The Oromos: Abyssinia's oppressed majority on its way to Independence

The Oromos: Abyssinia's oppressed majority on its way to Independence and Self-determination

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

What is unknown to many people allover the world is that the country bordering with Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and Kenya should not be called 'Ethiopia'. In this article, we intend to illuminate many hidden realities of Eastern Africa, introducing the non-specialized readership into a fascinating world.

Abyssinia, not Ethiopia!

The real name of the country is ‘Abyssinia’, not ‘Ethiopia’. Abyssinia, Habashat, is the name of the Yemenite – not Arabic, never confuse – tribe that immigrated to Africa, and nowadays consists in the real ancestors of the present day Amhara and Tigray, who rule Abyssinia.

Ethiopia is a completely different name, does not refer either to that Yemenite tribe and its descendants or to the surface of Abyssinia itself. Ethiopia is the Ancient Greek name that describes the state, the nation and the country at the immediate southern border of Egypt, which is the present day Sudan.

Usurping the name of Ethiopia makes of the Amhara/Tigray government of Abyssinia a real intruder within the domain of History. The event and the practice are totally deplorable. Amhara / Tigray governmental persistence in this regard proves that there is a hidden agenda, and that the bogus-Ethiopian regime intends to carry out further discriminatory and totalitarian policies that need to be based on an intended falsification of History and on a shameful, deliberate, usurpation of a historical national name that does not belong to them.

Official 'Ethiopia' has just to renounce the use of that name, and to accept what specialists and historians certify, namely that the Ancient Greek name Aithiopia (Ethiopia) can be used either by present day Sudan, or by the modern descendants of the Kushitic – Meroitic populations of the Ancient Ethiopia.

Not a single specialist would accept that the name of that country can possibly be Ethiopia, instead of Abyssinia! However, the usurpation of the name ‘Ethiopia’ was smartly submitted by colonial historians to the besotted monarchical ruling class of backward Abyssinia during the 20th c. The issue has to do with typical clichés of European colonial Historiography; the same scholars, who submitted the idea as very profitable for the country, whereas it is disastrous, would never admit in public, when back in their homelands, such an irrelevant theory!

Amhara and Tigray Abyssinians: a Semitic people originating from Yemen

Both, Amhara and Tigray, emanate from the environment of Axum, Axumite Abyssinia. The name itself of Abyssinia, Habasha, has been attested in Ancient Yemenite (‘South Arabic’ as many Western scholars say) inscriptions as ‘Habashat’, the name of a tribe. So, certainly one can say that the Amhara/Tigray/Axumite Abyssinians originate from the ancient Yemenite, Semitic but not Arabic, cultural – linguistic milieu. At this point, one should rather advise against the use of the meaningless term ‘South Arabic’ / ’Sudarabique’ for the area of Pre-Islamic Yemen. The appropriate term is ‘Ancient Yemenite’.

The indigenous Khammitic peoples of Eastern Africa
The Afar people did not come from Yemen, or in any case we have not a single indication in this regard. Afar, Oromo, Sidama and Somali belong to the great Khammitic linguistic group that encompasses many subgroups, namely the Berbers of the Atlas area, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, who speak Tamazigh, a language that is written through use of an old scripture, the Haussa and Peul / Fulani of the Western African countries from Senegal to Nigeria, the Kushites of Eastern Africa. Oromos are Kushitic certainly, and there is vast Kushitic substratum in the area of Ancient Egypt and Sudan.

Abyssinia should again be accepted by Amhara and Tigray as national name.

Trying to hide behind a false name, and usurping a national name (which belongs to a completely different environment) is a sick, problematic and finally disastrous policy. Habasha was associated with a kind of caste, but this is normal, since the earlier homonymous group was an emigrant tribe that became the ruling class of the small Axumite kingdom at the northern confines of the present day Abyssinia and in the coast between Adulis and Avalites, which correspond to present day Massawa and Assab.

Abyssinia refers however to a significant civilization developed in that part of Africa. After the christening of the country, an important monophysitic Christian cultural environment was developed there, and Abyssinia, along with the Copts of Egypt, who belonged to the Roman Empire, and the three independent Christian states of Sudan, Nobatia, Makkuria and Alodia, gave a distinct, African, dimension to the phenomenon of Christianity.

In the case of Abyssinia, the ruling Amhara – Tigray groups must* either be frank enough to admit that they rule the country tyrannically for the interest of the Amhara – Tigray groups, and then be happy with naming their country ‘Abyssinia’, since the Abyssinian minority dictatorially imposes its language and culture, religion and behavioral system as the predominant elements and characteristics of the country

* or, if they still want to call it ‘Ethiopia’, make the name correspond to the contents, accept the Oromo language as the only official language of the country, and stop preventing through undemocratic measures the Oromo people from controlling the political life of the country and the executive power, since they are the real majority.

In other words, only when the real representative of the name ‘Ethiopia’ will exercise power in that country, the country should be called like that. Amhara tyrannical and archaic rule and ‘Ethiopia’ as the name of the country are an oxymoron that perpetuates the dysfunctional character of a country.