I've been looking around in the Oromia and Amhara subreddits. In general, not just on Reddit, ETHIOPIANS don't even talk like they're one big family anymore. They talk as if that brother (who belongs to a different MAN-MADE ETHNIC GROUP!!!) is a completely different person.
I used to think this was how our parents talked and thought. But this is massively rampant among the youth, too. It's actually so fucking heartbreaking to see a nation you adore act like we're living in the 15th century.
The saddest part is that the people at the top don't even entertain these ethnic squabbles in the same way we do. They USE them to divide us while they grow rich. And from a Marxist perspective, that's the whole fucking point: the ruling class benefits when the working class is divided against itself. When poor Amharas, Oromos, Tigrayans, and other Ethiopians are busy hating each other along ethnic lines, they're less likely to recognize their shared class interests or question the people who actually hold power over their lives.
For example, people hate Meles because of his ethnic federalist system and the divisions it entrenched, but remember, ABIY AHMED WAS IN MELES ZENAWI'S GOVERNMENT!!! AN OROMO WORKING WITH A TIGRAYAN!
Doesn't that tell you something? The political elites can work together across ethnic lines when it serves their interests, but ordinary people are taught to see each other as enemies because of those same ethnic differences. The people at the top understand political alliances and material interests, but the rest of us are encouraged to reduce everything to ethnicity.
And that's what makes this so fucking tragic. The same people who share the burden of poverty, unemployment, exploitation, and a system that fails them are being made to believe that their biggest enemy is the Ethiopian who speaks a different language or belongs to a different ethnic group.
Class solidarity is not about pretending ethnic oppression doesn't exist. It's about understanding that ethnic oppression is real, that historical injustices must be confronted, and that no ethnic group should be expected to forget its suffering. But it's also about recognizing that the political and economic elites who benefit from these divisions are not necessarily acting in the interests of the ordinary people they claim to represent.
We cannot build a better Ethiopia by denying each other's pain, rewriting history, or pretending that one group has never suffered at the hands of another. But we also cannot build one by turning entire ethnic groups into permanent enemies.
At some point, we have to ask ourselves: WHO BENEFITS WHEN WE HATE EACH OTHER?
Because it sure as hell isn't the ordinary Ethiopian.
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