THE URGENCY
Who is the Eritrean Intellectual? The other day, I met an elderly Eritrean woman attired in her beautiful traditional dress. We struck a conversation and I quickly learned she had been in the United States for only ten days. She told me about all the mess that is going on back home. It was an open, frank and well thought out conversation. She was also vibrant and full of energy. After telling me that she came here to see her son, I subsequently asked her if she had more kids back home. She said, “I have two daughters, one is doing her national service and I married the second one just before I came here.” I then asked, “Did you marry her to a tegadalay?” She stopped talking to me for a couple of minutes, looked at me eyeball-to-eyeball and angrily asked me, “why would I marry her to a tegadalay?” Cognizant of the fact that I had crossed her threshold, I realized our conversation was reaching a breaking point. I humbly said, “I was just curious to know, sorry!” She calmed down and said assertively, “I did not marry my daughter to a tegadalay; I married her to an Eritrean!” That statement said it all to me! It is obvious our people are totally turned off by warlords.I don’t think our people would have any problem with a warlord who has made a successful self-transformation to become a genuine democratic leader. If the current leadership in Asmara had made that kind of an authentic self transformation early on, there would not be a need to write about it now. On the contrary, the misguided leadership began its agenda of destruction in earnest, at the dawn of our national liberation eleven years ago. More on warlords later. So, who is the Eritrean intellectual? An Eritrean intellectual exhibits the following characteristics: · Any Eritrean who believes in the power of rational and independent thinking and expression. · Any Eritrean who is given to the study, reflection, and speculation of profound issues confronting his/her fellow man. · Any Eritrean who is a leader in his/her own right. · Any Eritrean who values his/her life enough not to submit himself/herself to the will of any warlord or cult leader. · Any Eritrean who is determined to stand for the interests of the people no matter what. If you exhibit the above characteristics, you are an Eritrean intellectual and this article is addressed to you. The purpose of this series of articles is fourfold: 1. To briefly review the historic marginalization of the Eritrean intellectual (Part 1). 2. To acquaint the reader with the fundamentals of national and leadership crisis in Eritrea (Part 2). 3. To provide insights on how Eritrea can be saved by a new democratic leadership (Part 3). 4. To challenge the Eritrean intellectual community to craft creative solutions to specific core issues bedeviling the nation, and in so doing get involved in the noble task of nation-building (Part 4). Intellectualism in the Eritrean political panorama need not be measured by degrees or diplomas; it is measured by how much you can rationally safeguard and uplift the interests of your people because you care. Our elders used to say, “kab mehros aemro (Common sense is by far better than education).” How true that statement is. Allow me to employ and paraphrase this native wisdom to functionally define an intellectual. An intellectual is one who utilizes his/her education in the service of common sense (mehro mes aemro). Marginalization of the Eritrean Intellectual It is to be remembered that visionary compatriots who committed themselves to the struggle for independence were summarily massacred around the mid-1970’s. This group of university students who sacrificed their academic careers for Eritrea’s struggle for independence were given the pejorative name of MenkaE. Employing the brute force of the peasantry (cheguar danga), Isaias annihilated them and any Eritrean who showed signs of supporting them. In fact, any fighter who showed hunger for knowledge and intellectual endeavor was a target. Thus, the rest of the educated fighter community chose to hibernate by living a double life based on artificially mimicking the life of the peasantry in order to survive the onslaught of Isaias’ sinister campaign against Eritrean intellectuals in the liberated areas. Some succeeded and others were destined to be targets of the campaign no matter what they tried to do. The way these compatriots were eliminated is gruesome indeed! Now, there is a feeling among Isaias and his cronies, however naïve, that the biddho-shaebia campaign (a cesspool of Internet cheguar danga) against Eritrean intellectuals would be a sort of instant replay of the mid-1970’s with the same outcome: the marginalization of Eritrean intellectuals-Part 2. In reality, the biddho-shaebia offensive is definitely not sufficient to achieve a happy ending for the mercenary practitioners as well as for their GoE funders. At least, not sufficient enough to preclude Eritrea’s slippage into chaos and total instability on one hand, and the fire power of the Eritrean intellectuals in their effectiveness on the cyber communication on the other. Moreover, such a theatrical sleeze campaign is fostering immense hostility on the part of the common citizen, who values the importance of education and common sense, and denigrates with passion, the utter mismanagement of Eritrea by a culture of “cheguar danga,” instituted and perpetuated by none other than Mr. Isaias himself. All compatriots know that the sustained punishment bestowed upon our people in the last eleven years have never been followed up by a dramatic reward. After all, who, including its own fighters, can choose to forge a sustained alliance with a government that knows only how to deliver havoc and destruction? |
