{"id":5674,"date":"2025-01-04T15:53:36","date_gmt":"2025-01-04T15:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/?page_id=5674"},"modified":"2025-06-05T02:13:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T02:13:37","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/en\/","title":{"rendered":"My Opinion Pieces …"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tigray’s Youth Are Not Fuel – But Tigray Must Not Be Demobilized<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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Tigray\u2019s challenge is not only to prepare for danger, but to do so without breaking the moral bond between the youth, the people, and the national cause. Tigray is again being pushed into a dangerous moral and strategic debate. On one side, there is a legitimate fear that young people may be treated as expendable instruments of political or military decisions they do not understand, did not debate, and may not trust. On the other side, there is an equally dangerous effort to turn that fear into a broader message of demobilization: that Tigray has no cause left worth defending,...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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Discipline Before Power, Execution Before Drift<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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Many Tigrayans have been asking why TPLF was moving so slowly. That question has not disappeared. It has changed form. On May 5, Tigray’s reinstated Baito (State Council) formally elected Debretsion Gebremichael as president, in defiance of federal warnings and in open tension with the Tadesse Worede interim administration. The Pretoria framework has entered a visibly contested phase, no longer functioning as an uncontested governing reference for Tigray’s political future. The AU and UN have both expressed concern. The Central Committee deliberations have now produced a formal political move. The question is no longer whether TPLF will act. The question...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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When \u133d\u121d\u12f6 Becomes Amnesia<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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When actors who helped make Tigray’s destruction possible return as architects of Ethiopia’s next political order, Tigray’s task is not to reject every conversation. \u133d\u121d\u12f6 began as Tigray’s own survival project, a public-to-public insulation against mistrust, manipulation, and collective self-erasure among communities that share history, geography, kinship, and pain. The task is to protect it from capture, to read who is redesigning the room around it, and to know whether Tigray’s questions remain inside the design. —– Yesterday after work, I became curious enough to listen to a conversation between Andargachew Tsige and Messay Mekonnen on Anchor Media. It was...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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Prosperity with a Tigrayan Accent<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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The danger of Tigray\u2019s splinter politics is not only that some actors want power. It is that they seek political relevance without carrying the full burden of Tigray\u2019s national question. That is not a national program. It is political homelessness. —– In a recent Brake Show event, Tegadalay Godefay described the current splinter politics as a desire to return to power. I think that reading is useful, but too generous. Power, position, and political rehabilitation are part of the story, but they do not fully explain the phenomenon. The deeper crisis is not simply a power struggle. It is a...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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What Tigray Wants: On Negotiating as a Governing Institution<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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The next negotiation will not be decided only by what Tigray demands, but by whether it enters the room as a political party seeking accommodation or as a governing institution asserting constitutional rights. —– Some of what I write here may sound familiar to readers who have followed my recent essays. I repeat these arguments deliberately, not because they have not moved forward, but because the pattern they describe is itself repeating. Abiy Ahmed’s method of delay, reframing, procedural substitution, and managed expectation cannot be understood from a single event. It has to be seen across events. I ask the...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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The Horn Is Being Rearranged. Tigray Must Not Remain Outside the Room.<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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The danger is not simply that the Horn is being rearranged without Tigray in the room. The deeper danger is that Tigray may fail to read that rearrangement in time to convert its institutional reconstitution into political leverage. —– Washington is helping rearrange the Horn of Africa around interests that are larger than Tigray, and in some cases larger than Ethiopia itself. Egypt is reading the Nile. Washington is reading the Red Sea. Addis Ababa is reading regime survival and regional repositioning. Asmara is reading the chance to end isolation. Tigray must read all of them before the architecture hardens....<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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The Space Between War and Submission<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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On pressure, the opponent, and the logic of the decisive moment This memo is long, and intentionally so. It was not written for quick consumption or for emotional reaction. It was written for patient and focused reading. Some parts may need to be read more than once, because the argument being made is not about one event, one actor, or one political disagreement. It is about the structure that is quietly forming underneath the current moment, and how different regional, diplomatic, military, and political developments are beginning to converge into a single strategic environment. For readers who may not have...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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Beyond the Scapegoat: The System That Failed Tigray<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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On collective responsibility, structural failure, and what genuine political reconstruction requires I would say this “What happened to Tigray was not the failure of a single party or a single leader. It was the failure of a system we all sustained, and until we name that honestly, we will remain trapped in explanations that cannot produce a future.” On May 5, 2026, the TPLF reconstituted the Baito, the regional parliament that had existed before the 2020 war, and elected Dr. Debretsion Gebremichael as regional president. This was not an impulsive move. A week earlier, the TPLF Central Committee had made...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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Between Resistance and Survival: On the dilemma dividing Tigrayan thinking, and what it is hiding<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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Tigray cannot afford to let its internal debate do what its enemies could not. There is a conversation happening inside Tigrayan households, in diaspora living rooms, on social media timelines, and in quiet exchanges between people who love Tigray deeply and disagree about what that love requires right now. It is not a comfortable conversation. It is often not a calm one. And it is one that many people, on all sides of it, are having with genuine fear at its center. That fear deserves to be named honestly before anything else is said. Those who argue that another confrontation...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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Beyond the Framework: Thinking Clearly About Agency in Tigray\u2019s Current Moment<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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Frameworks may define how others interpret our actions. They must not define how we understand our own survival. The Pretoria Agreement remains the central reference point through which the current situation in Tigray is interpreted externally. It is invoked in diplomatic language, reaffirmed in international statements, and repeatedly presented as the primary path toward stability. In that sense, its role is clear. It provides a structure through which external actors organize their engagement and evaluate developments. At the same time, the lived reality in Tigray reflects a different condition. Core provisions remain unresolved. Displacement continues at scale. Territorial questions remain...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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The Struggle to Define the Moment<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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If Tigray does not define its own necessity, others will label its survival as provocation. We are entering a moment where actions are already understood, but their meaning is being shaped in advance. What matters now is not just what happens next, but who defines it first. For months, the political environment surrounding Tigray has been reshaped, not through open dialogue, but through a systematic hollowing out of the Pretoria framework. While the framework has not been formally buried, the reality on the ground tells a different story: territories remain occupied, our displaced populations remain in limbo, and the economic...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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This Window Will Not Stay Open: What Tigray Must Do Now<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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This is not just another political moment. It is a decisive window in which Tigray must either reassert its capacity to act or risk losing it under conditions it does not control. Before going into the details, I want to be clear about one thing: what should we expect from these new emergency power structures that Tigray is now putting in place? In my opinion, this is not a period for study, experimentation, or slow institutional learning. We have already passed that phase. The time we are entering is a compressed window where deliberation must immediately translate into action. Yes,...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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From Diffused Authority to Functional Order: Why Tigray is Rebuilding its Capacity to Act<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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This is not a competition for political space. It is the work of assembling a foundation that can carry the weight of our collective survival. Tigray has entered a phase that many are observing, few are fully understanding, and not all are interpreting in the same way. Over the past weeks, the discussion has been dominated by extensions, statements, and competing interpretations. At the surface level, it has looked like a prolonged period of uncertainty. In my observation, however, this may not be a static situation at all. There seems to be a sequence of internal movements which, when followed...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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When \u201cPeace\u201d Becomes a Weapon Against Tigray<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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The loudest calls for \u201cpeace\u201d today are not about preventing war: they are about preventing Tigray from reorganizing itself into a position where it cannot be manipulated, a narrative pushed from Addis Ababa and amplified by aligned elements within Tigray and across the diaspora. What we are witnessing today is not confusion, and it is not coincidence. It is a pattern. When a central power cannot easily stop an internal regional process, it does not always confront it directly. Instead, it reframes that process as a threat to collective stability. That is exactly what is happening now. At the very...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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Tigray Cannot Survive the Status Quo: Why Waiting Becomes Surrender in Slow Motion<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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The window is narrow: act before Ethiopia\u2019s \u12e8\u1328\u1228\u1263 (sham) \u00a0election cycle locks today\u2019s realities into tomorrow\u2019s structure. Activate internal political capital: Bring together the remaining strength Tigray still has. Act before the cycle locks: Move before the election cycle makes today\u2019s reality permanent. Force a settlement: Create pressure while it still carries a political cost. Demand movement: Begin real action on the displaced, the occupied, and the question of authority. Build functional capacity: Do not walk into the next phase empty-handed and weakened. Do not assume the federal center holds all the advantage: Leverage still exists before the cycle matures....<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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The Ethiopia They Feel vs The Ethiopia They Destroyed – Truth, And False Revival<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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If Ethiopians are serious about revival, they must begin not with slogans or emotionally charged lyrics of unity, but with repentance, apology, and a clear demand for justice, beginning with Tigray, and extending to all those who have suffered under these cycles of violence. I found myself listening to Teddy Afro\u2019s new album this week, not casually, but with attention. I was listening to the lyrics, the composition, the musical structure, trying to understand what he is trying to say this time. To be honest, I have heard stronger work from him before. There are songs from years back that...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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When War Is Not an Option, What Then? A Strategic Reflection for Tigray!<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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If war is not the path forward, we must ask a difficult question: what is the cost of avoiding it? At this moment, beneath the noise of competing narratives and rising emotional pressure, one reality is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Tigray does not need war now, and under current conditions, it is not clear that it would benefit from entering into one. This is not a comfortable conclusion, nor is it a satisfying one. It is a constraint imposed by reality. It reflects the condition of our society after a devastating war, the scale of destruction endured, the fragile...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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The Discipline That Holds Us Together: Politics, Responsibility, and the Current Moment in Tigray<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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Politics does not take its meaning from individuals, but from the collective decisions that bind them. As Tigray scrambles to reassert constitutional order and meaning in the midst of an ongoing crisis, the political space is becoming increasingly tense and uncertain. Tadesse Worede has publicly indicated his intention to continue within the transitional arrangement following the extension of the interim administration. At the same time, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front is engaged in internal deliberations on the way forward. Across Tigray and in the diaspora, people are closely following these developments, often through a social media environment filled with speculation,...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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Tigray\u2019s Strategic Anchor: Refusing the Politics of Division<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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A dangerous shift is taking place in how political questions in Tigray are being framed, moving attention away from structure and toward identity.” \u201cThere is a development that deserves careful attention\u2026\u201d. The absence of a central, functioning authority in Tigray has created a vacuum that is now being filled by something far more dangerous than simple disagreement. There is a development that deserves careful attention, not because it is new, but because of its timing and the conditions under which it is being amplified. In the aftermath of recent political shifts, particularly the extension of the interim administration, a familiar...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>
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Tigray\u2019s Constitutional Void: Why Baito Tigray (\u1263\u12ed\u1276 \u12c8\u12a8\u120d\u1272 \u1205\u12dd\u1262 \u1275\u130d\u122b\u12ed\uff09Must Return, But Not As It Was<\/a><\/h2><\/header>
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The absence of Baito is not a political gap, it is a structural vacuum that no military strength or party dominance can safely replace. I have been in contact with a number of Tigrayan colleagues, both at home and in the diaspora, who have raised serious concerns about the idea of reconstituting the 2020 regional council. Their concerns are not trivial. They are grounded in recent experience, and they deserve to be taken seriously. At the same time, one thing remains missing from the discussion. While there is no shortage of criticism, I have yet to see a clearly articulated,...<\/p>Read More<\/a><\/div>\n <\/div>

fikru.kidane@protonmail.com<\/a><\/span>