#AbiyMustGo#OromoProtest#Ethiopia

Haacaaluu Hundeessaa's voice still carries across the Oromia region and beyond

The night Haacaaluu assassinated, a friend sent me a WhatsApp message: “I am hearing disturbing reports about Haacaaluu being shot”. I wrote back saying: “No Way!”. I didn’t believe it. I texted another friend to check and he texted back saying: “Gudii taane, hin salphanne, Awol”. I then texted another friend asking the same question, and he texted back saying: “I don’t want to hear it. I can’t breathe.” I then texted back the first friend who broke the story to me: “Addis Standard reporting he is killed. So that is it? There is no more Haacaaluu?”

As I was texting back and forth with friends, my sister Hindiya came in. “Dhugaadhaa, Awwal?” (Is it true, Awol), she asked. Akkas jedhan. Dhugaa fakkaata (that is what everyone is saying. It seems true), I said, with a subdued voice. My sister burst into tears, wailing with such a sense of despair and loss. I can hear how tired and resigned her voice sounded, and it killed me inside, and that is before I even had the chance to start thinking about a world without Haacaaluu and what it means to mourn him. For me, Hindiya’s crying was the ultimate sound of the grief that struck every Oromo household.

Fast forward to mid-August, a friend of mine and I have been talking about Haacaaluu and tragic events that followed his murder. We covered a lot of grounds, from who killed Haacaaluu and the motivations for it to the violence that followed his death, from the appalling and morally bankrupt narrative of genocide/ethnic cleansing to the differential grievability of lives and the changing credibility economy within the Ethiopian state, from Abiy’s betrayal of the Oromo cause to the return to the old feudal neo-Neftegna ideology, and everything in between.

This friend of mine is a genius of empathy (if that means something). He is deeply empathetic, and his empathic concern transcends mere pity or emotional contagion or the ability to match the emotional state of others or being kind-hearted.

Now, why am I telling you all of this?

Well, he is very good at highlighting the deeper beauty of Haacaaluu’s legacy, at shifting the focus of our conversation from the weight of Haacaaluu’s loss to gratitude, to see his enduring legacy not just as the greatest gift of life but also as an anchor that holds us to a place, a cause, and a vision – those visions of a free, equal, diverse, and democratic society for which he died.

Haacaaluu’s assassination tore deep into the Oromo community but Haacaaluu left behind a legacy that outlasts his assassins. His memory is itched into our collective consciousness and he will live in the hearts and minds of the 50 million Oromos who live in the Horn of Africa for eternity.

An important part of honoring and respecting Haacaaluu’s legacy is demanding justice for him. Two months since his assassination, we still don’t have a convincing account of who killed him and why. If the system doesn’t deliver justice (note that no one is convicted for all the high-profile assassinations in the country so far), we can only assume that the state itself is the culprit.

Justice for Haacaaluu and for all those affected by the violence (mainly by state actors) that followed his assassination