{"id":6648,"date":"2026-05-19T14:25:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/?p=6648"},"modified":"2026-05-19T14:45:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:45:51","slug":"when-%e1%8c%bd%e1%88%9d%e1%8b%b6-becomes-amnesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/en\/2026\/05\/19\/when-%e1%8c%bd%e1%88%9d%e1%8b%b6-becomes-amnesia\/","title":{"rendered":"When \u133d\u121d\u12f6 Becomes Amnesia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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.<\/em><\/p>

—–<\/p>

Yesterday after work, I became curious enough to listen to a conversation between Andargachew Tsige and Messay Mekonnen on Anchor Media. It was a long exchange, polished in its register, and difficult to dismiss casually. After listening, I could not resist sitting down to decode what was behind the conversation, because what it reveals about how certain actors are now trying to re-enter the northern equation carries a sense of urgency for Tigray.<\/p>

This is not a response to the two men personally. It is a reading of the architecture behind their conversation.<\/p>

The exchange was not crude propaganda. Andargachew argued for Fano unity, discussed regional alignment, presented an Amhara-centered political vision framed as Ethiopian national salvation, and signaled Eritrean channels and Egyptian relationships. Messay engaged seriously. Whatever one thinks of their conclusions, these were political actors doing what political actors do: imagining a future and positioning for it.<\/p>

That is precisely why the conversation should be read carefully, not with anger, not with the reflex of rejection, but surgically.<\/p>

The Memory They Still Refuse to Reconstruct<\/strong><\/p>

The most revealing moment in the conversation comes around the 42-minute mark. Messay raises a serious question: can forces such as TPLF, Eritrea, and Sudan, which were part of Ethiopia’s crisis, now be part of its solution? It is a fair question. Andargachew’s answer is instructive, not for what it says about the future, but for what it reveals about how he remembers the past.<\/p>

He does not reconstruct Ethiopia’s post-2018 crisis around the war on Tigray, the siege, the mass killing, Western Tigray, the displacement of more than a million Tigrayans, or the anti-TPLF political coalition that helped bring Abiy to power. Instead, he returns to an older frame: TPLF and other liberation-front politics as fundamentally anti-Ethiopian, organized around blaming Amhara for Ethiopia’s historical suffering.<\/p>

His own language is revealing:<\/p>

\u201c\u12e8\u1205\u12c8\u1213\u1275 \u12a0\u1218\u1208\u12ab\u12a8\u1275 \u121d\u1295 \u12a5\u1295\u12f0\u1206\u1290 \u12a0\u12cd\u1243\u1208\u1201\u1364 \u12e8\u12a6\u1290\u130d \u12a0\u1218\u1208\u12ab\u12a8\u1275 \u121d\u1295 \u12a5\u1295\u12f0\u1290\u1260\u122d \u12a0\u12cd\u1243\u1208\u1201\u1364 \u12e8\u120c\u120e\u127d\u121d \u120a\u1260\u122c\u123d\u1295 \u134d\u122e\u1295\u1276\u127d \u12a0\u1218\u1208\u12ab\u12a8\u1275 \u121d\u1295 \u12a5\u1295\u12f0\u1290\u1260\u122d \u12a0\u12cd\u1243\u1208\u1201\u1362\u201d<\/p>

That sentence is not casual. It establishes a settled posture. Andargachew is not opening a space for rethinking what happened after 2018. He is returning to a verdict already formed about TPLF and liberation-front politics.<\/p>

He then sharpens the frame:<\/p>

\u201c\u12a5\u1290\u12da\u1205 \u1260\u1219\u1209 \u12a2\u1275\u12ee\u1335\u12eb\u1295 \u1260\u121a\u1218\u1208\u12a8\u1275\u1363 \u1208\u1356\u1208\u1272\u12ab \u1355\u122e\u130d\u122b\u121b\u1278\u12cd \u1218\u1245\u1228\u132b \u12a0\u12f5\u122d\u1308\u12cd \u12eb\u1240\u1228\u1261\u1275 \u1275\u122d\u12ad\u1275 \u1260\u12a0\u1320\u1243\u120b\u12ed \u1338\u1228-\u12a2\u1275\u12ee\u1335\u12eb \u12e8\u1206\u1290 \u1275\u122d\u12ad\u1275 \u1290\u12cd\u1362\u201d<\/p>

And then the Amhara grievance becomes the organizing center of memory:<\/p>

\u201c\u12e8\u12a2\u1275\u12ee\u1335\u12eb \u1320\u1245\u120b\u120b \u121b\u1205\u1260\u1228\u1230\u1265 \u12eb\u1208\u1260\u1275\u1295 \u12a5\u1305\u130d \u12a0\u1230\u1243\u1242\u1293 \u12a0\u1233\u134b\u122a \u1201\u1294\u1273 \u1260\u12e8\u121b\u1205\u1260\u1228\u1230\u1263\u1278\u12cd \u1232\u1218\u1290\u12dd\u1229\u1275\u1363 \u2018\u1208\u12da\u1205 \u1270\u1320\u12eb\u1242 \u12a0\u121b\u122b \u1290\u12cd\u2019 \u12e8\u121a\u120d \u1218\u1295\u12f0\u122d\u12f0\u122a\u12eb \u12eb\u1235\u1240\u1218\u1321 \u1203\u12ed\u120e\u127d \u1293\u1278\u12cd\u1362\u201d<\/p>

This is not simply old rhetoric recycled out of laziness. It is a sign that the old EPRDF-era Amhara elite political imagination remains, after everything, unreconstructed.<\/p>

The danger is not that Andargachew has no memory. The danger is that his memory is organized around Amhara grievance in a way that leaves Tigray’s catastrophe structurally outside the story.<\/p>

In this framing, Abiy’s betrayal becomes morally urgent when it turns against Amhara. The war against Tigray, the documented atrocities, the weaponized hunger, the ethnic cleansing of Western Tigray, does not become the moral center of his post-2018 narrative. This is why Messay’s own framing matters as well:<\/p>

\u201c\u1205\u12c8\u1213\u1275\u121d \u1265\u12a0\u12f4\u1295\u1295 \u12c8\u12ed\u121d \u12e8\u12a0\u121b\u122b \u1283\u12ed\u120e\u127d\u1295 \u12a5\u1295\u12f0 \u1348\u1228\u1235 \u12a5\u1235\u12a8 \u1264\u1270\u1218\u1295\u130d\u1225\u1275 \u1270\u1320\u1245\u121e\u1363 \u12a8\u12db \u12e8\u1260\u120b\u12ed\u1290\u1271\u1295 \u12ed\u12de \u1260\u12a0\u121b\u122b \u1215\u12dd\u1265 \u120b\u12ed \u130d\u134d \u1232\u1348\u133d\u121d \u1290\u1260\u122d\u1362 \u12a0\u1201\u1295 \u12f0\u130d\u121e \u1265\u120d\u133d\u130d\u1293 \u1265\u12a0\u12f4\u1295\u1295 \u1270\u1320\u1245\u121e \u12c8\u12f0 \u1225\u120d\u1323\u1295 \u12a8\u1308\u1263\u1293 \u12ab\u12f0\u120b\u12f0\u1208 \u1260\u128b\u120b\u1363 \u1260\u12a0\u121b\u122b \u1215\u12dd\u1265 \u120b\u12ed \u1290\u12cd \u1326\u122d\u1290\u1275 \u12e8\u12a8\u1348\u1270\u12cd\u1362\u201d<\/p>

That is the architecture of selective memory. TPLF appears as the force that used Amhara and oppressed Amhara. Prosperity appears as the force that used Amhara and then opened war on Amhara. But the war on Tigray, the genocide, the siege, and the shared political responsibility of anti-TPLF forces disappear from the moral center of the story.<\/p>

This silence is not innocent. These men and the political constituencies they helped represent were not distant spectators when Abiy’s project against Tigray was being designed, justified, and executed. They were part of the political architecture that made that project possible. They helped create the moral language, the anti-TPLF mobilization, and the national-salvation frame through which the assault on Tigray was normalized. Tigray does not need to repeat this history every time in order to remember it. We may choose, for political reasons, to forgive certain things at certain moments. But forgiveness is not amnesia. It is not permission for those who sat inside the architecture of Tigray’s destruction to return as teachers of national salvation without reckoning.<\/p>

If Abiy’s betrayal begins, in their memory, only when he turns against Amhara, then Tigray’s genocide has not entered their political conscience.<\/p>

This matters for Tigray’s long-term strategy in a way that no tactical alignment can resolve. Some within TPLF and Tigrayan political circles still carry an instinct to restore Ethiopia through a corrected version of EPRDF federalism, a renewed coalition of regional forces that rebuilds the political center collapsed under Abiy. That instinct may not be wrong in principle. But if the forces that a restored federal Ethiopia would require have not undergone any moral or ideological reconstruction, then Tigray must ask honestly: is restoration a strategy, or is it nostalgia for a political order that also failed Tigray in ways that predate the war?<\/p>

Exclusion by Architecture<\/strong><\/p>

From that memory, an architecture follows.<\/p>

Andargachew presents Fano unity as the \u201cmother of all work.\u201d He argues for unified political and military leadership of Amhara forces and links Amhara survival to the survival of Ethiopia as a political entity. He describes Amhara mobilization in existential language:<\/p>

\u201c\u1260\u12da\u1205 \u12f0\u1228\u1303 \u1309\u12f3\u1275 \u12e8\u12f0\u1228\u1230\u1260\u1275 \u12e8\u12a0\u121b\u122b \u121b\u1205\u1260\u1228\u1230\u1265 \u1290\u1245\u1276\u1363 \u12e8\u122b\u1231\u1295 \u1273\u1323\u1242 \u12a0\u12f0\u122b\u1305\u1276\u1363 \u1208\u1205\u120d\u12cd\u1293 \u12a5\u12e8\u1273\u1308\u1208 \u12eb\u1208\u1260\u1275 \u1201\u1294\u1273 \u1290\u12cd\u1362\u201d<\/p>

Fano becomes not merely an Amhara defense formation but the proposed spine of an Ethiopia-saving project. He also frames the Port Sudan initiative in civic language, people-to-people peace, border communities, trade, coexistence, sport, and local life, and describes it as originating from Tigray-Eritrea border communities before being brought to him through the Eritrean Embassy in London. He attended in a personal capacity.<\/p>

The civic language is not insincere. People-to-people peace at the border is a real need. But civic language can also soften the entrance into a larger political architecture whose strategic implications exceed the words used to describe it.<\/p>

This is why the distinction matters. \u133d\u121d\u12f6, in its original and healthiest sense, is not someone else’s project that Tigray is being invited into. It is Tigray’s own survival instrument, a public-to-public insulation meant to prevent mistrust from becoming another channel of destruction among communities that cannot escape one another’s geography. But \u133d\u121d\u12f6 as local survival practice is one thing. \u133d\u121d\u12f6 redesigned by regional actors into a political architecture is another.<\/p>

The first question Tigray must ask, therefore, is not what was absent from the conversation. No serious Tigrayan expected Western Tigray, IDP return, Pretoria, or accountability for the war to be centered in this exchange. That would be na\u00efve. The sharper question is structural: the problem is not that they failed to mention Western Tigray. The problem is that their political map can function without it.<\/p>

Fano unity, Eritrean corridors, Egyptian relationships, post-Abiy scenarios, all of this can be discussed actively, coherently, and in full strategic seriousness, while Tigray’s core questions remain structurally external to the design. This is not omission as accident. It is exclusion by architecture.<\/p>

The amnesia \u133d\u121d\u12f6 risks is not forgetfulness. It is entering a political architecture where your questions are not inside the frame, and not noticing until the architecture has become load-bearing. Tigray’s danger is not that its enemies forget its questions. It is that Tigray may enter rooms where its questions are structurally unnecessary.<\/p>

Who Interprets Tigray to Egypt?<\/strong><\/p>

Andargachew’s discussion of regional alignment includes references to external support linked to Egypt through Sudan and Eritrea. He frames such support not as something to be reflexively rejected but as part of a convergence logic: actors threatened by Abiy may naturally cooperate with others Abiy also targets. The Egypt reference is not a passing detail.<\/p>

Around the one-hour mark, Messay raises the Egypt question from the old Ethiopian register of suspicion:<\/p>

\u201c\u12e8\u130d\u1265\u133d \u12a5\u1305 \u12a8\u12da\u1205 \u1309\u12f3\u12ed \u121d\u1295 \u12eb\u1205\u120d \u12a5\u1229\u1245 \u1290\u12cd? \u130d\u1265\u133d \u12a8\u1231\u12f3\u1295 \u1218\u1295\u130d\u1225\u1275 \u130b\u122d \u1325\u1265\u1245 \u12c8\u12f3\u1305\u1290\u1275 \u12a0\u120b\u1275\u1364 \u12a8\u12a4\u122d\u1275\u122b \u1218\u1295\u130d\u1225\u1275 \u130b\u122d\u121d \u1325\u1265\u1245 \u12c8\u12f3\u1305\u1290\u1275 \u12a0\u120b\u1275\u1364 \u1260\u1236\u121b\u120a\u12eb\u121d \u1308\u1265\u1273\u1208\u127d\u1362 \u12d9\u122a\u12eb\u127d\u1295\u1295 \u12a5\u12e8\u12de\u1228\u127d \u1290\u12cd\u1362\u201d<\/p>

That is a legitimate Ethiopian anxiety. Egypt is not a neutral actor in Ethiopia’s historical imagination. But Andargachew’s response is revealing because he does not remain inside that anxiety. He distinguishes between a civic people-to-people process and a future political-military alignment. If political organizations and armed forces enter the space, he effectively says, then the concern Messay raises becomes part of geopolitical reality:<\/p>

\u201c\u12f5\u122d\u1305\u1276\u1279 \u12a8\u1206\u1291\u1363 \u1356\u1208\u1272\u12a8\u129e\u1279 \u12a5\u1293 \u1273\u1323\u1242 \u1283\u12ed\u120e\u1279 \u12a8\u1206\u1291 \u12c8\u12f0\u12da\u1205 \u12e8\u121a\u1308\u1261\u1275\u1363 \u12a0\u1295\u1270 \u12e8\u121d\u1275\u1208\u12cd \u1235\u130b\u1275 \u12e8\u1302\u12a6\u1356\u1208\u1272\u12ab\u12cd \u122a\u12eb\u120a\u1272 \u1290\u12cd\u1362\u201d<\/p>

This is where the conversation becomes most strategic. Messay appears to worry about legitimacy and suspicion. Andargachew appears to think in terms of architecture. For him, Egypt is not simply a suspicious external hand. It is part of the regional field that actors threatened by Abiy may try to use. That distinction matters for Tigray.<\/p>

Egypt is not a charity actor in Ethiopian politics. It has a long-standing strategic interest in preventing the emergence of a strong Ethiopia capable of acting independently on the Nile, the Red Sea, and the Horn. And Egypt understands what many Ethiopian actors prefer to obscure: historically, a strong Ethiopia has often required a strong Tigrayan pillar within it. In Egypt’s strategic map, a strong Tigray inside Ethiopia may be part of the problem.<\/p>

But Egypt’s map is not fixed by emotion. Cairo does not have to choose permanently between Abiy and Abiy’s enemies. Egypt’s interest is leverage, not loyalty. At this moment, Abiy may in fact be Egypt’s best state card precisely because he controls the Ethiopian state, the GERD file, the Red Sea question, and Ethiopia’s formal diplomatic voice. That does not mean Egypt abandons parallel channels with Sudan, Eritrea, or anti-Abiy actors. It means Egypt can keep every useful channel open while watching which one gives it the greatest leverage.<\/p>

But Tigray should not read Egypt through a frozen lens. Egypt is not Tigray’s enemy by nature. It may be Tigray’s interpreter by default. And the default interpretation is currently being written by others.<\/p>

If Egypt hears about Tigray through Abiy, through Amhara elites, through PFDJ, through Sudanese intermediaries, or through older Ethiopian state assumptions, then Tigray becomes an object inside someone else’s map, a variable, a pressure point, a force to be managed or contained. Tigray must ask not only what Egypt wants from Ethiopia, but what Egypt would want from Tigray under different Ethiopian futures. If Ethiopia’s political order continues to deteriorate and Tigray is forced toward a different constitutional horizon, Egypt’s calculus may shift. A Tigray that is no longer the engine of a threatening Ethiopia, and that can maintain a stabilizing posture on Egypt’s core concerns, may become a different kind of actor in Egyptian strategic thinking.<\/p>

This is why Tigray must not read Egypt as simply anti-Abiy. Egypt can engage Abiy, pressure Abiy, talk to Abiy’s rivals, and still preserve its long-term objective. The danger for Tigray is not Egypt’s flexibility. The danger is Tigray’s absence from the channels where Egypt learns what Tigray is, what Tigray wants, and what kind of regional actor Tigray could become. If Abiy is Egypt’s best state card, then Tigray must make sure it does not become Egypt’s silent non-state variable.<\/p>

Tigray must not be represented to Egypt by those who want Tigray weak.<\/p>

This is where PFDJ belongs in the analysis. Asmara is not simply one actor among others in the emerging \u133d\u121d\u12f6 environment. PFDJ has long specialized in indirect architecture: shaping rooms, encouraging contradictions among rivals, using intermediaries, and letting others carry language that serves Asmara’s own strategic design. PFDJ does not need to own a platform to shape its direction. Asmara’s strength is not only in what it says, but in the rooms it helps others build. Whether or not PFDJ designed the Anchor Media conversation, Tigray must assume that any regional alignment involving Eritrea carries a deeper layer than what is visible on screen.<\/p>

This caution extends to the broader convergence now taking shape. A Saudi-Egypt-Sudan-Eritrea axis against a UAE-RSF-Abiy configuration may appear, from a distance, to create openings that could ease pressure on Tigray or expand its room for maneuver. Such openings may have real value. But useful openings are not the same as strategic safety. A \u133d\u121d\u12f6 that weakens Abiy while leaving Tigray dependent, territorially unresolved, or embedded inside a regional architecture whose long-term logic still prefers a weakened Tigrayan pillar, that is temporary relief that may mature into long-term vulnerability.<\/p>

Tigray currently has no uncontested diplomatic channels, no ordinary foreign ministry, no institutional standing that Addis Ababa cannot challenge or competing regional actors cannot manipulate. Acknowledging this is not defeatism. It is the starting point for strategic realism. The absence of direct Tigrayan interpretation is itself a vulnerability. Tigrayan political actors, scholars, diaspora networks, and responsible institutional figures must think seriously about direct, disciplined, limited, and reversible channels of engagement, especially with Egypt, not to become anyone’s proxy, but to ensure that Egypt does not hear about Tigray only from those who prefer it weakened. If Tigray does not speak for itself, others will. And those others may be precisely the forces that benefit from its silence.<\/p>

The Notebook Memory Requires<\/strong><\/p>

\u133d\u121d\u12f6 requires conditions, but not necessarily in the form of public confession. Tigray should not expect actors who have organized their politics around denial, evasion, or selective memory to suddenly acknowledge what happened to Tigray in clean moral language. That would be na\u00efve. Their answers will rarely come as confession. They will come through priorities, silences, sequencing, evasions, and the architecture they build.<\/p>

So Tigray does not need to demand that every actor recite its pain back to it. But it must keep its own notebook. In that notebook, three tests matter.<\/p>

The first is the territorial and humanitarian test: where does each actor stand, explicitly or implicitly, on Western Tigray, IDP return, Pretoria implementation, and the protection of Tigrayan civilians? If these questions are treated as secondary, postponed, or too complicated to touch, then the architecture is already telling Tigray where it stands.<\/p>

The second is the agency test: is Tigray being treated as a political society with rights, territory, institutions, and a future of its own, or as a variable in someone else\u2019s coalition arithmetic? This distinction matters more than polite language. A conversation may sound respectful while still reducing Tigray to a component inside another actor\u2019s design.<\/p>

The third is the interpretation test: who is explaining Tigray to external actors such as Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Gulf powers, Western diplomats, and anti-Abiy networks? Is Tigray speaking for itself, even through limited and informal channels, or is it being interpreted by Abiy, PFDJ, Amhara elites, Sudanese intermediaries, or actors who benefit from Tigray\u2019s weakness?<\/p>

These are not questions Tigray should expect others to answer honestly in public. They are questions Tigray must carry privately and politically into every \u133d\u121d\u12f6 environment. The point is not to wait for confession. The point is to read architecture.<\/p>

If Western Tigray can be postponed, if IDP return can be reduced to humanitarian language, if Pretoria can be treated as background noise, if Tigray\u2019s agency can be absorbed into broader anti-Abiy arithmetic, and if Egypt or other external actors hear about Tigray mainly from those who want it weak, then the engagement has already revealed its limits.<\/p>

Memory, in this sense, is not sentiment. It is a method of reading power.<\/p>

Discipline Against Amnesia<\/strong><\/p>

The amnesia \u133d\u121d\u12f6 risks is not forgetting in the ordinary sense. Tigray does not forget the siege, the hunger, the atrocities, the displaced. It does not forget what Western Tigray was and what it became. What amnesia does is more subtle: it allows exhaustion, urgency, and the appeal of useful alignment to convert memory into silence. The questions above become negotiable. Western Tigray can wait. The war against Tigray can be re-described as political turbulence. The architecture settles in. Later has a way of not arriving.<\/p>

Tigray cannot survive through isolation. The conversation between Andargachew and Messay is not nothing. Regional realignment is happening, with or without Tigray’s input. \u133d\u121d\u12f6, disciplined, conditional, limited, reversible engagement, is not optional. It is necessary.<\/p>

But \u133d\u121d\u12f6 requires that memory function as condition, not as sentiment. It requires that Tigray enter every conversation with the three tests already carried in its notebook, already on record, already functioning as the floor below which nothing can proceed. Not because those questions will always be answered satisfactorily. They may not be. But because forcing them into the foundation of any conversation is how Tigray makes itself a subject rather than a variable. It is how Tigray speaks for itself before others define it.<\/p>

Tigray does not have the luxury of self-erasure. It has the obligation of discipline.<\/p>

\u133d\u121d\u12f6 becomes amnesia not only when Tigray forgets the past, but when Tigray allows others to define its future before it has spoken for itself.<\/p>

\u1275\u130d\u122b\u12ed \u1275\u1235\u12d5\u122d\uff01\u1230\u120b\u121d \u1295\u1205\u12dd\u1265\u1293\uff01<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 a long exchange, polished in its register, and difficult to dismiss casually. After listening, I could not resist sitting down to decode what was behind the conversation, because what it reveals about how certain actors are now trying to re-enter the northern equation carries a sense of urgency for Tigray. This is not a response to the two men personally. It is a reading of the architecture behind their conversation. The exchange was not crude propaganda. Andargachew argued for Fano unity, discussed regional alignment, presented an Amhara-centered political vision framed as Ethiopian national salvation, and signaled Eritrean channels and Egyptian relationships. Messay engaged seriously. Whatever one thinks of their conclusions, these were political actors doing what political actors do: imagining a future and positioning for it. That is precisely why the conversation should be read carefully, not with anger, not with the reflex of rejection, but surgically. The Memory They Still Refuse to Reconstruct The most revealing moment in the conversation comes around the 42-minute mark. Messay raises a serious question: can forces such as TPLF, Eritrea, and Sudan, which were part of Ethiopia’s crisis, now be part of its solution? It is a fair question. Andargachew’s answer is instructive, not for what it says about the future, but for what it reveals about how he remembers the past. He does not reconstruct Ethiopia’s post-2018 crisis around the war on Tigray, the siege, the mass killing, Western Tigray, the displacement of more than a million Tigrayans, or the anti-TPLF political coalition that helped bring Abiy to power. Instead, he returns to an older frame: TPLF and other liberation-front politics as fundamentally anti-Ethiopian, organized around blaming Amhara for Ethiopia’s historical suffering. His own language is revealing: \u201c\u12e8\u1205\u12c8\u1213\u1275 \u12a0\u1218\u1208\u12ab\u12a8\u1275 \u121d\u1295 \u12a5\u1295\u12f0\u1206\u1290 \u12a0\u12cd\u1243\u1208\u1201\u1364 \u12e8\u12a6\u1290\u130d \u12a0\u1218\u1208\u12ab\u12a8\u1275 \u121d\u1295 \u12a5\u1295\u12f0\u1290\u1260\u122d \u12a0\u12cd\u1243\u1208\u1201\u1364 \u12e8\u120c\u120e\u127d\u121d \u120a\u1260\u122c\u123d\u1295 \u134d\u122e\u1295\u1276\u127d \u12a0\u1218\u1208\u12ab\u12a8\u1275 \u121d\u1295 \u12a5\u1295\u12f0\u1290\u1260\u122d \u12a0\u12cd\u1243\u1208\u1201\u1362\u201d That sentence is not casual. It establishes a settled posture. Andargachew is not opening a space for rethinking what happened after 2018. He is returning to a verdict already formed about TPLF and liberation-front politics. He then sharpens the frame: \u201c\u12a5\u1290\u12da\u1205 \u1260\u1219\u1209 \u12a2\u1275\u12ee\u1335\u12eb\u1295 \u1260\u121a\u1218\u1208\u12a8\u1275\u1363 \u1208\u1356\u1208\u1272\u12ab \u1355\u122e\u130d\u122b\u121b\u1278\u12cd \u1218\u1245\u1228\u132b \u12a0\u12f5\u122d\u1308\u12cd \u12eb\u1240\u1228\u1261\u1275 \u1275\u122d\u12ad\u1275 \u1260\u12a0\u1320\u1243\u120b\u12ed \u1338\u1228-\u12a2\u1275\u12ee\u1335\u12eb \u12e8\u1206\u1290 \u1275\u122d\u12ad\u1275 \u1290\u12cd\u1362\u201d And then the Amhara grievance becomes the organizing center of memory: \u201c\u12e8\u12a2\u1275\u12ee\u1335\u12eb \u1320\u1245\u120b\u120b \u121b\u1205\u1260\u1228\u1230\u1265 \u12eb\u1208\u1260\u1275\u1295 \u12a5\u1305\u130d \u12a0\u1230\u1243\u1242\u1293 \u12a0\u1233\u134b\u122a \u1201\u1294\u1273 \u1260\u12e8\u121b\u1205\u1260\u1228\u1230\u1263\u1278\u12cd \u1232\u1218\u1290\u12dd\u1229\u1275\u1363 \u2018\u1208\u12da\u1205 \u1270\u1320\u12eb\u1242 \u12a0\u121b\u122b \u1290\u12cd\u2019 \u12e8\u121a\u120d \u1218\u1295\u12f0\u122d\u12f0\u122a\u12eb \u12eb\u1235\u1240\u1218\u1321 \u1203\u12ed\u120e\u127d \u1293\u1278\u12cd\u1362\u201d This is not simply old rhetoric recycled out of laziness. It is a sign that the old EPRDF-era Amhara elite political imagination remains, after everything, unreconstructed. The danger is not that Andargachew has no memory. The danger is that his memory is organized around Amhara grievance in a way that leaves Tigray’s catastrophe structurally outside the story. In this framing, Abiy’s betrayal becomes morally urgent when it turns against Amhara. The war against Tigray, the documented atrocities, the weaponized hunger, the ethnic cleansing of Western Tigray, does not become the moral center of his post-2018 narrative. This is why Messay’s own framing matters as well: \u201c\u1205\u12c8\u1213\u1275\u121d \u1265\u12a0\u12f4\u1295\u1295 \u12c8\u12ed\u121d \u12e8\u12a0\u121b\u122b \u1283\u12ed\u120e\u127d\u1295 \u12a5\u1295\u12f0 \u1348\u1228\u1235 \u12a5\u1235\u12a8 \u1264\u1270\u1218\u1295\u130d\u1225\u1275 \u1270\u1320\u1245\u121e\u1363 \u12a8\u12db \u12e8\u1260\u120b\u12ed\u1290\u1271\u1295 \u12ed\u12de \u1260\u12a0\u121b\u122b \u1215\u12dd\u1265 \u120b\u12ed \u130d\u134d \u1232\u1348\u133d\u121d \u1290\u1260\u122d\u1362 \u12a0\u1201\u1295 \u12f0\u130d\u121e \u1265\u120d\u133d\u130d\u1293 \u1265\u12a0\u12f4\u1295\u1295 \u1270\u1320\u1245\u121e \u12c8\u12f0 \u1225\u120d\u1323\u1295 \u12a8\u1308\u1263\u1293 \u12ab\u12f0\u120b\u12f0\u1208 \u1260\u128b\u120b\u1363 \u1260\u12a0\u121b\u122b \u1215\u12dd\u1265 \u120b\u12ed \u1290\u12cd \u1326\u122d\u1290\u1275 \u12e8\u12a8\u1348\u1270\u12cd\u1362\u201d That is the architecture of selective memory. TPLF appears as the force that used Amhara and oppressed Amhara. Prosperity appears as the force that used Amhara and then opened war on Amhara. But the war on Tigray, the genocide, the siege, and the shared political responsibility of anti-TPLF forces disappear from the moral center of the story. This silence is not innocent. These men and the political constituencies they helped represent were not distant spectators when Abiy’s project against Tigray was being designed, justified, and executed. They were part of the political architecture that made that project possible. They helped create the moral language, the anti-TPLF mobilization, and the national-salvation frame through which the assault on Tigray was normalized. Tigray does not need to repeat this history every time in order to remember it. We may choose, for political reasons, to forgive certain things at certain moments. But forgiveness is not amnesia. It is not permission for those who sat inside the architecture of Tigray’s destruction to return as teachers of national salvation without reckoning. If Abiy’s betrayal begins, in their memory, only when he turns against Amhara, then Tigray’s genocide has not entered their political conscience. This matters for Tigray’s long-term strategy in a way that no tactical alignment can resolve. Some within TPLF and Tigrayan political circles still carry an instinct to restore Ethiopia through a corrected version of EPRDF federalism, a renewed coalition of regional forces that rebuilds the political center collapsed under Abiy. That instinct may not be wrong in principle. But if the forces that a restored federal Ethiopia would require have not undergone any moral or ideological reconstruction, then Tigray must ask honestly: is restoration a strategy, or is it nostalgia for a political order that also failed Tigray in ways that predate the war? Exclusion by Architecture From that memory, an architecture follows. Andargachew presents Fano unity as the \u201cmother of all work.\u201d He argues for unified political and military leadership of Amhara forces and links Amhara survival to the survival of Ethiopia as a political entity. He describes Amhara mobilization in existential language: \u201c\u1260\u12da\u1205 \u12f0\u1228\u1303 \u1309\u12f3\u1275 \u12e8\u12f0\u1228\u1230\u1260\u1275 \u12e8\u12a0\u121b\u122b \u121b\u1205\u1260\u1228\u1230\u1265 \u1290\u1245\u1276\u1363 \u12e8\u122b\u1231\u1295 \u1273\u1323\u1242 \u12a0\u12f0\u122b\u1305\u1276\u1363 \u1208\u1205\u120d\u12cd\u1293 \u12a5\u12e8\u1273\u1308\u1208 \u12eb\u1208\u1260\u1275 \u1201\u1294\u1273 \u1290\u12cd\u1362\u201d Fano becomes not merely an Amhara defense formation but the proposed spine of an Ethiopia-saving project. He also frames the Port Sudan initiative in civic language, people-to-people peace, border communities, trade, coexistence, sport, and local life, and describes it as originating from Tigray-Eritrea border communities before being brought to him through the Eritrean Embassy in London. He attended in a personal capacity. The civic language is not insincere. People-to-people peace at the border is a real need. But civic language can also soften the entrance into a larger political architecture whose strategic implications exceed the words used to describe it. This is why the distinction matters. \u133d\u121d\u12f6, in its original and healthiest sense, is not someone else’s project that Tigray is being invited into. It is Tigray’s own survival instrument, a public-to-public insulation meant to prevent mistrust from becoming another channel of destruction among communities that cannot escape one another’s geography. But \u133d\u121d\u12f6 as local survival practice is one thing. \u133d\u121d\u12f6 redesigned by regional actors into a political architecture is another. The first question Tigray must ask, therefore, is not what was absent from the conversation. No serious Tigrayan expected Western Tigray, IDP return, Pretoria, or accountability for the war to be centered in this exchange. That would be na\u00efve. The sharper question is structural: the problem is not that they failed to mention Western Tigray. The problem is that their political map can function without it. Fano unity, Eritrean corridors, Egyptian relationships, post-Abiy scenarios, all of this can be discussed actively, coherently, and in full strategic seriousness, while Tigray’s core questions remain structurally external to the design. This is not omission as accident. It is exclusion by architecture. The amnesia \u133d\u121d\u12f6 risks is not forgetfulness. It is entering a political architecture where your questions are not inside the frame, and not noticing until the architecture has become load-bearing. Tigray’s danger is not that its enemies forget its questions. It is that Tigray may enter rooms where its questions are structurally unnecessary. Who Interprets Tigray to Egypt? Andargachew’s discussion of regional alignment includes references to external support linked to Egypt through Sudan and Eritrea. He frames such support not as something to be reflexively rejected but as part of a convergence logic: actors threatened by Abiy may naturally cooperate with others Abiy also targets. The Egypt reference is not a passing detail. Around the one-hour mark, Messay raises the Egypt question from the old Ethiopian register of suspicion: \u201c\u12e8\u130d\u1265\u133d \u12a5\u1305 \u12a8\u12da\u1205 \u1309\u12f3\u12ed \u121d\u1295 \u12eb\u1205\u120d \u12a5\u1229\u1245 \u1290\u12cd? \u130d\u1265\u133d \u12a8\u1231\u12f3\u1295 \u1218\u1295\u130d\u1225\u1275 \u130b\u122d \u1325\u1265\u1245 \u12c8\u12f3\u1305\u1290\u1275 \u12a0\u120b\u1275\u1364 \u12a8\u12a4\u122d\u1275\u122b \u1218\u1295\u130d\u1225\u1275 \u130b\u122d\u121d \u1325\u1265\u1245 \u12c8\u12f3\u1305\u1290\u1275 \u12a0\u120b\u1275\u1364 \u1260\u1236\u121b\u120a\u12eb\u121d \u1308\u1265\u1273\u1208\u127d\u1362 \u12d9\u122a\u12eb\u127d\u1295\u1295 \u12a5\u12e8\u12de\u1228\u127d \u1290\u12cd\u1362\u201d That is a legitimate Ethiopian anxiety. Egypt is not a neutral actor in Ethiopia’s historical imagination. But Andargachew’s response is revealing because he does not remain inside that anxiety. He distinguishes between a civic people-to-people process and a future political-military alignment. If political organizations and armed forces enter the space, he effectively says, then the concern Messay raises becomes part of geopolitical reality: \u201c\u12f5\u122d\u1305\u1276\u1279 \u12a8\u1206\u1291\u1363 \u1356\u1208\u1272\u12a8\u129e\u1279 \u12a5\u1293 \u1273\u1323\u1242 \u1283\u12ed\u120e\u1279 \u12a8\u1206\u1291 \u12c8\u12f0\u12da\u1205 \u12e8\u121a\u1308\u1261\u1275\u1363 \u12a0\u1295\u1270 \u12e8\u121d\u1275\u1208\u12cd \u1235\u130b\u1275 \u12e8\u1302\u12a6\u1356\u1208\u1272\u12ab\u12cd \u122a\u12eb\u120a\u1272 \u1290\u12cd\u1362\u201d This is where the conversation becomes most strategic. Messay appears to worry about legitimacy and suspicion. Andargachew appears to think in terms of architecture. For him, Egypt is not simply a suspicious external hand. It is part of the regional field that actors threatened by Abiy may try to use. That distinction matters for Tigray. Egypt is not a charity actor in Ethiopian politics. It has a long-standing strategic interest in preventing the emergence of a strong Ethiopia capable of acting independently on the Nile, the Red Sea, and the Horn. And Egypt understands what many Ethiopian actors prefer to obscure: historically, a strong Ethiopia has often required a strong Tigrayan pillar within it. In Egypt’s strategic map, a strong Tigray inside Ethiopia may be part of the problem. But Egypt’s map is not fixed by emotion. Cairo does not have to choose permanently between Abiy and Abiy’s enemies. Egypt’s interest is leverage, not loyalty. At this moment, Abiy may in fact be Egypt’s best state card precisely because he controls the Ethiopian state, the GERD file, the Red Sea question, and Ethiopia’s formal diplomatic voice. That does not mean Egypt abandons parallel channels with Sudan, Eritrea, or anti-Abiy actors. It means Egypt can keep every useful channel open while watching which one gives it the greatest leverage. But Tigray should not read Egypt through a frozen lens. Egypt is not Tigray’s enemy by nature. It may be Tigray’s interpreter by default. And the default interpretation is currently being written by others. If Egypt hears about Tigray through Abiy, through Amhara elites, through PFDJ, through Sudanese intermediaries, or through older Ethiopian state assumptions, then Tigray becomes an object inside someone else’s map, a variable, a pressure point, a force to be managed or contained. Tigray must ask not only what Egypt wants from Ethiopia, but what Egypt would want from Tigray under different Ethiopian futures. If Ethiopia’s political order continues to deteriorate and Tigray is forced toward a different constitutional horizon, Egypt’s calculus may shift. A Tigray that is no longer the engine of a threatening Ethiopia, and that can maintain a stabilizing posture on Egypt’s core concerns, may become a different kind of actor in Egyptian strategic thinking. This is why Tigray must not read Egypt as simply anti-Abiy. Egypt can engage Abiy, pressure Abiy, talk to Abiy’s rivals, and still preserve its long-term objective. The danger for Tigray is not Egypt’s flexibility. The danger is Tigray’s absence from the channels where Egypt learns what Tigray is, what Tigray wants, and what kind of regional actor Tigray could become. If Abiy is Egypt’s best state card, then Tigray must make sure it does not become Egypt’s silent non-state variable. Tigray must not be represented to Egypt by those who want Tigray weak. This is where PFDJ belongs in the analysis. Asmara is not simply one actor among others in the emerging \u133d\u121d\u12f6 environment. PFDJ has long specialized in indirect architecture: shaping rooms, encouraging contradictions…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6648"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6655,"href":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6648\/revisions\/6655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigrayinsights.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}