I never liked football, or soccer; when many spent their time playing football, I sat under the chairs of old men at my fathers’ place in between school time. It was listening to them and running their errands: my son Saleh, get me ground tobacco. Get me cigarettes. Order some tea for us and of course school. My interest in anything sports at school, even basic physical education was gone after my sixth-grade year when Memhir Tzehaie was our physical trainer. By the time I started seventh grade, the no nonsense trainer, Ustaz Ibrahim Yassin failed to make me like sports. Worse, he hit me with a thin stick because I did something or was talking in a line as the flag was being hoisted. It was supposed to be a serious morning ritual. I clashed with him disrespectfully and I was suspended. The director of the school, the late Mahmoud Mohammed Ali Kannoni, called my father. I was punished enough. That experience took aways what little interest in sports was left in me.
Until then, there was one exception. I boasted because I knew the star of the Anseba football team, Osman Ahmad, and my acquaintance with Osman Ahmed is worth sharing.
Osman was tailor who worked out of his house where youth spend their time while he warked at the veranda. Most ended up joining the ELF: the martyrs, Ali Hnti, Abdu Mahmouday, Bashmel, and many others from around the neighborhood. Once there was a wedding of a relative and my father bought fabric and gave it to Osman to make me a pant. Osman promised to finish it in three days; I was at his door on the second day. He said, “I told you in three days?”
I returned the next day and stood by the door. He told me to come after three days. I told him will wait there until he finished it. In surprise he smilingly said, “wait here for three days?”
Yes.
“Okay, sit here and be useful.”
That is when I became useful by running errands… the usual “get us cigarettes from the shop” or “make us some tea.” I got used to the place and continued being useful even after I got my pants which I wore for the wedding. But it was not over, I continued to hang around in the place.
Then there was a match and people were flocking to the stadium. I joined the crowd and found Osman play and the other players stretching their muscles. I greeted Osman and he called me to join making all my peers who watched by the side turn red with jealousy. Osman shot the ball to me, and I shot it back several times under the envious eyes of the children who spend more time in the stadium but never got a chance to play with a celebrity. I boasted, Osman is my makes my clothes, though he only made one pant for me.
Osman was a member of the ELF cells and collaborated with the late patriot Adem Melekin who smuggled ammunition from the interior of Ethiopia though folktales mention Addis Ababa only. It was delivered to the ELF by people like Osman. Then Adem Melekin was exposed, caught, and sent to jail. The police interrogators tortured him badly that he back was severely cut and bruised. At the court, the judge asked Adem Melekin to respond to the accusation. But Adem just opened his shirt and showed the judge his bruised and bleeding back. The judge was furious and addressed the attorney, “do you expect me to sentence him to death? You already killed him!” He dismissed the case and ordered the release of Adem Melekin who didn’t waste time until he sneaked out to the Sudan taking his sister Amna Melekin, the first woman among the leadership of the Eritrean Liberation Front.
Meanwhile, Osman continued his clandestine operations and delivering ammunition to the ELF. One time a certain spy, followed Osman to the bus station as he carried a basket to deliver it the outskirts of Keren. The spy caught him by the neck and asked what was in the basket as another opened it only to discover it was full of bullets. “What’s is this, what is this?” he shouted at Osman who calmly replied: “its Peanuts!” He wouldn’t change his answer and insisted it was peanuts, all the way to the police station. After some time in jail, Osman was somehow released and sneaked out to Sudan; I heard he spent his youth away from home in Port Sudan where he is still living.
That is the connection between football, my aversion to it, the experience of Osman Ahmed and the late patriot Adem Melekin whom I met in Melbourne Australia, shortly before he passed away in 2013. I hope the story provides an example for comparing between the judicial system in Eritrea during the occupational era, and the PFDJ era.
Though I am not fan of football, I remembered many players, some of whom close friends and relatives, triggered by the World Cup matches in Qatar. I watched interesting events, particularly the hypocrisy by the activists of the West. As the chairman of FIFA said, the West have 3000 years of human right violation to apologize for. Indeed, we are suffering because of the mess they left behind in many countries. I am amazed how some activists want to overshadow all concerns of life with their single agenda! And the world is still suffering from violence. I wish they demonstrated against wars. How about demonstrating for women’s rights, children rights, the environment, the world financial system, reforming the UN, the AU, the EU who knowingly or unknowingly consider third world people as dummies in their selfish, hegemonic undertakings. What is this obsession with hegemonic agendas? It wouldn’t be right if I insist the world should put the Eritrean cause ahead of everything else. There are many whose main concern is the single-issue is justice.
Here is an opportunity to show the language fascists, the regionalists, the racists, and the cult of the powerful, all the undignified lots who do not give any importance to the issue of Justice or freedom. In Eritrea the famous slogan is “Just finish off the Weyane”, the perpetual single issue of the PFDJ and its satellites since decades, as if the nation must live and die for that. It disappoints me because repeatedly I stated that Ethiopians are close to each other and the possibility of them coming together is certain. They are on the way, and sooner or later. What are Eritreans doing to reconcile with each other to make peace with each other? It seems the government thinks loyalty to it is the only way to unite the nation, but it is damaging the nation.
