Coming to our collective mission ahead, Barbara Marx Hubbard says in CONCIOUS EVOLUTION that a spiritual philosophy can expand through a network of individuals to cause a balanced universal consciousness for every human being to live happier eventually. Let us form a network of independent minded people under the theme of unconditional unity for transitional government to smoothly transfer our society from dictatorship to freedom and democracy at this point where our opposition groups are individually focusing on having power by force. If you are a free minded Eritrean YOU CANNOT HELP OR AVOID BEING a CONCIOUS OR UNCONCIOUS MEMBER OF the network: By default you are one so you may involve actively to make it stronger!

Please call me or text me your emails at 202-702-3977 if you are interested and let us talk it out! I hope every forum will produce new people into the network to have a strong voice in the upcoming struggle for democracy before Afwerkism recycles in after-Afwerki Eritrea.

In the mean time our people in Europe have started something good to this effect and let me share with you as I received it from one of the organizers, a highly scholar intellectual/professional sister in Europe.

The message says; “Fetsum hawey: It was so nice to talk to you. You just give me hope and inspiration. Well here are some of the things that are going on at the moment. Networks of young educated people are in the process of being organized in many European countries. A ‘Network of Eritrean women’ (NEW) has been created and has Face book. Eritrean women from all continents are members and are involved in cyber discussions. This has been going on for months. It is going to have its first symposium in Sweden in March. We are hoping that that conference would bring professionals together to discuss issues pertaining Eritrea: today and tomorrow’s challenges’ will be held soon. So much for today,”

You will soon know the sisters behind this network from few sources but you are free to enjoy the Face book immediately. Please congratulate them and help making it a strong voice of our women in the country where the well deserved gender equality was stolen by the illegal system that contained the Tegadalit first lady in the kitchen since independence.

babu: “Dr. vaccaro has taken his initiative why can’t you come with other practical ideas as his, needless to remind you that you are advocating for yourself as a caliber intellectual in possession of theories which can democratize the nation post essayas and beyond. For the record there were a number of initiatives taken by individuals or gatherings but many have refrained due to the bad habit we are cultivating such as unreasonable negative comments,attacks,counter attacks,suspicions etc,which Leeds us to intrigues and in turn division rather than collectivness. May i say that might be one of the reasons why the intellectuals chose to remain silent?”As you preach for openness and tell the people to say their mind you should be on the forefront to say A,B,C,D…. instead of creating suspicions and panic among the people.”

Comment: Advocating for self interest also involves the act of butt-licking the existing ambitious politicians’ specially Vacarro’s which I refuse to do with the opened up opportunity of direct contact. The independent mind does not allow you to conform for personal interest unless you deviate from spirituality. Let the opportunists and image freaks do that for you. I refuse to do that at the expense of the Eritreans and rather decided to notify him the problems associated with his movement together with the brothers and sisters in the forums. His momentum is zero in some places in the States (Seattle, Bay area, DC, etc) and we see advantage in telling him this reality: What is wrong with this?

As for the PhDs meeting here and there, I still say they can do whatever they want should they consider a PhD as requirement for intellectualism. But I don’t strongly think so unless they individually expose their intellectual talent/capacity to the public through some sort of academic or humanitarian achievement beyond the certificate. Any human being with average intelligence and determination can get PhD given the chance but that does not necessarily qualify one to be highly intellectual unless the person proves it on to the public. Why do the meetings involve only PhDs when the meaning of intellectual covers many sects of the educated crowd? Intellectualism is defined as:

1.      possessing or showing intellect or mental capacity, especially to a high degree: an intellectual person.

2.       guided or developed by or relying on the intellect rather than upon emotions or feelings; rational.

3.      an extremely rational person; a person who relies on intellect rather than on emotions or feelings.

4.      a person professionally engaged in mental labor, as a writer or teacher.

Who is the Intellectual? The intellectual is a person meeting one or more of the criteria (1-4). Is one that “engaged in activity requiring the creative use of the intellect”: is one that “is developed or chiefly guided by the intellect rather than by emotion or experience”

Related Words: “cultivated cultured learned scholarly, well-read; academic (alsoacademical), bookish, professorial; educated, schooled; brainy, bright, brilliant, clever,intelligent, quick-witted, smart.” None of the related words restrict the status (intellectual) to PhDs.

Now, as you know, I come at your face and challenge you on the merit: The very definition of intellectualism does not restrict the status to only those that earned their PhDs in different academic fields. Would a person with a first degree, a graduate degree or multiple degrees then qualify for INTELLECTUAL? Certainly yes! Does an educated person that wrote a book/s qualify for it? Certainly yes! Is a teacher an intellectual? Certainly yes!

The question: Why only PhDs and leave the rest of our educated citizens from sharing/exchanging ideas in the so called intellectual meetings? This by itself is lack of confidence and violation of intellectualism to my understanding.

You said “For the record there were a number of initiatives taken by individuals or gatherings but many have refrained due to the bad habit we are cultivating such as unreasonable negative comments,attacks,counter attacks,suspicions etc,which Leeds us to intrigues and in turn division rather than collectivness.May i say that might be one of the reasons why the intellectuals chose to remain silent?”

Response: What has been achieved from the closed door meetings of the PhDs? Why don’t they tell us what they did so that we can remotely engage if not directly because of NO PhD? The Eritrean timely question is DEMOCRACY and the PhDs could not have discussed other things in their meetings without losing the priority. Why would they feel afraid of challenges to the point of making their effort so secretive like this? To me, there is no reason why they limit their meetings to PhD holders because we are intellectuals by definition as well that should also be included there (I am talking about at least every college educated individual). There is no reason for silence in intellectualism without fear and lack of intellectual confidence, only free exchange of ideas between educated people to exercise this truth openly.

I wish the PhDs good luck and I advise them to get to the point ASAP because our issue is crystal clear: The concept of democracy does not need philosophy for it revolves around universally defined and accepted social factors of a given society needless to say that our quest for democracy is time sensitive. Remember that one of our challenges as Eritreans is breaking apart from the culture of intellectual or academic arrogance, fear and suspicion and coming up forward arguing about and defending one’s intellectual position on relevant agendas on the open.

Therefore, what our PhDs are doing is the opposite and I do not expect a concrete outcome from them based on the Eritrean experience. They took too long to start something in isolation and

they should produce something tangible immediately because time is running against the forces of democracy with different individuals and groups in the resistance getting organized individually or in group to one more time steal democracy from the society after the falling dictator’s disposal. They have no time to waste any longer and should produce something soon.

In conclusion, the potential of our educated people is more than closed meetings and keeping their outcomes secret and I think the sleepy intellectuals have hurt the movement for democracy more than any other factor in our experience, nor do they have rational justification to limit the meetings to themselves without violating the intellectual right of every qualified Eritrean. I do support, however, whatever they are discussing in privacy because something is better than nothing but I am not that impressed by their degrees or intellectualism in so far as my observation to date is concerned.