In the Horn of Africa, along the coast of the Red Sea, lies the troubled and turbulent country of Eritrea. Although still unfamiliar in many circles and increasingly controversial in others, Eritrea is perhaps best known for waging a three-decade liberation war against Ethiopia (1961–1991) that culminated in its independence in 1993. More recently, the country has appeared on the world stage due to both an intractable border conflict with Ethiopia and its deteriorating relations with the United States and other Western powers. Far from a terra incognita, Eritrea’s legacy of armed conflict, its intensive nation-building efforts, and the...

Every year on 24 May, Eritreans celebrate Independence Day with great fanfare and revelry.¹ This is a celebration of the day the nation became a reality, after thirty years of armed conflict with Ethiopia (1961–1991). On that day a nationalist guerrilla movement, the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF), took power, making Eritrea an independent country from Ethiopia. In 1994, EPLF’s third congress was conducted in the town of Naqfa, wherein the guerrilla movement transformed itself into the only party in the country, renamed itself the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), and assumed absolute control of the state....

Commentators have often remarked upon the impressive support the Eritrean liberation movements received from the rural populations in the areas they operated during the liberation war (1961–1991). There is no doubt that this support was vital for the movements’ eventually successful struggle. Many also see a direct link between this support and the overwhelming vote in favor of independence in May 1993, assuming that support for the liberation movements also meant support for the cause they were fighting for. The former Eritrean Peoples’ Liberation Front, now in government, has done much to strengthen the idea that the independence struggle represented...

In October 2006, the UN cited Eritrea for breaking the ceasefire accords with Ethiopia and moving armed troops and tanks into the temporary security zone—a tense strip of land that has divided the two countries since the end of open conflict in 2000.¹ The Eritrean Information Minister provided the rejoinder that the military was there “to pick crops.” “If the harvest is not taken,” he claimed, “it will be lost with severe consequences for our food security”(BBC News 2006).Whatever other motivations it may be masking in the convoluted politics sustaining the border dispute, this claim is consistent...

Education policy commonly has objectives beyond the area of education, comprising a combination of political, social, economic, and pedagogic concerns (Psacharopoulos 1993; Green 1997). Within revolutionary societies such as Eritrea, education is regarded as an important instrument to promote social change. The rationale behind education as a tool for societal transformation is twofold: the formation of conscious citizens motivated by collective goals, coupled with the transmission of skills necessary to overcome underdevelopment and achieve self-sustaining growth (Arnove 1994; Müller 2004; Pham Minh Hac 1998).

One focus of formal education systems in revolutionary settings thus centers on creating a more just...

One morning in late October 2003, I sat outside the staff room at the Senior Secondary School in Assab with Teacher Samson, one of the school’s senior teachers. As we talked, we watched several students flitting in and out of their classroom, and several leaning through the open windows and heckling the students and teacher inside. Teachers such as Samson were constantly complaining that students were chronically late and truant, that their behavior was increasingly difficult to manage, that they were not studying, and that there was a severe crisis of motivation among the students.

In the fall of 2003...

Mesfin, a young man in his late twenties, could usually be found sitting in the back room of Bar Hilton, a small local bar outside the Asmara city center. It was as dirty as it was comfortable, its name an ironic duplicate of a well-known and luxurious hotel company. During 2002 and 2003, when Bar Hilton was an ill-reputed but well-frequented bar, Mesfin could be found there from the early afternoon on, emptying a bottle of local gin, when he could pay for it, or when he had been invited to share a drink in the company of friends. Mesfin...

Contemporary Eritrea is comprised not only of the diverse populations living within the territory of the nation-state but also a diasporic citizenry that makes up an estimated one-quarter to one-third of the total population of the country. While census data has not been recorded for independent Eritrea, and while no reliable figures indicating the actual size or regional breakdown of Eritrean populations worldwide are yet available, an estimated one million people settled outside of Eritrea permanently during the struggle for independence (see Hepner and Conrad 2005). Despite efforts to repatriate several hundred thousand refugees in Sudan back to their home...

When the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Army (EPLA) marched down Asmara’s Godena Harnet (Liberation Avenue) and into history in 1991, this consummation of their struggle could rightly be seen as confirming the Eritrean revolution’s reputation as one of the twentieth century’s most successful national liberation movements. Yet postwar governance of the revolutionary state would prove to be far more complex a challenge than militarily removing the USSR-supported Ethiopian Derg (Provisional Military Advisory Committee) regime from Eritrean soil. The liberation “moment,” (now undoubtedly remembered by many Eritreans as a kind of golden age, as in similar countries in Africa), was one in...

The optimism with which independent Eritrea was once viewed both inside and outside the country all but disappeared at the turn of the twenty-first century. Certainly, a few traces still linger among trenchant supporters, propped up by the images and ideologies disseminated by the government via carefully orchestrated events and news media. But the ethnographic analysis of everyday Eritrean life, coupled with broader critical perspectives that mitigate against nationalist myths of exceptionalism, indicate otherwise.

Disappointing though they may be, Eritrea’s lessons provide striking insights into the contemporary dilemmas of African (and other) societies in the contemporary era. In particular, they...