It has been a long time since my last post and many things have happened ever since: some personal and some public but mostly sad or worrying. I will skip the exclusively personal and will take your sympathy as implicit in the time you will spend reading. Thank You! I am happy to see SJG back in action after the scary moments at the hospital. In spite of the ‘smoking’ root-cause, I am sure it gets every contributor of an article or a comment worried to think of how the drama that is created around the posts might have had a share on the stress. I get heart attacks reading…
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Disclaimer: Say you are telling a friend in Adi-Qontsi about an argument you had with an ugly woman in Siberia, who had long nails. Your next-door neighbor (you never mentioned her name) jumps in and starts explaining. Applying simple logic: (a) your neighbor thinks she is ugly; (b) she has long nails; or (c) she is up to something. The probability of meeting an ugly woman from Adi-Qontsi in Siberia and meeting her again next-door in Adi-Qontsi a week later is close to zero. Since probability can never be zero, however, in case you find anything offensive, please skip because if you obsess on these things, they become about you.…
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ABSTRACT In this article, I intend to do four things: (a) Defend the position of the Tigrigna elite in our struggle by arguing that their missteps be excused for reasons of the “Ethio-Fixation Disorder” (EFD). (b) Touch on the argument that the Eritrean struggle is a package of good and bad and that no Eritrean (lowlander or highlander) can claim the former and walk away cleared of the latter. (c) Test the waters for approaching the concern of the “prototype lowlander” embedded in the ELL’s Wathiqa that I touched on in the previous article. How the ELL perceives and accommodates the profile of this “prototype lowlander” is what will make…
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OFF TOPIC This year 2015 – my new year and that of family and friends, was clouded by the sudden deaths of at least two great landmarks in the way many of us have come to know and approach Eritrean politics. The first in my case, was the loss of Yassin Mender, who, as far as I know, had distanced himself from the mess of Eritrean politics – opposition & PFDJ alike – right around the time that “mess” was first introduced into Eritrean politics in the 1980s. Apart from contributing to purely humanitarian aspects of the Eritrean tragedy, throughout these years, he managed to keep his mouth shut, his…
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Background: I am not someone who is ruled by some “dictatorial chauvinistic regime” running my mind. I am of the belief, however, that women have ways of getting things into your head if you are a man simply because only the survivalist concerns that they raise (when they are serious and acting feminist) are true and cannot be ignored because there can only be one truth. It could also be in the way women tend to frame their arguments and not necessarily in the truth contained in the arguments. I will give an example: a few months ago, a good friend of mine and me had a little discussion with…
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In this article we will try to understand and justify what might have happened to Eastern Bejastan but from a distance and in a way that I hope is more engaging. It is a bit weird to try to talk about something without talking about it. You shouldn’t take these things seriously anyway. What should excite you (scares me) is the fact that Eritrea is still open for business. Half a century after the explosion of the armed struggle for independence and a quarter of a century after its achievement, we are in the middle of debating the viability of the State of Eritrea. Let me guess! You have no…
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I look left and right before I post this. For some reason, I tend to receive a hail of unhappy e-mails from people you would least expect would oppose what I say, that somehow manage to send me into another run of hibernation. It was more fun writing as a ghost. I didn’t care what people said because I could tell if the writer was mad at me or mad at some AS. Now people know who they are talking to and many have a good grasp of who you are and know what works to keep your mouth shut. Does that limit the freedom of speech? OK let me…
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Eritreans as you know are unique especially in their courtesy towards one another and towards others. For example, if a Muslim is taken to jail by a Christian, another Muslim cannot state the fact without digging some Christian name from jail books and reassuring the jailer that it is OK because these things happen at random. In a cross-eyed move, people protesting the jailing of Hajji Musa end up carrying pictures of Abune Antonios from the archives. You are thinking maybe no one told them which is which and how would you tell a cross-eyed which is which when he will always pick the wrong picture if you tell him…
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Dear Awate, “Does the Planned DC Demonstration Support Inciting Ethnic Hate and Ethnic violence against the Tigrinya?” Four Ethnic Organizations and a number of websites that support them are engaged in spewing hate and inciting ethnic violence against the “TIGRIGNA” (bebihade feliTnayom ale’na). EDA does; do you? Confess before we get into some Dick Cheney style enhanced techniques. I need to know because that’s what my uncle (Yemane Monkey) said (behind closed doors). And if what I heard on Meskerem is true then Yes to our Monkey Constitution and No to your secessionist wars. Amm’ar (prosperity) n’Mesfinawi Hagos! (Hallelujah!) It is still a family secret (and please don’t tell anybody) but…
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A few weeks ago, our debate started by setting a more serious and frank tone to the issues that were being discussed Hishikhshukh style around kitchen tables among close confidants in almost every Eritrean gathering with two diametrically opposed motivations and justifications depending on the ethnic or religious backgrounds of those involved. The first phase of this debate basically did nothing more than carrying the kitchen table out in the open for everybody to see and guess what the other is cooking. Now that everybody has an idea, it is time to start the actual cuisine. Bon Appetite! A special salute to Semere Habtemariam (Mainstream on Main-Street, Awate Aug 17, 2009) for his…