Young Ethiopians: Keeping Promises to the FutureД®thiopia is, in theory, governed under autonomous regional authorities aligned with ethnicity and historical homelands, although in practice that governance and self-determination are rarely true for some groups, including the Oromo.

The reality is that they know that history all too well, and in an era of connectivity and engagement, they demand a different future. So itвЂ™s not that a new generation of Oromo donвЂ™t know the history or the sacrifices made by their elders, especially those active in organized political resistance thatвЂ™s designed specifically for them. In 2014, almost half of all Ethiopians вЂ“ 45 percentВ вЂ“ were less than 15 years old. To say вЂњyoung EthiopiansвЂќ is almost redundant, because one thirdВ of the population is under 25 years old. вЂњMany other young people have told me the same thing,вЂќ writes Felix Horne, author of the HRW report. The Ethiopian teen told HRW that security agents went through her community вЂњarresting every young person they could find,вЂќ and she refuses to return until the violence stops and the Oromo are heard. She was banned from school after the military found a protest song, one of many recorded by OromoвЂ™s young generation, on her mobile phone. Their youth is emphasized in the December HRW report, which describes the harrowing experience of a 16-year-old girl from Hararghe whose father was killed, her brothers imprisoned and other family members disabled. OFC leader Mualtu GemechuВ says there were up to 70,000 people who had been detained in recent months, not necessarily all Oromo protesters. That decision followed the Irreecha massacre, in which the Oromo Federalist Congress puts the death toll at nearly 700, a number wildly at odds with official counts of just 52. But they remain less than half of the 24,000 people who have been detained since Ethiopia announced a state of emergency in October. Last month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) praised the releaseВ of 9,800 prisoners participating in anti-government protests, many of them in the Oromia region. The Ethiopian PeoplesвЂ™ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has held power for decades and has awarded power to elites from the minority Tigrayan ethnic group. Because the Oromo are EthiopiaвЂ™s largest ethnic group, numbering more than 35 million, and one that has historically felt marginalized and severely discriminated againstВ by successive governments. Yet that change is coming at a cost that should shame the Ethiopian government as it strangles its own future under a violent, repressive surveillance societyВ вЂ“ and shame international leaders for their complicity. Even as Bekele Gerba, Merera Gudina and others remain imprisoned, the youth represent inevitable change. вЂњThe Qubee generation appears ready to fight on until, in the words of Oromo leader Bekele Gerba,В either all Oromos are jailed, killed and exiled, or until everyone is free,вЂќ Ademo writes. Feyisa represents an entire generation of young Oromo in Ethiopia вЂ“ the Qubee, who were the first Oromo permitted to learn in their native language and thus described by an alphabetical feature associated with Afaan Oromo.

But the more the Washington-based journalist thought about it, the more he realized that Feyisa is emblematic of a more powerful cultural shift.

In fact, Ademo admits in his end-of-year essay that he originally planned to write about Olympic athlete Feyisa LilesaвЂ™s courage, and how FeyisaвЂ™s protest at the Olympic Games made visible the oppression of Oromo people that the world didnвЂ™t yet know it ignored.ДЇeyisa made the year-end lists of changemakers at Foreign Policy, Deutsche Welle and Huffington Post, Ademo wrote. Mohammed Ademo, an Ethiopian journalist and editor of the OPrideВ news platform, had a difficult time choosing the 2016 Oromo Person of the Year.

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