Author: Semere Andom (iSem)
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Of Water, Women and Wind: The Three Ws of Eritrea
Semere Andom, the child of the Ontario water, wiring from Toronto–fresh is its breeze! The Water Isaias Afwerki told Eritreans that water does not come to where people are, it is the people who should travel to where it is available. He was predictably belligerent in the context of the question given his habitual disrespect
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The Saleh Younis Reader: His Craft and Politics
I would bet that most people if asked to introduce Saleh Younis, they would just say one sentence: Saleh Younis does not need introduction. I disagree. He needs a lot of introduction. And if you want to talk about both his craft and politics, the introduction will be excruciatingly long. So I will skip the
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EU Pays For What It Imported From Isaias
The men and women in the European Union first did what all bureaucracies do: they dithered for months, then they did what Europeans always do: they gave a tyrant a much needed lifeline, siding with the PFDJ, a group of criminals not unlike the Mafia, who are tormenting the Eritrean people. With the 200 million,
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The Great Relapse
Many people pooh-pooh character assassination. And rightly so, but the same people are indifferent about the assassination on life. Both character assassination and life assassination are rampant in PFDJ’s Eritrea. But the moment one harshly criticizes a PFDJ or a former PFDJ higher ranking official, he is accused of character assassination: “that is low, aim
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Currency Change: An Absurd Tipping Point For Disobedience
It is absurd to expect the currency change to be a tipping point for disobedience. In keeping with its founding principles of inflicting the utmost suffering on our people, the PFDJ once again sent shock waves in Eritrea by announcing the currency change. Both the clueless and those in the know offered their conjectures, but
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The Adi-Mengonti Speech: A Commentary And Translation
Commentary: I am a jealous person, but it is not what you are thinking. I am jealous as in “zeyqen’e ay’yweled”, jealous as in, “I am a jealous God.” Both are positive attributes. The Eritrean adage challenges us to seek higher accomplishments by emulating others without malice, and God’s jealousy springs from giving something that
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Eritrean Names: An Anguished Search For The “Bleeding-Age”
The subject of Eritreans is a vast subject straddling ethnic groups and religions, and title of this article could be somewhat misleading. This piece will largely deal with the ethnic group and religion that I intimately know: Tigrinya and Christian names. When I was growing up, my version of ancestoy .com was reciting the lineage
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Thanksgiving Edition: A Ruby Celebrates Sweet Fifteen
The life of an Eritrean in 2015 was riveted by the COIE report, the unprecedented Geneva demonstration against the tyrant, the death of hundreds of Eritreans in the Mediterranean Sea and Europeans Union’s flirtation with the idea of injecting capital into the tills of Eritrea’s dictator to stop the influx of refugee to its shores.
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Eritrea VS. Eritrea: One Citizen’s Internal Dialogue
If there is one fallacy that both PFDJ* and anti-PFDJ Eritreans have in common is their belief that there is one Eritrea. But there are two Eritreas. There is the Eritrea that started out to outlaw the outlaws and to supplant it with laws, but instead it has become an outlaw of the first rate
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Strapping Youth: How Do You Feel About Our Incarceration?
September 18, 2015 will commemorate the 14th year since the G-15 have disappeared into the Eritrean ether. The last count pegged the number of political prisoners to about 10,000. To remember this dark day, Amanuel Eyasu of Assenna interviewed Michael Araya, a former prison guard whom serendipity chose as one of the witnesses of the
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I Am Right!
Have you ever been to Sudan and ordered “Fool” with “jibnna”, “taemmia”, double sesame seed oil and eggs? If you have not, please do. I recommend it. You will obtain your daily dose of the essential food types in one sitting. But it has its drawback: it will make you sluggish and sleepy especially if
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Satire: A Speech By A Candidate For Eritrean Presidency
Over the holidays the de-romantics camp received the following speech given by a notable Ghedli Romantic, which has not been made public. For now, its author will remain a secret. Here is the contents of the speech. Dear compatriots: I am elated to be in this conference under the theme of “No Eritrean left behind
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Negarit Reports from Memory Lane: A Fiction
Of Keren and Love Affairs, Negarit Reports from Memory Lane: A Fiction. Over the years I have captivated my readers with my reports after my travels. This report is also from my travels, but of a different kind: my travels to Memory Lane. As the twilight rays of the Kerenite sun shimmered from the horizon
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Ali Salim’s Confessions: A Satire
Many benevolent Eritreans have doggedly asked me to apologize for my past and after dodging this appeal, I relented by telling them, “write it down and I will sign it”. Now I made that elusive U-Turn yet again, I am back in the sovereign state of “un-apology” because as an economist, I am intimately cognizant
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Al-Nahda Reports From Eritrea: A Satire
My iPod is glued to my ears, my mind multi-tasking and gestating for block buster articles for the next season. I am running on my treadmill, training for my next Marathon , sipping my green tea and thumping through YG’s book titled: “Qualitative and Quantitative Dissection of the Ghedli Romantic Brain: Historical Grand Narrative and
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PFDJ Toronto Mourns Its Tax Collector
The moqSel Gibri[i] Collector was dismissed, today members of the Toronto Chapter of the PFDJ gathered to lick their wounds and to counsel each other. They showed brave faces by invoking old PFDJ slogans such as: “the more we are challenged the more defiant we become and the more our victory is assured against our