Adwa is not the only oppressive Ethiopian myth

Just like the narrative of the Battle of Adwa, Ethiopianism is imposed - Viewpoint by Tarfassa W. Barooddee

In March, Ethiopia once again commemorated the Battle of Adwa—a moment enshrined in national mythology as the defining symbol of Ethiopian nationhood. But as Ethiopia teeters on the edge of another potential war, it is worth asking: What exactly are we celebrating? Whose victory was it? And more importantly, how is our perception of Adwa continuing to influence our future?

The conventional narrative casts Adwa as a decisive triumph of a united African nation resisting European imperialism. But this romanticized myth obscures a harsher truth: victory at Adwa did not spare the subject peoples of the south from oppression and violence.

From the vantage point of the conquered south, Menelik II’s war with Italy bore little moral distinction from Italy’s ambitions. At Adwa, an indigenous military entrepreneur merely sought to fend off a European colonial power—not to liberate the people he had recently subjugated and forcibly annexed into his growing empire, but to subject them to himself.

Menelik’s campaign against Italy was not an act of pan-African solidarity—it was the assertion of a newly formed imperial state seeking to defend its expanding territorial claims. The southern peoples—Oromo, Sidama, Somali, and others—were neither represented nor liberated by Adwa’s outcome.

Thus, for the Oromo and other peoples of the south, the celebration of Adwa evokes not triumph but betrayal, not liberation but the tightening grip of a different empire: the Ethiopian one.

Far from being the birth of African nationalism, Adwa was the consolidation of a settler empire built by the blood and labor of the Oromo and other subjugated peoples. The resulting myth of a unified Ethiopia forged in the crucible of resistance has only served to entrench structural oppression and violence, as well as silence the historical memory of those who suffered under imperial conquest.

Imperial Revival

Fast forward to the present, and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s doctrine of Medemer (synergy) revives the Adwa myth as the foundation of a unifying national identity.

Yet beneath its language of unity, Medemer is a political technology for the psychological and cultural assimilation of the Oromo people—an attempt to resurrect a dying empire by placing it on a new horse: the Oromo.

The irony is chilling. The Oromo, long the empire’s most defiant demographic, are now being weaponized as the new custodians of a decaying imperial structure they never consented to. The goal is twofold: eliminate the Oromo as a threat by erasing their collective identity, and repurpose them as the unwitting carriers of Ethiopianism. This isn’t national unity—it’s a state-sponsored cultural lobotomy.

Despite his Oromo ancestry, Abiy’s administration functions as a machine of assimilation, relentlessly working to dismantle the sociopolitical and cultural frameworks that define Oromo identity. Education has become the primary tool for the erasure of historical memory. The regime’s new curricula aim to overwrite Oromo historical consciousness and replace it with a sanitized national narrative.

The Minister of Education, Birhanu Nega, is not building minds—he is engineering memory, ensuring Abiy’s will becomes the Oromo people’s own self-conception. In this, the Oromo are being primed for what Hegel called “unhappy consciousness”—a self divided against itself, alienated from its origins, disarmed by deception.

Consumerism Weaponized

Assimilation isn’t occurring through ideology alone. It is being incentivized through consumerism and enforced through violence. Abiy’s regime seduces the Oromo with economic promises—access to markets and jobs—insisting that now, with nominal “freedom” attained, they must forget identity and focus solely on material progress. Development is dangled as a substitute for self-determination.

A market-centered Oromo is encouraged to view himself not as a member of a nation but as an isolated consumer—a “possessive individualist” whose purpose is to grow GDP, not preserve culture.

When material seduction fails, physical and psychological violence follows. Since 2018, Abiy’s regime has systematically targeted Oromo artists, activists, and elders. From the assassination of cultural icon Hachalu Hundessa to the murder of political leader Bate Urgessa, the message is clear: Oromo resistance, even in cultural form, is a punishable offense.

Perhaps most chillingly, the regime carried out the execution of Karrayyu Gadaa leaders—custodians of a living democratic tradition recognized by UNESCO. Their crime? Leading the Haaromsa Gadaa, the Gadaa Renaissance—a revival of Oromo self-governance that threatened the imperial status quo.

Redacted Identity

Through this campaign, Abiy is attempting to transform the Oromo from a nation into a linguistic mass. The richness of Oromo civilization—its Gadaa system, its philosophical anthropology, its democratic politics—is being erased, leaving only a functional language group whose future lies in obedient economic productivity.

Abiy is trying to produce a self-negating Oromo—one who builds the empire that has been erasing the memory of his ancestors and heritage of freedom and independence.

His supposed Oromo identity is irrelevant.

The Prime Minister’s Oromo background has no historical importance in current Ethiopian politics. Abiy has shown no solidarity with Oromo aspirations for justice, freedom, and historical reckoning.

Instead, he exploits his ancestry to silence resistance and give cover to a deeply assimilationist project. Besides, the essence of self-rule has less to do with bio-genetics than with electing the right persons and controlling government activities. Nominal self-rule without freedom is oppression in another name—but with familiar faces.

Oppressive Unity

The justification for all this—education reform, economic carrot-and-stick, cultural annihilation—is “Ethiopian unity.” But unity built on the bones of erased cultures and civilizations is not moral—it is imperial.

Ethiopia’s rulers do not seek a common civic space but an immutable national order built in their own image—one that privileges Amharic culture and Christian highland memory while marginalizing all others.

Even now, Amharic remains the sole national language and cultural currency of the state. While the Oromo language and Gadaa system are celebrated in international forums, inside Ethiopia, they are targeted for extinction. This contradiction reveals the duplicity of the Ethiopian nation-building project: heritage is good for optics, not for politics.

In truth, Ethiopia is not a nation but a project—unfinished, imposed, and resisted. Its perennial instability, its fractured politics, and its repeated cycles of violence are symptoms of a state that refuses to deal with its past and confront the diversity within its borders. Unity cannot be forged by manipulating history or enforcing monoculture. Democratic commons arise not by erasing difference, but by protecting it.

Resistance Imperative

The Oromo people have naturally refused to be molded into abstractions or sacrificial labor for an empire in decay. They are resisting the Ethiopian project of memory erasure and assimilation. Resistance, in this context, is not rebellion—it is a moral act of preservation, a declaration that a people cannot be transformed into tools without consent.

The Oromo question remains the Ethiopian question. Until Ethiopia learns to live with difference rather than destroy it, the celebration of Adwa will remain hollow—a tale of sovereignty built on the silence of indigeneity. And today, as yesterday, the Oromo refuse to be silent.

Re-examining the legacy of Adwa is particularly relevant as Ethiopia appears to be gearing up for another imperial-style confrontation—seeking regional dominance in the Horn of Africa and strategic influence over the Red Sea.

This ambition, in part, masks deep internal fractures—civil war in Oromia, insurgency in Amhara, and unresolved tensions in Tigray—by invoking the unifying mythos of external war. There is more than one way of forming a political community; there are other, less costly ways of mobilizing people for a common cause than war.

To avoid repeating history’s bloodshed under the guise of national pride, Ethiopia must exorcise the militarized spirit of Adwa and instead pursue a path rooted in mutual consent, justice, and shared human values.

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About the author.

Tarfassa is a self-employed Oromo national with degrees in political science, finance, and law. He lives in North America and closely follows events in Oromia and Ethiopia.