeter of Ethiopian state and its inorganic amalgamation of nations and nationalities! We questioned our role and place in this Empire in which we found ourselves both belonging and depthless alienation. As we interpreted the importance and meanings of Ethiopian state, we learned a great deal of our own identity which opened us to deeper insights about ourselves and Oromumma
The inconvenient truth did not sit well with our friends in the Ethiopian Students movements when we raised the shameful social and political conditions of Oromos than any other subject peoples, even though the Oromo nation occupy the most fertile and productive lands in the Empire!
Some of us decided to leave the Minnesota chapter of Ethiopian Students Union that was already in tatters as result of internal squabbles due to its intransigent and narrow-minded stands on crucial issues both in the Diaspora as well as in the Empire. Initially, we just dropped-out of the collective functions but maintained our friendship with those who chose to remain in the organization.
It was seasons of discontent for a lot of us who hoped to be the agent of change and revolution! The infantile ideological feuds both in the diaspora and in the Empire hobbled our adolescent minds and the incessant bickering and the overwhelming bitterness continued to sap the health of the political and social environments and for those of us from the Oromo nation, the Minnesota experience was “far-out!” (To use the lingo of that period), it was at this precise point that we divorced our Ethiopian identity and embarked to embrace Oromummaa!
Charles Dickens in his great novel, about the French Revolution and urban decay in metropolitan London of 19th century: Tale of Two Cities, said it best in his opening sentence: “It was the best of times, it was worst of times, it was age of wisdom, it was age of foolishness, it was epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was season of light, it was season of darkness, it was a spring of hope, it was winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us”
These brief quotations speak volumes of our vicarious thrill and weariness in Minnesota for the revolution that was taking place continents away in the Ethiopian Empire!
After quitting the ESUNA, Minnesota chapter, some of us were keen to start an Oromo studies club or just some sort of forum where we could exchange views on the history, culture and politics of Oromo nation and the predicament in the Empire. I remember we had series of meetings on the 4th floor of Belegan Hall in the West Bank. As I remember, Awetu Simesso prepared some presentations; although, later on he departed to Stanford for his graduate work. We heard also the formation of Oromo Students’ Union in Washington, DC; I believe it was the Washington DC Chapter that initially contacted Obbo Tasissa Moti regarding their activities and their interest to help us to organize a Minnesota chapter. It was late seventies to early eighties — that the notion of having a full-fledged Oromo Students Union, Minnesota Chapter was being realized and our deep aspiration with a vivid sense for the struggle to find our own place, identity and belonging within the ongoing rebellion against the Empire and all its virtues was fully materialized!
The team that came together for the specific purpose of the formation of Oromo Students Union in North America (OSUNA), Minnesota Chapter were: Tassisa Motti, Teferie Fufa, Daniel Namara, Jimma Tufa, Abraham Olumaa, and later on our membership grew to include new comers, Asrat Tesfa, Stephanos Madaa, and occasionally, people join and depart to other states, but above named group remained the core members until the early 1980s when our compatriots continued to arrive in Minnesota from all corners of the world’s refugee camps!
Our weekly study and organizational meetings were held at Tefera Fufa’s business office and at times, in Abraham Olumaa’s house, in the married students’ University housing complex.
After we became members of OSUNA, we became one of the core and vital members of the Oromo Students Union in North America! We even took the responsibility of editing the organization’s theoretical journal “WALDHANSSO”. The Minnesota Chapter played also substantive roles to sponsor our compatriots to settle in the Twin Cities with the help from Lutheran Churches and generous Americans Families. We were never confused about our responsibly to newly arriving refugees and Engineer Daniel Namara was the foremost advocate and helper of the newly arriving Oromo brothers and sisters. Obbo Tasissa and his wife Gerry Motti welcomed our new compatriots to their home and smoothed the transition of those who arrived in the country and culture they hardly knew nor understood. Obbo Teferie Fufa and his wife addee Agnes were always willing to take in refugees who needed temporary accommodations in their home in St. Paul and later on in Minneapolis. The American experience for many of our people was a life altering moment and with their unconquered sprit, they strolled into the splendors of America and incredibly adjusted well and grasped the nuances of contemporary metropolitan society that is enormously different than the small cities and villages they came from!
I remember the names of the first batches that arrived in Minneapolis: Barentto, Mohammed, Hassan, Abdul, Teresa and Gameduu. In the ensuing months and years, multitude of our people came and created little Oromia in Minnesota! One can say with pride and without a pause, in retrospect, the essence of our struggle was/is meaningful and the immeasurably profound sacrifices we made in helping each other and organizing as community to tell our tortured history in the Ethiopian empire distinctly emerges and it was not a singular accomplishment. It was forged through years of comradery and friendship in our lives of struggle!
DJ
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