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The Question of ethnic identities or nationalities and within the Eritrean context – a personal perspective (1). Discussion paper for Tigray-Eritrean Solidarity Forum (TESFA) meeting
By Tedros Amanuel 10-10-2021
Like most of the current states in Africa, Eritrea too was created during the European ‘scramble’ for Africa. It is in fact the adverse consequence of the historic Battle of Adwa 1896, the pride of many Africans, when a multi-ethnic peasant army achieved the unthinkable and wiped out 70 % of the invading modern Italian army in just a single battle! The emperor Menelik, however, hindered his victorious generals from pursuing and destroying the Italian army in disarray, and relinquished all the land of Medre Bahir, or Eritrea, as the Italians had come to call it a few years earlier. (2) Ethiopia won the war and succeeded in halting the invading Italian army, (at least for another 40 years), but seceded chunks of the Abyssinian highlands, and accepted that the lowlands, the Dankali coast area, come under Italian rule and sovereignty. Indeed, it was Italian rule that unified the territory into a single entity and forged modern day Eritrea. The establishment of a single and centralized authority in the new country reduced periodical feuds and looting amongst the Abyssinian chieftains and led to a period of stability and rapid economic growth, triggering an enormous migration of people from the countryside, both in Eritrea and Tigray, in search of work in the cities. Eritrea was intended to be a permanent residence for Italian settler colonialists (over 100000 Italians by the 1930s) who built asphalted roads, railroads, industries and new cities like Asmara with its famous art-deco architecture with its “whites only” metropolitan center and the shanty town confines for the ‘indigeni’ as the Italians called the local inhabitants.
Eritrea’s borders are therefore, like the borders of all African countries, including Ethiopia for that matter, drawn in the crudest way to suit the convenience of the colonial powers, riding rough-shod with ruler and pencil over ethnic and linguistic distinctions. The Tigrayan Abyssinians, the Afar, the Bejas, the Kunamas and the Sahos were dismembered into four colonially delineated states. Over 60 years of Italian colonial rule have certainly contributed to forging a unifying ‘Eritrean identity’, based above all on common experience under European colonial rule. That identity was further strengthened and reinforced during the following 30 years of struggle for independence from Ethiopian occupation.
A century after the first Italian invasion came the independence of Africa’s latest but probably not last, post-colonial state - Eritrea. Eritrean independence is primarily the result of the iron will and zeal of young and determined men and women with the barrel of a gun in their hands – the teagdellitis (liberation fighters) with their pseudo Marxist and Maoist ideologies. Those guerilla fighters did indeed, against all odds, make history. But two favorable and decisive external factors also contributed to the achievement of independence. The first was the global shift of power in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of its client states, leading to the independence of new states, particular in the Balkan region. The second and equally decisive factor was the emergence of an ideologically friendly regime, the TPLF, which assumed power at the same time in the center, i.e., in Addis Ababa. This regime pledged commitment to the rights of nationalities, up to and including rights of secession, and quickly and swiftly recognized Eritrean independence, with the result that many otherwise skeptical nations followed suit.
Did European colonialism fundamentally change the social fabric of Eritrean society and create a linguistically and culturally homogeneous society? The answer is categorically no. Colonialism did not obliterate the customs, values and norms of the diverse ethnic groups, and did not create a socially cohesive and unitary Eritrean nation state with a national identity that supersedes religious, cultural, regional and ethnic identities. On the contrary, reinforcing ethnic, cultural, regional and religious distinctions often suited colonial “divide and rule” policy. Eritrean nationalism is not a unitary phenomenon. Even today, 30 years after independence, the concept of Eritrean nationalism remains ambiguous, meaning different things to different people of different ethnic, cultural, religious or regional backgrounds. This in terms of feeling of affection, loyalty and political identification with people of the same ethnic, religious, cultural and regional groups. (3)
The challenge of nation-building in Eritrea, as in many other African countries, remains - how to build peace and harmony in the midst of ethnic, religious, cultural and political diversity, based on a set of rules, or a ‘social contract’ if you like, that is acceptable to all or at least a large majority of the population. (4)
At least two divergent attitudes on the process of nation building in Eritrea are identifiable.
The first and dominant position since the independence of the country, and in its extremist forms, is pursued by the EPLF, which now rules the country under the name of PFDJ. This is a policy of nationbuilding through integration, forced or voluntary, and does not tolerate any form of diversity. It is a continuation of the strategy that the EPLF followed and implemented during its guerrilla era, and which it found to be effective in creating a centralized command and a unity of purpose – the independence of Eritrea.
In the post-independence era, the continuation of this nation-building project is referred by PFDJ as ‘hade hizbi hade libi’ – “one people one heart”. This is a policy that aims at obliterating diversity and creating uniformity and singularity. For this ‘holy’ purpose of nation-building, violence, social cohesion and acculturation are seen as inescapable necessities. To coin a metaphor, the regime is grinding a multinational, multicultural and multi-religious Eritrea through a societal gristmill, personified in the Sawa military training camp, with the purported aim of creating a new Eritrea and new Eritreans, based on the citizenry’s obligation for perpetual sacrifice (gedli) and eternal gratitude to the EPLF, with no other historical consciousness, no social obligation, no religious beliefs and no property rights and using the extremely centralized guerrilla organization and experience as a prototype. It tries to mold the amorphous Eritrean social formation into a new solid structure for the purpose of making one set of people with one purpose. Some have labeled this nation-building strategy, and rightly so, ‘a social engineering experiment.’ (5)
The violent policies and practices of this regime of former freedom fighters to which it subjects its own people, people who not long ago greeted them with jubilant festivities and total trust and loyalty, are not unfortunate and regrettable excesses committed by individuals, but a conscious state strategy of using institutionalized violence aimed at destroying the old and building the new - a policy reminiscent of the regimes of Stalin and Pol Pot. The PFDJ sees structural violence not only as an indispensable ‘historical necessity’ but as a determinant for its nation- building project. Likewise, unleashing unprovoked armed conflicts with all four neighboring countries is used as a way of marking its territories just like scent-marking in the animal world. It is only in this way that one can make some sense of the senseless violence that this regime of former liberation fighters’ practices on its own people and all its friendly neighboring states.
PFDJ policy in Eritrea manifests itself in the complete militarization of society, in gross violations of human rights which are considered to amount to crimes against humanity by the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur on Eritrea in 2016 (6 ), and in a political culture of arrogance, supremacy, suspiciousness bordering on paranoia, ethnic domination, exclusionism, land confiscation without compensation, and furthermore in forced integration and acculturation, or a process of “tigrinazation” as it has come to be referred by some of the ethnic victims, particularly from the Eritrean Lowlands. It is true that the regime in Eritrea is still dominated by Tigrinya-speaking men and that the PFDJ regime still commands substantial support amongst Tigrinya-speaking Eritreans in the Diaspora, particular among second-generation youth. But the PFDJ regime is probably the worst regime in the history of Tigrinya-speaking Eritreans, as it has been meticulously destroying the values and the cultural and ethical pillars of Abyssinian highlander society in Eritrea. This has been done, and is being done, in the name of the ‘new Eritrea’, with the aim of creating a permanent ahistorical cleavage or fracture between Tigrinya-speaking Eritreans and their brethren in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Nonetheless, the Tigrinya-speaking Abyssinian highlanders in Eritrea, like all the other ethnic groups, have paid dearly for the independence of Eritrea, and remain today one of the prime targets of the PFDJ regime’s indiscriminate repression.
An alternative nation-building option takes as its starting point legitimate reactions to the oppression practiced by the PFDJ regime, with demands that appeal to the dreams that once inspired the Eritrean struggle for independence, including political, ethno-cultural and social justice and representation. It aspires for a multicultural, multireligious and multilinguistic state with two official languages - Arabic and Tigrinya - alongside the federal arrangement of the 1950s. Only a small Bedouin tribe of 18000 people in Eritrea - the Rashida - have Arabic as their mother tongue. Nonetheless, the majority of the Eritrean Lowlanders and the Muslim population see Arabic/Muslim culture as the guarantor that will balance the dominating Abyssinian/Christian culture of the highlanders. Proponents of this view challenge the regime’s assimilation policy and the imposed new national identification position adhered to by many opposition groups in exile.
Many Eritreans, in particular intellectuals from the Eritrean Lowlands and Afar, see the PFDJ regime as essentially ethnocentric and ethnocratic – subjugating all other ethnic groups in Eritrea to Tigrinya hegemony and ultimately advancing the interest of the Tigrinya speaking people of Eritrea. Many of the organizations whose bases are ethnic and religious groups see the struggle not only from the perspective of guaranteeing democratic and human rights based on majority rule through the principle of one man one vote, but even more importantly from people’s rights perspectives according to which only members of each ethnic and/or religious group hold the exclusive right to determine the faith of that ethnic group, including their ‘rights of self-determination’, up to and including the right to secession. However, the majority of non-ethnic and secular oppositional groups remain skeptical, fearing ideas of self-determination and of an ethnicity-based federalist arrangement in Eritrea.
In its most extreme and vocal forms, the proponents of this option of nation-building unfortunately mobilize their constituents by appealing to negative forces of the unconscious, based on deeply rooted historical animosities within Eritrean society, cultural prejudices and stereotypes, with an unhealthy and potentially dangerous mix of religious and political extremism that aspires to acquire and maintain political power exclusively through the barrel of a gun. These antagonistic alternatives breed by reinforcing mutual suspicion along the existing dichotomies of the highland/lowland, Christian /Muslim, us/them and the fear of Tigrinya-ization contra the Arabization of Eritrea
Like all dictatorial regimes, the PFDJ monopolizes all power, rules and solves all problems through the barrel of a gun, and continues to suppress ethnic, cultural, religious, gender and other identities and interests. It annihilates whenever it can the inherent humanity of all those who oppose it. It subjects them to all conceivable forms of inhumane repression, thereby excluding them from taking part in any meaningful dialogue, negotiation or attempts at conflict resolution through compromise, in the process of nation-building. It leaves people no other choice than challenge the regime through the barrel of a gun. As PFDJ repression continues unabated, ethno-nationalism and regionalism increase. Many of the traditional opposition groups who are unflinching loyal to the colonial boundaries fear the rise of ethnonationalism and regionalism. Their fear is that Eritrean ethnonationalism will sooner or later arrive at the point of questioning the legitimacy of the colonial border itself – the very foundation of the territorial integrity of all African states, including that of Eritrea. Afar and Kunama irredentism have been previously neglected and ignored by most of the Eritrean opposition groups. The rising Eritrean Tigrayan nationalism and its staunch sympathy and support for the people of Tigray in the current war is seen by some Eritrea opposition groups, and more so by those whose power base is in Eritrean lowlands, as a potential threat to the sovereignty of Eritrea, in particular in the event of a failed state in Eritrea and the balkanization of Ethiopia.
Naturally, the continuous suppression of all ethnic, religious and other identities can extend and escalate mutual ethnic-religious irritation and anger, which we already see is leading to polarization amongst Eritreans along ethnic and religious lines; this will increase the likelihood of conflict in post-dictatorship Eritrea. Conflicts, particularly armed conflicts, will further reinforce polarization. It is obvious therefore that those who hope for reconciliation in post dictatorship Eritrea will have to find ways to deal with issues of diversity among various ethnic groups by managing ethnicity and by recognizing the rights of nationalities to promote their ethnicity, and above all to ensure the return of forcibly confiscated ancestral, community, village or private land to its legal owners, and to engage in the introduction of legislature for the regulation of land ownership. Indeed, to promote peaceful ethnic coexistence and reconciliation, a bargaining process - a kind of an” ethnic social contract” will have to be charted that will recognize differences by striking a balance among groups and correcting injustice as well as by advocating equal opportunity for all regardless of their ethnicity.
The greatest challenge facing post-dictatorial Eritrea will be how to build peace and achieve harmony in a context of ethnic, religious, cultural and political diversity, and to thus avert the real risk of Eritrea becoming another failed state in the region. This requires that Eritreans reconcile not only with each other and with their neighbors, but in particular with the people of Tigray, where Eritrean soldiers have committed genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression. Eritreans need to address and resolve the painful issues of guilt, blame and responsibility, both in a legal and moral sense, and to see that those who designed the abhorrent crimes, those with command responsibility, those who enabled the abuse to occur, and many of the foot soldiers who personally committed the evil acts, should not escape liability, and should be brought before a court of law. (7)
Eritreans will need to address and solve the dual requirements of respecting the victims’ experiences and perspectives and the victims’ need for justice, recognition, sincere apologies and reparations for internationally acknowledged wrongful acts, while at the same time forgiving without forgetting many of the rank-and-file soldiers who undertook the evil actions under order or duress. They will have to explore a reconciliatory exit option from the threat of societal meltdown. For the object should not only be to redeem the abused but also to rehabilitate the abusers and to prevent such crimes from occurring in the future. (8) All need to realize that the interests of all the people of the region are the same, and complementary, and never mutually exclusive. There is an urgent need to break the vicious cycle of violence and counter-violence and to retreat from the path of self-destruction. This region, while it contains the poisons of hate and destruction, is the same place from where the antidotes of future peace and progress will be distilled, and it belongs indeed to all.
Footnote: 1. Two small pamphlets one by J.V. Stalin´s `Marxism and the National Question´ (1913) which defines a “nation as a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological makeup manifested in a common culture.” and another by Wallelign Makonnen “On the question of Nationalities in Ethiopia” (1969) have enormous impact on the thinking of the Ethiopian student and liberation movement of the 60s and 70s and eventually became the fundamental principle of the 1995 FDRE Constitution. 2. Why Emperor Menelik permitted the defeated Italians to retain Eritrea as a colony remains a controversial mystery. While some see his need to consolidate his empire and expand southwards as the main reasons others see it as a deliberate scheme to divide and weaken potential Tigrayan power contenders. 3. Abdulkadir Saleh Mohammed: The Resurgence of Religious and Ethnic Identities among Eritrean Refugees: A Response to the Government’s Nationalist Ideology, 2 March 2021 Journals.sageup.com see even: An Initiative to Rally the Eritrean Lowland Society 30 March 2014. By the Eritrean Lowland league in Samadit.com 4. See even my previous articles on the subject Tedros A. Ghebrelul: The Barbarism of War and the peaceful Exit Option 31 December 2008 Part I and 10 January 2009 in Togoruba.org 5. Eritrea regime's social engineering impact on ethno-demographic balance of population 29 August 2019 in hedagait.blogspot.com based on article by Günter Schroder, who is a German researcher with extensive research on Eritrea in particular and in the Horn of Africa. See even James Mosely: Youth response to social engineering in Eritrea and Rwanda 22 October 2013 Focus on The Horn. 6. Report of the detailed findings of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea A/HRC/29/CRP.1 16 June 2016 Ohchr.org Human Rights council The Twenty-ninth session 483 pages. 8. Pursuant to Article 15 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, an open communication to Office of the Prosecutor (OTP), on grave violations of human rights in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, falling within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court submitted by Tedros Amanuel March 10, 2021 published in Aigaforum.com and Asenatv.com 9. I have discussed the issue more extensively in my article Tedros A. Ghebrelul: Brief discourse on difficult issues of guilty, blame, responsibility and reconciliation-in the Eritrean context. 27 January 2015 Asmarino.com .
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