Author: Younis Omer (Ali Salim)
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The Mask Behind The Grab
‘Thank You’ to all the people who take their time to leave a few notes at the end of the articles, mine included. That impresses me most and deserves all the credit for getting us rolling. I couldn’t find it again for proper referencing and I don’t remember the exact words either but one particular…
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What Opposition!?
In the last couple of weeks, I wrote three full blown articles and every time I finished one, I keep asking myself “So what?” I save a copy of the article and delete the original (original? on Microsoft!? Just to make me feel that some of the old “shredder” ways are still around). Part of…
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Quicksand!
Bear with me please! I think we are in quicksand and we need to cross a few steps before starting the journey. By “we” I mean people (Eritreans) who have already crossed over from the stage of “what should I be doing?” into the stage of “how should I do it best for maximum impact?”…
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The Trade Of Defiance!
Thanks a lot to every good friend who took the time to throw in a few but very valuable words in the comments section of my previous article. All of the comments, I must admit, are on spot and none have said anything that I do not fully agree with and accept to follow word…
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Setting The Stage
I don’t really know where to start. So much has happened in the last two years that I would be lying if I told you I have been following Eritrean politics the way I used to. Several friends have suggested different entry points including private disclosures. I do understand the pressures that my allegedly dubious…
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Comments On The Go To Bro Semere Tesfai
I will keep it short here and will do so the lazy way. In an interview with a VoA journalist on September 27, 2011, President Isaias Afwerki responded to why he would keep doing this to helpless Eritreans at a time when human rights organizations are appealing for the release of those who are already…
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Liberating Civil Society
I should probably start by saying a few words about how amazing the developments in the opposition camp in general and the civil society component in particular have become. I haven’t been following much of the written material with the exception of my favorite writers on Awate and Asmarino. This, added to what we have…
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Zereba Abeyti (Words of Wisdom)
Soon after my last article Halaf’Mengedi was published brothers B.Y. and SY (I have no permission to mention B.Y.’s name – so the initials) wrote me e-mails to draw my attention to a few sentences that they thought were culturally and ethically insensitive to the late Dr. Russom Haile (May God bless his soul!). The…
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Halaf’Mengedi (Passerby)
I don’t know how to start or where to start or whether I should start at all. I probably should begin by saying “yigermal yesew neger!” to those who noticed my absence and were kind enough to ask including my good friend SG – who essentially counted me among the ‘dead of the year’ in…
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Saving Icons For Pride
On an unrelated sidenote or headnote: With all due respect to Brother Woldeyesus Ammar for his beautifully written emotional “Draft Obituary-cum-Eulogy” (the one where he rephrases “Haile Deru’e’s biggest worry after liberation was how to contain “Tigrigna chauvinism in the EPLF” to mean “it is not the fault of any membership”), I would like to take…
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Amtelom Vs Derguhalom
There are things that we wish we would never know about because knowing can sometimes be the worst enemy of hope. How would a sailor in the middle of the ocean feel if he found out that, that tiny piece of ice heading towards his ship in a head-on collision is actually the tip of…
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The Triangle Of Pricks: Eritrea – Sudan & Ethiopia
le’teakejl alebna higya lwT wo’Hrit … eb atmashash let’thayeb it’trekeb eb tmnit dib le’amr lel’ake meglel mibel m’qwet (Selected lines from an old Tigre song “Anseba may zere”) ‘Not Too Bad!’ is what anyone familiar with the frustratingly slow pace of developments (towards a better day) in Eritrea during the last 20 years would describe…
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The Language Of Land Grabbers!
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the newly initiated Eritrean Law Society (ELS) for managing to call into the arena the much needed sector of our politics: “lawyers, professionals and academicians”. The validity of the information, seriousness of the initiative and sincerity of the intentions remains to be seen. My first impression…
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Midwifing A Mouse: The Politics Of Hasewsew
The New Year might be a good occasion for each one of us to wonder why magic always seems to single out and evade our Eritrea and why our best efforts never seem to payoff. We need to challenge ourselves with one logical question: How was it that a semi-illiterate Somali cleric heading a militia…
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National Unity Is No Substitute For Our Dignity
(Reminders for Semere Tesfai) I am not one who believes in the Carrot-plus-Stick theory as the only explanation for effectively manipulating stimulus and response in politics because there are situations where the stick alone is more than enough to get people going and there are situations where the carrot should never be mixed with the…
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Double Standards: One For Us, One For Muzungu
I apologize for delays in continuing the “Road Map” series that I started earlier. I have decided to wait and see if Abune Aregawi reaches into the celebrations of the “Uniting Group” and proves us wrong by inciting a spell against the Land Grabbing Settlers once their marathon merger actually takes place, now that they…
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The Honest Eritrean’s Road Map – Part I
Those who like to conclude matters before they even begin, those who like to have the final say before most have even spoken have declared dead the debates surrounding the Lowland-Highland or Muslim-Christian dichotomy. I must admit that we have yet to initiate or provoke real communication on the issues that matter most between “Us”…
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Idaga Derhu: Chicken Market
On October 29, 2009, Awate’s Gedab broke the news about a US-EU conference (organized by a European External Policy Advisory (EEPA), a Belgian NGO) on Eritrea to be attended by a number of honorable Eritrean (Tigrigna or Tigrigna-satellite) politicians and civil society activists with an esteemed spokesperson, Mr. Abdulrahman Alsaid. Mr. Spokesman in turn confirmed…
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“Common Country” And Not “Common Enemy”
I have taken a break for the last few weeks just to watch the debate from a distance and see what it looks like to a bystander. Most of those who appeared to comment on the issues focused on the semantics of how the subject should have been framed and what kind of etiquette contributors…
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Eritrea’s Bermuda Triangle: Land, Settlements & Refugees
Nearly all those who have been following our debate on Awate (the ones who genuinely recognized the problems of Land Grabbers and the Exclusionists of the PFDJ as real and serious) are wondering what possible solutions would come out of the debate that has lasted for months and at least on the surface seems to…