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"This book reveals the many creative solutions an African society found for problems that people encounter when they try to establish a democratic system of governing their affairs. In much of what has been written about Africa ... Little is ever shown of indigenous African democratic systems, under which there is distribution of authority and responsibility across various strata of society, and where warriors are subordinated to deliberative assemblies, customary laws are revised periodically by a national convention, and elected leaders are limited to a single eight-year terms of office and subjected to public review in the middle of their term. All these ideals and more are enshrined in the five-century old constitution of the Oromo of Ethiopia, which is the subject matter of this book. In this book, Legesse brings into sharp focus the polycephalous or "multi-headed" system of government of the Oromo, which is based on clearly defined division of labor and checks and balances between different institutions. Revealing the inherent dynamism and sophistication of this indigenous African political system, Legasse also shows in clear and lucid language that the system has had a long and distinguished history, during which the institutions changed by deliberate legislation, and evolved and adapted with time."--Amazon.com.
Focusing on the issue of the Oromo national struggle for liberation, statehood, and democracy, this book critically examines the dialectical relationship between Ethiopian colonialism and Oromo culture, epistemology, politics, and ideology in the context of the accumulated collective grievances of the Oromo nation. Specifically, the book identifies chains of sociological and historical factors that facilitated the development of Oromummaa (Oromo nationalism) and the Oromo national movement. It demonstrates how the Oromo national movement has been challenging and transforming Ethiopian imperial politics, tracks the different forms and phases of the movement, and maps out its future direction. Currently, the Oromo are the largest ethno-national group and political minority in the Ethiopian Empire. They were colonized and incorporated into Ethiopia as colonial subjects in the last decades of the 19th century through the alliance of Abyssinian/Ethiopian colonialism and European imperialism. Since their colonization, the Oromo people have been treated as second-class citizens and have been economically exploited and culturally and politically suppressed. Despite the fact that Oromo resistance to Ethiopian colonialism existed during the process of their colonization and subjugation, it was only in the 1960s and 1970s that Oromo nationalists initiated organized efforts to liberate their people. Presently, Oromo nationalism plays a central role in Ethiopian politics.
The book examines, compares, and contrasts the African American and Oromo movements by locating them in the global context, and by showing how life chances changed for the two peoples and their descendants as the modern world system became more complex and developed. Since the same global system that created racialized and exploitative structures in African American and Oromo societies also facilitated the struggles of these two peoples, this book demonstrates the dynamic interplay between social structures and human agencies in the system. African Americans in the United States of America and Oromos in the Ethiopian Empire developed their respective liberation movements in opposition to racial/ethnonational oppression, cultural and colonial domination, exploitation, and underdevelopment. By going beyond its focal point, the book also explores the structural limit of nationalism, and the potential of revolutionary nationalism in promoting a genuine multicultural democracy.
This examination of the politics of ethnicity and nation-building in Africa stresses the trend towards subnationalist autonomy and away from a singular, state-centric system based on the Western model. Forrest ranges across the continent to explore a variety of subnational movements.
Compared with modern democracies, the Oromo constitution has a few unusual features. Here, I would like to point out some fundamental ideas of these features that are not fully developed in western democratic traditions. These are the period of testing of elected leaders, the method of distributing power across generations, and a limitation of office to single term. These are major features which make Oromo Gada system different from western democracy. One of the major contributions of Oromo democracy is the way in which power is shared by generations. The generational injustice appeared in 1960's and 1970's of Europe and United States of America were because of unfair distribution of power through generations. At that time in both continent the youth movements and movements of elder was a serious problem. However, the Oromo society had never faced with problems of such nature. Because, there is equal and just distribution of power.Finally, such kind of struggling for seniority will be settled when the principle of secularism is at work. And also the fact that the Oromo Gada System principle of secularism is not compatible with 21st century ideology.
This book focuses on and examines the impact of cultural capital, political economy, social movements, and political consciousness on the potential development of substantive democracy in Botswana and Ethiopia. While explaining the challenges, obstacles, and opportunities for the development of democracy, Cultural Capital and Prospects for Democracy in Botswana and Ethiopia engages in defining democracy as a contested, open, and expanding concept through a comparative and historical examination. The book’s analysis employs interdisciplinary, multidimensional, comparative methods and critical approaches to examine the dynamic interplay among social structures, human agencies, cultural factors, and social movements. This comparative and historical study has required an examination of critical social history that looks at societal issues from the bottom up: specifically critical discourse and the particular world system approach, which deal with long-term and large-scale social changes. Cultural Capital and Prospects for Democracy in Botswana and Ethiopia will be of interest to scholars and students of African politics, political theory, and democratization.
The In Between is a story that transcends cultures, borders, nationality, religion and an identities for which one see's themselves rather than the one imposed on them. More importantly it is about African Women who wonder where they fit between conservative African values with double standards for boys and girls and/or fantasy land with feminist ideology and the American democracy. The author uses Winnie Mandela, who gave so much to her people, for the pursuit of justice but seems to end up in a different place than her counterpart, male. It is also about immigrants who are born in one place but raised in a different place with new sets of culture, language and values. Also, while the majority of the book focuses on diverse issues, as stated above I must say this, "I have a soft spot for the forgotten women of Africa, the Oromo women, who often face double bigotry, for being Oromo and for being women". Overall, the book is about the Oromo people and their pursuit for dignity, being and becoming Oromo in the Diaspora, the failure of OLF, bureaucratic Oromo Community Associations and the quest to know where one belongs.
By identifying the critical central contradictions that are built into the politics of the Horn of Africa, this book demonstrates that the crises of the Horn states stem from their political behaviour and structural forces, such as internal social forces, and global forces that have become involved on the sides of these states without requiring accountability, the rule of law, or the implementation of, at least, 'limited democracy'. The contributors provide a deep understanding of structural and conjunctural forces that have interacted in the processes of state power; the role of intervention of global powers; and the consequent failure to build state as a public domain. The book also enriches our social scientific knowledge that is essential to develop pragmatic policy measures to address these problems.