Fetsum: The current situation under the surveillance of the third-eye (PART I)
Fetsum: The current situation under the surveillance of the third-eye (PART I) At this juncture in our struggle for freedom and peace, it seems like our issues are shrinking to few relevant questions that we must resolve before
Fetsum: The current situation under the surveillance of the third-eye (PART I)
At this juncture in our struggle for freedom and peace, it seems like our issues are shrinking to few relevant questions that we must resolve before that dude gets lost from the Eritrean reality. Everything must, of course pass including mind and form! I must admit I lost the passion to write perhaps because I have said everything I had to say and see no initiative in the struggle that gets to the point without walking through the unhealthy political Zigzags that have become the elite class’ culture in this unfortunate situation. The solution is obvious but the more we delay it because of ignorance, dictatorial tendencies, personal issues and strong desire to lead; the more we find ourselves at the beginning stage of the challenge. The further we depart from the universal vision of political issues, the quicker we isolate ourselves and condemn our people into another long chaos and dictatorship.
In this very slow political journey, many ideas have gone unnoticed by the struggle overall that has a problem adapting to productive changes in favor of sticking to the old ineffective methods of resistance. But wasting ideas is a recipe for failure and nothing can help us realize the expression’s validity better than our own story since the era of struggle to independence. I have no time dragging my life in cyclic political misadventure with arrogant individuals in the custody of fear and ego that do not get tired of rigidity and MIFIKIKAR; still because of insecurity. I just don’ have any juice left for all these destructive ups and downs in the extremely crowded political jam with no unified exit in sight.
Yet, there is no doubt the struggle has moved forward specially in the areas of mobilization considering the ever expanding GRASSROOTS affiliated local baytoes in the US, Canada and Europe that hopefully will end up forming the badly needed GLOBAL LEADERSHIP in Diaspora. Our people are now conscious enough to seek freedom and justice in Eritrea through their revolution without depending on the political groups. The mediocre mass has been mobilized beyond the capacity of the elite class to produce a universal solution to the problem. The question is: where does the struggle stand at this point in chronicle and what has been achieved so far?
While the YIAKIL movement is moving forward to GLOBAL LEADERSHIP with unprecedented energy, some groups in the “struggle” are trying to sabotage it sticking to their immobile creativity that the “Eritrean people do not need to be organized beyond their local baits to the level of GLOBAL LEADERSHIP because this is what the dictatorship wants to see in diaspora”. REALLY? They want the baytos to continue limited to their local areas like it has been before the emergence of the YIAKLE movement for a reason only they can understand. They don’t want to see a network of baytos evolving to global efficiency, nor do they have fresh ideas to exonerate them from the bondage of stillness they suffered for almost two decades and with no progress in the record!
Here is their theory: ‘Eritreans should only stay organized in their local areas and continue to do all they can against the regime only within their respective local baytos. There should never be continental or global unity under continental and global leaderships since this would allow the regime to manipulate the leaders and control the show for its advantage.’ Therefore, they oppose the local baytos’ direction towards continental and global leadership including the YIAKIL movement and render them dangerous to the Eritrean people. They are saying that the people’s role should only be limited to participation in any action against the regime and not to prepare for the future since that is the business of the organized political groups that should collectively lead the nation after the regime collapses.
Further, they believe that change will only come from inside the country by organized groups which includes former ELF veterans, EPLF elements, the political parties, etc. As such, they want politics to be exclusively left for the political groups aiming at political power one way or another; meaning the people should fight to overthrow the regime in localized structures for the organized politicians to take power after its dissolution. This is ‘get rid of the regime and let us do the rest through tyrannical centralism because we have the experience since the era of the struggle to independence’.
Commonsense says they don’t want to see Eritreans globally organized under common leadership because of fear of losing importance in their communities and strong desire to be part of the next government by virtue of having been members of the political groups anticipated to take political control after the dictatorship. The concept of POWER TO THE PEOPLE has been greatly challenged by these dangerous groups that can only end up forming another DICTATORSHIP based on historical facts because there is no way the people can manage their political life in this setup after severely isolated from one another and effectively weakened to do so. Simply, weakly organized people cannot achieve democracy since they can be pressed easily by the powerful elements that can dictate power in a given society. Democracy is the product of organized people not of organized political groups capable of silencing the people through the power of the feast. We don’t need external help to understand this because we experienced it after independence where the people sacrificed without being empowered for one man dictatorship that lingered for 28 years as of today. Yet, neither could our delusional brothers and sisters in this destructive camp present a research oriented material on their “democratic” theory, nor would they learn from their two decades worth of stagnation and failure to give other ideas a chance.
Doesn’t this sound familiar? I am sorry to say it but I consider such a mess direct or indirect work of the regime to confine the struggle in its stationary and ineffective condition of the past. Groups or individuals who oppose the mobilization effort towards global leadership should be power hungry and ignorant if not direct agents of the regime to say the least. To make it interesting, quite a few of them are today blaming GI for the successful mobilization of our people instead of joining the momentum and accepting the group as part of the bliss with no vested political interest in future Eritrea except empowering the people to control their political destiny once and for all. Folks, GI is not leading the successful mobilization effort in different parts of the world. It neither has the desire nor the capacity to lead but rather moving on forward at equal level of significance as a set of ordinary Eritreans that came up with the idea of grassroots based global leadership few years ago. The idea terrorized the dictatorship, scared the stagnant minds and jiggled the power-freaks but became popular enough for Eritreans to accept and do the rest by themselves. Whether they like it or not, GI will continue forward till the end as part and parcel of the people in Diaspora because the death of this dictatorship should immediately create democracy in the country only through the supremacy of the people. There is no reason for us to stay idle flirting with “change will only come from inside” theory because we believe collective international effort as well. We know the regime has succeeded deserting our country by meticulous calculation forcing almost half of the people to life in asylum. We will not support it by staying localized in our limited geographic locations and leave our helpless people (peasants, children, mothers and old people) inside the country to exclusively do it under the barrel of the gun. They cannot do it alone and we will not give a chance for any political group/s to dictate the nation without genuine democratic procedure.
Apparently, we gained our independence with EPLF’s centralized dictatorship and we can achieve freedom and justice only through centralized authority of the people. The GI method of democratically mobilizing the mass is, therefore opposite to the dictatorial centralism (EPLF’s) and conceptual immobility (delusional elements in the opposition) we have been experiencing during the struggle for our brothers and sisters in the horribly state of fear to soul search and resonate with the irreversible mass movement beyond their scope and competence to obstruct as a matter of raised consciousness of our people. Please continue organizing horizontally (local baytos) until we achieve successful vertical organization under the control of empowered Eritreans that can check and balance their revolution at the highest rank of the society. PEACE!
Fetsum Abraham September 11, 2019
Hi Genet; I appreciate the discussion and thank you.
YOU: You said, “The Yiakil movement is not the means to the end in our situation but an experimentation that at least united us…” You said this by careful observation from distance or previous understanding of past similar movements around the world. This is a very important observation about Yiakil, because it would lead for the people who are in charge of the day to day management of Yiakle to look in to the “Unity Experiment’s” components for viability.
Me: Any movement no matter how organized it may look cannot produce democracy without its universal concept. Our problem is obvious (dictatorship) and so is the solution (Independent Transitional Government). We cannot create a unique Eritrean formula for this scientifically proven solution to our problem. Tens of democratized countries went through our experience and achieved success with neutral transitional governments because that is the universally accepted means of doing it. There will never be successful conceptual unity without accepting this fundamental principle of democracy although the regime can fall by any means necessary for another dictatorship, feck democracy or people’s democracy to replace. The Yiakle movement can motivate all Eritreans around the world to organize locally and then internationally (GLOBAL LEADERSHIP) before the situation gets out of the people’s control but cannot by itself produce a NEUTRAL TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT without clearly understanding the concept and its application in our society. It can certainly be a potent force in the struggle to form this government because some groups are trying to take another rout that empowers the political parties at the expense of the people. I will discuss all these in the coming articles and please make sure you read them all, needless saying your contribution has always been productive.
You: I hope they contact you or you contact them, because The current Yiakil movement is all Eritreans movement. IT WAS/IS OUR MOVEMETNT YESTEARDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW!!!
Me: They know I exist and they contact individuals of their choice and this is ok. I respect their choice but can’t contact them to invite me without ego trip; without exaggerating my importance. I feel I am contacting the people through my articles and I can only do what I can do.
You: You said You are watching it from distance without any clue … ..You added, ” I am supporting them because we have to support the people as much as we can hoping thing will shape better in the future” Is that you Fetsum?? Who are you and what have you done to the real Fetsum?
Me: I can only do what I can do Geni. We used to have close relationship in this forum (the old Assenna crowd) but we did not continue to build anything out of it. New commentators arrive and go without any form of continuity. In this situation, I can only go as far as I can and support the movement from distance. Can you please elaborate the questions?