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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sun May 01 2011 - 09:05:48 EDT
My impressions of the 7th YPFDJ conference in Oslo - Written by Senai
Solommon
Written by senai solommon
Friday, 29 April 2011
My impressions of the 7th YPFDJ conference in Oslo
Written by Senai Solommon
After preparing for the conference for a whole year, I could really feel
that the conference had started once I entered the YPFDJ office in downtown
Oslo on Tuesday the 19th, two days before the conference was going to open.
The atmosphere of comradeship in the office and the talks reminded me of how
close we had gotten and how the comradeship and years of experience was such
a huge asset. But it also reminded me that the conference was just a day and
a half away and that we were now only talking about the details within the
details.
When the delegation of 50 people from different chapters around the world
took off by bus towards the venue we suddenly stopped after 20 minutes drive
to ask for direction at a four star hotel. Therefore I felt a bit
self-conscious when all the participants choose to go in for a quick break.
The pitstop gave flashbacks from our trip to Sawa where the breaks were
taking place at much more humble outdoor cafeterias in Gash Barka, but the
atmosphere was the same. All the talks were either jokes, international and
regional politics, social/community affairs (mahberawi hiwet), or technical
or logistical planning of the huge event in front us. It was difficult to
choose a sitting spot because I really wanted to be part of all forums so I
tried to listen in on all conversation without taking too much active part
of the conversations in order to leave the debate unnoticed. Suddenly we
were told to go out to the bus and pick up our luggage and that this was
where the conference was going to take place.
Of course we were all shocked, delighted and proud to hear the news that we
were going to have the conference at a four-star conference hotel. Not
because we wanted soft beds or air-condition in our rooms, well knowing that
none of us was going to sleep for the next days, but because we knew that it
was going to facilitate the work in all aspects.
The fifty people gathered at the venue from Tuesday until Thursday did a
fantastic job in organizing the event. They all exemplified the three C's
that YPFDJ is all about; Consciousness, Commitment and Capability. We worked
day and night and we gained more energy over time. The resilience that we
had pledged to build upon since the last conference in Berlin was evermore
becoming apparent, not only to ourselves, but even the staff of the hotel
understood that this organization is no joke. One of the staff members told
me that they had booked the entire hotel for us and that he had never
experienced in the two years he had worked there that a single organization
or company being able to book the whole hotel, let alone a minority youth
organization. But after witnessing our approach he understood that there was
something special about this organization and that even he was looking
forward for the conference to begin.
As everybody was working in different types of tasks, I noticed how
everybody was flexible and ready to always help their comrades in other
tasks. Seeing how anyone could transform from being led to leading from one
second to another depending on the task, know-how and authority, illustrated
the maturity of the members to lead and be led with the outmost modesty,
respect and discipline.
I literally don't remember one second where we were not having fun and
laughing and I don't remember a single second where we were not working.
Except for during the Real Madrid vs Barcelona game on Wednesday. I really
enjoyed watching Barcelona vs Real Madrid playing the Spanish copa del rey
final on the big screen with our great political leaders as well as YPFDJ
comrades. Being a die-hard Real Madrid fan, I could not imagine anything
taking away my focus from such a big game but suddenly we hear guayla music
and our comrades telling us to hurry up and come. At first I thought that
they were loosing it after days of work without sleeping, but then we
realized that a delegation of 10 youths from Eritrea had arrived to the
venue and after a great reception of our comrades from inside the country,
they joined us to witness Real Madrid beat Barcelona 1-0. From then on, the
chairperson of the National Union of Eritrean Youths and Students; b/Sultan
Seid called me "boss" as recognition of Barcelona's defeat. A humorous title
completely out of place, especially coming from b/Sultan, but hey.rather
that, then being the looser, right?
Finally the participants arrived on Thursday. Everybody was so anxious to
see each other and it was a wonderful feeling to see all the old comrades as
well as new fresh YPFDJ participants arrive in a happy and joyful mood
wearing their "itki" (flags, t-shirts, books, documents, music players).
After everybody had been handed his or her welcoming package all that was on
our mind was tomorrow morning.
The opening ceremony is always one of my favorite parts of the conference.
The feeling of "this is it" encounters at this point. The opening ceremony
of this conference was probably the best I've ever experienced. After the
usual picture session outside, we all took our seats inside the venue to
remember our fallen martyrs with special attention to the recent tragic boat
incident in the sea between Libya and Italy where 300 young Eritreans had
lost their lives. A huge loss for our country, their families and not least
YPFDJ.
b/Smret Kidane, the chairperson of the organizing committee opened the
conference by highlighting the process of organizing such an event and
thanked all the stakeholders that made it a reality. b/Abraham Woldu from
the PFDJ Office in Oslo, Head of community affairs in Scandinavia b/Tekle
Mengistu and Ambassador of Eritrea in Scandinavia b/Yonas Manna preceded
with similar statements seen from their respective positions, before
b/Yemane Ghebreab, head of PFDJ political affairs and Presidential advisor
took the floor to pass on some very important messages that we had to take
into account at the conference to prepare for our work plan the next few
years in order to take the movement to the next level in all aspects.
b/Michael Mebrahtu proved to be a very talented and entertaining announcer
and his combination with b/Jodith Alem kept the information flow going, not
only during the opening ceremony but throughout the conference.
The theater play organized by YPFDJ Oslo was touching; vivid and brought up
many memories from the last stages of the liberation struggle.
b/Semhar Hailu played the role of a young Eritrean girl that was raised in
the Diaspora and was trying to understand how it was possible for her father
and his generation to be "tegadelties" in "meda" with no communication with
family and friends, knowing that each and everyday could be their last,
having nothing but the clothes they were wearing and their kalashnikow while
fighting the world superpowers from the mountains of Sahel. She did not only
want to understand it, but she wanted to know everything right away.
b/Tedros Yared played the father who had difficulties putting words together
in to the circumstances and like many of the veterans, he was trying to make
her understand that it would take him time to get through the history and
context but b/Semhar kept being persistent, and a theater play was shown to
exemplify the different questions she had. For example Commando played by
the two exemplary doctors, Dr. Awet and Dr. Kishege. Both have recently
taken leaf of their work at their respective Hospital to travel around South
America and Asia and I could not help to ask myself whether they had
practiced the play while traveling because they did it better than the
original play, played by Wedi Shawl during the Bologna festival from 1989 or
1990. The play showed how secret information was passed on in disguise of
daily conversation of "dehai adi" during the liberation struggle and how
regular people took part in facilitating the tegadelties. Tehambele from the
Bologna festival from 1990 was played by the YPFDJ Oslo comrades to show how
the social life during the struggle played an important impact in
cultivating the human factor of the fighters, since b/Semhar could not
understand how they could live in the circumstances of war for so long.
One of my favorite plays ever from Bologna is the one with Mohamed Osman and
Zahra who play brother and sister in the tigre musical play. Here b/Bahta
Yacob and b/Semhar Goitom took me way back to 1989 where I was lucky to be
part of the festival in Bologna.
b/Semhar played the concerned and vulnerable sister that do not want her
brother to leave her in favor of joining the Eritrean liberation struggle
since they have lost both their parents already and that she is not able to
carry on life by herself without him by her side. b/Bahta sings to her that
by staying he would not play his part in trying to overthrow the colonial
Etiopian Derg regime that had brought all the misery in their lifes and that
he would be as good as dead if he did not leave. He encourages his sister to
stay strong and expressed that he did not expect to ever come back and
therefore the play ends with him singing that he will leave his sword for
her, as a remembrance of his existence.
I do not understand tigre that well, besides from all the tigrinya words,
but this play is very understandable and has been imprinted in my mind from
a very young age and has served as a symbol of the sacrifices that each and
every tegadalay have faced. b/Semhar Goitom and b/Bahta Yacob played the
play so beautifully that it almost brought tears to my eyes to be part of
passing on this message to the new generation, just like the generation
before us passed it on to us.
By now b/Semhar Hailu was getting the picture of what these tegadelties were
made of and she asked the million dollar question; "where were you on May
24th 1991?" and when Tedros Yared answered, a vivid scene took place where
YPFDJ Oslo members jumped to stage with their tegadelti outfit playing
koboro to one of our many sewra classics. The play confirmed to me that our
generation was able to pass on our history of struggle in an understable way
to the new generation.
Right as we thought that we were going to see the presentation of each
committee and country, we were told that the head of state and chairperson
of PFDJ, H.E. President Isaias Afwerki had sent us a 20 minute video
specially made for the participants of the conference. The President
highlighted the importance of organizational and human capacity as well as
the youths role in the nation building process and it laid the scene for the
7th annual YPFDJ conference to begin.
As always the first day was scheduled to see all the different chapters work
since the last conference. All the European chapters, as well as USA, Canada
and Eritrea showed their presentation in videoformat, while Shembel from
Quatar and Isaias representing Kenya and Uganda made their presentations
verbally. A panel was elected to analyze and comment on the presentations in
a constructive and critical way. In general it could be concluded that the
movement had been able to synchronize its activities in a way that made a
progressive impact in the areas of work, especially in regards to the ESMART
campaign and that we were improving from year to year and that there is no
turning back from here on, but that we still have years of work in front us
to institutionalize the movement and utilize our capacity and mobilize more
youths.
When the first day ended we were ahead of schedule, which is a progress
since last year where we were on time in accordance to the schedule and in
particular conferences prior to Berlin where we were always behind. This
gave us more flexibility for the next two days. After 40 minutes of music
and dancing everybody went to their rooms and by 11.45 everyone was in their
rooms. Since the participants had the lowest average age ever, the quietness
at 11.45 could only be explained by the preparations by the different
chapters and increased discipline and consciousness among the youths.
The next morning b/Yemane Ghebreab gave a lecture about the main topic of
the conference; 'Sustainable development'. b/Yemane critically analyzed
today's measurements of developed and developing countries and broke down
countries in to four categories instead of just two in order to have the
element of viable healthy societies as a measuring factor besides GDP.
Today the developed countries are defined based on their GDP, but is GDP a
measurement of real development? A GDP does not differentiate between a
country that builds 100 jails, 30 huge gold palaces from a country that
builds 100 medical clinics, 15 universities and 15 hospitals. The GDP does
not measure the social composition of the wealth, neither the development of
the people's social harmony and participation as citizens of a nation
socially, politically, economically and culturally.
At the end of the day what is real wealth seen from our perspective is the
development of human capacity and our ability to create an atmosphere for
that to flourish.
Examples of countries was brought up to exemplify the root causes of how GDP
does not mean that there is real development, but that the wealth among few
people only prolongs the misery, injustices and jeopardizes the stability
through social problems, backwardness, corruption and dependency.
The policies of including Eritrean workers in all aspects of the investments
by the many new foreign companies in Eritrea was used as an example of how
the income here and now was not the most important aspect of the investment,
but that the long term prospection was to build internal human capacity to
build our own people so that we do not end up being second class citizens in
our own country. The lectures and debates throughout the conference were all
inclusive through translations headsets, so that everyone could listen to it
in English, Italian and Arabic.
The participants had many interesting question. So many that we took the
time that we had saved the day before to allow more active participants to
take part of the question and answer session.
After this session, the participants spread out in 4 topics where
presentations were given in the following order:
- Food security by Fiori Mekonen
- International cooperation and aid by Sophia Tesfamariam
- Health and Education by Dr. Eden Tareke
- Economic development and policies by Sirak Bahlibi
I was fortunate to be part of the resolution committee, so I had the
flexibility to listen a bit to all presentations and following discussion.
After the presentation and questioning session, sixty groups found their
area to discuss the questions prepared for them. The debate about which
factors that were most important to build a nation was a very fruitful and
thought provoking exercise.
After each group had presented their conclusion within their four topic
rooms, very interesting debates took place and each and every room could
replace any of the "Medeb Be Gahdi" or "lezeb meneseyat" programmes on Eri
TV. I could not help to not reflect about the development in consciousness,
the commitment to take active participation in our political and social
affairs as well as the human capacity that were there in each and every
room. Unfortunately these discussions are never broadcasted thoroughly for
the masses to follow on the news or programmes, whether Eri Tv or our social
media's so that everyone can see what's really behind YPFDJ and these
conferences, but since each and every second of the conferences is video
documented I hope that at least one day it will be presented as historic
documents.
The workshop session was by comparison the most fruitful and successful
active participatory exercises I have experienced in the six conferences I
have been part of so far.
One of the most entertaining educational exercises I have ever seen was the
trading game. 28 groups in one big hall representing 28 countries all placed
in three categories (A, B and C countries). Each category had their own
resources and knowledge of the game and had to have a clear strategy in how
to utilize their resources or knowledge in the best way in order to create
income for their country. It looked like a crazy stockmarket and ironically
group USA got sanctioned because they cheated in the game. Eritrea was one
of the countries in the C category but came out 7th which were a huge
success and it showed that the Eritrean pride must have had an impact in
ensuring that they over performed.
Before we knew it, it was Sunday and the final day of the conference. Here
b/Yemane gave an update and insight to our current political situation in
Eritrea. Weyanes new changes in rhetoric's as a sign of desperation was
touched upon, the economic situation in the country the last ten years as
well as the new positive indicators, the role of the youths and our
capabilities or lack of the same to facilitate the youths wishes and
aspirations was raised.
b/Yemane undermined the content of The Economist and other financial
analysts that were analyzing Eritrea to have the fastest growing economy in
the world by saying that their knowledge prior to 2011 is very low and that
even a great leap in the economic growth would not change the fact that we
are still very poor economically and referred to the discussion of the day
before about sustainable development should be our main focus.
He also stressed that although we were not where we wanted be yet, the
indicators of our sustainable growth combined with the new world order where
the West has had challenges keeping up, that we would be able to create
better lives for the youths inside the country so that fewer would leave the
country and even more would come back. He also stressed how the government
of Eritrea was striving to facilitate the youths once they had left the
country for them to get safely to their final arrival destination or the
opportunity to come back through services from our embassies in Africa, the
Middle East and Europe.
Weyanes new rhetoric of helping anyone who was willing to help overthrow the
Eritrean government was a tactic used for the last 11 years since they
failed militarily themselves. The only new thing about this rhetoric is the
fact that they are willing to express it openly in violation to the UN
charter. It is nothing but frustration and a diversion of attention from
their own internal problems and wars.
After the questioning and answer session we divided in three groups. Nakfa
was the group of new participants that were discussing what YPFDJ is all
about and what they could do to be part of it and contribute. Afabet was for
those who had been part of it for a time and here the branding of Eritrea
was discussed and in the last group Denden, the innovators of YPFDJ
discussed YPFDJ's strategy for the next 2-3 years.
After fruitful discussions, it was time for the gedaim abalat (the veterans)
from Norway, Sweden and Denmark to arrive. The scenes that took place
afterwards are really hard to express. It was a clearly emotional atmosphere
where both the gedaim abalat as well as the youths had problems expressing
themselves without a shivering tone in their voices.
All the participants from the organizing committee received a recommendation
letter signed by b/Yemane Ghebreab for usage for future applications whether
school or work. It was announced that YPFDJ Sweden was going to host the 8th
conference in 2012. Different exhibitions and speeches took place beyond my
expressional capabilities, especially due to the fact that I myself was so
emotional at that moment that it was difficult to absorb the details.
Instead I will rather encourage other to share their reflections of the
successful and historic 7th YPFDJ conference in Oslo. As usual the
conference closed monday morning with a moment silence for our martyrs.
I would love to name out each and every single person that made this
conference and movement a reality, I am humble fan and servant of each and
everyone of you. Instead I will rather sum up it up and say:
* Thank you YPFDJ Norway organizing committee, CC and Euro YPFDJ committees
for the harmonic and strong organizational work in ensuring a successful
conference.
* Thank you Scandinavian Embassy for the facilitation of communication with
all stakeholders.
* Thank you Eritrean communities in Scandinavia for the financial and moral
contribution.
* Thank you YPFDJ Denmark for the strong mobilization and commitment
throughout the year.
* Thank you YPFDJ USA, Canada, Quatar, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Kenya for
giving the conference a wider context.
* Thank you Hizbawi Genbar Democraci'n fethin (PFDJ) for facilitating the
people's eternal pledge to serve Eritrea
* Last but not least thank you all Suwuat for your contribution to make this
people and country what it is! Rest in Peace!
Zelamawi Zikri Sematna
Awet N'Hafash!
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