Oromoo concept of peace: an exploration of its values and guiding mechanisms

Abstract

It is indisputable that peace is the ultimate goal that everybody desires and hopes to maintain in all societies, both far and near. As a result, institutions, societies, and individuals make every effort to gain peace. Yet, the underlying concept of peace is not well understood, particularly when viewed from the perspective of indigenous epistemology. The main aim of this desk review-based research is to understand how the Oromoo view nagaa (peace) from the perspectives of ensuring justice and maintaining social order, so that the existing explored knowledge can serve as a springboard for working to maintain peace and for further empirical research. Hence, a desk research method was used to collect available secondary data from different libraries. Furthermore, a total of 152 different academic works on the Oromoo concept ofpeace were systematically collected form internet sources including scholarly articles and online books. Then, a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works were provided. .Based on the findings, it was demonstrated that for Oromoo, peace is comprehensive. The peace of humans is interdependent with peace of other creatures, and the value of peace lies in maintaining an overall balance of the cosmic order. Peace can maintain human relations with Waaqaa (God), nature and fellow humans. Peace is maintained and nurtured within the general principles, practices, and laws of Gadaa and other institutions, beliefs, and traditions operating under Safuu, law, and culture. Yet, dynamism is there without deviating much from core guiding principles and Safuu. However, the existing literature is not comprehensive enough, both in scope and depth. In fact,
there is no single work that is exclusively devoted to examining the Oromoo concept/philosophy of
peace. Besides, these studies rarely represented the data from all Oromoo areas. Hence, further work
that includes all Oromoo areas is crucial as some solutions for peace of Oromia and also Ethiopia could
be generated from it.