Fetsum: From the Forum
Fetsum: From the Forum As I keep penetrating deeper in to the nucleus of the Eritrean society which is a compound of nine nationalities I get challenged by the reality that I cannot positively affect it
Fetsum: From the Forum
As I keep penetrating deeper in to the nucleus of the Eritrean society which is a compound of nine nationalities I get challenged by the reality that I cannot positively affect it without disintegrating the issues encapsulated within the nine social elements destined to live a mandatory ever-lasting coexistence. I found that the Eritrean complicated sociological fabrics will continue causing problems to the society without Eritreans facing them with completely independent state of mind. Fear, pretention, obstinacy, arrogance, hatred and vulgarity have been the causes of our demise in this challenging experience; the opposite methods of relationship should then be the order of the moment to solve the problems once and for all. Nitsemem, Keybluni, Keikuri, kurub emo nirayo; kirkeiblo; keseyilkayu, etc BS destroyed our unity so thus we should try freedom of speech without inhibition and affiliation to understand each other and live peacefully and respectfully ever after. You will never make it with pretension and attachment to your religions, ethnicities and your parents. A Moslem, a Christian or whatever you may be you cannot solve the common problem without becoming your inner self by refusing your ego, religion, and ethnicity or identify to dictate your spirituality, sense of judgment and moral integrity; I feel sorry for the people that live in fear because of confinement to their little ethnical or religious circles.
There is no extent of fear between the Eritrean elites that can be experienced better than conducting meetings with two languages, a native and a foreigner. This unique made in Eritrea style of communication that drags the society by half its life time and essence could not have originated from love, respect to each other and democracy but rather from suspicion, disrespect, fear, lack of confidence, trust and vision, hasadnet and what have you my dear people. You cannot do this willingly without deep ethnic/religion affiliated internal problems in relation to the Eritrean society and a distorted understanding of democracy. It was never practiced before and will never be practiced in other societies! That is why it is important for us to discuss it. Luckily I hope this will die out swiftly because only the countable few dictate it on us all to be so. We don’t like it. We cannot kill the society for the psychological debacle of few elite dictators.
You can deny this for image but cannot face your intelligence in privacy because you are a human being with commonsense knowing what you are doing in this regard. This opinion only applies to the adult Eritreans (from all religions) in practice of this destructive interference not to the kids that unfortunately are condemned to adopt this divisive and pretentious life style through their parents.
From the last forum
andinet hizbay: “one day you ll come to the conclusion that we were deceived .we died for the cause of arabs. the useful idiots ( Christian ) and the slaves of arabs,wanna be arabs brought misery to our life. we were better off when we were with ethiopia
Dear Futsum the wanna be arabs ,the elites despite their language and identity.what about u do believe that u are Tigraway or or the fake name given hizbe Tigrigna inorder to distance our self from our brothers Tegaru. First lets admit that we are Proud Tegaru then we can ask the the wanna be arabs to respect their language”
Dear Futsum the wanna be arabs ,the elites despite their language and identity.what about u do believe that u are Tigraway or or the fake name given hizbe Tigrigna inorder to distance our self from our brothers Tegaru. First lets admit that we are Proud Tegaru then we can ask the the wanna be arabs to respect their language”
Answer: We were never deceived as long as our independence struggle was concerned. Our struggle against the Ethiopian colonialism was as just as any third world’s struggle against colonialism. No one but we decided to liberate ourselves from the Ethiopian colonizers: No Arab or whatever here, it was exclusively our decision about our condition of the time. The concept of ANDNET to me is strictly limited within the Eritreans for we have nothing to unite for with other societies and specially the Ethiopians that don’t fully respect our nationhood!! Unity is a matter of choice not obligation.
I grew up comfortably and respectfully in Makelle, a town I consider my hometown until the Eritrean independence changed my situation similar to that of all Eritreans as a society, although I was always aware of my Eritreawinet from the let go. I loved the Tigreans specially Deki Mekelle and I still love them enough to consider them my brothers. I, however, don’t believe I am Tigrawai because I am not. For what I certainly know, I am an Eritrean from the Tigrigna ethnic group. There is a fundamental difference between the two concepts of identification: Tigrawai is a Tigrigna speaker from Ethiopia and the other is a Tigrigna speaker Eritrean like me. There is no fake name given to Hizbi Tigrigna that I know of to make me distinct from the Tegaru because the Eritrean Identity is equally significant to that of the Tegaru’s. I see the two societies as people of the same origin but different in psychological makeup and territorial definition. None of them originated from the other for they were in their respective and distinct geographic locations at the same time since their existence: One of them remained Ethiopian and the other became Eritrean by circumstantial conditions beyond our control like the experience of all other African societies. The fact remains that the Eritrean Tigrigna speakers cannot be proud of being Tegaru because they are not: They should be proud if they may for being Eritreans and their original habesha roots. Let the Tegaru be proud of being Tegaru but this expression has nothing to do with any Eritrean there is. We meet at our roots level of our being equally without one having the arrogance to exclusively claim the roots. We are Eritrean habeshas and the Tegaru are Ethiopian habeshas and none of us can exclusively claim the roots.
The Tigrigna language and culture are the common elements between Tegarus and Eritrean kebessians that no one can dictate terms in this subject matter except legitimately accepting the fact that we were equally important as far as our roots was concerned. The Tegarus are indigenous to Tigrai like we were indigenous to Eritrea, still having had the same roots but we are now conditioned to live as Eritreans and Ethiopians with no alternative to accepting this and moving on forward.
Asghedom: “Andenat Hisbay what makes un happy is hate created purposely by Arabs. You have to know the unit of Tegaru (Tigrigna speaking people from Tigray and Eritrea ) is a real force and everyone is Afraid of it.“
Answer: I disagree; and I am not afraid of it because it has nothing to do with what I am. No Arab created the Eritrean identity; circumstances did: the Eritrean identity was natural to be there like that of any other societies in the world including the Tigreans. Why do you want to scare others through you illusive unity of tegaru anyway instead of trying to live in harmony with all elements in the region? Real force against who is the most important question that I must answer here, which seems to be against the rest of the Eritreans; something impossible to accept. My strength as an Eritrean Tigrigna speaker is only achievable through unity with my fellow Eritreans and not with the Tegarus because the Eritreans, all inclusive are more important and closer to me than the Tegarus or any other Ethiopians at this juncture in the go, with all respect to the Tegarean people and the Ethiopians at large.
The term “Eritrea” may be given by the Italians but the term “Ethiopia” was also given by the Europeans (Greeks). “The name Ethiopia derived, from the Greek form, aithiopia, from the two words aitho, “I burn”, and ops, “face”. It would hence mean the colored man’s land — the land of the scorched faces. The Greeks called all peoples south of Egypt (particularly the area now known as Nubia; modern usage has transferred this name further south to the land and peoples known in the late 19th and early 20th century as Abyssinia) Ethiopians.”
We Eritreans and Ethiopians did not create our identifications by ourselves; the Europeans did it for us. The term Eritrea and Ethiopia are therefore equally foreign and significant in this regard. In so saying, “TEGARU” is a name given to Tigrigna speaking Tigreans; it doesn’t represent the Eritreans. The Tigrians and a portion of the Eritreans may be classified as Tigrigna speaking people but not as TEGARU since this term implies only to the Tigreans.
Said unity of Tegaru based on your definition is immaterial to me compared to the unity of the Eritreans. The priority now is the unity of Eritreans not the unity of your Tegarus, needless to say that Eritreans cannot be identified by the terminology that strictly implies to the Tigrean Ethiopians. Eritrean Tigrigna speakers are not Tegarus but Eritreans. There is no doubt, however, that we are brothers by blood with common roots and that we should help each other to solve our common problems: poverty and ignorance!!
Habibi: “I am a Christian born from Kebessa in the same way as the Jeberties are Moslem born from Kebessa. The only difference I see is the religion which is not brought about by our own choices. What I frankly don’t understand here is what is the social or political gain one can have in suddenly feeling like Arab or any other race? The religion doesn’t make one an Arab because there are also Christian Arabs… So why is all this nonsense being discussed here ? After all these years of struggle and martyrdom that we all have gone through together, should it not be the highest time we worked together for a common cause that would serve our co-existence as a nation ?”
Response: I agree with Habibi. We fought hard for respect and the only way we can actualize the objective is by respecting ourselves and our values. The Eritreans sacrificed everything to bring independence and they should co-exist at their fundamental natural self as Eritreans. We have rich cultures with authentic languages that we don’t need a foreign language to interfere in our lives more than ours. We have a lot to lose doing this and we should not. Our natural languages are our identity marks that we can neither change nor detach from for another identity.
Kombishtato: “Why do some elite Muslims want to burn indigenous Eritrean languages such as Tigre? Why are the the Somalis, Afars Iranians, Turkish, Khurdish, Amharas,Oromos, Pashtuns, Tigrayans, Urdus … all with significant Muslims among them very proud of their languages, but the elite Muslims of Eritrea so ashamed to burn their own languages and heritage? What is the source of this deep rooted inferiority complex in Eritrea predominantly seen among elite Muslims? “
Response: First of all we should understand that the people that tend to undermine our indigenous languages are very few in number and don’t represent their communities. The truth still remains that all Moslems of the world respect their languages and don’t mix Arabic with their identities like the very few Eritrean elites do because of the Holy Koran. We are unique in this situation and we need to rationally rectify the problem through transparent communication not through anger oriented linguistic dictatorship. Most of our people are proud of their heritage..PERIOD!
Tes: “We should be bold and confront to those diaspora Eritreans who want to impose foreign language while belittled their own language. They don’t have any valued reason to make Arabic an official language of Eritrea. It is really amusing to see so many of them here to defend Arabic language and trying to own it. I don’t see the need for referendum whether we can agree to make Arabic an official language or not. If Arabic is one of the contenders to be an official language then I would rather see Chinese to be our official language.
Response: I agree with you Tes. There is no reason and place for Arabic in the Eritrean society except living with maximum respect of the language because of the Holy Koran and our Rashaidas. Simply, it is foreign to us Eritreans except for the Rashaidas that I believe are Eritreans as well. I disagree that the Rashaidas were “our enemy no one. I don’t believe they are one of Eritreans nationalities” because they are part of us again by virtue of circumstances. Some of them may have “inflicted enough suffering on Eritreans and cannot imagine to include them into the family of Eritreans.” But I don’t think they inflicted suffering on us more than the Christians and the fanatic Moslems did. This is something we have to work on together and rectify in due time in decent and transparent Eritrea.
durbush: “Dear hhmmm; please don’t write about weyanne they don’t have time to dibate with you to divided as .We are to far from them so don’t blame weyane just blame your self. Enough is enough weyane weyane. Donkoro .”
Response: I agree that we should take responsibility for our condition and leave the Tigreans alone but I do not like the last expression in the comment.
Noor: “All Muslim Eritrea want Arbic to Eritrea national language, stop accusing Our our brother Jeberti”
Comment: This is a fabrication and nobody accused the Jeberties as people except few spoilers from that group and other Eritrean ethnic groups. Noor is a very emotional dude with strong attachment to the Arabs and specially their language. He assumes all our Moslems want Arabic for national language more than their authentic languages. This is not true and he can’t prove it statistically. He also has a problem relating things to the Jeberties and accusing people of abusing this ethnic group in this discussion instead of logically dealing with the issue minus that social group. The issue is about national language and not about Eritreans. He has to understand that there are very few Eritrean elites like him from the Jeberty community that advocate Arabic for a national language like those in few other ethnic groups including the Christians; and that we have to deal with them because this is a national issue that concerns us equally. Discussing the matter has nothing to do with abusing our Jeberties but only challenging the few confused and confusing elites like him on the merit. Please don’t relate this to the Jeberties because the issue is not about them but about whether Arabic was legitimate in Eritrea as a supreme language or not. The Jeberties come here in the process but not as the main subject of the matter. This is not about any portion of the people but about our national language/s.
Salahadin: You don’t have any idea about islam, if you know the history of Eritrean muslim they were speaking Arabic .this arbic is choiced by Allah, every muslim in eritrea should be speaking arab (luketul jenna) wich means language of the heaven.
Response: We have as good an idea as you have about Islam. To the contrary you don’t understand Islam because you would not have been related to Arabic more than any other Moslem in the world, otherwise. You are unique here and this reality tells that you don’t understand Islam the way the rest of the Moslems do. I would expect the hard core Talibans to practice what we practice but they did not buy this nonsense: Afghanistan (99% Moslems) uses Pashto and Dari Urdu as its national language. We are the only people that wrongly understand the relationship between Arabic and Islam on this planet, yet we are not better Moslems than other Moslem societies. We therefore have a problem with this unconventional self consciousness!!
Our Moslems are related to the Koran through the Arabic language and they should learn it in order to understand the Holy book at least to the extent that they can pray on it. This is their right but Arabic should stop at this point of the relationship in Eritrea. Eritrea cannot be the only nation that makes special connection to Arabic without valid explanation.
This is similar to the Christians in relation to Geez vis-à-vis the DAWIT. The Christians, however, don’t have to impose Geez on the society because of the DAWIT since they have their Tigrigna to communicate with. This should apply to our Moslems unless you are biased and unfair in this situation. Once you enforce the Arabic in our society because of the Koran, you must as well enforce the Geez in the same because of the DAWIT; yet you will be the only society that practices this weird relationship between religion and the people’s cultural values. Anything else is fanaticism, bias and inconsistent!! Why do you trap yourself in this exceptional mess and for what?
Hassan: “I strongly believe that the people who are attacking the Arabic language and the Arabes as well as the jeberty are doing it from their stand point against the muslims in general and the other ethnic groups of Eretria . It looks like they have an agenda against the unity of the Eretrians. They are seeding hate among the Eretrians . Beware!!!”
Response: This is confusion and unreal, needless to say that it is also blackmail. You are trying to captivate the Eritrean psych through guilt consciousness, a terrible and unjust means of psychological manipulation. You want to be an exceptional Moslem in the world at the expense of rationality and the entire society at large without any academic explanation. Yet, you want us to suffer the consequence without resistance through your blackmail. Do you see what you are doing and how abusive you may be?
Don’t shade your crocodile tears here to enforce your thoughts in the society. Deal with facts and issues if you may. Arabic is illegal to be the national language of Eritrea and believing in this does not make me anti Jeberti or Moslems, therefore you should live your hallucination privately and don’t try to promote your backward mentality through guilt consciousness.
Attacking the Jeberties unconditionally is indeed against Eritrean unity but condemning the Arabs of discrimination against Africans is genuine and correct. There is no connection between the Arabs and the Eritrean unity at all and the argument is very poor in logic that a rational mind should reject. Eritrean Moslems can relate to Arabic but should not be allowed to impose it on us based on the Holy Koran. In fact, to the contrary, I see people that infatuate with Arabic beyond necessary and that go to the extent of respecting it more than our languages have a problem with the Eritrean unity. You cannot undermine the Eritrean native languages in favor of a foreign language without threatening the Eritrean unity for both are mutually inclusive. Therefore resisting Arabic has no value in the relationship between the Eritreans and the Jeberties or the Moslems nor is it a reflection of hating the two elements in the society. You are actually the one doing this through your outrageous mentality; Sir!!
bravo: “ Look, z writer told us that he doesn’t worship any religion and he argued it is his right. But i don’t agree if i use his line of reasoning he has given us in his arguement about language choice. You know what? 98% of Eritreans are religous people, half of the population is christian and z remaining half Muslim. So If i take his line of reasoning at face value, he should not be allowed to be outside this tradtional practice because to be pagan is un Eritrean as it is practised only by less than 2% Eritrean people. I am giving this reasoning in response to his arguement that Arabic is foreign langauge because it is spoken by Rashida people who are less than 2% of Eritrean population.
Answer: Religion is a private phenomenon that should be practiced in privacy. I cannot impose my belief on society and I have the right to worship anything I want although Buddhism is not paganism at all. No Christian or Moslem community has the right to take away my individual right to follow any type of spirituality unless I insist in replacing the Eritrean religions with mine. The nation is, however, common to all of us that none of us should dominate its authentic character through what we believe. Imposing Arabic on the society affects us all as people and therefore we should preserve our authenticity together by respecting our original languages only. I respect Arabic as one of our languages through the Rashida connection and can even entertain it being a national language because of this factor but no one is justified to glorify Arabic over our languages because of the Koran. It has never been done elsewhere and we should not do it. Once you allow religion to dictate the national language of Eritrea, you should as well allow the Christians to fight for Geez and me to fight for one of the far eastern languages in getting the same attention in the country because Buddhism was written with those languages. Once again, it is a matter of consistency. This issue has a lot of negative consequences in our society and we should just go with our languages instead. A Christian, a Pagan or a Buddhist Eritrean should not be forced to adopt Arabic for national language over his/her native language because of the Koran. You cannot do this without forcing the society to adopt other languages based on the same rationality: without allowing the society to adopt Hebrew and Geez because of the BIBLE and the DAWIT and Chinese or Japanese in my case because of the Buddhist linguistic format. Exclusively Justifying Arabic because of the Koran and rejecting the rest cannot take place without religious dictatorship that must be resisted without a second thought.
Let your Islam, Christianity, paganism and my Buddhism stay at home and Arabic, Hebrew or Geez and Chinese or Japanese practiced in our privacies. You can individually choose a language for yourself but you cannot impose it on a society that already has its own indigenous languages because your Holy Book’s linguistic format specially if it is foreign to the society. Why would we want to create an unheard of situation in our country about this issue? The problem with Arabic in the country is because it does not stay in the believers’ homes but rather expands outward affecting all of us in general unfairly. I have no reason learning Arabic and using it as a national language because of our Moslems (even assuming all of them want this to happen which is not true). Do you see the problem with this? You can study and adopt Arabic for yourself but cannot impose it on me and other Eritreans that already have their own native languages to develop and respect.
Kemal Omer: “The ethno-centric kebessan Tigringa do not know and do not understand that there are other Eritreans who do not speak or understand Tigrigna. So they see the translations in the Eritrea conferences between Tigrigna and Arabic as an inconvenience and they wonder why can’t the non-Tigringa just speak Tigrigna like them. Meet any one of them here in the West and when you tell him you are an Eritrean, the first question is always and invariably, “Tigrigna tifelet?”. That is where our problem is. The most amazing part of the language “argument” in Eritrea is those who oppose Arabic are those whose rights have been recognized and up held, the ethno-centric kebessan Tigrigna. Makes you remember the other Ethno-centric group from across the border the Amharas of Ethiopia of yester years.”
Answer: In fact you remind me of the Amharas that imposed their languages on us ignoring our native languages. I can understand that some of our people do not speak Tigrigna but should they use Arabic instead of their languages? How about the Eritreans that cannot understand Arabic? We don’t need a foreign language associated with religion to solve this problem when we can learn one of our languages and get it over with. To be frank with you, alternating languages in meetings is destructive and I will tell you right now that I am about to boycott meetings that do their business in this ineffective and irrational way. I cannot accept this dictatorship without being convinced of its advantage in the Eritrean society. We can do it in English if we have a problem with Tigrigna and Tigre but I am not stupid to be dictated on this by some fanatics that have a problem with their identity and that impose something unheard of in our society.
bravo: “How can one say Arab is alein language? Eritrea has many tribes n one of them is Rashaida whose mother tanque is Arabic. So how is z writer and his admirers full themselves and others to believe Arab as alien language? The other amazing thing is he and his circles presride Amharic (which is purely foreign and former coloniser and opresser) above Arabic. This byitself shows how he is so biased against Arab as language possibly developed by religous hatred. “
bravo: “How can one say Arab is alein language? Eritrea has many tribes n one of them is Rashaida whose mother tanque is Arabic. So how is z writer and his admirers full themselves and others to believe Arab as alien language? The other amazing thing is he and his circles presride Amharic (which is purely foreign and former coloniser and opresser) above Arabic. This byitself shows how he is so biased against Arab as language possibly developed by religous hatred. “
Comment: The Rashaidas are Arabs that speak Arabic and I accept this as one of our languages but we have a majority of people that speak other languages such as the Tigre, a language that must be respected over Arabic from self-respect and democratic points of view. Arabic because of Rashaidas cannot emasculate Tigre, a language spoken by one of the majorities in the society. What is your problem with Tigre, Saho, Kunama, etc. and why do you want Arabic over them? The problem is that our confused elites are not trying to do this in respect of the Rashaidas at all! I rather see the colonial language Amharic empowered rather than alternating meetings in Tigrigna and Arabic. This is savage and embarrassing; that is all I can say
Paradiso: “Why are the the Somalis,Afars Iranians, Turkish, Khurdish, Amharas,Oromos, Pashtuns, Tigrayans, Urdus … all with significant Muslims among them very proud of their languages, but the elite Muslims of Eritrea so ashamed to burn their own languages and heritage? What is the source of this deep rooted inferiority complex in Eritrea predominantly seen among elite Muslims?”
Answer: I dedicate this dialogue to a very bright Eritrean called Berhe who taught me something important about this issue. There is a valid reason for our people contemplating identification outside their roots. It is because we Eritreans have the tendency to make them feel foreigners: we call them Agame, tegaru and whatever without knowing the consequence of this misplaced approach. We inculcate doubts on their identity by identifying them as Ethiopians instead of embracing them as Eritreans. Check out this forum and see what I am talking about. We are too filthy and reckless to create unity between us. Ideas are not entertained as ideas in this bizarre Eritrean experience but rather stigmatized with ethnicity and religion outside our inherent sociological circumference.
You see, “great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events and small minds discuss people”. To extend this relationship, minute minds personalize ideas and ridicule each other emotionally. The reason the dictator still has many followers, says Berhe, was because we hurt our unity through the tendency to identify our people as foreigners, severely hurting their Eritrean confidence. They get so insecure about their future to the point of remaining silent or supporting the regime. We chase them away when they don’t agree with our views and accept them when they do. Berhe thinks this was the fundamental problem to why many Eritreans look at the situation from distance or even contemplate of siding with the regime as an alternate choice. We insult, abuse and attack people that differ in ideas from us and we marginalize them to entertain another identity because of fear. The terms WEYANE and AGAME have been used to divide Eritreans more than anything else and yet we still use them to identify people with different ideas. We cannot do it unless we accept all Eritreans full heartedly and develop each other’s confidence through constructive engagement my dear Eritreans. You are destined to live together forever and this will not cut it for you. Please cool down and try to feel other views without bias if you may! Please stop calling each other divisive names that hurt your society and elongate the dictatorship. Unity is only achievable by listening to each other and accommodating our differences and we should do this for your people. Don’t hurt your cause by personalizing ideas and being abusive to each other; and good luck. Thank you Berhe for this articulation!
hmmm June 28, 2014
Hagerawi:
I don’t like any thing PFDJ does because it is doing it for its own control on power. However, the idea of assimilation is is a noble one. Developed countries have a single language and single culture with multiple religions. That is the winning formula for growth and opportunity. Let us stop divisive agenda in the name of religion and tribal identity. We are now in 21’st century where economy is global. We have to stop the bickering on little things and focus on the big picture so we don’t remain backward. If we insist introducing a new foreign language, I prefer English over Arabic since it has more values to advance our economic interest.
rezen June 28, 2014
“If we insist introducing a new foreign language, I prefer English over Arabic since it has more values to advance our economic interest.
Greetings hmmm,
Needless to say, your closing statement is based on rational thinking. But in “Eritrea” there is no rationality — only an atmosphere loaded with toxic rain for the destruction of ALL. What “Eritrea” has is a distorted mentality where day is night; where left is right; where up is down; where hell is life……. Oh! Diaspora “Eritreans”, may YOU face the ultimate judgement of History for the havoc YOU caused in the comfort of secured life in YOUR adopted countries.
ali June 29, 2014
Yeab ; But the question is not a language and financial development ; it’s whether the majority of Eritrean people can be communicating by it or not; plus don’t undermine the financial coming from Arabic country as well ;Ethiopian government thinking of investing in Arabic language considering its beneficiary and us we want to destroy some thing in our hand.
Ok you can learn English as the world leader language;but do not destroy Arabic as well ;i assure you we benefit of it we got to loss nothing; again some of the people they do it because of hate of Islam not necessary hate of the language; but you have to look in along run and be along sighted .
mergemsenku July 1, 2014
Gideon
Deki komarti and Deki Dekalla knows only insult rather than to convince people through communication because that’s what they learn in their suwa place with their mother’s customers.
hmmm June 28, 2014
What about Switzerland ?, what about European Union ?, a highly integrated economic block, where every member country’s language is valid for official transaction, therefore, every document is available in all languages of the Union.
Hagerawi:
European Union is not a country. It is an organization trying to bridge the geographical gap between European countries. Some of these countries understood the advantage of unity and shared opportunities, that is why they opened their boarders and moved to a single currency. They may use their own language for now, but I am certain they will be trying to close the language gap as well since communication is a vehicle that would bring their vision of unification to its final destination.
Switzerland allowed many languages but those languages are not faith based and divisive. They were inherited from the colonial era and the Swiss government did not try to force its citizen to adapt a new language (as some of you suggested with the introduction of Arabic)
Besides, those languages have given Swiss resident that near the boarders an economic advantages since they interact with the neighboring countries of similar languages. Lastly Swiss Economy is based on being a bank of the world, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the Swiss government encouraged its citizens to learn the language of the entire world.
In conclusion, let us not try to find lame excuses for doing the wrong thing. It will only create animosity, aggression and brake up our fragile unity. Instead let focus on what unite us. But most importantly let us not allow our politicians and religious institutions dictate our path. We allowed that since the days of Haile Selassie and that is what brought us to the pathetic state we are in today.
Hagherawi June 28, 2014
“I don’t like any thing PFDJ does because it is doing it for its own control on power. However, the idea of assimilation is is a noble one. ”
“If we insist introducing a new foreign language, I prefer English over Arabic since it has more values to advance our economic interest.”
“They may use their own language for now, but I am certain they will be trying to close the language gap as well since communication is a vehicle that would bring their vision of unification to its final destination.”
“Switzerland allowed many languages but those languages are not faith based and divisive. ”
hmmm
All the above are ” lame excuses for doing the wrong thing.”
You think assimilating non-Tigrignas into Tigrigna culture and getting rid of their cultural identity is a “noble” act by PFDJ ????
I may be stating the obvious if I tell you that imposing Tigrigna will make the language only the language of it’s indigenous speakers in the Highlands.
It will eventually loose it’s status of one of the two official languages in the country. When you impose something the immediate reaction people feel is that of rejection. This way you are doing a disservice to Tigrigna.
Whether English is good for you or not is your choice. Others have their choices too.
If you fail to understand the basic requirements of living in multicultural society you better learn it before it’s too late.
You said: “[European Union] … They may use their own language[s] for now, but I am certain they will be trying to close the language gap as well..”.
When you make a senseless statement like the above, I feel sorry for you. Attempting to reject Arabic at any cost, you have run out of excuses !!. But let me ask you, which “single” language do you think all this countries will chose in future ?
I know for a fact, no country in the Union likes their language to be dropped, so, do you think they are going to create a new one ?.
Brother, instead of lame excuses that take us nowhere, try to change your wrong attitudes.
hmmm June 29, 2014
Hagerawi: You are the one trying to twist words and make senseless statement. You said the ruling class PFDJ (composed of of 1/2 Muslim members) decided Tigrigha to be the national language of Eritrea and imposed it on all Eritreans. Whether or not it was the right decision is a different topic. But for the past 23 years all tribes in Eritrea spoke Tigrigha (they were also allowed to celebrate their culture or communicate with their own indigenous language like Tigre, Saho, bilen etc.) As a result, all Eritreans under the age of 24 speak Tigrigha as a first language. So now here you are a Muslim elite living abroad arguing to convince young Eritreans to discard their first language (since you declared it was imposed on them against their will) and should learn a new language suitable for their religion (Arabic). Even though Arabic is a foreign language spoken only by 1% of our peculiar tribe (Rashida a nomad groups that never pledge Allegiance to the flag of Eritrea)
I found your argument reckless, ridiculousness and dangerous. By the way, if you were truthful and concerned for the original languages of the indigenous tribes. The right thing to do would be to convince us to return back to the old indigenous language so they can live in the bushes. Why would you try to force them learn a new foreign language they never spoke before? Are you practically repeating what PFDJ did 24 yrs ago (except instead of internal language you chose foreign language)
In my opinion your ideology is inline with those who are trying to divide Eritreans across religious lines. You can choose to speak Arabic (you may have picked up when you were in Sudan or elsewhere) but you don’t have the right to speak on behalf of the lowlanders of Eritrea who are proud of their heritage including their indigenous languages as well as the national language of the country (tigrigha).
Back Burner June 29, 2014
I have simple solution for all Eritrean tribes, every tribe should choose what language they want, no one should lecture another, how easy is that why you making it hard come on people. The Muslims left Eritrean long time ago now Tigrinya people leaving the country in big numbers because they sick of their language the country and Isaias dying in Seina desert. Arabic and Tigrinya will be the 2 official language if people chose but the question is Tigrinya stops in grade 5 then what ow ow. no more comment.
Gideon June 29, 2014
Back Burner,
Once a friend asked why Eritrean Muslims demand Arabic to be an official language when
there are no native Arabic speakers other than the fake Eritrean ethnic group, the bandit
gang called Rashaida. Is this demand for Arabic in Eritrea a language issue or a religious
issue? He already knew the answer but he just wanted one of the Arab dog Muslims to give an
explicit statement. Then, one senior Arab dog came forward and replied with his characteristic
honesty saying something to the effect that, the Muslim ethnic groups in Eritrea, taken individually,
are a minority vis-a-vis the Tigrigna speaking Christian highlanders. Therefore, he said, by using the
Arabic language issue we can create a united Muslim block. It is an attempt to impose Arab supremacy by
other means of Islam which is nothing but Bedowuin Arab chauvinism & nationalism. This type of nationalism
came about when the Muslim Arab flirted briefly with socialist ideas in order to resuscitate the dying corpse of Islam.
Ibrahim June 30, 2014
Really Gideon is Empror Haile Silasse dog (mad dog).
Ibrahim June 30, 2014
Tigrina is an Arab language; Tigrina is from Gheeze and Gheeze is from Yemen and Yemen is an Arab Country. You don’t need to go too far to prove that; let us take your body names and you will get all of them are Arabic and this goes through all the Tigrina language. I have chosen to give names of the body for this has no one interference in it and this names are diffenetely old than Islam and Arab countries.
Tigrina Arabic English
ri’Esi Ra’as Head
shogri Sha’ar Hair
Ezni Ezin Ear
Aini Ain Eye
Eid eid Hand
Atsabei Asabei Fingers
melhas Lahasa(lick) Tongue
libi Lub Heart
In fact Gideon is a denier Arab dog. Don’t forget the Tegaru immigrated from Yemen; they are Yemenis.
Hagherawi June 29, 2014
“But for the past 23 years all tribes in Eritrea spoke Tigrigha (they were also allowed to celebrate their culture or communicate with their own indigenous language like Tigre, Saho, bilen etc.) As a result, all Eritreans under the age of 24 speak Tigrigha as a first language.”
hmmm
Thank you brother !!
I thought you will deny that such policies directed against non-Tigrignas existed, because usually Higdef works against genuine unity of Eritreans in the dark, by coercing different groups into submission.
Fortunately, at times a few courageous elements like you expose it, although unintentionally.
You acknowledged that State sponsored assimilation is there for the last two decades, and now it’s showing some results: “All Eritreans under the age of 24 speak Tigrigna as a first language.”
This is not news to me and many others whose communities are victimized on daily basis.
Salam June 29, 2014
Himmm
you said “Whether or not it was the right decision is a different topic. But for the past 23 years all tribes in Eritrea spoke Tigrigha (they were also allowed to celebrate their culture or communicate with their own indigenous language like Tigre, Saho, bilen etc.) As a result, all Eritreans under the age of 24 speak Tigrigha as a first language. So now here you are a Muslim elite living abroad arguing to convince young Eritreans to discard their first language”
do you really think before you write? You are contradicting yourself, here you are telling us the so called Eritrean Government has obliged the young Eritreans to learn Tigrigna and you are opposing to give them their freedom of choice. who are you to decide for them! I bet you will lose! just give them a chance to vote weather they prefer Tigrigna or Arabic , overwhelmingly they will choose Arabic for various reasons.
you told to Hagerawi “I found your argument reckless, ridiculousness and dangerous.” Well I found it is you who is all you mentioned. reckless, ridiculousness and dangerous. And I found Hagerawi, a wise man areal Nationalist who desperately trying to alert all of us as Eritreans how dangerous direction we are following by ignoring his wise advice. Great job Hagerawi and Beravo keep it up.
Gideon June 29, 2014
Salam,
Who nominated you to be a referee and who the fuck do you think you are yourself! The Arab dogs are struggling
body & soul to be part and parcel of the Arab culture & language, who in turn have the lowest attitude on the
“Abeed” Africans. The Muslims of Eritrea do not know, neither speak Arabic, Arabic is used only for religious
rituals the same way Geez is used by the Christians. No Tigre, no Saho, or Afar uses Arabic in markets, home,
social or other gatherings. Neither do they conduct their day to day affairs at village level(bayto Adi) using
Arabic. Even today, it has no value as a cultural symbol or as an instrument of communication. The selection of
Arabic as an official language is not only absurd, but also raises questions on the motives of the leaders and of
the Arab dogs in general. The source of all evil in our region is none other than the evil moon-god cult Arab Islam.
Ibrahim June 30, 2014
The real Africans are the negro ones, while the crossbreds like Gideon has no place in Africa – their soucrce of origin is unknown. May be he is an Italian or may be he is a person immigrated from Syria or Palistine before centuries. But concerning the Tegaru, they immigrated from Yemen after the collapse of Maarab Dam; therefore, they are Yemenis 100%. They can’t deny it, this is history; the only difference between them is that Eritrean Tegaru and Ethiopian Tegaru are Christians and Yemenis Moslims.
hmmm June 29, 2014
hagerawi:
You mean to tell me, you were not even sure if those policies existed and needed my confirmation? too bad my friend I don’t know what the PFDJ language policies are in Eritrea. But since that is what you and your friends have been saying all the time I took your statements at a face value. I have lived in diaspora for several years.I am guessing you have lived in Diaspora all along and you are just writing all this non sense with limited knowledge of the facts.
Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if PFDJ reverse the official language of Amharic with Tigrigha. That would tbe the right thing to do since the majority of the Eritreans including residents of the capital city spoke Tigrigha. Even when Eritreans fought for 30 years of independence Tigrigha was the choice of communication. To be fair, PFDJ even enforced a policy of teaching all Eritrean kids Tigrigha and Arabic in grade schools.
I guess you are an X-Member of ELF who would have chosen Arabic as the national language of Eritrea. That is explains why ELF was defeated in the first place. You are now trying to push those old and expired ideas of ELF of Arabizing Eritrea in the name of opposition. Shame on you old man.
Ahmed Omer June 29, 2014
hmmm
you are accusing someone that he is x-ELF
member and that why ELF defeated ok what Shabia did with it’s Tigrinia in last forty years all your arounding and arouning is get up from your hate to Eritrean Muslim community .If you said that Arabic dose not have base in Eritrea you have to know that Tigrinia has not have base in Eritrea it’s base is in Tigrai .I want ask you another question how about the lands grabed by you tigrinia comunity from Muslim community in highland and in lawland you are defendung for your community mistake in all stages from Eritrean history.
Gideon June 29, 2014
Ahmed Omer,
Do you know one of the main reason that your Islam managed to flourish is because Ethiopia/Eritrea gave
your Mohammed and his followers a shelter from elimination. Now, you ungrateful Arab dogs should just respect
and pay back to the land & people that have given you to practice your Islam to this day. Muslims are not suffering
in Eritrea. On the contrary, the suffering, poverty, ignorance and degradation, not only in Eritrea & Ethiopia, but
also in many countries in the world can be traced back to the existence of the satanic cult called Islam. Look around
you, almost every conflict in the world has one or both side as the savage Arab dogs Muslims. Of course, if Muslims can’t
rule and thereby impose barbaric Shari’a, by default, they assume they are oppressed. If Muslims feel oppressed, so be it,
one thing is clear – it means Shari’a is not in force. The problem we have with Arab dogs simply becomes unsolvable when a
rat tries to be a cat and refuses to live within its limit that is the taliban rats trying to become lions in our region.
ማሊሻ June 29, 2014
ኣብ ታሪኽ ዓለምን ፣ ኣብ ነዊሕ ዛንታ ሰብን ብጭብጢ እተረጋገጸ ሓቂ እንተሎ እዚ እዩ። ዝኾነ ይኹን ሕብረተሰብ ወይ ህዝቢ ፣ ንሕሉፍ ናይ ዘመናት ታሪኹ ዝጸልእ ፣ ውርሻኡ ዝንዕቕ ፣ መረበቱ ወይ ትውልዲ ዓዱ ዝኽሕድ ፣ ቋንቋታቱ ብባርዕ ዘልምስ ፣ ቅርስታቱ ዘፍርስ ፣ ባህልታቱ ስርዓቱ ዘድፍር ፣ ደቂ ሩባኡን ጎዶቦታቱን ዘየኽብር ፣ ይትረፍ መሪሕነት ክጭብጥን ሃገር ክኣልን ፣ ናይ ገዛእ ርእሱ ሉኣላዊት ሃገርን መሬትን ውን ከቶ ኣይግበኦን እዩ።
እዚ ከምዚ ዓይነት ነፍሰ ሙት ፣ ሕልና ዕሩብ ፣ ኣእምሮ ዕሱብ ጉጅለ ወይ ጭፍራ ፣ እንትርፎ ከም ጊላ ከዳሚ ወይ ዓብድ ናይ ባዕዲ ፣ ብናይ ገዛእ ርእሱ መንነትን ኣብራኽን ደው ክብል ብፍጹም ዝሕሰብ ኣይኮነን ።
Gideon June 29, 2014
Malisha,
Very well said brother/sister. More of the same from you please & just keep it up.
The problem that Eritrea faces today has its roots in the very beginning of the struggle for independence.
The Eritrean people never really owned the revolution. The wishes & opinions of the people were not taken
into consideration nor did the welfare & interest of the people given precedence. It was imposed on them by
exiled activists and students of Eritrean extraction living in Cairo. These exiles were adherents of the Pan-
Arabism school of thought and were supported by the savage Arab world. They espoused Pan-Arabism; an ideology
celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, espousing the language & literature of the savage Arabs, and calling
for rejuvenation & political union in the savage Arab world. The front they formed (ELF) believed that Eritrea is
part of the Arab world with common linguistic, cultural, religious, and historical heritage. These forefathers of the
Arab dogs appear not to have understood who the people of Eritrea are. They denied the centuries old history and
connection of the land & people and tried to impose their version of what Eritrea should be, by conspiring with foreign
leaders who had ulterior motives. These exiles (shefatu & opportunists), decided to start armed struggle in 1960 in Cairo
to re-create a new Eritrea. They were such a bunch of spineless cowards that none of them wanted to take up arms and launch
the armed struggle themselves. From their respective comfortable abode in Egypt & Sudan, they entrusted the all important
military wing to an outlaw “Shifta/bandit” named H.I.Awate, who already had a small band of outlaws shefatu at his disposal,
and was engaged in cattle rustling, plunder & highway robbery in the Western lowlands of Eritrea.
Ahmed Omer June 29, 2014
gedeon you are just small pimp everyone knows you idiot weddi khommarit .You are a rubbish that why the stink smel coming from your mouth .
hmmm June 29, 2014
Gedion: I usually insult you and call you an Ethiopian roaming this room to create division between Christian and Muslim blah blah. I still believe you are an Ethiopian doing what I just stated above. However, after having several discussions with those Muslim elites the last few days, I am beginning to think those losers are beyond repair. It seems like they are trying to start religion war in Eritrea. I hate to admit but we may need your help as EPLF did in the 70’s by cooperating with TPLF to destroy ELF. These riffraff are getting their instructions from the radical Muslims of the world and they are pushing a radical Muslim agenda. They are openly saying Tigrigha speaking Eritreans don’t have a place in Eritrea. Their aim is to turn Eritrea in to an Islamic state and join Arab league. The same way the radicals in West Africa tried to do before they got booted out. I think these voices have to be silenced once and for all so we can get lasting peace. I am hoping the peaceful Muslim population in Eritrea will reject these sellout wonna be Arabs. What makes me sad is these idiots are indirectly supporting Isayas and his PFDJ gangs because he is a much better choice compare to these Muslim fanatics..