Conquered this, conquered that but the first Oromo language radio service was in Mogadishu, Somalia while Haile Selassie assassinated your leaders, musicians, poets and intellectuals left and right. They had to seek sanctuary in Somalia; is this historical amnesia? Somalis weren’t conquered by Ethiopia, even Menelik’s generals like Ras Makonnen, that were part of his push, suffered brutal defeats, despite the British imposing an arms-embargo on the locals;
The Dervish State likewise utterly dominated the Ogaden and harassed the Abyssinian garrison at Harar, where Abyssinians began to arm children to give the impression that the garrison was more formidable than it was. Indeed, Ethiopia benefited from the fact that the Somali people had to battle multiple European empires and were distracted. Haile Selassie, for his and his predecessors’ service to the British Empire, was awarded traditional Somali territory in a shady backroom deal, not through military might. The 77’ war showed that on a even battlefield, they would have permanently lost those ceded regions, and again a non-African superpower stood in our way not the mighty ‘Ethiopian conquerors’.
Your not conquered if your own language is the most dominant, if your own religion is the most dominant, if your people’s population is predominant (and the fastest growing at that), and if your ties with your greater Nation are the most dominant, it just means that your temporarily occupied. To be conquered is to delude yourself into buying the lie that you are part of the destructive brand of Amharo-Tigray Christian nationalism that wants to delete your people’s language, culture, religion and ethnicity and absorb you into their Habesha supra-ethnicity.
The Dervish State likewise utterly dominated the Ogaden and harassed the Abyssinian garrison at Harar, where Abyssinians began to arm children to give the impression that the garrison was more formidable than it was. Indeed, Ethiopia benefited from the fact that the Somali people had to battle multiple European empires and were distracted. Haile Selassie, for his and his predecessors’ service to the British Empire, was awarded traditional Somali territory in a shady backroom deal, not through military might. The 77’ war showed that on a even battlefield, they would have permanently lost those ceded regions, and again a non-African superpower stood in our way not the mighty ‘Ethiopian conquerors’.
Your not conquered if your own language is the most dominant, if your own religion is the most dominant, if your people’s population is predominant (and the fastest growing at that), and if your ties with your greater Nation are the most dominant, it just means that your temporarily occupied. To be conquered is to delude yourself into buying the lie that you are part of the destructive brand of Amharo-Tigray Christian nationalism that wants to delete your people’s language, culture, religion and ethnicity and absorb you into their Habesha supra-ethnicity.