The New Apartheid Politics of Eritrea - Jeberti.com

The New Apartheid Politics of EritreaBy Naty Galla North AmericaPart 4Names… Your name… Your shadow… Your identity.I believe even my political opponents would agree that your shadow follows you whereveryou go or stay; thus my article’s title: Names… Your name… Your shadow… Your identity.There are forces that are against our personal, local Kunama names. So sometimes they corruptour names; sometimes, although they are in our land, they ignore our names; and sometimes theyeven alter our names. Whether your personal or local names, language, culture reflect, stand foryour identity. In fact, no local, personal names, language, culture…no identity and this is whatthe Kunama enemies had been doing for the past 50-70 years in our own territory. So this time Iam writing to tell the world and democratic, good will fellow Eritreans about the culturalgenocide they are committing against the Eritrean minorities’ names, cultures and languages ingeneral and against the Kunama names, culture language in particular. And I am also exposingthe arrogant, shameless culprits behind the plot. And these groups are the following:1- Settlers:a) The Shameless linguistic and cultural supremacists, Tigrigna tribe, from Hamasien, Ansebasettled in Laalai Gash.b) Tigre speakers, Mariya Keiya/Tsellam, from Keren area in Tahatai Gash; and nowall tribes from all over Eritrea are forced to come and settle in Gash basins dubbed IsayasAfewerki’s dumping ground; and, moreover, confusion, chaos, and catastrophe is looming in thehorizon after the bloody tyrant’s demise. And Isayas Afewerki, the Satan, still is working hard onthis unholy project, deliberately.2- The racist and colonial Jebha leadership.3- The racist, fascist and colonial Shabia leadership and its one man show mafia Government ofIsayas Afewerki.4- Christians Priests and Islamic sheiks with their distorted knowledge of Christianity and Islamrespectively. I said “distorted” knowledge of these great organized religions because we know,very well that you do not have to take Arab names to be a Muslim or Jewish name to be aChristian, although Jews are not Christians, except Jesus and his disciples and a very few ones.We can challenge you extensively on these and other subjects if necessary on next writing.

The famous and more diplomatic saying goes on: when you are in Rome do as Romans do”. Inother words, therefore, when you are in Kunama land do as Kunama people do. That isrespecting, observing our rules and regulations, being good neighbours, respecting our names,language, culture, belief system etc. But, unfortunately, the illegitimate mafia President and hisillegitimate Government and illegitimate and aggressive intruders above mentioned who makelife in Kunama land a Hell on earth to say the least. The supremacists with their paternalisticattitude, therefore, had corrupted our Kunama villages and towns’ name, e.g. Augaro for Ugaro;Sheshebit for Sushabia, Bimbina for Bimbilna, Badme for Badumma etc. and they also alteredour Kunama Villages’ and downs’ names; e.g. Addi – Keshi for Delle; Melezane for Tuguliti;Tafa for Ereneigogoma; Gash for Sona etc. By the way, I remember one thing; all Dictatorswhether Isayas Afewerki, Saddam Hussein, Hafez Al Assad or his son, Bashar Al Assad are thesame. They favour their tribes. All dictators give all national commodities and opportunities totheir tribes and, in return, their people protect their power in symbiotic relationship. As matter offact, as English say, rob Peter to give Paul, if you look at the Canadian National Post,September 10 th , 2012 page A11 by Peter Fragiskatos it says, quote: under Hafez Al Assad,30,000 Kurds lost their homes to Arab settlers as part of an effort to create an “Arab Belt” alongthe border with Turkey and Iraq. Kurds villages were stripped of their names and replaced byArab ones. What Isayas Afewerki is doing in the Gash area is the same or even worst. Bybringing other tribes from all over Eritrea to our land is diluting Kunama beyond recognition.This is called ethnic engineering, assimilation, and ethnic genocide at the worst.For Kunama, these corrupted and altered villages and towns names… Augaro, Badme, Sheshebitetc., do not have any meaning in our language, and our culture and we do not think they have anymeaning to you, not Kunama nationalities either. So why you, Shabia and others, dwell and excelin wrong and altered names? Well, we can only guess and it looks like a very intelligent guess.Since your foreign leaders, deki arba, Isayas Afewerki from Tembien, Hagos Ghebrehiwet(kisha) from Addigrat, and Yemane Monkey from Adwa, who have a chronic identity crisis, theywant to pass on that on our towns and villages so they can claim them one day? Well, let me tellyou all in short: that is not going to happen now and in the future in Eritrea. We are in differentera; 21 century computer era. Those days of Religious, territorial and cultural assimilation areover. And the good news is that we minorities in Eritrea, Kunama in particular, had come of ageand, therefore, we do not need or accept their majority tyranny and their version of truth theyexert on us previous years or a century of Eritrean history as a nation State.For the past 2000 years or so, here they come into being foreign, western philosophies,mythologies and Religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and over the years or centurieswestern Christians and Arab expansionists changed part of our world by converting our poor anddefenceless people into their respective religions forever as if we were not religious and believersbefore. They made our diverse tribes ChristianAnd Muslims respectively and, therefore, the present dichotomy were born in that part of ourworld, except for Kunama, of course. And the innocent Kunama, not being involved in thisconversion, I call it indoctrination and brainwashing with foreign belief system, were calledpagans, non-believers. Not only this, in the Christian Holy Bible, the controversial Jesus Christeven gone farther: quote “I am the light, the truth and the way, nobody can go to my Father(God) except through me and that means you have to be Christians to go to heavens. Well, in the

world today there are 7 billion souls (people); 2 billion Christians and 5 billion not Christians;so, according to Jesus’s logic, “you cannot go to Heavens because you are not Christian” Well,this kind of religious intolerance and, in politics, undemocratic attitude do not “hold water”anymore, anywhere. We, Kunama, call it typical Christian arrogance and domination. And we, I,think that Christianity is 200 years behind the time. We will defend our Kunama people dubbedpagans against any religious intolerance, against any psychopathic leader and against anyperversion of science. We Kunama intellectuals had come of age and we don’t need anypaternalistic treatment of anybody, anywhere, anymore and we hope the message is loud andclear.The controversial, aslamaphobic leader of Eritrea, Isayas Afewerki, use this division in hisadvantage for 40+ years adding gas to fire, supporting Islamism, in Somalia, the wrong versionof political Islam and the making a boogeyman of great Religion of Islam and its followers inEritrea; Aslamay metsiuka allo; aslay kimmehadadereka yu etc… and that is why his fanaticChristians love him although he has a wrong policy and taken Eritrea and Eritreans to the clifffor a big jump or mass suicide like Jimmy Jones did with his gullible followers in the forests ofGuyana, south America in the late 70s. I can safely call him Isayas Afewerki the Jimmy Jonesof Eritrea. For those who did not know who Jimmy Jones was, he was a fanatic Christianevangelist who led his strong 909 followers to their death by drinking cyanide poison in order togo to heaven together, to meet their God together, and to live in Paradise together. What a leader!What a madness! What a distortion of Great Religion, Christianity. So what is the differencebetween Isayas Afewerki and Jimmy Jones? Nothing, no difference. There is a saying in theItalian language: É meglio un Diavolo conosciuto che un Angelo sconosciuto; in English, ittranslates “Known Devil is better than unknown Angel”; in other words, the known devil isIsayas Afewerki, the unknown Angel is Islamai. They, (Isayas people) translate this in Tigrignaand follow it literally. Let me restate again for you, fanatics; Islamai is, or are, human beings likeyourself; they are Eritreans like yourself. So what is the fuss with it? That’s why we call youislamaphobic and racist who do not deserve to be their leader and Eritrean national leader at all.We Kunama had demoted you long time ago.All we know, our nation state, Eritrea, has 9 nations and nationalities. But because of thesereligious restrictions on our names, our names and cultures are divided and reduced into twoblocks: Islamic and Christian, or Arabic and Tigrigna with Jewish names and flavour; e.g.Amaniel, Rufael, Daniel, Iacob, Yohannes, Elsa, Iodit, Sara…etc. Almost eighty per cent ofnames that Tigrigna People boast to have names are foreign names. Therefore, two parallelcultures, religions and religious names maybe close but never mix together ; so they stayseparate like water and oil divided ; or, in other words, geometrically parallel and chemicallyinsoluble. And this is Eritrea today. Welcome to the land of two solitudes. Something I am notproud of, of course. Scientists or evolutionary biologists and anthropologists said that “varietyis the spice of life” so, I am trying to break this taboo and anathema by resurrecting somesuppressed and abandoned religions e.g. Kunama Religion and some Eritrean, original sacrednames: again these names, or some, are abandoned because they are considered neither Christiannor Islamic names. What a waste. What a stupidity. What a Religious and Cultural Dominationand Colonialism to the point that they, the Religious Gurus, brainwash you to abandon yoursacred original, tribal names. So, let me resurrect some of them:

1- Dumam, Kunama name.2- Arai, Nara name.3- Arbed, Belen name4- Tesfai Tigrigna name.5- Hanfare, Afar name etc. Oh boy, aren’t they beautiful names? Yes, indeed. They are the mostbeautiful names I ever seen and heard in today’s Eritrea. And you might ask “what about othernationalities names”? Well, I will search for them next time inshalla. But I need your help andco-operation on this matter to find and have our pride, cultures and sacred names back. And forthose who came to our Kunama land and shamelessly and arrogantly had corrupted or altered oursacred names and killed our culture and language, the time of reckoning is coming fast; evenfaster than you could imagine. The international judges with co-operation with our KunamaJudges and jury, will send you subpoena to all culprits and main actors previously mentioned tocome and to attend the court of law in Hague under Indigenous people act on the matter(orsubject) for all wrong doing in Kunama land that leads to cultural and ethnic (nationality)genocide, and that will follow :a) Acknowledgement for wrong doingb) Apology for wrong doingc) Compensation for wrong doingd) Restoration, our names, culture, language, land etc.And we know we will prevail.Names… Your name… Your shadow… Your identity.To be continued