“’There must be a language that doesn’t depend on words,’ the boy [the shepherd] thought. I have already had that experience with my sheep, and now it’s happening with people.” (The Alchemist P43 by P. Coelho)
On a positive note: I was glad to read on Shabait.com that, according to the head of the Metrological Office in Asmara, heavy rains all over Eritrea are promising a change from the last few years of drought thereby instilling a little bit of hope of a good harvest for so many farmers. I sincerely wish a happy and abundant harvest for every farmer in the country including the land grabbing thieves that I have been writing about. I am glad so many mosquitoes have answered my call to halt their offensive and retreat to their bases to give the land grabbers a break to ensure a good harvest while they sharpen their stinging skills for another day. Before I get to the substance of this article, a pause is in order to express my sincere gratitude to all those who were decent enough to overlook my (allegedly) offensive rhetoric and blind painting and chose to see beyond the angry tone into the arguments beneath. I apologize to anyone who was too offended to go beyond the text on the surface to digest my views on what many of us think are defining moments in our history. Thanks to Brother Semere Habtemariam (Eritrea Is Our Black Stone, awate.com August 02, 2009) for following poor Ali’s journey through the maze and for offering your hand to help him out (I am planning a Mickey Mouse production on the character when he manages to cash the long-awaited pay cheque). Several impressive articles by courageous Eritrean advocates of equality for Lowlanders; and justice, peace and democracy for the nation as a whole have provoked the urgency of thinking outside the traditional box of the Eritrean opposition in the minds of so many Eritreans. The importance of discarding the simplistic mechanical definitions of the past in favor a principled functional definition that categorizes enemies and friends based on their declared commitment to” judge Eritreans by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin” has never gained more attention than it has today. Few other Eritrean writers have ever sounded the wake-up call of the imminent danger clouding the nation more graphically than Mohammed Ahmed (Big Ugly Crack, awate.com Aug 02, 2009) through the analogy of two very different bedtime fables that Eritrean toddlers have been reading for the last 18 years. Thank you, brother Shumbahri; and the other members of the Awate Forum (my heroes) for engaging in and maintaining such a lively first-of-its-kind frank brotherly discussion in the Eritrean internet media. You (both sides of the debate) might as well be making history without realizing what you are doing: Congratulations! Sheikh Hamid Turki’s detailed analysis of the backgrounds of the current institutional manifestations of the Eritrean political debate (Alnahda.com July 28, 2009) and Dr. Jalal’adin M. Saleh’s article (Awna July 28, 2009) dealing directly with the illegal land grabbing that we have been discussing in Awate were an indication of better days to come. These and others that appeared in several other websites were a good omen that Lowlanders have actually started acting on their anger not by withdrawing and watching the nation on fire (as others have chosen to do) but by salvaging whatever they can through goodwill and inclusive engagement. Dr. Jalal’s suggestion to pick a date to mark as “The Day of the Land” to commemorate the day when Eritrean Lowlanders stood up against a long history of discriminatory land grabbing (in a manner similar to the Palestinian Land Day – youm al ar’d), was specially genius. I commend Selam Kidane (Unlikely Confessions, Cheap Grace and Inexpensive Virtues, awate.com, July 29, 2009) for her courage in highlighting the special case of targeted mistreatment of Muslim Eritreans in the atrocities committed by the PFDJ regime. I, however, cannot hide my disappointment at her evasion of the core issue of the right to equal entitlement to ancestral land for all Eritreans. The right to unbiased criteria of entitlement for all citizens in self-defense against unwelcome visitors to their ancestral land is central to the cause of justice in Eritrea. It is the mother of all other rights that defines every aspect of the ethnically stratified layers of citizenship of the current Neo-Nazi regime in Asmara. Championing religious equality, condemning the targeted persecution of Muslims and Jehovah, advocating for the right of Muslims to embrace Arabic as their first language, defending the right to equal access to employment and business, pushing every Christian to adopt a poor Muslim baby, and calling upon all Highlanders to offer free hugs and flowers to their Lowlander brothers, are all nothing but sheer hypocrisy and crocodile tears as long as the championing is not preceded by a call for a uniform, unbiased system of entitlement to the land where those rights are to be upheld. It is within this context that the plight of Jebertis and other ruthlessly victimized Highland Muslims (that Semere raised in his article) is essentially addressed as a functionally inseparable component of the cause of Lowlanders. It is within this framework that everything from the Afari right to self-determination, to the Kunama’s concerns as a unique component of the Western Lowlands; and from the right of a Hidareb farmer to plan for a hundred-year crop circulation without having to worry about unpredictable thieves, to the concerns of a Bilen shepherd for protection from the EPP is defined in black & white. It is against this background that we can guarantee Tigrigna farmers the right to expel colonels with dead mothers from turning their villages into graveyards without having to plead for the kind audience of His Excellency the President.
That’s why, my dear Selam, the question was very specific: do you believe our Kunama brothers are entitled to follow Adi Gebray’s example in kicking out non-natives from their ancestral Kunama-Land? If your answer is “Yes”, you better think twice before writing it because the next step is to stand up and call for the dismantling of any settlement of land grabbers erected without proper consultation with, in the absence of or against the will of the rightful owners of the land (including any settlements of Kunama land grabbers in the Highlands, if any). If your answer is no, you better save it for the day when you decide to lecture a gathering of Lowlanders on human rights and democracy. I am positive that some Kunama brother/sister will ask you the question and I can’t wait to see if you would still maintain eye contact with your questioner. I find it convenient to use “Kunama” instead of other ethnic name (although the problem is identical across the board) mainly to strip the religious bias that the disruptionists are trying to muddle with our argument, in order to portray the clear miscarriage of justice as a hangover of religious conflict between Muslims and Christians.
I promise to make “this land is your land, this land is my land” into a daily ritual; and rest assured that once all the rightful owners of the occupied territories are back home in a different Eritrea than the one we have, they too will make it into a national anthem knowing that nobody is sneaking behind their backs any more to take advantage of their absence and to scrape their citizenship from the files of Eritrean demography. Until then, this is what Lowlanders will continue to sing:
“Whether I’m right or whether I’m wrong
Whether I find a place in this world or never belong
…
I gotta be free, I just gotta be free
Daring to try, to do it or die”
(“I’ve got to be me” by Sammy Davis Jr.)
What is infuriating with the current debate is the fact that most innocent Highlanders who felt offended (by my text), I believe, failed to pay attention to. The people who are scrambling to block or disrupt our debate and to bully us out of our senses are not the PFDJ proper, who have not even bothered (at least on the surface) to issue an explanation concerning the Project of Land Grabbing in the Lowlands. They are not the PFDJ Ambassadors and lecturers who would never miss an opportunity to blend others as traitors and fanatics selling the nation to Weyane. They are not the Hafash Wudubat who would tear you apart for breathing what they would remotely suspect to be in their endless lists of dangerous taboos. We are not even close to soliciting a middle finger from our primary litigants; NOT YET. We don’t even know if the President might just say “Oops!” and dismantle the settlements and tell Mustapha Nur Hussein to take them back. We do not even know if he knows we exist.
It is the “Opposition” guys that any right-minded Eritrean would nominate to stand for these rights; and expect would knock at my front door to wake me up to stand for my rights, that are obsessed in their vows to censor others on anything related to fair entitlement to the land. These are the guys who would not only condemn the PFDJ for defending the nation against Weyane’s invasion but would chip in their own troops to make sure the invasion was a success. Many of them wouldn’t even vote “Yes” for independence, because PFDJ was the victor; wouldn’t fly the flag because of a yellow PFDJ star; would boycott Hot Dogs because Yemane Monkey was seen feeding them to other monkeys. They are the ones who would strangle you to death and strangle you again to make sure you are dead for advocating anything less than the total eradication of the PFDJ and everything reminiscent of its legacy.
But mention equitable land policy and….is there something that we are missing here? Can anyone whisper into my ear why they think Eritrea will break down into a war zone of religious crusades, and Highlanders will rise with harpoons just because some citizens demanded an end to discriminatory rules of land ownership? Can anyone explain to me how the heck these guys finally managed to find one single issue that they excessively agree upon with the PFDJ, at the worst phase of its history, that they never managed to notice in its heyday when even President Clinton was impressed enough to describe as African Renaissance? Can anyone help me understand why the only PFDJ virtue that they elected to notice turned out to be the worst and most dangerous that its monkeying gurus could ever come up with in the last 18 years?
I will tell you what’s going on: we busted them red-handed at the wrong time in the final phase of laying the preconditions for a second comeback to the Motherland in Axum; because that is one thing Eritreans are good at. These thugs know full well that land, the Mother of All Rights, is the argument that will flush the Eritrean opposition as well as government from the dirt and declare the Neo-Nazis structurally unemployed; and that it is the only sure way that would not necessarily require the total annihilation of the Eritrean state structure, a sufficient precondition for a helpless nation that runs out of options and falls prey to vultures.
I am dumbfounded at the amount of courage and determination required for such a basic thing as guarding one’s integrity against a bunch of entrenched hecklers of sensible communication and Melisha Sirnay style bodyguards of tribal lords in the Eritrean opposition. The last few weeks in particular have witnessed frantic campaigns by a handful of thuggish vigilantes (of the EPP in particular) lobbying one another to campaign for an extension of PFDJ style “freedom of expression” to the land of the free in the West. I have neither the energy nor the intention to descend to their level of Inkililo and engage in the politics of disruption that they have perfected so well through the years.
As a useful exercise in stepping onto another person’s shoes and appreciating the reasons why so many Eritreans (apart from the Neo-Nazis) support the PFDJ regime in Asmara, however, I invite the reader to take a short meditation session to imagine a scenario where the EPP liberates Eritrea from the current regime and appoints one of these guys to take Ali Abdu’s (or Yemane Monkey’s) position as Minister of Information. What other enhancements would they prescribe to those former comrades of the G15, and Journalists let alone the preachers and army deserters who would differ with them other than the dark dungeons of the Neo-Nazi Gestapo? I tried imagining and the first idea that came to my mind was to buy a tight lid for the dustbin that I described in my last article. Thank you, Zemehret Seare (Awate July 29, 2009) for reminding us of the great job that our forefathers did to guarantee a nation of proud citizens graceful in mutual respect to one another, reflective of a sophisticated value system where standing for the voiceless is a virtue and defending thieves is taboo. I will do you a favor my dear brother: I promise to exonerate Woldeyesus Amar and the EPP from my articles if you can get him to stand up and declare that his own Bilen are entitled to follow the example of Tesfai Degiga’s Adi Gebray to kick non-natives from their ancestral land. If he does that, please get back to me because I have some ideas for you. If he says “No” you may want to read about my dustbin in a previous article and please take a shower before you jump in to catch up with him.
I would like to congratulate Amanuel Iyasu of Assenna.com for shifting gear from his previous attempt to imitate Weyni Gerezgiher (of Dimtsi Hafash) and for pioneering intelligent engagement through an interview with Professor Gaim Kibreab (Assenna Radio, July 29, 2009). Many thanks to Professor Gaim for his relatively different approach to the current debate of the settlements of land grabbers in the Lowlands compared to the standard denial or evasion that Highland intellectuals across the board have chosen so far. Without diminishing the significance of Professor Gaim’s initiative, however, I would like to contribute my observations as to the areas where the professor needs to exercise far more ethical input the next time he comes on air. I have reconstructed the relevant parts of the interview to make sense of what I thought was Ajewjew. I apologize for any unintended misrepresentation (if any) of what the professor was trying to say.
Asked about the government’s motives in timing of moving so many people from Zoba Debub to the lowlands, Professor Gaim rejects the government’s claim that moving the new settlers to Gash Barka was timed to catch up with the farming season; simply because if that were indeed the case they would have been moved a few months ahead in time to prepare the land for the rainy season (implying that the Project has nothing to do with enhancing agricultural production and, hence, the probable existence of a hidden agenda). Amanuel asks the Professor what the Eritrean public including the opposition should do in view of the fact that the movement involves valuable human life (of the land grabbers). The Professor asserts the fact that the project is both illegal and entails dangerous future consequences and should never have been undertaken in the way it has been implemented.
One of the main reasons that the government should have stayed away from the project, according to Professor Gaim, is simply because the land has other owners who are stranded in the refugee camps of Sudan (through no fault of their own) and they have never been consulted to see if they wouldn’t mind having more settlers in their land. He even expresses his doubts that the rightful owners would ever agree to such a move even if consulted by pointing out that the fertile areas around the places that the newcomers are being settled is much smaller than the abundance that people think it to be. He explains that the legally and morally justifiable way is to leave it to the dynamics of market forces and natural migration; and mentions several examples of entire Highland villages that were replicated in the Kunama lands of Gash in a perfectly peaceful manner. I will leave argument on whether the historical origins of the replica villages of Tigrigna settlers in Kunama Lands (that he mentioned) did actually satisfy the professor’s own qualification of “consent of rightful owners” for others who are more familiar with the specific history. The Professor (who showed no meaningful regrets towards the government doing what he himself is describing as illegal and dangerous) suggests other methods (sneaky ways of making it look like natural migration) without attracting attention and creating tensions; such as demobilizing (the hundreds of thousands in) the national service and settling them in those same places and then gradually they would bring the rest of their families (when all the risks have been taken care of by the youth) to live happily ever after.
I have ignored the Professor’s concerns for the wellbeing of the land grabbing thieves just so the reader (familiar with reaction to my previous articles) wouldn’t think I am trying to fit him into my alleged “presumption of evil in all Tigrignas” argument (for which I plead NOT GUILTY). Listening to the interview, however, all I saw in Professor Gaim was a typical Tigrigna intellectual who is trying to do the wrong things the right way. I strongly recommend that readers of this article listen to the whole interview (and send letters of support to Assenna) and form their own assessment of the Professor’s analysis. The following are some of the points that led me to believe that Professor Gaim’s interview is actually a pilot project of Tigrigna intellectuals testing the waters before they jump in for the swim on the wrong side of the pool (which can be illegal and dangerous).
1. Professor Gaim repeatedly stresses the EPP-EDP justification that the “IDPs” (Internally Displaced Persons – tefenaqelti) were forced to move by the government the same way that national service conscripts are forced into servitude. He gives no explanation as to why he would discredit all those who were interviewed by Hadas Eritra and showed no sign of coercion for his totally hypothetical premise of probable gifa in this particular case. He totally ignores the government’s more rational and convincing explanation that the promise of a better life (harvest) in the Lowlands was the motive.
2. Professor Gaim injects a new dimension to the argument referring to the probability that the government might actually be kicking the villagers in Zoba Debub out of their land (hence victimizing them) to give way for the production of wheat and barley used in the production of bread and beer. He mentions that he is not sure if that is in fact true as he has no specific information on the issue (another way of saying “I invented it”). Again, he gives no explanation as to why he should struggle to portray the Zoba Debub villagers as victims based on information that he admits does not have, when he can easily declare the rightful owners in Gash and Barka as victims of land grabbing based on the very information that justified his interview.
3. The Professor expresses his contempt towards what he calls “tchaw-tchaw” on the internet and associates it not to the right of Lowlanders to defend their ancestral land and their right to equal citizenship, but to malicious intent of sawing seeds for future trouble based on false claims of deliberate land grabbing by highlanders. The Professor gave no explanation as to why he would consider the Hadas Eritra story with pictures of thieves on trucks and Mustapha Nur Hussein’s own words as “false claims”; or as to why he would waste his valuable time in a lengthy interview responding to the same “Tchaw-Tchaw”.
The interview ends with one of my favorite EPLF era songs “Merietey … Merietey; meriet Hizka’yu kibret; abzelokhayo mekit; zika’aleka aberkit”. Amanuel did not say whether the song was intended to motivate Lowlanders to defend Merietom or for the land grabbing thieves and their cheerleaders to never to give up on other people’s Meriet.
Dear Reader,
What we have is the People’s Front for Democracy & Justice (PF DJ.) Wey wedi wey gual kitwelid iya. There is no other option, and we won’t lose anyway. If we succeed in setting the record straight: we will get rid of the PF and still keep the last DJ. If we fail, we will have given the sloppy dinosaurs a rollercoaster ride ending up with a stronger opposition which will get rid of the PF and at least a mosque & a church where we may pray for the last DJ.
The only problem: we won’t need Pen-name Kiosks for the Meskerem Paparazzi in either case, thanks to Saleh Younis.