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Enslaved by denial of reality
not by hatred By Team EritreaDaily.net 2 Nov 2003 The persistent conflict between Eritrea and
Ethiopia is not and has never been of personal, ethnic, religious, or
cultural nature. On personal level, Eritreans and Ethiopians are
intermarried, have common children and families. Eritreans have a lot of dear
Ethiopian friends and vice versa. And on ethnic, religious, and cultural
levels, Eritreans and Ethiopians share a lot of well-founded commonalities as
well. And all that, yes, despite and in spite of the over 5 decades long
Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict. While that is a short preview of and testimony to
the kind of closeness that exists, even at odd times, between Eritreans and Ethiopians
in all aspects of societal parameters, it is at the same time a brief
explanation why there is no and can’t be room for personal hatred between
Eritreans and Ethiopians that would go to the extent of enslavement by it and
being the cause of an apparently unending Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict. Seventeenth Century
Prussian General Carl Clausewitz’s famous dictum “War is nothing more than
the continuation of politics by other means” is not at all far from the
truth. Yes, what is there between Eritrea and Ethiopia is a strictly
political conflict, not personal. Hence, to attribute the Eritrea-Ethiopia
conflict to “enslavement by hatred” is utterly baseless and constitutes
futile attempt and ploy to camouflage the underlying fundamental cause, which
is Ethiopia’s chronic state of denial (Ethiopia’s enslavement by denial of
reality) of the geopolitical reality of Eritrea. Eritrea like all other African Countries as we
know them today was first established as a Nation State as a result of the
colonial “Scramble for Africa” one way or the other. Colonialists carved out
their colonial territories by forcing feudal lords, Kings, emperors, chiefs
and chieftains to sign treaties to surrender all or part of their feudal
territories and imperial domains and established today’s Nation
States/countries thereby giving rise to the emergence of National Identity.
With that colonialism created geopolitical realities as determined by
colonial treaties, which thence constituted the norms and basis of
International law. While Africa and the rest of the world have
accepted and recognized the geopolitical consequences of colonialism
including the geopolitical reality of Eritrea, Ethiopia alone remains in
selective chronic state of denial of the geopolitical reality of Eritrea (futile
and breathless negation of the reality of geopolitical consequences of
colonialism). And that is the only cause of the persistent conflict between
Eritrea and Ethiopia and not some baseless “enslavement by hatred”. As far as resolving the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict
by dialogue goes, rest assured that both Eritreans and Ethiopians have all
the ability and skill for that. That is not an issue at all. The problem,
indeed big problem, is Ethiopians’ refusal to abide by binding and conclusive
results of dialogue as have been clearly demonstrated by Ethiopia’s outright
defiance of the ruling of the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission. The
reason for that is Ethiopia’s state of denial of Eritrea. And no dialogue can treat denial or talk people
out of denial; people in denial of reality need to seek
psychological/psychiatric attention. Hence, the question is not when the time is for
Eritreans and Ethiopians to learn to resolve conflicts by dialogue, but when
is the time for Ethiopians to recover from their state of denial about
Eritrea and accept and abide by conclusive judiciary settlement of conflicts
attained as a result of dialogue. Reference: We
have been enslaved by hatred too long http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1471167-6096-0,00.html
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