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Vanguardist Nationalism in Eritrea

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Vanguardist Nationalism in Eritrea OCCASIONAL PAPER #22 MAY 2020 The World Peace Foundation, an operating foundation affiliated VANGUARDIST solely with the Fletcher School at Tufts University, aims to provide NATIONALISM intellectual leadership on issues of peace, justice and security. We believe that innovative research and IN ERITREA teaching are critical to the challenges of making peace around the world, PAULOS TESFAGIORGIS and should go hand-in-hand with advocacy and practical engagement This paper examines Eritrea’s history through the lens of the with the toughest issues. To respond theory and practice of nationalism and self-determination by the to organized violence today, we vanguard of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front. It provides not only need new instruments and a brief account of the succession of colonial rulers in Eritrea tools—we need a new vision of and the evolution of an Eritrean nation, followed by the crys- peace. Our challenge is to reinvent tallisation of Eritrean nationalism during the armed struggle for peace. independence, under successive liberation movements. Turning Paulos Tesfagiorgis is a World Peace to the post-liberation period after 1991, the paper documents the Foundation Senior Research Fellow. way in which the Constitutional Commission of Eritrea went He has been engaged in building about its work, its attempt to institutionalise the sovereignty peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia of the people, and how its outcome was thwarted by arbitrary since the renewed war of 1998-2000 and authoritarian intervention from the head of state. The paper and is a long-standing advocate for examines how Eritrean nationalism and self-determination human rights in Eritrea and peace developed through two rival processes, namely public discourse in the Horn of Africa. His ongoing among Eritreans around the question of the future of the terri- research into openings for democracy tory, while the practical political exercise of self-determination in Eritrea and the resolution of was achieved only through the military victory of a vanguardist Eritrea’s conflicts with its neighbors liberation front. The tension between these two processes has contributes to the WPF’s ongoing work on peace in Africa. yet to be resolved. My deep appreciation for Alex de Waal, Director WPF, Tufts Univer- sity, Batul K. Sadliwala, WPF, Tufts University and Awet T. Welde- michael, Associate Professor and Queen’s National Scholar, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, for their comments and editorial support that helped the paper assume its final shape. INTRODUCTION rejected ‘secessionism’ by producing papers, refining ideological interpretation and attending Nationalism has proven a potent political force. political meetings of influential groups such as the Eritrea under the Eritrean People’s Liberation Socialist International. However, both the eastern Front (EPLF) is a particularly marked manifes- and western blocs in the Cold War accepted the tation of fusing the intractability of cultural pol- ‘secessionist’ label, which made the Eritrean cause itics with the power of the state, demonstrating untouchable internationally. The United Nations, the power of nationalist doctrine, implemented despite its role as custodian of the Federation and through a well-organised political vanguard, to its silence when that agreement was unilaterally organise individuals into a cohesive political com- abrogated by Ethiopia, did nothing to recognise munity, sometimes inspiring violence and xeno- Eritrea’s right to self-determination. The Organi- phobia, and sometimes supplying the wellspring sation of African Unity, strongly influenced by its for sentiments such as patriotism and self-sacrifice. host Ethiopia, also forbade discussion of Eritrea’s claim to nationhood (Yohannes, 1985). A cogent During the heated ideological debates within the articulation of Eritrea’s identity as a nation and university student movement in the Haile Selas- its right to self-determination, within the param- sie I University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the eters of the ideological discourses of the interna- late 1960s and early 1970s, one of the key issues tional anti-colonial, progressive and Communist of contention was whether the Eritrean question movements was therefore important for the EPLF was a ‘colonial question’ or an ‘Ethiopian national leadership. question.’ If Eritrea were to be defined as a colo- nial question, the revolutionary students would I participated in producing the first publication conclude that Eritrea was entitled to the right of on Eritrea as a colonial question, in my capacity self-determination including independence; if as a Chair of the Wisconsin Chapter of the EFL- however it were a national question, Eritreans NA, and was the editor of Liberation, the monthly would be one of the many nations and nationali- publication of the EFLNA, in 1975-76. The paper ties within the multi-ethnic, multi-national entity in question was entitled ‘The Eritrean National that was the Ethiopian Empire, which would not Question’1 and was based on research into the the- automatically entitle them to the option of inde- ory of Marxism-Leninism and the right of peoples pendence. The debate was not resolved. to self-determination. The conclusion was that the Eritrean question was a colonial one deserving its The debate continued within EPLF’s affiliates right of self-determination, including the forma- in the diaspora, especially the Eritreans For Lib- tion an independent nation-state. This was based eration in North America (EFLNA) and its Eu- on Eritrea’s colonial history, history of struggle ropean counterpart, Eritreans For Liberation in for independence, separate political and economic Europe (EFLE). These groups positioned them- evolution from Ethiopia and a defined territory. selves in solidarity with other African liberation The paper also developed a crucial argument. It movements, articulating the Eritrean struggle as stated, with respect to the different nationalities a struggle for independence from a foreign and that exist within Eritrea, that a nation such as Er- colonial power, namely Ethiopia, an enemy that itrea can have different nationalities within it with differed from European colonial powers only in their particularities, such as language and territory, that it did not come from across the sea. This was but which still remain tied to the rest by geogra- in rejection of labelling the Eritrean struggle as phy, common history of struggle and a common a ‘secessionist,’ a concept and characterisation psychological make-up that solidified their unity in promoted by the Ethiopian government and some struggle and their search for independence. Ethiopian student radicals. The EFLNA and ELFE 1 Original on file with the author. VANGUARDIST NATIONALISM IN ERITREA 2 The argument articulated in ‘The Eritrean National mains the only country in Africa without a consti- Question’, in due course became the EPLF’s own tution, as the President has openly disavowed the theorisation of the issue, and as such, influenced constitution and rules without any reference to it. not only the Front’s discourse about nationalism In examining Eritrea’s history through the lens of and self-determination, but its practices as well, nationalism and self-determination, this paper will and indeed the historical trajectory of Eritrean first offer a brief account of the succession of colo- nationalism. nial rulers in Eritrea and the evolution of Eritrean Eritrean identity emerged from the diverse ethnic nationalism. The subsequent section will examine groups inhabiting the territory that the Italian col- the crystallisation of Eritrean nationalism during onisers carved out from the adjoining areas with the armed struggle for independence. The paper which it had historically closer ties, especially the will then document the way in which, following highlands of Eritrea with Tigrai (Abbay, 1998; independence, the Constitutional Commission of Gebre-Medhin, 1989; Mesghenna, 1988; Chelati Eritrea went about its work, and how its outcome Dirar, 2007), although global power politics con- was thwarted by arbitrary and authoritarian inter- signed Eritrean interests to footnotes to the agenda vention from the head of state. Finally, the paper of great power rivalry, culminating in the absorp- offers some reflections on the current situation. tion of Eritrea as a region within the Ethiopian empire. Eritreans, nevertheless, engaged in vigor- The Birth and Evolution of ous debates over their future early on, expressing Eritrean Nationalism under diverse opinions and organising, in many cases, in Successive Colonial Systems a fragmented manner: these public debates helped crystallise the idea of an Eritrean nation, but did Italian conquest brought together peoples of differ- not provide the means of political organisation ent ethnicities, regions and religions into one ter- strong and cohesive enough for Eritrean self-de- ritorial polity. It created a sense of shared identity termination to be made into a reality. Instead, it through processes of urbanisation and industriali- took a strong-armed liberation movement—the sation and through the common experience of co- EPLF—waging protracted war under a vanguard lonial oppression. The coloniser’s self-serving aim leadership with a vision and political programme of shaping its’ newly-acquired territory to serve its that combined national independence with revolu- domestic interests contributed to the development tionary socio-economic transformation, to achieve of Eritrea.
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