The real scenario: I start direct communication with the dynamic scholar Yosief Gebrehiwet fully acknowledging his superior intellectual capacity without any intention to compete for competition does not exist in my Buddhist mindset. I only believe in decent communication at equal level of correlation, meaning that relationship is the essence of my drive to do what I am doing here. I feel blessed and dignified having this powerful scholar in the forum with intelligent forum participants and forward my deep appreciation of YG for calling me to initiate the first contact that will last forever. We love YG and we have to make sure this special guest is fully respected in this forum. Thank you my brother!

Rezen on the last article: “Already there are 62 commentaries on a straight forward question that Fetsum raised. Now, we are talking about YG, thus Fetsum’s idea seems to be left on the side.
In asmarino.com where YG’s article was posted, there are 72 commentaries and everyone is free to comment upon it there forever and ever…….Why don’t we concentrate on Fetsum’s proposal, here? Are we not going around and around in a “circular motion”?”

Comment: Good observation and serious warning to how we should communicate here on after. Please concentrate on the issues in discussing this extremely important matter to your society. We are not writing for personal issues but only for the society and don’t waste the time and energy we are investing in this struggle by shying away from the real issues discussed in the articles. Let us please communicate on issues instead of wasting time talking about personal matters. I declare that my brother YG and I are in a very good harmony and warn the readers to avoid creating friction in between which I guarantee will never take place.

As you know, we have been directed by few individuals in the forum that YG has already answered the question of democracy raised in my last article through his 2010 article on discussion. I appreciate the people that directed us to visit the article stating that it does not answer my questions as suggested and we have question on the article that need answers from the brother if he does not mind. He can directly teach us about the issues that concern us through the forum or through dedicated articles instead of other telling us about them.

Yosief: “Introduction: Self-reliant resistance adherents of the Eritrean opposition happen to believe that unless regime change is followed up with democracy, then it is not worth the trouble. One of the main reasons they are opposing military pressure from outside is that it doesn’t guarantee democracy in its aftermath. Although their concern is genuine, it comes from having a wrong understanding of the nature of the Isaias regime. They believe it is the run-of-the-mill kind of dictatorship, similar to that of Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, etc. Starting with such a faulty premise, one can perfectly understand their worries: why undergo so much sacrifice in order to swap one dictator for another? But if one believes that what makes the regime a menace to its people and to the neighborhood is its abnormal totalitarian nature (abnormal among authoritarian nations), then what one should aim at is normalization, and not democratization, as its primary goal. The central question should be: how do we return normalcy to the life of the people? Although democracy rights necessarily include normalcy rights, in most instances the other way round doesn’t hold true. So what is needed is a regime that normalizes relations both with its neighbors and its subjects, and it is not a coincidence that both of these missions happen to be intimately linked to one another. But such a regime may come short of the democratic credentials that many in the opposition are demanding. If so, the critical question is: is it worth all the trouble?

Comment: Said “abnormal totalitarian nature” of the regime at least has been reflecting in the areas of ignorance (most dictators educate their people), forced labor slavery for life (indefinite SAWA experience), illegal activities that include organ harvesting of refugees and ripping off the people for ever (2% tax that secures their Eritrean identity).We certainly need a normal life to return in Eritrea as a priority. Assuming that nothing can be worse than this regime, any other government in Eritrea should produce a better situation than the current, thus welcome. I think brother Yosief’s choice of immediately replacing the regime by one that can normalize our society via said normalcy rightswithout necessarily granting democratic rights emanates from his deep understanding of how terrible the Eritrean situation has been. The emergency situation of our country is probably the motivating factor for his vision of normalcy against democracy as the utmost short run priority of the Eritrean people. He believes that the desperately endangered Eritrean people have to first secure their normal existence before they focus on democracy.

Existentialist Yoseph reflects the philosophy of Existentialism in very interesting way. I love Sartre although his philosophy (Existence precedes Essence) may not fully apply in this situation. Eritrean’s normal existence is more important to Yosef than its democratic quest, thus its existence (normal nationhood) should precede its essence (democratic rights). I accept his vision openly and respectfully and I think this is how it is technically going to be after the downfall of the dictator. A nation that does not have the fundamental structure of nationhood is bound to be unpredictable after this predicament therefore a normalizing catalyst has to mediate the disparaged society with its long run democratic question. So far, said normalizing medium is not clear as it stands but I feel like it will show up in the progression: remember that we are discussing the article in pieces.

Was Yosief’s manifesto time sensitive vis a vis the resistance? I think so. Yosief wrote the article in 2010 where the resistance was very weak and only few activists like him were tirelessly working against the regime while most of us were napping on it. The magnitude of the regime’s force overall was too potent to think of overcoming by the almost nonexistent resistance for an activist of Yoseph’s caliber to suggest taking the risk by using external force to resolve our immediate issue: the Eritrean existence at the basic level of survival. His suggestion for us to guarantee our threatened existence by changing the regime through external intervention was convincing in my opinion based on the time’s Eritrean reality.

The stronger the resistance the more confidence we should develop on ourselves to solve the problem independently through what my brother calls Self-reliant resistanceat least knowing that we still need strong international diplomatic support behind it. There is a huge difference in the dynamics after 2010 when Yosief suggested external intervention to solve the problem in view of the very weak resistance of the time vs. a stronger Eritrean regime. Things have changed since 2010 both internally and externally. At home the people are more bitterly disgusted of this regime. Eritreans are openly fighting it in the Diaspora more intensely than ever in the past. The scholars have started doing something here and there. Today in 2014 the Diaspora is more mobilized against the regime barely lacking leadership and strategy (vision) to effectuate the potential on the ground into a successful end.

Our homework should be focused to integrate the two elements in the resistance through a concrete guide line that we can use to attract international politicians (external diplomatic force) towards the resistance. The current situation about three years after the article was written appears to be different in quality (stronger resistance and weaker government).

Question: Is there any modification to the article (suggestion) based on these two realistic variables (potentially positive changes in the resistance though still very disorganized AND weaker and more desperate Eritrean regime) since 2010?

I feel like the Eritrean territorial existentialism has already been achieved through the independence and the associated universal consensus but its cultural fabric is very much disturbed because of the ghedli generation’s (Gennet Original has a valid question on this expression in the last forum) negative input and the worst type of dictatorship. We don’t have an immediate external threat to our independence as a sovereign nation, thus our very existence pretty much secured. The cultural destruction in our society, in my opinion can only be resolved through a cultural revolution in normalized Eritrea. The question is what is normalized Eritrea? To me a normal society is a function of relatively better freedom, justice and basic democratic venues. We don’t have a normal society because there is no freedom and human rights in the country due to lack of basic democracy, quality immaterial for now. The so said abnormal dictatorship in the country that is currently working harder to further disparage our already abnormalized life in unprecedented dictatorial fashion is still dictatorship that must be treated like other dictatorships and the society under dictatorship should act similar to other societies in the classification: transiting to democracy.

Therefore our condition vis a vis the concept of a normal society can only be achieved through a framework that can take us to democracy in its most fundamental structure. What I am saying here is that Eritrea may not be ready to experience full democracy immediately after the regime. It may be incapable of managing a fully normalized society but it can march towards achieving this goal should we work for it starting from nowThere will be a time gap (transition) between our current situation (not normal/abnormal) and democratizing (significant normalization) the country ahead. This is a journey we have to cruise through a temporary arrangement of some sort and I cannot think of anything else other than a TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT whose formula can be written down in substantially complete form right now (within this year) at this point of the resistance.

Assuming brother Yosief still sticks with external intervention to resolve our normalization issues as a priority to democracy:

Question: Should we only stick and insist on external solution to solve the problem or we should also concurrently start designing a transitional formula in the mean time? Does the Yosief’s method of resolving the Eritrean immediate problem through external factor accommodate the simultaneous development of a Transitional Formula to democracy or discards the later out in favor of the sole priority “changing the regime by External Intervention”? If not, Why?

Yosief: “if one believes that what makes the regime a menace to its people and to the neighborhood is its abnormal totalitarian nature (abnormal among authoritarian nations), then what one should aim at is normalization, and not democratization, as its primary goal.”

Comment: I do agree that there must be an essential medium going from authoritarianism to democracy or there must be a connecting bridge between a society’s dictatorial fabric and democratic vision. That transition should then obviously be the normalization process my brother has been saying at least indirectly. The procedure we are dealing with appears being dictatorship-to-normalization-to-democracy. I assume the final objective out of this dilemma after the normalization process for all of us should be democracy. The normalization factor in reality should at least in my understanding be only a TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT (capable of normalizing Eritrea) with mandate to rule under a temporary constitution for few years until democratic election takes place in the society.

Question: Do we have a difference in this topic?

Yosief;  “So what is needed is a regime that normalizes relations both with its neighbors and its subjects”

Comment: This is true. A nation must normalize relations with its neighbors and its subjects prior to its democratization. It can do this with the neighbors without doing it with its subjects. Eritrea has a partially normalized relationship with its neighbors (Sudan, at least) but this could not guarantee us a normalized relationship between the regime and us (subjects) because of the absolute dictatorship that does not allow any freedom in the country. I think there is one way of doing the second effectively and that is Respect of Human rights. The relationship between a State and its people can only be achieved through respect of the law and human rights in general that can only be secured by democracy. I don’t expect a good democracy immediately but there is no reason why we cannot prepare the formula that leads the society towards whether it works ahead or not; and I don’t understand what we are waiting for.

We therefore need a nation that normalizes its relationship with the neighbors and its people through the known means of achieving the requests. A nation cannot indefinitely ride in the dictatorial beltway without a democratic exit. We have been in the beltway since independence and we should be careful to not miss the exit and condemn the society recycling the problem after the deal with that guy is over.

The ultimate destination of any socio-political structure specially after the downfall of Communism has universally become democracy, and Eritrea cannot avoid this predicament although Eritreans can procrastinate it. The choice is ours and I chose against delaying it without a concrete alternative. We travelled through the harsh road of the struggle to make ourselves independent of Ethiopia and we paid the immediate cost of our independence in terms of this dictatorship for this long and now we should start marching forward through to reach our final destination: freedom and democracy. I don’t see anything else standing in the way except Eritreans themselves because I don’t think Africans have any other choice than democracy from now on and Eritrea must exist from the vicious cycle into a road that leads it to it.

I have a problem understanding normalcy without basic human and democratic rights in the country. I do believe the transitional government that should be formed to replace the regime immediately after its removal is by default logic said NORMALIZING CATALIST that must first accomplish significant normalization with the neighbors and its subjects (people) without necessarily offering full democratic rights that can be guaranteed by a constitutional democracy in the future. The transitional government should, however, be expected to normalize the society in the two dimensions on discussion with more emphasis on the first (normalization with the neigbours) than on the second relationship (the subjects) with a final vision of producing a democratic society ahead that would better answer the questions related to the second relationship.

Question: Do you consider a transitional; government as something capable of serving the normalization needs of the nation in relation to the neighbors and its people knowing that such a structure is only a bridge to democracy and not democracy by itself? What should the normalization factor precisely be, otherwise? Thank you!