Tiny Eritrea: Totalitarian at Whatever Cost

 “All that you are, you are through me; all that I am, I am through you alone.”

 
The nation-state of Eritrea fortuitously emerged at the twilight of the twentieth century as a result of the thirty-years of war internally, rebellions in the rest of Ethiopia and the demise of the Soviet Union. Eritreans, who espouse the cause of independence and its sympathizers, prefer to describe the triumph as a victory “Against All Odds.” This popular phrase has yet to lose its appeal despite the suffocating political atmosphere within the country, the multiplicity of wars with its neighbors and, not least, the aggressive posture of the regime with sovereigns not its equals. In defiance to the world, it has maintained its rule earning her both notoriety and probably even the envy of some African nations whose governments are weak and correctly labeled as “shadow states.”
 
The riddle behind the persistence, tenacity and the complete monopoly of power of the state in Eritrea is none other but the willingness to forsake all odds, even the odds of depopulating the people it governs. “Against All Odds” is therefore nothing but the indispensable tool of both the totalitarian movement in its early days as a rebel outfit and the mode of governance that followed it. Nothing is more characteristic of the politics in Eritrea, in which the slogan of “Against All Odds” is revered, simultaneous with the lament on the regime, which has been trampling the masses. Among the lamenting is a group who profess to have given the abuser regime a free-check to do whatever it thinks is right during its guerrilla days. It is an extraordinary political mandate that did not need to bother by the niceties of any legal tenets or pressure groups. This totalitarian-like phenomenon was singularly attributed to big countries such as the Soviet Union, and the Nazi Germany after its initial victories in the Second World War. Under certain conditions small nations can also be included among this group.
 
Hannah Arendt stated that the tyrant states of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had huge “human material” [1] to sacrifice. In contradistinction, small nations, she argued, will only attempt such measures to their own peril. Although, she stipulated farther, its rulers arrived on the wave of totalitarian movements, they stopped from the totalitarian mode of governance and remained as simply dictators and one-party systems. [2] Mussolini’s Italy and a few other small Europeans nations were illustrated as examples. The rise of small totalitarian nations of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and North Korea seems not to have been recognized by her for understandable reasons. Her life as a Jew from Europe was understandably largely influenced by the discord she experienced in Germany. Her theory, however, may be still valid to explain the political behavior of the mass murderers of North Korea, Cambodia and, not least, Eritrea.
 
All these nations uniquely share the folly of a complete disregard to even to the survival of their own subjects. The threat of war, famine and the consequences of ill-planned grandiose projects do not seem to stop them from implementing them without a second thought. Like their predecessors, Stalin and Hitler, “moral standards” are treated in contempt, and dismissed as hypocrisy of the Western democracies. The mendaciousness in it is their attempt to push the same farce down the throat of the world as a “moral version” of their own. For instance, the regime in Eritrea does not forget to describe such practices as the “virtues or traditions from its struggle years.”
 
Aside the content, the reference of the regime to the past is unlike the Nazis or the Fascists that habitually invoked a distant myth, the experience is of the recent past and verifiable by some of the generation who witnessed it. The political actors of the present regime in Eritrea, excluding the scores who disappeared from the scene as a result of the constant purges during the armed struggle, are the same people at the helm of the state. In other words, it is the same corporate body. Hence, identifying the legacy of the movement’s past in the present government is simple to any person without even the credentials of a historian. Before discussing this phase of the totalitarian movement, however, a cursory examination of the social, economic and political environment that presaged the liberation movement is essential.
 
While the influence of the urban milieu on the leading cadres of the Eritrean armed movements has recently gotten the attention of a few writers in this website, the inordinate colonial military culture on the baby boomers was largely left out. When mentioned, it was mostly to underscore its function as a “colony of askeris”, or soldiers for Italy’s ambition in Libya, Ethiopia, and Somalia. In contrast to this narration, the nationalist writers have found it useful to single out the much smaller working class that made its presence only during the last few years of Fascists.
 
The bias shown to the workers has possibly to do with the fronts' adoption of Marxist ideology. All revolutionaries worth their name in the then Ethiopia never forgot to emphasize the alleged feat and strength of the proletariat. Almost every political entity’s political program has something to say about the working class. Even the TPLF whose political support was mostly restricted to the economically isolated region of the Tigray province felt obliged to explain its political position. The fiercely contested battle was for the laurel being recognized as the vanguard organization. It was so epidemic that not even the Eritrean revolutionaries who were fighting for a separate nation resisted the temptation of being left alone. The thing is, however, throughout the last century in Eritrea except for the intermission period between 1950-1975, the main sector of employment was the military institution. The “warrior” [3] culture that was singled out as the major cause for the contemporary crisis in the country was preceded by the one under the Italian colonial administration.
 
Military culture
 
The defeat of the Italians in the hands of the British military forces in 1941 abruptly ended the fifty year colonial presence, but did not obtain any lasting peace in the countryside. The culture of soldiering and the proliferation of hastily left arms in the hands of colonial troops caused the formation of diverse bandit units, leaving its adverse impact on the already poor economy suffering from the postwar recession. The political void left by Italy emboldened many communities in the nation to flex their muscles against rival clans, tribes and including people of a different religious denomination. Gewald, quoting British archives, highlighted the violent times this way:
 
"Initially, the shifta operated solely as bandits, but they soon extended their enterprise beyond extortion and robbery to include taking on operations as guns for hire. Shifta bands came to be recruited by villages and pastoral bands to eliminate or drive off competing claimants to land and resources. The annual reports of the British administration mention the adverse effects of shifta activity in virtually all spheres of life. Railways, hunting, agriculture, veterinary services, mining and quarrying, health care, and much more were affected by shifta activity. As one of the annual reports wryly noted of the fishing industry, 'The industry enjoyed a profitable year as it seems to be the only open-air activity not interfered with by shifta.'" [4]
 
This historical rendition by the British is close to the truth for they have no interest to describe the colony in their protection in a negative picture. This report is buttressed by traditional sources, which are full of folk-tales and legends constructed around it. In the nationalist literature, however, shifta activity has often been blamed to an intervention by Ethiopia for transparent reason: self-interest was clearly at stake. The 1940s was chaotic enough in the towns. Understandably, this rural unrest was deliberately ignored in order to give considerable space to the minimal political and educational progress made by the British Military Administration in the few towns.
 
In light of the huge size of the native army (estimated around 60,000) that was disbanded quickly, the sociological impact on the hundreds of villages in the country was certainly considerable. As in contemporary Eritrea, urban bias could have influenced the dearth of any relevant study on the rural setting. Without the benefit of any research material on the period, any assertion about its lasting impact on the generation born in 1940s is weak but not entirely speculative. People are the product of their times, and it is natural for them to seize any political opportunity that may arise. The Eritrean experience is not different.
 
Idris Hamid Awate was like many of his countrymen an askeri for some years. Upon being disbanded, it is safe to assume that he left for his district subsequent to the military debacle of the Italian army. When the latent rivalry between the rival communities in Eritrea imploded, his military experience probably helped him play a critical role in the fight made first with the Hadendewa who live in the areas straddling the border to the Sudan, and later with the Kunamas in Eritrea proper. Rebellion in the form of banditry was also common in the Highlands of Eritrea, except in their case it came in the form of pan Abyssinian nationalism.
 
Awate’s fellow former soldiers-turned-bandits such as the surviving Mosazghi brothers, Asreshay etc. became important chieftains and remained co-opted in the new Imperial government. Awate’s destiny was, however, altogether different. Without troubling themselves with his resume, the political leadership of the former students in Cairo, Egypt appointed him to lead the future nationalist rebellion. Such type of merger between elite and soldier/bandit made the Eritrean experience distinctly different from the sixties of the rest of Africa.
 
In Mozambique, Angola and Guinea Bissau the senior political and military leadership in the field was staffed by the progressive African elite. Even with this advantage, their experience with the African farmers was fraught with many problems during the liberation times. Forced corvee, food provision and recruitment often led to passive resistance and exodus to the towns under the enemy. The civil war that transpired then was not entirely sabotage from Apartheid South Africa, and the then Rhodesia. If the experience of these former colonies was troubling enough, the Eritrean one was exceptionally worse. In light of this event, the tendency to dwelling on only certain individuals as practitioners of banditry as the EPLF and affiliates of the ELF do is nothing but foolhardiness.   
 
Attributing the discord solely on the mob-like urbanites, and completely discounting the long enduring military ethos including the age of the banditry is not persuasive. The culture of total mobilization since the EPLF has certainly emanated from the totalitarian ideology, but the rural areas were not the idyllic place we envisaged them to be too. This assumption does not in any way discount the policy of forcible recruitment of the fronts, and particularly on the masses of the peasants. In sum, the malaise in the urban areas that influenced the mobs was compounded by the strife in the countryside resulting in the calamity that left its imprint to these days. The subsequent hegemony of the poorly understood Communistic ideology and the control mechanisms it offered played a decisive role in capturing the rural population. Military culture alone, without the tempering effect of responsible citizens is certainly harmful. When mixed with a Marxist ideology, however, its effect on the public is immeasurable.
 
Totalitarian movement
 
The military culture of what Colonial Italy maintained for decades and the subsequent brigand-age following its dissolution were critical factors for the growth of the Fronts, which appeared a generation later. The brief period of some calm before 1961 did not erase its memory ingrained in the Eritrean masses. While the method of extraction of the brigands of the 1940s was primordial, random and inefficient, the Fronts’ violence was the opposite. The nationalist program enabled them to secure some type of monopoly in the countryside. It was not an easy task though. They had to deal mercilessly with the diverse communities and cultures in order to crush the primordial, cultural and religious affinities. The “legitimacy” obtained through this method was reinforced by the control mechanisms borrowed from communist organizations. It became a formidable of extracting the resources of the rural population. They accomplished such policy with “discipline.”
 
Hidden behind this “discipline” was nothing but the will to deploy a systematic violence on the poor rural populace, whose means of livelihood was even by African standards precarious and low. Resistance literature on the war for liberation dwelt on the scant material resources of the Fronts such as clothing, food and medicine but ignored the living conditions of the multitude of peasants and pastoral bands. This political bent helped the fronts conceal the strong friction with the diverse rural population. After having terrorized and subdued the public, the front’s policy remained inflexible and consistent despite the country’s acceptance among the community of nations. In essence, the old habits were kept intact.
 
Totalitarian state
 
In 2001, when the regime arrested several veterans leaders of the fronts, many supporters and sympathizers of the regime were dismayed and disaffected. They accused the regime for “betraying” the unquestioned mandate given to it by the public for the cause of independence. They blamed the naked repression to a conspiracy of the PFDJ, the party/movement that replaced the EPLF. This cry of betrayal is nothing but a convenient way to avoid their blind support for the totalitarian movement led by the armed organization. Having endorsed the extreme repression of the Front during its entire political existence, their current protestations sound weak and incoherent. The futile task of establishing a wall between the “liberation” years and its aftermath has left the former supporters fumbling and wishing for the arrival of the Arab-Spring in the forlorn land. After the heightened euphoria of independence, the chill that followed it have left this group in a state of coma.
 
The status quo in the post-independence period was, notwithstanding the claim of the disaffected groups, not accidental or an aberration from the praxis of the EPLF during its entire history. The credible source for this assertion can be none other than Isaias Afwerki. When the group of intellectuals known since then as the G-13 went to Asmera to discuss and mediate between the rival PFDJ factions; they found the dictator aloof and dismissive. Their brief encounter did not materialize in any dialogue; incredible as it may seem, it did not prevent them from recommending same thing ten years after episode.  They are indeed “out of touch.”
 
Totalitarian space
 
The Diaspora opposition has remained in a pitiful condition. Isolated from the political scene in the nation, divisive and sectarian, they find themselves completely unable to make a dent on the regime’s legitimacy. The lion’s share of the damage made by the regime during the last twenty years has been self-inflicted, as observed by Yosief Ghebrehiwet in this same website. Unable to accurately identify the regime and its totalitarian legacy, opposition affiliated writers and some independent citizens have disproportionately wasted their time on the symptoms. Likewise, the proposed solutions had been largely confused, meek and ineffectual. What would one make out of the call for dialogue, public uprising and also the clarion call for armed struggle? There are also the groups who consider the army of the totalitarian state as a potential ally of the masses of Eritrea. They seem to have missed plentiful lessons of history from either the Iron or Bamboo Curtain.
 
Institutions in totalitarian states, be it the millions of workers or the similar number of army members, do not have the minimal space often necessary to either protest or vent their anger. When the Bolsheviks came to power, the proletariat was very small but enough to topple the tottering Tsarist regime. The semi-liberal regime’s hold on the working class was not as choking as it later turned out to be during Stalin’s time. The massive number of workers in Soviet Russia was transformed into soulless creatures with no spirit to fight the system.
 
The regime’s stubbornness and bravado in the face of Arab-Spring cannot be simply dismissed as boastful and full of delusion. The reason is simple. It does not appear to worry from a public rebellion as observed in the current situation in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Let alone any mass protest or revolution, one doesn’t even witness the less confrontational means of protest witnessed in other dictatorial nations, such as the call for Allah from the rooftops of the houses in the towns used as a form of mass protest previously in Iran, and now in Syria. The gap between the dream of the opposition and the reality in the country has left some in search of a political explanation.
 
Unnerved by the political calm in the country, a few have lately dared to call the political system as totalitarian. In another instance, some have pointed out to the absence of a public space in the country implying to the totalitarian characteristics of the regime. These remarks are, however, half-hearted and facile for they fail to connect and address the existing status quo with its practices in the ghedli times. Having considered discussing the regime’s past as a taboo, they want to direct the wrath of the masses exclusively on the nature of the political system of the Eritrean nation-state. The same people who say that “liberation wars” are long and protracted now choose to treat the evolution of the totalitarian system in a different angle. This political construct will certainly not rouse the indifferent, cynical and risk-averse public. Unless the public correctly identifies the totalitarian nature of the regime, it will stay lost in the maze of contemporary Eritrean politics. Unless the public distinguishes the current state of affairs as totalitarian, EPLF’s infamous epithet, ghebar-dembar, may remain indelible.


Footnotes:
 
1. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, NY, 2004), p.411.
2. Ibid.
3. Debessay Hedru, Transition to Dictatorship, 1991-2003 No. 97, 2003.
4. Jan-Bart Gewald, Making Tribes: Social Engineering in the Western Province of British-Administered Eritrea, 1941-1952 in Institut fur Afrikanstik 2000 p.2.