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Nation before God - Eritreans
06/11/2000 10:20 - (SA)
Massawa, Eritrea - The Rev. Emanuel Mesgun has to be careful when he delivers his sermons. Unlike most clergymen, the Eritrean priest can? tell his congregation that God is supreme.
So intense is the feeling of nationalism in Eritrea, the Almighty takes second place behind the state, which was formed after a bloody 30-year war to break away from Ethiopia.
This sense of nationhood - a rarity in much of Africa - transcends all else and helps nullify any religious tensions or divisions among the country? nine tribes.
?In most places, it? God, family and then the state, but I cannot even preach that because nobody will accept it. It? the same among the educated and the uneducated - Eritrea, then religion, then family,? Emanuel said in his simple Roman Catholic chapel in Massawa, a port on the Red Sea.
Eritrea is one of Africa? smallest nations, with a population of 3.5 million people evenly split between Muslim and Christian, most of whom are Eritrean Orthodox.
It is also the continent? youngest state, gaining independence only in 1993.
Over the last seven years, the country of spectacular mountains separated by semiarid plains where temperatures regularly soar above 40 C, has worked to develop on its own, free from outside influences or pressures.
Until very recently, international aid workers weren? really welcome in Eritrea, one of the world? poorest countries - stark contrast to many African nations that have become dependent on foreign help.
The UN observers who were deployed on 13 September to monitor the contested border with Ethiopia are the first international force allowed on Eritrean soil.
And despite the precarious state of the economy, Eritrea does not belong to the International Monetary Fund because it doesn? want to be bound by the conditions that the international agency puts on loans.
?It? very unusual for Africa,? said Emmanuel Ablo, a Ghanian who is the World Bank? representative in Eritrea.
?They have been cut off from the world for so long they have developed a habit of self-reliance. The rest of Africa has been very donor-dependent. Here they just get on with it.?
Much of the national spirit can be attributed to the war for independence, when all energy went into fighting for the ?national cause.?
?I cannot really say what it means to be Eritrean, but one thing I can say is we have a unity because of the war,? said Emanuel, the priest. ?It? first the nation, then other things.?
Some 100 000 Eritrean rebels, supported by a civilian network, fought a much larger and better equipped Ethiopian army between 1961 and 1991. The war ended when Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam was defeated by Ethiopian rebels fighting alongside the Eritreans.
During much of the struggle, the Eritrean insurgents were forced to live in underground bunkers dug deep into the sides of rugged mountains. Muslims and Christians, men and women, intellectuals and peasants fought, lived and died side by side, forging national unity and its accompanying heroic aura.
?If we did have any differences, we would not have fought together for 30 years. We are running one way; we are one group,? said Mohammed Omer, a Muslim and the chief administrator of the northern town of Nakfa, who was a rebel fighter for 18 years.
That wasn? the case early in the war. In the early 1970s, the Eritrean Liberation Front split into factions as a result of political and religious differences.
The breakaway Eritrean People? Liberation Front, led by Isaias Afewerki, who has been president since independence, felt the ELF was too Muslim-oriented.
?Isaias believed you had to have this as a people? war. If you were going to be successful, you needed national unity. The ELF did not have that,? said Richard Reid, an Irish professor of history at Asmara University. ?There are even (unconfirmed) stories that Christian soldiers were wiped out (by the ELF) because they were seen as a threat.?
By emphasising the ?national? aspect of the independence struggle, Isaias, a Protestant, succeeded in relegating religion to the sidelines of Eritrean life, said Emanuel.
?As in all of East Africa, religion is part of our culture ... but the situation has changed,? he said.
?Guerillas fighting (for the EPLF) were atheist. Now that they have come back into society, they have brought that attitude with them. It? a state without religion, not for or against.?
Without doubt, the strongest underlying influence in Eritrea remains war, even after the June 18 signing of an accord to stop hostilities in a 2-year border conflict with Ethiopia.
Murals depicting heavily armed, triumphant rebels adorn buildings in most towns, and the countryside is littered with destroyed Ethiopian trucks, tanks and armoured personnel carriers whose skeletons sit as grim reminders of the struggle.
The EPLF retains a monopoly on power, and former guerrillas control all government agencies. The ruling People`s Front for Democracy and Justice - the only legal political party - grew out of the EPLF movement and exercises strict control over all aspects of life. Emanuel finds this positive.
?I feel very secure with this kind of government to prevent tensions between Muslim and Christians, because they have a long history of solving problems between the two,? he said.
- AP
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