The Utopia that is Eritrea -- how’s that again, Boss? One of the poorest countries in the world (with one of the world's most ancient written literatures), a country still at war with sisterland Ethiopia. . . who you calling Utopic? “There’s no myopia in my Utopia.”

I felt it first at the Eritrean Community Center, 609 W. 125 Street in Asmara, where I sat around with a gang of locals (from Eritrea, that is, including my first pal, Berri, from the Embassy, who was one of the 800 Eritreans deported by bus through desert from Ethiopia at one particularly hot moment in these sister nations’ war), listening to their pride in Africa’s most recently independent nation (1993, after thirty years’ struggle).

First, gender equality: women fighters (“soldiers” in Eritrea) were and are just as present at the Front as men, and they continue to take an equal place in all aspects of Eritrean life. Some cases in point:

Ararat Iyob, Eritrean fighter poet:

Hidaat Ephrem, Eritrean fighter poet:
Words are bullets when Hidaat steps up and unleashes her power poetry. She’s known as “the million dollar poet.” Here’s why: A television station in Seattle, where Ms. Ephrem currently resides, was hosting a phoneathon fund-raiser for the Eritrean cause. Things were slogging ahead till Hidaat was brought in to make her appeal. “No appeal,” she protested, “just a poem,” which she launched into. After which the phones rang off their hooks. Her poem to audience electrification resulted in a cool million raised over the next four hours.

Sabah Kidane, Asmaran youth:
At 24 a star waiting to find her constellation, she works completely off the page. At Asmara University, she blanketed the stage in the energy of youth -- female, Eritrean, but primarily ‘twas Poetry’s spark and fuse. Sabah works as Youth Radio host on Asmara radio. She was adopted during the conference by N’gugi wa Thiong’o, one of Africa’s greatest writers, who has another daughter settling in Asmara as well. Seems to be the move!

Nawal El Saadawi, the great Egyptian writer:
I share a cab from the Amboisera (best African hotel in Asmara, atop hill) to Intercon (brand new and only European hotel in Asmara) with two expats (drinks on the verandah at 5 every day!). They speak rapturously of Saadawi: she makes it worth attending this dreary academic event, they opine, and after hearing this amazing woman, I understand. She crosses borders the way poets cross streets.

She sits on stage, tiny white-haired woman, ageless, huge smile, very open, flanked by six other African women, her respondents, not to stand at podium. “They have given us two hours, and want me to speak for an hour,” Saadawi begins, “so I will speak for half an hour, please time me. Then,” she continues, “I will ask my friends here to speak for five minutes each, which will leave us with an hour for the important part, for you to speak and us to listen,” this to the audience of 600 or so, primarily women, primarily Eritrean, jammed into the Plenary session.

Then she lights into it, direct experience, heart-heart. She speaks of her work as a surgeon, the most advanced techniques, healing the sick, no, make that healing the sick who can afford the treatment, those who find their way to the elite hospital. But why are the people sick? What about the common folk, don’t they get sick? She begins to analyze the political dimensions of illness, how money spent to better living conditions would make for less money for health care, fewer operations needed, etc. And she begins to lobby for the political changes which she sees as critical to a nation’s health, how it’s necessary to root out illness before its onset. Her doctor friends are still too busy saving lives to join in, focused on their work, and, by the way, making lots of money. She describes a “political education provided by the government”; when you speak up politically, you set into motion the following sequence of events:

• at first you are ignored, so you speak louder and sharper, at which point...
• they patronize you, and describe what will happen if you don’t keep to your job, your important job. If you keep speaking out,...
• they fire you from your important job, and then...
• they exile you,...
• after which they spread lies about you,...

Now, here in Eritrea, as Utopic and forward-looking as the government is, this notion of governmental fallibility is still quite heretical: there’s only one political party allowed, for example, which, while understandable in the fragile stasis that is this new country’s birth, still comes in for a good drubbing in Saadawi’s exegesis. She follows that up with: “And we all know that organized religion does the same thing.” And again we all nod in ecstatic liberation -- Eritrea, amazingly divided almost 50-50 between Arabic and Christian (both Coptic and Catholic), listens to this voice from the Future and the Past, hears her speak of how she is a good Muslim, in her fashion. And we look around at the New Millennium, and it seems like it might be so, here under the huge skylight in the Intercontinental Hotel’s grand auditorium, with Saadawi’s gorgeous, bright, simple, clear English being translated into Tigrinya, and Arabic, the language she writes in (many of her works are translated by her husband), lickity-split, an earphone at every seat.

Then, “How much time do I have left?” she asks, quite seriously. It’s a ploy, I figure. She’s been charmingly successful at disarming her diverse audience, has in fact presented a new model for speechifying (snappy, smart, first person experiential, anti-baloney -- woman!), you know we want nothing more than for her to go on. “Please go on! You’ve got 25 minutes left,” we laugh, but she knows better, and five minutes later, at exactly a half-hour in, she halts, to thunderous applause.

The mike goes to respondent Esi Sutherland-Addy, followed by her partner, Akosua Anyidoho. These two have been working on a project in Ghana to record and bring to light the poetic traditions of women in rural areas. Amazing work! with, for example, five different genres of eulogies catalogued. Both women do their five-minute stints, praiseful and powerful, and it seems indeed that we are into a blazing new era, with women respectful and generous, easing the ego off the podium.

It was not to last, though. The next speaker goes on and on with important-to-herself dithering. Audience coughs and bellows, notes are sent, flags waved, time reverts to old bore zone. Calcification. Our new hero, self-appointed non-hero Nawal El Saadawi, refuses to take the hint to pass on the hint: she will not repeat the oppression of her oppressors. Or, is it? But when the event concludes -- and there are great moments by other respondents -- on the dot of two hours but alas with no time for audience to speak -- Saadawi pulls those interested into a side room and gives that audience their undivided hour. It’s a brand new Revolution, handled with grace and action offstage.

Ari Mwachofi, Kenyan poet:
(and Assistant Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff) Who read a beautiful wail dirge. . . Who looked at the team who had written the Asmara Declaration and said, “what’s wrong with this picture?” -- that the two women chairs couldn’t make the meeting, and only men sitting there, a reminder of the vigilance necessary to keep change changing... Who voiced for the audience.

Rita's Bar Gurgusum, on Liberty Avenue, Asmara:

Griots and Griottes:

Literacy and Mother Tongues:

Bob Holman

Next page > Ann Biersteker's notes for further reading of Nawal El Saadawi > page 1, 2