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Eritrea’s Masses: Armed But Docile

Throughout the rest of the following years, however, the front’s authorities have been in the habit of drafting the large majority of the working age population in perpetuity. Now, there is no trace of the “fearsome” looking peasant warriors that often posed for photographers in the nineteenth century. While their counterparts in Yemen are still formidable, feared and uncaptured, the Eritrean peasant is only left with his ubiquitous stick. His last weapon of defense has now diminished to a small and thin size. In other words, the peasant is now only a caricature of the nineteenth century peasant of the frontiers. This grim political landscape is the aftereffect of the historical experience that began with colonial Italy and ended with the “liberators”. Thus, the pathetic situation of the Eritrean peasants was, among many factors, the result of the secretive, terrorist organization in the hands of its own children that even surpassed the ones practiced in the past.

In Search of the Eritrean Bouazizi

It was as I contemplated this quandary that the story of Mohammed Bouazizi came into my mind and that is why I am arguing in this article that only Bouazizi-like spontaneities will rescue us. I am suggesting that we all are or can be Mohamed Bouazizi and change can come only if the Bouazizis inside us wake up by spontaneity. In short, I am predicting that spontaneity and not conscious sacrifice will bring about good breeze in Eritrea…

We could now be left with our instinctive actions only. Consciously organizing and preparing ourselves for sacrifice to see change may not be on our personal menus; trust amongst us seems to be in short supply; generation upon generation of barbarism has crowned hopelessness on our heads and hearts, especially those of us who have never seen a free country except on the news media; subconsciously most of us are on the receiving end of the Eritrea project not on the giving end…

Awate was a trigger happy ordinary outlaw (shifta): A hero of Fascist Benito Mussolini !!!

He was a trigger happy fascist loyalist who worked against the interests of the Eritrean people in particular and colonized Africans in general, who continued to fight the British forces, alongside Amedeo Guillet, to bring back fascist Italian rule to Eritrea even after Mussolini’s army had surrendered in East Africa to the allied forces.

He was a fascist loyalist who conducted a guerrilla war for 5 whole years for “a king, country and a people whom he never saw or knew”.  He was loyal Carabinieri who diligently worked to keep Eritreans under the yoke of Italian colonialism.  As a right hand man of the Italian administration he approved and enforced the racist and oppressive policy of Italy which confiscated around half of the land of Eritrea under the principles of state land “Terreno Demaniale”, particularly around western lowlands of Eritrea during his tenure as administrator.  ...

Lawless enforcing Law

The Eritrean regime’s latest complaints on its propaganda machines pertaining to land can only be interpreted as a lawless regime attempting to divert the public’s attention away from its daily miseries.  Lawless regimes are the biggest sources of socio-economic, political and legal upheavals in a nation. ...

Here is a regime whose legitimacy emanates NOT from any legitimate laws of the land but from the end of the barrel of the gun.  Before the regime complains that others are lawless, it should examine itself and lead by example, as the late PM Meles Zenawi and his regime are doing.

It is all in the name!

..Unlike the crisis of the old days that you only hear about when one half of a party leaves the main party in eight fragments… the crisis in the youth movement evolves by the millisecond and before your very eyes!… not necessarily because there is more transparency as such… but because there are many opportunities to pick up clues (you don’t have to wait for gubaE where it all explodes after having simmered all year round!)… so if you have a well trained nose it is not that difficult to find something to sniff at. The down side is that those picking at what you are picking at are both your friends and enemies and so it is impossible to have a tiff with ‘unlike minded people’ from your own side...

E- For empty – Something’s Got to Give

You can sweet talk and play for time in politics. But when it comes to national economics, ultimately, the accounting ledger dictates the reality on the ground. The world is now witnessing the applicability of this cardinal economic principle unfolding in Eritrea. Cleverness and street-smart flippant remarks cannot undo the results of the half-hazarded economic management by unaccountable secretive Eritrean political clique. After 21 years of rudderless economical experimentation the economy of the State of Eritrea is running on Empty. The creeping crisis has now matured to a full-blown intractable economic disaster. The inevitable has now become a forceful reality demanding resolution.

The story of the Three Oxen

What this small story highlights is, if you can divide and weaken then conquering is basically effortless.  As you will see a few examples below, Eritreans have  been weakened in every sect of the society and has made the government of  Eritrea to control the people effortlessly.  Now, the government can even hand out guns to every citizen in the country and they are confident that there is no organized group to use it against them.  There are not organized groups to challenge the atrocities. If you want to know how they achieved this please read my previous article on this website, titled, “The Evils of Dictatorship”.  When the late PM Meles Zenawi saw all the atrocities that was happening to Eritreans, he was appaled by the passiveness of the people and he asked, “whatever happened to the stamina and determination of Eritreans?”

The Boiling Frog

... He said that if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump out. But if you place it into a pot of cold water and slowly turn up the heat, it will boil to death. It was a sort of eureka moment for me. It said it all for me. ...  Why does slowly boiling water kill the frog? Because the frog keeps along with its surroundings and tries to adjust with it. I found the frog story to be a pithy expression for what I had always wanted to say about what Eritreans have been going through. ...

It takes one whiff to start cigarette addiction and one shot to be an alcoholic or a drug addict. The water that would roast and kill the dancing frog started to heat slowly with incidents such as the tegadelti strike. The boiling is still continuing twenty-one years after May 1991 and many are still on the ‘Eritrean Liberty’ hangover to accept what is happening in front of their eyes. Are you? The powers that be were and still continue to be smart at tightening the cuff.

…Signs of our time…

Boy goes to his uncles and asks them to go ask girl’s family for her hand in marriage…as you do…so the uncles took to enquiring girl’s credentials and all was well… very well actually… pretty, young, accomplished, nice family… all good… as the day of the tibxahkum approached and being the diligent uncles they are they sat boy down and asked him for his credos too… they wanted to know his level of education… his profession… if he owns …a car… a house…a business or any other accomplishments… he went through all his achievements and couldn’t impress uncles… they kept asking him… you work nights… you share a room with two others… what do you do the rest of the time…’Ahhh’ he said… ‘I am a famous administrator I have a huge room and hundreds of people gather in it’ uncles perked up…

(I) The Circular Journey in Search of Eritrea: Journey Identity

Think of a traveler who set out for a long and difficult journey with a “noble goal” in mind. But along the journey, he realizes that the goal is elusive or that it doesn’t even exist. Having invested too much on the journey, he is reluctant to render it fruitless. Instead, he tries to draw all the fruits that he expected from the goal, from the journey itself. Minus the awareness, that has been the story of the ghedli generation that embarked on a long and difficult journey without having a clue as to what they were searching for. Having failed to find the “Eritrea” (the place-holder) they were searching for, they settled for “ghedli” – or rather, for the journey – to attach their identity with. This has been so despite the fact that the discordant match between the true identity they wanted to discard and the alien identities they wanted to adopt has been the reason for much of their sufferings.

Human Trafficking in the Sinai: Refugees between Life and Death.

As reported in the interviews torture is carried out routinely and includes severe beating, electrocution, water-drowning, burning, hanging, hanging by hair, and amputation of limbs – and is often a combination of these. Children, even the smallest of babies, are reported to have been beaten. Women are subjected to cruel rape or gang rape on daily basis, in view of the other hostages. Women are also tortured in the company of their children, and the children are tortured in the company of their mothers. Women are tortured while pregnant – and their pregnancies are often the result of rapes they suffer. If they find themselves pregnant, women hostages are told that the ransom will double once their baby is born. Many hostages succumb to the torture. This torture can be functional as it takes place to extort the ransom from relatives, but it also can be gratuitous.

The Four “R’s”: Romance, Reality, Rejection and Re-adjustment

In my assessment it is too late now for PFDJ to hit the Re-adjust button or for Eritreans to accept any internal changes.  The trust has been lost and too much damage has been done.   Internal changes by the ruling party so will require accountability which will probably lead to their demise.  Peace loving Eritreans should not give up on the movements they have started, it looks like these movements are the only hope we have out there.  I have high hopes on the youth, they seem to get it.