“Safuu” – Oromo Moral Codes
August 26, 2012 (Ayyaantuu) — There are grass roots movements both in organized and non-organized forms to liberate Oromia from the occupation armies of the Abyssinian colonizers. These movements have transformed the Oromo cause over the course of the last forty years through a long protracted struggle.
Instilling Oromo moral values – “safuu” to regain our lost and weakened cultural heritages due to the heavy influence of the cultural domination of Abyssinians for more than 150 years will help us to regain our integrity and identity to its fullest. We are confronted with a severe moral crisis, an onslaught of materialism and lack of spiritual values. Instilling “Safuu” in our institutions is meant to revamp our moral and cultural codes without compromising your personal beliefs and religion. You can be a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Waqefataa or a follower of Judaism or any other religion of your choice. Revamping Oromo moral codes doesn’t mean you have to abandon your current personal beliefs and religion.
Oromo moral codes are so complex in nature and our forefathers and mothers had “safuu” for nature- trees, rivers, mountains and hills, for humans – the elderly, the children, men and women, for their cattle and so on.
In the old good days, our forefathers and mothers had great respect for their forests and they never cut a single tree without any valid reason. They knew when and how to cut a tree. They had great respect for their waters –rivers, lakes and springs. They knew how to take care of nature and they used to live in harmony with it for millions of years.
We had safuu for the living and the dead. For instance, when lightning strikes and kills a person or a cattle, Oromos say “Isaa Baga.” They don’t blame their God, the lightening, the universe or the cosmos for the death. They know that they cannot change the course and there is no one to blame. There is no need of regretting the loss too because they know that past is down the drain.
I was asked by many people how I felt the death of Mr. Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. I said “Isaa baga!” like my grandparents and parents. I would have been glad if he were held accountable for the crimes he has committed against me, against our people, our forests, our rivers and waters.
To learn more about Oromummaa, the complex moral values in the Oromo Gada System of self rule, two energetic, passionate and prominent Oromo intellectuals, Professor Asafa Jalata and Professor Mohammad Hassan will come to Washington, D.C. to teach us about our cultural heritages, our moral codes, about conflict resolutions – Gumaa and Araaraa in the Gada System. They will join our influential and veteran politician and prolific writer, Obbo Ibsa Gutama, and a young intellectual and political activist, Habtamu Dhugo on September 1, 2012.
You are cordially invited to this historic event. Come up with reasonable and sensible questions. Make dialogues not confrontations. Resolve conflicts and never incite them. Show respect to these great leaders. If you disagree with their ideas, tell us your own without disrespecting or disowning them.
Kallacha W. Kune
Oromo moral codes are not at all any complex more than the moral codes of other societies and human groups. Most of the moral codes of the Oromo people can also be found in the moral codes of several societies and human groups on the same level of development and or time context.
Moral codes also change with time, place and successeiv generational changes. And every new genration has its new demand and new instruments of change with which to make the new world order a better place to live in.
If the old generation becomes bogged down in to reactivity, immobility, permanent deafness,blind, disrespect for the relevant audiences’s views, opinions lost sensitivity for far too long time, the new generation rightly loses patience and takes over the steering wheel just like in Egypt and Tunisia with out falling in to cunning fox enemy’s traps dressed in sheep skins and waiting to grab mew opportinities from the people just like Mubarack’s agents. Yes, the old generation as well as the new generation need to have “Safuu” for each other in both directions and on equal basis. After all the future belongs to the new generation. So, what is the big deal if the old gneration lost its vision and mission?
I don’t think there is any complexity in the Oromo moral code of “safuu”, if its binary vision is clearly understood. Yes, failure to understand its binary vision, of course, can lead someone to think in complex way.
‘”It is their Culture. to Kill”
We lacked the brutality to kill our neighbors and our patience is taken for cowardice.
Is killing, torturing, burning forests like the TPLF something you cherish? TOur intellectuals have carefully documented such brutalities against humans and nature. Our struggle is to be free from such brutalities. What the backward TPLF is doing is making me to hate the culture of murder, torture, deception, greed and brutality.
A bright Oromo scholar has already written an essay on these and graduated with honor from one of America’s top ten universities. We are saying enough is enough and it is not your right, you Abyssinians to kill us.
“It is their Culture to Kill”
This is one of the titles of a senior essay of a bright young Oromo scholar who defended it and graduated with honor from one of America’s top ten universities. Our struggle is to be free from Abyssinian culture of extra judicial killings, torture, burning forests and wildlives.
Look what the ignorant TPLF are doing in the 21st century. Is this civility? I assure you we never repeat these human brutalities in free Oromia. We are saying enough is enough to genocide, torture, culture of lies and deception. I am very much ashamed of to hear and see what the TPLF is doing in the 21st century. Ii am an Oromo not an Abyssinian any more. Shame on such backward cultures.
Oromoo fi Habashaan tokko Waaqa fuulduratti dhiyaataniitu Waaqnis isa Habashaadhaan ati du’a waan leelliftuuf duuti siif haa daddabalamu; Oromoon immoo loowwan waan leelliftuuf loon siif haa daddabalaman jedheen.Kanaaf duuti Wayyaanotatti daddabalamaa jira.