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PM Abiy, Teddy Afro, and the Politics of Art
For the past few days, Teddy Afro’s new album has drawn wide attention. A friend told me its lyrics have irritated Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and sent me a clip of Abiy lecturing parliament about the difference between artists and activists. That pairing—music and political instruction—raises a deeper question: can art ever be separated…
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Eritrea’s Ghost Bureaucracy
1. Hidden Bias Eritrean political life is often narrated through the familiar vocabulary of dictatorship, militarization, and repression, as though the visible machinery of authoritarianism alone explains the daily injustices citizens endure. Yet the lived reality of Eritreans is shaped far more intimately by a quieter and more pervasive force that rarely enters the national…
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The Anatomy of State Failure in Eritrea
I. The Origins of Authority States do not fail in a single dramatic moment. They unravel slowly, beginning in the quiet spaces where no one imagines politics is taking place. The earliest fractures appear not in ministries or parliaments but in the daily negotiations of ordinary people. A fisherman trading his morning’s catch for a…
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Protocol, Power, Policy, and the Urgent Need for Institutions
I. A Visit That Reveals More Than It Intended Eritreans have long relied on Awate’s Regional News link to follow developments across the Horn of Africa, a region where every diplomatic gesture carries weight. This week, one story in particular demanded attention: the visit of Eritrea’s minister of trade and industry, Nasreddin Saleh, accompanied by…
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The Elephant in the Room
I. The Meteor We Pretend Fell From the Sky There is a comforting story circulating in Eritrean political discourse – a story repeated so often, and with such ritualistic conviction, that it has become less an argument than a reflex. It tells us that the dictatorship is an alien force, a meteor that crashed into…
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Roots of Resistance: The History of the Arsi Oromo Movement in Building Educational Resistance (1950s–1980s)
BOOK REVIEW Author: Dr. Gemechu Abraham Kurfessa Publisher: The Red Sea Press Publication Year: 2026 Length: 563 pages Roots of Resistance is one of those rare works that doesn’t simply recount history—it unsettles what you thought you understood. Centering on how the Arsi Oromo people used education as a form of resistance from the 1950s…
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Ustaz AbdulHamid: Among the Few Left from the Umma Generation
It was Mendefera, on a January morning in 1929. The wife was expecting; soon, the child refused to remain in the womb and came into the world. An elderly midwife was there to help. The baby looked healthy. She was glad because her prediction had come true—it was a boy. Smiling, she cupped her hands…
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The Day After: Preparing Eritrea for its Most Dangerous Transition
There comes a moment in the life of every nation when denial becomes a luxury it can no longer afford. Eritrea is approaching such a moment. Tick‑tock. The eventual death of President Isaias Afwerki—whether tomorrow or years from now—is not a political prediction but an unavoidable biological certainty. What follows will determine whether Eritrea survives…
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OUR NATIONAL UNITY: Why Eritrea’s Political Imagination Fails Reality
I. The Illusion We Keep Rehearsing In recent weeks, I have been reading a series of essays on awate.com – thoughtful pieces by Semere Habtemariam and Saleh Ghadi, attempting to stitch together a moral vision for Eritrea’s political future. They speak of unity, sacrifice, institutional maturity, historical awareness, and the enduring hope that principled action…
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Endless Cycle Splits, Mergers, and Rebranding in the Eritrean Opposition
Fragmentation Without Disappearance: The Endless Cycle of Splits, Mergers, and Rebranding in the Eritrean Opposition In the middle of last year, I committed to writing about Eritrean national unity—both in its broad historical sense and within the specific context of the diaspora‑based opposition. As I continue gathering information on the latter, I readily acknowledge that…
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The Limits of Rupture, the Promise of Reform: Rethinking Eritrea’s Transition
When a nation emerges from prolonged authoritarian rule, it eventually confronts a foundational question: do we discard everything associated with the old order and begin again from scratch, or do we recover what was valuable, repair what was broken, and build forward from there? In Eritrea’s case, that dilemma can be framed as Total Reset…
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Abiy’s Errand to Abu Dhabi
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The Forgotten Blueprint: How Eritrea’s 2001 Party Proclamation Could Rebuild a Nation
Eritrea’s political crisis did not emerge from a vacuum. It is the cumulative product of abandoned institutions, unimplemented laws, and a governing elite that systematically dismantled even the limited frameworks it once claimed to uphold. I use the term elite loosely here, for in the Eritrean context it connotes power without the accompanying attributes of…
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Habrengaqa: The Forgotten Line That Almost Divided Eritrea
Many Eritreans do not know the village of Habrengaqa, halfway on the Keren–Asmara road, at the top of the escarpment—a geographical divide between the Eritrean lowlands and highlands. But that is not the source of its fame. Rather, during the turbulent years of the 1940s, the British Military Administration (BMA) of Eritrea had a devilish…
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The Unsung Heroes of Our National Unity
There is a Tigrinya saying I learned from my mother: “One who does not do small deeds should not dream of doing bigger things—ንእሽተይ ጽቡቕ ዘይገብር፡ ዓቢ ክገብር ኢሉ ኣይሕሰብ.” In truth, it is the small, consistent acts of goodness that shape our character and ultimately determine the destiny of a people. We are, after…
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Perspectives on Effective Teaching: 38 Lessons Learned
Perspectives on Effective Teaching: 38 Lessons Learned from 50 Years on the Job Professor Emeritus Araya Debessay 1 University of Delaware December 2025 Abstract In this manuscript, I share firsthand reflections on the successes, challenges, and lessons I experienced over my 50-year professional life as an educator at the University of Delaware. The manuscript presents…
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The Normalization of Self-Censorship in Eritrea
When self-censorship becomes pervasive, a society forfeits more than the right to open dissent; it forfeits the very conditions that make common knowledge possible – the shared awareness of what others know, think, and believe. In such an atmosphere, individuals can no longer reliably gauge the convictions of their peers or distinguish private doubt from…
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Power Needs Compliance
Every power structure requires obedience to survive. Intelligent people question authority; obedient people preserve it.
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National Unity Cannot Be Rebuilt One Community at a Time
Eritreans everywhere recognize the same painful truth: our nation is in deep crisis. Political paralysis, social fragmentation, and the mass flight of our youth have become defining features of our national condition. These burdens do not belong to one region or one religion. They belong to an entire people. My brother, the respected commentator Ismail…
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Lies Define The PFDJ
Most of the materials for this 5-part mini-series are compiled from awate.com, primarily the detailed first-hand testimony contained in Gebremedhin Zegergis’ eyewitness report. It was the first comprehensive testimonial on this subject. This series sheds light on one of the most sensitive and gray chapters in the history of the Eritrean struggle—from the late 1960s…
