In Conversation with History
The history of Eritrea cannot be reduced to isolated dates that mark the fall of emperors or the clashes of factions. It must be understood as a continuum in which missed opportunities, fratricidal tragedies, and enduring symbols converge into lessons still awaiting full reckoning. This essay considers three pivotal currents: the slow death of the federation between 1952 and 1962, the fratricidal wars of the early 1970s in which approximately three thousand Eritrean fighters perished, and the enduring figure of Hamid Idris Awate, whose first shots in 1961 remain the genesis of modern sovereignty. To converse with this history is not to rehearse resentments but to interpret its echoes as guides for coexistence, justice, and renewal. The purpose is not only to recall the past but to understand how its unfinished conversations continue to shape Eritrea’s present and future, both within its borders and across its far-flung diaspora.
The Federation’s Betrayal, 1952–1962
Eritrea’s first profound rupture was not sealed by the death of Haile Selassie in 1975 but by the slow and deliberate dismantling of the federation a decade earlier. The federal arrangement authorized by the United Nations promised, in principle, a form of coexistence in which Eritrea’s identity might have cohabited with Ethiopian sovereignty. For a fleeting moment, history extended the possibility of partnership.
That possibility was squandered through calculated suffocation. Schools were compelled to adopt Amharic at the expense of Eritrea’s own linguistic traditions. Political institutions were systematically weakened, their autonomy traded for submission. Elections became rituals of cooptation rather than expressions of civic will. By 1962, when the federation was formally abrogated, the patient was already lifeless.
The tragedy lies not only in Eritrea’s loss but in Ethiopia’s missed opportunity. Haile Selassie chose absorption over federation, and in so doing, transformed what might have been a willing partner into an adversary that would never relent. The abrogation of the federation was not merely a political failure; it was the opening act of a war whose costs neither side has ceased to bear.
The Logic of Fratricide, 1972 and Beyond
The armed struggle that rose from the ashes of the federation carried within it the seeds of its own internal discord. In 1972, Eritrea witnessed the eruption of a civil war among its liberation fronts. The toll was staggering—approximately three thousand fighters lost their lives in battles fought not against a common enemy but against one another.
This fratricide established a tragic precedent. It signaled that within the liberation landscape, persuasion would never suffice where elimination was possible. The normalization of internal violence became part of Eritrea’s political DNA. Later expulsions and ruptures, so often treated as singular betrayals, were in truth the culmination of a logic already entrenched.
The shadow of 1972 has not fully receded. It lingers in the distrust between factions, in the suspicion that consensus is weakness, and in the reflex to treat difference as a threat rather than a resource. Yet even as these divisions are acknowledged, they need not become the permanent grammar of Eritrean politics. The legacy of the liberation era cannot be confined to the tally of who prevailed and who was exiled. It is also the endurance of sacrifice, the persistence of struggle, and the dream of self-determination that animated countless fighters across movements. To enshrine betrayal as the sole memory is to let yesterday’s wounds dictate tomorrow’s possibilities. To treat it instead as a warning is to open the way for a different inheritance, one that resists the normalization of suspicion and exclusion.
Awate’s Enduring Symbol, 1961 and Beyond
If federation represents the squandered opportunity and fratricide the abiding wound, then September 1, 1961, remains the counterweight. On that day, Hamid Idris Awate and his comrades fired the first shots of the armed struggle. In so doing, they affirmed that Eritrea’s identity would not be erased in silence.
Awate’s figure has resisted the politics of erasure. His monument stands in Eritrea as a reminder that some moments in history are too foundational to be dissolved. A book devoted to his life, the product of thirty-five years of meticulous research, was published within Eritrea itself, anchoring his story not only in memory but also in scholarship.
Yet there is a paradox in this enshrinement. Awate is honored, but the broader meaning of September 1 is often muted. His memory has been narrowed into the figure of a solitary founder rather than expanded into the inheritance of an entire people. To contrast Awate’s legacy is to insist that he belongs not to the state alone but to the civic imagination of every Eritrean.
Living with Complexity
History, when read in fragments, becomes a ledger of resentments. When read in conversation, it becomes a compass. The slow suffocation of the federation was not inevitable; it was a deliberate choice that squandered partnership. The fratricide of 1972 was not an aberration; it was the tragic consequence of a politics that privileged the gun over dialogue. Awate’s first shots were not merely an act of resistance; they were the beginning of a civic inheritance still awaiting full expression.
The challenge for Eritrea today is to remain in conversation with these echoes without being imprisoned by them. Memory must be honored, but it must also be interrogated. Sovereignty must be celebrated, but it must also be lived as justice, coexistence, and dignity.
Memory itself is a double-edged sword. It can replay resentments endlessly, turning history into a cycle of grievance, or it can be curated as a resource for resilience. Eritrea has already survived empire, fratricide, and exile; these very ordeals demonstrate a capacity to endure and to rebuild. The question is whether Eritreans will choose to define themselves only by their wounds or also by their ability to transform those wounds into a more inclusive national identity.
To converse with history is to recognize both the wounds and the promises it carries. Eritrea’s survival will depend not only on its ability to remember but on its courage to reinterpret, to revive, and to renew. This requires a humility that resists the temptation to weaponize memory and a courage that insists on building from it.
In the diaspora, where memory often hardens into grievance, conversation with history means allowing complexity to speak louder than slogans. Inside Eritrea, where silence is enforced, it means refusing to let monuments stand in place of the living voices still unaccounted for. In both places, the call is the same: to inhabit history not as a prison but as a dialogue, one that sustains a people’s dignity even in the face of fracture.
Awate Forum