PFDJ has many adjectives for its critics: traitor, defeatist, capitulationist, sell-out, enemy agent, has-been, remnant, Jihadist, naive, etc.   But their all-purpose shut-up already answer to critics is that they are "detached" from the Eritrean field and can't possibly know the problems the people face much less propose solutions for them.  According to the PFDJ apologists, the PFDJ is the people�s party because it knows the heartbeat of the hafash Eritrean: it knows their yearnings, their dreams, their value system.  The PFDJ, and only the PFDJ, is capable of safeguarding Eritrea�s sovereignty, its unity and only the PFDJ has the blueprint for bringing about sustained and equitable prosperity.

PFDJ loyalists�and even independent Eritreans who have only a cursory knowledge of the comically incompetent opposition�listen to the PFDJ cadres and say, �Amen!�   We don�t buy all or even most of your claims but, hey, say what you will (they say), but these guys have been in the Eritrean field, uninterrupted, since the mid-1960s (over forty years!) and they know the people.  You have to�even by a rudimentary process of osmosis�know the people if you spent so much time with them.

Well, another folklore bites the dust.

Consider the government�s announcement on June 20 in an event commemorating Martyrs� Day.  On the holiest secular day, President Isaias Afwerki told half of the Eritrean people that his government has generously agreed to compensate them for the loss of their children by compelling them to lose their religion as well.   The government would offer them a share in the Asmara Brewery factory.

This is one of those announcements that is so outrageous that when you read it you assume you are mistaken.  You are ignorant of some key statement, you tell yourself, you are missing the context.  It is kinda like Reagan's decision to visit the funeral of the SS soldiers in Germany.  Say what?!    Personally, what I thought was that Asmara Brewery has a division that sells soft drinks or bottled water and it is shares in this division that the government was offering its Muslim population.   Surely, a government that prides itself on being the most in tune government which is two-sides-of-the-same-coin when it comes to its attachment with the people couldn�t possibly make such a huge miscalculation, can it?    Or maybe it is the decision of some low-level party apparatchik who just made a mistake?

Not at all.  It was a decision approved at the highest level of government.  Moreover, the impression given is not that it was a off-the-cuff spontaneous decision but something that had been in the works for years.   Now, how does one explain this?

Reading the responses of Eritreans is telling.  You�ve noticed that the so-called defenders of Eritrean Muslims values (like the EIJM) have not said a word in response.  Why?  Because, for years, they have been telling whoever will listen that the Eritrean government is a �selibi�  [of the cross] a crusader government and, to them, the PFDJ latest miscalculation is no big deal; it is just a confirmation of what they have been saying for years.  Nothing new here, why make announcements. 

The organized opposition (Alliance, ELF-RC, EPLF-DP, etc) has, of course, nothing to say.    They are all for generic and inoffensive criticism�no democracy, no justice, etc�but when it comes to specific infractions and what should be done about them, the organized opposition is almost always nowhere to be found.  Listen, there are only 24 hours in a day and if you are spending 23 of them fighting one another, it only leaves you one hour�which you have to use to write �important announcements� from the Chairman and the Secretary General and other important-sounding but impotent titles.

Which leaves debate only in the one forum which still debates issues, the Eritrean Internet.   Well, it is really not a debate, it is more like soap-box declarations, but it is better than anything else out there in the Eritrean arena.   It is the only available space that is not the exclusive domain of PFDJ.  You can�t really expect this issue to be debated at Eri-TV, DimtSi Hafash, Eritrea Profile, Hadas Ertra or the Eritrean �national assembly��so, by default, it is the Internet that has to raise the issue.

Islam & Alcohol

In Islam, the religious edict about alcoholic beverages is simple, unambiguous and not subject to interpretation.  A Muslim (a practicing Muslim, in the parlance of the West) is not supposed to drink alcohol.  A Muslim is prohibited from touching alcohol, a Muslim is forbidden from buying or selling alcohol.  This is not found in the "hadith" but in the Holy Koran itself.  To a Muslim, the Holy Koran is the literal Word of God.

One of my father�s favorite jokes is about a guy in Massawa who was a refaE: a coolie.  He earned his living by carrying cargo from docked ships to the warehouse in his little wheelbarrow.  A ship carrying alcoholic beverages docks.  His religion forbids him from handling alcohol; on the other hand, he has to feed his family.  He pushes his little wheelbarrow, stocks it with the boxes of alcohol and transports it to the warehouse.  His stunned friends approach him and ask, �what the hell do you think are you doing?�  Responds the guy (in Tigre): �hamiluha wesharibuha indyikon: darikuha ybelani!�  Translation: God commanded don�t carry it; don�t drink it.  But He never said don�t push it!

Now, this joke reminded me of the many jokers on the Internet. 

Now, you may want to split hairs: what is �alcohol�?  What does �touching� mean? What is �buying�?  What is �selling�?  Well, ask the hair-splitters, but the government is not giving them alcohol: it is giving them the proceeds from the sale of alcohol!  Or: if the government uses the tax revenue from alcohol producing companies to help Muslims is acceptable, why isn�t shares in the Asmara Brewery company acceptable?  Or: I have Muslim friends and they drink and they are obviously Muslims so what is the big deal.  In this regard, drinking alcohol, if you are a Muslim, is a sign of �moderation� and abstaining from alcohol, if you are a Muslim, is a sign of extremism.  In Eritrea, a young Muslim who doesn't drink and prays regularly is profiled as a Jihadist. (The Economist, normally a sober magazine, draws the same intoxicated conclusions.) Of course, if you a Christian and you refrain from drinking alcohol, then you are just a healthy person; if you drink, in moderation, then you are urbane and not fara.

Context, context, context.  Eritrea is not Saudi Arabia; Eritrea is not Turkey or Indonesia.  Eritrea is Eritrea.  In Eritrea�the Asmara that I grew up in�there was an admirable level of co-existence and tolerance.  There were bars and segretos not too far from the main mosque.  Restaurants owned by Muslim did not sell alcohol; bars owned by Muslims were unheard of but bars frequented by Muslims were very much heard of.   A Muslim who drank was not stoned to death; but he was considered either an outcast or a person experiencing youthful indiscretion, which he would eventually outgrow; meanwhile, pray rebi kehdiyo, for God to show him the Righteous Path.  There were exceptions: at some weddings, some wise guy would occasionally lace the brzi and unsuspecting men in their religious attires would suddenly have an overwhelming urge to dance.  (This is before the age of videos.) The old men would then have to fast for weeks to be forgiven.   I would be surprised if �enda meloti� had Muslim employees; if it did, you can be assured that there were some self-appointed shmagle visiting the family of the employee and pleading with them to have their child mend their way.  Perhaps enda aboy kisto could find the person an alternative employment?  Even here in the good-ol-USA, if a Muslim proprietor of a business was selling alocholic beverages, he would be sure to get a committee of visitors to advise him about God's Judgment Day.  Out there in the heartland where the villages are predominantly Muslim, there is even less tolerance and stricter enforcement of the no-alcohol-zone.

So how did a government that takes pride in knowing the heartbeat of the people, one that claims that it is the most attached to the people manage to make a decision that is so obviously detached from the values of half its people?   Pick your reasons:

�          The PFDJ is actually in an ideological bubble, insulated from the people, and has absolutely no clue that the decision would be offensive to Eritrean Muslim values;

�         The PFDJ knows Islamic values but considers them backwards and is pushing forth yet another experiment to test the level of resistance;

�        The PFDJ has a short list of profitable state-owned companies from which to provide shares and by the time it short-listed its short list, only the Asmara Brewery was left;

�      The government officials were totally inebriated when they made the decision. (not as uncommon as you think.)

I have a devoutly religious friend who has a fit every year on Martyrs� Day when he reads about this community center or that one talk about how it is inviting people to attend a candle-lit ceremony because the candle happens to be a �Twaf��a candle that has a strong ceremonial value in Eritrean Tewahdo churchs but completely unheard of in Muslim households.  My friend considers the �Twaf on Martyrs� Day� yet another evidence of the PFDJ�s insensitivity to Muslims.  You can imagine how outraged he was by the shares-at-Melotti announcement, the same day he heard about the death of his brother, no less.

To all those offended by the government�s latest offenses, I have one consolation: when it comes to fulfilling promises made, the PFDJ has a dreadfully bad record.  My sense is that the announcement is yet another empty promise that will soon be forgotten.  It is probably based on some promise it made the donors about privatizing the PFDJ/Government owned factories and within months, it will all be forgotten.  Remember the allegedly demobilized women?  Not demobilized.  It was all a show for the World Bank.  Remember the 2001 elections? No elections.  Remember the evidence that the National Assembly was going to share with us?  No evidence.   The PFDJ is just short hand for Promises For Donors Just-in-time for donations.

My Condolences

To the family of Dr. Reesom.  People call him a poet but, more than that, he was a showman.  When all is said and done, Dr. Reesom has done more than any Eritrean, more than any Ethiopian, dead or living, to internationalize Tigrigna.   In a nation that was not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the PFDJ, Dr. Reesom would have been honored for his efforts but such is not our fortune.   I had a few conversations with Dr. Reesom but the one I remember the most was his absolute passion about the fate of the so-called Warsay generation and his fear about what kind of future awaited him.   I believe that is the one issue that animated the good Dr. into the thankless field of politics...

My condolences also to the family of Sultan, a Bay Area Eritrean.  Didn't know him well; I had a few meetings with him during the "shmagle mklkal hager" days and he was the quietest person I knew (and given that "talk" and "work" are almost always inversely proportional, it probably means he was the hardest working...)

Each day brings us closer to death; how I wish that each death brought us closer to one another. 

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