Ghosts and Shadows: Construction of Identity and Community in an African Diaspora 9781442675322

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Acronyms
Map
1. A Ghost Story
2. A Haunted House
3. Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements
4. Exile, Memory, Identity
5. Gender Relations in the Diaspora
6. Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories
7. More Real Than a Shadow
8. Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'
9. Ghostly Returns
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

GHOSTS AND SHADOWS Construction of Identity and Community in an African Diaspora

Focusing on African diaspora groups that have been virtually ignored in discussions of Canadian multiculturalism - Eritreans, Ethiopians, and Oromos - Ghosts and Shadows explores the re-creation of communities in exile and the invisible forces that haunt them through myths of 'homeland' and 'return.' Drawing on over a decade of work with refugee and immigrant groups in Canada, Atsuko Matsuoka and John Sorenson provide an analysis of the historical context that has created diaspora movements from the Horn of Africa. They examine contested understandings of Eritrea's thirty-year nationalist struggle, Ethiopian reactions to independence, and ongoing efforts to forge a distinct Oromo identity. The authors also discuss the role of long-distance nationalists in the 19982000 Eritrean-Ethiopian war. This study traces the spectral commitments to conflicting narratives of history and identity that affect settlement experiences of Eritrean, Ethiopian, and Oromo communities in Canada, and shows how the commitments of these exile groups still play important roles in nationalist struggles in their original homelands. Applying the concepts of 'ghosts and shadows' to question the supposed certainties of culture, history, memory, nation, gender, and 'race,' Matsuoka and Sorenson explore the conflicting creation of de-territorialized identities against the presumption of deep-rooted cultural continuities. A significant contribution to historical and globalized dimensions of nationalism, this work poses important challenges to dominant interpretations of transnational movements by focusing on the involvement of refugees and immigrants in nationalist struggles for distant homelands. By capturing these 'ghostly' and 'shadowy' aspects of lived experience, the book provides essential reading in the fields of anthropology, sociology, social work, and political studies. ATSUKO MATSUOKA is Associate Professor of Social Work at York University. JOHN SORENSON is Associate Professor of Sociology at Brock University.

This page intentionally left blank

GHOSTS AND SHADOWS Construction of Identity and Community in an African Diaspora

Atsuko Matsuoka and John Sorenson

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Incorporated 2001 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-4786-6 (cloth) ISBN 0-8020-8331-5 (paper)

© Printed on acid-free paper

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data Matsuoka, Atsuko Karin Ghosts and shadows : construction of identity and community in an African diaspora Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-4786-6 (bound) ISBN 0-8020-8331-5 (pbk.) 1. Ethiopians - Canada - Ethnic identity. I. Sorenson, John, 1952- . II. Title.

2. African diaspora.

FC106.E83M37 2001 305.892'807l C2001-930102-2 F1035.E86M37 2001

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistanace to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

In memory of feminist mother Matsuoka Yoriko

This page intentionally left blank

Phantoms and the phantasmagorical are part and parcel of African life. Carolyn Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story

Nostalgia, like any form of narrative, is always ideological: the past it seeks has never existed except as narrative, and hence, always absent, that past continually threatens to reproduce itself as a felt lack. Susan Stewart, On Longing

... ultimately haunting is about how to transform a shadow of a life into an undiminished life whose shadows touch softly in the spirit of a peaceful reconciliation. Avery Gordon, Ghostly Matters

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

P R E F A C E Xi A C R O N Y M S AND

A B B R E V I A T I O N S xiii

MAP xiv

1 A Ghost Story 3 2 A Haunted House 26 3 Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements 56 4 Exile, Memory, Identity 77 5 Gender Relations in the Diaspora 118 6 Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories 143 7 More Real Than a Shadow 169 8 Phantoms of Identity and'Race' 181 9: Ghostly Returns 223 BIBLIOGRAPHY I N D E X 257

243

This page intentionally left blank

Preface

We would like to thank the many individuals who participated in interviews and discussions and those who helped us meet these informants; without them this book could not have been written. We hope that their views and concerns have been accurately presented in the book and that our own reflections on these might be of some interest. The research for this book was carried out through the generous support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and we gratefully acknowledge its assistance. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We thank Dr Murray Smith of the Department of Sociology at Brock University and the anonymous reviewers at the University of Toronto Press for their constructive suggestions about the manuscript. Chapter 7 is a revised and expanded version of an article by John Sorenson published in Social Identities 2, no. 3 (pp. 439-67), entitled 'Learning to Be Oromo: National Discourse in the Diapora.' Note on References We have followed the standard system of referencing individuals from the Horn of Africa, where surnames are not used as they are in English. Thus, for example, 'Addisu Tolesa' is referenced under 'Addisu' rather than under 'Tolesa.' We have made an exception for those authors who, in their own publications, have adopted a Western style of referencing their own names.

This page intentionally left blank

Acronyms

EDU ELF EPLF EPRDF EPRP ERA ERAC OLF OLAF OPDO ORA OSA PFDJ REST SPLA TGE TLF TPLF UONA UOPLF UNHCR

Ethiopian Democratic Union Eritrean Liberation Front Eritrean People's Liberation Front Ethiopian People's Democratic Revolutionary Front Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party Eritrean Relief Association Eritrean Relief Association in Canada Oromo Liberation Front Oromo Abbo Liberation Front Oromo People's Democratic Organization Oromo Relief Association Oromo Studies Association People's Front for Democracy and Justice Relief Society of Tigray Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army Transitional Government of Ethiopia Tigrayari Liberation Front Tigrayan People's Liberation Front Union of Oromo in North America United Oromo People's Liberation Front United Nations High Commission for Refugees

Map of Eritrea and Ethiopia

GHOSTS AND SHADOWS Construction of Identity and Community in an African Diaspora

This page intentionally left blank

ONE

A Ghost Story

Haunted Spaces

This book examines the influence of the past. It looks at how the past continues to affect the present in the lives of diaspora populations; it is, in other words, a ghost story. While we focus on experiences of exiles from the Horn of Africa, the implications are much broader. Paying attention to ghosts and shadows allows us to understand aspects of social imagination, ways of knowing and being, that are neither purely subjective nor objective. From antiquity, exile has constituted the 'classic image of individual misfortune and tragedy,' characterized by helplessness, rejection, and wandering (Pellizzi 1988: 154). Yet at the beginning of the twenty-first century, this individual tragedy has become a structured element of globalized conditions: 'The landscapes of group identity - the ethnoscapes - around the world are no longer familiar anthropological objects, insofar as groups are no longer tightly territorialized, spatially bounded, historically unselfconscious, or culturally homogeneous' (Appadurai 1991: 191). Refugees are often viewed as powerless, as the embodiment of bare humanity, as 'stripped of the specificity of culture, place and history,' as liminal and shadowy beings who exist outside the 'national order of things' (Malkki 1995: 12, 5). The typical image of 'uprooting' suggests that the process of displacement, of becoming a refugee or an exile, constitutes a complete break with one's past, culture, and identity. Many experience exile as a separation from their true place in the world, that place which provides rootedness, continuity, and meaning. Yet the break is not always complete, the past is not always past, and not all exiles are

4

Ghosts and Shadows

powerless. Those who undergo this experience are not simply passive inhabitants of a dead zone of loss and estrangement. Exile is also a fecund space for new ways of organizing experience - for creating new affiliations, associations, and communities and developing new identities. 'Thus the term diaspora is a signifier, not simply of transnationality and movement, but of political struggles to define the local, as distinctive community, in historical contexts of displacement' (Clifford 1994: 308). As exiles form communities abroad, they engage in joint reconstructions of experience, and shape specific forms of identity involving ethnic, regional, or national affiliations. In fact, some regard exile not only as a creative process but also as an emancipatory one in the sense that movement between cultures and perspectives provides deeper insights. Seen this way, exile is a vantage point from which cultures can be perceived from their margins; it allows that which is normally unseen to become visible. Edward Said (1984) regards exile as a condition of privileged insight for intellectuals; James Clifford (1994; 1997) contends that metaphors of travel reflect basic attributes of the postmodern condition and considers how routes of travel, by allowing intercultural contacts, modify our notion of cultural roots, understood as traditions; Paul Gilroy (1993a) uses tropes of ships and travel to understand the African diaspora as a 'counterculture of modernity' that undermines ethnic absolutism; and Salman Rushdie (1991: 124-5) says that exile creates new types of people, rooted in ideas rather than places, in memories as much as in material things; people who have been obliged to define themselves - because they are so defined by others - by their otherness; people in whose deepest selves strange fusions occur, unprecedented unions between what they were and where they find themselves. The migrant suspects reality: having experienced several ways of being, he understands their illusory nature. To see things plainly, you have to cross a frontier.

Yet enthusiasms for these new transnational objects of research sometimes overstate the ease of such frontier crossings: 'Jet planes, coupled with low cost fares, make it possible almost literally to have a foot in two countries, while telephones, fax machines, money transfer companies, and rapid freight shipments facilitate the movement of material goods and ideas' (Basch, Click Schiller, and Szanton Blanc 1994: 23). While such technology is available to some, it is not accessible to many millions of destitute displaced people, refugees, and migrant workers.

A Ghost Story

5

For them, transnationalism is an experience not of constant 'travel' and multiple returns but of separation, exile, and longing rendered inescapable by global and local structural violence. In overstating the permeability of borders and the ease of travel, some theorists of transnationalism entirely ignore issues of class, 'race,' and power (Ahmad 1992; hooks 1992). Even so, the postmodernist emphasis on fragmentation, multiplicity and polyphony, fluid identities, border crossings, creolization, and hybridity has raised useful questions about the former certainties of 'race,' ethnicity, and nation. Arjun Appadurai (1991: 192) feels that contemporary ethnography's central task is to explore deterritorialization, and draw attention to 'transnational corporations and money markets ... ethnic groups, sectarian movements, and political formations, which increasingly operate in ways that transcend specific territorial boundaries and identities.' Avery Gordon (1997: 7, 8, 19) suggests that to understand these shifting conditions of social life, we must consider their ghostly aspects; only them will we understand 'how that which appears to be not there is often a seething presence, acting on and often meddling with taken-for-granted realities ...' In haunting, organized forces and systemic structures that appear removed from us make their impact felt in everyday life in a way that confounds our analytic separations.' The deterritorialized space of exile is a haunted one; we employ this term as Gordon does, to suggest how what is invisible produces material effects, and how the past continues to influence the present, and how entire societies can be overshadowed by terrible deeds (64). These haunted spaces have their own structures of feeling, their own moral economies. Looking at ghosts and shadows helps us to understand both ontic and epistemic aspects of diaspora experience. As we have presented them in this book, ghosts and shadows are not merely the spectral recurrences that haunt individual experiences; they often become the source of a structure of feelings, the basis of the mythico-history that allows groups to analyze their collective experience and identity. They are neither objective nor subjective. Amid the world of ghosts and shadows, the diaspora population engages in processes of 'ordering and reordering of social and political categories, with the defining of self in distinction to other, with good and evil' (Malkki 1995: 55). Through these processes of ordering and opposition, they remake their world in the context of a charged strangeness. Becoming attuned to the world of ghosts and shadows will help researchers go beyond epistemological racism: 'the dominant research

6

Ghosts and Shadows

epistemologies - from positivism to postmodernism - 'implicitly favor white people because they accord most easily with their social history ... the dominant epistemologies are a product of white social history' (Scheurich 1997: 142). We believe that listening to ghostly stories of individuals provides ways to move beyond epistemological racism and, in fact, beyond other forms of epistemological oppression - for example, sexism, ageism, classism, ableism, and heterosexualism. Developing an anti-oppressive epistemology is the beginning of understanding of diaspora experience. We contend that such an epistemology is essential not just in our respective fields of social work practice and anthropology, but for all researchers. Diasporas

In this book we explore experiences of diaspora - the movement of communities across international boundaries and the ensuing negotiations of social identity - particularly in relation to nationalism, with its attendant myths of homeland and return. We consider how ethnic and national forms of affiliation are constructed, transmitted, and transformed. In her social work teaching, Matsuoka employs the acronym GRACES - gender, 'race'/racialization, age/generation, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation - to analyse social policy, practice, and everyday experience. We use this GRACES framework to investigate how these factors have cross-cut diaspora groups in complex ways and constitute multiple experiences of diaspora. If we are to understand 'contemporary trans/national movements of people, information, cultures, commodities and capital,' the concepts of 'diaspora, border and politics of location' are essential (Brah 1996: 181). Emphasizing the interpenetration of global and local forces, we explore the transnational dimensions of ethnic and national identity, using the concept of long-distance nationalism (Anderson 1992). Negotiation of identity is especially complex where exiles are strongly committed to political struggles in their original homeland, and adhere to a 'myth of return' while simultaneously resituating themselves in the country of resettlement. These involvements are shaped by past and present GRACES relationships. Deterritorialized communities have received increased attention recently, as intellectuals suggest various terms to explore 'contact zones of nations, cultures, and regions: terms such as border, travel, creolization, hybridity and diaspora' (Clifford 1994: 303). Once restricted to specific experiences of Jewish exile, the term diaspora is now associated

A Ghost Story

7

with communities that have been displaced due to immigration, labour migrations, and political and military conflicts. While diaspora suggests displaced communities, the process of displacement is experienced by individuals; we use the term exile to discuss such individual experiences of coerced displacement, but we also emphasize the concept of structure of feeling to indicate how individual and community experiences are shared. Although Barkan and Shelton (1998: 4) contend that exiles exhibit 'constant loyalty to the historical memory of the communal life, rejection of assimilation and struggle for authenticity and sacrifice' whereas 'diaspora is about choice,' our usage of diaspora follows the characterization suggested by Safran (1991: 83-4): 1) they, or their ancestors, have been dispersed from a specific original 'center' to two or more 'peripheral,' or foreign regions; 2) they retain a collective memory, vision, or myth about their original homeland - its physical location, history, and achievements; 3) they believe that they are not - and perhaps cannot be - fully accepted by their host society and therefore feel partly alienated and insulated from it; 4) they regard their ancestral homeland as their true, ideal home and as the place to which they or their descendants would (or should) eventually return - when conditions are appropriate; 5) they believe that they should, collectively, be committed to the maintenance or restoration of their original homeland and to its safety and prosperity; and 6) they continue to relate, personally or vicariously, to that homeland in one way or another, and their ethnocommunal consciousness and solidarity are importantly defined by the existence of such a relationship.

Kachig Tololyan (1996: 17), editor of the journal Diaspora, identifies a preoccupation with homeland as the key feature distinguishing diasporic from ethnic communities; diaspora groups, typically driven by a small activist leadership, 'insistently re-turn, turn towards the homeland, in the sense that they devote funds and human resources to attempts to assist or influence the economy, culture and politics of the homeland.' As Tololyan (1991: 5) notes, 'diasporas are the exemplary communities of the transnational moment,' and to analyze such communities we must not only consider how nations are created as 'imagined communities' (Anderson 1983), but also ask whether a nation can still be defined as a bordered space with fixed limits: 'This vision of a homogeneous nation is now being replaced by a vision of the world as a "space" continually reshaped by force - cultural, political, technological,

8

Ghosts and Shadows

demographic, and above all economic - whose varying intersections in real estate constitute every "place" as a heterogeneous and disequilibriated site of production, appropriation, and consumption, of negotiated identity and affect' (Tololyan 1991: 6). Diaspora communities are structured by the politics of the homeland and driven to intervene in them; but they are also shaped by the global forces and external interventions that helped create the conditions of exile. Thus, the politics of diaspora nationalism are central but overlooked issues in studies of refugee and immigrant populations. The politics of long-distance nationalism link diaspora studies with key issues in anthropology, sociology, and social work, concerning ethnicity and social memory and how services for diverse populations are affected by the ways in which their identities are constructed. Hybridity and Postcolonialism

Diasporas are productive spaces for generating and transforming culture and identity. Theoretical discussions about such transformations often refer to hybridity, a condition of being in between that mixes cultural practices and is associated with a cosmopolitan perspective. Some caution is required concerning the concept of hybridity, as it 'may interpolate essentialism through the back door' (Yuval-Davis 1997: 59). Hybrid identities are not simply combinations of essentially discrete entities; they are more complex and dynamic than this. In cultural studies, one encounters various understandings about cultural mixing. A common assumption is that hybridity refers to the melding of two or more distinct cultural forms and the creation of a new, distinct entity from this melding. Others regard hybridity as the combining of various elements in such a way that they retain some of their discrete and essential differences. Contemporary anthropology has departed from its earlier preoccupation with cataloguing distinct cultures, and provided extensive evidence for a third understanding of hybridity, which we employ here. This position rejects the idea that cultures exist in isolation and maintain essential differences; it sees all cultures as the product of previous interactions. Notably, Eric Wolf (1982) examines the historical dimensions of hybridity. Others consider how, through the constant flow of contact, distinct identities are invented and enforced. Although hybridization and cultural mixing certainly take place among diaspora populations, this does not necessarily entail the end of essentialist ideologies. For example, writing about Hutu refugees from

A Ghost Story

9

Burundi in Tanzania, Liisa Malkki finds that narratives recounted by displaced people emphasize the significance of borders and boundaries and reject cosmopolitanism as an absence of order and rules. Although diasporas experience cultural transformations, they may at the same time insist on forms of 'categorical thought which center upon the purity of the categories in question. They ... tend to construct and essentialize difference ... [and] naturalize and legitimate inequality. In the most extreme case, the construction of one category may imply the denaturalization and even dehumanization of another' (Malkki 1995: 257; cf. Daniel 1996: 67-8). The term hybridity often arises in discussions of postcolonialism, which is a problematic topic, as contributors to Mongia's (1996) edited collection point out. The term postcolonial is vague and contradictory, masking what would be described more accurately as neocolonial, that is, the continuing effects of historical relationships of imperialist domination. Other problems inherent in discussions of postcolonialism are these: it emphasizes subjectivity to the exclusion of analysis of global relations of power; it repudiates collective political projects; and it focuses on the concerns of elite intellectuals of Third World origins, who assert their power in prestigious academic institutions through deliberately obscurantist writing. Importantly, postcolonial discourse 'excludes from its scope most of those who inhabit or hail from postcolonial societies. It does not account for the attractions of modernization and nationalism to vast numbers in Third World populations' (Dirlik 1996:300). However, the term postcolonial does suggest the power relations at the centre of this ghostly tale. Our approach to the shadowy postcolonial condition is rather different from that of theorists who focus on literary texts and ignore the lingering yet still powerful effects of colonialism on societies. Through interviews with refugees and long-distance nationalists, we have sought to explore these ghostly effects, and to track the deterritorialized influence of colonial power as it has spread through time and space. Contemporary clashes of identities in the Horn of Africa take place in these long shadows of colonialism: Italian colonialism was instrumental in creation of Eritrean nationalism, and Protestant missionaries promoted literacy and a sense of identity among Oromos, while Ethiopian identity draws symbolic strength from its anticolonial resistance (although opponents regard Ethiopia itself as a colonizing power). Furthermore, nationalist and ethnic conflicts throughout the Horn were exacerbated by Cold War rivalries. Local regimes, their opponents, and

10

Ghosts and Shadows

diaspora populations found themselves entangled in global processes: political ploys, military manouevring, arms deals, international relief programs and immigration and refugee policies. Clearly, it is appropriate to consider the postcolonial residues that permeate diaspora. Our discussion of long-distance nationalism highlights these often ignored political and cultural effects of postcolonialism, as expressed in diasporic narratives of identity, in which the tensions between purity and hybridity are discernable. Globalization and Identity

As the twentieth century ended, questions of identity acquired renewed emotional force and significance and became central to discussions of nationalism, globalization, and 'race' and ethnicity. The term globalization became popular in the 1990s to describe changes in the structure of global capitalism (see Mishra 1999: 4 for a definition for globalization). New technologies, faster communications, the greater mobility of capital, and the growing power of transnational corporations were influencing international divisions of labour and restricting the powers formally associated with the nation-state. It was asserted that nation-states were declining in significance; it was predicted that they would vanish in the foreseeable future. Some theorists suggested that a world culture was developing, in which formerly distinct societies would become interconnected to an unprecedented degree as a result of market forces and the influence of the mass media. While globalization suggests homogenization, of the world, there has been a corresponding resurgence of increasingly localized commitments; the overwhelming complexity of the new, global culture is creating among many peoples a strong desire for a sense of community, as well as nostalgia for a secure home and identity. For all the claims that the world is becoming borderless (Ohmae 1990), a clash over borders developed into full-scale war in 2000 between Ethiopia and Eritrea, plunging Eritrea into catastrophe. Notwithstanding the prevailing assumption that the nation-state is losing significance, we find that in the new century, counterforces to globalization are at work, in the form of various nationalist and separatist movements, religious fundamentalism, and the emergence of a politics of identity. All of these are means of asserting a distinctive sense of the self. Nationalism has enjoyed a resurgence among various social groups, who are proclaiming that they are unique and (typically) that they need an independent territory

A Ghost Story

11

where they can fully develop their identity. Part of this is based on nostalgia for stable communities that offer order, security, continuity, and guaranteed inclusion. Necessary to these nostalgic constructions are various inventions arid revivals of cultural traditions, which are considered constitutive of a distinct society. Although socially constructed, these identities are often asserted in essentialist form and (for many diaspora populations) against resurgent racism in host societies. Nationalism

Zygmunt Bauman accepts Gellner's (1983) assertion that nations are recent inventions and that, as ways of classifying people, they are basically myths; but he adds (1992) that nationalism is also a reality that affects pre-existing cultures and turns them into nations. Nationalism is a true reality, but only because it conceals its own nature and creates an imaginary condition in which 'nations' have actual existence. Thus nationalism is a phantom that shapes reality to resemble its own form; it creates the facts that it perpetuates. To understand the shadowy reality of nationalism and its ephemeral but powerful creations, we must dismiss attempts to develop objective definitions of the nation or lists of characteristics that nations must have in order to achieve recognition. To do otherwise would be to accept the reality of what is claimed rather than to see nations as something invented, created, and shaped by nationalist movements and contested by their opponents. Earth (1969) described how ethnic identity is created and maintained by boundary mechanisms between groups. Many contend that ethnicity is situational (Cohen 1985; Talai 1986; Miles 1986). Hutnick (1986: 151) adds that 'ethnic identities are not necessarily singular or fixed but are often constituted by a number of sub-identities,' while Smith (1986: 46, 47), who defines ethnicity as a 'sentiment of community,' notes that ethnic identities are 'constantly fluctuating.' Commenting on the need to maintain boundaries, Bauman (1992: 678) writes: 'Identity is permanently under conditions of a besieged fortress: since its inception, it is to be forever threatened by trespassing of enemies, dilution, slackening of vigilance. Always made-up, almost always contested, it tends to be fragile and unsure of itself; this is why the we-talk can seldom stop. Identity stands and falls by the security of its borders, and the borders are ineffective unless guarded.' As we will demonstrate, the 'we-talk' to which Bauman refers divides the world into friends and enemies and fosters permanent anxiety, tension, and vigilance concerning morals and behaviour. It also demands

12

Ghosts and Shadows

the continuous creation of stereotyped images and the formation of and adherence to certain rituals. It emphasizes threats and dangers and appeals to activism. Myths of Home

Typically, nationalists seek to create a distinct homeland 'on the spot'; however, for exiles, ideas of home are elaborated in ghostly spaces of memory and imagination. Unlike immigrants, who are seeking new homes, diaspora populations maintain important links to their original homeland and are not easily assimilated. Because of how they were dispersed, diasporas are thus defined 'against' the nation-state and subvert its norms. 'Peoples whose sense of identity is centrally defined by collective histories of displacement and violent loss cannot be "cured" by merging into a new national community. This is especially true when they are victims of ongoing, structural prejudice' (Clifford 1994: 307). In the nostalgic longing of the diasporic imagination, home may be remembered as more secure, comfortable, and welcoming than it ever was. Nationalist movements rework the past, creating Golden Ages of harmony and privilege that contrast with contemporary oppressions and that provide legitimizing narratives for political mobilization; in the same vein, exiled supporters of such movements imagine future Utopias and offer promises of a return to conditions very like those of the Golden Age. The diaspora experience, rather than entailing the loss of culture and collective identity, can be the 'site' in which these identities are constituted (Malkki 1995). Such identities are constituted through the deployment of myths. In this context, myths are not simply lies, illusions, or fanciful tales; rather, they are narrative constructions of reality that package key symbols into meaningful order and help individuals cope with and engage in shared conceptualizations of disruptive and traumatic experiences. Particularly important are those narratives involving ideas of homeland and return. These shared, mythical constructions help to explain and order experiences of exile and to counterbalance the profound sense of loss. When we describe as myths these ways of remembering, of constructing shared identities, of formulating particular visions of the future, we are not necessarily dismissing them as false versions of history, or as invalid types of identity, or as illegitimate aspirations; rather, we are emphasizing their social character. In the present context, myth should be understood in terms of a semiological system, an organized narrative in which events

A Ghost Story

13

are given meaning. Myths are not relics from some antique past; rather, they are mechanisms for organizing experience and reworking the present. Similarly, the ideologies that shape the mythologies of diaspora communities should not be taken as implying false consciousness that misunderstands the truth; rather, they should be seen as systems of ideas, as patternings of history, as arrangements of symbols in narrative form (Geertz 1973; Levi-Strauss 1963; Samuel & Thompson 1990; White 1973). The facts do matter, but they do not speak for themselves. In struggles to constitute identities in exile, events are given particular meanings and significance. As Malkki (1995: 104) writes: Mythico-history is misread if it is seen simply as a series of factual claims. For the 'facts' it deployed, true and false alike, were only building blocks for the construction of a grand moral-historical vision ... the more challenging approach to such narrations ... is not to sort out 'true facts' from 'distortions' but to examine what is taken to be the truth by different historical groups, and why. Different regimes of truth exist for different historical actors and particular historical events support any number of different narrative elaborations. Such regimes of truth operate at a mythico-historical level which is concerned with the constitution of an ontological, political, and moral order of the world. Ethiopian Diaspora

In this book we focus on one of the world's largest refugee populations: those who fled Ethiopia during the decades of political repression, convulsive warfare, and devastating famine that ravaged the entire Horn of Africa. Out of these millions of displaced people, approximately 10,000 came to Canada as refugees and immigrants during the 1980s. From external perspectives, such as that of the Canadian government, all these individuals were classified as Ethiopian. However, this category was contested by the refugees' self-definitions. We focus on the experience of three self-defined groups who established diaspora communities in Canada: Eritreans, Ethiopians, and Oromos. It was only in 1993, with the formal declaration of Eritrea's independence, that a distinct Eritrean identity was officially recognized in Canada; Oromos continue to be classified as Ethiopian, although many have rejected such a classification. These groups developed different styles of adaptation, expressed in their community organizations and politics. These differences were shaped by how they remembered and imagined the past and the home-

14

Ghosts and Shadows

land. In this sense, ethnicity should be understood as a dynamic process rather than as an effort to hang on to old ways arid traditions. Traditions themselves are invented, mobilized, and redeployed in creative ways. Although people of African descent have been in Canada since the seventeenth century, they have been essentially invisible in the dominant narratives of Canadian history. Furthermore, until recently there was very little immigration to Canada from Africa in general. Racist laws restricted African immigrants, and those who did arrive during the 1960s were mainly students and members of elite classes. After the 1970s, more Africans began arriving in Canada, largely as a result of political turmoil. Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, and the Horn countries supplied most of these newcomers. During the 1980s, large numbers of refugees and immigrants from Ethiopia settled in Canada. While these newcomers were compelled to re-examine and sometimes modify their own ethnic and national identities, their arrival also amounted to a challenge to ideas that had long been dominant in Canadian society. Although black people have long been part of Canadian society, the commonsense, hegemonic notion of Canada is of a pale or colourless society (Matsuoka 1991). As members of visible minorities, newcomers from Africa challenged traditionally held assumptions about Canadian identity. Those few scholars who have investigated the experience of black people in Canada have focused mainly on the Caribbean diaspora to the exclusion of African groups. The Eritreans and Ethiopians who arrived in the 1980s constituted the first sizable African immigrant population in Canada. As Somalia fragmented in the 1990s, the number of people arriving in Canada from northeastern Africa increased substantially, but Ethiopians and Somalis do riot constitute a single, unified community. A central theme in this book is the diversity of supposedly cohesive identities. From the perspective of the Canadian government, and according to some claiming to represent them, those who left Ethiopia and settled in Canada formed a single community. However, important cultural and political differences exist within this population. Often, we found that the self-definitions of the people we interviewed did not correspond with the identities others imposed on them. 'Others,' here, includes those who style themselves as leaders of the Horn community. This book examines the struggles 'inside' this supposedly homogeneous community - struggles to define and represent various identities. As w will demonstrate, even these counterdiscourses are internally fragmented.

A Ghost Story

15

Cultural Identity

Stuart Hall (1990) outlines two ways of conceptualizing cultural identity. The first posits identity as being based on shared cultural codes and historical experiences that create fundamental unity and constitute a group as 'a people.' Ideas of fundamental unity regarding a black diaspora were shaped by the work of Aimee Cesaire, Leopold Senghor, Frantz Fanon, and W.E.B. Dubois and by pan-Africanism. From this perspective, the task of individuals in a diaspora is to rediscover this fundamental unity. The second position on cultural identity recognizes similarities of experience but acknowledges crucial differences. From this perspective, cultural identity emerges not as the excavation and rediscovery of an essential sameness that is forever fixed, but rather as something created and in constant transformation. Drawing on Jacques Derrida's call to observe the internal incoherence of texts rather than to accept them as fully constituted wholes, Hall points to cultural identities as political constructions formed in the interplay of power and knowledge, and as 'imagined communities' (Anderson 1983). Discussions of cultural identity have focused on the assertion of unified identities, which were devalued as Others to the Western Self. Less attention has been given to the second position, which sees identity as a political fiction and investigates differences within fundamental selves formed in opposition to controlling narratives of racism. Politics of identity - especially of constructing and maintaining identities in exile involve active engagement with the past, including attempts to shape that past in specific ways so as to confirm identities selected in the present and give them a sense of historical rootedness. These operations have particular appeal for marginalized groups and for those who are not in a position to profit from processes of globalization. For exiles, the past and the self are linked with a specific sense of place - of a homeland from which they have been uprooted but which they can never abandon. Ethnicity

To understand these struggles it is necessary to consider briefly the literature on ethnic identity; much of this is directly relevant to understanding nationalism, which often resorts to ethnic appeals. Typically, two broad perspectives are identified. An essentialist or primordialist ap-

16

Ghosts and Shadows

proach views ethnicity as fundamental, enduring, and central to existence; if not itself genetic, it is something into which one is born and which is a basic trait of human societies. In contrast, a social constructionist approach contends that ethnicity is not fixed at birth but rather is created in changing historical conditions: it is flexible, situational, and contextual. Comaroff (1996: 164—5), consigns primordialism to 'the trash heap of ideas past' but critiques constructionism as being less a theory than an assertion. He notes a neoprimordialist elaboration that attempts to bridge these approaches by posing ethnic consciousness as a universal potentiality activated under certain conditions, but then he dismisses this as a project that seeks to leave the 'bedrock of essentialism ... intact.' Comaroff sees ethnic identity not as a thing but as a relationship, the content of which is determined by historical construction, arid stresses four points: that ethnicity originates in conditions of inequality and struggle; that it is generated from symbols that occur in everyday practice; that once constructed, identities acquire material existence and appear natural; and that these identities continue to exist, although the conditions under which they arose may alter (166). Fredrik Barth (1969) noted 'objective' indicators of ethnicity - biological self-perpetuation, shared cultural values and forms, interaction among members, and categorization by self and others - but also stressed ethnicity's subjective quality and the importance of maintaining boundaries between groups. This emphasis on boundary maintenance transformed the study of ethnicity. Most scholars accept that ethnic identity has a subjective, flexible, constructed character, but few have investigated how these identities are socially negotiated. Abner Cohen (1974), pursuing the emphasis that Barth and Edmund Leach (1954) placed on interaction rather than isolation, argues that ethnic identity is created through opposition. Sondra Hale (1979), in her work on ethnic identity among Nubians in Sudan, finds that the value of ethnicity is variable and that ethnicity can be stressed or minimized depending on how useful it is in the situation at hand. Norman Buchignani's interaction-based approach to ethnicity (1980) offers an explanatory model for processes of ethnic identity formation and maintenance; this provides a useful starting point for analyzing ethnic identity as a process rather than a thing. Identity is socially constructed and produced through complex interactions in which each actor must understand not only her or his own personal, collective, or social identity but also the social identity of the other actors involved. Yet even this model does not include all the permutations relevant to

A Ghost Story

17

interaction, since it assumes that the actors will agree in their perceptions of one anothers' social identities, whereas these perceptions may actually be widely divergent or (as in the case discussed here) directly opposed. Such differences in perception will be significant for decisionmaking and behaviour. Furthermore, social identities are neither given nor static, but rather are complexes of meanings incorporated into larger meaning systems. These meanings are deployed in symbolic forms, including language, religion, food, music, dress, and, importantly, ritual. Through the deployment of these symbols, groups delineate and maintain their boundaries, and are able to construct distinctive identities (Mach 1993). Drawing on these studies, we argue that ethnic identity is not simply an expression of essence or a fixed set of cultural attributes, but rather is dynamic, fluid, and changeable. Ethnicity is also relational, in the sense that it interacts with other forms of identity such as those based on class, gender, generation and location. As well, ethnic identity is often constructed around quite explicit political objectives. Our discussion of diaspora communities from the Horn considers how identities are influenced by nationalist movements in their homelands. As already noted, understandings of nationalism and ethnicity follow two basic approaches. Primordialist approaches see nationalism as the expression of a shared culture, as a true collective identity common to those who share the same ancestry and history (Geertz 1973; Smith 1986). In esseritialist constructions of identity, a national unit (or an ethnic group seeking to establish its own state) constitutes an irreducible commonality that defines and roots the self and that is shared by others affiliated with the same unit. It is assumed that a distinct culture is associated with this unit; having been conceived as a thing rather than a process, culture is then defined and delimited (Handler 1988). Cultures thus come to be perceived as reified entities, and understood as frozen, singular forms rather than as evolving, interactive systems. This orientation is favoured by most nationalists, who believe that for their shared, essential identity to be expressed, the group must control its own territory. In contrast, other theoretical explorations of ethnicity emphasize the subjective and malleable character of such affiliations and consider nationalism and ethnicity to be socially constructed (Anderson 1983; Hobsbawm 1983, 1990; Hutnik 1986; Karklin 1987; Miles 1986; Plaice 1989; Talai 1986). Recent theoretical work on nationalism and the postmodernist understandings of identity emphasizes this shifting, provisional character and rejects identity as some essential quality.

18

Ghosts and Shadows

In this book we examine the clash of different understandings of cultural identity in ethnic and nationalist discourses among the diaspora from the Horn. For some, this dissonance takes essentialist form in both national and ethnic affiliations. Ethiopian nationalists often appeal to an essentialist, trans-historical identity, but one premised on the borders of the state, and present this identity as open and inclusive and as affording unity among less significant ethnic and regional affiliations. Yet some who are included within the state's boundaries have rejected this form of national identity, considering it merely a means to legitimize the hegemony of Amhara and Tigrayan elites. Oromo nationalists have given ethnic identity precedence over affiliation with a state that confines the nascent entity of Oromia. Oromo nationalist discourse presents ethnic differences as fundamental and insurmountable obstacles to the achievement of an Ethiopian national identity. The dissonance inherent in the inclusive/oppressive character of Ethiopian identity is basic to these competing forms of nationalism, both of which resort to essentialist imaginings, although their objects are different. Refugee movements are created by political repression and conflict, so it is striking that the politics of refugee communities receive so little attention. This book addresses this gap in research by providing an ethnographic analysis of the factionalism and mobilization found in these communities. These political affiliations, which cut across GRACES lines, mean that settlement has not been a uniform process. 'Race'

In examining the experiences of an African diaspora population in Canada, it is necessary to challenge ideas about 'race' as a social category. (The term is even less useful when employed to describe objective physical differences; indeed, so much confusion surrounds the term that it is valueless in such a sense.) While superficial similarities often suggest commonalities, it is clear that significant social differences can exist among groups that are placed in the same category. For example, the term 'black' can signify both people born in Canada and African immigrants, although individuals so designated may have little in common. Substantial differences may exist between immigrant groups that are lumped together on the basis of perceived physical similarities. By examining different experiences of Eritreans and Ethiopians, and their sometimes paradoxical relationship to others included in the category 'black,' we challenge some of the assumptions made on the basis of such

A Ghost Story

19

categories. 'Race' relations studies in Canada typically focus on relationships between a dominant white group and subordinate minority groups. Clearly, understanding such divisions of power is essential to an adequate analysis, but by restricting our focus to binary oppositions, we would be oversimplifying more complex situations of internal diversity and relations between different minority groups. Such oversimplifications are not only intellectually unsatisfying but may have serious practical consequences, such as in terms of how social services are provided. The case of refugees and immigrants from Ethiopia provides especially striking evidence of the need for a more sophisticated model of social relations. Just as we argue that race is not a particularly useful category for understanding the experience of these exiles, we note that their experiences are differentiated by gender. The process of becoming a refugee is different for men and women, who also experience settlement in Canada in different ways. For that reason, we will explore these genderspecific experiences and gendered forms of identity by considering how feminist research illuminates understanding of diaspora communities. In this sense as well, we hope to contribute to diaspora theory. Methodology: GRACES, Contrapuntal Analysis, and 'The Idea of Ethiopia'

Methodologically, we have employed a triangulation approach. Sorenson has been involved with this diaspora population for two decades, and through his work with the Eritrean Relief Association in Canada (an NGO linked with the Eritrean Peoples' Liberation Front (EPLF) and providing humanitarian aid to victims of war and famine in Eritrea) he established close ties with Eritrean communities across Canada - ties that are reflected here. Extended association with diaspora communities led us to explore the nature of exile in a more focused way through a specific research project. In 1989-90 we conducted a survey in community centres, churches, mosques, and other gathering places. These 186 returned questionnaires gave us a valuable basis for further investigation using standard ethnographic techniques of participant observation and interviews. This book is based on these observations and interviews. We conducted scores of in-depth, semi-structured and unstructured interviews over ten years in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Ottawa; interviews in Calgary and Montreal were done in 1995. We interviewed members of diaspora groups and settlement workers. Most

20

Ghosts and Shadows

interviews were with single individuals either in their homes, or in ours, or in locations they chose. In some cases we had extended discussions with groups of two or three people. Many interviews lasted several hours, and we collected hundreds of hours of taped material and notes, which provided some of the lengthy quotations used in this book. Most of the ninety-eight formal interviews with women took place between 1990 and 1996. Although we interviewed some from older and younger generations, most people we talked to were between twenty-five and forty-five years old at the time of interviews. We also participated in meetings and conferences of various Eritrean, Ethiopian, and Oromo political groups. Chapter 7 is based on attendance at annual meetings of the Oromo Studies Association in Toronto and Minneapolis, and we have applied techniques of discourse analysis to data gathered at those meetings. Our analysis of nationalism in the Horn was informed by Sorenson's previous fieldwork in Eritrea in 1986 and our more recent SSHRC-sponsored research there in 1998, which focused on the status of women and was undertaken in collaboration with Alemseghed Asghedom. Unfortunately, that project was interrupted by Ethiopian air raids on the Eritrean capital, Asmara, which resulted in our forced evacuation to Saudi Arabia. In our interviews with informants from various groups, we encouraged them to express themselves by not limiting ourselves to standardized questions and a uniform approach. However, we kept in mind the GRACES framework, which indicates social modalities that shape experiences and stratify social relationships. Recent ethnographic writing emphasizes polyphony, that is, multiple voices rather than that of the single author. Contemporary anthropologists contend that an ethnography is not simply the product of a single intelligence, and question the author's place in relation to the subjects of investigation. In the past, the author would hover like an invisible presence among those subjects, recording facts that would constitute a scientific account. This approach to ethnographic work has since been challenged; anthropologists are now investigating the fieldwork process itself, in particular the complicated relationship between ethnographers and the people they are studying (Clifford and Marcus 1986; Crapanzano 1977; Rabinow 1977). Overlooking similar developments in feminist work, these anthropologists have identified themselves as postmodernists. Emphasizing language, form, and representation, postmodern anthropology drew attention to how anthropological accounts were constructed and called for different forms of writing, to reflect this new understanding of rela-

A Ghost Story

21

tioris between writers, readers, and the subjects of study as well as to expose power relations. Clifford and Marcus (1986) regard formal experimentation as the most radical stance for anthropologists, one that can free anthropology from concerns with the primitive and the exotic and make critique the basis of its project. While less convinced that simple formal experimentation is, in itself, emancipatory, we have attempted to incorporate the often clashing voices of exiles into this text in order to show how conflicting ideas of Ethiopia continue to shape life in diaspora and how power struggles run through narratives of place and identity. In this regard, we have been inspired by an early postmodern text arid a seminal document of identity for Canadians: pianist Glenn Gould's 1967 radio composition for overlapping and contrapuntal (but nonindigenous) voices The Idea of North.' (Also inspired by Gould, Edward Said suggests a contrapuntal analysis in Culture and Imperialism). We have drawn on contrapuntal voices of exiles to investigate 'The Idea of Ethiopia' (and its ghostly counterparts). Yet, as Orin Starn (1999: 16) points out, we should be suspicious of ethnographic claims of 'giving voice' to the voiceless. Like Gould, we have orchestrated these voices in certain ways by selecting comments that we thought significant, and we have not refrained from pointing out what we see as flaws or contradictions in particular arguments. This leads us to mention the politics of discourse and our own positioning. Positioning and Objectivity Polemics hurled by antagonists in the Horn are echoed in the discourse produced by distant observers. In the shadow of nationalist wars in the Horn and in diaspora, other struggles were waged by foreign commentators: government officials, solidarity supporters, NGO workers, journalists, and academics. Strong political arid emotional identification with local protagonists encouraged the operation of a will-to-truth and the construction of competing versions of the past and of contemporary conflicts. In Eritrean Profile (15 July 2000), novelist Thomas Keneally likens this to 'sets of football supporters ... play [ing] a silly and profoundly racist game.' Throughout this game, works sympathetic to Eritrean nationalism were singled out as being 'political' or biased, while works endorsing Ethiopian versions of history were accepted as objective and scholarly. Certainly, pro-Ethiopian authors are not shy about asserting the truthfulness of their own views and about denouncing opposing claims. For example, BBC reporter Patrick Gilkes (1991) characterized

22

Ghosts and Shadows

discourse on Eritrea as invalid because the authors of this material were under the shadowy influence of the EPLF: Much, indeed, of the recent writing on Eritrea has been at the level of the polemic or a product of the 'guerilla groupie.' A surprising number of eminent scholars and journalists have taken the leading Eritrean movement, the EPLF, at its own evaluation, and its historical claims as fact. The results have impoverished the literature on Eritrea, and have created a distorted national mythology. Despite Gilkes's claim that 'a surprising number' of observers were EPLF dupes, discourse on Eritrean nationalism remained marginal until the final years of the war, when an EPLF victory began to seem inevitable. Even then, manyjournalists and academics continued to endorse Ethiopian hegemony. Those endorsements persisted into the Eritrean-Ethiopian war in 2000. Gilkes's own coverage of the war conveyed sympathy for Ethiopia, although he hardly matched the fervent boosterism of Paul Henze, former CIA station chief in Addis Ababa (Herman and Brodhead 1986). Henze's 18 January 2000 essay 'Eritrea's War Against Ethiopia,' posted on Ethiopian government websites, claimed that 'all problems derive from Eritrea's invasion of Ethiopian-administered territory,' compared Issayas Afeworki to Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein, and urged the U.S. government to condemn Eritrea and force its withdrawal, although he felt that 'bombing Eritrea would not be necessary.' Often, those who make the strongest assertions of objectivity are among the most polemical. Academic proponents of Greater Ethiopia are quick to criticize those whom Gilkes terms 'guerrilla groupies,' while failing to acknowledge their own commitments. For example, anthropologist Donald Levine dismisses works sympathetic to Eritrean arguments while himself contributing to polemical journals such as Ethiopian Reuierv. Historian Christopher Clapham consistently attacks any scholar he judges favourable to Eritrean or Oromo nationalism, deriding them as blinded by sentiment while denying his own emotional commitments. Predictably, in the Chicago Tribune (15 June 1998), Clapham blamed Eritrean belligerence for the war, claiming that Eritreans 'haven't really worked out what to do with [independence].' Yet we were in Asmara when the war began, and what was striking was the stridently aggressive tone of Ethiopian television broadcasts, which demanded allout attacks on Eritrea even while Issayas Afeworki was appearing on Eritrean broadcasts to urge a peaceful settlement through an international

A Ghost Story

23

effort to demarcate borders. Martial sentiments were soon reawakened in Eritrea, especially after Ethiopian planes bombed the capital. However, as noted in Chapter 9, Eritrea responded to international efforts at mediation, while Ethiopia preferred a military solution. Those journalists and academics who have lived and worked in Ethiopia echo the discourse of Greater Ethiopian nationalists while denouncing opposing views as biased. They emphasize Eritrea's belligerence by citing previous disputes with Sudan, Yemen, and Djibouti, even while downplaying Ethiopia's own disputes with neighbouring states. Under the guise of objectivity, they exclude alternative perspectives, thereby denying identity and history to groups such as Eritreans or Oromos. Their goal is less to defend truth than to produce a version of it that excludes and discredits dissident voices. This book provides more space for oppositional and marginalized Eritrean and Oromo voices. In emphasizing marginalized voices, and in contrast to those who portray themselves as disinterested and dispassionate observers, we do not claim to present an 'objective' work that constitutes ultimate truth. We have presented these voices in ways that make sense to us, and this necessarily reflects our own views. Indeed, given the ongoing struggles in the Horn and the staggering human cost involved, we would consider it reprehensible to pretend not to have political and moral views about these events. Like Leigh Binford (1996), who called for an 'alternative anthropology' in his study of U.S.-backed massacres in El Salvador, and like Linda Green (1999: 11), who studied the legacy of violence among Maya widows in Guatemala, we have tried to break the 'silence on suffering ... engendered by process of domination.' Yet while providing more space for voices marginalized by the narrative of Greater Ethiopia, we also subject them to our own analysis (for example, we note how Eritrean nationalism masks past divisions and point out dangers inherent in the Oromo nationalist project of creating an ethnically defined state). As in Swedenburg's (1995) discussion of social memory among Palestinian refugees, the goal is not to champion a 'true history' from the point of view of the marginalized but rather to show how history is interpreted and used and to examine struggles for the representation of truth. Yet while noting constructions of competing truths and uses of history and memory, we do not propose a postmodernist relativism that accepts all versions of truth as equally valid. Our own experiences have influenced our analysis. Sorenson's decade of work with the Eritrean Relief Association in Canada indicates that he has been involved in humanitarian efforts in a thoroughly politi-

24

Ghosts and Shadows

cized context. Matsuoka's background in anti-oppressive social work, her work on Japanese-Canadian older immigrants, and her own position as a Japanese immigrant to Canada have provided insight into the nature of living transnationally (although in different circumstances from refugees). Both of us served as observers of the Eritrean referendum in Canada. Although we supported Eritrean self-determination, concern for human rights and social justice does not constitute uncritical romanticism. Our position was based on the unaddressed legal issues arising from the Ethiopians' violation of the UN-imposed federation and, most importantly, on continuing attacks on Eritrea's civilian population by successive Ethiopian regimes, not on an emotional attachment to nationalism itself. Eritrean independence was not a historical necessity; the issue could have been resolved in several different ways, but repression by Ethiopian regimes strengthened the Eritreans' sense of difference and made independence seem the only option. The tragedy of Ethiopia's invasion of Eritrea in 2000 lies not only in the terrible suffering it has created for Eritreans but also in the fact that the Ethiopian regime has learned no lessons from the mistakes of its predecessors over the last half-century. Similarly, while we criticize exploitation of and discrimination against Oromos and other groups, essentialist and xenophobic statements by some Oromo nationalists disturb us. We are not convinced that an independent state based on Oromo ethnicity would be a just solution for the non-Oromo population, who automatically and necessarily would be assigned second-class status within such an entity. Oromo nationalists will dismiss these reservations, but in other situations, calls to establish a state defined by ethnic identity were followed by attempted genocide or 'ethnic cleansing.' Many reject the proposition that Ethiopia can exist peacefully as a multiethnic state. While Oromo nationalists do seem to have been confirmed in assessments of the TPLF-based government as an extension of previous regimes with a different face and as a force that obstructs the realization of such a multiethnic state, we believe a truly democratic form of government would not preclude this possibility for the future. Certainly, we do not expect this book to be the last word on such possibilities. Organization of the Book

Throughout the book we address a third way of knowing that is neither objective nor totally subjective, using images of ghosts and shadows.

A Ghost Story

25

Having introduced some theoretical issues in Chapter 1, in Chapter 2 we outline the power of ghostly forces to disrupt the present by examining the historical and political background to forced migration. In Chapter 3 we discuss people's movements into the terrain of diaspora: shadowlands where they encounter a 'charged strangeness' that is characteristic of a haunting (Gordon 1997: 63). In Chapter 4 we go deeper into these haunted spaces, examining exile, memory, and identity and long-distance nationalism. In Chapter 5 we scrutinize further gendered aspects of diasporic experience. In Chapter 6 we look at discursive construction of identity. We focus on the magazine Ethiopian Review as a site for the production of Abyssinian fundamentalism discourse: the resurgence of essentialist images of Greater Ethiopia and demands to recapture Eritrea. In Chapter 7 we continue to focus on discursive constructions of identity, examining the creation of Oromo identity in the diaspora. In Chapter 8 we discuss another discursive construction, looking at how the phantasm of 'race' affects settlement in Canada and how ideas of 'race' are played out within competing constructions of identity. In Chapter 9 we address a defining element of diaspora, the myth of return. We examine the reactions of Eritreans in diaspora to the achievement of national independence and how independence and return to Eritrea required confrontation with the dead. We conclude with a discussion of another ghostly return: the 1998-2000 war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

TWO

A Haunted House

Background to the Ethiopian Diaspora

Wars and political repression have ravaged the Horn of Africa for decades, creating huge refugee movements and casting long shadows over diaspora communities. The contours of those communities were shaped partly by struggles for control of states and by redefinitions of history and identity. In turn, the states that expelled them were haunted by exiles who supported antigovernment forces in the Horn. Therefore, if we are to perceive the dynamics of the diaspora, we must understand the nationalist politics in the region. In this chapter we outline the struggles in the Horn that shaped individual and community identities in diaspora; we return to experiences of exile in later chapters. Phantom Ethiopia

To speak of Ethiopia as a nation-state is to begin with a phantasm. As Benedict Anderson (1983) notes, all nations are imagined communities. That being said, each nation is imagined in its own way, and Ethiopia is shrouded with mystifications. Discourses of Ethiopian nationalism emphasize the antiquity and solidity of the country's identity, yet often what seems most solid melts into air. Often described as one of the world's oldest states, contemporary Ethiopia has been identified with the Ethiopia of biblical and classical references, even though these entities do not correspond. The 'Ethiopia' of antiquity was an elusive, shadowy entity, shifting in location, sometimes encompassing all of Africa or parts of Asia, and was believed

A Haunted House

27

to be inhabited by all manner of fantastic creatures. Later, medieval Europe imagined a phantom emperor, Prester John, to rule this phantom entity. The contemporary Ethiopian state is a multiethnic region that came under the hegemony of rival northern highland groups, Amharas and Tigrayans. The highlands, known as Abyssinia until the late nineteenth century, formed the core of the Ethiopian empire. Although cultural continuities through time and space can be identified, the control exerted by central regimes fluctuated over the centuries and was sometimes nonexistent. Nevertheless, Ethiopian nationalists link the state with ancient civilizations; and Abyssinian elites have long validated their rule by emphasizing the antiquity of their lineage, which they trace back to the ancient Axumite empire, and by constructing a genealogy linking modern rulers to biblical characters. For example, the 1955 Constitution asserted the divine character of Emperor Haile Selassie, who claimed descent from the biblical figures Solomon and Sheba. Despite claims of unity, maintaining Ethiopia as a single entity required repression. Supported by the United States, Haile Selassie was praised as a modernizer, yet he ruled autocratically. Under him, wealth and power were concentrated among a small elite while the bulk of the population remained impoverished. Decades of callous, despotic rule contributed to mass starvation and worsening ethnic relations, including rebellions in Gojjam, Wollo, Bale, and Hararghe. Whatever the claims of antiquity, much of the territory claimed by modern Ethiopia was acquired through conquest in the late nineteenth century. The contemporary state achieved its greatest size only in 1962, with the annexation of Eritrea, the territory along the Red Sea, which had been an Italian colony (1896-1941). Ethiopian nationalists characterized this annexation as a reunification that would heal and reanimate the single body that the Italians had eviscerated. Yet this ghostly narrative of resurrection and reunification overlooked Eritrea's unique history: it had been created through successive waves of occupation by other invaders over many centuries. Substantial numbers of Eritreans wanted to be treated like other former African colonies, that is, to be granted statehood after the Europeans withdrew. The outright annexation of Eritrea in 1962 was the final act in a series of Ethiopian violations of the terms for federation that the UN had imposed on Eritrea (Okbazghi 1991). As a nationalist struggle erupted in Eritrea, Ethiopia retaliated by brutally attacking the civilian population. Three decades of war in Eritrea followed. This fighting placed increasing pressure on

28

Ghosts and Shadows

Ethiopia's government, which was increasingly out of touch with reality. The war continued long after Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974 by a military junta known as the Derg. After assassinating his rivals, Mengistu Haile Mariam emerged as its leader. Employing Marxist-Leninist rhetoric, the Derg shifted Ethiopia's allegiance from the United States to the Soviet Union, but it did not change the country's policy toward Eritrea. Ruling with extreme brutality not only in Eritrea but in Ethiopia itself, the Derg forced a major flight of refugees; most fled to neighbouring states (Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Egypt), but thousands also spread throughout the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Opposition movements of various political orientations sprang up. Key among these were the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF), based in Tigray province, and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which claimed to represent the majority ethnic population and sought an independent Oromo state. In 1991, the Derg was defeated in Eritrea by a nationalist movement, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), and in Ethiopia by a coalition, the Ethiopian People's Democratic Revolutionary Front (EPRDF), dominated by the TPLF. The idea that a unified Ethiopian state had persisted in stable form since ancient times was symbolically important for nationalists in Ethiopia, for the diaspora, and for others who claimed African heritage. This interpretation of history allowed Ethiopian intellectuals to forge a link through time between modern regimes and ancient Axum, and to imagine the state as a long-unified entity. This was significant for several groups that formed in the 1970s to oppose the Emperor and later the Derg; ancient Ethiopia remained an emotional symbol for long-distance nationalists who opposed the government of Meles Zenawi, leader of the TPLF-domiiiated coalition, which seized power in 1991. Ethiopian Identity

Notwithstanding this image of a single, unified identity persisting over centuries, a wide variety of languages and cultural traditions are found within the borders of the Ethiopian state (some of this variety has been transplanted to North America, where it has contributed to the creation of distinct social identities among diaspora communities). Although many different groups live in Ethiopia, the national identity is strongly associated with the highland Amhara and Tigrayan cultures, historical rivals for control of the empire, which in turn have conquered and sought to assimilate other groups.

A Haunted House

29

The elites identified with Amhara ethnicity have monopolized state power, and Amharic functions as the official language, although most people speak other languages - notably Oromiffa, which is associated with the majority Oromo population. Despite this, many Ethiopians do feel a strong sense of national identity that takes precedence over ethnic or regional affiliations; many see the assumption of Amharic identity as a means of creating such national affiliation. The core of Amhara identity is associated with the Shoa, Wollo, and Gojjam, regions; those bearing this identity speak Amharic and adhere to Coptic Christianity. While some general tendencies do exist, distinctions about ethnic identity in Ethiopia (as elsewhere) are elusive, so it is more useful to regard ethnicity as a relationship rather than a thing (Comaroff 1996). For example, the Amharas themselves do not form a single, cohesive group; those from Gondar and Gojjam regions regard Amharas from Shoa as inauthentic, and Amharas from Gondar refer to Shoans as 'Gallas' - a derogatory term formerly applied to the ethnic group now called Oromos (Levine 1965: 47). (Just as divisions exist among Amharas, conflict divides various Oromo groups, who do not form a single, unified population.) Amhara identity is described as flexible and permeable. This category includes descendents of other ethnic groups who speak Amharic arid have adopted Amhara names and values. Even the highest levels of the ruling elite have been open to individuals of different ethnic backgrounds. However, these people have come to be identified as Amharas, and they adhere to the hegemonic narrative of Abyssinia as a state rooted in antiquity — this, even though the modern state only established its farthest borders by conquering the southwest in the nineteenth century and by annexing Eritrea in the mid-twentieth century. Takkele Taddese (1994) describes Amhara identity as a phantom that exists in appearance but not in reality. He presents it as less ethnic belonging than an open category; as not based on biological descent; as a supra-ethnic consciousness that provides a basis for national identity and is accessible to all who speak Amharic, profess Orthodox Christian beliefs, and adopt certain cultural conventions. This version of Ethiopian identity stresses the centrality of the Amharic language and Orthodox Christianity and asserts historical links to biblical legends and to ancient Axum. Observers emphasize the openness and plasticity of Amhara identity, seeing it as accessible to all and as providing a secure home for a family of peoples (Levine 1965; Clapham 1990b). However, others believe that accepting Amhara identity constitutes cultural sui-

30

Ghosts and Shadows

cide. Eritrean and Oromo nationalists consider 'Ethiopian' identity merely a shadow cast by the Amhara ruling classes who dominate the empire. What observers characterize as openness and accessibility is experienced by Oromo nationalists as hegemony and domination - as the disparagement and forced erasure of their own identities. Local narratives of identity and history have been interwoven with texts produced by foreign observers of Ethiopia and with the discourse of exile groups. Despite persistent claims to objectivity, this discourse is thoroughly politicized; local and foreign constructions of history and identity feed off each other, legitimizing certain positions and undermining others. For example, Amhara notions of cultural superiority are echoed by foreign observers. Operating at the conjuncture of class bias and racism, Western writers have typically romanticized the Ethiopian emperors while jeering at the barbarism of the populace. Levine (1965, 1974) credited the Amharas with providing the unique, unifying national genius of Ethiopia and described the Oromos as a negative, destructive force, as a dark and violent spirit. Here, history becomes laced with racialized psychodrama, with the Semitic Amharas imposing order on the chaotic forces of the African Oromos, who constitute the antithesis of civilization. Journalists covering Ethiopia's famine in the 1980s typically invoked this colourful mythology of the Amharas. Foreign polemicists promoted this version of history, advocating Greater Ethiopian nationalism and seeking to delegitimize the claims of competing discourses, for the purpose of advancing their own states' foreign policies during the Cold War period when the superpowers backed various regimes in the Horn. Until recently, Ethiopianist scholarship has attempted a similar exorcism of the empire's 'dark spirits,' by concentrating almost exclusively on the Great Tradition of Amhara culture and history, particularly on elite court histories; and by crediting the Amharas with supplying a unifying principle to disparate groups. Rubenson (1976) argued that Ethiopia, unlike other parts of Africa, remained uncolonized because of its strong sense of national identity, which was based on Amhara hegemony; this remains a point of pride among many who identify themselves as Ethiopians. Ethiopia's unconquered status became a symbol of anticolonialism, antiracism, and African identity. However, this perspective is full of contradictions. The Solomonic genealogy linked Ethiopian rulers to Israel, and on this basis Emperors Menelik and Haile Selassie rejected the ascription of an African or black identity - a rejection that is paradoxical in view of the fact that other Africans and African Americans saw Ethiopia

A Haunted House

31

as a symbol for African civilization and liberty. As a symbol of freedom, the Abyssinian empire is also problematic. Abyssinian elites saw themselves as having a superior culture and a civilizing mission; for them, this justified the brutal conquest and subjugation of other Africans. From the perspective of subjugated groups, the phantoms of the Ethiopian state are not merely elusive shapes that confuse and mislead by offering false versions of history; they are also objects of dread. The version of Ethiopian nationalism promoted by northern highlanders did not provide a stable and satisfying sense of identity and belonging for subalterns within the state's borders. Grides say that national identity, specifically Amhara identity, was imposed by force rather than by consent. Ethno-nationalist opponents depict the Amharas as a racist elite that dominated the state and oppressed other ethnic groups. They maintain that national identity in Amhara guise was achieved at the expense of numerous other languages, religions, and cultural practices, and that rather than offering an avenue to unity, the imposition of Amhara language and traditions was a means for a small elite to preserve their power. For example, the Oromos were derided as inferior and animal-like; their language and cultural practices were forcibly repressed. Under Abyssinian domination, most of the Oromo population was enslaved, and the cultural alienation they experienced was comparable to that of groups colonized by Europeans. As explained by the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1986), such alienation stems from the destruction or deliberate underdevelopment of all aspects of a group's culture (art, dances, education, language, etc.) and replacement by the colonizer's culture, which is represented as a higher form. To control a people's culture is to control their definition of themselves. The discourse of national unity and belonging proposes a gathering of peoples under the Amhara unifying mission; counterdiscourses propose different histories and different versions of national identity. Opponents of the state claim that the Amhara-dominated identity is much less open and inclusive than suggested, and that adopting it requires non-Amharas to commit cultural suicide by subjugating and concealing their real ethnic origins. Thus the actual status of the Amharas is challenged: they are presented as either the dominant group in Ethiopia, ruthlessly maintaining power over all others, or as a benevolent phantom without physical existence. The hegemonic discourse of Ethiopian nationalism and the counterdiscourses that oppose it are haunted by the past; indeed, the past is always present in these socially constructed narratives, and exerts a con-

32

Ghosts and Shadows

stant influence. As seen by its proponents, Ethiopia is the pre-eminent symbol of African identity, a house open to many nations, who may share its antiquity, nobility, and freedom. From the perspective of its opponents, the Ethiopian state is not a comfortable home that provides a welcome for various peoples and unites them as a family; instead it is a haunted house in which the raging ghosts of suppressed nations struggle to reassert their presence. Writers as disparate as Sigmund Freud, Jacques Derrida, and Stephen King have suggested that the haunted house, the unheimlich, is the most frightening of all fantasies: the domestic becomes terrifying, the familiar becomes strange, and the secret of what is inside becomes all-consuming. Ethiopia is indeed a haunted house, a place of ghosts and shadows, full of secrets and reversals, obsessions with the ancient past and anxieties about the future. This haunted house is a mere shadow of the state conceived as a stable, sovereign entity: governments and opponents have drawn support from various external forces, while borders have been permeated by the flow of arms, food, refugees, and the ghostly dreams of long-distance nationalists. Descent into Terror Inside the haunted house, Ethiopia's recent political history is a series of lost opportunities that led to disaster. After deposing the Emperor, the Derg made no serious efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict in Eritrea. Instead it intensified its military campaigns, again attacking civilians. This drove still more refugees into Sudan and farther abroad, it also strengthened Eritrean grievances and heightened nationalist opposition. Local conflicts were incorporated into global struggles as antagonists in the Horn became proxies in the Cold War; the rapid shifts of alliances in the region provide important lessons about the phantasmic character of the state in the context of global struggles. Although the US considered Haile Selassie a key ally in Africa, it readily accepted the military junta that deposed him and continued supplying arms to the new regime. However, as the Derg's relationship with the United States deteriorated, its Marxist-Leninist rhetoric intensified, and in 1977 the regime turned to the Soviet Union for weapons. Sensing greater strategic benefits in an alliance with Ethiopia, the Russians immediately dropped their Somali clients and transferred their military support to the Derg. In a similar ideological sleight-of-hand, the United States quickly replaced the Soviet Union in Somalia. Believing the United States would endorse its actions, Somalia invaded the disputed

A Haunted House

33

Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, only to be repelled by a massive influx of Soviet military aid to the Derg. This allowed the Derg to launch new strikes in Eritrea and push nationalist forces back into the northern mountains. The Derg presented itself as the party of the masses, yet presided over their steady decline. It implemented rigid centralist programs that worsened economic conditions and contributed to another outbreak of famine. It also assassinated political rivals, terrorized the population, and earned widespread condemnation for appalling human rights violations. Although its new leaders were not Amharas, the regime was identified with Abyssinian hegemony, and the Derg maintained the previous government's policy of imposing 'unity' through violence and maintaining a strongly centralized state. Other groups wanted power. The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement (known by its Amharic acronym MEISON) were civilian movements that shared the Derg's rhetoric but battled the regime for state control. Most movements described themselves as Marxist, except those such as the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU), which was formed by ousted members of the aristocracy who were seeking to restore the monarchy and their own privileged positions. Both civilian leftist groups were based among intellectuals and university students, although the EPRP also built links with the trade union movement. The EPRP argued that the military could not implement socialism, and sought to establish a provisional civilian government. In contrast, MEISON sought an alliance, viewing the Derg as the only organized group that could control the state in the power vacuum left by the emperor's fall. Propaganda battles escalated into violence; after the Derg attacked an EPRP protest in 1975, the EPRP launched armed struggle in Addis Ababa. MEISON cadres were given permission to kill suspected opponents of the regime on sight, and the EPRP was decimated. Mengistu next created a rival group, SEDED, with the intention of supplanting MEISON. After a failed coup in 1977, MEISON was attacked and its leaders were killed. Thus, during the 1970s Ethiopia underwent intense political turmoil, with Marxism providing a shared discourse of opposition. During a period known as the Red Terror (December 1977-February, 1978), 5,000 people were killed and almost a whole generation of young, urban, educated Ethiopians was wiped out. Massacres also took place in rural areas. Disappearances, arrests, torture, and assassination became an everyday reality. Corpses were thrown in the streets and families were forbidden to remove them or were charged for the bullets that had killed their relatives.

34

Ghosts and Shadows

Ethiopian writer Hama Tuma describes the convulsion of life under the Red Terror. One of his works, 'Ten on the Terror Scale,' is about the creation of a Ministry of Story Scaling, organized to rate stories for their capacity to instil terror in the population. To indicate the extent to which terror had become ordinary reality for Ethiopians, the narrator describes his disappointment at one tale of streets filled with corpses, dismembered body parts, speaking mouths, staring eyes, flexing trigger fingers: 'Severed heads and mouths stuck to walls, headless bodies talking ... what's so terrible about that? Who hadn't seen severed limbs and decapitated bodies during the Red Terror, right in front of his own house?' (202). In Kama's stories, ghosts are part of the ordinary reality of Ethiopia; though created by state terror, they are also part of a cultural fabric of mistrust, deception, and cruelty, of a society stalked not only by spies but by spirits such as the zar, who demand human sacrifices even from those who ruled the empire: When the wife of the late emperor, Menen herself, was sick, her favorite spirit had called for human hearts in order to get her well and the king, whom leaders of western countries eulogized as enlightened, did not hesitate to order his special servants to bring the hearts. Scores of corpses were discovered on the streets on Harar, all of them with hearts ripped out. Empress Zewditu, whom the late emperor overthrew and some say poisoned, used to wash in the blood of black people since her Zar ordered her to, so as to prolong her life. I am sure that even you must have heard that the late emperor himself had a spirit called 'korit' in the Bishoftu Lakes, to which he gave young virgin boys as sacrifice. (180)

The phantoms conjured in this passage have taken specific forms and inflections derived from particular cultural traditions, but they are found in other guises in countless other places. Much of Noam Chomsky's work outlines how state terror is applied in order to maintain global systems of private profit. Reports from Amnesty International and other human rights organizations provide extensive evidence of the global prevalence of state terror. Although she is refering to Argentina, Gordon's description (1997: 124) of state terror applies equally well to Ethiopia: The organized terror unleashed by the state and the military was designed to destroy not just the organized and overt opposition, but the disposition to opposition, the propensity to resist injury and injustice, and the desire

A Haunted House

35

to speak out, or simply to sympathize ... The exercise of state power through disappearance involves controlling the imagination, controlling the meaning of death, involves creating new identities, involves haunting the population into submission to its will.

The Derg sought to control imagination not only through direct violence but also through domination of the media, forced participation in mass rallies, and self-criticism sessions and surveillance at the neighbourhood level. This terror haunted the population beyond Ethiopia's borders, casting shadows across the memories and imaginations of those in the diaspora. While slaughtering rivals in Addis Ababa and instituting terror as state policy, the Derg continued the former regime's military strategy in Eritrea, intensifying the war and attempting to starve opponents into submission so as to preserve Ethiopia's 'territorial integrity.' Eritreans in Ethiopia were special targets, as described by an exile in Calgary: The government was the problem. There were death squads operating in Eritrea, disappearances. We were second-class citizens in Ethiopia. We were not considered loyal Ethiopians, everybody was suspected. We had problems at work, no promotion, no one trusts you. Your friends are killed and you fear you'll be next. My friend was put in jail for seven years. No trial. I was not allowed to work. Finally, I gave up, I walked to Djibouti but I was forced to repatriate. I hid in a church for a year and a half. I lost ten years for nothing.

However, terror also generates resistance, and as the repressive measures intensified, various ethnic and regionally based opposition movements emerged. Thus, in addition to Eritrean nationalists, the Derg faced armed groups in Ethiopia itself. Tigrayan Shadows

The key Ethiopian opposition movement was based in the northern province of Tigray. Historically, Tigrayan and Amhara elites have competed for control of the state, and Tigrayans have long brooded in the shadows cast by their more successful rivals. Although the province is not entirely ethnically homogeneous, Christian, Tigrinya-speaking Tigrayans considered themselves the purest of all Ethiopians and resented Amhara domination. This led to a long string of revolts.

36

Ghosts and Shadows

Tigrayan discontent intensified in the nineteenth century, when Menelik II sent thousands of troops to oppose the Italian invasion. His troops, unequipped with provisions, stripped bare the larders of Tigrayan peasants; as well, Tigray served as the battleground in the fighting against the Italians and much of the population was killed. In 1943 Tigrayans revolted against the central government; with British assistance, this rebellion was brutally suppressed. Tigray has also experienced environmental degradation; population growth has led to the dividing of farmland into smaller and smaller holdings by impoverished peasants. In these conditions, drought easily leads to famine. Little development was undertaken in Tigray, and poverty in the region was attributed to the machinations of the Amharas, who controlled the state and wished to undermine their rivals. Like other ethnic groups, Tigrayans resented the imposition of Amharic as the national language, as this put them at a disadvantage in terms of education and work. In 1974 an armed opposition movement, the Tigrayan Liberation Front (TLF) was formed. It was defeated, and superseded in 1975 by the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which was created with assistance from the EPLF. The TPLF took a Marxist-Leninist line and rejected the ideology of the TLF. The TPLF also clashed with the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU), which was created by Ras Mengesha Seyoum, grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie and governor-general of Tigray, and by other members of the aristocracy who rejected the Derg's authority (cf. Halliday and Molyneux 1981: 206; Markakis 1990: 254). Remnants of urban Marxist opposition groups such as the EPRP and MEISON attempted to establish rural strongholds in Tigray, but along with the EDU found themselves in conflict with the TPLF. The TPLF's program changed over time. At one point it wanted an independent Tigray, or a region federated with Eritrea. Later, however, it opted for the overthrow of the Derg and a reconfiguration of the existing state. While the TPLF shared a Marxist orientation with the EPRP, the two groups split on 'the national question': the EPRP favoured joint struggle by all ethnic groups (nationalities), while the TPLF argued that a united front was impossible because Amhara domination had divided the population to such an extent that nationalist struggles had become the key channel of opposition. After several battles, the TPLF defeated its rivals, and by the late 1980s it had established control over most of Tigray. (For an analysis of the war in Tigray and information on the TPLF, see John Young's Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia [1997]). Unlike Eritrean and Oromo nationalists, the Tigrayans did not object

A Haunted House

37

to being classified as Ethiopians, although many felt that Tigray had been purposefully underdeveloped and exploited by the Amharas and that significant aspects of Tigrayan history had been submerged and misrepresented in order to construct hegemonic mythologies. As one Tigrayan informant in Toronto stated: 'Tigrayans believe they are Ethiopians and they are proud to be Ethiopians. In fact, you can say that Tigray is the centre of Ethiopia. We can trace our history back to Axum. But our history has been misused. The history that the academics write about is the history of the ruling class. It's not their fault because this is the history which has been preserved, but we have a lot of questions about that history.' The Derg's obsession with power and its inept economic and agricultural policies, including forced collectivization, villagization, and massive resettlement, created disaster, including a terrible famine in the mid-1980s in which hundreds of thousands starved to death. The famine was exacerbated by military strategies intended to crush opposition. In Eritrea and Tigray, in an effort to deprive the liberation fronts of support, the military attacked civilians, crop fields, animals, and markets, thus disrupting production, trade, and migration. The Derg also benefited from Western relief aid, imposing taxes on it, controlling its distribution, channelling it directly to the military, and withholding it from opposition-controlled areas. As a result, the United Nations and Western governments were essentially supporting the Mengistu government. In 'cross-border operations,' smaller shipments of aid from Sudan to Eritrea and Tigray were handled by NGOs co-operating with the rebels' own relief agencies. The NGOs played a vital role, providing not only food, medicine, and transportation but also publicity for the liberation fronts and help with establishing diplomatic contacts. In the late 1980s the Eritreaii and Tigrayan liberation fronts won a series of battles that turned the tide of the war. By 1989 the TPLF controlled most of Tigray, and Ethiopian troops in Eritrea were concentrated in garrison towns. This created hardship for civilians, as the Derg sought to destroy whatever it could not control. In Asmara and other cities, the population was held captive and suffered not only from brutal military occupation but also from shortages of food and supplies. The Derg's forces were demoralized and overextended: soldiers were forced into battle, officers were executed for their failures and for involvement in coup attempts, and there were many defections. Some of them organized opposition, espousing a sudden commitment to 'democracy' with the same fervour with which they had once embraced 'Marxism'; but

38

Ghosts and Shadows

they exerted little influence within Ethiopia. As Mengistu's regime collapsed, Ethiopians in the diaspora mobilized coalitions and conferences throughout North America, in an effort to acquire influence in whatever government established itself next. In 1991, the Derg's forces were finally defeated. Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe (and in 1999 was reportedly seeking asylum in North Korea); and the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a TPLF-led coalition, took over Addis Ababa. This also ended the Eritrean war, and transitional governments were declared in both Eritrea and Ethiopia. Reacting to global changes, the TPLF/EPRDF abandoned the MarxistLeninist rhetoric that had long dominated regional politics, and adopted the rhetoric of democratic capitalism. The EPRDF established itself as the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE), promised to institute a democratic system, and held a series of elections between 1992 arid 1995. The election process was widely criticized, but many observers attributed this to inexperience and expressed faith in the EPRDF's democratic intentions. National elections in 1995 resulted in an overwhelming victory for the EPRDF; however, they had been boycotted by opposition groups, who denounced them as a sham intended to legitimize the EPRDF's seizure of power. In a break with past regimes, the EPRDF declared that the Eritrean issue should be resolved through peaceful means. In 1993 an internationally supervised referendum was held in Eritrea; support for independence was virtually unanimous, as expected. International observers found the process free and fair, and the new Ethiopian government was among the first to congratulate independent Eritrea. The referendum concluded one of the twentieth century's longest wars. Although Eritrea had been devastated by conflict, many regarded it as a symbol of renewed hope for Africa. The new presidents of Ethiopia and Eritrea were hailed as leaders of an 'African Renaissance.' However, conditions within Ethiopia were not promising. Facing a bankrupt economy, drought, famine, widespread banditry, and armed political opposition on several fronts, the TGE became more rigid and repressive. International organizations pointed to an emerging pattern of serious human rights violations, including killings, disappearances, torture, rape, detentions without trial, and the harassment and intimidation of journalists and political activists. When the EPRDF seized power among competing nationalist movements, most of them ethnically based, the 'nationalities question' became central in Ethiopian politics. The government's solution was to redraw the administrative map

A Haunted House

39

into ten ethnic regions and to establish a policy of ethnic self-determination that included the possibility of secession. It also sought to control ethnic politics by creating ethnically defined parties that would act as its surrogates and provide an image of pluralism. This was a major source of the rivalry that developed between the TPLF and other groups especially the OLF - in the postwar period. Furthermore, although the EPRDF government had finally resolved the Eritrean issue, committed Ethiopian nationalists refused to recognize the results of the referendum. The spectre of Greater Ethiopia haunted their collective imagination, expressed in brooding over recapturing Eritrea and constant criticism of the new Ethiopian government, much of it directed from the diaspora. Because of their emotional attachment to past territorial claims and the forms of self-definition derived from them, these exiles continued to call for war. Their refusal to accept Eritrean self-determination developed into an obsession, which was heightened still further in 1998, when a border war erupted between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Ghosts and Shadows of Oromia

Although Ethiopia encompasses a myriad of ethnicities, the situation of the Oromos emerged as the most pressing ethnic issue after the Derg was toppled in 1991. The Oromos are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, yet information about them is as shadowy and elusive as other phantom 'facts' of the region. For example, estimates of their numbers vary widely. Paul Baxter (1983: 135) notes previous estimates of between 7 and 18 million, and then suggests 10 to 15 million; Edmoiid Keller (1991: 158) puts them between 16 and 22 million; Asafajalata (1993b:l) proposes 26 million; Gemetchu Megerssa and Aneesa Kassam (n.d.) find that they number between 25 and 30 million; Christopher Clapham (1995: 131) rejects all Oromo claims as 'grossly inflated.' There are also sharp disagreements about Oromo unity and political commitment. Oromo nationalists employ primordialist arguments to assert that all Oromos are united not only by language and culture but also by deeply shared feelings of identity. However, Oromo groups inhabit most of Ethiopia's territory and are differentiated in terms of education, class, language, region, subsistence activities, religion, and politics. Nationalists dismiss these differences as insignificant and contend argue that all Oromos share the same basic goals, ideas, values, beliefs, consciousness, and personality type, and that these distinguish them from other groups, despite centuries of interaction.

40

Ghosts and Shadows

Baissa Lemmu (1993: 99) states that 'most Oromo people shared a common republican system of government until the Shoan conquest in the late nineteenth century.' Holcomb (1991: 4) contends that the cultural and political system of gada 'organized the Oromo people in an allencompassing democratic republic,' although in the past, Oromos were not organized under a single state. Mohammed Hassan's major historical revision (1990) describes the development of several distinct Oromo states in the Gibe region. Lewis (1993) notes that there were various political forms among Oromo groups prior to the Abyssinian conquest. While cultural and linguistic commonalities existed, Oromo groups were distinguishable by their pursuit of diverse economic strategies, by regional differences, and by religious affiliations (although they practised their own indigenous religion, most have adopted Islam or Christianity). Although a numerical majority, they remained politically subordinate. Oromos were incorporated into the Ethiopian state in the nineteenth century through violent conquest, as Abyssinian rulers expanded from the northern highlands. Under the neftenya-gabbar system, most Oromos were brutally subordinated to those who occupied their territory, and were forced to contribute labour and crops. This system was long described as feudal or semifeudal, but Oromo nationalist intellectuals, as well as Western activists and anthropologists, argue that the situation should be seen as a colonial one. Considerable energy has been devoted to these terms, given that Marxism furnished the discursive terrain for competing political groups throughout the region for decades. However, Lewis (1983: 12-14) concludes that terminological distinctions employed in these debates are arbitrary. What does seem clear is that most of the Oromo population was economically and politically subordinated. Oromo nationalists contend that political power and cultural hegemony were concentrated among the Abyssinian elites, who directed the empire's expansion in the nineteenth century, while cultures of groups such as the Oromos were denigrated. Ethiopian historians and politicians established a version of history that portrayed the Oromos (known by the derogatory term 'Galla') as primitive barbarians and focused on the glories and achievements of the highland elites. Elements of this discursive construction were many: the projection of borders of the contemporary state three thousand years into the past, through assertion of direct links with ancient Axum; the legend of Solomon and Sheba, which linked Abyssinian rulers to the ancient Hebrews; the image of Prester John, the mythical Christian ruler who would save Europe from

A Haunted House

41

invading Islamic armies; an emphasis on Ethiopia's Christian identity and the similarity of its rulers to those of Europe; classical Greek and biblical references to (a vaguely positioned) Ethiopia; the peculiarities of Ethiopia's own discourse of 'race'; and the personal prestige of the last Emperor, Haile Selassie, widely regarded as a pro-Western modernizer. Western scholars and journalists collaborated in constructing this narrative of Greater Ethiopia, and consigned the Oromos to an inferior role as violent, primitive savages. Various nationalist movements challenged the idea of a Greater Ethiopia. The mythico-history of Greater Ethiopia claims there was a historical Abyssinia that extended far to the south until these areas were invaded by Oromo barbarians in the sixteenth century; nineteenthcentury expansion was presented as a reclamation of territory. However, a revisionist narrative characterizes the Oromos as indigenous to the area and depicts nineteenth-century Abyssinian conquests as colonization. What is clear is that between the sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, no central power controlled all of the territory that eventually came to be classified as Ethiopia, and that it was only through Menelik's military campaigns that control over this area was achieved. Occupation was brutal and oppressive, with northern soldiers and settlers extracting subsistence directly from local populations. Despite the cruel exploitation of most Oromo peasants and antagonism against their culture, some Oromos collaborated with the Abyssinian forces, with the result that class interests merged across ethnic lines. Some Oromos obtained high-ranking positions, especially in the military, and several members of the royal family were of partial Oromo descent. When Haile Selassie was deposed, many Oromos welcomed the Derg and expected to benefit from its program of nationalization of land. Some at first saw the regime as an Oromo movement, because there were so many Oromos in the military and in the Derg itself, and it does appear that in the early stages of the Derg's rule, Oromo peasants were the main beneficiaries of land reform (Clapham 1990b; Gilkes 1983; Halliday and Molyneux 1981). However, later on many Oromo members of the Derg were violently purged, although analyses differ as to whether the slaughter was ethnically directed or a general weeding out associated with revolutionary violence and internal power struggles. Similarly, assessments of land reform are mixed. Markakis (1990: 261) says that southern peasants gained 'control of the land and most of the Abyssinian landlords left the countryside,' and that reforms dissolved 'the correlation of class and national divisions'; while Baxter (1983:

42

Ghosts and Shadows

134) contends that many neftenya landlords remained in Oromo areas despite land reform and that the Derg used armed northern peasants to control the Oromos. Lefort (1983) sees the reform as largely beneficial, while Clapham (1990b) regards it as successful in its aims but disastrous in its effects, as it guaranteed land to peasants but kept them impoverished. Whatever benefits may have resulted from its earliest policies, the Derg rapidly alienated itself from the general population through its violent and repressive actions, its brutal implementation of collectivization and villagization policies, and its self-given right to set agricultural prices through state marketing boards. Resistance to these policies traversed ethnic lines, although ethnicity became a major mode of mobilizing opposition. Halliday and Molyneux (1981: 197) characterized Oromo opposition to the Derg as 'extremely varied ... partly because of the diffuse character of those speaking Orominya, spread across twelve provinces, with no cohesive social or political institutions of any kind, and with a high degree of sub-division into clans and dialects.' A nationalist movement, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), was created in 1974 to establish an independent Oromo state. The OLF received training from the EPLF. Ethiopian nationalists presented the OLF as the EPLF's shadow: they saw Oromo nationalism as a phantom, created by Eritrean discontent but not reflecting the real views of the Oromo population. However, Oromo nationalists themselves emphasized the OLF's roots in an earlier Oromo organization, the Macha-Tulema association. The OLF co-operated with other opposition movements, but its relations with them - especially with the TPLF, based in the northern province of Tigray — were not always good. In 1991 the OLF joined the TGE but remained suspicious of the EPRDF, which favoured another organization, the Oromo Peoples' Democratic Organization (OPDO); the OLF dismissed OPDO as a TPLF/EPRDF puppet. (Several organizations have claimed to represent the Oromos. These include the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromia [IFLO], the Oromo Abbo Liberation Front [OALF], the Oromo Liberation Front [OLF], the Oromo People's Democratic Organization [OPDO], and the United Oromo People's Liberation Front [UOPLF]). Relations quickly deteriorated, and the OLF left the TGE in 1992, claiming that it had not been allowed to campaign freely in the election and that its activists and supporters had been harassed; to this, the government countered that the OLF was simply interested in acquiring power and did not want to participate in a democratic system. After the OLF

A Haunted House

43

declared that armed struggle remained the only option, EPRDF forces launched a sudden attack on its encamped forces and captured thousands of OLF supporters. Although weakened, the OLF continued military attacks against the government while battling other Oromo groups. Amid escalating violence, both sides were charged with human rights violations. Pausewang (1994: 37-8) contends that ideological differences between various Oromo groups and between them and the government were not insurmountable and suggests that by emphasizing armed struggle, the OLF was losing out to the OPDO, which 'can at least partly deliver what the peasants need most and what OLF hardly can promise: peace, stability and reasonable conditions for undisrupted work.' Oromia, the imagined object of the OLF's struggle, is an elusive, spectral zone, its whereabouts and inhabitants imprecisely defined. It is not clear how the borders of the proposed state have been determined. No distinct and unified Oromo state existed in the form proposed by nationalists, who seem to have different notions of Oromia's size and location. According to Admasu Shunkuri (1992), Oromia consists of 'about onehalf of all Ethiopia' but Asafa Jalata (1993b) states that Oromia 'almost occupies three fourths of the Ethiopian Empire.' On OLF maps, Oromia claims most of the Ethiopian state. Gadaa Melbaa (1988) says that Oromia is 'approximately located between 2 degree and 12 degree N and between 34 degree and 44 degree E,' but does not explain how those boundaries were determined. Ambiguity about Oromia's borders raises questions of Oromo nationalists' intentions regarding the Oromo population in Kenya and related groups in Somalia. For example, Gemetchu Megerssa and Aneesa Kassam (n.d.) state that precolonial Oromo pastoralists in Kenya 'occupied a territory which stretched down to the Indian Ocean.' Thus, although the OLF has not made such proposals and presently the limits of imagined Oromia conform to Ethiopia's southern border, future irredentist claims could extend beyond this. Not surprisingly, reports about conditions in such a spectral zone and about its relationship to Ethiopia are conflicting. As Packer (1996: 119) finds, 'basic questions and facts remain in dispute': Ethiopia is either three thousand years or one hundred years old; either the entire region is calm or it is in the midst of full-scale warfare; either the population enjoys more freedom than ever before or it is brutally enslaved. Oromo nationalists in the diaspora claim that the OLF has the full support of the entire population of Oromia. However, Packer characterizes the OLF as a vague presence; and contends that it lacks a clear program,

44

Ghosts and Shadows

with no forces in Ethiopia; and sees it as mainly a dreamlike organization of disgruntled diaspora intellectuals, as 'a clique and a ghost.' Inside this haunted house full of illusions and uncertainties, Packer finds people facing dangerous political choices amidst ghostly forces, as described by Desta Abdissa, an Oromo anthropologist: 'People have nowhere to hide, they're being forced to choose between OPDO and OLE The government has invented its own shadow - the OPDO will repeat the slogans they give them. A ghost is there because somebody has died, there is a reason for it to be there. But you create a shadow, you use it. A ghost is real - much more real than a shadow. It possesses people, it changes them' (in Packer 1996: 120). Haunted by ghosts, Oromo nationalism turns to the past. Advocates of an independent Oromo state contend that the Oromos were colonized by the Amharas just as the Europeans colonized other African peoples; they argue that the Oromos were subject to a 'civilizing mission' undertaken by the Amharas and that their history has been 'stolen' from them. Comments of one well-educated Oromo man in Toronto demonstrate how particular forms of identity were constructed under the imposition of Amhara hegemony: I used to be an Ethiopian. I was a very good Ethiopian, in fact, until I started to think about things. But then you start to see who it is that benefits. If you are an Oromo, you are also kept at a certain place. Some people can go up but they are very few and that may be because they change their name and they speak Amharic and they become exactly like the Amhara. I have an Amhara name; I had a different name before but when I was going to school I had to change it. This was the Amhara school so my parents had a tutor for me, they hired an old man to help me. He said that I should change my name, that I had a bad name and I would never do well in school unless I changed it.

Another informant made similar comments about efforts to erase a sense of Oromo history and identity: It's not just the Amhara, because some of them are very poor. But the Oromo are colonized people, they tried to take away all our history. Menelik was working with the European colonizers and they helped each other. The ruling class is the same whether they are Amhara or Tigrayan. In fact, they are exactly the same, they are very clever and they had intermarriage to make this political relationship. They have completely

A Haunted House

45

taken away the history of the Oromo. They changed all the names of the towns. They even changed the names of the people. Everyone had to become like the Ethiopians if they wanted to get anything.

While Ethiopian nationalists claim that an unchanging, essential identity have unified all peoples of the region for centuries, others rejected this. Oromo nationalists seek to resurrect their culture ('we had to drag it out of the grave') and reanimate the essential Oromo identity, which they maintain has been suffocated by Amhara hegemony. Thus both Oromos and Eritreans see Ethiopian identity as shifting and malleable, although Oromo nationalists base their own claims on essentialist arguments and on assertions that they are culturally homogeneous. In contrast to Tigrayans in Canada, Oromo nationalists in exile contend that there are essential historical and cultural differences between themselves and their political opponents, whom they describe variously as Ethiopians, Abyssinians, or Amharas. In essentialist forms of argument, the categories Amhara and Oromo are posed as polar opposites. These are not simply 'folk' classifications adopted by one or another group; they have also entered anthropological discourse (Levine 1965). Anthropological texts furnish evidence for the arguments made by various diaspora groups that their cultures are essentially different. Inverting previous stereotypes, the Oromo discourse of ethnic essentialism describes the Amharas as aggressive, dominating, individualistic, untrust worthy, arid violent, in contrast to the Oromos, who are constructed as peace-loving, democratic, and egalitarian. Such strict delineations of culture must be questioned. Cultures are not sealed entities with precisely defined boundaries, and culture and personality theories generally have stereotypical qualities. Traits are shared, and languages and traditions mingle, although not always on equitable terms. As already noted, Levine (1974) and Clapham (1990) believe that Amhara culture provided the unifying genius for a panethnic Ethiopian nation, and that Amhara identity is a peculiarly open concept, available to all who wish to integrate themselves with the nation and necessary for those seeking to rise in the state bureaucracy. Yet these observers seem unattuned to matters of power, pride, and prejudice, and show little awareness that some do not regard 'becoming Ethiopian' as a neutral experience. For these people, Amharization is not an aspect of nation building; rather, it is a means to exclude and maintain them in a subordinate position. Oromos have attained positions of rank and power, but often this has meant concealing or reject-

46

Ghosts and Shadows

ing 'Oromo-ness' and 'passing' as Amhara, or committing a kind of cultural suicide. Thus, one cannot understand the openness of the Amhara category without noting the oppression that the Oromos endured and the prejudice against them that still exists. In regard to the Oromos in Ethiopia, one encounters a curious situation where racism exists even though physical differences are not apparent. The Oromos have suffered discrimination, yet they cannot be identified by physical appearance alone. Thus, informants recounted unpleasant experiences such as the following: 'I was with one Ethiopian and we were becoming good friends. We really got along well. I speak Amharic so, you see, he thought I was Amhara. When I told him I was an Oromo, he just stopped, just like that, and then he backed off. He never wanted to be friends after that.' Because of the absence of physical markers of difference, many Oromos can pass as Amhara. This desire to pass can involve internalizing prejudicial attitudes toward one's own culture: You can always tell who is an Oromo. You know how? If you hear somebody chastising the Oromo, bad-mouthing them, putting them down and so on ... (and there are lots of stories about the Oromo, they are everybody's favourite, you know, if you want to say something bad) ... if they are really strong, if they're really critical, you can be sure that person is an Oromo himself. They try to pretend they are Amhara so they really hate the Oromo.

For some, the fact that some Oromos did hold government and military positions undermined ethno-natioiialist arguments for independence. For example, just before the fall of the Derg, an Eritrean man commented on the shadowy character of Oromo nationalism: 'I don't understand what the Oromo want. If you look in the government, they are all Oromo. Even in the Derg, do you think everybody is an Amhara? They're not, some of them are Oromo and they have high positions. They have power and they are the ones who are oppressing their own people. So why do they talk about this Oromo land?' Compared with the Eritrean situation, which is more straightforward in terms of history and territory (although the 1998 war over borders with Ethiopia complicated this issue), the matter of Oromia is complex. Defining the boundaries of 'an Oromo region' is problematic, since Oromos live throughout Ethiopia, including areas inhabited by other ethnic groups. Some Oromos argue that the EPRDF government has

A Haunted House

47

merely substituted Tigrayan rule for that of the Arnhara; other groups fear the imposition of Oromo hegemony and perceive the proposed independent Oromia as a threat to their own identities. Because Eritrean nationalism was not based on ethnicity, this problem was not inherent in its project; however, such problems could arise in a context of nine different ethnic groups and two major religious divisions. The mobilization of difference, the shift from the ontic to the epistemic, is subject to various influences; for example, Ethiopian nationalists who based their opposition to Eritrean independence on the need for unity suddenly began calling for self-determination for minority populations within Eritrea. Both Eritrean and Oromo nationalists state that rights of minorities will be respected, but the presence of these minorities does suggest the possibility of further fracturing, especially in the case of Oromo, where the imagined state is to be named for one ethnic group and all others are to be relegated to a marginal and uncertain, although clearly secondary, status. Eritrea: Postcolonial Hybridity While the narrative of Ethiopian nationalism emphasizes unity and antiquity, Eritrean nationalism evokes postcolonial hybridity. In 1869, the Italians began carving out a colony along the Red Sea; in 1890 the region was officially named Eritrea. Italy's occupation of this territory, which earlier had been under Turkish and Arab rule, led to a fundamental reorganization of social life for the ethnically diverse inhabitants, who set out 011 a long journey toward a new identity (Sorenso 1993). There are nine different ethnic groups in Eritrea. They speak mutually unintelligible languages and are divided almost equally between Christians and Muslims, with smaller numbers following local religions. After Italy's defeat in 1941, Britain administered the region for ten years. While other Italian colonies achieved independence, this was a period of intense political struggle in Eritrea. An Eritrean independence movement developed, while Ethiopia pressed its claims to the area on the basis that the colony was historically arid culturally Ethiopian, that an Eritrean state was not economically viable, that Ethiopians' security depended on the territory, arid that they needed access to the sea. Opinions in Eritrea were divided, and widely differing accounts are given about the degree of support for independence as opposed to unification with Ethiopia. Clearly, some segments of the population, mainly

48

Ghosts and Shadows

from Christian-dominated highland areas, did seek union with Ethiopia. Strong support for independence came from the Muslim population, but suggestions that the division was based solely on religion (see Henze 1985, 1986a, 1986b, and Erlich 1983) are too simplistic. For example, some key nationalist figures of this period, such as Woldeab Woldemariam, were Christian and worked hard to minimize religious differences. Nevertheless, such differences did resurface to play an extremely divisive and violent role in the history of Eritrean nationalism, and they continue to reverberate in the post-independence period. After the Second World War, two United Nations commissions attempted to determine Eritrea's fate but were unable to agree even on basic issues. The United States, seeking to secure a strategic communications base at Kagnew Station near Asmara and to maintain Ethiopia as an anticommunist ally, in its drive for postwar global hegemony, supported Ethiopian's claims at the United Nations. After much debate and against strong Eritrean opposition, the UN imposed a federation. For the decade this federation lasted, the Ethiopian authorities continuously undermined its principles while dismantling political freedoms in Eritrea. On 1 September 1961 the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), a small group of nationalists led by Idris Awate, launched an attack against forces of the Ethiopian state. Ethiopia retaliated with brutal military strikes against the civilian population, and in 1962 simply annexed Eritrea by force, dispensing with the legal vote in the Eritrean Parliament that was required to dissolve the federation. Opponents of Eritrean nationalism argued that the region's ethnic variety and political factionalism invalidated any claims that there was a distinct Eritrean identity. Yet that same argument would apply equally well to Ethiopia itself, with its seventy different languages and myriad ethnic groups. In the postwar period during the British administration, many Eritrean nationalists asserted that a common identity and destiny had been created by the shared experience of Italian colonialism, and they attempted to forge a movement that could incorporate the various elements of Eritrean society. For all their efforts, Eritrean nationalism continued to be split along religions, regional, ethnic, and ideological lines, as well as by the personal ambitions of the Eritrean leaders. These tensions culminated in the 1970s in bloody fighting within the nationalist movement. Conflict had increased throughout the 1960s. The ELF, a mainly Mus lim group that espoused a pan-Arabist ideology, grew in strength, with some early albeit inconsistent support from Cuba, Iraq, Sudan, and

A Haunted House

49

Syria. Internal differences led to division into five regional zones and then to outright conflict along both religious and political lines. Some ELF members murdered Christians who had joined the organization and also attacked Christian villages and killed the inhabitants. A splinter group formed, which called itself the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) and took a more explicitly socialist position. Soon after, civil war broke out between these nationalist groups. In the two years this war lasted, thousands of Eritreans were killed - more than had died in battles against Ethiopian forces. Meanwhile, Ethiopian troops increasingly targeted civilians; for example, in 1967 a wave of large-scale massacres forced thousands of refugees into Sudan. In 1974 the civilian population reacted to the fightin between Eritrean nationalists and the devastating Ethiopian attacks with demonstrations calling for reconciliation. This led to negotiations between the Eritrean factions. Some leaders were deposed, and the nationalist organizations fragmented even further. An uneasy truce then developed that allowed the Eritrean fronts to gain control over most of Eritrea by 1977. However, when the Soviet Union intervened on the side of the Ethiopian government, the Eritrean movements suffered severe setbacks. The ELF was shattered, and the EPLF withdrew to its core area in the remote mountains of Sahel region, near Sudan. The EPLF eventually re-emerged as a powerful force; some ELF members joined it, while others fled to Sudan or abroad. Ethiopian forces launched repeated offensives and maintained harsh military rule over Eritrea, although the EPLF controlled what was in fact a shadow state in the 'liberated' zones in the north. In these areas the EPLF carried out a remarkable program of social revolution. Although these liberated areas remained under constant threat of Ethiopian aerial bombardment throughout the 1980s, during hours of darkness when people and animals were not visible targets, the EPLF did create an efficiently functioning society in which many traditional notions were strongly challenged. This situation lasted until the late 1980s, when the EPLF won several battles that changed the course of the war. It defeated the Ethiopeans in 1991 and soon after formed an independent Eritrean government. A tendency exists to merge national identity with political affiliations. However, while all Eritreans interviewed for this study supported independence, not all of them endorsed the EPLF as the Government of Eritrea, and some - especially those affiliated with the ELF were highly critical. Both in Eritrea and among the diaspora, the ELF/ EPLF division remains a sore point, and in some North American cities the Eritrean population is bitterly divided along these lines.

50

Ghosts and Shadows

Ethiopian nationalist discourse emphasizes a primordialist understanding of identity, linking this to the notion of a 3,000-year-old state and emphasizing that entity's indivisible nature. Eritreans conceptualize their identity differently, as a hybrid produced by centuries of cultural fusion arid shaped by Italian colonialism, which transformed social and economic relationships within a colonial space and established a sense of Eritrean-ness within those boundaries. This sense of national identity was then strengthened by Ethiopian repression and through the independence struggle itself. Thus, while Ethiopian narratives stress the deep historical roots of the modern state, and link contemporary regimes with those of the ancient past, and seek to impose a single identity over territory claimed by the state, this is challenged by narratives that assert other identities. Eritrean nationalist discourse rejects the idea of Ethiopia as a long-unified state. It emphasizes the discontinuous character of Ethiopian rule; it also stresses that Eritrean identity was created very recently, through Italian colonization. Ethiopian nationalists insist that foreign impact has been superficial and has not affected the core identity of Ethiopians: Even though there were the Arabs, the Italians, the British and so on, you can see that the culture is the same. There are many books and articles which are written by Eritreans who want to show that Italian colonialism changed Eritrea and made it different from the rest of Ethiopia. But you can see that this is not the case. We have the same language, the same culture and the same traditions. Let me ask you: if colonialism had such a great impact, why do these cultural patterns remain the same?

Another response of Ethiopians has been to deride Eritrean identity and nationalism as mere ghosts and shadows of Italian colonialism. They charge that at heart, Eritreans are ashamed of their African identity and are motivated by the perverse, self-hating desire to emulate their conquerors by adopting a veneer of European cosmopolitanism. Attempts to discredit Eritrean nationalism have concentrated on demonstrating the shallowness of Italy's influence and thus the illegitimacy of Eritrean identity. Ethiopians' nationalist discourse presents Eritrean identity as a ghost conjured up by Italian colonialism; in their eyes, colonial intervention split a unified whole and created in Eritrea a phantom society with no life of its own. Emphasizing the antiquity and authenticity of their own traditions, Ethiopian nationalists pointed to the recent character of Eritrean identity as proof of its insubstantial and opportu-

A Haunted House

51

nistic nature. Yet in dismissing Eritrean hybridity as a distortion of authentic identity, they have overlooked the fact that Ethiopian elites themselves have rejected an African identity (even while presenting Ethiopia as a symbol of African liberation). Eritrean accounts vary as to how their nationalist consciousness originated. Most Eritreans, such as Issayas Afeworki, interviewed in 1986 by Sorenson, trace the distinct Eritrean identity to the Italian colonial period; some see Eritrean nationalism as a phenomenon of the 1970s; only a few suggest that it is rooted deep in the past. Regardless of its origins, Eritreans do not see the manifestly created nature of identity as a sign of illegitimacy. What is striking in interviews with Eritreans is that they recognize their national identity as something created by history rather than as a pre-existing essential quality. Several informants discussed how they once maintained an Ethiopian identity but later came to define themselves as Eritrean; for some, this realignment was linked with the experience of repression and resistance and with exile itself. Some Oromo informants said that while they had once maintained Ethiopian identity, they had reawakened as if from a dream to recognize their true nature as Oromos. Eritreans were less likely to describe this conversion in essentialist terms. Indeed, some said they only came to adopt a new identity because of Ethiopian hostility and repression: I know Ethiopian history and I am not impressed with those who changed overnight from being champions of Ethiopia to champions of Eritrea. That's just fashion. No one can say what makes us different. Why should we hate Ethiopians? We don't hate the Italians. I didn't want to leave my country but I left because I was afraid of the persecution in Addis Ababa. I support Eritrean independence because of the atrocities the Ethiopians committed against us. From 1962 to 1975 nationalism was dead in Asmara. After 1975 people became born-again nationalists because of what the Ethiopians were doing. I am a nationalist because of the Ethiopian atrocities. I worry about what will happen with the EPLF in power. People only wanted independence, now what? With no enemy to hate what will hold them together? Look at the experience of other African countries after independence. People are celebrating Eritrean independence as if it's the achievement of the century but it is meaningless unless you have a vision. I am not affiliated with any political group. The EPLF is better than the Ethiopians because of their behaviour, not because of history. The Italians formed the country but we react like we had it for centuries. We

52

Ghosts and Shadows

had it only for a hundred years. So the paradox is that we are fighting to maintain colonial order. It's absurd for 10,000 people to die to keep that. The Ethiopians don't have that 3,000 years of history either. In Africa, people can fabricate any kind of history as long as you put in some kind of hatred of another group or tribe. But now we should have this chance for independence.

Eritrean nationalist discourse conceives of identity not as fixed but as something that has evolved over time under particular conditions. Oromo nationalism sometimes reflect a similar view, but more typically it is presented as the reanimatiori of a distinct cultural spirit that had been buried under Amhara oppression. Oromo nationalism conceives of identity as a reawakening; Eritrean nationalism emphasizes the historical production of identity. Thus two different conceptualizations have been employed.in the process of constructing national identities. Ethiopia after the Derg

After defeating the Derg, the EPRDF formed a Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) in 1991. Various groups joined the TGE, which declared itself to be open, democratic, and in favour of self-determination; however, dissent arid charges of dictatorial control soon led to the departure of several parties. The TPLF/EPRDF, led the TGE, which it asserted was a coalition of democratic forces; however, it faced opposition from the OLF, which characterized the TGE as a Tigrayandominated puppet show intended to create an illusion of democratic participation. The OLF, although it clearly favoured an independent Oromo state and distrusted the EPRDF, agreed to participate in the transitional government of a multicultural Ethiopia. This participation, which the EPLF encouraged, was half-hearted and short-lived. Relations between the OLF and TPLF/EPRDF were already poor, and the OLF protested that its minority status in the TGE did not allow it to play a sufficiently powerful role in the new government. The OLF charged that its supporters, and Oromos generally, were being subjected to human rights abuses, including assassinations; and that the TGE was merely continuing Abyssinian hegemony, with Tigrayaris now replacing Amharas. The OLF soon withdrew from the government and declared its intention to found an independent Oromo state, Oromia. In response, the EPRDF launched what it called a pre-emptive strike against OLF mobilization, arresting thousands of OLF supporters.

A Haunted House

53

Other Oromo organizations remained in the TGE, but OLF supporters dismissed them as TPLF puppets created to legitimize continuing Abyssinian domination. The EPRDF created ten ethnic-based semiautonomous regions and offered them the right of secession; opponents, including the OLF, claimed that this was merely a diversionary tactic and that Tigrayans still held the real power. The TGE had instituted a relatively open period of political freedom, allowing opposition groups to mobilize and human rights groups to monitor the regime itself. However, the TPLF's own structure was authoritarian, and this relative tolerance for dissent was short-lived. In Addis Ababa, protests against the Eritrean referendum were violently suppressed, and a number of demonstrators died. Because opposition movements arid political rivals had little interest in co-operating with the new government, the situation rapidly deteriorated. There were arrests and assassinations of journalists, students, and opposition figures, especially those associated with the OLF and the All-Amhara People's Organization, such as the late Professor Asrat Wolde Yesus, a prominent Amhara activist who was held in solitary confinement for much of his time in prison. Thousands were arrested and held without charge. Although still receiving support from Western governments, the TGE came under increasing criticism by NGOs for human rights abuses. International organizations such as Africa Watch and Amnesty International detailed serious human rights abuses. Such abuses were hardly surprising, given the widespread and extreme poverty, the aftereffects of decades of war, mass starvation, political repression, and the damage caused by forced resettlement and villagization. Undoubtedly, some of the violence was banditry, and some was revenge either against particular individuals or generalized to ethnic groups that were perceived as exploitative; that being said, it is clear that the government was becoming more repressive. The government denied disturbing charges that it was implementing deliberate policies of violence against certain groups; it dismissed such claims as exaggerations intended to destabilize it, and defended its actions as necessary to prevent insurrection by groups unwilling to share power in the reconfigured state. By the late 1990s, the violence had increased: atrocities were being committed by both the EPRDF and the OLF, civilian targets were being bombed, mobs were attacking ethnic groups, Sudanese refugee camps were being raided, clashes were taking place between smaller ethnic militias, and banditry was increasing. As well, religious fanaticism was intensifying throughout the region. Seen in the context of the aggressive regime in Khartoum,

54

Ghosts and Shadows

the disintegration of Somalia, and the continuing need for international food aid, the future was not promising. Ethiopian and Oromo exiles were extremely critical of the government and skeptical about whether Ethiopia could survive as a state; many were predicting fragmentation along ethnic lines and a replication of the chaos in Somalia. In Eritrea, there was more optimism. Although the EPLF decided to wait for a referendum, most acknowledged that Eritrea had achieved de facto independence with the Derg's collapse. In 1993 an internationally supervised referendum was held on Eritrean independence. With overwhelming support from the local population and the diaspora, Eritrea emerged as a new state; however, it faced serious problems of reconstruction, including shortages of food, water, housing, and sanitation, as well as the presence of vast numbers of unexploded land mines. The EPLF renamed itself the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) and formed a new provisional government. Some ELF splinter groups (ELF-Popular Liberation Front, ELF-National Council, and ELF—United Organization) accepted an invitation to join the new government, and there was considerable international praise and some support for Eritrea's policies for reconstruction, and for the extremely dedicated efforts of the population. Even so, political divisions from the past haunted the new state; there was bitter opposition from groups such as the ELF-Revolutionary Council, which considered the EPLF government a totalitarian regime arid vowed to bring it down by any means necessary. As well, Islamic fundamentalists linked to Sudan and Saudi Arabia sought to exploit divisions within Eritrean society and encouraged violence. Although Sudan had long assisted Eritrean nationalists by providing access through Port Sudan, this relationship changed after independence. In an effort to export its ideology of Islamic fundamentalism, the Sudanese regime lent support to Eritrean Jihad, a group that, which had formed in 1988 in the refugee camps in Sudan with the aim of turning Eritrea into an Islamic state. In 1994, President Issayas Afeworki protested Sudan's support of Jihad soldiers, who were launching armed attacks into Eritrea. These attacks led to the termination of diplomatic relations; Eritrea closed Sudanese government offices in Asmara and turned them over to Sudanese opposition movements. Eritrea became an important base for forces opposed to the Sudanese government, and in 1996 Sudan's former president Sadiq el-Mahdi escaped virtual house arrest and fled to Eritrea. At the end of 1996, armed clashes broke out in eastern Sudan and the government called for a holy war to defeat its enemies. Sudan's leaders were impli-

A Haunted House

55

cated in an assassination attempt on Egypt's President Mubarek during his visit to Ethiopia and the latter two states joined Eritrea in its opposition to Sudan's policies. In 1997 the Eritrean government charged Sudan's leaders with involvement in a plot to assassinate Issayas Afeworki. Conflict intensified as the United States sought to advance its own interests by supporting enemies of the Sudanese regime. For diaspora populations, who look back to lost homelands, these were the general contours of the Horn as the 1990s drew to a close. Regardless of their perspective - resentment, hope, resistance - none anticipated the devastating 1998 war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. We will discuss the impact of that war in Chapter 9; in the next chapter we turn to the diaspora itself.

THREE

Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements

The Horn of Africa has for decades been one of the world's main refugee-producing areas. Conflicts in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan have generated huge numbers of refugees; tides of human misery have swirled in all directions across the borders of these countries into the shadowlands of exile. If we include the internally displaced - those living in refugee-like circumstances within their own countries' borders - the number of refugees had reached six million by 1980. Although their needs were as great, the internally displaced were not recognized as refugees arid therefore received no international assistance. Their numbers increased throughout the 1980s as famine struck and conflict intensified. Most refugees came from Ethiopia, especially the war-torn northern regions of Eritrea and Tigray. From there, people fled forced conscription, Ethiopian military attacks on their villages, and a general reign of terror. Meanwhile, those associated with the former regime of Haile Selassie or with opposition groups also fled for their lives from Addis Ababa arid central Ethiopia. After Somalia invaded the Ogaden region in 1977, people in southeastern areas were persecuted and forced from their homes because of their cultural similarity to the invaders. As resistance grew in the southwest, more and more Oromos were forced into Kenya. Almost uniformly, our informants said they left Eritrea or Ethiopia to escape war or repression by the Ethiopian state. This was particularly true for the earliest arrivals in Canada. Many Eritreans left because they were suspected of being EPLF sympathizers and so their lives were in danger. Some had been imprisoned and tortured; others narrowly

Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements

57

escaped execution. Many recounted stories of dangerous encounters with government forces. In the 1980s conditions became increasingly dangerous for Eritreans living in Addis Ababa and other Ethiopian cities. As the Eritrean nationalist movement began to inflict serious defeats on the Derg's forces, the regime's propaganda and surveillance mechanisms increasingly emphasized danger from spies and saboteurs. Citizens were encouraged to watch their neighbours, and those accused of helping the EPLF could be killed on the spot and their property confiscated. This put Eritreans at the mercy of their neighbours, who could denounce them out of chauvinism or out of a desire to exploit them, or in retaliation for past grievances of a personal or nonpolitical nature. Although some informants said their non-Eritrean neighbours treated them well and had no intention of co-operating with a regime they despised, every Eritrean in Ethiopia was in danger of persecution, and knew it. (In 1998, after warfare was renewed, this potential was realized as Ethiopia deported over 70,000 Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean descent and seized their property; this deliberately harsh policy, which involved deaths and disappearances, received little international attention. Human rights organizations did report some harassment of Ethiopians in Eritrea, but there was no similar policy of expulsion, although the Eritrean government had deported many Ethiopians immediately after independence [Klein 1998; Asmerom 1998, 1999]. However, there were arrests, and in 2000, after a peace treaty was signed, Eritrea announced there would be 'voluntary repatriation' of Ethiopians displaced by war. In contrast to Ethiopia's deportations, this was to involve the International Committee of the Red Cross, which would ensure that no families were separated.) Many Eritreans left Ethiopia after seeing family members killed, and most had relatives who had fled to other countries. Under the Derg's rule, even those with no involvement in politics were suspect. For example, one young Eritrean who worked in a government department and tried to remain apolitical said that Ethiopian authorities suspected him of being an EPLF collaborator, while the EPLF considered him proEthiopian. Nevertheless, after Ethiopian authorities imprisoned and tortured him, the EPLF helped him escape to Europe. Similar dangers faced the Oromos, as well as other ethnic groups residing in southern regions such as Hararghe (especially conflict with Somalia) arid in sensitive areas such as those near railway lines. Ethiopian troops made random attacks on villages in retaliation for actions by the OLF and the Oromo Islamic Front. We also interviewed people who

58

Ghosts arid Shadows

were suspects not because of their ethnic affiliation but because of their membership in outlawed political movements such as the EPRP. Approximately 900,000 Eritreans fled between 1967 arid 1991 (UNHCR 1997). At the end of the Eritrean-Ethiopian war, after Mengistu Haile Mariam was overthrown, thousands returned to their homes, but in 1992 there were still at least 750,000 refugees and 1,000,000 internally displaced. Most had fled west into Sudan from Eritrea and Tigray; others had gone southeast into Somalia and Djibouti. After the longawaited referendum, Eritrea became independent in April 1993, but it faced a formidable task of reconstruction, a task that included reintegrating returning refugees. Millions of refugees had entered Sudan, which maintained one of the world's most generous refugee policies, which included offers of land for farming, although many refugees went to Khartoum or to the towns of Kassala and Port Sudan. Unfortunately, many land-holdings were too small to provide basic needs to the refugees. The refugees had a considerable impact on Sudan, by increasing the burden on water resources and on the already inadequate school system; however, some segments of Sudanese society benefited (Kibreab 1991). Employers profited from the increased labour force, which could not protest exploitative practices. Women refugees were exploited both economically and sexually; many were forced to accept any available job to avoid starvation and to support their families; many Sudanese middle- and upper-class women who received no support from men in household matters benefited from the availability of Eritrean women, who provided cheap domestic labour (Kibreab 1995). Political relations between Ethiopia and Sudan were tense, with both states supporting military forces opposed to their neighbour government. Southern Sudan, long exploited by the north, by the 1980s had become a disaster zone ravaged by war, famine, and slavery; under Mengistu, Ethiopia armed the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), which operated there. For its part, Sudan allowed Eritrean nationalists to cross its borders, although its support was not unwavering and it sometimes delivered Eritreans into the hands of Ethiopian authorities. Many Ethiopian refugees fled to Somalia; according to one estimate, by 1981 there were approximately one million - one-fifth of the Somali population (Zolberg, Suhrke, and Aguayo 1989: 114). The government appealed for massive international aid to cope with the burden, which led to charges that it was exaggerating the number of refugees: 'Somali

Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements

59

officials often use statistics as a rhetorical device, arid it was to their advantage to inflate the refugee statistics for both propaganda purposes and to maximize international assistance' (ibid.). By the end of 1988, UNHCR was estimating that there were 834,000 refugees in Somalia. Although the Somali government had an official policy of welcoming refugees, they did so inconsistently, and sometimes delivered Eritreans to Ethiopian troops. The Somali government was accused of human rights violations against refugees. One notorious case involved the imprisonment of 500 Ethiopian refugees, mainly Amharas, in Shelembod camp. Somali troops also abducted Amharas from eastern Ethiopia and imprisoned them in Hawai camp. International refugee agencies were denied access to these camps. Some Ethiopian refugees were rounded up in camps and forced into the Somali military (ibid.: 122). Antigovernment forces of the Somali Nadonal Movement also attacked refugee camps, killing hundreds. After Somalia's president, Mohammed Siad Barre, was overthrown in 1991, the country deteriorated further as factions of the aiitigovernmeiit opposition turned their weapons on one another. Thousands of Ethiopian refugees returned to their country because of the warfare in Somalia, despite the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia. Many sought shelter in camps because they could not return to their homes. In addition, Somalis fled to Ethiopia and Kenya to escape the violence that followed Barre's flight and the disintegration of the Somali state. During the 1970s, drought and war pushed refugees from Ethiopia into Djibouti, and by 1980 a substantial proportion of that enclave's population were refugees, mainly Issa Somalis but also Eritreans and others. The Djibouti government saw these refugees as a burden on an already strained infrastructure and as a destabilizing element that could drive the Afar population into rebellion. Ethiopia, seeking to capture political dissidents and to attract economic assistance by improving its image, wanted to repatriate the refugees. In 1981 refugees were forced to return to Ethiopia, and many who did were executed. UNHCR cooperated in the forced repatriation, which involved house-to-house searches, cancellation of rations, and imprisonment. Many of those being repatriated attempted suicide. Only much later did UNHCR take a position against the intimidation and abuse of the refugees it was supposed to protect (Crisp 1984). War, political repression, ethnic tensions, poverty and famine created a massive diaspora from Ethiopia. (As we will note throughout this book, factors of 'race,' gender, class, and age also determine diaspora.)

60

Ghosts and Shadows

Its movements were also shaped by the policies of neighbouring countries, UNHCR, and the 'First World.' Huge numbers of refugees - especially rural peasants - have been stranded in Ethiopia's neighbour countries for decades. The majority have endured deplorable conditions, whether in squalid camps or in urban areas where they survive from day to day. Most have settled in Sudan; many have scattered throughout the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Immigrants and Refugees in Canada

Although a few Ethiopians had lived in Canada since the 1960s, the vast majority arrived during the 1980s as a result of the above-mentioned factors. In general terms, few Africans have come to Canada, and those who came from Ethiopia during this period form a substantial portion of them. Between 1980 and 1988, 5,775 Ethiopians arrived in Canada; by the end of the decade the rate of entry was ten times that of earlier years (Moussa 1993). This can be seen clearly in the census. For the 1986 census, 2,900 people gave their birthplace as Ethiopia; for the 1991 census, 11,060 people gave their birthplace as Ethiopia. Both censuses show that 40 per cent of these immigrants were female. Most who came from this region were aged between 25 to 44 years old (Statistics Canada 1992). The census notes that 6,995 Ethiopians gave a single response to the question of ethnicity, and that 1,805 gave a multiple response (Statistics Canada 1993). Most Ethiopians live in Ontario, although significant numbers originally went to Quebec, Alberta, and Manitoba. Accordin to the 1991 census, 69 per cent of the 11,060 people who identified their birthplace as Ethiopia lived in Ontario; in 1986 the figure was 39 per cent. In 1991, 22.5 per cent of people who gave their birthplace as Ethiopia lived in Quebec, Alberta, and Manitoba; in 1986, it was 41.5 per cent (Statistics Canada 1992). At the end of the 1990s, representatives of various community organizations estimated the total population at around 15,000. During the 1980s the flow of immigrants and refugees into Canada generally reflected swings in the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. However, the largest numbers arrived in the mid-1980s after media coverage of the famine of 1984 and 1985. Increased admissions into Canada may have been influenced by publicity about the famine, even though those depicted in relief camps were among the least likely to be accepted into Canada. Immigration officials overseas weed out those they consider unsuited to life in Canada, and illiterate African peasants

Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements

61

with no English-language abilities, no experience of waged employment, and little familiarity with urban life were clearly seen as a low priority. Many women fit these descriptions, and at the time gender-based oppression (such as rape and other sexual and physical abuse) was not considered a legitimate basis for refugee claims. Given the extent of racism in Canada, and that racist and anti-Communist ideologies were fundamental and (until recently) explicitly articulated aspects of immigration policies, it is probable that these factors also limited the number of Africans admitted into Canada as either immigrants or refugees (Matas and Simon 1989; Whitaker 1987). Selective Factors Refugees and immigrants reported prolonged delays and corruption at Canadian embassies and UNHCR offices. Many said that in Nairobi and Khartoum, it was impossible to have an application processed without offering a bribe. One Canadian who was involved with bringing Falashas out of Ethiopia and Sudan described the Cairo embassy as completely corrupt, with the scale of bribery ranging 'from micro-wave ovens to automobiles.' Almost every immigrant and refugee we interviewed complained of long delays in processing their applications; a waiting period of over two years was common, and despite the desperate conditions they had fled, no African refugees received expedited treatment or a formal welcome like what was later extended to refugees from the former Yugoslavia. While waiting, applicants lived in poverty and danger, as most were unable to work legally in the country of first asylum. We spoke to several people whose relatives were killed while waiting for Canadian officials to process their applications. Informants described how appeals for refugee status were rejected, sometimes on ludicrous grounds. For example, one young man described how he left Eritrea and the treatment he received from UNHCR: In Addis Ababa at that time, it was not safe to be an Eritrean. You were always under suspicion. They could arrest you, beat you, anything. I was at the university and my two best friends were taken by the police. I knew I would be next so I escaped. I bought a passport and I left. When I was in Kenya, I went to UNHCR but they wouldn't believe I was a refugee. They said, 'You left with a passport so you are not a refugee' and they told me if I was a refugee then I should have scars on my body. They were very bad, they didn't help me at all.

62

Ghosts and Shadows

As this statement indicates, officials who deal with refugees may not understand the actual circumstances they face. Indeed, many exiles who dealt with UNHCR and Western embassies believed that these officials were operating on an entirely different plane of reality, either because they were functioning mainly as gatekeepers or because they utterly lacked sensitivity to their plight; certainly, the priorities of these bureaucrats often clashed with those of the exiles who were appealing for their help. Negative reports about UNHCR often surfaced in interviews. For example, one woman described her efforts to leave Kenya in the late 1980s: 'In order to see an officer [from UNHCR], first you have to bribe guards, then a clerk to get a form. One clerk was very mean to me and did not tell me everything I needed so I had to make several trips. Each time I have to give them money.' Informants reported corruption at all levels of the UNHCR offices in Sudan and Kenya. Several noted that in order to apply for refugee status, one first had to bribe UNHCR staff to obtain the necessary forms and then pay again to have them reviewed. This strongly suggests that those who lacked resources could not get very far in their refugee claims. Although 75 to 80 per cent of the world's refugees are women and children and 40 per cent of refugees are women (UNHCR 1993), very few women could come to Canada as principal applicants because visa officers generally applied a much narrower interpretation of 'refugee' than the Immigration and Refugee Board. This was because the assessment of settlement prospects tended to work as a barrier to women (many lacked knowledge of English or French, and had limited education and paid work experience) and because gender-related persecution was not recognized (Canadian Council for Refugees 1995). In 1988, Canada was the first country to introduce a Women at Risk Program that recognized that women refugees faced unique threats to their human rights in times of turmoil. But it was only in 1994 that Canada implemented 'Guidelines on Women Refugee Claimants Fearing Gender-Related Persecution' as part of its immigration policy; however, very few women came as refugees to Canada even after this policy was introduced (Canadian Council for Refugees 1995). Very few people over forty-five years old from this region live in Canada (Statistics Canada 1992). People in the Horn consider someone over that age 'old.' Immigrating to other countries, especially to the 'First World,' requires substantial financial resources (Kibreab 1995), and as one respondent said, 'You have to be practical. Younger ones have a better chance to survive and a better chance to come to Canada.'

Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements

63

These factors did much to shape diaspora communities in Canada. While a few refugees came from rural areas, most of the diaspora population does not conform to the stereotype of Africans arriving in Canada directly from famine-stricken villages (which are often characterized in media reports as 'medieval' or 'biblical'). The vast majority of rural refugees did not go beyond Sudan, Somalia, or Djibouti. Most who settled in Canada were from urban areas, and many previously lived in European, Middle Eastern, or North American cities. In our research we met no one who lacked experience of urban life. Class, gender, age, ideology, and urban and rural differences served as selecting factors for membership in diaspora communities in Canada. Diaspora Communities Are Refugee Communities

Typically, it is assumed that immigrants move voluntarily, mainly for economic reasons, and plan their departure in advance; whereas refugees are suddenly forced out of their homeland to preserve their lives. However, this distinction is often externally imposed and ignores the selfdefinitions of those in exile. Many who are not officially recognized as refugees feel that they have been forced to leave their homes to save their lives. In such cases, externally ascribed labels do not necessarily correspond with self-definitions. In the Horn, war, poverty, political repression, environmental degradation, and famine are closely interlinked, so it is often difficult to tell who became migrants for purely economic reasons. Many who are classified as immigrants consider themselves refugees. Indeed, one informant, noting the bleak conditions at home between the 1960s and the 1990s, stated: 'Every Eritrean is a refugee.' Despite important political and legal differences, the distinction between immigrants and refugees is often arbitrary — mainly a matter of degree rather than type — and migrants' reasons for departure are usually a mixture of personal, economic, and political (Gold 1992: x). Even those not officially classified as refugees believe strongly that their stay abroad is temporary. They imagine their home as elsewhere, and perceive that existence in North America as merely a shadow of real life. Many people take a decade to come to terms with the idea that their displacement is permanent. The ethnographic study of immigrant and refugee communities provides insight into new and changing social forms. Such communities cannot be regarded simply as transplants of cultural forms from the country of origin: migration is shaped by political factors in both the

64

Ghosts and Shadows

country of origin and the host society. Former networks are not transported in their entirety to the new context: families are split, traditional authorities and religious leaders may be absent, and people from very different backgrounds in terms of ethnicity, class, region, religion, and language may be thrown together and treated as a homogeneous unit. Supposedly cohesive communities are often split along these lines, as well as those of political ideology and national identity. For example, Gold (1992) has found that in two refugee groups in California - Soviet Jews and Vietnamese - diversity is the defining characteristic. Vietnamese refugees can be divided into two distinct temporal 'waves': the elite South Vietnamese who left in 1975, and the 'Boat People' and ethnic Chinese who arrived later. Although Soviet Jews are more homogeneous, their refugee population is characterized by mutual suspicion. Such diversity also characterizes the 'Ethiopian' diaspora; within this category several distinct communities have asserted themselves. They have asserted their unique identity in the face of resistance from those who seek to portray the Ethiopian community as politically united, and despite Canadian government policies that do not recognize these distinct identities. (We discuss issues of identity in Chapter 4.) A Charged Strangeness

Gordon (1997: 63) has suggested that one characteristic feature of a haunting is that 'the ghost imparts a charged strangeness into the place or the sphere that it is haunting.' Exile itself is an experience 'charged with strangeness.' Even mundane features of everyday life cast up unexpected apparitions: 'Did you know, I'd never seen an escalator before? I couldn't believe it. For me, it was very interesting but it looked so strange.' Of course, Canadian winters contributed to this sense of strangeness: 'When we first came winter was a problem, we didn't have this snow before. One day, we had to go to shop but we didn't yet have the right clothes for this. So we were running, we had to go to the doorway of every building. We were so cold we wanted to just throw our groceries and run home.' Such novelties were easily accommodated. Beyond these transitory apparations, exiles experienced a more powerful, disquieting, and profound strangeness: the sense of a world disrupted, a world broken by terror and war. Some government-sponsored refugees indicated that little had been done to prepare them for entry into these spaces of

Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements

65

charged strangeness in Canada. Some said they were 'dumped' by Canadian officials and left to fend for themselves. Lack of social support during the first few days after arrival contributed to the disorientation and loneliness. One informant described how in the early 1980s newly arrived government-sponsored refugees were simply deposited at one of Winnipeg's seedier hotels and left alone for days: They took us to the hotel and just left us there. We didn't know what to do. We didn't know where we were, we didn't know anybody. The hotel was very bad, lots of people were drunk and they had people stripping. They even had a male stripper. If we wanted to drink coffee that was the only place we knew where to go. I really couldn't believe it myself. I want to ask you: is that what people should see for the first thing when they arrive in Canada? It doesn't make you happy to see such things. After two or three days, they took us to the employment office and that was it. There was no follow-up at all.

Feelings of isolation were common. Community activists believe that early stages of settlement could be eased by more contact between government agencies and community organizations: The people at Immigration should work with the community. It is especially important to create welcoming committees from the community, people who speak the language and can communicate with the people and tell them what to expect. They should contact people like us and tell us when people are arriving and we could go and meet them. I'm talking about volunteers, they don't have to spend a lot of money on such a program. The officers who look after immigration need to go into the community. They need to have someone who can help these people and tell them what to expect.

Many individuals felt dissatisfied with the training and orientation sessions provided by Canadian authorities. Some said that settlement workers made mistaken assumptions about their knowledge: 'I was told 'There's Safeway" but I didn't know what Safeway was. Was it a mountain? [Laughter] Later, I went back alone and looked in the windows. Ah! It's a store! But it would have been easier if they had just told me. They just assume you know certain things. For example, at Manpower they assume you know how to get a job but many people don't know what to do.'

66

Ghosts and Shadows

Informants described the charged strangeness of initial contacts: 'People go to the orientation sessions but they don't know what's going on. They sit there, they don't ask any questions, the instructors ask them if they've understood, they say "yes," then they leave. They come over here and they ask us what it meant.' Another person suggested that more care is needed in providing information: I think it's good to have this kind of orientation. People can really benefit from these workshops and so on, you can learn a lot. But it would be better if they gave you the information again later. When you arrive, you just can't understand everything because they tell you so many things at once. You don't know the system and you have to find out all these things. Also, for our people, they may not want to look like they don't understand. So if they say, 'Do you understand?' everyone will say 'Yes' even if they don't have any idea of what they said. Then, later, they will come to the community centre and ask about all these things. Some informants thought that additional orientation sessions should be provided to newcomers at a later date by their own community organizations. In their view, newcomers are unable to absorb all the information given to them by Canadian officials because they are overwhelmed and intimidated by the initial experience of arrival. Needless to say, government-sponsored refugees are considered better off than those under family sponsorship because they receive support and services for the first year after arrival. Those under family sponsorship depend on relatives for assistance, and are sometimes unaware of existing resources or receive misinformation. Cultural values and individual pride played a role in obtaining and understanding information related to resettlement: You have to understand one thing, our people are very proud. They don't like to say they don't understand. They don't want to look as if they don't know anything. So, if you ask them, 'Do you know this, do you know about that?' they're always going to say, 'Yes, I know everything about it.' And most of the time, they don't really know. They have some little bit of information they heard from somewhere. Then they try to go ahead, using that information. Sometimes it's OK because they get what they need but some people just get themselves into trouble. Some may not ask for information because they do not wish to appear

Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements

67

ignorant: 'People don't want to admit that they don't know something or that they need ESL. The community tried to organize ESL but no one would admit that they need help.' Many who are working are not aware of their rights as employees or feel insecure in their positions. For example, one man wanted to visit his home but was afraid to ask his employer for an extra week off because he feared losing his job. Those with little training and poor communications skills are also subject to exploitation by employers (including those within their own ethnic group) and by Canadians who discriminate against them (Neuwirth 1989: 26, 39). Others reported being humiliated by government officials assigned to help them. One woman described being insulted by a welfare worker who, rather than helping her find a job, said she should be ashamed to be on social assistance; Unequal power relations operated to infringe on the woman's self-image as a hard-working person temporarily relying on assistance until she could regain self-sufficiency through employment. This incident indicates how the self-image of those in the diaspora is threatened by a context of charged strangeness. Later, this woman found a discrepancy on her welfare cheque but refused to return to the office to have the underpayment corrected because she did not want to encounter the worker who had insulted her and created the experience of charged strangeness. Receiving welfare is a right in Canada, yet a message was clearly conveyed to this woman that she should not exercise her rights. She resisted the degradation of being included in a 'shameful' classification by avoiding the very official who exercised that discrimination. Informants suggested that recruiting more social workers from their own ethnic communities would make it less likely that newcomers would face such petty tyrannies and racist attitudes and the discriminatory practices of some Canadian bureaucrats. Informants consistently mentioned language abilities as a major concern about life in Canada. Not surprisingly, fluency in Canada's official languages is a key element in adjustment. Most people mentioned English-language skills as important for individuals and communities, and recommended more ESL training. A representative of the Ethiopian Association in Toronto said that those who experienced the greatest problems in terms of employment had weak English-language skills. Few considered French useful, and several people we interviewed in Montreal expressed the desire to leave Quebec as soon as possible, citing racism as a major problem there. Our findings support Neuwirth's exploratory study (1989) of Ethiopian refugees in Toronto; she says that

68

Ghosts and Shadows

without English-language skills, refugees cannot function well, are isolated, and face reduced opportunities. Neuwirth indicates that while most refugees need more language training and wish to have it, they are often prevented from receiving it by employment counsellors who emphasize having newcomers employed as soon as possible. Our interviews revealed that many newcomers felt pressured to take the first available job although they wanted to improve their English-language skills. Many informants who did take ESL courses complained that the classes were too large and not specific enough to allow them to acquire good skills and specialized knowledge in their professions. Facility in English was mentioned as a particular problem for women. While a number of well-educated and articulate women have come from the Horn to Canada, many others have had little formal education, do not speak English well, and remain isolated. Many women came under family sponsorship and so did not qualify for free ESL or training, and many others did not have financial support to go to school. In the 1980s only 28 per cent of those who required language training received this under a federally funded program, and training was restricted to heads of family, usually men (Lanphier and Lukosmskyj 1994). It is up to the provincial and municipal governments to provide language training to newcomers. The case of an elderly woman in Winnipeg showed how far a little support can go. She was sponsored by her son in the mid-1980s. Luckily there was an ESL program she could attend for free; as well, the class was small enough that she received individual attention from her teachers. She said with pride arid joy, 'Thanks to my teachers, I can understand English. I can write and read in English. I cannot do so in my own language.' She, like many women of her generation, never had a chance to go to school. 'Now I have friends from many different countries.' Through an interpreter she added: 'A problem is transportation, especially in winter. [But] I do not feel isolated. I do not need to depend on my children all the time. I have many friends. I would like to learn more English but there are not any more free classes and they tend to be big. Canada has been good to me.' A little investment early in the settlement process empowered this woman arid eased the strangeness she felt in her new country. In contrast to this story, we encountered situations where language problems complicated generational differences in adaptation and increased the sense of charged strangeness that many face in the diaspora. Some women suddenly found themselves the main or sole breadwinner in the family, the negotiator of systems, the authority figure. Many had diffi-

Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements

69

culdes with this, especially when they had limited English comprehension and depended on their children to interpret for them. Single mothers in particular encountered strange experiences. Alone with children and with no support from families, uncertain and in an unfamiliar environment, they found it difficult to maintain their authority as long as they depended on their children to interpret information. We heard stories about how women who did not speak English well were ridiculed by their children, and about how children gained dominant roles in the family and acted as mediators with the broader society because they could speak English better than their parents. Lack of language skills eroded power relationships between generations (see Chapter 5), which only heightened the charged strangeness of the diasporic experience. Obstacles to Professionals

Some professionals found work in their fields, but even those who were well educated and fluent in English often could not. A representative of the Ethiopian Association in Toronto identified the key problem for the educated as underemployment, and indicated that most such people were employed as parking-lot attendants or taxi drivers or in the service industries. Many had been told by immigration officials that because of their education they would be successful in Canada; they expected to obtain professional positions and so experienced underemployment as a major setback. In Canada their postsecondary education arid credentials from Africa were discounted, unrecognized, and devalued. Those with university degrees and employment experience faced a paradox: they were unable to get a job because they lacked Canadian experience, and they were unable to get such experience without a job. Many Ethiopians, Oromos, and Eritrearis with qualifications in business, engineering, or science became taxi drivers in Canada. With few exceptions, informants with professional qualifications as accountants, engineers, agricultural experts, doctors, and nurses described life in Canada as a frustrating experience in which they were prevented from working in their field or obtaining better qualifications. They valued education, believing it would help them achieve better status in Canada and, when they eventually returned, in their countries of origin. As McSpadden's (1999: 256) respondents in the United States noted, 'education has power'; and participants in our study also recognized its value. However, government officials discouraged them from seeking postsecondary education. Some criticized this short-term focus: 'Why

70

Ghosts and Shadows

doesn't Canada try to educate its people? If you see other countries, they are spending a lot on education. If people don't get education they can only take these low jobs and if they lose the job then they have to go on welfare.' Others complained they were forced to take courses at Canadian universities and colleges to obtain professional certification, although they previously had taken the same courses and had been working in their professions at home. They could not pay professional dues and the costs for qualifying exams with their income from menial jobs. They saw this as a frustrating, time-consuming, and expensive process designed to protect Canadians and keep immigrants in lower-paying positions: 'There are seven or eight engineers here from Eritrea. Only two of them are practising in their profession. It's very expensive to take these exams. A lot of people will just give up. You have to go and take undergraduate courses and you already know this, why don't they put you in graduate courses where you can improve?' Several informants said that Canadian officials assigned to help them adjust to life in Canada instead obstructed them. The goals of officials clashed with those of newcomers. A typical comment: 'It is very difficult to get information about education. The authorities don't tell you how to do this, they just want you to work right away at any job. They push you. I had to find out from friends that you can go to school part-time.' Those with few relevant skills on arrival were even more restricted in choice of occupations and faced the prospect of menial labour or social assistance. Some people, although they valued work itself, had difficulty coping with employment they considered beneath their qualifications. According to McSpadderi (1989), Ethiopian refugees in California saw work in terms of social status; especially for an elite, educated class, the emphasis placed by employment counsellors on obtaining immediate employment and on accepting menial occupations was extremely discomfiting, for it seemed to suggest that they had limited chances to improve themselves, and that their status was not respected. Blaming the Victims It is sometimes suggested that refugees have unrealistic expectations. For example, Stein (1981: 327) detected a 'strong belief that they are owed something by someone. Since their persecutors are unavailable, the refugees shifts [sic] their demands to the government and the helping agencies,' which they tend to see as hostile bureaucracies.

Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements

71

Refugees sometimes have inappropriate expectations. Informants themselves commented on this. For example, one Eritrean man believed that some newcomers have unrealistic views of life in North America: People don't get accurate information when they think about North America. They think everybody has a big car, everybody is just dancing. So they think they're going to get that too. When they come here, they get disappointed because life is very difficult for them. They have to get a job right away but they don't get any money. They feel very bad because they didn't think it would be like that for them. My brother wanted to come here, for example. So I wrote to him and told him about life here. You have to pay tax and all these things and I told him he'd have to work because I'm not going to work so that he can go to school. So he wrote back and said 'thanks but I'm not going to come.'

Others pointed out the importance of providing accurate information on Canada and helping newcomers cope with cultural expectations: We have grown up poor. We need information about the system here. A lot of people come here and they think they will get everything right away. They think all their material needs will be satisfied, immediate satisfaction is what they think. At home, people also have this expectation if you go out of the country, they think you will succeed right away. For example, one guy bought a new car because his mother was coming for a visit. He couldn't afford it and as soon as she left he sold it. He lost thousands of dollars. So you see there are these types of unrealistic expectations.

In contrast to the view that considers all 'demands' as unreasonable, we suggest that refugees are indeed owed something, especially by governments that intervened in their home countries for their own objectives, and made local struggles worse by supplying extensive arsenals, thereby contributing to the expulsion of refugees. As noted, many refugees we interviewed faced desperate living conditions, exploitative of work, harassment to take any available job, and intimidation by bureaucrats. Perhaps refugees are correct that bureaucracies are inherently hostile. Diaspora is permeated by expectations from families both in home countries and in host countries. McSpadden (1989) describes how Ethi-

72

Ghosts and Shadows

opians in the United States expect 'good' employment (i.e., a job that confers a certain level of status and respect), and how the failure to obtain what is regarded as a suitable position creates intense anxiety and frustration. Yet while unrealistic expectations may sometimes be a factor, it is important to understand the frustration of professionals whose qualifications go unrecognized and who must take whatever jobs they can. Furthermore, these people face obstacles raised by professional associations in Canada, which require newcomers to write costly qualifying examinations and to pay membership and administration fees. As well, we should not overlook racist attitudes and structures in Canada that reinforce stereotypes of inferior Others. Describing ethnic and 'race' relations in Philadelphia, Goode and Schneider (1994) noted confusion and contradictions in expectations, both for immigrants and for the society in which they found themselves. The authors trace these to a colonialistic 'good immigrant' model: immigrants should struggle before succeeding in North America. Our research leads us to challenge the broad assertion that refugees are unrealistic and overly demanding. Some of them may be, but in contrast to this image of unreasonable refugees demanding what they are not 'entitled to,' we found that the actual experiences of this diaspora population now closely reflected this 'good immigrant' model. Many informants obtained employment within days of arriving in Canada, often at menial arid unsatisfying tasks unrelated to their training and interests. Professionals were frustrated in such jobs, but this seems a normal response rather than a psychological aberration. For many, exile meant a disruption of life, and the loss of a sense of belonging to a community, and the postponement of education, career, and marriage (Mekuria 1988). Furthermore, as Neuwirth indicates, refugees' expectations and assessments are often more realistic than those of the bureaucrats assigned to process them. Assumptions that refugees demand too much, feel they are owed something, or are acting out displaced retributive behaviour are part of an entrenched discourse on refugees that constructs them as pathological criminals or liars (Malkki 1992). In the case of Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees in Canada, these negative stereotypes are compounded by racism. While some newcomers may have misconceptions about the type of work they are suited for, it is clear that at least sometimes, Canadians simply assume that immigrants and refugees are less qualified. Informants said that employment counsellors did not provide them with sufficient information; they worried that they were being channelled into lower-level jobs. Furthermore, they found that

Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements

73

sponsors and employment counsellors consistently encourage newcomers to set their sights low and to take any available work. This may conflict with the newcomers' own goals. For example, one Eritrean informant, trained iri civil engineering, wanted to apply for a job in his field advertised at a Canada Manpower office, but his counsellor refused to give him the employer's address, insisting he was not qualified. The applicant persisted, contacting the counsellor's supervisor and finally the Deputy Minister for Employment. Eventually, he was able to get the information and, in fact, was selected as the best applicant for the job. Many immigrants arid refugees face such discrimination; not all are as persistent as this individual. Informants' feelings that they had to struggle against Canadian officials to obtain access to employment or education were mirrored in parents' concerns for their children. Some felt unable to participate fully in decisions affecting their children's education, and worried that they were not getting adequate information about schools. In Toronto, parents objected to the practice of 'streaming' children. Several worried that their children would be categorized on the basis of their physical appearance and steered into vocational rather than academic programs. Parents were thus resisting education systems that racialized their children. Other informants were worried about the number of moves their families had had to make arid the possible negative effects on their children's education. After the trauma of war and a series of disruptive relocations, children may feel they have no 'roots.' Several parents felt that their children could not relate to school in North America; teachers sometimes mentioned to them how quiet their children were and how they were not interested in school activities. This leads to our discussion of the isolation that haunts the diaspora. Isolation Brah (1996: 181) describes diaspora as 'a confluence of economic, political, cultural and psychic processes.' Besides crucial factors such as language, other cultural differences affect settlement and shape the psychic space of diaspora. Informants complained of impoverished interpersonal relationships in Canada, and found Canadians aloof, cold, and unfriendly. Given that social visiting is an important part of cultural life in the Horn, many found the more individualistic nature of Canadian society unsatisfying. Informants commented on the overwhelming 'speed' of life and on the 'time is money' orientation in Canada.

74

Ghosts and Shadows

Isolation troubled many. This sense of isolation can be very strong, especially for recent arrivals, for those who do not have contacts in diaspora communities, for those who are estranged from ethnic organizations for whatever reason, and for those who live where there are very few people from their former country. One man described his experience in a small western Canadian city: 'I was the only black person in the whole town. I lived there for two years and I never made a single friend. Nobody talks to you. It's very closed. I prefer to live in a small city but I didn't like it there, it was boring.' Isolation is felt deeply by those who are accustomed to a close social network of family and friends: 'At home, people get together and talk. People don't like to be alone, everybody stays together. If someone has a problem, the community will resolve it. Here, you need someone to deal with family problems. People aren't used to going to talk to a stranger, so it's difficult to get counselling.' In both Ethiopia and Eritrea, the extended family is a key cultural institution Close networks of relatives and obligations to parents are part of the 'structure of feeling' in many societies of the Horn. Despite this strong family orientation, many informants did not want to bring parents to Canada, citing isolation as the main reason: Older people don't want to stay here; it's just too hard for them to adjust. They don't like the cold and they feel lonely. At home they can go around and visit their relatives and friends. Sometimes they stay for a year with their family here but even six months is a long time for them. They feel lonely. What can you do? You have to work and so you have to lock them all day in an apartment. The Canadian officials don't understand anything about the older people. They think everyone wants to come to Canada and stay here. They don't want to stay, they want to see their family for awhile and then they want to go home.

Another informant said he would not ask his parents to stay in Canada: 'It would be too hard for them. They could come for a visit but they couldn't adjust to life in Canada. They would be too lonely.' Despite the dangers posed by military conflict and, often, dramatic differences in standards of living, most parents refused to resettle in Canada, even when adult children begged them to do so and could offer them a more physically comfortable existence. We interviewed some older people who visited Canada and then returned to their homes; they said they would be unable to adjust to the loss of community and to the sense of

Shadowlands: Diaspora Movements

75

greater social distance in Canada. This sense of social isolation was not confined to older people. One young man, from the small Falasha (Ethiopian Jewish) community in Montreal, stated: 'At home we knew everybody who lived near us. If you asked me who lived a hundred kilometres away, I could tell you. But here, I live in Apartment 5,1 can't tell you who lives in Apartment 6. That was very hard for us at first ... You just get used to it. You stay out all day and then you just come home to sleep so it doesn't matter.' Because of their small numbers and general lack of contact with members of other ethnic groups from Ethiopia, isolation seems particularly acute for the Falasha commmuriity in Montreal. Some informants said that as black Jews, Falashas were doubly discriminated against in Canada. They have some contact with other Jewish Canadians, but this is limited mainly to special holidays. Falasha informants said they had little contact with the Jewish organization that brought them as refugees to Canada. Isolation is a particular problem for women, who are separated from the usual support networks of relatives, friends, and neighbours, and who must face child-rearing and household tasks alone. Because they are so few in number, it is difficult for them to rebuild networks, and racism, cultural differences, and the lack of language skills make it difficult to create new networks with those who do not share the same background. Many noted the closed character of Canadian society. As one Oromo woman said: Tn Canada all the doors are closed. You don't meet your neighbours. In my country, if someone doesn't see you for one day they ask 'Where is that woman?' but here you don't talk to anybody. Theyjust shut the door in your face. Nobody knows you, nobody talks to you.' Other women identified isolation as a major factor in their desire to return to the Horn. The greater social distance in Canada disturbed many; for them, diaspora meant the loss of rich social interaction: 'The most difficult thing is adjusting to the lifestyle. You lose your social life. Social life is faded here. You are more lonely, more selfish.' Many experienced life in diaspora as a mere shadow of their old life. For example, in North America the term 'friend' is applied loosely to various relationships. In contrast, several Eritreans said they had 'no friends' in Canada, although they maintained ongoing social relationships over several years: A friend is someone that you've grown up with. Here you don't know anyone with the same depth as someone from your childhood. At home,

76

Ghosts and Shadows

you have one friend for all reasons. Here, you divide tasks among various friends. People become more individualized here. They come from different roots at home, they've had different experiences. People lie and cheat. Some people returned to Sudan from Saudi Arabia because others informed on them so they are unwilling to trust Eritreans here. They don't believe any information they get from Eritreans. Those who came through Europe may be more willing to trust others. Here you meet people from different backgrounds. It's hard to make deep friends. People don't confide in others.

Lack of friends was perceived as part of a general erosion of social values in diaspora: 'In Canada, people have become too individualistic. There is no sense of social responsibility. We see too much inwardness, it's only the individual and no idea of the relationship between the individual and society. There should be mutual responsibility and contributions.' Many experienced diaspora as a shrivelling of social life, an existence drained of much of its emotional vitality, a world of ghosts and shadows. Informants thought that community centres would help them overcome their isolation, and complained of their absence. Many wanted a social centre where families could go with their children. Where community centres do exist they have irregular hours, are run by volunteers and function less as regular meeting places for the whole community than as men's clubs. Ethnic restaurants and various political committees provide meeting places, but these spaces tend to be occupied almost exclusively by men. Few women attend, and those who have, note that they were gossiped about when they tried to break out of old roles. Isolation is also sharpened by racism and xenophobia; as well, some newcomers tend to avoid contact with Canadian society because they expect to encounter discrimination. Many informants considered discrimination a serious problem. We will return to this discussion in Chapter 8.

FOUR

Exile, Memory, Identity

Hauntings and Long-Distance Nationalism A haunting suggests more than a visit from the spectre of a dead person (although it is wrong to assume that the dead do not exert a powerful ghostly influence); in Gordon's words, 'to be haunted is to be tied to historical and social effects' (1997: 190). Here we add that to be haunted is also to be tied to embodied mythical experiences. Exiles experience these haunting effects most sharply as they are forced into spaces in which they must confront ghosts from the past while their present and future lives seem cast in a play of shadows. In such haunted spaces, exiles must renegotiate their identities in relation to both their lost homeland and their country of actual residence. Individuals construct relationships with their homeland through directly lived experience and through shared symbols and images, memories of the past, and imaginings of the future. Through these things they organize their experiences - especially those which involve sacrifice and suffering into coherent and meaningful narratives. While there has been much work on nationalism and growing interest in concepts of transnationalism, few studies have examined the significance of nationalist politics in exile. Yet Benedict Anderson (1992: 13) suggests that complex linkages of ethnicities and nationalisms have generated a new type of person the long-distance nationalist: For while technically a citizen of the state in which he comfortably lives, but to which he feels little attachment, he finds it tempting to play identity politics by participating (via propaganda, money, weapons, any way but

78

Ghosts and Shadows

voting) in the conflicts of his imagined Heimat - now only fax-time away. But this citizenshipless participation is inevitably non-responsible - our hero will not have to answer for, or pay the price of, the long-distance politics he undertakes. He is also easy prey for shrewd political manipulators in his Heimat.

Long-distance nationalism plays a major role in maintaining divisions among diaspora groups. Safran (1991) sees attachment to the remembered homeland as a characteristic that distinguishes diaspora populations from immigrants: while the latter are eager to assimilate and create new lives in their adopted country, diaspora populations are oriented toward the past and haunted by myths of return. This type of haunting, with its attachment to and sometimes overwhelming longing for the lost homeland, was a structural feature of the diaspora from Ethiopia. However, not everyone was haunted by the same ghosts: the divisions that shattered Ethiopia were reproduced in diaspora, with the result that a population collectively identified by outsiders as 'Ethiopian' was internally divided into opposing factions with contrasting images of the phantasmagorical homeland. Furthermore, not all ghosts travel in the same direction. Nationalism creates a longing to return; but in addition to that, long-distance nationalists are inspired to transform the imagined homelands they have left. As exemplified by Jewish and Irish long-distance nationalists in North America, diasporas actively participate in struggles for homelands they do not inhabit. Thus, exiles with attachments to nationalist movements in the Horn mobilized to support those movements. In particular, Eritrean exiles played a major role in the three-decade war for independence and the Eritrean-Ethiopian border war that began in 1998. For example, the Financial Times (21 August 1999) estimated that Eritreans abroad had donated $400 million to the current war effort; the BBC World Service (17 April 2000) estimated contributions from the Eritrean diaspora at over $600 million. Although both Ethiopia and Eritrea suffered serious economic setbacks due to war, remittances from the diaspora helped shield Eritrea from even more severe economic damage until Ethiopia's May 2000 invasion, which destroyed entire towns like Barentu and Tesseney and displaced over one-third of the population. Diasporas do more than aid nationalist forces financially; they also lobby to influence public opinion and government policies in host countries. Thus, diaspora intellectuals promoted competing nationalisms in the Horn, offering historical or cultural evidence concerning

Exile, Memory, Identity

79

the nations they were defending or rejecting. In these constructions of identity, the past became a principal site of struggle, as specific elements were selected to be communally remembered or actively forgotten. It is not only long-distance nationalists who struggle to create and regain these obscure objects of desire: shadow-struggles are waged in academic and journalistic discourses that celebrate or challenge these imagined communities. For example, anthropologist Donald Levine (1974) endorsed a primordialist version of national identity, defending the concept of Greater Ethiopia by citing archaeological evidence to show deeply rooted cultural continuities with the past. However, this is a curious understanding of culture, in that it focuses only on outer manifestations and neglects to consider how cultural continuities are experienced, understood, and challenged. To understand cultures and nations, we must do more than try to provide objective definitions based on trait inventories of what constitutes them. Levine fails to consider how the past is actively created, not simply encountered. It would be remarkable if cultural continuities did not exist, yet Levine conflates cultural and political identities. When we overemphasize continuity, we encourage the tendency to take nations as fixed realities and to legitimize claims for their timeless existence that they are timeless. In fact a nation is something that has been created arid contested, 'an artifact of boundary-drawing activity' (Bauman 1992: 677). Levine's simple observation of cultural continuity does not come to terms with the active processes of history making, of inventing tradition and imagining community. It also fails to recognize that every nation is based on an illusory transaction with ghosts: It consists in believing that the generations which succeed one another over centuries on a reasonably stable territory, under a reasonably univocal designation, have handed down to each other an invariant substance. And it consists in believing that the process of development from which we select aspects retrospectively, so as to see ourselves as the culmination of that process, was the only one possible, that is, it represented a destiny. Project and destiny are the two symmetrical figures of the illusion of national identity. (Balibar and Wallerstein 1991: 86)

Thus nationalists - including exiles who link their identities to those ghostly, doubly imagined homelands they do not actually inhabit - are often less the representatives of already formed, fixed entities than the creators of those realities. Identities created in homelands and diaspo-

80

Ghosts and Shadows

ras are constructed not only in relation to a local past but also within a changing local/global context, in turbulent transnational spaces that render these identities subject to profound and violent anxieties. Narcissism and Violence

E. Valentine Daniel (1996) examines how identities and memories are shaped in the context of political struggles. Writing on war and memory in Sri Lanka, he argues that one structural condition for violence is a discordance between different orientations toward the past. He contrasts a mythic/on tic/embodied way of being in the world with a historical/epistemic/theoretical way of seeing the world. The mythic orientation involves multiple lived experiences; the historical orientation reduces these to a single narrative and emphasizes fixed identities. This opposition can also be perceived in terms of a shift from culture to ethnicity. Daniel suggests that discordance between these orientations toward the past creates demands for recognition of the new identities they create, identities that are still unstable: 'A people's willingness to fight for, kill for, and die for a reality is not a sign of their certainty of that reality but indicates that the reality in question has been brought under the crisis of radical doubt' (67). Rejecting suggestions that contemporary Sinhala-Tamil conflicts (and even identities) are based on ancient antagonisms, Daniel argues 'what is important is that significant sections of each of the two ethnic groups have displayed a kind of narcissistic self-regard that can only be considered infantile,' deriving from their failure 'to recognize that the whole world is riot one's own and that all of being is not encompassed within the boundaries of an everexpanding identity.' Failure of Sinhalas and Tamils to move beyond this narcissistic stage involves 'more than the destruction of life and the demise of security. Rather, what is at stake ... is the death of a way of being-in-the-world, the death of that which constitutes their identity, honour and dignity. For each ethnic group in this horrific drama, then, the face of the other is the face of either the affirmation of identity or its denial, potential life or potential death' (67-8). This sense of radical doubt, expressed in a proliferation of nationalisms, is linked to processes of globalization that threaten to erode the nation-state, as historically unprecedented modes of interdependence actually intensify selfconsciousness (Robertson 1992, Yuval-Davis 1997). Similarly, the affirmations and denials of elusive identities that have come to dominate the rhetoric of struggles in the Horn must be viewed

Exile, Memory, Identity

81

not simply in terms of an uninterrupted flow of cultural continuities but as disruptions associated with such a globalized framework: colonialism, Cold War rivalry, arms sales, refugee flows. In this context, throughout the Horn and in the diaspora, Eritreans, Ethiopians, and Oromos all perceive threats to their existence in the attempts of others to redefine their identities. Memory

In studying constructions of identity, anthropologists have recognized the importance of memory as collective work and considered how the past is deployed in conflict situations. For example, Ted Swedenburg considers the Palestinian popular memory of the 1936-39 anticolonial rebellion in the context of efforts by the Israeli state to erase Palestinians from history and from the land. He argues that Israelis and Palestinians operate according to 'rival memory modes' (1995: 5). He characterizes Zionism as a variant of colonialism, pointing out that its goal was to exclude rather than to 'civilize' the indigenous population and that the Israeli state pursued this result not only through expropriation and direct violence but by efforts to eradicate all traces of Palestinians from the past - for example, by bulldozing Arab villages and important historical sites and building Jewish settlements on them. The purpose of this was to claim both space and time for the constructed narrative of Israeli identity. Zionist ideology creates emotional links between the land and Jewish history and identity. Palestinian popular memory resists domination by the colonial state. Swedenburg notes how the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), in order to assert leadership and control over popular resistance, has constructed a unified national past to mobilize resistance. The PLO's narrative of the past celebrates popular resistance but also affirms the need for elite leadership. This nationalist narrative creates the romanticized image of a pristine, harmonious past and overlooks internal class (Swedenburg 1995) and gender (Abdo 1994) differences in order to create unified opposition. Nationalist struggles in the Horn and their diasporic shadows involve similar clashes of memory making, identity constructions, and opposed social visions. For example, women's emancipation is an essential part of the construction of new social identities for Eritrean and Oromo activists, but national liberation has taken precedence. Among diaspora populations, these constructions are further complicated by the phe-

82

Ghosts and Shadows

nomenori of 'refugee vintages': different groups of refugees fled their homeland at different times and under different circumstances, and this, as much as cultural factors, has shaped the 'content' of their ethnicity (Kunz 1973). Many who came earlier to North America were politically active, elite, male students who had been targeted for execution or imprisonment in Ethiopia. An Oromo man indicated the significance of political involvement for this early refugee vintage: The Amharas have their organization, especially in Toronto, they're very strong there. They call it an Ethiopian organization but it's for the Amharas. Eritreans are well organized, I think they are the best in terms of organization. But as for politics, well, I think it's a question of when people came here. People coming now, they're very different from ones who came before. People who came before, those who came during the time of the Red Terror, for example, those are the real refugees. I don't know how you are going to define that term but if we take the definition from the United Nations, those are the refugees, not the ones who came later. Because the ones who came from that time, I don't care if they are Eritreans or Ethiopians, they are the ones who were in politics. Their whole life was politics. Not just the Eritreans. I'm also talking about the Amharas. Look at the EPRP and MEISON, those were all Amharas and they were so political. Actually, some of them were Eritreans, even some of the leaders in the EPRP. But for all those people who came then, politics has remained important for them and they have been organizing in Canada as well. The Ethiopian student movement was the strongest in Africa, I can't think of any other student movement that strong. We were all in politics from when we were children. Even when I was in elementary school, I went to demonstrations, I don't know how many demonstrations I've been to.

For these early refugee vintages, political divisions from the 1960s and 1970s remained significant in visions of national identity. Nairn's (1977) image of nationalism as Janus-faced lets us understand these visions as encompassing both the future (imagined as self-fulfilment through independence) and the past. The past is vital in the construction of national identities but is not simply there for discovery; it must be created by selecting appropriate facts, through what Swedenburg calls the 'active forgetting' of inconvenient data and the construction of more suitable narratives. For example, Ethiopian nationalism emphasizes common identity while ignoring the violence employed to suppress other groups, erase their local sense of selfhood, and impose a single

Exile, Memory, Identity

83

national identity upon them. In contrast, Eritrean and Oromo nationalists minimize commonalities and emphasize cultural differences between themselves and Ethiopians while downplaying internal divisions within their own nationalist movements. For example, most Eritreans in the diaspora supported independence, and even nonmembers expressed admiration for the EPLF, but some resentments rooted in the history of the nationalist struggle lingered. In particular, ELF supporters remained bitterly attached to the 1970s, when civil war split the nationalist movement; they interpreted the EPLF's emergence from and victory over the ELF as a betrayal, and expressed anger: 'I can't stand [EPLF]. I could kill them right now, if I wanted to. They couldn't stop me because I know how to fight them. I could take many of them. But I don't bother about it, forget it.' Some EPLF supporters angrily rejected ELF claims: 'Who are they to talk about betrayal? The ELF took some EPLF fighters and they made them walk a long way, all night. Then they killed them. They told them to dig and then they killed them and buried them. If they want to talk about betrayal they should talk about that.' These rivalries remained significant in diaspora, inspiring opposition from small ELF splinter groups in Sudan and dividing communities in North America. The EPLF became the dominant force in Eritrean politics, and EPLF supporters were more likely to say they hoped to heal earlier divisions. They emphasized continuity over conflict in the nationalist movement and claimed that they appreciated the ELF: 'They began the revolution, we should never forget their contribution. The fault was with the leadership but the fighters were very committed. We have to recognize them as heroes.' Active forgetting is part of the process of 'naturalized' memory making; it unifies all, regardless of varying 'refugee vintages' with their associated differences in politics, class, ethnicity, and gender. Imagining a New Territory - Naturalized 'Structures of Feeling'

Narratives of national identity shape the moral economies of diaspora. They prescribe appropriate thought and behaviour for individuals, and create structures of feeling. Diaspora is not a single, unified moral economy but a space in which different structures of feeling operate and often clash. Furthermore, the discordance Daniel (1996) notes between ways of being in and seeing the world is intensified by the experience of diaspora itself. The refugee experience undermines trust and creates a

84

Ghosts and Shadows

'radical disjunction between ... [one's] familiar way-of-being in the world and a new reality ... [that] forces one to see the world differently' (Daniel and Knudsen 1995: 1). Regardless of the actual legal status ascribed to them, many who fled Ethiopia did so in dangerous circumstances and consider themselves refugees. Their experiences of diaspora are characterized by discordances between groups and within individuals. Daniel and Knudsen suggest that the refugee experience is a cultural one because refugees - both as individuals and as collective survivors of horror - must confront fundamental problems of being and meaning; they also note that culture is not a fixed, essential entity but rather a process created through interaction and symbols as refugees construct understandings arid explanations. Essentially, this is a ghostly process, involving a complex and urgent return to the past: '[A key aspect of this] recovery of meaning, the making of culture, and the reestablishment of trust is the need and the freedom to construct a normative picture of one's past within which "who one was" can be securely established to the satisfaction of the refugee. The refugee's self-identity is anchored more to who she or he was than what she or he has become' (1995:5). Within the space of exile, distinct and opposing identities are maintained and linked with nationalism in the distant but remembered homeland. To understand this, we must listen to the accounts people give of their own and other communities, arid trace the various mythicohistories they use to situate themselves. As noted, a defining characteristic of diaspora is the powerful, haunting myth of return, which maintains that at some future time exiles will be able to repatriate themselves to that homeland from which they were expelled. This is an extremely robust notion. The first refugees left Eritrea in the 1960s, and at the end of the century some remained in exile, now joined by thousands of newly displaced people. The idea of return functioned as a central myth of these diaspora groups, providing an organizing principle for solidarity, community formation, arid political activity. Such myths are structured on particular experiences and readings of history that constitute the group as the subject of specific narrative versions of events. They also place the idea of the homeland in a particular framework. Exiles often remember the homeland as an idyllic place where tranquillity wa shattered by a ruthless enemy. The possession of territory is a central preoccupation of nationalism and is closely associated with the formation of cultural identity. Nevertheless, nationalists do not need to physically occupy the prized territory in order to regard it as a homeland. For

Exile, Memory, Identity

85

long-distance nationalists, remembered homelands can become both the goal and structured focus for emotional life and action. Constructed through symbols, images, dreams, and memories, the homeland is imagined as a sacred zone. This strong emotional and psychological attachment to the land is concentrated in certain key features of the natural landscape, which may be taken as determinants of a particular national character. In this way the creation of an appropriate sacred zone naturalizes a 'structure of feeling' beyond religion, ethnicity, gender, and class and conceals internal differences. The ideological significance of the homeland is articulated in expressions of the group's right to live there and to exclude others from occupying it; sometimes the homeland is actually said to have been exclusively assigned to the group by a supernatural being. If the homeland has been lost to another group, its beauties may be extolled in memories and regaining it may become the group's main goal. The right to possess the homeland is expressed in a variety of symbolic forms, including songs, poetry, paintings, and photographs. For example, during the war for independence, EPLF cultural troupes toured the diaspora performing nationalist songs that praised the Eritrean landscape and created feelings of nostalgia for and emotional attachment to the land. Audio and video tapes of these performances circulated widely, and many Eritrean homes we visited had collections of these. Eritrean and Oromo nationalist movements produced maps of the homeland and a variety of objects (jewellery, T-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, key-chains, pens, clocks, etc.) that either bore an outline of the homeland or were fashioned in the shape of its borders. Again, most homes we visited contained examples of these objects. These were not merely artifacts of nostalgia; as symbols of attachment and identity, they also expressed a determination to create the object represented, to bring the homeland out of the shadows and into being as an independent state. Julie Peteet notes how Palestinian refugees make similar use of representations of Palestine. She embraces Daniel's distinction between the ontic and the epistemic: she links the ontic with 'place' and stresses the importance of identity and emotional attachment, while seeing the epistemic as linked to an idea of territory. However, she cautions against overemphasizing the juxtaposition between ontic and epistemic space: The achievement of a generalized sense of trust is sought in the geopolitical reality of a Palestine where relations of power do not cast them as the 'other.' In this configuration, space as an epistemic unit is not to be

86

Ghosts and Shadows

overly juxtaposed to place as an ontic unit, for ... place in the ontic sense ... is ensured by control over the definition and identity of space ... This definition and assertion of space, expressed through its incorporation into domestic and personal items of adornment, gives cultural meaning and visibility to the conflation of space and place, the epistemic and the ontic. (1995: 171) Ideas about space and place, about land, are linked to images of the peasantry. As Swedenburg notes in his discussion of Palestinian nationalism, although peasants are seen as backward and in need of guidance by a vanguard or elite group, they are also romanticized as symbols for the whole population. Palestinian nationalists created an 'ideology of timeless rural tradition to confront the drastic ruptures and fragmentation of Palestinian society caused by colonialism' (1995: 23). In the same way, nationalist movements opposing the Ethiopian government emphasized the role of the peasantry and had prolonged association with the rural population. Most Ethiopian exiles in North America came from urban backgrounds, and those from elite families were very well educated and cosmopolitan. Nevertheless, many had close and recent links to rural areas, and nationalist groups who appealed to the diaspora population for support emphasized images of rural life and the peasantry in their narrative constructions of identity and history. For example, on North American tours EPLF cultural troupes combined folkloric dances with political songs and skits and direct appeals for support, often emphasizing a style of rural humour and wisdom that was associated with the spirit of nationalism itself. Similarly, in May 1998, during the Eritrean independence festivities, we watched one performance at the stadium in Asmara that delivered its political message by conflating traditional rural values and the selflessness of the nationalist cause and contrasting these to what was presented as the vacuous decadence of the North American hip-hop culture, which was currently fashionable among urban teenagers in Eritrea. In a similar fashion, the OLF's discursive practices deployed images of Oromia as a beautiful, productive land; and emphasized the rooteclness of traditions such as the gada system, as if to suggest that it had operated throughout this imagined space virtually as a primordial and natural law. In this way land and culture were linked indissolubly. Oromo nationalist discourse presents the Abyssinian occupation as both a defilement of the land and a displacement of its appropriate cultural system, and declares that an independent Oromo state would restore

Exile, Memory, Identity

87

natural order; as Balibar and Wallerstein (1991) suggest, nationalism typically interprets itself as destiny. Thus the homeland is idealized, and certain traditions are commemorated as markers of essence; and particular versions of history become associated with the formation of the homeland and with the circumstances of departure and flight. Among diaspora communities, these images are incorporated as 'myths we live by' (Samuel and Thompson 1990). These mythologies are shaped in part by individual histories. Those who left voluntarily to seek better opportunities have a different memory of their homeland than those who fled to save their lives. In this respect, political affiliations and relations with the government of the country of origin continue to shape the experience of exile as refugees support dissident movements from abroad. Such narratives assume especially complex forms among populations whose imagined homeland does not exist as an internationally recognized state, such as Kurds and Tamils, or where the nature of the state is contested by factions of diaspora populations. Some may find it necessary to carve out the territorial space for their homeland from some other entity. Within the diaspora from the Ethiopian state, home is multiply and variously imagined; it is an overlapping and contradictory space with various names and is beset by rival claims. These imagined homelands are mutually exclusive, and this has important implications for identity: an independent Eritrea or Oromia necessarily violates the national space imagined by Ethiopian nationalists, who can only experience such entities as amputations. In these situations, significant divisions can exist between the forms of identity ascribed to diaspora populations and the forms of identity they adopt themselves. Daniel and Knudsen (1995) suggest that while the key feature of the refugee's self-identity is 'who one was,' agents of various institutions in the host society work against this, seeking to treat all refugees 'the same.' This is not always true: on .4 May 1999, CBC news televised Kosovo refugees being greeted at a Canadian airport by government officials, a team of trauma counsellors, and a truckload of teddy bears for the children. Certainly, no African refugees ever received such a welcome; in fact, many African refugees remembered being dismissed as 'second-class' by settlement workers. However, the point is valid to the extent that refugees' own aspirations often clash with the expectations of institutional agents. Observing the resistance to this process enables us to consider the fundamentals of how nationalistic feelings - a naturalized 'structure of feeling' - are created, of how a

88

Ghosts and Shadows

community is imagined and its traditions are invented so as to appeal to all, regardless of structural differences. Ghostly Demands

The sense of uprooting and dislocation that typifies exile is reflected in accounts by informants, who described feeling in a state of limbo: life to them seemed unreal and 'on hold.' Many said that a sense of unreality and dislocation pervaded the exile population. Some said this feeling dominated their first days in Canada: 'I was just dropped off in the middle of this. I didn't know where I was going or what I was doing. I just walked around and I didn't talk to anybody. Sometimes I didn't talk to anybody for days.' Others believed that detachment from the present characterized the entire diaspora. This eerie sense of an unreal present and a seething past constitutes a haunting. The dead were riot absent from these haunted spaces: murdered families, nationalist martyrs, and long-dead emperors also inhabited the diaspora. They exerted a ghostly influence on the living, making demands on them for proper moral behaviour. Those who died for Ethiopia, and those who were its victims, all demanded commitments from the living: to take up their tasks, to avenge them, not to give in, not to forget. These ghostly demands helped create the moral order of diaspora. Understandably, preoccupation with family and friends left behind in desperate circumstances may make one's own present experiences seem inconsequential, and some informants felt guilty that they had escaped to safety and left others behind to face an uncertain future. Many studies on survivors of atrocities report such feelings of guilt and self-recrimination. We heard some exiles denigrate themselves for fleeing abroad rather than staying to fight; as one exile commented: 'We're all cowards here, let's admit it.' Another man expressed a mixture of self-abnegation and paralysis: 'We ran away because we love ourselves, so we shouldn't criticize what goes on at home. We have a comfortable life here, why make trouble at home?' Given the circumstances of their flight and the prolonged uncertainty about the fate of their family and friends, it would not be surprising to encounter signs of psychological disturbance among these exiles. In fact, preliminary results of a study on the mental health of Ethiopians in Toronto revealed that the percentage of Ethiopians who experienced depression is greater than among people in Ontario as a whole (per-

Exile, Memory, Identity

89

sonal communication with I. Hyman 2000). What is perhaps more surprising is their resilience and the fact that, over years of close association, we did not encounter more people who were visibly traumatized by their experiences (although a few women described an inescapable sense of loneliness and depression). Nevertheless, anecdotal reports indicate some anxiety. For example, a physician who treats many patients from the Horn reported a high incidence of stress-related illnesses such as stomach ulcers. Another informant, working for a settlement agency, said that psychological problems were common among this population. In particular, he found that young single men were subject to depression and that isolation worsened their distress. We did meet a few individuals who seemed to present possible mental health problems. One man, for example, displayed unusual repetitive behaviour; others explained this as a reaction to seeing his family killed and to worries about other relatives who had scattered and disappeared. Another man, recently arrived in Toronto and living in a rooming house with refugees from other countries, exhibited extremely agitated behaviour. He described himself as completely isolated and expressed an urgent desire to leave Canada immediately. Both these men were encouraged to take part in community activities. After the second man moved in with other people from his country and established some social contacts, he became calm and relaxed - a remarkable transformation. In other words, community support was helpful. We may say that to reckon with a ghost alone is no easy matter: 'The ghostly matter will not go away. It is waiting for you and it will shadow you and it will outwit all your smart moves as that jungle grows thicker and deeper. Until you too stage a shared word, a something to be done in time and for another worlding' (Gordon 1997: 190). However, while integration into a community ('a shared word ... another worlding') provided psychological support to some people and helped them deal with ghosts that would not go away, others with more serious emotional and psychological difficulties may remain isolated and unknown to the community. Exile, Doubled Consciousness, and the Uncanny

Exiles talked about the dreamlike conditions of diaspora and their feelings of detachment from life in Canada; some believed that these feelings characterized the diaspora population as a whole. Such feelings reflect the material circumstances of forced separation from family and

90

Ghosts and Shadows

friends and suggest a form of displaced consciousness. In The Souls of Black Folks, W.E.B. DuBois (1989) used the concept of double-consciousness to describe the existential difficulties of black Americans, who are torn between those two linked but conflicting identities. Even more complex forms of such a double-consciousness were created among exiles from Ethiopia. Besides being fragmented by opposing ethnic and national identities, cast as shadows by conflict in the Horn, at least some exiles came to see themselves as belonging neither to their homeland nor to their host country. This liminal position is at once liberating and dangerous. It offers possibilities of critical consciousness created by the 'collision of cultures and histories' (Mercer 1994: 63). But exile also can intensify the fundamental existential threat, the potential for mutual cancellation, that Daniel (1996) describes as central to the clash of Sinhala and Tamil identities. For exiles, the state of mind that Daniel refers to as narcissistic and infantile self-regard is threatened not only by nationalist enemies but also by a new context that dismisses these most urgent of all matters as utterly irrelevant (i.e., 'where's Eritrea?'). Exiles are forced to negotiate multiple realities: they must deal with a past that has been sheared away yet that exerts a ghostly and sometimes dominating presence; at the same time, they must learn to conduct themselves in a new society that seems cold, artificial, and unreal, and from which many feel detached, yet that exerts immediate demands, not only in terms of daily survival but also in its calls for them to accept new forms of identity ascription. No wonder, then, that exile is experienced as uncanny. Freud (1985) suggested that uncanny experiences occur through the return of the repressed (when repressed infantile complexes are revived by some impression, or when primitive beliefs thought to have been surpassed reoccur and call material reality into question). Exiles experience a longing for return to the place of origin, a return that promises the restoration of order and identity; Home is the place of identity, but that home is always vanishing into a haze, threatened by political struggles to define different identities; and all the while, exiles are separated from that home by physical distance. Freud discussed how the uncanny is centred on notions of home, and involves fluctuations of the terrifying and the familiar, expressed in the German word unlieimlich (unhomelike). The return of the repressed brings something strange and frightening into the home, but as Freud noted in his etymological discussion, the heimlich and the unheimlich involve an ambiguous crossover of that which is familiar and that which must be kept hidden within the home. The uncanny, then, emerges

Exile, Memory, Identity

91

when something that should have been kept secret and concealed comes to light. Nationalism is an attempt to create a home; but in the case of the Ethiopian empire, this is based on the repression of other identities. As the empire disintegrated, Ethiopian exiles witnessed the uncanny return of those repressed identities in dissident nationalist movements, and were horrified as these spectres threatened to tear apart Ethiopia's haunted house. Even a Joke Can Kill You

The uncanny character of this double-consciousness also derives from the remembered, relived terror linked to individual, lived experience in a culture of fear. This term is applied in the Latin American context to American-backed military dictatorships, often described as 'authoritarian' although the term 'fascist' is more appropriate (see, for example, Corradi, Fagen, and Garreton 1992). In their efforts to install 'order,' these regimes used violence and torture to destroy any person or group perceived as a threat to the interests of local elites and foreign corporations, as well as to spread fear and insecurity among the population in order to undermine thoughts of resistance. In her ethnography of war zones in Mozambique, anthropologist Carolyn Nordstrom explores similar cultural creations; she describes how war encompasses more than battles and physical survival; it also permeates the entire context of being: I don't know if anyone really knows war until it lives inside of them. A person can come in and see the war, fear the war, be scared of the violence - but their life, their very being, is not determined by the war. This is my country, the country of my parents, my family, my friends, my future. And the war has gotten into all of these. I know everyone has suffered a loss in this war: a family member killed, a loved one captured and never heard of again. But it goes much deeper than this, to the very heart of the country, to my very heart. (Nordstrom 1997: 7)

War acquired this same pervasiveness during Eritrea's thirty-year struggle for independence: it went to the very heart of life. Indeed, as competing nationalisms emphasized conflicting themes (i.e., to create an independent nation, or to embrace a glorious past) to provide meaning to contemporary life, war became the basis of existence. War placed severe constraints on life in Eritrea. In Ethiopian-controlled cities and towns, people lived directly under the gun, under a black cloud of sur-

92

Ghosts and Shadows

veillance, general curfews, and random killings. In EPLF-controlled areas, a nocturnal society developed because all activity had to be conducted during darkness to avoid aerial bombardment. Those living under military occupation in Eritrea or under the Derg's repressive rule in Ethiopia experienced a culture of fear. In such cultures, state terror transforms society, penetrating every aspect of existence: a sniper's bullet is fired at random into an apartment building, someone pounds on the door at night, vulnerability pervades every minute of life: The Ethi opians did what they wanted. If a soldier wanted any woman, he could just take her. If you refuse, they can just shoot you.' Occupation transformed daily life into an ordeal: 'During the Derg time, the soldiers stayed here. They watched us all the time. When we went out they told us, "We know you are with the shabia [EPLF fighters], tomorrow we will put you in prison."' In Addis Ababa, the streets were transformed into scenes of horror: 'We saw bodies every day. When you opened the door, when you went to work, you would see bodies piled up just like that. Sometimes they hung them from the lamps so everybody would see them.' Fear permeated everyday life: suspected opponents of the government could easily disappear, arid the possibility of forced conscription transformed every public space into a danger zone. War and terror do not simply end when the shooting stops or when a regime is replaced; they have a ghostly afterlife that spreads through time and space. Terror had its afterlife even in the safety of Canada, as a young Eritrean man indicated: 'They took me right off the street and put me in prison. Then they tortured me. You never forget it. Even today, when I'm walking, if a car drives up too close behind me I get scared. You know it's safe but you still feel nervous.' Terror's afterlife was described by a Tigrayan community leader in Toronto, who said that war and terror in Tigray in the- 1980s had made psychological problems 'very common' among Tigrayans in Canada: People in Tigray suffered a lot ... People have been tortured, so many things. People are afraid. Here they are still afraid. I try to tell them Canada is a free country, the police will not bother you, but they are still afraid. If they see a policeman they turn their face away or they will even run away. One person had to go to the hospital, he had malaria or something and the doctor gave him some tablets. He had them wrapped in paper and he went to a restaurant and asked for some water to take his

Exile, Memory, Identity

93

tablets. Some people were looking at him and he was afraid they thought he was using drugs so he ran away. He didn't even finish his treatment.

These anecdoes illustrate the ghostly power of state terror, and indicate how repression casts its shadows across the diaspora, permeating time and space. Although she is discussing Argentina, Gordon's (1997: 127) description of state terror - especially the special significance of 'disappearances' (in reality, kidnapping, torture and murder of civilians by the military) - also applies to the Horn: The desaparecido always bears the ghost of the state whose very power is the defining force of the field of disappearance. The torture, the agony, the terror, the difficult-to-put-into-words experience of being disappeared: the disappeared sustain and convey the traces of the state's power to determine the meaning of life and death. The state creates an identity that remains to haunt those marked by its hand and all the others to whom that hand is extended.

Under the Derg, fear pervaded Ethiopia. Yet the haunted identity created by the state's hand was not simply that of the broken survivor. Despite its pervasiveness, state terror was never able to entirely eradicate opposition. Instead, war and repression created a culture of resistance; and later, both the war and this culture of resistance permeated the diaspora, generating new identities. Fear made many 'become political' reluctantly: Eritreans who had considered themselves Ethiopians said they developed nationalistic feelings after experiencing suspicion, surveillance, and persecution following the EPLF military victories of the late 1980s. In Ethiopian cities, neighbours were told to watch them and to report suspicious activity; Eritreans could be denounced as spies, have their property confiscated, and be shot on the spot. ('That was a very dangerous situation. Suppose your neighbour doesn't like you or he wants something you have, he can say you're with the EPLF. Then you could have serious problems.') The threatening presence of soldiers and spies created constant uncertainty and wariness: Tn Asmara it was very dangerous. You can't relax, you always have to watch out and think about every word you say. Every moment, anything you say, even if it's joke, something can become very serious ... even a joke can kill you. It makes you very tired to live like that.'

94

Ghosts and Shadows

Just Like a Dream

The pervasiveness of war, military occupation, and repression, the terrifying experience of flight, and an overwhelming preoccupation with politics in the Horn led some to characterize the entire diaspora population as ontologically displaced - as a haunted population living a life of ghosts and shadows: 'You see these people here but really they're walking around on the streets of Asmara. That's where they live. This is just like a dream to them.' Longing for home, exiles inhabited invisible cities: 'cities constructed in ideology, in memory ... cities that become the focal points of certain communities in a particular location' (Carter 1997: 22). For Eritreans, Asmara was imagined as the most beautiful of cities, the symbol of interrupted lives left behind and of aspirations for independence. For Ethiopians, Addis Ababa was remembered as the site of the Red Terror. We heard strikingly similar descriptions of a population haunted by a past that was not over: 'They are physically here but mentally still in Ethiopia. People are motivated by events there. That's what affects peoples' lives and relationships here.' Another informant explained why a woman who was experiencing great difficulty in Canada refused to have her children join her: 'She doesn't want them to come because she feels that this isn't real life here.' Some believed that this dreamlike state, with its doubled, displaced consciousness, was based on continuing attachment to the political struggles of the late 1960s and 1970s, as if the diaspora were caught in time past. One Ethiopian, a former antigovernmerit guerrilla now disillusioned with politics, considered the situation as an impasse: 'People here are still involved in politics, they distribute the same papers as years ago.' He characterized the diaspora as frozen in time, obsessed with pas events and organizations, fighting old battles that had become irrelevant. Another Ethiopian described this same impasse, and discussed its paralyzing effects: Many people were politically active at home. Politics seized that whole generation ... They retain this sense of campus radicalism. For them, reality is in the Horn of Africa, not here. They are still caught up in the idea of revolution and transforming their country. You can say this is a case of arrested development, they are still at this stage of student politics. They're not interested in what's happening here so they can't adjust well. So this is

Exile, Memory, Identity

95

why people will take any kind of job, as a parking lot attendant or a taxi driver. This is all temporary, they are so interested in politics in Ethiopia, they are just waiting to go back so they will do anything here.

Some described a population lost in time, pointlessly batding ghosts and shadows; others reflected on the progress they were making in resolving the ambiguities of life in exile. In Ottawa, one Eritrean looked back on his involvement with long-distance nationalism as a series of realizations in his journey toward resolving the contradictions of doubleconsciousness: In Italy, we were afraid to even mention politics but the EPLF opened an office to discuss the situation at home. We knew we had to go to the library to study about our situation. I became an EPLF member in 1976. The discussions in Italy were too theoretical. We thought we were leading the revolution but the revolution wasn't in Italy, it was in Eritrea. Our whole identity was linked to the revolution. We didn't study anything else, just politics. We were kids, we didn't understand. In Italy, talking politics was an addiction, it was like a sickness, all your energy was drained. I started drinking in my thirties. It was like death in life. The EPLF taught us what politics really means, I got stronger because of political involvement. I regret not going to the field. I felt I was there. They make you feel like you are in the field, comrades. At one of the meetings, a fighter came from the field and I called him 'Comrade.' He just smiled sarcastically. We were told we were the same but we weren't. We were observers, we weren't really involved. You know what the fighters think: 'We did the work. You can eat hamburgers and sleep in a soft bed.' They brought us freedom. We thought freedom would be material things but freedom solved our identity problem. The insecurity was solved, now we can grasp the opportunity. The fighters didn't get anything. Psychologically, spiritually, I got something. Now I don't push EPLF as hard, it's not as important to talk, to hurt people. Now we have to take care of people outside too. We should also help Eritrea. But we are here.

This extract reveals a persistent ambiguity of this haunting: identification with the homeland and the tegadelti (EPLF fighters), along with ambivalence about one's role as an exile. Exiles endured a poignant longing for their homeland and worried constandy about family members; they also felt compelled to contribute to nationalism and to alleviate the hardships of those left behind. As well, the dead continued to

96

Ghosts and Shadows

speak to the living. As martyrs, they generated a strong sense of commitment within the diaspora and demanded that exiles involve themselves in political and relief activities in the Horn: 'We have to do our part. There are so many that gave their lives.' Many of those who identified with the tegadelti described feeling guilty for not participating directly in the armed struggle. Many worked constantly to support the nationalist movement in other ways, placing considerable strain on themselves, physical, psychological, arid financial. For Eritreans, the war's end in 1991 and national independence in 1993 brought a sense of closure and resolution, although that brief respite was smashed in 1998, when a new war with Ethiopia broke out. It was not only Eritreans in diaspora who inhabited haunted political spaces. The imagining of an Eritrean homeland also shaped exile for Ethiopian nationalists, whose own identity depended on denying any possibility of its existence. Just before the referendum, one Eritrean described Ethiopians' refusal to accept the reality of an independent Eritrea: Ethiopians living abroad are living far from reality. They won't accept what everybody else has accepted, that Eritrea will be free. Ethiopians in Canada don't accept that but it doesn't make any difference because they have nothing to do with the country. Ethiopians in Toronto had a demonstration last week, they went to Queen's Park [the provincial government building]. Why? This has nothing to do with Queen's Park, they should have come to Ottawa if they are so concerned but they couldn't get organized. I don't know how people can do such things. At first, I agreed with some people here: they said if Ethiopians knew what was happening in Eritrea they would support us. Not in Ethiopia because it's impossible there, you'd just be killed. But here in Canada, some people themselves left because they opposed the government. But if we give them books or videos they just say it's propaganda. They're totally closed to any kind of discussion. For them, Eritrea has to be part of Ethiopia and that's it. I was really surprised. Now I think it must be something about them. How can a normal person see such things and say that the war should continue? They don't care about the people in Eritrea, they even say that directly: 'We want the land, not the people.' So now I think that even though you see some movement, even from the Americans, the Ethiopians will never change. They think that even if Eritrea becomes independent, 'We have air superiority so we can bomb them.' That's why the EPLF stopped after Massawa. They knew that if they took Asmara, the Ethiopians would destroy it. Everything for them is just

Exile, Memory, Identity

97

power. They just believe one way and that's it. On Eritrea, they are totally closed. This total closure echoes what Daniel (1997: 68) perceived in Sri Lankan violence: 'narcissistic self-regard' blocking any recognition of the other's identity. Daniel suggests that the horror of violence can shock people into such a recognition and lead to a more evolved understanding: The transcendence of narcissistic particularity, along with its corollary, the emergence of a universal/communal being, is the mark of becoming truly human.' Renewed warfare in 1998 demonstrated that such understanding is yet to arise in the Horn or its diaspora. Political Commitments and Long-Distance Nationalism Some individuals carried the politics of the Horn into diaspora; others developed a strong commitment only after leaving their homeland. This includes those who were children when they left the region; as well as those whose views changed over time, leading them to embrace a different political position and identity (almost always from Ethiopian to Eritrean or Oromo). Some described this as an awakening or revelation, as the development of a more realistic consciousness. Others, such as one Ethiopian informant in 1989, saw it as an obsession with dangerous phantoms: Some people didn't have this ethnic identity until they came to Canada. When they encounter the organizations like the Eritreans and the Oromos then they want to become involved in those organizations. They start to identify themselves on the basis of ethnicity. They weren't actively involved before. They could have joined the liberation fronts but instead they chose to come here. Now they act as if they're so political. Also, they have veryrigid views. They're very conservative, they don't want to compromise or work together. If those groups worked together, they could defeat the Derg right now but they won't forget their differences to defeat their common enemy so the war goes on. They're not willing to put their differences aside even temporarily. They're locked into the same positions as years ago, they're still obsessed with old grudges. This is not just between the Eritreans and the Ethiopians but also among the Eritreans you have the ELF and the EPLF ... In 1998 another man criticized what he regarded as the insincere

98

Ghosts and Shadows

commitment of long-distance nationalists: 'The Oromos missed a golden opportunity to be part of the government and improve conditions in Ethiopia for Oromos. If they want independence they should get a Kalashnikov or collect money here to buy them. They're very cheap now. Nobody's going to do it for them. If they're just going to stay in North America and talk about it, they're on vacation.' Across Canada, Eritreans in particular committed themselves to assisting the nationalist movement. Most were EPLF supporters; some were not but said they simply wanted to ensure a better life for those left behind. These commitments devoured time that others devoted to work, study, and family, and some activists suffered health problems through overwork and stress. Informants from various ethnic backgrounds saw Eritrean communities as highly politicized. For some Eritreans this commitment overshadowed any efforts to adapt to Canadian society. Some described the Eritrean diaspora as entirely focussed on the commitment to nationalism. Political allegiances did much to determine how life was conducted in the diaspora. For committed activists, ethnic and national identities shaped life in Canada, with political commitments determining the boundaries of significant social spheres. Although no diaspora community is a sealed world and people interact with others outside their group on a daily basis, these contacts are often superficial. Some activists considered them insignificant, and perceived the real and vital activities of social life as taking place within their groups and as linked to nationalist politics. For many, these were the only contacts that mattered. Some believed this created limited systems of information about life in Canada, and restricted exiles' opportunities: 'People here just sit and talk. Basically it's the same thing all the time. They're wasting their time here. But for them it's a comfort zone.' During war, many Eritreans devoted themselves to community associations and political groups. This brought no financial rewards; quite the opposite - most contributedfinanciallyto these organizations while supporting relatives who remained in Eritrea or who were stranded elsewhere without any means of livelihood. Some activists who had advanced educational and professional qualifications, and who were fluent in English and familiar with Western culture, could have sought material success in Canada (with the men among them thus fulfilling gender expectations). Instead, they ignored opportunities for personal advancement and undertook a rigorous schedule of unpaid work for nationalist organizations; to make immediate cash, much of which went to needy relatives, they drove taxis or worked other low-rung jobs.

Exile, Memory, Identity

99

Clearly, employment in menial jobs was not simply a matter of choice; it was also affected by broad economic processes, the criteria imposed by professional organizations, and institutional racism. That being said, many men and women felt that their obligations to nationalist movements outweighed personal gain. Among the Eritrean diaspora, support for nationalism and the revolutionary ideals of the tegadelti, the EPLF soldiers, exerted a strong influence and provided moral guidance: We built Eritrea together. We must have this philosophy to work together, not just every person working for himself. There is a social responsibility for mutual aid. There is my son and there is someone else whose son has died - I have to think about that. I can't just look out for my own son, I have to look out for the sons of others. You must be equal or you're not Eritrean. You have to remember those who died. Eritrea doesn't have to copy other systems. In Canada there are some socialized systems but in the U.S. there is no dignity, no sense of responsibility. We have to live spiritually in Eritrea. Canadians don't know the history of the war. They think it was just butchery. But they should know the reasons for it. You mustn't see the war as just a battle. People had active lives, a philosophy. When the Eritreans captured Ethiopians they weren't targets, they didn't kill them. Ethiopians are our brothers. The goal was not to kill people but to change things. Now we should have co-operation, peace, and life in harmony with Ethiopia. We should see the combatants as a creative force, not just going out to kill someone. They brought literacy to the people. They got nine ethnic groups together. It wasn'tjust a war for independence but an innovative war. I don't like to say war, I prefer to say revolution. People had the feeling to contribute to the revolution. It was better to contribute to the Front than to go and have a vacation in Florida. It is important to change something. The Ethiopians massacred our people but we let them go. We must eliminate the things that are negative in human beings. Our past is a school for change, a school for unity and peace. We can innovate everything. People may become more interested in material gains and comfort from living in North America. They should realize that these things are not so important as the ideals of the revolution. We should continue the egalitarian aspects of the fighters rather than becoming so individualistic. When we think of the struggle we shouldn't be depressed and cry about those who died. We should see that they are heroes. They gave their lives so that things could change. That is what is important: to change everything and improve peoples' lives.

100

Ghosts and Shadows

In the Eritrean diaspora, the tegadelti provided a model of commitment and purpose; those killed in battle were described as martyrs for the cause of nationalism. The culture of EPLF fighters in 'the field' (the mieda culture), with its ethos of self-reliance, co-operation and selfless sacrifice, formed the idealized basis of a moral economy: a system of nationalist commitments and obligations consisting of both formal obligations to institutionalized 'mass organizations' and unspoken expectations about personal behaviour. Emulating mieda culture in diaspora was not an easy task: Our community is so bad, everyone is just arguing. There is a tendency to see who is talking, not to hear what he's saying. We just see things in terms of peoples' affiliations. People think, 'Oh, he says that because he's part of this group or that group.' There are other problems as well. You have to be modest so that you're not seen as bragging. You don't talk about yourself highly in our culture. People read things into your motives, they're not eager to say what they really feel, they only say things that they think people will accept. We set up a professional organization and at first there was a lot of enthusiasm. People were going to go into the community. But everyone gave up because others would belittle them. If you try to help someone, they may say, 'What do you know?' They try to keep you down. It always becomes identified with personality and politics. Some people identified only with politics. And some people will just sit back and let one person do the work. That's true, too. Either they think he is going to get something out of it and benefit in some way or they say, 'He must be a fool to do all that work. Let him go ahead.'

As these comments indicate, the values of the tegadelti. and of mieda culture clashed with individualism and ingrained cultural expectations. Attitudes toward mieda culture presented contradictions. That culture was an ideal but also a reproach: being a 'good' Eritrean meant expressing solidarity for the EPLF fighters, but in exile one could not live up to their standard. Activism requires sacrifices, but it also offers rewards, such as social status and satisfaction for one's contributions. For some, political and social activities were linked; nationalist organizations provided a context of shared meanings, as well as contact with others of a similar background, which was reassuring for those who had to adjust to life in a new society. These social functions should not be underestimated: those informants who said they had no sense of nationalist commitment also

Exile, Memory, Identity

101

said they lacked close friends in the community. Thus, the politics of long-distance nationalism both united people and divided them. Religion and Politics Long-distance nationalism overshadows diaspora communities and reproduces internal fissures. For example, Eritrea contains various ethnic groups, and political differences at times split the nationalist movement (although the EPLF sought to create a sense of national identity that would overcome such differences). Not all Eritrean groups are represented in Canada, where the diaspora consists largely of urban, Christian, Tigrinya speakers. The major division within the diaspora is not 'ethnic' but 'political,' between ELF and EPLF supporters, although divisions exist along ethnic, religious, and regional lines as well. For example, in June 2000 the Afar Center of Toronto issued a press release in which it charged the EPLF with conducting massacres of this Muslim ethnic population, rejected inclusion in Eritrea, and opposed a ceasefire and a peacekeeping force. Eritreans made deliberate efforts to overcome political and religious differences, although not always successfully. In Winnipeg, communit leaders noted that social events were being scheduled for Christian holidays but not for Islamic ones, and tried to rectify this by scheduling an Eid celebration. However, problems arose. Anticipating complaints from non-Muslims, organizers decided to serve alcohol, but only later in the evening. The compromise was unsuccessful. Most non-Muslims arrived very late, which some Muslims considered a sign of disrespect. Furthermore, some felt that alcohol should not have been served at all. In Calgary, some informants described religious differences: 'There is an anti-Muslim feeling among Eritreans here. There's no respect. Some people moved away because of that.' Religious and political differences sometimes overlapped: Eritreans should help each other in Canada. Life would be better for everyone. But political and religious problems make life harder. People only meet in small groups, not large groups. Some people avoid the Eritrean community altogether. They become Canadian. They don't even say 'hi' on the street ... Other groups succeed here because they have a strong community ... We need to create a nonreligious, nonpolitical organization that's open to everybody. Here there was a youth association but the EPLF tried to change the aim. They tried to connect it to the EPLF

102

Ghosts and Shadows

youth organization in Eritrea. They wanted a constitution based on EPLF rules. I don't understand politics, we have to solve problems here ... I'm happy for peace in Eritrea but we should be able to criticize EPLF. Here anyone who criticizes EPLF is taken as a traitor. You can't comment on EPLF or you're taken as an enemy. For example, there's some feeling that Christians are ruling the Muslims in Eritrea. There's a misunderstanding of Muslims. You are seen as being Arabs, rejecting identity. Those of a Christian background also had complaints: I don't say anything bad about Muslims. I don't want them to get hurt but they are happy if a Christian gets hurt. One of the Muslim Brothers came in here a couple of months ago. He said Mubarek, Melles, and Issayas would be killed, that Issayas only has a few thousand soldiers and they're all crippled. This is insensitive to those whose brothers were disabled in the war. Actually, that person drinks, so that's why he talks so much about religion. I don't care about religion, I only go to church with my mother. In general, however, religions divisions did not significantly shape long-distance nationalism. For example, as Eritreans prepared for the referendum on independence, representatives of an exiled Islamic fundamentalist group backed by Sudan and Saudi Arabia toured North America to seek support for opposition to the PFDJ government. However, they attracted little interest and were dismissed as opportunists: 'Some groups try to exploit differences. The Jihad group came to Calgary. They didn't stay with friends, they rented expensive rooms at the Westin Hotel. They're not raising money to help people but to enjoy themselves.' Because ethnic, religious, and political divisons divided the nationalist movement in the past, few Eritreans wanted to discuss such differences, especially during the 1980s when they felt obligated to promote a sense of unified commitment: 'It is a kind of taboo to talk about that. Not really a taboo but people are very uncomfortable if you ask about that. They will talk to you because they know you but they don't like it.' This reluctance to expose the divisions and hostilities within Eritrean nationalism is an example of the 'active forgetting' that Swedenburg (1995) described in his writings about political struggles in Palestine. In certain circumstances, people attempt to push away ghosts and ignore the shadows cast upon them; yet these ghosts and shadows linger on. After independence, Eritreans were more willing to discuss their differ-

Exile, Memory, Identity

103

ences, and Internet discussion groups such as Dehai held extensive debates about the effects of religious and linguistic diversity on national identity. Thus cultural and political differences between these groups contribute to the internal boundaries that separate them from one another; other pressures are externally generated and influence how broader boundaries are delineated. Apolitical Views

Although struggles in the Horn haunt diaspora communities, not everyone we interviewed was involved politically, and many emphasized that they were apolitical. For example, although most Eritreans endorsed independence, some supported neither the EPLF nor any of the ELF factions; others were born in Ethiopia or had lived there and expressed sympathy for Ethiopian points of view. In all groups, there were some who were apolitical but who attended meetings in order to continue to be accepted by more committed exiles. Others were openly critical, tired of conflict, and preoccupied with settling down in Canada. They expressed frustration about attachments to struggles that were distant in space and time: 'There are so many conferences. Always, people are talking. I don't think it will change. You know the way Ethiopians are. No one will listen to anyone else. So, we will always be fighting. I'd like it to stop but I don't think we will see that very soon.' Others were exasperated and disillusioned with nationalism and forcefully rejected political commitments: People have been fighting for so long. Nobody will change, I tell you. All of them want to have their own way and they are all the same. Do you think TPLF is democratic? They are just like the Derg. All the liheration movements are the same, everybody wants power. Instead of working together, each one says, 'I want to go, I want to be independent.' We should all get together and help the people. I think nobody will like what I'm telling you but this is the truth. Let them say whatever they want.

Members of the small Falasha (Ethiopian Jewish) community in Montreal also expressed this: 'We are tired of politics. We just want to get on with our lives.' The Falashas we interviewed stressed their complete detachment from other Ethiopians, emphasized their apolitical position, and stated their intention to immigrate to Israel. Like others, they were critical of the Mengistu regime then in power; but unlike those

104

Ghosts and Shadows

others, they expressed neither a sense of attachment to their former homeland nor any desire to return after the government changed. We also interviewed individuals who emphasized that they were 'not political' but whose detailed and vehement remarks revealed that they held strong political views. Many described Ethiopian society as shadowy and secretive in nature; Levine shaped his Wax and Gold (1965) around the indirect and metaphorical character of Amhara speech. However, such secrecy may be practical; concealing one's views became a matter of survival under the Derg, as one young Eritrean described: 'When I lived in Addis Ababa, I hung around with many Ethiopians. After work, you go out, you go to their houses. You have to drink with them, it's expected. But no matter how much you drink you have to be careful. Because you're Eritrean, they always watch you. You always have to be careful what you say, you have to keep in control of yourself no matter how much you drink.' Some of the people we interviewed felt it necessary to conceal their political opinions, either because they were suspicious of our motives or because they wished to create the impression that they were completely impartial. One Ethiopian informant in Toronto stressed that he held no political views (and that, therefore, his assessments of events in the Horn and in the diaspora were objective ones); yet three days after our interview we listened to him make a keynote address at an Ottawa meeting of exiled Ethiopian groups organized to protest Eritrean independence and to form a new coalition to 'save the motherland' from dismemberment. Evidently, some who asserted their neutrality felt that insistence on 'keeping Ethiopia together' did riot constitute a political position. Of course, the notion that support for established relations of power constitutes an impartial stance is not unique to Ethiopian nationalists. Generations Diasporas are also divided along generational lines. Some in the diaspora see themselves as a generation caught between different forms of identity: 'The big problem is the generation gap. The kids don't have any memory of Ethiopia. They are Canadian. To them, it's nothing. They don't speak the same language. Sometimes parents can't even talk to their own children. The parents are locked into the past, they want the kids to be the same but they aren't.' Many assume that immigrants, haunted by memories, will maintain strong attachments to the homeland and that succeeding generations

Exile, Memory, Identity

105

will progressively abandon these. Yet it is also common for a process of ethnic rediscovery to appear in later generations as younger people trace shadows from their parents' homeland to confront their 'roots.' Rediscovery often entails learning languages spoken in the immigrant generation's country of origin; adopting cultural traditions such as preparing and ritually consuming special foods; and cultivating friends within the group. The rediscovery of tradition is a gendered process, in that reconstructing a 'culture' may revive oppressive views and practices toward women (Yuval-Davis 1997). Also significant is the desire to visit or help the immigrant generation's country of origin as a means of reconnecting with one's 'roots.' Although the structures of feeling of the two generations are not the same, shadows of the 'homeland' unite them.' Diaspora nationalism encourages a commitment to the homeland (which is sometimes never visited and thus is doubly imagined). Children born in diaspora have been socialized to think of Eritrea or Ethiopia as their 'real' home, the source of their unique identity. In this case, the imagining of a community requires extensive conjuring, to conceptualize not only one's belonging to a large population one has not met but also one's commitment to a distant place one has not visited. Attachments to the distant, imagined community are strengthened by personal, cultural, and institutional racism in Canada: 'No matter how long I stay here, I'll never be accepted as a real Canadian. My kids will never be real Canadians either. That's because they're black.' Gender

Gender issues constitute another important fissure in nationalist identity; we discuss gender in more detail in the following chapter, and note it only briefly here. Although they may assign different roles to men and women, 'official' national identities do not emphasize fissures along gender lines; instead they seek to incorporate all as sons and daughters of the nation. However, the national narratives envisioned by men are not the same as those envisioned by women. Among all the ethnic and national groups we interviewed, the women envisioned themselves achieving more participation in decision making and a more equal division of responsibilities at home. Very few men envisioned new nations in which women would play a major political role and in which men would participate equally in household chores and child care. After Eritrean independence, women gained land ownership rights and a quota was set for women's seats in government. But where national narratives are

106

Ghosts and Shadows

acted out in everyday lives, a different picture has emerged. National identities become epistemic, as one ex-tegadelti we interviewed in Asmara after independence bluntly stated: 'We fought for the country, our motherland; not for women.' This seems to reflect the view of many in the diaspora as well. It suggests that women's emancipation can make only so much progress through national liberation. Images, Identities, and Moral Economy

Nagengast (1994) suggests that a key anthropological task is to investigate how identities are deployed in time and space; understanding this is also essential for social work. In this book we have discussed how ghostly matters contribute to shaping memories, structures of feeling, cultures of resistance, and local/global political space, but at the same time create fissures in identities along political, religious, gender, and generational lines. In this section we discuss how ghostly matters affect moral economy (defined as the shared ethos that structures 'appropriate' thoughts and behaviour). Identities and attachments to 'roots' are constructed and promoted through images and symbols. Nationalist organizations mobilize identities; they encourage commitment and activism, and exert social and moral pressure to contribute financially, to attend meetings and events, and to behave in appropriate ways. In other words, these organizations deploy images and symbols to structure the moral economies of long-distance nationalism. For example, the moral economy of the Eritrean diaspora combined the cultural value of modesty with the mieda ethos to create politicized proscriptions against overt displays of personal success that might indicate a lack of concern for nationalist goals and for those in Eritrea living in difficult circumstances. While not all Eritreans were selfless, ostentatious displays were subject to gossip and criticized in EPLF publications. In Ethiopia, the Derg sought to impose identity through forced participation in public self-criticism sessions, which were intended to galvanize political commitment. In Canada, many activists engaged in a process of shaping identities though serious self-criticism and introspection. They examined their commitment to life in Canada, questioning their own motives and sometimes hesitating over actions that might indicate they were establishing themselves in the diaspora permanently. For example, one family debated whether they should purchase a house in Canada because it might depict them (to themselves as well as to others) as uncommitted to nationalism and to an eventual

Exile, Memory, Identity

107

return to Eritrea. Among Hutu refugees in Tanzania, Malkki (1995: 209) identified a similar resistance to relinquishing an uprooted, liminal status: by resisting assimilation, they were reasserting the purity of a collective identity that was based in the past and linked to the remembered homeland. Yet while Eritreans in the diaspora avoided conspicuous displays of material wealth, relatives in Eritrea expected them to achieve success and support families at home. (Informants recounted anecdotes about how Eritreans compared economic differences in diaspora: 'lucky' families had members in Sweden, Germany, Saudi Arabia, or the United States who could send money, whereas those with relatives in Canada were considered 'unfortunate' because they would be only self-sufficient.) These contradictory demands made many reluctant to discuss their financial or material status in Canada. (Cultural factors also contributed to such reluctance, exemplified by proverbs such as: Tf you show your riches, people will envy you; if you show your poverty, they will ridicule you.') Important to the moral economy of the Eritrean diaspora was an injunction to transform exile into an experience that would benefit an independent Eritrea. As preparation for eventual return, people were expected to educate themselves in the skills necessary to rebuild the nation. This was not merely a soothing rationale that exiles employed while improving their personal chances by acquiring education; EPLF representatives continuously stressed this goal on their regular tours of the diaspora. These tours were designed to raise funds and support, and provided yet another link between nationalist forces in the Horn and sympathizers abroad. Some informants believed that the experience of diaspora was similar for all, regardless of ethnic or national identity. Others, however, perceived distinct moral economies, and described the behaviovir of Ethiopians - especially Amharas - as markedly different from that of Eritreans. In making these generalizations, some described Eritreans as obsessed with the past and haunted by an overwhelming compulsion to support the EPLF and demonstrate respect and concern for those left behind. In contrast, Ethiopians (or Amharas) were described as oriented to the present, as more individualistic, and as determined to succeed personally. McSpadden's study (1999) confirms this. Some thought Ethiopians had a greater ability to displace (if not exactly forget) their anxieties about family and homeland and to advance in material and professional terms. An Eritrean raised in Addis Ababa summarized perceptions of these differences.

108

Ghosts and Shadows

Ethiopians are adapting very well here. They are adapting better than the Eritreans. I think Ethiopians are better liked. Maybe it's because they are always having a good time. Eritreans are always depressed. Sometimes I just don't want to be with Eritreans, you know, they always go around with long faces and talk about their home and the people back there. You know, they have this sense of guilt, like they should never admit that they're having a good time. Have you ever been to one of the Eritrean socials? Well, then you know what it's like. People just sit there. Nobody dances. Amharas always have fun. They're not inhibited. If you go to an Ethiopian party, everyone dances, it doesn't matter who you are. Eritrean socials are more restrained. Culturally, it's not acceptable to openly express happiness.

This young man went on to characterize Amharas: Amharas are more adaptable. They know how to get ahead. There's a saying, maybe I can't translate it: 'You never see an Amhara wrestling you but he will bring you down.' I don't know if you understand that. They have this idea about hospitality even if they are going to trick you. Maybe an Amhara will do something to you later but he will always smile at you.

He believed that cultural orientations brought out different responses to political violence: In Addis there was the Red Terror. So many people were killed, students and young people, even young children. They were shot on the streets and their bodies just stayed there. They [Derg] didn't let you pick up the bodies. So people saw their families killed right before their eyes. They didn't have that in Asmara. If they had something like that in Asmara, people would never forget that, never. It's different in Addis Ababa. People just say, 'Life goes on.' Maybe they don't forget it but they don't think about it all the time. Maybe they think they will get revenge one day but if they can't, well, that's the way it goes.

This informant presented Eritrean culture as more haunted by the past. Others also characterized Eritrean communities as closed worlds, citing the reserved nature of the typical Eritrean personality, which they felt prevented movement outside limited social circles and inhibited contact with Canadians of other backgrounds. In contrast, they characterized Ethiopians, especially Amharas, as outgoing and adept at making contacts in the broader society. Some considered Ethiopian

Exile, Memory, Identity

109

organizations more successful in forging links with Canadian government agencies and groups organized to assist immigrants and refugees: The Ethiopian community was better at establishing relationships with certain churches and organizations. They were better at speaking to people and meeting them. They were able to get things from those people. You'd see these things and start to ask around. Sometimes they don't tell you but you find out that a church can give certain things and the church was helping them. But we would never ask for those things. Well, if you don't ask, you don't get anything. Ethiopians' relatively greater success in dealing with Canadian agencies may have been due to the fact that their organizations presented themselves as inclusive. Eritreans and Oromos considered these groups narrow, Amhara-dominated organizations, but many also felt that Amharas were more skilled in developing cross-cultural contacts. Eritreans criticized the closed nature of their own communities, as well as their own failure to build connections with other Canadians. The images they created and the theories they developed contributed to the moral economy that distinguished ethnic identities and provided exiles with a basis for knowing and being who they are. Images and stereotypes - themselves so often haunted emanations of the past- also influenced Canadian attitudes. For example, in the 1980s - Ethiopians complained they were seen either as famine victims or as murderers. One informant criticized Canadians who classified refugees as 'good' or 'bad' based on their origins: 'I don't like this idea that all the Amharas are killing babies and so on. People don't understand the situation but they make judgments about you when they hear you are Ethiopian. I fought against that government. A lot of Ethiopians tried to help the Eritreans. They don't give them any credit for that.' A stereotypical image of the refugee is of an innocent victim needing charity. Activists who did not conform to this image were considered 'too political,' and Eritreans were often regarded this way. Yet refugees cannot but be haunted by political events. Some Canadians, using Quebec separatism as a comparison, perceived Eritreans as secessionist troublemakers, as untrustworthy and perhaps ultimately responsible for their own predicament. This attitude was prevalent among some Canadian NGOs involved in famine relief during the 1980s. Eritreans emphasized the political aspects of famine; some Canadian agencies, in an effort to avoid these issues, took a politically neutral humanitarian

110

Ghosts and Shadows

stance. While indirectly supporting the Derg through relief aid, they insisted that they had no political involvement, and they refused to operate in EPLF-controlled areas in order to avoid compromising their supposed neutrality. Also, while partnership was a popular buzzword in the 1980s, it was rarely achieved in practice as Canadian organizations sought to dictate policies and priorities to Africans. Making a virtue of necessity, Eritreans embraced self-reliance as part of their moral economy; somewhat ironically, this won them admiration and more support from NGOs, which played an important role in the nationalist struggle (see Chapters 2 and 9). After independence the Eritrean government continued to emphasize self-reliance, and angered many NGOs as well as the UN by demanding more efficiency as well as more local control over their operations. Eventually the Eritrean government evicted most NGOs because they would not follow government directives. Although some of its arguments were valid, the government implemented its decision clumsily, thus needlessly alienating some effective NGOs, which had helped the civilian population and could have assisted in reconstruction. These actions fostered stereotypes of Eritrean arrogance; they also slowed the international response to Ethiopia's invasion in 2000, when Eritreans appealed to the agencies they had snubbed for humanitarian aid. In this way, aspects of the moral economy that circumscribed their identity haunt them like ghosts. Divisions and Stereotypes Nationalism both unifies and separates; it often creates strong bonds within the group while producing fanatical hatred of 'Others.' This was exemplified in the 1990s by neo-Nazi attacks on refugees in Germany, by bloody 'ethnic cleansing' in Yugoslavia, and by clan rivalries in Somalia. Nationalistic hatreds are often expressed in essentialist terms of 'race,' with 'Others' depicted as fundamentally different types of people, and sometimes even as subhuman. An essentializing discourse of difference ignores characteristics that members of the enemy group possess as individuals, arid lumps these people together simply as multiple manifestations of a particular type. This refusal to acknowledge personal differences dehumanizes members of the despised category, turning them all into monsters. The constant reproduction and naturalizing of stereotypes maintains these boundaries. The naturalizing of a fictitious hegemony is the inherent connection between nationalism and racism (Yuval-Davis 1997).

Exile, Memory, Identity

111

Stereotypes develop in micro-level interactions, and also in larger and more institutionalized social settings, when they take on transnational dimensions as long-distance nationalists organize to heighten awareness of struggles in the homeland and to raise funds to support them. Activists create a sense of distinct character and difference; they promote the use or recovery of specific languages and traditions that justify mythicohistories, and exhort the group to maintain its commitment to the cause. Nationalist events emphasize the cost of maintaining identity by commemorating those killed in the struggle and by reporting enemy atrocities. Atrocities committed by one's own side are overlooked, denied, or justified as necessary. Condemnations of actions by military forces often spill over into condemnations of ethnic groups in their entirety, with abuses attributed to the monstrous character of the generalized Other. Ethiopian narratives of self and other took a somewhat peculiar form because Eritrean identity was characterized not as a fundamental difference but as a ghostly postcolonial emanation. A few Ethiopians stated, 'If the Eritreans want to be on their own, let them go,' or 'They have the right to decide for themselves'; more often, however, they insisted that 'Ethiopia must be one,' and 'We are all Ethiopians, there is no difference between us.' These voices dismissed cultural differences, downplayed Eritrean and Oromo nationalism, and asserted that 'we are all the same,' often expressing this in terms of family relationships. Ardent Ethiopian nationalists considered Eritrean identity an illusion, a phantom created by Italian colonialism, a superficial intrusion on the Ethiopian state's thousands of years of continuous and integrated existence. They dismissed Eritrean identity as artificial, opportunistic, and pathological, as the conjurings of a local petit bourgeoisie that wanted to replace the Italian conquerors. They insisted that most Eritreans felt an emotional attachment to Ethiopia and did not want independence, but had been misled by EPLF activists; once this illusion was dispelled, they would again embrace Ethiopian identity. As well, Ethiopians explained nationalistic feelings among Eritreans in Canada as an artifact of the diaspora rather than as a manifestation of part commitments, and suggested strongly that Eritreans had adopted a separatist identity as a means to sustain themselves psychologically in exile. They suggested that there were deep contradictions between public and private selves, and charged Eritreans with assuming a public mask to conceal their actual self-image: 'You know, most Eritreans really want to be friends with Ethiopians. I have a lot of friends who are Eritrean, they come to my house, we talk and eat, watch videos. In that situation they consider

112

Ghosts and Shadows

themselves Ethiopian. It's true. But if they go out, if another Eritrean comes along, then they switch.' This scenario presents Ethiopian identity as more legitimate and authentic than Eritrean identity, which is conceived as vacillating, as a spectre conjured by politically motivated individuals wielding strong but basically illegitimate and self-interested influence. It claims that Eritreans would happily embrace Ethiopian nationality were it not for a few troublemakers. It depicts Eritrean identity as ephemeral and opportunistic, as shifting according to needs of the moment; whereas Ethiopian identity is authentic and stable. Yet clearly, Eritreans did not believe that social contact invalidated distinct identity: Yes, of course, I have some Ethiopian friends, that's no problem. Why not? I don't tell them I'm Ethiopian and they don't say that to me, they would never say that. Come on, what do you think I would tell them if they said something like that? Do you think I will let them tell me who I am? Some of them understand the situation, some others you just don't talk about that. If I talk with them, it doesn't mean I am Ethiopian. I can go and talk with anyone but I know who I am.

While dismissing Eritrean identity as a postcolonial phantom, discourse of Greater Ethiopia constructed Oromos as primitive savages. Oromo nationalists responded by portraying Amharas and Tigrayans as pathologically violent despots. For example, one Oromo interviewed just before the fall of the Derg stated: Ethiopian history is all based on lies. Everything they say is a lie. They say, 'Yes, we are all together. We should be one.' Who are they telling that to? To the Eritreans? To the Oromos? There are so many who have been killed, who are refugees because they don't want to be one. You can't just force people to be together. But the Ethiopians will never learn. They will always say that we must be together. They will keep on fighting because they don't want anything to be left after them. There is a saying: 'A donkey says, "After I die no grass will grow."' That's like the Ethiopians. They want to burn everything, scorch everything, because they know they are not going to be in power so they don't want anyone else to have anything. The Amhara say, 'We will all go together.' This means they know they are going to lose but they will destroy everything before they go. All they understand is the gun. You cannot talk to them. They talk about unity and

Exile, Memory, Identity

113

about the Motherland. Whose Motherland is it? The Tigrayans are just like the Amharas. In fact, maybe they are jealous of the Amharas. They want to have the same thing, only they want to be the ones with the power. The TPLF says the Oromo situation is a national question. They use such arguments because they want to fool people and they want to create all these parties so that they can control everything. You cannot trust them, they say one thing to the Eritreans and they say something else to the others. The Amhara will never say, 'Alright, we cheated you. Now we'll have something new.' They will never say it. But now they will have to say it. In the Horn, some hegemonic fictions have been deconstructed, yet changing power relationships have demanded the blood of many thousands of people. Oromo nationalists perceived the Ethiopian state as predicated on violence, and saw this reflected in Amhara character, culture, and values. For example, at the 1990 Oromo Studies Association conference, an Oromo woman contended that Amharas customarily beat their children while Oromos were gentle with their offspring. Amharas at the conference objected: 'My parents never beat me. How can you talk about a whole society like that? Maybe that happened in some cases but you can't say it's the same for all people.' Others acknowledged such practices but tried to explain the cultural logic behind them: Yes, it's true what they said about parents being hard with their children. That happens, in fact. But you have to understand why they do it. It's not because parents hate their children and want to hurt them. That's not what it is. They do this because life is hard. The parents want the children to live. They tell them, 'You have to win. You have to be first.' It's like that. They want them to be strong. It's not because they hate their children. Ethiopians considered Oromos equally aggressive despite their selfimage as peaceful egalitarians. An Oromo addressed these views: There is a big difference between the way the Amharas fight and the Oromos. During the war between Ethiopia and Somalia, the Oromo were deciding if there should be a war. They decided that they wouldn't kill women. They wouldn't kill old people or children. They wouldn't kill a young boy if he was lying on the floor or if they weren't wearing their pants. The Amharas will burn everything, just destroy whatever they see.

114

Ghosts and Shadows

Eritreans also considered Amharas inscrutable and untrustworthy: 'Eritreans are very hot-tempered. If we get mad, you will know it. But the Amharas are different. You can never tell what they are thinking. An Amhara can be joking with you and smiling but all the time he has a plan to do something. You can never trust them.' Some noted the fuzzy class connotations of Amhara identity: 'When you say Amhara, what do you mean? Nobody would want to be an Amhara peasant. To be Amhara means to be part of the ruling class.' However, most rejected any distinctions: 'Even if an Amhara is a beggar on the streets of Finefme [the Oromo name for Addis Ababa], he will say he is better than you. He will say the Emperor is part of his family.' While their distrust of Amharas was unwavering, relations between Eritreans and Oromos in the diaspora shifted according to developments in the Horn. The EPLF and OLF co-operated against the Derg. However, while OLF activists supported Eritrean independence, the Eritreans considered independence unnecessary for the Oromos, because no unified Oromo state existed in the past, because the Oromos occupied most of Ethiopia, and because they already played a key role in the existing state. They urged that instead of creating a new state, the Oromos should participate in making Ethiopia a more democratic one. Oromo nationalists countered that it was precisely their exclusion from the Ethiopian power structure that necessitated an independent Oromia. One Oromo in Toronto bitterly described the Eritrean position as a fundamental betrayal: 'We helped the Eritreans to get their independence. We supported them but they don't support us. As soon as they get what they want, they say "forget the Oromos." We know them and I will never trust an Eritrean.' After the Derg fell, the OLF briefly participated in a coalition government, but soon charged that behind the facade of power sharing the government was dominated by the EPRDF, which was reproducing the chauvinism and discrimination of the previous regime by now favouring Tigrayans at Oromo expense. Thus, as the shadow politics of the Horn spread across the diaspora, actions by specific groups were translated into broader terms of ethnic essentialism. For example, at a 1992 meeting in Minneapolis, Oromos denounced not only the EPLF but all Eritreans for supporting the EPRDF and 'selling out' the Oromos. In their view, the EPLF's actions demonstrated the treacherous nature of all northerners, who were indistinguishable enemies of the Oromos. Others at the same event equated the Amharas with the Tigrayans as untrustworthy Abyssiniaris. When war erupted between Eritrea and Ethi-

Exile, Memory, Identity

115

opia in 1998, the OLF maintained that the conflict was of no concern to the Oromos, who should not be involved. However, with the Ethiopian government as their mutual enemy, the OLF and the Eritrean government were soon co-operating again. Oromos in the diaspora also reconsidered their relations with the Eritreans. For example, writing to Oromia Online, H.Q. Loltu described Ethiopia's invasion of Eritrea in May 2000 as a strategy by which Tigrayans would use their enemies against each other, sending Oromo soldiers to reconquer Eritrea. Loltu recommended pursuing a closer Eritrean-Oromo alliance, and resorted to the familiar trope of the family to note that although a 'blood tie' made Eritreans and Tigrayans 'cousins,' they were 'cousins separated at birth. The Eritreans were taken from the womb of Abyssinia, which went to become an African empire, and were given away to be raised by Italian colonists. Actually they were slaves of the Italians, while the Oromo became slaves of Ethiopia's Abyssinians.' Loltu also pointed out the ghostly consequences of the Eritreans' opportunistic betrayal of Oromo nationalism to seize their own independence: 'Now it is their aloof behaviour toward the Oromo subjugation that is coming back to haunt the Eritreans.' Ghost of a Chance

As noted earlier, theorists of diaspora believe that exile provides a privileged critical vantage point. Some informants did reject stereotypes, criticize the lack of tolerance and democracy, and note the negative consequences of extremism: Our people are very intolerant, that's the problem. There's a word for tolerance in our language but nobody knows what it means. There's no sense of democracy. Everything becomes a personal hatred. If you disagree with someone, you decide to eliminate him, liquidate him. We only know how to solve disagreements by the gun. We don't have a sense of allowing differences of opinion. If you don't agree, then violence is the solution.

Many expressed misgivings about reductionistic thinking: I am really very concerned about this idea of just hating one group. You see someone is an Amhara so you hate him. At a meeting, [an Oromo] stood up and started attacking the Amhara. [An Eritrean] reminded him that it's the Amhara ruling class, not Amharas in general, who are to blame. Lots of

116

Ghosts and Shadows

Amhara peasants are starving in Wollo, in Gojjam. Lots of other ethnic groups have people who are well off. They are the ruling class the same as the Amhara, it's not correct just to say 'Amhara' and then you can attack them. Many Eritreans come from the upper class, why didn't they join the liberation fronts? The leaders of these groups live comfortably but the peasants are dying every minute. Why aren't these people concerned with all the peasants?

Those who married across ethnic or national lines or who had links with other groups tended to emphasize apolitical views or to express more sympathy for opposing views. For example, an Eritrean raised in Addis Ababa discussed his relationship with Ethiopians: I have a close friend who's Ethiopian. Really, she's the most fanatic Amhara you could imagine, you can't even talk to her about Eritrea. That doesn't bother me. I try to understand why people feel as they do and see both sides of the equation. I feel I was fortunate to grow up in Addis Ababa because I got to know the Ethiopians. They don't know anything about Eritrea, all they know is what they're told by the government. So the government tells them the Arabs are in Eritrea and they believe it. And their relatives are in Eritrea, maybe they're killing my relatives but a lot of Ethiopians are also being killed. What about their relatives? They don't know what it's all about. I got to know them as people. Others made similar criticisms: People refuse to co-operate. If your neighbour is crying today, there's no reason why you won't be crying tomorrow. But people don't see their common interest. They stay with conservative positions and refuse to compromise. What kind of government will follow the Derg under such conditions? It will be another brutal fascist government. We need to work with each other.

Many believed that the new Eritrean and Ethiopian governments embodied a fundamental cultural and political transformation. For example, a young Tigrayan expressed hope for a new beginning: I really can't believe this. We have never had anything like this before. You can read any newspaper, any magazine. People who criticize the new regime don't want to recognize that we have never had democracy in

Exile, Memory, Identity

117

Ethiopia. Now everything is free, you can do whatever you want. Maybe not everything is perfect but look at where we have been in the past. You can't do everything in one day. It's important to give the new government a chance.

However, this same young man who welcomed a chance for peace in 1991 was praising Ethiopia's invasion in 2000; that new chance seemed only a fading apparition overshadowed by resurgence of old hatreds, old ghosts. Examining experiences of diaspora and the deployment of identities in time and space points out the ontological and epistemological significance of ghosts and shadows. These are embodied social effects, experiences neither fully objective nor subjective, not always one's own narratives but the narratives of many. As intertwined ways of being and knowing, and as moral economies, they are both individual and social. Ghosts and shadows are always there within structures of feeling - not always visible, but potent presences nonetheless.

FIVE

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

Exiles face new conditions and adopt new roles; they transform themselves amid the ghosts and shadows of expectations, behaviours, and relationships, which once provided order and stability but now must be questioned. For diasporas created by political violence, life in the new world is haunted by ghosts from the old. In these haunted spaces, individuals must work 'to transform a shadow of a life into an undimiriished life' (Gordon 1997: 208). Many transformations are played out most intensely within households, where fissures between past and present expectations often develop along lines of gender. We wish to expand theories of diaspora by considering how women and men occupy different locations in the family household as 'a site of construction of ethnic belonging and simultaneously a site of appropriation of women's labour' (Leonard 1997: 600). Family and nation are mutually constitutive categories. Ideologies of nationalist belonging typically involve discourses of gender, and the imagined national community delineates the boundaries within which appropriate gender relations are to exist. As Sarah Radcliffe and Sallie Westwood (1996: 134-35) state, 'gendered bodies are subject to the creation of "nationalized" behaviours and representations' with direct implications for 'citizenship as women and men have distinct places and identities through which to express claims'; they note Cynthia Enloe's (1989) argument that nationalism emerges from 'masculinized memory, masculinized humiliation and masculinized hope,' and point out that nationalism interpellates and mobilizes men and women as 'gendered subjects who can recognize themselves in the mirror of the imagined community.' In this chapter we shift our focus in space to

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

119

household and gender relations - topic that further illuminates how diaspora populations negotiate new situations. The data in this chapter were gathered mainly from Eritrean informants. Gender and Refugees Although approximately 80 per cent of the world's refugees are women and their children (Forbes-Martin 1992; UNHCR 1992), Indra (1989, 1999) notes that before 1980, refugees were seen in terms of a 'genderless stereotype'; she also contends that feminist scholarship will enhance gender analysis. Some warn that feminism duplicates the ethnocentrism of past colonial discourse (Ong 1988; Spivak 1988; Young 1990). In fact, until recently and despite the arguments of Black feminists, feminism itself assumed inclusiveness (Mirza 1997) rather than considering diversities of class, 'race,' ethnicity, age, sexual orientations, and (dis) abilities. In the past decade there has been more gender analysis in refugee studies, and the significance of gender in diaspora experiences is now recognized (e.g., Ager, Ager and Long 1995; Forbes-Martin 1992; Giles, Moussa, and Van Esterik 1996; Indra 1999; Rayaprol 1997; Yuval- Davis and Werbner 1999). Scholars have examined the intersection of patriarchy and neo/post-colonialism, as well as the intertwined relationships between the state and familial patriarchy (e.g., Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992; Bhavnani and Coulson 1986; Brah 1996; Collins 1991; Indra 1999; Khan 1998; Moghissi 1999; Moghadam 1994; Peteet 1991; Schrijver 1999; Westwood and Bhachu 1988). Essentialism and binaries such as public/private, men/women, masculine/feminine, and we/Other in respect of ethnicity are now being critiqued (e.g., Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992; Radtke and Stam 1994). African feminism also rejects such binaries, but sees gender relations as a political process influenced by global, national, and local politics, and proposes different models (Steady 1996; Mikell 1997). Gender, therefore, must be examined as relational, and explorations of power in regard to these concepts are central to our understanding of the everyday lives of women refugees. It was only in 1985 that the UNHCR adopted a specific resolution that protected women refugees. In Canada, gender considerations were acknowledged in a 1987 pilot program, the Women At Risk Program; this was followed in 1993 by a policy document, Guidelines on Women Refugee Claimants Fearing Gender-Related Persecution. Notwithstanding these developments, there have been no significant changes in

120

Ghosts and Shadows

gender ratios among refugees accepted by Canada (Macklin 1999). Canadian immigration laws are blind to gender, and this has a strong impact on refugee determination processes and criteria of potential settlement, thus determining who settles at the end (Boyd 1999a; Hyndman 1999). Yet the importance of gender as a factor in resettlement often goes unrecognized. For example, one representative of the Refugee Settlement Unit in Winnipeg told us there was 'no difference' in settlement according to gender. Yet studies show that gender certainly matters when it comes to resettlement in Canada (Indra 1989; Moghissi 1999; Moussa 1998/99). It is acknowledged that refugees should participate more in decision making, but little has been achieved in practice, and women refugees, in particular, often have little input into important decisions that affect them (Indra 1989; UNHCR 1992). In practice, gender is still considered peripheral except in terms of matters seen - often dismissively - as 'women's issues.' Gender Ideologies in the Horn Cultures throughout the Horn perceive essential gender differences and believe that boys and girls should be raised differently. Most groups have strong patriarchal ideologies, which means that power is related to biological sex and that males have higher status. For example, most groups do not celebrate a daughter's birth to the same extent as that of a son. Girls are riot encouraged to complete even elementary school education. Traditionally, women were considered less significant, less intelligent, and less deserving of rights. Proverbs demonstrate this: 'Just as there is no donkey with horns, so there is no woman with a brain.' 'Women and donkeys need the stick.' Generally, women did not inherit land and had fewer rights in marriage. Traditionally, marriage was not seen as a consolidation of two individuals but rather as an alliance between two families. Often, dowries were expected and women did not have any say regarding whom they would marry. Women who did riot bear children, especially sons, were subject to divorce. Divorce was a man's prerogative, and in some groups remarriage is difficult, which creates economic hardship for women and brings dishonour to the family. While the Tigre (Muslims in Eritrea's lowlands) restricted women to the domestic zone, in other groups rural women participated fully in key agricultural tasks; in fact, they were the main source of production and reproduction and thus played a central role in their family's survival (Kibreab 1995). Yet in rural Eritrea, women did not own any means

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

121

of production. They ate last and least in times of food shortages; family survival preceded individual well-being, in particular the well-being of subordinate women. Double-standards dominate sexuality. Most groups consider it inappropriate for women to express sexual desire. A bride's virginity before marriage is expected, and is enforced through family supervision and control. Failure to meet this standard is grounds for divorce and dishonours the family. Such controls over women's sexuality indicate the powerlessness of young women. Throughout the Horn, genital mutilation, involving clitoridectomy and infibulation, is widespread as a means to control female sexuality, create 'good women' and ensure family honour. Within the broad shadow of generalized patriarchal ideology, women are differentiated by class, ethnicity, and region. Historically, elites identified as Amhara dominated not only the peasants in their own ethnic group but also those of other groups. Groups such as the Kunama did accord relatively higher status to women, but they were considered primitive cultures, inferior to groups with hierarchical gender stratification systems. In rural areas there were very few schools - even elementary schools - and this meant a long walk from home. Parents were reluctant to send their girls to school, not only because they provided much-needed help for mothers but also because a long walk to school subjected girls to sexual harassment and assault. As a result, few women from rural areas had the chance to achieve higher education and become professionals. In urban areas, women were dependent on men's incomes and important as 'mothers of men's children' (Kibreab 1995: 6); when they did work outside the home, they tended to serve as cheap labour in factories (Houtart 1984). Throughout the region, men have enjoyed a dominant position in social life and have controlled both economic and political decision making, although it is not shared equally among them. Some women have exercised political power, but this has usually been through and on behalf of male relatives (Berhane-Selassie 1997). State power has been patriarchal, hierarchical, rigid, and violent; a similar structure of social control has characterized family organization, with dominant males exerting authority over women and children. Women have been regarded as property and as means for production and reproduction, rather than as individuals with equal rights. This 'traditional cultural' model of gender relations has cast its shadow over the diaspora, although it has not gone unchallenged.

122

Ghosts and Shadows

Nationalism, Gender, and Diaspora

During the war for independence, the EPLF promoted social revolution. Against cultural practices that severely repressed women, the EPLF endorsed women's emancipation and increased their participation in social and political affairs. In its 'liberated areas' the EPLF instituted reforms in land tenure, inheritance, and legal rights. Women joined the EPLF as fighters, doctors, and technicians. Women and men were entitled to choose their own marriage partners, and efforts were made to eliminate the dowry payment, although such payments continued surreptitiously. Especially among the tegadelti (the EPLF fighters), marriage crossed lines of religion and ethnicity in ways that were uncommon previously. The EPLF encouraged education for women. It also discouraged female genital mutilation - banning it outright among its troops - but it did not attempt to outlaw the practice for the general population. The EPLF untended that deeply rooted cultural behaviours could not be abolished by decree, and that change could only happen through education. According to some informants, EPLF leaders believed that a ban on the practice would be unenforceable and would reduce popular support for the nationalist struggle. After independence, the new government was criticized for surrendering to traditional values in order to avoid conflict over issues of particular concern to women. The EPLF encouraged the development of a mass-based women's organization, the National Union of Eritrean Women (NUEW). The NUEW operated in the 'liberated areas' and in diaspora communities. It created links with women in the diaspora, soliciting support for development work, such as the construction of a small underground factory for sanitary pads. As indicated in the previous chapter, although longdistance nationalism, is typically a male enterprise, many Eritrean women in the diaspora supported nationalism, and the EPLF was noted for its stand on women's emancipation. There is no neat dichotomy between traditional and progressive discourses. As noted, most of the diaspora population came from urban areas and had already departed to varying degrees from the rigidly patriarchal model of gender relations. Furthermore, the EPLF's political ideology, which included support for women's emancipation, was a key structural feature of a distinct cultural system - the mieda culture of the tegadelti and of the diaspora communities (although, of course, developments in these two groups did not happen in exactly the same way). For example, when a group of female EPLF fighters toured North

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

123

America to encourage support for the nationalist movement, they expressed disappointment at the extent of sexism they encountered and at women's lack of power. They saw themselves as more 'liberated' than the women of the diaspora. The EPLF exerted a strong influence on diaspora communities through propaganda and 'mass organizations' abroad; diaspora communities contributed financially to the EPLF and regularly attended its public events. These events celebrated the tegadelti as heroes and moral exemplars. Those in the diaspora sought to emulate the spirit of service, sacrifice, and self-reliance of the tegadelti; this included attempts to construct more egalitarian gender relationships. The EPLF's progressive ideology had more impact on gender relationships in diaspora communities than did North American feminism, which was perceived as intrusive, frivolous, and irrelevant to the practical concerns of Eritrean women. Informants felt that North American feminists were unaware of international issues - especially the Eritrean case - and insensitive to racism. Other women, while noting the repressive gender bias in Eritrean cultures, objected that Western 'feminists' presented men only as enemies. Typically, Eritrean women perceived Western feminism as flawed by its adversarial model of gender relations. Discomfort with that model was apparent, even as women commented on their unequal status: 'We don't necessarily want to be like the feminists in the West. Many times, we have different concerns and a different struggle. We don't see men as the enemy. It's true that women are not treated as equals and we want to change that. But it is a process of educating the men. They will also benefit from our liberation.' After independence, the NUEW became the first recognized NGO in the new state, although it remained under the influence of the EPLF, now reconfigured as the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ). In Eritrea and the diaspora communities, the NUEW continues to influence the status of Eritrean women. It has been documented that diaspora/refugee experiences are gendered (e.g., Forbes-Martin 1992; Giles, Moussa, and Van Esterik 1996; Indra 1999). Boyd (1999a) has demonstrated that in claims for and final settlements in countries such as Canada, women have been unjustly underrepresented. This, even though the UNHCR (1997) reports that women outnumber men as refugees. In the Horn, women comprise a large proportion of refugees in camps; men are more mobile, either going abroad for work or education (i.e., scholarships), or moving back and forth across borders to trade or to work on agricultural land.

124

Ghosts and Shadows

Women's traditionally subordinate status, lack of education, lack of professional qualifications recognized by patriarchal Western states, and limited experience in the public sphere mean that many of them have fewer opportunities to flee and settle, especially overseas. For example, many of the refugees we interviewed earlier were men who had been sent outside Ethiopia for education, technical training, or business, and who simply did not return. Relatively few women had such opportunities. In some cases where a husband was living abroad, women were allowed to leave Ethiopia as visitors but could not take their children; this was meant to ensure they would return to Ethiopa. Many women we interviewed came as family-sponsored immigrants. This dependent status influenced resettlement in Canada. Not only are refugees gendered in terms of numbers who are accepted to Canada, but also their processes of flight differ. Women encounter all the risks and dangers men face, arid in addition to these endure sexual harassment, assault, oppression, and exploitation by those who assist in their escape, by male refugees arid by officials. Patriarchal ideologies that construct women as inferior entitle men to exert power over women and demand they endure it (Kibreab 1995; McSpadden and Moussa 1993; Moussa 1993). Many women were forced to form temporary relationships with men in order to obtain protection arrangements that later prevented them from having families arid created feelings of guilt and shame that still cast shadows over their lives (Kibreab 1995; Moussa 1993). Women refugees faced the loss of economic support as well as restrictions imposed by local patriarchal cultural norms. For example, women from the Christian cultures of the highlands were constrained by exile among the Islamic societies of Sudan and Somalia; some were forced to adopt the veil and were banned from certain productive activities (Kibreab 1995). And in refugee camps, women confronted the patriarchal expectations and oppression embedded in international aid programs; for example, they were assumed to be men's dependents, and assistance was issued in men's names unless the family was headed by a woman (ibid.). Finally, resettlement in Canada is a gendered process, as shown in the following sections. Fragmentation of Diaspora Households

All diaspora households experienced fragmentation. In the Horn, most household groups involve a more extended family unit than is typical in

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

125

Canada. Thus, even where parents and children migrated together and where the family seems intact, almost every household has been disrupted. In its early phases, the diaspora population comprised largely men who arrived alone: this included unmarried men and those who had been forced to leave their wives and children. Enforced separation often lasted for years, due to war and immigration restrictions. Some couples were separated by the exigencies of flight; in other cases women were abandoned by men who could not face the pressure of having to provide assistance and/or the shame of being unable to do so. Other men, fleeing repression or seeking economic opportunities abroad, left wives behind with their in-laws: We were married only a few months. Please don't think that they [in-laws] are bad people or mean people. After all I did not know their ways of doing things at home. You know, each family has different ways of making spices ... [etc.] I felt that I was always watched [by] his parents and also his siblings. I wanted to do well and to be liked ... Later, I found out that I was pregnant with my son. They were very happy because it was a boy. It was good. But it was not easy ... I got a lot of help but I was told this and that about how I was doing with my son ... I did not fit quite well. I really longed to join my husband soon. Wives who stayed with in-laws while their husbands took refuge abroad had more support and security than women abandoned to fend for themselves; but their space within these households was darkened by the absence of their husbands. They described missing an essential bridge with their in-laws, and living in spaces with changed power relations: 'My kids [a son and a daughter] and I moved in to my husband's family when he fled ... My son was happy because he could be with his cousin. In-laws are old-fashioned. They loved children, but treated boys as boys and girls as girls. Men did what men did; women did what women were expected to do.'

This woman's husband had treated their son and daughter equally; he had not prevented their daughter from meeting visitors, and he had encouraged her to study. He had told his parents that girls did not need to stay in the kitchen while he was with his wife and the children. But after he left, things changed. Other women stressed that grandparents loved their children but added that if their husbands had been present, they could have done things more their own way: 'Because he could talk to them [in-laws]. I could speak to him. I got along with my in-laws fine,

126

Ghosts and Shadows

most of the time. But small things happened and I felt the kids lost a lot without him.' Reconstructing Diaspora Households - Reconstructing Gender Relationships

Before rejoining their husbands, women with children survived as single mothers. Although many lived with relatives, they described experiences full of uncertainty, anxiety, and stress. Some spouses did not see each other for several years. During this time both partners had to live as married adults, but also alone or as single mothers with children or inlaws. Once couples were reunited, conjugal relationships were not always the same as before; after extended periods apart, during which both partners had faced traumatic situations, some individuals found it difficult to readjust - their spouses essentially had become intimate strangers. One woman jokingly said: 'It was a honeymoon all over again. But I was no longer a young naive girl who he married. I was worried. I did not know what to expect from him and what was expected of me. A lot of things to learn ... I needed to get know him again.' When restarting a household in a new space, a husband and wife could not simply resume what they had temporarily lost; rather, they had to renegotiate their relationship in the new context. Rejoining husbands in the diaspora placed new social demands on women. One Eritrean woman described this: I am one of the very first women who came here then. No women were here to show us how to do things here. It was my husband who took me to stores and showed me where I could find things and how things work when I came here. I cooked for men who were living here alone. All other women who were here earlier did the same. A lot of people came throughout a day. Nobody had a 9 to 5 job ... Whenever they came I served meals or tea ... often both. I was in the kitchen almost all day, most of the time by myself. That was different from home and I felt very lonesome. No women to have tea and chat ... So I talked to my husband probably more than if we had stayed in Eritrea. I guess I am lucky because he helps me. He had to. I had children to look after and all these men who visit. Later I started to work. I had to [they sponsored their younger siblings and later their cousins]. So he helped me to cook, a little, or do laundry. I did not drive, so often he shopped. But not all the men are like him. Many men expect the same as back home, even when they know things are not the

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

127

same here. If we were in Eritrea, I wouldn't have worked, I would have had a lot of help. He wouldn't have needed to discuss so many things with me. Now we have more relatives in Canada and America, but at that time we were it.

Women are 'maintainers of relationships with "home" and at home ... creators ideologically and materially of senses of belonging' (Leonard 1997: 600). Until other women joined the community, this woman was the main reproducer of community and culture, which she provided through cooking and other domestic labour. As one of the few Eritrean women in Canada, she became the ghostly embodiment of the women whom men missed, but was herself shadowed by the lack of other women with whom she could share her time. As the war continued and the community changed, relationships within the household evolved as well. She took responsibility along with her husband for bringing other relatives to safety. She was no longer simply a nurturing woman in the kitchen, nor was she merely 'a mother of a man's children'; she was also a woman in the workforce. Through necessity, and because of their ideologies, men and women developed new relationships and households. However, not all male EPLF supporters put gender equality into practice. Another pioneer woman looked back: 'When men came to our house, they expected to have good meals, traditional meals. My husband did not help me. He believed in EPLF but could not bring himself to help me in the kitchen or change diapers ... He could not take more responsibilities at home. found that Eritrean women accepted new responsibilities arid adjusted better than men. Many husbands do not help their wives. They do not help enough.' The experience of these two pioneer women provides a glimpse of the shadows cast on women in the name of preserving minority culture and cultural comfort. A handful of women became the force for reconstructing households and community in resettlement. As Boulding (1988, cited in McKay 1998) observed, women play a major role in rebuilding communities and social infrastructures after wars. They play a similar role in diasporas, but changes in circumstances generate struggles about ideas of national and domestic 'homes.' Even when apparently intact families (i.e., married couples with children) migrated together, they experienced new pressures in the absence of extended families, who would otherwise have provided child care and other assistance, not to mention advice, moral support, and a

128

Ghosts and Shadows

system of familiar values, customs, and behaviour. Couples found themselves removed from the family and community support networks that once operated to resolve marital tensions, and faced new roles as the sole supporters and supervisors or children. For example, a young woman described her ambivalence about having children. She and her husband felt pressure to have offspring from their families in Eritrea and abroad. She observed the affluence in Canada, but such wealth did not reach her, and she worried that they could not afford children on their meager household income. Without her income they could not live, yet she did not believe her husband would help with the children: 'I don't know how I can take care of a kid and work. Back home relatives or even neighbours [i.e., women] can look after a child for me. Here, I do not know my neighbours enough. People do not care for each other so much. The relationships are very shallow.' Her financial situation was not exceptional. Although it contains no specific data on Eritreans, Ornstein's (2000) analysis of the 1996 census revealed that in Toronto, Ethiopian women earned 40 per cent of the median income for women, Ethiopian men 47 per cent of the median for men, and Ethiopian families 40 per cent of the median for families. Also, 79 per cent of Ethiopian children were living in poverty (i.e., below Statistics Canada's low-income cut-off). Facing such economic difficulties and responsibilities, women found it practically impossible to work full-time while raising families without some help from their husbands. Yet, as we were told, 'husbands still expect their meals to be ready at six-thirty on the table. Some husbands do not even get their own beer from the fridge. They are sitting all day and watching a TV.' Life in Canada brought different expectations, yet women received little help from outside in negotiating relationships within households. Also, women found themselves in spaces where there was relatively more freedom to participate in the public domain. Yet at the same time, there was little informal support and solidarity among women to help each other resist patriarchal power; nor was there much formal support, such as day care for women on shift work. Many insisted that relationships had to change: 'Wives rightfully turned to gain support from their spouses. Women learned to speak up and negotiate with men.' Although negotiations did not always create more egalitarian relationships, one woman affirmed: 'Relationships between couples have been enhanced because there are no in-laws that hang around to pull strings, raise conflicts, show favouritism, gossip, and what-have-you. It has also,

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

129

in fact, cultivated mutual respect between couples and a sense of knowing that one is there for the other in time of need.' Another woman, in her thirties, pointed out the positive aspects of being away from the traditional expectations of in-laws: 'In Canada I just need to think about my husband and kids. I do not want to go through what my mother went through with her in-laws.' A young married woman described the sense of expanded domestic freedom: 'Although I cook most of the time he makes spaghetti [for us] if I am coming home late. I like that. But none of my parents would like to know that. We are more equal and he is more willing. Besides there are no relatives tell us what we have to do or how we have to do. In Canada we decide.' Thus, women experienced family relationships as supportive in some situations and oppressive in others. Traditional family relationships were multifaceted, and so were gender relationships. Distinctions between traditional and progressive did not constitute a neat dichotomy. Reconstructing households in Canada meant reconstructing gender relationships. Although the household was considered a private domain, outside forces shaped relationships between people. It is a myth that shadowy 'traditional' relationships can be maintained without modification or conflict. New spaces demand new relationships, but these cannot be achieved without continuous challenge, as a Palestinian woman in Abdo's stvidy (1994: 163) described: Tf we women have achieved certain things it is because of us and our determination ... Our men are still traditional, and our job remains to liberate them.' Men whose self-image was shaped by patriarchal ideologies found their masculinity challenged by the EPLF's ideology, by the practicalities of everyday life in Canada, and by images of masculinity in the media. Traditional images of male identity that emphasize authority and economic control were threatened in the diaspora. Many men experienced a sharp loss of status in terms of employment: some who had occupied government, bureaucratic, and professional positions and enjoyed their associated prestige now faced underemployment, unemployment, and dependence on welfare. These conditions were considered demeaning, and conflicted with social constructions of masculinity as well as with the strong work ethic that pervaded Eritrean-Canadian communities - an ethic based both on the precepts of traditional culture and on the EPLF's ideology of self-reliance. McSpadden (1989, 1999) describes how Ethiopian refugees in the United States felt entitled to 'good' jobs and experienced stress when employment counsellors and welfare workers

130

Ghosts and Shadows

forced them to take jobs beneath their expectations. These men saw education as an important and necessary step to attain jobs they considered suitable to their class and gender status. In our interviews, a prominent member of the Ethiopian community described the frustration many felt: 'One man called me to ask for help finding a job. I sent him to one of the factories where they were hiring people. He could have had a job there but he said it's not for him. In Ethiopia he had a good position and he sees this job as a step down. So, he stays home in his chair all day.' Eritreans from professional backgrounds accepted menial positions, reflecting the strong work ethic and obligations to family. For example, one man postponed upgrading his professional certification and worked as a taxi driver to support his younger brother and sister at university. Nevertheless, many were clearly displeased and expressed hope that these arrangements would be temporary. One Eritrean woman compared adaptations: Men think because they were accountants, doctors, lawyers they have to be accountants, doctors, and lawyers. They can't change. Women are realistic. They took whatever jobs came and carried on ... Women have already accomplished a lot. Some men don't like it. The men do not want to change ... Women gained here. While men were working some women went to school and upgraded their education or English. Women do better than men. Willing to change ... Women have more rights here. In Eritrea women obeyed men. Women were controlled physically by men in the past but not today, not as much as before. Here, ... some. [When husbands abuse women physically], women do nothing. They put up with it. By doing nothing they are coping.

Some men refused to adopt new roles and behaviour: 'I really can't stand to see that,' said one, referring to men in kitchens. Women worked outside the home for wages, sometimes earning more than their husbands or providing the family's sole source of income. This threatened traditional ideas of male economic power and identity; it also increased women's autonomy, as well as their participation in family decision making. In some households this was accepted with a sense of common purpose; in others, the men were deeply resentful and criticized Eritrean women's growing independence in Canada. They attributed this lack of 'appropriate submission' to male authority to the negative influences of Western feminism, which they grossly oversimpli-

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

131

fied: 'The main problem is with the women. The women get educated and now they aren't following our culture. Now they want to be equal to the man. Some of them can't even write their name but they want to be equal. This has happened since they came to Canada. They don't want to follow our culture anymore. It's because of the feminists and because of the way of life here in Canada.' Maintaining 'culture' meant maintaining male dominance. Men who felt this way but who also supported a nationalist movement that espoused female emancipation and social equality found themselves facing (or, rather, attempting to evade) an uncomfortable paradox. Education was not always the determining factor. For example, several university-educated men complained that women had become 'too equal' in Canada. One university-educated Eritrean in a high-status profession epitomized the image of coercive male sexuality by stating that a man should not believe a woman who said 'no' to sex; instead, he should force her to have intercourse because her protestations must merely be culturally standard mechanisms for guaranteeing her status as a 'good' woman, and not a genuine indication of lack of consent. In such assertions, women's voices disappear into the dark shadows of male dominance. Regardless of the EPLF's emphasis on women's emancipation, many men sought to negate women's space in nationalist discourse. Epistemic violence (Spivak 1988) continues when women try to claim their voice and some cope with epistemic and physical violence 'by doing nothing.' While some men feel threatened, and resist what they perceive as women's efforts to become 'more like men' or 'more equal than men,' others acknowledge that women are discriminated against and agree that changes are desirable. As one man stated: 'The issue is that men have power and they don't want to give it up. I think that all over Africa women are stronger and they do more work. Women have more ability to cope with stress. Some men are changing a little bit but most don't want to give up their power.' Tension increased among those men who observed their status as chief provider being undermined by unemployment and marginalization. One result was the disintegration of marriages, sometimes accompanied by violence against women. In the diaspora as in Canadian society generally, family violence is recognized as a problem. In one incident, an Ethiopian man murdered his wife. In another case, a woman and child were virtually held captive in their home by an Eritrean man who had lost his job and developed an alcohol problem. It is difficult to

132

Ghosts and Shadows

determine the actual extent of the problem; as among other Canadians, there is reluctance to discuss the subject openly. However, many informants considered this a significant issue. Serious power struggles continue within diaspora households; yet under unfavourable social and economic conditions, some men have responded with more equanimity: 'I got laid off so my wife started to work. I couldn't get a certificate to work [in my field]. I had no papers from Ethiopia but I was allowed to take a qualifying exam. So I had to study while the kids were sleeping, I listened to a cassette when I was cooking. That was trial-and-error cooking, you can say.' A few men expressed pride in their domestic abilities and saw more equitable relationships as desirable: Back home, men don't even know where the kitchen is. Here I cook and I look after the kids. Marriage is teamwork, I think that's the best. You have to be open-minded. Some may like to sit and order people around because they grew up that way but even the children criticize you if you do that here. My wife went on vacation to Las Vegas and I stayed here with the kids. I made the house clean for her when she came home. Some people may criticize me because as a husband I have become too Western. But later those same people may say it was a better way, I was right. In diaspora, masculinity and femininity are shaped and reshaped in everyday lives. Haunted by the ghostly hand of patriarchy, some men resist changes to gender relationships and to representations of who they are as men. For them, households provide a sense of belonging but also are spaces of disruption - former relationships no longer function, but their shadows linger, and continue to signify what has been lost. Women seem to have adapted to new demands, observing new rights and new responsibilities. Although they sometimes cope quietly, they certainly create a new sense of identity. Life in diaspora requires adaptation to and construction of new ideas and behaviour, but not all men are willing to change along with women. Reconstructing Households and Gender Relationships: Ghostly Ways Other ghostly means of reconstructing households operated in the diaspora. Some men saw women in the diaspora as unsuitable for marriage, reasoning that overexposure to North American society meant they would not accept traditional household relationships. Others may

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

133

have considered these women 'damaged goods,' as a result of rape or other coerced sexual activity; no male informant ever said as much, but female informants asserted that such ideas were common among men. Some men returned to the Horn on bride-hunting expeditions, in search of their ghostly ideal. Until the late 1980s, Eritrean and Ethiopian women were in short supply in the diaspora, yet most men preferred to date (and certainly to marry) within their own group. This was more than a personal decision based on ease of communication; it was also an explicit ideological component of group maintenance, especially among committed nationalists. The few men who did marry exogamously faced disapproval and were ostracized and alienated, regardless of their wives' origins; reasons cited for opposing such marriages included cultural and 'racial' differences (see Chapter 8). Although not uncommon, marriages between Eritreans and Ethiopians - especially Amharas - were discouraged on political grounds. (Some cultural differences exist, but many Eritreans speak Amharic and have lived in Ethiopia.) The diaspora population faced the challenge of reconstructing communities and households in a new context. In the early phases of migration to Canada, because of the shortage of marriageable Eritrean women, many men felt anxious about their inability to fulfil the group's cultural expectations. Even after more women arrived in the mid-1980s, some men looked to the Horn for mates. After independence, some men returned to Eritrea or Ethiopia more or less explicitly to seek 'suitable' wives (i.e., women who more closely conformed to the ideal of a traditional, submissive woman). Higher status (not always accurately represented) enabled Canadian residents to obtain younger, more attractive brides; some used their status to marry into wealthy or prestigious families. There was general disapproval of these practices. Informants criticized them as the result of 'backward' attitudes. The men who went on bride-hunting expeditions expected to gain prestige by 'bagging' traditional, younger, or richer brides. Instead of obtaining higher status, these men were ridiculed. Women perceived these expeditions as an insult and as a conscious rejection of diaspora women. It was not only women whose own marriage prospects were affected who disapproved of bride hunting; several male informants also described it as disrespectful of women in the diaspora. Bride hunters saw women as objects, and gender relationships as something static that they could control. For them, building households

134

Ghosts and Shadows

meant reimposing traditional gender relationships. Some men who returned after independence to find brides acted irresponsibly and selfishly and misrepresented their financial standing; their actions were widely reported, and offended community sensibilities, and were criticized by the EPLF itself. When these marriages failed, either because the men had misrepresented themselves or because their brides had used them merely to obtain passage abroad, reactions were decidely untraditional: separation and divorce are usually regarded as an extremely unfortunate last resort, yet these men received little sympathy and were widely dismissed as fools. Women were unlikely to return to Eritrea to find appropriate mates. While their resident status in Canada might have appealed to prospective husbands seeking to maximize their own chances of immigration, women faced a number of hurdles. Given that the active pursuit of a husband would violate cultural expectations, a third party would have been required to arrange such marriages. Also, women who had lived abroad were associated with independence, sexual promiscuity, and uncontrollable behaviour. Furthermore, women faced contradictory demands: they were expected to marry and perform traditional roles while continuing to support their families. This demonstrates how women are situated differently from men in the construction of family households. Reconstructing 'an Eritrean' family household itself involves contradictions, partly because nationalist and traditional identities involve different narratives of gender relations. Nationalist identity promotes gender equality, while traditional identity rests on patriarchy. Thus reconstructing family households presents challenges, especially to long-distance nationalists. Generation and Gender Relationships Separation affected various gendered relationships within families, not only those between husbands and wives but also those between adult children and their parents and global households. Those with parents in Eritrea felt anxious for them; yet they found it difficult to meet their culturally prescribed responsibilities. The eldest son normally is expected to help parents and younger siblings. The ever-changing circumstances of war and repression meant that siblings left at different times and in different directions. Many were stranded without work permits or opportunities. At the same time, the culture expected children especially males - to help a wider network of relatives than those typi-

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

135

cally recognized by Canadian kinship norms. For individuals over forty, the concept of masculinity involved strong notions about responsibility, respectability, and public restraint. Unemployment and underemployment (due in part to structural racism; see Chapter 8) made it difficult for men to fulfil their cultural roles. Furthermore, in diaspora, adults of both sexes felt obligated to care for their parents and siblings. As indicated, providing financial support to households meant new responsibilities for women in Canada. Even those who were unable to meet such responsibilities felt a duty. An unemployed woman in her late twenties expressed this: 'I send money to home and my sister in Greece whenever I can ... it is not easy ... If it weren't for the war, I would have been married now and I wouldn't have thought about it or needed to send money ... It is almost expected to send money to support our efforts and family back home. I feel I have to. If I had a job I could send money to my father and sponsor my sisters and brothers.' Diaspora life was shadowed with anxiety about families and guilt about unmet responsibilities, even though many exiles supported relatives. Despite the strong emphasis on family, few exiles wished to bring their parents to Canada, and older people who did visit suffered social isolation. A grandmother who visited her daughter's family in Canada for over a year expressed her desire to return to Eritrea; despite the greater material comforts in Canada, she described the loneliness of being separated from siblings, neighbours, and friends in her village. She also noted cultural changes in Canada, in particular changes in relationships between men and women. Even though own daughter was a well-educated professional whose husband strongly supported her autonomy, she was uncomfortable with how Eritrean women had become more independent. All the seniors we interviewed shared this view: they did not approve of such changes, but they accepted them because 'it's Canada.' Women in the diaspora perceive gender relationships as changing very slowly; their parents see the differences much more clearly. These differences increase tension around gender relationships across generational lines. Some fathers fled when their children were young or not yet born; for these children, family reunification was like going to live with strangers in a strange land. A mother recalled: 'The older one remembered him but the younger one was not born when he left... Oh, we were apart for four years. So you can imagine. They literally followed me at home. They were livelier when he was not around. It was hard for him. It made me feel very bad.'

136

Ghosts and Shadows

After forced separations ended, relationships with children had to be re-established, and parents had to rethink their parental roles and authority. Among informants, discipline was a constant concern. This was a reflection of their anxiety about changing generational relationships and their concomitant desire to maintain culture. Societies in the Horn are characterized by rigid hierarchies of patriarchal state power, and this is mirrored in households, which are controlled by the father. For some men, the diaspora experience - cultural displacement, unemployment, loss of status - disrupted their authority as husbands and fathers: The problem here is that fathers want to control their kids in the old way. They want to hang on to the old way of doing things.' The experience of diaspora also led to interventions in domestic authority by the state. For example, a young couple who fled Ethiopia with two of the wife's younger brothers came to Canada after eight years as refugees in Sudan. The boys, who were under fourteen when they arrived, became more proficient in English than the couple. They became rebellious and got involved with 'bad children' at school. They came home only when they needed money. They misunderstood arid abused the rights of minors in Canada, and they exploited the couple's lack of knowledge in this regard in order to gain freedom in the family (i.e., 'they know they won't be punished'). This working poor couple could not afford to give the boys what they wanted; the woman worried for their future, but when she tried to discipline them, they became violent and threatened her. Within six months of their arrival in Canada, the school, the police, and the child welfare agency became involved, and the boys were apprehended by the state. The woman recalled what happened when she tried to explain the situation to the state agencies: 'They only listened to the boys' story because they spoke better English and never listened to me or my intention.' Nor did the state explain the system well to her. She believed that the boys had been apprehended because she was a young woman judged as having no authority. Her husband felt that if they had not been African and black, their voices might have been heard. Obviously, language facility influenced gender and authority relationships within the household. The couple's lack of English-language skills limited their knowledge, power, and authority as parental figures. State intervention further eroded their authority and forced them to assimilate into the system. Their experience of diaspora was a tragedy manifested through power relationships such as patriarchy (parens patriae) and, arguably, racism. This incident had shadowy effects on their community. Other

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

137

parents felt unable to discipline their children. They did not know the Canadian laws and feared state intervention: The problem is that parents don't speak English well and they don't understand the Canadian system. So the kids can manipulate them.' Another informant made a similar observation: 'When I was young, I would not even look up when my parents disciplined me. Now young kids will call the cops if parents try to tell them what to do. Discipline has gone from one extreme to the other.' Single mothers on welfare without English-language proficiency worried about the lack of role models for their sons and feared losing control over their children; they cited stories of youths who got into trouble and challenged parental authority. Many informants worried about the loss of culture among younger people, who do not conform to familiar gender and generational relations and values. Clashes between generations created bitter divisions within some families and a sense that familiar values no longer held. As one parent said, 'Canada is good. But the problem is you lose your kids.' Yet not all parents saw these changes as threatening. One man described the strict discipline he had received from his own father, but added that he approved of 'the move toward a more friendly model of parents and children' - a model he had observed in North America and was trying to implement in his own household. Another father stated: 'You can see the lines of difference in raising a family. At home, it is very authoritarian; it's the father's responsibility to discipline the children. Here, responsibilities are shared. Parents talk to their children.' Gender relations are changing within diaspora households through changes in generational relationships. Life in the diaspora presented new images of masculinity and femininity. An older generation (in their thirties and forties at the time of interviews) believed that young people were losing their heritage and succumbing to bad influences from North American culture. Concerns included alcohol and drug abuse and sexual promiscuity. In particular, men over thirty were concerned that girls might not be submissive to their fathers and might wish to stay out late and attend parties with boys like their Canadian peers. Such behaviour did not reflect the image of a 'good woman.' One man, disturbed by changing cultural values in his sister's children, warned her: 'You are raising snakes.' A mother who had difficulty relating to a younger generation was dismayed: 'I thought I gave birth to human beings but I gave birth to stones.' Young women faced a conflict between peer pressure to be and look 'cool' and their

138

Ghosts and Shadows

parents' expectations to be and look 'good.' Female adolescents struggle to define femininity and masculinity in their everyday lives, and must negotiate the expectations of peers and parents (Fine and Macpherson 1994). A young Eritrean man commented on this: For those young people who are eighteen to twenty-three years old and who've been here for several years, I think there's a different sense than for those who came here when they were older ... The younger ones were very small when they left, they don't remember anything. They feel like they are hyphenated Canadians, Eritrean-Canadians. Like the student association at the university, the meetings are held in English. It's too complicated for them to speak in Tigrinya. There are about forty members. They said, 'Why do we call it the Eritrean Students Association? We should call it the Eritrean-Canadian Students Association.' Their girlfriends are mainly white or from Hong Kong, sixty per cent of them have non-Eritrean friends. Part of it is that there's a shortage of Eritrean women. But also the Eritrean girls are boring. They don't do anything, there's cultural pressure on Eritrean girls not to date. You go to work, then you go home and do the cleaning, that's what they're taught. Also, breaking up is not accepted. If you date somebody, it's expected that you're going to marry that person. So the girls like to go with Canadians too. Then they don't have the same pressure.

A female university student described her experience: 'I had a Canadian boyfriend but I'd never bring him to one of our events. People would just talk about it, it would be a big scandal or something. My parents didn't like it either. If he phoned, I wouldn't get the message and things like that.' Young women who are descendents of 'immigrants' face additional 'conflictual forces of belonging/not belonging' in their everyday lives that are 'mediated by a variety of social and cultural worlds, and by the experience of intense cultural multiplicity' (Alund 1999: 157). Having a group like a students' association helps them in their struggle to define femininity and masculinity in their everyday lives. Young Eritreans construct ways of relating to others that allow them to gain control over ghostly cultural expectations. They must negotiate and construct who they are and how they belong/not belong to 'mainstream' society, Black youth culture, and their parents' cultural and social worlds. A young woman summed up her situation succinctly: 'Parents think we don't behave like respectful Eritreans. Just because we

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

139

dress like other teenage Canadians they worry that we are secretly dating or doping. Personally, I do not agree with the traditional marriage ... Men and women should be more equal. I respect Eritrean culture but I won't have a relationship like my parents have.' A woman with teenaged sons noted how 'cross-cultural' relationships play out in diaspora households: 'The boys have to deal with a lot in North America from peer pressure to racism. They are not really Eritrean. I have to keep reminding myself and my husband they are Canadians, so we need to relate to them differently from as we might have brought them up in Eritrea.' Another mother noted that 'cross-cultural' relationships exist in diaspora households, indicating complex fissures of national identities: 'My daughter was asked at school if she is an African. She said, "My mother is, but not me." She thinks she is a Canadian. The younger one is most definitely a Canadian.' Diaspora experiences encouraged departures from traditional parental and gender relationships, as a single mother of two daughters declared: 'I am their parent but I want to be their friend as well. And I encourage them to be whatever they want to be [regardless of gender].' A woman in her twenties expressed concerns about young people: 'My brothers got jobs ... We don't have good role models. They see easy money. Parking attendants, cab drivers ... do not need education. They can do that without it. So they don't try harder to upgrade themselves.' Another young woman observed: 'Many boys are unemployed. Because they are black they can't get a job. Some are very shy and that doesn't help. I know many white kids get summer jobs and part-time jobs because they know the managers or parents know someone. We don't have svich connections. We need good role models.' In fact, youth unemployment was very high in the mid-1990s: 19.(5 per cent of those between 15 and 24 were unemployed in Toronto. The unemployment rate among African and Black youth was 39 per cent - almost twice that figure (Ornstein 2000). This does not seem to have been the result merely of a shortage of good role models. The same young woman continued: 'Young people look at Canadian kids driving cars and living independently, but they don't see responsibilities ... They do not understand ... They're caught in between Canadian and Eritrean cultures and values.' Another young woman worried: 'Boys have no place to go so they get involved in bad things.' Yet another proposed her solution:

140

Ghosts arid Shadows

We need a place to gather. We need to see similar faces, speak the same language, eat the same food, and feel good about ourselves and share experience. Not meeting on a street. Young ones in particular, need a place to know who they are: 'They are OK, we are OK.' You see? ... We had a language school, camps, soccer teams, baseball and hockey teams too. We had a community centre but because of money it closed down. Someone else started up, but no continuity. We have to start all over again ... Young ones are having difficulties with Eritrean and Canadian rules. Some manage one outside and another for inside. But we need to talk. They can figure out who they are.

Descriptions of young people as caught 'in between' cultures, as if these were two separate constellations, may fit 'Bhabha's assumption of the hybrid as a fragmented individual other' (Yuval-Davis 1997: 60). Yet our informants noted that young people were trying to find who they are but had no place to do so together. Long-distance nationalism brought the parental generation together to discuss common concerns. In the same vein, younger people need places (such as the one provided by the university students' association) to meet and create their own identities. Few can exist in split space ('one outside and another for inside'). They do not face two distinct homogeneous constellations (Eritrean and Canadian), but they are involved in a plurality of complex, constantly changing relationships. Households are reconstructed through evolving gender and generational relationships and emerge as new spaces that are constantly changing as relationships evolve. They are not simply spaces in between. Constructions of Gender and Space 'Gender' is a relational process. Gender-based analyses perceive masculinity and femininity as socially constructed categories and consider how male and female spaces are delineated. It is suggested that in many cultures the men occupy public space while the women inhabit domestic spaces. This dichotomy is conceptually flawed, as activities in the public sphere affect domestic matters (Lamphere 1993) and vice versa; nevertheless, such divisions underlie prescriptions of appropriate behaviour and maintain patriarchy. In the Horn, women are not absent from public spaces; rather, men and women occupy public spaces in different ways. In general terms, some variety has always existed among ethnic groups regarding the

Gender Relations in the Diaspora

141

appropriate behaviour of women in public. Class has also mediated gendered divisions of space. Women from elite groups, who were educated and who lived in urban areas, had different opportunities for using public space than did rural women. In cities, educated women held administrative, teaching, and nursing positions; other women worked as maids, or in bars and restaurants, or sold agricultural produce or alcohol in markets. In Eritrea, the use of public space was modified for all by years of military occupation, curfews, repression, and constant threats of violence; 'traditional' behaviour, already transformed by colonialism and urbanization, was constrained and reshaped by this situation. In diaspora, the gendered use of space is affected by institutions, socio-economic needs, and cultural values. Women who had previous work experience or education and who arrived before neoconservative policies gained ascendance in Canada benefited from government programs to help immigrants and refugees; many of these programs have now disappeared (Matsuoka and Sorenson 1999). With such help, women created spaces against racism and sexism, although this involved continuous struggles and negotiations at their work and at home (ibid.). Some changes in households provided more freedom for women; but some women experienced additional burdens in these newly created spaces: 'At home, the father managed all the household money. Here, the man gives money to his wife for household management.' Many women had no choice but to work outside the home for wages; others pursued careers quite deliberately. That being said, more 'traditional' uses of space were often invoked in social activities. Some men established lines of demarcation - that is, they accepted women's access to public space in relation to waged labour but maintained restrictions in social activities. Women's use of public space was circumscribed in various ways. Some men exerted direct control over women; in extreme cases, husbands forced isolation on their wives. Space was also policed through rumour, gossip, and innuendo. For example, a young, university-educated Eritrean woman said that her reputation suffered when she went alone to coffee shops to discuss politics with men. This suggests a disjuncture between the formal support for nationalist policies favouring gender equality on the one hand, and the informal influence of cultural expectations about appropriate behaviour on the other hand. Employment provides access to public space but is gendered, racialized, and classed. Among Ethiopians in Toronto, over 80 per cent of women and 70 per cent of men are employed in low-skilled jobs (compared with 52 per cent and 44 per cent respectively for total popula-

142

Ghosts and Shadows

tion); 71 per cent of Ethiopian women and 42 per cent of Ethiopian men work in nonmariual low-skilled jobs (Ornsteiri 2000). Women with less education and less ability to communicate in English (or French) remained isolated. Some moved into 'public' space as employees but remained isolated, as one woman explained through an interpreter: 'I do not speak to anyone at work. We always have very little time to clean rooms. I do not want my boss to think I am chatting with them. Besides, nobody speaks English ... When I come home I have to do all the work. I am too tired and have no time to call anyone. I am tired and lonesome.' Thus, gender, racism, and class influenced women's experience of space. In this chapter we have considered the household as a gendered location for negotiating identity. We observed that people define space in their everyday lives through complex relationships. Some, haunted by the ghosts of old power, engage in 'essentialized nostalgia'; others are more innovative, not only modifying what exists but creating new ways of living. These are, as Yuval-Davis (1997: 59) states, not hybrids of 'homogeneous fixed entities external to [their] own constructions.' These people do not seem to be fragmented individuals seeking a home in between Eritrean and Canadian (b)orders. Our observations and interviews do not always present an image of oppressed people; regardless of their oppressed status (as Ornstein's census analysis suggests), they are resilient. We observe that members of the diaspora do not occupy space in between (b) orders; rather, they construct new space in households through constant negotiations, struggles, and contestations, and in some cases, as in Eritrean women's view of feminism, through collaboration. Social space emerges from everyday gendered relationships through myriad political, social, and economic interactions, and i more complex and dynamic than what Mirza (1997: 41) simply calls an empty space 'in between.' Households are not isolated private spaces; they are influenced by and in turn influence 'public' space; public and private intermesh. Long-distance nationalism provided collective spaces for an older generation to negotiate relationships; some young people who are less committed to long-distance nationalism must be afforded collective space for resistance and solidarity for their own purposes, if they are to carve out their own identities.

SIX

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

Exiles who rejected both the Derg and its opponents found themselves cast into a domain of dark shadows; bitterly surveying spectres of their former homeland, they felt their own narrative constructions of identity, history, and social order threatened in fierce battles between those who had usurped control of Ethiopia and those who sought to divide it. Their dilemma became more complicated in the late 1980s as EPLF and TPLF forces won substantial victories and Mengistu's downfall appeared imminent. The Derg's collapse in 1991 and the establishment of new governments in Eritrea and Ethiopia sparked furious political activity in the diaspora. Apart from TPLF supporters, few Ethiopians in the diaspora were politically active during the Derg's rule, but as the EPRDF seized power, they awakened to activism, sensing a crisis in terms of the nation arid identity that had given them a sense of pride, despite their exile. The Oromos also mobilized, in opposition to the TPLF/EPRDF, which they perceived as a continuation of Abyssinian hegemony. Central to this mobilization was the vigorous production of competing mythico-histories. In her discussion of Hutu refugees from Burundi in Tanzania, Liisa Malkki defines mythico-histories as crafted accounts produced by refugees, as morality plays with recurring themes that provide formulaic expressions of history and individual experiences. Mythico-histories are discourses that classify self and other. They create a collective past that stands in opposition to other created pasts; they provide moral orderiiigs of the world; they are part of the imagining of communities. As oppositional versions of narratives constructed by other groups, they incorporate both facts and fictions. Although it is

144

Ghosts and Shadows

sometimes possible to distinguish the truth or falsity of some claims, Malkki (1995: 54-5) considers it essential to see these narratives as forms of social and political ordering and of self-definition. For the diaspora, as well as for competing nationalists in the Horn, struggles for control over the past were crucial to constructions of identity. A sense of the past is fundamental to nationalism; intellectuals and institutions produce narrative versions of history that bolster distinct feelings of identity. This past is codified in texts and enacted in ceremonies and performances, with the goal of providing a framework that will organize individual experiences, obscure differences of class, gender, ethnicity, religion, and region, and produce a unified population that will internalize these narratives as indisputable facts. Establishing the validity of a national past is a key element in legitimizing claims and mobilizing support for an independent state. In the Horn, the terrain of the past was staked out by competing historical traditions, each with its own goals and subjects. In much the same way, the diaspora was striated by competing national, ethnic, and political identities, each with its own conflicting orientation to and interpretation of the past. In this chapter we examine how mythico-histories were produced among the Ethiopian diaspora at a moment of political transition; we focus on what De Waal (1994: 35) terms Abyssinian fundamentalism: 'Its adherents are characterized by a psychological identification with a 'greater Ethiopia' (especially pronounced among exiles) and a belief in the superiority of the values of Ethiopian centralism over all other values found within the borders of the country (and beyond), with the consequence that the adherents to these values have a right to rule.' De Waal characterizes centralist proponents of Abyssinian fundamentalism as 'mostly but not exclusively Amhara ... a relatively small and privileged group, grossly overrepresented in the state and parastatal bureaucracy and in commerce, with vested interests' (29). Abyssinian Hauntings

Abyssinian fundamentalism lingers not only in the haunted house of the Ethiopian state but also in the shadowy spaces of its diaspora. Gordon (1997: 63) suggests that in a haunting, 'the ghost imparts a charged strangeness into the place or the sphere that it is haunting,' that 'the ghost is primarily a symptom of what is missing,' and 'the ghost is alive' and demands reckoning. These features characterize the haunted space of diaspora.

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

145

Ethiopians who left their homeland because they opposed the Derg continued to feel an intense pride in images of an ancient Ethiopian empire. Their identity was deeply rooted in a mythologized state that they imagined as having endured for thousands of years; and they perceived this identity as threatened by contemporary political convulsions. The overthrow and murder of the last emperor, Haile Selassie, constituted a fundamental break with history, meaning, and self. The nature of this break is reflected in the title of Blair Thomson's book, Ethiopia: The Country That Cut Off Its Head. To Abyssinian fundamentalists, after such an act of mutilation nothing could make sense again. But even a headless corpse can rise from its grave and exert an uncanny power. The Emperor's Ghost

For the group conveniently (if perhaps confusingly) labelled Amharas, the emperor - Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Kings, Elect of God - provided a symbol of power and hierarchy, continuity and respect. Under the emperor, society was organized and stable. Vast inequalities separated a pampered elite from the impoverished masses, but this was regarded as only the natural order of things. The present was firmly rooted in the past and was authorized by the emperor's divine origins. Thus, the Derg's rise to power was more than a displacement of the elite from authority; it was also an overturning of this ancient past and an affront to sacred traditions. (Note here that despite claims of revolutionary change, the Derg reproduced and even strengthened the hierarchical structures that had operated under the emperor.) Although the emperor was dead, his ghost remained a threat, and not only as an inspiration for exiled monarchists. Stories circulated that Mengistu personally suffocated Haile Selassie with a pillow and buried him beneath his office to prevent his ghost from stalking the halls of the palace. After Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, the corpse was exhumed and moved, first to the Menelik Mausoleum and then to the Trinity Orthodox Cathedral, although family members contend that the body is not yet properly buried because the emperor was not given a state funeral. (The Haile Selassie 1 Foundation launched an appeal among Ethiopians around the world to raise $1 million for the funeral ceremony, which it planned for 2 November 2000. Meanwhile, Rastafarians claim that a different set of exhumed remains was actually the emperor's corpse.) The ghost remains unsatisfied, and still demands a reckoning with the past.

146

Ghosts and Shadows

The emperor's ghost lingers in cyberspace, in the 'HIM [His Imperial Majesty] Cybermuseum,' created as an 'electronic memorial' by Haile Selassie's great-granddaughter Esther Selassie and her husband Anatoly Antohin, a Russian exile teaching theatre in Fairbanks, Alaska. The cybermuseum depicts the emperor's life as full of mystical signs and compares his death to that of Jesus Christ. The cybermuseum's curators suggest there are direct links between the emperor's demise and Ethiopia's disintegration, and evoke a pervasive context of death and dreams by including an Amharic song: 'Kill a man! Kill a man! It's good to kill a man. One who has not killed a man moves around sleepily.' Condemning both the EPRDF and Eritrean independence, the curators offer links to Eritrean opposition groups and to anticommunist and Rastafariari sites. Rastafarians, who take their name from the emperor's former title Ras Tafari Mekorien, also regard his ghost as a charged presence. For them, Haile Selassie continues to live as an inspiring spiritual force. In Toronto's reggae music shops and among black nationalists, the emperor's image is ubiquitous, emblazoned on CDs, flags, posters, T-shirts, and buttons. On the day this passage was written, the emperor was spotted travelling around Toronto as a large photograph vertically mounted on the roof of a car. The intent is subversive: Haile Selassie's image evokes memories of anticolonial resistance to the Italian invasion of 1935; one of Jamaican reggae musician Bob Marley's most popular songs, 'War,' borrows from the Emperor's speech to the League of Nations to denounce racism and imperialism. As the shrewd, stable, and sophisticated leader of a historically rooted civilization, Haile Selassie embodied the antithesis of racist stereotypes of Africans arid those of African descent; he continues to serve as a symbol of pride arid strength. The emperor's image is linked to a progressive politics and deployed alongside that of Che Guevara arid the Palestinian kufiya as part of a subcultural or revolutionary iconography (defined as 'style items ... deployed to incite shock, to mount oblique challenges to hegemony, to display social contradictions at the level of signs, and to decompose and reassemble identities and boundaries ... objects from the past that have an afterlife in the present'; see Swederiburg 1995: 205). Also, largely because of its connection to reggae music, the emperor's image has become an element in what Micaela di Leonardo (1998: 2) calls the 'consumption of the exotic'; like other primitivist commodities such as Oriental rugs, Navajo blankets, Indonesian batiks, tarot cards, and healing crystals, it now serves as a marker of the Other. So the emperor's image figured in anticolonial, antiracist messages;

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

147

but at the same time, these messages were undermined by other readings of history, such as those of Oromo nationalists. For example, Leenco Lata (1998: 135) sees Haile Selassie's 'policy of forced ethnic blending to obliterate Oromo identity' as part of the 'perpetual Abyssinian genocide against Oromos.' Oromo oppositional memory compares Haile Selassie to Hitler and Stalin, seeing him not as the symbol of African progress or black pride but as the Conquering Lion, a savage beast devouring the innocent. Exclusion and omission are essential aspects of nationalist consciousness; thus, to assert anticolonial credentials, Ethiopian nationalist discourse must push this Oromo history into the shadows. Ethiopian Mythico-Histories

The production of mythico-histories intensified markedly among Ethiopian exiles in the late 1980s as it became clear that Mengistu's fall was imminent. Allegations, accusations, and rumours swept the diaspora as exiles debated Ethiopia's future and national identity. Public meetings were held; government and opposition figures toured the diaspora; and discussion raged in pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, and radio broadcasts, and on the Internet. One active site for the production of Abyssinian fundamentalist discourse was the Ethiopian Review, a bilingual magazine published in Los Angeles. The Review presented itself as an independent and balanced forum. Besides political articles, it ran sports news, stories about the achievements of individual Ethiopians, and, in early issues, recipes. Travel companies and music promoters advertised in its pages; so too did the Red Sea Press, which distributes books endorsing Eritrean independence, which led readers to accuse the editors of supporting Eritrean propaganda. Although the Review did include comments from EPLF members concerning the referendum, and although it published an interview with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, most of its articles opposed Eritrean independence and the EPRDF and supported Greater Ethiopian nationalism. Unlike most diaspora publications of previous years, the Revieta does not publish any Marxist rhetoric or class analysis. Contributors invoke 'democracy' (which suddenly replaced 'socialism' in the political discourse of all groups), and several promote 'free markets,' though few go as far as Robert Ingram Powell (contributing editor, later editorial advisor), who opined in June 1991 that capitalism was the only system compatible with human freedom and that only

148

Ghosts and Shadows

'FREE MARKET ZONES' (capitalization in original) could save Ethiopia from being 'overrun by the Arabs' (p. 30). The Review's editor, Elias Kifle, makes his position clear: his editorials regularly castigate the EPRDF and call for opposition. Throughout the 1990s, writers dismissed the EPRDF as a TPLF front and the TPLF itself as an EPLF puppet. They represented the EPLF as an emerging regional hegemon that was plotting Ethiopia's destruction in order to dominate the Horn. For example, Paulos Milkias, who teaches political science at Concordia University in Montreal and who is a contributing editor and regular writer for the Review, stated in the July 1993 issue that the EPRDF 'was from the beginning a Trojan Horse and is now simply a proxy government of the EPLF.' He characterized the EPLF as a dictatorship bent on plundering Ethiopia's wealth. In the May 1995 issue, Getachew Mekasha, employing terms used to describe Tigrayan and Eritrean liberation fronts respectively, described the government as a Woyane/Shabia coalition. The magazine's central theme has always been opposition to the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments and to Eritrean independence. Most contributors are Ethiopian men, and many of these are academics in North American universities. The Review publishes interviews with and commentaries and speeches by diaspora activists such as Mersha Yoseph leader of the Coalition of Ethiopian Democratic Forces (COEDF), and Goshu Wolde, a former member of the Derg and the COEDF, now leader of his own anti-EPRDF group, MEDHIN. The Review's 'Men of the Year' have included opposition leaders such as Asrat Wolde Yesus and Beyene Petros. Even former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam has contributed his thoughts on national unity to the magazine. Ethiopian exiles bitterly opposed the Eritrean referendum. Overlooking the overwhelming support for independence, Elias Kifle said the referendum was 'held under a dictatorial regime [comparable to Hitler] ... an evil deed imposed on the peoples of Eritrea ... unnecessary, illegitimate and illegal.' Meanwhile, Tilahun Yilma, a virologist at the University of California-Davis, was claiming that Tigrinya speakers were holding all other ethnic groups in Eritrea as prisoners. Ethiopian intellectuals and activists dismissed the referendum's outcome as a foregone conclusion. It was; but Ethiopians attributed this to EPLF mind control, refusing to recognize that prolonged war and the military occupation of Eritrea had created widespread popular support for independence. Eritreans of various political loyalties (including opponents of the EPLF) had experienced decades of violence and

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

149

repression and needed little convincing that independence was the best choice. Ethiopia's attempt to crush Eritrean nationalism by targeting the civilian population did much to create a sense of a separate identity as well as support for independence. Ethiopian nationalists refused to acknowledge that Eritreans generally had developed a profound sense of grievance as a result of the oppressive tactics of successive Ethiopian regimes. Instead of recognizing the reality of this popular resentment and understanding how the highlanders themselves had created Eritrean nationalism in the past three decades, they renewed their efforts to dismiss Eritreans' aspirations as baseless by asserting that historical links and cultural similarities made Eritrea an integral part of Ethiopia. Ethiopian nationalists refused to recognize that while historical links and cultural similarities exist, these factors had become less significant to Eritreans than the daily experience of military occupation, repression, violence, surveillance, suspicion, and harassment, all of which generated support for independence even among those who felt an attachment to Ethiopia. Ethiopian nationalist discourse contains virtually no recognition of any of this. Instead, it pounds away at the theme of betrayal, as if Ethiopians in the diaspora were victims of those Eritreans who had voted for independence. Indeed, this is a constant refrain in Ethiopian Revieiv, which is strongly laced with the resentment and anger of Ethiopians, who feel their country has been destroyed by the EPLF and TPLF, and by Eritreans and Tigrayans generally. This sense of betrayal is accompanied by predictions of misfortune for Eritrea. Paulos Milkias offered several 'Scenarios for Post Independence Eritrea and Ethiopia' in the magazine (July 1993); some of these were fanciful, and all of them - except for the possibility of renewed federation - bleak. Typically, Ethiopian nationalists in the diaspora have predicted only disaster and ruin for an independent Eritrea. By the end of the 1990s, many were delighted to see their predictions come true. Much of this discourse expressed concern for human rights and democracy. The fact that these intellectuals had been silent about atrocities in Eritrea during the Derg's reign made their sudden commitment to human rights somewhat suspect; some who assumed leadership roles in diaspora opposition groups, such as Goshu Wolde, had held highranking positions in the Derg only shortly before. Worku Aberra, an economics instructor at Dawson College in Quebec, offered one explanation for this long silence of Ethiopian diaspora intellectuals: EPLF 'high priests' (i.e., Eritrean academics at American universities) had enjoyed a 'free ride' throughout the previous decade because they

150

Ghosts and Shadows

could disseminate propaganda freely, while 'politically unaffiliated scholars, Ethiopians and non-Ethiopians alike, had to remain silent, not criticizing the EPLF for fear of justifying the Derg's attacks on the Eritrean people.' He did not consider why 'politically unaffiliated scholars' did not take a principled stand against the Derg's abuses while clarifying their opposition to the EPLF at the same time. Even after an independent Eritrea became a virtual certainty, some observers counselled renewed federation, no matter that it was highly unlikely to succeed. For Ethiopian nationalists, the impending victory of the liberation fronts promised only chaos and the fragmenting of their imagined nation. For some, this was profoundly threatening to their sense of personal identity. In this climate of perceived crisis, surprising coalitions formed among exiles as Ethiopians who had once opposed Mengistu now flocked to support him, in the belief that the Derg was the only hope for maintaining the integrity of the country's borders. Even some who suffered greatly under the regime expressed support for it during its final days. According to one informant, a woman who had been imprisoned for several years and brutally tortured by Ethiopian government officials by having a red-hot iron forced into her vagina told him, 'I hope Mengistu lives a hundred years,' because she feared the break-up of Ethiopia. Yet not all Ethiopians supported the Derg. When Mengistu, from exile in Zimbabwe, published an article in Ethiopian Renriew (March 1994) in which he justified his rule, condemned the EPRDF, and called for support for his own Ethiopian Unity Salvation Democratic Party and his Ethiopian Unity Salvation Black Lion Army, many readers wrote angry letters to the magazine. Amare Gobeze of Alberta, Canada, described Mengistu as a 'murderer' and 'coward'; Samuel Ferenji of Toronto condemned the 'diabolic atrocities' committed by this 'angel of death' {Ethiopian Review, April 1994, pp. 7-8). Nevertheless, some readers considered Mengistu a patriot. Thus, even after Mengistu had fled, his presence lingered in the diaspora. Abiye Solomon's article 'The Ghost of Mengistu in the New Year' (Ethiopian Review, October 1992) described how even social events among exiles were haunted by discussions of the former dictator. 'Tigrinya Plots' While Ethiopians in the diaspora saw Eritrean independence as a direct attack on their identity and on a state they wished to preserve, Oromo

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

151

activists were angered because they felt that their own claims to an independent state were being overlooked. Ethiopian and Oromo nationalists - no matter that their goals were directly opposed - dismissed the EPRDF as a screen for Tigrayan dominance and condemned the government for ethnic extremism. One who took this line was Tilahun Yilma, who described his own background as multi-ethnic (Oromo, Gurage, Amhara, and Tigrayan) but proclaimed pride in a national Ethiopian identity. Tilahun wrote a series of attacks on the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments for the Ethiopian Review in which he contended that the EPLF and TPLF, respectively, ran the two states. In fact, those groups did exercise virtually exclusive control and severely restricted dissent. However, Tilahun went further, not only criticizing their authoritarian rule but also identifying them as mechanisms of ethnic-based aggression; according to him, both groups were controlled by Tigrinya-speaking peoples, whose aim was to colonize Ethiopia in order to create a 'Greater Eritrea.' In short, Tilahun was identifying an ethnic plot, a pathological Tigrinya program to destroy Ethiopia. According to his analysis, the EPRDF and PFDJ were supported by Israel and the United States, who were seeking to use them as weapons against Islamic fundamentalists in the Horn. Tilahun maintained that Eritreans and Tigrayans had plundered Ethiopia's riches, deliberately plotted its ecological destruction, launched ethnic cleansing operations to annihilate groups such as the Afars, and imposed an apartheid system of bantustans for other ethnic groups. While condemning all Tigrinya-speakers as ethnocentric, Tilahun himself stated that he would never trust 'ethnic Eritreans' or Tigrayans. Through such discourse, opposition to the EPRDF and Eritrean independence was transformed into hatred of all Tigrayans. Ethiopian nationalist discourse has adopted a primordialist style of imagining community and constantly resorts to a rhetoric of authenticity. Tilahun was arguing that although Tigray occupies a key role in Ethiopian history, Tigrinya speakers are not true Ethiopians and that the 'real' Ethiopia should secede from Eritrea and Tigray; he was also calling for a substantial reduction in the area of these entities by restricting their boundaries to the highlands, where most Tigrinya speakers live. He proposed that after the 'authentic' Ethiopia had seceded, Tigrinya-speakers should be rounded up and deported to those areas from all other regions; isolated in areas that could not support them, they would soon face starvation and beg to return to authentic Ethiopia, which could then dictate harsh terms and punish its enemies.

152

Ghosts and Shadows

Although other Ethiopians in the diaspora opposed Eritrean independence, most were unconvinced by Tilahun's revenge fantasy of 'Ethiopian' secession. Some, noting that he was a research virologist by profession, dismissed him as a 'mad scientist'; others suggested that he was a TPLF agent whose mission was to fracture the opposition by promoting extreme views that would frighten people into supporting the central government. Still others, however, commended his proposals as a valid political program and adopted a similar rhetoric of authenticity, translating opposition to the EPRDF into attacks on all Tigrayans or all Tigrinya-speaking people. For example, Girma Bekele, associate editor of the Ethiopian Review and a regular contributor to the Internet discussion group Ethio Forum, announced in his electronic posting of 13 May 1997 that 'Every Tigrengna speaker in Addis Ababa is now under the service of TPLF in alienating the Ethiopian people further,' because no Tigrayari-identified opposition movement to the government had emerged. Like Tilahun Yilma, Girma was condemning the government for basing its policies on ethnic divisions even while resorting to ethnic generalizations himself. Claims that all Tigrayans supported the EPRDF were contradicted in the Review itself. For example, in his March 1994 letter to the magazine, Tsion Abraha noted his Tigrayan background and his Ethiopian affiliation and then declared his opposition to the TPLF and EPLF. He asserted that contemporary Ethiopia was directly connected to the ancient empire of Axum, depicted the TPLF and EPLF as 'mercenaries' looting the country, and referred to 'the resolve of the Tigrigna speaking masses to fight to the last man to preserve Ethiopian unity and integrity.' The Review also interviewed Hailu Mengesha, a founder of the TPLF, who resigned and immigrated to the United States in 1981 to form the Tigrayan Alliance for National Democracy, which opposed the TPLF and the EPRDF government. Issues of ethnicity (referred to as 'the nationalities question' in the Marxist rhetoric of the 1970s and 1980s) became central to Ethiopia's future. The EPRDF said it was seeking a new basis for national identity by recognizing ethnic diversity and allowing ethnic groups the right to self-determination, up to and including secession. Ethiopian opponents argued that the EPRDF was determined to destroy Ethiopia by this very means, that is, by encouraging sharp ethnic divisions and promoting hatred between groups. At the same time, Oromo nationalists were dismissing the EPRDF's provisions guaranteeing self-determination as insincere.

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

153

While Oromo nationalists base their claims for an independent Oromia on their people's long history of oppression at the hands of Amharas or Abyssiriians, some Ethiopian nationalists deny that ethnic animosity has ever existed in Ethiopia. They depict Ethiopian history as a model of ethnic harmony. For example, Getinet Belay, a professor of communications at Rutgers University, in the Ethiopian Review of May 1993, argued that: [Ethiopia] is one of the few countries in the world where there is no tradition of systematic and direct confrontations between ethnic or religious communities ... the long history of cooperation, voluntary integration, and interpersonal family bonds among the multitude of the country's linguistic, ethnic, and religious communities has produced a strong Ethiopian national identity that transcends individual ethnic definitional parameters. (32)

Deploying familiar themes, Getinet accused the EPLF of fostering ethnic conflict as an 'anti-Ethiopian conspiracy.' In the Ethiopian diaspora, the processes of reworking the past and constructing a golden age of harmonious relations involve the 'active forgetting' of particular events (Swedeiiburg 1993). Incidents that reflect badly on a nationalist struggle or that reveal factionalism may be dropped from historical accounts in order to present the image of a unified group that has never wavered from its objectives and principles. Ethiopian long-distance nationalists, for all their astonishingly rapid ideological shifts from 'socialism' to 'democracy,' emphasize antiquity and unity, forgetting that the empire was founded by force and that unity was maintained by domination. (Other nationalist movements also minimize ethnic and political differences; for example, EPLF supporters dismissed ELF factions and Islamic fundamentalists in the Jihad group as numerically and politically insignificant.) Although Ethiopian nationalists promote images of former ethnic harmony, these images do not go unchallenged. Oromo nationalists deploy a counterdiscourse of ethnic hegemony; and even those who maintain an Ethiopian identity do not completely accept that the past was always harmonious. For example, in the Ethiopian Review of November-December 1993, Dereje Alemayehu, of the Department of Development Studies of the Free University in Berlin, cited cases of ethnic discrimination; while disagreeing with opposition groups, he called for negotiations and compromise. Similarly, in the March 1994 Review, a

154

Ghosts and Shadows

resident of Kenya, Efrem Alemu, characterized Ethiopian history as oppression and chauvinism; he contended that Getinet was conflating 'Ethiopia' and 'Amhara' and was idolizing the past rather than examining it. (Efrem also criticized Dereje for trusting the EPLF and TPLF.) Amhara Phantoms

Diaspora groups that objected to the EPRDF's policy of reconfiguring Ethiopia along ethnic lines depicted themselves as representatives of a united Ethiopia. Critics of such groups, which included OLE supporters, denounced them as chauvinists who were concealing behind a rhetoric of inclusiveness their real intention, which was to reinstate Amhara or Abyssinian dominance. Ethnic divisions were hotly debated in the Ethiopian Review, in Internet discussion groups such as EthioForum, and in other forums. After the Derg collapsed, Amhara identity was questioned by exiled intellectuals in North America. Qaleab Negusse (1991) suggested that it was time to explicitly acknowledge the existence of an Amhara ethnicity that obscured its domination by masquerading as a broader Ethiopian national identity. This was sharply rejected by Teshale Tibebu (1991), who argued that Amhara identity did provide the basis for a national culture. He maintained that before 1974, Amhara identity had been conceived first in religious terms (as Christian) and then in linguistic terms (as including speakers of Amharic). Teshale focused on the linguistic aspect, claiming a generational break between parents who did riot speak Amharic or did so only as a second language, and their children, who learned Amharic as their first language. He rejected claims that only Amharic speakers could rise to positions of power; and, arguing that Amhara identity is an emotional attachment, concluded by warning of the dangers inherent in encouraging Amhara nationalism, which could only contribute to further hostilities. In Teshale's view, nationalism stemmed from the double-consciousness that characterized Ethiopia's deeply divided - indeed schizophrenic - intellectual class: 'a bastardized intelligentsia, western in dress and cosmopolitan in language, and yet deeply shallow in its soul, ready to run to its ethnic shell in times of trouble; well versed in the history of the West, and yet ignorant of its own history; deep in identity crisis, for it has 'two souls,' one western, another indigenous, neither of which it understands well.' Teshale's position was at variance with much of the contemporary theorizing on the postcolonial, which celebrates the privileged position

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

155

of hybridity, mobility, and mutability. Rather than applauding hybridity as fostering greater insight into either 'western' or 'indigenous' cultures, he presented Ethiopian intellectuals as flawed because they had deviated from their own traditions: only a return to cultural authenticity, an embrace of purity, could guarantee appropriate analysis and awareness. Some believed that the Amharas were being unjustly vilified in the discourse of dissident nationalisms and opposition politics. They rioted that the rulers of the empire had come from other ethnic backgrounds and that members of other ethnic groups had occupied key positions in various governments. For example, Kifle Yitbarek, an employment counsellor in Calgary, contended in the Review (September 1994) that 'Amhara Domination Ceased to be an Issue Long Ago.' While acknowledging that ethnic inequalities once existed, Kifle presented Ethiopia as a melting pot of cultures with political problems based on class divisions, which Amhara revolutionaries opposed. In the March 1993 Ethiopian Revierv, Aleme Eshete went further by stating, 'There is no such ethnic group. It is historically doubtful that there ever existed an Amhara ethnic group.' Takkele Taddese (1994) also questions existence of the Amhara as a distinct ethnic group, arguing that they are a manifestation of a supra-ethnic consciousness. In Aleme's view, 'Amhara is a linguistic and cultural phenomenon' (18). Here, confusion arises over the term ethnic group. Aleme apparently believes that because the Amharas are not all biologically linked, they do not form an ethnic group; here, 'ethnic group' seems to be equated with the unscientific arid now largely rejected term 'race.' Other scholars argue that ethnic groups are linguistic or cultural phenomena, shifting and shadowy creations with imprecise boundaries. Such terminological differences render arguments about the existence of the Amhara perplexing. However, such ambiguity also applies to other groups, such as the Oromos. The confusion is multiplied by the tendency among many contributors to the Review to refer to Eritreans as an ethnic group. To describe Eritreaii nationalism in ethnic terms is to distort its history and multi-ethnic rhetoric, at least as propounded by the EPLF. Nevertheless, these confusions and ambiguities serve the useful purpose of demonstrating that ethnic boundaries are not completely fixed. Even while exiles were proposing that Amharas did not exist, in Ethiopia itself an All Amhara Peoples Organization (AAPO) was formed on the basis of an explicit Amhara identity rather than a national identity.

156

Ghosts and Shadows

Those who joined it, and its diaspora supporters, saw themselves as the real builders of Ethiopia and took pride in the mythology of the ancient empire. They had a significant investment in this mythology; and there was renewed emotional commitment to the symbolism of ancient Ethiopia as a great African civilization, as well as to the image of Ethiopia as antifascist and anticoloiiial, derived from resistance to Italy's invasion in the 1930s. Critics of the AAPO pointed to the participation of former Derg members, questioning their sudden transformation into democrats. Along with this glorification of Ethiopian national identity, and this celebration of the Amharas' achievement in creating such an identity, came denunciations of Eritreans as 'askaris' (those who collaborated with the Italians) - a term applied contemptuously by Tilahun and by others who charged that Eritrean independence had been engineered by foreign agents plotting Ethiopia's evisceration. Tilahun emphasized that the term 'askaris,' as well as the name Eritrea itself, had been introduced by foreigners. In order to delegitimize Eritrean independence and to destabilize any notion that an Eritrean identity might exist, he consistently applied the term 'askaris' to Eritreans, to indicate their treacherous and inautheritic character; he also rejected the use of the term 'Eritrea,' replacing it with the Amharic term 'Mereb Melash' to signify the essential unity of Eritrea with Ethiopia. The post-Meiigistu discourse of Ethiopian nationalism performs a complicated manoeuvre of both solidifying and dissolving the ghostly category of 'the Amharas.' On the one hand, it emphasizes a distinct Amhara identity in order to celebrate members of this category as the real builders of the state. On the other hand, it rejects vilifications of the Amharas as agents of repression by stressing the phantom character of the category, its permeability, and the number of non-Amharas who participated in conquest of the southwest during the nineteenth century. Thus, Amharas are touted as the real agents of Ethiopia's glorious history; simultaneously, their very existence as a distinct ethnic group is questioned. Although contributors to the Review and EthioForum challenge essentialist notions of the Amharas, they happily assess Tigrayans and Eritreans in such a way that opposition to the EPRDF or EPLF is translated into a discourse of ethnic essentialism. Accounts in the Review and EthioForum repeatedly cite human rights abuses by the EPRDF. Certainly, the regime's record throughout the 1990s was grim. Serious charges can be levelled against them: that they killed, tortured,

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

157

harassed, and 'disappeared' their opponents, and censored the press, and disregarded the impoverished mass of the population in favour of building expensive arsenals. (After the 1998 war, the Ethiopian government became even more repressive, riot only invading its neighbour but imprisoning Eritreans and deporting hundreds of thousands of them from Ethiopia.) During the years of EPRDF/PFDJ coexistence between 1991 and 1998, there were valid criticisms to be made; however, attacks from diaspora opposition groups were expressed in the form of antiTigrayan essentialism and provoked scepticism about the principles of these critics. Treating the EPRDF as an organization that acts in the interests of Tigrayaris alone, implicates all Tigrayans and portrays them as evil opportunists who have harboured a deep grudge throughout history and who have seized the chance to destroy the country they hate because they cannot rule it. It characterizes them as fundamentally untrustworthy and dangerous, and as resolved to destroy the Ethiopian state, either because of historical rivalry with Amharas and grievances about exclusion from power or because they are shadowy agents of the EPLF (or, more broadly, all Eritreans, who are also conceptualized as the evil Other). Tilahun Yilma is among the most aggressive of these diaspora intellectuals who deploy such rhetoric. Reporting to EthioForum on a speech Tilahun made in Seattle on 1 June 1997, Mekonnen Kassa related that he dismissed Tigrinya speakers as a 'cancer,' and that he called for their excision from the body of Ethiopia, and quoted him as stating that 'Ethiopians ... should never trust nor collaborate with any Tigrean ... Baby sitting Tigreans is what put us into this quagmire in the first place.' Nation and Family

Tilahun's reference to 'baby sitting Tigreans' turns on the trope of nation as family - a significant one for nationalist discourse. In such discourses, the territory claimed by nationalists is regarded as sacred, and is described as a parent (in this case, a motherland) in danger. By manipulating symbols of family, nationalists ideologies elicit emotional commitment, loyalty, and sacrifice. Features of the landscape are incorporated into this familial trope and become markers of political identity. For example, Ethiopian propaganda leaflets from the Second World War depicted Eritrea as an infant separated from its Ethiopian mother by the Mereb River. The same imagery featured in leaflets distributed by Ethiopian groups in North America during their campaign against the

158

Ghosts and Shadows

Eritrean referendum. Similarly, in the Review Paulos Milkias praised the student movement that 'confronted first feudalism, then a bloody military dictatorship and now a nihilistic regime that espouses ethnic fragmentation [as the] heroic and selfless children of Ethiopia' (May 1995, p. 26). In the post-Mengistu period, long-distance nationalists appealed to Ethiopia's children to oppose the EPRDF and save their mother from dismemberment. In this familial discourse, heroic children sacrifice themselves to preserve national unity, while bad children seek to destroy it. A cartoon by 'Abraham' in the Ethiopian Review of September 1992 depicted the dangers posed by 'the smart, brave off spring of Mother Ethiopia': in it, a woman in traditional highland costume lies on the ground as three men labelled EPLF, EPRDF, and OLF beat her with sticks while calling out 'Freedom!' 'Democracy!' and 'Equality!' In this matricidal tableau the father is a ghostly presence, unnamed. The symbol of the mother in Abraham's cartoon is paradoxical in terms of the institutionalized gender inequality that prevails in the Horn: the nation, represented as a woman, is the object of devotion, it is sacrosanct; even though women are considered inferior. Although throughout the Horn women may be beaten simply as a matter of course, this particular act of violence is depicted as a heinous one. The appeal, of course, is to protect the mother from ungrateful children who have grown into violent thugs. The trope of the family is significant for nationalism because it offers 'a "natural" figure for sanctioning national hierarchy within a putative organic unity of interests' (McClintock 1995: 366). Abraham's cartoon blurs not only the social differences based on ethnicity and class but also those based on gender. Nationalism is typically a male enterprise that involves significant constructions of gender (Enloe 1989). Such constructions take a variety of forms and play a role in all societies; in the Horn, gender roles have been characterized by sharp inequalities and by the oppression of women. While Eritrean and Tigrayan nationalist movements have endorsed gender egalitarianism and women's emancipation and have taken some steps toward implementing these principles within their own ranks, discussions of gender have been absent from the discourse of Abyssinian fundamentalism (although the Ethiopian Review celebrated the accomplishments of individual women, such as Derartu Tulu, a gold medal winner at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and Mulumebet Emeru, Ethiopia's first woman pilot). With few exceptions, the Review's editors and contributors are men. Abraham's cartoon can be read as an

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

159

appeal to men to protect home, family, and nation, and to restore an ancient system of moral order and hierarchy- a system rooted in both the state and the family. Those who oppose this order are, it follows, alien. Aliens

In the Ethiopian Review, Mikael Wosseii, a graduate student at the University of Alberta, depicted the threat to Ethiopian national identity as explicitly foreign, and the character of Eritreans as inauthentic: 'Eritreans' today are a very direct product of ... racialized Italian policies and represent the unfinished economic and cultural projects of Western colonialism which have been inherited by the notables and 'scholars' of Shabia [EPLF] ... The object is not democracy nor knowledge but cynical control and manipulation of Ethiopians to secure power and 'Eritrean' economic ascendancy througbout the entire region thereby repackaging Italy's frustrated ambitions in Ethiopia. (January 1994: 47, 49)

Eritrean nationalists acknowledge the significance of Italian colonialism in creating their distinct identity; Abyssinian fundamentalists consider that nationalism inauthentic, precisely because the Italians played a part in its development, and see it as the shadowy manifestation of a foreign plot to erode Ethiopian identity: for them, an independent Eritrea can only mean the dissolution of their own identity. Conspiracy theories figure prominently in the discourse of diaspora nationalism. For example, Kifle Yitbarek, an Ethiopian-Canadian contributor to the Review (June 1995), proposed that Ethiopia had been the 'chief target' of the United States, Britain, and Italy 'for over half a century' and asserted that Meles Zenawi and Issayas Afeworki have been following American policies 'to destabilize and dismember Ethiopia' (34). For long-distance nationalists preoccupied with these conspiracies, the most vital task is neither to adapt to a new society, nor to ensure the immediate survival of the greatness of peasants, nor to alleviate widespread poverty and end social inequalities in Ethiopia; rather, it is to preserve Ethiopia's authentic identity - a particular image of the nation. For example, in Review of June 1991, Getachew Mekasha (contributing editor) ignored the basic needs of the poor, arguing instead that the most urgent need was to restore Ethiopia's true national identity: 'For the vast majority of Ethiopians the maintenance of national unity and integrity is sacrosanct. No sacrifice is deemed too great to achieve that

160

Ghosts and Shadows

goal' (13). Getachew did not explain how he had assayed the views of 'the vast majority of Ethiopians,' and it seems unlikely that national identity makes a great difference to the millions of impoverished Ethiopians, whose most pressing concern is how to avoid starvation and attain a viable standard of living. For Getachew, it was the representation, the image, of Ethiopia that was in danger; he bemoaned that 'the prestige of the nation has suffered. The high esteem with which the country has always been held as one of the oldest civilized societies in the world has all but vanished' (15). Like Oromo nationalists proposing that the restoration of the gada system can constitute the basis for a modern Oromia, Getachew turned to the past for a remedy to Ethiopia's contemporary problems. Rejecting 'alien ideology,' he urged Ethiopians to embrace 'old traditional values that represent the very ethos of the Ethiopian nation ... Only a return to traditional norms and values can bring a new revival of the national spirit... the nation feels the urgent need to rediscover itself and stop experimenting with newfangled alien ideas' (13). In the discourse of identity politics constructed by diaspora intellectuals, authenticity and tradition must be preserved at all costs, and the national self must be kept pure and isolated from contamination by 'alien ideas.' In an absolutist discourse such as this one, cultures are regarded as discrete, bounded units; authentic culture is that which is untouched by any foreign intrusion. Yet this concept of culture cannot be maintained; cultures are less bounded units than networks or webs, and the pure traditions that nationalists wish to preserve are themselves the products of other interactions (Wolf 1982). Nevertheless, most nationalists rely on primordialist understandings: each nation has a distinct cultural identity, and to live properly one must return to this authentic culture. In this view, Getachew characterized Ethiopians as 'disoriented and scattered ... a beehive without a queen' (14); he described them as divorced from their true national essence and as profoundly sick as a result of a foreign ideology (socialism) that had been introduced to them by the student movement and then imposed on them by the Derg. To heal this rift and to restore Ethiopians to their natural condition, it was necessary to return to tradition. Getachew found hope in the fact that Asfa Wossen, the son of Haile Selassie, had crowned himself Emperor Amha Selassie: 'Restoring lost faith, pride and dignity at the national level is a task best suited for the Ethiopian crown' (15). National salvation would be achieved by restoring the monarchy and abandoning alien ideas; doing so would resurrect Ethiopia's true essence, characterized by centralized control and the

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

161

absolute authority of the imperial throne. This act of restoration would operate not only 'at the national level' but also at the transnational level. Ethiopians in the diaspora must cope with a charged strangeness stemming from the experience of 'being out of place,' particularly as they are inscribed within North American discourses of 'race,' immigration, and national identity. Engagement with homeland politics provides a means for long-distance nationalists to negotiate with their ghostly condition, and it remains their central commitment, the focus of their lives. For some, reviving the monarchy is essential to the myth of return: Ethiopia will be restored to its former state, its authentic condition. Exiles will then be able to return to the pure land and the golden age, where they are 'at home.' In this way, promises of Ethiopia's return to authenticity offer a means for exiles to cope with their own displacement. For monarchists, the project of restoration was unsuccessful: the EPRDF rejected Asfa Wossen's offer to return to Ethiopia, and his death in January 1997 ended plans to install him as the country's leader. However, new hope may have been kindled by Prince Ermias Sahle-Selassie, Haile Selassie's grandson, who at the Ethiopian Congress in Washington, D.C., on 24 May 1998, called for the reinstatement of the monarchy. Getachew's plan to restore the monarchy is not the only example of Ethiopian nationalism's obsession with ghosts. Ethiopian Review consistently celebrates great national heroes of the past. Particularly significant is Menelik's defeat of the invading Italian army at Adwa in 1896, an event that many Ethiopians celebrate as a matter of racial pride. In 1995 the American-based Ethiopian Research Council linked its convention theme, 'Centenary Celebration of the Battle of Adowa,' with 'Ethiopia and the African Diaspora.' In March 1995, Getachew Mekasha's Review article 'The Battle of Adwa Remembered' celebrated Menelik's victory over the Italians not only for 'safeguard[ing] Ethiopia's age-old independence' but also for 'uphold [ing] the pride and dignity of black people everywhere'; Getachew here was seeking to preserve the integrity of Ethiopia's past by attacking 'colonialist apologists ... [and] native revisionists [who] attempt to malign and minimize the great achievements of Menelik, his redoubtable generals and Ethiopians in general.' He argued that to solve Africa's contemporary problems, 'what the continent needs today is another Menelik' (21). This narrative asserts Ethiopian identity in antiimperialist, antiracist terms: Yet every hegemonic national narrative has its shadowy companion - history as remembered by subaltern others. Discourses of 'race' always demand that troublesome facts be relegated to dark corners, and this case is no exception,

162

Ghosts and Shadows

although it must be understood in the historical context of imperialism and white supremacist narratives. Conjuring Menelik as racial hero ignores the fact that Oromo nationalists consider him not a heroic figure but rather a symbol of their oppression by other Africans; while Ethiopians praise him as a patriot and a unifier, Oromo nationalists reject him as a colonizer. Other political differences have factionalized Ethiopian diaspora communities. Amhara opponents of the Mengistu regime perceived the EPRDF as a Tigrayan version of the Derg, one that offered similar Marxist rhetoric but now contaminated with a thirst for ethnic revenge. Their opponents responded by noting that the Amhara had long been dominant and that it was only when their power was threatened that they expressed commitment to pluralism and democracy - a commitment noticeably absent while they had held the upper hand. Some exiles sought restoration of the monarchy; others advocated Marxism but opposed the Derg's military dictatorship. For these factions, exile and myths of return were conceptualized in sharply different terms. For supporters of the royal family, the myth of return was viewed in terms of a narrative of restoration, in which the old order would be re-established. For Ethiopian Marxists who opposed the Derg, the myth was premised on the ouster of a fascist regime, followed by the establishment of 'true' socialism; thus return was conceptualized as a narrative of revolution. However, these opposing narratives were not always mutually exclusive. The concept of a unified Ethiopia did provide a bridge in certain instances, resulting in unlikely coalitions among exiles, especially after 1989 as the Derg lurched toward inevitable defeat following the decisive battle at Afabet. Seeking to secure their own position, exiled groups who had no power base in Ethiopia engaged in a furious round of conferences and meetings throughout Europe and North America intended to mobilize the diaspora population around the rallying cry 'Support to the Motherland.' One such event, held in Ottawa in 1991, featured a panel comprising representatives of the Ethiopian government; the EDU, which sought restoration of the monarchy; and the EPRP and MEISON, the two civilian Marxist groups that had engaged in internecine fighting in the streets of Addis Ababa until both were shattered and then virtually eliminated by the Derg. Despite their violent opposition to one another in the past, the panelists joined in calling for all Ethiopian exiles to oppose the EPRDF and Eritrean nationalists. Organizers sold T-shirts that announced, 'Ethiopia - There is more that unites us than there is to

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

163

divide us'; however, the essence of that unity remained unexplored. The call was for a unified state that included Eritrea, so Eritrean observers dismissed the conference as more of the same hegemonic discourse. However one perceives them — as exercises in cynical opportunism, or as forums for unprincipled jockeying for personal power, or as genuine attempts to overcome violent divisions to preserve national unity - these coalitions were accompanied by sudden political reversals of course as nationalism contended with other ideological commitments. Former enemies rallied behind Mengistu as 'the only one who can save the country.' Mengistu's was transformed from a demon into a saviour; his speeches evoked ghosts from Ethiopia's past and suggested parallels between himself and the nineteenth-century Emperor Tewodros. Although the Derg had presented itself as an alternative to the imperial regime, as its power slipped away it did not hesitate to summon the emperor's ghost to draw on nationalist sentiments. Shifts of position among exiled opposition movements continued as Mengistu's fall came nearer. Exile groups rapidly altered their discourses in an effort to recast the myth of return within a narrative of democracy. As government officials abandoned the crumbling regime arid represented themselves as opposition leaders, previous commitments to 'socialism' were dropped and replaced by professions of 'democracy.' Ideological reversals appeared even within the Derg, with Mengistu attempting to signal his own last-minute conversion to democratic ideals; he even hired a New York public relations firm (which included the CIA among its clients) to promote his regime's sudden 'shift to the West.' With Mengistu's defeat, Eritrea's independence was now certain, even to those who remained bitterly opposed to it. Those who had rallied behind the Derg or appeals to an undivided motherland could only interpret this as the ultimate loss of that fundamental idea of Ethiopian unity which had sustained them in exile. For them, the myth of return was irrevocably transformed by Eritrean independence, because return would now be to a shattered arid incomplete homeland. Ethiopia 11 longer existed as a complete entity for these exiles, who experienced the 'loss' of Eritrea as a sort of amputation. For them, Eritrean independence represented an existential threat, as distant as they were from their remembered (and thus 'imaginary') homeland. In the interviews we conducted after the Derg's collapse, anger arid bitterness prevailed among those exiles who had opposed the EPRDF and Eritrea's referendum. These people predicted that the economy would collapse and that

164

Ghosts and Shadows

Eritrean independence would inevitably fail; they asserted that the EPLF would impose fascism; they warned that ethnic and religious tensions would rip the new country apart; and they accused the Eritreans of not being truly committed to independence and of choosing such a course only out of stubborn pride. In this atmosphere, rumours and conspiracy theories circulated freely. In Toronto, a weekly Amhara-language radio program broadcast false reports of the death of the EPLF's SecretaryGeneral Issayas Afeworki; when it was learned that he had been flown to Israel for emergency medical treatment, the program suggested there were secret political links between the EPLF and Israel. Some predicted that Eritrea's independence would be short-lived because Ethiopians would try to regain this 'lost' territory, spurred by their strong sense of history and their attachment to the motherland. Indeed, some exiles publicly declared their intention to return to Ethiopia to fight Eritrean independence, and groups organized to vent their hostility through symbolic displays, such as the burning of Eritrean flags. Using History against the Referendum Long-distance nationalists continued to rework the shadows of historical memory. For example, on 18 June 1991, in testimony before the U.S. government House Subcommittee on Africa, Goshu Wolde, Ethiopia's former Minister of Foreign Affairs, argued against recognizing an independent Eritrea. He insisted that the Eritreans had irrevocably decided to rejoin Ethiopia when the future of Italy's former colonies was being debated in the UN in the 1940s. Vociferously defending Ethiopia's borders, he added that the decision to dissolve the federation had been based on a free vote in 1962 by the Eritrean Assembly, thus it had been an expression of the popular will to reintegrate an artificially sundered whole. Yet Dawit Wolde Giorgis (1989), formerly Ethiopia's military governor in Eritrea, confirmed that at the time of that vote, armed Ethiopian troops had been surrounding Asmara, although he suggested that the decision was still taken democratically. However, Roy Patemaii (1998: 73) says that no vote was taken at that time arid that a statement from Haile Selassie, prepared by his American adviser John Spencer, was simply read out. Abyssinian fundamentalism depicts this event as the culmination of a process of restoration, as a healing of the wounds that Italian colonialism had inflicted on the essential Ethiopian self. In contrast, Eritrean nationalism presents the federation and the later annexation not as a

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

165

reintegration but rather as a transgression. Responding to Goshu in front of the subcommittee, Berhe Habte Giorgis, an Eritrean professor from Glasborough State College, described the 'vote' in the Eritrean Assembly as a denial of Eritrean rights - an undemocratic process in which American and Ethiopian interests prevailed. Goshu described the establishment of the EPRDF transitional government as a seizure of power by a 'ruthless and Stalinist tyrant' that excluded most of the Ethiopian population. The assertion that one represents the majority of people is a commmon rhetorical technique for legitimizing one's claims. For example, after the Second World War, opposing factions in Eritrea claimed support that far exceeded the estimated total population. In such claims, the notion of 'the people' is problematic, since it implies a unity and awareness that may not be present. As Bourdieu (1990: 150) notes, this notion of 'the people' is an important factor in struggles for influence and power among intellectuals; the fact that one has been authorized to speak for the people can constitute a force in politics. Bourdieu notes that in contests to secure the authority to speak for the people, this discourse is often produced by those who themselves occupy subordinate positions in the field of production. This certainly applies to exiled intellectuals who once exercised power in Ethiopia but whose positions are now occupied by others. For those who once held high-status positions, the myth of return may be constituted not only as a repatriation but also as a reacquisition of political power. Goshu claimed that the majority of Ethiopians were 'pointedly and deliberately excluded' from the 1991 London conference that confirmed the EPRDF's leadership role in Ethiopia. For Goshu, the conference sent a signal and set the stage for Ethiopia's dismemberment through Eritrean secession. It was a blow! A dagger blow aimed at the very heart of the integrity of the Ethiopian state system and a serious threat to the integrity of the African political order. It is no wonder that the decision outraged millions of Ethiopians all over. One cannot overstress the deepseated, instinctive and fierce resolve of Ethiopians to preserve their national unity and independence, that unique independence that has been defended by fierce resistance to no less than eight foreign invasions and that had forged a consciousness and pride of national unity and culture found nowhere else on the continent of Africa. Relying on the primordialist narrative of the 3,000-year-old state, Goshu

166

Ghosts and Shadows

insisted that national unity was also deeply rooted in Eritrea, which he described as the cradle of Ethiopian civilization. In the 1990s, many long-distance nationalists abruptly abandoned Marxist rhetoric and embraced the rhetoric of democracy. Goshu, who had once belonged to a government that consistently attacked the United States, now said that Ethiopians were 'always in love' with the United States, which should reaffirm its support for 'Ethiopian unity and territorial integrity' (i.e., should oppose Eritrean independence). Yonas Deressa, another exile, as well as president of the Ethiopian Refugees Education and Relief Foundation, speaking at the same hearings, expressed similar admiration for the United States, exhorting it to 'exercise its moral leadership' by rejecting the EPRDF and Eritrean independence. He insisted that a place in the government, as well as in history, must be found for groups such as the EDU and EPDA, which 'did just as much as the guerrillas' to overthrow the Derg, even though they had no military forces in Ethiopia. In April 1993, Eritreans at home and in the diaspora voted in a referendum on independence. Few doubted the outcome, and indeed, 99.8 per cent of Eritreans supported independence. Anticipating this decision, Ethiopian nationalists abroad opposed the referendum and the participation of the United Nations. For example, on 20 March 1993, Ethiopians for Democracy and Development (EDD) organized a meeting at the University of Winnipeg to protest the referendum. In a circular letter, EDD President Tesfaye Dawit condemned 'a carefully orchestrated conspiracy to dismember the Eritrean province of Ethiopia.' The speakers had campaigned against Eritrean independence across North America, and all now defended the Ethiopian state's indissolubility. John Spencer, former legal adviser to Haile Selassie, began by deploying the mythico-history that constitutes Ethiopia as a long-unified state, citing the 3,000-years of history that linked Haile Selassie to the biblical figures Solomon and Sheba. He then outlined a conspiracy against this primordial identity, emphasizing the foreign nature of Eritrean nationalism, and claiming that Islamic fundamentalists led by Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, and supported by the Soviet Union and China had poured arms and money into Eritrea 'well before I960'; later, these forces had been joined by those of Muammar Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Boutros Boutros Ghali, and Herman Cohen, all of whom were pursuing territorial objectives. In emotional tones, Spencer denounced any accommodation with Eritrean nationalism and urged Ethiopians to pressure the Canadian government not to recog-

Abyssinian Fundamentalism and Diaspora Mythico-Histories

167

nize Eritrean independence but instead to impose an economic stranglehold that would force it to rejoin Ethiopia. Mesfin Woldemariam, from Addis Ababa University, accused the Transitional Government of Ethiopia of human rights violations and of electoral fraud. Some, while acknowledging that Mesfin's charges deserved investigation, felt that his commitment to human rights was motivated only by opposition to the new government, since he had not opposed the Derg's abuses (although admittedly this would have been suicidal). In May 1991, the Eritrean Canadian Community Centre of Metropolitan Toronto had denounced Mesfin as an 'ethnic fanatic' who had provided intellectual justifications for Amhara domination of other groups; their leaflet also criticized the selective outrage of 'groups like "Peace for Ethiopia Through Cooperation Committee" and "Ethiopian People's Committee in Toronto" [who] predict a blood bath in Ethiopia. What these groups seem to miss is that it has been blood bath at least for the last 30 years. May be what they are saying is the areas that matter to them are about to experience war first hand.' Another speaker in Winnipeg was Mesfin Araya, a professor of African Politics at the City University of New York. An Eritrean supporter of Greater Ethiopia, Mesfin acknowledged that the referendum would overwhelmingly favour independence, but added that neither the Provisional Government of Eritrea nor the Transitional Government of Ethiopia had legal authority, and charged both with exploiting emotions by holding the referendum too soon (in fact, the EPLF delayed the referendum for two years after achieving military victory). Mesfin had made similar arguments in the Ethiopian Review (April 1993), stating that independence would 'inflict permanent psychological damage' to 'a supraregional identity' developed by 'Amharas and Tigreans,' and predicting dire consequences for Eritreans. Although the conference organizers employed the rhetoric of unity, family, and shared identity, Eritreans who attended were charged over double the admission fee, and despite the rhetoric of inclusivity, some Eritreans were turned away. The discourse of crisis and confrontation revealed other inconsistencies. For example, although Mesfin Woldemariam advised Ethiopians in the diaspora to support political rather than military struggle, his prediction that 'those who rise to power by the gun will fall by the gun' triggered wild applause, suggesting that his audience was still emotionally committed to imposing unity by force. Even after Eritrean independence, Ethiopia's long-distance nationalists continued to imagine the resurrection of their dismembered home-

168

Ghosts and Shadows

land arid saw themselves playing a vital role in making it happen. For example, in the Ethiopian Review (October 1996), Dr Habte Giorgis Churnet, head of the Department of Physics, Geology and Astronomy at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, proposed a diaspora-based United Front (Yegara Gimbar) to 'automatically galvanize Ethiopians all over the world, including those in Ethiopia.' However, this effort was haunted by political divisions, as the organization appeared to be only one of several 'united fronts' competing for support. Despite the fragmentation that kept them ineffective, as the 1990s ended a new Eritrean-Ethiopian war seemed to offer hope to these splintered groups that their enemies would destroy one another so that the ghost of ancient Ethiopia could be resurrected and Eritea reclaimed.

SEVEN

More Real Than a Shadow

Ghostly spaces of exile offer diverse and complex environments for renegotiating social identities. While adapting to the material circumstances of uprooting, exiles must confront, maintain or recreate a sense of self; and they must do so in contexts that are vastly different from the old, familiar networks and fraught with constraints. Their previous identities have little meaning or relevance to the new society. In confronting their altered social status and their radically different circumstances, they must come to terms with a new or reconstructed sense of ethnic or national identity. This process is not only personal but involves 'affiliations with others who engage in similar interpretations and adaptive strategies and enmity toward those who do riot' (Field 1994: 432). It i part of the phenomenon of traiisnationalism, 'the process by which immigrants forge arid sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin arid settlement' (Basch, Click Schiller, and Szaritori Blanc 1994: 7). One important aspect of transriationalis is the political role immigrants arid refugees play iri both countries of origin and those of residence; in this regard, political commitments often have important implications for their sense of self, especially when they seek to create new homelands for oppressed minorities. This chapter examines the discourse of those long-distance nationalists who are calling for the creation of an independent state for the Oromos, one of Africa's largest ethnic populations; it also considers how participation in these discursive practices involves reconstructing national and personal senses of the self. This, too, is the story of a haunting: a spectre is haunting Ethiopia, that of the phantom state of Oromia. This apparation is imagined within an alternative, shadow history of the Abyssinian

170

Ghosts and Shadows

empire, and its contemporary status is nebulous. Recall from Chapter 2 George Packer's description of the contested Oromo regions as a shadowy landscape of rumours, speculations, and imaginings, a zone that is haunted by the OLF ('a clique and a ghost') and within which 'basic questions and facts remain in dispute.' We begin by restating the comments by Desta Abdissa, an Oromo anthropologist: 'People have nowhere to hide, they're being forced to choose between OPDO and OLF. The government has invented its own shadow - the OPDO will repeat the slogans they give them. A ghost is there because somebody has died, there is a reason for it to be there. But you create a shadow, you use it. A ghost is real - much more real than a shadow. It possesses people, it changes them' (quoted in Packer 1996: 120). This play of ghosts and shadows has carried over into the diaspora: 'There is a reason for it to be there.' The diaspora is a place where choices and repetitions are demanded, where shadows are created and used, and where ghosts make their presence felt and also possess people and change them. The Oromo Diaspora There are no precise census figures for the number of Oromos in North America; also, among a population riot numbering above several thousand distinctions must be made between those who are Oromo in terms of ancestry and those who are Oromo in terms of (factionalized) political commitments. Until the 1990s there was little diaspora activism based on ethnicity, and many Oromos identified themselves - especially to North Americans - as Ethiopians. But since then they have developed a sense of distinct identity. Hamdesa (1993: 11) reports that attendance by 1,000 people at an Oromo conference held in 1990 (at a critical time when the Derg's collapse was imminent) constituted a 'record high.' Like other diaspora populations, the Oromos in North America must adapt to new material conditions. While attempting to do so, they are deeply affected by concern for relatives and political events in Ethiopia (factors that draw their focus back to their country of origin) and by global economic changes, growing racism, and calls for reduced immigration (factors that constitute them as undesirable visible minorities and that obstruct their integration into the host societies). Some Oromos who have long opposed successive Ethiopian governments perceive themselves to be in a state of indefinite exile, and assume they will return to their original homes once an independent Oromo state has

More Real Than a Shadow

171

been established. Thus, the activities of the Oromo nationalist movement in Ethiopia are a concern to many individuals in the diaspora, who share information through informal networks as well as through OLF communiques and various Oromo publications. However, it is by no means certain that the situation will ever be resolved; so in the same way that many other diaspora groups maintain myths of return that remain unrealized, the repatriation of the Oromos from North America may remain only a fantasy, regardless of events in Ethiopia, especially as individuals begin to establish themselves with homes and families in their new countries of residence. Oromo nationalists in the diaspora do stay in contact with relatives in Ethiopia and in other countries. Many families, from all groups, were scattered abroad during the decades of war and political turmoil; as well, economic conditions encouraged many individuals to seek education and employment abroad.) Some make occasional visits to Ethiopia, and a few committed individuals have returned for periods of 'national service' with the OLF. However, most long-distance Oromo nationalists are removed from direct contact with the Ethiopian state and face entirely different conditions. Many nationalist movements receive significant financial and political support from diaspora sympathizers. At the same time, nationalist politics among diaspora groups have their own unique momentum, for various reasons: long-distance nationalists do not face any direct consequences for their actions (Anderson 1992); they receive much of their information second-hand; their motives and commitments are affected by material and cultural conditions in their new country of residence; and their desire to establish an independent state is conditioned by nostalgia for and idealization of the homeland they left, as well as by the degree of integration they achieve in their new homes and the acceptance they experience. Factors such as these make diaspora populations fertile breeding grounds for the social construction of nationalist mythologies. In this chapter we focus on the nationalist discourse produced by the Oromo diaspora in North America. We examine a series of meetings organized by one organization, the Oromo Studies Association (OSA). This involves our studying the symbolic expression of political action; however, along with Szemere (1992: 625), we do not see symbolic practices as 'epiphenomenal to non-linguistically constituted realities [but as] practices that shape actors' consciousness and their resulting interactions, interests and activities.' The OSA was organized in 1991 by Oromo intellectuals in the dia-

172

Ghosts and Shadows

spora, with the help of non-Oromo academics, activists, and supporters from religious groups active in relief work in the Horn. It grew out of an earlier Oromo Studies Committee that had been formed in 1989 under the auspices of the Union of Oromo in North America (UONA), a mass organization of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). Since 1991, meetings have been held annually, alternating between Toronto and Minneapolis, two cities with organized Oromo communities. In 1989 it was estimated that 500 Oromos lived in and around Toronto [OLF 1989: 8]; another five hundred live in Minneapolis [Hamdesa 1993: 25].) In 1995 the OSA meetings were held in Washington, B.C., another city with a large population of exiles from Ethiopia. In 1993 the OSA published its first issue of The Journal of Oromo Studies, which is dedicated to preserving Oromo culture and identity through scholarship. Those who attend OSA meetings and contribute to the journal are engaged in the project of rewriting the Horn's history, especially the history of the Ethiopian state. They reject the findings of scholars such as Donald Levine, Richard Pankhurst, and Harold Marcus, who consider Ethiopia to be one of the world's most ancient states. A new wave of Oromo and Western intellectuals describe Ethiopia as a recent creation, the result of European imperialists collaborating with an expanding Abyssinian empire in the late nineteenth century. The fullest exposition of this thesis is outlined in The Inventio of Ethiopia by anthropologist Bonnie Holcomb and Oromo intellectual Sisai Ibssa, both based in Washington, D.C. (Holcomb and Sisai 1990). According to them, Abyssinian hegemony was not a unifying force for national integration; rather it was a brutal imposition that subdued and destroyed the culture of groups such as the Oromos, who suffered discrimination and remained subordinate until the 1970s, when the OLF was established. The OLF's stated goal is self-determination for the Oromos, which is to be achieved by creating an independent state, Oromia. The OSA's meetings resemble gaterings of scholars, with panellists presenting written papers. Most speakers are Oromos, many of whom have PhDs and teach at universities in the United States, although nonacademics and OLF representatives also make presentations. NonOromos also attend and present papers; mainly, these are anthropologists who have conducted research in the Horn, or people affiliated to religious organizations that do relief and missionary work there. Almost all speakers are men, as is most of the audience. Audiences number between 400 and 500, mainly Oromos. Most papers and discussions are in English, although some papers and questions are in the Oromo Ian-

More Real Than a Shadow

173

guage, Oromiffa. The meetings mix academic presentations, political mobilization, and deliberate efforts to construct and solidify a distinct Oromo identity. Oromo culture is also represented by singers and dancers who perform in the evenings. Although the OSA is organized along the lines of an academic gathering, not all members consider scholarly research its main purpose. For example, at the 1992 Minneapolis meeting, Jimma Tufa's analysis of recently declassified cables from the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia from the 1940s to the 1970s was abruptly terminated by the panel chairperson. This was not for lack of time but rather because the chairperson considered the paper irrelevant to the contemporary political needs of Oromos. Thus, at least some participants see the main purpose of the meetings as creating a sense of Oromo consciousness in order to mobilize support for current political objectives, and believe that the historical conditions of such a consciousness should be shaped within a narrow narrative range. Participants stress that Oromo unity has reached unprecedented levels; yet divisions exist within the OSA itself, and a second group, comprising UONA activists, has organized counterconferences in Toronto and Minneapolis at the same time as the OSA meetings. The processes of active forgetting have made participants at the main OSA conference reluctant to discuss these alternative meetings, in large part because they want to present the Oromo community as unified. One informant said that the split was based on egotism and infighting within OSA's Executive Committee, while another cited ideological differences. Former OSA Secretary Hamdesa Tuso (1993) has provided some details of the politics in play. He noted that the UONA has essentially taken over the OSA and is determined to control it for its own political goals rather than to have it exist as an independent scholarly association. He sees the split as based on personal ambitions and on regional and religious divisions in Oromo diaspora communities. He describes the UONA as unpopular with most Oromos in North America and as subject to divisive bickering; in 1986 the Washington, D.C., chapter split, and UONA characterized the breakaway Oromo Democratic Organization in North America as anti-OLE Language and the Social Construction of Meaning

The observations we make in this chapter are based on our attendance at the main OSA conference between 1989 and 1994. To understand the

174

Ghosts and Shadows

OSA meetings as a site for social construction of identity, it is useful to turn to Bohdan Szuchewycz's work on Irish Catholic Charismatic prayer meetings. Szuchewycz (1994: 390) employs discourse analysis to investigate how members use language to 'participate in the communal creation of a spiritual message.' Prayer meetings provide the social context in which participants demonstrate acceptance of (and thus reinforce) the sect's ideology, so that 'the prayer meeting, through its repeated performance, conveys the message which lies at the heart of charismatic ideology' (391). He examines how this communal spiritual message is socially constructed: 'creation of religious experience/meaning really is work: it involves the deliberate linguistic effort of individuals who exhibit different degrees of competence. It is also crucially social work: cooperation, attention, negotiation, and support are essential' (391). Szuchewycz's analysis of how religious messages and meanings are socially constructed can be extended to the study of political messages and of how social identities are constructed through appeals to nationalism. As he notes, although religious and political discourses are considered different types of speech, in both 'it is the form of language which is identified as providing the speech with its authority, rather than the actual content' (405). As with most political meetings, one goal of the OSA is to demonstrate the urgency and significance of the events taking place in the sessions. One means of doing this is by summoning the dead. The OSA meetings employ the same opening device used by other nationalist movements such as the EPLF and TPLF - a moment of silcence for the 'martyrs' killed in the struggle. Writing about the Basque nationalist organization, the ETA, Marianne Heiberg (1989: 229) described how meetings of that organization also involve the invocation of martyrs. She described the ETA as a charismatic organization in which the relationship of members to the nationalist cause is mediated by these martyrs in much the same way that saints mediate relationships between religious believers and the divine. Images of the death and torture of ETA militants are presented in order to give a sacred and sacrificial sheen to the nationalist movement, to provide it with legitimacy, to give a sense of immediacy and reality to an abstract cause, and to reaffirm the solidarity of nationalist supporters. Similarly, an important goal of the Oromo meetings is to enlist participants in support of the OLF's political program by creating a sense of shared community and belonging: 'We the children of OLF will carry on the struggle.' OSA meetings are explicitly political and are devoted mainly to the presentation of a single perspective, that of the OLF. As articulated by its

More Real Than a Shadow

175

president, Asafa Jalata (1993a: 1), the goal of the organization and of UONA is to 'defend Oromo interests and produce and disseminate Oromocentric knowledge.' This goal is to be achieved under conditions of crisis: 'The Oromo have very few friends. There is no single country that supports our struggle. Beautiful and rich Oromia and its people have been attacked for more than a century from all directions. Our enemies have raped our resources and destroyed the Oromian natural and cultural beauty' (2). Asafa raises key themes of Oromo nationalism, themes typical of nationalist discourse in general: the golden age of the past, and contemporary persecution and isolation. We also note here the influence of North American society and of Afrocentric discourse on Oromo nationalist efforts to reconstruct and reclaim an essentialized identity. He is presenting Oromo nationalism as a force that will allow the Oromos to regain their true identity and place in the world. Oromo nationalism contends that Oromos have long been deceived and blinded to their actual history and culture, and to their own nature, by the imposition of Abyssinian hegemony disguised as Ethiopian national identity. At the 1993 OSA conference in Toronto, Asafa stated that 'millions of Oromos' had been killed fighting in the service of Ethiopia and Somalia while being unaware of their own identity: 'Most Oromos were decultured, i.e. Ethiopianized, Somalized, Adarized, and Arabized and rejected their original Oromo identity. Because of these identity crises, Ethiopia, Somalia and other enemies were effectively able to mobilize millions of Oromos against their own national liberation struggle' (Asafa 1993a: 2). However, Oromo nationalists contend that a psychological transformation has now occurred; for example, Asafa defined the 1990s as the decade in which the Oromo people were awakened: 'Most of the decultured and assimilated Oromos have been reOromized. There are only a very few Oromos who have continued to serve our enemies. The process of Oromo national awakening is at its highest peak' (ibid. :2). Arguing that a turning point in Oromo consciousness has been achieved, Asafa urges that Oromos in North America to mobilize their cultural and financial resources to resurrect their buried cultural history, arid suggests that in doing so they will overcome their identity crisis. Thus, the nationalist project is conceived as one that will bring positive benefits not only to Oromos in Africa but to the diaspora as well. Noting that some Oromos have 'subordinated their Oromoness to personal, religious and regional interests,' Asafa (3) argues it is time

176

Ghosts and Shadows

to reclaim a more basic identity. Oromo nationalist discourse presents identity derived from citizenship in the Ethiopian state as a shadowy form of false consciousness, one that is opposed to an ethnic identity, which is more real and essential. Authenticity and normalcy can be achieved only through Oromo nationalism, which seeks to create an independent state. According to OLF supporters, government efforts to construct a new form of civic nationalism in Ethiopia are only a screen to mask the regime's real intention, which is to continue its domination of other groups. Waldhaansso, the journal of the Union of Oromo in North America (UONA), expresses this: Even when the OLF seemed to have acceded to the possibility that the quest for total independence of the Oromo might be delayed if full rights of self-determination are given and the people choose to stay in some kind of union with other peoples of Ethiopia, Meles and his troops went out of their way to show that it is impossible for one to be an Oromo and an Ethiopian at the same time. This is the point we have tried to emphasize for years and those who are devoted to the sanctity of the ill-gotten Ethiopian imperial territories tried to say we can be free Oromos and become full citizens of Ethiopia too. The argument now is a choice between being an Ethiopian subject with ever diminishing national or individual rights, or being an Oromo freedom fighter. (1992: 2)

What is unclear is whether civic nationalism itself is threatening Oromo identity or whether this is a threat only because it has not been sincerely attempted. UONA takes the position that even if Oromos had 'full rights of self-determination,' the 'quest for total independence ... might be delayed'; at no time does it suggest that 'full rights' would lead to abandonment of the quest for an independent state. Apparently, then, the only acceptable goal for UONA is an independent Oromia, regardless of conditions in Ethiopia. Oromo nationalist discourse rejects identity constructed by the Ethiopian state, regarding this as a form of colonialism and cultural imperialism that seeks to erase Oromo identity and replace it with a shadowy substitute: We must reject Ethiopian ways of doing things and develop Oromocentric values and knowledge. Successive Ethiopian colonial governments have prevented the development of Oromocentric knowledge. Oromos were not allowed to have schools and teach their culture, history, and values to their children. A few Oromo children who went to Ethiopian schools were

More Real Than a Shadow

177

forced to learn Ethiopian history, culture, and values that contradicted the Oromo. Oromo students were forced to despise their identity. Only those revolutionary Oromo scholars who have overcome these obstacles and understood the significance of the Oromocentric culture challenged Ethiopian mythologies and provided central leadership to the Oromo nation in political and intellectual fields. (Asafa Jalata 1993a: 4)

If this identity crisis is to be overcome, Oromocentric knowledge must be developed that will allow participants to relearn their authentic identity as Oromos. This process of learning to be Oromo involves mobiliz ing Oromo cultural identity. Oromo nationalism emphasizes the value of Oromo cultural traditions, stressing that these are fundamentally dif ferent from those of Abyssinians. One key aspect of this cultural mobilization is the resuscitation of the gada system. Gada is a complex and fascinating cultural system based on a succession of age-grades that incorporates economic, political, religious, and social factors and that contains the central values and concepts of Oromo culture (Asmarom Legesse 1973). Oromo nationalists see gada as the central institution of Oromo culture and praise it as 'the most sophisticated democratic system ever iri East Africa or maybe even in the entire of Africa' (Namara Garbaba 1993: 42). It constitutes an indigenous political system that ensures the balance and periodic succession of authority. The precise origins of gada are unknown, but it seems to have been in place by the sixteenth century. By the nineteenth century, the gada system had already been weakened as power became concentrated in more statelike societies, these societies were then swept under by the southward expansion of the Abyssinian empire in the late nineteenth century and by deliberate attempts to undermine Oromo culture. The practice of gada continued only in Borana, and those now living in the diaspora did not grow up in a society in which gada functioned as it had traditionally. Even though it is no longer widely practised and few Oromo have direct experience of it, Oromo nationalists emphasize the importance of the gada system as the basis of distinct Oromo identity, and suggest that it can be revived to form the political basis of an independent Oromia. However, others challenge both the egalitarian character of gada and its universality, pointing out that it is based on age grades with different levels of authority, that it discriminates on the basis of gender by excluding women, and that it never functioned to encompass all Oromo groups under a central state; they also point out that Oromo organizations such as the OLF are not organized on gada principles.

178

Ghosts and Shadows

Identity and Tradition

Typically, ethnic nationalism emphasizes the revival of folklore, dances, ethnic foods, and rural traditions. These are considered to be imbued with the essence of the group, and to provide nationalists with symbols that can be used to differentiate the group from others, not only culturally but also in terms of the moral values. Often, these cultural traditions and moral values are racialized and presented in terms that depict them as the result of inborn differences. Outward markers of culture, such as folk dances, costumes, and foods, are regarded as expressions of a group's distinct essence, as manifestations of deeper and more fundamental differences that structure social life in unique ways. These fundamental characteristics are perceived as timeless and enduring and are assumed to create moral boundaries for the ethnic community; however, they are also subject to dilution through exposure to alien forces. The survival of the group is thought to depend on the protection of these fundamental qualities. Nationalist intellectuals consider it their role to preserve these distinct cultural features and to prevent them from becoming polluted through interaction with other groups; typically, they argue that the establishment of an independent state is required to ensure such protection. Often, cultural revivals in the service of nationalist goals are promoted by urban intellectuals who are themselves distanced from such traditions. Fitzgerald (1993: 89) suggests that 'the most vocal champions of cultural revivals are almost always the educated elites among such minorities. This is paradoxical because the slogans of ethnogenesis are formulated by the very people farthest removed from the traditional culture.' Intellectuals seeking to revive such traditions may view them in a quite different way from rural, peasant, or folk populations. For example, according to Heiberg (1989: 95), many Basque peasants regard their rural background as an impediment to success in urban centres and attempt to distance themselves from their Basque identity by speaking only Spanish and avoiding things considered Basque. Similarly, Handler (1988: 77), writing on Quebecois nationalism, says that 'the folk come to abandon and even ridicule the traditions that urban collectors have come among them to discover.' A similar process took place in Ethiopia among Oromo peasants, who saw greater opportunities for themselves through adopting Amharic names and speech; however, we must emphasize here the overall historical context of domination. Handler also notes that traditions transform themselves in various

More Real Than a Shadow

179

ways through the process of collecting. When aspects of social life are treated as objects of study, and selected and reinterpreted, their meaning changes. When cultural traditions are mobilized as markers of a group's essence and as the basis for contemporary political movements, pruning is often required. As Lewis (1993: 170) notes, the elevation of gada to 'a central ideological place in Oromo nationalism' required Oromo intellectuals to minimize the 'role of powerful Oromo chiefs and kings in some areas.' Similarly, violent aspects of Oromo history have had to be downplayed to create images of unity. In his discussion of black political movements based on ontological essentialism, Gilroy (1993b: 32) suggests that in such movements intellectuals typically see themselves as leaders and are often disappointed with the 'actual cultural choices and patterns of the mass of black people ... The community is felt to be on the wrong road, and it is the intellectual's job to give them a new direction, firstly by recovering and then by donating the racial awareness that the masses seem to lack.' Oromo intellectuals in the diaspora have made it their mission to alert their communities to the need to support nationalist struggle, and to resuscitate authentic cultural identity, which will one day find full expression in an independent Oromia. However, diaspora intellectuals are doubly distanced from those traditions which they perceive as constituting the essence of Oromo nationalism. First, many of them come from urban areas in which these traditions have not been maintained. Second, they are hindered by their membership in the petit bourgeoisie; they are described by Sisai Ibssa (1992: 66) as 'opportunistic, vacillating and insecure ... by nature fearful, indecisive ... always battling amongst each other to appear better than the next person in order to reap some benefit to be bestowed by members of the more powerful class above.' Nationalist discourse suggests that exiles in North America are estranged from the authentic moral community, not only through geographical distance but also through the dilution of Oromo values by another polluting force, Western culture: Many Oromo who live abroad in North America or Europe have been exposed to 'Western thoughts,' which appear to hold the individual as the primary and most significant unit of difference in society. Accordingly, the individual is right-based but interest-oriented, and not responsible for fellow members of the community ... Emphasizing individual interests more than collective or social interests confuses the primary issue of the struggle for achieving the common goal, Bilisummaa [freedom]. To

180

Ghosts and Shadows

remain clear and focused, the Oromo need to emphasize the collective interest, strengthen their unity, and contribute their fair share to the united efforts for intensifying the struggle. (Addisu Tolesa 1993: 62) This depicts the Oromos in diaspora as divorced from their true place in the world: exposure to Western thoughts has individualized them, and separated them from their culture and true style of thinking and behaving. This essentializing narrative conjoins territory, culture, and personality in such a way that living in diaspora, outside one's place, is perceived as creating disjointed and mentally confused individuals. (Diaspora thus doubles the displacement of Oromos already deculturated by Abyssinian colonialism.) This discursive construction is not unique to Oromo nationalist narratives. For example, the desire to reclaim ethnic identity is often noted among the third generation of immigrant populations. Individuals feel something lacking in their lives and believe that this ghostly void can be filled by embracing the cultural traditions of past generations or by making a pilgrimage to an ancestral homeland. Yet this is a search for a phantom, and this phantom quite often brings back patriarchal essentialism as well (Yuval-Davis 1997). The passage of time and changing conditions make it unlikely that these traditions can be adopted completely, and further difficulties confront those who seek such reconstructions across the space of diaspora. As a result, this process typically involves considerable imaginative efforts. It is an endeavour both to partake of a romanticized, ghostly past in which life was peaceful and harmonious, and to reshape the self. Nationalist organizers consider Western individualism a threat to the unity of purpose they demand of Oromos in diaspora. This narrative asserts that it is more important for individuals to sacrifice themselves to preserve culture than for culture to serve as a mechanism for realizing individuality, and that only immersion in Oromo culture will allow one to regain the true self: 'All Oromos who want to be mentally and politically free need to learn from their original culture. Oromocentric knowledge and values are the building blocks of Oromo identity arid nationalism. The lack of Oromocentric knowledge and values has caused ideological and mental crises in some Oromos; such Oromos subordinate Oromoness to personal, religious and regional interests' (Asafajalatal993a:3). For Sisai Ibssa (1992: 69), the cultivation and attainment of nationalist consciousness can cure the ills he considers characteristic of the petit bourgeoisie:

More Real Than a Shadow

181

Fortunately we are more than merely petit bourgeoisie. We were Oromo first. We do have something to bind us to each other beyond our class nature. We have the Oromo experience and that heritage to reclaim. And we can reclaim it. But in the meantime, whatever group becomes involved in organizing the institutions of society must safeguard the people from the illness of the petit bourgeoisie while we recover.

Nationalist discourse proposes that the reconstruction of both the damaged self and the damaged* nation will be achieved through the propagation of Oromocentric knowledge and values. The reconstitution of culture and the revival of traditions such as gada are the means by which nationalist goals can be achieved: The success of the Oromo liberation struggle requires the total mobilization of cultural, financial, intellectual and human resources. Without understanding Oromo cultural foundations and mobilizing them, it is very difficult to know the original meaning of Oromoness, Oromo nationalism and the true liberation of Oromia. The mobilization of Oromo cultural resources eliminates identity crisis, cures psychological and mental damages, and facilitates liberation. (Asafa Jalata 1993:3)

Immersion in Oromo culture and Oromocentric knowledge will not only heal the damaged self but also prepare exiles for repatriation and for a more powerful role in the new state. As one audience member stated: 'We need to learn all we can about our culture so that when bilisuma comes we can go back and take over.' One significant aspect of the personal and cultural revival associated with Oromo nationalism is an interest in developing the language, Oromiffa. Mekuria Bulcha (1993) considers Oromiffa second only to Hausa in the number of speakers in Africa, but also notes that its literature is underdeveloped - a situation he attributes to deliberate efforts by successive Ethiopian regimes to undermine it. Indeed, Oromiffa was suppressed by various means, and Amharic was the language of instruction in Ethiopian schools. As a result, many Oromos do not speak Oromiffa, and several Oromo newsletters and newspapers offer instructions in basic vocabulary and pronunciation. Given that Oromiffa was mainly a spoken language until the 1970s, some Oromo intellectuals have concentrated on collecting oral poetry. Speaking at the 1994 OSA conference, Addisu Tolesa explained that poetry conveys the cultural essence of Oromo nationalism, through its references to tradition

182

Ghosts and Shadows

and through its expression of the struggle for liberation. This poetry expresses the rural life of the Oromos, 'the backbone of the Oromo struggle.' It expresses the moral basis and ethical principles of Oromo culture. When yoked in this way, culture demonstrates a sense of difference; it serves as the essential core that legitimizes political struggles for land, resources, and power. Poems and song lyrics express the world view of Oromo nationalists; they emphasize the need for loyalty and call for all to rally together to expel aliens, as exemplified in Addisu's translation of one such song: Ah, our Front, source of our freedom OLF comes from our people, be strong and defend our nationhood Enemies, if you run north or south, the Oromo are there If you climb trees, the Oromo will cut them down and catch you ... Discourses of ethnic nationalism insist on the group's unique essence and invoke mystical connections between self, nation, and state. By deploying exclusivist categories, ethnic nationalism polarizes social life and creates boundaries between groups, which it then presents as impermeable. At the same time, hyperbole is a common style of political discourse, and Oromo nationalists often employ totalizing figures of speech in their claims to represent all Oromos. This rhetoric also involves attempts to mask internal differences within the group they have identified as a unified nation. Learning to Be Oromo The OSA meetings are devoted to the creation and recognition of national identity in exile; they exemplify what Szuchewycz (1994: 391) terms the 'social work' involved in the production of meaning. During the sessions, the Ethiopian government is condemned and audience members are urged to identify fully with Oromo identity and with the OLF's political program, which demands an independent state. Speakers pose explicit 'challenges' to the audience: to commit themselves, to contribute financially, to help the OLF and the Oromo Relief Association (ORA), to learn more about Oromo language and culture, and to adopt authentic Oromo identity to replace the artificial Ethiopian identity that was imposed through violence and indoctrination. The audience members respond to these challenges, not only by endorsing (and thus encouraging) pro-Oromo statements with applause and comments, but

More Real Than a Shadow

183

also by making emotional public pledges of commitment and support. Imbedded in this pattern of assertions, exhortations, and responses are persistent vilifications of the Abyssinian or Ethiopian Other. Learning to be Oromo is not only a cultural project but a political one. (Re)discovering Oromo identity is consistently linked with accepting the program of Oromo nationalism. Speakers constantly emphasize the importance of Oromo identity, and link it to the need to support the OLF rather than other organizations claiming to represent Oromos. No allowance is made for those who value their Oromo ethnicity but do not support the OLF's nationalist program. For example, Tilahun Gamta, speaking at the 1992 conference, stated: 'An Oromo can change his religion but not his Oromo-ness. Those who do not support Oromo nationalism are traitors.' This linkage of identity with a specific political position is not unique to Oromo nationalist discourse; rather, it seems characteristic of ethnic nationalism generally. For example, in her discussion of the Basque nationalist Sabino de Arana-Goiri, Heiberg (1989: 56) noted: In nationalist ideology and politics it was not sufficient to be Basque in terms of surnames, language or religion. One had to be a 'good Basque' ... Arana had to make race a politically operative category - not a matter of once and for all biological inclusion or exclusion. [The 'good Basque' status was only awarded to those who accepted Arana's political program.] In short, a real Basque could only be a Basque nationalist. Important themes of nationalist discourse appear in the following statement, by a member of the OLF Central Committee: Some Oromos are being told they are Somalis. Some who are Christianized think they are Amharas. We lost our identity. That was our first project, to restore our identity so that someone can be proud to say he is an Oromo. The question of dividing Oromos by different names is over. The fire is burning. Everywhere the Oromo are fighting their enemies. They are dying by thousands, they are killing the enemy by thousands. Even the technocrats, even the scholars are telling them 'You cannot rule us any more.' University students left school because they feel they want to die for their country [standing ovation from audience]. We have never had this unanimity. Now the spirit of our forefathers is moving us. Someone said there were five Oromo organizations. We don't have five Oromo organizations, all of them are united now. We never consider OPDO an

184

Ghosts and Shadows

organization [applause]. If you were there I'm sure each one of you would die for his country. We expect our scholars to be behind our organization. If he is an Oromo there is no way he can not support the Oromo cause.

These statements demonstrate the basic elements of Oromo nationalist discourse: emphasis on a ghostly but fundamental ethnic identity hidden beneath an externally imposed foreign culture; assertions of complete unity among Oromos; emphasis on links to a greater past; appeals for audience support; and rejection of alternative political views as inauthentically Oromo. There is no doubt that the Oromos experienced discrimination in Ethiopia. They were subjugated by the expanding Abyssinian empire, and their culture was denigrated and their language surpressed. The Oromos were considered inferior to members of the ruling Abyssinian culture, especially to those identified as Amharas. The negative views of Oromo culture survived changes of government. For example, New African (March 1992) reported on a demonstration in Dire Dawa: Amharas who felt excluded from power labelled a donkey as an Oromo; this led to a gunfight. The Abyssiniaris have denigrated the Oromos as essentially inferior. In turn, speakers at OSA meetings stress fundamental differences between Abyssinians and Oromos, using the same polarized terms but reversing them to emphasize negative Abyssinian characteristics, as indicated in statements made at various OSA sessions: 'If you take power from an Abyssinian, he will beg it back from you.' 'Oromo culture is one of peace and Abyssinian culture is one of war.' 'Oromos are democrats, that's our history.' 'Oromos want peace. They are the most peaceful people in the world.' Abyssinian influence is cited to explain any negative behaviour; for example, when one meeting began several hours late, the speakers explained this through reference to ethnic differences and the dangers of pollution: 'It's a bad habit we learned from our Abyssinian masters.' Ethnic nationalism, in its various manifestations, relies on distinctions of this sort. Often these distinctions involve the false notion that distinct human 'races' exist and possess unique characteristics that sharply differentiate them from other 'races.' Heiberg (1989) discusses how the idea of 'race' functions in the ideology of Basque nationalism. Nationalist ideologues such as Sabino de Arana-Goiri employed the idea of 'race' as a key symbol, as an exclusive moral category determined by birth. Although the integration of these supposed 'races' was impossible

More Real Than a Shadow

185

because of their fundamental differences, 'race' could be lost through intermarriage and thus had to be preserved by maintaining boundaries. Arana emphasized the positive moral characteristics of Basques (intelligence, nobility, masculinity) while noting the servile, effeminate sullenness of the Spanish, under whose influence Basque character could only degenerate. Ethnic nationalism thus depends on the creation of differences and their continual representation. The Oromos define themselves as fundamentally distinct from Abyssinians or Ethiopians. Oromo nationalists use the latter terms interchangeably; some apply them to Eritreans also, although Eritrean nationalists claim significant differences between themselves and Ethiopians based on Eritrea's experience of Italian colonialism and the similarity of the Eritrean case to that of other European colonies which achieved independence. Although Eritreans provided training and assistance to the OLE during the war against the Derg, some Oromo nationalists believe that the Eritreans betrayed them by not supporting Oromo independence and instead assisting the TGE. Oromo nationalist discourse also overlooks the ethnic diversity in Eritrea, where nine ethnic groups are officially recognized. When they link the Eritreans with the Ethiopians, Oromo nationalists focus solely on the culture of the Christian, Tigrinyan-speaking areas of Eritrea, which share similarities with the adjacent Ethiopian province of Tigray, and ignore the significant fact that Eritrean nationalism emphasizes its multicultural character. Indeed, early support for Eritrean independence came largely from the Muslim population, and various Ethiopian regimes have sought to discredit it on that basis. With the most notable exception of Mohammed Hassan (1994), Oromo nationalists ignore the multicultural character of Eritrean identity and classify Eritreans as an ethnic group that shares certain fundamental characteristics of culture and personality. In doing so, they are reverting to a discourse of ethnic essentialism that construes the lack of Eritrean support for an independent Oromia as part of a centuries-old Abyssinian plot in which the EPLF and TPLF are merely the latest conspirators bent on stealing Oromo resources. Thus, although Eritrean independence was a significant event in the Horn, the large map used at OSA meetings did not indicate an independent Eritrea either in 1991 (when Eritrea attained de facto independence) or after the 1993 referendum. In Minneapolis, Chaltu Deressa referred to 'Eritreans, Tigrayans and Amharas' as 'Ethiopians, all those who claim to be a part of Ethiopia,' disregarding Eritrea's struggle for and achievement of inde-

186

Ghosts arid Shadows

pendence. At the same meeting, Bichaka Fayissa identified an EritreanTigrayan plot: 'The Eritrean plan and the Tigrayan plan is a joint effort. They can't exist without each other. The first step is for the EPLF and the TPLF to topple the central government. Eritrea will get independence but independence without resources is nothing. The EPLF and the TPLF are now channelling resources to the north.' Namara Garbaba, reporting on a recent visit to Ethiopia, made a similar statement: 'The TPLF is extracting resources from Oromia and using them to build up the north. The government controls all businesses and only gives licences to Tigrayans and Eritreans since they both speak the same language ... The Derg planted trees but the EPRDF strips them. I heard that the wood was being taken to Eritrea to build houses.' Many accusations that the Oromos are being exploited, and discriminated against, are based on the slightest of pretexts. Another speaker, also a recent traveller, encountered several Tigrayans staying in a hotel and concluded that the hotel was excluding other guests, although he noted he had no proof of this. He also reported that he only heard Tigriiiya being spoken on his flight, and provided this as evidence that the Tigrayans had monopolized commerce. 'Social Work'

Speakers and audience work together to construct positive images and, in essence, to create that of which they speak. Statements indicating Oromo uniqueness are applauded by the audience. For example, Reverend Ronald Ward, of Toronto Baptist Intercultural Services, referred to his travels from highland Ethiopia to Kenya: 'These Oromos were very different from Kikuyu and Somalis' [applause]. 'What a beautiful country' [applause]. 'There's no place on earth like it' [applause]. Through such processes of 'social work,' audience members support OSA's efforts to develop Oromo nationalism. The construction of positive images and a sense of unified community often constitute rather difficult 'social work.' During each year's OSA meetings it is asserted repeatedly that all Oromos are united in their struggle for independence. At the same time, there are continuous appeals to audience members for unity, for greater commitment, for efforts to influence Western governments, for moral and material support to the OLF, and for better organization. The need for greater commitment to the movement constitutes a persistent theme in Oromo nationalist discourse. The meetings are intended to create commit-

More Real Than a Shadow

187

merit, unity, and political activism. The fact that these have yet to be created suggests that for some participants, OSA meetings may serve other functions besides that of supporting independence for Oromia. Especially for those who live in North American cities lacking organized Oromo communities, OSA meetings offer a space for social interaction with people who are considered to be 'the same' in fundamental ways, and a chance to speak one's own language, reconnect with friends, reminisce, and exchange information on various topics, which are not necessarily restricted to political events in Ethiopia. These activities are made even more pleasant by performances by Oromo singers, bands, and dancers. For a first-generation diaspora population that is encountering not only cultural differences but also racism in North America, the importance of such attractions should not be underestimated. Indeed, for some the social benefits of such meetings may be more significant than the political ones. The speakers acknowledge that support for Oromo nationalism needs to be cultivated among the diaspora. For example, Sisai Ibssa stated at the 1992 meeting: The Oromo know who they are and what they want. Are Oromos in the diaspora helping? Oromos in the diaspora have done very little ... The task is to transform ourselves. We must advise fellow intellectuals to do their part. If we don't participate in building Oromia then we may become part of breaking it apart in the future. We know we should participate. During the conference, what did we do? We exchanged greetings.

The following year, Asafajalata made similar criticisms of Oromos in the diaspora who were insufficiently committed to nationalism: 'There is no doubt that the majority of Oromos support the OLE Still, some Oromos are lagging behind. They must catch up. All of you have a national responsibility.' These repeated appeals suggest strongly that the conferences do not express an already existing, fully formed nationalist sentiment; rather, they are a means of creating that sentiment, of creating the identity they are celebrating. Speakers often exhort the audience to greater commitment; responses from the audience members become part of these speech rituals. Just as the speakers encourage the audience to commit themselves more actively to the nationalist cause, so do the audience members encourage the speakers to show more leadership in that mobilization and to achieve practical results. As one individual stated: T hear lectures every year just telling me what Amharas have done to us, telling

188

Ghosts and Shadows

me about my culture. I don't need to know this. Why not tell us what to do? I am happy when I see foreigners here because I think they'll tell us where the guns are. But they just say the same things.' Sometimes the OLF leadership is openly criticized. For example, Idris Jamal, speaking at the 1994 conference, was extremely critical: The Oromo national movement has failed to advance revolutionary culture ... The OLF leadership has failed to develop solutions to Oromo problems of feudalism, Amhara-ism, nepotism ... The OLF leaders are acting like feudal lords in relation to the people [applause]. Innuendo and character assassination are characteristics of Abyssinian culture. Can you be Oromo nationalist and Ethiopianist at the same time? ... The Oromo movements have high levels of regionalism, nepotism and religious difference. That's why the Oromo national struggle is going backwards. The UONA has kept Oromo nationalism alive. UONA's contribution is favourable but weak in political education. It hasn't developed study circles. There is a discrepancy between intellectuals and the masses. There are also problems between regions. UONA's support to the OLF was unequivocal as long as it exists. This was wrong for two reasons. There should be no carte blanche given to any organization. There's always the possibility of vacillation. Washington D.C. was the only office to question Ororno academics. Ego may play a divisive role. The OSA split into two due to egotistical needs. There are too many blind followers of the now-defunct OLF leadership. The OLF is for all Oromos, it's not the property of the OLF leaders. Our major task is a critical examination of our own position. We need political education to create new revolutionary people. UONA must be independent of the OLF. OSA must resolve its contradictions and look beyond the cult of leaders. Former OLF fighters are acting like armchair revolutionaries, they must take part. The present OLF leaders are putting communities against each other. We need new leadership, [applause] Audience members rise not only to ask questions but also to give testimonials reaffirming the existence of Oromo identity, to express solidarity, and generally to raise the emotional level. For example, in Minneapolis in 1992, one man stood up to declare his readiness to give his life for the nationalist cause - an assertion vigorously applauded by the audience. Other participants made emotional and similarly wellreceived testimonials to their conversion to Oromo nationalism: 'For sixteen years I was a diehard Ethiopian. I spoke Amharic. When news about Eritreans and Gallas came I was the first to tear it up and throw it

More Real Than a Shadow

189

away. Thanks to the Oromo Support Committee I'm now convinced that nothing short of bilisuma will satisfy Oromos.' Similarly, another stated: 'A year ago, there were many of us who did not dissociate ourselves from the mythical Ethiopia. The situation has changed now.' Through such processes of exhortation, criticism, and confession, speakers and audience engage in the creation of Oromo identity, summoning ghosts through mutual 'social work.' Gender and Oromo Nationalism

In general, nationalist discourses construct images of undivided community and seek to actively forget internal differences, perceiving them as divisive in struggles against external enemies. In this regard, gender has emerged as one of the paradoxical issues of nationalism. While some nationalist movements stress the need for women to remain in or return to domestic space, and to maintain traditional roles of wife and mother, others appeal to women through a discourse of emancipation from gender inequality. In most societies of the Horn, women are consigned to subordinate roles; Eritrean and Tigrayan liberation fronts used a rhetoric of women's emancipation, and the role of women in Eritrea and Ethiopia following acquisition of state power by those groups is a matter of considerable interest. In contrast, the role of women in Oromo nationalism has received little attention. In part, this is due to their emphasis on reclaiming traditions such as gada, which excluded women, as the basis of identity. Most OSA panels are composed entirely of men and do not address gender issues. In 1992 a women's panel was formed at the conference itself, and in 1993 and 1994 women were scheduled as speakers. Seada Mohammed described what Oromo women endured under the 'Abyssinian colonizers' and during Somalia's invasion of the Ogadeh region in the mid-1970s: death in military attacks, rape, slavery, forced marriage, and prostitution. Seada (1993: 122) recounted the rape of an Oromo girl by a soldier in Djibouti: Tn one of those outrageous dark nights this unfortunate Oromo girl was taken by an impotent military man. She was a virgin, and he tried to penetrate her night after night but he could not. What seemed to him to be the most logical thing to do was to use an opening instrument to pave the way for his victorious entrance. So, he used a kitchen knife and cut her and opened her. The girl was bleeding to death when word got out to the refugee camp.' The audience laughed at the reference to the soldier's impotence,

190

Ghosts and Shadows

arid while this was silenced fairly quickly by the grim details that followed, this laughter demonstrates that nationalist discourses are narratives of power, which are often expressed in 'masculiriist' terms and played out in women's bodies. For example, in her discussion of rape as a device of ethnic marking in the Balkan wars, Meznaric (1994: 76) argued: 'Women are the special victims of nationalist ideologies and quests for ethnic purity. As with every nationalism, conservative Balkan nationalisms (Albanian, Serbian, Croatian) reassert the theme of the "home and hearth" as women's natural location. Nationalist exhortations disguise the opposition between men and women that inevitably accompanies the entrance of women into the public domain in traditional societies.' Seada presented other examples of the abuse suffered by Oromo women as refugees: Women had to have arranged marriages with any available person. They go to Saudi Arabia and then the man becomes a beast ... Women can't travel by themselves ... Only when the OLF gets a good position will we get our slaves back ... Here Oromo women are isolated. They have a baby every year. They can't go to school. They are in prison [in their homes]. They face violence from their husband. They need translators to go to the doctor. I appeal to Oromo men. You are supposed to be our next-of-kin. How could a next-of-kin tie up a woman and burn her with cigarettes? Our next-of-kin aren't doing much. Try to help your sisters. She noted the contradictions between the OLF's rhetoric of liberation and its failure to incorporate women's emancipation into its practices: Women joined the OLF but were only allowed to do the cooking. We didn't expect much from the Derg's organizations. We expected more from the OLF. But the OLF ignored women's issues. We must not wait for national liberation, we must work for equality. Most Oromo men are afraid to work with women as equals. You have subordinated women all your lives. We must work together. We need separate organizations to find our voices but we must get organized together. Seada's presentation highlights the paradox faced by many women who support nationalist movements. 'Often, the particular culture they would like to assert vis-a-vis the hegemonic culture includes also elements which they feel subordinate them as women and which they

More Real Than a Shadow

191

would like to resist and transform within their own community' (YuvalDavis 1994: 414). The Algerian case is often taken as a prime example of how patriarchal nationalist organizations tend to roll back freedoms gained by women during independence struggles. In her discussion of women's involvement in Palestinean nationalism, Peteet (1991: 209) noted contradictions: Women's perceptions of themselves were in dissonance with those of a leadership that continued to propagate the idea of women's participation in national politics, but in a secondary manner, vacilating between conception of female persona as sex and citizen ... Activist women were caught between the demands of loyalty to the national movement and knowledge of the inextricability of their struggle from the Palestinean struggle and an awareness of the need for an autonomous struggle.

In the newsletter Qunnamtii Oromia, Sabboontuu Jiilchaa (1992: 24) rejected the patriarchal aspects of Oromo culture: The womb that carried you is convulsing with fury and blood is dripping from the breasts that once suckled you with milk. You've changed our necklaces into chains and our bracelets into handcuffs. Our wedding rings have become tormenting, sharp hot irons that burn and cut into our flesh. Instead of a home, you gave us a prison which has become a living hell. The heart that once loved you passionately, now aches with deep pain when you, Oromo men, call yourself liberators. Can we, Oromo women, agree with you, knowing what you're doing to us? How are you different from the Tigrean 'liberators'? ... You call yourself liberators but you are enslaving women! Or do you think slavery is a delicious dish when the cooks are Oromo men?

While women raised issues of gender inequality arid the need for Oromo nationalism to address them, some male nationalists clearly were unconvinced that such issues were significant. For example, although Seada's presentation was applauded, one man rose from the audience to ask: 'Are you looking for a separate country for yourself?' Delivered in a swaggering tone, the question clearly was intended to trivialize the necessity of women's emancipation. The question was followed by laughter from others, who apparently sympathized with the man's position. Another man asked Seada how much she had been influenced by Western feminism. This is not an uninteresting question,

192

Ghosts and Shadows

but as Seada indicated in her response, it also serves as a device for delegitimizing the concerns of Oromo women by resorting to notions of tradition and by portraying them as infected with the values of a foreign culture. The dismissal of gender issues as simply a creation of Western feminism is another facet of nationalism's attempts to construct the image of an authentic, undivided self and to maintain 'traditional' gender relations within the national home. Non-Oromo and the Creation of Oromo Identity In considering Oromo identity in diaspora, we must understand its creation as a discursive project undertaken not only by those who consider themselves Oromos but also by non-Oromo observers, commentators, and supporters. European imperialism had a significant impact on Oromo nationalist discourse. For example, Mekuria Bulcha (1993) has outlined the role that European travellers and missionaries played in developing a written Oromo script, and described how they influenced ethnic identity among Oromos in the nineteenth century. During the years of struggle against the Mengistu regime, many liberation groups sought to convince foreign politicians, journalists, intellectuals, and activists of the legitimacy of their cause, and to encourage their support. Despite some protestations to the contrary, most observers of Ethiopian politics strongly sympathized with at least some of these liberation forces. Western supporters of the OLF contributed to a discourse of ethnic essentialism and to the construction of the idea of an independent Oromia. For example, at the 1993 OSA conference in Toronto, the Rev. Ronald Ward claimed that 'Oromia is now a reality' and had been recognized by 'expatriates' (i.e., Western observers). On the basis of two visits to Oromia in 1993, Ward noted 'tremendous affirmation of Oromo-ness ... a new sense of pride and expectancy in being Oromo' throughout the area, which he described as 'a tremendous beehive of activity.' Ward stressed that the Oromos had been betrayed by the TGE and that 'Oromos here [i.e., in North America] must take leadership roles'; clearly, he was constructing the diaspora audience as a significant actor with a decisive role to play in the nationalist struggles in northeastern Africa. Having suggested this role for his audience, Ward stressed that imminent danger was facing them: 'Our enemies are not sleeping. The EPRDF is setting up a puppet OPDO government in Oromia while doing anything to discredit Oromia.' Ward explicitly identified himself with the

More Real Than a Shadow

193

Oromo cause; in doing so he was helping create a sense of a community threatened by the Ethiopian government, which he represented as a hostile force gathering for harmful purposes. Ward's proposed solution to this threat mirrored the OLF's stance: he emphasized the need for an independent Oromo army 'to avoid the betrayals of the past.' Rather than suggesting peaceful means of negotiating equal rights, he advocated further violence, by playing on the image of Oromos as warriors ('The Oromos are the fighters of the Horn of Africa') and by borrowing rhetoric from Dylan Thomas's poem 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night': 'Sometimes I find you people have lost your rage. You seem to potter around. Brothers and sisters, rage! rage! rage!' Speaking on another panel at the same conference, Ward again portrayed the Oromos as victims who were being treated unfairly: 'My topic "NGO's and the Oromo" might also be titled, "Why do NGO's ignore the Oromo?" There can be little or no doubt that the majority of aid which flows into Ethiopia through NGO sources goes to the north - particularly Eritrea and Tigre [sic]' (17). Ward identified the major 'upfront reason' for the imbalance as the activities of the Eritrean Relief Association (ERA) and the Relief Society of Tigray (REST), relief organizations maintained by the EPLF and TPLF respectively. He found both operating 'well oiled public relations machines' and producing 'unlimited numbers of pictures, reports, statistics, videos, etc. They are "user friendly" for western NGO's' (17-18). Ward was adopting that discourse of Oromo nationalism which does not distinguish between Eritreans and Tigrayans but identifies both as 'Habashas' or Abyssinians on the basis of shared ethnicity and political objectives; and he made no effort to differentiate between their two relief organizations; yet even if one overlooked the subjective aspects of identity formation in favour of a version based on similarities of culture and language, his position was still problematic because of the not always cordial relations between Eritrean and Tigrayan liberation movements and because of the different types of relationships their relief organizations had established alongside Western institutions. Overall, the ERA was much more successful than REST in dealing with Western agencies a situation explained in large part by Tigray's relative underdevelopment, by the greater numbers of Eritrean intellectuals and professionals (many of them educated in Western countries), and by the fact that the TPLF was perceived as more ideologically rigid. REST's resources were much more limited, and especially in North America its production of information could hardly be termed 'unlimited.' While the steady pro-

194

Ghosts and Shadows

duction of information might be considered a useful activity for indigenous organizations to undertake, Ward hinted that deception was involved. He presented the provision of detailed information as merely 'public relations.' He indicated that he did not 'object to aid in the north. God knows Tigre [sic] and Eritrea are little more than devastated deserts. There are thousands of terribly poor Tigreans [sic] and Eritreans. They need help BUT they should not grab everything' (19). Since famine had not affected all parts of the Horn equally in the previous decades, Ward's argument was problematic in that he offered no time frame for charges of imbalanced aid. In the early 1980s, starvation struck northern regions first; it was only later that southern areas faced widespread emergency. Furthermore, he ignored arguments from both the ERA and REST that not enough aid was reaching Eritrea and Tigray to alleviate the crises there, and he minimized the continuous lobbying by both organizations as well as by Eritreans and Tigrayans in the diaspora. He noted that 'some Canadian NGO's claim that more has gone to the south in recent years than to the north,' and then simply dismissed this claim, but with no couriterevidence, merely mentioning that 'statistics are very deceptive things' and that according to Ethiopia's Relief arid Rehabilitation Commission in 1993, 'roughly the same amount of relief food has been assigned to the south as the north' (19). Instead of providing any detailed account of needs, accessibility, and distribution, he offered the alleged discrepancy ('it is very hard to check') between 'more' and 'roughly the same amount' of aid as evidence of a plot against the Oromos (19). He downplayed the fact that famines hit the north harder in the 1980s, and that Eritrean arid Tigrayan groups both in the diaspora and in areas controlled by the EPLF and TPLF had been organized to distribute aid effectively. Rather than presenting either organization as a model for the ORA, rather than arguing that all relief organizations have common goals and should live up to their avowed humanitarian principles by co-operating to ensure that aid reached all who needed it, rather than considering that the ORA might be less well organized and effective than the other organizations, Ward presented the ERA and REST as greedy competitors and as agents in an ethnic plot who were acting unfairly ('they should riot grab everything'). In a statement not included in the published text of his paper, Ward emphasized this struggle for scarce resources: 'Competition is very high. If you don't get the money, ERA arid REST will get it.' Ward criticized what he saw as the unfair activities of Eritreans and Tigrayans who 'grab everything,' and claimed that the NGOs were ideo-

More Real Than a Shadow

195

logically driven by an 'Ethiopianist' bias that favoured highland cultures and were 'quite ignorant of the ethnic composition of Ethiopia.' Adhering to an ethnic-essentialist form of nationalist discourse, he berated NGOs for their 'vision of one humanity, internationalism in which there is no room for ethnic identity.' He dismissed this internationalist ideology as unrealistic and unworkable, as 'something like the Kingdom of God' (19-20). Ward's comments explicitly conveyed and contributed to a sense of persecution, as indicated in the summation by discussant Bichaka Fayissa, who informed the audience that 'governments, NGOs and Ethiopianists are all against the Oromo.' Despite numerous insinuations and direct assertions that plots were being directed against them, some Oromos recognized an alternative explanation to Ward's for the lack of support for the ORA. Several speakers blamed the ORA's limited achievements on the lack of effort by Oromos in the diaspora. For example, at the 1992 OSA conference in Minneapolis, ORA representatives criticized the limited involvement in relief work by Oromos in the diaspora, while also acknowledging that they themselves had not done enough in the areas in which they worked. Terfa Dibaba, an ORA representative from Germany, noted the discrepancy between support for ERA and REST and support for the ORA and stated, The others have worked hard. Have we? The stronger you are fed, the stronger you grow. You have left us alone; we were not fed properly.' Similarly, at the 1993 conference, Mohammed Hassen criticized the inactivity of Oromos in the diaspora: 'We have not done a fraction of what is expected of us ... We have not done our share. Please let us mobilize our resources to help our people.' An audience member responded: 'We haven't done what we have to do. I accept that.' Ward's presentation was significant because it indicated the importance of external legitimization for nationalist discourse. Most protagonists in nationalist struggles in the Horn seek support from external sources. In turn, their opponents point to such support as a sign of illegitimacy, claiming that external agents are provoking discontent and that if these inauthentic elements could be purged, the real sentiments of the people would be expressed. In Imagining Ethiopia, Sorenson identified the trope of the 'foreign agent' as a typical rhetorical strategy to delegitimize opposition. Yet while noting this, it is important to recognize that foreign academics, journalists, and others do play a significant role in the production of nationalist discourses and that local protagonists encourage them to do so. Just as long-distance nationalism demonstrates how cultures and communities can become deterritorialized,

196

Ghosts and Shadows

Ward's statements indicate that nationalist emotions are not the special province of those who are considered full ethnic members of the imagined nations concerned. This raises further questions about how other types of selves are created. Abyssinian fundamentalism relies on a version of history that projects the contemporary state backwards in time, and claims legitimacy on the basis of 3,000 years of continuity; Oromo nationalism seeks to deconstruct this mythico-history and to substitute its own version of the past. Evocations of the past are intended to erect a '"structure of feeling" vital to a tragic-heroic sense of national identity' (Szemere 1992: 636). Such an identity is particularly attractive to diaspora populations - especially to intellectuals, who may find in the nationalist project of creating a new homeland a broader projection of personal efforts to deal with displacement and with the modification of their own identities. Annual conferences organized by Oromo groups provide sites for creating a sense of identity and community in diaspora through the emotional focus provided by the project of an independent state. Even those who do not agree with the OLE, UONA, and others that an independent, ethnically defined state is the only possible path to Oromo self-actualization should acknowledge that some claims by Oromo nationalists about past mistreatment are valid. While nationalist discourse tries to overlook class alliances formed across ethnic lines, it is clear that most Oromos have long been dominated and exploited by others and that their current predicament should be addressed. Their assertions that Ethiopian identity has been imposed on them should be taken seriously; as Baxter and Blackhurst (1978: 160) noted, many groups now included as members of Greater Ethiopia have been under state control for a relatively short time, and not all have a strong sense of Ethiopian-ness. Nevertheless, in recognizing these factors we should not be blinded to the constructed aspects of Oromo nationalism, especially to its essentialism, romanticism, and chauvinism. Finally, it is also true that the vast majority of Ethiopians, regardless of ethnic background, are desperately poor, and that their primary concern is for an improvement in their material conditions. No doubt some Oromo nationalists will be disturbed by the argument that the Oromo identity is a constructed one. However, there is nothing unique to the Oromo case in such a proposition, nor does accepting the argument make Oromo identity and discrimination against Oromos any less significant or real. Contemporary anthropologists regard all national identities as social constructions. When we describe Oromo

More Real Than a Shadow

197

nationalism as an imagined community with invented traditions, we are not singling out Oromo identity as false in contrast to other identities that are true ones; rather, we are pointing out how all such identities are fictions and politically motivated apparitions. Oromo identity is 'more real than a shadow.' Our discussion of the OSA meetings as sites for socially constructing of Oromo identity provides some insights into how identity is shaped; similar processes operate in many other groups. As for the negative aspects of nationalism, these also are not unique to the Oromos. Essentialist thinking occurs in other groups whose identity is based on ethnicity. Gilroy (1993b: 65) describes such forms of ethnic absolutism as 'a reductive, essentialist understanding of ethnic and national difference which operates through an absolute sense of culture so powerful that it is capable of separating people off from each other and diverting them into social and historical locations that are understood to be mutually impermeable and incommensurable.' Indeed, in other chapters of this book we demonstrate that there is no shortage of such expressions of reductionism and essentialism among exiles mobilized around other identities. Our comments here should not be read as an attack on Oromo nationalism in particular; rather they should be seen in the context of competing claims about identity that convert the Other into a hideous monster. As Kuwee Kumsa (1998: 173) - an Oromo writer imprisoned for almost a decade for writing in Oromiffa, now an exile in Canada - states: 'Pointing out some of the weaknesses of the Oromo national liberation struggle is not an end in itself. It is rather a means to get liberation. Exposing the hitherto hidden social wound is to prepare it for treatment, and to pave the way for the process of healing. It is to cast some new light on old and entrenched problems so that lessons will be learned from the past mistakes in order to enhance the struggle for building a better future.'

EIGHT

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

Invisible Minorities Diasporas are haunted sites where identities are created, accelerated, and transformed by various institutions and conflicting forces. Longdistance nationalists experience these struggles as extremely intense and meaningful; yet they are enacted in circumscribed spaces, and identities that exiles consider to be highly significant may be mere phantoms for others. The Canadian public has little understanding of or concern for African issues, which receive scant media coverage. Somewhat exceptional to this are Ethiopia, because of startling reports about famine in the 1980s, and Somalia, because of Canadian military intervention in the 1990s (with subsequent scandals involving racism, the murder of Somali civilians by Canadian troops, and bureaucratic coverups). Despite attempts by diaspora organizations to win support, few Canadians understand the Horn's politics, and the divisions between diaspora communities are invisible to them. Thus, struggles for identity in the diaspora have been largely confined to within that population. A sense of isolation is pervasive. Unanimously, informants felt that Canadians do not understand their situation. Denied identity and significance, they became invisible minorities, consigned to ghostly communities invisible to other Canadians. Constructions of cultural unity based on competing mythico-histories have shaped these ghostly diaspora communities. For Ethiopians, the idea of Greater Ethiopia has provided security, pride, and rootedness, even among those forcibly evicted by the Derg's brutality. A sense of history and cultural belonging has enabled them to sustain themselves in

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

199

exile, and many are proud of their Ethiopian identity. Ethiopian identity has been associated with Amhara culture, yet it is not only Amharas who feel that identity. Some have expressed a strong Ethiopian identity while indicating their affiliation with other ethnic groups: 'I am an Oromo. Nobody can take that away from me. I'm proud to be Oromo. But I am an Ethiopian, too. Everybody here is from a different group but we are all Ethiopians.' However, many who are classified as Ethiopians bitterly resent that categorization and claim other identities, although those identities are unrecognized. Distinctions of tremendous significance for them have been overlooked by others: 'At work people call me an Ethiopian. I keep telling them I'm not Ethiopian, I'm Eritrean but they don't understand or they forget or something so they always call me "the Ethiopian guy.'" For some, it was this very effort to assert a distinct identity (and the brutal force applied by the Ethiopian state to repress those assertions) that forced migration; their efforts to claim identity continued in diaspora, where they constituted structures of feeling and served as a major organizing principle. Negotiating such an identity is an important technique for stabilizing oneself in a social network and for obtaining access to resources and information. Regardless of how they viewed themselves, these distinctions were simply invisible to Canadian society as a whole. For example, the government's policy of not distinguishing between Africans in Toronto meant that all groups were encouraged to use one agency for settlement services. Also, recognition and financial support to Ethiopian organizations claiming to represent the whole population. In effect, Canadian institutions and agencies have conjured up their own phantom, by overlooking intense and complex political, ethnic, religious, and regional differences and by classifying a nonhomogeneous population as a single, unified community. Informants questioned these policies: 'How can the government say that all Africans are the same and they should only have one place to go [for services]? There are lots of different agencies and communities for Europeans. Why do they think we are all the same just because we are African?' Apparently, government officials did regard Africans as 'all the same.' A representative of Employment and Immigration Canada said that government policy was 'to keep all the Africans together rather than giving money to all these little groups.' During periods of financial restriction, culturally specific agencies are unlikely to grow in number, yet clearly not all Africans are comfortable being 'kept together.' Ethiopian agen-

200

Ghosts and Shadows

cies claiming to provide inclusive services said they did not discriminate on the basis of ethnic or national affiliation; even so, the context of prolonged conflict cannot be overlooked. Eritreans and Oromos did not want to use Ethiopian agencies and experienced considerable stress when forced to do so. For example, Eritreans seeking assistance with refugee sponsorship were referred to an Ethiopian community agency; this created anxiety, as one man explained: 'You think I am going to use that place? I am an Eritrean and the Ethiopians working there will not help me.' Another Eritrean refused to use an organization staffed by Ethiopians: 'Why should I have to speak Amharic? It's not my language. That's why I left home, so I wouldn't have to speak their language. They don't even speak English, I speak better English than they do and I don't want to talk to them in Amharic. People who tell you to do this don't understand that it's like giving up your whole identity.' Eritreans believed that Ethiopian organizations would not help them and that political biases would work against them. They resented claims of inclusive identity and suspected that Ethiopian workers would not treat them fairly. They were especially reluctant to use such organizations to help them sponsor relatives; many thought that Ethiopians would obstruct their efforts to help their families. Given that delays could and sometimes did mean the difference between life and death, these worries were serious ones. Regardless of their own identity affiliation, all members of the diaspora were administered by the Canadian government as if they belonged to one category, based on their origin within the boundaries of a state that many rejected as illegitimate. Eritrean and Oromo identities were ignored or denied by the public, by government institutions, and by Ethiopian exiles; these denials of identity were experienced as a rejection of subjectivities and legitimate human existence within a 'national order of things' (Malkki 1992, 1995: 257). Until formal independence was achieved there was no official recognition of distinct status for Eritreans, and this situation persists for Oromos in Canada who reject Ethiopian identity. Yet whatever the identities imposed by official discourse, and whatever the claims by Ethiopian organizations that they represent a single, coherent community, the diaspora contains numerous divisions. What Canadian institutions administered as a single community was actually a fragmented one, with various groups holding different forms of identity, maintaining specific associations, and observing conflicting myths of history, homeland, and return. For some, these divisions have become more significant in the diaspora, and cer-

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

201

tain affiliations are intensifying as people transfer their allegiance from one social identity to another. While the general public was oblivious to them, nationalist struggles in the Horn received little sympathy from government officials in Canada. Like other governments, Canada invoked rhetoric of state sovereignty to avoid having to intervene, ignoring the fact that Ethiopia's annexation of Eritrea violated a UN-engineered federation. In contrast to East Timor where, between 1975 and 1999, Canada ignored human rights abuses and violations of international law in order to maintain profitable economic links with Indonesia, in the Horn there were no direct, substantial economic rewards to be derived from looking the other way. Possibly, insecurity about Canada's own national identity shaped Ottawa's policy: Eritrean nationalism evoked spectres of Quebec separation. For example, the late Quebecois film-maker Yvan Patry, who made four documentaries on Eritrea with Danielle Lacourse, drew parallels between these cases. In the 'national order of things' government discourse consistently endorsed Ethiopia's 'territorial integrity.' Other phantoms have influenced Ottawa's assessment of regional conflicts. For example, Eritreans perceived Canadian policies as distorted by simplistic Cold War polarities: 'The Canadian government couldn't understand the strength of the Eritrean lobby. They thought we must be getting some money from somewhere. One time they said we were getting money from the Soviet Union. That's the idea they had, you see, they didn't understand anything about Eritrea at all.' Although driven by phantoms, official views have had material consequences. Over a decade ago, Canadian NGOs were criticizing the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for providing insufficient aid to Eritrea and for basing its relief programs only on Ethiopian government sources. For example, in 1990 CIDA suddenly halved food aid to Eritrea based on information obtained from a government that was at war with that region and that had been accused repeatedly of using famine as a weapon against its enemies. By concentrating its relief efforts in government-controlled areas, CIDA helped the Derg stay in power. A similar pattern of near-exclusive reliance on Ethiopian government sources of information was repeated in 2000. Even after independence, the differences between Eritreans and Ethiopians were not well understood, while the Oromo case remained invisible. Thus, while Eritreans and Oromos in the Horn were fighting to assert their distinct identities against a regime determined to crush them, those in the diaspora faced the erasure of their identities by racism, the

202

Ghosts and Shadows

shadows of other political struggles, and the prevailing lack of awareness of African issues. North Americans classified all these groups as Ethiopian or employed broader categories (African or black), under the assumption that everyone included in such categories shared certain fundamental characteristics. Thus, these specific forms of identity are arrayed against one another, in a context in which each group constitutes a minority in a broader population that is neither aware of African issues nor much concerned with them. As a result, each diaspora community must construct its identity in opposition to a Canada that is defined as white and that awards little significance to the details of its particular situation, as well as in relation to other minority groups that seek to merge them into an inclusive category. Denied full inclusion in their country of residence, the diaspora population must find ways to maintain significant relationships with homelands they no longer occupy physically. These relationships may be less significant for future generations as links with the immigrant generation's homeland become more tenuous and imaginary. Long-distance nationalism exerts a competing pull, providing emotional intensity within familiar structures of feeling, and drawing individuals toward distinct forms of identity. These forces are concentrated in institutions such as community centres and political organizations, and are channelled through activities such as the commemoration of martyrs and the anniversaries of significant dates that focus, maintain, and heighten a sense of distinct identity. Phantoms of 'Race' In her discussion of ghostly matters, Gordon (1997) noted the lingering affects of racialized slavery on the social geography of the United States, but she did not address the idea of 'race' itself as a spectral form. 'Race' is associated with fixed qualities and essential differences, and has no scientific validity (i.e., no agreement exists on the number of 'races,' their defining characteristics, or the boundaries between them), and is applied to a hodgepodge of physical and cultural characteristics, real or imagined. 'Race' is an apparition, a collection of fantastic and illogical associations; it is rooted in xenophobia and ignorance. Though it seems to denote that which is ancient, solid, and embodied, 'race' is actually recent, evanescent, and intangible. Nevertheless, phantoms have real effects. 'Race' is a system of power that utilizes physical differences where they exist and invents them where they do not. When one surveys the genocidal furies unleashed by the development of 'race' as an ideo-

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

203

logical system, one can scarcely conceive of a term more phantasmic, nor one that has had such grim material consequences. Here we trace this phantom, considering how white racism has affected the diaspora, and black identity in Canada generally, and how the terms 'Ethiopia' and 'Africa' operate in discourses of 'race' and identity. Racism can both undermine and strengthen identities. When directed against diaspora populations, racism denies legitimate belonging to those who may already feel disconnected from the host nation; simultaneously, this refusal may strengthen exiles' attachment to their lost homeland. Ideas of 'race' play an especially important role in the phenomenon of transnationalism: 'By living their lives across borders, transmigrants find themselves confronted with and engaged in the nation building processes of two or more nation-states. Their identities and practices are configured by hegemonic categories such as race and ethnicity that are deeply embedded in the nation building processes of these nation-states' (Basch, Schiller, and Blanc 1994: 22). Experiencing Racism in Canada

Many informants believed that racism was an important aspect of life in Canada, one that consigned them to peripheral and subaltern status. Informants in Montreal emphasized this, summarized in one man's comment: 'Montreal is really racist. French Canadians are the worst, they hate black people.' Informants from the small community of Falashas (Ethiopian Jews) in Montreal described double-discrimination: antiblack racism and anti-Semitism. A substantial number of respondents considered discrimination a problem in Canada, and it is significant in itself that this perception is so strong. For example, in our survey of 106 Eritreans in Toronto, 70 respondents said they had experienced discrimination. Racism can be ghostly - hard to see unless one learns what it is. A Ghanaian informant in Chao's study (2000) described discrimination in rental housing in Toronto: Unless you have a little bit of knowledge of what is discrimination, ... you'll not know whether you're being discriminated against or not. At first, I did not know ... Until I went back to school and learned about all these things ... [landlords, housing providers, rental agents] do things in a way that ... you will not have a clue what is actually happening to you ... now that I come to think of so many things, it all came back, what the discrimination that I've been through since I came to Canada, which I did not know.

204

Ghosts and Shadows

While some said they had experienced no discrimination, it is important to remember that racism sometimes acts as a phantom. Of the Eritreans we surveyed, 60 per cent had encountered discrimination at work or while seeking employment, and 40 per cent had experienced discrimination in social life. In terms of rental accommodations, 31 per cent reported discrimination. In the same vein, a representative of the Ethiopian Association in Toronto cited racism as a significant factor in housing difficulties. A recent study for the City of Toronto indicated that visible minorities experience discrimination based on racism and their income. This is a clear violation of the provincial human rights code. The Globe and Mail (18 July 2000) pointed out that the provincial government has repealed rent control protections and that rents can be raised to levels 'that shut out poor immigrants from all but the shabbiest of buildings.' Informants provided specific details of discrimination: People here have problems finding apartments. You go and they think if you're black you have to have your stereo turned all the way up, they think you're going to have a party every night. What happens is you phone them and they say 'Come over' and when they see you're black they say 'Sorry, it was just rented.' Three people from the community were checking on this. It happened so many times, they'd say that the apartment was rented and we'd go back and see that after five days the apartment was still available. Many encountered racism and found it shocking. A young Eritrean woman in Toronto, where rental accommodation is limited, conveyed her experience as a tenant: After we came to Canada we lived with some Greeks. It was terrible. They had very racist attitudes and they were always saying stupid things. The kids at school were so ignorant. They said things like, 'Are you from Africa or Planet X?' They don't know anything about Africa. They only know things from television images. They'd ask me why I didn't have a bloated belly or where I got clothes, if we lived in trees ... silly horrible questions. We hadn't experienced racism at home. It seems like the Canadian attitude is that we should be so grateful to be here. But we wanted to go home; we didn't want to hear things shouted at us from our landlords, like 'Niggers are nothing!' The landlady's daughter was at school and she said things like that. These examples indicate that racism is about power relationships.

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

205

The shortage of affordable housing and the lack of means for legal redress for tenants created an imbalance of power between the haves and the have-nots. Racism is often perceived as solely the acts of racist individuals, as a matter of interpersonal relationships rather than state policy. This is misleading. For example, although rental accommodations continued to be scarce, the Ontario government terminated rent controls. Here, the state, though it was well aware of the housing shortage, provided more power to the haves, thus creating an environment that easily fostered discrimination based on income and racism. Policies such as this make the have-nots increasingly vulnerable (Ornstein 2000: 121). Institutional and personal racism are intertwined, and are manifested in the everyday lives of visible minorities. Racism as a power relationship also permeates everyday life, operating through acts of violence. Physical violence did touch the diaspora: an Ethiopian man was beaten to death by neo-Nazis in Seattle; and we had to cancel an interview in Calgary when the informant learned that a relative had been murdered by neo-Nazis in Germany. However, not all violence is physical. Exclusion also works through national narratives of culture. Although rnulticulturalism invokes Canadian identity as a mosaic, the discourse of 'two founding nations' not only ignores the colonization of indigenous peoples but also constructs Canada's identity as essentially white; this privileges some as 'real' Canadians while excluding others and marking them as fundamentally alien, regardless of how many generations have resided in the country. The mass expulsion of Japanese Canadians as 'enemy aliens' to internment camps and the theft of their property during the second World War is a case in point. Yet actions such as these are perceived as 'common sense,' even among those targeted by racism. Some informants rationalized racist attitudes as the result of poor education arid a lack of sophistication, and fully expected that Canadians would eventually overcome their prejudices. Holding liberal beliefs, they overlooked existing power conflicts and assumed that multiculturalism would cure racism. For example, an Ethiopian in Calgary had adopted a more cultural-pluralist model, with its assumption of a level playing field: I don't think it's racism exactly. It's a lack of awareness of others. It's just that Calgarians are uncomfortable with anyone different. With a little help, you can get anywhere. Work-wise, Ethiopians will never let you down, they're hard-working. But there's no work ethic among Ethiopians here. Status is more important. They want a good job. These people have a big

206

Ghosts and Shadows

ego problem. Most people want to go to school for status, they don't want to take any job. People should tackle a menial job for money temporarily and then improve. Also people are shy. They can't look anybody in the eye. So that's interpreted as stupidity or dishonesty. Informants repeatedly warned against attributing all difficulties to racism, especially in relation to employment. As one well-educated, middle-aged Ethiopian man suggested: 'People come here with high expectations. They think they can get any job. So if they aren't hired, it's easy for them to say this is racism. But we don't know if that is the case. Yes, racism exists, but we should not use this as an excuse.' Another person expressed a similar view: 'Racism certainly exists, no one can deny that. But I don't like these people who always blame racism. That's not always the problem. People have to work hard. You can't just use racism as an excuse.' Similar sentiments were echoed throughout our interviews. Especially concerning employment, our informants generally assumed that they are on a level field; the 'good immigrant' model (Goode arid Schneider 1994) assumes equal opportunities for all. This does not reflect reality. Cultural racism seems to have penetrated the diaspora. Many exiles consider it unfair to blame the system because of unseen aspects of racism: ghostly, difficult to nail down, existing in general but seemingly not in their own case, people believe it must be lack of effort. However, institutional barriers are abundant. Professional organizations and universities do not always recognize foreign degrees, especially from Third World countries. This means that individuals have had to return to school and repeat what they have already studied. Many have neither the money nor the time because of family responsibilities. Before they can write licensing examinations, they must pay fees and find the time to study. Many immigrants were accepted to Canada because of their professional qualifications and work experiences; yet after they arrived, their credentials were not accepted: 'Few expect they can work in similar positions as they left back home. But many thought they would be working in a similar field.' Another man exclaimed: 'What Canada wanted is well-educated taxi drivers?! What a waste!' A study of census data on ethno-racial groups indicated that almost 70 per cent of Ethiopian families live in poverty; that most have nonskilled jobs; and that their unemployment rate (25 per cent) is two-and-a-half times higher than for Torontonians as a whole (Orstein 2000). A young Eritrean in Winnipeg commented: 'It's not really racism. It's

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

207

just that Canadians aren't used to people with dark skin.' These words demonstrate that, 'Canadians' and 'people with dark skin' constitute separate categories. Indeed, our informants often assumed that 'Canadian' is synonymous with 'white' and that all others are aliens: 'People always say "Where are you from?" They just look at you and think, "He's not Canadian." So how are we going to be Canadian? You can never be really accepted here if you're black. They always assume you are from someplace else. Canadian just means white to them.' Many informants related anecdotes that reflected such presumptions; for example, a Toronto taxi-driver stated: 'One man sat in my car and asked, "Where are you from?" just because he sees me and thinks because I'm black I must be from someplace else. So I asked him "Where are you from?" and he got very angry.' Another taxi-driver, in Calgary, described how he handled similar questions: 'I like to embarrass rednecks. Whenever they ask where I'm from, I say "China!"' For all 'visible' minorities, not just those from the Horn, regardless of citizenship, the question "Where are you from?" recurs with tiresome regularity, and serves as a constant reminder of otherness: 'Sometimes there are problems. I was harassed in a bar here. Somebody was saying "Where are you from?" in a very hostile way. Then he started pushing me. It's an excuse to start a fight.' Racism operates through 'common sense,' through a structure of feeling, in generalized aspects of everyday interaction, which are composed of thousands of small acts in various institutions: It really bothers me that people always treat you differently. My name, for example. I have a name tag at work. People always stare at it and say [garbled versions of name]. Do they do that with Polish people? I don't mind if people try and get it wrong. But they always make a big fuss, saying 'Oh! What's that? Wow!' It's very irritating. I want to give it to them and say 'Here, can't you read it?' In 1985 when they had famine and they showed the pictures on television, people at work were asking me, 'Did you see your mother? Did you see anybody you know?' It's really stupid. I tried to tell them Ethiopia is a big country with millions of people. But they don't understand that, they're still saying, 'Oh you must feel bad, did you see your mother?'

Exiles are shadowed not only by stereotypes about Africa but by these potent images of disaster that cast them all as victims requiring charity. Mass media that capitalize on disaster and NGOs that utilize sensational

208

Ghosts and Shadows

aspects of disaster to raise funds do not contextualize these events (in which developed countries often play a role through their military industries). Racism in Canada does not exist in a vacuum. Images like this perpetuate a sense of otherness. Racism was a new experience that confronted our informants with new ways of knowing themselves: 'I didn't know I was black until I came to Canada. People in Eritrea don't think about such things. Here there are some foolish people who call you names but I don't care about them. It's not their fault. It's all political. Those who have power use these things to create divisions between people arid distract them.' Many informants perceived the class dimensions of racism: One of the major problems here is the racist attitude of Canadians. I'm sorry to say this but it's true, you can ask anyone here and they can tell you. Sometimes it's very subtle, you're treated in a certain way or people look at you in a certain way. Even if people think they can hide it, they don't do a good job, you can tell what they're thinking. Maybe they think that you can't do the job as well as a white person. You know, I question Canadian motives in letting immigrants come here. What do they want? Is it just to have cheap labour? Do they just want to fill the gap? They think you will do the job that nobody else wants.

Informants also noted how racism served to create social divisions: Tt's not just the colour of your skin. I was going to apply for a job in The Pas. The employment counsellor told me not to. You know what he said? He said "Don't go. There's no black people in The Pas. There's only whites, Ukrainians and Natives." You see that? "Whites and Ukrainians" ... He's saying Ukrainians are not white. So even among the whites they have these categories.' Although 'race' is a phantom, a concept with no scientific basis, racism has real effects. This invisible force operates through both institutions and interactions, and has the power to structure lived experiences and to make 'visible minorities' invisible: I'll tell you about one experience I had, it's a very good example of racism. I went to an interview with an engineering consultant. Because of my name, a lot of people think I'm Jewish. I went to the interview and the secretary told him, 'Mr. [X] is here to see you.' He came out, walked right past me and looked around. Then he went back into his office. So the secretary calls him again and he comes out, looks again, and then the

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

209

secretary says, This is Mr. [X].' He was very surprised but he took me into his office. Then he starts saying, 'We don't have a job right now, we're just looking into the future,' and so on. You see, he wasn't expecting me to be black, he couldn't even see me in the waiting room. And he starting telling me these things so he could get rid of me. It was so obvious.

Physical attacks were rare. Much more often, informants endured the type of racism that subtly excludes, that constructs Others in multiple small ways, and that pervades daily activities: 'I don't like it when people make jokes at work about minorities. They're always doing it. But I tell them, "One day you're going to say something about black people and then you're going to have a problem with me."' Another informant described everyday racism: I came up with an improvement to a project with another engineer, from Hong Kong. This would save [the employer] a lot of money. We got a bonus because of that and I was feeling really good. Then, I heard one of the secretaries talking about it. She didn't see me because I was coming up from behind her. I heard her say, 'This country is good for immigrants but it's not good for Canadians.' I said, 'I don't know why you're saying these things. Where do you come from? Maybe you were born here but your parents, or their parents, were also immigrants. I always had a good feeling about you but now I don't.' After, I had to go home. I was very angry, I just told the boss, 'I have to leave.' He said 'Are you sick?' and I told him T just have to go.' He could see my face ... Of course, I had to go back the next day. The boss found out by then, he talked to the secretary and found out what happened. So he talked to me, he said 'Sometimes things just come out of people's mouths' and 'we should forget it' and so on.

Such efforts to minimize racism demonstrate an inability or a refusal to see that while racism operates through everyday power relationships, it is not merely a function of personal attitudes; it is more deeply rooted than that, and works simultaneously at the personal, cultural, and institutional levels. Some try to find a niche where they can exercise power. A successful career woman acknowledged racism in Canada: 'As for me, I am good at what I do so I can overcome it. I've worked hard and I am the top in this shop. I get along well with my manager. So it is not a problem.' Another woman was an ex-fighter. She joined the EPLF before she finished high school, but when she arrived in Canada she was too old to

210

Ghosts and Shadows

receive free high school education; nor could she attend free ESL classes, because she had come as a family-sponsored immigrant. Her friend told her about a government program that helped young people go back to high school part-time by helping them find work. While taking ESL classes and finishing high school, she worked as a cashier and encountered racism. For example, one man told her: 'A Canadian should get this job, not you.' She continues to work at the store parttime while attending college. She knows she can keep the job because she brings special skills - she speaks five languages. She feels very lucky to have found the government program, which has helped her to learn English and find a job and has enabled her to continue her education. Without such a program: 'I am sure that I wouldn't be speaking to you in English and I wouldn't have a job. I would be on welfare and feeling frustrated and very miserable. Racism is always here. People will make nasty comments or keep asking me if I am a Jamaican or East Indian. I cannot change my skin colour. But now I know what I can offer. I am working hard toward my goal. I know I can fight it [racism] back.' Institutional help such as the government programs in which this woman was enrolled enhance individuals' chances to gain further education and work. 'Language skills have economic consequences' (Boyd 1999b: 304). Language and education provided this woman with more power in her relationships. As we noted earlier, racism is power relationships. These individuals exercised knowledge and skills to overcome oppressive relationships. Some deal with racism as an annoying aspect of life but dismiss it as the actions of 'some obnoxious individuals, drunks in taxis, but not a big problem'; others perceive everyday racism as a structural factor of life in Canada: 'My son will be born here but he won't be one hundred per cent Canadian. Because he's black, they'll treat him differently.' Institutional, cultural, and personal forms of racism shadow the everyday lives of those in the diaspora. Through a Glass, Darkly

Besides these ghostly, 'unseen' operations, racism in Canada has another shadowy dimension. Eritreans and Ethiopians find themselves categorized according to stereotypes and refracted images from the American mass media: 'Canadians just assimilate us with black Americans. They see the colour and think everyone is the same. It's a misunderstanding. Is it like that for Europeans? Is Polish the same as

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

211

British? Are Italians the same as people from Sweden? That's not true. You can see the differences. The Italians are hot-blooded, for example. It's the same for black people.' The American media deeply affect how stereotypes are constructed, casting peculiar shadows across the experience of black (indeed, all) people in Canada. Adult informants were disturbed by these stereotypes, which do not reflect their experience or aspirations; also, in developing their personal identity, young people are reduced to emulating a narrow range of commercialized images, often related to pop music styles (hip-hop, rap, reggae). Also, what Bibi Bakare-Yusuf (1997: 81) says of Britain applies to Canada as well - especially to Toronto, with its large Jamaican population: There is a tendency for the cultural practices of one particular black national group to appear as the essence of all black cultural practice. The patterns of migration and the timing of various waves of immigration into Britain have resulted in a hegemony of Caribbean culture in general, and Jamaican culture in particular. It is the under-class and working-class Jamaican cultural practices which are called upon to speak for and represent the cultural tastes of all Britain's blacks.

In coping with imported and homogenizing stereotypes of black identity, the diaspora population confronts ignorance of Africa generally and of the Horn in particular. Whatever their own affiliation, many complain that North American ideas about Ethiopia are based on images of starving infants derived from media coverage of the 1984 famine; and they are offended by depictions of Africans as helpless victims requiring Western charity. Ethiopian informants described how friends concealed their identity to avoid being associated with these images. Everyone we interviewed felt that Canadians know little about the political context of famine. Some expressed dismay at Canadians' lack of awareness of international affairs, and believed that this ignorance had been deliberately created by the mass media. While acknowledging the humanitarian efforts of Canadians during the 1980s famines, informants contended that these efforts should have been accompanied by government action to curb military conflict. Similarly, in 2000, Eritreans across Canada felt that the international community had essentially condoned Ethiopia's invasion by providing food aid while the government was spending vast sums of money on arms. These voices indicate that the sense of belonging elsewhere that per-

212

Ghosts and Shadows

vades the diaspora is not solely the product of identity discourses that constantly direct exiles' attention to struggles in former homelands. Rather, long-distance nationalism is also reinforced by the exclusionary discourses of Canadian identity, which in turn are based on stereotypes and notions of 'race.' These notions are not always expressed in specific incidents of violence; they are also reflected in unspoken, 'commonsense' understandings about who 'really' belongs and who does not. Internal Boundaries

Difference is not only imposed from without. While racism limits integration, diaspora communities also maintain their own boundaries. Their individual dealings with Canadians of other ethnic backgrounds are restricted to the workplace, schools and training centres, and brief interactions such as shopping. Social contacts outside the group are limited. This is sometimes based on racist notions: Many families oppose marriages to non-Eritreans. They want the couple to break off the engagement, they say they'll disown them. Some do, for the sake of their parents. My brother married an Italian woman and my sisters were very upset. Their children aren't accepted as full family members. My sisters warned me not to marry a white Canadian. They said if I did, they'd never speak to me again. My brother also strongly opposed such marriages before he married a non-Eritrean. I also oppose my brother's marriage. My sister-in-law is brilliant and beautiful but I have trouble accepting her. I know my position is irrational. But I still believe it. I guess you can say it's racism-in-reverse.

Some defend endogamy as conservation, as if their 'race' was an endangered species whose survival - interpreted in terms of purity of physical characteristics - can only be ensured through biological separation. Others defend exclusion on cultural grounds: 'It may be alright for others to marry out of their group but it's not for Eritreans. The cultural differences are too significant. The language barrier prevents strong family ties. It's too much effort to have a non-Eritrean in the family. You can't really be comfortable with them. They don't know the rules. Nobody will be happy with this arrangement.' Some cited 'problems with the family' as a reason to avoid marrying outside perceived boundaries: 'It's better to marry a black person. The culture should be preserved. I don't think you should go with Jamaicans

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

213

or Italians. Maybe you will pick up some bad habits from them. It's better to stay in your own group. Marrying a white person will lead to problems. A white family won't accept a black person.' Most cited cultural differences as obstacles to marriage outside the group; however, a few employed crude physical references ('he married someone who looks like she's infected with leprosy') to reinforce boundaries. Several said their parents would be extremely upset if they married someone of another ethnic background. One man married a white Canadian woman; later, when he visited Eritrea, his relatives told him they did not consider this a 'real' marriage, and urged him to marry a local woman and forget his wife in Canada. Many who married exogamously experienced disapproval and ostracism. Antinomies of African/Black Identity

Commenting on the racism facing Eritreans in Edmonton, Susan Belcher (1989) suggested that they could overcome it by strengthening their links with African and black groups. This suggestion seems sensible to the extent that those targeted by racism have a common interest in opposing it. However, Beleher was ignoring the differences among those included in the same category. As Magdalene Ang-Lygate (1997: 171) writes: 'It is a mistake to fall prey to a racist/sexist mythology that insists that our experience of'blackness' as non-Caucasian women puts us all in the same category as victims of racism, or that social inequality and injustice is ultimately reducible to 'race' or colour differences, without also drawing attention to the specific histories and experiences of racism.' Ang-Lygate criticizes the common tendency to oversimplify identity politics by turning a blind eye to the specific experiences of various groups; and she points out (173) that within those groups, experiences of racism are gendered: The recognition of simultaneously multiple identities allows for a more constructive argument that 'black' women are not only racialized but also sexualized, exoticized and eroticized. Yet the use of a singular fraudulently coherent category 'black' persists even though it presents a different social division based solely on a perceived primary identity - 'race,' itself a socially constructed identity - without acknowledging that 'blackness' is not a homogeneous experience for women and men.

Our informants had a sophisticated understanding of the power rela-

214

Ghosts and Shadows

dons involved in discrimination. Even so, while many joined nationalist organizations, few were motivated to join 'black' organizations. Only a few university students or recent graduates told us they participated in antiracist activities. In general, volunteers were preoccupied with nationalist politics in the Horn, and even those directly affected by racism considered it a secondary concern. This focus was understandable; many had only narrowly escaped dangers that were still threatening family and friends. For some, this sense of danger, loss, and anxiety made life in Canada somewhat unreal, despite immediate daily concerns. This reflects a common response among refugees: persistent thoughts of eventual return, and a corresponding reluctance to commit to life in the new country. While many see racism as a problem, not all who are targeted by it easily find common cause in opposing it, regardless of that project's desirability. Understanding this requires us to recognize how complex interactions are between different groups collectively subsumed under the category 'black.' Seemingly, this term designates a distinct group of people; actually, the designation is ambiguous. In North America, past preoccupations with 'race' created a complex system of categories and subdivisions. In Britain some applied the term 'black' to those of Asian as well as African descent; while in South Africa apartheid categorized some Asian visitors as white. While external categorizations create certain taxonomies, we must not assume that these designations are accepted or shared by all who are included in them. Relationships among those included a single category may be complex, even while invisible to others. When questioned about their interactions with other African groups, 57 per cent of Eritreans disagreed with the statement that 'Eritreans actively participate in the African community here,' and 13 per cent strongly disagreed; while 17 per cent agreed, and 1 per cent strongly agreed. The remainder did not answer. Responding to the statement that 'Eritreans actively participate in the black community here,' 55 per cent disagreed, and 19 per cent strongly disagreed; while 13 per cent agreed and 1 per cent strongly agreed. The remainder did not answer. Thus, 70 per cent of respondents felt that their involvement with the African community was not significant, while 74 per cent saw no significant involvement of Eritreans with the black community. The idea that there is one African or black community in Canada, sharing identical interests and concerns, is too simplistic. As noted, the discourse of Canadian identity based on the narrative of 'two founding

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

215

nations' marks all people of 'nonwhite' appearance as somehow illegitimate. However, racism does not automatically evoke solidarity or common understanding among those it targets. Racism operates through a divide-and-rule process; that being said, the refusal to recognize differences is itself a form of reductionistic thinking based on crude notions of shared essence. The assumption, whether from a racist or an antiracist position, that there is single coherent African or black community in Canada is unsophisticated, in that it ignores cultural differences between and among African and black people and overlooks the selfdefinitions of those included in such categories. The situation is not unique to Canada, of course. James (1992) described how West Indians who went to Britain were shocked to find themselves classified as 'black' since they had been 'white' in the Caribbean. Hall (1987: 45) commented on his own discovery of being 'black' and on how of a 'black' identity is constructed as one based on difference: ['Black'] has always been an unstable identity, psychically, culturally and politically. It, too, is a narrative, a story, a history. Something constructed, told, spoken, not simply found. People now speak of the society I come from in totally unrecognizable ways. Of course, Jamaica is a black society, they say. In reality it is a society of black and brown people who lived for three or four hundred years without ever being able to speak of themselves as 'black.' Black is an identity which had to be learned and could only be learned in a certain moment.

For exiles from the Horn, learning to be 'black' in Canada was a new experience, often uncomfortable and certainly not uniform, striated as it was by class, gender, and ethnicity. Similarly, many exiles from the Horn found themselves ascribed a continental identity, even though that identity had little meaning to Canadians: 'Canadians don't know anything [about Africa]. They think every child goes to school with his lunch-bag, they have a doctor, a teacher, a counsellor. How can you tell them we don't even have one doctor for a thousand people? Really, you can't even talk to those people because they don't know anything.' It is not only people from the Horn who resent the imposition of allinclusive labels; as a Nigerian woman said: 'People always say, "You're African, aren't you?" as if Africa was just one country. If you start talking about Nigeria or another place, they just get confused.' This lack of awareness threatened to turn individuals into shadows of themselves as

216

Ghosts and Shadows

vital events of their lives were erased by false ethnocentric assumptions: 'People think we want to come to Canada. Why would we want to come here? To this weather? To work like a donkey all your life? I have to tell people: "No I'm not an economic refugee," they don't have any idea why people come here to save their lives. Why would we want to leave our homes? We were forced to go out. We didn't want to go to Canada or any other country.' They believed that Canadians made no distinctions between Africans, and felt that stereotypes and ignorance about Africa were overshadowing their own definitions of self: 'Sometimes you just get so tired of explaining things to people. I think Canadians are so stupid sometimes. If you say, "I'm from Africa," they think it's just one country. Or maybe somebody will say he's from Ethiopia, just to make it easier. But then you really feel guilty, you think later, "Oh, why did I tell that guy I'm Ethiopian?" I tell you, you can really feel bad about this.' Some Ethiopians emphatically rejected black identity. They said that Ethiopians were not part of the African or black community, and they did riot consider such an association desirable. Some were uncomfortable about being included in certain categories: 'People here don't know about Ethiopians. I had to fill in a form and it asked about visible minorities. They had a place for black and a place for other, so I filled in "Ethiopian." When I gave it to the woman she was really mad at me. She said, "Why don't you mark black?" I said, "I am not black, I am Ethiopian." I don't know, I just don't feel that I am black so why do I have to put that?' This sensitivity is influenced by negative stereotypes in Canada: 'People think because we're black we must be Jamaicans and they ask us where to buy drugs.' Whereas many Ethiopians reacted to the class connotations of stereotypes, Eritreans were ambivalent about racial classifications because they felt these undermined their national identity: 'We are squeezed in the middle. West Africans and South Africans see us differently than we see ourselves. In the United States, we're forced to define ourselves in terms of race. But our identity as Eritreans is compromised by these stereotypes.' Several suggested that Ethiopians sought to avoid classification as black because racism structured Ethiopian culture. For example, one Ethiopian man said that involvement with the broader black community would be impossible because of Ethiopians' own prejudices: 'People talk about South Africa, but they don't know anything else. Ethiopia is the most racist country in the world. If your skin is dark they won't have anything to do with you.'

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

217

That assessment was an extreme one. Other informants denied that racism existed in their communities. However, observers have noted racist attitudes among Ethiopian elites, who seem ambivalent about African identity, sometimes rejecting being classified as Africans arid other times expressing their mission to lead other Africans to liberation (Levine 1965; Perham 1969; Spencer 1984). Ainalem Tebeje (1989) suggests that 'exaggerated pride in their history, national freedom and good looks' causes Ethiopians to be perceived as racists. She thinks that sensitivity to racist slurs is higher among her culture and that Ethiopians feel 'an overwhelming sense of humiliation' when exposed to discrimination because of their pride in their history and their strong attachment to their national identity. Unlike other areas of Africa, Ethiopia was never colonized, though it was occupied by the Italian military for six years after the 1935 invasion; Eritrea was a colony for over fifty years, also under the Italians. Little-known in North America before the Italian invasion, Ethiopia came to symbolize Africa's magnificent past, and Emperor Haile Selassie was lionized by advocates of black consciousness and pan-Africanism and virtually deified by Jamaica's Rastafarians. Many groups formed to support Ethiopia, and some advocated emigration. Yet valorizing Ethiopia as a symbol of African and black greatness is paradoxical: Ethiopian rulers such as Menelik and Haile Selassie minimized their African identity and stressed their nation's ancient links with Israel. Some Ethiopians have rejected being classified as black, and indeed, the term shankilla (black) is one of abuse in Amharic. The discourse of the Amhara 'civilizing mission' denigrated the Oromos as 'more African,' and thus 'more primitive.' Afrocentrism and the Ethiopian Diaspora

Some North Americans, targeted by racism, have adopted an Afrocentric perspective, in which Ethiopia plays an important symbolic role. Afrocentrism rejects the stereotypes deployed by racists who depict Africa as a zone of savagery, ignorance, disease, and starvation; instead it imagines Africa as the site of original wisdom, great achievements, and model social relations. Afrocentric discourse conjures up the ghosts of ancient Africa and celebrates the rulers of the great empires of the past; in this social project, Ethiopia is important because of its claims to antiquity and anticolonial resistance. Emperors Haile Selassie and Menelik have been placed in the pantheon of African leaders, even though some Africans consider them to have been violent and oppressive tyrants.

218

Ghosts and Shadows

Afrocentrism constructs a 'sameness across national boundaries and across nation-states' based on physical similarities; it projects 'race' as kinship and cultivates the notion of 'a stable, pure racial self (Gilroy 1993: 195). However, aside from supporting the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, which fit with its discourse of binary racial opposition, Afrocentrism has not been interested in the political realities of contemporary or historical Africa; it is more similar to those mystical New Age movements which provide a sense of self-worth through irrational channels. Thus, Gilroy (ibid.) sees Afrocentrism as less a political movement than 'a set of therapies: tactics in the never-ending struggle for psychological and cultural survival.' While North American Afrocentrists identify themselves as Africans, Ethiopians are wary of attempts to include them within a shared identity based on superficial physical resemblance. There are several reasons for this reluctance: the belief held by the Amhara elite that they are a chosen people; Ethiopian racism; North American racist ideologies that construe 'black' as undesirable; and cultural and linguistic differences. Those who have adopted Afrocentric perspectives regard such wariness as antiblack rejection based on a colonialist mindset. Afrocentrism bases its appeal on the trope of family. As Gilroy notes, African Americans employ a notion of 'race' as kinship, and consider all black people to be a family, and attack those who do not perceive themselves as part of the family as misguided or deluded. For Oromo and Eritrean nationalists, the main enemy is another African group. The discourse of racial familialism undercuts their objectives, and invocations of heroes of the Ethiopian past are contradictory to their goals. A contributor to the Internet discussion group EthioForum called Menelik 'one of the greatest leaders black people have ever produced' (as noted in Chapter 6, some celebrate Menelik's defeat of the Italians as a racial victory), yet Oromo activists regard Menelik as a conqueror and so find it difficult to accept this narrative of 'race' as family. No one can say what identity future generations will select as their cultural links with their imagined but unexperienced 'homeland' become more tenuous. For later generations, raised in the diaspora and marginalized by racism, Afrocentrism may have greater appeal. One young man in Montreal, whose parents are from different ethnic groups, related to neither community but considered himself African and espoused an Afrocentric philosophy. He associated with others who shared this identity, asserting that 'all black people are African.' Although not a follower,

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

219

he was enthusiastic about Rastafarianism and defended Haile Selassie: 'People put Eritrea in his mouth and he ate it. That's what a king is supposed to do. Some Eritreans sold Eritrea to Haile Selassie so how can you blame him?' For this young man, decades of violent political divisions posed no contradiction to the essential unity of all Africans. He emphasized his pride in his heritage, perceiving Ethiopia as 'an ancient civilization of kings and queens.' For him, this ancient civilization was highly significant: 'People talk about the pyramids in Egypt, they think that's really something. But there are other pyramids. They started in Zimbabwe, then they moved north. It's the same people, they were moving north on the Nile. Africa had great civilizations but the Europeans destroyed them.' Yet while some derived a sense of pride and common belonging from this mythologized history, most Ethiopian informants were exasperated that Canadians assumed they shared interests with those of other backgrounds: 'Do they think all black people are the same?' Thus, while some outsiders regard all dark-skinned people as members of a coherent and unified group, those included in this group may not feel such unity. While some Ethiopians expressed solidarity with other African and black people, others rejected the very notion of a single identity based on either categorization. They were ambivalent about being classified African or black, and often resented it. One Ethiopian man commented: 'Jamaicans don't like us. They are worse than the whites. They say "Why don't you say you are black?" Some people who live in those areas where there are a lot of Jamaicans have a lot of trouble.' Eritrean and Oromo exiles have resisted the imposition of broader identities, which they consider a threat to their political projects. They reject Ethiopia as a symbol of African antiquity, civilization, and liberty, emphasizing instead the state's imperial nature, the violence with which it has imposed itself, and the similarities between Ethiopian and European rule. As noted, these distinctions are largely invisible, though they are sometimes drawn quite explicitly. These distinctions are sometimes made for reasons of political opportunism. A striking example was the African National Congress (ANC), which fought the racist South African regime and achieved victory in the general election of 1994. The ANC received financial and political support from Ethiopia. Although the Eritreans endorsed the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the ANC in Canada rejected Eritrean nationalism and condemned the EPLF as 'reactionary.' At one event in Winnipeg, an ANC representative refused to speak on the same stage as

220

Ghosts and Shadows

EPLF supporters. Similarly, in Toronto, the ANC rejected an invitation to attend a conference on Eritrea, stating it did not consider the Eritrean struggle a valid liberation movement. Similarly, in 1987 at the University of Toronto, during a meeting on Sudan attended by many African expatriates, a man who identified himself as Eritrean was told that 'Eritreans don't exist.' This rejection came from a southern Sudanese man who supported the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which was then receiving support from Ethiopia in its battle against the Sudanese government. In the absence of solidarity, some Eritreans rejected ascriptions of a continental identity: 'This is the most irritating issue. I even hate it ... is [Africa] a continent and should [it] be treated as a continent? Why do European countries maintain their own identity as countries? Is Africa a country or a continent?' Although Eritreans are criticized as 'narrow nationalists' or 'separatists,' many of them support pan-Africanist ideals, while emphasizing that unity cannot be imposed. They criticize the hypocrisy of those Africans who celebrate anticolonial struggles against European powers but did not support Eritrean self-determination because the colonizing power happened to be a black, African one. For example, in Montreal, at a 1988 conference of NGOs, a Rwandan man criticized those who rejected Ethiopian identity: T would like to ask those people who are representing the various liberation movements why they are trying to break apart one of the oldest African civilizations. They should think about what they are doing.' A Toronto informant illustrated this resistance to the articulation of a distinct Eritrean identity: 'Sometimes when I'm driving my cab other Africans get in and ask me where I'm from. I just say "I'm from Africa" but they say, "No, no, which country in Africa?" so I tell them "Eritrea"' and they get really mad. They start saying "Don't say that."' Similarly, at a 1985 meeting in Toronto to support the TPLF, a Rastafarian woman asked: 'Why are you guys fighting? Yo had a king, that was a good system, you should try to get that again.' For this woman, for Rastafarians generally, and for others identifying themselves as members of an African diaspora, Haile Selassie was part of a Presence Africaine, which was the metaphor used by Aimee Cesaire and Leopold Senghor to denote what Hall (1990: 230) called the 'site of the repressed,' - a spectre not directly identifiable yet always present in everyday life. Hall suggests that after the 1970s Africa became the privileged signifier of a new identity for the Caribbean diaspora: 'Africa is the name of the missing term, the great aporia, which lies at the centre of our cultural identity and gives it a meaning which, until recently, it

Phantoms of Identity and 'Race'

221

lacked.' Safran (1991: 90) contends that 'American blacks no longer have a clearly defined African cultural heritage to preserve,' with the result that a culture has been created involving elements such as Black English or Black Islam as well as a 'homeland myth ... translated into solidarity with African liberation struggles [and] support of a variety of the aspirations of the sub-Saharan black states, including the fight against apartheid in South Africa and demands for increased economic aid to African nations.' However, a racialized identity could find solidarity only with antiEuropean liberation struggles. Some who claimed African heritage found the struggles against the Derg problematic because Ethiopia signified the glorious past and resistance to imperialism, while its.opponents represented the 'Balkanization' of Africa. The Afrocentric discourse that invents a unified African subject premised on 'race' interpreted these struggles as illegitimate and divisive, and as threatening not only Ethiopia but also Afrocentric identity based on images of the past. The actual contemporary practices of the Ethiopian government were entirely overshadowed by the mythic resonances of antiquity. While Afrocentrism correctly denounces racist claims that Africans have no history, what it offers instead is an imagined past, which it presents as a cartoon featuring black superheroes, undisturbed by any consideration of the problems of past or contemporary African societies (Gilroy 1993: 208-13). As Hall notes, Africa cannot be frozen into the past, nor can it be recovered. It contains its own internal political contradictions, which have been amply demonstrated by the struggles in the Horn. While Ethiopians were reluctant to adopt African or black identity, they attacked Eritreans as race traitors for 'thinking of themselves as Italians' and for being in thrall to (post) colonial phantoms. For example, in a December 1998 posting to the Ethiopians In Switzerland Information Network website, Zeray Deres Jr. derided Eritreans as 'Uncle Toms Still running around in the Horn' and claimed that an 'attitude problem derived from internalized racism' made them 'adore their conquerors and despise themselves.' Zeray, whose postings to other sites, such as Walta, display very clearly the virulence of long-distance nationalism, were deploying black identity as a discursive device to delegitimize alternative constructions of identity. Such racial essentialism rejects as false consciousness the hybridity of Eritrean identity, which is based on unique historical experience (not only Italian colonialism but also Arab and Ottoman influences and the effects of the resulting cultural diversity). In an Eritrean Internet discus-

222

Ghosts and Shadows

sion group, an African-American woman argued that any hesitation about African or black identity simply reflected the hegemony of white supremacist ideology, which constructs these categories as undesirable. While Afrocentric discourse constructs unity against a white enemy as the main objective, some Eritreans resist being included in broad racial or geographical categories because of their stronger attachment to a national identity. The Oromos readily assert an African or black identity. While some Eritreans also do, they are more likely to emphasize hybridity. However, both groups say they have had little interaction with other African-Canadian groups because of the lack of African support for their respective nationalist projects. Some acknowledge African and black identity, but also stress that a key factor in the formation of their identities was oppression by other black Africans. They reject Ethiopia as a symbol of African freedom because they have suffered its brutal oppression. For them, it is an illusion to base solidarity on geographical proximity or physical appearance. While Ethiopian identity is challenged by other forms, the latter are themselves subject to internal divisions, as religion and politics clash with ethnic and cultural solidarity. Individuals may find themselves caught between these tendencies, and pulled between their identity as, for example, Eritreans and Muslims. Those with parents from different cultural backgrounds may feel conflicting allegiances. Some submerge one identity, while others migrate from one identity to another according to the situation at hand; thus, 'the identity' of one individual may be black most of the time (sometimes opposition to the the racism that constructed that category), but Muslim at certain times, and Oromo at public events, and Ethiopian in response to Canadian bureaucracy. The fluidity and multiplicity of national and ethnic identities is thus apparent. For this African diaspora, life in Canada required a confrontation with the spectres of 'race' and identity as these were conjured up in the dominant ideologies of Canadian society and in terms of distinct mythico-histories that circulate within these communities. While being externalized as 'black' and thus fundamentally 'other' in Canadian society, members of the diaspora challenged their inclusion within such an 'obvious,' 'common-sense' category. In doing so, they challenged the dominant discourse of 'race' itself. At the same time, this brought some individuals into a confrontation with those shadowy narratives of the past that had shaped their own identities.

NINE

Ghostly Returns

When ghosts appear to you, the dead or the disappeared or the lost or the invisible are demanding their due. Gordon 1997: 182

Diasporas are haunted by myths of return. In 1991, the war's end in Eritrea and the establishment of a new government in Ethiopia opened possibilities for this long-imagined return. Those in the diaspora had to assess their situation and make choices about the future. A few did return immediately; some insisted they would return after certain other conditions (related to education, children, finances, and so on) had been met. Others came to see their situation as one of permanent displacement, which led to reflection on the future of their communities in diaspora. In this chapter we examine the contradictions associated with returning to an independent Eritrea, and the effects of the 1998-2000 war. Assessing Repatriation

It can be said that the Eritrean diaspora had a transnational identity, in that its members were shaped by the independence struggle and by their attachment to the ghosts of their past. Usually, theoretical discussions of transnational identity consider populations who regularly travel across borders (Basch et al. 1994; Rouse 1991). For the diaspora fro the Horn, danger, distance, and expense made regular commutes impossible for all but a few. Eritrean independence thus constituted a turning point in consciousness for many in the diaspora, because it forced them to consider whether they actually would repatriate. After

224

Ghosts and Shadows

independence was achieved, it was difficult to maintain the old myth of return; difficult decisions now had to be faced. They had long sustained themselves with the consoling myth of return; now, the war's end made many realize that their exile would be prolonged if not permanent. Much of this related to practical considerations and the expectations of relatives living in Eritrea: 'People think you have been successful if you are living abroad, if you go home with nothing they will say "What have you been doing for all these years?" You must take at least $12,000 back to give away. Many people at home are depending on those living abroad. There is nothing for them there, no way for them to live. So what can you do?' Those who visited their homeland after independence had to come to terms with their exile and decide whether their future lay in Canada or Eritrea: 'When I returned to Asmara I felt a connection despite the fact that I was away for twenty years. I went for a visit and did not intend to stay but I became more interested. Now I'm thinking of going back eventually to stay but I have two desires. I have a material life here and a sentimental life there.' Parents faced additional difficulties: 'If I was here alone I would go home but I want my children to get an education.' Concern about children sometimes divided married couples. One woman described the dilemma created by her husband's wish to return and her own concern for her children's education: 'I am killing my husband for the sake of my children.' Even those who contemplated returning for a visit had to consider problems related to children. Some children strongly asserted their Canadian identity and resisted suggestions that they visit Eritrea or Ethiopia because they had absorbed media images of starvation and wished to dissociate themselves from 'televised' Africans, whom they had learned to objectify. Nevertheless, even Eritreans who had reconciled themselves to permanent separation from their homeland retained a strong attachment to the newly independent state: When your heart is there, you always live there. You always live in the past. We have to be optimistic now. We can't be depressed about those who died. Instead we must be active. It was hard for those that gave their lives and that is what drives us. We must build a new Eritrea and cooperate with other countries. I am very positive although the idea of returning is far from reality. You can't expect someone who has lived in Chicago or Washington to go and live in Agordat or Keren. We are strangers in our own country now. I lived in Italy for fourteen years before coming to Canada. The material conditions are different.

Ghostly Returns

225

Some informants felt that they had become liminal figures, not fully accepted as Canadians, because of racism and because of their own attachment to places left behind; and believed that their children's experience and identity would be profoundly different from their own. Cultural difference became a structural component not only of their experience of Canadian society but also of their own households. As one person said of his children: 'They are Canadians, they're not like us.' Another stated: 'For the new generation, their thoughts will be based on the area in which they live. My feeling is my culture. We are living our ideas and ideas are rooted in concrete conditions.' Having acknowledged the significance of these concrete conditions; some reanalyzed the experience of their generation and came to recognize distinctions within it: 'If you're not integrated culturally, it's dark for you. There is the importance of social life, communication, education. Problems vary with generation and with whether you are from an urban or rural area so you can't generalize about the problems people face in Canada. Every class has a different view, different problems.' As noted in Chapter 1, exile sometimes provides a privileged position, a critical perspective. Although many described the hardships of exile, some acquired new insights: We don't blame everything on the government or on Canadian society. There are many things that we see here that are good. You have to learn different things. After I had been here and went back to Eritrea for a visit, I could see many things about our society that needed to be changed ... the way people discipline their children. At home, they just hit them. So I was trying to tell my relatives, 'No, you shouldn't do that, you should explain to them why they shouldn't do these things.' Also, cleanliness. In Asmara there wasn't any water. So they had to reuse the water, if they were washing then they would use that water for the toilets. So the smell was very bad. I told them about that and people got upset. They said, 'What are you talking about? This is the cleanest toilet in the whole neighbourhood!' You get used to a different standard and then you see things in a different way.

Life in the diaspora sometimes made it difficult to meet cultural expectations: In our culture, you have to spend a lot of time with people. If somebody comes to visit, he's the guest and you have to do everything for him. It's difficult here. I had a visitor who came, I spent the whole weekend with

226

Ghosts and Shadows

him. I mean the whole weekend! Then, on Monday, I had to go to work. But he expected me to stay with him, you see. Later on, he said, 'Why are you leaving me alone like this?' and I had to explain that this is Canada and you can't expect the same things here.

Some felt they had benefited from living in Canada and had come to appreciate aspects of Canadian culture; but they also noted that even slight differences in expectations made them outsiders in both cultures: I think we're not as fast as Canadians. Everything is fast here. For example, shaking hands: at home you have to shake hands with everybody, touch everybody in the room. So that always takes a lot of time. In Canada, you just say 'Hi.' I was doing that at work, you know, shaking hands with everybody, they thought I was nuts: 'What's this guy doing?' When I went back to Eritrea, I just started to say 'Hi.' Some people get offended. They think you are too proud or something ... stand-offish.

For Eritreans, independence made return possible, but many difficulties and obstacles still existed. Even the approximately half-million refugees in Sudan who wanted to return after the referendum and who had a relatively short distance to traverse faced serious problems. Eritrea had been ravaged by war, and its infrastructure was overloaded; many had nothing to return to. The government wanted the refugees to return, but also wanted UNHCR to provide adequate assistance so that Eritrea would not be overwhelmed by the sudden repatriation of thousands of people lacking any support. UNHCR responded that it could not afford what Eritrea was asking for. Many Eritreans believed that UNHCR was withholding support because it was angered by Eritrea's assertions of autonomy (i.e., the new nation was refusing to humbly obey the agency's commands). By 1997, relations had deteriorated further: UNHCR representatives were being expelled from Eritrea, accused by the government of distributing unauthorized documents. UNHCR counted that the PFDJ was deliberately stalling repatriation. The possibility of return forced people to re-examine their relationships to former homes and new governments. Many visited Eritrea after the war; in fact, this became something of an unspoken requirement. However, the home to which they were returning was not the one they had left. Not all found it easy to fit into the societies that had evolved since their departure. Some women who returned felt it necessary to change their appearance so as not to be conspicuous (Moussa 1992).

Ghostly Returns

227

People found that expectations and values had changed while they were in exile, and those who had been away for many years felt that they had become different from those at 'home': 'People in Canada are not very close to their families. In Ethiopia, people would live close together, see each other often, be together on holidays. But when I went home for two months, I had a terrible time. I found I had no privacy. Nobody would do things the way I asked. They had their own idea but they would not do it properly.' Some who returned found that their relationships with family members had been profoundly altered; long separation had turned them into strangers. Others said they had become used to life in North America and felt bored and alienated by life in Eritrea. Along with reassessment of the diaspora experience came painful confrontations: with those who had fought for independence and with the dead. Signs of prolonged war were everywhere in Eritrea: landmined fields, bullet holes in buildings, the vast 'tank graveyard' on Asmara's outskirts. Even more affecting was the presence of disabled fighters. Ex-EPLF fighters in particular had an ethos that set them apart from the civilian population and from those who had returned from diaspora. This ethos, mieda culture, reflected life in 'the field,' with its egalitarianism and ethic of self-reliance and sacrifice. This ethos had served as a symbol for Eritrean communities abroad and had encouraged many exiles to work selflessly in support of nationalism - although, of course, in entirely different conditions. This vision inspired people in the diaspora: There is a legacy, we need to carry the torch. We feel an attachment to the land and the people. I want to pay something back to Eritrea. I don't plan to go back for some reward or because I can get a better life there. Those who want to make money should not go to Africa. I want to contribute something. Planting trees, putting in an electric motor for the well. I'd like to build a playground, a kindergarten. I'll put my own money into it.

However, it soon became evident mieda culture could not continue in post-independence Eritrea. Some EPLF fighters were demobilized quickly; others remained in national service, while receiving little compensation for their work. This led to resentment, and a revolt by some tegadelti. Some who had fought for years believed they should be rewarded by the independent state; others maintained the ethos of selflessness. Although the tegadelti served as. heroes and role models for the diaspora, relations between the two groups were not always smooth.

228

Ghosts and Shadows

Some in the diaspora believed that the tegadelti would resent them: 'Even after the war, the fighters are still serving without salaries. We are well fed, well dressed, we're having fun. What do you think they will say to us?' Some who returned felt that they were not welcomed or treated well and suggested that egalitarian aspects of 'the field' had not been adopted by all Eritreans: 'People there were more materialistic than me. That's because of the hardship they went through.' According to some who had never left Eritrea, those who returned from the diaspora had 'lost their culture' and behaved rudely; not perceiving themselves as having changed, some returnees to Eritrea found 'their own people' foreign and incomprehensible. Those who returned described how post-independence Eritrea was riot the home they had left physically years before (while continuing to dwell there in memory and imagination); rather, it was a new society, a hybrid of several transformed cultures: traditional culture (affected by years of war and political repression), the varied experience of those who were returning from North American, European, and Middle Eastern societies, and the mieda culture of the tegadelti. The culture of post-independence Eritrea, then, was a zone of conflicting experiences and expectations. While almost every Eritrean endorsed independence, not all shared the same vision of the future. Some argued that the PFDJ government had to be supported unconditionally because EPLF tegadelti had sacrificed their lives for independence; from their perspective, those in the diaspora who had lived in relative comfort and safety had no moral right to criticize PFDJ policies. They expressed complete faith in the government and dismissed all criticism of it. Others were uncertain about the prospects for democracy under the new regimes: The EPLF is doing a good job. Really it's the best they can do. But I have to look at the experience of other countries in Africa ... What has happened in all other countries after independence? The liberation movements become undemocratic. You have to look at the economics, the international situation. What do they have to give these people? The entire country is nothing now. So what do they have? What can they do? When people don't get enough food and so on they're going to be unhappy and then the government starts to try to control them. That's what always happens. I don't blame the EPLF. I think they're doing a better job than anybody. They are treating the ELF better than the ELF would treat them, inviting them to be part of the government and so on. Right now, I think you can go to Eritrea and say whatever you like. But don't expect this to

Ghostly Returns

229

last. They're going to have big problems and they don't have any way to deal with them. Where's the money going to come from?

Some believed that independence had made it possible to raise criticisms they had not voiced earlier to avoid hindering the military struggle. They still supported the EPLF, but felt it necessary to monitor and criticize the policies of the new government. They expressed concern about the treatment of Jehovah's Witnesses, programs for ex-fighters, and the suppression of dissent. Some complained about increasing authoritarianism, but in general, support for the new government remained strong in the diaspora. However, ELF sympathizers continued to criticize the new regime, and relations between ELF and EPLF supporters in the diaspora remained volatile: ELF groups criticized the PFDJ government as a dictatorship; and even among those who supported the PFDJ, perspectives were influenced by factors such as class. One man, whose family had enjoyed privileged status before leaving Eritrea, had mixed feelings about how his family's property had been allocated to landless peasants: Til be honest with you, I still feel a very strong emotional attachment to the land. I agree politically with the EPLF that vacant land should go to those who need it but, personally, I want to keep it.' Even though some exiles felt ambivalent about the policies of the new state, the government institutionalized their commitment to it: Decree 67 of 10 February 1995 required all Eritreans abroad to pay 2 per cent of their net income to national development. This was collected through embassies and consulates and sent to the Eritrean Treasury. Most people considered this their duty, although some who disliked the PFDJ considered it extortion and complained about being forced to support a government they opposed in order to obtain visas and other documents. Their reluctance to contribute to national reconstruction was rooted in attachments to the past: The ELF is disrupting relations between the government and the community. They blame us for contributing to the EPLF but it is much easier to have a representative of the government deal with all the paperwork [associated with passports, taxes, buying houses]. They say they will have no relationship with the EPLF. In reality, it costs more to avoid contact. This is the anomie of the ELF. They are mostly single men, living in the past. They are aloof from society but they want to be in the government. They say they must be accepted into the government first and

230

Ghosts and Shadows

then they will return. But first they want to discuss all these issues from the past. They are people living in dreams, they're trapped in the past and they make this precondition as an excuse not to return. They are splinters and the question is how to pull them out.

Some of those 'people living in dreams ... trapped in the past' were haunted by horrors that did not end. ELF and EPLF supporters told of seeing people murdered by the opposing group, and especially in the diaspora, the civil war still cast its shadow. In exile the betrayals and grievances of years past had been worked over and reshaped by memory. Negotiating a relationship with an independent Eritrea meant coming to terms not only with these phantoms of past struggles but also with the dead themselves - with the martyrs who had sacrificed their lives for independence. During the war, it was typical for tegadelti not to maintain contact with their families, and the fate of these fighters remained undisclosed. The EPLF did not distribute casualty lists, but after independence the names of the dead were formally released, and the independence celebrations were tempered by a sense of widespread loss. Indeed, the dead became an inseparable element of national identity, an essential component of an Eritrean structure of feeling. Those who returned from exile after the war had to find their own ways to resolve themselves with the dead. Regardless of their political views, most visitors found the experience emotionally difficult: 'It was very stressful to go back to the village. All my friends had been killed. When I told people who I was they started crying because it reminded them of their own children who had been killed.' Another man expressed reluctance to return to Eritrea because it would involve painful confrontation with the dead: 'Going back is opening a can of worms. Where is this one? Where is that one? They're all dead. It's hard to confront that.' Independence was a bittersweet victory for Eritreans. Almost every family had been scattered and had lost contact with some members for extended periods. Many had maintained some hope that their relatives were still alive, and the announcement of the names of the dead ended their dreams of being reunited. Despite their pain, many took comfort in their commitment to nationalist goals and their awareness that the losses were distributed widely: 'When the lists of the martyrs came out everyone had lost someone from their family. We felt bad but everyone is proud that someone from his family gave his life to the struggle.' June 20 was designated Martyr's Day. In Eritrea it is of equal signifi-

Ghostly Returns

231

cance to Independence Day, and religious services, processions, and vigils commemorate it. The dead were an active presence in the diaspora, as well: commemorated at public events, celebrated as martyrs and heroes, models of commitment to the nationalist cause. After independence, former soldiers enlogized heir fallen comrades in various publications, which were distributed throughout the diaspora. The dead took their place in the ideological operations of the new state, which emphasized the debt owed to those who had sacrified themselves and the responsibility of the living to participate in national reconstruction. Eritrean Profile (22 June 1996), an English-language newspaper published in Asmara, reported on the inauguration of the Martyr's Monument in Massawa in 1996, and indicated how central the dead were to Eritrean national identity by quoting President Issayas Afewerki: 'The meaning of our existence and the base of our development is to be found in the sacrifice made by our martyrs.' On 21 June 1997, in its report on the president's speech on Martyr's Day, the paper took a similar line: 'The President emphasized that the people should all the time honour the trust of the martyrs by fully discharging the responsibility of building the new Eritrea.' Thus, in Eritrea and in the diaspora, the dead have not yet disappeared; they continue to exert a powerful ghostly influence on the living, drawing them into this structure of feeling, the shared experience of haunting: They will wait and wait forever Become like figures from dreams, or phantom limbs. How beautiful they are, how blossoming in your imagination. Trees in spring. And the pain of their absence, harder to bear than death, is with you wherever you go - a secret wound that aches in the night, awakens you from sleep and makes you a child again, a lonely child. And so they will haunt you, those half-remembered friends. They will people your mind. You will never touch their hands. 'Exile,' P.K. Page

Sadly, terribly, as the century ended, thousands more names would have to be added to the list of those killed in the struggle for independence. When border disputes erupted into violence in May 1998, we talked to many young Eritreans who spoke of their sense of obligation to

232

Ghosts and Shadows

the martyrs; these young people said they were ready to sacrifice their own lives to defend their country. In the first days of the war, many expected an early resolution to the conflict. Indeed, on 5 June, when the streets of Asmara filled with excited crowds, we thought at first that the war had ended; but we soon learned that Eritrean forces had shot down an attacking Ethiopian warplane. A woman who had been an EPLF fighter was wary: 'They should not be happy about it. They don't know what could come tomorrow.' In fact, the next day brought an Ethiopian attack on Asmara itself. Just before we were evacuated to Saudi Arabia after Ethiopian air raids, we saw truckloads of young Eritrean recruits heading toward the front, and televised images of similar mobilization in Ethiopia. After thousands of those young men and women had gone to their death, Eritrea expressed its readiness to accept an OAU peace proposal. But in 2000 the Ethiopian government seemed haunted by all the tragic mistakes of past regimes. By invading Eritrea, and by rejecting negotiations in favour of a military solution, it seemed determined to repeat them. In the final section of the book, we look at the ghostly return of war itself. The Phantom War

In May 1998, friendly relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia deteriorated into open warfare. The ostensible cause was disagreement over borders in the Badme area. Although the border had been fixed by a 1902 Italian-Ethiopian treaty, and although the disputed area was marked on most maps as south-western Eritrea, it had come under Ethiopian administration after the annexation of Eritrea; Badme village itself seems to have been a recent development, and local differences in the names of rivers and other topographical features obscured any precise demarcation. During the war against the Derg, control over the region shifted between EPLF and TPLF forces, who disagreed over exactly where the border was, but those disagreements had been put aside after the amicable decision on Eritrean independence. As the new government, the TPLF redrew Ethiopia's internal borders along ethnic lines, in the process enlarging the territory of Tigray by annexing parts of adjacent provinces. In October 1997 the Ethiopian government issued a new map that claimed parts of Eritrea in the Badme area. On the ground, this claim was reinforced by the military occupation of several Eritrean villages, the replacement of Eritrean by Ethiopian administration, and the forcible eviction of Eritrean farmers. In August 1997 the

Ghostly Returns

233

Eritrean president, Issayas Afeworki, wrote to the Ethiopian prime minister urging him to avoid conflict; and an official Joint Border Commission was established to resolve the issue peacefully. Eritreans believed that the boundary had been clearly defined by colonial treaties and that independent research would support their case. However, on 6 May 1998 local Ethiopian militias killed members of an Eritrean patrol near Badme. Eritrea responded quickly by moving troops into the area. Although Eritrea was acting to secure control over a disputed area in which it had been attacked, this proved to be a mistake, in tactical terms at the very least. Perhaps the Eritreans had acted in anticipation of quick victory over Ethiopian forces, in the belief that Meles Zenawi's regime had been aweakened by ethnic factionalism; if so, they did not foresee the strong response to Meles's call to defend Ethiopian sovereignty. It was also a mistake in terms of how the conflict would come to be seen: the Eritreans' actions were later used as a pretext for the massive destruction that followed. For example, in The Guardian (26 May 2000), David Gough described 'a war that began in May 1998 when Eritrea invaded northern Ethiopia' - an assessment that simply accepted at face value Ethiopian claims over the disputed areas, which in fact were still unresolved. The Times of London (24 May 2000) stated that Eritrea 'bears much of the blame ... [its] pride and prickliness led to trouble ... [it] rashly seized three barren strips of land in an attempt to force border adjustments and refused to relinquish them throughout the peace negotiations.' Eritrea's move was followed by an Ethiopian declaration of war on 13 May, by the aerial bombardment of Asmara's airport in June, and by retaliatory Eritrean strikes, one of which destroyed a school in Mekelle and killed several children. Ethiopia attempted to impose a blockade on Eritrean ports, and commercial flights into Eritrea were cancelled. Ethiopia deported 70,000 Eritreans, many of them Ethiopian citizens who had lived most of their lives in Ethiopia; they also expelled Ethiopians of Eritrean origin. These deportations were deliberately brutal: Ethiopian soldiers made night raids, families were separated, and many deportees were forced to leave spouses, children, or elderly parents behind. Many people disappeared. Those who were arrested were frightened and humiliated, and terrorized by threats of firing squads. They were deprived of food, water, and medicine, and transported in crowded ships or trucked across the Danakil desert in searing temperatures. Many were forced to walk across the border at night with Ethiopian troops shooting behind them in the hope of provoking return fire

234

Ghosts and Shadows

from startled Eritrean soldiers. Ethiopia justified these actions on the basis of national security, although it was clear that the deportations were not based on any proven political actions but solely on Eritrean identity. On 9 July 1998, in a widely reported statement, Meles Zenawi justified the deportations by stating that his government was ready to deport any foreigner merely 'because we do not like the colour of your eyes' (quoted in Asmarom Legesse 1999). Besides carrying out these deportations, Ethiopia imprisoned Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean background in concentration camps in remote areas. Other Eritreans were forced from their jobs but were not allowed to leave the country; they were reduced to begging when their resources ran out. Property was confiscated, or people were forced to sell their homes and possessions at artificially low prices, thus making persecution profitable for many Ethiopians. In July 1998 it was reported that Ethiopian troops had killed Eritrean herders who had crossed the border seeking pasture for their animals. Eritrea continued to maintain that the appropriate solution to the matter was a peaceful one, involving the legal study of borders and international mediation; in response, Ethiopia announced that war was inevitable and continued its military build-up. In 1999 the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments were both claiming that their armies had killed tens of thousands of enemy troops. Despite the scale of the battles - far worse than the carnage of the Balkan conflict — and despite the potential for serious repercussions throughout Africa, the war was overshadowed by events in Kosovo. When Western journalists did turn to the conflict in the Horn, both governments prevented them from visiting the frontlines, while launching intense propaganda campaigns. A February 1999 AFP report from Nairobi characterized the conflict as a 'phantom war' and noted that journalists were unable to verify contradictory press statements from Eritrean and Ethiopian offices. An editorial on the Eritrean website Visafric (20 February) characterized Ethiopian reports of an Eritrean air raid on Adigrat as 'phantom bombing, phantom victory, phantom offensive, and even a phantom reporter, from a phantom news agency with a phantom story.' This was in reference to a story carried by the Ethiopian government media allegedly written by 'Peter Robinson' - a journalist apparently invented by Ethiopian propagandists. Indeed, the conflict acquired the ghostly dimensions that postmodernist Jean Baudrillard once claimed for the Gulf War: Baudrillard had asserted that this war 'did not take place' and existed only in the virtual reality created by the mass media. However, just as the thousands of charred Iraqi corpses contradicted

Ghostly Returns

235

Baudrillard's claim, occasional first-hand reports did indicate the ghastly extent of the carnage in the Horn. For example, writing from the Tsorona battlefield (18 May 1999) for The Guardian, David Hirst described the unburied corpses of Ethiopian soldiers who had died by the thousands in human wave attacks; the Ethiopian government dismissed this as a 'drama staged for foreign journalists' (New York Times, 18 March 1999). Later, John Donnelly of the Boston Globe (8 August 1999), also reporting from Tsorona, described a mass grave used as a fortification: after collecting their weapons and identification, the Eritreans piled up the corpses of Ethiopian troops killed in a three-day attack in March arid bulldozed earth over them to create a defensive wall. Summer rains exposed boots, fingers, faces, and 'unlock[ed] the scent of old death. The scent is inhaled with every breath of the living, the living in hell.' Badme is a desolate and sparsely populated place; adding to the ghostly dimensions of the phantom war, journalists noted that the name itself translates as 'empty' or 'nothing.' When the conflict did receive media attention, it was dismissed as bizarre and inexplicable, a case of 'two bald men fighting over a comb' (Sydney Morning Herald, 30 May 2000). Here, after all, were two impoverished states, whose populations were balanced on the edge of starvation, spending millions to acquire fighter planes, helicopter gunships, and other weapons. Many called it the 'stupidest war on the planet' - an accurate assessment, though applicable to war in general: contemporaneous conflicts in Sierra Leone or Kosovo were hardly models of rationality. However, the causes of the war were not to be found in that desolate phantom, Badme itself, but rather in issues that had been simmering since Eritrean independence. Many Ethiopians resented Eritrean independence, Ethiopia's resulting landlocked condition (despite access to ports), and Eritrea's plans to develop industrially. In 1997, when Eritrea issued its own currency, Ethi opia refused to accept it, demanding instead that all trade be conducted in U.S. dollars. The conflict also revealed resurgent Tigrayan nationalism, which had emerged from the shadow of Amhara chauvinism. Meles Zenawi, facing power struggles within the EPRDF, evidently saw the war as a means to unify Ethiopia behind the EPRDF and to demonstrate his own Ethiopian nationalism against charges that he was too sympathetic to Eritrea. The 'sovereignty' he was defending is a phantasm in Africa generally: African states are the creations of European colonialism, later subordinated to neocolonialism and neoliberalism; their borders are permeated by flows of refugees, weapons, aid, and opposition armies,

236

Ghosts and Shadows

and they are ruled by elites who regard the state as a mechanism for plundering the population. Although Ethiopia is no exception to this (especially with much of the population dependent on international food aid), Meles Zenawi's appeal to national pride was effective, especially when military victories could be reported. In November 1999 in the British House of Lords, Lord Avebury expressed doubts that the dispute concerned borders, and suggested that it actually represented Ethiopia's desire to reassert its dominance over Eritrea. Lord Rea, member of a parliamentary delegation that visited Ethiopia in July at the government's invitation, also called for international pressure on Ethiopia to accept peace plans. Several mediation efforts failed. Eritrea objected to a provision in a proposed U.S.-Rwanda peace plan requiring it to withdraw unilaterally, instead it called for the demilitarization of the region and the introduction of a third party to control the area until its borders could be delineated. After intense fighting, in July 1999 Eritrea accepted an OAU framework agreement, which called for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of troops; although Ethiopia claimed to have accepted as well, in December 1999 it finally rejected the technical agreements and thus the entire proposal, stating it would not accept without prior guarantee of Ethiopian sovereignty over disputed territory. Echoing previous regimes, the Ethiopian leaders seemed determined to go to war and to drive the region even deeper into misery. On 18 April 2000, the Globe and Mail reported that while 12 million people were facing critical food shortages arid each day hundreds of children were dying of malnutrition and hunger-related diseases Ethiopia was refusing Eritrean offers to let them use the port of Assab for emergency relief and was spending US $1 million a day on war with Eritrea. Official sources, such as the Ethiopian Embassy in Canada website, dismissed international criticism of its military build-up as intrusions on sovereignty, while berating other governments for not providing food to its starving population. Despite an existing peace plan and Eritrean calls for a ceasefire, on 12 May 2000 Ethiopian troops invaded Eritrea, inflicting extensive military and civilian casualties. Although Eritrea agreed to withdraw from all disputed territory, Ethiopia continued to attack, displacing almost a million people, destroying a power plant near Massawa, bombing a reservoir at Assab, and deliberately targeting civilians in the Gash-Barka agricultural area at the start of harvest season, ensuring long-term damage. Eritreans believed that Ethiopia's aim was not to resolve the border issue but to remove Issayas Afeworki and possibly recapture Eritrea; hav-

Ghostly Returns

237

ing failed in these efforts, it was deliberately seeking to cripple its neighbour. Faced with human wave attacks that led to massive losses, Eritrean troops fell back, and many Eritrean towns were destroyed. The international response was muted, and the Canadian media paid little attention to the devastating war; the occasional reports portrayed both sides as equally aggressive, even though Eritrea constantly reiterated that it wanted negotiations. However, in the intense propaganda battles cast as shadows of the military conflict, the opponents did achieve an eerie symmetry. Each side claimed victory, and produced refugees to detail atrocities, and prisoners to testify to its opponent's loss of will. Even the dead would speak. Eritrean Profile (3 June 2000) published a diary taken from the corpse of Belete Ketema, describing his forced conscription into the Ethiopian army, his orders to invade Asmara, and his expectation of death. The Ethiopian website Walta (20 June 2000) quoted letters taken from the body of Eritrean soldier Zara-Mariam Frezgi, describing his rejected application for release from the army. On 18 June, both sides agreed to a ceasefire that would leave Ethiopian troops in control of the disputed areas and send UN peacekeepers into a buffer zone in Eritrea until borders were clearly marked. Journalists believed this would favour Ethiopia, even though Eritrea's claim was based on colonial borders, which had formed the boundaries of all other African states. In its 1964 Summit meeting in Cairo, in Resolution 16(1), the OAU had declared its 'respect for borders existing at independence.' Although convinced that maps from the colonial period would prove their case, Eritreans were haunted by ill-fated decisions of the past, especially the one taken on 2 December 1950 by the UN in adopting Resolution 390A(v), which federated Eritrea as an autonomous unit within Ethiopia, This would allow Ethiopia to argue that Eritrea had never become independent from Italy, and that the colonial borders were less relevant than the boundaries of Ethiopian administrative control in 1998. However, many Eritreans believed, for all the Ethiopian claims to the contrary, that the real objective of the invasion was not to resolve these border issues but to reconquer Eritrea. Even after the treaty was signed, the violence continued. On 21 June, AFP reported that evacuating Ethiopian troops had looted and burned Tesseney, which now 'resembles a ghost town, all public buildings, shops and homes were ransacked and set on fire while the hospital was emptied of all medicines, furniture, beds and sheets.' Ethiopians in the diaspora posted messages on the Addis Ababa-based website Walta applauding the destruction and urging the Ethiopian army not to stop the fighting but to

238

Ghosts arid Shadows

'complete its mission'; meanwhile, Eritreans interviewed in the rubble of their homes vowed revenge (The Scotsman, 22 June 2000). Thus, it was clear that as the end of the century approached, the violence that had haunted the Horn of Africa for decades would not easily be halted. The effects of the war were staggering. Casualties were estimated at over 100,000, and nearly one million Eritreans - one-third of the population - had been displaced, along with thousands of Ethiopians. Media reports tallied up a financial cost of US $1 billion - a sum made even more outrageous when set against the concurrent outbreak of famine and the region's general impoverishment. The war meant that the international community would have to continue supplying food to Ethiopians starving in southern areas, and again provide funds for relief and reconstruction in Eritrea. In a 4 July press release, UNHCR noted that displacement from the western lowlands meant that Eritrea would lose 60 per cent of its cereal crop. The Washington Post (4 July 2000) quoted UNHCR spokesman Peter Kessler: 'Eritrea is facing a potential catastrophic situation unless donors and relief agencies act quickly.' Requirements included $79 million to feed 750,000 displaced people for a year, and a further $23 million for shelter, blankets, basic health care, sanitation, and transportation for people in camps, caves, and rudimentary shelters. On 19 July the UN repeated the warning of 'potential catastrophe' in its call for $87.3 million to aid 1.1 million displaced Eritreans. On the streets of Addis Ababa and in the diaspora, Ethiopians cheered this devastation as a great national victory. In the calls to 'teach Eritrea a lesson,' 'restore national pride,' and 'preserve sovereignty,' the seething presence of Abyssinian fundamentalism melded with the TPLF strategy of ethnic hegemony. Eritrea, which had 'betrayed' Ethiopians by declaring independence, was to be paid back by having its towns razed and population slaughtered or driven into Sudan as refugees. Even the dead became targets in Ethiopian efforts to humiliate Eritrea: the Tokombia cemetery for Eritrean soldiers killed in the war of independence was dynamited as a symbolic gesture of insult. Ethiopians, including those in the diaspora, responded to these events with joy and calls for more aggression, as indicated by a flood of postings to Internet websites. Even as new negotiations were to begin in Washington, D.C., Ethiopia deported another thousand Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean descent; after confiscating their property, it left them at the Gash River and forced them to make a risky crossing. This deliberate humiliation of helpless civilians

Ghostly Returns

239

was a means of assuaging the wounded pride of Abyssinian fundamentalists and confirming Meles Zenawi as an Ethiopian patriot. Ethiopians in the diaspora directly linked the 2000 invasion to Eritrean independence. For example, in the Los Angeles Times (2 July 2000), Million Gebreyesus, the coach of an Ethiopian soccer team in Los Angeles, expressed his anger about newly established Eritrean teams: 'I thought we were one team, one family.' He then conflated his anger with resentment about independence and support for the invasion: 'Why should we allow Eritrea to separate? We are all one people. I don't know what they think they will achieve from independence ... Ethiopia is the backbone of Eritrea. Eritrea cannot survive without us - they produce nothing.' Million's refusal to recognize difference - 'In my head, I don't believe Eritrea is independent' - exemplifies the 'narcissistic selfregard' of ethnic conflict (Daniel 1996: 67). This constitutes the war's real meaning: it was not a border dispute, but rather an attempt by Ethiopians to roll back the referendum's results and restore their pride in their national identity, which they had based on the idea of a Greater Ethiopia. Ethiopia's invasion was not intended to resolve a border dispute but to smash Eritrea and Eritrean identity. That many considered identity central to the conflict was demonstrated by Ayasham Gelagay's posting to the Gundet website on 28 May 2000: Eritreans have constructed a pseudo-national identity based on the 'thirtyyear war' myth. The 'thirty year war' mantra has also cast a magical spell on racist conservatives and disgruntled leftists in the West who have held a grudge with Ethiopia ... One negative consequence of colonialism which was clearly evident in the Eritreans' national psyche is their self-hate and self denigration ... [The myth] produced an acute sense of arrogance and empty bravado ... This war should exorcise the 'thirty-year war' demon out of their sickened heads and deflate their oversized ego. For its own good Eritrea should learn to act and behave like the country that it is, a poor nation of four million.

Similar arguments about identity characterized Sotal's commentary, 'Don't Stop Now' (reproduced on several Ethiopian websites): 'The Eritrean public too has lost itself in the confusion of Colonialism, Confederation, Federation and Liberation ... Denial of who they are has forced them to search for themselves in everything including an attempt to completely reinvent an ethnic identity ... The war in part, is a manifesta-

240

Ghosts and Shadows

tion of the identity crises that has stumbling block to Eritreans from ever grasping their real history [sic].' In his 31 May 2000 Gundet commentary, Yohannes Tesfaldet emphasized the same themes, describing Eritreans as the postcolonial ghosts of Italian fascism: Eritrea has become the citadel of all that the Fascists of Europe dreamed of. Where else has Fascism captivated so many in Africa other than Eritrea? Where else in Africa are people so proud of having been the slaves of European colonialists other than in Eritrea? Where else are people in Africa so ashamed of being black and ashamed of their indigenous culture other in Africa [sic]? Where else are people in Africa so ashamed and hate themselves other than in Eritrea? ... The Italians have engineered these robots to disown their heritage and to be oblivious of their history and themselves. But more dangerously, these robots have no feeling like you and I. We only look alike but are light years apart. We revere life and love everything that is ours. They disdain life and yearn to be that which they are not.

Yohannes advises that there are 'no alternatives' to the military destruction of the EPLF ('the replica of Mussolini's Fascist party'): The war Ethiopia must wage is not really about breaking the backbone of the Eritrean army. The latter is a small but important part of the mission. What Ethiopia must break into fragments is the thought process which gives birth to Eritreanism. Ethiopia must destroy this foundation of evil. Peace will only come to Ethiopia if Ethiopia distracts the psychogenetic force which condemns the Eritrean to be a living robot so synchronized to think and act uniformly. Ethiopia must break the backbone of this trait. Ethiopia must see that the new born of Eritrea grow in an atmosphere where African values are taught and nurtured. The young of Eritrea must be reconnected to the history that is truly theirs. It is only when people are made whole that peace and happiness reign.

Thus Abyssinian fundamentalism construed the war not only as a military conflict but as an ontological-epistemological crusade, a means of restoring proper ways of being and seeing to the self-hating Eritrean 'robots' who had been deluded by ghostly 'psychogenetic forces' into emulating their former colonial masters. From the safety of cyberspace, long-distance nationalists encouraged more violence, and more suffer-

Ghostly Returns

241

ing, in the pursuit of Ethiopia's 'mission' to demolish 'Eritreanism' and replace it with true history, identity, and purity. Abyssinian fundamentalism rejected the validity of Eritrean identity, insisting that Eritreans were 'really' Ethiopians who had been deceived by postcolonial fantasies. Ye the invasion exposed the hollowness of the 'family' trope and the secrets of the haunted house: those who did not wish to be part of the family would be punished violently. Killing, raping, looting, and burning, Ethiopian troops sought to ensure that 'Eritrea cannot survive without us.' Abyssinian fundamentalist discourse stopped just short of calling for genocide, while embracing many of genocide's typical themes of dehumanization ('These robots have no feeling like you and I. We only look alike but are light years apart'), as well as many features of its hate propaganda (Issayas Afeworki was described as a cockroach, a favourite image of the Nazis arid the Rwandan interahamwe militia). Whatever their political and ethnic divisions, Ethiopian exiles were frighteningly similar in their rhetoric: Tigrayan government supporters reproduced the bloodthirsty jingoism of previous regimes; Abyssinian fundamentalists, despising a government that had betrayed them by accepting Eritrean independence and shattering the Ethiopian homeland, and furious at the 'arrogant' Eritreans themselves, made no effort to conceal their glee as their enemies tore each other apart. From the diaspora, resurgent Abyssinian fundamentalists revelled in Eritrea's devastation, while demanding more aggressive action from Meles Zenawi. For example, Dagmawi, who maintains the Gundet website, commented on 27 March 2000: 'Ethiopia should have long ago taken this war to the absolute level instead of confining it to the parameters most favourable to Eritrea ... But tragically, Ethiopia does not have a prime minister with a strong backbone who will doggedly defend Ethiopia's national interest... he should be held accountable for his blundering policies arid seven years of grovelling servitude to Eritrea.' Similarly in their 15 July posting to Gundet, Belai Abbai, formerly Ethiopia's Minister of Land Reform and a 'senior staff member of the World Bank,' and Zeru Kehisen of the Free University of Amsterdam, stated that Meles's failure to seize the port of Assab demonstrated 'he has all along protected of [sic] Eritrean interest.' In his 6 July Gundet posting, Afera Gebru employed the well-established 'paranoid style' of Ethiopian politics, attacking Meles for not seizing Assab and reminding his readers that Italy had invaded Ethiopia from its Eritrean colony. In his posting to the Walta website on 7 July, Hailu Zewge discussed 'Ethiopia's need for direct access to the sea' - a ghostly echo of claims made by Haile

242

Ghosts and Shadows

Selassie fifty years earlier during the UN's deliberations over Eritrea's future. Indeed, all the claims Ethiopian made during the postwar UN deliberations have been resurrected in the most recent discourse of Abyssinian fundamentalism. In their 15 July Gundet comment, Belai and Zeru raised old argument that because of 'constant external attacks and encirclement,' Ethiopia should be awarded Assab: without 'a nonnegotiable right to free and unfettered access to the sea' Ethiopia would be 'constantly vulnerable to blackmail' and 'historic enemies will attempt to strangle her from the sea, if she is denied its [sic] own outlet to the international waters.' (They identified the historic enemy not as Italy but as Egypt, advising that 'no Ethiopian should forget' Egypt's nineteenth-century invasion attempt, and warning of 'grave implications for Ethiopia's very survival.') Belai and Zeru demand new borders, based not on treaties but on Ethiopian's recent conquests. While Abyssinian fundamentalists are dissatisfied with the level of destruction achieved and demand at least partial annexation of Eritrean territory, the Ethiopian government claims that it does not wish to conquer Eritrea and invaded it in the late 1990 only in order to resolve the border issue (even though viable alternatives existed to achieve such an end). However, it has officially called for a reduced Eritrean army and reparations. As well, having smashed Eritrea, Ethiopia says it is not interested in demarcating the border; it wants to go to arbitration instead. The most recent war provided the Ethiopian government with a means of defusing the threat posed by the large number of young Oromo men, who served as cannon fodder: if their 'sacrifice' did not instill national pride in their surviving ethnic fellows, at least it deprived the opposition of potential recruits. The 'principle' used to deflect opposition and mobilize Ethiopians to assert national pride by destroying their neighbours, that of 'sovereignty,' should thus be seen for what it really is: a means of justifiying absolute control over the state apparatus, with total disregard for the welfare of the population, which is facing starvation and general impoverishment. This tragedy is heightened by the fact that only months before the clash over borders erupted into a full-scale war, the new governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia were being hailed as leaders of an African Renaissance. Vengeful phantoms have now transformed that Renaissance into a ghost dance.

Bibliography

Abdo, Nahla. 1994. 'Nationalism and Feminism: Palestinian Women and the Intifada - No Going Back?' In Gender and National Identity, ed. Valentine M. Moghadam, pp. 148-170. London: Zed. Addisu Tolesa. 1993. 'Oromo Literature, Geerarsa, and the Liberation Struggle.' In Proceedings of the International Conference on 'Resource Mobilization for the Liberation of Oromia,' pp. 52-64. N.p.: Oromo Studies Association. Adelman, Howard, and John Sorenson, ed. 1994. African Refugees. Boulder: Westview. Admasu Shunkuri. 1992. 'The Oromo Nation (Oromia): Fact or Fiction.' Oromia Today. September, p. 8. Ager, Alastair, Wendy Ager, and Lynellyn Long. 1995. 'The Differential Experience of Mozambican Refugee Women and Men.' Journal of Refugee Studies 8(3): 265-87. Ahmad, Aijaz. 1992. In Theory. London: Verso. Ainalem Tebeje. 1989. Cultural Interaction of Canadians andEthiopian Newcom.ers in Canada. Ottawa: Employment and Immigration Canada. Alund, Aleksandra. 1999. 'Feminism, Multiculturalism, Essentialism.' In Women Citizenship and Difference, ed. Nira Yuval-Davis and Pnina Werbner, pp. 147-61. London: Zed Books. Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities. London: Verso. - 1992. The New World Disorder.' New Left Review, pp. 3-13. Ang-Lygate, Magdalene. 1997. 'Charting the Spaces of (Un)location: On Theorizing Diaspora.' In Black British Feminism, ed. Heidi Safia Mirza. New York: Routledge. Anthias, Floya, and Nira Yuval-Davis. 1992. Racialised Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender, Colour and Class and the Anti-Racist Struggle. London: Routledge.

244

Bibliography

Appadurai, Arjun. 1991. 'Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology.' Recapturing Anthropology, ed. Richard G. Fox, pp. 191210. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. Asafa Jalata. 1993a. 'Presidential Address for the 1993 Oromo Studies Conference.' Proceedings of the International Conference on 'Resource Mobilization for the Liberation ofOromia,' pp. 1-5. N.p.: Oromo Studies Association. - 1993b. Oromia and Ethiopia. Boulder: Lynne Reinner. Asmarom Legesse. 1973. Gada. New York: The Free Press. - 1998. 'The Uprooted: Case Material on Ethnic Eritrean Deportees from Ethiopia.' Asmara: Unpublished report for Citizens for Peace in Eritrea. - 1999. 'The Uprooted Part Two: A Scientific Survey of Ethnic Eritrean Deportees from Ethiopia Conducted with Regard to Human Rights Violations.' Asmara: Unpublished report for Citizens for Peace in Eritrea. Baissa Lemmu. 1993. 'Gada Values: The Building Blocks of Oromo Power.' Proceedings of the International Conference on 'Resource Mobilization for the Liberation of Oromia,' pp. 97-108. N.p.: Oromo Studies Association. Bakare-Yusuf, Bibi. 1997. 'Raregrooves and Raregroovers: A Matter of Taste, Difference and Identity.' In Black British Feminism, ed. Heidi Safia Mirza. New York: Routledge. Balibar, Etienne, and Immanuel Wallerstein, eds. 1991. Race, Nation, Class. London: Verso. Barkan, Elazar, and Marie-Denise Shelton, eds. 1998. Borders, Exiles, Diasporas. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Barth, Fredrik. 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. London: George Allen and Unwin. Basch, Linda, Nina Click Schiller, and Cristina Szanton Blanc. 1994. Nations Unbound. Basel: Gordon and Breach. Bauman, Zygmunt. 1992. 'Soil, Blood and Identity.' Sociological Review 40 (4): 675-701. Baxter, Paul. 1983. 'The Problem of the Oromo or the Problem for the Oromo?' In Nationalism and Self-Determination in the Horn of Africa, ed. I.M. Lewis, pp. 133-149. London: Ithaca Press. - 1994. 'The Creation and Constitution of Oromo Nationality.' In Ethnicity and Conflict in the Horn of Africa, ed. Katsuyoshi Fukui and John Markakis. London: Ohio University Press, Fountain Publishers, EAEP, James Curry. Baxter Paul, and Hector Blackhurst. 1978. 'Vercingetorix in Ethiopia: Some Problems Arising from Levine's Inclusion of the Oromos in His Delineation of Ethiopia as a Culture Area.' Abbay. Cahier 9, pp. 159-166. Belcher, Susan. 1989. Unpublished paper presented to the Eritrean Medical Association, Washington, D.C.

Bibliography

245

Berhane-Selassie, Tsehai. 1997. 'Ethiopian Rural Women and the State.' In African Feminism, ed. Gwendolyn Mikell, pp. 182-205. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Bhavnani, Kum-Kum, and Margaret Coulson. 1986. 'Transforming Socialist Feminism: the Challenge of Racism.' Feminist Review, 23 June, pp. 81-92. Binford, Leigh. 1996. The El Mozote Massacre. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Bordo, Susan. 1990. 'Feminism, Postmodernism and Gender-Scepticism.' In Feminism/Postmodernism, ed. Linda J. Nicholson, pp. 133-56, New York: Routledge. Boulding, E. 1988. 'Warriors and Saints: Dilemmas in the History of Men, Women and War.' In Women and the Military System, ed. E. Isaksoon. New York: St. Martin's. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. In Other Words. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Boyd, Monica. 1999a. 'Gender, Refugee Status and Permanent Settlement.' Gender Issues 17(1): 5-25. - 1999b. 'Integrating Gender, Language and Visible Minority Groups.' In Immigrant Canada: Demographic, Economic and Social Challenges, ed. Leo Driedger and Shiva Halli, pp. 282-306. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Brah, Avtar. 1996. Cartographies of Diaspora. London: Routledge. Buchignani, Norman. 1980. 'The Social and Self-Identities of Fijian Indians in Vancouver.' Urban Anthropology 9(1): 75-97. Canadian Council for Refugees. 1995. Women at Risk: Developing Recommendations. Montreal: Canadian Council for Refugees. Carter, Donald Martin. 1997. States of Grace. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Chao, Julia. 2000. 'The Private Market Rental Housing Experiences of Ghanaian Immigrant Households in Metropolitan Toronto.' Paper presented at the Fourth National Metropolis Conference, Toronto, Canada, 22-5 March. Clapham, Christopher. 1990a. 'Conclusion: Revolution, Nationality and the Ethiopian State.' In The Political Economy of Ethiopia, ed. Marina Ottaway, pp. 221-31. New York: Praeger. - 1990b. Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - 1995. 'Ethiopia and Eritrea: The Politics of Post-insurgency.' In Democracy and Political Change in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. John A. Wiseman, pp. 117-36. New York: Routledge. Clifford, James. 1988. The Predicament of Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. - 1994.'Diasporas.' Cultural Anthropology 3(3}: 302-38. - 1997. Routes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

246

Bibliography

Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus, eds. 1986. Writing Culture. Berkeley: University of California. Cohen, Abner, ed. 1974. Urban Ethnicity. London: Tavistock Publications. Cohen, Anthony P. 1985. The Symbolic Construction of Community. London: Tavistock Publications. Collins, Patricia Hill. 1991. Black Feminist Thought. New York: Routledge. Comaroff,John. 1996. 'Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Politics of Difference in an Age of Nationalism.' In The Politics of Difference, ed. Edwin N. Wilmsen and Patrick McAllister. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Corradi, Juan E., Patricia Weiss Fagen, and Manuel Antonio Garreton. Fear at the Edge. Berkeley: University of California Press. Crapanzano, Vincent. 1977. 'The Writing of Ethnography.' Dialectical Anthropology 2: 69-73. Crisp, Jeff. 1984. 'The Politics of Repatriation: Ethiopian Refugees in Djibouti, 1977-83.' Review of African Political Economy 30: 73-82. Crosby, FayeJ., and Karen L. Jaskar. 1993. 'Women and Men at Home and at Work: Realities and Illusions.' In Gender Issues in Contemporary Society, ed. Stuart Oskamp and Mark Costanzo, pp. 143-71. Newbury Park: Sage. Daniel, E. Valentine. 1996. Charred Lullabies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Daniel, E. Valentine, and John Knudsen. 1995. Mistrusting Refugees. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dawit Wolde Giorgis. 1990. Red Tears. Trenton: Red Sea Press. De Waal, Alex. 1994. 'Rethinking Ethiopia.' In The Horn of Africa, ed. Charles Gurdon, pp. 25-46. New York: St. Martin's, di Leonardo, Micaela, ed. 1991. Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dirlik, Arif. 1996. 'The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism.' In Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Padmini Mongia, pp. 294-320. New York: Arnold. Du Bois, W.E.B. 1989. The Souls of Black Folks. New York: Bantam. Enloe, Cynthia. 1989. Bananas, Beaches and Bases. Berkeley: University of California Press. Eritrean Canadian Community Centre of Metropolitan Toronto, 1991. 'Mesfin Woldemariam and Collaborators Have Nothing to Offer towards Ethiopian Unity.' Leaflet. 18 May. Erlich, Haggai. 1983. The Struggle over Eritrea, 1962-1978. Stanford: Hoover Institution. Field, Stefanie J. 1994. 'Becoming Irish: Personal Identity Construction among First-Generation Irish Immigrants.' Symbolic Interaction 17(4): 431-52.

Bibliography

247

Fine, Michelle, and Pat Macpherson. 1994. 'Studies in the Practice of Power and Gender. Over Dinner: Feminism and Adolescent Female Bodies.' In Power/ Gender: Social Relations in Theory and Practice, ed. H. Radtke, Lorraine and HenderikusJ. Stam, pp. 219-46. London: Sage Publications. Fitzgerald, Thomas K. 1993. Metaphors of Identity. Albany: State University of New York Press. Forbes-Martin, Susan. 1992. Refugee Women. London: Zed. Freud, Sigmund. 1985. 'The Uncanny.' In Art and Literature, ed. Albert Dickson, pp. 335-76. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Gadaa Melbaa. 1988. Oromia. Khartoum: N.p. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Gemetchu Megerssa and Aneesa Kassam. N.d. 'Ethnic Minority or Repressed Majority? The Case of the Oromo.' Unpublished paper. Getachew Haile. 1986. 'The Unity and Territorial Integrity of Ethiopia. 'Journal of Modern African Studies 24(3): 465-87. Giles, Wenona, Helene Moussa, and Penny Van Esterik, eds. 1996. Development and Diaspora: Gender and the Refugee Experience. Dundas, ON: Artemis Enterprises. Gilkes, Patrick. 1983. 'Centralism and the Ethiopian PMAC.' In Nationalism and Self-Determination in the Horn of Africa, ed. I.M. Lewis, pp. 195-211. London: Ithaca Press. - 1991. 'Eritrea: Historiography and Mythology.' African Affairs 90(361): 623-8. Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. - 1993a. The Black Atlantic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. - 1993b. Small Acts. London: Serpent's Tail. Globe and Mail 2000. 'Poor? Coloured? Then It's No Vacancy.'July 18. A15. Gold, Steven J. 1992. Refugee Communities. Newbury Park: Sage. Goode, Judith, and Schneider, Jo Ann, 1994. Reshaping Ethnic and Racial Relations in Philadelphia: Immigrants in a Divided City. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Gordon, Avery F. 1997. Ghostly Matters. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press. Green, Linda. 1999. Fear as a Way of Life. New York: Columbia University Press. Hale, Sondra. 1979. Nubi.ans. Khartoum: Institute of African and Asian Studies (Sudan Research Unit). Hall, Stuart. 1987. 'Minimal Selves.' In Identity: The Real Me: Postmodernism and the Question of Identity, pp. 44-46. London: Institute for Contemporary Arts. ICA Document 6.

248

Bibliography

- 1990. 'Cultural Identity and Diaspora.' In Identity Community, Culture, Difference, ed. Jonathan Rutherford, pp. 222-37. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Halliday, Fred, and Maxine Molyneux. 1981. The Ethiopian Revolution. London: Verso. Hama Tuma. 1993. The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor. London: Heinemann. Hamdesa Tuso. 1993. 'The Oromo Studies Association (OSA) vs. Union of Oromos in North America (UONA) and the Great Coup d'Etat: A Report to the Oromo People.' Unpublished. Handler, Richard. 1988. Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Heiberg, Marianne. 1989. The Making of the Basque Nation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Henze, Paul. 1985. Rebels and Separatists inEthiopia: Regional Resistance to a Marxist Regime. Santa Monica: Rand Corporation. - 1986a. 'Behind the Ethiopian Famine.' Encounter67'(1): 5-17 (Part 1); 67(2): 15-27 (Part 2); 67(3): 20-31 (Part 3). - 1986b. 'Eritrea: The Endless War.' The Washington Quarterly, pp. 23-36. Herman, Edward S., and Frank Brodhead. 1986. The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection. New York: Sheridan Square Publications. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1990. Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - and Terence Ranger. 1983. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holcomb, Bonnie S. 1991. 'Akka Gadaatti: The Unfolding of Oromo Nationalism - Keynote Remarks.' Proceedings of the 1991 Conference on Oromia,' pp. 1-10. N.p.: Oromo Studies Association. Holcomb, Bonnie S., and Sisai Ibssa. 1990. The Invention of Ethiopia. Trenton: Red Sea Press. hooks, bell. 1992. 'Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination.' In Cultural Studies, ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Gary Nelson, and Paula Treichler, pp. 338-46. Houtart, Francois. 1984. 'Social Aspects of the Eritrean Revolution.' In The Eritrean Case. Rome: Research and Information Centre on Eritrea. Hutnik, Nimmi. 1986. 'Patterns of Ethnic Minority Identification and Modes of Social Adaptation.' Ethnic and Racial Studies 9(2): 150-67. Hyman, Ilene. 2000. Preliminary Results, Pathways and Barriers to Mental Health Care for Ethiopians in Toronto. Personal communication, 1 November. Hyndman, Jennifer. 1999. 'Globalization, Immigration, and the Gender Implications of Not Just Numbers in Canada.' Refuge 18(1): 26-31.

Bibliography

249

Indra, Doreen Marie. 1989. 'Ethnic Human Rights and Feminist Theory: Gender Implications for Refugee Studies and Practice. 'Journal of Refugee Studtes2(2): 221-42. - 1999. 'Not a "Room of One's Own": Engendering Forced Migration Knowledge and Practice.' In Engendering Forced Migration Theory and Practice, ed. Doreen Indra, pp. 1-22. New York: Berghahn Books. James, Winston. 1992. 'Migration, Racism and Identity: The Carribean Experience in Britain.' New Left Review 193: 15-55. Karklin, Rasma. 1987. 'Determinants of Ethnic Identification in the USSR: The Soviet Jewish Case.' Ethnic and Racial Studies 10(1): 27-47. Keller, EdmondJ. 1991. Revolutionary Ethiopia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Khan, Shahnaz. 1998. 'Muslim Women: Negotiations in the Third Space.' Signs 23(2): 463-94. Kibreab, Gaim. 1991. 'Stranded "Birds of Passage": Eritrean and Ethiopian Refugees in Khartoum.' Refuge 10(4): 6-10. - 1995. 'Eritrean Women Refugees in Khartoum, Sudan, 1970-1990. 'Journal of Refugee Studies 8(1): 1-25. Klein, Natalie. 1998. Mass Expulsion from Ethiopia. Unpublished paper. Kunz, E.F. 1973. 'The Refugee in Flight: Kinetic Models and Forms of Displacement.' International Migration Review 7(2). Kuwee Kumsa. 1998. 'Oromo Women and the Oromo National Movement.' In Oromo Nationalism and the Ethiopian Discourse, ed. Asafajalata, pp. 153—82. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Lamphere, Louise. 1993. 'The Domestic Sphere of Women and the Public World of Men: The Strengths and Limitations of an Anthropological Dichotomy.' In Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. Caroline B. Brettell and Carolyn F. Sargent. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Landry, Donna, and Gerald Maclean. 1993. Materialist Feminisms. Oxford: Blackwell. Lanphier, Michael, and Lukomskyj, Oleh. 1994. 'Settlement Policy in Australia and Canada.' In Immigration and Refugee Policy: Australia and Canada Compared, vol. 2. ed. Howard Adelman, Meyer Burstein, and Lois Foster, pp. 337-71. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Leach, Edmund. 1954. Political Systems of Highland Burma. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Leenco Latta. 1998. 'Peculiar Challenges to Oromo Nationalism.' In Oromo Nationalism and the Ethiopian Discourse, ed. Asafajalata, pp. 125-52. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Lefort, Rene. 1983. Ethiopia: An Heretical Revolution? London: Zed Press.

250

Bibliography

Leonard, Diana. 1997. 'Extended Review: Cartographies of Diaspora.' British Journal of Sociology of Education 18(4): 597-600. Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1963. Structural Anthropology. New York: Basic Books. Levine, Donald N. 1965. Wax and Gold. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. - 1974. Greater Ethiopia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lewis, Herbert. 1993. 'Ethnicity in Ethiopia: The View from Below (and from the South, East and West).' In The Rising Tide of Cultural Pluralism, ed. Crawford Young, pp. 158-78. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Lewis, I.M. 1983. 'Introduction.' In Nationalism and Self-Determination in the Horn of Africa, ed. I.M. Lewis, pp. 1-22. London: Ithaca Press. Li, Peter S., ed. 1990. Race and Ethnic Relations in Canada. Don Mills: Oxford University Press. Mach, Zdzislaw. 1993. Symbols, Conflict, and Identity. Albany: State University of New York Press. Macklin, Audrey. 1999. 'A Comparative Analysis of the Canadian, US, and Australian Directives on Gender Persecution and Refugee Status.' In Engendering Forced Migration Theory and Practice, ed. Doreen Indra, pp. 272-307. New York: Berghahn Books. Malkki, Liisa. 1992. 'National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity among Scholars and Refugees.' Cultural Anthropology 7(1): 24-44. - 1995. Purity and Exile. Berkeley: University of California Press. Markakis, John. 1990. National and Class Conflict in the Horn of Africa. New York: Zed. Markalis, John, and Nega Ayele. 1986. Class and Revolution in Ethiopia. Trenton: Red Sea Press. Matas, David, with liana Simon. 1989. Closing the Doors. Toronto: Summerhill. Matsuoka, Atsuko. 1991. 'Social Work Practice with Ethnic Elderly.' Paper presented at the 44th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Gerontology Society of America. San Francisco, 25-8 November. Matsuoka, Atsuko, and John Sorenson. 1991. 'Ethnic Identity and Social Service Delivery: Some Models Examined in Relation to Immigrants and Refugees from Ethiopia.' Canadian Social Work Review8(I): 255-68. - 1999. 'Eritrean Women in Canada: Negotiating New Lives.' Canadian Woman Studies/Les cahiers de lafemme 19(3): 104-9. McClintock, Anne. 1995. Imperial Leather. New York: Routledge. McKague, Ormond, ed. 1991. Racism in Canada. Saskatoon: Fifth House. McKay, Susan R. 1998. 'The Psychology of Societal Reconstruction and Peace.' In The Women and War Reader, eds. Lois Ann Lorentzen and Jennifer Truppin, pp. 348-62. New York: New York University Press.

Bibliography

251

McSpadden, Lucia Ann. 1989. Ethiopian Refugees in the United States. Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program Briefing Paper for Sponsors of Ethiopian Refugees. - 1999. 'Negotiating Masculinity in the Reconstruction of Social Place: Eritrean and Ethiopian Refugees in the United States and Sweden.' In Engendering Forced Migration: Theory and Practice, ed. Doreen Indra, pp. 242-260. New York: Berghahn Books. McSpadden, Lucia Ann, and Helene Moussa. 1993. 'I Have a Name: The Gender Dynamics in Asylum and in Resettlement of Ethiopian and Eritrean Refugees in North America.' Journal of Refugee Studies 6(3): 203-25. Mekuria Bulcha. 1988. Flight and Integration. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies. - 1993. 'Language, Ethnic Identity and Nationalism in Ethiopia.' The Oromo Commentary 3(1): 8-16. Mercer, Kobena. 1994. Welcome to the Jungle. New York: Routledge. Meznaric, Silva. 1994. 'Gender as an Ethno-Marker: Rape, War and Identity Politics in the Former Yugoslavia.' In Identity Politics and Women, ed. Valentine M. Moghadam, Westview. pp. 76-97. Boulder. Mikell, Gwendolyn. 1997. African Feminism. Philadelphia: University Pennsylvania Press. Miles, William F.S. 1986. 'Self-Identity, Ethnic Affinity and National Consciousness: An Example from Rural Hausaland.' Ethnic and Racial Studies 9(4): 427-44. Mirza, Heidi Safia ed. 1997. Black British Feminism. New York Routledge. Mishra, Ramesh. 1999. Globalization and the Welfare State. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Moghadam, Valentine, M. ed. 1994. Gender and National Identity. London: Zed. Moghissi, Haideh. 1999. 'Away from Home: Iranian Women, Displacement Cultural Resistance and Change.' Journal of Comparative Family Studies 30 (2): 207-17. Mohammed Hassan. 1990. The Oromo of Ethiopia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - 1994. 'Eritrean Independence and Democracy in the Horn of Africa.' In Eritrea and Ethiopia, ed. Amare Tekle, pp. 85-113. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Mongia, Padmini Mongia, ed. 1996. Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. New York: Arnold. Moore, Henrietta. 1988. Feminism and Anthropology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Moussa, Helene. 1992. 'Caught between Two Worlds: Eritrean Women Refugees

252

Bibliography

and Voluntary Repatriation.' Paper presented at the Development After Disaster Conference, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, 29-30 May. - 1993. Storm and Sanctuary. Dundas: Artemis Enterprises. - 1998/9. 'Violence against Refugee Women: Gender Oppression, Canadian Policy, and the International Struggle for Human Rights.' Resources for Feminist Research 26(3/4): 79-111. Nagata, Judith. 1969. 'Adaptation and Integration of Greek Working Class Immigrants in the City of Toronto, Canada: A Situational Analysis.' International Migration Review 4(10): 44-70. Nagengast, Carole. 1994. 'Violence, Terror and the Crisis of the State.' Annual Review of Anthropology23: 109-36. Nairn, Tom. 1977. TheBreak-Up of Britain. London: Verso. Namara Garbaba. 1993. 'The Prospects of Effective Leadership in the Oromo National Struggle.' Proceedings of the International Conference on 'Resource Mobilization for the Liberation ofOromia,' pp. 40-51. Oromo Studies Association. Neuwirth, Gertrud. 1989. The Settlement of Ethiopian Refugees in Toronto: An Exploratory Study. Ottawa: Employment and Immigration Canada. Ngugi wa Thiong'o. 1986. Decolonising the Mind. London: James Curry. Nordstrom, Carolyn. 1997. A Different Kind of War Story. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Ohmae, Kenichi. 1990. The Borderless World. New York: Harper. Okbazghi Yohannes. 1991. Eritrea: A Pawn in World, Politics. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Ong, Aihwa. 1988. 'Colonialism and Modernity: Feminist Re-presentations of Women in Non-Western Societies.' Inscriptions 3/4: 79-93. Ornstein, Michael. 2000. Ethno-Racial Inequality in the City of Toronto: An Analysis of the 1996 Census. Toronto: Access and Equity Unit, City of Toronto. Oromo Liberation Front. 1989. 'OLF Mass Organizations Abroad Hold Annual Conference.' Oromia Speaks 8(1): 5-7. Packer, George. 1996. 'Ethiopia's Prisoners of Blood.' Dissent 43(3): 117-28. Pateman, Roy. 1998. Even the Stones Are Burning, 2nd ed. Trenton: Red Sea Press. Pausewang, Siegfried. 1994. The. 1994 Election and Democracy in Ethiopia. Oslo: Norwegian Institute of Human Rights. Pellizzi, Francesco. 1988. 'To Seek Refuge: Nation and Ethnicity in Exile.' In Ethnicities and Nations, ed. Remo Guidieri, Francesco Pellizzi, and Stanley J. Tambiah, pp. 154-77. Houston: Rothko Chapel. Perham, Margery. 1969. The Government of Ethiopia. London: Faber and Faber. Peteet, Julie M. 1991. Gender in Crisis. New York: Columbia University Press. - 1995. 'Transforming Trust: Dispossession and Empowerment among

Bibliography

253

Palestinean Refugees.' In Mistrusting Refugees, ed. E. Valentine Daniel and John Knudsen, pp. 168-86. Berkeley: University of California Press. Plaice, Evelyn. 1989. '"Leemos!": Perceptions of Ethnic Identity among Settlers in North West River, Labrador.' Ethnic and Racial Studies 12(1): 115-37. Qaleab Negusse. 1991. 'Amhara Nationalism: Preliminary Thoughts on an Incipient Nationalism.' Imbylta2(l): 21-8. Rabinow, Paul. 1977. Reflections onFieldwork in Morocco. Berkeley: University of California Press. Radcliffe, Sarah, and Sallie Westwood 1996. Remaking the Nation. New York: Routledge. Radecki, Henry. 1979. Ethnic Organizational Dynamics. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Radtke, H. Lorrain, and Henderrikus, J. Stam, eds. 1994. Power/Gender: Social Relations in Theory and Practice. London: Sage. Ranger, Terence. 1983. 'The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa.' In The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger, pp. 211-62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rayaprol, Aparna. 1997. Negotiating Identities: Women in the Indian Diaspora. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Reiter, Rayna. 1975. 'Men and Women in the South of France: Public and Private Domains.' In Toward an Anthropology of Women, ed. Rayna Reiter. New York: Monthly Review Press. Robertson, Roland. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. Newbury Park: Sage. Rouse, Roger. 1991. 'Mexican Migration and the Social Space of Postmodernism.' Diaspora 1(1): 8-23. Rubenson, Sven. 1976. The Survival of Ethiopian Independence. London: Heinemann. Rushdie, Salman. 1991. Imaginary Homelands. London: Granta. Sabboontuujiilchaa. 1992. 'Voices of Oromo Women.' Qunnamth Oromia(2(lV): 24-33. Safran, William. 1991. 'Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return.' Diaspora I (I): 83-99. Said, Edward. 1984. 'The Mind of Winter: Reflections on Life in Exile.' Harpers 269: 49-55. - 1993. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Samuel, Raphael, and Paul Thompson. 1990. The Myths We Live By. London: Routledge. Satzewich, Vic, ed. 1992. Deconstructing a Nation. Halifax: Fernwood. Scheurich, JamesJ. 1997. Research Method in the Postmodern. London: Falmer Press.

254

Bibliography

Schrijver, Joke. 1999. 'Fighters, Victims and Survivors: Constructions of Ethnicity, Gender and Refugeeness among Tamils in Sri Lanka. 'Journal of Refugee Studies 12(3): 307-33. Seada Mohammed. 1993. 'Oromo Women as Refugees.' Proceedings of the International Conference on 'Resource Mobilization for the Liberation ofOromia,' pp. 121-5. Oromo Studies Association. Sisai Ibssa. 1990. 'The Place of Gada in Independent Oromia.' Waldhaansso 15(2): 3-8. - 1992. 'Our Task under New Conditions.' Proceedings of the International Conference on 'The Prospects for the Liberation of Oromia and its Impact on the Politics of the Horn of Africa,' pp. 58-75. Oromo Studies Association. Smith, Anthony D. 1983. Theories of Nationalism. New York: Holmes and Meier. Smith, Anthony D. 1986. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell. - 1986. 'History and Liberty: Dilemmas of Loyalty in Western Democracies.' Ethnic and Racial Studies 9(1): 43-65. Sorenson, John. 1993. Imagining Ethiopia. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. - ed. 1995. Disaster and Development in the Horn ofAfnca. Houndmills: Macmillan. Spencer, John H. 1984. Ethiopia at Bay. Algonac, Mich.: Reference Publications. Spivak, Gayatri. 1988. In Other Worlds. New York: Routledge. Starn, Orin. 1999. Nightwatch. Durham: Duke University Press. Statistics Canada. 1992. 1991 Census of Canada, Catalogue 93-316XPB. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services. - 1993. 1991 Census of Canada, Catalogue 93-315. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services. Steady, Filomina Chioma. 1996. 'African Feminism: A Worldwide Perspective.' In Women in Africa and the African Diaspora: A Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn and Andrea Benton Rushing. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. Stein, Barry. 1981. 'Refugees and Economic Activities in Africa.' Research Report. Washington: Agency for International Development. Swedenburg, Ted. 1995. Memories of Revolt. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Szemere, Anna. 1992. 'Bandits, Heroes, the Honest, and the Misled: Exploring the Politics of Representation in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956.' In Cultural Studies, ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Gary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler, pp. 623-39. New York: Routledge. Szuchewycz, Bohdan. 1994. 'Evidentiality in Ritual Discourse: The Social Construction of Religious Meaning.' Language in Society 23: 389-410.

Bibliography

255

Takkele Taddese. 1994. 'Do the Amhara Exist as an Ethnic Group?' In New Trends in Ethiopian Studies, ed. Harold Marcus, pp. 168-87. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Talai, Vered. 1986. 'The Circumscription of Ethnicity: A Case Study of the London Armenian Community.' Ethnic and Racial Studies. 9(2): 211-18. Teshale Tibebu. 1992. 'Ethiopian Body, Amharic Face: The Sphinx of Ethiopian Nationalism.' Imbylta2(2): 31-7. Thomson, Blair. 1975. Ethiopia: The Country That Cut Off Its Head. London: Robson Books. Tololyan, Kachig. 1991. The Nation-State and Its Others: In Lieu of a Preface.' Diaspora 1(1): 3-7. - 1996. 'Rethinking Diaspora(s): Stateless Power in the Transnational Moment.' Diaspora 5(1): 3-36. UNHCR. 1992. Progress Report on Implementation of the UNHCR Guidelines on the Protection of Refugee Women. — 1997. The State of the World's Refugees: A Humanitarian Agenda. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Union of Oromo in North America. 1992. 'Editorial.' Waldhaansso 17(2): 1-2. Ward, Ronald. 1993. 'The Non-Governmental Organizations and the Oromo.' Proceedings of the International Conference on 'Resource Mobilization for the Liberation ofOromia,' pp. 16-22. Oromo Studies Association. Westwood, Sallie, and Parminder Bhachu, eds. 1988. Enterprising Women: Ethnicity, Economy, and Gender Relations. New York: Routledge. Whitaker, Reg. 1987. Double Standard. Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys. White, Hayden. 1973. Metahistory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wolf, Eric. 1982. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Young, John. 1997. Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Young, Robert. 1990. White Mythologies. London: Routledge. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1994. 'Identity Politics and Women's Ethnicity.' In Identity Politics and Wom.en, ed. Valentine M. Moghadam, pp. 408-24. Boulder: Westview. - 1997. Gender and Nation. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Yuval-Davis, Nira, and Pnina Werbner, eds. 1999. Women, Citizenship and Difference. London: Zed Books. Zolberg, Aristide, Astri Suhrke, and Sergio Aguayo. 1989. Escape from Violence. New York: Oxford University Press.

This page intentionally left blank

Index

Abiye Solomon, 150 Abyssinian fundamentalism, 144-68, 196, 239-42 Addisu Tolesa, 181 African National Congress (ANC), 219, 220 Afrocentrism, 217-22 Ainelem Tebeje, 217 Alemseghed Asghedom, 20 All-Amhara People's Organization (AAPO),53, 155 Amare Gobeze, 150 Ambaras, 27-31, 35, 36, 37, 44, 82, 107-9, 112-14, 116, 133, 145, 154-7, 167, 184, 185, 187, 198, 218 Anderson, Benedict, 26, 77 Ang-Lygate, Magdalene, 213 Anthias, Floya, 119 Appadurai, Arjun, 5 Asafajalata, 175, 187 Asfa Wossen (Amha Selassie), 160-1 Asrat Wolde Yesus, 53, 148 Ayasham Gelagay, 239 Badme, 232, 233, 235

Bakare-Yusuf, Bibi, 211 Baudrillard, Jean, 234-5 Belai Abbai, 241, 242 Belcher, Susan, 213 Belete Ketema, 237 Berhe Habte Giorgis, 165 Bichaka Fayissa, 186 Binford, Leigb, 23 Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA),201 Cesaire, Aimee, 15, 220 Chaltu Deressa, 185 charged strangeness, 5, 25, 64-9, 76, 88-97 Chomsky, Noam, 34 Clapham, Christopher, 22 Clifford, James, 4 Coalition of Ethiopian Democratic Forces (COEDF), 148 Dagmawi, 241 Daniel, E. Valentine, 80, 90, 97 Dawit Wolde-Giorgis, 164 DerartuTulu, 158

Index

258 Dereje Alemayehu, 154 Derg, 28, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 104, 106, 110, 114, 116, 143, 145, 148, 149, 150, 154, 162, 163, 198, 201, 221 diaspora, 5-8, 10, 13-15, 17, 19, 78, 79, 83, 88, 93, 94, 97, 104, 107, 118, 124-7, 132, 133, 134, 144, 156, 159, 170, 187, 196, 198, 202, 203, 223, 225, 228, 229, 241 double consciousness, 89, 90, 91, 94, 95 DuBois, W.E.B., 15 East Tim or, 201 Efrem Alemu, 154 Elias Kifle, 148 Eritrea: annexation by Ethiopia, 27; background to crisis, 47-52; beginning of nationalist struggle, 27, 48, 49; blamed for 1998 war, 22, 23, 24; diaspora support for nationalism, 78, 97-104; federation witb Ethiopia, 48, 164, 201, 237; Italian colonialism, 47; moral economy of diaspora 106-7; referendum on independence, 38, 96, 158, 106; repatriation after independence, 223-32; self-reliance, 110; social revolution, 122-3; views on identity, 51, 52, 86, 111; 'voluntary repatriation' of Ethiopians, 57; war (1998-2000), 232-42 Eritrean Jihad, 54, 102, 153 Eritrean Liberation Front, 48, 49, 54, 83, 97, 101, 103, 153, 228, 229, 230 Eritrean Liberation Front- National Council, 54 Eritrean Liberation Front- Popular Liberation Front, 54

Eritrean Liberation Front- Revolutionary Council, 54 Eritrean Liberation Front- United Organization, 54 Eritrean People's Liberation Front, 19, 22, 28, 49, 51-7, 83, 86, 92, 93-103, 106, 107, 110, 111, 114, 122, 123, 127, 129, 131, 134, 143, 147-9, 151-9, 164, 185, 209, 219, 220, 227-30, 232, 240 Eritrean Relief Association, 19, 193, 194, 195 Eritrean Relief Association in Canada, 23 Errnias Sahle-Selassie, 161 Ethiopia, antiquity of, 26, 27, 28; background to crisis, 26-55; deportation of Eritreans, 57, 233-4; ethnicity in, 29, 38-9; nationalism in, 27ff, 144-68 Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU), 36, 162, 166 Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, 28, 38, 42, 46, 53, 114, 143, 147, 148, 151, 152, 156, 157, 158, 163, 165, 166, 192, 235 Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP), 33, 36, 82, 162 Ethiopian Review, 147-68

Ethiopians for Democracy and Development, 166 ethnicity, 15, 16, 17, 184, 185, 197, 203, 208, 210 exile, 3-5, 7, 12, 13, 77, 78, 84, 89, 90, 94, 98, 109, 203, 224, 225, 227 Falashas, 75, 103 Fan on, Frantz, 15 gada, 86, 177, 181, 189

Index gender: analysis of refugees, 119-20, 123-4; and generation, 134-40; and space, 140-142; fissures in national identity, 81, 105-6, 118-42, 158, 189-92; ideologies in Horn of Africa, 120-1 Getachew Mekasha 159-61 Getinet Belay, 153 ghosts and shadows: and Abyssinian fundamentalism, 143-68; as basis of structure of feeling, 5; diaspora movements, 56-76; and gendered power relationships, 118-42; and ideas of'race,' 198-222; life in exile, memory, identity, 77-17; as neither objective nor subjective, 5, 24; and nation-state, 26-7; and Oromo nationalism, 169-98; and repatriation to Eritrea, 223-32; and resurgent nationalism, 232-42; as space for ordering categories, 5; and struggles for national identity, 26-55 Gilkes, Patrick, 21-2 Gilroy, Paul, 4 Girma Bekele, 152 globalization, 3, 10, 80, 81, 106 good immigrant model, 72, 206 Gordon, Avery, 5, 34 GoshuWolde, 148, 149, 164-6 Gould, Glenn, 21 GRACES analytical framework, 6, 18, 19, 20 Green, Linda, 23 Habte Giorgis Churnet, 168 Haile Selassie, 27, 28, 30, 32, 34, 56, 145, 146, 147, 160, 166, 217, 219, 220, 241-2 Hailu Mengesha, 152 Hailu Zegwe, 241

259 Hall, Stuart, 15 Hama Tuma, 32 Hamdesa Tuso, 173 Heiberg, Marianne, 174 Holcomb, Bonnie, 172 hybridity, 8, 9, 10, 47, 155, 221, 228 identity, 15-18, 28-30, 104-6, 112-14, 154, 156, 157, 159, 160, 169 Idrisjamal, 188 Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromia(IFLO), 42 Issayas Afeworki, 22, 51, 159, 164, 231, 233, 241 JimmaTufa, 173 Journal of Oromo Studies, 172

Keneally, Thomas, 21 Kessler, Peter, 238 Kifle Yitbarek, 155 Kuwee Kumsa, 197 Lacourse, Danielle, 201 language training/skills, 62, 67-9, 136, 137, 209-10 Levine, Donald, 22, 30, 79, 104, 172 long-distance nationalism, 77, 78, 79, 97, 101, 106, 164, 167, 169, 171, 198, 202, 203, 212 Malkki, Liisa, 9, 13, 143 Marcus, Harold, 172 martyrs, 174, 230, 231 MEDHIN, 148 MEISON (All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement), 33, 36, 82, 162 Mekonen Kassa, 157 Mekuria Bulcha, 181, 192

Index

260 Meles Zenawi, 28, 147, 159, 233, 234, 235, 239, 241 memory, 3, 81, 82, 83, 85-9, 102, 104 Menelik, 161, 162, 217, 218 Mengistu Haile Mariarn, 28, 38, 143, 145, 147, 148, 150, 163, 192 Mersha Yoseph, 148 Mesfin Araya, 167 Mesfin Woldemariam, 167 methodology, 19-24 mieda culture, 100, 106, 227 Mikael Wossen, 159 Million Ghebreyesus, 239 Mohammed Hassan, 185, 195 Mulumebet Emeru, 158 myth of return, 78, 84, 85, 107, 223, 224 mythico-histories, 143, 144, 220 myths, 12, 13, 84, 171 Namara Garbaba, 186 nationalism, 11, 12, 27ff, 31, 78, 80, 81, 105-6, 110, 185, 187, 189, 196, 197 National Union of Eritrean Women, 122, 123 Nordstrom, Carolyn, 91 objectivity, 21-4 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 236, 237 Oromia, 169 Oromo Abbo Liberation Front (OALF), 42 Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), 28, 42, 43, 52, 53,86, 114, 115, 158, 170, 171, 185-90, 193, 196 Oromo People's Democratic Organization (OPDO), 42, 43, 44, 183

Oromo Relief Association, 182, 193, 194, 195 Oromos, 29, 30, 31, 39-47, 109, 111-14, 147, 150, 151, 152, 155, 169-97, 200, 201, 222 Oromo Studies Association, 171-4, 181-9, 192, 197 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 81 Pankhurst, Richard, 172 Pateman, Roy, 164 Patry, Yvan, 201 Paulos Milkias, 149, 158 People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), 102, 123, 151, 157, 226, 227, 229 Peteet, Julie, 85-6 postcolonialism, 8, 9, 47, 112, 119 Powell, Robert Ingram, 147 Qaleb Negusse, 154 'race,' 18, 72, 184, 185, 187, 198-222, 218 racism, 105, 106, 225; class dimensions, 208; as common sense, 206ff, 208, 209; education, 205, 206; employment, 206, 209; housing, 203, 204; internal boundaries, 212ff; media images, 204, 21 Off; nationalism, 10; violence, 205, 207, 209 Rastafarians, 164, 217, 219, 220 Red Terror, 33, 34, 108 refugees, 3, 9, 109; age, 62, 63; arrival in Canada, 60; attachment to homeland, 85-8; communities, 63, 64; cultural and political identities,

Index 83-5; in Djibouti, 59; expectations, 70, 71; gender, 62; isolation, 73-6, 88; numbers in Horn of Africa, 56-8; obstacles to employment, 69; political divisions, 81-3; psychological disturbances, 88-9; reasons for flight, 56, 57, 63; selective pressure on admissions, 61, 62; in Somalia, 58, 59; in Sudan, 58 Relief and Rehabilitation Committee (Ethiopia), 194 Relief Society of Tigray, 193, 194, 195 Robinson, Peter, 234 'roots' and rediscovery, 105 Rushdie, Salman, 4 Sabboontuujiilchaa, 191 Said, Edward, 4 Samuel Ferenji, 150 Seada Mohammed 189-92 Senghor, Leopold, 15, 220 Sisai Ibssa, 172, 187 Sotal, 239 Spencer, John, 164, 166 stereotypes, 109-13, 115, 184, 207, 210-6 structures of feeling, 83ff, 106, 117, 196 Swedenburg, Ted, 23, 81, 86 Szuchewycz, Bohdan, 174 Takkele Taddese, 29, 155 tegadelti, 95, 96, 99, 100, 106, 122, 123, 227, 228, 230 Terfa Dibaba, 195 terror, 32, 34-5, 57, 91-5, 97 Tesfaye Dawit, 166 Teshale Tibebu, 154 Tewodros, 163

261 Tigrayan Alliance for National Democracy, 152 Tigrayan Liberation Front (TLF), 36 Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF), 28, 36, 37, 38, 42, 52, 53,

103, 143, 148, 149, 151, 152, 154, 185, 186, 220, 232, 238 Tigrayans, 35, 36, 37, 45, 112-16, 149, 151, 156, 157, 158, 167, 185, 193 Tilahun Gamta, 183 Tilahun Yilma, 148, 151, 152, 156 Tololyan, Kachig, 7 Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE), 52, 53, 167, 185, 192 transnationalism, 4-6, 77, 169, 203, 223 uncanny, 90, 91, 94 Union of Oromo in North America (UONA), 172, 176, 188, 196 United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), 61, 62, 226, 238 United Oromo People's Liberation Front (UOPLF), 42 Ward, Ronald, 186, 192-5 Wolf, Eric, 8 WorkuAberra, 149 Yohannes Tesfaldet, 240 Yonas Deressa, 166 Yuval-Davis, Nira, 8, 80, 105, 110, 119, 140, 191 Zara-Mariam Frezgi, 237 Zeray Deresjr, 221 ZeruKehisen, 241,242