◈ The Seventy-Fourth Gadaa General Assembly on Environmental Protection
Publication Type: Online Article
Publication: Participedia.net
Publication Year: 2016
Problems and Purpose
The political life of the Oromo nation in the horn of Africa was founded on an egalitarian political system commonly known as the Gadaa. The Gadaa system has five parties that orderly succeeded each other every eight years in assuming political responsibilities (Asmarom 2006). The party in power is headed by Abba Gadaa (the president). The Abba Gadaa and his council changes with the party. The Gadaa General Assembly takes place once every eight years and it has been practiced since since 1424. The main purpose of this piece is neither to detail structure of the Gadaa system nor to describe the Gadaa General Assembly process that took place in the last six hundred years, rather it is to briefly note a participatory democratic process that took place as the 74th General Assembly in 2016 and the decision passed on environmental protection.
Analysis and Lessons Learned
Established on "principled deliberation" - in a sense that, the assemblymen deliberates on general affairs of the people and any specific issues will be left for subordinate assemblies. Moreover, the center of deliberation is neither, what Habermasian call it as “reason” nor what Rawlsian consider it as “justice”, but mainly established on the “truth.” Reason, as in most cases, is a ground for evasion of the truth – a way to answer to the truth appealing to a conscience for wrongs being done. However, under Gadaa in general and this assembly denial and taking hostage to reason is impossible: the only option is to speak the facts on environmental protection with the reference to values the community are abide by.
Environmental Protection - the 74th general assembly, among other issues, focused on environmental protection. The decisions passed by the assembly binds all peoples living in Guji Zone and hence it produces legal effect at the local level. What is important is that the local administration also welcomes the decision and inculcates the decision into its environmental protection policy.