National Unity Cannot Be Rebuilt One Community at a Time
Eritreans everywhere recognize the same painful truth: our nation is in deep crisis. Political paralysis, social fragmentation, and the mass flight of our youth have become defining features of our national condition. These burdens do not belong to one region or one religion. They belong to an entire people.
My brother, the respected commentator Ismail AA, recently suggested that Eritrean highland Christians—given their historical proximity to state power—should first resolve their internal fractures, after which national unity could expand outward. His concern is sincere, and his patriotism unquestionable. Yet the remedy he proposes risks deepening the very divisions we must overcome.
Eritrea’s Crisis Is National, Not Communal
The highlands, like every region of Eritrea, contain internal diversity—of history, dialect, and customary law. But they are neither uniquely fragile nor uniquely responsible for the country’s political decay. To frame the crisis as a “highland Christian problem” is to misunderstand its nature.
Eritrea’s crisis is structural. It is political. It is national.
Its solution must be the same.
The Danger of Simplifying Eritrea’s Diversity
Our political discourse too often collapses Eritrea into crude binaries—highland vs. lowland, Christian vs. Muslim, Bahri vs. Kebessa, Maria vs. Beni-Amer, Semhar vs. Barka. These categories flatten a far more complex reality. Eritrean identity has historically been fluid, shaped by geography, livelihood, and kinship—not by rigid sectarian lines.
Reducing our diversity to two opposing blocs—whether nationally or within a subset—is not merely inaccurate. It is dangerous.
Our Liberation Was National in Aspiration
Eritrea’s independence was not won through rigid religious or regional coalitions. It was driven by a civic nationalist project that, despite internal tensions and uneven participation, consistently sought to transcend narrow identity boundaries. Christians and Muslims fought in the same ranks. Fighters from the highlands and lowlands shared trenches and sacrifice.
Both the EPLF and the ELF, whatever their internal compositions and historical shortcomings, ultimately articulated their struggle in national—not sectarian—terms. Yes, the EPLF was predominantly Christian, but so was the ELF in its final years.
To argue now that unity must begin with one group “fixing itself” risks abandoning the very civic logic that made Eritrea’s independence possible.
Sector‑First Approaches Fail
History offers sobering lessons. Countries that attempted to rebuild politics by organizing communities separately—Lebanon, Iraq, South Sudan—ended up with paralysis, mistrust, and chronic fragmentation. The logic was familiar: let each group fix itself first. The outcome was equally familiar: deeper division.
Consider the mirror image of this logic. Imagine if the Eritrean regime were to insist that, because many opposition groups today are perceived as Muslim-led, they must first unite among themselves before being granted recognition or allowed to engage in national dialogue. One does not have to imagine; many have heard this directly. And whether intentionally or not, invoking such logic risks falling into that very trap.
Structurally, this is the same flaw embedded in sector‑first thinking.
The Successful Path: Start With the Nation
By contrast, countries that have managed meaningful political healing—South Africa, Rwanda, Tunisia among them—did so by insisting on an inclusive national framework from the outset. Their experiences differ in important ways, but they share a core insight: unity is rarely built by isolating one community at a time. It is built by constructing a credible common national project.
A National Awakening, Not a Communal One
If unity begins with one sector, it becomes their project.
If unity begins with the nation, it becomes everyone’s project.
Eritrea needs a national awakening—one that brings all communities into a single conversation about justice, constitutional governance, and shared citizenship. This is not idealism. It is strategy. It is how nations begin to recover from prolonged political stagnation.
The Way Forward
Ismail AA’s concerns are valid, and his intentions honorable. The same cannot be said of the regime’s intentions, which have long relied on division as a governing tool. Eritrea cannot afford a sector‑first approach to unity. Our path forward lies in rebuilding a shared national identity—one that honors our history, acknowledges our wounds, and prepares the ground for a stable, inclusive future.
Unity is not something one group delivers to the nation.
Unity is something the nation builds together.
To contact the author: weriz@yahoo.com
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