Research Paper: The Current Ethiopian Federal Monolingual Language Policy is Inequitable & Shows the Politics of Marginalization, Not Representation

A research paper by Milkessa Midega* discusses about the inequitable access the current Ethiopian monolingual federal working-language policy has brought to non-Amharic speakers, and shows the policy is based on the politics of marginalization, not representation. Due to the monolingual federal working-language policy, the research shows the Oromo make up only 18% of the federal permanent bureaucracy while they are at least 35% of the total population in Ethiopia. The paper also notes that the monolingual federal working-language policy has fueled the recent rise of Oromo nationalism and asserts that “exclusion of any ethnic group from public power, resources and prestige will never bring peace and development to a country.” To avoid such discriminatory and exclusionary federal bureaucracy, the research paper recommends that Afan Oromo be adopted as a co-equal federal working-language with Amharic.

The full research paper can be accessed on the “Oromo Studies Collection @ Gadaa.com”(which is Gadaa.com’s section where published scholarly works (or unpublished seminar works) are archived for evidence-based discourses on Oromo and Horn of African affairs.

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* Titled “The politics of language and representative bureaucracy in Ethiopia: the case of Federal Government,” and published on the “Journal of Public Administration and Policy Research,” Vol. 7, No. 1 (2015), pp. 15-23.
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Before the conquest of Finfinne by Menelik’s army from Ankober, Oromos of Finfinne had conducted their official Gadaa and other societal duties using Afan-Oromo. It was only in 1889 (with the conquest of Finfinne) that Afan-Oromo was banned from usage. This ban must be lifted up in Finfinne.