Article
Review Essay_ Are the Tulama and Wallo Oromo Habasha_.html
Sociology Mind
(2021)
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 theOromo 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
- Tullama and Wallo Oromo;,
- Oromia;,
- Gobana and Menelik;,
- Habasha;,
- Competing nationalisms;,
- Amhara-Tigray;,
- The Manz/Shawa kingdom;,
- the Ethiopian colonial state
Disciplines
Publication Date
Fall October 12, 2021
DOI
10.4236/sm.2021.114010
Citation Information
Jalata, A. (2021) Review Essay: Are the Tulama and Wallo Oromo Habasha?. Sociology Mind, 11, 125-146. doi: 10.4236/sm.2021.114010.
Creative Commons license
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY-NC International License.