source http://assenna.com/the-logical-order-and-the-opposition/
Eng. Filmon H Yohannes
First thing first
Do you know the main reason why the Eritrean opposition movement failed to bring any change inside Eritrea so far? Despite the fact that the Isaias mafia clique was totally bankrupted in all fronts politically, morally, socially and economically for the last eleven years and counting….!?
The answer is simpler than what you may think; in fact it is so simple that it’s one of the biggest sources of frustration and bafflement for both the opposition and the silent majority who are critical of the mafia clique in their own homes.
The main, biggest problematic reason why the opposition was and still is a failure so far is this. *Not doing things in logical orders.*
Have you ever tried to take your pants off …without taking off your shoes first?
If you haven’t, I’ll tell you exactly how it goes. The two seconds it would have taken to slip your shoes off becomes at least two minutes getting unstuck from the predicament. We get this bright idea that we can bypass a step and save two seconds of time. It looks like it will *probably* work if we do it this way. But it doesn’t. Plain and simple. Not doing things in logical order just costs us more time, and causes an unreasonable amount of backtracking and frustration…The order of events is very important. If you leave something out or do something in the wrong order you end up with a mess. It’s a “do over.”
The natural world is logical in its orders too; new born babies do not run around before they learn how to crawl with both legs and arms. First they crawl, and then they learn how to stand up right still (dew ela dearo!) after that they take their first step and start walking like all of us. It’s nature’s logical order. In numerology order 3 doesn’t come before 1 or 2 doesn’t come after 7. The correct numerology order is 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and so on.
At the moment we have political organisations trying to do things out of the logical order. Some of them are absurdly trying to pass polices for future Eritrea right now. For example just look at the ethnic, religious and regional political organisations, they have a list of polices they want passed and implemented right now before any debate or consent of the entire stakeholders. It is like jumping straight to number 5 by passing 1 to 4 in the list of logical orders it didn’t work before and it will never work in the future until the logical order is followed.
I have been openly opposing the mafia clique in Asmara together with my comrades in the opposition for the past ten years now. I have been into countless meetings and seminars, participated on many projects. But by the looks of it it seems each year that passes the opposition goes one step forward and ten steps backwards. What is the problem? Well this is what I think.
By now numbers of political and civic organisation has risen to over thirty organisations, each calming to have its own political program or vision. In other words we now have more illogical organisations with illogical leaders than five years ago.
If you ask those opposition organisations what they want to achieve they will cheerfully provide you their thick political program papers, heavily loaded with all the things they want to achieve in future Eritrea. Nothing wrong with having a political program, after all a political organisation is not a political organisation without a political program or political manifesto. But the problem lies with understanding the point of a political program or manifesto itself in the first place.
Imagine thirty political organisations each with a different and opposing list of how Eritrea should be govern in the future. In their list everything is listed from the smallest almost irrelevant subject to big dividing issues like centralised vs decentralised, each political organisation with its own policies on education, health, land & sea, human rights, prison and prisoners policy, development policy, equality, majority/minority policy, langue, flag, independent media policies, forest protection policies, natural resources policies, mother-child care policies, sport polices, national defence and security forces policies (down to the nitti-gritty levels of land, air and sea, national intelligence, police…) The list just goes on and on.
Can you build constitutional democracy in Eritrea without removing dictator Isaias and his mafia clique? I think not.
Can you have human rights before implementation of a national constitution and while dictator Isaias is still dictating? No
Can you have “the right for nations and nationalist to self-determination up to secession?” while dictator Isaias is in power? No. Not possible without consent of the entire Eritrean people.
Can you have federalism in Eritrea while dictator Isaias still on power and before the consent of the entire Eritrean people? Big fat No; it is just not possible.
Can you be able to reverse the regional constituency system (Akeleguzay, Gash Barka, Semhar, Senhist, Sahil and Hammasien) while the dictator is still in power? No
Can you have constitutionally protected equality of all sorts before the removal of the dictator and his system? No
Can you have development and justice before removal of Isaias and his mafia gangs? Nope you can’t.
Can any of the political organisations implement any of their reform policies/visions, before removing tyrant Isaias, before implementation of the national constitution, before an election? Not possible…
I’m going to stop here because I think you already get the point on what is dragging the opposition organisation down. If you haven’t got the point yet consider this.
The point is almost everything on their list is pointless at the present times for two main reasons.
In the current Eritrean political context, having a political vision or program for future Eritrea is fine as long as it doesn’t become a tool for endless polarisations. Arguing and disagreeing about the future in the present time is illogical waste of time. You heard the expression first thing first!
This is the logical order of events in making Eritrea free, democratic and great nation without any decorative surface of oratory rhetoric.
At the moment we have political organisations trying to do things out of the logical order. Some of trying to pass polices for future Eritrea right now. For example just look at the ethnic, religious and regional political organisations, they have a list of polices they want passed right now before any debate or consent of the entire stakeholders. It is like jumping straight to number 5 by passing 1 to 4 in the list of logical orders above. It didn’t work before and it will never work in the future until the logical order is followed.
Conclusion
The moral of the story is logical order of events is very important. If you leave something out or do something in the wrong order you end up with a big mess. Its a “do over.”
The pressing need for our people at the present time is who saves and rescues the nation from the crazed mafia clique, not who has the best polices to run Eritrea in the future. We all can see this reflected as a feedback to all the conferences that were engaged on heated debate on future polices for Eritrea. Our people are not interested on “Government on Exile” or “National Congress” from outside of the nation. Our people know what comes first, what comes first is removing Isaias and his group from power. That is why there is no much interest on most of the political organisation that are trying to do things out of the normal logical order.
Having said that all the opposition political organisations have far more superior deal for the nation than the HGDEF mafia group, it’s unfortunate that instead of concentrating their efforts on removing the tyrannical group from power they are engaged on competing and opposing each other.
Let Democracy and Dialogue Flourish.