Why Eritrea needs a revolution
By Woldu M.A. Solomon
May 28, 2008 — It is hard to know what President Isaias’s political qualifications really are, but leading a nation certainly cannot be one of them. Commemorating his country’s 17th independence anniversary last week, the Eritrean leader again offered his people more of the same: tyranny, hunger, ignorance, and possible fresh wars with his neighbors. Like Liberia’s Charles Taylor, he may have been a good guerrilla fighter, but he has been an absolute disaster as chief of government.
Isaias is not the first and won’t be the last hopelessly inept politician to rule an African nation. There have already been the Mobutu Sese Sekos, the Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassas, the Ian Smiths and the Idi Amin whose lunatic policies destroyed one way or the other the lives of millions of Africans. Like these incompetent characters, Isaias is allergic to concepts of individual liberty, justice or democracy.
His recent Aljezeera and Western media interviews reinforce the widely held notion that after almost 2 decades in power, he still is not up to the task and is dangerously out of touch with reality.
As Isaias keeps stumbling on every national question with amazing regularities, many Eritreans are starving to death and the country’s economy is in a shambles; citizens are terrorized, tortured or killed for merely thinking about democratic changes; the country is in a permanent state of war with its neighbors; and the government’s rogue behavior has earned it the name of a terrorist state.
Isaias told Aljezeera TV last week that he would not allow democratic elections in his country for another three to four decades. His tone and his attitude sounded more like that of Premier Ian Smith 30 years back, when he was making a buffoon of himself as he kept advising the world that there would not be a democratically elected black majority rule in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in a thousand years. Smith and his white minority government believed Africans were not politically mature enough for leadership jobs or for democracy. In a similar way, Isaias does not think Eritreans deserve or are yet ready for a democratic way of life.
Isaias will be over a hundred years old with a lot of pace-makers in his arteries by the time he feels like granting his Eritrean subjects their freedom. Of course, his main concern is how to safeguard his personal interests, which, he may try to accomplish by passing on the presidency at some point to his young son, Abraham Isaias. Many African dictators have dreamt of such plans, but have failed disastrously.
But Africa has also had its share in producing well respected world leaders, among them, Nelson Mandela, Julies Nyrere, Kwame Nkrumah, Desmond Tutu, as well as many revolutionary fighters like Patrice Lumumba, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Samora Machel, to mention a few. One may disagree with them on some specific policy details, but they represent the best in world politics that often matched the challenges of the given African hour.
The Eritrean people may benefit from a host of proven African ideas and experiences. For instance, there is Mandela’s tested philosophy of democratic participation and inclusionary strategy in which all are encouraged to play their part in changing their society. Moreover, Nobel Peace Prize winning Desmond Tutu’s radical work of turning enemies into friends may be the only sure way in creating lasting peace and unity for Eritreans at the individual, tribal, national and international levels.
And finally, the new Eritrean opposition leaders preparing to replace the Isaias regime, need revolutionary Patrice Lumumba’s type of fire in their bellies to right what is wrong in their country and their region, with each first making sacrificial changes in his or her own personal life.
No revolution can succeed unless it is spearheaded by a most incorruptible, selfless, hardworking and visionary leadership.
The author is a veteran journalist, once had the chance to interview some of the African leaders mentioned in the story