The Ethiopian State and the Future of the Oromos: The Struggle for ‘Self-Rule and Shared-Rule’
By Merera Gudina (Ph.D)
In the historical continuum that informs the ‘making and remaking’ of modern Ethiopia, while the second half of the 19th century had been shaped by the wars of incorporation and state formation on unequal terms, in many major ways, the second half of the 20th century has been shaped by class and national struggles intended to end the existing asymmetrical relations. In the other words, while the wars of the 19th century were for the ‘making’ of modern Ethiopia, the struggles of the 20th century have been for the reversal of the same historical process that created the multi-ethnic polity of Ethiopia. To put more specifically, the class and national/ethnic struggles of 1960s and 1970s that precipitated the revolutionary upheaval of 1974, the various struggles that led to the change of regime in 1991 and the ongoing struggles for self-rule and democracy are all part of the ‘remarking’ of Ethiopia on equal terms.
A closer look at the nature of the perennial struggles for the ‘remaking’ of Ethiopia clearly shows the centrality of the competing ethnic nationalists claims for an equitable share of power and resources under the command of the state. (Merera 2002) A further closer observation also shows that the same way the regional autonomy formula of the military regime, which was informed by and presented as a socialist project failed to address the competing claims, the present regime’s ethnic based federal setup, which is designed along a liberal democracy trajectory appears to be failing to produce the desired result. That means, what is being implemented, as democratization and shared rule by the new regime to address the demands and claims of the country’s diverse communities seem to be leading to a dead-end. The central problem is the contradictory actions of the regime, its democratization and decentralization policy on paper and centralization in practice, which has failed to make a major departure from the country’s past autocratic/authoritarian political trajectory. Hence, democratization in a manner that ensures both self-rule and shared-rule in the Oromia region, which is the focus of this study, is a classical case in point, in terms of the degree of failure of the regime’s policies and the continued struggle for real autonomy and democracy on the part of the local population.
This study explores and assesses the democratization experiment in Ethiopia by weighing against the demand of the Oromo people for self-rule and shared-rule on the one hand, and the promises made on paper by the government in power on the other. As such, the central argument of this study is that the top-down approach of the ruling-party, which is inspired by its hegemonic aspiration, is seriously impeding the hoped for democratization process and the demand for shared-rule as well as self-rule thereof by multitudes across the country. The study also discusses the role of the Oromo people in the democratization of the Ethiopian state and society in the interest of all.
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