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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.

An Open Letter to the Honorable John Baird Minister of Foreign Affairs Canada: Can a Leopard Change Its Skin?

While I believe that Canada’s decision to threaten to close the consulate office of one of the most repressive regime in the world is a step in the right direction, but given the track record of the Asmara regime I am of the opinion that it would not produce any results.  The only way to protect Eritrean Canadians and their families from harassment, intimidation and persecution is to close the diplomatic mission for good.  There is no other alternative.

(Photo: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Eritrean President Isayas Afeworki in Tehran on May 19, 2008.)

PRISONERS' DEATH RECORDS

Eritrean Human Rights Electronic Archive (EHREA)

Freedom of Religion

The beauty of the USA -- a liberal democratic nation -- is that no one will declare a fatwa on those of us who do not take Washington and his pals from Virginia – slaveholders – as heroes and fathers of the USA.

Yet, the Awate Team has elevated itself arrogantly to the position and power of an autocrat in the internet and is foolishly ostracizing Eritreans who do not consider certain personalities as their heroes. For the record, I do not consider anyone who is or was in the leadership of the ELF and the EPLF as my hero or father of Eritrea. Why? There is nothing to show for it ...

Waiting to Exhale…

But EMDJ, I want to talk about… EMDJ were so cute at one point… they came to pal and very articulately talked about what they wanted to do… they stood up to the WaEla Commission on the issue of youth involvement everyone was impressed… then things began to emerge and some of what was written from both sides of the feuding circles sounded like a excerpt from what we would one day write about pfdj gang leaders… people trafficking, womanising, alcohol abuse, corruption, espionage, money laundering… tribalism etc etc    murky allegations… that left a really bad taste… we are going to overthrow pfdj there? I know some friends including some really dear ones that are as dear to me as my own siblings are going to be upset… but this is what I see and all I see… besides I have yet to see any evidence of their engagement… so for people in a hurry to depose pfdj… creating (or recreating), recruiting, training, arming and deploying EMDJ doesn’t somehow fall into the time frame that many talk about…. and give as a reason for why the alternative approach won’t work…

The Faceless ‘They’

Were we to have an Eritrea-centric dictionary, ’ezi’om would be defined as ‘the unidentified group of people who are the cause of every mess in Eritrea’. Every grumble ends with the note that there will be no solution as long as ’ezi’om are around. So far, no Eritrean has claimed to have met ’ezi’om for either (a) they work in extreme secrecy, (b) they do not exist at all, or (c) we are ’ezi’om. I guess most of the reference to ’ezi’om leads to some powerful persons either in the PFDJ headquarters, the office of the president or the security apparatus. Definitely the president, as the most powerful man in the country, is always made to be one of them. According to who is telling the story, ’ezi’om could also be ministers, director generals, the military or administrators. I may also have been named as ’ezi’om or you the reader. The funniest of all conversations is when people tell you that an administrator, a minister, a general or even a member of the security has blamed ’ezi’om. There are many instances of these.

Remember Idriss AbArre?

I believe in Eritrea the richest and more resourceful place is pfdj’s prison network. Here we find people like Idriss AbArre whose outspoken stand in voicing of the people’s concerns over an Education policy landed him in a lot of trouble and  possibly in prison… no actually it caused him to ‘disappear without trace’! …his crime? Having a voice… his mistake? Using it to outline his people’s concern… his punishment? Disappearance… no considerations given to the fact that he paid his youth and vitality in the quest of realising the Eritrean Dream… the consequence for the rest of us is a country where the blind leads the blinded!

Ethiopia: the End of the Fano Road?

The violent politics of the last fifty years, under the leadership of mostly student radicals, may be an enduring habit that no matter what the economic development achieved during the last twenty years may not be put to rest. Was it worth the sacrifice, and the economic backwardness that entailed it for a long era? Why are some journalists, important foreign dignitaries and political observers now heaping praise on the economic progress obtained under the Meles regime, and only restricting their criticism to the question of democracy? Had the country had the good luck for a relative stable political system, and the institutions for a smooth transfer of power, would it not have achieved what is witnessed now, and even more? If it had been spared the greatest “revolution” in the continent, what would have prevented it from joining the Middle Income Countries by now?  ... The answer is possibly none whatsoever. Counter factual arguments seem to be totally absent in the political discourse of the region.

The Evils of Dictatorship

What kind of personality do these dictators have in common? According to the Colorado psychologists, Coolidge and colleague Daniel Singer, who developed a personality test for dictators came up with the following conclusion on dictators.  This was done  after studying Kim Jong-Il, Sadaam Hussein and Hitler. They agreed dictators have personality disorders and they called these disorders the “Big Six”:  Namely, sadistic, paranoid, antisocial, narcissistic, schizoid and schizotypal.  Coolidge and Singer also wrote, “all three dictators also showed evidence of psychotic thought processes.”

At last they met: A tale of two shoe pairs

After staying on with their owner for four years, the pair of shoes was finally taken to Asmara’s Edaga Haraj for a sale at a much lower price. A hot September 2012 Saturday it was when they were brought to Haraj. Worn out, faded and the heels downsized. Who would believe that these were the raven, 220 USD Calvin Klein shoes that Lily desirously bought at the Dubai Mall for Yoni, her fiancé, who lives in Asmara.

PM Meles Zenawi and EPRDF: Founding fathers of Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia

Meles has left a massive cultural legacy of peace and development which represents a challenge to the people and Government of Ethiopia.  It is also a challenge to Eritreans to express willingness for peaceful co-existence and mutual prosperity.  .

When I see what Ethiopia is in today I feel the objective of those revolutionaries of the 60s and beyond who sacrificed their life has been vindicated. My analysis is based on the memory I have when I was part of the Haile Sellasie Student Movement and a veteran of EPLF. I had good working relationships with many members of the Ethiopian Liberation fronts and university students.

A most ominous question among Eritreans: ‘What do you do’?

It looks like we have become victims of our upbringing. In Eritrea, we grow up made to dream to be a doctor, a pilot or an engineer. Not more, not less. A kid would be forgiven to dream to be one of these, but sticking to this even at an adult age is impractical at least and inane at most. It is true that these are coveted jobs, universally so. Who hasn’t dreamt of being a surgeon, or an astronomer, a president, or a Pelé (Lionel Messi, for the new generation)? Similarly, who, amongst those of us who grew in Asmara or the other Eritrean cities, has not grown up belittling road sweepers (asfatsini) (they are now called Street Orderlies, by the way), cactus fruit pick-seller (sheqati beles), cart pusher (defa’i ‘arebya), gatekeepers (guardia, or wardia as we used to call it), and masons (manuale, or minewale as we used to call it)? The streets of Asmara witnessed many a joke, and many a derision too, based on these and other lowly professions.