Asafa Jaalata Podcasts
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Prof. Asafa Jalata Department of Sociology, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA.
Abstract
In his book, Brian J. Yates (2020) overgeneralizes the experiences
of a few Oromo collaborator individuals from the Tulama and
Wallo Oromo to the affairs of these Oromo groups. It claims that
the Tulama and Wallo Oromo participated in the construction of
the modern Ethiopian state between 1855 and 1913 and, in the
process, became Habasha by abandoning their Oromo culture and
identity. If the colonization of peoples would transform the
cultures and uniqueness of the conquered peoples, today, the
entire world population would have become the English and the
French by rejecting their respective cultures and identities. But
colonialism only creates collaborative classes from the dominated
population groups to use them as intermediaries to facilitate the
exploitation and oppression of the subaltern groups. The Tulama
and Wallo Oromo case is not different. The Oromo intermediaries
from these Oromo groups were assimilated to the
Amhara/Habasha culture and state to promote their interests and
the interest of their colonial masters at the cost of the Oromo
masses. By using the critical and political economy analytical
approaches, this review essay debunks the claims that the author
of the book makes by ignoring the history, culture, and identity of
the Oromo people, which have been suffering
under Habasha colonialism in general, and Amhara colonialism in
particular, for more than a century.
Keywords
Tulama and Wallo Oromo, Oromia, Gobana and Menelik, Habasha, Competing
Nationalisms, Oromo, Amhara-Tigray, The Manz/Shawa Kingdom, The Ethiopian
Colonial State
Share and Cite:
Jalata, A. (2021) Review Essay: Are the Tulama and Wallo
Oromo Habasha?. Sociology Mind, 11, 125-146. doi: 10.4236/sm.2021.114010.
1. Introduction
The author alleges that the Northern Oromo, namely the Tulama and Wallo
Oromo, became Habasha through cultural and political interactions with the
Amhara kingdom of Manz, northern Shawa, by abandoning their cultural norms
and Oromo identity and formed the modern Ethiopian state between 1855 and
1913. His specific objective is to liberate the Tulama and Wallo Oromo history
from Oromo nationalism, which mobilizes the larger Oromo society. By including
them in the Habasha peoplehood or community, Yates claims to reject ethno-racial
categories that essentialize Oromo and Amhara histories and undermine the reality
of “the multiethnic Habasha cultural community in creating modern Ethiopia.”
The author criticizes Ethiopian studies for using ethno-racial categories and Oromo
studies to silence “the Northern Oromo groups who played a role in creating
modern Ethiopia.” By rejecting the concept of ethnonational or ethnic categories
such as Oromo, Amhara, and Tigrayan, Yates defines the Habasha as a cultural
community. However, Yates does not explain how the relationship between the
indigenous Oromo and the expanding Amhara gradually emerged and evolved into
conflict, series of wars, colonization, and contradictions. He considers the Tulama
and Wallo Oromo as raw material from which the Habasha constructed their
peoplehood, nation, and state. If, as he claims, both the Northern Oromo and the
Amhara and Tigray ethnonational groups, which he calls the Habasha, jointly
constructed the Ethiopian state, why has this state continued to entirely reflect the
Amhara culture, identity, language, and religion? Or did the Oromo culture,
identity, religion, and language lack the substance needed to construct a state?Support the show
