Dr. Huesein M. Adam
Historically, Eritrea has been invaded by races related to those found in all the parts of the Horn of Africa. Languages spoken in Eritrea are related to other languages spoken in the Horn. The highland Tigrinyans, for example, are culturally linked to the Ethiopian Tigrinyans and they both profess Coptic Christianity. The southern stretch of the Coastal Plain and the vast desert lying about it in Ethiopia and ex-French Somaliland are inhabited by the Afar (European books refer to them as Danakil), a Muslim people whose language is Cushitic in origin, and are culturally and linguistically related to the Eastern Cushites, the Oromo (so-called Galla) and Somalis. Afars live in Eritrea, Djibouti and Ethiopia. These are but a few examples of diversity in Eritrea.
Around the sixteenth century, for example, "the Danakil (Afar) and other Hamitic (Cushitic) tribes were welded into a loose unity by the Afari or Sultans of Aussa, dependents of the Somali Kings of Adal. The shape of Eritrea's partition between Ethiopians, Turks, Fung, and the Sultans of Aussa, though fluid at first, congealed into a recognizable shape (1). There is a legend that states that the famous Ahmed Gurey, who led Somali and other Muslim forces from Adal to battle against Abyssinian kings, came from the Muslim Bejas of Eritrea. The Turks intervened and after acquiring Massawa, exercised some form of control over the northern coastal stretch including Somaliland. The history of foreign interventions is going to provide another link between the Eritrean, Somali, and other peoples of the Horn.
Similarly, the Egyptians had hoisted their flag in Eritrea and Somaliland in place of the Turkish around 1872 (2). The Mahdi revolt in the Sudan and the Sayyid revolt in Somaliland affected many of the peoples of the Horn. A few of them actively supported or facilitated the Muslim based resistance of the Sudanese Mahdi and Somaliland Dervishes. A number sympathized openly with these and other anti-colonialist rebellions, yet others subscribed to the age old adage that one's enemies' enemies are one's friends. In 1913, the pro-Muslim Emperor of Ethiopia Lij Yasu tried to forge a Horn of Africa (Muslim based) anti-colonial movement as he entered into political relations with Sayyid Muhammad (3). Earlier on, Ethiopian (Abyssinian) Emperor John agreed with European colonial powers to assist in the suppression of the Mahdist forces (4). The coup against Lij Yasu brought a ruling coalition that was pro European imperialism and anti the Sayyid movement. Thus over a hundred years ago, Addis Ababa came to evolve a regime that saw the main antagonistic contradiction as that between Muslims (lowlanders) and Christian (highlanders) instead of between the peoples and polities of the Horn and European imperialism. This is a key aspect of the tragic history of the Horn since 1884; the recent success of the Eritrean, Ethiopian and Somali (partial) revolutions may finally pave the way for genuine reconciliations.
Eritrea offers a veritable laboratory for the Horn. Its diverse ecology sustains diverse, pluralist communities. Eritrea will never be able to extricate itself from the Horn given its people's various origins, all have links with other societies across Eritrean borders. The people consist of Christian, Muslim, and believers in traditional African religions; some are settled agriculturists, others, in varying degrees, live as pastoral nomads. Some of the Eritrean nationalities had traditions of kinship and hierarchical structures like the Amharas and Tigrinyas in Ethiopia while others were ruled by councils of elders like the pastoral Somali, Oromos and others. The Eritrean people and their linkages provide the regime with a basis for establishing a pluralistic democracy and for championing Horn of Africa solidarity and cooperation.
Italy came to colonize Eritrea and one part of Somali territories: Italian Somaliland. This gave the two peoples and territories several links: similar colonial administrations, police/armies educational system, educational language, etc. Those who have visited both Asmara and Mogadishu have noticed similarities in architecture, administrative styles and even in cuisines. Some of the Eritrean and Somali students in Italy formed long-lasting bonds of friendship. Italians brought Eritreans to Somalia and Somalis to Eritrea. As of 1952, a rough estimate gives the population of Eritrea at 1,064,000 of whom 32,000 were considered aliens (including Italian and Arabs): 6,000 Sudanese and Somalis (5). I am not aware of a similar breakdown for the Eritreans in Somalia. My impressionistic sense is that most of the Muslim Eritreans were able to marry and integrate themselves into Somali society. One of them Ibrahim Ghazali, emerged in the seventies and eighties as a Director of the Transport Division in Siad's powerful National Security Service (NSS) - a position that required one to be not only trusted politically, but also accepted as a "full" citizen. The Christian Amhara who were forcibly brought in as laborer's by the Italians lived in a special section of Mogadishu near the lido beach; to this day that part is called "Kambo Amhaar" or the Amhara Camp.
The Italian invasion and conquest of Ethiopia in 1935-6 were succeeded in 1936 by the union of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia in the Italian East African Empire. Eritrea was now brought into a colonial federal-type political union with Ethiopia and the greater part of the Somali territories. Only French Somaliland and the Somalis in northern Kenya escaped this new Empire. However, Italian successes were short-lived: Italy declared war on June 10, 1940; by May 1941 British forces had occupied Eritrea, Italian Somaliland, and most of Ethiopia. Nevertheless, Italian and British Sub-regional rulerships helped give the people common experiences while indirectly facilitating the vision of a confederated Horn of Africa.
Italian defeat brought Haile Sellassie back to power and he accelerated the old Ethiopian ruling elite policy of aligning Ethiopia with Western imperialism in order to colonize her neighbors: Eritrea and Somalia.
Emperor Haile Sellassie himself made his formal claim in his speech at Gabredare in the Ogaden on August 25, l 956:
Following the Italian defeat, the UN had to dispose its former colonies: Eritrea, Italian Somaliland, Libya. They could not dispose of Eritrea, for example, alone. UN Commissions were set up which visited these countries making the peoples even more aware, in a charged political climate, that they have a lot in common, that they share a common history and potentially a common destiny (8). The UN deliberated and came to differing solutions for the three ex-ltalian colonies due to cold war politics: Libya was granted immediate independence, Somalia was to become independent in 1960, after a period of ten years of UN and Italian trusteeship (9 ). Eritrea could have become independent either immediately or after a period of trusteeship. However, due to Haile Sellassie's untiring lobbying efforts, and in collusion with the US which planned to establish a strategic military base in Eritrea, Eritrea was united in the form of a federation with Ethiopia. Later on, Haile Sellassie unilaterally and arrogantly abrogated the so-called Federation and unleashed the long Eritrean war for national liberation and self-determination.
Apart from studying in Italy and later on in the US, and other Western nations, Eritrean elites also went to study, to work and for refuge in several Arab States including Sudan, of course, as well as to Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Gulf States. In all these countries they encountered hundreds of Somalis and they learned to forge both political, cultural, and programatic forms of solidarity.
The first Eritrean national liberation organization committed to wage armed struggles was the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF): In 1961, the ELF was formed in Cairo, Egypt. The ELF then arbitrarily founded the ELA (Eritrean Liberation Army) and asked Idris Hamad Awate to head the ELA. Thus in September 1961 the anti-Ethiopian Eritrean armed struggle officially began, but without a clear program of political direction.
Early in the 1960's, the Somali Government assisted the ELF in establishing an office, providing them with an office on one of Mogadishu's main streets in a building next to the then US Embassy and across the street from the USIS premises. On one end of the same street are the Ethiopian and French Embassies. Splits within the ELF led to the formation of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) in 1970.
"Civil war was launched by the ELF (against the EPLF) in 1972 and lasted until 1974 when the people demanded that it end; formal cessation of the civil war was achieved in 1974." (11)
During the mid and late seventies, several EPLF delegations visited Mogadishu to open a mission and to consolidate EPLF-Somali relations. Some members of the Siad military government which had come to power in a coup in October 1969, preferred the ELF. Obviously, this was partly because the EPLF elements gave them the impression that it was a "Muslim" organization. The small but active Somali "left" intelligentsia rallied around the EPLF and stood behind its negotiations with the head of the Somali National Security Service and other concerned organs of the Somali ruling party and Government. Information reaching Somalia showed that, apart from a few vocal leaders in Arab capitals, the ELF was practically without strong bases in Eritrea itself. The EPLF did get the recognition it sought and was even able to inherit the former ELF premises in Mogadishu. l had the honor to participate in this process as a consequence of my friendship with Haile Menkerios, currently a member of the EPLF Central Committee and Ambassador to Ethiopia.
As time passed, and EPLF information/educational efforts - including films that were widely shown and appreciated - began to have an impact. Support for Eritrea among politically conscious Somalis began to transcend the simple "one's enemies' enemies are one's friends" and also the issue of religion (Islam, about half of the Eritrean population), and to include the originality of the Eritrean revolution - its efforts to promote women emancipation, its bottoms-up emphasis as well as self reliant approach to development. Those who have viewed the Eritrean struggle in this light have consistently supported the Eritrean struggle regardless of the mercurial nature of Somali politics. Richard Sherman writes:
Libya's Colonel Qaddafi and Sudan's General Numeiri both came to power in 1969. The People's Democratic Republic of Yemen facilitated the movement of arms across the sea to points along the Eritrean coast.
Later in 1969, another coup d'etat by the military brought Siad Barre to power in Somalia. Both the Sudan and Somalia soon began a program of stepped up aid to the ELF....Soviet weapons supplied to the Sudan, Somalia, the PDRY and Syria continued to reach the Eritrean guerrillas. (13)
Nevertheless, some of the Eritreans I have interviewed on this issue strongly feel that Somalia's assistance to Eritrea essentially consisted of moral, political and diplomatic support. Somali regimes have all been too willing to issue Somali passports to Eritreans, include diplomatic passports to certain elements in the leadership. These passports allowed Eritreans to travel in search of education and jobs. Jobs in the Arab world and the West allowed many of them to organize and support the Eritrean struggle both politically and financially. The leadership was also able to undertake travel for organizational purposes and interest. I recall the head of the Eritrean Relief Association (ERA) and another ERA leader arriving at Dakar Airport in late May 1987 to attend the first founding Congress of the Forum of African Voluntary Development Organizations (FAVDO). They had some problems at the airport and I informed a counselor at our Dakar Embassy; he immediately rushed to the airport and resolved the issue given that they were both traveling on Somali passports. Later, the then Somali Ambassador gave a dinner in their honor. He was one of those relatively few Somalis whose support for Eritrea transcends beyond a simple dislike for the Ethiopian regime. ERA's participation and presentation at the Dakar FAVDO Congress was extremely effective and convinced many that the Eritrean revolution has a lot to offer the rest of Africa not the least in the area of voluntary development movements and organizations. Somalia consistently provided passports to Eritreans. (14)
The Ethiopian-Somali war of 1977-78 soured relations between the Somali Government and Eritrean movements. The Eritreans fully supported the efforts of the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) to liberate the region journalistically referred to as the Ogaden. They offered the WSLF various aspects of their richer guerrilla war experience. EPLF leader Issayas Afeworki visited the area in 1977 and cautioned against using the Somali National Army in the area (15). He reasoned that such a top-down militarist approach will undermine the WSLF and herald in massive foreign interventionism. Unfortunately, beginning in May-June 1977, the Somalia military regime launched a tremendous offensive intended to regain "Western Somalia" (the Ogaden region). And, as predicted by the Eritrean leader, foreign involvement in Ethiopia, and consequently Eritrea, underwent a major transformation with the introduction of large scale Soviet and Cuban presence in the area.
Somalia broke diplomatic relations with Cuba and abrogated its Friendship Treaty with the USSR as it sought a new alliance with the USA. Again, as predicted, this had dire consequences on the Eritrean struggle.
However, the disciplined Eritrean movements refrained from openly criticizing the Somalis. The EPLF is a mature and sophisticated organization that utilizes class analysis to plan its strategy. The EPLF knew that the Siad regime was a brutal dictatorship and were not taken by surprise with its military solution to the question of self-determination in the Ogaden; nor were they taken by surprise when Siad implored Mengistu to sign a mutual peace treaty in 1988. I conducted a lecture tour of several US universities from February to June 1978. In almost every US city I went, I was invited to have discussions with Eritrean groups. All of them supported the Somali cause in principle but vigorously condemned the Somali government for its opportunism and militarism. It was only due to greater political understanding and tolerance on the part of the Eritrea that relations between Somalis and Eritreans did not become damaged beyond repair.
During this same period, relations between Somalis and Oromos experienced tensions and great bitterness. There are historical, linguistic theories showing that Oromos, Afars, Rendille, Borana, Sahos, Bejas, Somalis and other smaller groups belong to the Eastern Cushitic language family supposed to have originated in southeastern Ethiopia/northeastern Kenya (17). There is at least one theory that asserts "that the Somalis are actually Semiticized Oromos, the descendants of the Oromo tribes which inhabited portion of what is now the Northern Region of the Somali Republic and which were subject to influence emanating from Arabia, both through a certain degree of intermarriage and through the adoption of Islam (8). The shoe, as the saying goes, is usually on the other foot. It was, therefore, not surprising that the Somali military dictatorship unleashed propaganda to the effect that Oromos were actually Somalis whose language had somewhat strayed from the purer Somali language. With the attempt to Somalise the Oromo went the attempt to indirectly claim their territories as part of Greater Somalia. Muslim Oromo leaders who had lived in Mogadishu for many years facilitated such fabrications. The Siad dictatorship divided the population of Ethiopian Somaliland/Oromia into two wings. Professor Bereket H. Selassie explains this manipulation and its implications very well:
As the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) developed its field and diplomatic activities, the Somali dictatorship was obliged to recognize it and to give it permission to establish an office in Mogadishu in 1979 (20). However, the so-called Somali Abbo Liberation Front leaders in Mogadishu continued to object and official Somali policies continued to zigzag between the OLF and the so-called Somali Abbos.
Eritreans showed similar understanding when Somali groups opposed to the Siad dictatorship sought refuge in Mengistu's Addis Ababa. After failing in an anti-Siad coup in 1978, Abdullahi Yusuf automatically ran to Ethiopia where he established the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF). The SSDF atrophied due to (a) heavy reliance on Qaddafi's funds, (b) Abdulahi Yusuf's dictatorial style and methods, and (c)Siad's ability to appease most of the Mijerteen clans as fellow members of the Darod clan-family. The SSDF was reduced to obtaining support only from the Abdulahi Yusuf sub-branch of the Mijerteen. Siad was even able to entice many of those in Ethiopia to return and constitute the spearhead of his brutal wars against the Isaq in the north and later against the Hawiye in Mogadishu. By 1990/1991, the SSDF was reduced to a phantom organization.
The Isaq based Somali National Movement at first tried to organize a movement from London but soon decided to move to Ethiopian Somali cities and towns close to the border with the Somali Democratic Republic. The SNM and Qaddafi repulsed each other and it was forced to rely mostly on funds raised monthly by the Somali (Isaq) communities in the Gulf, in other Arab states, East Africa, and in various western countries. This self-reliant method gave the movement relative independence and obliged it to be accountable to its numerous supporters. Accordingly, it evolved a more democratic approach: it has held popular congresses periodically during which it has elected its leaders and evolved its policies. Contradictions among its leaders and supporting clans are handled politically not militarily. The SNM claims it bargained with Mengistu purely as a matter of political expediency. The SNM played an indirect role in the formation of the United Somali Congress (USC), an armed movement based on the Hawiye clan-family which inhabits the central regions of the country including the capital city of Mogadishu. Given their precarious position, Somali opposition movements refrained from either praising or condemning the Eritrean movement. The Eritreans responded in similar fashion and this long sighted policy allows them to have cordial and fraternal relations with the Somali opposition groups that are now in power in Somaliland and in Mogadishu Somalia.
By the mid-1980's Somali armed opposition movements were a little more like the ELF than the EPLF. To a greater extent than the EPLF, the ELF had a leadership that led the struggle from foreign capitals where they were involved in fundraising and information activities. Later on, most of them were removed from their positions and replaced by leaders who were field fighters. By 1987/1988 many of the SNM leaders abroad began to establish themselves in the field. By then, they had become aware that they might lose their jobs to field fighters.
Dictators Mengistu and Siad met in Djibouti in January 1986 on the occasion of the first summit launching the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD). The two states opened negotiations aimed at normalizing their relations. The SNM was alarmed and began to discuss alternative options. In 1988 the Ethiopian-Somalia agreements were signed and Siad disbanded his puppet organization, the WSFL. His main object was to induce Mengistu to destroy the SNM. The Ethiopian dictator turned out to be more Machiavellian than Siad wished; he told the SNM to wind up military activities from Ethiopian soil but that they could go on living as political exiles. Siad achieved the opposite of what he wanted. The SNM decided to take all the forces in their command and invade the main northern Somali cities of Hargeisa and Burao.
Siad used aerial bombing and heavy artillery to chase about one million of the population into refugee camps in Isaaq territories across the border into Ethiopian Somaliland. These momentous events finally brought the SNM into close, organic links with the population whom it claimed to represent. In addition to the SNM Central Committee, they were obliged to constitute a Council of Elders ("Guurti") which proved most effective in resolving disputes, supervising the fair and just distribution of food and other assistance, recruiting fighters for the various fronts and, after the fall of the Siad dictatorship, took the lead in disarming the mischievous young volunteer fighters, the so-called children's army. Siad's brutal counter-offensive only reestablished his huge army's control of the main cities, not most of the countryside which came under SNM control. By 1988 then, the SNM had liberated zones analyzed by British historian of revolutions Basil Davidson as "a proof of a nationalist fighting movement's efficacy, a demonstration of what is to come after victory, but also a vital means of achieving that victory. (21)
The SNM invasion of 1988 was the dream of every alert strategist in that it constituted an offensive so surprising and tactically destructive enough that the enemy was rendered highly confused and incapable of careful, planned and effective resistance. The SNM tried its best to coordinate its use of liberation violence with organization, propaganda and information. It more or less subordinated violence as a means to clearly stated political ends. The Siad Barre military machine, on the other hand, used violence for war and for internal repression without any attempt to subordinate it to the overall objectives and operation of which it is a part. This element became even more pronounced following the SNM's strategic invasion of the north: sheer joy in sadistic excess, not even chastened by expediency, is what led to the current appellation of the military regime as "fascist or neofascist." The shocking destruction of Hargeisa and Burao (Somalia's second and third largest cities), for example, does not seem to correspond to any rational political/military objective. Had Siad planned to win and turn Hargeisa into an Ogadeni settler-city for instance, he would definitely have needed houses to shelter them instead of the horrendous rubbles confronting us today. Had he felt unable to win the war militarily, then he surely would have liked to strike out a compromise with Isaaq leaders and elders. Saving most of the cities would have been necessary as a matter of expediency.
Most evidence point to the Siad military machine utilizing massive violence as an instrument of total destruction: not as a means to a carefully thought-out political end, but as an end in itself. Consciously or unconsciously, his brutal, neo-fascist regime helped to lay the basis for the people of the north to reclaim their right to self-determination including independence. As Professor l.M. Lewis, the leading foreign scholar on Somali studies observed: "The North, as I saw when I last visited it in 1985, began to look and feel like a colony under a foreign military tyranny. (22)
Eritrea is today an independent State. Eritreans have been pained to see the continuing civil war and bloodshed in Southern Somalia. The Provisional Government of Eritrea and the Transitional Government of Ethiopia have forged a new regional vision for the Horn. Somalia's continuing violence and chaos offers a temporary obstacle for such a vision. Accordingly, the PGE has initiated an Eritrean-Ethiopian mediation effort. The PGE Foreign Minister visited Mogadishu on 913 October 1991, and held broad discussions with the various factions (23). Contacts were also made with Somali political leaders in Nairobi, Kenya and in Djibouti. In June 1993, the OAU mandated the Ethiopian head of state to mediate between the various Somali factions. A peace and reconciliation effort held in October 1993, brought only mixed results. Also, the President of the newly independent State of Eritrea made the Somalia question one of his primary concerns during his address to the UN General Assembly in October 1993, and his discussions with U. S. and other leaders. Their concerted efforts may bear fruits if only because Somali armed movements respect the EPLF, TPLF and OLF and feel that these organizations understand them best and can serve as relatively objective and effective mediators. The US and other countries have shown some interest in such efforts and wish them well. Unfortunately, Italy continues to meddle on behalf of certain Somali factions. (24)
It is for this reason that the best peacekeeping troops to send would be those made up of mostly Eritrean and Ethiopian forces. The experiences they have gained during the past twelve years or so have made the new Somali leaders and many of the followers more identified to the other Horn regimes and peoples than even to the Arab League which was extremely popular among the Somalis in the seventies and early eighties.
Eritrean-Ethiopian relations also offer a model for conflict resolution in Somalia. Upon the fall of the Siad dictatorship in January 1991, the SNM took over power in the north and began its rule by giving amnesty and evacuating members of Siad's huge occupation army. Then they convened a popular consultative assembly involving the Isaaq and non-lsaaq clans of the north in Berbera (February-March 1991). This was a preparatory meeting for a bigger representative assembly that took place in May in Burao. Even though some of the SNM leaders continued to entertain confederal solutions, observers noted that the grassroots were united in pressing for independence for Northern Somalia. Non-lsaaq elders and representatives were just as adamant in pressing for independence. Former Minister and Somali intellectual Ali Khalif Galied attended the meeting and confirmed that no pressure was brought to bear on the participants, especially the non-Isaaq representatives (25). Ali Khalif (a Dulbahante, Darod Somali) does not accept a number of SNM positions but fully testifies to the fact that the Burao Popular Assembly was conducted as fairly and as democratically as possible given the circumstances.
As a result, the Somaliland Republic looks upon Eritrea as a model and hopes that international recognition of Eritrea may pave the way to its own recognition. Like Eritrea and Southern Somalia under the Italian, Somaliland claims it was a self-contained colony under the British with clearly delineated boundaries. During his October 1991 visit to Washington, the Somaliland Foreign Minister Yusuf Sheikh Madar was asked about the OAU position with regards to Somaliland. With his characteristic sense of humor he quipped: "In 1960 five days after we attained independence from the British, we violated OAU guidelines by eliminating a colonial border in our hasty union with Somalia. At present, we are merely correcting that mistake! "
Eritrean independence has contributed a lot to the relatively peaceful transformation and stabilization of Ethiopia. Eritrea has moved swiftly to guarantee the use of its ports to Ethiopia - after all both countries profit from the use of ports. Somaliland has also offered the use of Berbera as a port to serve key parts of Ethiopia. Once peace and stability are achieved, Mogadishu and Kismayu could serve the potentially highly productive parts of Southeast Ethiopia.
Eritrea had delayed its formal independence for two years for a number of reasons. One of these aims at not creating a sudden political/psychological shock that might complicate the delicate tasks facing the new Transitional Government and Eritrea.
The greatest challenge that an independent Eritrea faces is that alluded to in various parts of this essay and summed up eloquently by Bereket Habte Selassie:
Obviously, the national question cannot be ignored; in fact it has, with the examples of Eritrea and Somaliland, imposed itself dramatically on the contemporary politics of the Horn. However, is it necessary to give into all the forces of extreme chauvinistic divisiveness? Eritrea and Somaliland must now take up the challenge and pioneer the way to a restructuring of the Horn. The Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD) was established between February 1985 and January 1986 with its headquarters in Djibouti (27). After the United Nations had already urged the member States of the Horn and Eastern Africa to form an organization whose main objective involves coordination and supplementation of the efforts of member States to combat the effects of drought and other related natural disasters and to assist their developmental efforts as well as rehabilitation.
IGADD suffered from the conflicts in the areas. Perhaps, it stands a better chance now and in the future especially after the Sudanese conflict is resolved. IGADD has the potential of developing into a common market type of system for this huge area. However, while utilizing and promoting IGADD, Eritrea and Somaliland need to work towards a Commonwealth of Independent Horn of Africa States (CIHAS). This body should be able to partially repair the damage of separation. CIHAS should work within a model of overlapping concentric circles with regard to IGADD. The politics of water, rivers and ports for example, would be handled best within the context of both IGADD and CIHAS. However, given geographical proximity, manageable size, historical and cultural links, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Somaliland and Djibouti are best able to evolve an entity that possess not only economic but also loosely political links and coordination as well. Eritrea should be given time to consolidate its hard won independence before being expected to assume such a gigantic task; yet, in the long run, it would be surprising if it does not pursue such a mission.
Eritrea tries to grapple with the perplexing issues posed by cleavage through neo-federalism and extreme decentralization, at least in a gradual evolving manner. The paradox for pluralists in Ethiopia, Somalia and Somaliland is that, while seeking to encourage a diversity of pressure groups, they must also encourage their mosaic of people (or clans) to absorb a "public spirit" and a feeling of nationhood. On the other hand, long years of struggle under a principled, ideological leadership and institutions means that Eritrea finds it relatively easier to encourage interest groups within the country to listen, negotiate, and compromise with each other in the name of the "national interest." The new government now needs to learn to be more flexible to encourage diversity and autonomy of particularized pressure groups in preparation for the stage of multiparty democracy.
The Eritrean movement has been involved with class issues - with land reforms and the emancipation of serfs for example. It has also demonstrated that African democratic participation will be meaningless without the active participation of women. Accordingly, Eritrea is evolving an original form of social democracy.
Eritrea is bravely attempting to deal with the key problem: How to develop the economy in a free society and yet avoid the exploitation that afflicted the country in the past? Eritrea and Ethiopia have both indicated their willingness, remarkable given the past ideological orientation of the leadership, to avoid establishing a large, parasitic public sector partly because this would undermine the variegated economic foundation needed for political freedom. The Somaliland leadership is much more convinced about the need to rely on free markets. They are promoting a large private sector because they genuinely believe that the "self-correction", incentive promoting mechanism of the profit motive can assist the new nation in its recovery/rehabilitation and propel it forward towards meaningful development. The elites of the three countries all profess belief in a rule of law, the right to criticize, to organize, the right to privacy etc. - all those liberties that many of them in their radical student days used to sarcastically refer to as "bourgeois freedoms." It has taken the Mengistu and Siad dictatorships to turn them into serious democratic pluralists.
Somalia, Somaliland and Djibouti are Islamic countries. The polarization issue they have to worry about involves Islamic fundamentalism. However, what was most noticeable was not fundamentalism (politicized, almost fanatical Islam) but an Islamic revival movement, i.e., a thirst for religiosity after so many calamities and as a reaction to what was perceived as Siad's anti-lslamism. Clanism among Somalis plays a role in tempering the potential role of politicized Islam.
Nevertheless, isolated Islamic fundamentalist individuals and small groups exist both inside and outside the region (there are probably more of them among Somali exiles abroad). The recent killing of a (UNICEF) Bulgarian female doctor and a Somali doctor in Bosaso (Northeastern Somalia not in Somaliland) is alleged to be the work of Islamic fundamentalist assassins. Ethiopia and Eritrea are religiously pluralist in populations with more or less equal numbers of Christians and Muslims, and a conflict was also reported recently between Christian Amharas and Muslim Oromos in Dire Dawa. This was, however, based on ideological rather than religious factors.
Ethiopia and Eritrea are seriously interested in preventing foreign powers from using their neighboring countries in an Islamic crusade intended to de-stabilize their new regimes. Conversely, the three Muslim countries fear that Ethiopia and Eritrea can destabilize them using nationality and clan factors. The PGE recently held their first ever talks with the government of Djibouti around such issues. (30)
The crisis of the Ethiopian Empire State has brought along a similar crisis in the academic fetishization of the so-called Ethiopia's Great Tradition (Shoan-Amhara). Jordan Gebre-Medhin brilliantly sums up this aspect thus:
With regards to the Somali case, intellectual mystification did not go so far. Somalis are made up of at least six major clan-families (each one, to some extent resembling a nationality). Each one is therefore about 1/6 of the others and could not through geography and demography impose a hegemony over the others. Scholars who have come from cultures where societal models involved hierarchies and pyramids were not happy with Somalia's segmented horizontal system. Thus, with the help of informers whose reports they did not bother to check, they began to construct an intellectual propaganda hegemony for the Darod - a clan-family at least half of whose members live outside the Somali Republic and whose numerical superiority does not match that of the Hawiye or the Rahanweyn/Digil-Mirefle, perhaps equal to the Isaaq. It is also a clan-family without much tradition of urbanization given that Somalia's major cities are within Hawiye lands (Mogadishu, Jowhar, Beled Weyne ) or Isaaq (Hargeisa, Burao, Berbera) or others (Merka, Baidoa). The Mijerteyn elites tried to attain a hegemony during the parliamentary era. It was a highly contested attempt and their boasts were not taken very serious. From the very beginning, and in spite of scientific socialist rhetoric, Siad's regime was based on an alliance of three clans: the Marehan, the Ogaden and the Dulbahante (M.O.D.). Lewis comments:
From 1978 onwards, Siad did everything to promote Darodism. After initial conflicts with Mijerteyn elites he was able to win the majority behind the regime. Abdullahi Yusuf's dictatorial methods of running the SSDF gave Siad the chance to win back most ex-SSDF fighters who were assigned the task of terrorizing Hargeisa where they fought against their former SNM colleagues. From about 1985 onwards, Siad had forged a powerful Darod hegemony that dominated what were Somalia's national institutions - the Army, the Police, the Civil Service. Elites and other core supporters benefited materially from this hegemony. Others benefited psycho-culturally, since it made them feel good for supposedly being on top.
Chauvinistic clanism is a refuge of scoundrels in Somalia. Following the 1977-78 war with Ethiopia, about half the refugees from the Ogaden, "were placed in refugee camps in the center of the Northern Regions of the Republic where their main local hosts were people of the Isaaq clan family. Relations between the refugee and local residents were surprisingly good, given the long history of confrontation and conflict over foraging and water between pastoralists of these rival groups (33). However, as Siad decided to politicize clanism with an eye to imposing a Darod hegemony:
The attempt to impose a Darod hegemony went with the overthrow of Siad. Now there is a marked assertiveness on the part of clan-families and even clans and subclans to reclaim their historical autonomy and equality. Right now practically each subgroup is controlling its own "turf" and it is necessary to renegotiate terms of cooperation that would recreate one or two Somali States. It is too early to tell whether some scholars will continue the negative habit of inventing myths that favor certain clan-families as opposed to others.
What is necessary is to conduct a new, humanistic education for our peoples in preparation for a new Horn of Africa Commonwealth. This involves analyzing real and imaginary differences among our peoples; exposing the imaginary differences as so many myths, and assigning positive values for the real, historical, ethnic, language and religious differences. Every effort must be made not to make such differences into absolutes or generalizing from them in order to make them rigid and final. Those who justify any present or possible aggression or privilege on the basis of these natural or imaginary differences must be exposed and isolated. Pluralistic, democratic societies need the slogan, "let one hundred flowers bloom!" One can apply the appropriate words of Albert Memmi though his focus was on racism rather than ethnic, clan or religious chauvinism:
The information and education campaign involves rethinking the notion of difference. For the racist, whether out of embarrassment or out of fear of the unknown, difference is bad and should be punished. It is paradoxical that neither the humanist nor the anti-racist contradicts this; both are content to deny that the difference exists - which is a way of dodging the issue. We must come around to recognizing certain differences among human beings and to showing that these differences are neither harmful nor scandalous.