Oromo rebels reportedly killed 30 soldiers in eastern Ethiopia

June 28, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — The rebel Oromo Liberation Army OLA), armed wing of Oromo Liberation Front, killed over 30 soldiers and captured nine others in an attack the Ethiopian troops in eastern zone, a rebel radio reported.
The eastern zonal commander has said that on 19 June 2007 the OLA took a punitive strike against Ethiopian troops at a place called Fulale in the district of Boku, East Hararge Zone, killing over 20 soldiers and wounding 10 others. Besides killing and wounding Ethiopian soldiers in the attack on their base, the OLA captured nine soldiers.
In the attack, the OLA captured over 10 AK-47 assault rifles, six F1 grenades, over 350 firearm rounds as well as other materiel and turned them into an asset for Oromo liberation Army, reported the rebel radio Voice of Oromo Liberation.
On top of the military action against the Ethiopian forces, the OLA stormed a jail and freed 12 Oromo prisoners languishing in there.
On the same date, OLA operating in eastern zone expanded its activity. It overpowered and disarmed a large number of village militiamen the government had set up to fight the rebel OLA.
After subduing and confiscating many Kalashnikov rifles from the militiamen, the OLA explained to them the objectives of the Oromo liberation struggle spearheaded by the OLF, about the OLA military activities. The militiamen were then allowed to return to their home areas.

Ethiopian PM says he is building army to defend against potential Eritrean attack

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: Ethiopia's prime minister said Thursday he is building up the army's capabilities because he fears an imminent attack by Eritrea, which he also accused of arming Ethiopian rebels. Eritrea issued a strong denial.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, in a routine address to parliament, said the Eritrean government was not cooperating in efforts to end the border dispute between the two countries and that the Ethiopian army needed to be prepared for an attack.

"It is deemed necessary to make the necessary military preparations for deterring a possible Eritrean invasion and to repulse such an invasion should it occur," Meles said. "We have now come to the point where neither Eritrea or others could ignore that at present our defense forces have the capacity to deter aggression and to repulse it if it occurred and that this is being strengthened by the day."

Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war. Following a 1998-2000 border war that left tens of thousands dead, the neighbors initially promised to accept the U.N. boundary commission's 2002 ruling awarding the town of Badme to Eritrea, but Ethiopia has not handed it over.

Meles reiterated his government's position that the commission's findings were wrong, but insisted his government was ready to accept them.

"We believe the ruling was wrong, we still believe it is wrong, but we accept the ruling even though it is wrong," he told lawmakers.

The Eritrean information minister, Ali Abdu, denied his government was planning to attack Ethiopia.

"It is totally fabricated and political posturing with the intention of diverting the attention of the Ethiopian people," he said. "Instead of pointing fingers at Eritrea, it is better for (Meles) to accept the reality of the Ethiopian opposition. It is Meles who is destabilizing and disintegrating the unity of Ethiopia."

Abdu called Ethiopia's acceptance of the border ruling a "semantic game.

"They refused five years ago and now they say they accepted with precondition of negotiating during the implementation," he added.

An Ethiopia-based spokesman for the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea declined to comment on Thursday's address.

Meles also said that Eritrea may try to disrupt or strike during Ethiopian Millennium celebrations in September. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church's calendar is seven years behind the Roman Catholic calendar.

Eritrea's "strategy is mainly based on spreading chaos in Ethiopia by organizing, arming and deploying Ethiopian opposition forces which it uses as instruments for this objective," Meles said.

The government is currently fighting two rebel forces, one in the eastern Ogaden region and the other in the southern Oromia region. The Ogaden National Liberation Front has recently carried out several attacks along the Somali and Eritrean borders.

Ethiopian troops kill 40 in Ogaden region - rebels

une 25, 2007 (NAIROBI) — Ethiopian warplanes bombarded several towns in the disputed Ogaden region, near the Somalian border, killing 40 civilians including women and children, a rebel official said Monday.

Abdirahman Mahdi, the spokesman of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, also accused the troops of starving inhabitants by driving them out of their villages and rounding up their livestock.

The Ethiopian government denied civilians had been targeted or warplanes used, saying rebels had been captured in an operation it said was continuing.

"On Thursday, Ethiopian planes bombarded Abaqorow, Darasalam and Ayun and killed 40 civilians, including women and children and wounded dozen others," said Mahdi, adding that the troops killed about 100 civilians across the region since last Tuesday. "Heavy fighting is continuing near major towns of the region now."

The spokesman for the Ethiopian government, Bereket Simon, said that military operations were under way against the rebels, but that no aircraft were involved and that human rights were being respected.

"Ethiopia doesn’t use war planes in domestic conflicts," he said. "We’re not bombing anybody, but we have troops on the ground who are continuing operations. We have captured some" rebels.

The rebels have fought for the secession of the Ogaden region since the early 1990s.

Mahdi said his group killed about 250 Ethiopian soldiers in fighting in Wardher, Dhaqahbur and around Babili towns.

"Only 30 of our soldiers were killed because they are well-trained and they know the terrain very well," Mahdi said. "The Ethiopian soldiers who are fighting us were forcefully conscripted and start fleeing as soon as the fighting starts."

Source: http://www.sudantribune.com

Ethiopia: was CUD set up by the liberation fronts?

After more than 20 months, our CUD leaders are finally free. Unless something extraordinary happens, according to many sources, the Kinijit leaders who have been convicted by the Ethiopian court will be free next week. Apparently Kinijit leaders in Kaliti prison have signed a proposal that gives partial CUD responsibility of the violence and “shows” that CUD/Kinijit leaders accepted that they attempted to overthrow the government by unconstitutional means. Many elders and Ethiopian mediators have been involved as well as Western officials. In general, this is mostly a good thing for Ethiopia, especially if negotiations continue further to develop democratic institutions. Specifically this is definitely a very bad news for OLF, ONLF and the Eritrean government but the other question is - were the CUD leaders being set up or tricked by the liberation fronts all along?
What made all the controversies of a secret alliance against CUD very legitimate was the growing focus of the Ethiopian court on charging CUD of “launching an armed rebellion.” Also another sign was that whenever there were doubts from foreign observers regarding the slow court or legal process, EPRDF politicians often used the “terrorist” card, especially because CUD was allied with the OLF and ONLF under the umbrella AFD. Especially the ONLF oil field massacre helped EPRDF more than it harmed it. Thus it was no surprise that the EPRDF very confidently charged more CUD members with trying to “launch an armed rebellion.” So one wonders if the experienced OLF knew that all of this strategic & legal threat was rising on CUD but ignored it.
But the first question should be: why would OLF and ONLF put this trap on CUD?
The foundation and the essence of this controversy are the basic historical facts on OLF, ONLF, Eritrea and even on spies inside CUD itself. OLF is the co-architect of the current Ethiopian ethnic federalism based constitution organized in the early 1990s, but according to many sources, Article 39 which allows secession of ethnic states is not respected by EPRDF. It is just on paper. In fact, the EPRDF might be using this card just to appear like a pro-liberation government; especially we have seen Mr. Bereket Simon use this card when he is faced with tough questions about difficulties in the Ogaden.
Last month when Bereket was asked tough questions on the Ogaden plight, he said:
“Somali-speaking people inhabiting our region, they are Ethiopians, they have full rights.”
Then when asked about ONLF’s growing pressure, Bereket said,
“They can secede from Ethiopia if they want. Their right is respected to this level so they have never enjoyed better!”
So for EPRDF, Article 39 is just a card to deal against ONLF's pressure, thus it is not a surprise that the OLF and ONLF left Ethiopia in the early days of the EPRDF government. Article 39 (though still potentially dangerous to Ethiopia) is just a piece of useless paper for EPRDF. The question of a referendum and secession is the one and the only question in the minds of OLF and ONLF. According to USCIS, regarding the early transitional days of the 1990s,
“Initially, the OLF attempted to shift the balance of power somewhat by participating in the Paris and Addis Ababa opposition conferences and by calling on the EPRDF to acknowledge these opposition parties as legitimate voices in Ethiopian politics. However, the strong "centrist" flavor of the Addis Ababa conference alienated the OLF, which continues to reserve the right to withdraw from Ethiopia.”
Then on ONLF, the USCIS document went on saying
“The ONLF's justification for boycotting the election is that the draft Constitution which the Transitional Government has written, and which is almost certain to be adopted, "systematically and subtly" denies the concept of self-determination, violating the 1991 Charter which promised to guarantee the rights of nationalities for "self-determination up to and including secession.”
“The newly-introduced Constitution does appear, on paper, to continue to guarantee the right to self-determination and even secession, but in practice NONE of the ethnic-based movements which have demanded referenda on autonomy or secession -- or even the right to campaign openly and freely for these goals -- have found the EPRDF cooperative.”
Therefore USCIS said
“many of the ethnic-based parties, such as the OLF and ONLF, boycotted the election because of the perception that, in practice, the EPRDF is obstructing conditions (such as allowing referenda) which could determine whether or not ethnic groups want to secede, and that therefore secession is not a genuine option.”
So EPRDF’s refusal to allow referendum for OLF and ONLF is the main reason why they are waging guerrilla wars since the beginning. And obviously, they have the same policies as before and they are not going to betray their guerrilla fighters after so many years. Even one of the ONLF leaders proudly said last week to New York Times that ONLF’s objective is actually the continuation of the 1977-78 Somalia vs. Ethiopia War. According to the NY Times, even thought in the 1977-78 war Somalia tried, disastrously, to pry the Ogaden out of Ethiopia’s hands and lost thousands of men one of the ONLF leaders even said “it is up to us now” to continue that 1977 war.
So ideologically the stance of ONLF and OLF is clear: it is all about secession. (Even without pressure, OLF doesn't have enough Oromo support to achieve its goals. Thus OLF must use violence and propaganda just to gain majority Oromo support.) Anyhow the general consensus is that it is all about separation from Ethiopia for OLF & ONLF. But why then frame or trick CUD?
The answer is what most pro-CUD Ethiopians have been trying to ignore since 2005 and this is that the OLF was the most vocal anti-CUD group of all groups and OLF labeled the CUD “neo-neftengas” and “the greater of two evils” even while comparing to the TPLF. The OLF not just insulted CUD but also discredited almost all the fundamental policies of CUD. If OLF, which claims to lead Oromo Ethiopians (who are mostly mixed with other Ethiopians) says this, then it is not hard to imagine what ONLF says about pro-unity groups.
Ironically, for many years the OLF has stayed away from allying itself with Oromo political parties inside Ethiopia. OLF has publicly stated that all armed groups (which EPRDF labels “terrorists”) only bring danger to “legal” political parties if OLF works with them. In fact in one interview the OLF chairman Mr. Dawud Ibsa Ayana said,
“We don't have any official relationship with ONC or OFDM….They are “legal” and we are “illegal” at this time, this according to the Ethiopian Government, and thus we cannot have official relationship with them because the authorities will immediately attack them if we had formal relationship. For this, we have refrained from having any official relationship with them for their own security.”
So the question is, if OLF knew that the AFD would similarly bring physical, strategic and legal crisis to CUD leaders by allying with them, why did it swiftly form the AFD? (This question is completely different from the other big former issue of the word “Ethiopia” being left out from A.F.D.) The current issue is specifically about the secret intentions of OLF, ONLF and the Eritrean government in putting CUD inside AFD. Why didn't OLF follow the same safe policy it used for ONC towards CUD as well? Not only that, were there agents inside CUD itself that blindly placed CUD in this dangerous position?
In general, it seems like it was a set up by the liberation fronts which are waging guerrilla wars. For example, if you are put in the position of the OLF, what would you do? By putting CUD inside AFD, what would your OLF gain? The answer is simple. It was a win-win situation for OLF and ONLF. In the first scenario, OLF/ONLF getting the support of CUD means getting the support of the Urban population and many others. It will be an inside -outside perfect combination with pro-CUD empowered urbans from the inside and the liberation fronts from the outside. From the inside, it would be CUD supporters harming EPRDF and OPDO/ANDM & other supporters slowly defecting from TPLF. From the outside it would be OLF, ONLF and the Eritrean government attacking TPLF. In the end, if the TPLF/EPRDF falls down, since the liberation militia are the most powerful and since all the guns would be mostly in the control of OLF & ONLF - the new order in the post-EPRDF Ethiopia would be an OLF/ONLF festival. Meaning numerous secessions and referendums beginning everywhere in Ethiopia. In the second scenario, since the OLF & ONLF know the behavior of EPRDF (calling all armed groups "illegal" & “terrorists”), making CUD part of an armed alliance like AFD means criminalizing or making CUD “illegal.” This obviously creates a strategic and legal crisis for CUD. But since the failure of CUD means the end of the obstacle for OLF/ONLF implementing Article 39, it would be a positive outcome for the armed liberation fronts. The important thing for OLF and ONLF is if they can’t exploit CUD’s urban base via AFD, then at least they can incriminate it. Thus the most logical theory says AFD was a win-win situation for OLF and ONLF. And the CUD "set up" might not be too far from the reality.
Still nobody will know for sure if all of this controversy and such theories are all accurate. But one thing that everybody can be sure about is that the OLF and ONLF are now in a terrible position. They have both failed to overthrow EPRDF as well as failed to permenantly criminalize CUD enough to make it irrelevant even inside the current Ethiopian constitution & order. If the EPRDF-CUD-UEDF negotiations and agreements succeed, things can go even more downhill for the separatist groups. If CUD takes power and eventually outlaws Article 39, then the OLF and ONLF can not simply ask for negotiations anymore. They would be forced to run for an election so that they can gain the majority enough to put back Article 39 on the Ethiopian constitution, and proceed from there. But this would be impossible to do by OLF/ONLF for many reasons. Even if an OLF replica political party competes in future elections, almost all of the population in the Amhara State, Addis Ababa, Afar, Dire Dawa, SNNP and even half of Tigrai & Oromia states would never vote for an OLF replica political party. Even most of Gambela would not support it for many reasons. One of these reasons is the issue of "Greater Oromiya" ideology against the citizens of Gambella. According to the African Institute for Security Studies (ISS),
“In the late 1980s the newly created Anuak rebel group, the GPLM, appealed first to the OLF for help. But the OLF made its support conditional upon the acceptance of Oromo supremacy in the area.”
Thus ISS continues by reporting that,
“OLF members are given military training at Sawa with the support of the Eritrean government and are brought by plane to Pochalla, and then to Tirgol in the Akobo wereda of Gambella. Clearly, the OLF has grand ambitions in the area and regards Gambella region (partly because in the past it was under Illubabur province) as part of Greater Oromiya.”
So even Gambella can not be a support base for an OLF replica political party in future elections. Clearly, once CUD removes Article 39 from the constitution, even if OLF participates in any future elections, it will never win. Let alone a referendum, Article 39 itself can be gone forever. AFD was the last chance for OLF and ONLF to succeed with their secession plans which they advocated for many decades. So if recent news that says the CUD leaders will be freed is accurate and then if genuine negotiations between EPRDF, CUD & UEDF leads to major compromises, the people of Ethiopia might never worry about the anti-Ethiopia Article 39 anymore.

Oromo: European Parliament Passes Resolution

2007-06-22
The Hague, 22 June 2007 – The European Parliament, during its Plenary Session in Strasbourg on 21 June 2007, has passed a resolution expressing serious concern at the prevailing human rights situation in Ethiopia. The resolution draws attention to extensive suppression of political freedoms, in particular those of opposition groups and their leaders. Following extensive lobbying by UNPO and partners at the European Parliament, including Mr. Marco Pannella MEP (ALDE) and Mr. Marco Cappato MEP (ALDE), the resolution also raises concern about the ongoing persecution of minorities in Ethiopia, including UNPO members from the Oromo.
The full resolution:

European Parliament resolution of 21 June 2007 on the situation in Ethiopia
The European Parliament,
– having regard to its previous resolutions on the post-election crisis and serious human rights violations, in particular those of 7 July 2005 on the human rights situation in Ethiopia, of 13 October 2005 on the situation in Ethiopia, of 15 December 2005 on the situation in Ethiopia and the new border conflict, of 16 November 2006 on Ethiopia and of 10 May 2007 on the Horn of Africa: EU regional political partnership for peace, security and development,– having regard to Rule 115(5) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas on 11 June 2007 an Ethiopian court found 38 senior opposition figures guilty of charges related to mass protests following disputed elections two years ago, ranging from "outrage against the constitution" to aggravated high treason,
B. whereas sentencing is expected next month and most of the accused could face the death penalty,
C. whereas among those found guilty were Hailu Shawel, President of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, former Chair of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, Dr Yacob Hailemariam, UN Special Envoy and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Dr Berhanu Nega, Mayor-elect of Addis Ababa, and Ms Birtukan Mideksa, former judge, all of whom have been declared "prisoners of conscience" by Amnesty International,
D. whereas the 38 prisoners, who all refused to plead guilty, were among the estimated 30 000 people arrested in a government crackdown on demonstrators protesting against fraud and vote-rigging by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government in the 2005 polls,
E. whereas the Commission of Inquiry established by the Ethiopian Parliament at the end of November 2005 to investigate the violence of June and November 2005 concluded that 193 civilians were killed and 763 injured by government security forces; whereas the Commission's report found that some of the victims were killed with a single bullet wound to the head and that sharpshooters targeted certain opposition leaders; and whereas, according to the same report, protesters were unarmed and the security forces used excessive force,
F. whereas the report also states that a 14-year-old boy was killed during the demonstrations, that his brother, who ran out to help him, was shot from behind and that Etenesh Yimam, the wife of an opposition candidate, was gunned down outside her house in front of her children,
G. whereas the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) blamed the deaths on the security forces, but Mr Meles accused the opposition of starting the violent protests,
H. whereas the President and Vice-President of the Commission of Inquiry were forced to flee following pressure by the government to reverse the Commission's findings, and whereas testimony to these events was given by Commission Vice-President Woldemichael Meshesha to the European Parliament, during a hearing held on 5 June 2007,
I. whereas journalists continue to be arrested and prevented from exercising their profession,
J. whereas in January 2007 police forces allegedly beat and severely injured students in the towns of Dembi Dollo and Ghimbi, causing the death of three of them, and detained between 30 and 50 students,
K. whereas individuals accused of international terrorism, including EU citizens, have been arbitrarily detained and subject to rendition,
L. whereas political and democratic stability in Ethiopia is crucial to the development of the countries of the Horn of Africa,
M. whereas Ethiopia needs a reconciliation process to restore the derailed democratic gains and pave the way for sustainable development that is respectful of fundamental human rights, political pluralism, minority rights, particularly those of ethnic Oromo, and the rule of law,
N. whereas Ethiopia is a signatory to the Cotonou Agreement, Article 96 of which stipulates that respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms is an essential element of ACP-EU cooperation,
O. whereas members of the UN Security Council met on 16 June 2007 in Addis Ababa with African Union (AU) and Ethiopian officials, as well as with the AU Peace and Security Council,

1. Calls on the Ethiopian Government to release immediately and unconditionally all political prisoners, including elected members of parliament, CUD leaders, human rights activists, journalists, teachers, students, trade union activists and ordinary citizens;
2. Deplores the recent decision by an Ethiopian court to find guilty 38 opposition leaders, human rights activists and journalists, and strongly condemns the fact that this occurred without defence proceedings in a judicial process that does not respect international standards for free and fair trials and has been widely condemned by international human rights organisations;
3. Urges the Ethiopian judicial authorities to reconsider their verdict, and calls on the Ethiopian Government to repeal possible death and/or prison sentences and to guarantee the independence of the judicial system;
4. Welcomes the release of 28 defendants on 10 April 2007, including seven journalists, one of whom, Serkalem Fasil, was six months pregnant when arrested and was denied adequate medical care;
5. Calls for the establishment of an international independent Commission of Inquiry, and urges the Ethiopian Government to allow it to pursue the original findings of the Commission independently and to give it unlimited access to the sources and documents that are relevant to the investigation;
6. Condemns the arrests of independent journalists and asks the Ethiopian Government to guarantee freedom of the press;
7. Urges the Ethiopian Government promptly to investigate the incidents involving students in Dembi Dollo and Ghimbi and to hold those responsible accountable;
8. Asks the Ethiopian Government to disclose the total number of persons detained and to allow all detainees access to their families, legal counsel and medical care;
9. Condemns the arbitrary detention and rendition of individuals accused of international terrorism, including EU nationals, and calls on the Ethiopian Government immediately to disclose information about these "renditions";
10. Calls on the Ethiopian regime to respect human rights, the rule of law and democratic freedom, including the right to assembly and freedom of expression, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and People's Rights, and to implement the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination;
11. Urges the Ethiopian Government to engage in a serious dialogue with the opposition and civil society with a view to national reconciliation, allowing a real democratisation process to take place;
12. Calls on the Commission, the Council, the African Union and the United Nations to encourage and support an all-inclusive inter-Ethiopian dialogue, with the participation of political parties and civil society, in order to work out a lasting solution to the current political crisis;
13. Calls on the Commission and the Council to make a clear request to the Ethiopian Government to release all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally;
14. Calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to condemn the use of the death penalty in Ethiopia;
15. Requests the Commission and the Council to share with the European Parliament the reports produced by those who, on behalf of the Commission and Council, have been observing the current trials, including the Briton Michael Ellman and others;
16. Calls on the Commission and the Council strongly to condemn the Ethiopian Government for the brutal repression that followed the May 2005 elections and for the serious breaches of human rights and democracy perpetrated by the authorities ever since, and to monitor the situation in Ethiopia;
17. Calls on the Commission and the Council to pursue a coherent post-electoral policy in Ethiopia;
18. Calls on the European Council to consider the application of targeted sanctions against senior government officials;
19. Calls on the Commission and the Council to support victims of human rights atrocities and relatives of political prisoners;
20. Requests the Commission and the Council to take concrete action to put the derailed democratic process back on track and to avoid further deterioration of the human rights situation in Ethiopia, which may have far-reaching consequences in the region if it is not addressed properly and without delay;
21. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to support, through cooperation instruments, the development of free media broadcasting in Ethiopia;
22. Calls on the Commission and the Council to take a coordinated stance consistent with Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement; stresses that the development cooperation programmes under the Cotonou Agreement should depend on respect for human rights and good governance;
23. Calls on the UN to appoint a "special rapporteur" to conduct an investigation in Ethiopia into judicial independence and arbitrary detentions, the human rights situation, including minority rights, post-election violence and killings, and charges of treason and outrage against the constitutional order directed at opposition leaders, journalists and civil-society activists;
24. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the co-presidents of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, the African Union Commission and the Pan-African Parliament, the Ethiopian Government and the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

[Source: European Parliament]

Ancient gold unearthed in Sudan

The Kush kingdom was conquered by the Egyptians

A team of archaeologists has discovered a huge ancient gold processing centre and a graveyard along the River Nile in northern Sudan.

They were part of the 4,000-year-old Kush, or Nubian, kingdom.

The scholars say the finds show the empire was much bigger than previously thought and rivalled ancient Egypt.

The archaeologists are racing to dig up the Hosh el-Geruf area, some 225 miles from the capital, Khartoum, before the Merowe dam floods the area next year.

The dam is due to create a lake 100 miles long and two miles wide, forcing some 50,000 people from their homes.

Tribute

"Nubia was renowned for its gold deposits," said Geoff Emberling, from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, according to National Geographic News.

"Even today, panning for gold is a traditional activity in the area," said his colleague, Bruce Williams.

Ancient Egypt conquered Kush some 3,000 years ago and took "hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds of gold each year" in tribute, Mr Emberling said.

The new discoveries show that ancient Kush extended for up to 750 miles along the River Nile.

Near the gold processing centre, the archaeologists found some 90 graves.

"We found one laughably tiny gold bead in the burials, but that was the only gold we found," Mr Emberling said.

"It seems certain that the gold was not used locally. Very likely the gold was for the benefit of the ruler and his circle in Kerma," 225 miles upstream from Hosh el-Geruf.

Pylons of African Kushitic Spirituality: Jaarsoo Waaqoo and Geerarsa Oromo Literature

Enlarge Image

In two earlier articles we republished parts of the book "Theorizing the Present" in which the great Oromo Intellectual Asafa Dibaba analyzes sociologically the poetry of Jaarsoo Waaqoo, the leading National Oromo Poet and Mystic. To give every unspecialized, Afro-phile reader, the keys to Understanding the African Kushitic Spirituality, we re-publish in this article the third chapter of Mr. Asafa Dibaba’s pioneering contribution.

This chapter consists in the backbone of Mr. Dibaba’s book; the author describes the sociological poetics of the geerarsa genre and impacts of the genre on the works of individual Oromo oral poets, especially on Jaarsoo Waaqoo's poetry. Entitled "The Sociology of Geerarsa genre", the chapter makes available for the first time in English key excerpts of Jaarsoo Waaqoo's poetry, now accessible to international readership. We reproduce the text integrally adding the notes at the end. After the title and the subtitle, an illuminating motto – excerpt encapsulates the Great Oromo poet’s mindset and spiritual vision condensed in just a few verses.

Beyond the rich contents, the originality of the topic, and the groundbreaking methodology, Mr. Asafa Dibaba’s book greatly illuminates the terrible lacunae of the European colonial academic institutions, their intellectual barrenness, and their guilty silence.

The Sociology of Geerarsa Genre

The Dhaaduu recitative poems and Jaarsoo Waaqoo's Poetry

I have three questions:-

the first says:
do we say,
the poor is not worth praising,
or praise is not
worth to man?

do we say,
the lord speaks no lie,
or lies told by the lord
are truth?

do we say,
a cunning person makes wealth,
or a wealthy person
is cunning?

(FSG II, p49)

Introduction

This chapter aims to discuss the sociological poetics of the geerarsa genre. It also presents a discussion of the generic system of geerarsa song and the dhaaduu recitative poem. The overview of historical transformation of 'contemporary' geerarsa as national Oromo literature (Addisu 1990; 1994) presented in this chapter will also lay a foundation for the sociological analyses of Jaarsoo Waaqoo's poetry in the next chapter.

'Contemporary' geerarsa has influenced, one may also argue, the poetic style, tone and content of other emerging Oromo poetry and songs. Jaarsoo, for instance, recites (FSG II: 68):
addunyaa karaallee!
nyaaphat' dudda nu fe'aa!
ka'ii loladhu Oromoo
waarr' nu biraa raa'ate
yoona bilisoomne nu se'aa

in the last days of resistance, Oromo
there is always a challenge. advance!
or you remain ever a beast of burden!
those who have won their freedom
think that we have also won ours.

Hence, the Oromo struggle has become a theme of 'contemporary' geerarsa transformed into a protest /prison song. It follows that geerarsa now serves as a significant medium of the Oromo struggle which is part of the "sociopolitical revolution and a process of liberation [...] taking place in large parts of Northeast Africa" (Negaso 2000:x). 1

The 'originality' of the geerarsa composition lies in the creating and recreating of the themes, phrases and poetic lines or stanzas of the protest song, while the 'traditional' element of the popular song geerarsa lies in its function for the preservation of culture. Hence, the dual function of geerarsa: first, it is a political medium of articulating the political and economic suppression and cultural domination on the Oromo by the Amhara-Tigre rulers in Ethiopia. Second, as a social critique, it is a means of preserving sociocultural values and maintaining unity of purpose among the Oromo in the process of struggle for "self-determination including independence" (Negaso 1983; Addisu 1990, 1994:59).

The four-line text below in Jaarso's FSG II (p67)
'chaarterii' baananii
lama siin hibaannu:
nu ilmaan Oromoo
haa xiloo qarrru!

the charter is signed! they declare
(no democracy) no more charter! we rebel:
sons and daughters of the Oromo!
move! grind your spear!

depicts the short-lived "Peace Conference" of mid-1991 followed by the Charter signed by various liberation groups including TPLF/ EPRDF and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). 2 Similarly, the line 'having seen and not possessing it' in the two geerarsa line by Luuccaa in Addisu Tolesa's "Oromo Literature, Geerarsa, and the Liberation Struggle" (1994:159-65) implies a shared grave experience among the Oromo under the new Tigre-led government:

arganii dhabuu kanaa
nu baraari Waaqayyo!

having seen and not finding/possessing it
oh! have mercy upon us Waaqayyo/God!

The historical significance of both the song and Jaarsoo's poem is to mark the new phase and continuity of Amhara-Tigre rule in Oromiya following the short-lived charter. In Jaarsoo's poem above 'the charter is signed! they declare' also indicates the frustration of the reciter as to what would be the fate of the Oromoo under the TPLF-led neo-colonial rule. That is what the idiomatic expression "having seen and not finding / possessing it" means in the given geerarsa context. From the sociopolitical situations of the time both the song and the recitative poem are 'songs of experience' about power imbalance/relation. The choral repetition in
maddii Killee Leensaa, Killee Leensaa
dheeddi fardeenillee, fardeenillee
namuu gamtaa hinqabnee, gamtaa hinqabnee
gamtaan walii hingallee , walii hingallee
5 jetti jarreenillee , jarreenillee.

Killee Leensa, Killee Leensaa,
where rich, green grass is plentiful
there horses graze,
people without unity of purpose
organization without coherence
‘Others’ point finger at to ridicule.

comments on lack of unity of purpose among the Oromo (lines 3,4), as a result of which the "divide and rule" policy of the Amhara-Tigre domination became a reality. It is with this lack of unity and a viable organization, as it were, that colonizers attempt to justify their conquest: jetti jarreenillee (line 5). Hence, the social and cultural significance of geerarsa in the above text is to stress on the process of the preservation of culture and identity, unity of purpose and strong organization as very crucial and equally urgent (lines 3,4). Culture, in this sense, is limited to the Oromo life style: the daboo (cooperative work) which involves geerarsa and other poetic genres; the gadaa (democratic system); sense of belongingness to the community, Oromummaa (Oromoness) and accountability to one's words and actions (Gemechu 1993; Addisu 1994). 3

From the above significance of geerarsa: historical/political and social/cultural, added to its traditional aesthetic value as a means of entertainment, the study of contemporary geerarsa, one may argue, can lay fertile ground for the sociological analyses of Oromo poetry. This chapter, therefore, serves as a transition towards the analysis of Finna San Gama in Chapter 4 where the sociological analyses of the texts and description of the contexts are carried out using alternative approaches of literary and sociological interest: a combination of oral-literary theory, conflict theory and social development theory.

The Sociological Poetics of Geerarsa Genre

The study of geerarsa discourse as a work of literature constitutes its sociological poetics, i.e., in this context, the science of the study of geerarsa as ‘Oromo national literature’ (Addisu 1990, 1994). Geerarsa as a genre is usually identified as a collective noun encompassing the Oromo Oral Poetry of hunting, war and historical and political events (Cerulli 1922; Andrzejewski 1985; Baxter 1986; Sumner 1997). The recorded geerarsa as an Oromo poetic genre is traced back to the time of Philip Paulitshke (1896), one of the earliest ethnographers of the Horn. Paulitshke provided one geerarsa text referring to it as geerar, perhaps the same as the Somali version 'geerar' (Finnegan 1977:211). Later in 1922, Enrico Cerulli presented twelve geerarsa texts, which he transcribed as geeirarsa in his Folk Literature….

Cerulli argues that geerarsa is a poetic expression through which Oromo warriors are 'celebrated' by recalling their ancestors and praising their kin on both their father and mother's sides, whereas faarsaa is a praise song by an individual warrior (Cerulli p58; Mohammed 1994:12). There is no criteria of generic classification, however, which Cerulli forwards in his argument as to identify geerarsa from faarsaa (praise song). 4 What is clear, as will be discussed later in this chapter is, according to Enno Littmann, the geerarsa poetics is characterized by seven meters as in the geerarsa by a certain singer below:
harreen dudda urataa
gangalannaa ‘naleeluu
nam’ aarii garaa qabu
kolfa ‘riyyaa ‘naleeluu

a donkey with an open sore on its back
cannot roll on its back (so much so),
a man with a wounded heart
cannot (laugh with a friend), but
sighs a deep grief

The Andrzejewskian notion of 'time-free' and 'time-bound' category of Oromo oral poetry (1985) may overlap with what can be put as the 'traditional' and 'contemporary' geerarsa based on the temporal characteristics of its content and real life situation. Geerarsa can be generally put as Traditional (Append. B.I) and Contemporary (Append. B.II). One may categorize the 'traditional' 'time-free' geerarsa genre as follows:

geerarsa of war events also called historical songs (Cerulli 1922: 100; Sumner 1997: 39). Such songs labeled 'traditional' are also the 'contemporary' songs of their time. They are therefore 'time-bound' in a way since they record major events (political or otherwise) of particular time in history (see Appendix B:1).
geeraresa (hunting songs) of a successful kill of lion, rhino, leopard, elephant, buffalo, giraffe or of an enemy (see Appendix B:2 (a))
b) an unsuccessful kill (Appendix B:2 (b))
c) those who abstain from the hunting venture for
some reason (Appendix B:2 (c))
3. geerarsa of success / failure in life (Appendix B:3 (a) (b))

In addition to those typologies above, there are also songs of 'warm up' called cooka. It is sung in chorus to stimulate the singer at the start, or to let him take breath, collect himself and continue again in the middle, or to wind up his song and give the turn to another singer at the end.

In the background remarks of this chapter ‘contemporary’ geerarsa is described as a ‘protest song’, and is ‘traditionally’ also understood as the Oromo national literature. In the following sub-sections, geerarsa is discussed in terms of its subject-matter, occasion, composition and performance. Gerarsaa as a transformed oral genre and as a genre also to be recited, not just to be sung, is discussed in the sections to follow.

The Subject-matter of Geerarsa

In spite of new interests and the inevitable changes of outlook consequent on the passing of the old mode of life and mere praises, particularly self-praises, the literary form of geerarsa oral poetry still flourishes in most cases as a protest song.

In some types or sub-genres (gooba, dhaaduu, suunsuma or mirriyisa), however transformed, geerarsa still brings inspiration and a formal mode of literary expression that depicts real situation in life (Sumner 1997) among the Oromo. Speaking of the geerarsa sub-genres Baxter (p49) says, "[t]he generic name for hunting and war songs is geerarsa" (cf. Cerulli's gierarsa 1922:100). Geerarsa among the Macca Oromo, Baxter points out citing L. Bartels, is also used to refer to songs of triumph and of a war prisoner (cf. Luucca Abbaa Tuggoo, for his songs in prison). It also refers to the songs of "a man who has 'defeated' poverty" (Baxter ibid.).

Even though geerarsa as an Oromo literary genre is reported even before Cerulli’s Folk Literature...of 1922 as far back as 1896 (cf. Enno Littman), much still remains to be done. Among other such general problems is the generic transformation of geerarsa from the mere praise poetry to a protest song. The performance goals of the geerarsa singer exhibit the Oromo as a people aspiring for freedom while resisting colonial and cultural domination. The gadaa and other traditional values are also described in geerarsa as performed on such occasions like buttaa / jila (feasts), as it is adapted to the sociopolitical changes during and after colonization.

According to Ruth Finnegan, praises such as geerarsa occur among the Oromo "who lay stress on the significance of personal achievement in war or hunting" (Finnegan 1970:111). Like the Somali geerar, Finnegan writes, the Oromo geerarsa is "often in the form of a challenge, sometimes hurled between two armies" (p211 citing Chadwicks 5 1940:548-9). However, in a sociopolitical real sense of the term, geerarsa is not a genre merely limited to cataloguing exploits of war, but more than that it has paramount social, historical and political significance. On the rites of passage, the stage or age of foollee or gaammee-gurguddoo "youth-group", Addisu writes (1990), "is particularly relevant to the process of reciting, composing and singing geerarsa" (p108), more likely dhaaduu, to show that the foollee are initiated into the adult stage once they turned sixteen. The experience and reputation boys establish at this stage of foollee provides opportunities for them when they later seek election into the highly valued social position (see Asmaron 1973:54-57).

What could not be said directly or through the usual medium of communication on just any occasion is conveyed through geerarsa. Jaarsoo for instance recites thus to comment on the existing sociopolitical situation of the Oromo:
nam' adiin mal' dhahatee
yaad' dhibii nutti hinfinnee?
Goobanaan jaarsa nuu mataa
sobee beeseen nutti hinbinnee

didn't Goobana consult the white people
and conform with new tactics?
hasn't he/Goobana 6 hired our elders
and bought them with money?
(adapted from Schlee 1992, p235)

Using the words ‘beesee’ (money), ‘nam-adii’ (white man) and Gobana (Menelik’s warlord), Jaarsoo allusively refers to those Oromo natives in the OPDO 7 referred to as the proverbial quisling Goobana for cooperating with the Tigre-led government so much as Gobana unwittingly cooperated with Menelik in the 19th century long before the rise of modern Oromo nationalism.

By the same token, in the following verse the geeraraa 'singer' comments on 'jabana'/bara, i.e. change in time and the consequent worst system using traditional forms: 'yaa jabanaa' / siif safuu!, i.e. 'O time, Safuu! (interjection).

Thus he sings,
hindaaqqoo qooxii guutuu
adalli bijaa godhe!
misa garaa koo guutuu
jabanni bijaa godhe
5 siif safuu yaa jabanaa!
.................................
ilma namaa rakkiftee
misa garaatti hambifte?!

chicken full on the roost,
a wild cat crept in at night and devoured!
bravery I had full my heart
now gone by changes in time!
safuu to You the changing time!
..........................................
that You have put us in trouble
suppressed bravery in our heart?!
(Tasamma 2000:51)

The singer makes no mention of any name but, presumably, there is a general understanding between the singer and the audience that the singer as a social critic is commenting on the status quo (lines 3-7) and lamenting the worse life situation he and his people live in (line 6). He is by no means glorifying the existing system. He criticizes the present time which 'suppressed' him to succumb to the existing situation (lines 3,4,7). Such songs, i.e., geerarsa, are performed on various occasions such as the daboo (co-operative works) and wedding ceremonies.

Among the main occasions on which geerarsa is sung are those connected with hunting and heroic exploits related to war. As a protest song, however, geerarsa is sung at public gatherings, in prison and in other similar situations.

Traditionally, geerarsa as a popular form may also figure at various occasions: for rejoicing not specifically connected with hunting or war, but with such occasions as weddings or naming ceremonies. Hence, the composer/reciter is a hunter, a hero or the rebel who wants to articulate the worse situation he and his people are put in.

Composition and Performance

Under this sub-topic the composition (act of producing) and performance (act of delivering) of the geerarsa genre will be discussed. In performing geerarsa the individual singer does not tend to stand out like a soloist folk-singer in a dominant position as against a passive audience. The singer, instead, interacts with the audience who are waiting to take the turn to sing or to repeat a refrain usually sung in chorus, for example, at a wedding or gubbisa (naming-) ceremony.

Born and bred within the Oromo ‘oral tradition’, one is introduced from his childhood to the Oromo poetic world. From birth to the gubbisa (naming-) ceremony and throughout every stage of passage a Booran is exposed to some poetic acts that range from varied songs of initiation to different heroic and hunting songs. On such different occasions as homecoming after a successful kill at the amna (hunting/fighting) one also does a great deal of exercise before s/he successfully produces song or personal narrative for inclusion in the poetic repertoire at actual performances.

The geerarsa composer does the composition spontaneously: while he is on the long walk, while he is alone at work on his farm or while herding cattle, as Areeroo the Booran informant has it. Along forest paths to such a distant farm the geerarsa poem also bursts into utterances, which may be the beginning of new geerarsa composition. This happens, especially in the case of the Boorana dhaaduu according to Qararsa, the dhaaduu reciter himself and the informant referred to elsewhere in this study. Often the ‘new’ breed of geerarsa (dhaaduu) emerges when an unexpected and suppressing event such as a surprise attack of the people by the enemy occurs, generating in the singer troubling emotions, which seek a vent of one type or another.

Jaarsoo's motivation is political mobilization, for instance, when he recites to comment on the new sociopolitical situation of the Oromo under the wayyane rule (ibid. p234):
Oromoo, obboleeyyan tiyyaa!
allaattii wal nyaachisuu
isan haga har'aa hinlakkifne?
kan dhufuut' nu yaabbataa,
garbummaan gad nu hindhiifne!

Oromo, my brethren, haven't you
stopped even now from throwing
each other to the vultures?
whoever comes mounts us,
servitude has not yet left us!

The present researcher's informants are unanimous in asserting that geerarsa is the general term for all such original compositions as dhaaduu and gooba in Boorana (cf. also Baxter 1986). The two-geeraarsa sub-genres, i.e. dhaaduu and gooba, seem to be created by particular individuals (known heroes, hunters) as distinct from the anonymous traditional geerarsa handed down orally to generations. No one recites or sings the same gooba or dhaaduu for sure as sung or recited by another hunter or hero, Areeroo and Qamparre agree. 8

In evaluating the geerarsa piece, according to the informants, the first criteria is the amount of wisdom put in the song. That implies how accurate or inaccurate are the observations made by the singer/reciter about the life situation of the society, the Oromo in general and the Boorana in particular. Added to that is how humorous are the remarks made, how far does the diction of the piece consist of idiomatic expressions, words peculiar to hunters and heroes. Metaphorical turns of phrase rather than ordinary words of everyday speech also add to the aesthetic quality of the geeraarsa. Great acclaims are usually given to historical and chronological serious events such as war as well as real-life stories (cf. Sumner's concrete situation in life, 1997.) illustrating the efficacy of the thorough recitation in dhaaduu or singing in gooba.

The second criteria involve the sound of the geerarsa and some stylistic traditions or conventional poetic formulas: prosodic effects and rhythm-segments. The lines of the best improvised geerarsa pieces thus constructed, and when intoned, sound more like the traditional song sung by So and So--a well known singer in the public--or that appeals to the conventionally ascertained rules imprinted by tradition in the mind of the singer. Those rules can be prescribed by E. Littmann’s the seven-meter principle of geeraarsa as Macca Oromo sing it (in Addisu 1990). In the Boorana geerarsa genre called dhaaduu, for instance, it is conventional to repeat the refrain ‘itti deebi’e' / itti deebise’ i.e. ‘I went on to the war again’/’I beat the enemy again’ before one passes on to narrate the series of chronological events. That refrain shows the end of one battle and the beginning of another and of the recitation too, and it goes on.

The best geerarsa singer/reciter at a social gathering, the informants firmly agreed, is the one whose repertoire is the most extensive and accurate, the most balanced in themes (containing humour, just enough amusing geerarsa pieces as effective spice as in the main body of the poems), and the best sung or recited. In this respect, the eyewitnesses he mentions among his colleagues who were on the battle prove from experience the accurately rendered repertoire of a particular dhaaduu reciter. Asmarom Legesse provides an example of such a confrontation between a warrior singer and peers when he made a very vague claim in delivery of dhaaduu,

Janjamtuu/Gujii simantuu
nama kudhanii-lama
hareessa qaraa
anat' ejjeese

Gujii adults,
twelve men
in the first rush,
it’s I who killed

Then an angry mate responded: raatuu, kijibduu! Nama kudhanii-lama mukatti sii hidhanii? (you fool, you liar! Did someone tie them to a tree for you, all twelve of them?) And, Asmarom adds, in the midst of laughter then the singer told the truth that he killed only one, not twelve (Asmarom 1973:104ff).

In rendering both 'traditional' and 'contemporary' geerarsa, disjointed phrasing and halting delivery are disapproved. That is, poetical continuity and fluency of performance, especially in the dhaaduu, the Boorana speech-like poetry to be recited, are the things that are much lauded. And that is why the geerara 'singer' particularly the good dhaaduu reciter habitually controls his breathing action as well. And, that is why he is capable of consistently reciting sustained notes or poetic lines and whole sentences as units of musical phrasing.

Overall, geerarsa maintains the Oromo history and culture both as 'traditional' and 'contemporary' poetic genre through different degrees of composition and performance on various occasions. The Oromo expressed his resentments, lacks and complaints by geerarsa when forced to flee his home, his land or when put in prison. Hence, the geerarsa poetic genre is 'transformed' into a protest song (cf. Baxter 1986; Addisu 1990, 1994).

Geerarsa as a ‘transformed’/'innovated'

Poetic Genre

In Addisu Tolesa’s dissertation (1990) and in his article titled "Oromo Literature, Geerarsa …" (1994), the ‘contemporary’ geerarsa folk genre is described as serving the purpose of Oromo liberation struggle. That can be well justified by Jaarsoo's tape-recording in which he recites

Oromiyaa,
jiruu biyyee marchi lafaadhaa
gubbaat' nu dhalee, nuu kenne Waaqaa
sa'aa namaan horree ilaalaa badhaadhaa
jiruu balchumaa barbaadaa

Oromia,
that Land of abundance and fecundity
on which God created us
that Land which God blessed us with
sons and daughters of man and cattle
our rich Land that which we love
and therefore the Land
that we seek most!
(FSG IV, cf. Schlee 1992 passim; Shongolo 1996 passim)

He says that Oromia is the land which Waaqaa (God) blessed the Oromo with (lines 2,3) and therefore the Oromo seek it most. Jaarsoo reclaims Oromia as the ‘land of abundance and fecundity’ (line 2). Through the words 'love' (line 6) and 'seek most' (line 7) in the recurrent poetic lines above that Jaarsoo uses as a refrain in his tape-recording of the 1992 (FSG IV) he articulates Oromo nationalism. 8 One can also hear other Oromo individual singers/reciters whose subject matter is topical and/or political. The Arsi suunsuma (Nagesso 1994) or Luuccaa Abbaa Tuggoo’s prison songs (Addisu 1990), Sheik Bakrii Saaphaloo (M. Hassen in Baxter 1996:73), Sheik Mohammed Xaahir, and Abdaa Garaadaa's oral poems (which Dr Gemmechu Megersa recited on an interview with him) also echo, one may assert, the grievances of the Oromo nation.

Jaarsoo's poetry is referred to as the 'poetics of nationalism' based on the 'innovated' geerarsa folk genre (Schlee 1992; Shongolo in Baxter 1996), "in which men give poetic accounts of their heroic deeds--and sometimes also, like in the American blues, of their problems and grievances in life" (Shongolo p269). 10

Finnegan (1970) also says that the topical and political function of (Oral) poetry "can be an aspect of work songs, lyric, praise poetry, even…lullaby" (p272).

In her Oral Poetry (1977:159), Finnegan adds that performance of poetry designed for propagating policies/political programmes of opposition parties have been common in Africa. Various singers performed such political poetry designed by political parties to put their own case during elections, Finnegan (ibid) claims, hired by opposing political parties. Enthusiastic supporters of particular political parties, in this view, may best design to put their cause through poetry or well represent it in song.

Hence, poetry is used for what cannot be said directly and by taking the place of other sources of information: the press, the radio and publication. Such a case example is that of the Chopi People of Portuguese East Africa, during the liberation movement, Finnegan declares (1970:273), where public singing is used as a way of expressing public opinion and bringing pressure on individuals. The song,

You, Chugela, you are proud of your position, yet you are only a chief made by the white man

attacks the young chief Chugela who co-operated, according to the comment above, with the Portuguese colonizing power. Perhaps an instance of such propaganda referring to a political party is Jaarsoo's poem attacking the OPDO ('Oromo Peoples' Democratic Organisation) one of other "ethnic 'PDOs'" wayyane (Tigre) organized 'towards the end of 1989' (Mohammed 1994; Baxter 1996):

-OPDO-dhaa ati?
-eeyee
-aabboo Rabbi si haa nyaatuu, caqasi!
sidiin lafaan si barattiif
dhaab' jettee si geessitee
.......................................
haa'teef' aabbee si ajjeesifte

-are you an OPDO?
-yes
-may God ruin you, listen!
enemy made you his instrument
and you killed your own people:
....................................................
you killed your father and your mother
(FSG II, p65)

This is a means of communicating the 'hard times' in history, which is unwittingly siding the enemy against the will and whim of the people, in favour of cowards and opportunists. The poem is, one would rightly argue, the increasingly harsh and direct innuendo of an unsatisfied poet/reciter: 'enemy made you his instrument' (line 4).

There are such 'abusive Oromo songs', as Finnegan designates them, (1970, p277) as against ordinary individuals (see Tasamma Ta'a's collection 2000:50). Abusive Oromo songs are sometimes directly used as means of social pressure, enforcing the will of public opinion. Though no names are mentioned, unpopular individuals, or those who look for opportunities during such hard times as in the geerarsa song above about a bad finna in history (Tasamma, p51) are ridiculed and attacked through geerarsa.

Ruth Finnegan on Political Songs

As Finnegan claims, political songs are an accepted type of poetry by African political parties. They were often purely oral among the largely non-literate masses though at times such songs appeared "in writing, even in print" (Finnegan 1970, p 284). And written collections of party songs circulate among the public as a "powerful and flexible weapon in many types of political activity" (ibid) by their apparently innocuous nature.

The poetic genre used for secret propaganda is also the hymns used by the Mau Mau Movement in the early 1950s in Kenya of which L.S.B. Leakey in Defeating Mau Mau (1954) writes:

The leaders of the Mau Mau Movement… were quick to realise the very great opportunity which the Kikuyu love of hymn singing offered for propaganda purposes. In the first place propaganda in ‘hymn’ form and set to well-known tunes would be speedily learnt by heart and sung over again and again and thus provide a most effective method of spreading the new ideas… This was very important, for there were many who could not be reached by ordinary printed propaganda methods. (qtd in Finnegan 1970, p 285ff)

Finnegan contends that the consequent spread and tenacity of Mau Mau as a political movement was in part the result of those hymns appearing in books and in oral form during the Kenyan national liberation movement in early 1950s.

In line with this, in discussing the problem of whether or not "one type of poetry always goes with a particular form of society", as Finnegan questions in her Oral Poetry (1977:246), generalities do not seem to help much to achieve any new insight as through specific studies to understand how actually poetry functions within the society at a given level of development. The sociological tendency, however, is not the descriptions of specific historical cases but, to sociological analyses of poetry, it is the general relationships and types rather than the unique that facilitate the understanding of the function of poetry at a given level of finna/'development stage'. Some kind of poetry may seem to fit well with certain type of social order at some stage of society; this may also necessitate constructing typologies of such a kind. In this view, attempts to connect "type of poetry and stage of society" relate to the romantic and evolutionist thinkers of the 19th – century (Finnegan ibid). 11 It is worth reiterating here the point already made: there is little evidence, if any, that oral poetry always occurs in the ‘changeless’ tradition bound context.

To sum up, it has been argued that oral poetry does not occur in a ‘changeless’ context, that the poet operates, communicates, and even, on occasions, innovates his composition within the realm of the existing conventions. Geerarsa under no circumstance remains unchanged to stand as a universal and special oral style: it is therefore innovated and undergoes some transformations in the process of constant sociopolitical and cultural changes the Oromo are nationally engaged in.

A Sociology of Geerarsa Genre

Generic Theories and Methods

The need to base the study of verbal art upon an understanding of genres is one of the basic principles underlying sociological poetics. However, the study of genre is not an end in itself but rather serves as "a means toward the fuller understanding of individual works and of literature as a whole" (cf. P. Bernadi Beyond Genre in Fowler 1982, p322).

The sociological approach to genre studies has the basic tenet that "verbal art is a communication event, involving the active social interrelationship of all the participants" (Morris 1994, p160). Pam Morris confirms Bakhtin's argument in "Constructing a Sociological Poetics" saying that in the sociological analysis of the 'communication event' too often the sociological approach is only appropriate to content and to the extraverbal situations, i.e., the determining effects of external social forces upon the content. In this regard, the aesthetic form is analyzed more appropriately by a non-sociological method of analysis, since form is "intrinsic to the work itself".

In what follows here the sociological approach to the immediate determining situation of the geerarsa poetics extend to a speculation about the origin and a consideration more of interpretation and function of the genre, i.e., geerarsa, than generic classification. As regards generic classification the two-tier genre system, i.e. the dilemma of compromising local generic distinctions and conventions on the one hand and the Western-based notions of generic taxonomy on the other (Muana 1998) is another theoretical impasse of genre system. Thus I am urged to rethink the complex problem of generic classification and focus on interpretation and function based on ethnic genres for "genres should be primarily perceived as conceptual categories of communication and not classification" based on 'ethnic genres' (Ben Amos 1976: 225; Muana 1998: 48).

Origin of Genre

Nothing more than speculation is known about the origin of genres, but it is said: "…genres are as old as organized societies" (Fowler "The Formation of Genres" 1982:149). That is, the concept of literary activity seems to presuppose "there being human institutions" which govern its production also guaranteeing its relationship to human purposes.

The origin of any genre perhaps relates to its double orientation towards social reality: extrinsically, genre is determined by external conditions influencing its actualization in real time and space, e.g. the Oromo dhaaduu war poem, or the geerarsa genre. Whether a particular genre serves a public function, personal, religious or secular in those human institutions reflects its extrinsic social orientation. Intrinsically, according to Morris citing Bakhtin, the generic social orientation is determined by the thematic unity of the form. This type of generic social orientation is not understood as the reality produced by content or by the words used but by the generic structure as a whole. Baxter also argues genre is not a timeless and placeless entity. Its existence presupposes the dialogic engagement of "particular people" in "particular utterances" with one another, which M. Bakhtin had already noted "the reality of the genre and the reality accessible to the genre are organically related…genre is the aggregate of the means of collective orientation in reality" (cited in Baxter, 1991 p7).

Answering the question "where do genres come from?" T. Todorov (1993:15) writes: "Quite simply from other genres" through transformation.12 In his "The Origin of Genres" (the article first published in 1976, cited in Baxter, ibid.) Todorov argues that discourse that deals with genres "is always and necessarily constituted by speech acts" (Todorov, p16). Hence, one may conclude, there is no literature without genre, a system which undergoes constant transformation. Genre, in this regard, is "a characteristic of past literature" (Baxter, p5). According to Todorov a speech act "that has non-literary existence like prayer" becomes a genre under certain transformations, e.g. the novel based on the act of telling. He discusses three such case examples: first, 'praying', which is a speech act; 'prayer' is a genre (literary or not), "the difference is minimal", he points out. Second, 'telling' is a speech act, 'the novel' is a genre since something is being told (narrated) in the novel. Unlike the first, i.e., 'praying' and 'prayer' there is now a considerable difference. The third case: the 'sonnet', which is a literary genre. But, there is no such verbal activity as 'sonneting', he argues.

Similarly, in the Oromo oral literary tradition there is a speech act 'geeraruu', to sing a genre 'geerarsa'; there is a speech act 'dhaadachuu', to sing a genre (or sub-genre) dhaaduu. In both cases, even the names of the genres derive from the speech acts. Hence, from these few examples, it seems, among the Oromo, a genre does not differ in any way from other Oromo speech acts. However, for the geerarsa sub-genres of Arsii suunsuma war song, mirriysaa of Harar and the gooba hunting song of Boorana if there are such speech acts as 'suunsumuu', 'mirriysuu' and 'goobuu' needs a thorough investigation.

Now, let it be allowed that this may be the case: there is no verbal action as 'suunsumuu', or 'goobuu' like the 'geeraruu' or 'dhaadachuu' speech acts. It follows that unlike for 'geeraruu' and 'dhaadachuu' one does not take discursive properties as a starting point to examine the generic system of 'goobuu' or 'suunsumuu' if no such a verbal action exists as in the genre 'sonnet' for which there is no 'sonneting'.

Tzvetan Todorov's structuralist view of "The Origin of Genres" (ibid. pp13-26) and Bakhtin's 'double orientation' of genres to social reality in space and time are reviewed in this section since both relate generic origin to human interrelationships. So are the geerarsa, the dhaaduu, the gooba the suunsuma and other Oromo poetic genres determined by specific situation (intrinsic and/or extrinsic) to emerge in space and time like Jaarsoo's poetry. As generic categories they also 'represent flexible social resources' categorized on the basis of the 'situational factors' (in Muana 1998, p48). Overall, in both diachronic and synchronic terms, genres originate out of other genres and previous constituents so much as they originate in everyday human discourse in human institutions: genres are as old as organized societies!

‘Generic Classification’ or ‘Generic Interpretation’?

So far an attempt has been made to establish the origin of genres. It can be recalled that Todorov's argument has been centered on the progression of literary genres out of human verbal acts, which are non-literary in nature. Efforts have been also made to support the argument, namely, derivation of literary genres out of speech acts by exemplifying some poetic Oromo oral genres.

Generic taxonomy is no less difficult than tracing the origin of genres. Since oral poetry takes many different forms it is difficult to pin down poetic generic system under one unitary model. That is why focus in this study is more on the interpretation of the genre system than on generic classification. The purpose of this part is, however, to overview the taxonomy of Oromo oral poetry through varied theories of genres on the bases of the local generic classificatory system, but not to synchronize it with the Western literary taxonomic system. For the demarcation of genres and to perceive them as distinct verbal entities, both the text and the social context of its performance are determining factors. According to Daniel Ben-Amos (1975, p166 passim):

attempts to discover the principles of folklore communication in Africa must begin with the identification and analysis of the cognitive, expressive and social distinctive features of folklore forms (emphasis added).

The cognitive features consist of the names, taxonomy and commentary. By these features the society labels, categorizes and interprets respectively the literary forms within a wider system of discourse. These are abstract principles in the society to govern the folklore use. That is not just to abide by principles as fixed and pure monolithic canons but it involves the ability to modify rules pragmatically: hence, "the interplay between principles and necessities" (Ben-Amos, p186).

The Oromo etiquette, for example, dictates that a young Oromo has to say the politeness formula 'isiniif margi jira', 'I hold grass in respect of you. Forgive me' to utter a taboo in the presence of an older person, so much as a younger Yoruba has to say a prefatory apology just to say a proverb in presence of an older person (ibid.). The standard politeness formula can be: "I don't claim to know any proverbs in your presence you older people, but you older people have the saying…."

Expressive features include the styles, the contents and the structures of the forms by which each literary genre is characterised. The names and taxonomy of folklore genres and commentary about these genres "constitute abstract knowledge about the style, themes, structures, and uses of the forms of verbal art" (Ben-Amos ibid. p.172). In social reality it is this abstract knowledge that is used as the source of ideas to be able to generate folkloric expressions anew and to utter them in appropriate situations.

In poetry the most recognizable expressive feature is rhythmic language by which songs are distinguished from conversation. Recitations also have a pattern of accents and beats that mark them off from 'informative and informal speech'. In addition to their rhythmic effect African folklore genres, Ben-Amos (1975) declares, have basic indications which signify their meanings: e.g., the opening and closing formulas such as in the geerarsa song.

Finally, the social features: these are the constituents of the situational contexts. In this respect, the rules of folklore use and the set of behavioural perceptions and expectations constitute the social features of folklore. That is, the meaning, interpretation and understanding of songs and oral poems, tales, proverbs and riddles in their social use "are affected by the adherence to, or deviation from, these rules by the speakers" (ibid. p186). It can also be equally affected by the age, sex and status or social position of the member of the community. In this respect, Ben-Amos says ethnic genres constitute "a cultural affirmation of the communication rules that govern the expression of complex messages within cultural context" (Ben-Amos 1976:225). 12 Ben Amos generic taxonomy is based on the culturally accepted local conventions (cf. Muana 1998, p.48) , the view which Finnegan shares (1992). Finnegan claims that the preliminary survey of the field made in her Oral Poetry (1977) gives a general idea and illustrates that oral poetry is "by no means a clearly differentiated and a unitary category" (p.9). Allied with this general comment is her contention "that the whole idea of a genre is relative and ambiguous, dependent on culturally-accepted canons of differentiation rather than on universal criteria" (p.15).

The folk-genres traditionally considered as absolute and enduring entities have ceased to become fixed genres subject to the dynamics of performance and practices. That is, genres undergo transformations to meet generic expectations of performers and audience as "a resource for performance available to speakers for the realization of specific social ends in a variety of creative, emergent and even unique ways" (qtd. in Finnegan 1992, p 137). The exploration of such generic processes is believed to be particularly effective for analyzing or considering fluid and changing genre like the Oromo geerarsa.

Hence, to work on generic classification/interpretation, one better way to start with is "to use the local words" such as dhaaduu, gooba, to refer to the Boorana types of heroic song widely known by the ‘geerarsa’ generic name among the Oromo (Baxter 1986, p49). In the study of Oromo oral poetry, from the perspective of its form, rules to govern the nature, occurrence and distribution have not been established (Andrzejewski 1985, p410). Efforts made in the 1920s by Enno Littmann and in the '30s by Moreno were good beginnings. They paved the way for the study of Oromo oral poetry today, especially the geerarsa (Sumner 1997; Addisu 1994, 1990). From content and generic interpretation /classification it may well be argued that further research is needed to set reliable information and to establish operational criteria for the generic classification and interpretation of Oromo oral poetry. Andrzejewski cites Phillip Paulitchke's early attempt in Germany as far back as 1896 though the "classification does not overlap completely with any strictly defined ranges of themes" (Andrzejewski ibid. cf. Pankhurst 1976).

C. Sumner's "form, content and concrete situation in life" (1997) as the basic criteria for the generic classification and interpretation of Oromo oral poetry are seemingly limited to songs. Sumner and other researchers, including Addisu Tolesa, do not seem to have been aware of such a speech-like oral poetry as dhaaduu to exist in the (Boorana) Oromo oral poetry. In such a case one may draw a hasty conclusion that Oromo oral poetry is generally to be sung and there is none to be recited. For the purpose of the present study, therefore, adopting Sumner's "form, content and concrete situation in life" seems to be unreasonable.

Perhaps Andrzejewski’s 'time-free' and 'time-bound' model used to categorize Somali poetry is pertinent to the study of Oromo poetry, particularly geerarsa. He puts the Somali poetry within 'time-bound' and 'time-free' streams, which he adapts to the generic classification and interpretation of Oromo oral poetry (1985, pp410-15). According to Andrzejewski the Oromo oral poems of public forum, i.e., those deeply involved in the current political and social situations of their time such as Jaarsoo's are categorized as 'time-bound'. Hence, Oromo love poetry is very prominent in the 'time-free' stream.

To sum up: in literary studies it may well be argued that there is no one single model to apply to the fundamental question(s). The value/function of the genre, the origin and taxonomy of the genre, and the validity of the interpretation all call for due attention and each of such a fundamental question calls for the application of relevant model(s). This section has been treating such theoretical and pragmatic considerations of Oromo oral poetry: geerarsa and the dhaaduu recitative poetry.

Boorana Popular Genre: Geerarsa as Dhaaduu

Recitative Poetry

Among the Oromo, of whom the Booran are one, killing lion, elephant, rhino, and giraffe for trophy game is common and a successful killer is accorded great honour. Some researchers contend that such an active shedding of blood of enemies and of trophy animals by men is paralleled by the passive shedding of blood by women through menstruation and child birth. Baxter, for instance, makes the same connections in his writings on the Oromo culture (Baxter 1985, 1978, 1986) and Lambert Bartels (Bartels 1983) also demonstrates the same conceptual relationships between "killing and bearing".

The active blood shedding by men through killings and the passive blood shedding by women through child bearing and menstruation is considered to be central to the religion of the Oromo (Bartels 1983). Baxter's contention that among the Oromo "men should be active, strong and brave whereas women should be receptive, soft and fertile" (1986:45) may be frowned at as male chauvinism though traditionally shared by men. Among the Oromo the symbolic connections between copulation--in which case women are said never on the top--and 'spearing' "are close and explicit" seem to be confirmed by PTW Baxter citing Okot pBiteck (1966): "men are said to 'spear' women" (Baxter ibid.). Even more, Baxter and Fardon, guest editors to Voice, Genre, Text vol. 73, no 3 Autumn 1991 forward, citing Donna Haraway's 'sexual politics of a word', that "genre and gender are related terms" (p4). They add: "an obsolete English meaning of 'to gender' is 'to copulate" (ibid.). By Haraway's gender and generic conception 'gender' adheres to 'concepts of sex, sexuality, sexual difference, generation, engendering...' Other words close to 'gender', Haraway adds, are: kinship, race, biological taxonomy, language and nationality (p5).

Generic system also among the Oromo is gender oriented. Like the geerersa song below, there are other song texts, says a certain Gurmeessaa, which the singer uses to reinforce others to take turn to sing geerarsa or otherwise they are likened to women:

nami gaagura hiituu
nama miila tokkooti
nami hingeerarin galtu
nama cinaan tokkooti

a man who hangs a bee-hive is
a man with only one leg,
a man who does not sing today is
a man with only one testicle

Similarly, the traditional two-line geerarsa text: 'reettiin areeda hinbaaftuu / dubartiin hingeerartuu', literally, 'a she-goat never grows beard / so much so, a woman never sings geerarsa' is another gender-oriented common moral precept used in geerarsa at least for two purposes. One, to limit the art of geerarsa accompanying hunting and war only to the domain of men; two, to activate the man who is reluctant or shy to sing geerarsa by saying, ironically, only woman does not sing geerarsa.

The primary purpose of this part of the study is to examine the Boorana popular genre: the dhaaduu war poem--to be recited, not to be sung. It will also be made clear in this section that there is the influence of the dhaaduu ethnic genre on the language and the poetic style of Jaarsoo's poetry, which Jaarsoo delivers in reciting rather than in singing.

The Dhaaduu Recitative Poetry

This sub-topic aims to describe the dhaaduu recitative poetry as geerarsa sub-genre that might have influenced the poetic content and style of Jaarsoo's recital poetry. Dhaaduu is a war poem recited in nearly a speech-like tone. In discussing the formal structure of dhaaduu it is not simple to pin down its poetic form. The difficulty lies not in its composition, since the reciter recounts from his memory past events recorded and composed into poems. The difficulty rather lies in the nature of the content of the poem itself. That is, all the hardships encountered, pains of the bloody fighting fought and the victims, emotions and feelings attached to these disrupt the normal flow of the poem. So energetic and emotional as the reciter becomes at the moment of delivery and that he continuously utters the events, it is not simple to clearly tell where the line of the verse ends. However, the division into line is in most cases indicated by the reciter’s delivery: words pronounced together in the same breath, pause, words/phrases fall together in terms of sense, sometimes formalized linear units of praises. Vowel sounds are more often than not used as what Andrzejewski has called 'vowel coloured breaths' (see Schlee 1992:230).

The end of each dhaaduu poetic line is actually difficult to notice except on the basis of related sense of meaning of the ‘nodes’, i.e. a group of words which function the same semantic, syntactic or aesthetic purpose, or on the basis of repetition or parallelism. Whereas, the ends of stanzas are brought out by the lengthening of pitch of the penultimate line and the glides heard on the last word of the last line, as it seems to be the case for such recitative poems. Here is a dhaaduu by Areeroo, a renowned dhaaduu reciter:
ka Abb’ Duubaa
ka Guyyoo Duubaa
Boora ka jaartiiti
boor’ Saakora Yuubaati
5 aaddaa shaahuu Diqqooti
dhirsa Kuulaati
soddaa Kuluulaati

(I am) Abb’ Duubaa’s son
Guyyoo Duubaa’s giant
old mother’s giant
Saakoraa Yuubaa’s giant
Kuulaa’s husband
Kuluulaa’s brother–in–low

The language being so allusive and so ambiguous, the linear units being so short and made of names of kinsmen (lines 1,2,4, 6,7) and forms of expression being metaphoric (cf. giant) the poetic style of the dhaaduu poem emerges more fully when one considers the whole poetic lines coming next. Alliteration (see lines 3,4 and 6,7) is the most commonly used poetic feature in dhaaduu as one can observe in the words kuulaa/kuluula, boora/boor.

The use of special idioms and elaborated adjectives as in the above dhaaduu text (see the possessive adjs.) are a special poetic style the composer of dhaaduu poem needs to master. In the following alliterative poetic lines,
irr’ arboori dansaa
qubaallee qubeen dansaa
guutuu liilanni dansaa
mataa baalgudi dansaa,

wooden armlet on arm is nice
ring on ring-finger is nice
comb in the tuft of hair is nice
feather on the crown of head is nice,

the adjective dansa ‘nice’ is repetitive to emphasize the content of the poem, i.e., the importance of trophy and all those ‘nice’ paraphernalia for the hero's traditional costume. The items stressed by the repetitive adjective ‘dansa’ or ‘nice’: arboora, qubee, liilana, baalguda, i.e. armlet, ring, wooden comb and feather respectively are all nice for the hero to decorate himself with. In this regard, parallelism and repetitions are marked features in dhaaduu self-praise poetry as can be illustrated from the praise song provided by Galgaloo just quoted. The first and the second lines are semantically parallel since both ‘armlet’ and ‘ring’ relate to ‘hand’ or part of hand whereas the third and fourth lines refer to ‘head’ and ‘hair’. The alliterative words and phrases: ‘irr' irboorri' in the first line and ‘qubbaallee qubeen…’ in the second lines show that those ornaments 'irboora’ or ‘armlet’ and ‘qubee’ or ‘ring’ derive from names of parts of the body ‘irree’, ‘arm’ and ‘quba’ or ‘ring-finger’, named after the parts of the body they are worn on and so are dansa (nice).

The hero in dhaaduu is associated with animals (domestic or wild) to indicate the suggestion that he is too wild for his enemies to manage. The hunter also considers himself so brave and so fierce like the animal he hunts. Baxter, citing Cerulli, has this to say: "tough wild young [Booran] bachelors who hunt are indulged, because they are like "animals of the bush" bineensa hardly domesticated" (Baxter 1986:45; cf. Cerulli 1922:100). Most frequent of all, the comparison is made to a lion, a tiger, a buffalo, and an eagle in association with the animals’ bravery, wildness and fearsome appearance. An example is Areeroo's dhaaduu where he associates himself with a lion, a rhino and a leopard and uses such animal metaphors as,
neenca ta’ee goodaat’ galee
qeerramsa ta’ee baddaat’ galee
warseessa ta’ee mataa-lagaat’ galee

as a lion, in deep jungle I dwelt
as a leopard, in mountain bush I dwelt
as a rhino, in river water I waded

And, the hero praises himself and draws parallelism between himself and a series of furious and strong wild beasts. By further analogy the reciter praises himself for his strength and courage to bear up the pains and hardships such as dwelling in mountainous bushy pockets, in deep jungles and splashing about in the surf in river water, etc.

Relatively speaking, examples show that similes are fewer than metaphors in dhaaduu. However, a few occur by way of descriptions: Qaraarsa, for instance, recites thus,

lafti Booranaa dhakaa
anuu jabaa akka dhakaa

Boorana land is rocky
and so much as firm as rock I am

where the singer demonstrates his strength by using the simile 'akka dhagaa' in anuu jabaa akka dhagaa, 'and so much as firm as rock I am'. To vividly describe the tenacious situation, hyperbole appears in emotional description in dhaaduu. The fierceness of the battle may be illustrated as in the lines below:
namichi gosaan Soomale
hinwaraanne inqabe
hinajjeefne inqale
nabsee nati harkaa fuudhe
qawwee Waaqat’ harkaa na fuudhe

the person/victim is a Somali
I did not strike but caught him
I did not shoot but slew him
his soul did I conquer
and so did God his weapon.

The effect of the battle may be thus pronounced as in the dhaaduu text shown above indirectly in such a description of the general scene. In the text having five lines above, the singer depicts the picture of the battle when the victim falls, the hero catches and slays him (line 2,3), ‘disarms’ him of his soul while Waaqaa (God), literally speaking, disarms him of his weapon (lines 4 & 5).

Thus, by ordering the events chronologically and depicting a series of pictures of his own war-like qualities and deeds Qaraarsa recites.

an am' mucaa amal’ dansaa
amala Waaqat’ namaa midhaansa
Qabata abbaat’ midhaanfata

I am the son of good temper
but Waaqa is the architect of good temper
while one is the architect of his own temperance

That the alliterative and repetitive qualities of the poem sometimes serve to heighten the artistic effect of the poetry and render it some aesthetic beauty and depth of philosophy.

Dhaaduu poetry, being very much oral in composition like other praise poems it is intended to be heard not read, and delivered much faster, in a normal speech like tone as in Jaarsoo's poetry but with few pauses. As well, there are growing excitement and dramatic gestures made as dhaaduu proceeds. That is, as the poetry is more and more recited, the reciter works himself up much faster, eyes glaring, face up lifted and suddenly raised and shaken. As the researcher observed Qaraarsa, who resisted reciting such a war poem as dhaaduu now that he is a hajji, gestures during the delivery are so frequent and dramatic that the reciter would suddenly leap or move as the poems are poured from his lips. As he becomes exhausted then the flow of the spring of dhaaduu grows less and less.

Qararsa also says similar to what is quoted in Finnegan (1970) from other source related to the power of the verse and of delivery: "’a man whilst praising … can walk over thorns, which cannot pierce his flesh which has become impenetrable’" (p 138). Finnegan in her Oral Literature in Africa (1970) adds that "the composition of praise poetry was traditionally both a specialist and a universal activity" (p 139), while occasions for the composition of praise poems, particularly the dhaaduu being battle.

Summarily, the literary effect of dhaaduu does not seem to primarily depend on the reciter’s skill of providing the poem. It rather depends on the art of the poet to use those traditional formulas: figurative expressions, allusion, various stylistic devices such as parallelism, for instance, as in Jaarsoo’s recitative/narrative poetry. Those traditional forms, apart from the poet’s delivery, serve to heighten the literary effectiveness and power of the dhaaduu verse. Thus, the dhaaduu poetry is a meeting place between the geerarsa general poetics of event-based literature and the protracted finna, Oromo development phases analysed from sociological perspective in the chapter to follow.

ENDNOTES

1. See Negasso 1983; Addisu 1990, 1994 on geerarsa as a historically transformed oral genre; and Schlee in Hayward 1996, and Shongolo in Baxter 1996 on Jaarsoo Waaqoo's dhaaduu-like recitative poems. The theme of geerarsa genre nowadays has transformed into having a double-face, Janus-like: one is 'traditional' praises communicating and preserving the Oromo culture while the other is the 'contemporary' protest song articulating the Oromo struggle and aspiration to subvert the Tigre-Amhara rule in Oromia.

2. Though the purpose of this study is content analysis, in discussing the poetic style of Jaarsoo's poetry, the issue of the poet's intention seems the predominant one. The concern is more with the author's intention realized in the work which Schlee and Shongolo put thus: "His [Jaarsoo's] bias, quite legitimately, is pro-OLF and pro-Boran" (in Hayward 1996, p230). C. Sumner declares in his OWL vol. ii Songs (1997) that "[i]n Oromo songs there is a complete identification of the 'literary type' with the 'notion' or the 'theme' "(p367).

3. I draw the issue of Oromo tradition/culture as a basis for Oromo consciousness and Oromo identity upon Gemetchu Megersa's article titled "Oromumma: Tradition, Consciousness and Identity" (in Baxter 1996, pp92-102). In the excerpt from his 'framework for the understanding of Oromumma' Gemetchu argues "... Oromo tradition provides the basis for Oromo identity" and the "juxtaposition of Oromo consciousness with Oromo tradition and social experience is necessary for the understanding of the nature and content of Oromo identity" (p92). Doubtless to say 'contemporary' geerarsa is a medium of expression of that Oromo consciousness and social experience.

4. Cerulli distinguishes between geerarsa and faarsaa: the former he considers it as a ‘boasting’ song of individual warriors, whereas faarsaa, literally, 'praise poetry', is the ‘boasting’ song of the society. In this regard, the following geerarsa text is sung by an individual warrior who comes home after a successful kill (Cerulli 1922, p102):

the guchii (ostrich) loves the sun!

I have descended to the narrow valley
and I have pulled down the horsemen...
the beautiful girls will adorn my comb
my friends will kiss my mouth
the children will say to me "You have killed well!"
In any case 'geerarsa' and 'faarsa' are both popular or folk songs, and, therefore, it is not very clear if Cerulli meant by 'faarsa' minstrelsy songs or songs of traveling singers.

5. H. M. Chadwick and his wife Nora Chadwick, 1940

6. Goobana, in the "contemporary OLF discourse ... is regarded as the proverbial traitor", i.e. the Norwegian Vidkun Quisling "who in 1945 cooperated with the Nazi occupation force" (Shongolo in Baxter ibid. Footnote no. 13 p271).

7. OPDO, Mohammed Hassen writes "was created by the TPLF and is tightly controlled by the same organization" (in Baxter 1996, Footnote no. 8 p.78).

8. No hunter, however, can validly claim the authorship of geerarsa piece, according to the informants Areeroo, Caalaa and Qampharree, even if he is the first to sing it on a certain occasion. This is because the tradition is believed to be the source to which every singer refers as aadaa (culture) in which one is brought up passing through every initiation rite. Hence, the process of the composition seems to be intuitive and inspirational as if it springs from the innate talents of the artist. Certainly, there are new geerarsa pieces created by well-experienced singers on different occasions, as added to his repertoire and to the already existing 'traditional' song even though no one claims authorship.

9. See Schlee and Shongolo in Hayward 1996, p230 that Jaarsoo's poetry, "quite legitimately, is pro-OLF".

10. Speaking of Jaarsoo's poetic style, Shongolo, who claims the Boorana identity himself (in Baxter 1996, p.310), states Jaarsoo "creatively combined plain everyday language with traditional rhetoric style" (ibid. p269). The language of Boorana oral poetry, and of Jaarsoo's poetry, however, is under no way as simple as Shongolo declares it to be. I contend with what Baxter says of language of the gooba 'giraffes poetry': added to the ambiguity and obliqueness combined with "impressionistic, almost concealed meanings" are the "esoteric and archaic words" that make the task of transcription and translation of the songs difficult (1986, p48). Baxter adds that in Boorana songs "the ambiguity of language reflects the ambiguity of the experience. The implicit connection between the words, as sounds and as meanings, and their associations and ambiguities are part of the cumulative meaning of each verse"(ibid. p49) as in gooba songs, for instance. In studying Jaarsoo's poetry, but one may conclude that symbolic figures such as metaphors, similes and hyperboles are combined with what Shongolo says "features of nationalist discourses into a basically Booran idiom" (in Baxter p268) used as a 'war of words' as opposed to a war with arms" (269).

11. Such an attempt to relate certain types of society to certain types of poetry and poetic activity also relates to those heroic poetry and ‘heroic age’ society of the Oromo. The ‘Heroic Songs/Historical Songs’ in Cerulli’s Folk Literature...(1922), Sumner’s (1997) collections of Oromo Songs, and the geerarsa song texts in Addisu’s dissertation exemplify the Chadwicks' argument that 'heroic poetry' and 'heroic age societies' are related (in Finnegan ibid).

12. See in T.Todorov Genres in discourse (1990, p20); PTW Baxter and Richard Fardon Voice, Genre, Text (1991, p5). Todorov maintains, one starts with the other already constituted speech acts through a progression from a simple act to a complex one, so much as, to the historicist, the "interpretation of history is based on the present, just as that of space starts with here, and that of other people with I".

13.. I have drawn upon Dan Ben-Amos's "Taxonomy of Genres" (1975, pp168-71) in which he suggests three ways of designating the category of form:
cognitively, by naming it, pragmatically by performing it in particular contexts, and expressively by formulating it in a distinctive language which is peculiar to the genres (p168).

In the taxonomic system of verbal art that satisfies local conventions, and therefore "coherent and culturally valid", then, he concludes, the folkloric expression "must have stylistic, thematic, and contextual correlatives which will justify its inclusion in one class or another" (ibid.).

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis Published: 6/21/2007