When my daughter was four years old, one of the stories I used to read her was Hans Christian Andersen�s �The Princess and the Pea.�  Skipping the once upon a time part, the story deals with a marrying-age Prince who is looking for a bride but insists that his future wife must be a Princess. He travels high and low and, not finding a real princess, comes home all dejected.  One night (a dark and stormy night, of course), there is a knock on the door of the castle, and in comes a beautiful girl.  Bonus: she is a princess.   But how can the prince be sure?  Mamma�s Boy asks his mother the queen for help to administer a test.  The queen says, no problem and goes about hatching the test. 

Look, I didn�t write the story; don�t ask me why the queen didn�t ask the alleged princess, �gual men iki anti Aynei?� Maybe in the kingdom it was considered sub nationalist to ask people about their ancestry.

Back to the story.  The queen hollers (holler!) at her servants and they go about layering mattresses like a pancake, one on top of the other.  They put something like 36 mattresses on top of each other.  (There is an illustration; and my daughter used to count them every time I told the damn story.)  Between the bottom two mattresses, the Queen places a pea. Yes, a green little pea.  The considerate queen asks the exhausted and wet girl (dark and stormy night, remember) to climb a ladder so she can rest in her new bed.

The next morning, the Queen comes and asks the girl, �Did you have a restful night?�  Oh, no, says the girl, in her little princessy voice, �I had a frightful night.  I didn�t get a minute of sleep because there is something hard and lumpy in these mattresses.�  Giggle, giggle.

�Then you are a real princess,� coos the Queen, excitedly, �only a princess has a skin so fair that it would sense a pea hidden in all these mattresses�� 

And they all lived happily ever after.  Good night!

But daddy, wouldn�t the weight of the mattresses crush the little pea?  Good night, dear.   Daddy, why didn�t they just ask the girl who her father the king was?  Good night, dear!!

Our RC Royalty

Like our princess, the right honorable gentlemen of the ELF-RC are capable of detecting the pea of sub nationalism and compromising sovereignty anywhere because they have fair and sensitive skin.  Our 36 Princes (sorry, they don�t have a single princess: and now you know one reason why that RC list was so private) were men who have excelled in telling their supporters that they should be judged not by their deeds and accomplishments but by the nobility of their cause and intent of their action or, more often, inaction.     They all mean well; it is all for the good of the country and if we just follow blindly (after some criticism and self-criticism, of course), we shall all live happily ever after because iti akeba b�Awet tezazimu. 

Years ago, in 1996 (I think) after I wrote a nasty article about PFDJ and its supporters, (�The Three Parties In Eritrea�) I was asked by readers: whom do you support anyway? Declare your stand now!! I responded (the article was called �The Pot & The Kettle�) that I am not a member of the ELF-RC because I cannot join a party that I feel sorry for; and I am not a member of the PFDJ because I cannot join a party that I fear.   Seven years later, I feel very sorry for the ELF-RC and I still very much fear the kidnapping-abducing-disappearing machine known as PFDJ. This is at the emotional level. 

At the intellectual level, I reject them both as too collectivist and authoritarian for me�while fully cognizant that my view, which places individual rights paramount above all else, is that of a minority, in our collectivist culture.   (In short, I fight for the right to have the right to freely express my view and then to vote in an election where my views will be soundly defeated.)

Still, I am an ELF-RC sympathizer, always have been, and, for reasons I will explain, I had planned to remain so for life.  In the words of Bob Segar, the RC is my very own �beautiful loser�:  it often means well; it just can never get the stars aligned.  I admit it; most of it is emotional, I get teary eyed if you play me �Ertra ny lomi�; I get nostalgic if I listen to a barely audible short-wave radio �it triggers childhood memories of trying to smuggle a radio to listen to ELF broadcasts.  And don�t even get me started on �Semayawit Lemlem.�    But beyond the emotion, here�s my reason.  An American pundit once explained that the Republican Party was placed on earth to give tax breaks. (Recession? Give�em tax breaks! Economic bonanza?  More tax breaks! Terrosism? Tax breaks!)  Well, I believe that the ELF-RC was put on this earth for one reason: to be an advocate for Eritrean unity.  In fact, they should do away with the �front�, come back as a party and call themselves: Guardians of Eritrean Unity Party. Ok, that is awkward, but you get the idea.

Example: A Conversation With A Prince

Right after 9-11, I, along with a friend, was having a discussion with an RC member about Eritrea�s �Jihad problem.�  I won�t disclose the name of the RC member other than to say he carries a Christian name. (Don�t get too sensitive; it is germane to the story.)  I was arguing that the ELF-RC should have nothing to do with the Alliance, and if it does, it should insist that the Jihad movements be kicked out of the Alliance.  (My own precondition.)  In the post 9-11 era, the last thing the Eritrean opposition needs is to allow itself to be defined by Jihad, I reasoned.

Now, this prince had been a member of three-man committee who had met with the founders of the jihad movement back in the mid-1980s, long before Jihad ever made it to the radar of the West, long before Bin-Laden had accumulated his grievances: in fact, this was when Bin Laden was aligned with the US in the fight against the godless commies in Afghanistan.  The three-man ELF-RC committee had met with the people somewhere in Girmayka or Bitama or Adaruba (I forget where) and tried to discern their issues.  According to the prince, their issues have nothing to do with Islamic fundamentalism or global conquest but issues dealing with Eritrea and their part of Eritrea alone: land distribution, cultural hegemony and religious freedom.  The ELF-RC decided that the Eritrean Jihad movement championed legitimate Eritrean issues and that it had the responsibility to open dialogue and find ways to �mainstream� them.

We discussed the issue at length.  And then we parted, as people often do, each still holding on to his viewpoint, hoping he has made a dent in the thinking of the other. And now, after all these years, I think the unexpected has happened: we have both evolved our thinking to the point that we have adopted each other�s belief.   Such is the power of ideas (which is why tyrants fear them.)   I think he found some of my points persuasive, and I definitely bought some of the arguments he made.  

What I like about the ELF-RC is that it has always, consistently and intuitively known that Eritrea is half-Christian and half-Muslim and everything it says, and everything it does must reflect this.  If you think that this is no big deal, let�s, for comparison, look at the other organizations, beginning with the PFDJ.  

The PFDJ knows for dead-certain fact that Eritrean Muslims, irrespective of their ethnicity, insist that Arabic remain as one of two Eritrean official languages.  In fact, until a few years ago, many of its own senior cadres (Mr. Abdella Jaber, Mr. Alamin Mohammed Said, Mr. Ali Said) used to believe this and argue for it in the overnight political bull sessions that were common in the charged 1970s and 1980s. (Remember: in his interview with Hwyet magazine in the mid 1990s, Ali Said explained that one of the causes of his nationalist consciousness is that Haile Selasse replaced the then Tigrigna-Arabic official languages with Amharic.)  Have their ideas evolved?  The changes were too sudden to be evolutionary.  Right around the time �defeatism� was declared a crime (in 2001), these fine gentlemen came to understand that holding such a view was criminal�and just so they get the message, the PFDJ Dungeons welcomed yet another �guest�, Idris Aba Are, for the new crime of expressing this �divisive� yearning. 

That Eritrean Muslims want Arabic was established as early as the 1950s and has been repeatedly demonstrated in the 1960s and 1970s�in areas where ELF-RC used to administer liberated lands (I have had a chance to see both: a distinction between ELF-RC administered and EPLF-administered lands is that the ELF-RC actually used to have civil administration and gave the people a voice in how to run their region.  What the EPLF used to do is raid the area of all it possessed and transport them to Sahel so that, after independence, it can tell us that this property belongs to the people, but that one belongs to the party.  But, the people are the party is the government.  But I digress.)  The people�s choice with respect to Arabic has been demonstrated in the 1990s in PFDJ�s Eritrea where Muslim parents have repeatedly�but apparently, futilely�begged the government for Arabic language education.   It was demonstrated to the Constitutional Commission of Eritrea (CCE) in two years of CCE World Tour until they got sick of hearing it.  (All you have to do is speak to the Commissioners.) But the PFDJ has given this a deaf ear even while it knew how important this subject is to Muslims; sometimes using Embaye Melekinesque language that implied that those who were asking for Arabic were people (you know, those people) who were confused about their identity.   Its short-term strategy is to profess the �working but not official� (which places no burden on the government to do anything) as well as the �all languages are equal� (that is why the Cabinet of Ministers meeting video showed 8 imaginary subtitles in addition to Tigrigna.)  Its long-term strategy is to wait for all the people who learned Arabic to die or disappear in exile, raise a whole new generation to whom Arabic is as alien as Swahili, and�end of story. 

Gul WaHd.  Now, gul etnein�

The PFDJ has deliberately gone about a campaign of Tigrignasizing Eritrea.  I know some people are uncomfortable to hear this (�why are you being so divisive?�) but it is a plain fact.  I could give countless examples for this, but the most compelling one is that Tigrigna (at least PFDJ�s version of Tigrigna) is now the language of the government: it is the language of communication when government officials want to talk to one another and when the citizenry wants to talk to them.  Ironically, to practice this is considered inclusive; to point out that this is not good for the long-term social cohesion is considered �divisive.�   To hold massive rallies and meetings and festivals that do not remotely reflect Eritrea�s diversity is considered �inclusive� (as long as the music is loud enough and the donations bountiful); to point out that the get-togethers are lacking in diversity is �divisive.�   Compare the sheer numbers of PFDJ festivals and the diversity of ELF-RC festivals; compare the care with which ELF-RC insists that all its addresses are in the two languages with PFDJ's "take-it-leave" Tigirgina approach.

Gul telata..

Finally, in the wake of 9-11, whereas every nation in the world has campaigned aggressively to minimize its citizens� relationship with the despicable Bin Laden and his group, the Eritrean government has aggressively (and irresponsibly) campaigned to paint Eritrea as a nation, which is riddled with Muslim fundamentalists (and even our hills look like those in Afghanistan.)  So much so that it is now standard lexicon among PFDJistas (or the �coin-tossers�, as K.G. Kahsai might put it) to suspect any Eritrean Muslim who disagrees with them as a potential and/or closet Jihadist.   This is just a case of a cult seeing the world through the prism of its cult leader: in the 1960s, after imperial Ethiopia (where the official religion was Christianity) bombed Eritrean Muslims� villages in Western and Central Eritrea, the reaction of the Eritreans was not to form Jihad cells and wage Jihad and intifada; but to form a nationalist organization whose sole mission was to liberate Eritrea from Ethiopia.    From the prism of Isaias Afwerki, who had just returned from Haile Selasse I University, the ELF was a �jihad organization.�    

There is Jihad and then there is jihad.  Near as I can tell, the goal of the Eritrean Islamic Jihad�s movement is a logical extension of what the PFDJ used to believe: devolve power to the local level.   And, at the local level, the Eritrean Muslim�s version of �Hgi enda'ba� includes a good dose of �Shar�ia�: something that even Haile Selasse acknowledged and accomodated.  To hear it from the intellectuals who are supportive of Jihad, the Eritrean Jihad is as mainstream as the Christian Democratic party of Germany.  The faith is the ideological underpinning, but the mechanism is democratic.  Am I an optimist about the role of a Jihad movement in a pluralistic society?  Well, no, because I haven't seen a successful and sustainable democracy AND a jihad co-existing. 

What about the EIJM�s �terrorist connection?�  It is troubling, and something the jihad movements have to explain and disown.   It is as troubling and worthy of explanation as Isaias Afwerki�s friendship with Muammar Kaddaffi, the man behind the bombing of PanAm 103.

The PFDJ doesn�t pursue its loopy goals because it is, as the jihadists say, a �Christian organization� or because it has any bias towards Tigrigna.  It does so because its ideology is �pragmatism� and its tenets �political expediency.�  If the world were to suddenly find itself victimized by animists, it would have no qualms about presenting the opposition as extreme animists.

That�s PFDJ�s contribution to unity.  Now take a look at the �Alliance.�  You need to look no further than their October 2002 meeting and their election, which resulted in something like 95% of the leadership having Muslim names.  The results of the election were announced in Arabic only.  Is this an alliance of Eritrean opposition or Eritrean Muslims?   What is odd about it is that they don�t even seem the slightest bit concerned with appearances. The ENA leadership gives interviews in Arabic only because, according to Abdella Idris, the PFDJ represents an ethnic group (Tigrigna) and, apparently, he need only communicate with those who understand Arabic.  (Remember, these are the same exiled group that Isaias is waiting patiently for their disappearance.)

I also read a report where Herui T Bairou was addressing Eritreans in Sudan after his election and when the issue of the makeup of the elected came up, he gave a flippant answer about how when he joined the ELF (back in 1967), the organization was predominantly Muslim, too; the implication being that Muslims, along with a few enlightened Christians like him, are at the forefront of fighting injustice.  He is saying this in 2003.

In a mirror image of this argument, Mr. Weldeyesus Ammar, one of Eritrea�s treasures and a man for whom I have tremendous respect, is arguing the equivalent of �meqqalsti s�in�na�: apparently, according to wedi Ammar, there are enough progressive, secular Christians but the Muslims gave up on nationalism and secularism and have retreated to fundamentalism and tribalism.  I don�t know if this is due to what might be described as �small circles syndrome� or, as his detractors allege, it is a case of what the psychologists call �projection� or maybe a case of the 36 mattresses finally crushing the green pea, but, either way, many Muslims were offended by this statement.  It is not encouraging to hear it and explains a great deal about the collapse of the RC.  If there is a single Eritrean who can speak about this issue without being labeled �divisive� or a �bigot,� it is Weldeyesus Ammar and I look forward to his next elucidation.

Then take a look at the civil society.  There are some organizations whose mission is purely religious and are exempted from criticism.  There are some organizations whose membership is not diverse but who have had the good taste and vision to try very hard to be inclusive.  But then there are others who have a national and political agenda but don�t seem the least bit self-conscious that their leadership (or even membership) doesn�t reflect this. (Maybe wedi Ammar was talking about this group? We will wait for his Part III.) 

Our Split Pea

The ELF-RC is (was?) different.  Our princess knew her peas.   Even as the pea split, it retained its diversity, a fine split pea.  But they nurtured that pea-consciousness, to the exclusion of everything else.  And, taking a cue from the PFDJ, they started cashing on it.  They set one standard for themselves; another for everybody else.  It is OK for them to fly around Ethiopia because there is no danger, ever, that they will compromise Eritrean sovereignty: they know better.  But, they have their doubts about others who do the exact same thing.   It is fine for them to pay attention to other people�s tribal and ethnic affiliation because they will use this information for noble causes (to promote diversity); it is not OK for others to have this information because they will only use it for malicious purposes.   It is OK for them to glue themselves to the seats of power because this will ensure continuity and coherence of message because they have every intention of surrendering power to the people (at some future date); it is not ok for others to do it because that is just lust for power.   It is OK for them to criticize others; but it is not OK for others to criticize them (unless it is done �constructively� and within the bounds of �democratic centralism.�)

A Citizen�s Plea

In 1980-81, when the ELF disintegrated, I was (apparently) one of a handful of people who was completely caught off-guard.  That couldn�t possibly have happened to Jebha Abbai.  Friends I talked to said that they knew all along; it was a hollow organization, it was only a matter of time.   I remember an EPLF-ite bragging with a cruel grin: �Jebha afedisnayom.�  I was too dazed to respond.

Of course, it wouldn�t have made a difference even had I known the ELF would split.  What would have I done, yelled �stop!�?  I knew, for example, that the ELF-RC was going to split; what did the knowledge give me?  I can appeal, I can beg�but we know that the ELF-RC leadership will not listen, it will ignore my appeal and my �beautiful loser� will just say that there are many things I don�t know, information I am not privy to and whistle merrily in the dark alley.  Besides, it requires a miracle to piece together a split pea; it is as difficult as splitting an atom. 

Nonetheless, I can appeal, give a mere citizen�s appeal.  And here it is, for whatever it is worth, directed at both wings of the ELF-RC: 

The point is that there are enough organizations�the PFDJ, the Alliance, the emerging political parties and civil society�as well as the always-mischievous TPLF who are testing Eritreans� formula for peaceful co-existence.  And that is why the ELF-RC has the historical duty to occupy its rightful place as the conscience of the nation.

The Eritrean political arena needs the ELF-RC whole and un-fractured.   The ELF-RC is tone deaf when it comes to Eritreans� public opinion, but the one thing it is very good at is at advocating national unity.   And for that reason alone, it needs to remain whole and one.  For without a loud and genuine unity advocate, God help Eritrea. 

Addendum

Some of you have asked me to comment on Dr. T.A. Taddesse�s article  (�Blaming The Victimized Stakeholders, Saleh Younis Style.�)  I could ask you to re-read my long article to which Dr. Taddesse was responding, but that would be to �victimize� you again.  So, my short comment is that I really like his addendum and I wish the ELF-RC will heed the good doctor�s advice.

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