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Celebrating the Hague Ruling, a legacy of the past |
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By Semere T Habtemariam -
Apr 24, 2002
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"War is beyond words horrible" said Winston Churchill. Life in the trenches is hard and unbearable. Although, in certain instances, it is a necessity, there is no glory in killing people at all. The probability that there is no justice in warfare is so unsettling and unnerving for those with a sense of conscience. War has a dehumanizing effect on all involved parties and that is why for the most part, the life of the military is generally regarded as a bad life, or as St. Anselm would aptly call it "militia or rather malitia". It is in the nature of the business of war to deprive people of their autonomy and their dignity. The ideal soldier is one with a child-like obedience, deference and one who surrenders to the will of the authority. In times of war, moral judgment and conscience are the first casualties. The business of soldiering does not need independent thinkers. It is essential, and rightfully so, to create an environment among the army where the sole preoccupation is to shoot the enemy. Soldiers should not be encouraged to think about the wisdom of their mission, about their fallen comrades and their horrible life in the trenches. It is simply not good for them. Governments have realized the importance of this psychological component of war. After witnessing carnage and massacre (that is what modern day wars are), the last thing soldiers need is time for a somber reflection. It is important to diffuse, dilute and displace the feeling of anxiety, fear, sadness, loss, deprivation, and trauma, with some meaningless but effective physical indulgences such as sex, dancing and music for a temporary relief and fleeting joy. It is a great defense mechanism and it works all the time. I read not long ago about a group of Japanese women who were forced to provide sex to the army during WWII and are now suing the government for acknowledgement of wrong doing and compensation. This practice used to be common all over the world and is not unique to Japan. Now it is not an exaggeration to say EPLF is guayla and guayla is EPLF. (guayla is the Tigrinya word for a festive party). Traditionally, the Eritrean society is very conservative. The social and moral conservatism is deeply embedded in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions and particularly the Tewahdo and Khatimi sects. What is common between the two sects: they have been well integrated into and absorbed by the local culture to the point of being indigenous religions. The two sects are as Eritrean as the majestic camel that graces the Nacfa. The guayla is not "wild party", although, in some corners of EPLF it could be. It is a cultural event that has been tempered by an age-old Eritrean tempered religiousness. It is the most sanitized form of dancing and the least offensive even to the people of the rope. Although, the religious priests and shieks have not completely sanctioned it, it is a cultural event that they are most comfortable to ignore and look the other way. The EPLF has completely popularized the guayla. The EPLF has rendered the guayla vulgar, crude and corrupting, but yet popular. There were no songs in the revolutionary songs of the EPLF. The English word "song" is deceptive for it could mean "derfi" and "mezmur". Mezmur has a higher moral connotation, as in Mezmur Dawit for Christians or Zubur for Muslims. The ELF, on the other hand, had produced some timeless revolutionary songs that were truly "mezmur". (For those that are not fortunate enough to be familiar with ELF songs, you can satisfy your curiosity by visiting Nharenet.com). It was common for EPLF fighters to engage in guayla after heriocally fighting the enemy. At the end of a day's war and finishing burying fallen comrades, the tegadelti would then seek temporary relief by drinking dimu-dimu, sewa and sweating in many rounds of guayla. That was the best way to stay sane amid the atrocities of war and the horrendous bloodshed. That was their defense mechanism against grief, sadness and their attempt at forgetting the unforgettable and unspeakable traumas of war. This tegadalai culture is good for the tegadelti, but it is not something you want to transfer and export to the rest of your civilian population. During the armed struggle, there was a fine line between a tegadalai and a gebar, and I can certainly understand how the tegadalai culture became the culture, but after independence there was a need for Eritrea to go back to its moral and cultural roots. I can't fathom, why today, Eritreans living thousands of miles away from Eritrea should do "teTenqeq, seT bel, 'irfti" during moments of silence in memory of our martyrs. The moment of silence is just enough. This is just one of the glaringly visible examples of the tegadalai culture that we need to discard and bury once and for all. There is no need of militarizing our culture. It is in this context that I see the recent guaylas that celebrate the Hague ruling. I see no reason what-so-ever for the celebration of the event. No body has won, but, in the tradition of our tegadalai culture, we've to celebrate, in order to momentarily escape the horror of war and its devastating consequences. There is this psychological desire to forget the unforgettable. At least, the tegadelti never had a guayla before burying their fallen heroes, but now, we have wasted about 19 thousands of our best in what DIA called a "stupid" war, and we did not even have the decency to tell families the death of their beloved ones. What a shame!!! We lost the war militarily when the Ethiopian army penetrated deep into our land, way beyond the disputed areas, into the Barentus and the Tessenays. We lost the war when 1/3 of our people were displaced and fled the country, seeking refugee into the Sudan. We lost the war, when many of our youth fled to the Sudan in panic from Sawa and the trenches after seeing the Ethiopian bombing planes having a picnic inside Eritrea's sovereign territories. We lost the war when Pakistan was the only country in the world that demanded Ethiopia's withdrawal from Eritrea's sovereign territories. We lost the war when the world in unison and in its uncharacteristic silence left us on our own to learn the hard way. Eritrea lost the war when it became the pariah among the diplomatic communities. We lost the war diplomatically, militarily and morally and what are we celebrating? Nothing. But in the legacy of our tegadelti, let's rock the gauyla, even if there is no dimu-dimu to go with it. There is one problem with this: we are not tegadelti and for some of us, the most we came to witnessing war is the movie "Private Ryan". Some are saying that the Hague ruling was a vindication to DIA and Eritrea. By granting Badme to Eritrea, the court has clearly showing who was the aggressor, goes the convoluted logic. This is just a futile exercise of rationalization and self-deception. The Eritrean government's official position has always been that the aggression did not start in Badme and that Badme was the culmination of a series of aggressions that started in Adi Murug, Ali-tena, Bada and others. Now all these villages or towns have been given to the Ethiopians, and what does it show about who the aggressor was according to the above-mentioned convoluted logic. Now, I'm not a bit interested in knowing who started the war, for what it is worth, the responsibility could rest on an over zealous local commander, but, the focus should be on how it was handled by both governments once the fire was started. As an Eritrean, I'm deeply ashamed of the way the government or more appropriately DIA has handled the conflict. We had ample opportunities to have the Hague decision in 1998 rather than in April 13, 2002. As far as the Ethiopians, let them have their own somber reflections. |
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