Vaccaro: ጸዋዒተይ ብዝያዳ ናብ መንእሰያትና ዘተኮረ ኮይኑ ነዚ ህዝብናን ሃገርናን ዘብርስ ዘሎ ገባቲ ስርዓትኣብ ምእላይ ቀላሲ ግደ ክጻወቱ ዝጽውዕ ኢዩ። ኣብዚ ዝካየድ ዘሎ ንናይ ኢሳያስ ኣፈርወርቅን ጉጅልኡን ካብሱሩ ንምእላይ ኮይኑ ብፍላይ ንመንእሰያትና ዝምልከተሉ ቀንዲ ምኽንያት ድማ ንሳቶም ናይ መጻኢት ኤርትራተረከብትን መራሕትን ስለ ዝኾኑን ነቲ ናይ ህዝብና ዝሓለፈ ዘሕብንን ዘኹርዕን ታሪኽና መታን ምዕቃብንክኽእሉ ዝሕግዝ ኢዩ። ከምቲ ናትና ወለዶ ዝኾና ኤርትራውያን ናይ ኣቦታትናን ኣቦ ሓጎታትናን ሽሞምንሽጎምን ዘልዓልና ንአብነት ከም ናይ በዓል ኣቦና ኢብራሂም ሱልጣን፣ ኣቦና ወልደአብ ወልደማሪያም፣ ክቡርኣቦና ዓብደልቅድር ከቢረን ኣያና ዑስማን ሳልሕ ሳበን፡ ወዘተ ሕጂ ድማ መንእሰያትና ነዚ ቅዱስ ሓልፍነትተሰኪሞም ኣብዚ ህዝባዊ ማዕበል ንጡፍን ተሪርን ተሳታፍነት ከካይዱ ይጽውዕ።

Comment: I always appreciated Brother Vacarro’s effort and dedication to change the Eritrean situation towards democracy needless to mention here that I found him to be very modest and transparent who does maximum effort to call and chat with individuals that come across his movement. Although his movement is still young, I have been critical on his capacity to effectively organize and the fact that he had not specified a precise direction or strategy by which he can take his mobilized followers to the next point of the resistance. The youth has been ready for a while now potentially mobilized enough (through the relentless Vacarro’s and Amanuel’s tours and speeches) to play its role given a concrete direction to follow. What is missing is leadership that can utilize the youth’s potential towards a specific target. You can emotionally unite people but you cannot accomplish your dream without a precise agenda. Agitating people for democracy without a democratic formula will not take anyone anywhere and that was what went on with the Vacarroian movement and Amanuel’s initiatives in the past: democracy in Eritrea without precisely specifying how! Setting aside Amanuel as a journalist-activist doing a great job in his capacity, I declared nothing would change in the youth unless Vacarro provides a strategy in writing! In fact to the contrary, repeating the same tone on unity without clearly showing people where it takes them has become monotonous and ineffective. We did our national responsibility during the struggle because it had a clear vision, which was for independence. We need to clarify the vision of this unity for the youth to take care of its part. Calling the youth to carry its national responsibility without showing it how and why cannot produce anything tangible. What is the youth expected to do without a guideline except indefinitely waiting and getting confused?

Proof: Commentators were rushing to say something about the movement at its early stage because the news was exciting and promising. As the days went by without a visible qualitative change in the messages (when it still was in the mobilization phase), however, people started to take it easy and now appear to have lost interest specially after the failure of his Committees all over the place (in the US, certainly) to collectively produce something worthy for the resistance. They did not help him positively because they did not prove being capable of exciting the people through their creativities minus Vaccaro’s instruction. This man cannot do everything by himself and cannot instruct the committees on what to do beyond the guidelines of his movement without suffering a serious metaphysical distress like that dude in Asmara. It is a crime for the committees to expect 100% guide from him; they should also produce on their own but this requires capacity, determination and confidence that are lacking in our situation.

Everything went back to where it was before his exposure and this reality has been reflecting on his tours and speeches. Vacarro had 26 commentators for his activity released on (3/25/2014), 9 of them for his release on 4/2/2014; 12 of them for his release on 4/16/2014. He cannot expect anything more than this without defining his focus and reorganizing his committees by vibrant individuals that can excite the people. Apparently, that is why the emotional attachment ‘of Eritreans with the movement and the initially accelerated involvement of people on Vacarro forums significantly declined in his latest Assenna episodes. You can relate this to momentum if you may! Please note that we still have the movement going okay but we cannot allow it to travel on the same track without taking the risk of stagnation. We want to see it changing the gear to challenge the next requirement in the line and we are willing to help the situation directly because this movement is our movement that we should not fail. Vaccaro is not the only person responsible for the movement’s healthy existence but we all are but we cannot help unless he uses his power to change the situation based on his tangible experience with the committees.

What appears to be correct from this experience was the fact that old ideas exhaust their capacity to excite people unless they show flexibility and adjustment subject to relevant circumstantial variables. The process decays after going from excitement to stagnation.Gideon expresses this in the forum as; “The overall struggle of Eritrea merits the building of a new way of life, and a new way of life requires a new ideology. It is very difficult to win support unless people relate to a specific ideology, principle and vision of an organization. And it is difficult to relate to an organization unless its ideology is clearly stated and debated and also put in a written form and made available to the ordinary people. Organizing along ethnicity or religion will have problem in mobilizing a modern society. Please continue with your positive and noble vision.”

Comment: Thank you for the input and I agree. If you travel without clearly defining your destination chances are you will return to the same spot at the end of your journey. The Eritrean resistance has been going around in this vicious cycle partly because of failing to specifically define its socio-political vision beyond overthrowing the regime. All the division between all the groups claiming to bring democracy in the country emanates from lack of clear understanding of democracy and democratic values by the actors in the pool. We have had religious and ethnic driven problems like in other similar society but the reason we have religiously and ethnically affiliated political parties within the EDA is because of failure to distinguish the difference between democracy as a concept and democratic values as its variable elements. We bypass prioritizing democracy for our religious and ethnic interests ending up working opposite to our visions of freedom and equality. Instead of focusing on resolving the root causes of our religious or ethnic grievances through democracy, we kill it by organizing parties based on them causing more problems for generations to come: This is like working against the remedy of your disease, folks!

Assenna has been the anchor of our communication in this experience and I one more time express my appreciation of the Website for giving us the chance to do what we have been doing through. My theory says that Amanuel as a strong supporter of the movement has done the best transmitting Vacarro’s messages without interruption while at the same time touring around to raise awareness on the democratic future of our country. But Amanuel is a journalist with strong sense of activism who concentrates on his specialized profession. He cannot fully answer questions from the public on democracy beyond its superficial fabric (brief or general). One needs to give him specifics in writing for him to confidently transmit the message in his tours and speeches given they were acceptable to the Diaspora majority through collective intellectual affirmation.

Vacarro should then first define his vision as he did this time for Amanuel to be more effective in his activities on democracy. Yet, Vacarro’s brief message needs to develop into a full-fledged material for Amanuel to do the necessary damage against the dictatorship and for the resistance overall to entertain its method of removing the regime by any means necessary including violence. Once we get our vision straight and the opposition forces accept it enough to unite under, we can do anything we want including removing the problem by force using the Eritrewan blood and sweat as in the past.

Apparently, the scholars should assist to close this gap and we should do it within this year through tight connection with Vaccaro and Assenna if possible. I believe this understanding can be established during his trip here for the Independence Day festival. Otherwise, it is natural for people to be confused on the efforts without our heroes showing something on writing. You cannot lecture and walk away leaving the audience floating on what the message has all been about: you must distribute materials as well for them to discuss and learn better in privacy.

ኤርትራውያን ምሁራትና ሓበንን ሃብቲ ሃገርናን ህዝብናን ኢዮም። ከምኡ ብምዃኖም ድማ ብቕዳምነትንመንእሰያትና ኣብ ምዅስኳስን ምእላይን እዚ ዘለናዮ እዋን ዝጠልቦ ዓቢ ጻውዒት ኣብ ርእሲ ምዃኑ ድማድሕሪ ናይ ኢሳያስ ኣፈወርቂን ጉጅሉኡን ምጉሓፍ ሃገርና ኣብ ናይ ምዕባለ ጎደና ኣብ ናይ ምስራዕን ምምራሕንእቲ ዝዓበየ ግደ ከምዘለዎም ህዝብና ብሃንቀውታ ይጽበዮም ከምዘሎን ሃገርዊ ሓላፍነቶም ከም ዝኾነን ክፈልጡይግባእ።

Comment: Nothing is news in this message: The role of scholars in society is more than obvious to talk more about. We have heard this from individuals in the lime light of the Eritrean experience throughout the struggle and beyond. What is lacking in our society is leadership to collect the Eritrean scholars for tangible productivity. The government and the entire opposition camp have so far been brain-draining the Eritrean society as if this was our culture. The opposition camp could not learn from the government’s failure because of this negation. Taken for granted that Vaccaro was hard working on his mobilization mission, he could not possibly follow all Eritrean activities in the world without a dedicated department of information. I don’t, for instance think Vacarro knows what some scholars are doing about the Eritrean democratic process, needless to say that his first priority was mobilizing the people. Although his representatives are responsible for the flow of information about important events, we did not see this taking place in the few activities conducted in our area. I did not hear anything from his representatives about his solidarity message in the recent EGS Symposium on transiting Eritrea from dictatorship to democracy where about 10 Professors participated, to use an event as a case in point; meaning that he was terribly misrepresented by his representatives. He did not necessarily have to know the activity with the volume of work he was doing in Europe but his representatives by their own initiative had no excuse for not representing him if not directly at least remotely through solidarity messages. What is their job then?

What is clear from the experience is that Vaccaro tried his best to mobilize the people to the point of having committees all over the place. I believe he ended his first phase successfully with or without their assistance. Immaterial whether he made it this far with or without significant contribution from his committees, the second phase of the movement as displayed in his latest message needs organizational adjustment to work. He cannot make it with the same committees based on experience. Therefore, what is needed now is organizational rearrangement to successfully navigate the second and most important phase of the movement in accordance with the latest proposal. In short Vacarro’s latest proposal needs different people to manage it. I feel like Vacarro used the efforts of people in his circle to mobilize Eritreans and he has to shift his focus into using the best independent minds in the Diaspora to successfully accomplish his latest proposal; transiting the society to democracy. It appears that the extremely hard working brother did not have a dedicated intellectual recruiting mechanism and that might not have been necessary for his mobilization efforts. But he desperately needs it now for his new proposal that signifies the movement’s entrance into a higher or the conceptual phase of its vision. He cannot do it with the existing committees.

For scholars to get involved though, they must see something in writing or assigned to do something needless to say that they must also be individually invited for a specific democratic oriented project. No one should expect the scholars to push themselves into the Vacarroian movement without invitation as some naïve individuals suggest. You cannot penetrate the concrete walls of the committees that appear closed for the intellectual community (based on my experience). I am confident that we can promptly assist him on this upon request. He will need;

a)     A group researching on who is who in the Eritrean scholastic dictionary and selecting the most influential ones for a specific project.

b)    Putting his strategy of democratizing the country on paper through their effort and disclosing it worldwide for discussion.

c)     Researching about on-going activities related to this subject matter and contacting the actors for unified input.

d)    Reforming his Committees without SIKIFTA based on the basis of productivity scale through activity report: The committees should show something to stay in the drama or move on for individuals that can do the job better.

ካብዚ ዘይፍለ ክኣ ግብራዊ ተሳትፎ ደቀንስትዮ ኤርትራ ከም ዓንዲ ሕቖ ቃልስና መጠን ብሰፊሑ ክቃለሳን ነቲዝሓለፈ ዘሕብንን ዘኹርዕን ቃልሰን ብዝያዳ ሓፍ ኣቢለን ኣበርቲዕን ክቃለሳ እምሕጸነን። ህዝብና’ውን ኣብ ጎነንከም ዘሎ ከረጋግጸለን እፈቱ።

Comment: This does not matter to me as a person because there is no reason why he cannot run for power in future Eritrea. This clarification may be important to some people but there is something more important in the concept: solid organization with precise socio-political vision.

In conclusion, things appear more promising now and I thank brother Vacarro for everything he is doing for us. I will have the chance to meet him in person when he comes to DC during the Independence Day festivities and hopefully working out on ideas together about what is supposed to be done next. I expect a very productive interaction in between during the event and I think it will happen. We want to let the brother know ahead of his arrival to DC that we love, care for and support him enough to do everything we can within our capacity for the successful end of the movement. See you soon with the most important part of his message after my musical show on May the 2^nd.