Tag: historical memory

  • When Liberation Becomes a Cage: Eritrea’s Unlearned Lessons

    When Liberation Becomes a Cage: Eritrea’s Unlearned Lessons

    Eritrea’s tragic trajectory—after one of the most heroic and costly struggles for independence in modern African history—remains one of the continent’s most heartbreaking stories. By 1991, when Eritrea finally achieved freedom, the lessons of post‑colonial governance were no longer abstract. They had unfolded across Africa and the Global South in full view. Yet, despite these

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  • Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival (7)

    Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival (7)

    Giants and Lilliputians of the HOA: Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival Part Seven Introduction The central argument of this essay is simple: the Horn of Africa’s instability has never been caused by its diversity, but by leaders who repeatedly manipulate that diversity for political survival. Across Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and Djibouti, rulers have taken

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  • Emperor Haile Selassie and President Isaias Afwerki – Part Six

    Emperor Haile Selassie and President Isaias Afwerki – Part Six

    Giants and Lilliputians: Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival Emperor Haile Selassie and President Isaias Afwerki – Part Six 1 —  Introduction The Two Propaganda Campaigns The Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) became the target of a sustained campaign of political defamation—first from Emperor Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia, and later, far more powerfully, from the Isaias-led People’s Liberation

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  • Beneath the Rooftop Howl: A Response to Tekeste Negash’s Historiography Shackled by Irredentism

    Beneath the Rooftop Howl: A Response to Tekeste Negash’s Historiography Shackled by Irredentism

    “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked, dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix…” Allen Ginsberg, Howl, 1956 Disclaimer: This is not a portrait of a man, but of a method. Tekeste Negash’s body may remain in Uppsala, but his arguments walk

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