CIAO DATE: 7/99

Civic and Ethnic Allegiances: Competing Visions of Nationalist Discourse in the Horn of Africa _*

Eric Garcetti ₁

Department of Diplomacy and World Affairs
Occidental College, California

International Studies Association
40th Annual Convention
Washington, D.C.
February 16–20, 1999

Introduction

In January 1963, Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, stood in the dry bed of the Mereb River in northern Ethiopia and in front of the world’s cameras cut a ribbon over the border separating Ethiopia and Eritrea to symbolize the recent “unification” of the two states. More than 36 years later, any idea of amity, let alone unity, between Ethiopia and Eritrea lies in shreds along the border, scene of a seven-month military standoff between the two states. As mediators from President Clinton to Mohamar Ghaddafi rush to find a solution to the escalating conflict, both armies are on the precipice of an all-out war.

Many of the soldiers on both sides of the Mareb River today share a common language and culture. Politically, the regimes that they represent came to power in 1991 out of a common military and political alliance against the tokenly-Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, led by Isaias Afewerki, helped nurture the growth of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, eventually led by Meles Zenawi, in northern Ethiopia. After a bitter war against Mengistu and his regime, these two fronts marched victoriously side-by-side into the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa in 1991. Soon after, Isaias and Meles became the Presidents of Eritrea and Ethiopia, respectively.

Less than eight years after these men achieved the peaceful separation of Ethiopia and Eritrea, these former allies are now locked in an escalating conflict. Already, hundreds of people have been killed (including civilians), foreigners (and with them, foreign investment) have fled and the conflict has spread to three fronts including the barren but strategically important area around the Red Sea port of Assab. Both sides are armed with new weaponry including Russian fighter jets acquired during the lull between the initial battles last summer and the renewed outbreak of fighting earlier this month, threatening to turn the conflict into what Mohamed Sahnoun, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General in Africa has termed “Africa’s first high-tech war.” How can we explain this radical turn of events?

In this paper, I examine the growth and maintenance of national identity in Eritrea. By using the civic/ethnic dichotomy prevalent in nationalist studies, I trace the evolution of an Eritrean civic nationalism before and after independence and juxtapose this to the rise of an ethnically-based nationalism in Ethiopia under the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front regime. Based on original research conducted in Eritrea in 1997-98 to assess the strength of national identity, I propose that the Eritrean nationalist model is a powerful force for social and political cohesion. While the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia may serve to strengthen national unity in both countries in the short-term, it is my contention that Ethiopia ultimately has more to lose from the war, partially as a result of the ethnically-based nationalist policies it has pursued since 1991.

This paper analyzes the differing nationalist ideologies of the post-Mengistu Eritrean and Ethiopian states. Against the backdrop of the recent border war between the two states, I reconsider assumptions about the post-colonial state in Africa and assess the relative nation-building strengths of the competing approaches to the dual legitimation challenge faced by Eritrea and Ethiopia.

In order to do so, I will first briefly review the ethnic/civic dichotomy common to much of the literature in nationalist studies and provide an overview of the “crisis” of the postcolonial state in Africa. I will then look at the history of the Eritrean struggle for independence and look at the nationalist ideologies that emerged in both Ethiopia and Eritrea following the downfall of strongman Mengistu Hailemariam. Lastly, I will provide an overview of recent events in the light of these competing philosophical visions in an attempt to point towards potential outcomes of the current war.

 

Competing Nationalist Visions: The Civic/Ethnic Dichotomy

One of the most prominent dichotomies in nationalist studies is the distinction between “ethnic” vs. “civic” nationalisms, a distinction found in both typological/taxonometric frameworks as well as in explanatory theories of nationalism.

Hans Kohn first distinguished between western and eastern forms of nationalism in his 1944 work, The Idea of Nationalism. Kohn’s West/East dichotomy is not a typology for modern nationalisms as much as it is a framework for understanding and categorizing the rise of European nationalisms in the late 18 th and 19 th centuries. For Kohn, in states that followed the western model, such as in England, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, “the rise of nationalism was a predominantly political occurrence; it was preceded by the formation of the future national state.” ₂

In contrast, the eastern model of nationalism is characterised by an appeal to cultural and ethnographic forces. As an outgrowth of the less-developed political situation in Central and Eastern Europe and in Asia, nationalism arose not in congruence with but in opposition to existing state constructions and was imitative of the more politically-organic western nationalisms.

For Kohn, the western model is voluntary, rooted in liberal citizenship and made possible because of the long cultural unity of the populations of western Europe. The eastern model is more organic and also more spiritual, rooted in the legacy of Romantic ideals of cultural destiny.

Kohn’s analysis is expanded upon by John Plamenatz. ₃ Plamenatz employs Kohn’s western/eastern division, describing the liberal, rational characteristics of western nationalisms and the mimetic, illiberal qualities of the eastern model. While it is tempting to describe the latter type of nationalism as irrational, the eastern model, to Plamenatz, is the “inevitable reaction of the poor and the weak” to their state in the world.

Crawford Young emphasizes territory as a boundary for political solidarity. ₄ Turning his attention primarily to Africa, Young writes in his Politics in the Congo about the territorial nature of most anti-colonial nationalisms, which overwhelmingly emphasize political goals of the territorial community rather than the protection or enlargement of the power of the ethnic community.

Anthony Smith, in Theories of Nationalism, proposes a continuum for nationalist movements (Figure 1), with ethnic movements, based on a “high degree of cultural distinctiveness”, at one end of the spectrum and territorial movements “bound only by aspirations and a common territorial-cum-political base” at the other. ₅

Figure 1: Types of Nationalism

Acknowledging that many nationalist movements are characterized by both ethnic and territorial components, Smith adds a third category of nationalist movements that lie between ethnic and territorial varieties, which he terms “mixed”.

The east/west, organic/voluntary, cultural/territorial, ethnic/civic distinction persists in more recent writings on nationalism as well. Like Smith, James Kellas also makes a threefold distinction based on the cultural/territorial dichotomy. ₆ He describes ethnic nationalism as culturally exclusivistic and based on common descent. Social nationalism stresses social ties that bind a nation and emphasizes a voluntaristic element to national allegiances. Lastly, official nationalism describes state nationalism limited, by definition, to the citizenry within a country’s borders.

In a more recent exploration of nationalism, Michael Ignatieff also relies (if at times somewhat inconsistently) on the ethnic/civic distinction. ₇ For Ignatieff, the civic/ethnic distinction represents differing rules about belonging to the nation. The civic model is inclusive, democratic, and patriotic, a political association drawn from Enlightenment principles of individual equality. The ethnic model, on the other hand, derives from German Romantics and their volkish conception of a linguistic, religious, or cultural commonality. Ignatieff also echoes Kohn’s writings in assigning greater rationality and “sociological realism” to the civic model and a deeper psychological evocation but less sociologically realistic basis for the ethnic model. ₈ According to Ignatieff, the ethnic model is less rational and tends to be more authoritarian. In the end, ethnic nationalism tells individuals to “only trust those of your own blood.” ₉

 

The Crisis of the Postcolonial State

While Kohn and Plamenatz apply the “eastern” imitative model to most of the nationalist movements of post-colonial states, few post-colonial states have the luxury of a bounded cultural narrative or congruence with traditional territorial homelands. Thus, there is often a break between the aspirations of nationalist appeals made in the post-colonial world on cultural grounds and the social and demographic reality within most post-colonial states. As John Breuily has written, “the attempt to construct a cultural or ethnic identity at the level of the colonial territory can have a degree of plausibility if there is some real continuity between the peoples and territories of the pre-colonial and the colonial eras. However, in many cases such a construction looks quite artificial because of the sharp break in continuity introduced by colonial rule.” ₁₀

Furthermore, attempts by post-colonial governments at promoting civically-rooted nationalist ideologies to unify the nation are challenged not only by older cultural or religious ties, but also by the very weakness of the post-colonial state. Any investigation of political ideology in Northeast Africa must be viewed within the context of the crisis of the post-colonial state, specifically: 1) the dual challenge to state legtimacy rooted in arbitrary political borders and polyethnic populations and, 2) the weak state/quasi-state predicament. The resulting discussion has ramifications not only for understanding the intersection between nationalist ideology and social mobilization but for the nature of the civic/ethnic dichotomy in nationalist studies.

The dual challenge of arbitrary borders and polyethnic populations

Colonialism radically and rapidly altered the political and territorial borders of Africa. Even Ethiopia, which remained independent while the rest of Africa became colonized, had her borders shaped in part by the colonial powers around her. In Eritrea’s case, the borders of the colony were the result of some four decades of settlement, numerous wars with indigenous populations, and some five treaties between four countries over a twenty-five year period. The borders of Eritrea correspond to little or no demographic, topographic, or cultural boundaries. They are political statements, not socio-cultural or geographic realities. Bounded by the borders of Eritrea are highland and lowland regions that are connected to neighboring states, languages that spill over borders, and common religious practices that are often greater across the borders than within them.

That Africa’s borders have this artificial character is no revelation for any student of African politics. Nevertheless, it bears repeating this condition in order to understand the dilemma faced by African nationalist movements seeking to unite or mobilize previously-colonized populations. The legacy of African colonial borders is quite different from the situation facing the civic and ethnic nationalist movements that came out of Europe in the previous century, where political and ethnic borders corresponded more closely to each other.

When coupled with the weak states that often inhabit post-colonial political space in Africa (see below), promoting social or political unity within post-colonial borders becomes a very difficult task for most governments. Groups within a state may feel close kinship and affinity to their ethnic brothers and sisters across the previous colonial border, drawing allegiance away from the state center to peripheral ethno-cultural attachments.

Compounding this dilemma, post-colonial borders almost always bring together diverse cultural groups within a single state. While polyethnic states are not unique to post-colonial Africa, the different ethnic groups within post-colonial states often have a shorter history of direct interaction under a single political system than their European or American counterparts. Furthermore, the road and communications networks created by colonial powers in Africa brought together people of different ethnicities over a relatively short period. Lastly, ethnic conflict often stems from the ethnic stratification that exists as a direct or indirect result of the colonial experience. Patronage politics directed towards ethnic groups that dominate the political or military leadership roles in post-colonial states serve to strengthen feelings of ethnic oppression and lead to calls for ethnic self-determination or empowerment.

Weak states/quasi-states

Addressing the challenge of ethnic and political incongruence is made more difficult by the weakness of many post-colonial states. Some authors have gone as far as to suggest that what exists in Africa are not states, in the traditional sense of functioning bureaucratic entities that practice sovereignty throughout the land demarcated by national borders. In the words of Robert Thornton, these entities are only countries in the sense that they are “named areas of land demarcated by international boundaries, but not necessarily possessing comprehensive state apparatuses, full administrative or fiscal coverage of the area so named, or even a coherent self-identity as such.” ₁₁

Robert Jackson terms these political entities “quasi-states” that practice only negative sovereignty based on external freedoms and external recognition but not on the exercise of internal control. He writes in Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World:

Who is today entitled to self-determination? Who qualify as ‘people’? It is no longer a positive right of national self-determination—very few states are ‘nations’ either by long history or common ethnicity or successful constitutional integration. Instead, it is the negative right of ex-European colonies—which usually contain different peoples but are not peoples themselves—to constitutional independence under an indigenous government regardless of conditions or circumstances. ₁₂

Joel Migdal, in Strong Societies and Weak States, writes that in weak states, the “contours of society” are rarely “redrawn more or less as state leaders envisioned.” ₁₃ Instead of drawing on national unity to mobilize a country towards desired political and social ends, these states are focused upon the maintenance of their leaders’ power through the narrow politics of self-preservation. In order to maintain power, leaders must relinquish power of the state to non-state, societal actors who, in turn, support their leadership. While this model is often enough to ensure the continuation of these leaders’ power, it compromises the state’s ability to implement policies or to mobilize the population to achieve policy goals.

Basil Davidson traces the weak state in Africa back to colonialism and the imposition of an ill-fitting western-style nationalism that was imposed on Africa upon decolonization. ₁₄ Instead of bringing about a nationalism around which African populations could coalesce for common purpose and identity, what emerged instead is what Davidson calls nation-statism, which elevated the idea that state borders represented or would naturally come to be congruent with African nations. Instead of drawing upon the political commonality (as occurred in the politically-developed polities of western Europe) or the ethnic solidarity (as in eastern Europe) of national populations, nation-statism demands an immediate and artificial loyalty. The African state assumes that the nation-statism, which saw the country through decolonization, will create socio-political congruence naturally. Rather than fostering the national community, however, African nation-statism protects only itself, often through ethnically divisive policies of clientelism and corruption.

In short, nationalist ideologies and programs in post-colonial Africa cannot be viewed simply as the aspirations of and clashes between nations. The historical legacy of colonialism on the demographic and topographic landscape as well as the struggle to achieve effective internal sovereignty within most post-colonial Africa states must be the prism through which we refract any analysis of Eritrean and Ethiopian nationalism.

 

Historical Background

Both Eritrea and Ethiopia are states with unique histories in the African context. Ethiopia, as any student of African politics can readily point out, was the only African state never to be a colony other than a very brief Italian “reign” from 1935-1941. The Ethiopian state evolved with internal independence, though many observers have pointed out that Ethiopia could be viewed in effect as a “negative” colony, not directly occupied from within by a colonial power, but shaped (both literally and figuratively) by the colonial seas around its borders.

Eritrea, on the other hand, was one of the only African colonies that never enjoyed independence after the occupying colonial power ended its rule. Like the Western Sahara, the former colony was absorbed by a neighboring state, and thus did not experience the usually-swift independence achieved by most other African colonies.

Nevertheless, Ethiopia and Eritrea conform to most of the post-colonial condition described above. Both face many of the same problems of social mobilization and policy implementation that plague weak states. Both have polyethnic populations as well as borders that do not correspond to many ethnic realities on the ground.

In this section, I trace the development of Eritrean nationalism during this century. Conventional wisdom often holds that nationalist narratives begin with a core national identity, which, like a stone thrown into a pool, ripples outwards producing common political goals, a common nationalist movement and finally congruence with a demarcated territory. The Eritrean nationalist narrative inverts this model (Figure 2). Eritrean nationalism begins with the imposition of a political boundary created by colonialism and then the successive focusing inward of nationalist goals, a nationalist movement, and, lastly, the development of a shared national identity which has only recently begun to emerge.

Figure 2: A Model of Eritrean Nationalism

 

The Eritrean War Of Independence

Roots of the Ethiopian-Eritrean Conflict

The history of Eritrean nationalism is a narrative of the creation and maintenance of successive common political boundaries where none previously existed.

Consisting of the northern reaches of the Abyssinian plateau and the lowland coastal and inland deserts surrounding these highlands, Eritrea came into being on January 1, 1890 as a colony of the recently-unified state of Italy; it was its first African colony. The boundaries of Eritrea reflected more than twenty years of Italian settlement along territory near the Red Sea coastline north of the Abyssinian Empire. Eritrea’s name, and that of the Red Sea, is derived from the Greek word for red; an early reference to the area is in Fragment 67 of Aeschylus.

Within the boundaries of this new territory, Italy found a polyglot population of multiple ethnic, religious and linguistic groups. The region’s largest ethnic group, Tigrinya-speaking Orthodox Christians, dominated the central highlands, where they lived chiefly as settled agriculturists and comprised close to fifty percent of the overall population. They shared the highlands with smaller groups of pastoral Muslim Saho-speakers and a number of Bilein-speaking tribes that practised various forms of Christianity as well as Islam. The western lowlands were populated by nomadic pastoralists of the Moslem Maria, Beni Amer and Tigre-speaking ethnic groups as well as the Christian and animist Kunama along the south-west border areas. Along the long eastern littoral lived pastoralist Sahos, Massawan Tigre-speakers, Afar fishermen and women and a small population of native Arabic-speaking Rashaida recently immigrated from Arabia.

Despite many religious and cultural links between parts of the new Eritrean population to their Abyssinian and Sudanese neighbours, most of the population groups within Eritrea had little cohesion with each other or to the populations to the south and west before Italian rule. ₁₅

Colonisation and the creation of a territorial boundary

Italian rule in Eritrea, with the aid of the twin technologies of cartography and infrastructure development, forged a new political and territorial entity where only loose and fluid boundaries had existed before. The five decades of Italian rule in Eritrea not only fixed an external boundary, but also served to initiate the dismantling of the internal barriers separating the various social, religious, and ethnic groups of Eritrea. Divisions between the highlands and lowlands were bridged by a superior road and rail system, among the best in Africa. The establishment of new towns and the expansion of existing ones created common spaces for social, economic, and political interaction among the Eritrean population. Eritreans of diverse backgrounds also were brought together through service in the Italian colonial army, where they helped fight campaigns in Libya, Somalia, and Ethiopia.

While Italian rule created new spaces for social exchange and intercourse, few Eritreans served in any important capacity in the Italian colonial administration, and there were few educational opportunities afforded to the native population by the colonisers. Italian rule also kept in place many of the social divisions in the country by maintaining and institutionalising patronage agreements with local noblemen, especially in the lowland regions.

The divisions between the colonised and colonisers were widened during the period of fascist rule in Italy. From 1930 until 1941, Italy implemented strict racial segregation laws in Eritrea, serving to unite many Eritreans in common resentment towards the fascist administration. Eritrea also experienced a rapid expansion of its economy and infrastructure in the 1930s as Italy used Eritrea as a base for its imminent invasion of Ethiopia.

British administration and federation: the growth of a shared political system

During the Second World War, Eritrea was the first Axis territory to fall to Allied forces when Allied troops, meeting relatively little resistance from Italian forces, successfully invaded Italian East Africa in 1941.

For the next eleven years, Eritrea technically remained an Italian colony administered by British authorities. The British kept in place much of the Italian colonial system and personnel. Nevertheless, the British administration in Eritrea oversaw and implemented important reforms that expanded educational opportunities for Eritreans and actively trained and recruited the indigenous population for work in the colonial administration. As Eritreans took advantage of these new freedoms, an emerging native intelligentsia began to fill the ranks of the British administration. The British administration also allowed the organising of unions and civic associations, which flourished in urban areas during the 1940s.

The period of British rule also coincided with vigorous political organising from 1946-52 in response to the visits of international commissions charged with assessing Eritrea’s postcolonial future. The first of these came at the end of the Second World War, when the fate of Eritrea was put in the hands of the victorious Allied powers, who sent a commission of investigation to determine Eritrea’s political future in 1948. Reaching no consensus, the Allies referred the matter to the United Nations, which in 1950 also sent a commission of inquiry to Eritrea.

The British permitted Eritreans to organise themselves into political parties to address the two commissions. The nationalist parties that emerged were the Unionists, mostly highlander Christians who championed Ethiopian nationalism through a union of the two states and the Independence Bloc, which advocated an independent Eritrea. The Independence Bloc drew mainly upon the Moslem serf population (most Moslem chiefs supported Haile Selassie as a way of maintaining their local powers, which had been weakened under the British) and a few Christians who envisioned a pan-Eritrean nationalism. This split reflected Orthodox Christians’ strong support of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, with whom they shared a common religion and cultural similarities as well as the anxieties of most Moslems, who were wary of being dominated by an Ethiopian Christian emperor.

While political organising under the British administration exposed continuing rifts in the terrain of Eritrea’s diverse population, it re-altered the national space in Eritrea, drawing a systemic boundary in the same way that the Italian period drew a territorial one. Sharing a common political system and the common participation in this administrative and electoral landscape provided a space within which a vision of pan-Eritrean nationalism could be envisioned. Nevertheless, despite the notable exception of some early nationalists such as Woldeab Woldemariam, a Christian schoolteacher, the character of the emergent proto-nationalism was ethnic or religious in character for the most part.

Concurrently, Haile Selassie was pursuing his nation-building project inside Ethiopia’s borders, promoting a mostly ethnic-based vision of the Ethiopian nation, united through Amharisation, the Shoan crown, and a (presumed) common cultural history. Ethiopia saw the incorporation of Eritrea as a paramount goal in this process, as well as a way of helping pursue strategies of economic development through the absorption of its richer northern neighbor.

The United Nations General Assembly, faced with divided public opinion in Eritrea and differing recommendations from the five representatives that visited Eritrea, settled on a compromise solution that federated Eritrea with Ethiopia under the overarching authority of the Ethiopian Emperor. While this solution was a tidy compromise for the international community, it pleased neither Ethiopia, which was intent on gaining access to the Red Sea and expanding its political territory, nor independence-minded Eritreans, who doubted that Eritrea would be able to maintain any autonomy under any political arrangement linking it with its much more powerful southern neighbour.

The Eritrean-Ethiopian federation was formally initiated on September 11, 1952. For the first time, Eritrea existed as a political entity free from European rule. Just as significantly, autonomous Eritrean institutions and symbols arose from the federation agreement. Most prominent of these was an Eritrean government with a chief executive and civil service, a popularly-elected assembly, and an independent judiciary. National symbols, including an Eritrean flag, were a source of common pride and a locus of political coalescence for the Eritrean population, despite continuing political, social, and religious differences. These nationalist markers and structures further expanded the boundaries of common political discourse and participation in Eritrea.

Politically, the federation agreement was a flawed arrangement. Structurally, it was unstable, linking Eritrea to a state fourteen times its size with sixteen times its population in a supposedly equal partnership. Furthermore, Ethiopia’s strong interest in having access to the sea and Haile Selassie’s state-building and nation-unifying projects were incompatible with Eritrean autonomy. As the result of these pressures, the ten years of the Eritrean-Ethiopian federation were marked by the steady erosion of Eritrean autonomy through the actions of the Ethiopian State and its allies in Eritrea. Elections were influenced, opponents of Ethiopian rule harassed and imprisoned, Amharic was substituted in the place of Eritrean/local languages, and important symbols such as the Eritrean flag were replaced with their Ethiopian counterparts. Ethiopia also presided over a sharp decline in the Eritrean economy as Haile Selassie pursued development of Addis Ababa and the Shoa region.

These events united the majority of the Eritrean population in common opposition to Ethiopian rule in Eritrea. Many former unionists, including significant numbers of the Christian population, joined the pro-independence forces during the 1950s, despite increasing Ethiopian repression against Eritrean nationalists. Prominent politicians spoke out against Ethiopian encroachment upon Eritrean autonomy but most were imprisoned or had fled the country by the end of the decade. A generation of students radicalised by the dismantling of Eritrean autonomy led frequent anti-Ethiopian protests that by the late 1950s were the last remaining acts of above-ground resistance to Ethiopian rule.

The “Eritrean government” was changed to the “Eritrean administration” by Ethiopian decree and finally, on November 14, 1962, Ethiopian troops circled the Eritrean parliament, and members were detained until they “voted” to abolish the Eritrean-Ethiopian federation and formally become a province of the Ethiopian State. What had previously been de facto union became de jure unification with this final act of political coercion.

Insurgency and the quest for a common political movement

As Eritrea slowly disintegrated as an independent or autonomous entity, Eritrean nationalists in exile responded to growing nationalist sentiment and planned to launch an armed struggle against Ethiopia. While the form and content of Eritrean nationalism would remain contested by differing visions over the next two decades, Eritreans nevertheless united around the common goal of an independent state during the 1960s and 1970s.

In Cairo, a few prominent opposition politicians formed the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) in 1961. By 1962, its armed wing, the Eritrean Liberation Army (ELA), was conducting hit-and-run operations against Ethiopian and Eritrean security forces in the western lowlands near the Sudan.

The ELF exploited widespread and perennial anti-Ethiopian sentiment in the Moslem-dominated western lowlands and grew rapidly, reaching an estimated strength of 2,000 by 1967. ₁₆ The ranks of the ELF were filled overwhelmingly by Beni-Amer, Bilein, and Tigre-speaking Moslems. Many of its leadership were distrustful of Tigrinya-speaking Christian highlanders, who had overwhelmingly supported union with Ethiopia in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Promoting a conservative nationalism with public proclamations of Arab and Moslem solidarity, the ELF was able to obtain limited military and political support from numerous Moslem countries, including Syria, Somalia, Egypt, and the Sudan. Nevertheless, the ELF’s confessional nationalism alienated much of the Christian population at a time that most Christians were turning away from unionism. Although a few Christian university students made the trek to the Sudan to join the ELF, they were met with suspicion and sometimes outright hostility by the Moslem leadership.

Ethnic and personal rivalries within the ELF hierarchy grew as the organisation expanded. Operational and ideological divisions further beset the ELF. Operationally, the leadership in the Sudan was removed from ELA activities inside Eritrea, while military activity between different ELA units remained uncoordinated. Ideologically, the ELF faced a twofold challenge from both Christians who felt unwelcome and excluded by the ELF leadership and from more radical members of the ELF who wanted to see the organisation adopt a more progressive and democratic political orientation. Despite these growing splits, the ELF continued to grow and extend its military operations to the eastern lowlands and the highland areas.

By the end of the 1960s, ELF military operations met with a number of notable successes as the ELA moved from simple hit-and-run operations to co-ordinated attacks on Ethiopian units, urban attacks, assassinations and a number of hijackings. In response to Eritrean successes, Ethiopian forces used increasingly harsh tactics in the Eritrean countryside, including successive “scorched earth” campaigns against civilians; these led to what soon became a massive refugee flows over the border into the Sudan.

Fissures within the organisation further erupted in the late 1960s, resulting in the splintering off of dissident groups unhappy with the political direction, ethnic composure, or geographical separation of much of the ELF leadership. At the same time, a strong reform movement emerged from within the ELF, eventually resulting in a period of debate and partial reorganisation. While the reforms attracted some of the dissidents back, most stayed separate from the ELF and eventually coalesced into a second front, called the People’s Liberation Forces-Eritrean Liberation Front (PLF-ELF), which was later renamed the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF).

The 1970s were marked by an escalation of the military conflict with Ethiopia and a growing civil war between ELF and EPLF units. As civil war threatened to roll back territorial and political gains of the nationalist fronts against Ethiopia, a civilian-initiated truce between the two fronts was brokered in 1974, leading to a period of uneasy co-existence. During this period, both fronts embraced a more-inclusive brand of nationalism that emphasized the civic, territorial, and historic-political character of the Eritrean nation.

The overthrow of Haile Selassie in 1974 and the coming to power of the military-led government of the Marxist-inspired Dergue in Ethiopia radically altered the shape of Ethiopian politics and society. It did little to change the situation in Eritrea, where both fronts continued to call for Eritrean independence, despite the “progressive” social and economic reforms implemented by the new Ethiopian regime.

Even the efforts of the first leader of Ethiopia’s ruling military council, General Aman Andom, who was an ethnic Eritrean, at brokering peace in Eritrea were met coldly by the Eritrean fronts. His initiative was one of the reasons given by his rivals in the Dergue for his removal from power and subsequent execution, which merely confirmed to most Eritreans that Ethiopia would not tolerate an autonomous or independent Eritrea.

Political turmoil in Addis Ababa resulted in a short period of calm in Ethiopian military operations in Eritrea in 1974. The depth of Eritrean nationalist sentiment was evidenced by the growing number of recruits who took advantage of the relative freedom brought about by the change of regime and took to the countryside to join the two nationalist fronts. Following General Aman’s death, the Dergue initiated a campaign of urban terror in Eritrea, with death squads pulling young Eritrean men off the streets at random and killing them. The stream of recruits turned to a torrent, and soon there were more than 100,000 Eritreans under arms against the central government.

By the late 1970s, most of Eritrea was under the control of the ELF and EPLF. In 1979, the Dergue launched a series of Soviet-backed and funded counteroffensives that managed to push Eritrean forces back. The ELF was hardest hit by these offensives. Fighting between the EPLF and ELF re-emerged as well, and the ELF, already weakened by fighting with Ethiopian troops, was eventually driven out of the country by EPLF forces in 1980.

The ascendance of the EPLF resulted in the spread of a common political programme within Eritrea. Highly-organised and self-reliant EPLF units spread education campaigns and mass organisations helped develop and disseminate the EPLF’s political programme throughout the population.

Repeated Ethiopian offensives against the EPLF’s Sahel base never managed to dislodge the rebel forces, though the Ethiopian army came close. The EPLF’s military prowess, borne from years of battle experience, eventually began to turn the tide of the war in the late 1980s, aided by a weakened Ethiopian state drained by the constant war and the slow withdrawal of Soviet support. Opposition to the Mengistu regime had emerged in other parts of Ethiopia, most notably in the northern province of Tigray, where the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which the EPLF had helped train in the mid-1970s, began to seriously contest the Ethiopian government.

While most of Eritrea and much of the rest of Ethiopia were in rebel hands by the end of the 1980s, the collapse of the Soviet Union and a final military campaign by the EPLF and the TPLF (by now reconstituted as the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front) toppled the Mengistu regime on May 24, 1991. EPLF tanks captured from Ethiopian forces joined columns of TPLF troops in Addis Ababa, where the new Ethiopian government took power and a Transitional Government of Eritrea (TGE) was announced and the EPLF proclaimed plans for conducting a referendum on independence. In 1993, an overwhelming 98.3% of registered Eritreans voted “yes” for independence and Eritrea was reborn as an independent and internationally-recognised state on April 27.

Nationalist ideology of the EPLF

The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front was founded upon a pan-Eritrean nationalist vision. Many of the founders of the EPLF had experienced religious or ethnic discrimination and exclusion within the ELF. Mindful of the divisive policies that had emerged from the ELF’s narrow brand of confessional nationalism, early EPLF leaders sought a political ideology that would be both inclusive and protective of Eritrea’s cultural and religious diversity. Under the broad nationalist umbrella of unity, the EPLF envisioned a multi-cultural society free of religious or ethnic discrimination.

Shortly after breaking away from the ELF with a group of followers, Isaias Afwerki, a former engineering student who would eventually go on to become the Secretary-General of the EPLF, wrote a document in 1973 in the town of Ala that formed the basis of the EPLF’s political programme and ideology. Included in the manifesto, “We and Our Objectives”, were statements that embraced an anti-ethnic vision of Eritrean nationalism that rejected religious and ethnic divisions. “We fight,” the manifesto stated, “in order to protect the rights of all nationalities in Eritrea so that they may develop with equality.” ₁₇ Referring to the intolerance experienced by many Christians inside the ELF, the manifesto continued:

What do you do when they chase [you] out of what you thought was a national cause? What do you do when they oppress you while fighting?

The Eritrean nationalities have never been treated equally in the Eritrean national struggle and this fact is well evinced in the past 12 years of the armed struggle. And the history of the Jabha [ELF] is nothing but a history of the oppression of one nationality by the other.

Almost dormant religious and ethnic hostilities were rekindled by the opportunists and counter-revolutionaries who took this chance to enhance their self-interests and bring the Eritrean into disarray. ₁₈

The Ala group took great pains to point out that even though they were predominantly Christian, that they were “freedom fighters, not prophets of Christianity.” ₁₉ The Ala declaration also rejected Arabism and Moslem sectarianism.

As the EPLF grew, this non-sectarian outlook guided wartime ideology toward ethnic and national unity. The EPLF implemented policies to promote ethnic inclusion; affirmative action policies were undertaken in which priority training and leadership responsibilities were directed to under-represented ethnic and social groups. The EPLF also implemented policies prohibiting organising along religious lines and launching a multi-cultural curriculum in which Eritreans at all EPLF schools learned about the culture and traditions of other ethnic groups. Instruction in these schools was given in most local languages and while freedom of religion was permitted in private, religious education was prohibited in curricula.

The EPLF National Democratic Programme of 1977, passed at the EPLF’s first national congress, institutionalised EPLF policies on national unity, proclaiming that a central goal of the front was to “ensure the equality of nationalities and consolidate their unity.” ₂₀

In the 1970s, EPLF cadres also undertook a project to classify the Eritrean population into nine nationalities based on language groupings. Throughout the war, these nationalities were to be important markers and symbols of the EPLF’s vision of Eritrea’s diversity and unity. A notorious EPLF commando team took the name 9 Bado Tshiate (Zero Nine) and EPLF publications frequently displayed the image symbol of nine fists around a larger fist symbolising the subsidiary role of ethnicity around the common goal of national unity.

National unity and external relations

A crucial element of Eritrean national identity was shaped by relations between the EPLF and the outside world. The image of the Ethiopian “other” was critical to rallying Eritrean identity. It served two purposes. First, defining “Eritreanness” in opposition to Ethiopia was critical for breaking the cultural and religious link that many Tigrinya-speaking Christians felt toward Ethiopia. Second, promoting a shared enemy was a way of breaking down divisions among the diverse peoples of Eritrea and uniting them behind a common psychological identity. Without a common enemy, there was only a short six-decade colonial history around which a common national identity could coalesce.

Despite Ethiopian claims that the Eritrean liberation fronts were the lackeys of Arab and Muslim states, the ELF and EPLF could not count on the regular support of any state. The Ethiopian enemy, under successive regimes, was aided by the United States and then the Soviet Union, and Eritrean pleas to the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations were routinely ignored. While the EPLF received occasional aid from countries including Libya, Yemen, and the Sudan, the EPLF was bereft of consistent external sponsorship and had to subsist mostly on captured weapons and the support of Eritrean expatriates to fund the war effort. Thus, a philosophy of isolation, whose converse was the doctrine of self-sufficiency, became a central component of an Eritrean national identity.

 

Nationalising Political Space after Independence

Internal boundaries

The ongoing process of nationalising political space in Eritrea is focused upon the civic nationalism that helped unite the Eritrean people during the War of Independence. This process is guided by the role of memory, both in a literal sense through the continuation of EPLF policies, and in a more representative sense as a construct for the legitimisation of public policies.

As Eritrea today is no less diverse a population than when it became an Italian colony, the challenge of post-war policies is to maintain an overriding canopy of national unity amidst the possibility of religious, ethnic, and other social splits.

National Identity

The Government of Eritrea (GoE) and the Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice (the name of the party that the EPLF reconstituted itself as after independence) have carried forward the EPLF policy to develop a national identity based on unity in diversity. This ethos places considerable responsibility on individuals and groups, because the perception underpinning it is that all sections of the national community must act in concert in order to achieve the goal. Thus, the EPLF’s experience with self-reliance has been translated into an imperative for individuals, communities, and the nation at large. ₂₁

In contemporary Eritrea the process of the creation of the self-reliant nation in its tangible and intangible aspects is ongoing: building the non-ethnic, secular Eritrea consists of watchful boundary maintenance and expansion. Nationhood is being devised as an expression of collective belief; the Eritrean national project in its ontological foundations is based on the wartime project writ large. ₂₂ Here can be seen the very definition of ‘the nation’ as a meta-narrative, a construct which claims to legitimise purposive communal activities. ₂₃ In this context the collective custody of social memory becomes paramount. The continuance of collective social memory becomes more assured when social practices and sites of significance are incorporated. ₂₄ The trenches in the northern areas near Nakfa and the triumphalist tank memorial in Massawa are foci of enormous resonance within the recent history of Eritrea; by virtue of their connection to heroic resistance and ultimate victory. They are virtual ‘national (ism) heritage sites’.

During the war Eritrean identity became fixed, even immobilised, with minimal room given to the minutiae of ethnic or religious adherence or identification with a particular place. The fine permutations of more mutable identity in its situation-specific aspects became subsumed within the imperative demands of cohesive identity and self-identification versus Ethiopian aggression: boundary maintenance became most important in that environment of extreme threat. Such contracted and fiercely focused identity may be difficult to perpetuate in post-conflict Eritrea. It is now that national identity must expand to accommodate variation in terms of ethnic or communal allegiances.

‘Diversity in harmony’ is one of the slogans by which the state apparatus proclaims the national project. The constitution states: “As the people and government struggle to establish a united and developed Eritrea within the context of a multiethnic society, they shall be guided by the basic principle of ‘unity in diversity.’” ₂₅ Ethnic and religious differentiation is not to challenge the development of a national identity. Yet such potential fault lines exist, as does gender inequality.

While hitherto in post-conflict Eritrea subaltern groups have not played any significant part in challenging the predominant ethos, the very attempt to create a national identity may result in what in some quarters may be viewed as a deliberate policy of subordination of less powerful elements within the whole. For instance, there is covert reference to a perceived Tigrinyan hegemonic thrust, initiated in times of war and perpetuated in peace. As described above, the Tigrinya are the largest ethnic group, predominantly Orthodox Christian and traditionally highland farmers. Even before the war there was considerable movement from the eroded, over-populated plateau to the fertile lowlands, occupied by Muslims with predominantly agropastoralist livelihood patterns. Many Tigrinya and other Christian returnees have chosen to settle in those same lowlands. Staff in those line ministries with which local residents come into most frequent contact are often Tigrinya. ₂₆ While the GoE is scrupulous in its insistence on equality of religion, ethnicity, and gender, there are murmurs in certain sectors of the population that to be ‘Eritrean’ is to be straitjacketed into an imposed identity whose parameters do not always fit reality. ₂₇ Add to this the inevitability of the waning of the fighter identity as the living, tangible central aspect of contemporary nationalist ideology, and the current virtual equation of the fighter project with the creation of the nation, and the potential for counter-hegemonic perceptions of identity becomes apparent.

“Diversity in harmony” has led the GoE to continue with policies that institutionalise multi-lingualism in Eritrea. The draft constitution goes as far as to state in Article 4, 3 that “The equality of all Eritrean languages is guaranteed.” As in the liberated areas, regional schools teach in local languages, though this policy has already met with some resistance from minority groups who feel that the policy does not go far enough in preserving minority languages.

One further aspect of the nationalist kaleidoscope is the possible gradual disaffection of post-war generations from allegiance to the prevailing ethos of identity. Through national service and the National Development Programme, young men and women are bound into the fabric of development in a manner that tries to replicate the national bonding that resulted from the diversity of ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds that co-existed in the field. Post-war youths are additionally inducted into the perpetuation of the concept of national identity as forged in times of acutely necessary cohesion against external threat and potential dissolution of all hope of Eritrea as an entity. However, strong identification with that perceptual framework may well diminish over time as the war passes into history.

Political Opposition

The Government of Eritrea remains suspicious of political opposition and competition and has acted to limit dissident or parallel political voices. Political opposition per se in terms of legally recognised parties and their potential for representation at the various levels of government does not currently exist in Eritrea. Furthermore, the government has acted a number of times to limit the activities of local civic associations such as the National Union of Eritrean Women and the National Union of Eritrean Students when they have undertaken political or economic development programs seen to be in direct competition with government programs.

Makki notes that

[T]o date, with the singular exception of the constitution-making process which has reportedly involved over half a million Eritreans, the transitional period [legally, until the Constitution is ratified] is characterised by the exclusion of organised movements outside the Popular Front [the PFDJ] and its ancillary organisations. The omnipresence of the state over any embryonic public sphere has meant that key issues of the transition have not been opened up to popular debate. ₂₈

Such exclusion has to an extent perpetuated old wartime rivalries with the rump Eritrean Liberation Front. This organisation, which still retains a degree of support among refugees in the Sudan and further afield, and presumably also among returnees to Eritrea, feels it has not been given any opportunity either to come to an accord with the PFDJ or to present its position to the wider community.

At present the only acknowledged opposition to the authority of the GoE comes from elements of the Eritrean Islamic Jihad, a group sponsored and probably actively supported by the Sudanese National Islamic Front. Although information is difficult to obtain, there have been consistent if unconfirmed reports of terrorist attacks and mine-laying activities by the EIJ in the north western regions of Eritrea. The EIJ may not represent a major threat to internal security, and its ambitions are certainly not to be active in the legitimate political activities of the state. Nonetheless, the GoE is well-aware that Islamist tendencies, particularly among returnees whose exposure to the increasingly rigid religious structures of the Sudanese government may have resulted in the espousal of such views, must be countered within a framework of scrupulous attention to religious freedoms and equality of expression.

Inevitably, initiatives aimed at promoting social solidarity have been subjected to the post-war environment where it seemed up until recently difficult to achieve quite the same unity of purpose achieved during the years of war. The position of ex-fighter women (the ‘women in trousers’, many of whom face a severe backlash), is a graphic example of the way in which Eritreans must grapple with fault lines emerging in peace time while the government vigorously promotes the goal of gender, ethnic and religious equality and equity.

External boundaries

Until recent events, Eritrea could with some justification claim that it was an oasis of calm in a geo-politically unstable region. Isaias Afwerki has been prominent in ‘Greater Horn of Africa’ initiatives, in collaboration with Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, and his erstwhile close ally Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia. Eritrea has been active within the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) grouping, whose remit has recently been extended to include political and conflict resolution issues.

However, even before the outbreak of war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, there have been signs of regional dissent. Eritrea and Yemen have been in dispute over the sovereignty of the Hanish Islands; the small-scale, intermittent civil war in Djibouti between the two main clans of the Afar and Isas has on occasion spilled over into the Eritrean Afar territory of Dankalia province. The shadow of the Sudan and its Islamist government, supported by the National Islamic Front, has loomed over Eritrea since the decision was taken by the GoE to offer support to the opposition National Democratic Alliance. Border conflicts between the Sudan and Eritrea are commonplace and both sides have accused the other’s military of frequent incursions into their territory.

More cynical observers might argue that Eritrea’s stand-offs with its neighbours serve to maintain national unity. While this is doubtful given the intimate knowledge that most Eritreans have of the suffering that comes with war, intentional or not, these conflicts no doubt do reinforce a measure of national unity and incorporate old memories in the psyches of a new generation of Eritreans.

At present external and internal security are most directly threatened by the conflict with Ethiopia. While its roots lie predominantly within Tigrayan and other Ethiopian internal politics and power struggles, the ostensible casus belli was the ill-defined Italian colonial border and purported Eritrean incursions into territory claimed to be inalienably Ethiopian.

 

Eritrean National Sentiment

The strength of wartime memory and of the Government of Eritrea’s post-war civic nationalism is reflected in popular sentiment in Eritrea. During 1997-98, the author conducted a survey to measure ethnic, religious, and national allegiances in post-war Eritrea. 128 Eritreans between the ages of 15 and 75 were interviewed. Interviews were conducted throughout the country, in all major cities and towns and drew from a representative sample of the Eritrean population across ethnic, religious, gender, and age lines. Respondents were asked whether or not they were proud of their religion, ethnicity, and national identity. They were also asked to identify their self-perceptions along a five-point ethnic/national scale and they were asked whether they felt themselves to be closer to co-religionists from outside Eritrea or to fellow Eritreans of different religious backgrounds.

The results seem to reinforce the idea that Eritrean national identity is very strong and that it co-exists with quite strong ethnic and religious identities. When asked to choose between ethnic and national identities, a large majority chose to emphasize their “Eritreanness” over their ethnic identities. Among former combatants, ethnic identity is even weaker, lending evidence to the argument that civic nationalism was promoted strongly within the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front.

While the Italian, British, and federation periods created new spaces of political commonality for the inhabitants of Eritrea, it was the experience of the thirty-year war with Ethiopia that created a common national identity among the disparate groups that comprise the Eritrean population. The shared suffering during the war and the bonds that resulted from the experience of being fighters, members and sympathisers of the ELF and EPLF managed to mould an unusually high level of national pride among the Eritrean population.

This high level of national solidarity is evidenced in the survey results below. The EPLF’s policy of maintaining cultural protections while promoting a pan-Eritrean identity was successful in fostering a national boundary within which both ethnic and national identities can co-exist without conflict.

National pride is very strong in Eritrea, with 100 percent of the respondents answering that they were proud to be Eritrean (Figure 1). Recognizing that being “Eritrean” has a multiplicity of meanings among Eritrean citizens, the survey seems to imply a shared recognition of a common boundary of “Eritreanness” and a pride in being identified or allied to this concept.

Religious pride is also quite strong in Eritrea, with 82 percent of respondents professing religious pride (Figure 2). Ethnic pride ₂₉ remains strong among all ethnic groups in post-war Eritrea, with 78.1 percent of the respondents answering that they were proud of their ethnicity (Figure 3). These results suggest that national pride does not come at the expense of ethnic or religious pride. The stronger national pride does seem to suggest that EPLF and GoE ideology towards national, ethnic, and religious identities has taken root in the population at-large. As mentioned earlier, this ideology has emphasized national allegiances over (but not at the expense of) ethnic and religious allegiances.

Further reinforcing this view, when asked to describe themselves along a spectrum of both national and ethnic identity, most of the Eritreans surveyed define themselves by their national identity over their ethnic identity. 69.5 percent of the respondents surveyed defined themselves as either solely “Eritrean” or “more Eritrean than [ethnic identity]”, while only 7.1 percent chose to identify themselves solely by their ethnic identity or as “more [ethnic identity] than Eritrean”) (Figure 4). Some 21 percent of respondents identified themselves as equally “Eritrean” and of their ethnicity, suggesting that there is space in post-war Eritrea for a multifaceted self-identity rooted in both national and ethnic pride.

Lastly, when asked whether or not they felt closer to fellow Eritreans of a different religious background or to co-religionists in a neighboring country (Ethiopia for Christians, Sudan for Moslems), a plurality of Eritreans chose the former (41 percent) over the latter (31 percent) (Figure 5). A notable 28 percent did not answer. Some observers have noted that religious difference is a more likely fault line in the future in Eritrea than is ethnicity. This point of view is supported by the presence of the small but extremist Eritrean Islamic Jihad, which has conducted a number of raids against Christian in villages in the western lowlands near the Sudanese border. The EIJ is the greatest internal security threat to Eritrean national unity.

Veterans of the war of independence, who are simply referred to as “fighters” in Eritrea, Most combatants spent years isolated in the field, where they were part of ongoing political education classes and discussions promoting a pan-Eritrean identity based on a common civic, social, and political past. As mentioned before, ethnicity and religion were de-emphasized among the fighters and EPLF cadres during the 1970s and 1980s. It is not surprising then, that among ex-fighters, overall ethnic pride is much lower than in the population at large, with only 43 percent of ex-fighters professing ethnic pride versus 85 percent of non-fighters (Figure 6). Similarly, 48 percent of ex-fighters expressed religious pride versus 89 percent of non-fighters (Figure 7).

The effect of war on combatants in Eritrea seems to lend credence to the theory that military service erodes ethnic allegiances in favor of national ones.

In stark contrast to many African states, which are still grappling to create cohesive polities out of ethnically and religiously diverse populations, Eritrea faces post-war mobilization challenges from a position of quite strong national unity. As war with Ethiopia intensifies, this strong sense of common national purpose will be the most formidable weapon in Eritrea’s arsenal.

 

Ethnic Nationalism in Ethiopia

Despite Ethiopia’s similar demographic composition and the wartime alliance between the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, the nationalism that has emerged in Ethiopia since 1991 is markedly different from the civic nationalist ideology in Eritrea described above. The contemporary Ethiopian state is structured on multinational lines that reinforce and promote, rather than downplay, ethnic identity. As in Eritrea, the contemporary regime’s official nationalism is the outgrowth of historical memory and of the wartime ideology of the main rebel front. Current policy can be traced to the tale of two nationalisms: Ethiopian and Tigrayan.

The last three regimes in Ethiopia, that of Emperor Haile Selassie, that of Dergue leader Mengistu Haile Mariam, and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) regime led by Meles Zenawi have all promoted nationalist visions rooted at least partially in cultural or ethnic qualities. Nevertheless, there have been sharp differences in the type of ethnic nationalism implemented by these regimes.

Ethiopian nationalism since Menelik II

The Shoan emperor Menelik II is largely responsible for the shape of modern Ethiopia. Through a series of conquests south of the Amhara highlands while King of Shoa, and later eastward in the Ogaden as emperor, Menelik expanded and consolidated the Abyssinian empire. These borders were secured and solidified through treaties with European colonial powers.

Menelik consolidated power within his empire, often referencing the past glory of the Abyssinian empire to justify the size and borders of his state, but it was not until the reign of Haile Selassie, previously Ras Tafari, that a modern Ethiopian nationalism emerged. The reign of Emperor Haile Selassie, who was also ethnically Shoan, was marked by the twin projects of state-building and nation-building. As Haile Selassie attempted to modernize the state by implementing a professional bureaucracy, centralizing political power, and developing a modern economy, he simultaneously pursued a nationalizing mission to unify his people culturally and socially. Like Menelik, the emperor drew upon both the powerful myths of a Solomonic monarchy, its close link to the history and practices of the Ethiopian Church, and Amharization.

Thus at the center of Haile Selassie’s drive to bring Ethiopia into the 20 th century was the concept of the modern Ethiopian state, led by the political and cultural traditions of an Abyssinian past rooted in an Amhara core. This nationalism was not an exclusivist ethnic nationalism, but an assimilationist model that drew upon the characteristics of a core ethnicity to define the nation. While is limited or even suppressed regional and perihperal identities, it nevertheless permitted peoples of diverse backgrounds to assimilate into the state and into his regime. Thus Haile Selassie’s court and army was filled by Ethiopians of diverse backgrounds, but most were strongly assimilated or “Amharized”. Christopher Clapham has argued that the relationship between the Amhara core and assimilation worked in both directions: the Amhara core ethnicity assimilated outsiders but in doing so underwent an absorption and transformation itself. ₃₀ Uprisings throughout Haile Selassie’s reign were often in reaction to policies of Amharization, such as the student-led protests in Eritrea in the 1950s.

A group of junior officers were able to seize power from Haile Selassie in 1974 because of famine and widespread opposition to Haile Selassie among intellectuals, students, and rank-and-file soldiers. Economic recession in the 1960s and 1970s hit educated elites hard and the state had become unable to pay many soldiers. There was popular and elite resentment of the antiquated royal bureaucracy and system of government and rising appeal of Marxist ideas. While ethnic repression was not a notable rallying point for the Dergue-led revolution, previously peripheralized ethnic groups did gain recognition through the Marxist-influenced policies of the Mengistu regime.

While the Mengsitu legacy quickly deteriorated into autocracy, many Ethiopians today remember the Mengistu regime as having widened the focus of Ethiopian identity away from the Amharic crown towards a recognition the multinational character of the Ethiopian people. A Stalinist “nationalities” policy was implemented under Mengistu, but like most of the post-revolution policies intended to expand economic or political power-sharing, new institutions quickly deteriorated into instruments of the state for the maintenance of power for Mengistu. Increasingly, resources were directed to the wars against minority nationalities in the Ogaden, Tigray, and Eritrea, and Mengistu had little patience for anything short of a unitary state.

For many ethnic minorities, most notably the Tigrayans, the Mengistu regime supressed regional aspirations for power-sharing and focused development on the core part of the country. The intelligentsia that provided much of the rhetorical and intellectual material of the revolution was overwhelmingly Amhara, and despite a nationalities policy that allowed some limited recognition of regional languages and culture, the state became even more intensely centralized that it was under Haile Selassie. It was in this context that Tigrayan nationalism emerged as a credible alternative to Ethiopian nationalism for the people of northern Ethiopia.

Tigrayan nationalism

Tigrayan nationalism was not the first nationalism to emerge against the Ethiopian state. An armed movement for independence existed since 1961 in Eritrea, long before the emergence of a Tigrayan nationalist movement in 1975. But unlike the Eritrean struggle, which was based on the shared political boundaries of colonialism, the Tigrayan rebellion against the Ethiopian state was a classic ethnically-based movement. Drawing upon Tigrayan history in order to construct a continuous and coherent narrative of the Tigrayan nation, Tigrayan nationalism promoted strong links to the Axumite past (reflected in the still-standing stellae of Axum), the Ethiopian Church (legend also holds that Axum is home the original Ark of the Holy Covenant), and the Solomonic dynasties of Abyssinia.

The growth of Tigrayan nationalism was partially rooted in a centuries-old ethnic rivalry between the Tigrayans and the Amharas, who share a related language, a common geographic plateau, and a common religion. Much of Abyssinian history is a narrative of a shifting center between the north and the center, as Tigrayan or Amhara emperors and kings rose to power and moved the empire between these two areas. While numerically a minority, power in Ethiopia and in Abyssinia has rested in the hands of one or both of these groups. Thus, the idea of an oppressive government based in the central highlands under Haile Selassie and Mengistu Haile Mariam easily drew upon communal memories in Tigray that stretch back for centuries.

In the 1970s, long-simmering enmity toward the central state was well-established in Tigray. ₃₁ The deep and sustained poverty in Tigray was blamed on peripheralizing policies of the Amhara-dominated center. Cultural suppression through Amharization and other policies were also strongly-felt, especially among Tigray elites in the cities and in Addis Ababa. Tigrayan elites also complained of discrimination in the central government. Following the Dergue’s ascension to power, the local peasantry also reacted harshly to the land reform policies implemented by the new government. All of these factors led to the beginning of an armed struggle in 1975, led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Alemseged writes that “because of Tigray’s relative homgeneity, the TPLF cultivated ethnic nationalism as a tool of mobilization fairly easily.” ₃₂ This attracted a strong peasant base of supporters, who allowed the TPLF to grow rapidly, despite the poverty of the region and the lack of support from outside forces (save the EPLF).

The TPLF was not the unchallenged bearer of Tigray nationalism, as the Tigray Liberation Front and the Ethiopian Democratic Union also competed for the allegiance of Tigrayans against the Dergue. Nevertheless, the TPLF, aided in part by the EPLF, soon became the dominant front in Tigray.

During the 1970s, both the EPLF and the TPLF were heavily influenced by Marxist revolutionary ideology. When this dissipated later in the struggle, the two movements looked towards nationalism to provide the mortar for their struggle. As narrow religiously- and ethnically-based nationalism had threatened the very existence of the Eritrean independence movement in the 1960s, the EPLF was very careful to continue its careful balancing act between ethnicities while promoting national unity in Eritrea. The TPLF, however, did not face such a problem. It had a wealth of pre-existing collective memories that the front had been and continued to stitch together in a singular narrative. With a homogenous constituency, ethnicity proved to be an easier and more instinctual force for social and political mobilization in Tigray.

As the Mengistu regime began to weaken, the TPLF organized a cross-ethnic alliance called the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and looked to expand the war against Mengistu to areas far from Tigray, in the south and the east of Ethiopia. Not all Tigrayan leaders supported this idea, advocating instead that the scope of Tigray nationalism should remain narrow. ₃₃ Those who supported a widened strategy ultimately prevailed, but even they still continued to promote Tigrayan nationalism as the core philosophy that should guide any post-victory political structures. The centrality of Tigrayan goals within the EPRDF is reflected in the ethnic federalist policies pursued by the EPRDF since 1991.

Nationalism under the EPRDF

Since coming to power, the EPRDF has built an Ethiopian state organized around the principle of ethnic federalism. Power has been formally devolved away from the center to regional administrations, though informal power still remains in the hands of the EPRDF government and the Ethiopian political system remains largely undemocratic in practice.

The TPLF core of the EPRDF pursued an ethnic nationalism for sixteen years against the Mengistu regime. As a result, the Tigrayan leaders wanted to implement a system that would protect Tigrayan interests and prevent the nationalizing and centralizing policies of the Dergue from ever being repeated.

The TPLF was an ethnically-rooted revolutionary organization and upon expanding its struggle, reached out to ethnically-based groups, helping to create them where they did not exist. Recognizing the shortcomings and failures of the centralized Ethiopian state and a centered ethnic nationalism in the past, the EPRDF sought to implement a federation of ethnic regions as the new form of government. Previously-suppressed identities would be allowed to flourish, and there would be no regional favoritism in economic or political terms. Each region would be allowed to pursue its own destiny under the loose umbrella of the Ethiopian state.

The London Conference in July of 1991 laid the groundwork for a post-Mengistu Ethiopian political system. The conference approved of a referendum on independence in Eritrea and set forth the founding principles an EPRDF-led Ethiopian state. This included a Council of Representatives and plans for future democratic elections. The London Conference also established the right of self-determination for the different ethnic nationalities of Ethiopia, including secession. The Council of Representatives was created shortly after the conference, dominated by ethnically-based political groups (out of 82 seats only 4 were reserved for self-defined “Ethiopian” representatives ₃₄ ).

The first opportunity to see how EPRDF’s polyethnic nationalism would play out in practice came in June 1992 during local elections. The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) boycotted the elections claiming that the EPRDF was harassing local candidates and led an uprising in eastern Orominia that was put down by the army. EPRDF-backed candidates were overwhelming winners in the elections. The June 4, 1994 elections for the Constituent Assembly were also marked by strong intimidation against non-EPRDF parties. International observers noted a pattern of harassment and suppression of non-EPRDF candidates throughout the country.

The national elections of May 7, 1995 were boycotted by most parties other than the EPRDF and its allies. The elections nevertheless changed the complexion of the leadership of the central government, as most Tigrayans were replaced, although Meles Zenawi became Prime Minister and Seyoum Mesfin remained Foreign Minister. While Ethiopians of more diverse ethnic backgrounds entered the government, there were almost all from the EPRDF.

While it is true that most political parties have been organized along ethnic lines, many of the ethnic parties currently functioning in Ethiopia are not seen by ethnic groups as representative of their interests. The TPLF/EPRDF established most of the ethnic parties presently in power from Dergue POWs, such as the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO). Most of the devolved power and resources in regional administrations is funnelled through these EPRDF-backed parties. Simultaneously, any ethnic parties that have emerged outside of the EPRDF, such as the OLF, are prohibited from meeting and organizing throughout most of the country. Furthermore, the EPRDF has been very resistant to any attempts to organize an Amhara-based political party and has suppressed a number of attempts to do so.

While the decentralizing policies of the EPRDF ended the most exploitative practices of the Dergue, the EPRDF still dominates the political and economic landscape, overseeing most development projects and directing the flow of money to the regions. This has most notably benefitted Tigray, one of the poorest regions of Ethiopia, which has seen considerable funds directed to the province through EPRDF development projects.

As Young says, “At the centre of the EPRDF’s agenda since 1991 have been efforts to supplant the hegemonic Ethiopian state through the establishment of decentralised ethnic-based administrations."” But while decentralization has meant that for many regions the central government asks for much less than under the Dergue, it also means that the central government provides less to regions. Tigray and regions connected most closely to the EPRDF leadership have benefitted disproportionately from the flow of resources from the central government.

This has led Clapham to speculate that the Tigray leaders of the EPRDF have unevenly implemented the program of decentralization in order to protect their own interests. A truly decentralized democracy would mean that Tigrayans, who make up less than 10 percent of the Ethiopian population, would be outvoted and possibly lose power, while, complete devolution would result in economic dependence on richer states within Ethiopia for Tigray. ₃₅

While the EPRDF program for ethnic federalism seems democratic in a formal-legal sense, its implementation has been flawed by continued resistance to power-sharing and the narrow interests of the EPRDF leadership. The Tigray nation is benefitting from the policy of ethnic nationalism, but whether or not this policy will be extended beyond the patronage areas of EPRDF leaders remains to be seen. Clapham says that this demonstrates the “extraordinary difficulty of creating an ethnic federation which would combine the requirements of accountability, order and the equitable distribution of resources.” ₃₆

Ethnic federalism in Ethiopia cannot be separated from the needs of Tigray nationalism. The current structure of the Ethiopian government provides a release valve for competing ethnic nationalisms, but also an escape valve for Tigrayans, should it become impossible to continue to dominate the Ethiopian state. Criticisms from non-Tigrayans in Ethiopia that the current government is directing most economic development and aid to Tigray merely reinforce this scenario.

 

The Outbreak of Border War

Haile Selassie’s 1963 border invocation of Ethiopian-Eritrea unity was little more than myth-making, coming less than a year after Ethiopia annexed Eritrea, which had existed for more than sixty years as an Italian colony. Within a decade, an overwhelming majority of Eritreans would support separation from not unity with the Ethiopia empire. For the next thirty years, Eritreans waged a bloody war for independence first against the emperor and later against his tokenly-Marxist successor, Mengistu Haile Mariam. Two years after defeating Mengistu together with the EPLF, an Ethiopian leader again addressed the Eritrean people about the common destiny of people to the north and the south of the Mereb River, but with a very different message. Meles Zenawi said:

We cannot forget the past so that it can teach us lessons; we remember our wounds so that we can learn from them; but we should not scratch them; we should not dwell on them. Let bygones be bygones. We have commenced a new chapter. In this new chapter, we will not build a wall at the Mereb. ₃₇

The present-day borders of Eritrea were created by a series of treaties between Italy, Britain, France and Abyssinia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Following a series of wars between Italy and Abyssinia (precursor of the modern Ethiopian state), including the famous defeat of the Italians in Adua in 1896, the fighting ended and maps were drawn to protect the peace.

The maps are back but this time they are the source of conflict. In 1997, the Ethiopian Mapping Authority commissioned a map to be drawn of Badme, a disputed region in northwest Ethiopia/southwest Eritrea. Eritrea now contends that this map “annexed” parts of Eritrean territory and eventually moved military units last May to the disputed area at the border. Ethiopia, on the other hand, claims that this was an unjustified and unprovoked act of aggression and also mobilized military units.

If the present conflict was solely about where their border is, this conflict would be “absurd”, as Italian President Scalfaro has said, for the colonial maps delineating the border are readily available and quite detailed (Italy last summer scoured its colonial archives and handed over all relevant maps to the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments).

The real roots of this conflict lie not in cartography, but in Ethiopian and Eritrean domestic politics. On the Eritrean side, the introduction in December 1997 of an Eritrean currency, the Nakfa, and its subsequent rejection by the Ethiopian government as a medium for cross-border trade, has hurt the Eritrean economy and led to widespread resentment of Ethiopia.

On the Ethiopian side, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is confronting a threefold challenge to his power. First, Meles is contending with ethnic groups such as the Oromo who feel that they have been locked out of the central government by Meles and his Tigrayan brethren. He also faces Ethiopian nationalists, including some army officers, who feel that Meles gave up too much by granting Eritrea sovereignty over the Red Sea ports of Assab and Massawa in 1991, crucial to Ethiopia’s trade with the outside world. Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, Meles faces challenges to his power from within the leadership of his own Tigray People’s Liberation Front.

Upon achieving a military victory in 1991, a significant faction of the TPLF leadership advocated the creation of an independent Tigrayan state instead of the assumption of power over all of Ethiopia. Some of the most vocal Tigrayan nationalists, such as the governor of the Tigray state, Ghebru Asrat, have been whipping up anti-Eritrean sentiment in what may be a test of Meles’ pro-Tigrayan credentials. Ghebru seems to have learned the lesson of nationalists such as Boris Yeltsin and Slobodan Milosevic that the most direct route to personal power often is through the disintegration of the multinational state.

That Meles has been relatively restrained so far is testament to his leadership. Unlike Isaias, whose unchallenged authority stems from his days as fighter in the ELF and EPLF, Meles’ background is in propaganda, not in military affairs. There are reports that Meles’s biggest rival, Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, has challenged Meles’ leadership within the government and Meles was reportedly prevented from attending a meeting of his own cabinet last summer. When the fighting broke out again this month, Meles went to Tigray to oversee the military campaign and undoubtedly try to strengthen his political position against more hard-core elements in the Tigrayan leadership.

In public, Meles’ proclamations in English have advocated a peaceful settlement. However, as Washington Post reporter Karl Vick shrewdly pointed out recently, when Meles shifts into Amharic, he is much more belligerent towards Eritrea, evidence that he is yielding to the domestic pressures in favor of an all-out war. Already, the Ethiopian army has again opened up the strategic Assab front, and it seems likely that Meles may find the tripartite pressures of the army, the Tigrayan nationalists and other ethnic leaders too intense to balance indefinitely.

The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) has stepped up attacks inside Ethiopia, announcing just last week that it would begin laying down landmines in southern Ethiopia and contacts between Eritrea and the OLF have reportedly been strengthening. The Eritrean government began broadcasting radio programs in Orominya earlier this year.

In the end, it is Meles and Ethiopia that has more to lose from the war, though the costs of war (estimated to be more than $1 million/day for each side) will be severe for both countries. While a thirty-year war has forged a relatively coherent Eritrean national identity, Meles presides over a state rife with political and cultural divisions. Part of these divisions are the result of ruling over a large and diverse country, but much of the division has been widened by the policies of the EPRDF. In contrast to Eritrea’s civic nationalism, which emphasizes an anti-ethnic, secular brand of political unity, the post-Mengistu Ethiopian state is consciously set up along ethnic lines, with each state government dominated by a different ethnic group. Contrary to the claims of the central government that all nine of Ethiopia’s provinces are preparing for war, Meles may find that the ethnic leaders of the state governments are in fact preparing not for battle, but for the collapse of Meles’ regime.

While much has been made of the small size of the Eritrean state, the strength of the Eritreans should not be discounted. For thirty years, the Eritreans were underestimated by two Ethiopian governments and their superpower backers. There are few nations in the world as united, motivated, and prepared for war. While their army is only about one-third the size of the Ethiopian federal army, it has more battle experience and has more than enough weaponry to sustain a long war. In an area fourteen times smaller than Ethiopia, Eritrea’s military budget is almost two-thirds that of Ethiopia. It is no wonder that Paul Beaver of Jane’s Information Group called Eritrea a “David with attitude.” ₃₈ Recent victories over the Ethiopians in Badme and in the border town of Zalambessa point to Eritrean dominance over the Ethiopian militias.

In the end, there does not seem to be any quick solution to the border conflict. Both sides have invested too much political and psychological capital in the dispute and as one diplomat recently observed, are too stubborn to pull back from war. Prime Minister Meles has too much to lose if he backs down, and Eritrea fought for thirty years against Ethiopia and can easily draw upon wartime memories to mobilize its people and sustain the conflict. Politically, President Isaias can afford to wait the conflict out. Last June, President Isaias told a Reuters reporter: “The problem with the peace process is the hasty way it was managed by the Americans. They believe in quick fixes and bulldozing and that does not work. It is not our culture. . .The Western way of looking at things in terms of money and resources is a stupid way of looking at it. We have our own values and traditions, prestige and pride.” After thirty years of going it alone, the Eritreans have little to lose compared to Ethiopia. Meles Zenawi, however, is not fighting for a border as much as for his own political survival and that of Ethiopia itself.

 

Conclusions

As we meet in Washington today, war continues on three fronts along the Eritrean-Ethiopian border. Death tolls are climbing, most attempts by outsiders to broker a peace settlement have met with failure, and more than 50,000 Eritreans have been expelled from Ethiopia and their property confiscated in an under-reported aspect of the war.

To understand the potential for sustained political mobilization against Eritrea within Ethiopia requires further study to measure the strength of national and ethnic sentiments in Ethiopia. A similar survey to the one conducted in Eritrea would enable us to measure the effect of Ethiopian ethnic federalism on the differing populations. While it is safe to assume that national/ethnic identity in Tigray is very strong, the central government, which is perceived by many Ethiopians to be Tigrayan-dominated, will need more than the support of its own ethnic compatriots in order to wage war against Ethiopia. Whether or not Oromo or Amhara families are willing to send their children north to die for what seems like another family’s internal feuding remains to be seen. Furthermore, whether or not this war brings about a different nationalist ideology and policies within Ethiopia in order that refocuses on a pan-Ethiopia unity also remains unknown.

Nevertheless, we may make some initial conclusions:

1. The post-Mengistu governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia have pursued markedly different nationalist ideologies and programs over the last seven and a half years.

In terms of official nationalism, the present Eritrean and Ethiopian governments have implemented government policies that are polar opposites. Eritrea has specifically prohibited political parties to be organized along ethnic lines; Ethiopia has specifically promoted ethnically-based political parties and structures of government. Eritrea redrew the colonial district map it had inherited in order to break down regional allegiances and replaced them with new renamed and reordered administrative regions; Ethiopia has further reinforced pre-existing regional boundaries and institutionalized them through devolution based on ethnic federalism. While there have been some similar measures implemented by both regimes, such as education in local languages, Eritrea’s centralizing civic nationalism and the centrifugal ethnic federalism of Ethiopia remain stark contrasts to one another. These contrasts emerge from the different wartime ideologies of the TPLF and the EPLF, which drew upon constituencies with very different ethnic compositions for support.

2. Eritrean national sentiment is very high, and seems to trump ethnic and religious allegiances within the country, especially among the sizable population of ex-fighters.

For an African state in the post-colonial era with as diverse a population and as long a history of regional conflict, Eritrean national sentiment is significantly strong. Brought together by three decades of war against a common enemy and further unified through the pan-ethnic nationalist vision of the EPLF, the Eritrean population identifies strongly with the nation above all other competing identities. It remains to be seen whether the appeal of the Eritrean nation will remain as strong in future generations, but as long as almost all citizens can draw from common collective memories, it would seem that national unity will persist. There would seem to be very little possibility of ethnically-based dissent from within the army or among ex-fighters, as national sentiment is strong and ethnic and religious pride is lower among this population group than the population at large.

3. While an ethnic/civic dichotomy is appropriate for explaining the character of Ethiopian and Eritrean nationalism, both cases present ethnic and civic models of nationalism that diverge from earlier understandings.

While ethnic nationalism is usually described as more emotional and intense and civic nationalism as more voluntaristic and rational, these characteristics are inverted in the Eritrean and Ethiopian cases. Ethiopian ethnic federalism is based on the voluntary participation of ethnic groups in the federal government, whereas Eritrean nationalism is based on many of the emotive ties usually associated with ethnic nationalism.

Eritrean civic nationalism is not based in a strong concept of liberal individualism such as that found in the liberal democracies of western Europe. While not strictly ethnic, the “civic” duty of the Eritrean nation has been to fight and to protect independence and “the spilled blood of the Eritrean martyrs.” This is quite different from a civic nationalism based on voluntary participation in political structures and institutions. Nor is Eritrean nationalism the sort of mere territorial nationalism found throughout the post-colonial world. Eritrean nationalism emphasizes common membership in the nation based on the experience of a thirty-year struggle for independence, not just the relatively-arbitrary borders of the post-colonial legacy.

Contemporary Ethiopian ethnic nationalism, on the other hand, steers away from past models of assimilation into an ethnic core and promotes a polyethnic nationalism that some might even argue hardly looks like a nationalism at all. Young calls the EPRDF’s ethnic federalism “highly innovative and even daring” and Clapham calls it on the face “innovative”. In the light of Ethiopia’s failed nation-building projects earlier in the century, it is easy to understand the appeal of a nationalist policy that provides political power for all of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups. But it remains an unanswered question as to whether such a policy will preserve or further disintegrate an Ethiopian state and any lingering vision of an Ethiopian nation.

The potential costs of war for Meles’ government are large. If able to secure access to the sea (a doubtful military prospect), he can be seen as recovering some of Ethiopia’s lost pride in the eyes of Ethiopian nationalists (in particular among Amhara and “Ethiopian” intellectuals). But focusing on war with Eritrea may merely forestall lingering anti-Tigrayan sentiment and actually increase support for breakaway forces such as the OLF by Eritrea and other outsiders. If the state is to further disintegrate or if there is merely a stalemate, it is difficult to see how this helps Tigray, which is closely tied to Eritrea geographically and economically and depends on trade with Eritrea for long-term development.

Though the war has already hurt Eritrea economically as well, Eritreans are unwilling to see a single square mile of their newly-independent country be lost. Past observers have often assigned a greater emotional strength to ethnic nationalism, with its appeal to the imagined family, a common cultural history, and shared blood ties. Yet the powerful ties that bind Eritreans are also rooted in shared blood, the blood that was spilled by Eritreans of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds on battlefields throughout the country for more than two generations. For Eritrea, the re-emergence of war with Ethiopia has the potential to expand to a new generation the civic blood ties that have united Eritreans since the war. Blending the emotional and spiritual power usually accorded ethnic nationalism with a civic ideology that has the potential to overcome divisions resulting from a polyethnic population, Eritrea’s civic nationalism sustains a common identity and purpose among the cohesive.

This new civic nationalism continues to reinforce and in turn draw from the massive reservoir of national allegiance forged in the 30 years of armed struggle against Ethiopia. The memories are too strong in the Eritrean psyche to yield at all to any army of Ethiopia, whether under Haile Selassie, Mengistu or Meles Zenawi. In the memories of the recent past lie the strength for the near future, echoing Milan Kundera’s statement that “there is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.” Against the backdrop of nationalist wartime memories in Eritrea and Ethiopia, this conflict promises no quick solutions.

 

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Endnotes

*: Prepared for presentation at the 40th annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., February 16–20, 1999. Panel n°SA15 : “Nationalism, Governance, and International Society—Bridging Theory and Policy” Sponsors: Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN) and Ethnicity, Nationalism and Migration Caucus of the ISA. Chair: James Mayall  Back.

Note 1: Some of the research in this paper was presented at the ISA Europe Conference in Vienna in September 1998 and forms part of my forthcoming thesis on the history of Eritrean nationalism. I am indebted to the Department of Diplomacy and World Affairs at Occidental College for their support of this project and to John Cockell of the Association of Ethnicity and Nationalism for his organization of this panel.  Back.

Note 2: Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism. New York: MacMillan, 1944, p. 329  Back.

Note 3: John Plamenatz, “Two Types of Nationalism”, in Eugene Kamenka (ed.), Nationalism, the Evolution of an Idea. New York: Norton, 1976  Back.

Note 4: Crawford Young, Politics in the Congo. Princeton: PUP, 1965, ch. 9  Back.

Note 5: Anthony Smith, Theories of Nationalism. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1983  Back.

Note 6: James Kellas, The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity. London: MacMillan, 1991, p. 52  Back.

Note 7: Michael Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging. New York: 1993  Back.

Note 8: Ibid, p. 4  Back.

Note 9: Ibid, p. 6  Back.

Note 10: John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1993, p. 7  Back.

Note 11: Robert Thornton, “The Potentials of Boundaries in South Africa: Steps towards a Theory of the Social Edge” in Ranger, Terrence and Richard Werbner, Postcolonial Identities in Africa. London: Zed Books, 1996, p.148  Back.

Note 12: Robert Jackson, Quasi-states: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World. Cambridge: CUP, 1993  Back.

Note 13: Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988, p. xiii  Back.

Note 14: Basil Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden. New York: Times Books, 1992  Back.

Note 15: The Tigrinyan-speaking population in the northern Abyssinian highlands can be thought of as a single ethnie on the eve of colonialism, though within this ethnie there were strong regional rivalries and virtually no political unity between the entire population.  Back.

Note 16: Roy Pateman, Even the Stones are Burning. Trenton: Red Sea Press, 1997, p.  Back.

Note 17: Eritrean People’s Liberation Front. “Why We are Waging a Struggle”, Vanguard, (January 1973). In EPLF Selected Articles from EPLF Publications (1973-80), Rome: Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, 1982.  Back.

Note 18: Ibid  Back.

Note 19: Ibid  Back.

Note 20: Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, “National Democratic Programme”, Eritrea: 1977  Back.

Note 21: Rosso ( Teclemichael W/Giorgis), The Challenges of Re-Integrating Returnees and Ex-Combatants. Asmara: UNRISD War-Torn Societies Project, 1996, p. 7  Back.

Note 22: B. Kapferer, Legends of People, Myths of State. Violence, Intolerance and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1988  Back.

Note 23: See Richard Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers: One. Cambridge: CUP, 1991  Back.

Note 24: P. Connerton, How Societies Remember. Cambridge: CUP, 1989  Back.

Note 25: Government of Eritrea, The Policy Statement on NGOs. Asmara: GoE, 1997  Back.

Note 26: A. Hansen, Untitled report on Eritrean returnee communities. Eritrea: GTZ, 1995.  Back.

Note 27: It is difficult to quantify these sentiments. If indeed such pressures do exist, it is unlikely that anyone who feels constrained by an “Eritrean” identity would be too forthcoming about such sentiments in the earlier survey. It may be possible as well that while some citizens feel a strong level of national pride that they also feel a high level of ethnic pride that is restrained by government ideology.  Back.

Note 28: Fouad Makki, “Nationalism, State Formation and the Public Sphere: Eritrea 1991-1996”. Review of African Political Economy 70, 1996.  Back.

Note 29: “Ethnic pride” here refers to a general positive sentiment towards one’s affiliation with an ethnic group. Ethnic pride was determined through self-identification through direct questioning. Respondents were asked if they were “proud to be [their ethnicity].”  Back.

Note 30: Christopher Clapham, Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia. Cambridge: CUP, 1988.  Back.

Note 31: For a more-detailed description of the roots of Tigrayan nationalism, see chapter 5 in Alemseged Abay’s excellent Identity Jilted, Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1998  Back.

Note 32: Ibid, p. 118  Back.

Note 33: The legacy of this split is reportedly being played out within the TPLF leadership since war broke out with Eritrea last year. Some suggest that the war was provoked by hard-line Tigray nationalists who would like to see the Tigray leadership of the Ethiopian government topple.  Back.

Note 34: Christopher Clapham, “Ethiopia and Eritrea: The Politics of Post-Insurgency” in John Wiseman (ed.), Democracy and Political Change in Sub-Saharan Africa. London: Routledge, 1995  Back.

Note 35: Ibid, p. 131  Back.

Note 36: Ibid, p. 135  Back.

Note 37: Haddas Ertra, #77. May 27, 1993, p.4 as quoted in Alemseged, p. 230  Back.

Note 38: The Times of London, July 1998  Back.