After reaching a monumental peak in early 1990s, the Oromo movement has been undergoing a paradoxical development for

the last two decades. On one hand, the victories achieved in 1991 continue to be consolidated on the ground. These gains, re-establishment of homeland with albeit minimal self-rule, and application of a writing system and officialization of the language, have significantly contributed to institutionalization of Oromo nationalism. This institutionalization in turn has resulted in increased literacy, urbanization of the Oromo population and development of a professional and administrative class. And these factors that are crucial for deepening of nationalism and growth of the nations comparative advantage vis-vis its adversaries. On the other hand, the movement has lost its revolutionary momentum due to the organizational and strategic crisis it has been experiencing. The attempt and inability to reframe the narrative of the movement in light of the changed nature, objective and strategy of the adversary, had led to cyclical strategic mistakes resulting in organizational decay and institutional paralysis. This crisis has stimulated individuals and groups to search for ways of reforming and/ or transforming the movement. The quest for solution has both positive and negative aspect; in one hand the intensive debate and discussion has enriched the movement by inducing pluralism and counterbalancing what would otherwise be a militaristic and monotonous discourse nationalist movements are known for. The down side, in recent years, the search for solution has become so frantic that factions and cliques have been taking actions that could not only obstruct the remaining journey of the movement but also endanger many of the nominal and substantive achievements gained so far. A movements cause, course is a result of by endogenous as well as exogenous factors that interact to advance or constrain it. To be effective a strategist needs to have full picture of both. The current paper focuses on the endogenous development s within the Oromo movement. In particular This article discusses these two paradoxical developments and their impact on the welfare of the Oromo people. The article is divided into two main parts. The first part presents the two paradoxical phenomenon and their consequence. The second part develops some strategic suggestions that could help the movement overcome and/ or taking advantage of the current situation. The analysis is largely theoretical; reference to real events, decisions and personalities have been consciously avoided in order to enable the reader to focus on the issues. Moreover, since the piece is aimed for the general readership, technical terms are avoided and great use is made of diagrammatic presentation.

What caused the crisis? Why did the Oromo movement face crisis? Why did it face crisis and when it did? The Oromo politics is stuck in 1991 is a statement thrown around most often. This statement is followed by list the strategic and tactical blunders committed by the leadership. While internal mistakes have been widely discussed, little examination exist about the external changes that caused and exacerbated those internal mistakes.

The strategy of a given movement is in large part shaped by the kind of adversary it was confronting. Prior to 1991, the Oromo movement was fighting against a state whose objective, ideology, and strategy was diametrically contradictory to that held by the movement. The previous regimes objectives was to build unified nation state, homogeneous society to be achieved through forced assimilation and a centralized rule via direct rule. The regime that came in 1991 ascended to power with objective of using the existing state as temporary surrogate mother. It did not share the nation state building agenda of its predecessors. As such it came with ideological narrative that was near synonymous with that advanced by the Oromo movement. However, to achieve their divergent objective, the new regime and its predecessors had to rely on common means, the Oromo resources. Yet while the old regimes used direct rule to extract resources, the new one choose indirect rule.

Issues Oromo Identity

Previous rulers Demonize, vilify, deconstruct and substitute Extract to the center

Oromo Preserve, reconstruct and restore Prevent extraction, local accumulation Self-rule

New rulers Allow Extract indirectly Indirect rule

Administrative Strategy

Direct rule

The political narrative, the strategic calculation and organizational model of the Oromo movement which was developed to confront the previous regimes stood to be less effective against the new adversary. It is also important to note that under the new condition the Oromo movement had to engage in vertical and horizontal fight against two adversaries. Horizontally it was facing ideological attack from the previous rulers, Amhara groups, while simultaneously engaging the new exploitative rulers, Tigreans vertically, it was facing the new rulers. This created a peculiar challenge. The Amharas who struggle to regain their lost power by default became potential allies of the Oromo movement. Hence, to harness this potential the Oromo movement, which was born to fight them, needed to re-articulate its message in a way that did not antagonize them. Hence, to fight this bipolar war, the movement needed to re-frame its narrative. The rational for this was that because the adversaries nominal but symbolically important concessions might deceive Oromo and external observers, the movement needed to find an issue that was not addressed. There were two possible option; either radicalize or moderate it. The radicalization option meant re-framing the Oromo demand for unconditional independence rather than the dualist and pragmatic selfdetermination that was used previously. The strategic logic for radicalization was that such move is necessary because waging nationalist struggle requires drawing a sharp contrast between the movement and the state power. Moreover in the past, following the re-alliance of Dergue with conservative bureaucracy, such radicalization strategy did serve the movement quite well.

The other alternative was to moderate the narrative. The rational for moderation was that the fundamental changes that took place following the end of Cold War had made liberal and moderate political languages more attractive than radical and militaristic approach. Hence the Oromo narrative should be framed as quest for human rights and democratization. This would also allow the movement to narrowly focus on the one thing it had not achieved yet, state power. But neither of these two option were fully developed, vetted and adopted due to the circumstance in which they had to be attempted. The task of re-framing the narrative had to be undertaken while the movement was undergoing serious organizational stress which hindered the leadership from making the needed changes swiftly. Three of the major causes of this organizational stress are a) having suffered major catastrophe that set it back for a decade, and having regrouped only in 1989, the OLF was ill prepared to deal with regime change b) The collapse of the regime and the mainstreaming of the Oromo nationalism caused huge surge in popular support, ( which the organization was unable to absorb) and high expectation ( which could not be met) c) military engagement against an insurgent-cum-state army ( symmetric strategy with the movement) and with superior hardware advantage. And each of these factors re-in-force each other and multiply the organizational stress. Under that level of stress an organization has serious difficulty in transforming it self because the stress leads to a) to misdiagnosis of the problem, often symptoms could be mistaken for cause b) to friction within the leadership, stirring up old differences, loosening cohesion and reducing confidence from the rank and file. A leadership can transform an organization in three possible ways a) by taking swift top-down action b) by building consensus among rank and file c) by waiting and taking advantage of the right moments and circumstances. However,neither of these option are likely to be helpful for an organization facing severe stress. Because such stress induces doubt in the leadership, erode its credibility and weaken its cohesion, its ability to undertake successful reform is minimal. An assertive and swift top down change need to withstand a push-back from conservative elements. To build a consensus, the rank and file must be able to trust the leaderships proposal and its ability to produce result. As Jeffery Sachs notes in deep crisis there is no room for consensus. There are too many opinions. Each equally legitimate since there is no one with solid credibility Similarly the leadership must be stable enough to detect and take advantage of favourable circumstances. [1] This explains why it was difficult to re-frame the narrative of the Oromo movement in the early 1990s. Neither of the two option, moderation or radicalization could be clearly articulated because the transformation effort was tangled with factional and leadership rivalries produced by the organizational stress mentioned above. The path dependency problem Failing to effectively overcome the organizational stress, leaders began to push one or the other of the agendas either to rationalize their mistakes or tap into certain segment of the organization in order to consolidate their power base. Overtime, each

of the options were identified with a certain leader or faction. Hence the effort to reframe did not only become hostage to factional and leadership rivalry but also contributed and exacerbated to the emerging crack within leadership. As the crisis deepened, by the end of 1990s the strategic difference over how to re-frame the narrative grew into a full-blown ideological dispute on the goal of the movement itself. The elevation of a strategic difference into divergence over the goal of the movement has led to misdiagnosis causes prescription of wrong remedies. Hence, several well intentioned initiatives have failed take roots because actors focus producing a better political program rather than develop alternative organizational model or devise a winning strategy. Problems caused by tactical and strategic mistakes are wrongly attributed to impurity of the goal. That means ideological plausibility dictates tactical and strategic choices rather than systematic assessment of the full range all the factors involved. A strategy that was formulating using single criteria is likely to be obstructed by factors that were left out of consideration and consequently less likely to achieve the intended result and even worse produce negative externalizes to the institution. Similarly failures of a leader is automatically attributed to his ideological persuasion, rather than carefully scrutinizing other possible factors such as the behaviour, preferences and qualification of that specific agent. And this is likely to promote populist rather than pragmatic and well qualified leaders. Unqualified populist leaders rely on ideological rhetoric to cover their deficiencies and obstruct the effort to systematically diagnose strategic and institutional sources of failures. Every time this process, misdiagnosis leading to wrong strategic choices and agency selection, is repeated it wears and tears the resources of a movement, particularly its credibility. As the credibility of a movements ( of its leaders, their strategies and promises) decline, public trust and confidence declines creating and expanding market for alternative ideas and proposals-- condition that facilitate the birth of factionalism. in addition to the reduced internal cohesion, the resources pool of the movement splinted and wasted. To regain lost support and resources or maintain what they have , leaders engage in reckless and frantic activities that lack prior reflection and strategic thinking. Born new factions repeat the same old mistakes, disillusionment engulfs the public and enthusiasm dampens. Lacking resources, marred with periodic defection and reshuffling, intuitions of the movement become dysfunctional and unable to enforce norms. In a sense the leadership looses control over its base, in response reduces its activities, and enters a survival (hibernation mode) meaning it needs less resources hence less dependent and non-responsive on the base.The base cannot constrain the leadership.This, in my view, is the state of the OLF today. Can we get out of it?

Depreciation of human capital Almost all factions are created by individuals who have given up reforming the mother-ship and want to change the status quo by splitting from it. Having lost confidence in the mother-ship, the population gives such factions enthusiastic support. But new factions rarely fulfil their reformist promises by capitalizing on such early enthusiasm. Then, we must ask why do they often fail and what does such

exercises cost the movement? The following model might help explain this. A political organization is made up of the leadership, operational corps and mass supporters. [2] Leaders and operational corps in political organization are equivalent to executives and managers in business organizations. The following diagram shows this structure. Let assume that this organization has a 10 person leadership team, 100 persons operational corps and 1000 mass supporters. Let us say that each leader is worth 1 unit, each operational corps member 0.5 units, and a member of the mass supporters 0.1units . Therefore, in normal times, this organization human capital is 160 units ( 10 *1+100*0.5+1000*0.1). Now imagine that an organization with this model split into two. For the sake of simplicity, let us say that the break away faction takes 40% , which means the mother-ship is left with 60%. Now each faction has to fill the vacuum positions, they have to promote some individuals from amongst the operational corps. Faction A needs to promote 4 and faction B needs 6. But because such promotion does not follow the regular process where the new leaders undergo the necessary preparation in order to upgrade their capability, each promoted operational corps adds only 0.5 units to the leadership team. Hence, even if each factional organization has 10 leaders, the cumulative leadership capability as well as the overall human capital, is lower than before.
Original organization 10 units Faction A 8 units Faction B 7 units

Why new factions fail? The first problem for the the emerging energetic faction (A) is that takes off with less leadership capability than the original organization, 7 units rather than 10 meaning its performance level will be 70% instead of 100%. Second, this new initiative with a promise of swift changes, raises huge expectation which is good and bad. Good because its attracts public attention for the factions message. Bad because its newly promoted and inexperienced leaders have to step on the spot light, where their little mistakes would be highly magnified by the microscopic scrutiny of their adversary and the high attentive public. This often results in reshuffling and reassignment which prematurely destabilizes the new leadership team at the time when it needs to create cohesiveness. Since it did not have time to build an institutional mechanism of concealing internal differences, Its supporters and public confidences begins to decline, increasing pressure on the leadership and widening the crack. As the faction tries to patch up is emerging internal crisis, it neglects or would be unable to work towards fulfilling its inflated promise. Such condition is likely to lead to break up into smaller faction or it will face major defection back to the factor factions. Similarly faction ( A) is also left with lower leadership capacity ( 8 units) and performance capability (80%), so it is unlikely to produce better results than before. In fact it might under-perform for two reasons. For one, it does not address the structural problems that led to factionalism because during the break up,it wastes valuable time and resources in its fight against the new faction. Second, it wrongly

perceives the collapse of faction B as it was caused by its own superiority. The reverse defection some members of faction B exacerbates this misperception. When the factional fight subsides and the attention of members turn in ward, pressure builds up on the leadership and another round of break up looms. The damage of factionalism on a movement: Leadership depreciation As discussed above, factionalism leads to movement stagnation by hindering the success of new factions as well as debilitating the main organization from undertaking the necessary reform. But the factional fight produces results that obstruct the effort to reunify factions and reorganize the movement. First, the fight often involved better personal animosity between leaders and senior operational corps members. This makes it difficult to re-group them under one umbrella organization. Second, factional fight often involves intense character assassination against individual leaders, severely damaging their credibility. This denies the movement a unifying figure acceptable to all factions and the public at large. Third,not every member of the factional leadership can be incorporated into into the new re-unified leadership team. That means, some of either the senior or the recently promoted leaders have to be excluded and demoted. Hence, due to uncertainty about who might be included or excluded, majority of the leaders have the incentive to derail the re-unification effort. I argue that this was the cause for the failure of of the two OLF re-unification efforts. No Need for desperation Despite the depressingly grim picture presented above, the Oromo movement is not at the brink of collapse. Although it is struggling to regain its dissipated revolutionary steam, the evolutionary journey has continued. In order to defuse Oromo nationalism and consolidate power, the new rulers made two concession, self rule and language rights, that were nominal and symbolic in the short term but turned out to be instrumental in the long run, as I will show below. Self-administration: institutionalization of Oromo nationalism Although it lacks real autonomy and executive power, the re-establishment of the Oromo homeland, Oromia as a unified single governing unit, has been playing an instrumental role in producing and sustaining the evolutionary gains been made. Nationalism aims to make the nation and its administrative unit congruent in order to help coordinate members of the nation towards collective action. First, the existence of Oromia by itself service crucial symbolic purpose by helping the long scattered Oromo segments to perceive themselves as one people, with a shared past and whose fate is tied together. This is a key ingredient for collective action. The various agencies and organs of Oromia incorporate some symbolic elements and traditions of Oromo society. Although they appropriate application adoption of symbols such as caffee, galma, will influence how Oromos perceive their government instititution and positively contribution to the ongoing reconstruction and revival of Oromo identity. Second, although they lack real power and serve as extractive agents of an alien

rule, Oromos running the varies institutions and administrative units of Oromia are helps the movement develop its human capital. These estimated five million Oromos are developing sets of technical and leadership skills that could be utilized to on the course of the struggle and during the post victory consolidations. Third, by bringing them together from various regions, and facilitating their interaction, Oromia is helping shape the behaviour of the rising elite along Oromo identity and make their individual interest congruent with that of the nation. Suffice to say that establishment of Oromia as govening unit has helped institutionalization of Oromo nationalism , strengthen Oromo cohesion, and helped build the personal and collective capacity of Oromo bureaucratic elites. However, some of the institutional and normative deficiencies must be urgently improved While Oromia and the agents running it continue to lack real power, the system been built is conducive for effective administration the day Oromo people capture real power Qubee: literacy (enrollment rather than literacy-define them) The introduction of a writing system and officialization of Afan Oromo is the crucial achievement that has ensured the evolutionary progress of the Oromo movement even at the time when the struggle is facing uncertain future. studies show that, out of all modernization processes, literacy and leaning in the own language are the that do not only foster nationalism, but also make an irreversible phenomenon. The emerging litrature on this makes a strong argument for this assumption. In his forthcoming book Keith Darden persuasively argues that literacy is the one direct casual facto that explains the birth and persistence of nationalism. His central theme is worth quoting at length, The national loyalties instilled in a population during the introduction of mass schoolingwhen a community shifts from an oral to a literate mass cultureare internalized by individuals and their families through unique changes of status and culture to produce a powerful affective tie. Once initially established through the schools, national identities are preserved and reproduced over time within families and reinforced by local communities in a way that makes these constructed identities virtually impervious to significant change or elimination over time. Even as material or political incentives change, or as states attempt to assimilate these populations for the purpose of securing their loyalty, schooled populations show a remarkable tenacity in sustaining this initial national identity and loyalties; and they will vote, conceal, kill, or die if need be, to insure that they and those like them are ruled by those they perceive to be their own kind. As a result, if one knows the national content of the initial schooling in a community, one knows the most basic political loyalties of that community. This gives one remarkable power to predict how that community will align even more than a century hence. Once in place, the national loyalties can be accommodated or emboldened, or any outward manifestation of them can be violently repressed, but they cannot be substituted or switched and authentic group attachments cannot be bought for a price I argue that what has been taking place in Oromia in the last two decades substantiates this argument. Two developments worth noting. First, during the previous regime, particularly during the imperial era, Oromo were largely excluded from education. Ironically by being denied the educational opportunity, the vast

majority was spared from mass indoctrination into the strand of nationalism advanced by the rulers. Even the small number that were educated rejected that nationalism and developed their own Oromo nationalism. After 1991, due to the regimes need to gain external legitimacy mass education has exploded. Education coverage in Ethiopia is reported to had been 12% in 1974, 22.4 in 1994, 29.5 in 2001 and over 40% now. The estimate for net enrollment ration Gross Enrolment Ration ( GER) for elementary level said to be 91% and Net Enrolment Ration 71%.. Although this numbers are suspiciously high, when supported with other social indicators, they tell us that literacy rate is raising signficantly.

Second, and most crucial is that Afan Oromo is used this expansion of mass literacy has been implemented by Oromo experts and teachers using Afaan Oromo implemented. Third, this mass literacy has been implemented at the time when Oromo nationalism has already reached every corner of the country. Thiese development will have a transformative and irreversible effect on the Oromo society and their future fate?How? First, in illiterate society identities are shaped by local events and relationships such as family, community and geographic ties. The exposure of Oromo children in every part of the country are to the uniform curriculum helps strengthen national identity and outlook. Second, Literacy meant that face-to-face communication was no longer required for the easy dissemination of ideas across time and space. It also dramatically increased a societys capacity to record and convey history, literature, and myth; the amount that could reliably be stored in books and accessed through them was much greater than what could be retained in memory. Education thus increased societys capacity for transmitting, replicating, and sustaining nationalist ideas and facilitated the social communication among strangers... 38 Growing up earning their language, understanding their history, and having developed value and technical know-how of writing, the qubee generation would be more equipped to record, preserve and disseminate the existing knowledge as well as produce and share new. Thus, literacy in qubee gives the rising generation the capability and opportunity to rediscover the national heritage, to strengthen solidarity amongst themselves and re-articulate the national project and eventually fully reinstitute the nation. Finally, qubee literacy ensures Oromo nationalism and nationhood cannot be reversed even if things change. In addition to helping the reconstruction and revival of identity at the collective level, it induces an incentive mechanism and behavioural change at the personal level. When members of the qubee generation become parents, they will have the capability and incentive to make sure their children follow their foot steps. Unlike their illiterate parents, they will have direct domestic intervention in their children's learning process, shaping the content and monitoring against indoctrination by alien concepts. Moreover, the desire for upward socioeconomic mobility is one of the reason why parents usually let children fall prey to alien indoctrination. When ones language and identity is despised and pushed aside from the public arena, it will be denigrated into low culture, and consequently its perceived value diminishes. Thus, in an effort to give their children an opportunity

they did not have, parents send them to study alien language. That was the case of Oromos prior to introduction of qubee. Today, Afaan Oromo is a written language, so it is no longer a low culture, and has become source of pride rather than shame. Furthermore, speaking and writing the language ensures upward mobility through employment and appointment in public office. As such individual members of the rising generation have a vested personal interest in defending Afaan Oromo. Generally in addition to speeding up the reconstruction of the Oromo nation, the introduction of qubee has ensured the irreversibility of Oromo nationalism. Oromia literacy rate 1974, 12 % 1994 = 22.4, 2001=29.5 ( ten year and above) and now about 40% qubee has standardized Oromo language, hence no one can call it variation any more Urbanization Another evolutionary gain been made by the movement is the increasing urbanization of the Oromo population. In the past, the Oromo were largely excluded from urban life due to several factors. The present towns were original Menelik's military garrison. This had detrimental impact on the composition of urban population. First, the garrisons were built for Northern soldiers and their families and the successor towns were expanded through forceful dislocation of the Oromo. Second, Oromo migration to towns was very low because a the alien and often hostile urban culture b) Before 1975, the gabbar system tied Oromo to the land and rendered them immobile 3) Since jobs in secondary economic sector ( government service) was largely reserved for northerners, the was little opportunity to pull the oromo youth to urban areas. In contrast, large number of northerners (Amharas, Tigreas and Eritreans) migrated to urban areas located in Oromia due to a) land scarcity in the North b) the urban wealth, political power and culture was already dominated by their brethren providing them with promises. This trend has been changing in the last two decades. Following the defeat of the assimilationist policy, hostility towards Oromo has decreased removing the push factor. Since Afaan Oromo became the official language of urban administration, more job opportunities are opening up attracting the youth to migrate to the cities. With their sons and daughters running its administrative affair, Oromo are developing a sense of ownership over towns and feeling more secure about migrating. These changed circumstances have led to increased rural-urban migration of the Oromo, while significantly discouraged Northerners[3]. While these conducive of urban environments is the pull factor, attracting Oromos to towns, there are also rural condition that are pushing them to immigrate. Rapid population growth and environmental degradation has made agricultural productivity is increasingly insufficient for the emerging generation to build and sustain family. Mike Davis argued that while in the West rural-urban migration followed the expansion of job opportunities cause by industrialization, in developing countries the trend is a consequences of globalization which resulted in the deteriorating rural

livelihood[4]. As a result; The present urban population (3.2 billion) is larger than the total population of the world in 1960. The global country side, meanwhile, has reached its maximum population (3.2 billion) and will begin to shrink after 2020. As a result, cities will account for all future world population growth, which is expected to peak at about 10 billion in 2050. (p.5) As the following table shows, the urban growth in Oromia seems to follow the global trend observed by Davis.
1984 % of urban population Towns with over 20,000 people 1.7 7 1994 4.6 17 2007 9.2 32

Table 2[5] The the number of Oromias medium size towns and the percentage population living in urban areas has doubled between 1994 and 2007. What does this mean for the Oromo movement? In the past political contention between an authoritarian system and its opponents used to take place largely in rural areas. The sparse population, that is scattered across loosely connected villages made it costly and difficult for government to effectively monitor and control, while it made it easier for insurgent movements to organize, agitate and recruit undetected. With globalization, improvement in communication technology and transportation, has made it easier for the state to monitor activities rural areas and deploy its security force faster.That is why some declared a doomsday for liberation struggle. However, globalization also bought rapid urbanization resulting in increased density, interconnectedness and frequent interaction of people in urban area. First atomized and young immigrants are moving to urban slums in large number at all times makes it hard for authorities to identify those who pose potential threat. The urban slums increasingly becomes so crowded it is easy for opposition activists to blend in, disseminate information, is plan and execute operation. But there is more specific advantages for the Oromo movement. As mentioned above, because the majority of the rural-urban migrants are Oromo, the composition and culture of towns is bound to change reflecting the identity and preference of the new arrivals. Since most of the young immigrants grew up in the rural authentic Oromo culture and educated with the new education curriculum, they bring and expand the values and narratives of Oromo nationalism. This changes public opinion and social norms of towns in favour of the Oromo movement which allows is to recruit, organize and mobilize more efficiently and at lower cost. Moreover, because

media organizations, businesses and foreign entities are concentrated in urban areas, urbanization of the Oromo gives the movements activities great visibility as well. Therefore, urbanization, combined with mass qubee literacy and self-administration does not only ensure the irreversibility of Oromo nationalism, but also progressively increase the comparative advantage of the movement. The way a head: Reconciling the paradox In the preceding parts we have discussed the two paradoxical developments in the Oromo struggle; on one hand we saw how and why the movement lost its revolutionary momentum, on the other we discussed the encouraging evolutionary progress been made. The combination of the two phenomenon calls for concern but not desperation, guarded optimism but not jubilation. Although the organizational crisis has paralyzed the struggle , the evolutionary progress continue to produces resources that can be used to rejuvenate, rebuild and transform the movement. But acts of desperation and and optimistic negligence pose threat to this evolutionary progress. Desperation leads to actions and decisions that seriously compromises and erodes the gains. The organized political struggle need to be revived, remodeled in order to help the nation reach its full capacity. The following section presents some ideas on this regard. On Managing the Movement: Overcoming the Collective Action problem Nationalism is a phenomenon born out of grievance of individuals who believe that their the political misfortune is due to their identity. It is such individuals who initiate a nationalist movement with the hope of overcoming their personal hardship by coordinating their resistance action with that of fellow co-nationals. However, in order to succeed, the nationalist project need to development a mechanism by which individual members and various segments of that nation can be coordinated and their commitment ensured. By raising national consciousness about the causes of the degraded conditions of the collective, by indicating possible solution and developing rode map for getting there, nationalist leaders convince their people about the importance of coordination and the potential reward each members and the nation as a while should expect. Then political organizations are formed to generate and harvest this collective consent and turn it into political power through mobilization and also to ensure that individual members sustain their commitment in order for the movement to staying power. That is how the Oromo movement was initiated, developed and made significant stride towards achieving its objectives,. As presented in the first part of this essay, the difficult task of re-framing its message under severe organizational stress had resulted in the loss of momentum for the Oromo movement. When a movement looses momentum and slips into crisis, its organizational ability to coordinate the activities and expectations of its constituency

starts to weaken, leading to loosening of individual commitment. If a movement fails to repair itself on-time, or when efforts at reform exacerbate the situation, the organizational decay leads to movement paralysis. As confidence and optimism in success fades, institutional sanctions are no longer expected or feared, free-riding displaces commitment as national norm. How could such movement regain its momentum? Should it invent or renew its coordination mechanisms? How could it revive the commitment of its constituency? On re-Organization? Assessing Available options To stop the bleeding ulcer of the revolutionary energy and to cultuvate the evolutionary gains in order to help the movement capture state power, an effective political organizations is must. The question of organization hingest in carefully assessing the following four questions. Can the OLF be re-united and revived? Is it possible to energize the dormant peaceful oppositions in to active forces? Can the OPDO liberated from its master and transformed. Or does the Oromo movement need a wholly brand new organization and is building such organization feasible?

Reviving the OLF: The daunting task Reviving the OLF either by re-uniting the all the faction or strengthening one of them is a daunting task. First there are just too many factions and cliques who can make legitimate claim over the ownership of the brand. That means any thing to be done in the name of that organizations requires securing the consent of each of them. This consent has to be secured either through persuasion or coercion. Unfortunately, as these cliques and factions are not dependent on the Oromo mass for their existence, the movement has neither an incentive mechanism for persuasion nor the means to impose credible cost to induce submission. Therefore, any unification has to find a creative wyas of building a new incentive mechanism. The factional fight has seriously damaged the reputation of almost all of OLFs leaders. Thus, even factions are persuaded to re-unify, it will be quite difficult to find, among the current factional leaders, a figure that will be acceptable to all. The unilaterally dependency of some of the faction on third parties whose strategic interest might be hurt my revival and strengthening of the OLF, also poses another problem. Neither is moving beyond the OLF an easy task. Many of the Oromo leaders and organizers who have the necessary experience required to push the movement forward gained their experience and stature through the OLF. Hence, their political persona is closely associated with the brand of the organization. To involve in a new initiative, they either have to build on their OLF credentials or distance themselves from it.

A leader is a father/ mother figure of nation, as such he/she commands respect, trust and there fore serves as a role model that inspires the constituency. -leaders with damaged credability -leaders who not dependent on people -members who are not controlled by the organization -Dawud, the key holder Energizing the peaceful opposition The peaceful opposition back-home has never really evolved to their full potential. However, their have built a recognizable brand. Having engaged in the electoral process for over a decade, this organizations have accumulated important experience. Their major weakness is that they are sultanistic parties whose identity is shaped and inseparable from their founding individuals.This, when combined with the regimes strategy of harassing and imprisoning young recruits, had hindered them from building their operational corps. Therefore, these parties are poorly institutionalized.Because the diaspora resources have been higly dominated by the OLF and due to the fact that the parties did not make significant and sytemtic effort at tapping the resourcse, they have not benefited. Hence, any effort that aims to make these organization more effective need to focus on building strong leadership team, expanding their operational or by recruiting motivated and educated operatives and expanding and broadening their general membership. In addition, in order to insure sustained financial flow, they have to develop a sustainable revenue generating mechanism both in the country and in the diaspora. Liberating OPDO Due to foundational illegitimacy, the vicious attack by the OLF and the direct control and manipulation by the TPLF had severely hindered OPDOs prospect of transforming itself into credible political party. Hence the party lacks genuine grassroots supporters, the middle rank is filled with individuals who involuntarily joined it in search of employment. hand picking of leaders without membership approval, the constant reshuffle and ostracization that precedes demotion rarely allow the top bras to build their own political base, and resulted in leadership instability. So OPDO can be resembled with a person whose head, body and legs are disjointed. Its ability to overcome the above mentioned weaknesses, the party has not been able to covert this numerical strength into comparable political power. As long as TPLF remaqins in control of the security and dominates the federal power, OPDO is unlikely to become an autonomous political entity capable of independent decision making. However, among all Oromo organization, OPDOs possesses the highest human capital, both in membership size as well as and the level of skills and experience

accumulated. The organization currently boasts over 1.5 million members, which perhaps makes up more than of the educated Oromo. Compared to the opposition or on-affiliated elites, these bureaucrats, technocrats and cadres have a much better understanding of the socio-economic condition on the ground. The success of the Oromo movement as well as the future of Oromia significantly depends on how we manage this human capital. The movements past strategy has been to encourage defection. Although several people defected, at strategic level, this approach caused more harm than benefit. As the regime can fill up any spot vacated by defection, it incurs little loss. In fact, the departure of more capable indivuals As Abadula Gemedas brief experiment has shown, under pragmatic leadership and when circumstances loosen the direct control of the central authorities, this organization can be swiftly shaped to advance the Oromo interest.

New organization As discussed above, all of the existing Oromo political organization have serious structural problems that makes reforming them a very difficult task. Then, we have to assess is forming a new organization might be more effective way of re-vitalizing the movement. The main advantage of building a political organization from scratch that the founders have total control over design the model, formulation of narrative, and development of strategy. Moreover, unlike the effort to reform an old organization, there will be no fight over brand ownership. However, any new Oromo organization is unlikely to have such an ideal clean slate. First, the Oromo question is already well framed and any deviation form the existing narrative will be fiercely resisted by the base. Second, most members of the Oromo intelligentsia who could engineer new initiative have been associated with one of the existing organizations or factions. Consequently their new initiative will be perceived just as a factional break up both by their old organization and the public at large. Third, most of the possible strategic options have been rhetorically adopted by the various factions who did not make serious attempt at implementation, hence making them appear ineffective. Therefore, any new initiative adopting those seemingly tested and failed strategy will be greeted with public skepticism. The Oromo public is fed up with mushrooming factions. The existing faction will see new initiative as a threat to their existence and will attack it. Put another way, a new organization formed at this time will have difficulty building strong foundation under heavy public skepticism and factional attack.

Combination of all Instead of rushing towards forming new organization, I recommend focusing on creating favourable conditions that would allow for systematic regrouping of the Oromo intelligentsia. This approach would call for multi-directional yet simultaneous

work. 1) Keep pushing for revival of the OLF but not as only option. Those who are still in OLF and affiliated outsiders should quietly push for re-unification and strategic reconsideration. 2) Strengthen the peaceful opposition, financially and through building their human capital through increased recruitment and training. 3) Provide OPDO with intellectual and strategic input. There is also a need for reducing hostility towards this organization. As its the governing party, it still comes into conflict with the Oromo movement. But the conflict could be waged in a way that does not cause personal animosity towards OPDO leaders. The movement can attack the structural problems, and blame TPLF systematically bypassing the OPDOs. Stop the deligitimization campaign but still refrain from open legitimization.Emphasise the fact that they are powerless and the struggle is to empower them. Facilitating cooperation between all The relationship among political parties that claim to represent and need to mobilize resources from the constituency would unavoidably competitive. While its impossible to change this fact, it is possible to make the rivalry civil and less intense so that although competitive their work could still be complimentary. One way of doing this is by creating a structural relationship, in the form of alliance or coalition. But structural relationship at this time in infeasible and in fact not preferable. A better strategy is to establish a functional relationship where where the parties collaborate, directly or in directly, on specific projects of mutual interest. In this ways they can pitch in any resources they might have towards a joint project and rip some credit, while maintaining their autonomous existence. Such cooperative existence can be facilitated by building civil organizations ( professional, youth, academic, development, humanitarian, human rights etc) with overlapping party membership. The civic organizations should be nonpartisan so that they can attract and serve members who belong to rival political parties. In this way by respecting the members political views, they facilitate cross-party interaction which could lead to development of personal bonding. By enabling continues flow of information, by helping inter-personal trust and friendship, such platform helps reduces the potential conflict among parties and encourages more cooperation. Such civic and professional organizations could play vital role in institutionalizing the Oromo movement by helping Oromos develop leaderships skills while working together. The academia could also help in this by strengthening the functional relationship between parties by monitoring activities, advising on strategies and coordinating joint tasks. As leaders of the critical mass the intellectuals can help political leaders build an -partnership

Rebuilding the Structural payoff The last two decades have brought some important transformations to the Oromo society, changes that the movement must adapt to. Today large proportion of the Oromo are urban dwellers, the number college graduates have grown multiple times and the diaspora has dramatically increased.In the past the Oromo movement heavily relied on the peasant for much of its human and material support, now these demographic changes need to be taken into account. In other words, the movement have to be able to appeal to the emerging elite by catering cater to their interest. One way of doing so could be to put more emphasis on economic disparity. These middle class and urban segment who are in daily interaction with the privileged adversary would immediately understand the level economic exploitation.

On Coalition formation: The basic principles Forming alliance with non Oromo forces has been one issue that has been source of controversy. Much of the dispute has bee over forging such alliance with force whose ideology is considered incompatible with the Oromo movement. Unfortunately since alliance formation was opposed or supported for the sake of factional politicking rather than strategic consideration, the movement has not been able to develop a concrete policy. This part attempts to put forward some basic theoretical principles that with further development could help assess strategic viability of proposed alliance. In considering whether to form alliance with a particular force, the starting point should to define the objective that necessitated alliance, is it strategic or tactical, long term or temporary. For instance an organization might need alliance in order to win a single election campaign or a given battle. Or it might might want to forge a lasting partnership in order to jointly address fundamental and structural problems that cannot be solved unilaterally. The second step is to to make a thorough cost-benefit analysis to determine what the movements stands to give and gain from such alliance ( and every alliance will always have certain cost). The basic rule of the thumb, just like in business, is to ensure that the cost you would incur shall not outweigh the gains you would make. Unfortunately, unless the business sector where cost and benefit can be evaluated using monitory methods, political gains and loses are harder to quantify. In order to overcome this challenge political strategist rely on various analytical tools. One such tools is presented below.Let us generalize that a particular movement has certain thing that it need to continue its function, interests it wants to advance and position it maintains.

What are the needs, interests and position of the Oromo movement? Needs are material, institutional and political resources that an organization ought to have in order to maintain its current state and also move forward. These include victories achieved, institutions built, materials and human resources accumulated so far. so far, Few things that could be considered need for the Oromo movement would be Oromia state and its institutions, Afan Oromo,etc. Interests are intermediate and long-term objectives that the movement aspires to achieve. Positions political rhetoric's, historical narratives and legal arguments the movement use to legitimize its interest and defends its needs. In forming alliance some of the fundamental principles A movement shall never compromised on its needs. Needs are the foundation of an organization. Alliances are about advancing interests, hence interests, particularly vital ones, shall not be given up unless substantial gains are guaranteed Positions are negotiation ships. While they can be altered, modified and moderated, care must be taken to avoid exposing the interests and demands. This point is particularly important for nationalist movements because the legitimacy of their demand as well as consolidation of their achievement directly tied to the narratives that had been used to advance the cause. A hasty compromise of a position could expose interest and needs.That is why nationalists often deplore historical revisionism. Basically positions are like shells that need to appear tough, solid and impenetrable. You could soften it, change its colour but should never roll it back or leave wide open.

In planing to forge alliance, this analytical tool shall be used to map out the needs, interests and positions of the potential ally. A smart strategy would one that aims to advance its interests at the cost of relatively small compromise on a position. In the objective is to form long term strategic partnership you must ensure that your partner has made same level compromise if not more. As forming alliance often means bringing your constituency closer to another constituency, it is important to gauge how public opinion would be affected. The following analytical tool might be helpful.

Managing diversity and containing parochialism A nation of over forty millions, composed of thousands of clans scattered across tens of thousands of square miles, whose citizens follow various religions, diversity is the nature of the Oromo nation. The parochial fissures based on clan and local has been there even before the movement. Prejudice, competing and conflict over resources has been there. Diversity of a nation is both its wealth and its curse. It is wealth

because the various perspectives and experiences enrich the nation. It is curse, because the larger and diverse a give group is, the harder collective actions becomes. Movements utilize the wealth of diversity and overcome the curse by developing organizational models and strategies that suitable both for its scale and nature. In such ways a movement can minimize the negative impact of parochialism but cannot eliminate it. Hence, its always better to develop ways of managing diversity rather than attempt at eliminate it. Parochialism usually emerges when movement loses momentum and coordination/ commitment mechanism loosens. Therefore, the best way of preventing regional or religious fracture is to ensure victory. Victorious nations stick together because the achievement increases solidarity. When coordination mechanism loosen, for instance during transition and crisis, political entrepreneurs will always try to activate salient sub-identities in order to achieve personal or group objectives. Therefore, second way of managing diversity is to render it politically useless by ensuring that it is not source of grievance. In order to prevent parochial grievance, the movement must ensure equitable distribution of power through fair, visible and genuine representation and , active participation of all segment of the society. Whenever parochialist compliant surface, the organizational structure must facilitate a managed and open discourse on the issue rather than hash it. The civil society should also promote community level interaction and interdependence. 1) The Movement and Religion: Need for Mutual Accommodation

- the movement has benefited from each ( guns from Islam, financial and diplomatic support from Christian) -majority of the movements contituency are relgious -source of tension - the fact that religions has been blamed from loss of Oromo heritage - fear of division - leftist anti-relgious zealots The special case of waaqeffanna - being the Oromo relgion- keep it other national heritage, revive it but becareful of the the puritan approach, leave as egalitrian, all incluse and open. Let those who want to strictly follow the spritual aspect do so, but also let other enjoy the culture as apect Secularism mutual respect and tolerable distance On the objective the disagreement is not really ideological, evidence presece of individuals, the ration presented or each both depends on infeasibility of the other rather than preferability

its proposition. Impossibility argument: from independence side - Amharas never change - the two cultures are incompatible -empire cannot be democratized each are weakImpossibility from the democratization side - unachievable because time has changed, no military support - world would not allow - we have failed to get it This does not means that people who actually believe in prefereability of either side does not exist. My argument is that the current suppodly ideological split is not clear cut The discourse should be - As an outcome, what is best for the socio-economic and political interest of the Oromo As entrenched faction have this a political issue, we should find a middle ground. Focus on building the nation. Self-determination (although I disagree wit it) reconciles this differences.

indepdence represents the administrative upgrade of this existing juridiction Roeder 10

co-ethnics are more closely linked on social networks and thus plausibly better able to support cooperation through the threat of social sanction

by fighting, however, it produces negative externalities social media has created asymmetrical relationship between the leadership and the population. the sociology of organizations (organizational structures are patterned so as to minimize coordination and monitoring costs, which

increase as different subunits expand and grow) path dependency

...in ethnofederal countries where one group dominates in population but where that group is divided up into a number of distinct federal regions rather than united in one core ethnic region, the dominant group faces major obstacles to collective action that inhibit it from creating the most serious dual-power situations, that reduce the threats perceived by minority ethnic regions, and that hinder the efforts of political entrepreneurs to promote the collective imagining of an independent core nation-state. HENRY E. HALE ( 167) it is helpful to start with a paraphrase of four conditions that Charles Tilly argues are associated with revolutions: the appearance of contenders with rival claims to control of the government a commitment to those claims by a significant segment of the subject population the forging of coalitions between incumbent government members and the contenders the incapacity (or unwillingness) of government agents to suppress the contenders21

[1] This is not excuse the many failures of the leadership but rather to point out the factors that either
prevented them from doing the right thing or enabled them to justify weakness

[2] executive in business, central command in army, operational corp ( managers in business and officer corps in army , and the mass. [3] I have not seen data the breaks down new migration into national catagory by my personal
observation and interviews with five major cities in Oromia leads towards this conclusion. [4] Mike Davis Planet of Slums

[5] data extracted from Urbanization and Spatial Connectivity in Ethiopia: Urban Growth Analysis Using GIS Emily Schmidt and Mekamu Kedir