Mereja Forum

[Mesob]

(Before the 1970s, life in lowland Muslim Eritrea was not different from the life of the poor tenants in southern Ethiopia or the black Muslims in Darfur and Nubia of Sudan, that is until the EPLF arrived and leveled the field)
This is forwarded message previously partially posted in Dehai:

The well written book review of The Deluge: A Personal View of the End of Empire in the Middle East, by Sir Kennedy Trevaskis, of Professor Asgede Hagos, reminded me of this subject.
There are many aspects in the Eritrean Muslim lowland history that are deliberately hidden under the carpet, whitewashed or misleadingly avoided, none other than the long history of serfdom and the racist caste system in the Eritrean lowland and the Sudanese eastern lands. This system was defended by "the existing religious institutions and authorities in the region, particularly the leadership within the dominant Khatmiyya Muslim Sufi order".
This serfdom and cast system which organized society for centuries in its social and economic order that borders between slavery and feudal system existed to some extent in limited parts of this region of Eritrea until around the early 1970s. Some of this landless and former serfs were able to receive for the first time a cultivable plots of land and the dignity that comes with it, after the EPLF arrived in the region.
Although a great deal of research had been done and documented on the issue serfdom and its generational caste system, by the Italians and later by the research department of the EPLF, very little had been published for the public in local languages. This puzzles me even more because in Ethiopia the feudal system of landlord-and-tenant relationship had been researched and published for decades in which the "meriet larashu" slogan of the Ethiopian student movement had been based.
More work needs to be done on the Eritrean side of the issue because this work opens some of the dark side of our love and hate relationship with our own languages, history and identity. Until a brave and un-enslaved mind writes about this subject and publishes it, we are forced to read what the Ferenji researchers dig about our own past and way of life, including the history slavery and Arab slavery in the region and its impact.
Here is Joseph Venosa on:-
“Serfs,” Civics, and Social Action: Islamic Identity and Grassroots Activism during Eritrea's Tigre Emancipation Movement, 1941–1946

Abstract
This article examines the growth of political activism within various Tigre-speaking communities across Eritrea during the early and mid-1940s. Using previously overlooked archival as well as oral sources, it explores how some tigre “serfs” became increasingly proactive in challenging their subordinate position against local landlords, even as communities experienced a haphazard transition from Italian to temporary British colonial rule. Refusing to comply with the traditional payment of customary dues and taxes to local landlords, disenfranchised tigre across Eritrea's Western Province pressed their claims for economic and even political independence. In the process, some tigre leaders also demonstrated the complex and often problematic nature of Islamic “identity” as the emancipation movement expanded. Activists' overall success also depended upon their ability to articulate a broad, Islamicinspired understanding of the need to rectify social and economic injustice, even though such actions challenged the existing religious institutions and authorities in the region, particularly the leadership within the dominant Khatmiyya Sufi order. Ultimately, the surge in antifeudal activism helped enrich the emerging public discourse across the colony, which fused ideas of political independence with the need to ensure the collective security of the region's various Muslim communities, including those residing beyond the country's Tigre-speaking areas. ...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/islamicafr ... fd43&seq=1

[Tog Wajale E.R.]

☆ Bissbiss Shettattam Gimmattamm Agga°mes ☆

[Mesob]

Here is Joseph Venosa on:
“Serfs,” Civics, and Social Action: Islamic Identity and Grassroots Activism during Eritrea's Tigre Emancipation Movement, 1941–1946

Abstract
This article examines the growth of political activism within various Tigre-speaking communities across Eritrea during the early and mid-1940s. Using previously overlooked archival as well as oral sources, it explores how some tigre “serfs” became increasingly proactive in challenging their subordinate position against local landlords, even as communities experienced a haphazard transition from Italian to temporary British colonial rule. Refusing to comply with the traditional payment of customary dues and taxes to local landlords, disenfranchised tigre across Eritrea's Western Province pressed their claims for economic and even political independence.
In the process, some tigre leaders also demonstrated the complex and often problematic nature of Islamic “identity” as the emancipation movement expanded. Activists' overall success also depended upon their ability to articulate a broad, Islamicinspired understanding of the need to rectify social and economic injustice, even though such actions challenged the existing religious institutions and authorities in the region, particularly the leadership within the dominant Khatmiyya Sufi order.
Ultimately, the surge in antifeudal activism helped enrich the emerging public discourse across the colony, which fused ideas of political independence with the need to ensure the collective security of the region's various Muslim communities, including those residing beyond the country's Tigre-speaking areas. ...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/islamicafr ... fd43&seq=1

[Mesob]

Social stratification of the Beni Amir
The Beni Amer people have a highly stratified social structure.[3][4] The ruling caste, that consider themselves to be true descendants of Amer or Nabtab, have controlled the economic and political decisions. They constitute less than 10% of their total population.[3][6][4] The others members of the Nabtab family belong to the Hedarab, Hadendowa, and Tigre.[3]
During the British occupation, author James C. Olson claimed the other descendants of the Nabtab line played a subservient role to the Beni Amir and were relegated to a serf caste.[3][4] Major subdivisions of Tigre, which at 35%, are the second largest group in Eritrea were occupationally isolated, such as the Almada and Asfada could produce and supply milk, but Hamasein, Abhasheila and Wilinnoho were not allowed to.[7] The Nabtabs also levied taxes and collected periodic tributes from his serfs.[7]

According to Paul, ever since Amer Kunu came to power, intermarriage between Nabtab and Tigre castes were forbidden and the caste distinctions were strictly enforced.[5] This was successfully accomplished by the small elite, states Paul, through the "force of arms".[9]

[Mesob]

For more on the history of the ruling class of Bet Asgede:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41716626

For more on the Beni Amir society of Eritrea and their history who has most moved out to Sudan is below:
https://www.sfdas.com/IMG/pdf/sudan_not ... _-1945.pdf

[Mesob]

Confronting the “Arab North”: Interpretations of Slavery and Religion in Southern Sudanese Separatist Resistance
Aleksi Ylönen

ABSTRACT
For centuries, the greater Horn of Africa has been exposed to actors and influences crossing the Red Sea and sailing the Indian Ocean. The extension of these forces has had a profound effect in shaping contemporary societies and states in the sub-region over time. Contemporary Sudan is a fascinating example on how the extension of Islam and the elites-led emphasis on Arab identity has resulted in a society embracing Arab and Muslim culture. These characteristics in the territories that became the heartland of the contemporary Sudanese state translated into the formation of a nationalist governing elite promoting a particular form of Arab culture and interpretation of Islam as the main pillars of national identity for Sudan as a whole. However, the vast territories of contemporary Sudan are culturally highly heterogeneous. This contrasts starkly with the northern political elite’s nation- and state-building project since decolonization, seeking to [deleted] society through forced cultural assimilation. Since Sudan’s independence, the state elite imposing Arab culture and Islam has led to varying degrees of direct confrontation with groups that oppose such forced cultural and religious transformation. This chapter reflects on the role of interpretations of slavery and religion in armed opposition and its aftermath in Southern Sudan. It points to the use of particular views of slavery and religion in the two main insurgencies in 1955-1972 and 1983-2005, and reflects on their representations in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2005). The chapter argues that these interpretations are related to the Orientalist image of Sudan that connects with the aspirations of southern Sudan’s self-determination, independence, and drift towards East African socio-cultural and Indian Ocean economic space.

https://books.openedition.org/cei/457?lang=en

[Mesob]

Here are the historical upper caste or class in Massawa and its environs of Eritrea (currently, the North Red Sea region), since the invasion of Abyssinia or Ethiopia by Ahmad Gragn. This is mainly since the occupation of the Ottoman Turks on the coastal area of the Red Sea. These traditional upper caste class were religious teachers, sailors, middle men, emissaries, slave traders; merchants of salt, garments, fire arms dealers, slaves, incense, coffee ...
While doing business, they also helped to spread Islamic religious teachings, and they produced and begat thousands of children in northern Ethiopia in Tigray, Wello, Gonder and Shewa from local women, predominantly in Wello.
Below are the list of the main traditional tribal lineages of Massawa and its environs. Anyone who did not belong to these tribal groups was considered or classified as a low caste, since the days of the Ottoman empire occupation of the region. Some of these were upper caste members until Haile Selassie was deposed from power in 1974.
Under Shaebia, most of the upper caste members from the coastal region were relegated and kicked out; replaced by the lower caste or the enslaved class, such as Romodan Mohammed Nur, Alamin Mohamed Seid, Ali Seid Abdela, Immaro ... People such as Abdel Qadir Kebire was originally an Amhara Jeberti of Wello or a Yeju Oromo from Wello.


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