Tag: national identity
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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…
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Who Owns the Legacy of the Martyrs?
Inspired by a Sufi parable and Dante’s imagery of flickering flames, this episode examines the meaning of sacrifice and political memory. Drawing lessons from Algeria’s civil conflict and Eritrea’s post-independence experience, it explores how ruling elites can appropriate the legacy of martyrs while genuine remembrance belongs to the people who continue to honor their ideals.…
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The Gettysburg Lesson Eritrea Never Learned
What separates genuine leadership from the exploitation of sacrifice? Using Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as a historical reference point, this essay examines the moral power of leadership during times of national crisis and contrasts it with Eritrea’s post-independence experience. It explores freedom, citizenship, remembrance, national unity, and the responsibility owed to those who sacrificed their…
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Why the PFDJ Is Afraid of Us: The Strategic Threat of Nationalist Unity
The ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) has not endured through popular consent. It has survived through an engineered system of fear, fragmentation, and narrative domination. Its silence toward nationalist movements is not indifference—it is apprehension. Unified, principled nationalists threaten the regime on every front: politically, strategically, philosophically, and historically. Unity as Memory—and…