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rfmcdonaldMichela Wrong's I Didn't Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation takes its name from an episode in 1941 during Britain's liberation of the Italian colony of Eritrea. An old woman, dressed in white, was standing by the road leading into the capital of Asmara, greeting and welcoming the soldiers as they came. one passing soldier spat at her: "I didn't do it for you, nigger," he told her.
This theme of betrayal predominates in Wrong's gripping study of Eritrea. Betrayal is most obviously demonstrated in the activites undertaken directly to harm the Eritreans (the beliefs and policies of the Italians that the Eritreans were an inferior breed doomed to extinction, and the looting of Italy's investment in its former colony by Britain from 1941 on documented by Sylvia Pankhurst) and the more forgiveable criminal neglect of Eritreans' interests. Wrong documents how, after the Second World War, Britain and the United States accepted Ethiopia's claims to rightful hegemony over the entire Ethiopian cultural area and allowed the Empire to whittle away at Eritrean self-rule. The United States didn't care so long as Addis Ababa allowed it to maintain Kagnew Station, a radio eavesdropping installation anywhere that took advantage of Eritrean topography to listen in on most of the Old World. All that the Communist revolution of 1974 changed was the identity of Ethiopia's superpower patron, as the Soviets poured massive amounts of armaments and funds into an Ethiopian war against the Eritreans that was led singularly incompetently.
Another form of betrayal that surprised me when I first encountered I Didn't Do It For You was that felt by Eritrea's foreign supporters. I shouldn't have been surprised, since even back in high school I remember reading (in the fancy new full-text article databases) glowing accounts of how Eritrea really was different. It was created by a highly effective guerrilla force that emphasized self-education, flattened hierarchies, and critical thinking. Its first president, Isaiah Afewrki, was a man who criticized the old order of post-colonial Africa, who avoided self-aggrandizement, and was praised by Clinton as a leader of the African renaissance. It had a well-educated population, a highly-motivated population, and a prosperous diaspora.
It all went downhill, of course. The country seems to have blundered into a catastrophic war with Ethiopia over a border district, described by David Hirst writing for Al-Ahram Weekly in 1999. As the Head Heeb noted last November and as Reuters Alertnet observes now, Ethiopia has been singularly reluctant to implement the various peace accords. Whether this is because of a relatively limited irredentism directed towards the port of Assab, or (as Getachew Reda argues in his article "Michela Wrong: A neo-colonialist author vents anger on African freedom") an identification of Eritrean national identity as an instance of false consciousness, seems to be irrelevant. The Ethiopian question will remain in the 21st century perhaps as significant a threat to Eritrea as it was in the 20th.
And regarding Eritrea's internal development, it's a sad coincidence that I found Wrong's book at the same time that I discovered Pike Wright's article "Freedom to be read" in the 24 February issue of the Toronto weekly eye, which describes Eritrean journalist Aaron Berhane and his efforts in Canada, exiled because of the regime's crackdown against independent journalists. Wrong suggests that a pervasive police state is developing. Oh, and the praise heaped on Afewrki, that wise man who refused the fruits of power, who was the wise father of the nation, who spoke the truth to Eritrea's enemies regardless the cost? It turns out there's more than one sort of personality cult.
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robertprior pointed out, in a conversation on the topic, that the failure of promising African post-colonial regimes isn't exactly a new phenomenon. Eritrea, though, was different. It remains different, but unfortunately, not different enough.
This theme of betrayal predominates in Wrong's gripping study of Eritrea. Betrayal is most obviously demonstrated in the activites undertaken directly to harm the Eritreans (the beliefs and policies of the Italians that the Eritreans were an inferior breed doomed to extinction, and the looting of Italy's investment in its former colony by Britain from 1941 on documented by Sylvia Pankhurst) and the more forgiveable criminal neglect of Eritreans' interests. Wrong documents how, after the Second World War, Britain and the United States accepted Ethiopia's claims to rightful hegemony over the entire Ethiopian cultural area and allowed the Empire to whittle away at Eritrean self-rule. The United States didn't care so long as Addis Ababa allowed it to maintain Kagnew Station, a radio eavesdropping installation anywhere that took advantage of Eritrean topography to listen in on most of the Old World. All that the Communist revolution of 1974 changed was the identity of Ethiopia's superpower patron, as the Soviets poured massive amounts of armaments and funds into an Ethiopian war against the Eritreans that was led singularly incompetently.
Another form of betrayal that surprised me when I first encountered I Didn't Do It For You was that felt by Eritrea's foreign supporters. I shouldn't have been surprised, since even back in high school I remember reading (in the fancy new full-text article databases) glowing accounts of how Eritrea really was different. It was created by a highly effective guerrilla force that emphasized self-education, flattened hierarchies, and critical thinking. Its first president, Isaiah Afewrki, was a man who criticized the old order of post-colonial Africa, who avoided self-aggrandizement, and was praised by Clinton as a leader of the African renaissance. It had a well-educated population, a highly-motivated population, and a prosperous diaspora.
It all went downhill, of course. The country seems to have blundered into a catastrophic war with Ethiopia over a border district, described by David Hirst writing for Al-Ahram Weekly in 1999. As the Head Heeb noted last November and as Reuters Alertnet observes now, Ethiopia has been singularly reluctant to implement the various peace accords. Whether this is because of a relatively limited irredentism directed towards the port of Assab, or (as Getachew Reda argues in his article "Michela Wrong: A neo-colonialist author vents anger on African freedom") an identification of Eritrean national identity as an instance of false consciousness, seems to be irrelevant. The Ethiopian question will remain in the 21st century perhaps as significant a threat to Eritrea as it was in the 20th.
And regarding Eritrea's internal development, it's a sad coincidence that I found Wrong's book at the same time that I discovered Pike Wright's article "Freedom to be read" in the 24 February issue of the Toronto weekly eye, which describes Eritrean journalist Aaron Berhane and his efforts in Canada, exiled because of the regime's crackdown against independent journalists. Wrong suggests that a pervasive police state is developing. Oh, and the praise heaped on Afewrki, that wise man who refused the fruits of power, who was the wise father of the nation, who spoke the truth to Eritrea's enemies regardless the cost? It turns out there's more than one sort of personality cult.
robertprior pointed out, in a conversation on the topic, that the failure of promising African post-colonial regimes isn't exactly a new phenomenon. Eritrea, though, was different. It remains different, but unfortunately, not different enough.
