Battlefield Eritrea

A couple of years ago, a whale stranded along the banks of River Thames in London attracted the attention of hundreds of people.  They were watching the rescue teams desperately trying to save the massive sea creature and a tiny little girl asks her mother, “What is wrong with him?”  Her mother replies, “He lost his pod, darling”. 

“His iPod?” asks the little girl.

Then you have a Londoner of Indian origin and loves to talk about his time with his extended family based in western Tanzania.  I spend at least a month of my summer holidays there, he says. 

“What do you think of London then?” I ask. 

I don’t want to live here anymore, he replies – with a sad face.  He is in his early or mid-twenties. 

“Whenever I see the poverty over there,” he continues, “I realize how privileged we are and that puts everything in perspective.  I used to complain about not having internet access over there… but not anymore.” 

The world we live in! I say to myself.

“If I ever have children, I’d want them to grow up over there,” he says and sounds pretty determined about that.

And then you have the culturally modified and financially empowered new breed of Eritreans being herded like sheep by their superiors who refuse to open their eyes to the latest and already past its sale-by-date misery in Eritrea.  They behave as if they were almost mentally disabled (despite their educational status) to ask themselves, their guardians or analyze reports why Eritrea is immersed in such a mess.  If such a scenario was a battlefield, they would be like a horde of cannon fodder that falls first in defense of a cause long dead. 

Dreams for some and nightmare for others!
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Just like the whale, Eritrea is stranded along the Red Sea. It has lost its pod and iPod right beside the body of water it calls its own. One can generate all sorts of stories to describe its condition: from no life guard around, one way street, no right turns, no parking, road ahead closed, stop at pedestrian crossing to no-way-out, end of line and all change signals... and please don’t forget to look left and right before you cross the road.

And why did the whale find itself in that mess? It took the right turn to the wrong end.

The whale is dead and the war is over but Eritreans are still searching for a settlement or a homeland they can call their own.   They don’t even realize they are running away from it while it is right under their own feet.  We have to finally swallow the reality that this is not normal at all and those who are not even bothered to figure it out have the nerve to dance all night whenever the opportunity presents itself to help disclaim it.

It has now boiled down to a system of the few over the many. The Eritrean episode has finally evolved to an issue of haves and have-nots and the idea or promise of sustainable and equitable prosperity and peace has dissipated.  The way it looks, it seems the idea of public ownership of resources and institutions is beyond the comprehension of any sensible Eritrean.

This is the new Battlefield Eritrea and its future is sailing towards uncharted waters all over again.

Forgiven but not yet forgotten, an upgraded and yet deranged practice of a new form of colonialism comes to mind. The post-independence years of Eritrea still have a stench of oppressive air oozing out of every node of a web network of deceit that squeezes the life out of any well-meaning person.  It has mastered the art of sucking the very last gasp of a people on a verge of losing their ability to fight back and, if they don’t, about to succumb to a condition of absolute submission and utter despair.

Think of a night – fun for some and a nightmare for others.  It is an arena full of people delighted in drinking and dancing as if there is no tomorrow.  Just before the sun rises, the floor is all clean and no one is bothered to find out who did the cleaning and the washing. 

“Why do we have to think… it’s all paid for, is it not?” 

It all works like clockwork and has always been about bread and circuses.

Now, think of a battlefield in which thousands died and the work involved in picking up dead bodies, digging graves or pits for massive burials and celebrating victory days later. 

“Why do we have to think… it’s all paid for, is it not?” 

Battlefield Eritrea is embedded in both – a parallel world separated by a thin veil of perception.  The making of Eritrea is full of it and the majority of Eritreans are, yet again, not aware of the clean-up waiting in store for them.  This is not the kind of battlefield they have ever seen yet.  This time, there is no battle and there won’t be a field to clear either.  This is about people who lost almost all they had – not only in terms of their tangible possessions but in their value as human beings.  It is about lifting a population sunk deep in suffering and broken dreams; exhausted by hopelessness and disabled by virtue of its absolute trust in authority and willful expectations; blinded by premature confidence and forced to pay the price for being so foolish – not different from a prisoner, beggar or a slave in their own ‘liberated’ surrounding. 

Memories do die hard – sometimes, they never do.  But, like any other phenomena, they have to be unearthed and be dealt with. 

Colony, by its very definition, signifies the occupation of a host – an organism, an ecosystem, community and many more.  It has the potential to establish a symbiotic relationship or disrupt a previously established homeostasis for its own benefit until it is absorbed, made harmless or destroyed while it has the capacity to destroy the host altogether as well.  That, in a nutshell, is what life does for a living.

The current Government of Eritrea and its tentacles are of the disruptive kind.

A ‘colonized’ state of mind – a pre-requisite for an organized and self-destructive culture – is an outcome of years of loss and social erosion that develops adaptive forms of self-extinction that is wrongly registered and promoted as survival instinct. It eventually leads to a kind of collective suicide justified by the misconceived and desperate urges to have some degree of control.  There comes a time when whatever effort is enacted actually diminishes the viability of prolonged existence.  It is not that different from a cancerous cell that perpetuates its own demise without being aware it is contributing to premature death of its own host and will do the job till the host is dead and buried.

Now, when it comes to Eritrea, the word ‘colonization’ has been overused or even abused and that is probably why the term ‘independence’ is invoked ad nausea – a reflex or knee-jerk reaction to cover up and sweeten all the horrible bits and pieces that may be too tough to swallow.  Eritreans must yet acknowledge that much of the damage on the ‘future idea’ of Eritrea is actually a consequence of unrealistic dreams marinated, peppered and endorsed by a collectively colonized mind oblivious to the pressing realities right under their nose.  The Government of Eritrea is the embodiment of such refusal or denial simply because it is not in its own interest to open the windows to let some fresh air in.

The Eritrean struggle was about injustice and it is about more gross injustice all over again.  But where does territorial integrity or sovereignty fit in unless it is yet another cover up to manufacture another new version of colonization?  No wonder the idea of Eritrea became just an end in itself – totally detached from the people and another basket case of power and corruption.      

This is where the new battle lines must be drawn.  The word ‘Eritrea’ can no longer be used as an ideological groundwork of territorial integrity.  It was and still is much more than that.  It should shift and be framed along the lines of human dignity.

Eritrea, like a city hard-hit by an earthquake, is a landscape littered with invisible but living human casualties in need of assistance.  Despite the crackdown on independent media for almost 10 years now and the government’s shameful and nauseating denials, deliberate and misleading silence, horrendous acts of injustice, petty portrayals of prosperous Eritrea, those based in diaspora and the international media have, over the years, managed to expose the gravity of what is going on in Eritrea. 

This is the new battlefield Eritrea.  It is no more about sovereignty or territorial integrity anymore.  It is, to say the least, about using responsible media to establish the groundwork for what lies in store.  Once this government is gone, the social and economic breakdown and, most of all, the psychological damage the people of Eritrea endured over the years will require a totally new perspective in handling the catastrophic scenario that will eventually unfold.  Outdated sentiments rooted on ideologies of bankrupt nationalism won’t cut it.  

Most Eritreans lost their pod a long time ago.  They have lost their ability to belong or find a way of working towards a new belonging and recover whenever they get the chance.  Such a socially re-enforced and transmitted disorder is repeating itself in all sorts of settings.  The new Battlefield Eritrea is about recognizing the fractured spirit we have managed to acquire and eventually absorbed over the years.  Consequently, our new language of engagement requires a facelift or a kind of upgrade along those lines.

It is all about changing and acquiring new perceptions now.  There comes a time – a critical moment – when everything changes and yet, things still remain the same. 

Will it be about damage limitation while ignoring the facts on the ground and in the airwaves?  Will it be about juggling issues so as to save face while a politically damaging economic tsunami is brewing from abroad?  Will be it a case of more exercise in sharpening the practice of denial and pretend as if all is well in the long lost cause of the Sahel front? 

How can we frame the new Battlefield Eritrea? 

It is a battlefield that stretches across a vast expanse of virtual landmines and realities that can hold millions of people to ransom or be used as a battleground to unhinge the hooks that hold it together.

If there is anything concerned Eritreans can do now is: establish their own monitoring group – a kind of an Eritrean monitoring group that brings attention to all sorts of injustices on Eritreans under the Eritrean Government or individuals who support the government.  It may be a far-fetched dream but it has to be said anyway and the demand will be there for some time to come. 

If not convinced, please feel free to prolong the suffering while singing and dancing for a defiant Eritrea in a cyclone of a dustbowl.  It isn’t about converting the hardheaded or the believers anymore.  It is about empowering the voiceless.

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