Poster Note: Wall Street Journal reporter visits Asmara (see story below)
unhindered but could not shake off traces of bias she came with, this
is more apparent on another article she co-wrote with her collogue
reporting from Ethiopia.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/eritreans-flee-conscription-and-poverty-adding-to-the-migrant-crisis-in-europe-1445391364?mod=WSJ_article_EditorsPicks_0
http://www.wsj.com/articles/what-its-like-inside-asmara-one-of-africas-most-isolated-capitals-1445390907
What It’s Like Inside Asmara, One of Africa’s Most Isolated Capitals
Reporter visits Eritrean city, where stunning modernist architecture
clashes with deep poverty
ENLARGE
In Asmara, Eritrea, a young man walks outside an abandoned building in
central Asmara. On the roof is a poster of Eritrean fighters rising to
the top of a hill, in honor those who fought in a 30-year struggle for
independence from Ethiopia, which was achieved in 1993. Photo: Matina
Stevis/The Wall Street Jounal
By
Matina Stevis
Matina Stevis
The Wall Street Journal
Oct. 20, 2015 9:28 p.m. ET
3 COMMENTS
ASMARA, Eritrea—In one of Africa’s most isolated and picturesque
capitals, little is what it seems.
Cloistered for decades by war and a reclusive policy of self-reliance,
Asmara is a study in contrasts: Stunning modernist architecture
clashes with deep poverty in a nation facing one of the world’s
fastest emigration rates.
Related
The Mass Exodus of Eritrea
Those paradoxes were immediately visible when a Wall Street Journal
reporter landed in the city last month, becoming one of only a handful
of foreign journalists to report from Eritrea since correspondents
were deported in 2008. The reporter had been told there would be a
handler, but there was none. Her movement was restricted to the
capital, home to about 600,000, but she was left on her own.
Slow-paced, manicured and perched at 7,900 feet altitude, Asmara looks
like a film set: Hundreds of people idle at cafes and bus stops, like
extras waiting for the next scene to be shot.
They have been waiting for a long time.
In 1993, Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia after a 30-year
struggle. Just five years later, it fought another war against its
powerful neighbor. Despite a U.N.-sponsored peace agreement, Ethiopia
still occupies Eritrean territory, an accusation Addis Ababa denies.
The single-party Eritrean regime, headed by former rebel commander
Isaias Afewerki, has had the country in a state of emergency for 17
years. It has never held an election, and a constitution drawn up
after independence was never implemented. Asmara has stayed in a time
capsule circa 1935: unspoiled but economically stagnant.
European colonial influences are on bold display in the Red Sea nation
of 4.5 million people.
ENLARGE
Asmara, Eritrea, is both one of Africa’s most isolated capitals and
one of its most picturesque, known for early-twentieth-century
architecture bequeathed by Italy, a former colonial ruler. Photo:
Matina Stevis/The Wall Street Jounal
Palm-tree-lined Harnet Avenue, the main boulevard, is dotted with
modernist and art-deco buildings, a legacy of Eritrea’s erstwhile
colonial masters, the Italians. Fascist leader Benito Mussolini saw
Asmara as a jewel in his “new Roman Empire” but left in a hurry in
1941 as the tide turned against Italy in World War II.
The British took over. A pristine war cemetery in the outskirts of
Asmara, on the edge of one of Africa’s most dramatic escarpments, is
the final resting place for hundreds of young British and African
soldiers who died here fighting the Italians.
Isolation has stunted development, the sluggish pace of life
interrupted only by young cyclists in bright Lycra whizzing past,
evidence of the country’s growing prowess in international cycling.
At the popular Zara Bar, six different flavors of Absolut vodka were
being served to young men and women who, like their peers across the
world, gathered around smartphone screens and flirted into the night.
But unlike their peers, young Eritreans face the prospect of mandatory
military service that could last decades.
All 15,000 or so Eritrean boys and girls who finish high school each
year are conscripted and receive military training. Most are later
assigned state jobs on a pittance—a starting salary equal to $10 a
month. They aren’t allowed to change jobs or leave the country until
they are demobilized.
European Union officials said they proposed spending part of a €200
million, or $227 million, aid package on demobilizing a group of
conscripts. Regime officials said they declined because this would
violate the principle that no one is exempt from patriotic duties.
ENLARGE
In the historical center of the isolated African city of Asmara,
Eritrea, the Cinema Roma, untouched for decades, screens Eritrean and
foreign films and has a busy coffeehouse. Photo: Matina Stevis/The
Wall Street Jounal
“National service is for two purposes: to defend the country, but also
to engage in economic development of the country and to train them
while we are in this [emergency] situation,” said Hagos Ghebrehiwet,
the ruling party’s economy chief.
Mr. Ghebrehiwet drove the Journal reporter around in a battered white
Toyota TM 1.85 % Corolla at least a decade old. Diplomats here say
there is no evidence local elites enjoy luxuries common among Africa’s
ruling classes.
But the split between older fighters invested in Eritrea’s
independence and their freedom-craving offspring is driving a wedge
within families and between generations.
Bissrat Ghebru, a scientist in charge of standards for the country’s
higher-education degrees, studied at Birmingham University in the U.K.
and the University of California, San Diego and now earns roughly $200
a month.
“My friends and family tell me that I’ve achieved nothing after all
these studies, because I don’t even own a house,” she said. “But it’s
not about money.”
Her 29-year-old daughter Batseba had a different vision. While her
mother returned to Eritrea voluntarily, Batseba left illegally,
without demobilization papers, five years ago. She is in London, close
to getting U.K. citizenship, and dreams of working as a
photojournalist.
“She can’t come home to see me because she left illegally,” Ms. Ghebru
said. “But one day she will, and until then, we meet abroad when we
can.”
Write to Matina Stevis at matina.stevis_at_wsj.com
Received on Wed Oct 21 2015 - 11:18:40 EDT