It is sometimes difficult to know whether we are subscribing a depraved life or, a depraved time is reigning over us.  I don’t know, quite frankly!  How did we Eritreans change from a God fearing, peaceful, loving and morally apt, into an easily led and docile people at the expense of a dictator, is worth noting.

How did we, for example, change from the heroes liberators of our country – where, some of our victories were romantically elevated to the status of Dien Bien Phu – to a less of a heroes now, incapable of confronting a deadly enemy at home?  How did we deviate from ‘let me be martyred, you stay the fight’ mantra to the less and less indifferent society now?  How did we learn to be adaptive, obedient and easily duped people?  It is not that easy to understand.  In fact, there is no short supply of people with a HERD MENTALITY, to be sure; but so many are awakening now to the plight and despair of their people.  And now, at this moment of our history, nothing describes us more than the following words:

“Come, come, whoever you are. 

 Wonderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.

 It doesn’t matter.

 Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come …”  

Rumi

Those are the words of the great Persian poet, Islamic theologian, Jurist and the 13th Century Sufi mystic Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi – or, better known as Rumi.  Rumi’s teachings of love, brotherhood and spiritual awakening transcends regions, ethnic identities, political borders and incorporates all humanities.  His teachings resonate today as they were seven centuries ago.  In an increasingly violent world, Rumi’s teachings are a little consolation worth taking.

Indeed, In a society devoid of love, hatred flourishes.  In the absence of empathy and caring for one another, then it is natural that the result is a ‘caravan of despair’ – self destruct, so to say.  It [lack of love] is a collective anguish, misery and pessimism; and not as easy as your-misery-is-not-my-problem type of solemn belief of some unintelligent and docile folks – these half-humans are hard to reform, anyway.

Incidentally, why do I want to quote Rumi?  As opposed to for example, the easy one, ‘sometimes you hit a point where you either change or self destruct’?  Or as opposed to our own famed adage, ‘Ahwat mis ziHabru tseLae yeberiru’?  Because Rumi’s teachings and sermons were laced with religious ferver, as well as too deeper in meaning, as for example, when he wrote of the person (a secular expression) or the seeker (Rumi’s mystic expression) “…turns towards the truth, grows through love, abandons the ego, finds the truth…..”  Here, the intent is not to deconstruct Rumi’s language, poetic expressions or religious literature, far from it, – his works are undoubtedly hard to comprehend to begin with – but rather, using his teachings as a base to deconstruct our monotonous routine.

Indeed, how many of us attended opposition meetings – where passionate discussions are common – then, when most expected some, nothing happened?  How many of us attended these meetings and climaxed the gathering with a hysterical ‘guayla’?  How many of us read an opposition meeting’s ending declaration with ‘…b’Awet tezazimu’, while in due course nothing happened?  All this coupled with a host of good-for-nothing opposition groups shouting against one another.  No wonder we are in a deep quagmire!  Of course, that is the way dictators keep their subjects in perpetual discord, so they would never mount an effective campaign against them.  More importantly, dictators keep their subjects into factions – us vs them mentality, or pitting one region against another – fear of a phantom enemy, persuade them to be enemies amongst themselves and keep them engaged in a shouting match, so they would never reach a consensus.  It is an age old, yet effective Machiavellian intrigue of controlling a population.

Still, we never fail to perpetually self-sabotage ourselves – even missing some opportune moments to liberate ourselves from the autocratic system.  I was once reminiscing the events of the G-15 arrest back in 2001 with the parents of a friend, who had arrived from Eritrea.  Cautiously, lest I rouse the ire of the new comers, I said, “the people didn’t support them [G-15]”.  I was expecting, ‘hizBi entay kigeBir deliKumo’, sort of angry response.  True to his character, the old father was so forthright in his response.  He said, “Right! that was the opportune moment, but the people never rose up”.  Surprised at his bluntness, I wanted him to talk more.  He continued, “the people begrudged them for the suffering they endured the previous years; dirKina keLa do!  we so are backward ziwedey”.  Imagine!  You work against your interest, when your own very interest is at stake.  What kind of logic is this?  But still, when obstinacy rears its ugly head, common sense is turned upside down.  Despite their [G-15] failings, the common good should have prevailed back then and perhaps Eritrea would have been in a much different state now.  But that was not meant to be.

Perhaps we are becoming a depraved society, incapable of confronting the truth.  Maybe, we are constantly consuming a daily diet of falsehood about ourselves.  Or, possibly we  are  becoming sheeple  – an easily manipulated people.  Depending on who you talk to, the becoming or unbecoming of us would be debatable; what one can talk with absolute certainty is, we are inside the creation of our own matrix.  A matrix we never seem to know the exit.  Therefore, here is where Rumi’s teachings of the individual (my secular expression) “…turns toward the truth, grows through love, abandons the ego, finds the truth…” makes for an absolute reading, however.  But, when a depraved society turns an aons away from love, abandons the truth and incapable of shedding the ego, then the society is to blame for its own mess and not the dictator who is terrorizing the whole nation.

“No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.” said the famed broadcast journalist, Edward R. Murrow.

Of course, we have these pseudo opposition groups who proclaim to fight the dictator, but, in reality, the comfort of their money, status, perhaps property is too much to forgo.  These groups have never been a threat to the dictator, nor do we expect them to.  And there are these groups who still knock the dictator’s door for a peaceful transition to democracy; despite his decades old trait of anti democracy.  Interestingly, these groups still want us to believe what they themselves dreamt of making connections with non-existent or pliant generals to bring about change in Eritrea.  If what they proclaim to be were true, then they would have at least, make overtures to other like minded groups.  Wouldn’t they?  Yes, but they wouldn’t.  Because it is a well polished ploy to dupe us by some Higidefite elements.  We must be in a state of trance to fall into this kind of crap.

Let’s keep the fight for the total liberation of our country; we owe it to ourselves and our people.  As Rumi said, we are the lovers of leaving, lets come together in consensus against a common enemy, our life was not a life of despair. Lets keep the fight.  In this time of the year, it is customary to wish a happy new year.  I don’t have any reason to say it……

Tesfamichael Kidane