My life, My vision for the Oromo and other peoples of Ethiopia, by Bulcha Demeksa ( Lawrenceville, NJ: The Red Sea Press, 2013), 290 pp. $ 34.50

During the twentieth century, especially after 1941, it was assumed that highly educated, Christianized , Amharic language speaking, culturally Amharized Oromo individuals were not subjected to Amhara elites cultural chauvinism. However, the book under review demonstrates the exact opposite. Even the most highly qualified and Amharized individuals of Oromo origin who were married Amhara women, served in the Ethiopian bureaucracy at the level of cabinet ministers never escaped from crude and cruel Amhara elites cultural chauvinism. They were ridiculed for their “heavy” Oromo accent even when they did not have any accent and their fluency in Amharic language was at the level of educated Amhara nationals. Several examples are given in a number of places in this book. However, the following two examples should suffice to make the point. The first is Yilma Deressa, the famous technocrat who was responsible for the establishment of Ethiopian Ministry of Finance after 1941. The second Is the author of the book under review himself, who “… always found the insensitive of the Amhara ruling class incredible”(p. 85).

Yilma Deress was an economist and a lawyer by training. As the foreign Minister of Ethiopia during the early 1940s, it was Yilma Deress who negotiated several treaties with the United States and secured financial, technical and military support for Emperor Haile Selassie’s government. Yilma Deressa had an excellent command of Amharic language and wrote a book in that language. And yet, Amhara officials made fun of and joked about “…Yilma’s imagined Oromo accent. Yilma actually did not have a heavy accent as the joke-tellers imagined. “( 82). By all account, Yilma Deressa was the most competent Ethiopian government official, who loyally served Haile Selassie from 1941-1974. In 1965 when the Emperor wanted to appoint Yilma Deressa as the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, top Amhara officials adamantly opposed to his appointment. They made their opposition known to the Emperor through his favorite daughter, Princesses Tenagne-Worq and the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Thus, instead of Yilma the Emperor was compelled to appoint akililu Habte Wolde, an Amhara as the Prime Minister of Ethiopia in 1965-1974.

Those who opposed Yilma’ appointment as Prime Minister had a more sinister move than just a personal dislike for him. This was told to me by a prominent Amhara who…said: ‘We do not want the [Oromo] to be too ambitious by making Yilma Prime Minister’. In Amharic, he said:’Gallochin mattgeb ayasfelligim”.( It is not good to make the Oromo ambitious). The policy in those days was not to recognize the Oromo as an identifiable group, like for example the Tigre people. The hope and effort was that the Oromo would just naturally disappear through assimilation by losing their language….

Appointing Yilma as Prime Minister, according to the reasoning of the time, would just keep[alive] the Oromo dream for their identity and recognition ( p. 84).

The second example of insensitivity of Amhara officials of the 1960s was witnessed by Bulcha Demkesa himself. At this point it is important to provide a brief background information about Bulcha Demkesa . The author of this interesting book was born in 1930 in the district of Boji Birmaji , Western Wallaga region of Oromia. After the death of his father in an Italian prison in 1940 he was brought up by his loving uncle. The young Bulcha Demeksa had to walk two hours daily to and from the school. He was educated at the Ethiopian Seventh Day Adventist Mission School and became an elementary school teacher in 1948. He was blessed with his first son in the same year. He was also trained at Kuyera Seventh Day Adventist Teachers Training School and taught for few years as a high school teacher. With an insatiable hunger for higher education, Bulcha Demeksa, a father of four children and a husband joined The University College of Addis Ababa in 1956. When he was first year student, there were around 350 students out of which only eight were officially known as Oromo.

…Oromo students modified their names to make it sound like Amharic names, because of the very heavy social pressure to ‘Amhariz’. E.g. Guddina( Oromo) would change it to Wuddineh( Amharic): Ayano( Oromo) would change it to Ayenew( Amharic); Talila( Oromo) would change it to Tellele, thus passing for an Amhara. In those days, finding a job and getting promotion was much easier if one had an Amharic name( 43).

The book under review clearly demonstrates that it was Ethiopian government policy to force educated Oromo to deny their identity and to “.. be ashamed of their names, accent, the gada system( 84) and Oromo way of life and their cultural heritage. The policy of the time was to force educated Oromo to commit cultural suicide and wear an Amahara mask.

At University College of Addis Ababa, Bulcha Demkesa studied economics and upon his graduation in 1959, he joined Syracuse University and graduated with Masters’ degree in economics and Public Administration. When he returned to Ethiopia in December 1960, he was employed in the Ministry of Finance and ably served under Yilma Deressa. Instead of his Oromo name of Bulcha some Amhara officials “… had the temerity to advise me to choose a nice Amhara name and sound normal.” The author adds that an important “… Amhara official once lost his temper and said:” ‘After all, you are serving at our will’”(p. 59). Bulcha Demkesa gives another example of incredible insensitive of an Amhara official. “An Amhara Minister of Education”… once said to an Oromo student who became first in his class. ‘I cannot present you to the Emperor with this name’. He gave him the name of ‘Wolde Mekael’ and presented him to the Emperor”( p. 70). The unfortunate man lived with that name until his death.

The real tragedy about the policy of Amharization was that Emperor Haile Selassie, who was the main author of this policy himself, had an Oromo blood in his vein. It was unthinkable for the ruling class headed by Emperor Haile Selassie to consider Ethiopia as a multi-ethnic, multi­cultural, multi-language and multi-religious state. What the Ethiopian ruling class since 1941 wanted was to create a single Ethiopian nation based on Amhara identity, their language and cultural heritage. It was through the policy of Amharization that the Emperor wanted to make educated Oromo an integral part of the Amhara nation. Amharization involved abandoning the Oromo names, language, culture, way of life and world-view and their replacement by Christian names, Amharic language, Amhara culture, religion, way of life and their world-view. Thorough educational system and bureaucracy the Emperors aimed at breaking educated Oromo in body, soul and spirit so as to dehumanize and reduce them to the condition of helplessness and dejection, thus facilitating his Amharization policy. This means Haile Selassie’s government sought not only to destroy educated Oromos’ s pride in their cultural heritage, but also needed to keep them chained with no faith in themselves, their history to the extent that their university education did not help those Oromo individuals to overcome their inferiority complex.

My life, My vision for the Oromo and other peoples of Ethiopia captures the insensitivity and cultural chauvinism of the Amhara and Tigrayan ruling elites towards the Oromo, their determination for marginalizing the Oromo politically and controlling their resources, and Bulcha Demkesa’s efforts at making a difference so eloquently expressing the importance of establishing genuine federalism for achieving full autonomy for the Oromo within Ethiopia. The book depicts the author’s fascinating journey through various stages of his life. It is a remarkable journey filled with obstacles, indomitable human spirit that enabled the author to achieve what was beyond imagination. One does not expect a son of an Oromo farmer becoming a famous personality on the Ethiopian political landscape as well as on the international stage. While working at the Ministry of Finance, Bulcha Demeksa also obtained LLB from Haile Selassie University Law School in 1967. In the same year he married his second, who gave birth to his youngest daughter who was given a beautiful Oromo name of Nacisse, in memory of the author’s mother. As a competent and hardworking technocrat, he became the youngest Deputy –Minister of Finance. “… My promotion caused a lot of talk in government circles”( 59). Those who imagined his promotion to be Yilma Deressa’s favoritism spread wild rumor that depicted the Ministry of Finance as “ Galla Ministry”. Bulcha Demejsa’s

spectacular professional success was dream come true only for the sons of the aristocracy in those days. It was a tribute to his hard work and technical competence for the man, who was asked to change his ” strange sounding” Oromo name to a nice Amhara one, to rise to such position of power so rapidly. His success attracted the envy and jealously of some officials, who

through bureaucratic infighting and intrigues forced Bulcha Demeksa to seek an opportunity at the World Bank in 1969. In the process, by the law of an intended consequences arrogant Amhara officials moved Bulcha Demeksa onto the world stage, opening up opportunities for him to serve both at the World Bank as well as a diplomat at the United Nations.

Bulcha Demeksa returned to Ethiopia in March 1974 when Prime Minister

Endalkatchew Mekonnen appointed him as a Minister of Agriculture. However, his friends, especially his life-long friend, the Late Bekele Nadhi advised him not to accept the appointment. He quickly returned to Washington DC, which probably saved him from facing the fate of other Ethiopian officials, including the Prime Minister who appointed Bulcha, all of whom were butchered by the brutal Military regime . After working both at the World Bank and as a diplomat at the United Nations for seventeen years Bulcha Demeksa returned to Ethiopia in 1991.

It is well known that the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front(TPLF) and the organizations it manufactured, the Ethiopian People’s Democratic Revolutionary Forces(EPDRF) overthrew the brutal Military regime with the full backing of the US administration. What is new in My life, My vision for the Oromo and other peoples of Ethiopia is that it was under the pressure of the United States Government that the World Bank constructed the highway from Bure in Gojjam to Naqamtee in Wallage, which enabled the TPLF to quickly overthrow of the Military regime in May 1991( 152). While Bulcha Demeksa was in finfinnee/Addis Ababa in August 1991 the US Ambassador to Ethiopia asked him to join the TPLF controlled Oromo People Democratic Organization(OPDO). The Ambassador suggested to the author that he would be appointed either as the Minister of Finance or as the Governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia( p. 166). However, as a proud self-respecting Oromo national, Bulcha Demkesa refused joining the OPDO, the organization in whose name the TPLF destroyed all independent Oromo organizations, and in whose name still in 2014 the TPLF plots for removing millions of Oromo farmers from their ancestral lands, while killing peaceful demonstrators and detaining tens of thousands of innocent Oromo.

Once again, the author of My life, My vision for the Oromo and other peoples of

Ethiopia retuned to Ethiopia and sought an election to the Constituent Assembly and won with a landslide in 1994. However, the Ruling EPRDF/TPLF stole his electoral victory. Undeterred, the author became one of the founding members of Awash International Bank, which he serviced as president and first CEO. He was one of the founding members of the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM), which he led for six years and served as a member of Ethiopian parliament from 2005-2010, where he distinguished himself for championing Oromo language to be the second official languages of Ethiopia. Amazingly both the Amhara and

Tigrayan elites are adamantly opposed to making Afaan Oromo the second working language of Ethiopia. According to Bulcha Demeksa, the TPLF leaders “… were determined to keep down the Oromo and their culture, so that they would not politically ambitious and exercise their democratic rights by providing political leadership to the nation”( p.268). As a leader of his party Bulcha Demeksa was allowed to speak only for two minutes. If he wanted to speak he had to submit his question in writing two weeks earlier. Once submitted the following question to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. “The Oromo constitute about 40% of the Ethiopian population, but they are only 5% of the federal civil service. Do you intend to correct this obviously unfair situation”?( 269). The Prime Minister never responded to the author’s question. The Oromo not only lack fair representation in the federal civil service, but their regional state is under full control of the TPLF. The author of the book under review clearly shows that the late Ethiopian Prime Minister was a vulgar leader, who lacked respect both for members of his rubber stamp parliament as well as Ethiopian population who watched on Sunday the Prime Minister’s responses to questions. The Prime Minister regularly mocked and insulted members of the parliament, including Dr. Nagaso Gidada, the previous nominal President of Ethiopia.

One of the rarest spontaneous questions that I was allowed to ask the Prime

Minister was, if the Treasury got money from the U.S. for sending our army to Somalia in view of the fact that the United States was interested in weeding out Al-Qaeda from Somalia. …The Prime Minister, visibly irritated, answered and said that the country ‘got not even .05 cents from US government’. He added: ” We did get condoms, but that is neither food supply, nor guns'(269).

Bulcha Demeksa officially retired from the leadership of his party, OFDM, in November 2010. He was replaced by Bekele Garba as the President of OFDM. However, sadly since 2011 Bekele Garba has been languishing in prison, because the TPLF leaders feared his leadership potential the most( p. 275).

Although the author did not intend it to be, My life, My vision of the Oromo and other peoples of Ethiopia, is also a sad chapter of Oromo history. This is because when the author was born in 1930, most of the Oromo people were landless gabars( serfs), who were exploited economically, dominated politically and dehumanized culturally by the settlers in Oromo land. When Bulcha Demeksa stepped aside from OFDM at the age of 80 in 2010, tens of thousands

of the Oromo were being removed from their lands becoming wretched beggars on the sacred lands of birth. When Bulcha Demeksa was a young man, the central government went to the rural areas only for collecting taxes. Today the so-called Federal government tightly controls rural areas of Oromia and other parts of Ethiopia while terrorizing and imprisoning and even killing those who dare to support opposition parties such as that of OFDM. Today the

Oromo are politically as powerless as the generation of the 1930s. This is shown by the fact
that Bekele Garba, who was made Deputy President of OFDM party in 2009 was thrown into
prison in 2011 and recently sentenced to a long prison term simply because the ruling
TPLF/EPRDF fears his potential for inspiring and mobilizing the Oromo people for their freedom.
Even worse, today Bulcha Demeksa cannot go to the village of his birth in Western
Oromia(Preface xi), which shows the extent to which the TPLF and its agents tightly control
Oromia. One important lesson that can be drawn from this beautifully written book is that
since 1930 Ethiopia has not produced a single government that did not suppress Oromo
identity, that did not humiliate the Oromo in all ways big and small, a single government that
did not control Oromo resources, a single government that did not abuse the Oromo and
other Ethiopians human and democratic rights.

There are numerous typos and unnecessary errors in the book which is a great joy to
read. What irritated me( this reviewer) the most is the fact that the Red Sea Press asked me to
review the original manuscript before they considered it for publication. I spent more than two
days eliminating typos and correct errors. About six months before the publication of the book,

the Red Sea Press once again asked me to look at the manuscript before its publication. The
typos and the errors to be eliminated that I suggested were never taken into consideration. I
made the second correction and sent back the manuscript to the Red Sea Press. I was horrified
to find the same typos and errors in the published version of the book. Despite such typos and
avoidable errors here and there, the book under review is an enjoyable book to read. It is as
much history of Byzantine Ethiopian politics as it is the story of the life of its famous author.

The book also includes several, lovely photo graphs that capture the professional progress the author made from the age of 18 to 80. Finally, My life, My vision of the Oromo and other peoples of Ethiopia is a well written book that shows its author’s interest in Oromo unity and the unity of the Oromo and other peoples of Ethiopia under a democratic federal system. The book is also a catalogue of the hope raised by the overthrow of the brutal military regime in 1991 and quickly dashed by the TPLF’s total control of the Ethiopian state, with massive US and other Western governments financial support for a single party rule in Ethiopia. Anyone, who is interested to know the depth of contempt the old and the new Ethiopian ruling elites have for the Oromo will find food for thought in this book. The book is enjoyable to read and it is a welcome and timely addition to the growing literature on the never ending political corruption and human misery in

Ethiopia, the country depends on foreign aid for feeding its own people but sadly lacking both a rudimentary rule of law and a basic respect for human dignity.

Mohammed Hassen

Georgia State University, Atlanta