(The article below was written as response to Sheikh Hamid Turki’s article of 28 July 2009 by Ibrahim Mohammed Ali before the latter was hospitalized in Damascus, Syria, for a successful cardiac operation that he underwent on 18 August 2009. Ibrahim is a veteran leader in the prolonged Eritrean struggle for national liberation and democratic governance. He remains a key figure in the Eritrean People’s Party that was founded in August 2008.)


The heroic Eritrean people, who paid dearly in the 30-year struggle for national liberation, are
today passing very difficult times squeezed in between two harmful conditions created by two
actors.

The main actor in causing suffering and a sad situation in Eritrea is the oppressive one-man
regime that imposed itself on the nation for the last two decades. The dictatorial regime has
not only denied the Eritrean people their very basic human rights but also subjected them to
the most brutal repression.

The other actors and partners of the dictatorial regime in causing and prolonging the suffering
of our people and creating unhealthy situation are certain opposition groups bent at disrupting
the internal unity and social setup of this diverse but one nation by forging their fragmented
groupings and promoting division based on religion, language and ethnicity. The ruling
regime and some of those in the opposition who are damaging national unity may, on the
surface, appear to look different, although in reality they are two faces of the same coin. Both
of them inflict huge damage to the country and its people even though there may be only
slight difference in the degree of damage they cause.

The illegitimate and anti-democratic regime in Eritrea uses the presence of the religious and
ethnic groups and their projects as a pretext to present itself as the guarantor of national unity
and stability and thus prolong its stay in power and cover up its illegitimacy and excessive
abuse of human rights that include endless imprisonments, torture, disappearances and
physical liquidations.
Ibrahim Mohammed Ali (left) Chairing the Eritrean national alliance in 2001. He
is flanked by Sheik Hamid Turki.


On the other hand, those forces that promote religious and ethnic alignments take as pretext
the anti-national and anti-human rights actions of the absolutist regime and utilize religion for
political ends. In this way - wittingly or unwittingly - they are serving the interests of the
dictatorial regime by sowing seeds of disharmony in all segments of the society and by
sharpening differences among national forces in the opposition. At this stage, it suffices to
mention the article of 28 July 2009 that Sheikh Hamid Turki, a leading figure in the Islamic
Jihad movement, authored and posted in the websites. In his article, Sheik Turki called the
Eritrean People’s Party (EPP) and the Eritrean Democratic Party (EDP) - two mainstream
actors in the current struggle for change and democracy in Eritrea - as an emerging bloc and
presented his subject conclusions that can be summarized under three points.

According to him, this bloc “belongs” to and “represents” the Christian religion, culture and
Tigrinia ethnic group and described Muslims in the parties as their “supporters”. According to
the writer, this bloc aims to impose political hegemony by strengthening itself and dominating
other organizations Thirdly, Sheik Turki opined that this bloc aspires to take as its own the
legacies of the EPLF and inherit power from the regime.

Naturally, Sheikh Turki and others have the right to state their views without any constraint as
long as those views are presented objectively and with honesty without being carried away by
biased personal feelings and unfiltered convictions. Sheikh Turki himself rejected in the
introduction of his writing the dangers of reverting to the practice of basing one’s judgment
on wrong conclusions out of personal feelings and individual convictions, and he said such
wrong conclusions repeatedly plunged the Eritrean political arena into internecine conflicts and divisions. But when he started to describe the EDP and the EPP, Sheikh Hamid Turki
took the liberty of contradicting himself.

The most surprising and dishonest part of it his writing resorted to labeling other
organizations of being religion-orient ed. It is surprisingly shameful because Sheikh Hamid
Turki is by his own choice leading a religion-based Jihad movement. I am not name-calling
but stating established facts of what his movement acts on and stands for openly as a religious
organization. As to EPP and EDP, these are organizations whose political programs and
information outlets in no way say they are exclusively for Eritreans of a given religion or
ethnicity. In the contrary, both parties possess national platforms that accommodate Eritrean
Muslims and Christians. The bloc formed by this two parties (now heading towards unity)
does not know itself as a bloc representing one religion or ethnicity. One can only state that it
was a figment of Sheikh Turki’s imagination and confusing personal and subjective judgment
to label the said parties in the way Sheikh Turki characterizes them.

It is thus our right and duty to ask him from where he derived his slanted logic and
conclusion. Is this the opinion of all Muslims or an odd conclusion of certain groups springing
from religious biases? Does Sheikh Turki find it sufficient to describe the two parties to be
“religious” because of the names of individual elements like Woldesus Ammar and Mesfin
Hagos in their leaderships? If it is so, what interpretations could one give to the presence of
leadership elements like Mohammed Nur Ahmed and Ismail Nada in those parties? Since
Sheikh Turki could not deny that the bloc of the two parties is composed of Christians and
Muslims, couldn’t it be more correct to describe the grouping as a national bloc? Taking this
logic, we wish to confirm to Sheikh Turki that whether it replaces the regime in power or not,
the bloc formed by EDP and EPP will never fall into confessional abyss. I also take the liberty
of informing all concerned that there are two solid and objective reasons why the EDP-EPP
bloc will not fall into religion-based politics. The first reason is based on a guiding principle
governing the two parties which are opposed to domination of Eritrean politics by a Muslim
or Christian ideology. Both parties stand for a secular, democratic and constitutional state that
accommodates a multi- party system of governance – and not a caretaker government backed
by theocratic structures. The second reason is that this national bloc composed of Muslims
and Christians will not be expected to serve the interests of only one religious or ethnic side as
long as it maintains is platform on national principles and ideals. However, the insinuations
by Sheikh Turki are not unexpected or surprising because we know that these allegations
come from someone who rigidly sticks to the idea of dividing Eritreans on religious basis. He
believes that we are of different identities and cannot live under one entity and possess and
common political system. Sheikh Hamid Turk’s judgment also springs from the campaigns
directed against the ongoing unity process between the EDP and EPP. Likewise, his labeling
of Muslims in those parties as “sheer supporters” of Christians and ethnic Tigrinians, without
even taking note of their convictions and values and their right to choose without the guidance
of caretaker patrons like himself, is a disdainful categorization. This language and logic can
only come from someone like Shiek Turki who lives in the dream world of taking himself to
be the “patron-educator”. I say, our good Sheikh: you practice what you at other times
condemn.

In this manner, Sheikh Turki’s diehard practice of religious differentiation s serve no good
purpose other than adversely affecting the relations of the confessional segments in our
society. Obviously, there cannot be an Eritrean entity without harmony and peaceful co-
existence of its religious segments.
Before coming to a conclusion of my writing, I take the liberty of posing a few direct
questions to Sheikh Hamid Turki. For instance, I ask you Sheikh Turki if you welcome the
establishment of organizations that have religious character like yours? And don’t you believe
that allowing religious mobilizations in a country with multi-religious beliefs would foment
religious conflicts? What is the benefit that Eritrea in general and Eritrean Muslims in
particular can obtain by fueling religious rivalries and tensions? Don’t you think we can learn
a lesson from the consequences of religious fundamentalism and the use of religion for
political ends that caused havoc to the peoples of Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and
other Islamic and non-Islamic societies? If the present and future generations of Eritrean
Muslims are opposed to a system that marginalizes them, don’t you see that it is appropriate
for them to struggle against such a system in close harmony and unity with other compatriots
under national organizations? If the objective is to correct mistakes, it is not appropriate to
organize oneself on religious mobilization and religious message to remove an oppressive
regime that you accuse to be based on religion; it would be interpreted that you are working to
replace that religious entity by your own religious structure. This would mean the current
oppressive system will be replaced by an oppressive Islamic system. In such a situation, the
Christians would declare their own Jihad to get rid of Islamic oppression – a vicious cycle of
conflicts.

In conclusion, I wish to remind Sheikh Turki and others that, due to health reasons, I have not
been that involved in the political tasks of the ELF-RC and its successor EPP for the last five
years. As such, the contents of this article are my personal views and have nothing to do with
the party. They emanate from my sincere concern for Eritrean national unity, and my deep
convictions in the truism that in today’s world, it is impossible to build states based on one
religion or one ethnic belonging. Our epoch is one that allows the formation of states that
accommodate diverse religious and cultural identities.

Finally, I wish that Sheikh Turki uses his writing skills not in fomenting hatred, conflict and
fragmentation, but work towards promoting reconciliation, mutual respect, acceptance and
tolerance. I also wish to remind readers that I am mindful of the bitterness caused to our
people by the excessive abuses meted out against our people by the Isayas regime.

Source A Modest Proposal for a Way Out