Sometimes, I go back a few years to check what was written. It is what my friend Dawit Mesfin calls introspection and taking stock. Often, I find out that nothing has changed; but just as often, I discover that the change is immense.
Buried in a heap of papers in his garage, a friend found some articles that I wrote a while ago. Here is an introduction to one of my old articles that I quoted five years ago. It is a line from a poem by Alberadoni, the famous Yemeni poet and it was written on an arch in a street in Aden:
Yewmmen Lem Tesnaahu shemsudduha Bel Senaanahu B'aydeena.
Translated, it means:
A day in time not created by the noon-sun; but was created by our own hands.
What a confident remark! What a challenging remark! It is older and more compelling than Robert Frosts A Prayer in Spring who said
As the uncertain harvest keeps us here; all simply in the springing of the year. Bill Clinton wasnt going to wait for the springing of the year; he said once (I could get this wrong, it is from memory), it may be winter, but we will force the spring. Alberadoni was saying that the noon-sun may be there, but what it shines on is created by us.
Which is a long way of saying we all have choices to make in life. We are exposed to the same challenges: we can wither away and lose our spirit and soul or rise up and, come what may, stand up to them.
Sometimes people land in trouble for things they didn't do, many times people land in trouble for things they did. Sometimes one's conscience imposes a stand and that stand becomes a cause for trouble. So be it. It is better to be in trouble with a clear conscience than out of trouble with a hurting conscience. With the exception of a few times, I never regretted, anything I wrote.
Of everything I wrote so far, there is a piece that stands out in the suffering that it caused me and to my family. It was written on July 26, 1998, a few weeks after the flare up of the border war. Here it is:
In a desolate teashop that entertains its customers with taped WRESTLING matches, I saw a spectator holding a placard that read, "The TITANIC sunk when it hit Goldberg". Goldberg was wrestler; the spectator was, obviously, a Goldberg fan. I worried a lot when I remembered our Titanic: some people, including the captain, are busy drilling holes on its bottom from the inside. I wish the generator would run dry before they drill more holes. If anything happens, don't blame it on Goldberg. I mean Iceberg.
A debater considered it a "Shoan-Eritrean" wax and gold form of writing-the Amharic 'sem'nna werq'. He was right. Since then, I have melted all the wax from my thoughts and started to write in pure "gold"-meaning, uncovered. That was the only thing he was right on. Today, I live with a clear conscience: saying the same thing to all people. In contrast, my old debater lives the life of a tortured conscience, always tailoring his message to the right audience. Pity. Back then, the debater melted the wax from the above paragraph and was left with the following "gold" to use his expression:
"Let us be clear on what Saleh is saying. If you melt the wax covering the gold, this is what you are likely to find, according to Saleh. Eritrea is going down the drain because of the irresponsibility of its political leadership."
Right. That was my assertion. Today, everyone is informed enough to pass the verdict. I will happily accept the verdict because my lawyer is already celebrating victory.
Many people were mad when they read the article (they always are whenever the monster, his Ashker or his club is criticized). I don't blame them; they didn't know what they know now. Others? All right. There was this small little cuddly cub in a small cage and they kept feeding and feeding it. Now it has outgrown its cage. A monster has been created. Worse, instead of taking care of the monster they created, they want to stop those who are stating the fact: the monster has outgrown its cage a long time ago. You don't need to melt this wax. What do you say?
Those who thought they were caging me are now caged: some in impossible contradictions of their conscience; others in the freezer of the captain of the Titanic. Oh, let me melt the wax. The spies and the intellectually corrupt now live a hushed life, opening their mouths only to express outrage at selected wrongs; whispering their true beliefs only to a handful trusted confidents, while they publicly salute the tyrant. Meanwhile, my would be cager from Kuwait, and the one who wanted me to cry uncle and ask for forgiveness is now in Asmara, unemployed, scorned and a victim of the system he so heavily promoted. Me? I live with my conscience, my family, surrounded by friends, in the freest nation on earth. Call it faith; call it Karma; call it what you will: but right ultimately triumphs over might.
Some people learn fast; others are slow learners. Still others, for reasons known only to the Creator, skillfully conceal their knowledge of lessons they learned. It turned out that those who were skeptical of the "Eritrean Constitution" are more loyal to it than many of those who drafted it. What a zembilful of contradictions! Would someone please invent an alarm clock that wakes up dormant conscience!
A Sixty Year Old Adolescent
Some people are so guilt-ridden that they want to re-live their lives to undo what they have done. They have this huge feeling of guilt and deep remorse that they can't face. They try hard to subdue the truth simply because it contradicts with their past which they lived not knowing that it will haunt them in the future. Yes. They have an aching conscience and it is hurting them. They want to re-live their lives again. No. It can't be done, and they can't get it into their head! There are many ways to relive one's self. It is easy. They need to be remorseful and repentant. No one is accusing another for the grave moral errors and bad judgments of the past. Those who embody a dormant conscience should recognize that bitterness against them is not for what they did in the past; it is more for what they continue to do now. To make it simple, one should not sacrifice the well being of Eritrea to save a petty investment on a grain mill from the PFDJ.
For example?
For example, I have a shadow that follows me wherever I go. Just like those qarma who used to follow people back in the days. You know! Even in the dark it is there. Now, try to find your shadow in the dark and tell me if I am lucky or what. He has an empty life, which finds meaning only by shadowing me.
Commenting on my last article the shadow wrote:
"The poor guy, unfortunately, gave himself away when he stated that, in 1990, he drove north from Kuwait while his heroes soldiers, Saddam's occupation troops were marching into Kuwait. He must have been privileged to enter Iraq in 1990 from Kuwait."
If you were asking why the UN is in such a despicable state of affairs, now you know why: It employed people, like my shadow, just to fill the quota allocated to member countries. In this case, my shadow was filling for the Ethiopian quota when Eritreans were fighting Haile Sellasie. And my shadow has the temerity to pretend to be a born patriot who loves Eritrea, I mean who loves Hafash from the day he was born.
I decided to respond to the nonsense of my shadow simply because my shadow is a walking and living bottle of brain-poison. This is a guy some kids with no role models look up to for enlightenment and wisdom. How a person can defy the life expectancy of most Eritreans to be 60 plus and still manage to be so dim is beyond me. I don't want the readers to be misled.
Any one with an IQ of a Kentucky Fried Chicken knows that in 1990 Kuwait ceased to exist and, according to Saddam, was the 19th province of Iraq, after the invasion of the country by a brute look-alike of our monster. Technically, for the duration of the occupation, all residents of Kuwait were in Iraq. The one and half million people who left Kuwait after the occupation left via Iraq because they couldnt leave from Kuwait by air, sea or land borders.
I will give this to my restless shadow: I went to Iraq more than four times in 1990. I went to Basra and Safwan twice as much. I saw it and felt it. It confirmed what I knew as a child in Keren: it is bad and dehumanizing to live under a dictatorship. Any dictatorship. That is why I refuse to submit to any dictator. Even the monster of our own. Look. I go walking with my head up, but my shadow is always bending, always checking with the tyrant in power to see if it is ok to open his mouth. But then, some people just cannot handle freedom and, like a domesticated animals, fear the exhilaration of the great wide open.
The Head Of A Household & His Kitchen Utensils
A Middle-Eastern adage goes like this: "Iza qama rebbilbeiti
Translated, If the head of a household starts to beat the drums, the rest of the household will only oblige and start dancing.
The PFDJ are not branded Wedini for no reason.
Where do the Wedini foot-soldiers get the bigotry, hypocrisy and badmouthing from? All the attitudes you see from the dwindling Mahber Wdase is an imitation. Look for clues in the behavior of the head of the household and compile the words.
That is what a member of the Awate Foundation did. She compiled now-notorious words the head of the PFDJ household uses in his speeches. Amazingly, she came up with a long list of kitchen words: utencils and acts. She told me that he is obsessed with the kitchen utensils and the like. And as the head of the household beats the drum, so must the zombies dance. She writes:
"...this is from dmtsi hadash ertra ...actually the wording is exactly Isaias' "meKoster gifa" is one, "empty barrels" is another... bKfa' ztelaATeTu is another, Hatela, Lahasti Biati etc etc... do not forget "empty barrels" was actually TrHu Bermiel (and you know what that means ...I have a feeling there is more..) maybe you could write it and then put a list out there somewhere where readers can add...quoting exactly where they got it from.."
We have a president whose political statements are full of names of kitchen utensils. And you know the cultural implication and the social stigma of such behavior in Eritrea, don't you? In Eritrea, even the women scorn a man who uses language fit only for the kitchen. Sebeitai, they call him.
The Bottom Line
Mixed signals are coming from the Ethiopian side. Disturbing. Very disturbing. This time, if anything flares up in the border, we know and the world knows who is responsible: Those who refuse to abide by the court ruling. Badme was always Eritrean and now it is awarded to Eritrea, a final confirmation. Both countries can now go ahead and build ten Badmes each on their side of the border and save the population around the border from increased misery; they have been in hell throughout the last five years. Give them a break. If you do that, tea is on me.. smi 'gberelkum!
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