Ideally, all boys would grow up to be cowboys and firefighters and artists and all girls would be nurses, teachers and mommies. Somewhere while growing up, the demigod of pragmatism shows up and whispers, grow up, be pragmatic. Then we grow up, pursue whatever it is we pursue and, in our deathbeds, see the demigod, now the ghoul of pragmatism, marking one down next to our name. It is the idealist who changes the world; the pragmatist who controls it. It is the idealist who invents and creates; the pragmatist who puts the inventions to good use. A child is idealistic; a grown up is a pragmatist.
A small, impoverished African country with no resources, no weapons wants to fight and win a war against another African country that is 20 times its size, against a country that happens to be backed by superpowers, a country that has a sentimental value as the home of Pan-Africanism and a holdout against Arabism. Furthermore, this small country wants to fight this war, for generations if necessary, not because it wants to plunder the resources of the other country but simply to restore the honor of the citizen and to end his suffering. Take that story to a Las Vegas bookie and see what odds he gives you: dont blame him, he is being pragmatic.
May 24 is Eritreas Day of Idealism.
It is not surprising that most of the world would be pragmatic and say "no way" for exactly the same reason that most of us would say no way if asked to project, say, the odds of the Chechens seceding from Russia. The odds are overwhelmingly against them.
Of course, this is not to downplay the role of pragmatism during the Revolution; in fact, one can argue that much of the mechanics of the revolution the revolutionary excesses, the timing of when to attack when to retreat, when to hold congresses, when to eat, when to sleep, what to say, what to think, and the famous "mogogo" and "anchwa" explanations-- are all about pragmatism. But what sparked the revolution and what sustained it is idealism: the power of belief, the willpower to stick to it.
And what drove it? There was hatred of the Ethiopian occupation forces, or more accurately, hatred of the actions of the occupation forces. And God knows there was much to hate about what they did. "They" being the Haile Selasse (1952 -74) and the Derg (1974 1991) regimes. The atrocities of the Derg are too well-known to elaborate. Mengistus criminal nature is easy to explain because he looked like a criminal. It is the stately appearance of Haile Selasse that many still find hard to reconcile with his actions and have taken now to exonerating him by blaming his peons.
The cruelty of these two regimes is primarily what drove the Eritrean revolution towards independence, argues an Ethiopian intellectual (Alemseged Abbay) in his book "Identity Jilted." But that is half the story. There was another drive: patriotism. Love of the people, their land and all their values and symbols. A passion to serve, serve till death, serve by dying. To our credit, from the very earliest, Eritrea had enlightened voices who said that "my land" and "my people" means Eritrea and Eritreans. Similar movements and similarly enlightened views existed in Africa in the 1960s in their fight against colonial powers; what made ours different, we argued, is that we had no "Big Men": our revolution was truly a peoples revolution.
And then there was the biggest drive: the mission. The liberation forces were not a ragtag group of militia loitering their time between military engagements. They were fully engaged in "missions" which culminated into The Mission: independence. Those who died in the process, by the tens of thousands, did so with full knowledge that they contributed towards The Mission and with certainty that it will be carried out if not by their surviving comrades, but maybe their children, or grandchildren.
That is not pragmatism; that is idealism. That is faith. A faith made manifest on May 24, 1991, when Eritrean tanks waving the same two flags that Haile Selasse and the Derg made illegal, and armored vehicles carrying waving combatants drove through the heart of Asmara to the cheers of the liberated people. Can pragmatism explain that the same Russian tanks now rolling through Asmara were, just a few years earlier, bought by Mengistu from the USSR to annihilate the Eritrean people and their revolution?
In just one day, a change. A change from, " I am an Eritreanwell, no, you wouldnt find it in a map, it is in Northern Ethiopia" to " I am an Eritrean. Period." Look it up. If you dont know the significance of that, youd never lost what you have. And, in another day, it is formalized, in a referendum. I am an Eritrean; it is the only vote Ive participated in.
I am an Eritrean. I am also an American. Every four years, American politicians will tell you "this is a crucial election! An important one! Your vote counts!" This year will be no different: it is always one guy trying to scare you; another trying to pick your pockets. Are they crucial? After you vote, are you overwhelmed with a sense of pride, of fulfilling your civic duty? Let me put it this way: have you ever videotaped yourself as you walked to the voting booth?
So happy Independence Day, compatriots. Throw pragmatism to the wind; celebrate idealism, in any way that seems idealistic to you. Thats it? Well, yes, well have 364 days to debate freedom or its absence; we should have one day to celebrate independence, our independence that we all paid for. And May 24th is it.
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