What is the remedy to rise above tribalism/localism?

By Gurraachaa Akka-Waaq | February 26, 2015

For many years, I pleaded to the diaspora Oromo to fight localism (Gandummaa) and the religious culture that condemns the Oromo identity. I did this because localism destroys the Oromo universal value and doesn’t benefit even those who practice it.

We all know that rift had grown between the Oromo since Islam and Christianity came to our region. Christians and Muslims do not eat together, they do not worship at the same place, they do not speak the same language to the God they were taught. Those Oromos who never accepted Islam or Christianity were insulted, demeaned and heartbroken when they were name called as Gallaa, Pagan or Kafir. As long as these ideologies convince black man to act like an Arab or like a European, he will remain enemy to his own African identity and heritage.

In addition to these borrowed world views, localism and tribalism have strained and broken our relationships. We blame the Habashas for introducing the cancer of localist malice that now canker our minds and hearts. But the truth is that localism and tribalism has done more damage to our souls by allowing envy and hatred that has affected our aspiration to re-build our Oromummaa. These destructive feeling slowly gave birth to contention and resentment and every Oromo locality has been equally affected by this cancer. Though we feel hurt when someone does it, we do not know each of us are practicing tribalism/localism in so many ways. For example, it is quite easy for us to judge others and even get angry at them, but we all assign dark motives to others actions in order to justify our own feelings of resentment.

Of course, we know what we say or do is wrong sometimes but we also feel that the things we do or say are perfectly reasonable as long as it is applied to someone else. We can so clearly and easily see the harmful results that come when we show narrow attitudes toward others.

Let’s look at this from neutral ground. Assume that an Oromo from eastern Oromia printed Mul’is abbaa gada’s picture on a T-shirt and started wearing it or even selling to other Oromos from west or central Oromia. Here, I see nothing wrong with this action since one only knows and appreciates what he/she grew up hearing or seeing. In this case, the rest of us should appreciate the effort and support such an endeavor.

However, if we end up judging the man who printed the picture of the person he knows so closely, it is ourselves who showed prejudice against such noble effort no matter how we justify our unfounded anger and judgment thinking that our judgment is reliable and appropriate. Though we cannot look into another’s heart, we assume that we know a bad motive or even a bad person when we see one. We make exceptions when it comes to our own bitterness because we feel that, in our case, we have all the information we need to hold someone else in contempt or guilty.

So, how can we identify wrong from right and crush the attitude of hate, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm?

The answer to this question is, simply to stop judging others and replace judgmental thoughts and feelings with a heart full of understanding and respect. We are all brothers and sisters who came from one family.

I don’t know exactly how to articulate this point of not judging others with sufficient eloquence, passion, and persuasion to make it stick. But I can quote a word I recently saw on a bumper sticker of a car in front of me. It was attached to the back of a car whose driver appeared to be a little rough, but the words on the sticker taught me an insightful lesson. It reads, “Don’t judge me because I sin differently than you.”

We must recognize that we are all imperfect that we all make all kinds of mistakes every day. I recall myself making decision about people. That was when I was a teen age boy where I felt that people passed all kinds of judgment against me. I recall women holding on to their purses so tight whenever they see me entering those yellow buses that I used to ride from home (Gullalle) to Piyasa or Markato of Finfinnee. Their attitude made me so angry since I know I was innocent of the ideas I felt they had in mind for me. Now, I am matured enough to put myself in those people’s shoes and and ask myself what would have I done if I was one of those people.

Passing judgment against ourselves is not easy. In fact, for most of us it requires a major change in our attitude and way of thinking even a change of heart. Most importantly, we must ask ourselves about our own contribution to our liberation movement. If each of us roll up our sleeves and labored with all our heart, might, mind, and strength to accomplish what is required from each of us, the little Tigre tribe would have never forced us out of our country and live refugee life.

I suppose there are a variety of reasons why we left our country and become refugees but the majority left because they hate to see the Abyssinians evil killing and jailing practice against the Oromo mass.

It is also true that we’ve got very selfish individual Oromos who seek their own interests and pleasure above all else. The central question for the Tigre Dogs and for those who are born selfish is “What’s in it for me?” I am sure most of you have seen such an attitude in all kinds of Oromos, be they are Oromo Liberation organizations members, community leadership members, business people, students,
refugees, girls or boys. We have seen so many who seek self-service over our common interest with priorities centered on their own recognition and pleasure. For some reason, almost all Oromos who live in Faranji countries suffer from such selfishness.

I am sure that past Oromo generations had their own struggles with variations of egotism and narcissism, but I think today we are giving them serious competition. It is not a coincidence that the Oxford Dictionary recently proclaimed “selfie” as the word of the year.

Naturally, we all have a desire for recognition, and there is nothing wrong with relaxing and enjoying ourselves. But when seeking “gain and praise” as central part of our motivation, we will miss all the points we preach about Oromo unity and liberty. So far, our attitudes have caused us to sleepwalk through so many seasons of selfishness, lie, deception and prejudice. For example, I have seen 70 years old men lying just to defend someone from their tribe. Obviously, they do not think such practice is a lie since they began doing it from thin threads of partiality and then grew into repeated action that weave themselves into thick bonds of habit. In fact, that is how localism, tribalism, religion, region etc habits started and reached their current potentials.

These binding chains of prejudice, lie and partiality have many forms and now they assist our common enemies. As a result, our common enemy, the colonizing tribe has many favorite tools that it uses to rob us of our divine potential to accomplish our mission of liberating ourselves.

What is the solution?

The first thing we must understand is that partiality, prejudice and rushing to judgment are so much easier to prevent than to cure. The first step to such action is to avoid doing things that we should not do at the first place. The best defense against judging others is never to start. That means to avoid rushing to judgment is the way to liberate oneself from localism. I understand that there are many competing priorities we face in life. We all want to accomplish certain thing by arriving at the place we want to arrive, be that is education, reaching our refugee country destinations, making money, getting married etc. That’s why we often devote our best efforts in pursuit of self interests or localist identity issues. All these things may be good and honorable, but are they leaving us room for what should be our highest priorities?

When I think of death, I feel like everything else in life should be secondary to the greatest priorities we all should have. That priority in my judgment is working for something big and great, i.e history. Nobody lives forever and nobody takes money or fame with oneself to his grave. The biggest thing one can give the upcoming generation is freedom and good legacy. So, how about fighting selfishness so that our common identity and history will live forever!