Must Read!-OLD PROBLEMS IN NEW CONFLICTS: SOME OBSERVATIONS ON ERITREA AND ITS RELATIONS WITH TIGRAY, FROM LIBERATION STRUGGLE TO INTER-STATE WAR.
By Richard Reid
AN OVERVIEW OF THE ISSUES
July 01, 2016
There can be few more sensitive or emotive subject-matters in the field of Mrican studies today than the attempt to explore relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia in general, and between Eritrea and Tigray, in northern Ethiopia, in particular (Reid, forthcoming). Temperatures rise and tempers fray; accusation and counter accusation fly with as much impunity as the academic arena can tolerate, which is actually a substantial amount; the term 'heated debate' is something of a polite understatement in a field where the search for 'objectivity' is as apparently fruitless as it is held to be in other areas of intense conflict between proverbial bad neighbours or presumed 'family members', as in Rwanda, Northern Ireland or Israel-Palestine.
Virtually everyone who has written on Eritrea-Ethiopia laments the lack of objectivity in the field, usually only to find themselves accused (sometimes with justification, sometimes less so) of the Very same failing. One is either a 'greater Ethiopianist', bitterly opposed to the aggressive, militaristic independence which Eritrea had the temerity to achieve, or an 'Eritrean nationalist', bitterly opposed to the aggressive Expansionism of the Ethiopian empire-state. It is an apparently infinite debate characterized by polarisation, a discourse which has, at its very core, the old notion that 'if you are not with us, you are against us'. The intellectual and literary battlelines are as clearly drawn as any physical confrontation witnessed by the Region at any time over the past two or more generations. An unwavering adherence to the formula 'if you are not with us, you are against us' has served many of the protagonists discussed in this paper very well in the crucible of armed struggle, survival in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds; it is less edifying in the context of informed, scientific discussion and, actually, in the end achieves nothing……………………..
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Berhane Habtemariam