Alemseged Abbay's Identity Jilted or Re-Imagining Identity? (Red Sea Press, 250 pages) is eight chapters long. Seven chapters are classic Oh, Eritreans, We Are So Much Alike, Why Don't You Want To Be Part Of Us? They are no different from the typical serving offered by the Ethiopian intelligentsia, a chronicle of unrequited love. Did you know that Woldeab Woldemariam's parents were from Axum? Oh, and did you know that Pushkin was from Adigrat? Did you know that Isaias Afwerki's parents were from Tigray? Yes, yes we also know that Napoleon's ancestry was from Italy and Dwight Eisenhower, the man who destroyed Germany's Hitler, traces his ancestry to Karlsbrunn, Germany...
Only in Ethiopian politics is a subject deemed unfit for polite company-people's ethnic origins--discussed in great length and used as a legitimate source of national policy. It is like a country run by an out of control EEOC officer. To Alemseged-and most in the Ethiopian intelligentsia-- Eritrea is nothing more than the land across the Mereb River. In 250 pages, he makes no mention of the other half: the people who live on the other side of the Tekeze River (the Gash/Setit folks) or the Denakil Depression or the Red Sea Coast. And for good reason: these folks have repeatedly said to anyone who will listen that they don't want a part of Ethiopia. So, we have to read six Chapters of Ye Ethiopia Tarik of how the trans-Mereb people are one people with the same ancestry, same religion, same history, same future...
Then there is Chapter 6: Visions of Identity. Chapter 6 is a gem. If you ever wondered what the chronic chromosome counting that passes for ethnic federation leads to, look no further than TPLF's Tigray. Tigray has been under the exclusive domain of the ethno-obsessed leadership of TPLF and the results of its unhealthy obsession are in...and they are damning. Alemseged gives us a rare glimpse into the psychological profile of the TPLF and what 20 years of TPLF "leadership" has done to the psyche of the constituency they represent--Tigrayans. Like a hidden camera, Alemseged "catches" the leaders of the TPLF and the people of Tigray in moments of unguarded candor that does much to illuminate their motives and ambitions and goes a long, long way towards explaining why the Eritrea-Ethiopia War, a conflict that should have been over in June 1998, is unsolved as of December 1999.
1. Historical Enemies/Nationalism
Ethiopian myth continuously reminds us that fiercely proud Ethiopia has slain dragons from Turkey, Sudan, and fascist Italy. We are told that this proud history was achieved through the unity of its diverse people. So, if you ask Tigrayans who their "historical enemy" is, they would of course tell you fascist Italy and Mahdist Sudan...right? Wrong. Asked to name who they consider their "historical enemies", 82% of his sample of Tigrayan citizens answered.... . Amhara (Shoa). (p. 154). Asked if they would trust an Amhara doctor, 64% of Tigrayans said they would not. (p. 155).
This is what 20 years of "ethno-politics" has done to the people of Tigray. (The survey was conducted in 1994). This is consistent with Ethiopian POW stories that the Ethiopian armed forces are largely segregated along ethnic lines. People around the world are trying to blur the ethnic divide but, in Ethiopia, the Federal Republic continues to chip at the crack lines.
When the TPLF leadership, the engineers of Ethiopia's ethno-fundamentalist state, were asked the same question, they answered in a manner that betrays their Marxist core: the TPLF's historical enemy was the "Amhara ruling class", the "Tigrayan ruling class", "feudalism", etc. Would the TPLF trust an Amhara doctor? Half of the TPLF sample said that they would not trust an Amhara doctor. If you think that is bad enough, Alemseged believes the number is even higher: "However, their numbers must exceed 50% because as one said:"I say I have no fears of being seen by an Amhara doctor; but in actual fact we go to Military hospitals whose doctors are well screened. "" (p. 165)
In case you are telling yourself, "what do you expect after all the Derg has done to the people of Tigray..." consider the following: the author asked the same question to a sample of Eritreans and EPLF members. All except two Eritreans expressed no fear in trusting an Amhara doctor. Asked to name their "historical enemy," the EPLF sample talked in classic nationalistic answer: its enemy was all the colonialist powers beginning with the Turks and ending with the Derg.
2. Patriotism/Loyalty
What do you consider your "Adi abo"--your "fatherland"? This question was posed to Tigrayans and Eritreans. 64. 3% of the TPLF sample, which included Sebhat Negga (the arsonist of the current Eritrea-Ethiopia War) named Tigray (not Ethiopia) as their Fatherland. To 71. 4% of the EPLF sample, "Fatherland" meant Eritrea and those who did not mention Eritrea did NOT say Hamasien or Seraye, etc. To Eritreans, notes Alemseged, "fatherland" does not mean the land of the forefathers; it means the land that their children sacrificed their lives for: Eritrea.
3. Intermarriage
Sociologists tell us that the ultimate test of "acceptance" is intermarriage--marriage outside your own caste, ethnicity and/or religion. When the TPLF leaders were asked what is their preference, 46% said they would prefer "intermarriages with the Kebessa [highland Eritreans] to the Amhara, fellow Ethiopians, or the Kunama and Afar, fellow "Tigrayans"" (p. 161). Asked the same question, 64% of EPLF leaders "prefer all intermarriages to take place among Eritreans alone, regardless of ethnicity and religion. Intermarriages with Tigrayans became a distant second choice. " (p. 162) This, no doubt, is presented as an exhibit in the "Eritreans Think They Are Better" book of ethno-stroking that the TPLF has been building.
4. The Hypothetical Match up
Suppose you are watching TV and you come across a boxing match. You don't know any of the fighters but one is black and the other is white. Who do you root for? Unless you are one of the tiny fractions of people who have managed to totally subdue all their atavistic allegiances, it is natural for you to take sides with the one who most resembles you. Alemseged takes a variation of this by asking TPLF leaders of a hypothetical soccer match up between an "Eritrean" and a "Shoa" soccer team. "Almost all evaded the question", writes Alemseged. Of those that responded, only 14. 3% would support a Shoan team. One of the few who answered the politically correct way was General Mohammed Yonus ("Samora"), who said, "...In the past, I used to support the Eritrean team. Now, I am changed. In the past, emotions dictated me; now I am led by reason. " Samora, a slave to reason and master of his emotions, would, five years later, lead thousands of young Ethiopians-the kind that the TPLF would not intermarry with-- to their death over minefields. Emotion is a nuisance; reason gets you promotions. Oh, yes, the unexamined life....
The most surreal question was saved for EPLF. EPLF leaders were asked who they would support in a hypothetical war between the TPLF and the "Amhara. " Get this: 85. 7% said they would help the TPLF. One of the interviewees said, "We will go to Alewaha and defend the TPLF. Should there be any more wars, they would have to be fought beyond Alewaha." (p. 167)
Now remember these interviews were conducted as recently as 1994 by a friendly researcher and scholar. Assuming the sample of 28 TPLF political leaders Alemseged is sampling is a representative one, what we have here is an Ethiopian leadership that is a product of 15 years of intensive ethno-indoctrination--one that sees the worldview from a purely provincial and Marxist lens. Nor surprisingly, between 1991 to 1998, this un-recanted worldview did not win it any followers outside its provincial base. Then something happened in 1998: a tiny, confinable border skirmish with Eritrea. The TPLF saw this as an opportunity to conduct "Dewta II".
Before we talk about Dewta II, let's talk about Dewta I. Since its inception in 1975, the TPLF had sold two mutually exclusive goods to two audiences. The people of Tigray were told that the cause of their misery is Shoa, Ethiopia; that their lives would never improve unless Tigray seceded and declared itself a Republic. To the rest of Ethiopia and the world, the TPLF preached a strange brew of Albanian revolutionary language. In the early 1980's, the EPLF called TPLF's goal of secession infantile and one that was based on "narrow nationalism. " In 1989, when TPLF liberated the entire state of Tigray (with a little help from EPLF), it no longer could maintain its dual and ambiguous goals. By then, the TPLF clearly wanted the Ethiopian throne. But how do you sell this to the Tigrayans who, for 15 years, were told that the Shoan is their enemy? In classic TPLF style, it took a one-year break to orient the people on the New Way: Shoans are not your enemy; Mengistu was and he will be gone soon. Harboring views of secession is, it told Tigrayans, was "narrow nationalism. " This one-year period 1989-90 is called, in TPLF parlance "Dewta"--standstill, in Tigrinya.
Unfortunately, as the survey shows, the 15-year damage is almost permanent: once the ethnic genie is unleashed, it is hard to put it back in the bottle: the Tigrayans went along with the TPLF plan but they still consider the Showans their historical enemy and they don't trust their doctors.
Ten years later, in 1999, TPLF's ambiguous and mutually exclusive bill of goods come back to haunt them. Do you still harbor ambitions of Greater Tigray (as your new map says) or do you respect colonial treaties and international law (as your agreement to respect Eritrea's right to self-determination shows)? Faced with that choice, it is conducting Dewta II. During this period, it hopes to win the love of the rest of Ethiopia. It is trying to do this by employing every little trick in its bag of goods: false hopes (Assab); false exploits (phantom military victories); deporting the "disloyal" and treacherous Ethiopians (Eritreans), releasing the "war heroes" of the Derg Era (probably including those who bombed Hauzien); a little good old xenophobia (UN-bashing, US-bashing), and the defamation of the one Eritrean most Ethiopians love to hate (Isaias. ) And, by the way, the Eritrean economy has collapsed, the Eritrean opposition is on the rise; the Ethiopian economy is booming, tourists are overflowing, democracy is blooming. It is morning in Addis Ababa.
The TPLF knows that it does not have a captive audience and that this process of Dewta II is going to require more than a year, a lot more than a year. Perhaps five years, perhaps more. So what if there is AIDS crisis, starvation and crushing poverty? The TPLF believes it can wait them out. But there are these annoying "peace brokers"--these OAU, UN, US, EU, busybodies--that actually want to break the standstill. The TPLF has an even more ingenious solution to stall the peacemakers: more standstills by asking for more clarifications and amendments. Meanwhile, hurry up Eritrean Opposition! Hurry up economic meltdown!
But the TPLF is playing a game of chicken; it forgets it is no longer in Tigray--where it was, in Dewta I, dealing with a captive audience. It is in a world stage and diplomats, although slow, eventually wise up to the wise guys. And the EPLF folks who pledged to defend TPLF all the way to Alewaha have holier pledges to keep.