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Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Ethiopia: Any lesson from Tahrir Square? - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...70966

social movements intervention human rights development africa corporate industry pambazuka ethiopia egypt

shared by Arabica Robusta on 19 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • how prepared are the people of Ethiopia to stage a peaceful revolution? Will we succeed or could the country be thrown into chaos?
  • One would hope we would have learned a thing or two from our Egyptian counterparts and choose the peaceful route. One would also hope the Ethiopian armed forces would be magnanimous enough not to use lethal force on their compatriots.
  • Like Egypt, Ethiopia has a track record of using plainclothes security personnel, who will stop at nothing to crush dissent. This regime is even willing to foment ethnic and religious strife in order to preempt possible opposition. Given these circumstances, it is absolutely pertinent for activists to take notice of recent events in Egypt, as there is a lot to be learned there.
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  • One of the promising signs of the demonstrations in Egypt has been the people’s ability to remain peaceful while disobedient. For decades, peaceful disobedience has been a proven tactic in bringing some semblance of decency to societies. Interestingly, authoritarian regimes prefer violent dissent, which they are confident of disrupting, as they hold the monopoly in violence. Imagine the impression it leaves on the Arab world when Muslim and Christian Egyptians march shoulder to shoulder to demand their rights. It is a remarkable achievement when you consider, just a few months ago, these two communities were openly feuding.
Arabica Robusta

The poetics and politics of Oromo resistance | openDemocracy - 0 views

www.opendemocracy.net/...d-politics-of-oromo-resistance

oromo social movements stateless ethiopia war on terror

shared by Arabica Robusta on 12 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • What makes the Oromo experience so incomprehensible is the fact that they remained one of the last oppressed majority groups of the world in a country in which identity is both the constitutive and regulative principle of political life.
  • It is here, in this reservoir of songs, in the unruly dances and heart-breaking ballads, that one finds the story of the Oromo nation and its struggle for self-determination, not in the official archives and historiographies of the Ethiopian state.
  • wo decades on, however, no such law is forthcoming, and to add insult to injury, the ruling party announced what it calls the ‘Addis Ababa Integrated Master Plan’, allowing the unprecedented expansion of the city into Oromia. Emboldened by a symbolic election victory in which the ruling party won 100% of the 442 seats announced thus far, the government is set to implement the Master Plan, threatening the wellbeing and livelihood of Oromo farmers neighboring the city.
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  • It is in this most unpromising and unhistorical of places, in lyrics full of emotions and nostalgia but expressive of the devastation of the social fabric, that one finds the authentic experience of the Oromo.
Arabica Robusta

New Lines: a parliament for the Rojava revolution | ROAR Magazine - 0 views

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oromo social movements stateless ethiopia war on terror rojava

shared by Arabica Robusta on 12 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • oday, many of these groups are blacklisted, as a direct result of the so-called War on Terror. This has resulted in the freezing of bank accounts, the enforcement of travel bans, and the cancellation of passports.Cynically enough, this means that through the act of blacklisting, those who are already without a state are turned stateless once more, facing a double negation. Blacklisting these organizations — literally placing them “outside” of democracy — has much to do with the threat they pose to the status quo of the global capitalist doctrine.
  • A collectively written text, the “Social Contract,” clarified the points of departure: Rojava was to become a non-state entity, where self-governance, gender equality, ethnic and religious diversity, the right to self-defense and communal economy would form the foundational pillars. Ever since — while in the middle of a war against the Islamic State and other jihadist groups such as the Al-Nusra Front, and surrounded by the forces of the Assad regime, Russian troops and the international “coalition forces” — Rojava revolutionaries have begun to put their new ideals of self-governance into practice.
  • The lines drawn throughout North Africa and the Middle-East were drawn by bureaucrats and colonists. As artist Golrokh Nafisi has said, it is time to draw new lines. Not according to the occupiers, but according to the resistance. Not lines that isolate one nation from another, but lines of new shapes and forms that allow us to enact this world anew. To create a new world we need the imaginary of what that world could or should look like. As such, every political imaginary needs an artistic imaginary as well.
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