Eritrea’s Gov-People Dialogue

Nobody will ever accuse the PFDJ of being an overachiever, but few will describe it as a learning organization.

The brief feud with Yemen (Dec 1995 – Feb 1996) bled to a one month feud with Djibouti (April 1996), which led to two year plus epic battle with Ethiopia (May 1998 – Dec 2000), which was following by another feud with Djibouti (June 1998.)

This is, you would think, prima facie evidence that Eritrea’s ruling party is not a “learning organization.” More precisely, since the government is an extreme autocracy, one can accurately say that the autocrat does not learn. Whereas most people would ask, “what am I doing wrong and how I can change”, his approach is, “I know I am right and the world is wrong: buy why?” So, in his head he has concluded that all these wars were instigated by the US. In his last interview with State TV (November 2018), he asks, “why didn’t Yemen have a “Hanish Crisis” with previous governments? Oh, you mean with its ally the Ethiopian Derg? I don’t know: because the Derg was too busy fighting Eritrean and Tigrayan rebels to pick a fight with Yemen?

So, on top of all the destruction caused by 23 years of conflicts with three neighbors–the dead, the maimed, the displaced, the opportunity lost–we have to live with the knowledge that Isaias Afwerki, a self-described victim, is just likely to stumble us into war in 2019 as he was in 1995.

But a State is more than a government: where does that leave us, the people? Don’t we have a dialogue with our government? After all, these are not alien occupying forces: they are our own. Here, too, the explanation may be surreal but still disheartening: the government has polarized the people into two groups: us, and non-Eritreans. The relationship with its supporters is: we talk you listen. If you were the questioning type, you wouldn’t be invited. The relationship with its opponents is: you don’t exist. Sure, Eritrea has its share of spies, traitors and foreign agents: but no “patriotic opposition.”

Ok, let’s accept that premise. Since those who support the government have sterling records as patriots, can they start asking questions and demanding change and accountability? No, because that would make them unpatriotic in times of war. And reckless in times of, um, stabilization of Ethiopia. And impatient. And of people who are losing faith. A behavior certainly consistent with the behavior of spies and traitors and foreign agents.

Thus our dialogue: for supporters to nod their head and agree (or pretend to agree) with everything the government does. And for the opponents to shout—which might as well be at a deaf person.