Eritrea's Network of Mass Miscommunication

A couple of years after the Eritrea–Ethiopia border conflict ended in 2000, a friend had the following to narrate. 

“There is this strange and weird thing that started back in the 1910s,” he begins and goes on, “My father told us that our grandfather was conscripted by the Italians to fight for the Italian invasion in Libya!  He used to remind us with no sense of pride in his voice.  It was just a matter of fact for him.  We were all kids then and had no idea what Libya meant and he remembers his eldest brother who became another conscript and died during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s.  It is my own uncle I am talking about.” 

“And you know,” my friend says – with embedded anger in his voice, “my own eldest brother joined the armed struggle for the independence of Eritrea and survived and my youngest brother took part in the border conflict of 1998 -2000 between Eritrea and Ethiopia.  What kind of history is this?” 

“You know what my aunt said about my grandfather?” he asks. 

“No,” I say. 

“She said that my grandfather wasn’t the same person after his return from Tripoli and now I know why my two brothers are not the same either.” 

In a nutshell, we are talking about four consecutive generations – a span of roughly 80 years – characterized by unstable, unsustainable and brutal culture of survival.  The challenge is to correlate the above account and map the effect such a long history of trauma may have on Eritreans – war veterans and the rest. 

When the Eritrean ‘liberators’ entered Asmara in the month of May 1991 with a massive expression of relief and cheer from a huge crowd of residents, a fighter is reported to have said, “They have no idea what is coming!” 

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An American psychiatrist (a Vietnam veteran himself) writes: 

Many [war] veterans find it extremely uncomfortable to feel love and compassion for others. To do this, they would have to ‘soften’ their numb reactions to the death and horror that surrounded them in Vietnam. Some veterans I've interviewed actually believe that if they once again allow themselves to feel, they may never stop crying or may completely lose control of themselves; what they mean by this is unknown to them. Therefore, many of these veterans go through life with an impaired capacity to love and care for others. They have no feeling of direction or purpose in life. They are not sure why they even exist. 

There comes a time when we are lost for words to express feelings of joy, sadness, grief and moments of absolute bliss.  And then there are those deadly, tragic and incomprehensible experiences for which no amount of words would be enough to express the depth of numbness we feel in the very heart of our being.  

Eritrea’s collective trauma belongs to the latter category and part of the reason could be: it has not been fully recognized as such yet.  We don’t even have suitable or appropriate words capable of describing the condition in the local languages other than the general term ‘illness.’  It is the kind of sickness the impact of which can only be dealt with by being absorbed in the socio-cultural or communal setting.  Unfortunately, the Eritrean social fabric itself is well beyond its breakpoint to offer any help in accommodating or depleted in its capacity to create or adopt new social spaces of healing for such an overwhelming, highly demanding and pervasive disorder being experienced by successive generations of combatants and ‘normal’ people. 

Recalling the outside help offered to the Government of Eritrea back in the early 1990s, Zekere Lebona writes:  

After the ghedli war ended, some NGOs with post-war expertise asked the regime for the need of treating the fighters but were rebuffed by them, who simply said "We Eritreans were fighting a just war". "Just" or unjust wars always leave their indelible mark on both the combatants and the populace without exception. This, thirty-year-war was, however, held as a mark of honor in Eritrea… the whole realm needs a regimen of therapy. Only then will the "cognitive dissonance" be exorcised and for that we need a state of normalcy. 

The Government of Eritrea probably assumed post-war trauma did not apply to Eritrea just because Eritrea’s war was ‘justifiable’.  That in itself is an indirect admission that they were suffering from it.  That incident itself could be marked as the moment the line was crossed or the day Eritrea’s trauma was ‘officially’ collectivized. 

In 'Ethio-Romantics and the Politics of Military Intervention', Paulos Natnael opens his article with a quote by Bob Marley: "If you don't know your past, you don't know your future!"  Unfortunately, that is exactly what is happening in Eritrea.  It forgot or chose to ignore its stress-disorder infected past – the very reason why it cannot chart its own future. It is quite strange he used that quote to re-enforce forgetfullness in the name of, yet again, Eritrean nationalism - a bankrupt ideology that is bleeding Eritrea.

What has a network of mass miscommunication got to do with all that? 

For starters, Eritrea’s network of mass communication is not normal.  What it does best is evade and cover up immediate realities only to generate more confusion that provide the establishment more space and time to do the same thing over and over again.  Its history of media represents an account of the development of weapons of mass deception and in the process it has delayed or arrested the possibility of collective healing within political and social spaces.  

The problem is: such a state of a nation is gradually being accepted as normal.  Some Eritreans are beginning to see what is not there while others behave as if they have lost the will to live and both happen to be symptoms of a traumatic stress disorder. 

In Eritrea’s 30-year armed struggle for independence and its aftermath, there are two prominent words that have taken root in the Eritrean psyche: masses and martyrs.  Eritrea’s media – in pre and post-independence period – has used, misused and abused these two and much talked-about pillars of Eritrea’s society to manufacture a make-believe reality that has progressively detached the nation as a whole from making any meaningful assessment of its condition.  As a result, the much bragged about Eritrean ‘identity’ has been suffering from a false sense of confidence for some time. 

What is brutally clear now is that neither the masses and nor the martyrs have any active participation in Eritrea’s media of mass communication – the living and the dead have no say in their own personal or collective affairs.  They are united in shame and silent protest. 

Let’s dig further. 

There is something not quite right about the concept behind the phrase ‘voice of the masses’ or Dm’tsi ’Hafash.  It was the name of the dominant rebel radio station in pre-independence period and, 20 years into independence, the same slogan is still operating with more or less the same style.  In a country where independent media is not permitted to operate, have not the masses literally lost their voices?  It is acceptable to rally behind ‘the voice of the people’ at a time of national emergency – as in what is happening in North Africa and the Middle East.  Unfortunately, Eritrea has been – for as long as one can recall – in a state of emergency in which the ‘Eritrean masses’ have never exercised their voice boxes. 

Losing one’s voice is another common factor related to a condition of a traumatic experience.  Such a deep and disturbing experience is usually followed by the inability or rather disability to express one’s horrific or unpleasant past and it just makes it much worse when it is not recognized or support denied.  Incidentally, that is exactly what individuals who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder do.  They refuse to acknowledge their condition and ask for help. It is more frightening when such a stance is endorsed by the Government of Eritrea and manifested in its governance mechanism. 

The epicenter of this traumatic Eritrean tremor may be located in the origins of the liberation struggle itself.  The armed movements, surrounded by a matrix of violence, conducted their operations in an environment of silence, secrecy and sacrifice.  It involved, directly or indirectly, literally the whole population of Eritrea.  The effects of such a wide-spread psycho-social trauma can be felt from Ethiopia and Sudan to as far as London and Los Angeles.  One can only imagine the scale of its impact within the borders of Eritrea.  This brutal legacy of liberation which some remnants of the armed struggle would call ‘victory to the masses’ or ‘Awet n’Hafash’, should not be undermined or ignored.  It has to be explored and addressed for it has the capacity to radiate, cross national borders and sting other unsuspecting generations. 

For those fighters or communities that underwent such a terrible past, all might look as normal.  However, the various facets of ‘communication’ can give us an insight into the manifestations of post-traumatic stress disorder in the Eritrean context.  In fact, the two significant elements that unite Eritreans are: the crippling inability or unwillingness to dialogue and develop an environment of understanding and the ever debilitating power of silence.  So much effort is wasted in trying to forget the past – as if it never happened.  While being selective in picking up what serves its purpose, it manifests itself in government-sponsored and obstinate drive to wipe out social memory.  Again, it is another exhibit of a stress disorder that is projected and screened on the society as a whole. 

The over-politicized engagement or discourse on Eritrea is not helping.  It wouldn’t be far fetched if it can be perceived as a symptomatic exhibition of a collective trauma – a behaviour pattern that incessantly avoids the main issue.  It always fails to open a window to let in some fresh air from the outside simply because it wouldn’t know how to inhale unpolluted air - allergic to seek help and embrace openness.  Otherwise, Eritrea would have been able to breathe a sigh of relief by now. 

In extreme cases, a person suffering from some sort of trauma would find himself or herself drinking to oblivion while suffering in silence.  In the Eritrean scenario, it is the ruling elite and other privileged few that do the heavy drinking while the people are beaten to silence.    

The other crucial and widespread symptom is the elevation of denial one would rise to – well, deny anything and everything that doesn’t fit one's world-view.  Whenever some Eritreans are asked to consider the possibility of opening up, they would shut down the gates of communication and resort to violence.  May be that is why the Government of Eritrea wouldn’t allow or support independent media in Eritrea.  It would have paved the way towards some sort of normalcy or played a crucial role in creating social spaces in which individuals and communities would have found ways of healing themselves.  

In other words, knowingly or unknowingly, those who are in an open forum of denial are, in a way, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and, hiding behind slogans of nationalism, they exhibit no desire to change the status quo.  Eritrea at peace with itself is not a habitable or hospitable environment for a person suffering from such a condition – hence, the involuntary and hidden agenda of promoting a network of mass miscommunication and silencing the media.  Fortunately however, it is an unsustainable, unproductive and self-defeating enterprise. 

The media institutions and tools of mass communication in Eritrea are designed to sustain a culture of post-traumatic stress disorder that has penetrated right into the Eritrean psyche.  The social ills that afflict Eritrea have the hallmark of a collective trauma and the overheated political debate has not yet addressed or opened up this issue.  It is probably too hot to handle for it permeates practically every thread of the Eritrean social fabric. Just brushing over the subject won’t be of much assistance either but we do have a toolbox of resources without the need to grind an axe and exterminate the other. 

It would be advisable to consider the gravity of this phenomenon long before the current government comes to its inevitable end.

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PS.  Angesom sent his comment on the above article.  What follows is a translation:

In relation to what you have written, I have the following true story to tell.  It happened in the lowlands of Eritrea.  There was this man whose two brothers were martyred during the armed liberation struggle of Eritrea.  He meets a former fighter who happened to be a friend of his dead brothers.  Trying to figure out problems that were affecting the community, he asks the former fighter, "Were my brothers the same as you?" The other replies, "What do you mean? Yes, we were all the same.  We march together, we fight together, we sleep together... we did everything together!"  The one who lost his two brothers replies back, "I am glad not all of you returned!"