Hating Eritrea: Mirjam Van Reisen – Dutch Professor of Academic Propaganda

For those unfamiliar with Mirjam Van Reisen and her current rhetoric, it’s natural to wonder why a white woman who lives in a European country a world away harbors such animosity towards an African country, its president, and its people. The answer, however, is quite straightforward, as I’ve mentioned before. Reisen, along with her network of colleagues, including Martin Plaut, is part of an imperialist syndicate of media and academic propagandists.

Their work involves creating news and manufacturing academic validations, all with the ultimate objective of justifying foreign intervention in African affairs, specifically with the goal of regime change in independent countries like Eritrea.

Regime Change Agenda

The futile pursuit of regime change in Eritrea is the context in which to view Reisen’s current anti-Eritrean outbursts. Last month, she went on television and arrogantly discussed ways to deal with Eritrea as a country, asking, “What is the plan? What is the idea for dealing with Eritrea?” before frustratingly sighing, “That is the most important question facing Europeans today.” She then naturally turned to vilifying the Eritrean leader, declaring, “‘All of us’ [Western] politicians, policymakers, researchers, and others in positions of responsibility need to understand what President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea is thinking in order to ‘get rid of him.'”

Currently, Mirjam Van Reisen is on a writing spree on social media, spewing blatant lies, making inflammatory insinuations, and engaging in a most vile, although not unexpected campaign of misinformation against Eritreans in the diaspora. But how did Mirjam Van Reisen, this Professor at Tilburg University, get to this point where she almost now conducts her propaganda so openly, writes, and goes on television calling for regime change in Eritrea without any need to hide behind her academic cover? And more than that, how did she get to this low place of openly advocating for violence against Eritreans in the diaspora, which recently resulted in the death of one Eritrean?

Rejecting Eritrea’s Independence in 1992

Mirjam Van Reisen is on record for rejecting Eritrea’s hard-won and legitimate independence as early as 1992. However, with Eritrea’s independence firmly established in 1993, Reisen, like Western countries and NGOs, shifted to an alternative approach. They swarmed Eritrea with the intent, as seen in the case of other African nations gaining independence, of imposing Western economic models and dictating the country’s programs. For instance, the United States delivered a list of businesses and government departments it wanted immediately privatized, and hundreds of individuals like Reisen flocked to the country under the guise of NGOs.

Unfortunately for them this time, the Eritrean government, aware of their intentions and actions elsewhere, and in alignment with its liberation ideals to establish a self-reliant rather than relief-dependent economy, denied them free passes. It rejected the United States’ demand for outright privatization, and would, by 2007, sever ties with all foreign NGOs financially supported by the United States, refusing over $200 million in aid, including food from the United Nations, development loans from the World Bank, and grants from international charities.

Western think tanks and media loaded their guns starting around 1995, barely three years after Eritrea won its independence. The Los Angeles Times, immediately started belittling Eritrea as a struggling, low-profile nation, exclaiming: “It’s turning down foreign aid!” The Economist, disparagingly called the country’s self-reliance policy, “A myth of self-reliance and Britain’s BBC threw the gauntlet: “Self-reliance could cost Eritrea dear.

By the time President Afwerki wrote his seminal paper exposing the travesties of foreign aid in 1997, Reisen and her colleagues knew, there was no turning back, and that they could not impose their will on Eritrea. Thus, began the decade of academically fabricated research demonization of Eritrea, with Mirjam Van Reisen and her network of anti-Eritrea academics taking the lead. If they couldn’t control Eritrea, they would change the regime, and destroy the country!

Fabricating Anti-Eritrea Research

Reisen rejected Eritrea’s Independence in 1992, denounced President Isaias as an ‘autocrat,’ called Eritrea an ‘open-air prison,’ and christened it ‘North Korea of Africa’ in 2011- lies that became her axis for research fabrications against Eritrea

In her pursuit of this agenda, she has authored or co-authored over 10 books, written more than 50 academic papers, and presented her skewed views in at least 70 conferences, all with the intent of vilifying Eritrea. Her writings have spared no aspect of Eritrean political, economic, social, and cultural life.

Reisen even went so far as to employ the despicable tactic of manipulating the vile issue of human trafficking, colluding with anti-Eritrea rogues to tarnish the country’s image in the international community, and collaborating with regional elements to undermine Eritrea’s leading role in stabilizing the Horn of Africa region. However, as these and her other academic concoctions have failed to bring about the desired regime change in Eritrea, she has recently resorted to even flimsier accusations that hardly warrant scholarly inquiry.

These recent endeavors include vilifying Eritrea over things as mundane as how Eritreans in the diaspora send remittances to their families back home or the role of Eritrean women in nation-building. Most recently, she has escalated her anti-Eritrean activities to orchestrating organized violence and vandalism in some European cities and elsewhere against festivals and other national events organized by Eritrean communities in the diaspora.

Intimidating Diaspora Eritrean communities

Reisen’s animosity towards Eritreans in the diaspora is not a recent development; it has deep roots. Her current involvement in enabling systematic violence against Eritreans in European capitals, including the most recent incidents in Tel-Aviv, following similar events in Canada, the US, and Sweden, is only an escalation of her previous efforts in her home country, the Netherlands.

For example, in 2015, Reisen accused two Eritrean interpreters working for the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND), alongside another, Meseret Bahlbi, of spying for the Eritrean government in her country. She made this preposterous accusation solely because of Bahlbi’s membership in a legally registered and operating Eritrean-Dutch youth organization in Holland.

Then, as today, Reisen’s aim was to intimidate the three Eritreans, particularly the very vocal and incorruptible Bahlbi, and, by extension, others from freely operating in her country. She also aimed specifically to discredit the youth organization of which Bahlbi is a member because it refused to be co-opted into her network of diaspora organizations, which are funded to demonize and portray Eritrea in a wrong and misleading light.

Bottom line

Mirjam Van Reisen is clearly misusing her academic credentials to propagate falsehoods. Her publications have nothing to do with independent and objective academic research but are, instead, fabricated at her desk to support allegations against the Eritrean President, country, and people.

Her intent, as she recently declared, is to ‘deal with Eritrea’ and ‘get rid of Isaias,’ the Eritrean leader. This endeavor has already proven futile, but Reisen, like others such as Martin Plaut, her colleague who leads the media wing of the anti-Eritrea propaganda campaign and makes a living out of demonizing Eritrea, will continue peddling their lies. The important thing is for Africans of goodwill to continue calling them out and exposing their diplomatic, media, and academic charades.