The Gada system and the Oromo’s (Ethiopia) culture of peace
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21847/1728-9343.2019.2(160).164984Keywords:
Peace, peace system, culture, values, Gada, Oromo, Indigenous, Africa, EthiopiaAbstract
The purpose of this study is to add to recent calls to develop indigenous knowledge of peace system and culture development to promote culture of peace in Africa. It assesses the indigenous Gadaa system peace concept and culture, identify its peace related values, philosophies, traditions, institutions, etc for nurturing and sustaining peace in the Oromo society, with the neighboring ethnic group, and its relevance to creating peace culture in Africa and beyond. It relates Gadaa peace system with the UN peace system initiative and framework in demonstrating the relevance of Gada peace system to peace building in multi-ethnic conflicts transformation in the Horn of Africa and beyond. Oromo people were traditionally a culturally homogeneous society with genealogical ties living in Ethiopia, Kenya, and other neighboring east African countries. They governed themselves in accordance with Gadaa (literally "era"), an outstanding democratic socio-political system long before the 16th century that has survived to date and is currently functional in Ethiopia and Kenya, and gaining importance and restored in all parts of Oromia in Ethiopia.. The Gada system is an indigenous institution that pervades every aspect of an Oromo life including personal, interpersonal, social, economic and political life. The Oromo concept of peace is comprehensive and broader than western conception of absence of violence. It covers both negative and positive peace, intra-personal peace, interpersonal peace, within Oromo, with other communities, with nature, and peace with God. Therefore, to build peace culture the Gada concept of peace, truth, values, principles, and conflict resolution techniques need to be restored and promoted. It should be documented and made part of education system. The academics should do research and disseminate these values. The regional state government and civic societies should develop a peace education program based on these values and traditions so that they should be restored quickly and sustained among Oromo community in all corners of east Africa where Oromo community lives. The concepts of gender equality and participation in sustainable development of the society needs to introduced into the Oromo culture and Gada system.
References
Ahlin, B. (2013). What kind of education is needed to promote a culture of peace in Africa? In: Proceedings of the Pan-African Forum Sources and Resources for a Culture of Peace in Africa. AFR-2013/WS/3, UNESCO. pp. 42-48. (In English).
Asmarom, Legesse (1973). Gada: Three Approaches to the Study of African Society. New York: The Free Press. (In English).
Asmarom, Legesse (2006). Oromo Democracy: An Indigenous Political System. Trenton: The Red Sea Press. (In English).
Baissa, L. (1994). Gada Values: The Building Blocks of Democratic Oromo Polity. Journal of Oromo Studies, Vol. I. Number 2. pp. 17-52. (In English).
Charles, B. B. (2013). Africa and the culture of peace: freeing the relationship from its complexes. Proceedings of the Pan-African Forum Sources and Resources for a Culture of Peace in Africa. AFR-2013/WS/3, UNESCO (In English).
Debela, F. M. (2017). Indigenous Mechanisms as a Foundation for AfSol Comprehension: Lessons from Gadaa System of the Oromo Nation in Ethiopia. Sociology and Anthropology, 5(5): 379-387. Retrieved from: http://www.hrpub.org/download/20170430/SA1-19608520.pdf.
De Salviac, M., Ayalew Kenno (translat.) (2013). An Ancient People Great African Nation: The Oromo. Oromia Culture and Tourism Bureau. (In English).
De Rivera, J. (2004). Assessing the Basis for a Culture of Peace in Contemporary Societies. Journal of Peace Research, 41(5), 531-548. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343304045974 (In English).
De Rivera, Joseph (Eds.) (2009). Handbook on Building Cultures of Peace. New York: Springer-verlag. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09575-2 (In English).
Fernández-Dols, J., Hurtado-de-Mendoza, A. and Jiménez-de-Lucas, I. (2004). Culture of peace: An alternative definition and its measurement Article in Peace and Conflict. Journal of Peace Psychology, 10: 117-124. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327949pac1002_3 (In English).
Hassen, M. (1994). Some Aspects of Oromo History that have been Misunderstood. JOS, Vol. I. Number 2, pp. 77-90 (In English).
Hofstede, G. (1994). Management science international? Management Science, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 4-13. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2632841?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents (In English).
Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1014 (In English).
Jalata, A. (2012). Gadaa (Oromo Democracy): An Example of Classical African Civilization. The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol. 5, no.1, pp.126-150. (In English).
Jalata, A. (2014). Promoting and developing Oromuma. Journal of Pan African Studies, vol. 6, no.8, pp. 119-145. (In English).
Korsgaard, M. A., Soyoung Jeong, S., Mahony, D. M., & Pitariu, A. H. (2008). A Multilevel View of Intragroup Conflict. Journal of Management, 34(6), 1222-1252. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206308325124 (In English).
Kuwee, K. (1997). The Siiqqee institution of Oromo women. The Journal of Oromo Studies, Vol. 4. 1 and 2. Retrieved from: https://zelalemkibret.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/jos-volume-4-numbers-12-1997.pdf (In English).
Lewis, H. (1994). Aspects of Oromo Political Culture. Journal of Oromo Studies, l (2): 53-58. Retrieved from: https://zelalemkibret.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/jos-volume-1-number-2-1994.pdf (In English).
Mehommed, M., Hahbtamu, T., and Ahmed, A. (2017). Indigenous conflict management and resolution mechanisms on rangelands in pastoral areas, Ethiopia. Journal of African Studies and Development, Vol. 10(9), pp. 112-117, DOI: 10.5897/JASD2017.0458 (In English).
Miall, H. (2004). Conflict Transformation: A Multi-Dimensional Task. In: Austin A., Fischer M., Ropers N. (eds.) Transforming Ethnopolitical Conflict. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-05642-3_4
OCTB. Haile, Alemayehu. (2009). Gada System: The Politics of Tulama Oromo. Finfinnee: Oromia Culture and Turism Bureau. (In English).
Pavanello, S. and Scott-Villiers, Patta (2013). Conflict resolution and peace building in the dry lands in the Greater Horn of Africa. Technical Consortium for Building Resilience to Drought in the Horn of Africa. (In English).
Tenna, D. (2013). The concept of peace in the Oromo Gada System: Its mechanism and moral dimensions. African Philosophy in Ethiopia Ethiopian Philosophical Studies II. (In English).
Tesema, Ta’a. The Gadaa System and Some of Its Institutions among the Booranaa: A Historical Perspective1. Ethiopian Journal of the Social Sciences and Humanities. 2016. Vol. XII, No.2, 82-97. Retrieved from: https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ejossah/article/view/159459.
United Nations General Assembly. UNGA Resolution 52/13. 1998
UN General Assembly: Declaration and Programme of Action for a Culture Peace. A/RES/53/243. New York, 13 September 1999.
United Nations. Report on the progress of decades building culture of peace. 2012. UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002164/216472E.pdf
United Nations. The pan-african forum: Sources and resource for culture of peace. UNESCO/ Africa union report AFR-2013/WS/3. 2013.
Zelalem, T. S. (2012). Ethiopia: When the Gada Democracy rules in a federal state bridging indigenous institutions of governance to modern democracy. (Doctor’s thesis). University of Tromsø, Norway. Retrieved from: https://munin.uit.no/bitstream/handle/10037/5080/thesis.pdf?sequence=2
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2019 Abdurahman Abdulahi Aliye
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
1. Authors bear responsibility for the accuracy of facts, quotations, numbers and names used.
2. Manuscripts are not sent back.
3. The publisher does not always agree with the authors' opinion.
4. The authors reserve the right to authorship of the work and pass the first publication right of this work to the journal under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which allows others to freely distribute the published research with the obligatory reference to the authors of the original work and the first publication of the work in this journal.
5. The authors have the right to conclude separate supplement agreements that relate to non-exclusive work distribution in the form in which it has been published by the journal (for example, to upload the work to the online storage of the journal or publish it as part of a monograph), provided that the reference to the first publication of the work in this journal is included.
