Abraham’s story happens to be a quintessential Eritrean story of the generation that has lived through all the ups and downs of the Eritrean revolutionary journey. In it, we find all the phases that many of that era’s generation underwent as the Eritrean political and social landscape kept undergoing dramatic upheavals. In particular, his story gives us a synoptic picture of how diaspora students responded to the Eritrean call, best exemplified in the militant student organization known as Eritreans for Liberation in North America (EFLNA), more popularly known by its Tigrigna acronym “ENASEA” (ኤናሰኣ). Thus, in telling the story of Abraham in the US, we are also telling the story of the student organization and vice versa, for their respective trajectories in the political transformations they underwent happen to overlap to a great extent; that is, their stories will be used to throw light on one another so as to develop a better understanding of both; and, thereby, on that revolutionary era.

Below we will, first, briefly go through Abraham’s academic achievements. Second, we will take a closer look at EFLNA; in particular, at the ethos of sacrifice that defined it throughout its duration. Third, we will look at Abraham’s EFLNA years, and how he responded to the “Eritrean call”. Fourth, we will look art how painful was the organization’s breakup from the EPLF, and Abraham’s critical role in midwifing this divorce. And, fifth, we will go over some of Abraham’s contributions in asmarino.com.

In this article, asmarino staff will focus only on the “political” Abraham. For the “family man” Abraham, we have asked the family members to write a brief profile to be added to this article; thus the best part comes in the last section.

Academic excellence

Abraham was born in Adi-Quala to his father, Ghebreghiorgis Ghebreyohannes, and his mother, Sebene Kahsai on July 7th, in 1949. He grew up in Asmara, where he received his elementary (1955-1962) and junior secondary (1962-1964) education, at Geza Kenisha and Biet Ghiorgis respectively. He ended both his elementary and junior secondary education with great distinctions and received many awards. In one instance of early academic achievement, Abraham was awarded a prize by the hands of Lt. General Lij Abiye Abebe who was the representative of Emperor Haile Selassie in Eritrea during the Federation era.

As such, he easily managed to enter the prestigious General Wingate High School (1964-1968), with full scholarship. The school used to select exceptionally gifted students from the provinces. Abraham highly enjoyed the General Wingate School and developed voracious reading habit there that stayed with him for the rest of his lifetime. He also excelled in his Matriculation Exam, with straight ‘A’s for all the eight subjects he took, a rare achievement that earned him the Haile Selassie Prize Award. He received an Omega golden watch from the hands of Emperor Haile Selassie and 100 Birr per month allowance (equivalent to a teacher’s monthly salary at that time) in his campus years.  In 1968, this award for unusual academic excellence was shared with only one other student in the entire country.

Continuing this tradition of academic excellence, Abraham won Fulbright Scholarship from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1970-1973) while he was a second year student at Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa (1968-1970). He happened to appreciate the dedication and competitiveness of MIT student life. His forte was in modeling and rigorous mathematics. But it was not all academics, for it was in MIT that he was exposed to the intricacies of the Eritrean liberation movements and the Eritrean Diaspora in Boston. As a result, for the first time in his student life, he started becoming active in politics. He graduated from MIT with Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering.

And again, consistent with his academic achievement in the past, Abraham was given full scholarship for PHD in Mathematics from John Hopkins University. He declined the offer. This was the first time that Abraham prioritized something else over his academic pursuance. He believed that there was greater need for him somewhere else: the struggle for the liberation of Eritrea. Here, we witness a tangible enactment of the ethos of sacrifice that was to define the Eritrean community in North America during the 70s.

Abraham was to return to campus only after the demise of EFLNA. He entered Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1980, and achieved a Master’s Degree in Law and Diplomacy in 1982.

Those who knew Abraham in his school years remember him as a very serious student singularly focused on his studies; that is, even in his early years. A friend at Biet Ghiorgis School remembers him as a sober student, and somewhat introvert; that he was more of a listener than a talker, rarely initiating response on his own and often the last to respond in class. Another friend from his Wingate years similarly remembers him as a hard working, studious student. And those who knew him at the university in Addis Ababa remember him as remaining totally apolitical throughout his campus years [to the resentment of some of his peers], and entirely focused on his engineering studies. The tumultuous leftist student movement of that era, which was very active in those years, hardly affected him. This is indeed in great contrast to his EFLNA years; that is, Abraham became politicized not in Eritrea, not in Ethiopia, but in the USA – which, by itself, is an interesting phenomenon.

In 1983 he was employed at Verizon, and had been working there for 25 years, first as an economist, then as financial analyst until retirement in 2008. He passed away on Sept 10, 2014 as a result of colon cancer.  He has been survived by his wife Azezet Abraha, his sons Andom and Semere and his daughter Zied. 

Now, let us look back at those intense EFLNA years, with the spirit of sacrifice that defined a whole generation as our primary focus, since only within that background would the Abraham’s story that we want to tell make sense.

Often, when the subject of “sacrifice” in the Eritrean context arises, it is the sacrifice of the teghadallti (the guerrilla freedom fighters) at mieda that is mostly pointed at. To a lesser extent, the larger population in mainland Eritrea that supported the struggle in various ways and had to go through many hardships is also mentioned. But to fully grasp how the spirit of the times engulfed the Eritrean mind, there is no better place to see it than in diaspora; and among the diaspora, the student organization in North America.

In the 70s, a nationalist fever engulfed the Eritrean students in North America. In its strict adherence to its self-imposed revolutionary principles, a quasi religious atmosphere prevailed among EFLNA’s members. Some would even go as far as saying that it was more of a cult-like climate. When one of the leaders of the organization interviewed for this article was asked on how this cult-like phenomenon evolved, he says that it should be looked at from the greater context of the times, and that we shouldn’t be judgmental. Globally, it was an idealistic era, with the idea of revolution finding resonance among many of the so-called enlightened groups. And then, of course, let’s not forget that in mainland Eritrea, the revolution was framed in similar terms: the oppressed Eritreans fighting against the Ethiopian imperialists. Besides, peer pressure and guilt consciousness had a great role to play, he adds.

But there are others who disagree, and instead invoke not only the idealist era but also the participants’ young age to fully grasp the unusual realty that emerged then. Another friend of Abraham, who was also part of the broader leadership, objects to the label “cult-like” altogether; and instead points to the fact that almost all of the members were young, in the ages between 20 and 30, and hence that the then prevailing atmosphere has to be looked at with that particular extenuating circumstance in mind.

Whichever way the era was described though, there is one thing that all seem to agree: that it undoubtedly was an era of sacrifice. All agree that a highly disciplined student community whose sole priority was securing the liberation of Eritrea emerged in those years, making sacrifice the ultimate virtue. Some sacrificed their education; others their livelihood; others family life, and still others postponed all kinds of private life. The goal was to emulate the ascetic life of the freedom fighters in the fields of Eritrea.

The ascetic life was to be seen everywhere, in almost everything that the students did. All kinds of excesses were denounced and frugality was championed across the board, with the critical difference in time, resources, money and even emotion to be sacrificed; with all that had been “frugally saved” being promptly channeled to the revolution. In short, one’s private life had to be almost given up for the Greater Cause. Anyone that dared to wear flashy or expensive clothes or who frequented nightclubs or other entertainments was frowned upon. Eating community prepared meals at meeting places of the organization was encouraged. Many others lived in crowded apartments, trying to save as much as possible from rent.

The payoff of this across-the-board sacrifice was to be seen in the staggering amount of money they used to collect. Besides the amount of money that each chapter was assigned to raise, there were competitive donations that were made in various occasions. In an organization of around 800 members only [the Eritrean diaspora population in North America was very small at that time], and for that made up mainly of students, the money channeled to the coffers of the EPLF was of huge amount. For instance, by 1979, when the organization decided to disband, it had almost one million dollars in the bank; money that eventually was to be forwarded to the EPLF.

The role the diaspora money collected [not only from the students in North America, but also from the housemaids in Italy and Middle East] played at mieda shouldn’t be underestimated, especially since it came at a very critical time. With the expulsion of Saleh Sabe from the EPLF, the money source from the Arab world had dried up. Thus, the diaspora money arrived when the EPLF was facing a dire financial crisis to meet the minimum demands of the extensive guerrilla warfare it was conducting then.

This self-imposed frugality was also to be witnessed in the precious time the students were willing to spend in the service of the Struggle. Every Sunday, there was a general meeting with its emphasis on political education that everyone had to attend; no excuses were accepted. If one was unable to make it, he/she was heavily criticized in the leftist format of “criticism and self-criticism”. Any straying from the party line was a no-no – the endless meetings were meant to instill this fact above everything else. In addition to the general meetings, each one was advised to be active in at least one of the various committees. Every member had to take turn in attending to the household chorus in the meeting places, such as cooking, dish washing and cleaning. In short, the life of the students seemed to revolve around this single issue of the Struggle; everything else became secondary.

But this ethos of “sacrifice” is understood best if it is stretched to include the emotional involvement that one was willing to invest. That is, one’s emotional displays towards others – one’s own family members, friends, lovers, acquaintances, etc – had to be frugally saved for the Greater Cause. One of Abraham’s friends, while reminiscing on that era, provides a memorable example. He says that they were not even allowed to mourn the death of their dear ones properly, the rationale being that one shouldn’t put one’s personal loss above the national one. He was speaking from his own experience; when his father died, he had to keep the pain pent up within himself, any emotional display being taken as sign of weakness. At a time when thousands were getting killed at mieda in the war of independence, focusing on one’s own individual losses was totally discouraged.

The EFLNA members were so engrossed in their Cause that the rest of the world was shut out. They did this in two ways: by making a minimal social contact with Eritreans who were unwilling to be part of the organization and by ignoring the larger world in whose midst they were living. Thus, a somewhat insulated world was created.                                                                                                                             

Above, we have been looking at the 70s era of sacrifice as embodied in the Eritrean students of North America, in almost everything they did: from the cheap clothes they wore, the shared foods they ate, flashy entertainments they avoided, crowded apartments they slept, precious times they spent on the Cause to the communal lives they lived. Now, we will see how that era of sacrifice exhibited itself in one man, Abraham Ghebreghiorgis.

Abraham’s sacrifice

We see the generational sacrifice described above in Abraham EFLNA years in three areas: education, career and family. This is because he felt that he would need all his resources – time-wise, financial, mental, emotional, etc – should go to the Struggle. The fact that Abraham was not only a member but also one of the leaders also provides us with a unique perspective to understand that era better.

The strive for education curbed

When Abraham finished his undergraduate studies at MIT, as pointed above, he was given the option of joining the prestigious John Hopkins University, with full scholarship for a PHD in Mathematics. But he declined the offer believing that it would derail him from serving the Eritrean cause in his capacity as one of the EFLNA leadership. When Abraham was asked by EFLNA to join the leadership, he had convinced them to let him finish his undergraduate study first given that it was only one year left for him to complete it. After that, there was no way he could plan for a post-graduate study. As many of his other colleagues, it is clear he had to curb his ambition in education and career for the sake of the Cause.

Once he became one of the five in the leadership position, he had to commit himself totally to the Cause. That means this was to be a full-time job. As a Political Commissar, he was in charge of the political education of the members. And as a militant political organization, it was imperative that the organization had to build the political consciousness of the members to a high level. As such, Abraham was selecting and preparing (and sometimes translating) topics for studies, reading and tutorial. This included Eritrean history, the then current situation in Eritrea and, of course, the indispensable theoretical framework of Marxism-Leninism through which prism everything was assessed.

So how did the leaders who were committed full-time to the Cause manage to live? Well, it goes without saying that they had to lead by example. The five leaders used to live in one bedroom apartment. All they used to get was $200.00 monthly stipend from the money collected from members. Even though their rent was also paid by others, you can imagine living in New York (out of all places!) with that kind of money. No wonder then that their lives were extremely ascetic, proudly reflecting the life at mieda. These self-imposed hardships made sense to them because the benchmark of comparison was always the hardships of the freedom fighters.

In many instances, this demand for sacrifice was not only imposed upon themselves, but also upon their beloved ones. In fact, there is an interesting story to tell that sums up this ethos of sacrifice that defined that era that didn’t even spare one’s own family – a “farewell letter” that Abraham sent to his parents years after he decided to fully commit himself to the Cause.

The farewell letter

Abraham came from a modest family and all his adult life he strived to help his parents as the eldest child; that is, except for that brief era of sacrifice. His attempt to financially support his family started when he was a student at Haile Selassie University. Being fortunate enough to get 100 Birr a month allowance for his academic excellence, he was able to financially help the family at that early age. Once he was given a scholarship abroad though, he was forced to discontinue that help for he had to save for various expenses, however painful to him that decision was. Nevertheless, he started to help his family again as soon as he found his footing in the US; that is, while he was still a student. It is important to know all this background, for what he was about to do was radically the opposite: he was willing to stop all the financial help to the family in order to divert his energy to the Cause. The spirit of the time as embodied in the Eritrean students in North America seems to be encapsulated in this unarticulated motto: the greater Eritrean family over the nuclear family! This “nuclear family” has to be understood in two senses: not only were the parents and siblings one already had were to be bypassed, but the family that one wanted to have was to be postponed [Abraham was married in 1984].

When Abraham decided that the nation came ahead of the family, he cut off his contact with his family for years. In his letter, he provided a belated explanation why he had to do this. The statement that notoriously summed up his state of mind in that letter was: “The family problem cannot be solved until the Eritrean problem is solved.” And he acted upon this strange belief that defined the times: he went on to solve the national problem (as he understood it), fully deferring the family problem. His father understandably got furious, and he purportedly said, “How dare he equate me with the rest of the nation? Wasn’t I who brought him up to this position?”

Abraham’s brothers tried to reconstruct the letter from memory:

Back to Table of Contents