The Foundation of Accountability: Lessons from Newman Library for the Eritrean Struggle

26/07/2026 23:54 PM

THE FOUNDATION OF ACCOUNTABILITY:
Lessons from Newman Library for the Eritrean Struggle

by Dr. Gebre Gebremariam

Introduction

Stepping out from my office for a mid-day walk at Virginia Tech, I sought a brief but necessary reprieve from the rigors of academic research and the often-exhausting demands of my work concerning Eritrean public affairs. The Blacksburg air, usually crisp with the energy of a living campus, provided a backdrop for a mind heavy with the complexities of democratic transition in the Horn of Africa. My path, dictated by habit and the search for quietude, led me past the Carol Montgomery Newman Library - a citadel of knowledge I frequent to unearth the references that anchor my academic seminars and my political writings for the Eritrean community.

To many, the library is simply a utility, a vast repository of data and quiet corners. But on the afternoon of 16 July 2026, a specific historical marker near the building’s entrance commanded my attention, halting my steps and my internal monologue. As I stood before it, reading the meticulously etched description of Professor Newman’s contributions to the university’s linguistic and cultural foundations, I was struck by the profound weight of “legacy culture” in American institutional life. At Virginia Tech, buildings are never merely arrangements of

Carol-Montgomery-Newman

“Hokie Stone” and mortar; they are deliberate monuments to the human spirit, named for individuals whose lives were defined by service to the collective (Kinnear, 1972). This naming tradition creates a bridge across time, ensuring that the labor of the past continues to support the aspirations of the present.

As I reflected on the marker, a sobering realization took hold - one that bridged my identity as a Hokie scholar with my duty as an Eritrean. I realized that the “average Eritrean,” whether they are reading my political analyses in a distant cafe or attending a seminar I’ve prepared, is an indirect beneficiary of Carol Montgomery Newman’s legacy. The very intellectual infrastructure I use to advocate for Justice, Rule of Law, and Democracy (democratic transition) in Eritrea was built, in part, by his dedication to this institution nearly a century ago. This realization forced a difficult question: while we utilize the legacies left by great men and women in the West or/and in other cultures, what kind of legacy are we, as Eritreans, forging for our own people?

The struggle for democratic transition in Eritrea has remained largely stagnant for over thirty years. As I stood in the shadow of a library that stands as a testament to progress and continuity, I couldn't help but feel the dissonance. We are a people trapped in a cycle where the “legacies of failure” are rarely acknowledged, let alone corrected. The culture of Virginia Tech teaches us that great legacies are built on honesty, institutional building, and a commitment to future generations. In contrast, the Eritrean struggle often founders because we have not yet mastered the art of being honest with ourselves about the foundations we are laying - or failing to lay.

The Institutionalized Legacy of Carol Montgomery Newman

Carol Montgomery Newman was far more than a mere faculty member or a transient figure in the university’s history; he was a foundational architect of Virginia Tech’s intellectual and moral character. Serving as a Professor of English and a long-standing academic leader during the early-to-mid 20th century, Newman didn't just teach literature; he helped cultivate the very soul of the institution. By bestowing his name upon the university’s central library, the institution has done more than honor a man; it has ensured that his spirit of service remains a “living force” that breathes through the corridors of the building every day. In the American academic tradition, such naming is a social contract - a promise that the values the individual stood for will continue to provide the infrastructure for future discovery (Kinnear, 1972).

For me, as an Eritrean academic and activist, this institutionalized legacy takes on a profound, almost sacred, significance. Every time I pass through the doors of the Newman Library, I am entering a sanctuary designed to foster the rigorous pursuit of truth. The tools housed within - the sprawling stacks of physical books, the silent, sun-drenched study carrels, and the vast digital archives - are the very instruments I employ to advocate for justice, rule of law, and democratic transition thousands of miles away in my homeland. When I sit within those walls to research political theory or draft seminars for the Eritrean diaspora, I am standing on a platform built by a man I never met, but whose dedication created the space for my own labor.

As I stood before the historical marker, it became startlingly clear that the “average Eritrean” is an indirect beneficiary of Carol Montgomery Newman’s life’s work. When an Eritrean in Asmara, London, Berlin, Johannesburg, Washington D.C. Kampala, Jeddah, or anywhere on Planet Earth reads a reflection on democratic governance or listens to a political discourse informed by the resources of this library, they are touching a ripple that began with Newman’s commitment to Virginia Tech. This is the hallmark of a truly healthy and vibrant culture: it builds “infrastructures of knowledge” that are not provincial or self-serving, but universal (Wallenstein 2007).

Such a legacy is designed to be a “global common.” It suggests that if one builds a library well, it will eventually serve the liberation of people its founders could never have imagined. This realization highlights the sheer power of an honest, institutionalized legacy - it transcends the individual life of the contributor to becoming a permanent asset for humanity. It challenges us to consider that a legacy is not about what we take with us, but about the intellectual and physical “shelter” we leave behind for others to occupy and use in their own struggles for dignity.

The Eritrean Dissonance: Thirty Years of Stagnation

The contrast between Virginia Tech’s culture of gratitude and the current state of the Eritrean struggle for democratic transition is more than jarring; it is deeply painful. Standing before the marker of a man who lived a century ago and seeing his legacy still yielding fruit for the world, I felt a sharp pang of dissonance. For over thirty years – over three decades that should have been the foundational era of a thriving, sovereign democracy - the movement for a free and constitutional Eritrea has struggled to gain meaningful ground. While Virginia Tech meticulously honors those who built its foundations, ensuring the names of its contributors are etched into the very stone of the campus, our own political culture is often characterized by a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the foundations that have crumbled beneath us.

This stagnation is not merely a matter of bad luck or external pressure; it is rooted in a fundamental crisis of historical and political honesty. Unlike the transparent legacy of Professor Newman, which is rooted in documented service, academic integrity, and an openness to being judged by history, the Eritrean political landscape is often clouded by “legacies of failure” that go unexamined and unchallenged. In our discourse, we frequently prioritize the preservation of ego or the sanctity of a “liberation myth” over the hard, uncomfortable work of self-critique. We have not yet developed a national or even an organizational culture where we can be honest about our missteps, our tactical errors, and our moral compromises.

In the study of post-liberation African states, scholars have noted a recurring tragedy: when a revolutionary movement fails to transition from a “culture of war” to a “culture of institution-building,” it inevitably begins to devour its own promise. As Gaim Kibreab observes, when a movement prioritizes the preservation of absolute power over the painstaking construction of transparent institutions, the resulting legacy is one of systematic institutional decay rather than growth (Kibreab 2009). We see this in the way the Eritrean state has bypassed constitutionalism, but we also see it in the opposition’s struggle to form a cohesive, institutionalized front. We are trapped in a cycle where the “struggle” becomes an end in itself, rather than a means to build the “libraries” of democratic thought and practice that our people deserve.

Furthermore, this lack of honesty creates a generational vacuum. By failing to document and admit to our failures, we deny the next generation of Eritreans a clear map of the pitfalls that lie ahead. Instead of leaving them a legacy of “buildings and squares” - metaphorical or otherwise - that represent progress, we are leaving them a legacy of fragmentation, silence, and circular arguments. We must confront the reality that for over thirty years, we have often confused activity with progress. To move forward, we must adopt the “Newman standard”: a commitment to building something that outlasts the individual, something that is robust enough to be scrutinized by the public, and something that genuinely serves the “average citizen” long after the founders are gone (Hepner 2009). Without this honesty, our legacy will not be one of liberation, but one of a dream perpetually deferred.

The Burden of the Unspoken

As I stood by that marker, the weight of the silence between its lines felt heavy. It prompted a moment of profound introspection: What legacies are we, as Eritreans, truly leaving behind? In the American context, a legacy like Newman’s is built on a foundation of documented achievement and a shared social consensus. But for us, if we are not radically honest about why the transition to democracy has stalled for over three decades, we must face the reality that we are essentially building our national future on sand. Without the “cement” of historical truth and self-critique, the structures we attempt to raise - whether they are political parties, civil society organizations, or grand visions for the future - will inevitably crumble under the weight of their own unaddressed contradictions.

The “Culture of Legacy” so visible at Virginia Tech is not accidental; it requires a mature society to reach an agreement on what constitutes a “significant contribution.” It requires a shared understanding of what is worth remembering and who is worth honoring. In the current Eritrean context, however, we are largely failing to provide this clarity. Instead of a legacy of institutional growth, we are currently leaving a legacy of fragmentation, internal suspicion, and a paralyzing silence regarding our own mistakes. We have become experts at identifying the failures of the “other,” but we remain dangerously quiet about the systemic failures within our own movements and discourses.

To break this cycle, the struggle for democracy demands that we undergo a difficult cultural evolution. We must move beyond the “culture of the struggle” - a paradigm born during the long war for independence that prioritized secrecy, top-down command, and the absolute suppression of internal dissent for the sake of unity. While those traits may have been tactical necessities in the trenches of the 1970s and 80s, they have become toxic legacies in the 21st century. As Tricia Redeker Hepner argues, for a democratic transition to succeed, we must embrace a “culture of the citizen,” a framework that demands transparency, individual accountability, and the courage to pursue historical truth even when it is uncomfortable (Hepner 2009).

We cannot hope to name “libraries of democracy” or “squares of justice” in a future Eritrea if we are currently filling our contemporary history books with the failures of the present - failures that go unacknowledged and uncorrected. A library, like the one named for Carol Montgomery Newman, is a repository of truth; it is a place where history is preserved so that it can be learned from. If we continue to leave behind a trail of unspoken failures and unresolved divisions, we are not building a legacy; we are merely leaving a void. We must decide today if we want to be remembered as the generation that maintained the silence, or the generation that had the courage to speak the truth so that those who follow us might finally walk on solid ground.

A Call for Reflective Honesty

The walk through the heart of Virginia Tech left me with a quiet but powerful realization that a legacy is never accidental; it is intentionally and painstakingly built, one contribution at a time. Professor Newman’s name is etched into the stone of that library not because of a quest for vanity, but because he successfully subordinated his ego to the higher calling of institutional longevity. He understood that for an institution to thrive, its leaders must plant seeds for trees under whose shade they will never sit. For the Eritrean diaspora and those of us deeply embedded in the struggle for justice, rule of law, and democracy, the lesson is piercingly clear: we must begin to value radical honesty as much as we value fervent activism. Activism without honesty is merely performance; it may create noise, but it cannot build a library.

As I returned to my office from my mid-day walk, the image of that historical marker remained fixed in my mind, prompting two fundamental questions that every Eritrean scholar, politician, and citizen must confront if we are to break the current deadlock:

First, are we building or are we merely consuming?

Currently, we find ourselves in a collective position of intellectual and physical dependency. We rely on the hard-won legacies of other nations to sustain our survival and fuel our political discourse. For me, this manifests as the safe streets of Blacksburg, the academic freedom of Virginia Tech, and the archival treasures of the Newman Library. However, this dependency is a shared reality for the millions of Eritreans scattered across the globe.

For my fellow Eritreans in the diaspora, this “borrowed stability” takes many forms: it is the robust legal protections of Western Europe that allow for peaceful protest; the democratic public squares of Washington D.C. where voices are raised without fear of disappearance; and the social and institutional infrastructures of host nations - from Melbourne to London - that provide the security and resources necessary to organize and debate. In every instance, we are utilizing the inheritances of societies that, much like Virginia Tech, chose to honor the contributions of their ancestors by building enduring systems of law, education, and civic life (Wallenstein 2007). We are effectively hosting our dissent within the “shelter” built by others. We must ask: are we merely nomadic consumers of these foreign legacies, or are we actively building Eritrean institutions that will one day provide similar shelter and intellectual sanctuary for the generations that follow us?

Second, do we have the courage to face our failures?

A legacy of success is almost always built upon the rubble of an honest appraisal of previous failures. In the scientific and academic worlds, we treat a failed experiment as a vital data point that narrows the path to truth. Yet, in our political struggle, we treat failure as a source of shame to be hidden or a weapon to be used against rivals. By refusing to be honest about the stagnation and the strategic errors of the last thirty plus years, we are not protecting the movement; we are poisoning its future. If we continue to recycle the same failed tactics and the same exclusionary rhetoric, we risk leaving a “legacy of missed opportunities” as the only inheritance for our children.

Honesty is the “Hokie Stone” of any lasting social structure. Without it, the buildings we try to raise for Eritrea will continue to collapse under the weight of their own contradictions. We owe it to those who sacrificed during the long struggle for independence, and to those suffering in the present, to become the “Newmans” of our own society - people who are more interested in the integrity of the foundation than the prominence of their own names. Only through this reflective honesty can we transform our current state of exile and struggle into a legacy of lasting liberation (Kibreab 2009).

Conclusion: Forging a New Path

The Carol Montgomery Newman Library stands as more than just a centerpiece of the Virginia Tech campus; it is a profound testament to what is possible when a society chooses to honor selfless service and meticulously maintain its intellectual history. As I walked back toward my office to resume my day's work, the image of that historical marker remained etched in my mind, no longer just a piece of metal and text, but a living challenge to my own identity and mission. It reminded me that the “Hokie Stone” surrounding me represents a continuity of purpose that has spanned over a century - a continuity that Eritrea desperately needs but has yet to secure.

For the Eritrean people, the path forward requires a fundamental shift in our collective psychology. We must find the resolve to transition from a state of perpetual struggle to a state of institutional building. For over thirty years, we have been defined by what we are against; the time has come to define ourselves by what we are building for the future. This transition is not merely political; it is architectural. It requires us to move beyond the transient, often ego-driven movements of the moment and begin laying the stones for “libraries of democracy” - the civic, legal, and educational structures that will outlast any single leader or generation (Kibreab 2009).

However, this transition cannot begin in a vacuum of truth. It must start with the radical courage to be honest about our current failures. We must admit that the strategies of the last three plus decades have not delivered the democratic Eritrea we envisioned. We must acknowledge that our internal fragmentations and our “culture of silence” are the very things preventing us from leaving a legacy worth inheriting. By facing these failures head-on, we strip them of their power to haunt us and transform them into the lessons upon which a new foundation can be built (Hepner 2009).

Only then can we hope to leave behind a legacy that - like the one left by Professor Newman - will serve as a beacon for those who come after us. Our goal should be to ensure that thirty years from now, a young Eritrean student can walk through a square or enter a library in a free Asmara, read a name from our generation, and feel the same sense of gratitude and empowerment that I felt today in Blacksburg. We must provide the next generation not with a list of grievances, but with the institutional tools and the intellectual maps they need to build an even better world. The “Newman challenge” is now our own: to be the ancestors who had the vision to build for a future we might never see, but which our children deserve to inhabit.

References

Hepner, Tricia Redeker. 2009. Soldiers, Martyrs, Traitors, and Exiles: Political Conflict in Eritrea and the Diaspora. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Kibreab, Gaim. 2009. Eritrea: A Dream Deferred. Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey.

Kinnear, Duncan Lyle. 1972. The First 100 Years: A History of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Blacksburg: Virginia Tech Publishing.

Wallenstein, Peter. 2007. Cradle of America: Four Centuries of Virginia History. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. (Note: Relevant for the context of institutional growth in Virginia).

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THE FOUNDATION OF ACCOUNTABILITY: Lessons from Newman Library for the Eritrean Struggle

by Dr. Gebre Gebremariam

Snitna: Code of Conduct — መርበብ ሓበሬታና ዝምራሓሉ መትከላት

THE FOUNDATION OF ACCOUNTABILITY:
Lessons from Newman Library for the Eritrean Struggle