Part 18

On what bases does Ato Tedros A. Ghebrelul, claim  the “Kunama” to be “a people on the verge of extinction?”

In an article titled, “A Nation of Fleeing Masses,” posted in “Awate.com, May 21,2008,” a certain Ato Tedros A. Ghebrelul, though making a laudable recount of the plights that has forced and is forcing many Eritreans in general and the Kunama people in particular, to flee their native homelands and nation, his description of the “Kunama” as

“a people on the verge of extinction” is not only very inappropriate, baseless and false, but also very insulting and offending to us Kunama.

Our questions to you, Ato Tedros A. Ghebrelul:

1. what do you know of the Kunama race, of their history, of their land, of their culture, of their cultural heritage and of their social structure and life-style, in order to come up with such a theory?
2. What have you heard of the Kunama ethnic-group/nationality of their present status, to claim that they are “on the verge of extinction?” Is this the plan of the PFDJ’s regime?
3. What have you seen of the Kunama people, of their native and ancestral land and of their present plights which are forcing them to flee their homeland and country, to reach to such a conclusion?
4. Do you mean that the present land policy of the PFDJ’s regime, turning the Kunama land into the second home-land of the predominantly Eritrean-Tigrians, is a contributing factor leading the Kunama race to the “verge of extinction?”

Whatever your grounds are, Sir, to sustain such belief, we Kunama contrarily, believe, retain and state that our Kunama race/ethnic-group/nationality is there to exist, survive, multiply itself and live in its native and ancestral land; and this against all odds, forces and evil events which have always tried and failed (ask Ras Alula Abba Negga,) to bring it to its “extinction.” The main reason for such persistent attempt, to extricate the Kunama from their land, as we have always sustained and reiterated, is the jealousy all those non-Kunama leaders, their populations and their supporters in the region, have always had of the vast and of the fertile land that the Kunama occupy and own. This has always been, is and will always be the sole reason the Kunama race is forced to suffer in its own homeland or even forced to flee from it, as it is happening today, due to the increasingly intensified attempts, by those foreign forces, to massively settle in, occupy and deprive the Kunama of the property rights of their own native land. Surely, here, we are not accusing Ato Tedros A. Ghebrelul, of either approving of, sharing with or justifying the present PFDJ regime’s land policy, as regard to the Kunama land, but we are only making it clear that his “on the verge of extinction” theory on the Kunama ethnic-group/race, is totally out of historical, geographical and ethnographical contexts. The Kunama has a very clear genealogical system to preserve its own race, no matter how much and how often its native and ancestral land is settled, occupied or even bought, sold and in anyway traded. The survival of the Kunama people, of their race and of their ethnic identity is not determined solely by the geographical confines of their territory, but indeed by their matriarchal genealogical system which recognises the Kunama mother as the sole “procreator, maintainer” and “preserver” of the Kunama race and of its ethnic identity. In short: those believing the Kunama to be “a people on the verge of extinction,” must have first eliminated every Kunama female, from the face of the earth, to reach and sustain such a conviction; but as long as a single Kunama female exists, she will always be and remain the mother of the “Kunama people.” This has always been and will always be. Like all other Eritrean ethnic-groups’ members, the Kunama people too are today spread and living in many parts of the world and therefore, the Kunama person is not only the one today living and suffering in his/her own native homeland, but also those living in Ethiopia, in The Sudan and in other countries and nations of the world.

The Kunama ethnic identity is determined and defined by the name itself which stands for that of the first “Kunama Mother,” (Queen KUNAME) who had indelibly bequeathed to her future generations, her name as their ethnic identification. Unless Ato Tedros A. Ghebrelul, has therefore other more compelling arguments to come up with and support his own statement, he is totally failing to convince us Kunama that we are on the “verge” of losing our own name and our own ethnic identity. If however, his reasons are based solely on the present land policy and on the resettlement programs, said to being very aggressively and forcefully conducted by the PFDJ’s regime, which is very determinedly trying to mix up the Eritrean different folk-and-ethnic-groups, with the aim of reaching to form an amorphous Eritrean society which would carry only the “Eritrean national identity,” such attempts are, at least for the time being, very immature and unrealistic, if not even very contrary and counterproductive ones. The majority of our respective different Eritrean folk-and-ethnic-groups are still living in their own rural homelands, identifying themselves with their own native homelands, sharing their own cultural heritages and values and leading their own traditionally different life-styles which mean that until these different folk-groups themselves have not started to socialise with each other, either on their own initiatives and through gradual inter-ethnic and inter-racial approaches, based on reciprocal economic, political and on other advantages or else moved by a common search for peace and stability within their own and other communities, within the Eritrean nation, coercive methods will never bring the Eritrean different ethnic-groups/nationalities into dropping their own different and respective cultures and cultural heritages, to assume only those of the Eritrean nation and of its society. Eritrea, firstly, is and needs to be taken as a state/nation composed and made up of multi-ethnicity and multi-nationality.

Today, there are evidently strong attempts, both from the PFDJ’s regime at home and from many Eritrean political and civic organisations in the Diaspora, to combat against the term itself of “ethnicity,” go against the Eritrean ethnic-groups, identities and against all those organisations, like the Kunama, the Afar and others, standing on the firm belief that it is of fundamental and vital importance that the building of the Eritrean nation and society be and start at the ground/grass roots (ethnic) levels and climb up to the national level and not vice-versa. It is our recurring experience that in every Eritrean meeting, conference or congress, held by the Eritrean Diaspora in any part of the world, does, first of all, reflect the domination of the Eritrean-Tigrian ethnic-components who, for unexplainable reasons, do incline to criticise, oppose and condemn any issue on ethnicity and ethnic reality in Eritrea. For us, there is no other major reason than that recently given by Ato Yosief G., in his article, “The Tewahdos’ Complicity in the Dermise of their Church,” (Asmarino.com, May 12 2008,) that “the Tigrignas have a confused sense of identity” which means that they therefore keep trying to spread about and inculcate that “confused sense of identity” also in other Eritrean ethnic-groups and in their members so as to lead them too, into building such “confused sense of identity.” Our bottom-line question is whether “the Tigrignas” are ashamed of their own “Tigrian ethnic and culturo-linguistic identities.” Should this be the case, Ato Tedros A. Ghebrelul, would have better worry and talk about the “Tigrignas” being “on the verge” of losing, “extinguishing,” their own ethnic and cultural identities, rather than worry about the “Kunama people” being “on the verge of extinction.” We Kunama are still not only, very proud of our own racial and ethnic identities, but also very eager to promote and preserve them.

The KCS/KNT: (June 9, 2008.)