The opposition must be proud of its high morality. It has consciously decided to oppose the brutal government in Eritrea publicly, instead of being silent witness of, or unmoved by the extreme violation of the rights of Eritreans in Eritrea. The choice is made despite the personal cost or sacrifices, which the opposition members are aware of what they are, and which a very many in the opposition must have already encountered. ( The personal sacrifice is not immense, however; the high value of the high morality creates invisible protective layers, which makes the personal sacrifices more bearable, or less painful.)

The high morality and the activism of the opposition have made a difference. The dictator- whom the opposition hate for good reasons- en his inner circle are increasingly feeling the opposition; the dictator’s ride is consequently less free, in comparison to old days. The high morality and the activism, especially during the last years, has greatly curtailed the overt enthusiasm of the dictator’s supporters; most of the latter walk to embassies’ festivals with their heads down- an evidence of shame or non-confidence in their support; the two elements of the opposition has led to secret announcement of the embassies’ events- for fear of being disrupted or confronted by the opposition. Both elements have contributed a lot to the damning report of Human Rights Inquiry on Eritrea, which the dictator is attempting to discredit via coercion and manipulation of many Eritreans outside Eritrea. (The dictator’s government is recently making overtures to foreign bodies; it is opening the backdoor to UN Human Right agency in order to preempt any further reporting of extreme violations, and a referral of the case to the international court in Den Haag.)

It is sad, however, that such opposition- that is willing to sacrifice much- is unable to manage its politics. Its politics is quite sad, indeed. The sadness is particularly very painful, considering that a) a sound and effective politics of opposition has never been difficult to formulate, nor difficult to implement, and b) the dictator and his inner circle have been laughing at the opposition’s disarray. The serious dysfunctional of the opposition- which is self-imposed or its own making- has also acted as a de-catalyst, preventing others- who silently oppose the dictator- to cross over the line, and to oppose the regime rather publicly; that is another saddening case. (The opposition has lived with the pain for years; some for more than a decade, which is quite long.)

To sum up, the opposition is exhibiting high morality on one hand, and it is pursing since many years a very disappointing politics- which is not without a negative political impact to post-dictator Eritrea. It is a distressful combination- or some may prefer to describe it as a distressful paradox. It is, of course, quite unfortunate that high morality is not positively correlated with an opposition politics- like Eritrea-related opposition; the nil relationship has played a role- in view of no restraining limits-, and the opposition has made the whole thing messy for no good reason. The whole sad politics of the opposition is largely attributed to the political silliness of the opposition; the silliness has contributed to an unforced deviance, and the shenkolel, instead of concentrating on and restricting itself to one objective during this particular struggle. None escapes this shameful silliness; the opposition faces a silliness of three types; the two types of the collective silliness have permitted the old and emerging “leaders”- not few in number- to stick to their bad or worst opposition politics or to initiate new, unworkable silly ones. (The first collective silliness started very many years, and the second did happen a year or two ago; their negative effect are still felt, and it looks that the negative effect will linger for some time to come, unless a miracle dawns- or unless the emerging grass root movements in USA and EU take root, and prove to be successful.)

The political silliness of the opposition is the groundless or self made failure or weakness of the opposition to put its house order; the groundless weakness has led to the absence of a united movement- which in turn has led to demotivation among the opposition, less effectiveness, and less exploitation of the potential. To put it differently, the extreme weakness within the opposition is not forced upon it by irreconcilable principles or ideologies of one sort or another; there was and there is still no compelling basis for the weakness, disorder, disarray; the background to the inability to work together, or to form an effective movement lies elsewhere; it is simply the result of a political silliness of the opposition. ( Many Eritreans have been attributing the disorder and disarray to chiefs’ opportunism, power struggle, abrogation of responsibility, etc; I do understand the background to the descriptions, but none makes sense. Opportunism and powers struggle are normal features in normal politics in a normal nation- unlike Eritrea; such political features must not exist during this struggle to weaken the dictator and to boast the internal opposition; the power silliness is the source of such features at this stage of the struggle; the silliness blindfolds the chiefs and their close subordinates from learning from the failures and mistakes, and from understanding the essence of this particular struggle.)

The political silliness of the opposition has began more than a decade ago. People like me and very many others had (wrongly) anticipated that the chiefs of the political organizations will gradually learn the arts, and move towards a sensible arrangement; the initial disagreements were (rightly) considered as temporary hiccups- arising from inexperience, personal differences, different views on issues, etc. But we have found later- all to our dismay- that the temporary hiccups have turned into a built-in intransigence, selfishness, etc; very many of the leaders have failed to learn from mistakes or to act responsibly in line to the aspiration and demand of the majority in the opposition. (Many in the opposition waited patiently for some 10 years for a satisfactory management of the affair of the opposition; it was a long wait; the result was mess, and no other than mess,  and it left the opposition damaged, demotivated, and everything else, including immense difficulty to reverse or to start afresh.)

The collective silliness of the first type was evident during the long10 years. The members of the organizations didn’t intervene- say after 5 years- to put an halt to their chiefs’ unexplainable silliness; as far as we can tell, the members were pursuing their usual obligations vis a vis their respective organizations, instead of waking up, and starting shouting at their respective chiefs to manage the affair of the opposition. The many members did also pursue silly politics- i.e being loyal to their respective organizations and their chiefs, and engaged in recruiting Eritreans to join their respective organizations. ( Silly politics continued unabated from two sides for too long; it was self reinforcing silliness, and both sides felt comfortable with their silly political stands.)

The silly stands and politics of both sides have continued, and that have triggered havoc of unprecedented level within the opposition…(This and the rest to be explained in the next article.)

Solomon in Belgium