Twgahmo: Refining The Message

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Al-Nahda

By Saleh AA Younis
Jul 8, 2005, 08:35 PST

This issue of Al Nahda will deal with the opposition and, hopefully without much pomposity, suggest ways for the EriOpp to better market itself—by refining its message and messengers and by having a clearer understanding of its target population. In other words, reformation. Because this will be a series, I am plaigiarizing myself and bringing back an old title--twgah'mo--because the spirit is the same. (The original TwgaH'mo dealt with reforming the PFDJ.) This will be the first part, and it begins by dealing with the Message. Al Nahda will take the scenic route (a polite way of saying it will ramble on.)

The Message

My latest “you’ve got to read this” annoyance to my friends is an essay by Middle East expert Bernard Lewis, which appeared in Foreign Policy Review. Really, you have to read it.

When Napoleon invaded Egypt, writes Lewis, he declared (through his Arabic translator) that he was claiming his conquest in the name of the French Republic and its ideals of equality and liberty.

Lewis doesn't say this, but Napoleon told his diary that he conquered Egypt (in reality, cruised into Egypt) just for the hell of it--back then "the hell of it" was called "glory." The formula for glory was as follows:

Alexander invaded Egypt.

Alexander is called “Alexander The Great”

Bonaparte has a complex and wants to be Great some day

Therefore, Bonaparte must invade Egypt

Napoleon’s Egyptian experiment in equality and liberty was interrupted by his patriotic duty to declare himself Emperor of France. His abandoned soldiers were defeated by the Brits, who continued the hostility until they prevailed over France in their bid to host the 2010 Olympics. (Correction: note from a Brit-Eritrean friend: Saleh...the Olympic Year is 2012 not 2010.)

Ok, I am not a historian. Back to Lewis.

The Egyptians, explains Lewis, understood equality but they had no idea how and why liberty—huriya-- is a political term. To them, people are either free (hur) or slaves (abd), both of which were economic and not political concepts. Lewis doesn't mention this, but he could have illustrated his point further: the rulers of Egypt who were defeated by Napoleon were the Memluks—POWs and slaves of the Ottoman Empire, captured in Eastern Europe, brought to Egypt, and rose to form a ruling dynasty.

Lewis continues: Al Azhar University sent a bunch of students, accompanied by a chaperone from Al Azhar administration, Rifat Tahtawi, to Paris. The Al Azhar administrator observed France and years later, he had his “aha!” moment which he shared with his country men in a book he authored.

The book, which I have not read (my way of inviting someone to read it and summarize it for usJ is called Takhlis Il Ibriz. According to Lewis, Mr. Tahtawi explained: What the French call “liberty”, is what we call “justice.”

Lewis penned this by way of giving advice to our new Napoleon, Bush (who doesn't suffer from his complex and struts better), because he too is in the business of exporting democracy. What? What do I think Bush writes in his diary? I think he writes the same things he says: "Freedom marched one more step today. I have no litmus test for my judges, but I have one for foreign rulers. I miss my ranch."

Lewis's article reminded me of the big brouhaha that greeted the Bush Administration's effort at countering the influence of Al Jazeera several years ago. They launched a TV station which they called Al Hura. Really. This evoked the same “say what?” response from the Arab world as it did to Napoleon in 1798.

Cultural Faux Pas

Cultural faux pas is not the monopoly of politicians, the captains of industry commit the same infractions. My favorite is the Datsun (kids, that is Nissan) story. (And you better not ruin it by telling me it is not true.) In the 1970s, they introduced an impressive sports car which they called My Fair Lady because a Japanese executive thought Americans love Disney. A horrified Datsun executive in Datsun USA changed its name instantly, by looking under the hood and looking at the size of the motor: 240Z, the older sister of the even more impressive 300Z, and the tragically blind-spot riddled 350Z.

The Bush Team are quick learners so they named a delegate to improve the American image in the Middle East. Ok, they named a woman, Karen Hughes (“I think the president delivered a knock-out punch in his debate with Mr. Kerry tonight.”) to a region least known for its tolerance of women in power.

Where was I? I know: what does this have to do with Eritrea or the opposition parties.

The Lewis article was deja vu because, years ago, I was having a discussion with a good friend who was chiding me for saying—in a radio interview and articles--that I don’t care, and I don’t think the Eritrean people care, about democracy. All I care about is justice. I argued that there isn’t even a word for democracy in our local languages and he said there is: and it is called justice. Justice in Eritrea, he explained, is all encompassing: it deals with social justice (a system that promotes equitable growth), economic justice (a system that doesn't create gazillionaires and the destitute), and political justice (a system that promotes fair rule—democracy.)

That may be true, but words and names are important. I think linguists have established as fact that the process of giving names is the beginning of the understanding process. "Man gave names to all the animals, in the beginning" sang the philosopher Bob Dylan years ago. We cannot push democracy in Eritrea because you cannot make people long for something they never had. But there is a word for justice in all our languages, and it is something that is completely relatable and missed by all Eritreans. Not only that, it is the one thing for which no PFDJ supporter has a defense against. Sure, your average PFDJ supporter can write volumes and speak without notes for hours and days if necessary about how democracy is a Western concept, why land should be nationalized, and why youth should be in trenches indefinitely or why some religions are Western exports—he will even believe it. But he or she has absolutely no defense why people are in jail, without charges, for years.

Justice in Eritrea is an all-encompassing word. It doesn’t just apply to civil liberties, it applies to a judicial process, to fairness, fair play. Democracy should be explained from the justice angle: is it just for un-elected people to pass and enforce laws? Is it justice when governments come up with electoral laws that ensure their permanent ascension to power?

That should be the one message of the opposition: we are for justice, the PFDJ is not. If we are in power, we will bring about justice; if PFDJ stays in power, they won’t. In this regard, I was most pleased that the EDA stayed away from the clichéd icons—the clenched fist, the guns and olive branches—and adopted the scale of justice as its emblem. Peace & Justice.

Articulating The Message

Right now, our message reflects the thought pattern of our elite--our intelligentsia and political leaders. And they, for the most part, use a socialist, didactic template that is not easy to translate. There is a problem of import, a Western import, but the irony is that the import is not Western capitalism, but Western socialism. This was so alien to Eritrea that the political parties used to have indoctrination sessions to teach us how digest the import. The ideology was allegedly disavowed, but the individuals, and their thought patterns, remain. (This deals with the messenger part of this series.)

Every ill that we complain about in Eritrea using many words, much of them unrelateable, can be boiled down to absence of justice in Eritrea. Our message is also suffering for lack of articulation. Partly, this is has to do with the nature of drafting-by-committee, where a torturous process of adding and deleting gives us statements that are almost incoherent. Here’s one example from the EDA charter: (Article 1.5):

Within the framework of a national constitution, Muslims have the right to implement Sharia in their livelihood.* So do Christians and traditional faith adherents: they have the right to implement their religious teachings and doctrines.

(*admittedly bad translation; you try to translate “guday hiwetom”)

Now, let’s compare this with the world’s best known article--US Constitution, First Amendment (bill of rights)--that deals with religious rights within the framework of national constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or a bridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

My contention is that the two documents are trying to say the same thing—the State shall make no laws that violate people’s rights to practice their religion, nor will it pass laws that favor one at the expense of the other. But whereas the US constitution is simple and elegant, the Eritrean version is clunky, and worded in a way that makes it appear that the religious rights of Muslims are paramount and those of Christians are an after-thought. It is not neatly packaged. Nor does it promote peace or justice.

Similar problems appear in other areas of the Charter which, I am convinced, deal with the drafting-by-committee approach. The proof that this is the case can be easily demonstrated if one reads the documents of the member organization— perfect examples are ELF-RC’s text editorials and EDP’s audio editorials and analysis—which are consistently eloquent.

The Other Fundamentalists--The Secular Fundamentalists

There is also some hesistation not just on the packaging but on the content itself, particularly with respect to religious and ethnic rights. But that, I maintain, is the position of those whom I’ve long called our “secular fundamentalists”—people whose socialist upbringing teaches them to despise religion and to dismiss all religious leaders as spiritual quacks and a religious person as backward/regionalist/not modern. And three decades of dialectical materialism indoctrination in Eritrea, has produced an entire elite squad—many in senior positions within the opposition leadership and our intelligentsia--that has a secular fundamentalist outlook, as intolerant as the religious fundamentalists.

As long as the faith-focused organizations remain focused only on empowering people who share their faith, they will continue to arouse anxiety and fear in others. But I am convinced that, eventually, a religious bloc will emerge—one that embraces traditional and conservative Eritreans of all faiths who, unlike our elite, take their faith and traditions seriously enough to base their life on them. And when they do, they will be forceful agents of change who will provide the people what they lack most—a fountain of strength to battle evil and a moral basis for it. But that will take time, just as it took time for the secular organizations to form working coalitions.

But I am getting ahead of myself, as that deals with part 2 of this discussion: the target population.

To be continued

sal_younis@hotmail.com