Thursday, March 28, 2013

Is Sweden relevant to Swedish-Eritreans?


Sweden is irrelevant" Issais Afewerki, President of Eritrea, Asmara National Palace-Eritrea.

Back then in 2009, this is what Donald Böstrom, a freelance Swedish TV journalist was told when he asked Eritrea's incumbent what kind of relationship his country wants with Sweden. Fast forward 2013! I don't want to make a generalization but as an outsider and from my observation of some actual incidents in Sweden; I was left with no alternative but to assume that there are large numbers of Swedish-Eritreans who consider their home/second country-Sweden- as irrelevant as well. 
These group of people proved my assumption right on Friday afternoon ( March 22, 2013) by attacking me

Thursday, March 7, 2013

"I have no plan B": Armenian asylum seeking painter/activist


That's what Armenian asylum seeking painter and activist Narek Aghajanyan told me at the opening of his 8th exhibition, held last week at a small pizzeria located outside of Gävle, when I asked him what he would do if the Swedish Migration Board rejects the new asylum request he made after his second child was born one month ago. When I posed the same question to his beautiful and giggly wife, she told me

Monday, March 4, 2013

Are Eritreans still Hade Hzbi Hade Lbi, after 20 years of Independence?

Eritreans on Eritreans?

Hade Hzbi Hade Lbi (it means literally One Nation, One Heart in Tigrigna-a Hamitic language spoken both in Ethiopia and Eritrea) was/is a populist catch term used by the ruling Eritrean regime and many Eritreans to mobilize for "freedom" against "colonial" Ethiopia and still used by many PFDJ (People's Front for Democracy & Justice), Eritrea's single party to have unlimited and unfettered control on its people. But for an informed outsider or Eritreans themselves for that matter Hade Hzbi Hade Lbi is just myth which one can find it in the dictionary of PFDJ and its blind hardliner, brainwashed and die-hard supporters. A case in point is the recent triple arson attacks

Sunday, March 3, 2013

I walk almost all night: Stockholm's Homeless Person



It was Sunday afternoon (February 17/2013) I was bored sitting at home and then decided to hunt for some stories and went down town at place locally called Medborgareplatsen (citizens place, its literal Swedish meaning) a hub for super trendy cafes/restaurants filled in with rich people with fat-wallets and homeless and or drug/alcohol addicted people are selling Situation Stockholm (local magazine about homeless people) or begging for alms or a few of them boozing on cheap alcohol or roaming around aimlessly. When I came out from the tube