Fetsum: From the FORUM

rezen: “It is my peanut opinion that Eritrea has fundamental parochial problems for seemingly time immemorial: religion, provincialism, and racism. These are the most debilitating cancerous diseases to humanity. It was only under subjugation that the diverse societies in Eritrea seemed to have lived in the deceiving atmosphere of peace and tranquility. What does it take for Eritrea to learn and accept itself for what it is and honestly search for salvation? Or is it due to the classical TRAGEDY where the victim cannot help but become its own enemy?

Comment: Eritreans were indeed the most united and centralized people during the struggle for independence and it seemed like our unity and love for one another were real and eternal until our performance after independence proved us totally wrong revealing how ordinary, divided, egoistic, backward and ignorant we truly were. I believe we have many dignifying home breaded cultural values that I appreciate and love to practice but the contrast was really surprising to me coming from the Amiche background where we grew up treating each other in Ethiopia as real brothers and sisters from the same family unlike the fake relationship between the struggle breaded grass-root Eritreans from the mother land. We, Amiches lived dignified in Ethiopia about our roots thinking Eritreans were collectively more civilized and compassionate than the rest to find ourselves shocked witnessing the opposite reality in the relationship between our people from the motherland: it was a major disappointment; a paradigm shift to say the least! I am sure most Amiche Eritreans have been confused and psychologically misplaced by the stereotypical mannerism of our native people from the motherland they surprisingly confronted as a matter of uncontrollable circumstances. Clearly, our experiences were different enough to produce different psychological make-ups: I leave this for social scientists to research and figure out in future democratic Eritrea and move on

As Rezen said, our unity was superficial and conditional on fighting our common adverse conditions under colonialism. It had to be so because we are human beings although we thought we were exceptional. Life went on separately for every individual after independence, which was the end of our genuine unity and the beginning for our true nature to come out as a result. “Eritrea seemed to have lived in the deceiving atmosphere of peace and tranquility” only in our imagination otherwise; but in reality. It has been proven that our question of independence was a more potent cause of our effective unity than our question of freedom, justice and democracy, meaning that most Eritreans have not yet understood the importance of freedom and justice as much as they grasped the significance of their independence. I think most of our people mistook the Eritrean independence for freedom and justice to the point of strongly and unconditionally supporting the cause of their misery (the regime) for this long, needless to say our emotional attachment to our independence was a natural and instinctual phenomenon that made us follow the regime blindly until we woke up traumatized in such a deep cavity

The regime obviously took advantage of this and reduced its objective to practice without tangible resistance from us all. It took us two decades of humiliation to wake up for the democratic call of our own existence. Yet, we are together struggling to approximate the solution when it is sitting right in front of our eyes. The damage done to the Eritrean psych specially by this regime was too severe to exasperate the social problems created by ignorance and our backward culture (ego, fear, rigidity, Sikifta (self deception), Wegeninet, “habo”, grudge, secretiveness, jealousy, etc) for the opposition camp to be scared of working together with honesty and respect for each other.

History asserts, however, that we are not the only victims of the causes and effects of living but rather the whole world had been as a matter of human nature. Many other similar societies (China, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Sudan, South Korea, Eastern Europe, The Soviet Union, etc) have been taken for a ride through long years of dictatorship for one to safely conclude that the dictatorial effects of oppression and the final results of armed struggles were universally common to the human race. We are not the only sufferers of such an experience and we should handle our condition without personalizing it to the point of distress: but only with one thing in mind, that we deserve democracy now because we paid enough for it. Mighty Embasoyra alone paid in terms of “three brothers” for the Eritrean cause. We, therefore, should not contemplate the possibility of experiencing a political setup other than DEMOCRACY from now on. Brother Meretse says the following to this effect: “Giving and receiving are two sides of the same coin. If this is true then what happened during the last 22 years is the opposite of it. HGDF and their alike have only one culture and that is: give us and serve us only. Today, together, we say to anyone who has this kind of mentality thanks for your offer, for the public have come to understand that it has invested more than it can afford for a God given right.”

Genet-orginal: “Mr kifle; How would or do you respond to the lack of transparency by Medrek? lack of transparency is not a “different perspective” it is a dysfunctional political behavior. “

Comment: Very good catch by genet. A group can develop its own political program that differs from others in a given society and this is the reason that we have different political parties that develop their social programs according to their political substance and we accept them in the condition they respect democracy and even elect them to lead us democratically. Lack of transparency, however, is not a tactical democratic phenomenon but a strategic dictatorial political syndrome. It is a political philosophy categorized with censorship, a clear dictatorial factor that causes incalculable disaster in a given society. Simply, you do not become secretive on social issues without dictatorial characteristics or way of life.

Genet-orginal: “We can’t make the same deadly mistake again. Our dear martyrs and former frontline veterans made the mistake of not speaking up for their right and the right of their people. In our time, any ill advised political behavior has to be discouraged, challenged and nip it in the bud from the get go.”

Comment: I agree.

Misgna: “Fitsum, you and your message are premature/naïve. You are totally meaningless, one-sided and narrow minded. You have not added or brought any new ideas, but simply full of trash ideas. 1st of all, you should know that Amanuel and some others are accusing Medrek because of conflict of interest and fear. There is fear among many, because members of Medrek are powerful in all aspects (diplomatically, intellectually, etc) and hence after the fall of Isayas they may dominate the power. So it is power struggle before the fall/elimination of Isayas and his administration. This is nonsense. So before you understand the secret behind the accusation, don’t interfere. Take care”

Genet: “Dear Misgna; The Medrek guys may be intellectual and knowledgeable about diplomacy, they seems to lack attention what is important for Eritrean people. If they are intellectuals and skillful in diplomacy, then one has to ask, how come they didn’t use their skills until now? People are saying that they were with Issayas and the PFDJ system for a long time, since 1977?. Including being part of EPLF/PFDJ’s secret party. So, where was this knowledge and diplomacy skills for the past 40 years? You said, “…after the fall of Isayas they may dominate the power” How can they dominate anything, if they can’t even relate to the Eritrean people? We are the Eritrean people. They need to abandon their old habit of doing things in secrecy that affect all of us. “

Comment: Interesting exchange of opinions and a real sign of democratic cultural development on the making. This is what we are trying to introduce to our culture and I think it is working. It is possible for a content of power struggle to exist between Medrek and Assenna as Misgina argued but this is natural and I don’t see any problem here as long as they competition is healthy and transparent with the people. I do believe, however, that Assenna has seriously accused Medrek of undemocratic behaviors that Medrek must respond in self defense in democratic fashion, needless to say that there should no more be power domination without fair election in Eritrea. Whether power struggle exists in between or not is immaterial to the question of transparency and democratic essence of the groups under examination. Amanuel’s said “fear” cannot challenge Medrek’s significance to the struggle if it is confident of its democratic principles and therefore, the fear factor has no rational strength in this discussion for Medrek has the choice to move on with explanation. Clear is that we are not taking sides here in favor of Assenna but only commenting on what is so far available without conclusion with clear understanding that bias does not serve our cause in this situation, only fairness!

Saba: “ናይ ተጋደልቲ ነበር ኣበርክቶ ኣብዚ እዋንዚ የድሊ ነሩ፣ ግን ግሉጽነት ካብ ዘይብሎምን ንኣማኒኤል እዚ ውፉይ ካብ ምጥቃዕ ሓይሎም ኣብ ጸላኢብዘይምትኳሮም ኣዚዩ የጉሂ። ናይ ማይ ዓይኒ ዋላ እኳ ሓቅኹም ክትኮኑ ትኽእሉ እንተኾንኩም፣ ንምንታይ ሕጂ ተውጽዎ፧ ኣማንኤል ኣጆኻ ምሳኻ ኣለና።”

Comment: let us please wait a bit until Medrek responds my dear, just a little before we conclude on the matter based on their defense. We need every Eritrean in this struggle and patience helps pacify emotions a bit and thank you.

Tes: “Dear Fetsum, Medrek is a failed political entity from the outset and it doesn’t deserve discourse it had lately. It is sapping the energy of fine fighters such Ammanuel, yourself and others. “

Comment: Brother Tes, I see your point but I also see advantage in discussing our affairs fully because we learn a lot in the process. Please understand that we cannot conclude anything on the conflict between Assenna and Medrek until we hear something from Medrek. We are only speculating based on one-sided information for now. We neither gain anything from discouraging Medrek out of the resistance nor can we follow them blindly without understanding their objective: we lose in both situations. I would be happier seeing the difference narrowed down to the point of Assenna and Medrek finding a way of helping each other out and working together for democracy. Therefore, I must keep my respect to Medrek intact to help the situation instead of antagonizing them by passing a conclusive verdict against the groups. Terrible will be shall they decide to be silent about the accusation and yet continue being part of the resistance on their own: this is not acceptable to me as a person!

Remember that we are experiencing the concept of democracy in this forum and we should continue to deal with whatever comes in the journey of the struggle for freedom and democracy in Eritrea. You don’t ignore problems but rather try to correct them and learn from them. You don’t select comfortable issues for discussion; you must also deal with their associated counter happenstances and arguments in order to be balanced and objective. Our advantage here is trying to help the problem so that we can all work together for the same cause instead of pushing each other apart. We have advantage attracting anyone in the resistance including the Medrek by directly dealing with what is going on rather than chasing them away and closing the doors of ideological coexistence. We need to wait for what they have to say before overreacting as such, brother Tes! They are our family members that deserve respect and the best scenario would be help fixing the problem minus prejudice and having them work together but only if possible.

Zufana: “It seems DIA has done his homework of disuniting his real and potential enemies by all means. Sadly, in this respect, DIA achievement is successful.Time is really running out and the responsibility is mounting for all.”

Comment: DIA is a walking zombie from now on with no capacity to stop the resistance although he spends millions of our dollars on espionage to break us apart. It is up to us from now on not up to the dictator and his pets! One has a choice to independently decide on issues and the issue here is whether a person is genuine or not. We cannot continue accusing DIA for every failure in the resistance; we should take responsibility for this. I don’t see DIA succeeding in disuniting us, but rather we failing to unite because of personal problems with the concept of democracy. Medrek is responsible for its own problems and for fixing the misunderstanding without emotional discharge.

In conclusion, we are doing better than in the past: we have at least broken the destructive umbilical cord connecting the people and the dictatorship or freed ourselves from the chains of Afwerkism to confidently and fearlessly discuss matters that concern us as Eritreans. This is a big progress and it will get better in time as we continue exchanging ideas in this capacity. Let everything open up for discussion until we all synchronize our understanding by which democracy is actualized in Eritrea so that the people can live peacefully and happily forever. There is nothing in this journey to be discouraged about because we are filtering things out for better result in our country which I have no doubt of success at the end of the friction. Stay independent minded and fearlessly face the consequence of your ERITREAWINET until we install democracy in our motherland, the rest will be history sooner that you think! In the mean time I will start working on Eritrean opposition forces under examination depending on how things go with this article and hopefully we will make a difference together.