8th June 2016 By Melody Sundberg
Sweden (Untold Stories) — “But the government – of course, it is not a government, actually – is a group of gangsters and mafias, because if someone is making a group and that group is not representing the majority of the nation or the people, you could not say that that is a government. If the government is not elected by the people, for the people, you could not consider that as a government!”
Poet Caalaa Hayiluu Abaataa about why he wrote poetry about the oromo people who suffers oppression by the Ethiopian government. Caalaa Hayiluu Abaataa was jailed and tortured in Maekelawi, the notorious police station in Ethiopia, for writing poetry about the Oromo people who suffers oppression by the Ethiopian government. He now lives in exile in Sweden. Read his story here.
Filmed during Poesi på liv och död – exilen den verkliga utmaningen (Poetry on life and death – With life in exile as the real challenge), an event by Stockholm University. May 10, 2016 at Fanfaren Kultur Farsta, Stockholm, Sweden. To watch a full video from the event, click here.
Video by Untold Stories / Melody Sundberg.