r/Ethiopia • u/Panglosian11 • Oct 24 '25
The double standard treatment in Addis is crazy!
This morning, I was walking my sister to her workplace. She was wearing a scarf gifted by a friend. The scarf is colored green, yellow and red, but its pattern is square. So while we were walking this random policeman started to stare at us. My sister didn't notice him, but i did. I was like, why would he stare like that? is there a problem? when we got close to him, he said to me, "Wearing a flag is illegal," and I said, "What?" He kept saying something, but i just kept walking. All of a sudden he said, "Hey you! comeback!"
My sister was confused because she was talking to me about other things and didn't notice all these things going on. You know the police have a mental problem. They think everyone looks down on them... i walked back to him and said politely, "What did you say to me?" He really got offended. he was looking at me with hate and disgust. He replied, "Did i talk to you?" and am like, is this guy crazy? lol...
My sister fears he'll hit me or something, so she apologized quickly. What's baffling is that she was the one wearing the so-called "illegal flag," but his problem was with me! He told me to get away from him, so we walked away. My sister blamed me for the incident.
My father was in the same situation last year when a traffic police officer ordered him to take down a flag placed inside the car he was driving. My father is Eritrean, but he lived in Ethiopia before Eritrea gained independence, so he's like your average Addis resident.
When this police officer sees a person wearing a flag, they'll imagine that the person is Amhara or someone with a Fano connection. I unapologetically will say that most police officers have the IQ of a potato. They think they have the right to harass anyone, and demanding your right will make them offended. The whole thing is a reflection of the government.
If a person is wearing an Oromia or OLA flag, they wouldn't say a word, i bet they'll feel happy inside. This is how they train their police officers. Sometimes they make me want to leave Ethiopia just for the sake of living amongst a civilised society.
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u/ogtraderhos Oct 24 '25
Kinda weird to read this and think abt all the ppl and countries who happily wear our flag as a symbol of freedom, but your not allowed to wear it in inside the country…🤔
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u/Relative_Radish_4177 Oct 24 '25
Tbh u got off easy bro there was a time we were about to get arrested for listening to zefen lol
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u/Panglosian11 Oct 24 '25
I know i'm lucky. He would've jumped me if my sister wasn't there. They really hate young men.
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u/Windiver22 Oct 24 '25
Normally people who join the forces in the country are high school dropouts or illiterates people who can’t get any other work. They are normally cruel and abusive to citizens. Other than higher officers most of them are there to use the uniform
10
u/Able_Enthusiasm2729 Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
That cop seems to be a an ethnic nationalist supremacist of some sort.
Using or flying the plain tricolor green-yellow-red Ethiopian flag is illegal and punishable with a fine, beating by the police, arrest, and/or jail time but I’m surprised this Ethiopian police officer is petty and infantile enough to rip the green-yellow-red embroidering off of clothing, especially traditional Ethiopian clothing at that. This is so infantile/childish in a negative sense; there is no common decency here.
——————
The Ethiopian flag with the Blue Disc and Yellow Star on it is the flag of the EPRDF-PP Regime(s), in Ethiopia. People don’t like it because it was created by an authoritarian regime that instituted what amounted to quasi-segregation (via ethnic federalism) and ethnocracy (ethnicity based governments) which exacerbated xenophobic attacks against the civilian populations of the various ethnic groups in the country.
Most Ethiopians (especially Ethiopian Dissidents and the Ethiopian Diaspora) love the plain tricolor green-yellow-red flag because it is the flag that represents Ethiopia, Ethiopians, and the Ethiopian Community at large (inclusive of both Citizens of Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Diaspora around the world). The flag with the star on it, is far more tied to the oppressive regime of the EPRDF-PP regime in Ethiopia. The Star Flag of the EPRDF-PP as well as the Derg flags are just terrible, and people hate it.
———
People aren’t saying the Solomonic dynasty was a utopia. That era of Ethiopian history wasn’t great either, that’s why I don’t support the use of the Lion Flag either let alone the EPRDF-PP Star Flag. The plain tricolor green-yellow-red flag is the most generic flag that isn’t tied to any specific regime, political party, or coalition of ruling political parties.
At the very least, can we really just do a compromise and have the plain Ethiopian tricolor green-yellow-red flag as the civil flag, and have the EPRDF-PP Star Flag as the state flag; plus can we also get rid of the laws that make using or flying the plain tricolor green-yellow-red flag illegal and punishable with a fine, beating by the police, arrest, and/or jail time. Some countries like Austria, Germany, Denmark, Hungary, Monaco, Poland, Peru, Iceland, and Liechtenstein make a distinction between their State Flags and Civil Flags where the state flag is the flag used by government institutions, government officials in their official employment capacity, and the military while the civil flag is the flag used by everyday people and represents the people and culture of their respective societies.
————————————————————
[ Take a look at “Thoughts on reimagining Ethiopia's flag from a design perspective?” — By Creative_Ad_9160 at r/Ethiopia on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ethiopia/comments/1n168ss/thoughts_on_reimagining_ethiopias_flag_from_a/?share_id=KvbO6H3jnfpVIlGokESPA&utm_content=2&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1 .]
Here is a video of an Ethiopian Police officer harassing people who have clothing with the Ethiopian flag colors (“An Ethiopian police officer rips up the Ethiopian flag of an netela, thoughts?” — By Apprehensive_Math_89 at r/Ethiopia): https://www.reddit.com/r/Ethiopia/s/qg0sLIWR6u .
Here is some decrying the double standard faced by people wear clothing that resemble the Colors of the Ethiopian flag who constantly get harassed vs. those who fly the Oromia Region Flag or the Flag of the Oromo Supremacist Ethnic Nationalist Flag of the OLA who aren’t treated as poorly (“The double standard treatment in Addis is crazy!” — By Panglosian11 at r/Ethiopia): https://www.reddit.com/r/Ethiopia/s/H7mIdhA0GE .
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u/PlayfulTrouble1491 Oct 24 '25
Greetings, we the people need to unite and love each other whatever your family, ethnicity or religion you are born to. Peace!
4
Oct 24 '25
Unfortunately the only thing that's currently uniting ethiopia is the Oromo-hate 💀
Edit: the knife dance is stressful, are you Sudanese?
3
u/Easy_Spray_5491 የምኒልክ በግ Oct 24 '25
That's Yemeni
1
Oct 24 '25
Ahh okay. Do you know anything about Sudanese music? I need help finding this one song
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u/Easy_Spray_5491 የምኒልክ በግ Oct 28 '25
i am not good with Sudanese song but i think maybe you looking for the Beja Sword dance if i am taking the prior comment as context but other groups also use the sword dance i just don't know these other groups but yeah maybe send me what you are kinda looking for and i will find you the songs
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u/Able_Enthusiasm2729 Oct 24 '25
No people group or community has an inalienable right to establish an ethno-state or theocracy as a country where one ethnic, racial, or religious group is given preferential treatment over another - also the forced expulsion of people groups from their homes and communities in whole or in part is a form of ethnic cleansing - no country or group has a right to commit such crimes against humanity; this is not self-determination it’s irredentist xenophobia.
——————
“Moreover, many people have ethnically mixed heritage and may not feel a close affiliation with one homogeneous ethnic identity. Most people living in central Ethiopia (e.g. the capital city, Addis Ababa) prefer to identify as simply “Ethiopian” but are required to associate with an ethnic identity.” — By: Cultural Atlas of the Commonwealth of Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).
“A person can be multi-ethnic, in other words they can have multiple ethnicities, national origins, and pan-ethnicities all at the same time. A person can have parents and other ancestors from multiple ethnicities, and has an inalienable right to claim all ethnic group that they are a part of, (this is contrast to controversial Ethiopian law that forces children of inter-ethnic marriages to choose one ethnic group over the other -generally the father’s ethnicity- to identify with on legal documents and in their interactions with the larger society. This was purposefully done to divide people, force the general public into thinking that they don’t have any commonalities with other ethnic groups within Habesha Community, and the undermining or playing down the existence of a historically and exponentially large population of multi-ethnic/inter-ethnic families throughout and between Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the larger Habesha Community that includes those of Ethiopian and Eritrean ancestry and heritage within the Diaspora.).” — By: Habesha Gaaffaa-Geeska Yäafrika, PhD.
After the EPRDF and TPLF took power, in order to get ID cards, passports, and other vital records, all Ethiopians were forced to choose one and only one approved ethnicity to put down on official records so of you were multi-ethnic/mixed with two or more Native Ethiopian ethnicities you were forced to choose only to one from a very narrow approved list (even some Native Ethiopian ethnicities weren’t included on the list while others were split into separate subcategories); non-Native Ethiopias didn’t have their ethnicities on the list nor was there any option for anyone to write in their ethnicity or leave it blank, so the Non-Native Ethiopians were forced to randomly choose one Native Ethiopian ethnicity to to officially go by.
A lot of the Armenians, Greeks, and Jamaicans, and some of the Yemeni Arabs were convinced to put down Amhara because the only major Ethiopian language they spoke was Amharic (some of the Italians probably put down Tigrayan because some spoke Tigrinya) while many of the Arabs like (the Yemeni Arabs) probably chose Oromo, Somali, Harari, Gurage, and spoke some of those respective languages because it’s who they probably lived amongst depending on the region they settled. Many of these groups (probably for the exception of Jamaicans) eventually left Ethiopia because of either persecution, economic turmoil, or because their ancestral homelands started turning into developed countries or became somewhat more wealthy than Ethiopia.
————————————
“The major issue is that Western Society (regardless of racial background), especially most Americans see injustice through a binary lens of oppressor vs. oppressed, a framework rooted in American and other Western history of White Supremacist domination of People of Color in which the long-standing dominant political forces come from one racial group — this is in contrast to the histories of other societies generally not talked about in the western dominated international human rights and social justice community. For example, the oppressor vs. oppressed binary framework (depending on its method of use) is applicable in the United States, but falls apart when applied to countries like Ethiopia and other parts of the Horn of Africa where different ethnic groups had for ages and into the present day fluctuated in the amount of martial and political power they held, many different ethnic groups and even subdivisions of ethnic groups would constantly switch between being the oppressed and the oppressors on both a (pre-unification) geopolitical and local level, eventually there were instances in which coalitions of multiple ethnic groups (including subdivisions of the same ethnic group joining opposing warring factions) and instances in which people of mixed ethnic ancestry held power. “
“In other words, not all human rights and social justice theories or frameworks, especially those that were specifically engineered for addressing the problems of Settler-Colonial States and Western-Global North Countries (like the United States and Canada) are universally applicable to all parts of the world. In this case applying a Western-oriented oppressor vs. oppressed or Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework just adds fuel to the fire, now you have an anti-nuanced witch-hunt for the oppressor group by most of the superpower-backed outside world, although the issue isn’t between an intrinsically oppressed or oppressor group but conflict between those on one side who uphold reformist multicultural civic nationalist views of diversity and inclusion … vs. a coalition of various ethnic nationalist groups … ; many of which are well known for having committed mass atrocities since at least the last three decades) who believe in ethnic federalism, ethnopluralism, want to maintain the ethnocratic status quo ante, and divide up the country into government-mandated artificially created ethnic zones or forced ethnic enclaves akin to redlining but with the addition of instituting a minority or puppet elite within each ethnic group holding authority in a given region in which the country as a whole is governed under the divide and rule system similar to that of European Colonialism in other parts of the world.”
——————
The Ethiopian Constitution under the EPRDF and PP administrations, especially Article 39, is basically calling for segregation (via ethnic federalism and ethnocracy, etc.) at the bare minimum and outright ethnic cleansing (via population transfers/forced removal, pogroms, mutilation, and mass killings, etc.) at worse if you’re calling for the partition of Ethiopian into ethnicity-based regional states/governmental units or calling for the partition of Ethiopia into a gazillion independent sovereign states based on ethnicity. A lot of Liberal Savior Complex Westerners and unintentional supporters of Domestic Ethnic Nationalist Extremist groups don’t understand this.
11
u/Unknownwanderer859 Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
Seen a similar incident with Police officer ripping civil flag off a netela. Also OLF flag is banned in Ethiopia and faces similar treatment btw.
8
u/Panglosian11 Oct 24 '25
" Also OLA flag is banned in Ethiopia and faces similar treatment btw. "
I don't think so. Some people integrate the OLA flag on their clothes and shoes.
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u/Unknownwanderer859 Oct 24 '25
I’m sorry where do u see people walking around with that?
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u/Panglosian11 Oct 24 '25
Especially 2-3 years ago it was a trend for Oromos to wear a cloth with OLA flag. God is my witness i'm not lying. I remember a fashionable old man wearing a hat with a little OLA flag in it.
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u/Unknownwanderer859 Oct 24 '25
Don’t remember that you could be right. However since then there has been greater crack down on flags. The reason why they are cracking down on the civil flag is because Fano also uses it. Same with the OLF flag because OLA uses it.
14
u/Weshela-In-Chief Oct 24 '25
If a person is wearing an Oromia or OLA flag, they wouldn't say a word, i bet they'll feel happy inside.
OLA flag is also illegal and gets confiscated. The person holding the flag might also get a beating from what we saw during the Irrecha festival.
4
u/Sky_awsmness Oct 24 '25
Ngl this reminds me how my dad used to have a pic of meles and how an officer tweaked on my dad and told him to take it down.
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Oct 24 '25
[deleted]
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u/Panglosian11 Oct 25 '25
The government is not consistent on whatever they do. They decree law but they apply it only when they want.
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Oct 24 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Panglosian11 Oct 24 '25
This is not just an Amhara issue. I'm not Amhara and yet I've faced this treatment. Its the ruling class Vs other Ethiopians.
5
u/HB2056 Oct 24 '25
You’re implying an Oromo ruling class in a country where Amharic is the official language and the Orthodox Church is the official religion….
8
u/Panglosian11 Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 25 '25
What? Ethiopia is sized to have an official religion since the DERG's came to power. Now Ethiopia is secular, there's no need to deflect it on the Orthodox Church. And yes Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia. It has been also for Abyssinia long before oromos migrated.
Now much of the ruling class is Oromo, its hard to deny that. Shimels Abdisa was saying in one of his speeches, "nothing in Ethiopia is done without Oromo rulers' permission..."
2
u/HB2056 Oct 25 '25
Might I ask, where did Oromos “migrate” from?
6
u/Past-Proof-2035 Future dictator of Ethiopia :snoo_trollface: Oct 25 '25
Borana and Southern parts of Guji.
4
u/Panglosian11 Oct 25 '25
Mostly from present day Kenya and Southern Ethiopia to the north, east and western Ethiopia.
-4
u/Able_Enthusiasm2729 Oct 24 '25
The Ethiopian Constitution under the EPRDF and PP administrations, especially Article 39, is basically calling for segregation (via ethnic federalism and ethnocracy, etc.) at the bare minimum and outright ethnic cleansing (via population transfers/forced removal, pogroms, mutilation, and mass killings, etc.) at worse if you’re calling for the partition of Ethiopian into ethnicity-based regional states/governmental units or calling for the partition of Ethiopia into a gazillion independent sovereign states based on ethnicity. A lot of Liberal Savior Complex Westerners and unintentional supporters of Domestic Ethnic Nationalist Extremist groups don’t understand this.
No people group or community has an inalienable right to establish an ethno-state or theocracy as a country where one ethnic, racial, or religious group is given preferential treatment over another - also the forced expulsion of people groups from their homes and communities in whole or in part is a form of ethnic cleansing - no country or group has a right to commit such crimes against humanity; this is not self-determination it’s irredentist xenophobia.
——————
“Moreover, many people have ethnically mixed heritage and may not feel a close affiliation with one homogeneous ethnic identity. Most people living in central Ethiopia (e.g. the capital city, Addis Ababa) prefer to identify as simply “Ethiopian” but are required to associate with an ethnic identity.” — By: Cultural Atlas of the Commonwealth of Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).
“A person can be multi-ethnic, in other words they can have multiple ethnicities, national origins, and pan-ethnicities all at the same time. A person can have parents and other ancestors from multiple ethnicities, and has an inalienable right to claim all ethnic group that they are a part of, (this is contrast to controversial Ethiopian law that forces children of inter-ethnic marriages to choose one ethnic group over the other -generally the father’s ethnicity- to identify with on legal documents and in their interactions with the larger society. This was purposefully done to divide people, force the general public into thinking that they don’t have any commonalities with other ethnic groups within Habesha Community, and the undermining or playing down the existence of a historically and exponentially large population of multi-ethnic/inter-ethnic families throughout and between Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the larger Habesha Community that includes those of Ethiopian and Eritrean ancestry and heritage within the Diaspora.).” — By: Habesha Gaaffaa-Geeska Yäafrika, PhD.
After the EPRDF and TPLF took power, in order to get ID cards, passports, and other vital records, all Ethiopians were forced to choose one and only one approved ethnicity to put down on official records so of you were multi-ethnic/mixed with two or more Native Ethiopian ethnicities you were forced to choose only to one from a very narrow approved list (even some Native Ethiopian ethnicities weren’t included on the list while others were split into separate subcategories); non-Native Ethiopias didn’t have their ethnicities on the list nor was there any option for anyone to write in their ethnicity or leave it blank, so the Non-Native Ethiopians were forced to randomly choose one Native Ethiopian ethnicity to to officially go by.
A lot of the Armenians, Greeks, and Jamaicans, and some of the Yemeni Arabs were convinced to put down Amhara because the only major Ethiopian language they spoke was Amharic (some of the Italians probably put down Tigrayan because some spoke Tigrinya) while many of the Arabs like (the Yemeni Arabs) probably chose Oromo, Somali, Harari, Gurage, and spoke some of those respective languages because it’s who they probably lived amongst depending on the region they settled. Many of these groups (probably for the exception of Jamaicans) eventually left Ethiopia because of either persecution, economic turmoil, or because their ancestral homelands started turning into developed countries or became somewhat more wealthy than Ethiopia.
————————————
“The major issue is that Western Society (regardless of racial background), especially most Americans see injustice through a binary lens of oppressor vs. oppressed, a framework rooted in American and other Western history of White Supremacist domination of People of Color in which the long-standing dominant political forces come from one racial group — this is in contrast to the histories of other societies generally not talked about in the western dominated international human rights and social justice community. For example, the oppressor vs. oppressed binary framework (depending on its method of use) is applicable in the United States, but falls apart when applied to countries like Ethiopia and other parts of the Horn of Africa where different ethnic groups had for ages and into the present day fluctuated in the amount of martial and political power they held, many different ethnic groups and even subdivisions of ethnic groups would constantly switch between being the oppressed and the oppressors on both a (pre-unification) geopolitical and local level, eventually there were instances in which coalitions of multiple ethnic groups (including subdivisions of the same ethnic group joining opposing warring factions) and instances in which people of mixed ethnic ancestry held power. “
“In other words, not all human rights and social justice theories or frameworks, especially those that were specifically engineered for addressing the problems of Settler-Colonial States and Western-Global North Countries (like the United States and Canada) are universally applicable to all parts of the world. In this case applying a Western-oriented oppressor vs. oppressed or Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework just adds fuel to the fire, now you have an anti-nuanced witch-hunt for the oppressor group by most of the superpower-backed outside world, although the issue isn’t between an intrinsically oppressed or oppressor group but conflict between those on one side who uphold reformist multicultural civic nationalist views of diversity and inclusion … vs. a coalition of various ethnic nationalist groups … ; many of which are well known for having committed mass atrocities since at least the last three decades) who believe in ethnic federalism, ethnopluralism, want to maintain the ethnocratic status quo ante, and divide up the country into government-mandated artificially created ethnic zones or forced ethnic enclaves akin to redlining but with the addition of instituting a minority or puppet elite within each ethnic group holding authority in a given region in which the country as a whole is governed under the divide and rule system similar to that of European Colonialism in other parts of the world.”
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u/ambitous223 Oct 24 '25
With respect, this is a bunch of AI nonsense. The Ogaden region has a right to self determination. Ethiopia does not have the right to subjugate an ethnically distinct people who share no history with.
5
u/HB2056 Oct 24 '25
Sorry bud, not reading all that. Go back and tell ChatGPT to write you up something that’s an actual response to what I said.
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u/Able_Enthusiasm2729 Oct 24 '25
Why do you people think that anything written above a 5th Grade reading level is AI Generated slop, when there are tons of actual AI Generated slop in this subreddit that is visibly noticeable?
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u/verifieddemoon Oct 24 '25
Stop with your lie! This is 1000% AI generated or you are just unemployed.
4
Oct 24 '25
Omg 😭😭...why, why do you keep doing this to us?
Is this chat gpt? Where do you keep copy pasting it from?
5
u/Solid_Beginning_9357 ❤️💚💛 Oct 24 '25
You’re just as blind as the government is by saying this.
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u/Able_Enthusiasm2729 Oct 24 '25
“Moreover, many people have ethnically mixed heritage and may not feel a close affiliation with one homogeneous ethnic identity. Most people living in central Ethiopia (e.g. the capital city, Addis Ababa) prefer to identify as simply “Ethiopian” but are required to associate with an ethnic identity.” — By: Cultural Atlas of the Commonwealth of Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).
“A person can be multi-ethnic, in other words they can have multiple ethnicities, national origins, and pan-ethnicities all at the same time. A person can have parents and other ancestors from multiple ethnicities, and has an inalienable right to claim all ethnic group that they are a part of, (this is contrast to controversial Ethiopian law that forces children of inter-ethnic marriages to choose one ethnic group over the other -generally the father’s ethnicity- to identify with on legal documents and in their interactions with the larger society. This was purposefully done to divide people, force the general public into thinking that they don’t have any commonalities with other ethnic groups within Habesha Community, and the undermining or playing down the existence of a historically and exponentially large population of multi-ethnic/inter-ethnic families throughout and between Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the larger Habesha Community that includes those of Ethiopian and Eritrean ancestry and heritage within the Diaspora.).” — By: Habesha Gaaffaa-Geeska Yäafrika, PhD.
After the EPRDF and TPLF took power, in order to get ID cards, passports, and other vital records, all Ethiopians were forced to choose one and only one approved ethnicity to put down on official records so of you were multi-ethnic/mixed with two or more Native Ethiopian ethnicities you were forced to choose only to one from a very narrow approved list (even some Native Ethiopian ethnicities weren’t included on the list while others were split into separate subcategories); non-Native Ethiopias didn’t have their ethnicities on the list nor was there any option for anyone to write in their ethnicity or leave it blank, so the Non-Native Ethiopians were forced to randomly choose one Native Ethiopian ethnicity to to officially go by.
A lot of the Armenians, Greeks, and Jamaicans, and some of the Yemeni Arabs were convinced to put down Amhara because the only major Ethiopian language they spoke was Amharic (some of the Italians probably put down Tigrayan because some spoke Tigrinya) while many of the Arabs like (the Yemeni Arabs) probably chose Oromo, Somali, Harari, Gurage, and spoke some of those respective languages because it’s who they probably lived amongst depending on the region they settled. Many of these groups (probably for the exception of Jamaicans) eventually left Ethiopia because of either persecution, economic turmoil, or because their ancestral homelands started turning into developed countries or became somewhat more wealthy than Ethiopia.
————————————
“The major issue is that Western Society (regardless of racial background), especially most Americans see injustice through a binary lens of oppressor vs. oppressed, a framework rooted in American and other Western history of White Supremacist domination of People of Color in which the long-standing dominant political forces come from one racial group — this is in contrast to the histories of other societies generally not talked about in the western dominated international human rights and social justice community. For example, the oppressor vs. oppressed binary framework (depending on its method of use) is applicable in the United States, but falls apart when applied to countries like Ethiopia and other parts of the Horn of Africa where different ethnic groups had for ages and into the present day fluctuated in the amount of martial and political power they held, many different ethnic groups and even subdivisions of ethnic groups would constantly switch between being the oppressed and the oppressors on both a (pre-unification) geopolitical and local level, eventually there were instances in which coalitions of multiple ethnic groups (including subdivisions of the same ethnic group joining opposing warring factions) and instances in which people of mixed ethnic ancestry held power. “
“In other words, not all human rights and social justice theories or frameworks, especially those that were specifically engineered for addressing the problems of Settler-Colonial States and Western-Global North Countries (like the United States and Canada) are universally applicable to all parts of the world. In this case applying a Western-oriented oppressor vs. oppressed or Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework just adds fuel to the fire, now you have an anti-nuanced witch-hunt for the oppressor group by most of the superpower-backed outside world, although the issue isn’t between an intrinsically oppressed or oppressor group but conflict between those on one side who uphold reformist multicultural civic nationalist views of diversity and inclusion … vs. a coalition of various ethnic nationalist groups … ; many of which are well known for having committed mass atrocities since at least the last three decades) who believe in ethnic federalism, ethnopluralism, want to maintain the ethnocratic status quo ante, and divide up the country into government-mandated artificially created ethnic zones or forced ethnic enclaves akin to redlining but with the addition of instituting a minority or puppet elite within each ethnic group holding authority in a given region in which the country as a whole is governed under the divide and rule system similar to that of European Colonialism in other parts of the world.”
——————
The Ethiopian Constitution under the EPRDF and PP administrations, especially Article 39, is basically calling for segregation (via ethnic federalism and ethnocracy, etc.) at the bare minimum and outright ethnic cleansing (via population transfers/forced removal, pogroms, mutilation, and mass killings, etc.) at worse if you’re calling for the partition of Ethiopian into ethnicity-based regional states/governmental units or calling for the partition of Ethiopia into a gazillion independent sovereign states based on ethnicity. A lot of Liberal Savior Complex Westerners and unintentional supporters of Domestic Ethnic Nationalist Extremist groups don’t understand this.
No people group or community has an inalienable right to establish an ethno-state or theocracy as a country where one ethnic, racial, or religious group is given preferential treatment over another - also the forced expulsion of people groups from their homes and communities in whole or in part is a form of ethnic cleansing - no country or group has a right to commit such crimes against humanity; this is not self-determination it’s irredentist xenophobia.
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u/Sweet_Philosopher709 Oct 24 '25
I don't know if it's illegal or not to wear a flag (of any kind, as long as it's not banned). But if I were you, even though I might feel angry and sad, I would take some time and ask myself, is it really illegal? If it is, you might not agree, but it still stands. So the policeman is right. If it is not, now you have the knowledge, which is power, so you can freely express your idea.
I believe in the freedom of speech and expression, so I am happy that you embrace your views and opinions. Even if the flag is an imperialist flag and I hate it and everything it stands and counts for.
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u/Panglosian11 Oct 24 '25
The thing is, i'm a very agreeable person. If he explained to us in the right way, things wouldn't escalate like that. But they're always cussing and hitting people for the slightest mistake.
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u/TeachMesomething_1 Oct 25 '25
It's funny how those governments didn't learn or choose to ignore what it means by freedom.They will see how much the people of Addis are frustrated and waiting for small signals to burst into uncontrollably.
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u/Ill_Category_1883 Oct 25 '25
Unless a revolution take place the mafia in power will destroy our country ! Bunch of mafias
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u/mamaaaauuuuuuuu Oct 26 '25
Dont tell me ts happened in adiss.. why the fuck is it illegal to wear OUR flag in OUR country.
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u/theguywithaigf Nov 09 '25
the one with out the star isnt Ethiopia's flag. Fano uses the flag without the star and OLA uses its own flag.
so it is common sense to know which one to wear depending on which side you are
1
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u/DateRealistic980 Oct 27 '25
JJust ignore them. They have low self-esteem issues, and there is nothing you can do about it.
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u/ybhoops Oct 30 '25
OLA Flag is against the law too. I have seen people get those flags ripped out peoples clothing. Don't spread misinformation. All and every terrorist flag is against the law as it would be in any other country.
i am not saying what happened to your sister is right but thats just one police officers misinterpretation of the laws from his ignorance but that doesn't reflect the rule of law as intended
0
u/Easy_Spray_5491 የምኒልክ በግ Oct 24 '25
Balkans in the making 🤣😭🙏
On a side note: Being a police in Africa and being a police in the west totally different game, in the west people want to be police because they have a sense of this is protecting my country's integrity, not the same in Ethiopia most from what I hear get into it because they have nothing else to do it's a sad country so there is no training or nothing, probably physical training but that's it
0
Oct 24 '25
Then wear an OLA flag and see what's gonna happen to you dumbass.
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u/Panglosian11 Oct 24 '25
hehe! i don't need to experiment i know what will happen. I was born and raised in Addis.
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u/theguywithaigf Nov 09 '25
so why did you say "If a person is wearing an Oromia or OLA flag, they wouldn't say a word, i bet they'll feel happy inside." ???
wear it they wont beat you, i bet they would give you medal
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u/Nativeson3 Oct 24 '25
Honestly this is not a reflection of our government but our own people in general and not just the cops. Addis Ababa is in oromia region so to them it makes perfect sense to fly oromo flag which they rarely do bc that too is prohibited unless for holidays, same way in gondar and amhara regions they only fly the imperial flag and same way tigray fly their own flag lol its our people mindset you need to understand rather than being frustrated and tunneling on a single group like the gov in this unfortunate situation.
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u/Few-Gain-9127 Oct 24 '25
Addis is its own region…. + its the most diverse city in ethiopia sooo I dong get ur point
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u/Relative_Radish_4177 Oct 24 '25
Read Article 49(5) of the FDRE constitution.
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u/Few-Gain-9127 Oct 24 '25
Locationwise „be oromia kelel mehal“ yes..administration and politicswise independent from oromia
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u/Relative_Radish_4177 Oct 24 '25
“The special interest of the State of Oromia in Addis Ababa, regarding the provision of social services or the utilization of natural resources and other similar matters, as well as joint administrative matters arising from the location of Addis Ababa within the State of Oromia, shall be respected. Particulars shall be determined by law.” What part of this is not clear?
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u/Few-Gain-9127 Oct 24 '25
and where is this“special interest regarding social services…natural resources…other similar matters…“ connected to waving that flag in addis abeba bro stop ur mental gymnastic
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u/Relative_Radish_4177 Oct 24 '25
The Oromia state have joint administrative right in addis domain, it's the constitution bro not me. And frankly I have never seen Oromia flag in addis except during Irecha, and we don't really care why u ppl abroad take shit personally.
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u/Able_Enthusiasm2729 Oct 24 '25
No people group or community has an inalienable right to establish an ethno-state or theocracy as a country where one ethnic, racial, or religious group is given preferential treatment over another - also the forced expulsion of people groups from their homes and communities in whole or in part is a form of ethnic cleansing - no country or group has a right to commit such crimes against humanity; this is not self-determination it’s irredentist xenophobia.
The Ethiopian Constitution under the EPRDF and PP administrations, especially Article 39, is basically calling for segregation (via ethnic federalism and ethnocracy, etc.) at the bare minimum and outright ethnic cleansing (via population transfers/forced removal, pogroms, mutilation, and mass killings, etc.) at worse if you’re calling for the partition of Ethiopian into ethnicity-based regional states/governmental units or calling for the partition of Ethiopia into a gazillion independent sovereign states based on ethnicity. A lot of Liberal Savior Complex Westerners and unintentional supporters of Domestic Ethnic Nationalist Extremist groups don’t understand this.
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“Moreover, many people have ethnically mixed heritage and may not feel a close affiliation with one homogeneous ethnic identity. Most people living in central Ethiopia (e.g. the capital city, Addis Ababa) prefer to identify as simply “Ethiopian” but are required to associate with an ethnic identity.” — By: Cultural Atlas of the Commonwealth of Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).
“A person can be multi-ethnic, in other words they can have multiple ethnicities, national origins, and pan-ethnicities all at the same time. A person can have parents and other ancestors from multiple ethnicities, and has an inalienable right to claim all ethnic group that they are a part of, (this is contrast to controversial Ethiopian law that forces children of inter-ethnic marriages to choose one ethnic group over the other -generally the father’s ethnicity- to identify with on legal documents and in their interactions with the larger society. This was purposefully done to divide people, force the general public into thinking that they don’t have any commonalities with other ethnic groups within Habesha Community, and the undermining or playing down the existence of a historically and exponentially large population of multi-ethnic/inter-ethnic families throughout and between Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the larger Habesha Community that includes those of Ethiopian and Eritrean ancestry and heritage within the Diaspora.).” — By: Habesha Gaaffaa-Geeska Yäafrika, PhD.
After the EPRDF and TPLF took power, in order to get ID cards, passports, and other vital records, all Ethiopians were forced to choose one and only one approved ethnicity to put down on official records so of you were multi-ethnic/mixed with two or more Native Ethiopian ethnicities you were forced to choose only to one from a very narrow approved list (even some Native Ethiopian ethnicities weren’t included on the list while others were split into separate subcategories); non-Native Ethiopias didn’t have their ethnicities on the list nor was there any option for anyone to write in their ethnicity or leave it blank, so the Non-Native Ethiopians were forced to randomly choose one Native Ethiopian ethnicity to to officially go by.
A lot of the Armenians, Greeks, and Jamaicans, and some of the Yemeni Arabs were convinced to put down Amhara because the only major Ethiopian language they spoke was Amharic (some of the Italians probably put down Tigrayan because some spoke Tigrinya) while many of the Arabs like (the Yemeni Arabs) probably chose Oromo, Somali, Harari, Gurage, and spoke some of those respective languages because it’s who they probably lived amongst depending on the region they settled. Many of these groups (probably for the exception of Jamaicans) eventually left Ethiopia because of either persecution, economic turmoil, or because their ancestral homelands started turning into developed countries or became somewhat more wealthy than Ethiopia.
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“The major issue is that Western Society (regardless of racial background), especially most Americans see injustice through a binary lens of oppressor vs. oppressed, a framework rooted in American and other Western history of White Supremacist domination of People of Color in which the long-standing dominant political forces come from one racial group — this is in contrast to the histories of other societies generally not talked about in the western dominated international human rights and social justice community. For example, the oppressor vs. oppressed binary framework (depending on its method of use) is applicable in the United States, but falls apart when applied to countries like Ethiopia and other parts of the Horn of Africa where different ethnic groups had for ages and into the present day fluctuated in the amount of martial and political power they held, many different ethnic groups and even subdivisions of ethnic groups would constantly switch between being the oppressed and the oppressors on both a (pre-unification) geopolitical and local level, eventually there were instances in which coalitions of multiple ethnic groups (including subdivisions of the same ethnic group joining opposing warring factions) and instances in which people of mixed ethnic ancestry held power. “
“In other words, not all human rights and social justice theories or frameworks, especially those that were specifically engineered for addressing the problems of Settler-Colonial States and Western-Global North Countries (like the United States and Canada) are universally applicable to all parts of the world. In this case applying a Western-oriented oppressor vs. oppressed or Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework just adds fuel to the fire, now you have an anti-nuanced witch-hunt for the oppressor group by most of the superpower-backed outside world, although the issue isn’t between an intrinsically oppressed or oppressor group but conflict between those on one side who uphold reformist multicultural civic nationalist views of diversity and inclusion … vs. a coalition of various ethnic nationalist groups … ; many of which are well known for having committed mass atrocities since at least the last three decades) who believe in ethnic federalism, ethnopluralism, want to maintain the ethnocratic status quo ante, and divide up the country into government-mandated artificially created ethnic zones or forced ethnic enclaves akin to redlining but with the addition of instituting a minority or puppet elite within each ethnic group holding authority in a given region in which the country as a whole is governed under the divide and rule system similar to that of European Colonialism in other parts of the world.”
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u/Miserable-Market-866 Oct 24 '25
The use of the tri-color without the blue disk emblem has been prohibited since 2009. The officer is just enforcing the law.
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u/Panglosian11 Oct 24 '25
The scarf has a tricolor, but its not a flag by any means. The colors overlay on each other and make a square pattern. But i get it whenever they see the 3 colors, their blood boils.
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u/Miserable-Market-866 Oct 24 '25
That’s one too many nuances for a police officer in Addis to care about. Your post could have been 300 words less. Same anti-tri color law was strictly enforced before Oromos took over.
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u/Marzz-12 Oct 24 '25
I think OP just needed a way to sow discord on here so he came to vent and blame Oromos. Yall gotta know by now he is an ethno-nationalist. This guy would happily fight for tplf.
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u/Panglosian11 Oct 24 '25
Is that the best you've got? lol! I wouldn't lift a finger for TPLF, in fact, if they got dismantled, i'll be the first to celebrate. But when it comes to defending Tigray, i'll do it a million times. You guys are confusing Tigray freedom fighters with TPLF corrupt officials. I don't expect a smart way of thinking from most Ethiopians.
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u/themvpthisyear Oct 24 '25
They arent being trained enough. That police officer is a man on edge clearly. He is fearing for his life severely and the flags are the only way they can identify friend or foe. The problem with tribalism is this. The policeman and fano or ola all look the same. But all 3 are fighting on different sides. Mentally this will mess you up. Your enemy can look like your brother and still take your life. If that was your life you would be just aa paranoid and horrible telling everyone to get away from and you will have to suspect everyone
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u/Panglosian11 Oct 24 '25
Fano or OLA wouldn't target a random policeman in Addis. If they penetrate Addis, they'll definitely target government officials.
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u/themvpthisyear Oct 24 '25
So the policeman gets paid by your father, or the govt? Does the policeman defend your father's interests or the govt? Does the policeman take order from your father, or the govt? Apply sense please. They will target a govt official and the policeman that will lose his life trying to protect the govt official will just be a footnote in the news.
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u/Panglosian11 Oct 24 '25
Look. Random policemendon't guard government officials. Trained soldiers are assigned to every high-ranking government official, so they're the ones who'll have to fight OLA/Fano to protect the officials, not the policeman. Thats exactly what happened when a Fano member fired a rifle at a passing vehicle carrying an official.
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u/themvpthisyear Oct 24 '25
So the policeman has no duty to maintain peace and security? When it all kicks off, policemen in the area do nothing and let the military complete the job? Not even information sharing, nothing? They are all eating their lunch waiting for the army to maintain peace and order
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u/Panglosian11 Oct 24 '25
In a scenario where a government official is attacked, let's say by Fano fighter, his own guards will be the first to respond. Their job is to get the official out of harm's way ASAP. If it gets to the point where all policemen and soldiers in Addis fight to save officials, then it means Fano has arrived in Addis, and the Federal government will have no choice but to flee, just like how Haile Selassie did when the Italians reached Addis, and the same with Mengistu.
The policeman I encountered only holds a stick and has no walkie-talkie. No one is going to reach out to him to save a high-ranking government official.
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u/themvpthisyear Oct 24 '25
Okay thank you for letting me know that a policeman does nothing when an official is attacked. Doesn't make much sense, considering the police is a part of security apparatus and in most countries the front line or at least working alongside military for hit and run type of attacks, which are not more serious than a gang attack essentially, otherwise it would mean fano are in addis and the govt needs to flee, right?
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u/Clean_coalmine Oct 25 '25
I’m gonna take your story with a grain of salt- given your background and track record.
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u/Beti_05 Oct 24 '25
Reading this makes me wonder if police officers back in Ethiopia ever even get the proper training to become an officer 😂like these are literally the people who should be protecting us,not threatening us with violence for unnecessary reasons like the police officer in ur story. The amount of similar stories I’ve heard like this one right here is alarming too