Beyond Embargo: The Solution to Eritrea’s Political Extremism is Democracy
(Part II)
Adal Isaw
February 14, 2010
As noted in part I of this article, the UN Security Council embargo is a substantial measure for now, but its effect will wane in time if the political problem of Eritrea is to be shelved indefinitely. The international community, especially EU, should see that the ultimate underlying cause of Eritrea’s aggression and lust for terror and destabilization is political extremism—the brainchild of Isayas Afewerki and company. The real solution to the one-man Eritrean state political extremism is thus not embargo but democracy and the creation of the Eritrean state anew. And a reasonable diplomatic pressure by the international community to this effect is needed now than later.
The one-man Eritrean state political extremism is swamped in many mind-boggling false assumptions. For example, it draws similarities with the Algerian War of Independence, and it even has the temerity to claim an upper hand on the “cost effectiveness” of its struggle in terms of lives lost[1]. Although this is a laughable presumption for various empirical reasons, the tacitly conveyed propaganda of the one-man Eritrean state is however something else; it seeks to equate the governments of King Haileselassie and Mengistu Hailemariam of Ethiopia with one of the most notorious and allegedly genocidal episodes of France’s 130-year rule in Algeria.
Ethiopia has never mimicked France by any stretch of the imagination or by way of any empirical data. Ethiopia and Ethiopians, if anything, have paid much more than they needed, to appease, accommodate and soothe their Eritrean cousins. Such a gesture was not what France had for Algerians. France arguably killed 1.5 million Algerians and it is illiterate of Isayas to draw a conclusion that the Algerian War of Independence might have not been as efficient as the Eritrean struggle for secession. Asininely, the one-man Eritrean state ignores the alleged genocide—the single most important reason for the loss of 1.5 million Algerian lives. Likewise, the one-man Eritrean state claims efficiency on the “cost effectiveness” of its struggle in terms of lives lost, ignoring the care, accommodation and privilege forwarded by the Ethiopian governments and its people to their Eritrean cousins.
The numbers speak for themselves. The actual death toll in 30 years of conflict between Eritrean and Ethiopian cousins according to Afewerki is 65,000. If we have to accept this as true, this figure is 2166 a year; 180 a month; or 6 lives a day. However, this figure requires adjustment since sizeable numbers of Eritrean lives for sure were lost to diseases, friendly fire and sporadic but deadly inner and inter-organizational conflicts. Nonetheless, this figure may be easily eclipsed by the lives lost in the other provinces of Ethiopia, precisely because King Haileselassie and Mengistu Hailemariam forwarded life-saving funds to privilege and furnish the Eritrean province for political reason. In lieu of this fact, it is therefore a numbing assertion for the one-man Eritrean state to allude a degree of victimization that mirrors the Algerian experience under France colonial rule.
Of course, the loss of any number of lives should be regrettable. But to disregard the privileges and priorities of life given to sizeable numbers of our Eritrean cousins in order to aggrandize the pain and suffering of sizeable others, should also be regrettable. Because it is such a hyperbolized propaganda that needlessly furnish the basis for some of our Eritrean cousins to passionately loathe Ethiopia and Ethiopians while they should not.
Isayas Afewerki and company draw such an unfathomable similarity with Algeria’s War of Independence for a reason—to sustain their false propaganda of demonizing Ethiopia as one of the barbaric 20th century colonizers of Africa. Although it is a laughable presumption, demonizing Ethiopians and the Ethiopian governments as barbaric colonizers of Eritrea has been the front and center political propaganda of the struggle to secede Eritrea from Ethiopia. This front and center political propaganda is a mindset of Isayas Afewerki and company that is nearly instinctive and there is a reason as to why it is so.
For an Eritrean identity to exist (the kind the one-man Eritrean state espouses) the difference between what is Eritrean and what is not should also exist. Moreover, if the new Eritrean identity is to exist, all of its tangible similarities with another identity (Ethiopian) that pose the greatest threat to the integrity and viability of the new Eritrean identity should be demonized. This is precisely the reason why, that for more than half a century and counting, Ethiopia and Ethiopians have been demonized by Isayas Afewerki and company—to purposely disfigure and annihilate from existence—the life of any similarity that may exist between Eritreans and Ethiopians.
So far, the reaction from the demonized side—Ethiopia and Ethiopians has been apathy and utter disbelief, to say the least. To say more: the rejection by many Ethiopians about the newly found Eritrean identity arises from historically veritable, social, economic and political facts that constituted the country Ethiopia from its inception. Of course, Isayas Afewerki and company are perfectly entitled to reject historical facts in lieu of a newly found Eritrean identity. But it should occur to them that to base the newly found Eritrean identity on utterly false premises is tantamount to using sand to build a newly remodeled Eritrean house. False premises are nothing more than the bread and butter of political extremism that satiate emotions rather than calmer heads, and they’re notorious for furnishing spacious room to grow a deep-seated hate. A deep-seated hate in return, if not curtailed by a democratic system and educational awareness of some kind, will continue to be the basis for violent and destabilizing behavior of the one-man Eritrean state.
To surely ameliorate the impediments of peace and instability in the Horn, democracy has to get hold of Eritrea beyond embargo. A new Eritrean state with people friendly democratic institutions will stand to diffuse the hate and resentment of some of our Eritreans cousins on the fringe of political extremism. This in turn will clear the path to an Ethio-Eritrean enterprise of some kind for peaceful co-operation. Peaceful co-operation will in turn enervate the underlying causes of political extremism, giving birth to a suitable environment for relative peace and stability to sprout.
[1] http://sunday.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=339:democracy-is-meaningless-to-hungry-africans-eritrean-president&catid=46:international&Itemid=111