One Year Later: Why This Column Exists—And Why It Must Continue

On July 25, 2025, after a long hiatus, I published my first column at Awate.com under the simple title Semere’s Sunday Perspective. I did not know then that I was embarking on a year‑long intellectual journey—fifty‑two consecutive weeks of writing, reflection, and argumentation. I only knew that Eritrea’s crisis ran deeper than politics and that our public discourse was thinner than our suffering. I hated the status quo, and in one of my later columns, A Regime We Hate, an Opposition We Despise: Why Eritrea Needs a New Political Imagination, I tried to give voice to that frustration. I felt compelled to write because silence, in times like ours, is a form of complicity. What pushed me to add my voice to the opposition was not a political agenda but a moral outrage that refused to subside. I remain astonished by the dearth of political thought in our society. There was no meaningful ideological difference between the EPLF and the ELF, just as there is little substantive difference today between the regime and the mainstream opposition, save for the minor exception of those factions that explicitly traffic in identity politics. This cannot be healthy for any society, and it must change.

We need to speak up; we need to write. But we must also do so with an even deeper sense of responsibility. In a moment when Eritrea’s intellectual landscape is thin and its moral vocabulary is fractured, writing is not an act of self‑expression—it is an act of stewardship. Words can clarify or confuse, illuminate or mislead, heal or wound. If we are to reclaim our national narrative, we must write with discipline, with integrity, and with an awareness that our people have paid too high a price for careless rhetoric, shallow analysis, and leadership that confuses cleverness with wisdom and short-term flexibility with strategy. ኢሰያስ ካብ ኣብ ዓራት ኣብ መትከል ዝገላበጦ ይበዝሕ.

A year later, I can say this with clarity: this column has become an attempt to restore seriousness to Eritrean public life—a space where history, theology, sociology, and moral reasoning can meet without fear or factional distortion. It has been a thankless task at times, but never a pointless one. In fact, I wrote a column titled Eritrea’s Missing Architects: The Intellectual Void Behind a Crippled Nation‑Building precisely to underscore the importance of this intellectual endeavor.

1. A Commitment Made—And Kept

When I told Awate’s publisher and editor, Mr. Saleh Gadi Johar, that I wanted to resurrect Perspective as a weekly Sunday column, he was understandably concerned. A weekly column is not a hobby; it is a discipline. It demands time, emotional stamina, and intellectual consistency. He asked whether I could truly commit to it and invest the necessary resources to see it through. He was speaking from the wisdom of experience.

I told him I could commit for six months and then reassess.

Twelve months later, I am glad to report that I kept my promise. I wrote every week—sometimes from airports, sometimes from hotel rooms, sometimes without access to my home library, and often under the pressure of business, travel, and fatigue. It was not easy, but I did what I had to do, and I am grateful that I did.

And although I requested Awate’s internal analytics, I did not receive them in time to see what those metrics reveal. Still, I can say this with confidence: the readership of Semere’s Sunday Perspective in particular—and Awate’s in general—is broader and more engaged today than it was a year ago. Columns circulate on social media, are shared in diaspora forums, and occasionally appear—sometimes unattributed—on other websites. I have even been told that many of those who read online articles inside Eritrea are none other than the so‑called ministers, who use them as a quiet escape from ennui. (Most military leaders, by contrast, have no intellectual interest whatsoever and spend an obscene amount of time playing Rummy—or, in its popular Italian name, Rumino.)

Readers write privately to discuss arguments, challenge assumptions, or seek clarification. I have gained new acquaintances, some of whom I now have the pleasure of speaking with over the phone. That alone tells me the work is reaching people.

Besides, I am a staunch believer in the old saying: ኣይትንፍዑ እምበር ኣይትብዝሑስ ኣይመርገምን — do not be discouraged, do not be overwhelmed, do not despair. It is not the number but ingenuity that matters. All it took was twelve apostles for the Gospel to reach the four corners of the globe. Influence does not require an army; it requires conviction, consistency, and clarity of purpose.

II. What I Have Tried to Do

From the beginning, my aim was not merely to comment on events (though I have done some of that too) but to diagnose the deeper forces shaping Eritrea’s trajectory. Week after week, the columns circled around a set of interlocking themes:

1. The Anatomy of Eritrean Authoritarianism

I have argued that Eritrea’s political crisis is not an accident but the culmination of long historical arcs — the militarization of civic life; a political ideology that prizes uniformity at all costs (ምሳና ሆየ ዘይበለ ካባና ይፈለ); an ingrained intolerance of dissent (ወይ ድላዮም ግበረሎም ወይ ዓዶም ሕደገሎም); the erosion of institutional culture; the triumph of fear over citizenship; and the steady atomization of society. Layered atop these is a long and protracted liberation struggle in which the cost was wildly disproportionate to the gains, rendering victory almost hollow and leaving the country a land of many victims and countless unsung heroes.

Authoritarianism in Eritrea is not merely a regime; it is a social condition. The sad truth is that Eritrea’s authoritarianism is not exceptional at all; it is the predictable trajectory of a leftist‑oriented liberation front that has followed the same old, familiar arc from ideological militancy to bureaucratic despotism. What separates the Eritrean regime from the rest is its extremeness—extreme in its mediocrity and incompetence, extreme in its cruelty and iron‑fisted rule, and extreme in its lack of vision and its stubborn refusal to learn from either African history or its own.

A cursory look at modern Eritrean history reveals, almost uncannily, the parallels between the political alignments of the 1940s and 1950s and those of today—who stands in opposition and who aligns with the regime. The pro‑independence bloc of that era was composed largely of Muslims and Christians from Akeleguzay and so is much of the modern opposition. Sadly, the pro‑independence bloc lost then, and the current opposition is not faring well now. It is a story begging to be told, and we need to probe deeper.

Many readers expressed appreciation for my series Giants and Lilliputians, in which I examined the absolute rule of Isaias Afwerki through a comparative lens with Haile Selassie. The point was never to equate the two men or to suggest that one was better than the other; both were terrible and placed the nation on a Morton’s Fork. Rather, the aim was to show how patterns of unchecked power, institutional decay, and personalized rule recur across eras when societies fail to cultivate the habits of citizenship and the safeguards of accountability.

2. Demographic Collapse as the Central National Emergency

Long before it became fashionable to speak of “demographics,” I insisted that the mass flight of Eritrean youth is the defining existential threat. (Demographics, of course, has long been the rallying cry of certain jihadist organizations—movements whose fortunes rise and fall in direct proportion to external sponsorship—but that is a different and darker discourse.) A nation can survive poverty, war, and isolation; it cannot survive the disappearance of its young. This theme has been the spine of my writing. When one sees more Eritrean youth in the streets of Kampala than in Asmera, one cannot escape the sense that the Rubicon has been crossed. The visual contrast alone is a national indictment.

Yet despair is not destiny. Nothing in life is inevitable. Just as the regime’s myriad mistakes produced the current paralysis, a new series of right decisions—grounded in moral clarity, institutional reform, and a renewed national imagination—could usher in a different and far better future. Nations decline through choices, and they recover through choices. Eritrea is no exception.

Although I cannot think of any reason why the incompetent and aging dictator of Adi Halo should remain in power for even one more day, I have equally cautioned against adopting an apocalyptic mindset. Recklessness is not a strategy. We are waiting, but waiting alone is not enough. We must be proactive, disciplined, and far more responsible, ensuring that Eritrea does not go from bad to worse, as has tragically happened in several neighboring countries. The goal is not simply to end a dictatorship; it is to prevent national collapse and to lay the foundations for a stable, humane, and forward‑looking republic. This was the essence of The Day After: Preparing Eritrea for its Most Dangerous Transition.

3. The Tewahdo Church as a Civilizational Barometer

Although my last two columns focused explicitly on the Church, the theme has been present throughout the year: the Tewahdo Church mirrors the nation’s condition. Omnipresent in the rank and file yet outnumbered in the upper echelons of power, its marginalization is not incidental but structural. Out of the roughly ten ministers who served in the Haile Selassie government, only one was Tewahdo. The same pattern is evident in the leadership of both the ELF and the EPLF/PFDJ. And although the regional identities of Akeleguzay, Hamasien, and Seraye have long been part of Kebessa’s historical texture, the record does not show any meaningful lack of unity among them. This does not mean there were no land‑based inter‑regional or intra‑regional disputes; but one is compelled to ask why the non‑Tewahdo elites of the 1940s and 1950s — and their latter‑day inheritors — made regionalism such a central part of their political calculus. The regionalism among Muslims is less visible because it overlaps with tribalism, yet it is the principal reason behind the many divisions within the Muslim community, beginning with the 1946 split of the Eritrean Muslim League.

We must also ask why regionalism was so pronounced in the PLF/EPLF, where its Christian constituents in the first decade of its existence were drawn primarily from Hamasien and Akeleguzay — and, on the other hand, why no similar phenomenon emerged in the ELF, such as the Menkae and Yemeen ruptures, even though the majority of its fighters were from Seraye, a region that stands as the bastion of Tewahdo identity and the historic home of Eritrea’s great monasteries. These contrasts are not trivial. They reveal how political actors selectively weaponized regional identity while simultaneously ignoring the deeper, more consequential reality: the systematic marginalization of the Tewahdo community across education, representation, and power structures.

The Tewahdos’ youth crisis, institutional fragility, and political vulnerability are not ecclesiastical problems alone; they are national symptoms. Throughout the year, I have shown with clarity that the Tewahdo community was the primary victim of colonization and that its enduring marginalization is evident in education, representation, and power structures. For nearly two millennia, the Tewahdo tradition served as the unifying force of most of present-day Eritrea but particularly the Kebessa — binding Akeleguzay, Hamasien, and Seraye into a shared civilizational identity that transcended parochial loyalties. That unifying force must once again rise above narrow regionalism and reclaim its historic role as the moral and cultural anchor of the nation.

4. The Moral and Intellectual Bankruptcy of the Eritrean Elite

I have written bluntly about the diaspora’s performative activism, the absence of moral courage among political actors, and the intellectual laziness that plagues our discourse—and about the fatalism of those who have sought refuge in religion, as if human beings were stripped of agency. Eritrea’s tragedy is not only political; it is intellectual. We suffer from a profound deficit of serious thinking, a civic culture that has never learned to interrogate itself. There is no national movement without some measure of nationalism and patriotism, yet among certain segments of the opposition there is a glaring deficit of both.

This already fragile intellectual culture has been further eroded by omnipresent social media, which numbs people and stunts their intellectual development. Even highly educated individuals squander precious time on platforms that reward impulsiveness over reflection, mistaking noise for relevance and clicks and views for genuine engagement. Writing, however, remains the highest form of thinking—and thinking is an arduous discipline most people are not comfortable with. This is precisely why we need public intellectuals and a few principled public spaces. It is counter‑productive to criticize the opposition for failing to unite if we ourselves are not modeling unity. The easiest thing I could do is start my own website, but it would also be the most misguided. Our responsibility is to write on platforms like Awate and strengthen them. That, to me, is clarity about public engagement and a sober understanding of what responsibility requires.

5. The Necessity of Historical Literacy

Every column has insisted on this: Eritreans cannot understand their present without understanding their past. Historical amnesia is a political weapon. Without historical grounding, we become easy prey for propaganda, nostalgia, and despair. Throughout the year, I have shown the great damage the Nhnan Elamanan manifesto inflicted on national unity, and I have argued that unless we confront and rectify its legacy, the project of national cohesion will remain incomplete at best. We must reclaim the founding principles and vision of the Eritrean national liberation struggle—before they were contaminated by ideology, factional politics, and the distortions that later reshaped our national narrative. Only by returning to those original commitments can Eritrea rebuild a civic identity rooted in truth, dignity, and shared purpose. The Eritrean liberation struggle, founded by Eritreans who happened to be Muslims, was anchored in the pursuit of independence, self‑rule, and democracy—the very values that were meant to pave the way for a brighter future.

History helps explain, for instance, why the ELF evolved into a far more open, pluralistic, and discourse‑oriented organization than its ideologically identical twin, the EPLF. Neither was a democratic institution — no one expects armed liberation fronts to be — but the variation between them is striking and deserves far deeper scrutiny. We need to write history, but not in the fashion of Alemseged Tesfai’s. His trilogy, although an important contribution, reads more like the work of a journalist than a historian: no insights unearthed, no deep analysis attempted, no patterns deciphered. It reads more like “the first rough draft of history.”

6. The Search for a Moral Center

Beneath the analysis lies a deeper question: What does it mean to be an Eritrean in moral terms? What obligations do we owe each other? How do we rebuild a society that has lost its ethical compass? This moral inquiry has been the quiet engine of the column. But morality alone is insufficient unless we develop the institutions and culture capable of sustaining it.

7. The Call for Intellectual and Moral Resistance

I have argued repeatedly that Eritrea’s struggle is not only political—it is intellectual and moral. One Year Later: Why This Column Exists—And Why It Must Continue.

On July 25, 2025, after a long hiatus, I published my first column at Awate.com under the simple title Semere’s Sunday Perspective. I did not know then that I was embarking on a yearlong intellectual journey, fifty-two consecutive weeks of writing, reflection, and argumentation. I only knew that Eritrea’s crisis ran deeper than politics, and that our public discourse was thinner than our suffering. I hated the status quo, and in one of my later columns, A Regime We Hate, an Opposition We Despise: Why Eritrea Needs a New Political Imagination, I tried to give voice to that frustration. I felt compelled to write because silence, in times like ours, is a form of complicity. What pushed me to add my voice to the opposition was not a political agenda but a moral outrage that refused to subside. I remain astonished by the dearth of political thought in our society. There was no meaningful ideological difference between the EPLF and the ELF, just as there is little substantive difference today between the regime and the mainstream opposition, save for the minor exception of those factions that explicitly traffic in identity politics. This cannot be healthy for any society, and it must change.

We need to speak up; we need to write. But we must also do so with an even deeper sense of responsibility. In a moment when Eritrea’s intellectual landscape is thin and its moral vocabulary is fractured, writing is not an act of self-expression—it is an act of stewardship. Words can clarify or confuse, illuminate or mislead, heal or wound. If we are to reclaim our national narrative, we must write with discipline, with integrity, and with an awareness that our people have paid too high a price for careless rhetoric, shallow analysis, and leadership that confuses cleverness with wisdom and short-term flexibility with strategy. ኢሰያስ ካብ ኣብ ዓራት ኣብ መትከል ዝገላበጦ ይበዝሕ.

A year later, I can say this with clarity: this column has become an attempt to restore seriousness to Eritrean public life—a space where history, theology, sociology, and moral reasoning can meet without fear or factional distortion. It has been a thankless task at times, but never a pointless one. In fact, I wrote a column titled Eritrea’s Missing Architects: The Intellectual Void Behind a Crippled Nation Building precisely to underscore the importance of this intellectual endeavor.

I. A Commitment Made—And Kept

When I told Awate’s publisher and editor, Mr. Saleh Gadi Johar, that I wanted to resurrect Perspective as a weekly Sunday column, he was understandably concerned. A weekly column is not a hobby; it is a discipline. It demands time, emotional stamina, and intellectual consistency. He asked whether I could truly commit to it and invest the necessary resources to see it through. He was speaking from the wisdom of experience.

I told him I could commit for six months and then reassess.

Twelve months later, I am glad to report that I kept my promise. I wrote every week—sometimes from airports, sometimes from hotel rooms, sometimes without access to my home library, and often under the pressure of business, travel, and fatigue. It was not easy, but I did what I had to do, and I am grateful that I did.

And although I requested Awate’s internal analytics, I did not receive them in time to see what those metrics reveal. Still, I can say this with confidence: the readership of Semere’s Sunday Perspective in particular—and Awate’s in general—is broader and more engaged today than it was a year ago. Columns circulate on social media, are shared in diaspora forums, and occasionally appear—sometimes unattributed—on other websites. I have even been told that many of those who read online articles inside Eritrea are none other than the so-called ministers, who use them as a quiet escape from ennui. (Most military leaders, by contrast, have no intellectual interest whatsoever and spend an obscene amount of time playing Rummy—or, in its popular Italian name, Rumino.)
Readers write privately to discuss arguments, challenge assumptions, or seek clarification. I have gained new acquaintances, some of whom I now have the pleasure of speaking with over the phone. That alone tells me the work is reaching people.

Besides, I am a staunch believer in the old saying: ኣይትንፍዑ እምበር ኣይትብዝሑስ ኣይመርገምን — do not be discouraged, do not be overwhelmed, do not despair. It is not the number but ingenuity that matters. All it took was twelve apostles for the Gospel to reach the four corners of the globe. Influence does not require an army; it requires conviction, consistency, and clarity of purpose.

II. What I Have Tried to Do

From the beginning, my aim was not merely to comment on events (though I have done some of that too) but to diagnose the deeper forces shaping Eritrea’s trajectory. Week after week, the columns circled around a set of interlocking themes:

1. The Anatomy of Eritrean Authoritarianism

I have argued that Eritrea’s political crisis is not an accident but the culmination of long historical arcs — the militarization of civic life; a political ideology that prizes uniformity at all costs (ምሳና ሆየ ዘይበለ ካባና ይፈለ); an ingrained intolerance of dissent (ወይ ድላዮም ግበረሎም ወይ ዓዶም ሕደገሎም); the erosion of institutional culture; the triumph of fear over citizenship; and the steady atomization of society. Layered atop these is a long and protracted liberation struggle in which the cost was wildly disproportionate to the gains, rendering victory almost hollow and leaving the country a land of many victims and countless unsung heroes.

Authoritarianism in Eritrea is not merely a regime; it is a social condition. The sad truth is that Eritrea’s authoritarianism is not exceptional at all; it is the predictable trajectory of a leftist-oriented liberation front that has followed the same old, familiar arc from ideological militancy to bureaucratic despotism. What separates the Eritrean regime from the rest is its extremeness—extreme in its mediocrity and incompetence, extreme in its cruelty and iron-fisted rule, and extreme in its lack of vision and its stubborn refusal to learn from either African history or its own.

A cursory look at modern Eritrean history reveals, almost uncannily, the parallels between the political alignments of the 1940s and 1950s and those of today—who stands in opposition and who aligns with the regime. The pro-independence bloc of that era was composed largely of Muslims and Christians from Akeleguzay and so is much of the modern opposition. Sadly, the pro-independence bloc lost then, and the current opposition is not faring well now. It is a story begging to be told, and we need to probe deeper.

Many readers expressed appreciation for my series Giants and Lilliputians, in which I examined the absolute rule of Isaias Afwerki through a comparative lens with Haile Selassie. The point was never to equate the two men or to suggest that one was better than the other; both were terrible and placed the nation on a Morton’s Fork. Rather, the aim was to show how patterns of unchecked power, institutional decay, and personalized rule recur across eras when societies fail to cultivate the habits of citizenship and the safeguards of accountability.

2. Demographic Collapse as the Central National Emergency

Long before it became fashionable to speak of “demographics,” I insisted that the mass flight of Eritrean youth is the defining existential threat. (Demographics, of course, has long been the rallying cry of certain jihadist organizations—movements whose fortunes rise and fall in direct proportion to external sponsorship—but that is a different and darker discourse.) A nation can survive poverty, war, and isolation; it cannot survive the disappearance of its young. This theme has been the spine of my writing. When one sees more Eritrean youth in the streets of Kampala than in Asmera, one cannot escape the sense that the Rubicon has been crossed. The visual contrast alone is a national indictment.

Yet despair is not destiny. Nothing in life is inevitable. Just as the regime’s myriad mistakes produced the current paralysis, a new series of right decisions—grounded in moral clarity, institutional reform, and a renewed national imagination—could usher in a different and far better future. Nations decline through choices, and they recover through choices. Eritrea is no exception.
Although I cannot think of any reason why the incompetent and aging dictator of Adi Halo should remain in power for even one more day, I have equally cautioned against adopting an apocalyptic mindset. Recklessness is not a strategy. We are waiting, but waiting alone is not enough. We must be proactive, disciplined, and far more responsible, ensuring that Eritrea does not go from bad to worse, as has tragically happened in several neighboring countries. The goal is not simply to end a dictatorship; it is to prevent national collapse and to lay the foundations for a stable, humane, and forward-looking republic. This was the essence of The Day After: Preparing Eritrea for its Most Dangerous Transition.

3. The Tewahdo Church as a Civilizational Barometer

Although my last two columns focused explicitly on the Church, the theme has been present throughout the year: the Tewahdo Church mirrors the nation’s condition. Omnipresent in the rank and file yet outnumbered in the upper echelons of power, its marginalization is not incidental but structural. Out of the roughly ten ministers who served in the Haile Selassie government, only one was Tewahdo. The same pattern is evident in the leadership of both the ELF and the EPLF/PFDJ. And although the regional identities of Akeleguzay, Hamasien, and Seraye have long been part of Kebessa’s historical texture, the record does not show any meaningful lack of unity among them. This does not mean there were no land based inter regional or intra regional disputes; but one is compelled to ask why the non Tewahdo elites of the 1940s and 1950s — and their latter day inheritors — made regionalism such a central part of their political calculus. The regionalism among Muslims is less visible because it overlaps with tribalism, yet it is the principal reason behind the many divisions within the Muslim community, beginning with the 1946 split of the Eritrean Muslim League.

We must also ask why regionalism was so pronounced in the PLF/EPLF, where its Christian constituents in the first decade of its existence were drawn primarily from Hamasien and Akeleguzay — and, on the other hand, why no similar phenomenon emerged in the ELF, such as the Menkae and Yemeen ruptures, even though the majority of its fighters were from Seraye, a region that stands as the bastion of Tewahdo identity and the historic home of Eritrea’s great monasteries. These contrasts are not trivial. They reveal how political actors selectively weaponized regional identity while simultaneously ignoring the deeper, more consequential reality: the systematic marginalization of the Tewahdo community across education, representation, and power structures.

The Tewahdos’ youth crisis, institutional fragility, and political vulnerability are not ecclesiastical problems alone; they are national symptoms. Throughout the year, I have shown with clarity that the Tewahdo community was the primary victim of colonization and that its enduring marginalization is evident in education, representation, and power structures. For nearly two millennia, the Tewahdo tradition served as the unifying force of most of present-day Eritrea but particularly the Kebessa — binding Akeleguzay, Hamasien, and Seraye into a shared civilizational identity that transcended parochial loyalties. That unifying force must once again rise above narrow regionalism and reclaim its historic role as the moral and cultural anchor of the nation.

4. The Moral and Intellectual Bankruptcy of the Eritrean Elite

I have written bluntly about the diaspora’s performative activism, the absence of moral courage among political actors, and the intellectual laziness that plagues our discourse—and about the fatalism of those who have sought refuge in religion, as if human beings were stripped of agency. Eritrea’s tragedy is not only political; it is intellectual. We suffer from a profound deficit of serious thinking, a civic culture that has never learned to interrogate itself. There is no national movement without some measure of nationalism and patriotism, yet among certain segments of the opposition there is a glaring deficit of both.

This already fragile intellectual culture has been further eroded by omnipresent social media, which numbs people and stunts their intellectual development. Even highly educated individuals squander precious time on platforms that reward impulsiveness over reflection, mistaking noise for relevance and clicks and views for genuine engagement. Writing, however, remains the highest form of thinking—and thinking is an arduous discipline most people are not comfortable with. This is precisely why we need public intellectuals and a few principled public spaces. It is counterproductive to criticize the opposition for failing to unite if we ourselves are not modeling unity. The easiest thing I could do is start my own website, but it would also be the most misguided. Our responsibility is to write on platforms like Awate and strengthen them. That, to me, is clarity about public engagement and a sober understanding of what responsibility requires.

5. The Necessity of Historical Literacy

Every column has insisted on this: Eritreans cannot understand their present without understanding their past. Historical amnesia is a political weapon. Without historical grounding, we become easy prey for propaganda, nostalgia, and despair. Throughout the year, I have shown the great damage the Nhnan Elamanan manifesto inflicted on national unity, and I have argued that unless we confront and rectify its legacy, the project of national cohesion will remain incomplete at best. We must reclaim the founding principles and vision of the Eritrean national liberation struggle—before they were contaminated by ideology, factional politics, and the distortions that later reshaped our national narrative. Only by returning to those original commitments can Eritrea rebuild a civic identity rooted in truth, dignity, and shared purpose. The Eritrean liberation struggle, founded by Eritreans who happened to be Muslims, was anchored in the pursuit of independence, self-rule, and democracy—the very values that were meant to pave the way for a brighter future.

History helps explain, for instance, why the ELF evolved into a far more open, pluralistic, and discourse-oriented organization than its ideologically identical twin, the EPLF. Neither was a democratic institution—no one expects armed liberation fronts to be—but the variation between them is striking and deserves far deeper scrutiny. We need to write history, but not in the fashion of Alemseged Tesfai’s. His trilogy, although an important contribution, reads more like the work of a journalist than a historian: no insights unearthed, no deep analysis attempted, no patterns deciphered. It reads more like “the first rough draft of history.”

6. The Search for a Moral Center

Beneath the analysis lies a deeper question: What does it mean to be an Eritrean in moral terms? What obligations do we owe each other? How do we rebuild a society that has lost its ethical compass? This moral inquiry has been the quiet engine of the column. But morality alone is insufficient unless we develop the institutions and culture capable of sustaining it.

7. The Call for Intellectual and Moral Resistance

I have argued repeatedly that Eritrea’s struggle is not only political—it is intellectual and moral. The regime survives not only through coercion but also through confusion, fear, and the collapse of civic imagination. Only clarity can break that. This is why I wrote A New Political Imagination for Eritrea.

III. What Influence This Work May Have Had

Influence in a fractured intellectual ecosystem like ours is rarely loud. It is cumulative, subtle, and often invisible. But certain signs are unmistakable:

1. Agenda Setting

A reader recently wrote to me: “Topics that were once peripheral—demographic collapse, ecclesiastical independence, youth flight—are now coming to the surface. That shift did not happen by accident. You and a few like you are responsible for it.”

2. Vocabulary Creation

Readers, activists, and commentators increasingly use the terms, distinctions, and frameworks introduced in this and other articles. Influence often begins with language. On this point, I agree with our young scholar, Dr. Filmon Wolde: any serious national project begins with carefully chosen language and grammar that reflects the vision and the culture needed to sustain it.

3. Elite Uptake

There is no precise way to measure how many people consult these analyses to understand their institutional challenges. But on several occasions, I have learned that scholars and academics cite them, and younger readers use them to orient themselves historically and politically.

4. Narrative Correction

A few readers have written privately to say that these columns have forced them to reconsider long held assumptions about Eritrea’s past, present, and future. That, in itself, is the beginning of intellectual change. On occasion, people writing from inside Eritrea have encouraged me to keep pushing forward. That is more than enough to keep me going.

5. Moral Impact

If readers feel discomfort, urgency, or clarity after reading these columns, then the work has done its job. Moral agitation is a form of influence.

IV. Why This Work Matters

Eritrea’s crisis is not only political. It is civilizational. We are living through:
• A demographic collapse
• A moral collapse
• An institutional collapse
• A cultural collapse

And yet our discourse remains shallow, reactive, and emotionally driven. We have activists, martyrs, and political veterans—but very few public intellectuals willing to diagnose the soul of the nation.

This column has tried to fill that void.

It has insisted that Eritrea’s problems require:
• Historical literacy
• Theological clarity
• Sociological insight
• Moral seriousness
• Intellectual courage

Without these, political change will be cosmetic.

V. Should I Continue?

This work has demanded discipline, time, and emotional stamina. It has often felt thankless. But the question is not whether it is easy—the question is whether it is necessary.

And the answer is yes.

If Eritrea is ever to rebuild itself, it will need a community of thinkers—not just critics, not just activists, but serious minds committed to truth, clarity, and moral responsibility.

Awate and its columns can be a home for that community.

VI. An Invitation

As I enter the second year of this project, I want to extend an invitation:

To young writers, clergy, scholars, professionals, and thoughtful laypeople—I invite you to join this intellectual and moral struggle.
My gratitude goes to the few who have stood with us over the last twelve months: Dr. Filmon Wolde (11), Dr. Sadia Hassanen(6), Dr. Tekeste Negash (2), Dr. Araya Debessay (2), Dr. Abdulrazig Osman (1), Dr. Bereket Habte Selassie (1), Younis Omer-Ali Salim(4), Dawit Mesfin (3), Burhan Ali (1), Semere Andom iSem (2), Dr. Mohammed Kheir (1), Zein Shokai (1), Beyan Negash (7), Ismael Ibraheem Al Mukhtar (1), Abdu Fagir (1), ananymous writers under Awatestaff (5), and last but not least, Saleh Gadi Johar (34). Their voices — principled, courageous, and unafraid of complexity — have enriched the conversation and strengthened the collective pursuit of truth.

Write. Reflect. Challenge. Contribute. Think with seriousness. Speak with honesty. Resist despair.

Eritrea’s future will not be shaped only by political actors. It will be shaped by those who dare to think clearly when clarity is dangerous.

VII. Closing

One year ago, I began with my Sunday column appropriately called Semere’s Sunday Perspective. Today, I continue with conviction.
This column exists because Eritrea needs a space where truth is not feared, history is not distorted, and moral seriousness is not mocked. It exists because silence is not an option. It exists because our nation deserves better than confusion and resignation. And for that, Awate deserves recognition—for providing a platform where difficult truths can be spoken, where ideas can breathe, and where Eritreans can think without intimidation or apology.

If these fifty-two columns have done anything, I hope they have reminded us of one thing:

Eritrea’s struggle is not only for political change—it is for intellectual and moral renewal.

And that struggle must continue.

I would be remiss if I did not recognize Mr. Ismail AA for his tireless effort to engage our articles and encourage us to continue the work we do. If he would only take the time to convert his commentaries into full articles, he would easily be the most prolific writer at Awate. His consistency, generosity of spirit, and intellectual discipline have been a quiet source of strength for many of us who write. Let me return the favor and ask him to do what he does best; his contributions are beyond measure, and our collective discourse is richer because of his presence. The same goes for all who grace our articles with their thoughtful commentaries—Amanuel Hidrat, Aklilu Zere, M/Brhan Idris, the poet Menfit, Haile S (sorely missed lately), BY, and many others I could not name.

To contact the author: weriz@yahoo.com