Postcard from Eritrea

EI first came to Eritrea some thirty years ago, in 1972, when the old Imperial Ethiopia was still flourishing and the concept of an independent country was still a grumbling in the coffee-bars rather than the fire in the brushwood it soon became. Asmara in those days was still a very Italian town. Espresso machines gleamed behind even the smallest backstreet bar and the many cinemas showed the type of B-movies (Hercules against the Furies) beloved of film-buffs and mocked by everyone else. The few backpackers in town all seemed to end up at the flat of the Peace Corps, a fine liberal establishment where the dope flowed freely and American forces radio was a permanent backdrop to our lives. After the flurry of the Sudan, dust and gritty winds, the cool dry climate was a relief. I wandered the streets for days, before heading south into the empire.

I was back in Asmara in the middle of 2002 and now I find it incredible I managed to notice so little. Asmara is rich in architecture, especially in churches, built mostly by the Italians nearly a century ago. The clean air has meant they are free of the grime and acid-pitting characteristic of the outer world. Having no restraints, the Italians put St. Francis on roundabouts and set up schools and hospitals in a style that would have run into serious opposition at home. The public buildings, such as the cinemas or the theatre, are in an Art Deco style, all rounded edges and serious brown panelling. The churches seem to draw more on an older style, multi-coloured brickwork and high campaniles with sonorous bells. Thickset palm trees line the main avenues, like a version of California’s great avenues miraculously lined with taste.

In the intervening years, Eritrea has been through two decades of a liberation struggle against the Ethiopian Derg and then a pointless war against Ethiopia in 1999. As a result, it remains a high militarised society; soldiers still lounge around in the bars and the checkpoints on the road are many. Businesses still lack many of their key people who are away at ‘the front’. The Eritrean Liberation Front had a quasi-Marxist ideology and its traces remain. Eritrean Women and Youth Organisations persist and a ‘mobilisation of the people’ rhetoric lives on. The background images behind the national anthem that closes television transmission at night give a flavour of the fantasy life of the ruling classes. Strong young men drive giant tractors around fields of flourishing wheat and phalanxes of both sexes engage in cultural dancing.

Eritrea and Ethiopia are of course one society; the same ancient Christian culture of the highlands, the same dry coastal plains ranged by the camels of the Afar and Beja nomads. But to hear Eritreans speaking, the differences are immense, the Ethiopians a people as obscure and distant as the Cimmerians. Although many peoples are cut through by the newly–established border, Ethiopians have become an alien undifferentiated mass, their customs worse than eating dogs.

The Italians embedded themselves like no other colonial nation. Despite the atrocities of Mussolini’s war, Italian style remains strong in Asmara. Pasticerrias and pasta restaurants adorn every sidestreet. The cake shops have revolving glass cakestands reminiscent of pre-war British tea-shops. Crumbly old Italian ladies seem to have survived all the ebb and flow live in high-walled villas with their aging maids. Some have for long spoken mainly Tigrinya. Even the system of restaurants is largely Italian. The best places to eat are hardly marked from the street; go inside and there is a vast dining room with all the mosaic of Asmara society, acting their part in some imaginary Fellini film. Ancient, burnt Italian men chomp roasted fish brought up from the Red Sea and finish with a heart-destroying tiramisu. Indeed one restaurant I visited lured its customers with a ‘Suggestive Menu’.

Asmara is also tidy; this may not seem much, but after the chaos of so many African capitals it is a pleasant relief. The omnipresent traders are absent and only shoe-shine stands are allowed to block the pavements, which probably says something about Eritrean priorities. Not that blocking the streets is a problem; it is quite common to turn a corner and find the road closed off by an enormous marquee; the sign of a wedding in progress. Eritreans are highly sociable, indeed they seem to spend most of the day in the coffee-shops moving on smoothly to the bars by night, which stay open till past midnight.

It was in Asmara I was pleased to learn the distinction between urban cows and their country cousins. The urban cow, born and bred in the town to supply milk and eventually trundle to the slaughterhouse, moves freely in and out of the traffic like a roller-blader, sniffing equally at the designer 4-wheel drives of the UN and the few battered cinquecentos that still pollute the clear air. The country cow, brought in from the rocky highlands, won’t tolerate the metal wildlife and runs wild, ramming it. So it suffers the indignity of being strapped upside down on a flat cart with its recalcitrant sisters, while the urban cows trot smugly by.

One of the other Italian contributions was the railway, trickling down the eight thousand foot escarpment from Asmara to the coast. Built in 1910, some of the old station buildings still stand and yellowing posters show the clanking rolling stock. Should there still be railway enthusiasts out there ready to travel to Africa, in a year or two there’ll be a miraculous journey to undertake. The railway snakes in and out of tunnels, winding up through the rocks like a child’s scribble. It has been bombed may times and is still being repaired yet again, but the railway is very much a matter of national pride. Giant Russian lorries, a gift of Marxism, have been converted to run on the rails, and follow the teams as the climb slowly up the broken rocks.

Eritrea is also one of the few to take a refreshingly sceptical attitude to NGOs; indeed they have thrown out the majority and the few that remain are there on sufferance. Sitting in front of a television, assaulted by images of suffering, it is hard not to imagine they are on the right side, standing up against the arms dealers and the grey suits of the international agencies. But from being a small-scale worthwhile enterprise, NGOs have become a sort of human plague on the developing world, rushing around with earnest expressions and repeating the mistakes of the big agencies with the added righteousness of the moral high ground. A consequence of the recent war with Ethiopia is the large encampment of the UN. Phalanxes of white vehicles are parked next to the Inter-Continental hotel, convenient for the pool and the night-club afterwards. Young men who look like they were refused entry to the Foreign Legion exercise their skills in keeping the peace.

Eritrea is geographically a strange composite; the tip of the Ethiopian highlands, a frustum cut off like an exercise in geometry combined with a thin strand of coast, stretching down to Djibouti and effectively cutting off the Ethiopians from the Red sea. This long strip of sand scrub is inhabited only by Afar nomads and a few fishermen and if it were not for trade, it is unlikely that the two populations would have much to do with each other. But the Romans came, and created a port at Adulis, to extract gold and ivory and the port at Massawa is now the main outlet for trade ships. The Red Sea here is full of small islands and coral reefs and two islands have been joined to the mainland by causeways to make Massawa. The town itself must once have been similar to stone town in Zanzibar; narrow streets, tall buildings with courtyards, intricately carved wooden balconies, and studded wooden doors. But neglect and most recently the war against Ethiopia have created a sad image; the Ethiopians bombed many of the finest buildings in an act of unacknowledged cultural vandalism and the others are gradually sinking, those ornate balconies twisted into exotic shapes.