“ሎም ዘበን ክረምቲ ካብ ወጻኢ ናብ ኤርትራ ናይ ዝኣተዉ ኤርትራውያን ቁጽሪካብ 1991 ጀሚሩ በብዓመቱ ምስ ዝነበረ ብዝሒ በጻሕቲ ብምውድዳር፣ ካብማንም ግዜ ኣዝዩ ዝተሓተ ከምዝነበረ ንጸብጻባት መዓርፎ ነፈርቲ ኣስመራብምውካስ ምንጭታት ካብ ኣስመራ ሓቢሮም።“ What do you expect when the government keeps on suffocating the Diaspora through its indefinite 2% illegal taxation and  monopolizing business completely? What do you think will happen when you fail to provide food, electricity and water to the people? You cannot run a nation through past heroism, Guaila and pretention; everything falls apart at one point in the journey. Even the most conformist portion of our people can no longer stand the situation in Eritrea: the cumulative arrogance, centralized power, overly militaristic, misplaced trust and obedience and the total brain drain of our society under this regime are now backfiring at them to the point of no return. No Eritrean kid can today enjoy the paralyzed and extra restrictive country that cannot provide basic life necessities to the people: the Diaspora kids need libraries for reading, researching and preparing for their next academic challenges in the process of visiting Eritrea unlike the poor local kids in SAWA slavery. The world has changed except in Eritrea: The Diaspora kids go home expecting the minimum to only comeback as soon as possible disgusted by the amount of shortages they confront there as we keep hearing it nowadays.

Tewelde Stephanos: “Normally, the sort of indiscriminate oppression the regime levels against its own people should have resulted in a united opposition to uproot it. But we are more divided than ever. Even the “youth” movements are infected with the divisive virus of the older generation dimming the light at the end of tunnel a bit more. The hope was that as the old folks die off, their divisive legacy would die with them. As it seems, the regime is more likely to fall under its own dead weight than through active demand for freedom. One seriously hopes not, but with severely weakened sense of a unifying national umbrella, Somalia’s recent history is not a far-fetched scenario for Eritrea’s near future. Could those in the opposition and civic groups,especially the “youth” groups, gather the courage to reach out to their peers to reconcile differences and re-direct the fight against the regime instead of against each other? Could each of us make our own individual pledges to withdraw our membership from the club of ‘silent majority’ and support those we believe are making a positive difference?”

REMINDER: “THIS IS IT OR PROBABLY NEVER”: The First National Conference of Eritreans (more than 600 Eritreans from everywhere) was held in Ethiopia two years ago though we did not see progress or any tangible productivity from it as you know, one of reasons in my opinion being the absence of check and balance capacity from the youth organizations. In any case the second is on the way to take place in few months. This is the right time to press for unity through exclusively focused demonstrations around the world. We have few months to do this and the youth organizations have no excuse missing this opportunity because we are reminding them ahead of time as usual. Eritreans will pay the price heavily in missing this opportunity: unless they start shouting for unity beginning from NOW so that a good result comes out of the Conference and the BAITO. This is the time for any organization to practically prove its dedication for UNITED RESISTANCE FOR DEMOCRACY in Eritrea. Right now is the moment to crank the silent engine of our society into the resistance. The youth organizations will be responsible for doing nothing to influence the outcome of the Conference and to attract the silent majority through demonstrations for UNITY using this opportunity.

No human attitude or force can totally resolve the root causes of our lack of unity on many subject matters and trying to do so is waste of life. Permanent mental unity is a known cause of oppression because it is unnatural so to say and does not accommodate independent thinkers to participate. God made us different on purpose to enjoy our diversity and no one can change this natural arrangement and trying to do so will only cause DICTATORSHIP. There is nothing called permanent or absolute unity in human experience except in marriage even that is impermanent sometimes and specially at the end life. Political diversity is necessary for people to develop and a given society should take advantage of all diversified brains within its boundaries. It is in recognition of this that political scientists and leaders created a fair medium called DEMOCRACY. The main object of democracy is to help people tolerate different backgrounds and opinions: therefore we cannot enjoy peaceful coexistence in a completely UNITED or AUTHORITARIAN SYSTEM like Afwerki’s.

The concept of united resistance was dispatched in our society through the moto “HADE LIBI, HADE HIZBI” which was created in the era our struggle for independence and it helped us all focus on independence as a common ground for unity. After independence, this unity was unnecessary (it solved the problem) and impossible to continue (different scenario now as people in any free country) and we were supposed to branch out to our individual destinies like people in all other stabilized countries, but only DEMOCRACY could do it. The role of HADE LIBI, HADE HIZBI is over, serving its purpose very well, therefore is impractical in today’s Eritrea but the regime continued to take advantage of it for so long because the theory reflects that we were a completely united people and we think exactly the same way without any difference (5 million of us), thus we must accept the leader as the supreme element of our society and above the law for life. This doesn‘t allow freedom of individuality because the only mind that matters is that of the leader’s. The president owns the so called HADE LIBI and HADE HIZBI stuff and the rest of us must quietly follow his absolute dictatorship (without a neutral justice system and rule of law) forever. Freedom of expression, justice, election, etc cannot take place in a single party system (call it UNITED political structure or else). A decent society accepts different political outlooks so long as they exclude ethnic, religious, racial and gender partiality from their national programs. We cannot check and balance the dictatorship in our country because it does not allow other political parties in the society. We are all trying to reverse this situation with democracy but we cannot get there without TEMPORARY UNITY that can achieve us a TEMPORARY GOVERNMENT with 2-4 year mandate until a government is elected. TEMPORARY UNITY is necessary for HEALTHY DIFFERENCE in society because it is the only practical formula to democracy: it was accepted and worked in societies like ours and we must accept it without hesitation unless we invent a new method of getting there like Yemane Monkey did to the universal concept of Constitution (refer to my last article).

Some brothers have expressed their negative feeling about what I have been writing and this is more than welcome because our problem was inability to discuss common issues with leaders or members of the youth organizations in the open. I apologize to anyone that I might accidentally have hurt through my articles but I hope this development seemingly with youth leaders or organizational members will continue here so that most of the audience can participate to improve our situation. Check this out:

You need to contact people who are trying to serve the cause of UNITY to strengthen the resistance instead of totally ignoring them as if they do not exist. We are tired of being ignored and excluded on common issues that concern us. We are tired of being represented by groups that care less to contact us or to communicate with us. You are the leaders and therefore lead us by listening to our concerns. Most importantly, you need to tell us clearly what your position on UNITY is and the strategy to effectuate it. Otherwise, you should tell us the alternative so that we can hear you with maximum attention.

After modest exchange of opinions between us, my brotherhawileito said (on unity) “To give you a clue what we are doing here in UK is that all the youth organization are united under eysns. There are 8 cities that eysns branches who come under one leadership. This is one practical process of unity and anyone who wanted to ask can ask our experience but the only moto is “unity is strength”. We will persue to other European youth organizations and to the world as well. The communication is already started.”

Thank you for this information! I hope he will read this article and contact me at Fetsumraham@yahoo.com for further discussion. Although I want to know more as an individual about how the groups are being united in England, I can tell you that it sounds excellent and this may change the form of the resistance once and for all.

I, however, felt a little uncomfortable on your “anyone who wanted to ask can ask our experience” because you will produce more if you knock the doors yourselves. You invented this formula and you should push hard for its acceptance. Please spread this development through the media appealing for all Diaspora organization to follow the step after clearly defining your objectives and strategy of achieving them. Do it again and again until they grasp it because the end result will stay the same unless you push this creative idea to work with others as a priority of your group.

God bless you for the creative idea and keep in touch.