The evening was the launching of Dr. Gaim’s amazing book at Birkbeck University of London on May 15, 2008. The title of the book is, 

“Critical Reflection on the Eritrean War of Independence: Social Capital, Associational life, Religion, Ethnicity and sowing seeds of dictatorship”

The meeting hall was crammed with people. Extra seats were to be fetched from other class rooms. Many of the participants were of the old generation mostly veterans of ELF and EPLF who contributed on missed out events and made the discussion lively. There were also some youth whose absences in other meetings were conspicuous and so puzzling. Puzzling because it is the Eritrean youth who are subjected to extreme repression and one would expect them to rise up to the challenge and be more active than the veterans. If my observation was right those present were from EPLF revolutionary school and Sawa Military training camp, there was no body that was born in the United Kingdom. Needless to say they need Eritrea solely as their favoured and affordable tourist place and are not concerned of what is taking place in Eritrea. There were also some prominent friends from the days of struggle such as Lionel Cliff, who did a lot of field work studies on Eritrea and produced invaluable materials that helped Eritrean Relief Association (ERA) to raise funds. Andy Gregg a community champion in  the UK who helped the Eritrean community at its birth in the 80^s.  He secured the Swiss Cottage Community Centre to be used by Eritreans for meetings, social evenings and as a club. Andy became an activist in the cause of Eritrean independence ever since. He influenced Doctor Gregg, his father, to visit Eritrea. Dr Gregg contributed a lot in the area of health.  There were also post-independent writers such as Michaela Wrong the author of the book “I did not do it for you”. She exposed how the International Community had let down the people of Eritrea in their quest for independence. Dr. Richard Reid co-author of “Eritrea: the Unfinished Business” lecturer in the history of Africa. He taught in Asmara University, he also presented a paper during the “Peace Building Conference” at Continental Hotel in Asmara organized by Citizens for Peace in Eritrea (CPE) in February 2001. The meeting was organized and chaired by David Styan, co-author of “Unfinished Business” and lecturer of politics and sociology in Birkbeck University of London. David had managed to summarize and highlight the most important issues and kept the discussion to the point. It was an evening of network building and re-connection among all those who are related to Eritrea one way or the other, as an informal discussion continued in a pub till late in the evening. 

The book is published by Red Sea Press-. The director is Kassahun Checole. In the 80s, during his active participation as a member of EPLF mass association in the USA, Kassahun came to realize that unless there is a press outlet owned by Africans, books written by Africans on Africa would have little chance in getting published in the mainstream Western Press. He started from a scratch, worked hard and succeeded in building the Red Sea Press to become a formidable publishing house. As a result many books authored by Africans were published.  He is a moral hero and a giant of a man whose contribution has a global significance to African literature, history and politics.
 

The Book:

The concept of social capital was new to many of us. But the beauty of it is that Gaim presented it in a way that is easy to understand and relate it to the Eritrean history and today’s real life situation. 

Dr. Gaim explained the extent to which traditional Eritrean communities were rich with inherited stocks of social capital.  That richness had empowered the various ethnic groups to resist any divide and rule machinations by the fronts and prevented Eritrea to go the road of Rwanda and other African countries in the various fratricidal wars. The unforgettable event of 1975 where more than 30000 residents of Asmara, defying the threat to their life from the Ethiopian army, went to villages of Zager and Weki to put an end to the ELF and EPLF fighting is one good example. The Mekerka reconciliation meeting organized by the civilians was another one. 

Gaim proved to have a wealth of Knowledge on the people of Eritrea.  He carried out a study of Eritrean refugees in the Sudan for more than 20 years. His book is of great help to understand not only the problems of the past but to channel the strength of social capital in the areas of mobilizing the people in the present. Let us face it, it is a wide-spread notion that the civil societies (mostly intellectuals) are unconnected to the grass root population mostly uneducated Eritreans in the Diaspora. But worse of all is unconnected to all those refugees who run from the prison of Warsay & Yekaealo who are making up growing segments of the Diaspora.

The book also partly answered many unanswered question mainly, how did the phenomenon of dictatorship rule happened in Eritrea? Why the freedom loving Eritrean population found themselves helpless doing nothing about it? 

In addition Gaim’s description of evens has a profoundly honest ring for they rest upon the deepest human problems emanated from political corruption. It is he probably for the first time wrote in depth about the 1973 “destructive “Manqué “movement, according to the EPLF leadership.  He expounded its nature as a reform movement whose defeat marked the turning point in the slow death of the values of democracy within EPLF. He expressed his finding on the movement as follows, I quote “The Reform Movement Leaders (Manqué) did nothing more than organize and articulate the grievances and demands of the masses of fighter who were desperate for democratic reform and change.” 

His book is uplifting. It is particularly important at this moment in time when many Eritreans in the Diaspora have broken the chains of “self-censorship” and are openly condemning the regime for its human rights violations. Gone are the days when Eritreans were writing using pen names to hide their identities. 

Gaim further explained that the intellectuals in the belly of the EPLF did not consider the “EPLF a paradise”. They have tried to reform the fronts but after the defeat of the “Manqué” movement they were forced to accept the EPLF leadership as a necessary evil in order to carry out the struggle and as fateful instrument to win independence. Remember when in 1977-78 the Fascist Ethiopian Military Junta unleashed the Red Terror Campaign in Ethiopia thousands of Ethiopian youth were massacred trapped in the cities unable to escape. The Eritrean situation was different, when the 2^nd. Division of the Ethiopian Army started to imprison, kill and harass the youth; they made their way to safety by joining the two fronts in their thousands. Thousands more were helped to go to exile. At that time the number of refugees in the Sudan reached more than quarter of a million. Unlike in Ethiopia the Mengustu army stopped wanton killing in Eritrea and started to calm the youth and encouraged the elders to mediate between him and the fronts. 

Gaim expounded the G-15 demand exactly like that of Manqué. One asked why then they failed to draw a lesson from the failure of the 1973 Manqué Movement. Where there no plan B? In case Isaias refuses to accept the reform. No one was able to give an answer. 

Gaim’s book if widely read can have a profound effect in dispelling that myth of weak people who failed to stand up to the repression by PFDJ. Some people felt that after all the people of Eritrea are not what they think they were? They are cowardly, weak and ignorant. Such remarks although an expression of despair can have the effect of de-motivating the struggle for change. 

In addition the book is significant to be used as a reference. It will help to put the dialogue and debates in their proper historical and social context.  Many writers although eloquent in their writing have failed to see the trees in the forest. The most relevant question now is whether the civil societies are equal to the challenges facing them. What are their strategy and the activity inputs in order to deliver the desired output? 

His Short coming:

He mentioned very little the international political landscape and the cold war that impacted upon prolonging the armed struggle and turned the movement into more and more centralized and highly militarized animals. 

For example, during the 1977-78 Red Star campaign the Soviet Union supplied Mengustu with 5 billion US dollars worth of armaments. In a matter of days the Ethiopian Junta regained most of the territories lost to the ELF and EPLF. The EPLF carried out a strategic retreat to the mountains of Sahel. For 14 years it was brutal war and by the time of independence it was too late for the EPLF democrats to make a change. President Isaias has already built himself a “cult” a “Wedi Afom cult” where by the rest of the leadership had become irrelevant.