The Politics of Language, Power and Pedagogy in Ethiopia: Addressing the Past and Present Conditions of the Oromo Language*

Abstract

This paper deals with the politics of language, power and pedagogy in Ethiopia, with a focus on the past and present conditions of the Oromo language. The paper evaluates the major historico-political factors that constrained the linguistic human rights of the Oromo during Haile Sellassie's and Mengistu's Ethiopia, and reflects on the status of the Oromo language and the divergent myths and practices that have continued to plague the use of the Oromo language for education and development in post-Mengistu Ethiopia. The thesis of the paper is that in Ethiopia, where the nation building agenda in the past was premised largely on the Amharization of the empire, the homogenizing agents imposed the superiority of Amharic over other languages in the country. Drawing on critical multiculturalism, resistant postmodernism and cultural capital, the paper tries to address the inherent meaning of the politics of language, power and pedagogy in Ethiopia. The paper concludes that the current attempt to revitalize the Oromo language should be well informed that the forces of history continue to limit the implementability of the seemingly egalitarian linguistic and cultural policy unless they are struggled against. If the language policy is not matched with practical work on the ground, the romanticized linguistic rights stipulated in the policy may remain only the language of legitimation for political ends.