There are stories of colonialism in the annals of African history, then there is the story of colonialism in Eritrea. If capitalism was the raison d’etre of the British colonialism in Kenya, fascism was the linchpin of colonialism in Eritrea, Africa’s second youngest nation.
For instance, fascism dictated that an Eritrean could not stay longer than four years at his all-black school. As British journalist Michela Wrong captures in her book I Didn’t Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation, an Eritrean student was expected to know just enough Italian to speak ‘moderately well’.
He or she was expected to be a convinced propagandist of the principles of hygiene and history and know only the names of those who made Italy great. Italians would address Eritreans deridingly as ‘you’ whereas the latter was expected to respond with a deferential ‘master’.
“Every country which experiences colonization is defined by how it digests humiliation… but in Eritrea’s disciplined, tight-knit communities, sure in the knowledge of their ancient traditions and religious faith, subjugation ate into the soul in the different way,” writes Wrong.
When Italy failed to conquer Ethiopia, the colonial project and its founding philosophy collapsed. The rest, as they say, is history. But Eritrea didn’t earn her freedom just like that. The end of Italian colonialism marked the beginning of something else: black domination. Remember the West – led by United States – had forced Eritrea into a marriage with Ethiopia in the 1950s, but that the marriage didn’t last for long.
Eritreans, under Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) waged a catastrophic war that lasted for three decades leading to the defeat of Ethiopian forces in 1991 in one of the most infamous wars of independence.
Wind the tape forward to post-independence Eritrea. Power might have changed hands, but the desire to subjugate the masses persisted among the new custodians. Shortly after assuming office, President Isaias Afwerki reneged on his previous commitment to build a society in which such things as human rights and freedom of expression is respected. Like the independence bourgeoisies in Zimbambwe and Kenya, Afwerki overturned the foundations of freedom with his own hands.
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According to Amnesty International, the government of President Afwerki has imprisoned at least 10,000 political prisoners and committed systematic human rights abuse that amounts to crimes against humanity. Today, out of 180 countries, Eritrea is ranked last as far as press freedom is concerned. And the most eminent victim of Afwerki’s fascist regime is Dawit Isaak: an incisive playwright, journalist and writer who has been detained incommunicado since September 23, 2001, on trumped-up charges.
On May 26, 2009, President Afwerki swore that they will not release Isaak. “We know how to handle his kind,” he avowed. It’s not known whether Isaak is still alive or not. There have been rumors about his death since 2011, but neither the African Union nor African mainstream media has called for his release.
African mainstream media has given Isaak’s case a chilling blackout. There’s a paucity of information on his state in prison, assuming, hopefully, he’s still alive. Equally, there has been little effort by African mainstream media to inspire a conversation around Isaak’s fate and other prisoners of conscience.
Whereas Swedish media alongside Reporters Without Borders have remained firm in calling for the release of Isaak, African mainstream media has kept mum on the matter. By forgetting about one of their own, African journalists have derogated from their established role as the purveyors of truth and are slowly having their legacy bathed in the golden light of memory.