So Eritrean!

SO ERITREAN! 

When the Arab uprising ignited in Tunisia, a friend and I came up with a simple question: who is next? 

Since both of us couldn’t dare to even guess, we came up with an alternative and rephrased the question: how would one rate the probabilities in some of the big or influential Arab states? 

We came up with the following: 

Tunisia – a very unlikely Arab State to have taken the initiative – possibly because it was the weakest.  It all started there and hence a given. 

Egypt – too big and complex and therefore unlikely 

Libya – almost impossible and if not, horrible 

Suadi Arabia – impossible 

Yemen – will it ever?  If yes, messy 

Sudan – 50/50 and highly unlikely or too busy in its own internal quagmire 

Algeria – too tired for an uprising 

Morocco – too fragile 

Bahrain – no idea and that includes all the small Arab states 

Syria – most difficult 

At least we got the Syrian scenario right but what is going on there is terrible and it's probably just the beginning. The Eritrean regime has already done a great job of silencing dissent over the last 20 years and the likelihood that Eritreans will rise up now is almost negligible.  In other words, it will be a miracle if it does. 

In his article ‘In Syria we need a revolution in our heads’ (in today’s Guardian newspaper), Imad al-Rasheed writes: 

The problem is not solely the repression by which the Ba'ath party has governed the Syrian people for nearly half a century. Syria's problem, shared by the whole Arab region, is represented by the Arab intellectuals who – either through conviction or surrendering to fear and torture – philosophized for oppression and were used to make dictatorship part of Arab political culture in the postcolonial era. They supplied all kinds of excuses for the regimes such as "facing the external threat is the only priority" or "the people are not ready for democracy so backward elements will win". They adopted the notion of "it's either the regime or chaos". 

However, the course of the Arab spring offers a solution to this problem. The people are taking the initiative, leaving the intellectuals to follow. It places before all Arab intellectuals the task of reassessing the ideas that underpin their theories on dictatorship. 

So Syrian and yet so Eritrean!  It proves dictatorships don’t just grow on trees – they have roots in the people who cultivate them.  What makes Eritrea a bit different is those who can are fleeing the country in their thousands – some of whom, for no apparent reason, support the repressive regime from abroad – and those who volunteer to apologize or rationalize for the regime’s crimes and gross violations.  

Trying hard to urge Americans and Europeans in positions of power and with access to highly classified and controversial government documents on global conflicts, Daniel Ellsberg – a former American special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense in the 1960s – in his article ‘Don’t make my mistake – if you can halt a war, do it now,’ (again in today’s Guardian) writes: 

A lesson to be drawn from reading the Pentagon Papers, knowing all that followed or has come out in the years since, is this. To those in the Pentagon, state department, the White House, CIA (and their counterparts in Britain and other Nato countries) who have similar access to mine then and foreknowledge of disastrous escalations in our wars in the Middle East, I would say: 

Don't make my mistake. Don't do what I did. Don't wait until a new war has started in Iran, until more bombs have fallen in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, Libya, Iraq or Yemen. Don't wait until thousands more have died, before you go to the press and to Congress to tell the truth with documents that reveal lies or crimes or internal projections of costs and dangers. Don't wait 40 years for it to be declassified, or seven years as I did for you or someone else to leak it. 

The personal risks are great. But a war's worth of lives might be saved. 

Would the above two reflections be of any relevance to those Eritreans in power with access to controversial material on how the Eritrean regime disappears and silences its own people and the clueless apologists and supporters who reside in the Western world? 

They would probably say, “Eritrea is unique and untouchable,” and keep on blaming the outside world.  After all, state power – or any kind of concentrated power for that matter – tends to be oppressive and unsustainable whenever there are no checks and balances to hold it accountable.