'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM': THE STAGGERING OF ERITREA TO

NATIONHOOD
Author(s): Alemseged Abbay
Source: Africa: Rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione dell'Istituto italiano per
l'Africa e l'Oriente , Dicembre 2001, Anno 56, No. 4 (Dicembre 2001), pp. 459-491
Published by: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO)

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Africa, LVI, 4, 2001, pp. 4V)-4l)l

'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM':

THE STAGGERING OF ERITREA TO
NATIONHOOD

by Alemseged Abbay (*)

'Eritrea belongs to Ethiopia. It is Ethiopia itself and should retur

Ethiopia.'
- Walde-Ab Walde-Mariam , Nay Ertra Semuna Gazetta, 4 March, 1946,
p. 4.

Eritrea is not a rich country. It is one of the poorest countries in the

world. It belongs to Ethiopia; it was taken away from it by the Italians.
All Europeans and Americans would not need it because it would be a
liability to them - they would get no benefit from it. It has no gold, nor
any other minerals.
- Walde-Ab Walde-Mariam, Nay Ertra Semunawi Gazetta, 17 April, 1947,
p. 4.

The 'Father of Eritrea', Walde-Ab Walde-Mariam, was one of the

few urban literati of the 1940s Eritrea. Along with the agrarian elite and
the ecclesiastics, the miniscule and nascent petite-bourgeoisie (teachers,
merchants, etc.) - Antonio Gramsci's 'organic intellectuals' (0 - could
not imagine any infrastructural or superstructural justifications for
Eritrea to go it alone. Organically linked with the dominant feudal mode
of production, that kept Eritrea and Tigray/Ethiopia an indivisible
whole, they saw no reason to rupture the historical continuity of the
region that was only briefly interrupted by colonialism.

(*) Department of History, Lakeland College, Shcboygan, WI 5Ì0S2, USA.

(1) ANTONIO GRANISCI, Selections from the Prison Notebooks ed., and tras. Quintin
Hoare and Geoffrey N. Smith New York: International Publishers, 1992, pp.5-23.

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460 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

Indeed elsewhere forces of modernit

people into two halves. Modern institut
the 1660s created separate French and S
the Pyrennes. It was also the continuity o
the Hausa of Nigeria and Niger separate
the Basques and the Hausa, the 1940s E
who were responsible for mobilizing
ideologies and political goals, refused t
River Mareb as the boundary that sliced
they saw themselves as Tigrayans of Eth
In many parts of Africa and Asia, co
colonial identities. Resilient colonial i
identities intact in the post-colonial era. T
colonialism did not necessarily alter id
remained beyond the reach of the colo
based on a rich past die hard, even in th
colonial institutions, for instance, di
[Eritrean highlands] trans-Mareb identity
colonial institutions of the Coptic Church
system {visti/ 'gulti) , etc.
Consequently, Eritreans observed the m
Ethiopia in 1952 by way of a UN-sponsore
or with equanimity. Immediately, howeve
particularities, contrary to the letters
nurturing deep grievances among the n
the political stand of the 1940s 'organic in
neither economic viability nor a distinct i
alone), the current political actors led a co
independence. Far from being an outgrow
that Italian colonialism engendered
economic resources, the Eritrean insur
reaction to Ethiopia's unilateral abrogati
Going it alone, Eritrea did in 1991. Its e
lack of an identity distinct from that o

(2) WILLIAM MILES, Hausaland Divided Ithaca: Co

(3) Tigrayan is the dominant ethnie in the tran
eight in the north and four in the south of the river
across the border and the Agaw live in the Bogus an
, respectively. See Taddesse Tamrat, Processes of
Ethiopian History: the Case of the Agaw, «Journal o

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM', ETC. 461

the Mareb - issues that prevented Walde-Ab Walde-Mariam and the

other 1940s political elite from imagining a political community separate
from Ethiopia - had to be addressed. Statehood provided the necessary
matrix for the gestation of nationhood by inventing unique symbols of
identity such as adopting the Gregorian calendar. The economic
question, however, has been more difficult. Unlike symbols of identity,
economic blueprints can hardly be invented out of a thin air. Thus the
plan to transform Eritrea into the 'Singapore* of the Horn of Africa and
a regional 'economic hub' is a far cry. This paper argues that it is Eritrea's
difficulties to meet the criteria of nationhood - criteria that the 1940s
'organic intellectuals' believed did not exist - that led to the breakout
of the Ethio-Eritrean fratricidal war in 1998. The war will not give Eritrea
a 'total free access' to the Ethiopian economy. By default, however, it
will nurture and seal a distinct Eritrean identity.

^ J/%s ■ " !|rx|c|oN cRours c d i T d nr a

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462 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

ERITREA
SOCIAL GROUPS
"P Tigrinyons (Abyssiniens) fO
Tigroy ~
Boria and Ku
^

O-¿ ^

- 4
Ç) / - ^

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-J.

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' ' ''' ' ' y*C*

Boundaryless Trans-Mareb

In the early Christian era, the Axumite Empire, whose tentacles of

power reached Arabia and Meroe, flourished in the Horn of Africa. With
Adulis at the Red Sea as its principal port and Axum in the interior as
its capital, the empire had both sides of the Mareb as its core region.
Following its collapse in the 10th century, Axum was replaced by small
states. Neither the early Arab travelers nor the later European delegates,
explorers and travelers spoke about a distinct status for the Kebessa -
the core region of what was going to become 'Eritrea'.
Consequently, prior to colonialism, the Mareb was not a barrier for
social, economic, cultural and political ties in the region. For instance,
the people of Akkale-Guzai did not see their fellow Kebessa people of
Seraye and Hamassien any differently from those of Agame, south of the
Mareb. Nor was Seraye closer to Akkale-Guzai than to Adua south of
the Mareb. As such, population intermingling was routine between the

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM', ETC. 463

two sides of the Mareb and 'Scores of kinship groups in Eritrea to-day
claim origin in an ancestor immigrant from [the Tigrayan regions of]
Tembien, Shire, or Agame ... bringing their legends of high ancestry' (4).
Among others, the Adkeme Melega'e people of Seraye are believed to
have come from Bora Selewa in Tigray (5). The Carnescium of Hamassien
also see themselves as the descendents of the Queen of Sheba and King
Solomon whose relatives are in Agame (6). People could even cross the
Mareb and establish a ruling family as did the house of Cantiba Bakhit
in Carnescim whose grandparents came from Ankere in Tigray (7). The
jabarti (Kebessa Muslims) collective memory says that their original home
was western Tigray (Walqait, Shire, Axum and Adua). They also trace
their conversion to a Tigrayan, Mohammed El-Negash, a self-appointed
disciple of the Prophet who lived at the time of the Hejira. His burial
place near Adigrat, Tigray, has become a sacred site of pilgrimage (s).
It is, therefore, hardly surprising that, during the last quarter of the
19th century, Ras Walde-Mika'el Solomon of Hazzega, whom both the
revolutionary elite (9) and nationalistic scholars (10) have raised to heroism
for challenging the Tigrayan 'conquerors', claimed ancestry from the
Tigrayan Ras Mika'el Suhul, king-maker in Gondar (1769-80) (n).
Identification with the Tigrayan ruling houses was intended to legitimize
his claim to power in Hamassien. Many of the 1940s leaders, such as
Walde-Ab Walde-Mariam, the most celebrated political activist, trace
their ancestry to Tigray.
Contemporary Eritrean political leaders, including President Isaías
Afewerki, too, have Tigrayan parentage. The first military leader of the
Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (Tplf) Mehari Tekle ('Mussie') and

(4) STEPHEN H. Longrigg, A Short History of Eritrea, Oxford, 1945, p. 31.

(5) JOHANNES Kolmodin, Traditions de Tsazzega et Hazzega Uppsala, 1915, para. 31.
(6) ibid., par. 36.
(7) Trevaskis Papers, Oxford [Bodleian Library]. Mss-Brit-Emp-S.367 Boxes 1-2. 1944-
1951 Eritrea, p. 36.
(8) S. F. NADEL, Races and Tribes of Eritrea Asmara. 1944. d. 75.
(9) See, among others, Ertra'n Qalsan Sahel, EPLF, 1987.
(10) See, among others, BerekeT HAßTE SELASSIE, From British Rule to Federation to
Annexation, in BASIL DAVIDSON, LIONEL Cliffe and BEREKET HAßTE SELASSIE eds. Behind
the War in Eritrea Nottingham, 1980, p. 33: The people of Medri Bahri ... never accepted
the rule of the Abyssinian kings . . . There was continuous resistance, even at the height of
their subjugation as witness the rebellions of Woldemichael of Hamassien, and Bahta Hagos
of Akele Guzai*.
(11) WILLIAM Dye, Moslem Egypt and Christian Abyssinia New York, 1880, p. 285;
WILLIAM Winstanley, A Visit to Abyssinia New York, [1881] 1969, p. 213.

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464 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

Tplf Cc member, Yemane Kidane ('Jam

They were born and raised in Eritrea and
Eritrean People's Liberation Front (Epl
relative of Isaias Afeworki. Whilst 'Mus
his sister fought for the EPLF. On th
former Deputy Chairman of the TPLF, is
Tigray. He had a couple of his siblin
Liberation Front (Elf). Ethiopia's Pri
partially Eritrean. So is Tewodros Ha
marital links and the ties of shared lan
and, above all, historical consciousness,
boundary among the trans-Mareb peo
identity of the Kebessa was, however,
which made intermarriage between the d
exception to the rule (12).
Unlike the on-going efforts to trans
and political boundary, in the past it was
For instance, in the 19th century, ambiti
the river used the various Eritrean region
safe hideouts due to their relative periphe
From these sites, they freely plunder
challenge authorities for office (13). The
various leaders for primacy, as in the
Hazzega and Tseazzega, deprived Kebes
appointment of the military hero Ras Al
its governor in 1876 gave it a remarka
for being judicious, Alula, who made As
traditional seats of authority at Ha
encountered opposition in Kebessa fro

(12) In a small survey of 28 civilians I conduct

asked my informants whether they would prefer t
Tigrayans, south of the Mareb, or with the Afar an
Seraye' was not an uncommon answer and that regio
the choices, they emphatically preferred intermarri
the mutual distrust of parishes, see EUGENE W
Modernization of Rural France 1870-1914, Stanfor
(13) On 19th century rebellions as a means of caree
and resistance: noble and peasant in nineteenth-centu
Rebellion and Social Protest in Africa London,
Challenge of Independence Boulder CO, 1986, espec
(14) Trevaskis Papers, op. cit. p. 125.

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM', ETC. 465

Dabab Araya (native of Enderta, Tigray proper) and Ras Walde-Mika'el

Solomon (native of Hazzega, Kebessa).
The rampant rebellions were conducive for foreign expansionists to
recruit collaborators. The Italians, for instance, easily recruited allies such
as Baraki and Sebhatu (sons of Cantibai Bakhit of Carnescim), Gugsa
(son of Hailu of Tseazega), Bahta Hagos of Akkale-Guzai and
Hadgembas of Dembezan (15). However, natives of the region south of
the Mareb such as Dabab Araya, who were at home in Kebessa, also
rendered their services to the Italians.
During the resistance against the Italian colonialists, too, the
international boundary of the Mareb did not prevent the emergence of
trans-Mareb alliances. For instance, the chief of Akkale-Guzai who had
collaborated with the Italians, Bahta Hagos, rebelled against his erstwhile
patrons in 1894. He naturally sought support from his Tigrayan co-
ethnics across the international borderline. Thus the international
borderline could not keep the trans-Mareb people apart. Sharing the
same myths, ethos, political economy, religion, language, historical
consciousness and freely intermarrying, the Tigrinya-speaking people
were bound to have the same sense of collective identity - an identity
that colonialism with its attendant forces of modernity failed to weaken,
much less dismantle. That was precisely why the people north of the
Mareb continued to harbor grudges against Emperor Menelik (1889-
1913) whom they held accountable for amputating the Kebessa from the
trans-Mareb region and giving it away to the Italians (16).

Modernity Sojourns Kebessa (1890-1941)

Modernity, a multi-faceted process of breaking the 'cake of custom' (17),

is a radical mental, material and political change, which produces new

(15) Interview, Walde-Ab Walde-Mariam (Rome, Eplf), 2 November, 1982.

(16) KOLMODIN, op. cit. para. 286; For those who saw Menelik as 'a traitor who had
sold Ethiopia for money', see IRMA TADDIA, Ethiopian Source Material and Colonial Rule in
the Nineteenth Century: the Letter to Menilek (1899) by Blatta Gara Egzïabeher, «Journal of
African History», V. 34 (Cambridge, 1993) and Tekeste Negash, No Medicine for the Bite
of a White Snake: Notes on Nationalism and Resistance in Eritrea, 1890-1940 Uppsala, 1986.
The 'Separatists' [Lpp] echoed similar sentiment: Menelik 'sold us to the Italians and he
accepted a price for us', in Hearing: statement by spokesman of the LPP to Council of Foreign
Ministers, Appendix 123, 18 November, 1947. That was also why Berkeley called Menelik 'a
traitor to his race', G. F. H. BERKELEY, The Campaign of Adowa and the Rise of Menelik
London, [1902] 1935, p. 2 and p. 5 for the money the Emperor received from the Italians.
(17) CHARLES Tilly, Did the Cake of Custom Break? in JOHN M. Merreman ed.
Consciousness and Class Experience in Nineteenth-Century Europe New York, 1979.

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 466 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

attitudes, values and expectations (18). In

Italian colonial ambitions, Eritrea be
modernity (19).
However, the transplanted Wester
institutions were designed to serve the Ita
managerial, supervisory and clerical po
jobs which required minimal skills w
particularly those who came from the sou
as Sicily. The industrial infrastructure,
made mandatory, for instance, relied con
Even by colonial standards, therefore, t
scenario. Natives filled subordinate cle
most other colonial situations, as in Niger
fill these positions were hard to come by
In Eritrea, though, the pleasant and eve
with the flow of capital and technology t
Kebessa an attractive region for a limited

Urbanization and Commerce

Keeping Ras Alulas capital, Asmara,

Italians connected it with the various r
and a couple of railways. Capital flow
cathedrals and cinema theaters, and buildi
transformed the small village of Asmara i
Airport facilities were made available in t
services were installed. Supporting 53,00
Asmara had emerged as a leading city
created home far from home, the Italians
of the Eritrean population, made genero
colonial standards.

(18) SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, Political Order in Changing Societies New Haven, 1968;
Weber, op. cit.
(19) Eritrea also served as a supplier of soldiers. In the two-decade-long Libyan war,
4000 Eritrean soldiers were permanently stationed in North Africa. It also served as a conduit
for Ethiopian import and export goods, see Tekeste Negash, Eritrea and Ethiopia: the Federal
Experience Uppsala, 1997, pp. 15-16.
UÖ) DUNCAN HUMMING, lhe UN Disposal of brttrea, «African Atrairs», V. 52, # 207,
1953.
(21) Mamdani, op. cit., p. 73.
(22) Tekeste Negash, 1997, op. cit., p. 17.

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM1, ETC. 467

However, far from the Asmara urban life, natives were congregated
in the ghettos, primarily in Enda Abba Shawul (23). Excluded from the
main sectors of the urban economy, they had access only to some service
jobs. Furthermore, the fact that foreigners, particularly Levantine,
Yemeni and Indian merchants dominated the commercial economy of
the country meant that Eritrea lacked the ideal breeding ground for a
middle class. Thus it lacked even the rudimentary form of civil society
and trade unions that other African colonies began to see by 1960 (24).
This had a detrimental impact on the rise of an anti-colonial Eritrian
nationalism.

Education

In many African and Asian countries, Western education gave the

colonized a lingua franca and a limited knowledge. In the 1940s,
secondary school education was offered in Anglophone Africa and in
1952 there were more than 4000 natives attending technical and higher
education institutions abroad (25). Nationalist leaders, such as Jomo
Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah who were educated in the West, were
products of a, relatively, liberal educational policy. The French also gave
some education and succeeded in producing some black Frenchmen
(évolues). Their determination to teach natives to speak perfect French
was so unparalleled that they severely punished their students for minor
grammatical errors (26). Belgium, too, gave primary education to Congo
widely (27). Consequently, the Anglophone and Francophone elites did

(23) 'Enda', followed by a name of an ancestor of a given parish, is the settlement of

a basic kinship group, see S. F. NADEL, Land Tenure on the Eritrean Plateau, «Africa», V.
26, # 1. 1946, p. 5. What was to become the most famous native quarter of Asmara, Enda
Abba Shawul, had been munitions store under Degiat Engda 'Abba Shawal', the principal
functionary of Alula, see Haggai Erlich, Ethiopia and Eritrea During the Scramble for Africa:
A Political Biography of Ras Alula, 1875-1897 East Lansing, 1982, p. 84. Abba Shawul left his
name for the neighborhood. Native and Italian quarters not only were different from each
other, but also had little to do with each other. As if the Italians colonized only the land but
not the people, the two communities followed what Fanon called a 'principle of reciprocal
exclusivity', Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth New York, 1963, pp. 39-40.
(24) Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject Princeton, 1996, pp. 19-25.
(25) JAMES COLMAN (RICHARD Sklar ed.), Nationalism and Development in Africa
Berkeley, 1994, p. 33.
(26) KWAME Appriah, In My Father's House Oxford, 1992, p. 53.
(27) CHRISTOPHER Clapham, Africa and the International System: The Politics of State
Survival Cambridge, 1996, p. 38. On the academic opportunities colonial subjects had, see
the extensive discussions in COLEMAN, 1994, op. cit. and Rupert EMERSON, From Empire to
Nation Cambridge, 1960.

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 468 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

not only adopt colonial languages

appreciated the literature of their m
Chinua Achebes and Peter Abrahams from mainland Africa as well as
the Aime Cesaires and Franz Fanons from the Antilles are products of
colonial education.
The Italians, on the other hand, were not interested in producing
black Italians or educated Eritreans. They built several substandard
primary schools for native children to study only up to the third grade.
Even children of mixed race, recognized by their Italian fathers, could
not attend Italian schools (28). On the morrow of Italian departure,
therefore, whilst thousands of Italian children attended private schools,
only a few hundred native children attended substandard primary school.
Such limited education, therefore, could not give natives even basic
language skills in Italian. Thus, unlike the rest of Africa that was given
Lusophone, Francophone and Anglophone identities, Eritrea was far
from being Italophone. The kind of Faranshi (French) and Iglishi
(English) identities that William Miles observed among the Hausa (29)
did not exist among the trans-Mareb Tigrayans. Without Italian as a
mediator of knowledge, Kebessa natives did not learn Western experience
in any depth. Even basic acculturation was minimal. For instance,
Eritreans retained their Ethiopian calendar and the Ethiopian custom of
naming. Other Africans adopted the Gregorian calendar and, not only
did they tend to adopt European first names (e.g. Nelson Mandala,
Leopold Senghor, Au gustino Neto), but they also adopted family names.
Eritreans did neither. Their first names, which are not Italian (e.g. Walde-
Ab Walde-Mariam, Tadla Bairu, Abraha Tassama), are the important
names and they adopted no family names.
The limited education produced few teachers who could have
served as harbingers of enlightenment and nationalism. However, the few
educated men, such as Lorenzo Ta'ezaz, Dawit Oqba'zgi, Asfaha Walde-
Mika'el and Ephrem Tawalde-Medhin, for whom Italian Eritrea had little
to offer, left for Ethiopia. Enjoying high and visible portfolios in Addis
Ababa, and far from being harbingers of Eritrean nationalism, they
became the chief proponents of Eritrean unity with Ethiopia. So pathetic
was the lack of education in Eritrea that anti-Unionist Metahit [Eritrean
lowlands] Muslims had to look up to these few enlightened Eritreans,

(28) Report on Eritrea, Four Power Commission, 1948, Section V, Foreign Office 371-
69361, p. 69.
(29) Miles, op. cit.

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM', ETC. 469

who were in the service of the Ethiopian cause, for leadership. Pleading
with the Un for independence, they argued:
As to our political maturity, we shall confine ourselves to mentioning that
. . . great number of the Ethiopian officials are Eritrean by origin, also that
certain members of the Ethiopian diplomatic corps abroad are also
Eritreans. Some of them are, in fact, members of the Ethiopian delegation
now here present. This all goes to show simply that there is an able
administrative Eritrean group. And when we know that part of this group
might be able to return from Ethiopia to Eritrea, once Eritrea obtains its
independence, we fail to appreciate how these able Eritreans can be used
in a foreign country and can not be used in their own ... (3())

Even after the Italians left and education was expanded during the
British era (1941-52), there were no Eritreans with sufficient training and
skills to be given responsible administrative posts (31). As late as 1951,
the Us Department of State could not find students who met university
requirements to be given scholarships either in colleges in the U.S. or
to the American University in Beirut (32).
The limited exposure to the Western economic infrastructure as
well as social and political institutions did not permit the press to develop
in the region. Print language is crucial for imagining a pan-identity and
a distinct political community (33). The newspaper, was instrumental in
inculcating la patrie française among the 19th century French. In Africa,
too, what Benedict Anderson called 'print capitalism', helped disseminate
nationalist ideas and racial concepts during the anti-colonial struggle.
British Nigeria, for instance, had 100 periodicals owned by natives (34).
Native Eritreans, on the other hand, had no periodicals. Nor did they

(30) Statement by the Chairman of the Delegation of the Moslem League of Eritrea at
the 55th Meeting of the Ad Hoc Political Committee on 24 November 1950. UN General
Assembly 5th Session. Agenda item 21 (d) and (e). What is even more baffling is that the
Eritrean revolution did not treat these Eritreans, who were instrumental in merging Eritrea
with Ethiopia, as sell-outs. Instead, they have been lauded as Eritrean heroes who struggled
against colonialism at the international political forums, see ERTRAN Qalsan, op. cit., p. 66.
In point of fact, these Eritreans were rapidly assimilated into the social and political culture
of the Shawan Amhara ruling clique. For instance, Lorenzo Ta'ezaz who held foreign
ministerial and ambassadorial posts was married to the daughter of Ras Imru Haile Selassie,
cousin of Emperor Haile-Selassie.
(31) CUMMING, op.cit., p. 133.
(32) E.W. MULCAHY, American Consul, 'Conversation with Ibrahim Sultan and
Woldeab Woldemariam', Dispatch 142, to the Department of State, Washington, D.C., 9 May,
1951.
(33) Benedict ANDERSON, Imagined Community Norfolk, 1983. p. 122.
(34) Colman, op.cit., p. 34.

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 470 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

have a big literate and reading public. L

half-a-century Italian rule, would have
Eritrean political community, by in
symbols would have prepared the nin
as Ernst Renan had said a century a%o'
les individus aient beaucoup de choses e
the Kehessa identified with Tigray/Eth
separation or merger with Muslim/ Ar

The Colonial State

Since the forces of modernity such as those outlined above

minimally interacted with tradition, they could not have generated a
modern political structure in Kebessa, much less in Metahit. As Janus-
faced, the colonial state of Eritrea was organized differently in urban
and rural areas. In the former lived the settler Italian citizens and in the
latter the native Eritrean subjects. This citizen-subject bifurcation of a
society under the same political roof was the product of a segregationist
administration. Italy, the 19th century harbinger of the 'nation-state', did
not serve its colonia primogenita as a model. Instead, it let its subjects
stick to their customary laws, which had to be supervised by Italian
authorities, giving them what Mamdani calls a 'two-tiered structure of
statehood' (35). Customary laws, hitherto orally transmitted across
generations, were being codified. For instance, Augeni di Savoya Geneva,
the Colonial Commissioner of Seraye (1938-40), authorized the
codification of Sera'et Adkame Melega'e, the customary law of Seraye. It
was codified by thirty-eight native authorities, including leading
personalities such as Ras Kidane-Mariam Gabre-Masqal, a future leading
proponent of the Ethio-Eritrean Union ()6).
Some of what was codified, such as slavery, was archaic and
primitive. The irony is that the Italians had defined their colonial project
in the Horn as a civilizing mission of eradicating slavery and the slave
trade. Yet on the eve of their departure, and after having colonized
Eritrea for half a century, they let the customary law in Seraye codify
that

(3.5) Mamdani, op.cit., p. 287.

(36) The names of the native dignitaries is listed in the introduction of Sera'et Adkame
Melega'e (Asmara, 1936 Ethiopian calendar [1943 or 1944 Gregorian calendar]. Note that on
the eve of the Italian departure, Kebessa were using the Ethiopian calendar - in Geez
numerals at that.

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM', ETC. 47 1

If a slave bears a child from a fellow slave, while still under her master,
the child shall belong to her master. If she bears a child from a free man,
the father takes the child by paying 15 qershi and 15 fer g to the master
... A manumitted person shall never be enslaved (57).

Customary laws were not rigid and unalterable; they were elastic
and situationally interpretable. Whenever circumstances changed so did
the opinions of natives on issues, and the customary laws were alterable
accordingly. The British colonialists needed the elasticity of customary
laws to eliminate bad customs such as India's sati (the custom that
required the wife to throw herself on the dead husband s funeral pyre).
They also did not want to codify customary laws in Kenya so that they
could use its elasticity to eliminate repugnant practices without
antagonizing the people, thereby, they claimed, elevating African societies
'closer to the level of British civilization' (38). By codifying Eritrean
customary laws such as Sera' et Adkame Melegae of Seraye, however, the
Italians forfeited the elastic quality of customary laws and petrified even
primitive laws of slavery. The existence of a dual legal system -
customary laws for natives and civil laws for Italians - was the ultimate
seal of the mutual exclusivity of the colonial settlers and Kebessa natives.
They lived under the same political roof without knowing each other.
Thus, the very colonial institutions that did not bring the Italians and
the Kebessa closer also failed to create a deep wedge between the latter
and their Tigryan kin south of the Mareb in independent Ethiopia.
Consequently, the feudal economic infrastructure, that engendered
the customary laws, survived Italian colonialism. The communal land
tenure system - shehena/ diesa - was widespread in Kebessa, mainly in
Hamassien and Akkale-Guzai. Juxtaposed with diesa was visti - a tenure
based on the usufructuary rights over land (39). The former also existed
in Agame, Tigray, and the latter all over Abyssinia (northern Ethiopia).
In Kebessa, as in Tigray and the rest of Abyssinia, the Orthodox Church
maintained its economic base in land.
The attempt by the Italians to catholicize the monotheistic Kebessa
Christians and Metahit Muslims was a fiasco. However, they did manage

(37) Ibid., p. 5. Qershi is a generic name for birr, dollar, etc. In this context, the
reference is highly likely to the Maria Theresa silver thaler, which was until recently the most
trusted medium of transactions. Ferg, is a high quality cotton shawl.
(38) BRETT Shadle, Changing traditions to meet current altering conditions': Customary
law, African courts and the rejection of codification in Kenya, 1930-60, «Journal of African
Study", 40 (1999), p. 15.
(39) Nadel, op.cit. pp. 7-10; Crummey, 1980, op. cit., p. 129.

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 472 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

to force the Eritrean Orthodox Church to severe its ties with the
Ethiopian Church, thereby injecting a sense of illegitimacy on its leaders.
After their departure in 1941, however, the quest by the Eritrean Church
- a repository of Ethiopian culture and tradition - for recognition
from the Ethiopian Church transformed it into an arch Ethio-Eritrean
Unionist (40).
Despite the immense investment of Italian capital and technology
unparalleled by colonial standards, natives had no access to Italian
quarters; they could not socialize in places where Italians frequented. As
such, the settlers kept their subjects quiescent, acquiescent and
benighted. Eritrea was thus cut into two and the frontiers that kept the
natives and the Italians apart were not only what Franz Fanon called
'barracks and police stations' (41), but also language, economic inequality,
values, culture (calendar, names, etc.) and religion.
Within the native world, too, there were numerous frontiers that
kept religious, linguistic and cultural groups apart. The denial of access
to the capitalist infrastructure and the concomitant absence of social
mobilization kept the nine Eritrean ethnies so far apart and so insulated
in their respective communal niches that people from Adiquala in
Kebessa , Hirkikuo in the coast and She'eb in the western Metahit did
not see each other as fellow Eritreans. There was not a pan-Eritrean
identity, which could only have been a 'trajectory across the different
institutional settings of modernity' (42).
Even the Tigrinya-speaking Kebessa Christians lacked a distinct
identity. Their three components- Hamassien, Akkale-Guzai, Seraye -
were perceived as "different 'countries' in the true sense of the word
with different history, different character, even different customs" (43).
Their differences were epitomized in their divergent customary laws:
Meem Mehaza (Akkale-Guzai), Gabre-Kristos or Dekki Teshim
(Hamassien) and Adkame Melega'e (Seraye). Juxtaposed with this sort

(40) Telegram 1/84 730, GO. Commander-in-Chief to the War Office, 18 February,
1943, FO 371-35626. This supports John Armstrong's argument that pre-modern ethnic
identities exist in societies with monotheistic traditions. JOHN ARMSTRONG, Nations before
Nationalism Chapel Hill, 1982; see also ANTHONY SMITH, National Identity (Reno, 1991), p.
34. Even ERNST Gellner, who argued that there is nothing pre-modern about nationalism,
conceded that groups with 'literate high culture through conversion to a world religion ...
were better equipped to develop an effective nationalism,' Nations and Nationalism, Oxford,
1983. n. 83.

(41) Fanon, op. cit., p. 40.

(42) ANTHONY GIDDENS, Modernity and Self-Identity Stanford, 1991. d. 14.
(43) Nadel, 1944, op.cit., p. 67.

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM', ETC. 473

of parochialism was a balancing sense of trans-Mareb commonality based

on the Orthodox Church, the Tigrinya language, a sedentary socio-
economic life and a historical consciousness that grew out of a shared
statehood. The ancient Axumite history belongs to both Eritreans and
Tigrayans/Ethiopians. In the recent history, Ras Alula, native of south of
the Mareb, is exalted as a military hero across the river. He is particularly
revered in Kebessa as a judicious ruler (44). Consequently, the Kebessa
share all that made the Tigrayans 'cultural aristocrats' of Ethiopia (45).
Indeed, they perceive themselves more or less like what Anthony Smith,
in reference to groups like the Amhara, called, 'aristocratic ethnies' (46).
In any case, the parochial peasants of the adi in the three 'countries' of
Kebessa were integrated with the trans-Mareb political system by
economic interdependence, a rich past, as well as by what Eric
Hobsbaum calls ideological devices of 'kingship' and 'church' (47).
Otherwise, the internal dynamics that transformed 'peasants into
Frenchmen' (4S) were absent in the Eritrea of the natives.

'Not Without Them': Pan-Tigrayanism in Eritrea (1941-52)

'I have no desire to separate Eritreans from Tigrayans and Eritrea from
Tigray. I am sincerely struggling for the two not to drift apart. And when
I speak about Eritrea and Tigray, it is certain that I am speaking about
the whole of Ethiopia'.
- Walde-Ab Walde-Mariam, «Nay Ertra Semunawi Gazetta», 28
November, 1946, p. 4.

The modern body politic differs from a traditional one in the scope
of political consciousness, political involvement of its population and the
nature of its political institutions (49). The trans-Mareb 'cake of custom'
was so intact that in the 1940s Eritrean political landscape, 'organic
intellectuals' such as Abune Marcos and Qeshi Dimetros Gabre-Mariam

(44) See Alemseged Abbay, The Trans-Mareb Past in the Present, «Journal of Modern
African Studies», 35, 3, 1997.
(45) JOHN YOUNG, Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia: the Tigray an People's Liberation
Front 1975-91 1 Cambridge, 1997, p. 31.
(46) Smith, 1991, op.cit., p., 55.
(47) On the political consciousness of the peasantry, see ERIC HOBSBAWM, Peasants and
Politics, «Journal of Peasant Studies», v. 1, # 1, 1977, p. 17.
(48) Weber, op.cit..
(49) Huntington, op.cit., p. 89.

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474 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

from the Church played vital roles

Noted feudalists such as Ras Tassam
Abraha Tassama who had a secured p

'Behere-Agazi' ['Nation of the Free'] d

identity of the 'Eritrea for Eritreans' mov
their emblem. Note the River Mareb is not
of Alewa, which separates the Tigrinya-s
populations, that is highlighted in double l
such as Walde-Ab Walde-Mariam used 'E
Agazi' interchacreably.

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM', ETC. 475

played a central part in the Tigray-Tigrignie movement of bringing

Eritrea and Tigray together (50). Even relatively enlightened Eritreans
such as Tadla Bairu and Walde- Ab Walde-Mariam did not opt to go it
alone. The former was a Unionist and the latter a pan-Tigrayan activist
who harbored no aversion to Ethiopia until much later when Ethiopia
made seven attempts on his life.
Since it is with modernity, as in 19th century Europe, that mass
politics of ethnic collectivities seek statehood, the Kebessa peasant
masses, with minimal political consciousness, did not seek independence
for Eritrea. They were merely following whatever their village chiefs
{chiqa adi) and district heads {meslene) said. Political consciousness such
as patriotism is an urban thought and la patrie [adi abo] has no
significance and 'exists no more in local speech than in local hearts' (51).
Consequently, two of the major political parties in the British era did
not want to severe Eritrea from Tigray/Ethiopia. The Unionist Party,
which sought merger with Ethiopia, and the Liberal Progressive Party
(Lpp), which sought either independence or autonomy for Eritrea and
Tigray (Tigray-Tigrignie) within the Ethiopian empire-state, did not
imagine a separate Eritrean political roof.
The political goal of the Lpp ('Eritrea for Eritreans') was fluid
between autonomy and independence for 'Eritrea', which was not limited
to the former colonia primogenita but included Tigray (see map). The
Lpp came into existence in 1947 with a pan-Tigrayan (Tigray-Tigrignie)
agenda, aspiring to bring the Tigrinya-speaking people, and the
minorities who lived among them, into an independent or autonomous
state under the Ethiopian empire-state. Its activists claimed that their
'country, Tigray-Tigrignie, is known in the whole world for being the
cradle of statehood, Christianity and civilization' (52). They identified with
Tigrayans, grieving as their leaders died or suffered political setbacks.

(50) The institutions of Gulti (fief) and Church, which were intertwined with the
traditional political system, remained intact in Eritrea, having enduring links with Ethiopia.
The Church, for instance, resisted the Italian attempt to give it an identity distinct from that
of the Ethiopian church. Ultimately it emerged as a bastion of unity with Ethiopia. Gulti
continued as an economic and political base of traditional leaders. It nourished the warrior
ethos of feudal Abyssinia, see Crummey, 1986, op.cit.
(51) WEBER, op.cit., pp. 98-100. During my survey, 'fatherland' [adi abó] did not carry
any political tone or meaning for most of my political elite and civilian informants.
(52) Degiat Abraha Tassama, Takafelti ena ['We share i.e. the agony of Tigray], «Nay
Ertra Semunawi Gazetta» Asmara, 20 December, 1945, p. 3.

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476 ALEMSEGED ABB A Y

When Degiat Kassa Sebhat of Agame died,

Tassama, wrote 'Big Mourning' in «Nay
(Asmara), 15 November 1945 (p. 3), statin
Kassa was a grief not only for Tigray but
well. He further lamented the confinemen
grandson of Yohannes IV in Addis Ababa
a loss of a potential leader of Tigray-Tigrigni
expressing sympathy out of shared socio-c
clearly making a political statement. The
Selassie Gugsa, the great grandson of E
collaborated with the Italian invaders, from
Ababa, was also strongly opposed by the Erit
apparent reference to the House of Tigra
political leaders: (In my opinion, if Erit
Ethiopia, ... in stead of saying it will be rule
to say it will be administered by a Tigriny
in the case of the House of Savoy of S
risorgimento, the House of Tigray was assum
Kebessa elite began to look up to it as a dy
Tigrignie autonomous or independent sta
dynasties were considered as necessary prece
states: 'une nation est avant tout une dynast
conquête* (55).
It was in recognition of the high regard t
in Eritrea that Emperor Haile Selassie, who w
back in his empire, tried once more to m
descendents of Yohannes. As a gesture of g
wed his favorite granddaughter, Princess
great grandson, Mangasha Seyoum (56).
The pan-Tigrayan 'Eritrea for Eritreans' [L
people had to stick together in a political

(53) Cipher message from Bma to Medeast For Civi

(54) WALDE-AB WALDE-Mariam, Ertra namen [E
Semunawi Gazetta», 29 May, 1947, Part V, p. 4.
(55) Renan, op.cit., p. 11.
(56) American Legation, Addis Ababa, to the Secret
February, 1949. Two previous attempts of marriage w
1930s, the Emperor wed the teen-ager Crown Princ
Seyoum, the widowed of two kids and great granddau
14-year-old daughter, Princess Zanaba Worq, to the 32
governor of Eastern Tigray and great grandson of Yoha

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM', ETC. 477

language, one history and one ethnic identity. Even the Italians kept the
people together. It is a oneness that was known to the whole world' (57).
Alienating Tigrayans was discouraged. Ironically, it was the Unionist
Tadla Bairu who attempted to alienate Tigrayans such as Walde-Ab from
the Eritrean political landscape. Walde-Ab responded that he was 'pleased
and honored', like most Eritreans (except some such as Tadla Bairu), to
have Tigrayan ancestry. He saw no need to bifurcate the trans-Mareb
people who, according to him, were one and the same(58). An 'Eritrea
for Eritreans' activist further challenged anyone treating Tigrayans as
aliens: 'Who are you [Eritreans]? What is your language? What makes
you different from Tigrayans? ... Let us face it - with Tigray, we share
the same language, the same history, the same ancestry' (59)
Others blamed the Amhara King of Shawa (the future Emperor of
Ethiopia) Menelik for betraying the Tigrayan Emperor of Ethiopia
Yohannes IV and inviting the Italians to divide 'a hitherto honored and
feared people'. By summoning the past, they argued for the oneness of
the Tigrinya-speakers: 'Independence based on history is lasting because
it has a solid foundation' i60). They continued, 'By forgetting the history
of Tigray, let us not say our home is Entoto [the hills in Addis Ababa]' (61).
They constructed a pan-Tigrayan identity vis-à-vis the Amhara and as a
means of avoiding unity with them, the memory of the atrocities
committed by the state during the Tigrayan Weyane insurgency was
invoked:

In 1943, ... the heroic people of Tigray rose against oppression. Realizing
slavery means death, and death for the sake of freedom is martyrdom,
they rebelled. Too alarmed, the Shawans mercilessly bombed the market
of Makelle, the Tigrayan capital, with borrowed fighter planes, killing close
to five thousand women, children, and elderly ... Then the Shawans
unleashed their armed forces upon the civilians to loot and rape . . . When

(57) Interview, Walde-Ab Walde-Mariam, (Orota, Eplf), 6 September, 1987.

(58) WALDE-AB WALDE-MARIAM, Beza'eba Ertra Kczareb mesci zeiewo de' a men kon
yeke'ivun' ['Then who has the Right to Speak about Eritrea?], «Nay Ertra Semunawi Gazetta»,
28 November, 1946, p. 4.
(59) Gabre-IGZI Andom, 'Elama Natsenet'en Harnet'en Ertra' ['The Objectives of
Freedom and Independence of Eritrea], «Hanti Ertra» (Asmara), 4 February, 1950, p. 2. See
also his Wegid hasab memeqeqal adekan barenet Shatvan' ['Shun the idea of dividing your
country and Shaw an slavery'], «Hanti Ertra», 18 February, 1950, p.2.
(60) Alemayehu ALULA, Tarik entezeyehlu mestir aymetegalsen' ['If there was no history,
secrets ivould not have been Revealed'], «Hanti Ertra», 18 February, 1950, p.2.
(61) ALEMAYEHU ALULA, Zelenayo gezie kehalef serahena gen heyaw koynu kenabar eyu'
['The time we live in will pass, but our deeds last'], «Hanti Ertra», 4 March, 1950, p. 4.

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478 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

it became unbearable, the people led by

the chief of the army, Ras Abebe Aragay
were being raped and they were being lo
Ras Abebe responded: 'You are not bein
worse.' Before we get oppressed like
administer our country ourselves. That
your comrade is being shaved, wet your

Yet, the LPP had no aversion to

belonged to them. They made a disti
'ancient Ethiopia' and Shawa-centered
'Father of Eritrea' Walde-Ab, for instan
with Ethiopia as the conclusion of on
Long live free and independent Eritrea
Long live ancient Ethiopia
Long live Africa and Africans (63)

The five-decade sojourn of moderni

to legitimize the 'illogical partition
homogeneous population' i64). Realizin
made in the region, a former British
obvious and how salutary it would b
Tigrayan ethnie] into a compact unit
alike dictate' (65). The 1940s political a
historical, cultural and economic links
blocks for Kebessa s nationalist ideology
The Eritrean scenario, therefor
nationalism in the rest of Africa w
intellectuals and professionals who bene
denial of education during the Italian
of the Kenyattas and Nukhrumas in

(62) ABBAY Gabre-Abzigi, Cheheme betsayka

Ertra», 8 April, 1950, p. 2. It is worth noting that
to show that there existed links between the pa
with the Weyane insurgency to the south, despit
Ethiopia: Power and Protest Cambridge, 1991, pp
(63) WALDE- Ab Walde-Mariam, 'Tehut qal sela
of greetings to the honored people of Eritrea'], «
(64) HAROLD COURTLANDER, Gura Eritrea, t
D.C. 22 March, 1943.
(65) STEPHEN Longrigg, The future of Eritre
1946, p.993.

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 'not with them, not without them*, etc. 479

a rich past - the African states missed (66). What the latter
Westernized literati - the former missed. Yet, the current poli
actors, unlike their predecessors, disavowed the trans-Mareb pas
came up with the myth of a more 'developed and modernized Er

'Not with them': Making Eritreans

Imagining Modernity: The Cacciavite Factor

Identity is an imagined and abstract concept that does

necessarily correspond to the reality of language, culture, etc.
subjective. Yet, it is not imagined out of a thin air. The British a
Swiss do not imagine their identities ex nihilo. The Irish, Welsh,
and English are attached to their Crown, Parliament and rule o
The Italians, French and Germans of Switzerland have their demo
traditions under the Swiss political roof. Eritrea did not get such sy
of identity out of colonialism, not even a lingua franca. For bot
Metahit and the Kebessa, Italian was arcane and, for the former, Tig
too was remote. Thus the Metahit preferred Arabic for an of
language (67). A language they could not understand, Arabic was elev
to a symbol of their Islamic identity. To the peasantry, thus, Eri
ness had little meaning.
The post 1960 political elite, however, tried to make Eritrean
of the peasantry by claiming colonial experience and exposure
Western civilization. Whatever residues of modernity were available
been used as the basis of imagining a 'developed Eritrea'. For inst
in a conference on the political economy of Ethiopia held in
Hopkins University, at the School of Advanced International St
(Sais) in 1988, a distinguished Eritrean anthropologist, Prof
Asmerom Legesse i68) gave a talk on Eritrea's potential for economic
reliance and viability. As in soccer, he asserted, Eritreans
internalized technology, and their country would have little diff
developing an industrial economy. Illustrating his point, he said,

(66) ANTHONY SMITH, The myth of the 'Modern Nat ihn' and the Myths of Nati
«Ethnic and Racial Studies», v.ll, #1, 1988, pp. 10-11.
(67) For a Loyal and Fair Application of the United Nations Resolution for Er
Memorandum of the Moslem League in Eritrea to the Commissioner of United Nati
Eritrea, H.E. Eduardo Anze Matienzo, 10 October, 1951, p. 13.
(68) Author or Gada: Three Approaches to the Study of African Society New York,

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480 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

he left Asmara as a young man for

a screwdriver with him. Not kno
schoolmates called it tabanja mafcha
the professor, this was an indication
internalized Western techonology tha
independence, Eritreans could buil
industrial infrastructure. A participant
McCann, asked the panelist what the
was. Smiling in embarrassment, Prof
word for it in Tigrinya, without ment
used in the language. This was how the
the 1940s 'organic intellectuals', began t
vis-à-vis the 'rural' Ethiopian others.
A little exposure to Western culture
knowledge; so much so that the y
knowledge of small things such a
Asmerom's perception was representa
'developed Eritrea'. When an anthrop
entails much more profound and broad
an image, it is not difficult to figure ou
Not surprisingly, the Professor did not
who 'internalized technology' had to t
When Eritrea was annexed by Et
political elite began to see themselves d
the Mareb. Claiming Italian Eritrea, the
exposed to modernity. For instance, t
freight-carrying ropeway that stretc
Asmara,. The Italians built it when t
relieve the traffic on the road and rail
collapsed, after the defeat and subseq
1941, so did the utility of the ropew
elite, it was the symbol of their leve
used it and had neither the means nor the skill to maintain it.
Since nationalism is mainly a modern phenomenon, the fact that it
was weak in the 1940s and 1950s Eritrea is an indication, in and of itself,
that the forces of modernity in the region were weak. The 'shock of
Modernity' (69) did not significantly perturb the native society. Nor did

(69) MICHAEL WATTS, The Shock of Modernity: Petroleum, Protest, and Fast Capitalism
in an Industrializing Society, in ALLAN FRED and MICHAEL WATTS, Reworking Modernity New
Brunswick, 1992.

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM', ETC. 481

it unleash energies to be harnessed by nationalist forces which would

have destroyed old allegiances and built a new nation.

EPLF and TPLF: Odd Bedfellows

The Eritrean armed struggle for independence, which was launched

in 1961, received considerable outside support particularly from the Arab
World (70). However, internal divisions and the mightier Ethiopian army
effectively kept the insurgency at bay until the mid-1970s. It was the
beginning of the Tigrayan insurgency in 1975 that gave it a jump-start.
Not only did the TPLF keep the regime's attention and energy divided,
but the Tigrayan combatants also directly fought for the EPLF.
Despite much intimacy, albeit intermittent, the EPLF and TPLF
perceived each other as separate. For the EPLF, the mutual support was
not due to having a common political agenda but sheer strategic alliance
against a common enemy. The tone and content of their language always
highlighted the 'us' and 'them' dichotomy, a process that continued after
independence. 'By historical accident,' said Eritrea's first ambassador to
Ethiopia, 'the people of Tigray and Eritrea struggled against a common
enemy. Because of this, there is a special and strong relationship between
them' (71). What the simultaneous convergence and divergence of the
EPLF and TPLF shows is that, for political entrepreneurs, beyond
diacritical factors (language, culture etc.) and a shared history,
nationalism is first and foremost, the politics of power.
Their military alliances and joint operations impressed the
Ethiopian ruling Derg [military junta: 1974-1991] that they were aspiring
for a common state. Despite the immense and fairly accurate intelligence
data they were getting, the Derg could not believe that the two Fronts
had divergent programs. The Derg leader Mengistu was publicly (72) and
in Politbureau meetings (7Î) stating that the EPLF and TPLF were fighing
to create a 'Greater Tigray' state. For him and the rest of the political
elite in Addis Ababa, it was axiomatic that the TPLF was a mere
brainchild of the EPLF: 'We thought the brain of the TPLF was in Sahel

(70) JOHN Markakis, National and Class Conflict in the Horn of Africa Cambridge,
1987, especially chapt. 5.
(71) «Weyin» (Addis Ababa), #71, Sene 1985[June 1992], p. 4.
(72) «Addis Zemen» (Addis Ababa), Taqamt 9, 1982 [19 October, 1990], p.5.
(73) 105th Regular Meetings of the Politbureau, Maskarem 20, 1982 [30 September,
1990], p.15.

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 482 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

[Eplf's base]. We thought the TPLF w

due to the favorable conditions created
Not only did the EPLF and TPLF ha
for independence and the latter for
relationships were also all but smoot
senior partners, the EPLF enjoyed a r
nor reciprocal. Primarily, the TPLF h
domestic rival the Eritrean Liberation Front (Elf) out of Eritrea.
Although the EPLF deny the involvement of the TPLF 'foreigners' in the
Eritrean domestic affairs, both the Elf and TPLF admit the decisive role
the Tigrayans played in bringing the 11 -year-old Eplf-Elf civil war to
an end in 1981.
Secondly, half of TPLF s regular forces fought along with the EPLF
for nine months in Naqfa, during 'Operation Red Star' when the Derg
launched a massive army to defeat the Eritrean insurgency once and for
all. The TPLF got engaged in Eplf's trench and conventional war, a
strategy that they believed was untimely. They tried, in vain, to persuade
the Eplf to switch to mobile warfare. Yet, knowing the Dergs victory
in Eritrea was going to adversely affect them, they reluctantly agreed to
pay a costly price.
After successfully defending Naqfa, the Tplf returned home
without any of the captured heavy and light weapons: 'We were not
interested in weapons ... When we agreed to shed our blood in Sahel,
captured weapons were not issues we wanted to bargain about. We took
none and left everything there' (75). Although the EPLF do not speak and
write about the TPLF participation, the Derg admitted it was the cause
for their setback:

During Operation Red Star, when we did not think the Tigrayan bandits
were so organized and when we thought they were not of much threat to
us, they played a decisive role in disrupting our efforts to break the
weakened Naqfa front (76).

The Derg launched another 'Operation Red Star' in 1985, this time
in Tigray', in order to take advantage of the sudden weakness of the

(74) Seventh Emergency Meeting of the Politbureau, Magabit 20, 1980 [17 April, 1988],
p. 6.
(75) Mohamed Yonus, [chief of Ethiopia's ground forces during the war with Eritrea],
2 March, 1994 (then aged 37).
(76) President Mengistu, 97th Regular Politbrureau Meeting, Yakatit 22, 1981 [30
February, 1989], pp. 6-7.

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM', ETC. 483

Tplf by the Naqfa war and the famine that struck the region. The
Eritreans refused to help their erstwhile partners. Using mobile warfare,
unlike the Eritrean trench and conventional warfare, the Tigrayans
managed to survive the Derg offensive all by themselves. But before their
sense of betrayal subsided, they were still willing to support the Eplf.
According to the Dergs Minister of Security, Tesfaye Walde-Selassie,
Yemane Kidane (Jamaica') of the Tplf promised to give the Eplf
Tigrayan combatants if they shifted to mobile warfare (77).
Instead of being cemented by the common blood they shed against
the ELF and the Derg, the relationship between the EPLF and TPLF broke
down between 1985 and 1988. The EPLF blocked the road to the Sudan,
denying Tigrayan famine victims access to food. According to the EPLF,
it was political differences on issues such as whether the USSR was a
'social imperialist' that caused the rupture. There was also Eplf's refusal
to endorse Tplf's option for secession. The Eplf wanted the Tplf to
fight only for the 'democratic unity' of Ethiopia (78). They wanted
independence to be a privilege for Eritrea alone, given its unique colonial
experience. Tigray's quest for independence would have diluted their
'colonial' claim, which, along with the Tigrayan, would have been dismissed
as a secessionist movement that was aspiring to dismantle the Ethiopian
body politic. Further, the EPLF have never been comfortable with the TPLF
position of voluntary unity and their argument that self-determination
applies to the Eritrean ethnies, such as the Afar, as well (79). Apparently,
the EPLF must also have known that unless the friendly-TPLF took the reigns
of power in Addis Ababa, their quest for independence would have been
unimaginable. In the post-independence era, too, they would not have
thought the dream of economic integration with Ethiopia (80).

(77) 46th Regular Meeting of the Politbureau, Addis Ababa, 26 Ganbot, 1978 [3 May,
1985], p.8.
(78) Interview, Yemane Gabre-Ab, (42), Eplf's Head of Political Affairs Department,
14 July 1994, Asmara; see also Ye Ertrea Hezb Tagal Kayat Wadayet! (Gamgama), TPLF, 1979,
pp.231-3.
(79) JOHN YOUNG, The Tigray and Eritrean Peoples Liberation Fronts: a History of
Tensions and Pragmatism, «Journal of Modern African Studies», 34, 1, (1996), p. 112; J.
Abbink, Briefing: the Eritrean-Ethiopian Border Dispute, «African Affairs», 97, 1998, p. 556.
(80) Now the TPLF have equated this 'economic integration' or 'interdependence' with:
'Resources of Eritrea for Eritreans only, but the resources of Ethiopia for both of us [Eritreans
and Ethiopians]', see Abbay TSEHAYE [founding member of the Tplf] , 'Dergen mashenef
malet, ye'etopiyan hezab mashenaf meslowachew kehone, telaq sehetat woost eyegebu naw,1 ['If
they (Eplf) think defeating the Derg means defeating the Ethiopian people, they are making a
huge mistake], «Reporter» (Addis Ababa), Sene 8, 1990 [16 June, 1998]

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 484 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

'Not without them': The Economics

The idea [of independence] looks g

independent, how will it be administered
or is there any one out there to lend
courts, schools, agriculture and indust
[our] own government, but [we] have to
and the wealth of [our] country. I think
barren [in the world] ... and [it] can n
- Walde-Gabriel Dabassai, "Baza'eba 'Er
for Eritream"], «Nay Ertra Semunawi

Indeed, the gap between the eco

observed by the 1940s 'organic intell
the Horn of Africa's 'Singapore' by t
When the EPLF liberated Eritrea and
buildings of a once shining city aging a
palm trees empty, reminiscent of a 1
midst of rural Africa. With the Euro
shadow of its past. Long gone was it
war economy collapsed along with l'A
neither the ropeway nor the railroa
Asmara. The roads were also old and
and technology that once made Eritrea
left for Italy. In 1991, the EPLF ent
engineers from central Ethiopia (once c
designing the city's construction wo
sojourn was long over but it survived i
Furthermore, in terms of food produc
sufficient, at least not in the 20th cen

(81) See, for instance, the regional hub strateg

of the Eritrean Economy: Some Thoughts about S
Emergent Eritrea: Challenges of Economic Develo
Eritrea and Eritreans for Peace and Democracy
(82) For a trade tension in the early part of t
Ras Sebhat and Degiat Seyoum Mengesha (when t
and the Italian governors of Eritrea, see Gab
astadadar Addis Ababa, [1910s] 1960, p. 81. In th
that not even the richest region of Eritrea, Sera
'the rich granary of the Tigrai in Ethiopia'. Toda
needs, see 'Eritrea's economy: challenging structu
1998.

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 'not with them, not without them1, etc. 485

two ports by the Red Sea, Massawa and Assab, are the natural p
Ethiopia that otherwise have little economic value.

Subsidized Independence and Conflict

The country that required a protracted and costly armed st
for political independence now needs a much tougher strug
economic independence, given its modest natural resources and
skilled man power. The TPLF, which had given a crucial military su
in bringing about the independence of Eritrea, continued to su
its economic revival (1991-97).
At de facto independence in 1991, Eritrea had neither the m
nor the currency notes to go it alone. Therefore, money was trans
to the Eritrean banks from Ethiopia and at the time of the con
1998, they owed Ethiopia 1.2 billion birr (Sî). Moreover, de
Ethiopian citizenship gave Eritrean businessmen access to loan
Ethiopian banks. By the same token, Eritreans could freely in
Ethiopia, a privilege not accorded to other foreigners. The EPLF
reciprocate and give Ethiopians in Eritrea the same privilege. They
duties on Ethiopian goods entering Eritrea while theirs cam
Ethiopia duty free i84). Ethiopia was leasing its former oil refi
Assab from the Eritrean government, paying 58 million birr a
of the refinery's production each year (85).
Eritreans were allowed to use the Ethiopian currency, birr, with
they could buy 80% of the food they needed from Ethiopia. Th
conducted two thirds of their entire external trade, which is with E
in birr (86). With the birr, they used to buy the dollar at regular
exchange auction and exportable items such as coffee, which earned
substantial hard currency. President Isaías argued that the coffee his
was buying in Ethiopia and exporting for hard currency was only a
from Ethiopia's exports (87). This arrangement made Eritrea, accor
a diplomat, 'a sort of a vacuum cleaner for most hard currencies' (8

(83) Abbink, op. cit., p. 559.

(84) SOLOMON INQUAI, Key Determinants of Ethio-Eritrean Crisis, A paper pr
at a workshop on Ethio-Eritrean crisis held at the Institute of Social Studies at D
Holland, Sept. 7, 1998.
(85) «The Eritrean Newsletter» (Bonn, Elf-Rc), July/August 1997, # 77, p.31
(86) U.S. Embassy, op. cit.
(87) ISAÍAS Afeworki, President of Eritrea, in «Asen>, #10, Magabit-Ganbo
[March-May 1998], p.9.
(88) L. Santoro, At the Root of an Odd African War: Money, «The Christian
Monitor», 22 June, 1998.

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486 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

Nationalism had been invaluable in th

of Eritrea. However, the emotion it gene
to nation-building. Against all economi
Eritrea to issue its own currency, nakfa.
took it for granted that the nakfa and b
would circulate in both countries freely
of economics were incompatible with
Ethiopian leader stated:
I don't think they (Eritreans) had seriously
a separate financial structure and the re
currency ... They wanted total free acce
to prevent it ... They have to accept all the
of being an independent country, includ
economy (w).

The expectation of the Eritreans ma

given the unlimited subsidy they had b
abnormal. However, this time, the Ethi
allow the Eritreans 'total free access' to
let the two currencies, which pursue dive
circulate freely in both countries. Si
controlled and that of nakfa is not, their
instability. For President Isaias, Ethio
triggered by the new financial structure
of 'greed' on the part of the Ethiopian
tolerated the unequal relationship with
increasingly assertive and abandoned the
They told the Eritreans that transactio
currency (92). Desperate and furious, t
agreement they had signed (93) and raised
export items, forcing the Ethiopians to
Djibouti. They also raised the price of r
their share of output, making it cheap

(89) At the time of the conflict, one birr was fi

(90) ABBAY TSEHAYE, 8 June, Makalle, Reuters.
(91) See the extensive interview he gave in «He
(92) Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethio
December-February 1998, p. 8.
(93) See, THE ECONOMIC INTELLIGENCE UNIT,
London, 1992, #1, p.31.

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM', ETC. 487

fuel from elsewhere. This led to the closure of the refinery, costing the
Eritreans millions of dollars a year. Frustrated by the self-generated crisis,
they invaded borderlands, masking the conflict as a 'border war'.
Admittedly, the border was not well defined; but the Ethio-Eritrean
border commission was working on issues of demarcation. The occupied
territories of Badme, Alitena, Burre and Zalambessa were not under
Italian rule. Eritreans are asking to demarcate the border on the basis
of 'colonial maps'. Colonial maps and treaties may give some helpful
clues. However, their relevance need not be overstated. Eritrea's raison
d'etre was actual Italian colonialism. Without the latter, there would be
no Eritrea. Therefore, any territory that was not detached from Ethiopia
and administered by the colonialists, irrespective of what treaties and
maps say, ipso facto, is not Eritrean. What legitimacy could colonial
treaties and maps, which were prepared by the Europeans for the
Europeans, have today as long as they were not implemented? Those
that were implemented are legitimate because they are responsible for
real, perceived or claimed unique identities.
In the so-called 'border war', Eritreans targeted economic
infrastructure and civilians. They tried to bomb the Adigrat
pharmaceutical plant and damaged the Makalle cement factory, two small
industries that appeared to signal the offing of a vibrant Ethiopian
economy. The appearance of a handful of small industries in Tigray
alarmed the Eritrean leaders, frustrating their dream of an Eritrean
'Singapore' that would be a 'production hub', a 'distribution hub' and
a 'corporate headquarters and technical services hub' (94). The Eritrean
exacerbation was revealed when President Isaias candidly expressed his
dismay at the installation of small leather, textile and other plants in
Tigray when there were similar plants in Eritrea. The existence of such
industries in Tigray, he argued, will adversely affect the Eritrean economy
because they would have to compete for the limited market and raw
materials in northern Ethiopia. He dubbed Tigray's attempts at
industrialization 'protectionist' (95). Minor infrastructural changes in
Tigray, therefore, made it apparent that the Singapore model was, at
best, what Marina Ottaway called a 'distant dream' (%).

(94) See Berhe Habte-Giorgis, op.cit., pp.46-48.

(95) ISAÍAS Afeworki, in «AseD>, op.cit., p. 11. The Tigrinya word he used is atsatvi,
lit. "blocker".
(96) MARINA OTTAWAY, Africa's New Leaders: Democracy or State Reconstruction?
Washington, D.C, 1999, p. 58.

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488 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

Eritrea seems to be trapped in the

The Eritrea that has been imagined i
Italian industries that effectively kept T
The entire northern Ethiopia used to
materials while the Italian industries
finished products. The EPLF were thu
status quo ante where Ethiopia would b
finished products (97).
In the process of building a nation,
a distinct identity. Invalidating pre-exi
allegiances, the EPLF introduced new
crisscross earlier boundaries (98). Rathe
take their natural course of bringing s
upon a conscious invention of identit
Building a nation by rejecting the
nationalism, by its very nature, is ja
backward at the same time ("). In the
EPLF have refused to summon the ric
because it is not serviceable. Instead,
era for symbolism so much so the mor
annals of history, the more fanciful th
For instance, the Gregorian calendar w
been adopted, although native Eritre
the Ethiopian (Geez) calendar with Sept
Further, despite the fact that almost
the Latin script (more than 80% of the
independent Eritrea have been given
is not a mere nostalgia of the 'good
canalizing boundary with their kin
indigenous Geez script. Thus, by aban
which was so revered by the 1940s 'o
on the future, nationalism in Eritrea
nationalist psychology.
Unlike the 1940s Eritrea that was i

(97) This is addressed repeatedly in Emerg

Development op. cit.
(98) KjETIL Tronvoll, The Process of nation-bu
below or directed from above? «Journal of Mode
(99) TOM NAIRN, The Break-üp of Britain Nor
(100) See, for example' «Nay Ertra Semunaw

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM1, ETC. 489

- built out of a shared culture, language, economy and, above all,

historical consciousness with Ethiopia's Tigray, the EPLFs Eritrea is
inventing non-Tigrayan identity. In this process of nation building on
invented symbols of identity, the Tigryans, south of Mareb, are presented
as the relevant 'others' because it is inherently nationalistic to seek the
'bad others'. The cluster bombing of Tigrayan primary school children
in Makalle by Eritreans on 5 June, 1998, a town miles away from any
military installation may also have had the objective of accelerating the
invention of the Tigrayan 'others'. More than 180 people were either
wounded or killed. Irrespective of the military and political significance
of the cluster bombing, it does deepen the 'us' and 'them' boundary. It
appears to have killed the hope as well as the fear that Eritrea would
be federated with Ethiopia. It has assured the critics of the EPLF - Tplf
intimacy (101) that Eritreans do business with the Tigrayans but they do
not identify with them. Even before the eruption of the conflict, the
EPLF rounded up and deported thousands of Tigrayans from the various
Eritrean towns in 1997 (102). In fact, nation building began in 1991 with
cleansing Eritrea of co-ethnic Tigrayans. The first thing the EPLF did
upon assuming power was to expel thousands of Ethiopians, mostly
Tigrayans (103). Since the outbreak of the war in 1998, Ethiopians
reciprocated by deporting Eritreans from the various towns of the
country. These aspects of the war have the potential of polarizing and
crystallizing identities. As the Napoleonic wars enhanced Russian self-
consciousness (104), the Ethio-Eritrean war and the concomitant
deportations of Tigrayans out of Eritrea and Eritreans out of Ethiopia
may petrify the 'us-them' dichotomy among the Tigrinya-speaking people
of the two sides of the Mareb.

(101) Opposition groups such as the ELF, «The Eritrean Newsletter», July/August 1997,
# 77, pp.15-16.
(102) «The Eritrean Newsletter», #77, 998, p. 12.
(103) I he number ot victims varies irom John Young s (1997, p.297J over 100, 000
to «Africa Confidential's» 1993, v.34, #9 'some 200, 000'.
(104) HUGH Seton-Watson, Russian Nationalism in Historical Perspective, in ROBERT
CONQUEST ed. The Last Empire Stanford, 1986. On how past atrocities are ceaselessly recycled,
nurturing the sense of victimization, play out in identity configurations, see RENE
Lemarchand, Burundi Cambridge, 1994 and LlISA Malkki, Purity and Exile Chicago, 1995.
On the role of war in identity crystallization in general, see ANTHONY SMITH, War and
Ethnicity: the role of warfare in the formation of self images and cohesion of ethnic communities ,
«Ethnic and Racial Studies», v.4, #4, 1981 and also his Ethnic Survival Cambridge, 1981; and
Chrles TILLY, European Revolutions 1492-1992 Oxford, 1993.

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490 ALEMSEGED ABBAY

Will Eritrea's Nationhood Come of A

'Eritrea without Abyssinia has small mea

- Harold Courtlander [a U.S. historian
D. Roosevelt, the White House, 1943.

'Rich or great, Eritrea will never becom

political unit completely from the map'
- Stephen H. Longrigg [former British
'If Eritrea does not merge with Ethiop
- Walde-Ab Walde-Mariam, 1947.

What makes the Eritrean case so un

engender Eritrean-ness. Unlike in ma
colonialism in Eritrea has not been a ba
identity because in the Eritrean case
interact with tradition. Hence, Italian c
crucial symbols necessary to develop a p
no major infrastructural characterist
limited interaction between the Italian
The resilience of the pre-colonial p
give its colonia primogenita new symbo
Eritrean leaders with the burden of inve
from that of their kin to the south of t
the Italian cultural stuff, which they h
year Italy left the region, has been par
building.
However, the desire to be different has been frustrated by a
fledgling economy - an economic failure that pushed Eritrea to invade
Ethiopia in 1998. As such, the war has put Eritrean identity and
economic viability to the test. Granted that 'the stupidest war' ever
fought in Africa defies all economic logic, one harks back to the 1940s
wisdom of Harold Courtlander, Stephen Longrigg as well as Walde-Ab
Walde-Mariam and the rest of the Eritrean 'organic intellectuals' and
wonder how Eritrea will reach nationhood. Although the war will not
subdue Ethiopia into becoming an economic backwater of the wistful
Horn of Africa's 'Singapore', it will, in all likelihood, become tomorrow's
social and political boundary - a victory that the geographical
borderline of the River Mareb has all along failed to achieve.
Alemseged Abbay

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 'NOT WITH THEM, NOT WITHOUT THEM', ETC. 491

RÉSUMÉ

Avant que le colonialisme italien crea, au nord du fleuve Mareb, l'Erithrée, les
populations de cette region partageaient le même sens d'identité fondé sur culture, valeurs,
religion, langue et conscience historique communs. Ce sens d'identité ne fut pas balayé par
le colonialisme car les italiens ne consentirent pas que leurs éléments de modernité
interagissent avec les traditions de leur colonie. Cela, avec la faible economie du pays,
conduisit, dans les années '40, l'élite érithréenne, dont Walde ab Marian était un représentant,
à tenter une fusion avec l'Ethiopie. Toutefois après la fusion totale de 1962 l'élite plus jeune
commença à considérer l'Erithrée une region avancée digne d'avoir l'indépendance,
indépendance qui arriva en 1991. Malgré le généreux support de l'Ethiopie (1991-98)
l'Erithrée ne réussit pas à se tenir sur sa seule économie. En plus ses leaders voulaient en
faire la Singapore de la Corne d'Afrique que auraient trouvé dans l'Ethiopie un marché pour
ses produits finis. Cette situation provoqua des tensions économiques avec l'Ethiopie
entraînant à la fin un conflit sanglant, déguisé par l'Erithrée en une guerre frontalière. La
guerre, un test important pour la crédibilité de l'état érithréen, n'a pas réussi par contre à
obliger l'Ethiopie à devenir l'arrière-pays économique de la souhaitée Singapore de la Corne
d'Afrique.

RIASSUNTO

Prima che il colonialismo italiano creasse a nord del fiume Mareb l'Eritrea, le
popolazioni al di là del Mareb condividevano un comune senso di identità basato su stessa
cultura, valori, religione, lingua e coscienza storica. Tale senso di identità non fu spazzato via
dal colonialismo in quanto gli italiani non vollero che i loro elementi di modernità interagissero
con le tradizioni della loro colonia primogenita. Questo, insieme alla debole economia del
paese, portò, negli anni '40, l'élite eritrea, di cui Walde - Ab Walde - Mariam era un
esponente, a tentare una qualche fusione con l'Etiopia. Tuttavia, dopo la totale fusione
avvenuta nel 1962, l'élite più giovane cominciò a considerare l'Eritrea come una regione
progredita degna di essere indipendente. L'indipendenza fu raggiunta nel 1991. Malgrado il
generoso supporto dell'Etiopia (1991-98) l'Eritrea non riuscì a reggersi sulla sua sola economia.
E tuttavia, i suoi leaders volevano farne la Singapore del Corno d'Africa che avrebbe trovato
nell'Etiopia un mercato per i suoi prodotti finiti. Questo portò a tensioni economiche con
l'Etiopia e infine a un conflitto sanguinoso che l'Eritrea camuffò in una guerra di confine. La
guerra, un test impegnativo per la credibilità dello stato eritreo non è riuscita a costringere
l'Etiopia a diventare il retroterra economico dell'agognata Singapore del Corno d'Africa.

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