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Coming Back to Life: Will the Oromos' Cultural Revival Split Ethiopia? |
| Section: CULTURE / CROSSROADS |
| Author: Ben Barber |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 10/1/1994 |
| Size: 3,491 Words, 20,875 Characters |
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South of Addis Ababa, brisk breezes chafe the deforested landscape. The land has been rippled by the regular passage of ploughs through fields and by feet on paths that link thatched villages. The flat places are sun-seared, uniformly yellowish brown, and dry for lack of rain. The hills are bare mounds of earth, stripped of trees decades ago. This is Ethiopia's most fertile region. Here is grown tef, the grain used to make njera, the grayish, pancakelike bread that is Ethiopia's staple. And here, on roadside signs, is the first evidence of the reawakening of a long-repressed language and culture.
For decades, signs were exclusively written in Amharic and English, the languages of the ruling Amhara elite and the former English colonial masters, respectively. Now Oromo, the language of...
. . .
...fully support the OLF. But we are afraid to say it. I'm sure people will support it in an election."
But with the OLF boycotting elections and the entire political spectrum hampered by the habits of decades of intolerance, it's not clear that the Oromo people, currently enjoying the rebirth of their language and culture, will have a chance to participate in a political revival as well.
(806 of 20,875 characters)
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