Identity Jilted or Re/Imagining Identity: The Divergent Paths of the Eritrean & Tigrayan Nationalist Struggles
- Book Review,
by Alemseged Abbay, Alemseged Abbay
From the Back Cover
In this bold study of modern ethno-regional nationalism, the author examines the divergent paths taken by the nationalist insurgencies in Tigray and Eritrea. The author argues that Tigrayans, south of the Mereb River, and Kebessa (highlands) Eritreans, north of the Mereb, are ethnically one people, tied by common history, political economy, myth, language and religion. Both fought against an enemy, an oppressive Amhara ethnic state, for a period of seventeen and thirty years respectively. In the process of the armed struggle, however, each evolved separate political identities and, after jointly marching to military victory in 1991, they followed separate political paths-Eritreans created the newest state in Africa and Tigrayans remained within the Ethiopian body politic. The three rational actors in the region-The EPLF, TPLF and the Dergue, all of whom vied for a share of the political pie-pursued divergent policies. The author advances a highly plausible thesis to explain the Re-Imagining of Identity. Whenever available, as in Tigray, the primordial past serves a solid foundation for the social construction of identity. To say that the primordial past has a center stage in en ethno-regional conflict is not to deny the socially constructed nature of identity. Nor does it imply that the primordial past condition sine qua non for identity construction. However, mobilization was not absolutely rosy even in Tigray, because peasants could not conceptualize abstract terms such as "nationalism," "hegemony," "secession," "self-determination," etc. It was the Ethiopian state's genocidal-like policy that heralded a turning point in the process of mobilization. Once peasants were convinced that all that the state was doing was "draining the sea to kill the fish," mobilization became a foregone conclusion. Mobilization, thus, preceded identification. Victory, too, came prior to identification, giving political entrepreneurs a free hand to construct identity the way they saw fit.
About the Author
Alemseged Abbay was educated at Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia) and the University of California at Berkeley. Currently, he is a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of International Studies at U.C. Berkeley.
Excerpted from Identity Jilted or Re/Imagining Identity : The Divergent Paths of the Eritrean & Tigrayan Nationalist Struggles by Alemseged Abbay and Alemseged Abbay. Copyright © 1998. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
Chapter Five: Mobilization and Identity Construction Eritrea: The Rough Road to the Invention of Identity Armed struggle requires mobilizing the masses. Eritrean political elites introduced social reforms that righted wrongs and allowed the people to air all kinds of grievances. Political Grievances: The insurgents ventilated the major grievances which had festered during the federal era (1952-1962). They presented the termination of the federation as the most powerful cause of the armed struggle: The Eritrean people tried to resist the crude strangulation of their autonomy and the imminent political murder of their country through peaceful means, including public demonstrations, protests and petitions to the U.N. In 1958, Eritrean workers staged a massive nationwide demonstration of protests ... Haile Selassie's response was to order the barbaric massacre of the workers in which over 550 were brutally murdered. The Eritrean labor movement, which had historically spearheaded the struggle for independence was thus suppressed by force of arms. This barbaric act signified the end of any hopes for the peaceful resolution of the Eritrean independence question and pointed to armed struggle as the only way out of the colonial oppression ... The EPLF convincingly argued the illegality of the abrogation of the U.N.-sponsored federation. The constitution did not give the Eritrean parliament the mandate to abrogate it. Even if the parliament illegally terminated it, the federal government should have intervened. And any major changes in the status of the federation should have required the approval of the U.N. The peasantry were not well versed with the idea and practice of federation, but the urban population were more aware and appreciative of their autonomous status. The liberal political atmosphere of the 1940s was too recent to fade from their memory. And yet, political grievances as expressed in the abrogation of the federation had appeal mostly to urban elites. As such, Eritrea is a case where the ingredients for political grievances such as the gross violation of basic rights and crude strangulation of a U.N-guaranteed distinct status were fresh in people's minds, but failed to spark emotions when political entrepreneurs employed them for mobilization. Thus the rational actors set in motion a course of politically motivated reading of history. The past, which was not only revisited and revised but also manufactured, along with the constant refreshing of memories of the unspeakable atrocities committed by the Amhara regime constituted what Liisa Malkki calls "mythico history." Administrative Grievances: The Amhara officials who were in charge of administration had no accountability to the people whom they treated as mere subjects. In fact, their rule was imposed upon the people, treating them as foreign subjects in all aspects of the socio-political spectrum. Even at trifling social occasions such as soccer matches, the people were made to feel as if they were foreign subjects in their own homeland, so much so the head of state lamented that this was counter productive: "Whenever the Shewan and Eritrean soccer teams play in Addis Ababa and Asmara, the soldiers are deliberately sent for fist-fighting [against Eritreans]. This has backfired on us because it turned out to be a good tool for the bandits." In marked contrast, in the liberated areas the EPLF was establishing people's councils known as baitos, which were in charge of administering their communities. The baitos, where ethnic and religious groups were fairly represented,11 were accountable to the people who elected them.12 By setting up this new political and administrative structure in its liberated areas, the EPLF managed to lay the foundations of a government in the peasant world. This strategy is followed by most Third World revolutions such as Amilcar Cabral's in Guinea-Bissau. Economic Grievances: Italian capital and technology flowed into Eritrea when the Italians decided to make it a stepping-stone for a larger colonial project. Then, Eritrean towns looked more modernized than Ethiopian towns, including the capital, Addis Ababa, which had a predominantly rural character. Notwithstanding the marginalization of natives during the colonial rule, the revolutionary elites argued that before Eritrea joined Ethiopia, it used to be the most industrialized country in the region: Thirty years ago Eritrea had industries that produced bottles and glasses, matches, beer, wine and other alcoholic drinks, paper, soap, oil, powder, biscuits and other food items, cigarettes, etc. Despite the arresting and destructive steps the British and Ethiopian governments took, Eritrea in 1970 had 169 major industrial infrastructures that produced vital goods. Here, nothing is said about the fact that none of these industries were owned by Eritreans. Nor was the war economy that necessitated Italian investment mentioned. Instead, the EPLF argued that since Ethiopia's "colonial" policy was to impoverish Eritrea, the industries in Eritrea had been closed and/or transplanted into "Amharaland." Yet, when interviewing, none of the political elites who take for granted the claim of transplanting industries into "Amharaland,"16 could name industries that were transplanted in Shoa. Understandably, the force exerted on industries to transplant to Shoa could have been subtle, making the allegation difficult to substantiate. Another complaint every ex-combatant is quick to make is that, in the 1960s FIAT and Volkswagen wanted to locate car assembly plants in Decamhare, southern Eritrea, but were denied a permit and told they could only install the plants in Shoa. The veracity of this claim is also difficult to establish. For the combatants, though, it is axiomatic. Fact or perception, the grievance has served the purpose of ventilating nationalism. Eritrea has never been known for its mineral wealth. Neither the Italians nor the British were particularly impressed by the wealth of its mineral deposits.17 This reality was noted by natives such as Wolde-ab who argued in the 1940s that given its unenviable lack of mineral deposits, neither the Europeans nor the Americans would want Eritrea. It was Ethiopian, Wolde-ab stated, and had to be returned to Ethiopia.
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