How Will Medemer Be Remembered?
Excerpt
Medemer will not be remembered by its promises but by its consequences. Branded as a "doctrine" of unity, Medemer instead presided over spectacle development confined to the capital, permanent war governance, economic unraveling, normalized brutality, and systematic evictions of central Oromia. The glitter of street lights masked structural collapse, while fear became an instrument of rule. History is likely to record Medemer not as "addition", but as "subtraction"—of lives, trust, justice, and peoples' unrealized potential.
Please be advised that some of the images in this piece may be deeply distressing.
The Legacy No Doctrine Can Edit
All regimes pass. Even empires collapse. When they do, they leave behind a permanent mark—a residue that history remembers long after slogans fade and architects of doctrine retreat into memoirs or silence. More often than not, that mark is not what the authors intended. It is usually its opposite.
The ruling Prosperity Party, cloaked in the "doctrine" of Medemer, will not be an exception. However generous its self-description, history will not remember Medemer by its text, but by its consequences.
Doctrine Versus Outcome
Authored and evangelized by PM Abiy Ahmed, Medemer presented itself as a philosophy of addition—unity, synergy, coming together. One can equate that to the imperial era assimilation, but let us leave that analysis aside for a moment. Yet regimes are not judged by what they promise, but by what they normalize.
In the case of the Prosperity Party, the Medemer slogan's lived footprint has produced outcomes so stark—and at times so symbolically loaded—that they almost write their own political iconography.
More colorful possibilities abound with this PP regime. The following notable ones are mentioned in no particular order and without being exhaustive in listing them—each a candidate “signature,” and any of them capable of inspiring a logo for Medemer’s real-world legacy.
1. The “Glitter” Developmental Programme
The “glitter” (ብልጭልጭ) project—urban redevelopment, aka corridor development project, theatrically concentrated in the capital to impress visiting outsiders—may stand as Medemer’s most visible artifact. Perhaps the most accurate description of Medemer-era “development” came not from its author, but from one of its former critics. When Abiy dismissively referred to Getachew Reda as “child Getachew,” the irony escaped him. Long before political accommodation dulled his edge, Getachew Reda—then in genuine opposition mode—had described Ethiopian development as little more than the glitter of street lights (ብልጭልጭ), confined almost entirely to the capital.
That assessment was not rhetoric; it was diagnosis. Outside Addis Ababa, there was and is virtually no broad-based transformation—no industrial depth, no rural uplift, no national restructuring—only curated modernity for cameras.
History may well conclude that the clearest epitaph of Medemer’s developmental claims came from the man its author tried to belittle.
2. War as Governance
Alongside spectacle came something far darker: the normalization of civil wars, inter-regional proxy wars, and militarized fault lines as tools of power retention. Human lives were consumed without accounting; displacement became routine; collateral damage became a footnote. The language of unity coexisted comfortably with the machinery of destruction on all corners of Oromia and beyond.
Any responsible leader would be prepared to pursue peace regardless of the balance of power. The Medemer slogan, however, frames war as something that must continue until “they defeat me,” reducing a national catastrophe to a personal contest of will under Abiy Ahmed. In doing so, it shows scant regard for the millions internally displaced—people who remain trapped in makeshift sites, enduring prolonged suffering as an acceptable cost of political stubbornness.
Doctrines that coincide with uncounted dead, the rejection of peace, and the abandonment of millions displaced do not age well. The Medemer "doctrine" fits this one.
3. The Monologue Leadership
Medemer will also be remembered for its style of rule: prolonged monologues, pedagogical lectures, and moralizing speeches delivered downward to a population living a very different reality. Leadership that speaks at people rather than with them leaves behind not inspiration, but exhaustion. Words multiplied; trust evaporated.
Abiy’s lecturing style—long, self-referential, often pedagogical to the point of condescension—will age poorly. Leaders remembered well speak with their people. Leaders remembered poorly speak at them. The Wikipedia-like sermons will be remembered not for their content, but for their disconnect from lived reality.
3. Economic Unraveling
Skyrocketing living costs, mass unemployment, swelling numbers of street children, and deepening poverty formed the social background of the era. Whatever macroeconomic narratives were offered, daily life became increasingly unlivable for millions. Empires are sometimes forgiven excess; they are rarely forgiven empty kitchens.
Here, Medemer will be remembered as: a "doctrine" that spoke of growth while manufacturing despair.
4. Medemer as Normalized Brutality
Most damning, however, will be the memory of brutality—brazen, decentralized, and deniable. Not confined to the shadows, but practiced openly and with impunity. Structures such as Koree Nagenyaa became synonymous with terror policing, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings.
The sheer brutality of this period is of a scale scarcely visited upon this land even during the imperial era or the military junta. Death squads roamed openly and in disguise, tasked not merely with repression but with systematically weeding out the precious potential leaders of the nation.
Some were executed in public squares to terrorize the population; others were disposed of under the cover of darkness, their bodies abandoned to the wild to erase evidence.
This machinery of terror found institutional form in the Koree Nagenyaa—instituted and executeed by the author of Medemer, Abiy Ahmed and president of Oromia Shimelis Abdisa, with the operations co-managed by Oromia top echelons comprising notably of Awel Abdo, Fiqadu Tesema, and Ararsa Mardasa. In doing so, they etched their names indelibly into the legacy of Medemer—one that generations will remember not through "doctrine", but through blood, fear, assassinations and irreversible loss.
This was not repression hidden behind secrecy alone; it was repression designed to be seen, to instruct, to terrorize, where children are shot with their parents coerced to watch, intended to numb communities into submission.
History has a simple rule: when fear becomes a governing instrument, ideology becomes an alibi.
5. Calii Tuulamaa: The Menelik Project Fast-tracked Under Medemer
If Calii Tuulamaa evokes memories of Calii Anolee or Calii Calanqoo, that instinct is correct. But unlike those historical massacres, Calii Tuulamaa is not a singular event; it is an ongoing process of wiping out the Oromos of central Oromia.
It is existential in scale, orders of magnitude beyond the Master Plan, and Oromos ignore it at their own peril.
What began under Menelik II with the eviction of Tuulamaa Oromos from Finfinnee—Abichu, Eekkaa, Galaan, and Gullallee—was extended under Haile Selassie through further dispossessions for Bole Airport, the Qooqaa hydrodam, and the Wonjii and Matahara sugar estates.
The Derg added social engineering through mass resettlement on Oromo lands, permanently altering demographic and ecological landscapes. The EPRDF continued the process through so-called developmental overrides.
The OPDO/ODP/PP regime, having risen to power on the back of Oromo opposition ignited by the Master Plan—the sociopolitical Oromo issue at the heart of Calii Tuulamaa—promised to resolve this and more under the umbrella of the Oromo Questions. On the contrary, under Medemer, it accepted—and accelerated—the Menelik Project. Tuulamaa Oromos are now being cleared yet again, this time for Africa’s largest airport at Abuu Seera and for the Adama–Mojo “supercity” or “Gadaa City” project [4,5,6], just to cite current major projects, without consultation, without consent and without recourse.
Let this be clear:
- No one is against development. Oromos are against development that begins with genocide and continues through forced eviction.
- No one is against modernity. Oromos reject a modernity that eliminates indigenous populations through social engineering in the name of progress.
- No one is against town planning. Oromos oppose forms of planning that erase environment, culture, historical memory, and ecological balance—assets that responsible modern planning is explicitly designed to protect.
- Equally, Oromos reject development imposed without recognizing indigenous populations as primary stakeholders on their ancestral lands.
Tragically, much irreversible damage has already been done. Yet even now, restraint matters: unless this trajectory is checked, the wholesale devouring of central Oromia will become the final, unforgivable chapter of a process to which the Medemer "doctrine" has been willfully oblivious.
In this sense, Medemer will be remembered not merely as a slogan that failed to unite, but as the political framework under which Calii Tuulamaa was normalized, legitimized, and fast-tracked.
Conclusion
When the PP era finally collapses—as all regimes eventually do—Medemer will not be remembered as a unifying philosophy.
It will be remembered not even as a doctrine in the respectable sense of the term, but as a sloganized mandate for repression under which Ethiopia under the PP regime of PM Abiy Ahmed crossed a moral Rubicon—where brutality was normalized, suffering bureaucratized, justice denied, and unity weaponized against the very peoples it claimed to bind together.
The irony is:
- Medemer promised addition, whatever that was meant.
- History will remember it for subtraction—of lives, trust, justice, and heritage of indigenous peoples.
What Instigated This Piece
This piece anchors its assessment to an image currently circulating on social media—the photograph shown to the left of the header image above: two men suspended in public view, their bodies bound and immobilized, displayed not merely as victims but as routine warnings issued by the PP regime.
In a single irreversible frame, the image captures what volumes of prose and slogan cannot conceal. It is not an illustration of excess or aberration; it is a distilled expression of governance by terror.
This is Medemer in practice. This is what the sloganized mandate for repression becomes when translated into action. And these are the images that will endure—etched into collective memory long after speeches fade and texts are forgotten.
Here, then, lies the uncomfortable truth: slogans are never remembered by their prose. They are remembered by their actions and their consequences. Oromos have no shortage of such markers to remember by. We have outlined only five here—among many more that history will not forget.
References
- OT Editorial, When Even Death Commands No Dignity: Ethiopia's Moral Decay, 19 April 2025, OROMIA TODAY.
- "Daughters Twinned in Resolve", A Postcard for a Nobel Peace Laureate: From Sisters Twinned in Sorrow, 21 May 2025, OROMIA TODAY.
- Staff Editor, When Silence from Leaders Equates to Complicity: The Inaction of PM Abiy and President Shimelis on Fano's Heinous Crimes in Oromia, 21 November 2024, OROMIA TODAY.
- OT Editorial, Development Draped in Dispossession: The Tragedy Behind the Abuu Seeraa Airport Deal, 23 April 2025, OROMIA TODAY.
- OT Editorial, The Oromo People Demand a Prerequisite for the Abbuu Seeraa Airport Project, 27 April 2025, OROMIA TODAY.
- Shaggar, Bishooftuu, Gadaafi Adaamaa — Pilaanii Mummee Haaraan, 5 January 2026, President Shimelis Abdissa's Facebook Page.
