The Tulama and Wallo are Oromo, Not Habasha

The primary purpose of this work is to debunk the claims of Yates based on the historical, cultural, and identity of the Tulama and Wallo Oromo and to link them to the larger Oromo nation. The Tulama and Wallo are two branches of the Oromo nation, which live in northern and central Oromia, the Oromo country, respectively. In his book, The Other Abyssinians: The Northern Oromo and the Creation of Modern Ethiopia, 1855-1913, Brian J. Yates (2020) overgeneralizes the experiences of a few collaborator individuals from the Tulama and Wallo Oromo to the affairs of these Oromo groups. He claims that the Tulama and Wallo Oromo participated in the construction of the modern Ethiopian state between 1855 and 1913 and, in the process, became Habasha by abandoning their Oromo culture and identity. Today, everyone would have rejected their separate cultures and identities and become English and French if colonization had changed the customs and distinctiveness of the conquered peoples. But the only thing colonialism does is make cooperative classes out of the dominating population groups and then use these classes as middlemen to help subaltern communities be exploited and oppressed. The situation between Tulama and Wallo Oromo is not unique. The Oromo intermediaries from these Oromo groups were assimilated into the Amhara/Habasha culture and state to promote their interests and those of their colonial masters at the cost of the Oromo masses. By using the critical and political economy analytical approaches, this review essay debunks the claims that the author of the book made by ignoring the history, culture, and identity of the Oromo people, which have been suffering under Habasha colonialism in general, and Amhara colonialism in particular, for more than a century. The Tulama and Wallo Oromo have rights like their Oromo brothers and sisters to maintain their Oromo culture and identity and achieve self-determination, social justice, and democracy without being forced to accept Habasha's identity.