By Djemaol H*. (April 08, 2016)

(A4O) In secular world, leader is the one who shows the way, the right thing to do, the pathway to his followers, members or society. The meaning of leader is more when it comes to the spiritual world. The leader in the Christian world is the one who follows the foot step of Christ the savior. He reflects the life of Christ and honors the history of people written in the holy bible.
This article will not do justice to the act of the Christian leader. Nonetheless, the aim is to cram and know the reason why they keep silent in a time when their people wants them most and expect from them most. The focus of this article will be on the Christian leaders, especially Oromos.
I am, as a Christian Oromo, wondering how those who refereed as Pastors, Reverends and Priests are living the life we are not expecting of them. They preached what is written in the bible yet we are unable to see them doing it. In my view, Christian leadership is not only preaching the bible on Sunday morning but also saving lives, fighting injustice, restoring peace, building the human rights movement and standing against any tyranny.
In the country Ethiopia (I am afraid to call it our country); freedom, equality, justice and equity are a condemned ideology. We are so used to this reality that we may unconsciously project our realities back to the world as it was in the time of slavery. The history of Ethiopia is steeped in human rights abuses by the government against Oromo people. Ethiopian regimes, from the Abyssinian Empire to the present, have sought to consolidate power by repressing the political and cultural activities of the Oromo people which make up Ethiopia’s population. The TPLF government has built on its ancestor’s set-up of tyranny. Killing of protestors by the current regime, including torture and extreme physical violence and psychological torture, was reported and reporting by many human right organizations. We have seen vicious mobs lynch our mothers and fathers at will and drown our sisters and brothers at whim; we have seen hate filled solders curse, kick and even kill our Oromo brothers and sisters; we sees the vast majority of our brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of well-to-do society; we suddenly find our tongue twisted and our speech stammering as we seek to explain why we can’t go to work; we are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that we are Oromo, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and we are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when we are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodies”–we understood why we find it difficult to wait. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.”
Currently, there is a great and growing desire for change in the Oromia; the wait is over!!! Change that escorts in a renewed commitment to ethical and spiritual values, that resolves conflicts nonviolently, employing dialogue and non-violence, which upholds human rights and human dignity as well as human responsibility.
In my opinion, our Christian leaders should stand and fight against any tyranny as human rights, justice equality……do not depend on the decision of any human agency. They are perspective which places them beyond the reach of any dictator, no matter how powerful, and beyond the reach of any rationalization. So where are you? Show us that you stand for freedom; that you stand for justice; that you stand for innocent people!!! That you wait no more. Otherwise how could you stand the sorrow and mourn of your congregation on Sunday morning??? How could you preach the kingdom of God and its scripture which declares that God hates violence?? How could we trust you telling us what the bible says, for the bible witness people like Moses are the one those brings freedom to Israelis?
SHOW US WHAT YOU PREACH!!!

*The writer can be reached:  jemaolmani@gmail.com