Amanuel Iyasu’s recent appearances including in SEMER pal talk room was a step forward to the struggle that now appears in the stage of crystallizing the grassroots based bottom up strategy towards democracy. It was a very interesting dialogue with the crowd on the current political situation of the Diaspora that must adopt a common political vision as a matter of necessity.

I share my view by first appreciating Assenna’s adaptation of the only potentially practical strategy on the table from the opposition camp. Amanuel’s consecutive presentations appear in synch with the grass root strategy proposed by OUR VOICE seemingly spearheaded by the good professor Araya Debessai in few public disclosures. I have carefully heard them all and everything sounds good except for one specific issue that I shall come to discuss towards the end of this input. Let me first comment on the questions and answers in the room to the best of my grasp.

Amanuel brilliantly answered the question stressing that the issue was not about the role of different WELEDOs (active and passive) but rather about transforming the collective mind to the concept of democracy and freedom from the outdated eras of the struggle and post independence dictatorial psychic arrangement. It was a very good answer because a national issue is common to every citizen that must be impartially dealt with. We are all members of the Eritrean society and power to the people means to all of us without discrimination. In this situation, no one stopped the youth from taking care of our political business but its incapacity to play this role as of today needless to say that the role of the elder politicians and academicians should be to install the concept of democracy and responsibility in the minds of the young and to mold potential leaders from for our political future. But the old must continue to help out or to even politically lead the society otherwise, unless the youth shows the capacity to take this responsibility! Simply, the politically and charismatically fittest survive this complex road to leadership at the end of the day and the old cannot transfer the torch to the youth without dependable receiver. Meles Zenawi was about 35 years old when he took power in Ethiopia but only because he was fit!

Further, the MEDREKites are a portion of the educated class that do not represent all members of this classification including me. They only represent themselves because they are neither inclusive nor transparent. I for example like OUR VOICE’s grassroots strategy a lot better because they are more transparent, inclusive and democratic oriented; and have a clear strategy compared to Medrek’s obscure political philosophy, meaning that intellectuals may individually adopt one of the available philosophies in the ground, though in our case, I believe only one that is created by the older generation is available. Taking advantage of this bliss to chill in Asmara is, however, the responsibility of the youth like what Aman is gallantly doing in this critically defining stage of the fight. Therefore, it is not about age grouping here that we must concentrate but on the mentality of a person or a group despite age and gender as the gentleman cleverly transmitted in the room.

Question: People say that Irqi is necessary. Is it possible to make Semret [or reconciliation] now and who with who?

Amanuel: lewti should come first before irqi and the people decide the issue of reconciliation not group leaders in disguise.

Comment: Another brilliant answer to the important question in my opinion. No society can reconcile its grudging political branches before liberating itself from dictatorship. Reconciliation is a necessary social requirement of a society like ours that can only take place in the process of democratizing it after the people take power from their oppressors. We must remove the dictatorship first for people to have the chance of reconciling different elements of the struggle; not into giving them an open check for political power based on their history, however, but into helping them peacefully living in the country like any other citizen of the society with their deserved affirmative action benefits in place. We sure have to reconcile the ELF and EPLF elements of the past but we should not allow them to dictate political power by virtue of having been active members of the fronts. We can no longer politicize their difference but only giving them the right to democratically compete for power like any other citizen should they want to rule but not because they were active fighters in the struggle. We have lived the mentality of ELF and EPLF enough during the struggle and up to this moment in time (55 years) and we don’t have any interest in recycling their dictatorship beyond reconciling them and moving on. Any fit Eritrean should, thus have the right to lead the nation but not attached to or using the convoluted concept of freedom of our past as mandatory premise for power. We have to die out of the independence past to secure our immediate question of freedom only via secular democracy.

In light of these points, the Medrekite activity in Kenya cannot be visualized from reconciliation point of view just because it was not and it could not have been done before the downfall of the dictator. It might have been an attempt to reconcile the difference between the giant political parties, I don’t know; but the process was not reconciliation on national scale of the concept by any rational conclusion. Nor could it have been UNIFICATION for the dominant political parties cannot be united to form a single party with their exaggerated political differences that never made sense to average commonsense. They have common interest on power but individualistic approach to gaining it, therefore they neither can unite nor can they be democratic; the proof being their concrete history of failure and irrelevance in the dynamics.

Question: Why should we isolate Mederkites instead of taking advantage of them?

Aman: Our entire attempt to accommodate them in the past despite our differences did not work needless to say that ELF and EPLF are conceptually outdated for our current and future existence. We don’t want to isolate them; yet we don’t want to repeat the consequence of their exclusive, secretive and opaque socio-political mentality. Thus, we challenge them!

Question: Is their agenda or the individual components of Medrek and their questionable history including their weakness in approaching the people messed up in this scenario?

Aman: It is not personal. Atahasasba based on wedib is the problem. National issues are monopolized away from the people in this situation. It is a philosophical difference between the dictatorial independence struggle mentality and the new democratic oriented mentality that we want to utilize for securing everlasting justice and equality in our society.

A commentator said something to this effect;

Tes: “Thanks Aman for sharing your thoughts about Nairobi meeting and its implications. I am in complete agreement the fight should be about changing ourselves to think outside the old box. Medrek needs change itself first .It can’t bring appropriate change when it is [] [] and it seem to seek cosmetic change. We can learn from past mistake but repeating it’s to my dismay.”

Comment: The best method of fighting the tragedy is of course by integrating the intellectual pieces to a single camp through common political vision. The personalities within Medrek and their history should not matter here but their political philosophy certainly does. Neither Medrek nor OUR VOICE should be allowed to conquer intellectual leadership without a written strategy and popular mandate but they have the responsibility to display their individual philosophies to the people to give us the chance to choose which one we want.Once again, Medrekites must reveal their political vision like OUR VOICE did as soon as possible for us to consider their significance in this journey to democracy. The websites should then invite each group to debate in defense of its vision with other groups in the political pool. In this situation, they should facilitate the debate via direct invitation to both groups and this practice should continue with all other groups in the Civic society. This opportunity would give us to filter out our choices and adopt a common political strategy by means of elimination or integration (common hybrid vision from the intellectual groups).

Two commentators said the following to this effect:

Elba: “Invite them in your radio, and confront them. We will see who is the one who has got the better way of dealing.”

A.H: “Dear Elba; Yes, I totally agree 101% to invite Medrekh and Mr Ali Johar to Assenna debate with other Academic people among them. Then, people will decide which system to follow. As far as I am concerned, people have to create a new forum for struggle, such as Eritrean Government in Diaspora (bottom-up) with the consent of the people (elected by people) and that by itself is a form of the Institutional Organization which can fight the dictator and destroy it at no time.”

 

Question: It is clear that your method of struggle has infiltration issues to worry about. How can you protect your vision from infiltration?

Amanuel to my recollection answered mentioning Bayto’s conceptually illegal 40-60 percent composition (the political parties and the people) that doomed it to fail from playing its neutral role in the Eritrean political dynamics. Bayto allowed 40% of its integrity to be dominated or influenced by the dominant political parties totally against the mandate of the Eritrean people and its principal socio-political obligation. In other words, it was infiltrated by the dominant parties at 40% level of its composition to the point of supporting EDA’s undemocratic verdict of dismissal against the Kunama Party during the Korneleous-Awate controversy instead of neutrally and assertively resolving the internal conflict based on democratic values. Bayto illegally compromised the right of the people by 40% of its essence through its conformist and irresponsible foundation and the extra high dosage of infiltration totally paralyzed it out of the Eritrean political dynamics as of today.

While all the points having been in synch, I felt like Amanuel in my own words said something to this effect ‘[Abaalt and merhti wedubat kemabalat zeycone kemwikkesebat akal hizbawi tesatafinet kikonun kisab Merihinet kekembikatom kimiretsu yikelu]’. I found my version of reception very important to share with modest transparency without thinking it represents his position in the dialogue with the Semer community. I, however, want to take advantage of my understanding or misunderstanding of the saying and modestly remind Aman to clarify this particular issue in his next appearance with the people. The reason is simple: Because OUR VOICE had clearly stated that any active member of the political parties can participate in the mobilization and election process of the committees but cannot run for election to become members and leaders of the committees. The election process towards a transitional government must be completely free of the active members of the political parties that should only focus on political power through democratic election because this area fully belongs to the people. In exchange the people should give the political parties the right to lead the nation by fair election. I believe this is the only way of protecting the process from infiltration; its fate would otherwise be similar to that of the Bayto’s. I also believe this is the standard approach to the democratic journey of all third world societies in our situation needless to say that OUR VOICE has taught it in writing in its articles.

In conclusion, I feel things are getting a lot better in terms of focusing on a political vision that takes us to Asmara. It feels good to see people advocating for debate between the intellectual groups in order to narrow down their strategic differences in public. In so saying, we should continue this path and amicably solve our differences for the sake of a common political vision either through ideological elimination or hybrid oriented integration process. We should get closer by openly fighting for our respective philosophies to reach at a single political solution to the problem.

Finally, I appreciate Aman for expressing a little disappointment on the slowness of the intellectuals in further developing the grass-root philosophy to practicality. I certainly share this feeling while optimistically wait for the group to tell us something about their next move as soon as possible.

Hoping to see a debate between the Medrekites and OUR VOICE soon, I leave you alone thanking Amanuel for his unparalleled dedication. God bless the Eritrean people.