Giants and Lilliputians: Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival (IV)
Giants and Lilliputians: Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival
Emperor Haile Selassie and President Isaias Afwerki (Part IV)
The Seeds of Division within the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF)
Imperial Mythology and the Weaponization of Religion
To understand the fragmentation of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), the eventual triumph of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), and its subsequent failure to forge a cohesive nation, one must first examine the imperial blueprint that shaped the political terrain they inherited. In that blueprint, religion was never merely a spiritual force—it was a meticulously calibrated instrument of power.
Haile Selassie’s rise to the throne was inseparable from his strategic manipulation of religious identity and imperial mythology. He fused ecclesiastical authority with statecraft, casting himself as both sovereign and sanctified. This fusion of throne and altar allowed him to consolidate control while marginalizing religious plurality. The result was a governance model that embedded sectarian fault lines into the very architecture of the state—fault lines that would later haunt both the liberation struggle and the post-independence order.
Haile Selassie did not originate the fusion of sacred and sovereign authority; he inherited it. This tradition was first forged by Emperor Yikuno Amlak, founder of the Solomonic Dynasty, whose rise was as much theological as it was political. His claim to legitimacy was sanctified by Abune Teklehaimanot, the revered evangelist of the South, whose spiritual authority provided the ecclesiastical scaffolding for the Solomonic “restoration.” Teklehaimanot and his spiritual heirs stood in relation to Yikuno Amlak and his dynasty much as the Al ash-Sheikh clerical lineage did to the Al Saud dynasty in Saudi Arabia—serving as religious legitimizers of royal power and architects of a sacred political order.
Teklehaimanot’s connections to the Coptic Church of Egypt reveal a keen awareness of transregional religious dynamics. It is scarcely plausible that he remained oblivious to the rise of Sultan Qalāwūn aṣ-Ṣāliḥī in Egypt—a rise reportedly marred by courtly intrigue, including the alleged poisoning of the last Ayyubid ruler to usher in Mamluk dominance. Both men, Yikuno Amlak and Qalawun, were contemporaries, each laying the foundations of dynasties that would endure for centuries.
This entanglement of sacred and secular power is hardly unique to Ethiopia or Egypt. It is a recurring motif in the histories of Judaism and Islam, whose founders—Moses and Muhammad—were not only prophets but also lawgivers, military leaders, and heads of state. Their revelations were inseparable from the political orders they established. Christianity, by contrast, emerged under imperial persecution and only later adapted to power, often retroactively justifying its political entanglements through theological interpretation and institutional evolution.
In all three traditions, religion has served as both a moral compass and a political instrument—a mirror reflecting the necessities of governance as much as the aspirations of faith. Its capacity for both virtue and vice lies in its interpretive elasticity: the same scripture can sanctify liberation or tyranny, pluralism or persecution, depending on who wields it.
In practice and in history, the Abrahamic religions share more than they diverge. Their differences are often less about essence than emphasis—variations in degree, scope, and historical circumstance. One may say “potato,” another “potahto”; one “tomato,” another “tomahto.” But beneath the phonetics lies a common grammar: the enduring interplay of revelation, power, and the human hunger for meaning.
What Yikuno Amlak and Abune Teklehaimanot accomplished was nothing short of Machiavellian brilliance. Had Niccolò Machiavelli known of their exploits, he might well have cited them in The Prince as paragons of how myth, theology, and political power can be orchestrated to forge enduring legitimacy. Their victory over the Zagwe Dynasty was not merely a military conquest—it was a triumph of narrative. With the indispensable backing of the Tewahdo Church, they rewrote history, reimagined lineage, and persuaded an entire polity to embrace the divine right of a restored Solomonic order. A similar dynamic unfolded in the Arabian Peninsula, where the Al ash-Sheikh clerical family and the Al Saud dynasty, in their 1924–1925 conquest of the Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz, expelled the hereditary Hashemites and established a new regime sanctified by religious authority.
In the end, their triumph lay not merely in the seizure of power, but in its sanctification. Through theological ingenuity and narrative mastery, they transmuted conquest into consecration and lineage into liturgy. The anthems may vary, but the grammar of power remains strikingly consistent wherever it is skillfully deployed—affirming, time and again, the enduring constancy of human nature.
Let me resist the temptation to digress and remain focused on the subject at hand—though I fully recognize that comparative insights often enrich and fortify an argument. The Kibre Negest emerged as the cornerstone of Ethiopia’s sacral monarchy, a text as integral to Ethiopian identity as the Shahnameh is to Iran, the Mahabharata and Ramayana to India, the Epic of Gilgamesh to Mesopotamia, and the Aeneid to ancient Rome. These epics do more than chronicle the past; they mythologize it. They embed political authority within divine ancestry and moral grandeur, transforming rulers into chosen vessels and dynasties into sacred continuities.
An Iranian friend once shared a poignant anecdote: a renowned Egyptian scholar was asked why Egypt, with its glorious history and civilization, had been so thoroughly overtaken by Arab culture. His reply was striking—“Because Egypt was not lucky enough to have Abu’l-Qâsem Ferdowsi.” Ferdowsi, the author of the Shahnameh, was not merely a poet; he was the preserver and protector of Iranian cultural identity. His epic allowed Iran to remain a Muslim nation with a distinctly Persian soul.
The remark underscores the power of narrative in shaping national consciousness. Where myth is absent or overwritten, identity can be subsumed. Where myth is preserved and reimagined, it becomes a bulwark against cultural erasure—a vessel through which nations remember who they are, even as they evolve.
Yet in Eritrea, the Kibre Negest held no such sway. It played little role in shaping political consciousness and occupied only a marginal place within the Tewahdo Church. The Solomonic mythos, so central to Ethiopian statecraft, never took root in Eritrea’s pluralist soil. This absence would later prove decisive: it spared Eritrean nationalism from the gravitational pull of imperial myth and opened space—however contested—for alternative narratives of legitimacy, resistance, and identity.
That Emperor Yohannes IV, who hailed from Tigray, once pleaded with the British for the return of the Kibre Negest, arguing that he could not rule his people without it, speaks volumes. It was not simply a book—it was a covenant, a charter of divine right, and a vessel of national memory. His appeal underscores the enduring power of sacred storytelling and the lasting influence of the ecclesiastical-political alliance forged centuries earlier. Their genius lay in crafting a narrative so compelling that it became inseparable from the very idea of Ethiopian kingship.
In this light, the Kibre Negest was not merely scripture—it was strategy. And the story it told was not simply believed—it was lived. It sanctified power, mythologized lineage, and embedded political authority within a divine narrative so potent that it shaped the very architecture of Ethiopian kingship.
Centuries later, John Locke would mount a direct challenge to this kind of mythic sovereignty. In The First Treatise of Government, he delivered a systematic dismantling of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha—a text that defended the divine right of kings by tracing political authority to paternal lineage, beginning with Adam. Locke’s rebuttal was not just philosophical; it was revolutionary. He exposed the logical and theological fallacies of inherited rule and laid the intellectual foundation for modern constitutionalism, where legitimacy flows from consent, not ancestry.
Ironically, Islam—often misunderstood in Western political discourse—was historically opposed to the divine right of kings. Leadership in early Islamic governance was rooted in shura (consultation) and election, not birthright. Both doctrine and practice emphasized merit, consensus, and accountability. The later emergence of monarchies in Islam’s birthplace reflects not doctrinal fidelity but interpretive elasticity—the same flexibility that allowed scripture to be wielded in service of empire, caliphate, or republic, depending on the political needs of the moment.
In all traditions, the sacred is never static. It bends, adapts, and is reinterpreted—sometimes to liberate, often to legitimize. The challenge, then, is not to discard myth, but to interrogate it: to ask who benefits from its telling, and at what cost to truth, justice, and civic maturity.
Locke’s critique is especially relevant to those who still believe that Tewodros, Yohannes, Menelik, and Haile Selassie were direct inheritors of the Solomonic Dynasty, as if political legitimacy could be passed down like heirlooms through mythic bloodlines. To hold such a view is to ignore Locke’s enduring insight: that power must be justified by consent, not by genealogy.
The allure of myth is powerful—especially in societies where education is unevenly distributed and historical scrutiny is scarce. But we must do better. We must emancipate public consciousness from the grip of romanticized fables that masquerade as history. The persistence of these beliefs is not harmless nostalgia; it is a barrier to civic maturity and historical accountability.
Myths, like religions, may inspire—but they must not govern. If we are to build societies rooted in justice rather than illusion, we must confront the seductive fiction of divine descent and the comforting allure of religious certitude with the sober clarity of reason. When power cloaks itself in sacred narrative, it demands not reverence but scrutiny.
In this pursuit, we are not without precedent. We have a model in our own tradition: Zera Yacob. His Hateta stands as a luminous testament to rational inquiry, ethical reflection, and intellectual courage. It should serve not merely as a historical artifact, but as a launching pad for our scientific and philosophical explorations—a reminder that enlightenment is not foreign to us, but native, waiting to be reclaimed.
And when push comes to shove, we must remember that both religion and myth possess a remarkable interpretive elasticity. They can be bent toward liberation or domination, pluralism or absolutism. To navigate this terrain responsibly, we need more than faith—we need education, critical inquiry, and the courage to choose enlightenment over enchantment.
Haile Selassie’s Manipulation of Religion
In 1916, Tafari Makonnen—later crowned Haile Selassie—played a pivotal role in orchestrating the removal of Lij Iyasu, the designated heir of Emperor Menelik II. The justification for this political coup rested on the claim that Iyasu had converted to Islam—a charge never substantiated, yet devastatingly effective. His alleged Muslim sympathies were amplified through accusations that he practiced polygamy, wore Islamic-style garments, and embraced customs associated with his lineage. These charges, though sensational and politically expedient, were neither unprecedented nor heretical by the standards of Abyssinian imperial history. They belonged to a well-worn playbook in which perception routinely triumphed over truth.
Symbolism and Myth in Political Power
The phenomenon where appearance subsumes substance has long shaped the region’s political culture. It is a craft that Haile Selassie perfected—wielding religious orthodoxy, imperial symbolism, and selective myth-making to consolidate power and suppress dissent. In this regard, Isaias Afwerki is not innovating; he is inheriting. His political choreography echoes that of Haile Selassie, deploying national myth, curated memory, and symbolic posturing to mask internal fractures and enforce control.
ELF’s Secular and National Vision
What Lij Iyasu was to Haile Selassie, the ELF’s Qiyada al-‘Ama was to Isaias Afwerki and the EPLF: a threat to the narrative, a challenge to the monopoly of legitimacy. Both figures—Lij Iyasu and the ELF’s collective leadership—represented alternative visions of sovereignty, pluralism, and national identity that defied the centralizing impulse of their successors.
Idris Mohammed Adem, one of the founding members of the Eritrean Liberation Front and its first chairman, had also helped establish the Muslim League of Eritrea (MLE). The organization they built could easily have been named the Eritrean Muslim Liberation Front—but they deliberately chose otherwise. They understood that Eritrea was not a mosaic of Muslims and Christians, but a nation of Eritreans. Their choice of name was not accidental; it was principled. It reflected a vision that was inclusive, secular, and national in scope.
Unlike the MLE, the ELF appealed to every Eritrean because it was not inherently exclusionary. It succeeded in launching the armed struggle for liberation not by narrowing its base, but by expanding it. Its credo—nationalist, pluralist, and egalitarian—echoed the spirit of the American declaration that “all men are created equal.” Like that phrase, the ELF’s vision may have fallen short in immediate practice, but it was morally right and enduring in principle.
The ELF’s founding ethos was not merely a political strategy—it was a philosophical stance. It rejected sectarianism, resisted imperial mythologies, and insisted that Eritrean identity must be forged through shared struggle, not inherited dogma. That vision remains a benchmark for what inclusive nationalism could—and should—look like.
Unlike the Isaias-led faction—composed entirely of Christian fighters—the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) deliberately eschewed public religious messaging. It avoided overt rhetoric that might cast it as a faith-based movement, fully aware that such a perception could undermine its secular and nationalist legitimacy. This silence was not a sign of hesitation, but a calculated strategy. It reflected a principled commitment to preserving unity across religious lines and affirming, unequivocally, that Eritrea belonged to all its people. For the discerning, what the ELF chose not to say was as revealing as what Nhnan Elamanan boldly proclaimed. The ELF could have easily adopted a Muslim agenda, as the Muslim League had done a decade and a half earlier—but it chose not to. In that principled silence, it spoke more cogently than Nhnan Elamanan ever did.
It is important to remember that the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) was not building from a blank slate. The Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELM) had already laid the ideological foundation for a national, secular, and inclusive struggle. By the time the ELF emerged, the ELM had cultivated a membership base that increasingly reflected Eritrea’s religious and regional diversity. The ELF inherited not only a vision but a constituency—one that understood liberation not as the triumph of one group over another, but as the collective emancipation of a pluralist nation.
While the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) was the first to launch the armed struggle in a systematic and official capacity, it was not the only actor contemplating military resistance. In Asmara and its environs, several Christian members of the Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELM) had independently attempted to initiate armed action. Though limited in scale and ultimately unsuccessful, their efforts were serious enough that some were apprehended with weapons and sentenced to prison. These early incidents underscore the depth of frustration and urgency across Eritrean society, and they reveal that the desire for liberation transcended religious and regional boundaries—even before the ELF formalized the struggle.
It is also worth noting that the ELM’s principal aim was not to wage a prolonged guerrilla war, but to stage a coup using the Eritrean Police Force as its base of operation. Their strategy envisioned a swift and decisive removal of Ethiopian rule from within the state apparatus itself. Though the plan never materialized, it reflected a bold and pragmatic understanding of Eritrea’s internal dynamics—and a willingness to act before the liberation movement had fully coalesced.
Isaias seemed to benefit from a reading of history. He, by contrast, was tactically astute and psychologically shrewd. He quickly learned how to deflect criticism, manipulate perception, and turn vulnerabilities into strengths. He was like the proverbial native imam—clever, unlettered, but intimately attuned to his congregation. The ELF, in this analogy, was the eminent visiting scholar—principled, erudite, but unfamiliar with the local idiom. When the two met in a public theological debate, with uneducated villagers as jurors, the scholar lost—not because he lacked truth, but because he lacked resonance.
So too did the ELF. Its vision was noble, its principles sound, but its failure to read the emotional and cultural terrain allowed a more agile, populist force to seize the narrative. In the contest between enlightenment and instinct, the latter prevailed—not because it was right, but because it was familiar.
Shared Sacrifice and Civic Nationalism
The founding leadership of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) understood that Eritrea’s salvation would not come through sectarian allegiance or ideological purity, but through shared sacrifice. It was in the crucible of struggle, exile, and endurance that Eritrea’s civic nationalism was born—a nationalism rooted not in bloodlines or creeds, but in common purpose and collective dignity. If nurtured, this ethos could have matured into something enduring: a national identity forged through solidarity rather than division.
It is important to recall that the ELF was founded by some of the most educated and enlightened Eritreans of their generation. True to the intellectual currents of the time—particularly in the Arab Middle East and North Africa—many were deeply influenced by Arab socialism. Their ideological foundations had already transcended sectarian boundaries, at least in theory, if not always in practice. This influence shaped the ELF’s secular and inclusive vision, one that sought to unify Eritreans across religious and regional lines under a shared banner of liberation.
An Aspirational Vision for Eritrea
Their decision was not just strategic, but aspirational—aiming for a republic of equals, where identity was honored, not weaponized, and where liberation meant universal belonging. It is for this reason, I believe, that Kidane Kiflu urged the Eritrean liberation movement to resist the pull of ideological encampments and instead focus on the greater task: national liberation and the creation of a democratic republic that celebrates Eritrea’s diversity.
Kidane Kiflu’s Call for Civic Clarity
His call was not for neutrality, but for clarity—for a politics grounded in inclusion, not dogma; in solidarity, not suspicion. It was a vision rooted in civic dignity, not ideological rigidity. That vision remains unfinished, but it is not lost. It lives in the memory of those who sacrificed together, and in the hope of those still willing to build a nation worthy of that sacrifice.
The Legacy of Civic Nationalism
In many ways, I feel a deeper kinship with figures like Kidane Kiflu—those who saw beyond faction and creed, and who labored for a republic that honored Eritrea’s diversity without fear or favor. I feel a responsibility to carry forward that legacy—not as nostalgia, but as a living mandate. A mandate to speak and write clearly, act justly, and build a civic culture where belonging is not conditional, and where liberation is not reduced to control.
That decision was commendable then, just as it was later when Isaias and his group named their movement the Popular Liberation Forces (PLF), and subsequently the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). Inclusive. Nationalist. Secular. Eritrean. These were not just labels—they were aspirations. Aspirations that, at their best, sought to transcend sectarian divides and speak to a shared civic identity.
Idris M Adem had served as president of the National Assembly of Eritrea before being forced to resign and flee into exile. His trajectory—like that of Lij Iyasu—reveals how political erasure is often cloaked in the language of unity, and how pluralist visions are sidelined by those who claim to speak for the whole.
This does not deny that many Muslim ELF members, even as tegadelti, expressed their faith not for political reasons but as a matter of conscience. However, such overt religious adherence often evoked suspicion and occasionally led to conflict. Their commitment to Islam was, rightly or wrongly, perceived by some, then as it is now, as implicitly anti-Christian—a perception that carried political consequences and deepened internal fault lines.
This atmosphere of mistrust was not born in a vacuum. It was compounded by Haile Selassie’s enduring policy of divide and rule, which systematically pitted Eritreans against one another—often along religious and regional lines. The legacy of Eritrea’s annexation to Ethiopia was, in large part, facilitated by Christian elites, alongside Muslim actors from Semhar, certain non-Assawerta Saho communities, and the Shemagles of Metahit. These groups—fairly or unfairly—came to be seen as collaborators in the imperial project, their roles etched into the collective memory of betrayal and subjugation.
That memory continues to shape communal anxieties, especially among Eritrean Muslims who fear not only marginalization by the state, but domination by a religiously aligned political order. These fears are not abstract; they are rooted in historical experience and reinforced by patterns of exclusion and symbolic erasure.
And in case it is not obvious to some, these very demographic cleavages—minus the Shemagles of Metahit—eventually coalesced to form the Popular Liberation Forces (PLF), which later evolved into the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), and ultimately, the government of Eritrea. The legacy of who joined, who was sidelined, and who was remembered or forgotten continues to echo in the architecture of power and the emotional geography of belonging.
During the liberation struggle, the Shemagles—once influential intermediaries in the western lowlands—were gradually displaced by the Maria group, a younger, more ideologically assertive cohort that aligned itself with the emerging nationalist vanguard. This generational and political shift marked not just a change in personnel, but a reconfiguration of legitimacy—one that privileged revolutionary credentials over traditional authority, and ideological conformity over communal representation.
The fear of being dominated by the other—whether Christian or Muslim—remains a potent undercurrent in Eritrean political life. It is a fear rooted in history, amplified by betrayal, and sustained by the absence of honest reckoning. The EPLF then, and the government of Eritrea today, is perceived by segments of our population not merely as Christian in character, but as actively anti-Muslim in posture. Whether this perception is accurate or exaggerated, it remains powerful. And as history has shown, perception—then as now—often matters more than reality.
But it doesn’t have to. We are not condemned to repeat the distortions of the past. We have the intellectual and moral wherewithal to do the harder work: to look beneath the surface, to interrogate appearances, and to meet the substance—the truth—head-on. That work begins with honesty, with nuance, and with the courage to name what has been obscured. It requires rejecting the lure of simplicity and embracing the complexity of our shared inheritance. Only then can we begin to build a civic culture rooted not in fear, but in mutual dignity.
TO BE CONTINUED…
To contact the author: weriz@yahoo.com
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