Matt Meyer
Despite intense losses in the recently ended war with neighbouring Ethiopia, and a few worrisome signs of incursions on freedom of speech and the press, the hopes amidst the people of the horn of Africa rested on hard-fought victories and advances in areas of education, youth and women's mobilisation, and popular political participation.
Eritrea was poised to be part of the community of nation-states rejecting passive victimisation by the forces of globalisation, a leader amongst…
At 8.30am on the morning of Tuesday 11 September, as my subway train took me just under the World Trade Center (WTC) from my home in Brooklyn to my job in upper Manhattan, I am struck by a headline from The Daily News, New York's “hometown” newspaper. Alongside of a photo of mild- mannered African American educator Patrick Critton screams the news: “Cops Bag Panther - Nabbed 30 Years After Deadly Bank Heist.”
The story told of a hijacking to Cuba, following a 1971 bank…
Brighter than New Year's Eve, the fireworks of midnight 23 May, that lit up the southern shores of the Red Sea, signified freedom from colonial subjugation and from war. In Africa's newest country of Eritrea – celebrating ten years of liberation from Ethiopian control, eight years of full independence since the referendum that affirmed the widespread desire for nationhood, and less than six months since the ceasefire in a bloody three-year border conflict – the mood is one of cautious…
