I am motivated to write this article by an elegantly written posting in awate.com �The Roadmap to Democracy and Prosperity in Eritrea� by Dr. T. A. Tadesse. May others including the prominent Dr. Bereket Habte Selasie, have written along similar lines, the central theme being "the quest for democracy and justice in Eritrea�. Articulate as they are, however, none of them has had the courage to state their underlying assumptions outright. In what follows, I try to state the fact that the problems of Eritrea are �constitutional� and not �institutional� and that those who tell us otherwise are wolves in sheep-skin. I mean no offense in what follows, it is just an intention to contribute to the national dialogue. 

Dr. Tadesse concludes his �Roadmap� by saying �those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it�, yet his posting does not show evidence that he himself read the history of the roadmap that brought us to the current situation in Eritrea. At the preamble of his post, he sets the condition that �no individual or organizational interests are as paramount to the empowerment of our people as the survival of our beloved nation�. In spite of the good intentions embodied in the article, even the most superficial reading into the history of the Eritrean struggle to date indicates that at no point in time and by no individual or organization whatsoever have the concepts of our people and our beloved nation in the Eritrean context been used without some kind of underlying ethnic and religious connotations or disguised interests. The reason lies in one of the points that Dr. Tadesse cites as the constraints of national reconciliation, i.e. �none of the key players is willing to say who did what to whom�. Any new start can only begin by acknowledging the real problem, apologizing for any wrongdoing and fairly negotiating a new formula of settlement. 

Most of the discussions in both Dr. Tadesse�s �Roadmap� and the other similar postings adopt the view that ethnicity and religion in Eritrea are purely parameters of cultural identity and seem to propose a Maoist like cultural revolution as a means to national reconciliation. The reality that we have to live with is that ethnicity and religion in Eritrea are the central determinants of Eritrean geo-politics and socio-economics. Together they determine how the anticipated democracy and development are defined. The only brief democracy that we pride on (of the 1940s) was an ethnic and religious order. The only real reconciliation that laid the grounds for our armed struggle took the form of an agreement on an ethnic and religious power-sharing formula between two ethno-religious leaders: Rev. Woldeab Woldemariam and Sheikh Ibrahim Sultan. The only opposition they faced was from ethnic fanatics: Tigrignas calling for unity with Ethiopia and others calling for division of the country. The ELF period of 1961-1970 was a period of ethnic and religious dominance by �the others� including lowlanders and Moslems, while the EPLF came into existence to protect the Tigrignas and the Christians (as expressed by Isaias Afwerki in �Nihnan Ilamanan�). The bitter civil wars between the ELF and the EPLF (from the 1970s to the present) are about ethnic and religious dominance. Shy away from the ethno-religious blunder exercised by the Tigrignas under the auspices of the PFDJ government and you shy away from any serious quest for justice and democracy in Eritrea.  

Today, the Tigrigna intellectuals on the one hand and the intellectuals from the other ethnic groups on the other hand are speaking different issues: while the first are interested in the institutional aspects of democracy, the second are concerned with its constitutional validity to ethnic and religious unity.  

The so called �National Constitution� of 1997, is nothing but a tool of assimilating �the others�. Article 6, entitled �National Unity and Stability� states that the state shall �ensure national stability and development by � laying political, cultural and moral foundations for national unity and social harmony�. Read between the lines and you will see that the so-called �national unity� in fact refers to ethnic and religious unity. Another part of the article states that the state shall �ensure peaceful and stable conditions by � equitable economic and social progress�. Legitimate questions that may arise with respect to the Article include the following: why should national unity be associated with stability rather than development? The answer is that the Tigrigna perspective embodied in the PFDJ government views the other ethnic groups as a security risk rather than an asset for development. Why should we have �unity in diversity� rather than �diversity in unity�? The answer lies in the view that once a Tigrigna-dominated unity is achieved diversity will disappear and with it all questions of equity. �Diversity in Unity� would be more logical because diversity is objective (God-given) while unity is subjective (man-made), which would say let us first acknowledge our diversity and then negotiate a formula for our unity. Why should �equitable economic and social progress� be an instrument of political stability rather than an end in itself? The answer lies in the same mentality, which listens to you as far as and as hard as you can strike. In totality the so-called Eritrean constitution is a manifestation of those who have vested interests in imposing unity rather than diversity. That exactly is what the PFDJ government is doing. Why should an average �citizen� oppose it? 

The preamble of Dr. Taddesse�s article also includes an expression of despair at the fact that those members of the G15 who managed to stay away from imprisonment (i.e. Mesfin Hagos and Co.) failed below expectations. The reason, in my opinion is that whoever tries to bury his head in the sand and pretend to shy away from viewing the situation in an unconventional setting will but fail below expectations. The concern of the G15 lies in the �institution� and not in the �constitution� and hence right from the start they were nothing more than a more enhanced replication of the PFDJ experience. They failed to answer the question of why should one call for institutionalizing and unconstitutional regime? Given that they rely on the same constituency as the ruling component of the PFDJ, they had no incentive to challenge and discredit the government�s ethnic and religious motivations. There is one thing that they know very well and yet say it to nobody: President Isaias represents real/objective ethnic and religious interests and is not at liberty to divert from the organizational norms of the dominant ethnic and religious group. If God wills and he jeopardizes the ethnic and religious interests of the Tigrignas by proposing a real and just constitution, I assure you he is a dead man. The PFDJ is nothing but a fanatic ethno-religious gang order.   

Any meaningful national dialogue should in my opinion follow the following steps:

1.      Sensible and influential Tigrigna intellectuals including those who had a major role in the making of the current Eritrean reality gather and apologize to the other ethnic and religious groups for any wrongdoing committed on their behalf and vow to rectify the situation and to value diversity.

2.      Sensible and influential intellectuals from non-Tigrigna ethnic groups accept the apologies in good spirit and vow to co-exist with all the Tigrignas in a democratic and united Eritrea.

3.      All Eritrean organizations including political and civil groupings start a dialogue on a power-sharing formula starting with the possibility of dividing Eritrea into three semi-autonomous administrative regions including the Eastern Lowlands, the Western Lowlands and the Highlands.      

My central argument is that the concept of �Our Beloved Nation� is a totalitarian concept that without sufficient controls to guard its misuse may turn into a legitimate instrument of marginalization as is the case today. The only real controls is to empower those who might be victimized with the option of rejecting it all together if it does not meet their expectations. The idea of apologizing is nothing new: the advanced countries apologized to previously enslaved peoples, the Australians apologized to the Aborigines and the South African Whites apologized to previously disadvantaged communities. I even go further to propose that we set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission similar to that of South Africa to apologize for whoever did whatever to whoever.