By: Laalo Guduru
Nothing more vividly depicts the life contrast in today’s Ethiopia than the condition of the two 2016 Olympians, Robel and Feyisa.
On the one hand you have Robel, who is a Tigrian, whose father is the chairman of the Ethiopian swimming federation, and who may have got that position because of this ethnicity. The son Robel, who looks very well-fed, and very un-athletic, by virtue of being his father’s son, became an Olympian representing his country. Above all, just because he is a Tigrean and well connected, he was chosen from among stellar Ethiopian world class athletes to be the flag bearer of this country. The choosing of this so-called athlete who is born with silver spoon in his mouth by virtue of his ethnicity to be a flag bearer, represents what is wrong in today’s Ethiopia.
You listen to Robel’s interview, you see a jovial personality who is even likable. You can see that he is not burdened by any worries or responsibilities. You can see that he is one of those Addis guys who paint the town red in the night. He can go anywhere, he can talk to the police as he wish without raising suspicion. Due to his ethnicity he is not a suspect and the wrath of anti-terrorism law is mostly inapplicable to him. He can go to any government bureaucracy and be treated with dignity and be given preferential treatment due to his ethnicity. If the low level bureaucrat gives him hard time, he can go up the echelon because it’s manned by his fellow Tigreans, who will look after the interest of their kin and kith.
On the other hand you find the skinny Feyisa Lelisa. An Oromo, born in rural Oromia to a peasant family. By virtue of his Oromoness, he is a suspect until proven innocent. To be accepted he has to prove his allegiance to the country and government regularly, more often by being forced into joining the ruling party. If not, he will be a person who will have to function day and night under the prying eyes of the Ethiopian security forces. He is a person who lives with a sword of Damocles hanging over his head every day. He is a person who lives under a heavy burden of his people’s misery on his shoulder. Because he is an Oromo in Ethiopia, he cannot be himself; he has to pretend in order to fit in.
By virtue of being an Oromo from rural Ethiopia, most probably, he has no city connections, that would have made his life just a little easier to navigate. Unlike Robel, he cannot go to the government offices with confidence. If a low-level bureaucrat gives him hard time, he has nowhere to go in a Tigre dominated bureaucracy. At most what he can do is give a bribe. There is no question, compared to Robel, Feyisa had to endure overwhelming obstacles that life and the political system had to throw his way. Feyisa, unlike Robel, is essentially a hardened, self-made, talented athlete who worked hard to reach this stage by training day and night.
There is at least a silver lining out of this. All the hurdles, challenges and the life experience that Feyisa faced as an Oromo in Ethiopia, made him an iron man, helped him achieve what he accomplished in Rio both in the athletic field and as a defiant activist. He truly deserves the epithet, “The Most Courageous Olympian” that some commentator have started to call him with. On the other hand, the EPRDF should be worried, because the corruption, nepotism and cronyism that they created in Ethiopian is producing spoiled second generation Tigrean the likes of Robel.
Ethiopia today is a country ruled by elites from Tigrean minority group that run the country like a private syndicate. The condition of the Oromo that has historically been a marginalized group is getting worse by the day. The Oromos who are close to 40% of the Ethiopian population are totally dominated by an ethnic group that comprises only 6% of the population. This shameful situation is unsustainable and something has got to give!