Ethiopians may suffer from conflicting allegiances Sunday as
two Ethiopian elite runners Feyisa Lelisa and Kenenisa Bekele
take to the streets of London for the 36th edition of the
Both Feyisa and Kenenisa hail from Ethiopia’s largest
ethnic group, Oromo. But what sets them apart is politics;
Feyisa is a dissident athlete who lives in exile in Arizona,
while Kenenisa has refused to criticize the Ethiopian regime,
despite its ongoing persecution of citizens of Oromo heritage.
At the Rio Olympics last summer, Feyisa Lelisa made himself
a political exile when he showed solidarity with protesters
in Ethiopia by displaying their protest sign after he crossed
the finish line to claim a silver medal.
Three weeks after Feyisa’s protest, Kenenisa Bekele criticized
Feyisa’s gesture and called for a separation of sport from politics.
Kenenisa, 34, is the most decorated Ethiopian athlete of all
time, holding numerous world records and four Olympic
medals. At the end of an illustrious career on the track he
began running marathons. Last September, Bekele won
the 2016 Berlin Marathon with a time of 2:03:03 — the
second fastest marathon of all time.
Feyisa, 27, burst onto the long-distance running scene in
2008. Since then he has enjoyed momentous success in
marathons, picking up wins in Dublin, Xiamen and Tokyo.
Feyisa hero-worshipped Kenenisa as a youngster, but has
refused to back down from his political stance.
In an interview with BBC Africa, Feyisa said he will
continue his protest against the government in the
London Marathon and said that “the blood is
flowing” in Ethiopia.
A spokesman for Ethiopia’s embassy in London
called Feyisa’s comments “fairy tales”.
Trouble in Oromia
The crossed-arm protest gesture Feyisa famously used
in Rio dates back to a series of uprisings that began
in Oromia — the state from which both Feyisa and
Kenenisa hail — in April 2014.
The movement that emerged following a contentious
government plan to expand the territorial limits of
Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, into neighboring Oromia
villages and towns, subsequently expanded into other
parts of Ethiopia, as participants rallied behind broader
grievances against the government.
While the government has since tamped down the protests
by declaring a state of emergency, Feyisa’s signal of
solidarity with the historically marginalized Oromo
people at the Olympics offered the movement a major
boost as international media moved to highlight political
repression in Ethiopia.
Since then, he has appeared in European parliament
along with Ethiopian opposition leaders to testify
about Ethiopia’s human right situation. He has asked
the US government, a strong ally of the Ethiopian government,
to consider its relationship with Addis Ababa. And he has
repeated his protest signs in several of the competitions he
has entered since Rio.
Thus, when Feyisa and Kenenisa face each other on Sunday,
there is more at stake than just athletic honor.
On social media, Ethiopians are divided as to whom to support.
But many diaspora based activists have made it clear they view megastar Kenenisa as a regime apologist.
Birhanu Lenjiso concluded:
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