The following is a speech I gave on Saturday, April 12, 2008 in Atlanta in a seminar held by the Eritrean Solidarity-Atlanta (ESJHR). Saleh Johar
(Seminar Report)

Nobody likes a half finished job; a job shabbily executed and half finished.

Dear chairman, Atlanta Solidarity;

Honorable guests;

Friends and colleagues;

Ladies & Gentlemen,

Preparing for this honor of speaking in front of you, I have attempted to reflect and brainstorm, remembering the ideals that we fought and bled for, now smudged, defaced and repackaged to mean a mere struggle to change faces of rulers. Our ideals were blurred as if they never existed, as if they were not the goals that we were chasing, leaving behind rivers of blood and heaps of bones, and indescribable shattered dreams. The PFDJ miserably failed in creating a truly multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and multi-religious and peaceful society anchored on the ideals of democracy.

I wish your time here will be worthwhile. I would hate to see it wasted on a repetition of what is said everywhere.

What subject on earth exists that we Eritrean haven’t addressed and tried to tackle? What flashy concepts are there that we haven’t debated? What theories have we not probed into? Who among the other nations, with similar problems, could have discussed issues and came out with more diagnosis than we have? Truly, we can claim to be exceptional in that regard.

Our thinking faculty is so congested with the many diagnoses that we pushed into it; at times we are unable to come up with workable solutions. Not yet.

Coming here, I am all hope that from this city, a new understanding of how to create an energetic, focused civic movement would emerge. I have seen the beginnings of the Atlanta Solidarity and I am optimistic. Thank you Amanuel, thank you Seyoum and thank you all members of the Solidarity - you are on the right track and I am confident you will make a significant change in the way we operate.

The first word that I uttered in this speech was UNFINISHED. I believe we are here because we have an unfinished job. We are here because we have to finish half the job that we abandoned. A job we abandoned because we were blinded with the flashes of independence; the flapping of the flag; the UN membership; and yes, a president of our own. Since then, we have been waiting - just like a beggar on a doorstep- for our government to grant us a constitution; to donate to us its promised multi party system; a gift we would someday find under our bed, wrapped in a magnificent gift-paper, maybe wrapped in a flag.

We were sold on the idea that our dear government had an impressive network in the whole region; that we would make money piggybacked on the Red Sea corporation- forget the laws, we would break them. And if any country didn’t like that, we would teach everyone a lesson; our mighty army could crush any force. Yemen? It is Half a day’s job. Ethiopia? We brought them to power; we made them and we can break them at will. Sudan? By May some year they would be gone.

A big chunk of our population bought into that non-sense. Blinded with the euphoria of independence, no one remembered the unfinished job. We didn’t see the wool that was pulled over our eyes; we settled for mediocre substitution as answers to our fundamental questions. Many of us asked, ‘What did we get ourselves into?’ It took us a while to wake up from the PFDJ induced political sleep.

It is not late. In fact it is never late.

I would like to take you back, to the fundamental cause of the Eritrean struggle -as I understand them-, the struggle which I consider a half-finished job.

I have entertained the concept of justice as a rallying concept for a long time. In essence, it was the cause for our struggle. It represented the spirit of our liberation struggle. The concept, easily describable and understandable, could have been a simple statement: Struggle for justice. No rhetoric, no lengthy explanations needed. Every Eritrean, from one tip to the other, can relate to it. Every Eritrean, regardless of his background, sect, region, lifestyle understands Fithi, Adil.

But what exactly is Justice?  Is it fairness and equality? Is the concept of justice limited to social justice? Economic justice? 

Some will say that the Eritrean struggle was waged to make sure that an Eritrean who used to walk ten miles to get water now gets potable water close by.  Good.  Some will say that the Eritrean struggle was waged to make sure that there is equitable distribution of resources and wealth. Another good objective.   But, I submit to you, the justice that animated the Eritrean revolutionary was also fundamental justice of due process, right to a trial, right to hire and fire your government, all the values that have been denied to us. That is, there is no political justice.    

What Should Be Done About This

We all know this because most of us have friends and family members who are denied justice. And, at the outset, I have said that this address won’t be about diagnosing a problem, but about proposing workable solutions.

Almost all of us can agree that there is no fundamental justice in Eritrea. Even those who support the PFDJ agree that there is no justice—then go on to make excuses for it: that the nation is at war, that we do not have courts, or that economic and social justice is more important than political justice.   

Now, that leaves us divided into two camps: those who consider absence of justice as acceptable, and those who consider it unacceptable. 

Of those who find absence of justice unacceptable, there are also two camps: those who want to do something about it, and those who do not. Those who do not want to do something about it have many reasons, but it is mostly cynicism and Afro-pessimism. They argue, there is no justice in Eritrea, just as there is no justice in the rest of Africa, so why bother.

Further along this delineation, of those who want to do something about the absence of justice in Eritrea, there are two groups: the revolutionaries, and the activists. The revolutionaries do not think that there will be justice in Eritrea unless the PFDJ system is completely uprooted. Some argue that there can be no justice unless the form of government they espouse—ethnic federalism, regional federalism, Islamism, secular liberalism—is planted in Eritrea. Some of the revolutionaries want to wage a peaceful revolution, some want to wage an armed struggle.

I am addressing people, activists, who want to bring about justice in Eritrea and are willing to do their part to bring this about. The question is how? How do we do this? 

1.  Goal: We should stop considering the current struggle as a mere display of slogans and sophisticated concepts, concepts that the common Eritrean would not relate to --Democracy, freedom of press, multi-party system. What do these mean to a people who have never experienced them?

On the other hand, justice is something that all Eritreans know—they know when it is present, they know when it is absent.

A call for multi party system is not going to inspire a helpless nineteen-year old wasting his life in trenches. Calling for the freedom of the Eritrean person would be more profound, more inspiring.

So our rallying cry should be Justice Now. 

2.  How? Lead By Example: Our role should be to identify what is most important to the people of Eritrea and then to advocate their cause. What is it that our people want?  They want peace, first and foremost, they want justice, they want to see a viable alternative to their tormentors. And peace is very important at this juncture.

We do not have the luxury of saying that peace is something that is between two governments, to do so is to abdicate our responsibility. As citizens, we have a civic duty to work for peace. If our formula for peace coincides with that of the PFDJ, then so be it: we are not absolved from advancing it “to spite the PFDJ.” If our formula for peace is a heartfelt belief that peace will not come as long as the PFDJ is in power, then so be it, we are not absolved from advancing it for fear of antagonizing those who disagree with us. If our formula for peace is coincides with that of EPRDF, then so be it: we are not absolved from advancing it for fear of appearing to be “pro Weyane.” 

The fact is that we have a duty to try to solve another aspect of Eritrea’s most intractable problems: an illusive peace.

You notice that I repeatedly refer to “we”. What do I mean by that?  I mean an organized group of citizens. We cannot bring about change unless we are organized. We cannot give lectures about the denial of the right to assemble in Eritrea, unless we are capable of demonstrating the virtues and benefits of organizing.

Now here comes one of our famous causes for disagreement: how do we organize? I do not want to join the existing organizations because I don’t agree with all their platforms, but I do not want to start my own because it will then be small and ineffective.  

There is a happy medium: an alliance of small and independent groups. A solidarity. 

The benefits of Solidarity is that it can have the cohesion of small organization and the effectiveness of large organizations. But what is the benefit of being organized, anyway?

We talk about the absence of democracy in Eritrea.
If we, as organized groups, run our affairs using democratic principles, then we can lead by example.

We talk about the absence of free press in Eritrea.
If we pool our resources, there is nothing stopping us from beaming radio programs, satellite TV stations, Internet articles to Eritrea and rendering the controlled media obsolete. Instead of demonstrating about the absence of freedom of the press in Eritrea, we can create it in the Diaspora. And to some extent, we have. We are saying, writing and advocating our views in total freedom- Long Live the USA. Eritrea has a Proxy freedom of press. And if only we can get enough resources, luckily for us, the PFDJ does not control the air; we could deafen the country with all sorts of broadcasts. Wasting our energy demonstrating for Freedom of Press is a misdirected energy.

We talk with amazement about Eritreans who have left the dungeons of the PFDJ, yet return to PFDJ-sponsored parties.
If we are organized, we can sponsor events that would present opportunities to Eritreans who are homesick and want to connect with the homeland. Instead of squandering our energies demonstrating in front of PFDJ events, we can re-direct them towards creating alternatives.

We talk of the PFDJ’s dismal record in conflict management.
If we are organized and make civil disagreement our culture, then we lead by example and present a viable alternative that emboldens our disheartened people.

You may think of all of this as “incrementalism” or tiny steps. To those who say so, I invite you to consider this: how advanced would we have been now if we had been taking small forward steps since 2001? Since 1991? 

Importance of Leading By Example

In my view, the messages that we are peddling are trivial for a popular response. They are just buzzwords that make our intellectuals feel good and sophisticated. It enables them to avoid talking in simple nationalistic terms. It helps the egoist prove they are refined, sophisticated. Its achievement, negligible. The contributions are feel-good exercises.

What we invested, in financial and emotional terms, and time, is not even worthy of comparison against our goals, what we set out to achieve. We have focused too much on regime change; something that should have been considered the outcome of the struggle not its goal.

No one will follow an opposition that embarks on the task of regime change without articulating why. The last time we changed a government, we ended up with one equally brutal substitute. That fear is there; and it is profound.

The Sudanese opposition forces have been waging war to change a government; they finally settled for a negotiated settlement. The Kurds, backed by many powers, including the USA, embarked on the task of unseating the regime of Saddam Hussein; they failed until the USA did the job for them… and for itself. There are many examples that we should learn from.

One might ask: If that was true, then, how did Eritreans and Ethiopians change the Dergue regime?

If the EPRDF was fighting to change the Dergue regime, probably it would not have succeeded; it was the demand for self determination, added to a clearer demand of Eritreans for independence, that brought the Dergue down. In addition, that change had it catalysts, its important components- it had its international midwives; it had the shadows cast from the downfall of the Communist block; it had a people who had already paid their dues. We don’t have a similar situation now.

We need to have a clear and unambiguous statement: as answer to what we want and why. We cannot demand regime change; we cannot change a government every time it curtails the freedom of the press. Instead, we should aim at creating institutions to safeguard our system - better legal controls and mechanisms.

We cannot change a government because it didn’t implement the constitution; even if we had one, any government could freeze the constitution by simply igniting a war and declaring martial law. As unpleasant as these infringements are, the only solution is to have institutions that safeguard the rights of the people; such institutions can only be established by sovereign citizens; and they are our only guarantee to prevent infringements in a civilized manner. In a country with democratic institutions, and a free citizen, anti-people government cannot survive.

In any event, “regime change” is not the job of the civil society—that is the job of the Revolutionaries.  Our focus should be on “systematic change.” Who amongst us is carrying a gun and fighting the PFDJ? No one. Therefore, by definition, we are all for peaceful struggle.

So why is it an issue? Is it an excuse not to do anything?

I have seen many people raise the slogan of peaceful struggle but very few pursue it- for instance, I can name a few, my friend Seyoum has an established record on peaceful struggle. Many others have done nothing to advance the struggle, peaceful or otherwise- like a lazy farmer waiting for rain, every now and then, they go outside and look to the sky and tell you, there are no clouds. They would never see a stream flowing just below their feet. Peaceful struggle is not an excuse to do nothing; it is a noble belief that needs work to prove one truly believes in it.

Our role should be to show the benefits of organization by being organized. Did we offer this example to our besieged people? Unfortunately, No.

We have wasted our time criticizing the political organizations for not showing progress yet we were not willing to admit our mediocre achievements and our role in the weakening the opposition organizations. We failed to provide a good example of how a Free Eritrean  looks like when free; living in the USA, for instance, Eritreans are shamelessly displaying their infatuation with servitude- how would you explain the PFDJ parties that cheers the government when it arrest people without cause, when it tramples upon anything dear to us? We have shown our people bad example and that has emboldened the PFDJ. Here, I think we should question the Oath of Allegiance that many Eritreans took to uphold the ideals of the Bill of Rights, when we became citizens of this great country.

But I would like to propose an even more drastic approach to out struggle. The struggle to finish the unfinished job. I am calling it ‘The second liberation’. I am proposing as packaging our struggle on the theme of The second liberation.

The first one was a flop; half of its vision, the liberation of Eritreans, was not achieved. The other half, the liberation of the land, was betrayal- the land that was liberated ended up owned and monopolized by the PFDJ. The people, who paid dearly, got nothing, not even the short end of the stick. A narrow clique grabbed everything. We were betrayed.

I often laugh when I find people who passionately talk about Eritrean sovereignty. What is that about? Sadly, for some, the sovereignty of the ruling clique is equal to the sovereignty of the nation. They seem to forget that Eritreans are not sovereign citizen, even slaves fare better because they know they are slaves. To understand the type of independence in Eritrea, just imagine a plantation owner telling his slaves to think and believe they are free and they will be. Slaves could not earn anything for their labor, it is the same in Eritrea. They even have plantations that are run the same way.

We need to focus on the second liberation, the liberation of the Eritrean citizen. Let’s avoid trivializing our struggle.

As a nation, we need to heal our wounds that are festering below the surface. We need to reconcile with ourselves and expand the circle to embrace all Eritreans. Our fear of the unseen can only be remedied by our commitment to reconcile.

We need to recognize who the real stake holders are. They are those who do not have a choice, those who are in an open air prison called Eritrea. Therefore, our thoughts, our concerns, and our activities should be thought of with the stake holders in mind. We should stay away from our personal grudges, narrow interest and ego trips.

We should stop trivial issues and concentrate on waging a successful second liberation, liberating the Eritreans citizen. Only a free, liberated citizen can decide on the type of governance to establish. Only a liberated citizen can save the nation.

I call on all of you to work diligently to shorten the time of suffering of the Eritrean citizen. In short, our struggle should be summed up in one sentence: Let the individual freedoms flourish.

Thank you

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