Balcha Safo is one of the Ethiopian national heroes, who fought in the first Italo-Ethiopian war. In 1888, Ethiopian forces under Emperor Menilik the 2^nd  defeated the Italians in the battle of Adwa safeguarding the country’s independence. One of Menilik’s generals was Balcha. An Ethnic Gurage from the central part of the Ethiopian highlands. Fast forward 132 years, the anniversary of the battle of Adwa is still celebrated by Ethiopians. Old & young, Christian, or Muslim, the battle of Adwa is still an event most Ethiopians take pride of. Only this year it was slightly different. Instead of Emperor Menilik & his queen Taity Bitul, who followed him to the battle, Ethiopian mainstream media, which is under tight grip of the government displayed the pictures of Balcha Safo and PM Abiy in posters celebrating the anniversary. It’s rather unsurprising that the PM’s picture is being celebrated in this context. The personal cult around him (he is an ethnic Oromo), which is similar to that of Kim jon Un’s or Joseph Stalin’s means that although the man was born almost a century after the battle, giving him the credit for the victory serves a political agenda, albeit triggering some logical questions. The case with Balcha though is interesting. It is interesting because of his childhood. He was born during the great Oromo invasions of Ethiopia. Perhaps the most decisive and significant chain of events in the country’s 3000 years history. After a long, and judging by the results, pointless war between the Christian highlanders of Ethiopia supported by the Portuguese and Muslim lowlanders supported by the Ottomans, both parties were weakened, so much so that they could not defend their southern borders from the Oromo penetrations. Without any significant resistance Galla tribes rampaged through Ethiopia’s south looting, killing, and displacing hapless peoples who could not stand up to the waves brutal assaults they never encountered before. Like to Viking invasions of northern Europe & the British Isles, Galla tribes made their way north, east & west wherever the earth was green and rich in water (they were semi nomadic pastoralists), erasing most of the traces of the peoples they invaded off the face of the earth. Balcha was born at a time in which these brutal incursions into the Ethiopian heartland were not entirely over. As it was customary amongst Oromos, people who fell victim to their invasions were either killed en masse or in as much as they saw fit, were condemned to slavery. Aba Jifar, the ruler of the Jimma Kingdom, an ethnic Oromo who was one of the richest among the kings of Ethiopia made his fortune through slave trade.

Most slaves were those who were deemed too young to be a danger. But that’s not all.  There were peculiar characteristics of the invaders. An urge to not only Oromise the present but also the past, so that identities, history & heritage that were unique in one way or another would be replaced by fabricated ones. This is most visible in the Oromo cultural practice of not only changing subjugated peoples’ names but also last names. Balcha had not only his genitalia removed but also his heritage and his identity. His Gurage heritage was replaced by a fabricated one. His posters decorated the Adwa celebration this year because now he has been made an Oromo.

Patterns visible

Indeed, body mutilation was a common practice in the Oromo culture. A young man was not considered mature enough for marriage unless he killed a person from another tribe. Flaunting severed parts of the victim served as evidence to the heinous deed that was considered a gallant act by the adherents of this culture. Menilik’s reign put a stop to this and most other inhumane practices in the then Ethiopia. It is worth mentioning though, if those practices were visible deep into his reign, Menilik reluctantly tolerated them as his Ethiopia displayed much more federalist characteristics of not interfering in internal issues of its’ constituent states. But even his patience was tested on multiple occasions. Negus (king) Tona of the Wolayta was forced to abdicate his kingship due to his insistence on slavery. The ban on the body mutilating practices meant for the Oromos, who had in the meanwhile become an integral part of the Ethiopian constituency that there were no longer genitalia available to proudly flaunt. So, the real ones were replaced by those made out of wood. This object of cultural identification called Kelecha which, as such has been accepted by Ethiopians and never questioned does bare centuries old pain suffered by countless people. Some even erased off the face of the earth as result of Oromo expansions through Ethiopia. The number of peoples, languages, and cultures who fell victim to this expansion is yet to be studied. In a country, in which social norms do not necessarily encourage critical questions and a politicised definition of ethnicity meant such questions of significant magnitude were not only unwelcome in public discourse but were also considered a risk for the country’s integrity.

This though, isn’t what this article aims to dissect. Rather, patterns of violence which have become palpable since the current Oromo led government tool power that display striking resemblance in rhetoric and modus operandi to the times of the Oromo expansions a few centuries ago.