ANB-BIA SUPPLEMENT

ISSUE/EDITION Nr 389 - 1/05/2000

CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS

Eritrea - A peaceful country at war

CHURCH-STATE

The Catholic Church in Eritrea examines how to respond
to the profound changes in present-day society

Waking up in the early morning in Asmara, one has a strange sensation. The light shining through the window seems purer and brighter than anywhere else. Is it the altitude of 2,200 metres or the absence of pollution? Not only the brilliance of the sun is unusual. There is an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity about the town. Traffic moves at a slow pace and people feel so secure that they hardly lock their cars or houses. Compared with the violence of most African cities, Eritrea looks like a lost paradise.

But appearances are deceptive. The country is once again in a war situation. If you see only elderly people and schoolchildren in town, it is because everybody else has been recruited into the military and is waiting on the frontline for the third round of fighting in a war, that is hard to understand.

Ten years earlier the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), in spite of ideological differences, joined together to overthrow the communist regime of Menghistu. After a referendum, Eritrea gained independence, and both countries cooperated in a remarkable effort to rebuild their economies after thirty years of civil war. The people of Tigrai and Eritrea share the same language and culture. The presidents of both countries are related through family ties.

So, why fight? Officially, it is a border dispute. Eritrea considers the old Italian colonial borders as binding. But much of the disputed areas were always administered by Ethiopia and the local population consider themselves as Ethiopians. Both countries accuse each other to have started the conflict. Eritrea started large scale military action, but accuses Ethiopia to have provoked the conflict. In June last year, the Ethiopian army regained some territory but at a staggering cost of human life.

Could international arbitration not settle a border dispute?

Eritrea claims that more is at stake than borders. They believe the people of Tigrai who presently control power in Addis Ababa, want to create a «Greater Tigrai», incorporate parts of Eritrea and gain access to the port of Assab. And so a border conflict has escalated in a prolonged trench war.

Eritrea cannot afford to keep its whole workforce on the frontline for ever. But should the fighting resume, a whole generation of young people may never return home.

A remarkable recovery

The war is all the more tragic, as both countries had engaged in an impressive development programme. Contrary to most African countries, Eritrea had heavy invested into improving its infrastructure. Roads have no potholes, telephones actually work and the barren hills are being systematically reforested. There have been great investment in agriculture to improve food sufficiency.

Massawa, the picturesque Red Sea port is being rebuilt. All gives the impression of a government that is trying to develop their people rather than filling their pockets. Most remarkable, Eritreans want to do it by themselves and have refused to submit to IMF and World Bank conditionalities, which have wrought so much havoc elsewhere.

The downside

But all is not glitter and glory. One cannot help feeling that the EPLF has not quite shaken off its socialist past. As in guerilla movements the world over, Marxism-Leninism provided the ideology and the strategies during the successful liberation struggle. The communist rhetoric is gone, but totalitarian attitudes persist, visible in an excessive desire to control everything, including people’s minds. There is only one government TV and Radio, and editors of private papers have to be careful what they write.

Ominous was a government request that the Catholic Church hand over its 25 schools and 35 dispensaries, which was not carried out as war broke out. Equally disturbing is a surprise announcement, never put into writing, to stop all religious teaching in schools, although an ecumenical syllabus had been agreed upon earlier.

One explanation why the government wants to keep religion on a short leash, is the fear of Islamic fundamentalism. After independence, Eritrea was infiltrated by Sudanese and Iranian fundamentalists of the violent breed. The government reacted swiftly and decisively, arrested them and cut diplomatic ties with Khartoum. Although diplomatic relations have been restored recently, fear remains that religious radicalism could undermine the efforts of nation-building in a country that is half christian and half Muslim.

But some measures to keep religion out of public life clearly infringe on fundamental human rights, like preventing soldiers to have access to religious services or refusing fallen freedom fighters to be buried according to their religious faith.

Invasion of the global culture

More challenging than any political, nationalistic indoctrination of the youth, is the growing influence of the media culture. Videos of all sorts are available everywhere and Eritrea will be connected to the internet this year. Some service providers explicitly target the youth, which will be flooded with the best and the worst of Western media culture. It already shows strongly in their way of dressing and their choice of music. It also reflects on their religious practise. While most remain rooted in their faith, the younger generation find the traditional Gheéz rite liturgies too long and ask for Masses in Tigrinya when they can sing new songs to the accompaniment of a keyboard.

Many are also strongly attracted to charismatic forms of prayer and influenced by the very active pentecostal Churches. All these changes call for an open discussion to look for appropriate pastoral solutions.

A Synod held under threat of war

It was a courageous decision by the Eparch of Asmara, Abune Zacharia, to hold the first Synod ever in the history of the Eparchy at a time when the menace of renewed fighting seems imminent. After two years of preparation with questionnaires and «mini-synods» in the parishes, some 85 delegates, a third of them lay people, met for six days to discuss how the Church could respond to these profound changes in society. Liturgical change was one of the thorny questions.

In a spirit of ecumenism, the tiny Catholic Church does not want to move too far away from the Orthodox Church. Yet if the Church does not want to lose the youth, it has to give room to new liturgical expressions and adapt some rites to modern urban conditions of life. Traditionally, the young were initiated to the faith through the liturgy.

How to transmit a more personally reflected biblical faith in a new secularised setting, is one of the great challenges to the Church. A catechetical centre and other diocesan structures will be set up to study different pastoral challenges. As is the case in most Churches in Africa, the Eparchy is still heavily dependent on outside funding, a heritage of the missionary past. Financial self-reliance is as urgent as it is difficult, but not impossible. The Orthodox Church, is able to run her own structures, and builds beautiful new churches with local contributions, even if it takes 30 years to realise.

How to evangelise with courage and creativity a new secular culture without loosing the depth of faith and the riches of tradition, is a challenge, not only for Eritrea, but for the whole Church at the start of this third millennium.