Yosief Ghebrehiwet will give a speech in EYSC Room (otherwise known as Eritrean Simerr for Change Room) on Saturday, Nov 19, at 11:00 AM (Los Angeles time). The topic of the speech will be: From the killing Fields of Sahel to the killing fields of Sinai – 50 years of journey. The main theme of the speech will be: what is it that has led us to the present predicament, as best exemplified in the ongoing massacres at Sinai desert? Various strands, some that go as far as 50 years back and beyond, that have contributed to the present predicament of the youth will be explored. Among others, the following three questions will be addressed:
- Eritrean society in general: What is it that has gone deeply wrong in our society that it can no more defend its youth and women from the tyranny of Shaebia, the ruthlessness of Eritrean human traffickers and the barbarism of Bedouin Arabs?
- Eritrean revolution: How much has the revolution contributed to the tattered social fabric of present day Eritrea? Has the culture of martyrdom, inherited from ghedli and fully embraced by the youth (even in the opposition camp) anything to do with it?
- Identity crisis: How much has the identity crisis of the generation that set out to liberate Eritrea – both of the Muslim and Christian types – contributed to the present Eritrean predicament? Has the search of alien identities led us to the present dead end? And how much of that can be attributed to the colonial legacy?
This speech will be mainly addressed to the youth and, hence, will try to make a close connection between the subject matter and the youth’s state of mind. It will claim that the youth in the opposition, despite their brave and admirable stand against Isaias and PFDJ, still remain trapped in the language of ghedli and, as result, find it hard to trace their predicament to its root causes – the tattered social fabric, the ghedli legacy, the culture of martyrdom, the colonial legacy, the identity crisis of the ghedli generation, the search for alien identities, etc.
