Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:20:10 +0200
>From an POW to Ph.D.
Thursday, September, 22, 2011; 11:23 PM
by <http://www.collegiatetimes.com/staff/nick-smirniotopoulos> Nick Smirniotopoulos, features reporter
Cramped into a tiny, two-by-five-foot cement cell, a 12-year-old boy contemplates his life - or whether he will have one at all.
As a prisoner of war to the Ethiopian army, the young Gebre Gebremariam wondered when his time would come.
"They killed people," he said. "I was expecting they would kill me at any
time."
But Gebremariam wasn't killed - he survived and is now an economics professor at Virginia Tech.
"My life has been full of tragedies," he said. "But I am here today because
I was able to deal with those tragedies."
Born in Eritrea, a country in northeast Africa, Gebremariam entered the world during a hostile period, as his country was fighting for its independence from Ethiopian control.
His mother died when he was five years old, and as compensation for his loss, Gebremariam was able to attend school. Since that time, becoming educated has been a primary objective for Gebremariam, as well as a source of hope.
However, Gebremariam's education didn't last long - the liberation movement consumed his village, and schools were shut down. In turn, Gebremariam became part of the movement, vying to help his country gain independence.
When he was 12 years old, the Ethiopian army came to his village, capturing him as a prisoner of war for his involvement in the liberation movement.
Gebremariam and other prisoners were taken to Alem Bakagn, a maximum-security prison that literally means "end of the world" in the local language.
After all, the building was built for those sentenced to death or life in prison, said Teclay Astuha, who was also a prisoner and remains Gebremariam's friend.
"(The building) was for serious criminals," Astuha said. "We were seen as
the highest criminals there because we were fighting the
Ethiopians."
The two-story octagonal prison, with thick cement walls and a heavily guarded gate would be Gebremariam's home for 12 years.
The building - which was part of a large prison compound with multiple other structures - consisted of about 56 small cells, but was packed with more than 1,000 prisoners, who were forbidden to leave.
However, at the time, the government was advocating an illiteracy campaign, so illiterate prisoners, Astuha said, could leave the building to be escorted to a school on compound grounds for classes.
But for literate prisoners, like Gebremariam and Astuha, taking classes, let alone leaving the building, was prohibited. Regardless, the men sought to keep themselves busy and healthy, vowing to educate themselves inside prison - a difficult feat.
"We had a problem - there were no classes, no teachers, no stationary materials and no space," Gebremariam said. "We had only the commitment."
The toughest task, the men said, was convincing their cellmates and other prisoners to use their cells as classrooms. These were the only spaces they could study in secret, and if any of the prisoners in a cell protested, they could not proceed.
Eventually, the men coordinated the classrooms. They - newfound students - assigned themselves to grade levels, based on their previous education and knowledge. Gebremariam started in the seventh grade, and Astuha, because of his age and knowledge, served as a teacher.
Students could also teach pupils in the grade level below them.
However, the teachers and students in prison needed to be deemed official for the country to recognize the education system and allow its members to take national exams.
Therefore, the prisoners pursued help from the school in the outside compound - the prisoner teachers operated with those on the outside. Informally, the "Alem Bakagn School" was a branch of that in the compound.
Yet without bribery, the task would have been impossible.
"The Ethiopian prisoners were friends of the guards, and over time the
guards became friends with us," Gebremariam said. "And of course, you give
(the guards) money, and they'll do it - they didn't have much money."
The money and food used to placate the guards came from the prisoners' families, who visited every Sunday bearing those items, as well as educational materials.
"We were able to mobilize money to buy small blackboards from outside the
prison, (but) we had to smuggle them into Alem Bakagn," Gebremariam said.
While Gebremariam was studying and advancing through grade levels, Astuha was essentially teaching full time, providing knowledge and preparing exams. He even educated some of the guards and their families.
"I did it to actually help the prisoners," Astuha said. "By helping them,
you get satisfaction and also keep yourself busy. You keep busy so you don't
think of imprisonment."
Once Gebremariam reached 12th grade, he was able to take the Ethiopian national exam - a test he said would essentially determine his future, if he still had one.
After completing the exam, Gebremariam learned that he received the highest score, not just out of all the prisoners, but out of all 380,000 Ethiopian students that year.
"This record in Ethiopia has not yet been broken," Gebremariam said. "And
this is from a prisoner of war - an enemy."
Gebremariam continued the liberation movement behind bars, serving as a role model for the other prisoners, and an inspirational figure to his family and other fighting Eritreans.
In 1991, the Eritreans succeeded in the liberation movement, and Gebremariam, along with Astuha and the other prisoners, was finally able to leave prison after over a decade.
Following his release, Gebremariam studied economics at a local university in Eritrea and later moved to Glasgow, a city in Scotland, where he received his master's degree in economics. He then came to the United States and earned his doctorate degree at West Virginia University, which led him to where he is today - Blacksburg.
"The lesson that you can learn from this is that I educated myself behind
bars, under extraordinary circumstances, with no resources at all,"
Gebremariam said. "If you are committed to something, it is possible. We
were able to change the environment from an ugly place to make it conducive
for learning."
http://www.collegiatetimes.com/media/images/2011/09/22/ac6487d330d5bf4921a61 6b95ad9d0e3_1316745645_crunched.jpg
Professor Gebremariam stands in his office in Pamplin.
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