Afar University at Assab – Polarization with an Eritrean Student (Part II)

By: Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

[ Posted On: 2008-09-20 ]

In an earlier article (Afar University at Assab – Polarization with an Eritrean Student / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/74664), I published and commented on a mail sent by an astute reader, concerning my earlier article and suggestion for an Afar University at Asab (“Red Sea Afars deserve Respect as Eritrean Citizens – Call for an Afar University at Assab” / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/74386). I will complete my comments in this article, publishing first the uncommented part of my reader’s mail. Numbers encrusted in the text relate to the points of my commentary.

Letter sent by an Eritrean reader

Dear Dr. Muhammad,

................................................................................................................

I mean did you really think about what you means by Afar University 21 or you were simply writing to fool yourself and thinking to fool Afars to follow you? 22 My personal belief is Yes, Afars deserve schools, colleges, and universities. 23 Primary school I would say in mother language but starting from Secondary school all the way to University 24 and in University should be in English for the students (Afar people and Eritrean people as a whole) benefit. 25

That way if we could get to the point where we have a democratic government, 26 be it Afar or non Afar students could benefit by applying for scholarships to study further abroad. 27 Come on Dr. Muhammad, are you aware that King Fahad University teaches in English? 28 Now tell me how cruel you could be to joke like this with poor peoples lives and use it for political ends? 29 In the first place you are not even Afar or Eritrean for that matter to talk with such affirmative tone 30 as though you really cared. 31 If you are doing it to make yourself famous, 32 please use some Hollywood actors or Bush/Mc Cain/Obama stuff 33 and proceed and don't play 34 with poor people conditions for your own purpose. God doesn't even like it. 35 How can you claim you are Muslim and do this Sir? 36 I can't believe a well educated person like you may indulge himself in such shameful and ignorant claims and proposals. Sorry. 37

Finally, while it pains me as Eritrean, the fact is the tyrannical government in the country is dictating and making Eritreans in the country suffer as a whole. 38 At least as far as I know, there is no any ethnic group that is getting privileged or disadvantaged. 39 Every ethnic group in equal manner is suffering. 40 Young people from everywhere are being conscripted by force to military 41, young people in thousands per month are fleeing the country and many dieing in Sahara Desert and Mediterranean sea, and some have even finished their lives with different means. 42 All this out of anger, frustration and hopelessness from their government. To make it clear, I believe we Eritreans all of us without any separation of ethnicity deserve better government. 43 We have all struggled for independence equally, and I believe secessionism 44 doesn't help 45 but of course as I said I have no full information so if I were to have clear information that they are being marginalized, then I would support their sovereignty. 46

To conclude, I believe from Elementary or secondary schools point of view, the dictatorial government despite all its evil administrative ways has been doing very good work throughout Eritrea including in Denkalia. 47 However the fact that no college has been opened as you claimed (I have to confirm), it causes series questions in my mind. 48 Why? Of course as a matter of fact we should also ask ourselves the demography (or population size) before we make conclusions. If I am convinced that the population there is too small and that it in fact makes more sense to have only up to high school there but the colleges/universities elsewhere where the population is higher but surely give the students from the region access (like dormitory, food, and other support) then I would definitely support such strategy. 49

Thanks Dr. Muhammad for your article and I hope you will read my email and reflect about my arguments (points) and hopefully open your eyes in the future.

Thanks again. 50

Commentary

21. I always think and examine data before coming up with a suggestion; perhaps you should take a deep breath and revisit everything that you previously assume as given, correct and suitable. Certainly you are not alone in being dramatically affected by conventionalism and conformism, and in this case I don’t mean Eritrea but the entire world. It’s not Eritrea that went wrong; it’s the entire world. The way you think is wrong, and again I don’t mean it personally. Either you will think outside-the-box and you will bring some results or you will be the victim of the fate that others configured for you, even before you dared imagine it.

Did it happen to you to examine for instance for what reasons Eritrea did not progress much during the last 17 years? Did you try to think what should have been avoided and what – seemingly incredible – should have been done instead?

Did you try to compare Eritrea with an underdeveloped and isolated country of the Eastern European Soviet block, Albania for instance? Do you think that Eritrea was much behind Albania in 1992?

Practically speaking, what I suggest you to think outside-the-box is a figure of speech; you should just think reasonably. It would be enough for you to conclude that things should have been (not simply done but mainly) approached differently.

If for a moment you take some distance and stand critically towards what happened during the past 17 years, you will realize that you simply followed the colonial prescriptions adjusted or projected on African countries by England and France. It would take too long to analyze it here but I guess I should come up with an insightful.

You – not personally – expand on an Anti-Americanism, which is the fundamental element of every colonial puppet, and you fail to undergo what the colonial powers want to divert you from, namely nation-building process.

You have a confused idea about what a multinational and multicultural country can and should be; you seem to think that you will create a new homogeneous nation, the Eritreans. This will never happen; the fallacy of this pseudo-theory is colonial of inspiration. The Europeans know very well (they already did know it before 210 years) that this is the only guaranteed way for underdevelopment, discord and conflict.

A sound and developed multinational and multicultural country means systematic, parallel and promoted nation building process within every nation – component of the country; the solidarity among all elements will forge unity but the solidarity will occur at the civic and sociopolitical level – not at the ethnic – cultural level.

Of course, there is a limit in my criticism; post-soviet Russia failed to correctly understand (let alone implement) this. That is why they still have problems because Russians represent only 80% of the total population (140 million people). When Russia fails to understand that national solidarity in a multinational and multicultural country cannot be achieved through oppression in Chechnya, one must not expect Eritrea to advance much.

Here I have however to admit that Eritrea never treated the local ethnic groups in the way Russians did, but Eritrea does not have the resources of Russia. Russia can rely on Oil & Gas, Gold mines, precious stones, and other natural resoures; Eritrea cannot. Progress and development will come only if sought after outside the colonial pattern.

22. The fact that you fail to think outside-the-box does not mean that every scholar who reasons first tries to fool you like the French, the English and the Libyans who want to use you for different purposes.

The lack of progress over the past 17 years (and the progress of Eritrea would be an excellent news for the entire Africa) proves – in and by itself – that you have been fooled by your colonial interlocutors who wanted to sell arms to you.

23. I am glad that you believe so; now there are two possible approaches to the subject. The first is as you say, first open some new primary and secondary schools, and then more, and more, and after 20 years think of a first college in a university for Afar people in English, with only a meager Dept. of Afar Literature. If now there are some reasons to slow down the process, it will take us 50 years to reach that level, assuming there will be no adverse circumstances! Then? Then, we will die because we will be too old! To me this sounds either as an hypocrisy expressed from the part of those who do not want to see the suggestion finally materialized because it contradicts their (apparently opposite) agendas or as the fairy tale of my grandmother.

24, The other, fast, way to development in education and then all the rest is to implement in Eritrea (and in any other underdeveloped country from Somalia to Egypt and from Morocco to Bangladesh) the methods implemented in Western Europe as consequence of the diffusion of the Enlightenment in the late 18th and the 19th century. Then, the administrations that implemented groundbreaking methods to reach a competitive edge did not oppose the launching of a university on faulty grounds, such as missing primary and secondary schools (and there were many missing at that level).

In fact, and this is the important part of my answer as regards this subject, you are technically wrong. Never does the education start from bottom to top; if the correct method is pursued, it starts from top and goes lower towards the very bottom.

It would look awkward to assume that illiterate and uneducated people (the bottom) would ever be in a position to teach themselves (one another); first some people reach secondary and then university education, eventually postgraduate and postdoctoral. A few educated people in an underdeveloped and uneducated nation should first establish an institution of national planning for education; this is the Afar University I have been talking about.

Education is not only matter of courses and exams; there will be a need for books, educational material, pedagogical method, dictionaries, encyclopedias, literacy campaigns, repertories of all sorts, translations, etc. All this will be decided in the experimental university that will be established first.

In such a case, what matters mostly for the underdeveloped nation with few scholars and academics is the entire circle of Humanities. Starting from there they will expand to the rest,
a) organizing the educational path for the young generations all the way from the primary school to a Ph.D. in Afar Humanities, and
b) expanding Afar teaching to other sectors and creating Afar terminology and specialized vocabulary (as it has been in many languages, Turkish, Farsi, Modern Hebrew, Malay etc) in Law, Architecture, Engineering, Medicine and Science.

I would terminate this point by making a general comparison between Eritrea and the tiny, unrecognized, but far wealthier Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC - a country with less than 250000 citizens). It’s a pity that Eritrea, with a population 20 times larger than TRNC, had only one university and closed it down (or did not allow it to fully function and properly expand), whereas TRNC has more than five (5) universities.

25. This approach is execrable and colonial; it condemns every country to absolute dependence on the colonial West, and even worse it is obsolete. You try to express your impression with the place of your study, Canada, and becoming servile in a world that ceases to be servile, you look anachronistic, if not archaic. First, last, and above all, every nation must establish academic education in the local national language(s). Beyond that imperative level, and according to the interconnectedness of the country, bilingual universities should be established in a balanced way. Certainly, in several countries, there are English, French and German medium universities; personally, I don’t think that Eritrea (or any other small country) should be bound to existing practices and thus avoid new pioneering approaches.

With respect to international universities in Eritrea, I would certainly start with an Italian University because of Italy’s proven anti-colonial policies (return of Axum hawalti / stela, deal with Libya); it would be an anathema to the perfidious policies of France and England. As the approach can bring African students to Eritrea, I would suggest further international universities, notably German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese.

Totally agreeing with President Afeworki, I would oppose any American, English and French university in Eritrea, until the anti-Eritrean and pro-Abyssinian biases of the disreputable administrations of the three countries take an irrevocable end.

26. I would view it very differently; I don’t see why Eritrea has to copy the political system of let’s say Denmark. There has certainly to be social solidarity, freedom of expression, and representative presence of the society in the administration. This does not impose a Western ‘democratic’ system. Not at all! To what extent do you think the Western ‘democratic’ system is truly democratic? How do you believe that can a democratic system exist when secret societies impose all key decision making options on theatrically elected parties and governments?

What does it matter whether you voted for Labour or not, if the Blair government pursues policies with which you totally disagree in sectors as varied as Education, Foreign Policy, Defense, Finance and Health? Don’t you understand that it a parody of democracy?

You can’t publish an article opposing Pres. Afeworki’s policies in an Eritrean newspaper? Well, that’s not a big deal; in France, you will also fail to publish your article against the criminal fabrication Mediterranean Union, which was not decided by the comical and disreputable French president but by the (politically invisible but effectively omnipresent) Apostate Freemasonic Lodge that totally controls the media.

In Eritrea you at least know that it’s Pres. Afeworki who takes the decision – right or wrong; in France you even don’t know who the Hell makes the God-damned choice every now and then.

27. Dear sir, “study abroad” is not called “national education”, and the purpose of my article was precisely to focus on this.

28. King Fahd University produces third world level engineers (“bon pour l’ Orient”) who are the world’s most enthusiastic supporters of Osama bin Laden, and obey the most besotted and trashy fatwas issued by uncultured and barbaric pseudo-Muslim “sheikhs” – the erratic followers of Hanbal, Ibn Taimiya and Abd el Wahab.

Therefore, No to King Fahd University!

Down with King Fahd University!

Tear down the God-damned trash of university!

Saudi Arabia, if you happen not to know it well, is the epicenter of the evil and anti-Islamic mechanism of Islamic terrorism which has been promoted by means of an Apostate Freemasonic deal with the Satanists of Riyadh in the beginning of last century. If Saudi Arabia and its barbaric and totalitarian regime are allowed to exist for another 2 – 3 years, the world will be swept by an Islamic Terrorist tsunami of absolute darkness and anti-Islamic evilness.

I cannot expand on the subject here, but be sure that the Apostate Freemasonic conspiracy has long been preparing this development in order to trigger a gigantic overreaction that will impose a totalitarian state throughout Europe that will invade and control the entire Middle East.

29. You call me cruel? This shows to what extent your mind has become corrupt because of the colonial literature that you have to study and reproduce if you want to get graduated from the Western universities. I know the story only too well. Few studied with all the colonial professors I have had in my postgraduate studies in four Western European cities.

30. This is a non argument; you don’t need to be Italian in order to speak about Italy. You need only to have studied Italy’s past, to have known Italy’s present, and to have a wide understanding for Italy’s possibilities within the context of our global world; last but not the least, you must love Italy. The same for every country; if it comes to me now, I don’t think that an Eritrean national could teach as comprehensively as I can the Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Latin sources of the History of the Red Sea and Eritrea, a subject about which I wrote books and articles in Greek, Turkish and English.

31. You know, you are too young and too inexperienced to attempt a clarification of intentions; leave it for later.

32. Ditto

33. What a sarcasm coming from someone who is ignorant of his own country’s Antiquity!

34. I guess you should first eliminate your own ignorance, and then try to advise – in this characteristic way of yours – someone else with whom he should play. If you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head, don’t engage in academic discussions. Otherwise, not a single academic will take you seriously.

35. This is the apotheosis of the tragic-comical! But at the same time you fail to shape a scabroso type relevant to Commedia dell’ Arte! Do you really think you are the vicar of God in order to know whether God likes this and dislikes that?

36. You even are not Muslim so that you be in a position to know the basic criteria in this regard; in addition, you are not a specialist in Islamic studies to have to necessary knowledge to evaluate. Failing to focus more on your primary concern, the Afar University at Assab, you turn your discussion to personal issues. If you repeat it with other academics, be sure they will not bother to answer you. Do not over-evaluate my pedagogical approach to you.

37. This is the spectacular revelation of your hypocrisy! Earlier, at the point of my comment no 23, you – without anyone demanding it – said that “Afars deserve schools, colleges, and universities”; now, an Afar University becomes – unexpectedly and unreasonably – a matter of “shameful and ignorant claims and proposals”.

You know, I feel pity for you and your duplicity that, if you don’t manage to eliminate, will turn against you and make of your life an incredible nightmare. You thought is the focus of evil, because evil is precisely this: duplicity, hypocrisy and mendacity that can at the span of 10 minutes get unmasked.

This is after all the corroboration of a totalitarian mentality and an Anti-Afar racism. As you put it – half-said of course – in the part of your mail that corresponds to my comment no 23: “but starting from Secondary school all the way to University 24 and in University should be in English for the students (Afar people and Eritrean people as a whole) benefit”. This is an evil plan, and here you get unmasked; you think that you have the right to speak about another nation that you personally hate and want to see permanently underdeveloped, and definitely stripped of its national identity, cultural authenticity, and diachronic integrity. Yet, right of expression anticipates good intention and constructive approach.

So terrible is the complex of inferiority that you feel toward the Afar that you cannot control yourself? You want the Afars to be endowed with only an English medium university that will certainly ensure their assimilation and gradual evaporation so that you be happy with the completion of one more African genocide.

I strongly advise you to repent and reject this biased attitude against a Noble and Heroic Nation of the Red Sea that was targeted by the Italians, the French, the English and the Amhara Abyssinians long before you made of their progress a matter of personal disturbance for you.

Who are you to dare develop these negative ideas that correspond to Spiritual and Cultural Genocide against a Nation of which not a single member murdered or harmed any of your relatives, ancestors and friends?

Do you think that your bad intentions against the Afars – as revealed through your mendacity exposed in your text – differ in anything from the Chinese practices against the Tibetans that the Dalai Lama correctly characterized as Cultural Genocide?

Or will you say that the Afars are the children of a lower God?

38. Thank God, Pres. Afeworki is in control – and not a person like you.

39. This is definitely wrong; shall we examine the names of the ministers of the Eritrean government? Certainly, the situation in Eritrea is far better than in Sudan, Abyssinia or Djibouti, but you cannot deny the need for improvement. In addition, you know very well that the Eritrean capital is very privileged if compared with the provinces.

40. An empty point of rhetoric.

41. Every man in every country has to complete his military service; is it strange that in Eritrea, which is still in war with Abyssinia, greater concern is given to the national defense?

42. Bad luck for refugees is lurking everywhere and for every one.

43. That’s true, but the best way to get it done is to focus on nation-building processes for all separately at the ethnic-cultural level, and commonly at the sociopolitical and economic levels. All nationals, Tigre, Afar, Beja, Tigrinya, Saho, etc. should be Eritrean citizens. Strong civic sense is needed and it will be formed only after each nation has been successfully engaged in autonomous, free and governmentally supported nation-building procedures.

44. I did not speak of secession or secessionism, but you have to understand the dynamics of life. It seems that in your mind the nations are some dead corpses that have to be irremovable from the places that your totalitarian and authoritarian mind reserved for them. You are totally wrong; nations are alive organisms. You cannot impose anything on them, you have simply to coordinate them in equity, justice and freedom. Life is freedom; if freedom is denied, the living organism will react. Then, what is unthinkable today becomes the only possible solution after some time, if in the meantime freedom was denied. More you deny the freedom to some, farther you push them from you. This you must understand – for the sake of Eritrea alone.

45. Of course, secessionism helps; it helped Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia and Estonia – and so many other countries.

On the other hand, it is not imperative. If all the nations can undergo their nation-building process in freedom and solidarity, then secessionism certainly is not needed: you can attest it in Switzerland. But will Eritrea manage to be the Red Sea Switzerland? This is the big bet in front of all of you; but to win the bet, you have to get rid of the duplicitous and hypocritical minds that I earlier identified in your approach. You will truly win only if you manage to get it done.

46. You see that you come now back to reality and admit that you don’t have “clear information”? This was the essence of my article; to promote dialogue among you, namely a dialogue that will allow you all to know one another better and without prejudices. You have the same rights, and you there is a terrible challenge in front of you. The entire Africa will benefit if you manage to succeed.

47. This statement is self-contradictory.

48. The doubt is an excellent advisor; it leads to investigation and search for knowledge.

49. The point is that strength is knowledge; and therefore without knowledge, you will never have real strength.

50. And I thank you for your time and concern; if some of my strong expressions disturbed you, I apologize; it did not have any aspect of personal attack. I simply stressed my point as regards ideas and approaches I reject – not persons as such. Best wishes for the completion of your studies. And thank you very much!

Note

See also:
From:

• http://flickr.com/photos/40845460@N00/286754330/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asseb
• http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/africa/assab_tpc88.jpg
• http://www.asmera.nl/eritrea2003/eritrea-2003-15.htm
• http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/eritrea?v=print
• http://charlesfred.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_archive.html
• http://www.traveladventures.org/continents/africa/dankalia.shtml
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma5G1b51sMA
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iKeF2EMTjM&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs8eA13xRDo&feature=related

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis - is Orientalist, Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, Islamologist, Historian and Political Scientist. Dr. Megalommatis, 51, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages.

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