NO MEDICINE FOR THE BITE OF A WHITE SNAKE: NOTES ON NATIONALISM AND RESISTANCE IN ERITREA, 1890-1940 By Tekeste Negash, University of Uppsala ?,'atl.: Cif/..::.,J fl 'l,,~'J: o...-}· '?' 1JJ'J: flt1 nlr-.: ~('l. rrJ.,: 7i 1'" (7Ti()': OH;" 7 ~tI. '), 1 Y '1-', tU, rr,: a:tf'l fP: ;Mi'!: till: tU. d- -n I'::., ')', ? -/'I'rrt . 'r7 ~: {'.q'('+ t'I /il (P: 1:"1 ~f ,<qTJC: ~ U r, ?l ?9?-::f'"r(? 1';+, IltN.,-;FIMJ PTJ: }7C: 0--11-; 'n~z.tJ'7~·: CTTI tll.·, r: lrT:"7 9>: .,,? ~';t-'CUT77";": huv tl1 W:~~ /I 'j•• : ;::.0 (ur.; 'f t.. ~' tF .cm .. >. '} S:'-j- "H? .'l'1-, fl (10 7 "7~";' 91: ~ trI: :t'1'/r/>: Y'nn l.:~:pTJ; -j7~vl-' 71 ~/r,H.PTJ' fT+fltfl: ~ tlt.=t: :' n>-, W-t+ >'e-;:-pv: .st Frutf/;.: ~l/u I'l"q:; I lf~h'~'C:(h'';'tt-n)!JIt+ 9.ol.l=f·'·; }'~·I· vo~·~· 7-11 y,-J,: ">l SH? y: "117: '"7, w. Jorfk.fU c ·./,;-i ),~+:: n1'l.-t.'1: 4:11.. 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I '1 c 2, 'X il + ej> '} : 9,' Lo 11 ""1' <p!... y;.:-,: :,:" '. fl. 11 f ',r pv: y ~ fl: I, f': f rl-U ?: f7 9-: 0 'fO tf: 77 4 .. &...,: ,(' nn fr, '7;'~' 9'o I17Y-P r'. 7. It (J,>o? -90: (;, '? {!;.:t (fr ?o '~·;,t.1J)?:tiS7~',U, 1-;J()-" S(, o, ;7. dC] H- >.'} ~9-j=.II From the Memoire of Blatta Gebre Egziabeher composed in 1889 Eth. Calender. No medicine for the bite of a white Nates on Nationalism and Resistance in Eritrea, 1890-1940 by Tekeste Negash © Tekeste Negash, 1986 ISBN 91-7106-250-5 Printed in Sweden by Reprocentralen, HSC Uppsala 1986 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ....................................•....•...... Preface .. ..........................•.•.....•. .. ii Blatta Gebre Egziabeher Gila Miriam and His Works: A Sketch towards a Political Biography of a Nationalist Land Tenure and the Organization of Surplus Appropriation on the Eve of the Colonial Period...••...•..............•. 22 Resistance and Collaboration , 1882-1914 ...•.•...••••••.••• 37 Pax ltalica and lts Ethiopian Enemies, 1936-1940 55 Historians and Eritrean History: A Review Article 73 ltalian Colonialism and the Transformation of Social and Economic Structures: A Review Article 88 Bibliography .................................••................... 95 Acknowledgements In the long process of collecting source material, l am greatly indebted to many friends, colleagues and institutions, a full ac­ knowledgement of which is virtually impossible. I am grateful indeed towards the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies at Uppsala for undertaking the distribution of this effort. Many thanks to Peter Hughes, who at an earlier stage assisted me in putting the tenses and prepositions in their right positions. Heartfelt gratitude to my colleague Marie C. Nelson who edited the entire anthology and to Monica Blom for her invaluable assistance in many technical and practical matters. I n Rome, the locus for the bulk of the source ma teriaI, I ac­ knowIedge my profound indebtedness to Dr. Carla Ghezzi, the librarian of the ltalian Africa Institue and the Staff of the libra­ ry for making me feel at home. To Giovanni and Anna Bussi, who during my frequent visits to Rome saw to it that l was properly fed, I express my profound gratitude. I also acknowledge warm gratitude to Professor K. Nylander and, the mother of all, Kerstin Magnoni of the Swedish Institute, in Rome for extending me the privilege to stay in the Institute' s splendid guest rooms virtually free of charge. Som e of the papers were read by H. Marcus, S. Rubenson, S. TriuIzi, S. Carlsson, E. Österberg, A.-S. Ohlander, M. Stahl, S. Ege, and V. Halldin-Norberg. While I remain greatly indebted for their views and comments, I wish to stress that the responsi­ bility for all views, interpretations, and shortcomings, is entirely mine. Finally I wish to take this opportunity to thank Berit, a friend , a wife, and a formidable adversary for her unfailing in­ volvement and interest in my field. Tekeste Negash Uppsala, Sweden April 11, 1986 - i - PREFACE The papers in this anthology, which are a by-product of the process of writing a doctorai dissertation on ltalian colonialism, deal with the themes of nationalism and resistance more byaccident than by intention. They were viTitten at different times and for different purposes. Two main considerations prompted me to publish them in this less costly form. In the first instance, these notes are peripheral to my dissertation. And in the second instance, put together in this form, they would be more accessible to a wider public than if l were to publish them separately in specialized and, most often, inaccessible periodicals. Based on hitherto unpublished material, the first paper chal­ lenges prevailing views on the concopts of the Ethiopian (include Eritrean) nation and nationalism. Ethiopian nationalism has either been presumed to exist or altogether denied. While political histo­ rians of the pre-twentieth century took for granted the resilience of Ethiopian nationalism, the enemies of the Haile-Salasse regime, e.g., the spokesmen of the Eritrean Liberation Fronts, went to the other extreme in maintaining that Ethiopian nationalism did not exist before the 1880' s. Like other African countries, they argued, Ethiopia was very much the creation of European imperialism with all the consequences which derive from such birth. lndeed, there is some truth in the latter allegation. The expansion of the pre­ 1880' s Ethiopia to three times its former size within a brief period of three decades creates serious methodological and conceptual pro­ blems as to the identity of the individual and the country. Ethi­ opia of the 1900' s is geographically and ethnically different from the Ethiopia of the 1880's. Thus, for instance, the points of de­ parture for a study of nationalism during the late nineteenth cen­ tury are different from those used to examine the 1930' s. Since the primary aim was to provide source material on the subject, I have organized it in such away that both the bearer of nation- alism (Le., the individual) and the concept are treated equally, B1atta Gabre Egziabeher, through whom the subject of nationalism is being explored, wrote a 235 page Memoire in 1897 on the decline and fall of the Ethiopian State, a year after the victorious Battle of Adowa. During his. brief life (1860-1914) he also wrote several short political texts. Admittedly, the views of the author, although very important can not be a substitute for studies of a more ana­ lytical nature. However, in the context of the themes of nationalism and resistance, what makes the views of the author quite intriguing is that, firstly, he wrote his Memoire while being employed by the ltalian colonial state, and, secondly, he was himself an Eri­ trean from a well-known village a few miles north of Asmara. The -inter-relationship between the evolution of appropriate land tenure systems as a response to the rigid and inflexible bur­ den of tribute and the spatial and political organization for the appropriation of surplus in Eritrea are the main themes of the second paper. There exists a fair amount of literature on the po­ litical organization of the Ethiopian state but hardly on the mechanisms for the appropriation of surplus. Based on field reports carried out by an Italian officer in 1893, the section on the spa­ tial organization for the surplus appropriation provides an insight into the political discourse between the peasantry and the ruling class. As the material amply demonstrates, a most striking conclu- - ii - sion is that the Ethiopian central state hardly intervened in the modalities of assessment and collection of tribute at a village level. Although the essay does not claim to be exhaustive, it wouId, l hope, enable us to pose some questions on the patterns and extent of change from the late nineteenth century onwards. The complex dimensions of resistance and its limitations are the main themes of the third and fourth papers. That on "Resist­ ance and Collaboration in Eritrea," published earlier in the Pro­ ceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (1984) is included here by permission of the editor of the Proceedings, S. Rubenson. During the early years of colonial rule, Eritrean resitance was largely articulated by the Tigrinyans, who were the immediate victims of colonialism. Reistance was doomed to failure because the colonialists easily exploited the conflicts between Eritrean ethnic groups who before colonization had very little common political and cultural tradition.