By Asafa Jalata, University of Tennessee – Knoxville

Oromummaa is the broad concept of Oromo common bonds and common outlooks. Oromummaa is one of the essential pieces that forms a common bond between the Oromo people besides their common history, culture and language.

Oromummaa is an Oromo cultural identity and oppressed nationalism looking at its impact on Oromo liberation and community organizations, the Oromo national movement, and political and societal unity. Oromumma is the manifestation of the Oromo Culture its traditional dresses, its poetry and oral traditions.

This book is a collection of my nineteen selected speeches that I delivered to different Oromo and other communities, organizations, and scholarly conferences in North America between 2000 and 2007. Since these speeches were delivered at different times to different audiences, the reader observes some similar central patterns in some of the chapters. In order to maintain the originality of the speeches, I have decided not to change them. From outset I declare that I am an integral part of the process I am exploring and critiquing in this book as a member of the educated Oromo group who have been trained by and passed through alien institutions.

The central issue addressed in this book is the concept of Oromummaa as an Oromo cultural identity and oppressed nationalism looking at its impact on Oromo liberation and community organizations, the Oromo national movement, and political and societal unity. The book also identifies and explores the nature of Oromo political behavior and how Oromummaa affects Oromo politics, and why some Oromo elites in the diaspora engage in destructive behavior. Although the book demonstrates the unevenness of the development of Oromo nationalism as the result of several structural problems, the Oromo movement is currently in the process of confronting its obstacles and marching towards inevitable victory.

Oromummaa (2007)