Fear to Phobia in the Ambiguity of Eritrean Image!

Fear to Phobia in the Ambiguity of Eritrean Image!

By Daniel Teclegiorgis

About two months ago I visited Addis Ababa for a second time since I was deported (07/98) as part of and/or side effect of the war of mismanagement which no body had dreamt about. Amazingly part of the answer to the question why I keep flying from the USA to Ethiopia on my vacation time is I don’t know why!

But what I know now is I had gone twice and God be willing more of similar trips are on the pipeline. That is I will fly to Addis until I get a better picture why, when, how and what happened to me and mine in Ethiopia at a time and looking forward what else is waiting online?

Any way the duration of my first trip (2012) was only 10 days. I knew it was too short when I planned it. In other words 15 years into my absence from a place where I had deep-rooted my life as a citizen and a professional business person planning a visit just for 10 days was unquestionably too short.

Anyway I did it in a hurry within the limited opportunity I had. However regardless of its shortness it helped me to catch up a lot. On the one hand I learned that there was no mistake that has been recorded on my accounts. But on the other hand I knew that I was a victim of a systemic error.

As a result the papers I carried for a decade in my pocket were rendered to not mean what they claim. And they had been purged from the system years ago. Worse as if that wouldn’t be enough to cripple my expectation I was handed paper works that show the number of times my house has exchanged hands in my absence. Scary it is. It happened five times. But I bewildered in the night of secrets my heart beat was raised only in response to the surge of adrenaline.

No wonder the situation is very complex. However keeping in mind that a lot worse had also been recorded, I felt not that much option-less. Instead I decided to invest time and money first to understand what-all was wrong with me or the habitat surrounding me. Then try if I can get somebody in the system that pays attention to my self-presentation.

So determined to face the situation I submitted an application attaching copies of my documents to request an investigation of the scandalous sales transactions of my house.

Unfortunately two years after and on the first day of my second trip (2014) I was told by the office where I submitted my application they could find no paper work to trace the application which I couldn’t believe. But I was told there still is an option to re-apply need it be?

I said why not? Because as clearly indicated on the documents the first group of sellers and buyers were members of one family that is a father, mother and a son. And the second group was another family that involved a transaction between wife and a husband. Plus the booked and taxed sales price ranges from as high as 400,000.00 to as low as 40,000.00 birr. Consequently due to this type of complexity I didn’t visit the site. In other words the last time I saw my house was in 1998 the night I was picked up to leave the country.

Looking forward I strongly believe on the presence of a brighter opportunities for life and workable ideas out of the box of fear and phobia. And I do not believe in the plausibility of teaching or preaching about Ethiopia’s political insomnia to annex Eritrea. Simply said trying to scare others by exploiting outdated historical terms like ‘andnet’ is not realistic and doesn’t benefit any citizen. Accordingly it is not fare to obscure an idea about relationship mending process with a trend of historical regress.

To begin with the outstandingly cheered inauguration that officiated the making of new Eritrea indeed has enduring memoir and a potential power in the hearts and minds of all who had waited with hope to see the happening 30 year inside a devastating war. But now another 30 years inside the independence and self-reliance tunnel it is not clear what is breathing through the supposed to be life sustaining funnel.

Astonishingly even in Addis the onset of the process was accredited with a prospective glamour for peace and sustainable development. That said the chapter of new relationship was left open to accommodate issues of common interest through bilateral negotiation and cooperation in line with the change and new direction.

Consequently the start appeared to be promising enough to deliver change, reconciliation and predictable stability in the historically unstable and unpredictable politics of the horn.

However it is well known fact that history requires a continuous vigilance of citizens to grow and progress according to the equation of survival and evolution. And in order to satisfy such an evolutionary order of survival it is natural for the new direction to assign indispensable homework to the power of NOW.

Bearing the kind of assignment in mind it is natural to expect final scores of the homework to measure reflections of learned abilities in prioritizing questions and flexibility in answering them. That is in order to match the new style of the globe which is webbing and networking new skills of unlearning old habits and embracing 21st century view of answering questions are unmistakably  essential.  Relatively speaking modern Ethiopian way of seeing the world has cultivated close network with the globally competitive political and economic powers like the USA, China, India, Turkey, Germany, Japan, England, France and Italy.

However it is not only impoverished material world that is emptying the Eritrea of NOW, it is an incredible lot of toxic ingredients of the past in its manufacturing manual that is precipitating the stumble.

With no mistake seeing the world the way it was verifies that the problem which led to the 30 year wars was difference in managing relationships. And seeing the world the way it is, history as well as life and living conditions prove that it is the same question still mitigating all the havoc.

No wonder following the steps of the wars of mismanagement a lot has changed in the unwanted direction. And looking forward it may not be easy to gage how far war results have impacted attitudes and behavior of both neighborly cohabitants as well as those in power toward each other. So far it is clear those in power have a big difference on how they want to define victory and power. Worse their care to the historically intertwined common denominators that keep societies closer and together is unfortunately too little to measure.

In a nut shell the mother of all problems is mismanagement of relationships. Accordingly to augment and fine tune the intended message of this article my discussion will focus on the following perspective reflections. For now here I have the first two.

1. Promoting fear and phobia through universal culture of Patient care!

An Eritrean woman visiting the USA was hospitalized few days after her arrival. Visiting patient being part of their noble culture, Eritreans living in the area were flocking towards the care center. And when it happened to be my turn, I went to the hospital the evening of my day off.

But unlike the Asmara style of visiting hospitalized patient, I didn’t carry fruits banana, apple or oranges. Just following the norms of my new environs, I bought a balloon saying “Feel better” and went there lucky enough to learn invaluable lesson in few minutes. Frankly speaking I have never seen her before and she was the age of my mom.

Given that minds and hearts are open her words and her body language preach a lot for whoever arrives at the spot. Particularly the feebleness clear on the face, the rosary beads twinkling around the fingers and the white GABI (ዕጥርጥር) over the hospital dressing reminded me home and the devastating ghosts of poverty, aging and ailing.

Above all despite the difficulty in communication due to language barrier and cultural difference the hope for healing after tolerating the works of knives and scissors of a surgeon or the needles and stiches of the nurse and the hails of chemo was as common as it is throughout the globe.

Well, I don’t how and why but my mind instantly switched the board of my memory to a mixture of the old Mekane Hiwot hospital and Ospedale Italiano of Asmara. Just in a minute it gave me a view that covered on and offs of electric supply and running water. And my olfactory nerve neurochemicals were activated to transmit long time forgotten messages about a strong odor of sweat from a warm and populated room as well as disinfectants like chlorine, iodine-tincture and alcohol. Plus I felt as if I walked into a narrow hall compacted with about 50 occupied beds and a couple of visitors sitting by the sides of the stretched patient legs.

Amazingly everything was so fast for my thoughts to remember, compare and come back to the dream land America. God bless the United States of America! Any way instantly it was not a gate keeper who told me to leave the spot and come back later during patient visiting hours, simply the view was over.

Any way I had in front of me a mother and a patient. Amazingly despite the tubes and drips plugged to her body from left to right she was a smiling patient. Tirelessly she tried to answer questions and communicate with everybody appropriately. Plus regardless of the reality of aging and chronic ailing she stood to be a fast learner because even to her American care givers she was saying the words ‘ok, thank you’ loud and clear.

To some extent she seemed to be overwhelmed though. Admitted by her words she was astonished by the miracle of how many different worlds God has made.  And as if she had already experienced the beauty of heaven and the greatness of the kingdom of Holy spirits, the newly encountered care givers were labeled as angels (መላእኽታት) and the place she was being treated was apparently heaven. (ገነት)  Surprises put aside she was appreciating the speed and kindness in service delivery plus availability of resources in the care center.

Above all her memory was excellent. As a matter of fact she was very detail oriented in describing the sequence and variety of events she witnessed in few days. That is starting from winning an entry visa to the USA, the ups and downs in the long air trip, kind of beverages and food or toilet services in the plane, size of air planes and the complexity of air ports all were full of unknowns and miraculous encounters to her experience. Last but not least her presentation style was fantastic.

Well after following all her great sayings and thankfulness keenly, I asked her “did you get similar medical care recently at home?”  To answer my question she bowed her head lowered her voice and with palms around her mouth she said (ኣእ! ፈውሲ ዘየለ። ደሓር ከኣ እቶም ሓኻይም’ሲ ዝረብሕ መሃያ ስለዘይብሎም ብቐሊሉ’ዮም ዘንጸርጽሩ። ሓቆም’ዮም ደቀይ፡ ካን ተዋሪዶም’ዮም ዘለዉ በጃኻትኩም።) “There are no drugs and the service givers burn out very easily because they do not get paid enough to cover their living expenses.”

Then she moved her sight left to right as if she was checking or suspecting how everybody was responding to whatever she was telling. And with a slight neck-up back and forth movement her body language seemed to have enjoyed the love of her visitors by capturing the message from glowing eye contacts.

Then in seconds she pulled her legs and tapped both the sides of her bed to indicate that they are nice spots where the standing visitors can get a temporary comfort. However despite her accommodating invitation nobody moved to take the suggested seats. But the room lingered on silent mood as if everybody was waiting for her to continue telling the story about lessons learned from observations and expeditions in geography and life.

She continued any way and said she had also tried the same care in the Sudan. Then suddenly without raising my hand I asked her why? Why not to Adigrat or Mekele hospitals? Do you mean the situation there too is more or less similar to what you experienced in Asmara?

I guess she didn’t like my question because her face changed and turned a little bit serious. Then her language seemed to be like the current and common Eritrean lyrics and said there is no way. (በየን ክሕለፍ) And added according to what they told us the medical equipment now in Khartoum was donated by Canada to serve the peoples of Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Sudan.

Unfortunately even though the initial plan was to set the service in Asmara, the Woyane of Tgray opposed the plan complaining that Asmara is a city of an enemy country so it will not be accessible to our people whenever they needed the care.

Finally she said, due to that opposition from Ethiopia, the donors from Canada decided to plant it in the Sudan. Accordingly Ethiopians and Eritreans are queuing over there. At that moment the mingling of political falsehood in patient care was too much for me to hear and tolerate. Then I moved from the spot immediately before my eyes started watering!

2.  Fear and Phobia impacting modern Tgrigna scripture.

Generally speaking the role of language in causing and solving problems is obvious. Particularly the role Tgrigna has played in the making of Eritrea is beyond the scope its words can express.

Twinkle, twinkle Tgrigna twinkle

speakers aggregate to celebrate common events

geting closer beside each other

they make a shape like the English alphabet o

or the Arabic numeral 0

and name it bado

hungry to  dance to the harmony of krar and keboro,

made of skins and pains of slaughtered cattle.

With no mercy they bit it

besieged by history corked in a bottle

Tgrigna appears

type of language that lives in struggle

messing and mixing singing with roaring and shouting

in search for who can now?

uncork the bottle smoothen the throttle

for safety and responsibility to sparkle.

Because the same language speakers who are biological uncles

only because they live across the opposite sides of a perennial river,

instead of enjoying its natural water

they claim to see a colonial border

of ethnicity identity and superiority across the clean water.

For that reason one emasculates the other

No sense of shame on them!

when they admit to celebrate the same awde-amet

like fasika and ldet

using the river’s water brew duqa, mies and siwa

then drink it and enjoy no more than cheer and dance

to the order of the struggle

regardless of how opportunities debacle

as if tgrigna eyes miracle through guayla and egrgr,

which inflate life style with slogans and mefekr.

It happened anyway during my recent stay in Addis I read a book by the title ብኽያት ጣዕሳ  (genuine remorse) - Assefa Degefa 2005 E.C.

It is a composition of reality based fiction about love story whose main characters Yodit and Yonas fall in love with each other at Barka High School of Asmara. Surprisingly even though both were born and grown up in Asmara, the adjective Asmarino and its subjective implications were only applied to explain Yonas (from Eritrean parents) and his behavior. (ኤርትራዊ)

Yodit on the other hand born, grown and educated in Asmara was chosen to represent characters of intelligence, beauty, manner and religious ethics of Tigaweyti.(ጽርይቲ ትግራወይቲ እየ (p.152) That is according to the book the geographical origin of Yodit’s parents being Tigray was good enough to assume an ability to maintain and raise in Asmara a character that reflects such a big behavioral difference from Asmarinos. So it is not clear how the writer eyed a two generation old geographical background can serve as a special genotype to induce the reflected difference in phenotype between his main characters in composing the book.

Secondly, Trhas (Eritrean) is named to be the best friend of Yodit. “They grew in the same neighborhood … in fact due to their deep heart love they do not use their names to call each other. They just use my friend. (መሓዛይ)” p. 15 Trhas represents a body shape that is not attractive, (P.21) and carelessness in the learning process.

“Yodit is very beautiful. The height and shape of her body, the size of her eyes and hair … show that God made her carefully after washing both his hands. እግዝኣብሔር ብክልተ ኣእዳዉ ተሓጺቡ ተጨኒቑ ዝሰርሓ ጓል ሄዋን እያ።”  p.13  Yodit is serious in her learning process. She is always at the library. (እንትርፎ ኣብ ላይብረሪ .. p. 68)

Regardless of the situation the intimacy of friendship between Trhas and Yodit was presented as a viable manifestation of possibility in cohabitation among the said to be different Tigrayan and Eritrean cultures in the city of Asmara. But according to the writer the friendship was said to have gone the wrong way with the eruption of Badme war and its politics.

Stressing on the Badme political venture, the writer presents in his book a lecture that was conducted in the school by a history teacher in English from page 35 to 41, 74 to 76 then continues in Tigrigna from 41 to 52. And shines his expression of the situation by quoting the following war time propaganda statements “ንሕና ኤርትራውያን ንፈጣሪና ንሰግደሉ ጥራሕ እንተዘይኮይኑ .. ተምበርኪኽና ኣይንፈልጥን” (p.51) “ሓንቲ ፍሊት ንሽሕ ሃመማ ሓደ ኤርትራዊ ድማ ንሽሕ ጭፍራታት” p.52  to be part of the lecture.

Any way such kind of lecture conducted as part of the war was sited to be the motive for Trhas in assisting Yonas plot how to trap her best friend Yodit. (ኣብ መጻወድያ ፍቕሪ ንምእታው) p. 53

Yonas was well known for deceiving girls and he doesn’t like jobs. (በዚ ዓይነት ሞያ ዓብይ ናይ ስራሕ ልምዲ ዘለዎ ዮናስ፡ ስራሕ ካብ ዘይምስርሑ ዝተላዕለ ኢድ ሓራስ ዝመስላ ኣእዳዉ ብቕልጡፍ ዘርጊሑ፡ ዮናስ ይብሃል) p.54 Plus he was not that much serious in the learning process because he was not eying kind of hope out of it. “ትምህርቲ ዘይመሃር፡ ዓሰርተ ሓደ ክፍሊ ዝወድአ ኩሉ ተመሃራይ ኤርትራዊ ገዝኡ ሳዋ እያ” (p.87)

Unfortunately Yodit didn’t fall into the trap easily as plotted by Yonas and Trhas. To the contrary Yonas went crazy in love with Yodit to the extent of interrupting his learning process. “ትምህርቱ ጠቕሊሉ ምኻድ ገደፎ”(p.80)

In the meantime and with the help of Tirhas, Yodit turned to be kind enough to cooperate in taking care of Yoans. (“ሓቃ እያ መሓዛይ ብኣይ እዩ ዮናስ ክሓዊ ዝኽእል” p.84) Then gradually and naturally she surrendered to the might of the ghosts of love. However she was firm on her discipline that any sexual relationship was not going to be part of the deal until her graduation and a formal marriage.

The beauty of the book lies in its style and design that exploit conditions when and where real life expectations frail under inevitabilities’ uncontrollable urgencies. Accordingly when the ghosts of love started to possess the affairs of Yonas, he received letter that tells him to get ready to go to Sawa. Then blinded by the dusty darkness of unhealthy love Yonas lost his direction and became so jealous about leaving the beautiful Yodit by herself and perhaps to the love of his peers. So he purchased a sedating fluid (ሕልና ዘስሕት ፈሳሲ ብልቃጥ ብሕሳር ዋጋ) p.101 from a doctor who was fired from his job due to his corrupted behavior. And then he raped Yodit while she was lying unconscious after drinking the drug which he gave her mixed with a soft drink.

Worse as result of the first forced sexual encounter Yodit conceived pregnancy and Yonas left her to join the mandatory-military training in Sawa. And his life in Sawa was very painful and confused that almost everybody was talking about his love affairs. Luckily after a couple of months in training and with the help of his friends a glimmer of hope emerged from his boss and he was told that he will be allowed to go to Asmara in about two weeks

But the situation changed quickly and dramatically in the harm’s way. Yonas and his friends were told that Badme war is going to start soon and in response to the urgency of the situation everybody must go to the war front.

What a painful but a dramatic sway in the beauty of writing. I like this corner of the story. For me it reflects issues of love, laugh, friendship, parenting, coaching, team working, hope, negotiation, problem resolution, war and the scare of death.

Well when the war was going on at the front no life was as usual for Asmara residents. Questions about citizenship and country of origin was frequently asked at schools and street of Asmara and “all Ethiopians who used to live there were labeled as Agames.” P.136

And by the time Yodit’s pregnancy reached its 6th month, Yonas got the chance to come home for a break. Then Yodit tried to rush to benefit from the occasion in order to formalize their relationship within the break time of Yonas.

While both were working on that process of arrangement for marriage, Yonas shared his concern with Yodit about what happened to their friendship with Trhas, because he said they were no more sharing daily life and living conditions as they had it from childhood according to his observation. The Yodit stated it to the point and tells him that because “I am Agame” በቃ ዓጋመ ብምዃነይ ጥራሕ p.159

Yonas was shocked extremely and couldn’t believe what Yodit told him. Then he asked her “Yodit is it real that you are agame? (ብሓቂ ንስኺ ዓጋመ ኢኺ?) p.159 Then Yonas started bad mouthing Yodit. “ኣብ ሕማቕ ነገር ከይተእትውኒ …. ኣቱም ካሕዳማት.. ኣቱም ዝበላዕኩምሉ ጻሕሊ ትሰብሩ። And started to threaten her if otherwise she objects his orders to abort the pregnancy.

Finally unable to resist the frustrating situation in her life the beauty Yodit gave up and decided to commit suicide. Then as a goodbye to the culture of hatred behind her decision, she wrote a piece of paper that concludes by the statement “peace and reconciliation to the peoples of Ethiopia and Eritrea.” Finally she poured kerosene on her body and lit it to burn.

At the end of the day Yonas couldn’t tolerate kind of life infested with endless wars. Hence he crossed border and surrendered to the Ethiopian army. Finally based on lessons learned after the event Yonas confirmed that Ethiopians, their culture, religion and origin are the same as the one he knew from childhood. Then he cried in remorse of what happened to his sweetheart Yodit.

So based on my personal experience and observation I am presenting this article divided into three parts. The focal point being the mother of all wars and problems is a sort of an original sin which is a difference about how to manage relationships. Amazingly even now it still is the mother of current problems and shares the same bed with the solution. So exiting the box of fear and phobia and paying a little attention to the prevailing style of coping with the past can definitely shake up the bed and open the door towards projecting a better future for the troubled Eritrean image.

Yodit Rest in Peace!

Daniel Teclegiorgis (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)