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BIRDS OF THE SAME FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER      Dr.Tesfa G. Gebremedhin

We, as Eritreans, need to network with each other because no Eritrean is an island; every Eritrean is a piece of the other and a part of the community. A real song writer has already written a wonderful song. The words say - “No man is an island; no man stands alone. Each man’s joy is joy to me; each man’s grief is my own.” It is an old song for sure, but the song carries this universal important message and the message is timeless. It tells us to get in tune with our own crowd and flock together. We cannot separate ourselves from our own crowd by pretending to be somebody else because we can only be Eritreans of the same feather. Whatever we do professionally and wherever we live in Diasporas, we cannot afford to live in isolation, away from our own Eritrean communities. For any kind of situation (ill or well), we have to stick to our own crowd because “a rose will grow into a rose even if it is in the middle of a field of tulips”. An Eritrean will remain to be an Eritrean, nothing more and nothing less, even if s/he changes his/her place of residence, or alters his/her own appearance.

I heard a story once about an eagle's egg that had got lost and was found by chickens. When the eagle hatched, it was loved and cared for by the chickens, brought up to act and behave as if it was a chicken. It knew nothing else than being a chicken. Until one day, the eagle was with his chicken brothers and sisters pecking some grains at the ground, like a chicken, when something made him look up to the sky. High above in the sky he saw a majestic sight, a beautiful bird flying and soaring gracefully. Something was stirred inside him, a recognition of home, a remembrance of natural habitat, and realizing own identity. He was disturbed and could not have peace of mind without knowing why he was different from the chickens he grew up with, but similar to the flying eagle. To find the truth, he asked the chickens, "What is that beautiful bird up there?" The chickens looked up. "Oh that," they said, "That is an eagle, king of the birds. But forget about him, you are one of us, you are a chicken.” The eagle did not stop there because deep inside him he knew that he can never be a chicken. His natural characteristics forced him to try to fly like an eagle. He flew far away and joined his own crowd. It is not a case of an eagle being superior to a chicken; it is just honoring and respecting own identity.

The same story has been told about a duck's egg that was abandoned by its mother and found by chickens at the bank of a lake. When the duck hatched, it was nurtured by the chickens and brought up like a chicken. One day the duck arrived at the nearby great lake and wondered when he saw many ducks that looked like him there swimming while he was acting and behaving like a chicken. Just like the eagle, he asked the chickens, “What are those birds swimming in the lake?’ The chickens looked at the lake and said, “They are just ducks. But forget about them, you are one of us, you are a chicken.” He immediately realized that he can never be a chicken; he can only be a duck like those swimming in the lake. He did not take time to think, he just jumped into the lake and start swimming because it was natural for him to swim like a duck. Finally, he was forced to leave his chicken family behind on the shore and swum away to join his own crowd and secure his own identity.

You might ask by saying, what is this all about? In both cases, the need for a sense of belonging drove both the eagle and duck to remake themselves according to the standards set by their natural habitat to live in and the kind of group they need to associate. It is all just about remembering who/what they really are, regardless of what they have been told by the chickens, or where/how they have been brought up and pretend to be chickens by ignoring their true identity. There is an ancient Indian word "Dharma", which has two meanings. The first is, "Your nature, your true, real, essential nature." The second is, "Your purpose in life". To me the two are inseparable and go together. I believe the word literally can be translated as “Your true identity with your purpose in life” and that is what the eagle and duck at last did to secure their true identity.

The moral lesson of both stories is that wherever we live and whatever we do, we have our own corners, called comfort zone, based on our own natural identity. Our goal is to find out who we are as Eritreans. The most effective way to find out who we are as Eritreans is to get connected to each other and get into our world – our own community, cherish our own ethnic identity, and nurture the legacy of our own cultural heritage. Thus, we need to expand the diversity of our corners of the world as Eritreans. We need everyone of us connected in our community network because we need each other for who we are as Eritreans. Our perceptions of each other get better and wider as we try to reach out for our own people and become close to each other and as we see our typical personality and recognize our unique qualities and differences of each one of us. Our communities should be composed of Eritrean people working together to accomplish common goals, embracing the concept of collective wisdom and collective action, connecting with each other with many resourceful differences, and genuinely bonding in a nurturing and caring nature.

Getting in tune with our own ethnic identity and cultural heritage is the song that we want to hear. We might be brought up in different households, but we came from the same small piece of land. We are not put in this planet for ourselves, but we are placed in this world for each other because we are all dependent on one another. It is in the shelter of each other in our own community that we all can live as Eritreans. We need to remember that we are not self-made men and women with a diversity of professions, personality, or wealth. We cannot forget our parents and those before them who have sacrificed a lot of things in their lives for us to make everyone of us know who we are and to get in place wherever we are today. Thus, personal relationships with our fellow Eritreans are the fertile soil from which all sense of belonging and self-identity in real life of our community grows. It is through peaceful cooperation and mutual trust, rather than animosity and hostility, that our problems in our communities and religious institutions can be resolved, and that our greatest success can be achieved.