Speaking of his previous expectations, Connell writes: "despite the accumulated impact of 30 years of war with neighboring Ethiopia, from which it won its independence, the continent's newest nation was a model of interethnic and interreligious unity, corruption-free administration, and debt-free development." After wondering "how could a proud nation that fought successive US and Soviet-backed Ethiopian governments for its independence with almost no outside help turn into a beggar," his explanation is that it "has mainly to do with the way its single-minded leader [Afwerki] has insulated himself from former allies and friends, lost popular support, and appropriated control over the nation's future to himself."

It is my turn to express dismay at so a shallow and imprudent explanation. To put the blame for Eritrea's failures on Afwerki is to forget that he is a product of the movement that created the regime. He has shaped the movement as much as he was shaped by it. The overlooking of this reciprocity encourages the thinking of the Eritrean revolution in terms of derailment when the whole issue is to know whether derailment is the appropriate concept. To speak of derailment suggests that an accident, an evil and unexpected development ruined the promises of the revolution.

Yet, what if the earning of independence only unraveled the hidden nature of the EPLF? What if the ideals of the revolution were simply a smokescreen designed to fool people? Could anything other than the dictatorship of Afewarki grow from a struggle based on ethnonationalism rather than on real democratic rights? It is indeed high time to say that the Eritrean revolution was nothing but a myth.

What is happening is, therefore, neither an accident nor a derailment: Eritreans are simply reaping what they have sown. You cannot spread ethnic hatred, suspicion, secretiveness, conspiracy, nepotism, and duplicity for decades and except that you will be immune from such defects.

By the way, we are expecting the full extent of this wakeup to take place among the supporters of the TPLF as well. The nostalgic supporters of the TPLF should stop blaming Meles for their disillusionment and for the loss of Assab, Badme, etc. Meles is no accident; he is the product of the TPLF. TPLF supporters should ask themselves this simple but distressing question: What must be the hidden nature of the TPLF for the movement to produce a leader who they openly call traitor, pro-Eritrean, anti-Ethiopian? Was not anti-Ethiopianism the very air that TPLF was breathing? Mistakes do not vanish in history; they come back to haunt us.