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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Challenge of the Past: The Quest for Historical Legitimacy in Independent Eritrea
Author:Reid, RichardISNI
Year:2001
Periodical:History in Africa
Volume:28
Pages:239-272
Language:English
Geographic term:Eritrea
Subjects:decolonization
State recognition
History and Exploration
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
nationalism
international relations
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3172217
Abstract:Eritrea not only had to wait longer for its independence than the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, it also experienced a more complex process of decolonization. Eritrea's de facto liberation was achieved in 1991, followed by a UN-observed referendum in 1993 which confirmed the nation's sovereignty. The most complicating feature about Eritrea's decolonization was the fact that the colonial power was not European but African; the latter was, moreover, Africa's only supposedly independent State throughout the colonial era. Ethiopia had long held a special place in the West's heart. In part this was connected to the geopolitics of the Horn of Africa in the context of the Cold War, but Eritrea's struggle for legitimacy has been all the more difficult in the face of both the intellectual and the emotional support which 'motherland' Ethiopia, or various perceived versions of that entity, has enjoyed in the West since the Middle Ages. The present article reviews the literature in which the thesis of a centralizing, unified Ethiopian State is articulated in order to show the scale of the task involved in Eritrea's quest for intellectual legitimacy. It argues that, after the physical struggle, Eritrea now faces an intellectual one which may be just as difficult. Notes, ref.
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