Articles

This article is written with the upcoming National Conference for Democratic Change as a background.    After a long hiatus from writing in the Internet sites except for transient events necessitated by the need to (1), I decided to write again. Since writing at this time, without addressing the issue …

Last Tuesday April 27th 2010, there was a conference held at the national press club in Washington DC. The event was organized by the press advocacy group reporters sans frontiers (rsf) and the national press club under the banner “truth tellers”. Eritrean independent journalist Milkias Mihretab Yohannes was the speaker …

I was born and grew up in an ex-British colony– Eritrea, the first time I saw a British person was in my village, the Manager of the Agricultural scheme ( S.I.A.). I remember that even the local games we were playing as kids were of British background( cricket& Rugby). Then …

Every time an individual  or an organisation sets an agenda (convenes a conference for example), Eritreans in the opposition camp get distracted and waste a lot of resources and energy in trying to understand the motives; they might support it, oppose it, or even go as far as condemning it. …

Political forces that are truly determined to change a social order, which is cruelly unjust, and build a fair society that enables the people to catch up with the civilized world, has a point of departure from which they should start their long journey.  The most logical point of departure …

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us”   Oliver Wendell Holmes   Communication is the activity or process of expressing ideas and feelings or of giving people information; it is through different channels of communication that human beings create conflicts …

Beyond Antipathy:  The Concluding Part of Religion, Nationalism and Ethno-regional Politics Much of the public discourse among Eritreans has been characterized by acrimonious exchange of tirades. The underlying spirit in such exchanges can be summed up as antipathy. A legacy of pseudo-Marxist ideology of “class struggle,” which was espoused by …

In the recent past it seems to have become fashionable to write (debate perhaps will be a better word) about the ethnic, religious and cultural divide in Eritrea. I have in the past intermittently touched on this sensitive subject, specially when I become agitated as I always am, at what …

 received an invitation from the preparatory committee (PC) of the peace conference which is planned to convene in London May 21st and 23rd of 2010.   I did not receive a written agenda, but some friends told me that the issue of priority is: Eritrean—Eritrean dialogue. I found that interesting, …

Whenever mogogo is mentioned, the image of injera, zigni or gogo immediately flashes in the mind of Eritreans, but the narration of today is about a different mogogo that has a special task. This unique mogogo is distinguished from the other traditional mogogos by the name of its highly skilled …

“In ages to come, it is up to one lapsed young ‘Haleqa’, to take the melodic wealth of ‘Ge’ez’ from vicinities of monasteries to the streets of Babylon, the uncharted territory of the secular world, risking excommunication and cursing. No, no, that is more than Teddy Afro’s “Abugida”. When that …

After reading the document known as The Eritrean Covenant which was issued by Mejlis Ibrahim Mukhtar and published on Awate.com (www.awate.com) on February 12, 2010; And after analyzing the contents of the Eritrean Covenant and discussing the aims and dimensions of the message. We, the undersigned, residents of the city …

“We’re prisoners of war. Our dreams have been doctored. We belong to no where. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys will never be happy enough. Our lives never important enough to matter.”  From the novel, …

The first time I got to know you personally was in Khartoum in the late 80s while I was engaged with a group of Eritreans in promoting the rights of Eritrean refugees. Though I came from an ELF background and had sympathy for the organisation, at that time I was …

Neither ethnicity nor religion has any genetic basis. This confirms that there is nothing coded in any one ethnic or religious group that goes, “this human has to monopolize power and resources while that should be marginalized and silenced.” But the realities in our world are totally different. Social injustice …

It is now more than 35 years since I first met Dr. Bereket in Baghdad/Iraq. He was very energetic, articulate, physically and mentally active (still he is fortunately – touch wood).  Since then I had been following his contributions, lectures, participations in regional and international forums and seminars.   That …

Self-identification is an essential facet of self-determination; a reviving society habitually pursues the quest for self-identification. Responding to the collective question of “who are we” construes a stumbling projection for any community to define its cherished common values, to collectively counter social wrenches, to regain deprived rights and chart its …

Sign of the Times   On August 1, 2009, I happened to be in Washington DC, visiting a family friend who was in hospital following a serious surgery. As I was about to leave the hospital, a brother of the patient and a man I have known for many years …

For years we kept writing, revealing, and screaming about our wounds and the wrong policies of PFDJ. This mild struggle of “telling” was mainly intended to inform the uninformed members of our society and the international community about the inhumane acts of Isaias and therefore inspire Eritreans to fight for …

I paused reflect after reading Semere Tesfai’s article (Ali Salim’s Land Argument: A Mirage of Power Ambition (awate December 10, 2009), in which he challenges Ustaz Ali Salim who have been debating about the mother of all our issues and problems, with transparency and clarity that most Tigrigna intellectuals (the …