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LET OUR PAST BREAKDOWNS DRIVE OUT FUTURE BREAKTHROUGHS

29/12/2022 21:02 PM

LET OUR PAST BREAKDOWNS DRIVE OUT FUTURE BREAKTHROUGHS!

A Call for New Year Resolution
by Teamirat N Seyoum.

A Call for New Year Resolution by Teamirat N Seyoum.

LET OUR PAST BREAKDOWNS DRIVE OUT FUTURE BREAKTHROUGHS!
A Call for New Year Resolution by Teamirat N Seyoum.

The end of the year is traditionally a time for reflecting on lessons learned from the past 12 months and looking to the future with optimism. New Year’s resolutions offer us a chance to identify specific ways we can improve our lives and make concrete changes for the better. Viewed from the context of our struggle, this is to reflect back with the aim of identifying achievements and areas for improvement or even radical change.

For many of us in the justice seeking camp, I presume 2022 had more lowlights than highlights with the regime in Asmara unabatedly continuing to do the things it wanted to do while our people continue to be languishing in unimaginable scale. For various reasons, we are way far from being at the forefront to rescue our people and country.

Some may argue that it’s hard to lay down a path toward a better future when so much of what’s wrong with our present is out of our control. I genuinely differ in that so much of what went wrong with our present has been within our domain. We could have done much better had it not been for our own unfortunate inherent lack of cohesion and inhibitive political culture.

As the year 2022 draws to a close, I presume that almost all of us in the justice seeking camp are endeavouring to leverage our accomplishments, challenges, and experiences over the past decades as a springboard to achieving our goals in 2023.

Therefore, in this connection, I just want to share some of my thoughts with the assumption that every little helps. Well, one of my messages is for every justice seeker to maintain hope despite growing crises both inside Eritrea and amongst ourselves. It is important to keep an open mind to different opinions and stay positive that we’ll solve lingering issues within our camp and focus on challenging the key enemy of our people and the nation i.e., the dictatorial regime in Eritrea.

I understand the challenges ahead of us are enormous and it is easy to understand why many may fall into despair and pessimism. This is a state of mind, however, that we must resist – not only for ourselves but for our kids and future generations. The stakes are just too high that to give into despair isn’t an option. We must continue to stand up and fight no matter what.

Maintaining hope and keeping an open mind is really important. However, it is equally important to make bold moves in the right direction. The truth is, at this point, small, disjointed actions are not going to be enough to put us on the track to regime change. We need bold actions from every one of us if we really want to see change. The creation of an Eritrean National Force of some sort isn’t a luxury-it is a MUST and is long overdue. To truly transition our society away from the era of dictatorship, we need a shift in our political culture and practice that emanates from our individual and collective action.

The greatest impact we can make right now is, to self-reflect and make genuine evaluation of our individual contributions to the struggle to ensure the wishes and aspirations of the Eritrean people.

This self-reflection at an individual level should be replicated at an organisational level too in order to genuinely assess the impact that our organisational roles have had on the ongoing struggle. It is time that we came out of an inhibitive political culture and practice and be responsive, more proactive and adaptive. Our focus should be centred around the wishes of the Eritrean people and in the best national interest of Eritrea. We all aspire an inclusive and forward-looking political process to effect a genuine change in Eritrea. This can only be realised when every one of us make a genuine self-reflection, both at individual and organisational levels and when taking the correct measures accordingly.

It is also very important that at each justice seeking organisation, we elect the right people into office. A leader must be knowledgeable of the true nature of our crisis and the chemistry and complexity of Eritrean politics. Leaders are also expected to cope with the challenges and be ready to take bold actions necessary to address them. We have to engage in sincere dialogue, and really examine how our own leadership lifestyles and personality traits have been contributing in light of the collective efforts for making a meaningful progress to change the regime in Eritrea.

This transition is going to require each of us to play our role, in whatever way we can. Let our choice be on the right side of history.

Our people desperately need a practical political process to deliver its wishes and aspirations which includes peacefully co-existing with all its neighbours. Ensuring our country’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of our people is inseparable with the mutual respect and interest of our region and the world at large. For this, we need to garner genuine regional and international support towards ending the brutal system which can done partly via vigorous diplomatic and lobbying activities. I believe our collective leadership thus will be able to achieve these tasks pragmatically.

As we are aware, several attempts were made in the recent past to create coalitions or alliances of some sort to shape up the struggle against the regime in Eritrea. However, we have not yet been able to establish a legitimate leadership with clear political vision that involve our justice-seeking Eritreans. This is our collective failure, as citizens and as organised entities. No blame should be directed to a single entity alone.

In spite of this, there is still genuine need, importance, and the urgency to create a common ground from which our all stakeholders and partners join their consolidated efforts to challenge to the regime in Eritrea.

The current reality within Eritrea and the Horn region calls for all stakeholders and partners to come and work together to develop an effective political solution. A solution in the shape of a unifying national force built on a process of renewed commitment, compromise, broad consensus and active mobilisation and participation of the grassroots. This is the route to acquiring greater legitimacy and support inside and outside Eritrea.

Current realities in Eritrea could just be summed up as being Business as Usual (BAU). Politics in Eritrea is conducted within the context of a single-party totalitarian dictatorship having an unhinged despotic president at the helm of almost everything. There is no sign of change or reform inside the country at all. Everything stays as it was before, and the country continues to find itself in an accelerating downward spiral.

Following the outbreak of the war in Northern Ethiopia some two years ago and with the involvement of PFDJ regime in it supporting the Ethiopian government meant that things have further deteriorated in our country. Tens of thousands of young and elderly conscripts have been deployed in this war. We can expect that thousands have either lost their lives or sustained lifelong injuries in this war. Forced conscription and military rounds ups, to the point of disrespecting our religious institutions, have continued at an alarming scale. This has left innocent children and the elderly in further desperate situations. The whole country is bleeding and suffering.

Like Eritrea, the Horn of Africa too continues with its trademark of intra and interstate conflict, mass displacement, economic misery, social breakdown, human rights abuse and sufferings of large segments of the society in the region.

Understand, there is an ongoing peace process inside both Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan. We hope the people of these sisterly countries finally get the peace and tranquillity they deserve. However, there are still a number of incidents and tensions of both intra-state and inter-state conflicts. There is potential these will one day be out of control and engulf the entire region into chaos and collapse from which Eritrea will not remain immune.

Moreover, it is not uncommon in the region for some glimpses of hope to suddenly dash and conflicts to flare up instead. While remaining vigilant of our region in particular and the world at large, we thus need to refocus on what we can achieve working collectively in unison.

The prospect of a sudden regime fall in Eritrea cannot be ruled out as an absolute impossibility. Anything is possible! However, the question is whether we in the justice-seekers camp are ready to step in and as it stands, we are far from it.

In the year 2023, let’s make our past breakdowns drive our future breakthroughs and therefore become who we really can become.

Happy New Year!

Together we can do better!

Teamirat N Seyoum




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