A Glimpse to the past

Martha Mebrahtu

Martha Mebrahtu was one of the heroic martyrs of the Eritrean struggle, a young eccentric Eritrean feminist and a student revolutionary during the rule of Emperor Haile Selassie.

Martha was born on August 23, 1950, in Addis Ababa. She attended her high school education and joined college at the age of 15. As a young girl, she had the chance to study in Nigeria and to visit the US. This enriched her knowledge about the political situation of that time and opened a door for her to be very intelligent and brave at an early age. Despite her young age, she had good awareness and participation on the issues around African women. Her teachers always admired her attitude toward politics and praised her, “a child who understands the problems and poverty of African women”  

 

Martha was a seventh-year medical student when she started fighting against injustice, inequality, and oppression. Parallel to her academic career, she was the elected president of the University Medical Students’ Association. She unshakably criticized the feudal system that exploited the poor and passionately advocated for social change. Her US exposure, as a high school student, in particular, introduced her to the civil rights and feminist movements.

On December 8, 1972, sadly the Ethiopian government forces murdered her during the active process of hijacking an Ethiopian airliner together with other fellow revolutionary members. After this moment, the consciousness of the mass went into high gear and many students continued leaving the university and joining the revolution. Martha’s tragic murder not only angered but also inspired thousands of young men and women to stand up.

It is considered that this incident paved the way for other activists, and awakened a wider mass consciousness against the rule. The regime responded with force, suppressing the growing student movement, though their violent suppression only speeded up their downfall.

Martha left behind a message (”written on Thursday night of December 7, 1972”) a day before she participated in the historical plane hijacking experience, laying out the reasons that compelled her to make the sacrifice on the next day and which has since come to be known famously as “The Martha Manifesto”.

She put her thoughts in words and laid down her dreams.

We, women of Eritrea and Ethiopia have made our life ready to participate in a struggle, and we would like to explain the nature of our struggle to our sisters and brothers all over the world.

Our struggle demands a bitter sacrifice in order to liberate our oppressed and exploited people from the yokes of feudalism and imperialism. In this struggle, we have to be bold and merciless. Our enemies can only understand such a language.

We, women of Eritrea and Ethiopia, are not only exploited as members of the working classes and peasants, we are also victims of gender inequality, treated as second-class citizens. Therefore, our participation in this struggle must double the efforts of other oppressed groups; we must fight harder, we must be at the forefront.

We must equally participate in the struggle for economic and social justice that our brothers have waged. We have a responsibility to become a formidable force in the revolutionary army.

The rights of freedom and equality are not manna from heaven. We, women, have to be organized and have to make ourselves ready for an armed struggle. This fight will need financial, material, and moral support of progressive international women’s associations. We reach out to our sisters in other parts of the world so you can help us achieve this goal; we hope your support will reach us, as we need it.

We affirm our full support for the oppressed people of the world who are struggling to free themselves from imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, and racism! We stand by the freedom fighters in Vietnam, Palestine, Guinea-Bissau, and in other African and Latin American countries; we champion the Civil Rights leaders in North America.

Victory to the popular struggle of the people! May the people’s movement for freedom in both Eritrea and Ethiopia live forever! My sisters and my brothers let us keep on fighting!

Although she left the world tragically, her vision continued and inspired many others like her, who not only broke down the shackles of oppression but also proved to their men that they were equally capable of destroying the enemy.

In addition, she inspired thousands of other women to be other Martha’s through her martyrdom. Her gallantry, commitment, discipline, and selfless mentality honored her not only a great revolutionary but also a role model to others who pursued her idea!

Farida Deglel

Farida Deglel is an Eritrean  fashion designer, who introduced wide variety of Eritrean cultural dresses on the red carpets of many international events. Farida, the eldest of nine children, was born in Keren, Eritrea. Her father Deglel Tesfamichael, being the head of the Department of Labor, had taken his family with him from town to town to his work placements. Farida left Eritrea at the age of 12 and began living in various countries across the Middle East and western countries. She built a successful career in marketing and sales with various international companies in hospitality and other fields.  Training in cosmetology at a young age allowed her to be involved in the industry as a sideline to her main career. Eventually settling in United Arab Emirates, she was able to establish her own successful salon and was able to fulfill her dream of going back to Keren and building a home.

In late in 2012, Farida began to design clothing and decided to put on a fashion show as a fund-raiser for orphan kids in Eritrea. Her passion for helping orphans had stemmed from her mother’s upbringing as an orphan. The fund-raiser turned out to be one of the most successful events of 2013 in Eritrea. The success made Farida become more conscious of her talent.  

“I started to be passionate about the international fashion vibe, at an early age hand crafts are really famous in our culture and children take it from our mothers as they too took it from their mothers. So in few words I grew up with background that was related to fashion in certain ways”

Her designs explore traditional costumes from Africa and Arabia with a modern perspective using fabrics, patterns and motifs of her native region. Fundamental of her brand is the use of unique fabrics, such as organic Eritrea-grown cotton, fused with traditional and modern designs.

A main feature of her label is the reinterpretation of the uses of the Kaba. Kaba is a velvet cape traditionally used solely as attire for religious events and weddings; Farida hopes to encourage its use in daily wear.  Another signature of her label is to embellish these time honored fabric with crystals, pearls and beads to highlight the motifs and accentuate the colors. Her label is also focused on encouraging women and men to use a combination of western aesthetics with cultural fabric and design when choosing wedding attire. Farida wishes to promote the uniqueness of the region’s hand-woven vibrantly colored fabric which uses silk, rayon, metallic and cotton fibers.  Elevating Eritrean produced and manufactured ‘Abujedid’, a versatile and sustainable cotton fabric is another desire of hers.

Her label has a range of women’s wear, men’s wear, children’s wear as well as swimwear. She is looking forward to developing her ready-to-wear collection for retailers and boutiques as well as online consumers.

Part of her vision is the revival of traditional Eritrean hand-woven fabric. Farida strongly believes that this is needed to allow the fashion industry to flourish. An important aspect of this revival goals will be to involve women – especially those who are unemployed or single mothers, thru establishing a union in which the workers will have shared ownership of the looms and the tools that they use. Farida also hopes to provide apprenticeship schemes and skill sharing workshops for orphan children in Eritrea who show an interest in the fashion industry.

Farida is now a leading modernist designer working on reaching broad fashion markets. She has shops in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and retailer access in Canada, North America and Eritrea. She’s also working on entering online retail business. Farida produces her garments in Dubai and ships them to markets worldwide. She has showcased at bridal shows and organized her own international fashion events. Television and radio have featured her in several countries not to mention online blogs such as ‘Okay Africa’ where she was a featured and coming Bridal Designer.

Farida’s garments have been worn by celebrities and individuals in the entertainment industry. Through hard work and commitment, her vision and skills have garnered her hard-earned success and influence in the highly competitive international fashion scene and allowed her to showcase unique Eritrean fashion. Her success has also helped shine a spot light on struggling Eritrean orphans and significantly contributed towards improving the living conditions.