Pan Africanism and the Eritrean Diaspora

By Nunu Kidane 

I must admit I rarely read through the many articles that are posted daily, weekly on the multiple Eritrean websites. There’s a sense of weariness that comes over me as I see similarities in titles and content. The most enjoyable narrative of Issayas-bashing seems to be the dominant theme, but there are a few variations of history, identity and even prodding questions of ‘where do we go from here’ that don’t seem to receive adequate analysis.

But what they do have in common (ok, maybe with a few exceptions) is the naval gazing, super nationalist, single perspective that looks at the country, the people and the history in isolation and out of context. This I expect has to do with our inflated sense of identity; fast deflating though in the current state of confusion of what we had always assumed were core “Eritrean” characteristics: strength, persistence, commitment to see things through, principled and diligent and oh, don’t forget ‘steadfast.’ A bit of deflation of a national ego can be good and helps contribute towards re-construction of our identity on the basis of reality and not propaganda we did not question.

It would be such a breath of fresh air if someone would do a comparative analysis of the governance and leadership similarities between Eritrea and say…………Guinea, Cameroon, Sudan or any number of other countries in Africa where the leaders have set themselves in positions where they intend to lead for life. Oh, and let’s not forget the current debate over Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire – how does that compare? Ours is not the only insane leader, ours is not the only corrupt, repressive and dysfunctional government, not in Africa and not in the world. It would help to get our heads out of a single focus to see how other people build movements for sustained resistance, what strategies work and how best to learn from them. This of course brings in concepts of solidarity which used to be popular (believe it or not) during the days of the struggle for independence. The mass Eritrean students’ led movement had a sophisticated system of studying ideologies and comparative struggles and forging solidarity with a number of global political groups. Perhaps there is something to be learned from that?

Is it possible for us as Eritreans to consider entertaining concepts of Pan Africanism to expand our current state of political (social and cultural) impasse? What does it even mean, Pan Africanism? No, it does not call for us to drop our identification as Eritreans or pay total allegiance solely to our continental identity. It does not diminish a person’s sense of commitment to his/her people; or that one becomes a ‘dreamer’ who simply wishes that for a day when “Africa will unite” (a proposal which may have a nice sound but conceptually seems unattainable in a continent that is rife with national and ethnic divisions). As a political viewpoint and movement Pan Africanism calls us to understand the history of the global African diaspora and to consider ways that we can diminish our differences and work towards commonalities as a people of common history/ancestry. As a political and philosophical concept there is much more to Pan Africanism which the reader can expand on at leisure, but for the purpose of this brief article – let us consider what this means to Eritreans and why we need to think about it further.

• We are probably a people that have been on the move longer than most others in Africa – at least en mass and in proportion to the size of our population that’s been forced to flee. We have higher populations of refugees and IDPs in comparison to many other African countries. This makes us (like it or not) members of the new African diaspora.
• During the period of pre-independence struggle, there was intense pressure to have single focus and support to the potential ‘new nation state’ of Eritrea. New concepts of identity were intentionally crafted perpetuated with intense focus on the sense of national identity as “united Eritreans”. This was of course exploited and led as a strategy by the people who are currently running the country…………..need I say more?

 The initiatives by the Eritrean students I mentioned earlier, who built alliance sand forged solidarity with similar struggles was discouraged and eventually led to this mistaken and damaging notion that we as Eritreans were “unlike any other group in Africa, or even the world” that our struggle was “right” – no justification or explanation needed, it just was – take-my-word-for-it type of argument – irrational but there you have it.

• The current rate of the Eritrean displacement puts other African countries to shame. We get news bits of what’s happened in to Eritran refugees in Ethiopia, Libya or Egypt or Israel but don’t have enough analysis to put these numbers in continental context that helps us compare it to the experiences (and numbers) of other refugees or IDPs fleeing within Africa and refugees in the world. Ours is not unique, but for the size of our country and our population, we are disproportionate in being displace and persecuted.

Would it not make sense to collaborate with similar groups that are also seeing many of their populations on the move? Mali for example has one of the highest number of people leaving for Europe. Not because their country is repressive (although some may argue with me on this one, it pales in comparison with our dictator) but because of the decline in their economy thanks to ‘free-market’ globalization (another article in the making but I won’t go into it here). The French (where the majority of Malians go to) have some of the most draconian immigration policy, blatantly racist in language and selectively oppressive against darker skinned people. Eritreans on the other hand go (if they can manage it) to Italy where there’s a larger size of new and old diasporans. The repression and racism against Eritreans there is no less, and yet one is hard pressed to find even one reference to comparing and analyzing their experience with other African refugees in France or elsewhere in Europe.

This is not just a call for solidarity and Pan Africanism because we have common African continent and skin tone; it is also a strategy for effectively changing policy and bringing attention to plights of people who are in similar circumstances and screwed by the same systems of governance and economic policies. If we were to collaborate with other, particularly Africa-wide refugee-advocacy groups, we can easily increase by multiple fold the calls to the African Union, the European Union and international human rights organizations to hear our cases.

• Lastly we all know that many new Eritreans are born in Europe and the US and their primary identity (by virtue of their parents) may be Eritrean, but certainly includes many other variations of new cultures and languages. Taking the U.S. as an example, the new generations of Eritreans are now removed two-steps from their country. Those of us who came in the 70s and even 80s have kids who are now already parents themselves. In the third generation, a concept of Eritranness (at least the intense and hyper sense of it) diminishes and more nuanced and mixed identities are formed. This does not mean that the new young people live in a state of confusion of themselves and their identity – on the contrary, new and young Eritrans (like many other so called Africa-born, or children of the Africa-born in the U.S) have developed quite fluid sense of their identities as mixed intricately with African American and easily navigate between them.

I’d be interested to know the median age of the readers of many of the Eritrean websites. Without having seen any figures, I can assert they are dominated by 40+ individuals who were both in Eritrea (or Ethiopia) and have lived their formative years as identifying with the singular notion of (and defending fiercely concepts of) what it means to be Eritrean. This is changing, and I’m not the first to say it. Even PFDJ is up on this game and has all kinds of ‘summer fun’ programs where they cultivate a new generation of loyal supporters who confuse being Eritrean with blind allegiance to the current government. They think only a government can validate their identity and they defend “their Eritrea” as if it is threatened – not external forces but by the likes of me and you who dare consider being a real Eritrean means seriously challenging one’s government when it does wrong; and this one surely takes a prize on how wrong a government can be.

Let me say in conclusion that I’d love to hear responses to this article; it is what makes it interesting – receiving feedback and getting deeper into analysis. Leave the dogma and insults out please – if you can’t even think enough to formulate a proper argument, you’re too dumb to read and exchange respectfully, then I got no time to waste on you. For the rest, thinking members of our community, you can chat over a public blog site.