Negarit 308: The Ethiopian Red Sea Craze
Over a week ago, I started to record an episode that I didn’t finish. This is what I prepared:
For the last five or six months, I have been suffering from a nasty papilloma growth in my nostril. Tomorrow, I will lie on an operation table to get rid of it. Those of you who know how to pray, please do; if you do not know how, consider it a training. Just pray for me. I am in for a serious counterattack on the growth, call it “Operation Saleh’s Nose,” to alleviate the itching, pain, running nose, and non-stop sneezing. Hopefully, I will also regain my lost appetite for food and more. I am not sure if you noticed it, but I was going to great lengths to hide the ugly growth; I will do my best to come back soon. Of course, I don’t want to miss you, and I don’t want you to miss me either, even those who cannot stand me or even hate me.
I will update you when I feel better.
Last Thursday, I was at the hospital, and the operation went well. I will tell you about it towards the end after I share the never-ending annoyance that Eritreans must go through continuously. I will begin with…
Jawar’s Mishap
Sometimes we become emotional and react in haste, and there’s a Tigrayit saying that describes the result of hasty reactions: “Shafig Ewur Welid,” meaning, ‘the hasty begets a blind child!’
It’s irritating to see Ethiopian politicians focused only on the Eritrean Highlands, as if it is representative of the multicultural Eritrea! Generally, when they speak about Eritrea-Ethiopian relations, they repeat the tired example, “Both people eat injera and brew the same beer.” Etc. That remark has become extremely boring. I believe relations between countries must not be seen through a narrow lens and considered representative of the whole.
When I watched a clip on X, I didn’t expect Jawar to fall into the same trap of misconception and repeat the usual lame argument. In disappointment, I immediately judged his views and reacted hastily, but soon I thought it was unfair of me to judge his views from a short misrepresenting clip. I regretted my instant unwarranted reaction.
Fanaticism and Propaganda
Eritreans are fed up with the fanatics and their obsession with the Red Sea. It’s an age-old provocation that naturally gets Eritreans all up in arms. For some years, the Red Sea obsession seemed as if it was dying out; unfortunately, in 2018, Abiy was encouraged by an unusually emotion-pumped Isaias, who irresponsibly told Abiy on air that he can lead both Ethiopia and Eritrea. That cleared the way for Abiy to declare, “Me and Isais will share Assab,” with a giggle. Thereafter, the seemingly dormant usual agitators became aggressive and reignited the Red Sea cry anew.
Tedros of Reyot was probably among the first such agitators who started the media foray. Here is the typical 2018 instigation and the loaded question in Minnesota. (check the video above)
Since then, the fanatics never stopped summoning the Red Sea jinni and the Qolle spirits, a clear call that tickled the megalomaniacs. Abiy found a recipe with which to appease the populists who rallied behind him in his bloody expansionist quest.
Since then, Abiy’s irrational moves worsened, and he unleashed his violence, immersing Ethiopia into the worst cycle of bloodshed, ethnic conflicts, and insecurity. The steady Ethiopian economic growth and relative peace were hampered. Abiy ignored vital issues and focused on appeasing populist sentiments. Sadly, the rubber-stamp parliament was easily manipulated to approve and legitimize all his wild decisions. Abiy continues his irrational grade-school lectures while the parliamentarians listen to him like mesmerized students watching a Disneyland cartoon movie. Ethiopia is on the verge of collapsing, yet, the Red Sea craze continues in many ways.
The Ankara Exit
There is a French idiom, “Filer à l’anglaise,” which the British replicated with a similar expression: “the French leave.” (ምሉቕ ኢልካ ህድማ). The Ethiopians haven’t translated yet. So, a friend volunteered to help them replicate it in Amharic: የኣንካራው ሾለክ (the Ankara exit), or, rather, “Abiy’s Ankara exit.”
Abiy did exist from the problem he created, but luckily, he didn’t shoot his way out, saving his neighbors unnecessary conflicts. Yet, he didn’t fully stop; his fingers are still itching with an urge to pull the trigger.
Many hoped he would have come to his senses because he didn’t unleash his threat to Somaliland, Djibouti, and Eritrea in easily detectable pretend clever language. But he left his disciples, like Redwan Hussein, to spread the crude, confusing version of his threats.
After the Ankara meeting, Abiy exited from his aggressive posture. And as predicted, the MOU he signed with Somaliland, which should have been completed and implemented within a month of its proclamation, didn’t materialize. It stayed as a propaganda message for months until other developments overtook it.
Abiy should learn that he can’t pull that kind of trick on any country, let alone on overly suspicious and skeptical ones—his tricks are exposed to the bone, at least in its old form. Maybe now he can reflect and think in a civilized, diplomatic manner—maybe a business-modeled negotiation that aims at a win-win outcome! But I am afraid you can’t teach a weasel neither a new trick nor an old trick—the original idiom that is claimed to predate the English idiom, “you can’t teach an old dog a new trick.”
His aggression had two reasons; it only achieved the first goal: to merely steer some political dust and sandstorm…maybe fan little fires here and there in pursuit of his Red Sea dream. For three years, the dust blew like a crazy storm towards the north of Ethiopia, and it provoked Eritrea on the way. However, he abruptly switched tactics and diverted the direction of the dust towards Somaliland and Djibouti. However, the sandstorm, the Zeragito, was mainly intended to suffocate Eritrea, meaning Assab.
By then, Abiy was tired of the fires he kindled and was watching like a vulture over the scattered corpses of poor Ethiopians and Eritreans. He is still focused and waiting until Isaias is no more so that he can stand alone as the Alfa of the Horn of Africa, maybe beyond. But when he failed in his Somaliland escapade, he adjusted his magnifying glass towards Assab to make it his safe exit.
Macron, The Exchequer of West Africa
A few weeks ago, people were edgy when President Macron met Abiy in Addis Ababa; it was worrying because many though the unstable Abiy would stir up some dust: “France will supply the Ethiopian navy with modern frigates!” But Macron might have realized Abiy’s adventurous maneuvers. Maybe he doesn’t want to disrupt his task of perpetuating French lordship over West Africa. But it seems he was banished from there. As for Abiy, he is keeping his dream alive until Isaias is gone. Meanwhile, he will stay loyal to his modus operandi: bullying, lying, and boasting.
Abiy and his elite cliques deliberately use “confusion” tactics on the region to stay relevant. His lieutenants, like Redwan Hussein, are perfecting English word games because they lack legalistic-sounding words in their own language: access to the sea vs. outlet to the sea. When confronted with rejection of an outlet to the sea, they talk of access to the sea. When they are told no one is preventing them from arranging for access to the sea, they switch to an outlet on the sea where they can have territorial sovereignty for a naval base. But the Red Sea shores have owners, countries that would clearly object to any non-Red Sea country imposing its will on the Red Sea shores.
And that cannot be changed with mythologies and biblical arguments that allegedly give Ethiopia control of the Red Sea. But the fanatics are overly ambitious and argue based on 2000-year-old mythologies! They also spice up their claim with ancestral rights, only their ancestors, who built the pyramids. Thus, they claim they are the true progenies of the ancient Egyptians—superstitions and flying coaches are in abundance.
Recalling Haile Selassie in Support of Abiy’s Imperial Quest
In 1945, Haile Selassie submitted a memorandum to Winston Churchill in a Cairo meeting, arguing that ‘with the forfeiture of Italian rule, Eritrea should revert to its former and rightful owners, arguing that Eritrea must revert to Ethiopia “as compensation to ‘redress’ the injustices visited upon Ethiopia by the Fascist regime.” Because then, “Ethiopia was prevented from the importation of arms necessary to prosecute the war against the Italian invader.
Is the current argument by Abiy and his cliques any different from what Haile Selassie asked from Churchill?
It’s also noteworthy that the TPLF representative, Mr. Berhane Gebre Kristos, said, “If Eritreans don’t admit to “Tigray genocide,there cannot be a normal relationship between the two.” And that is how issues are being confused, because Eritreans have not sought either repressions or recognition of the genocide committed on them by Ethiopia, which is far greater. It’s also unwise to contemplate such an irrational demand from the victims of the recent and past wars. It’s time the ambassador realizes it is the leaders who ignite wars and endanger the lives and properties of citizens. Victims should be left to lick their wounds instead of being made responsible for what their tormentors did on both sides of the border.
Follow up:
As this is being published, I have done the operation, and it went well. Thank you all for your support. Now I am breathing through both nostrils, sleeping well, and I feel good. No pain or irritation. In Tigrinya, the papilloma growth, or wart, is called “donkey’s nipple. Does anybody know why? Anyway, the nipple is scraped. It feels good.
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