Eritrea: the Dimming Memory of Singapore

Singapore-I don’t know you.  

 quote from an Eritrean youth

Eritrea became independent in 1991. A few years before, the EPLF, which espoused Marxism-Leninism with a strong dosage of nationalism; found it convenient to drop the whole ideology and the vanguard (secret) party. It however chose it necessary to keep the command economy and political economy to this very day; leaving its once “revered” masses in acute poverty and immeasurable despair. Although, the left ideology of the Chinese, Vietnamese and Cambodian revolutions was abandoned; the search for other models in the Asian continent begun in earnest. Who was the country picked among the Asian Tigers?

Singapore, of course. This nation celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a lot of fanfare, military parades etc.; nothing was spared to mark the accidental creation of the nation. [1] This port city had nothing to make it similar to Eritrea. It was forced out of the federal arrangement with Malaysia and had to fend to itself. The political fall-out was so traumatic; it made the young Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, cry in public. In comparison, the Eritrean elite chose to wage war against Ethiopia, when the federal arrangement was dissolved for unity with Imperial Ethiopia. While some believe the decision was imposed by the emperor; others allege the opposite.

What made the Eritrean nationalists miss this huge political trajectory? Singapore is certainly not East Timor, which having been annexed by its large neighbor Indonesia endured a long war of independence. It lost the war, but won the cause through other means, such as, mass civil disobedience. What explains this political blunder? I concur it is none other than, urban bias and the sense of having had an industrialized society left by defeated colonial Italy. This wrong perception induced the Eritrean political elite to forget the complex economic and political factors that made Singapore a rich and modern nation.

Singapore took advantage of the Cold War: it created a modern port, manufacturing hub, and financial center. All this wouldn’t have materialized without the policy of a comprehensive education for its diverse ethnic groups. All this wouldn’t have probably occurred; without a stable and peaceful political climate, and the watchful eyes of the powerful western nations. In the absence of these, Singapore’s road to economic development would have remained a chimera.

More importantly, the miracle it became wouldn’t have happened; had it underwent some form of conflict; let alone a long war with its neighbors. Eritrea however embraced and glorified its long war with Ethiopia; it had waged wars with its neighbors soon after it became a new nation, and it had maintained a completely militarized society. Eritrea’s political elites’ disastrous policies are not limited to its past history.

Singapore is without a hinterland. In other words, Singapore doesn’t comprise an underdeveloped agricultural sector, where millions of poor farmers live. The country is rich; its economy has made the per capita income one of the highest in the world. Its small landmass has excellent roads communication facilities; enabling its citizens access to modern health and communication services.

Eritrea in contrast has a large impoverished rural population eking out a living with poor means of technology; little if any forward and backward linkage exists between the towns and the countryside. [2] The working class has vaporized replaced by people who work under serf-like conditions. In the likelihood that their bondage to the state is severed, the chance of feeding themselves is poor; for the small farmers have little food to spare. Roads, power facilities and clinic, when available are unreliable and of poor standard.  The political reach of the state is however deep; thanks to its huge army of conscripts, which made their presence in nearly impossible distant hamlets. In light of these differences with the model country, what attracted the Eritrean political entrepreneurs to emulate Singapore during the brief euphoria period of the independence years? I believe it is a severe “physical” blindness; a malady of the urbanization myth that, the elite entertained in their early youth; before they embarked to wage the long war with Ethiopia. The myth which sustained their war years didn’t diminish its allure didn’t diminish to this very day. There is no remedy for this type of physical blindness.

The saga of the Australian eye doctor, Fred Hollows, who made his fame; establishing a factory lenses for eyes damaged with cataracts is well remembered in nationalist Eritrean history. The country prides itself for having allegedly made the life of many blind-stricken Eritreans brighter; with some lens left for export. It however doesn’t debate the chaos brought by the culture of political emulation. Eritrea is now in existential crisis; with almost no time for finding a cure to the political blindness; a theme of this article.

The elite who take pride of their “long march” to the mountains of Sahel, after the military setback with the Derg of Ethiopia; the elite who don’t tire of speaking about trekking with their famous plastic sandals to all corners of Eritrea, and living with the peasant/pastoral masses of Eritrea espoused the Singapore model; a nation without a hinterland. The peasants/pastorals of Eritrea became invisible to them, because of the malady of political blindness.

Singapore is now a distant memory. The elite, who despise the rural masses leaving the land in droves; would care less, if they run a rentier state with the money generated from the growing mining sector. The elite would bother less about the “heroic epic” of the masses; so long as revenues from mining is assured. The elite do not debate about Singapore anymore. In the meantime; their once model Singapore had relentlessly claimed land from the sea; almost one fifth of its original size. It had increased its population by encouraging immigration from mainly China; at some political cost.

In contrast, a sizable size of the Eritrean countryside is denuded of its population; particularly the highland villages. In their thousands urbanites and rural dwellers have been crossing the borders to Ethiopia and the Sudan; with Europe as a final destination. The public is not waiting for Singapore: the luxury ships that Singapore builds, and Eritrea may have aspired to aren’t for it. The public is quick to jump into any rickety boat, or flimsy raft available on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. I would argue that, the regime and the public seem to have arrived at some kind of a social contract (for lack of a better word) that is for the regime to rule as it wants, and the public to be left to emigrate.

The trend doesn’t seem to slacken; it may prove the self-prophesy of an Eritrea without a hinterland (as imagined by the rulers of Eritrea); a mind-set not different from the European colonial powers of the nineteenth century. Will Eritrea survive to celebrate a fiftieth anniversary as its former role model, Singapore? Probably not. Due to the absence of a strong resistance, the nation-state will likely stumble along and celebrate its thirty years; the same duration that took her to separate from Ethiopia.

References

[1] The Economist; Singapore at 50; September 11^th, 2015.

[2] Cameron, Greg; The State of Eritrea in Comparative Perspective; Biopolitics, Militarism, and Development: Eritrea in the Twenty-First Century.