The Other Side of Eritrea

This episode of the Eritrawi Podcast explores the profound socioeconomic transformation of Eritrea during and after the First World War between 1914 and 1922. Although far from the European frontlines, Eritrea was deeply affected by the war as Italy extracted livestock, labor, and resources for its colonial campaigns in Libya. The episode examines the devastating impact of wartime requisitions, inflation, food shortages, disrupted trade routes caused by the British naval blockade, and the collapse of local agriculture during years of drought and locust invasions.It also explores how certain wartime industries such as hides, salt, and potassium generated immense profits for a small group of merchants while much of the population endured severe hardship. As the postwar recession of 1920–1921 struck Eritrea, bankruptcies, unemployment, and social frustration intensified among Italian settlers. The episode traces how these crises contributed to the rapid rise of fascism in Eritrea and the formation of the Fascio d’Eritrea in 1922.Drawing from historical research and archival material, this episode examines how war, economic collapse, colonial extraction, and political radicalization reshaped Eritrean society during one of the most turbulent periods of the colonial era.#Eritrea #WW1 #WorldWar1 #ItalianColonialism #Asmara #Massawa #EritrawiPodcast #AfricanHistory #ColonialHistory #Fascism #HornOfAfrica #RedSeaHistory #ItalianEritrea #HistoryPodcast #EastAfrica #Colonialism #EritreanHistory #HistoricalResearch #AfricaHistory #LibyaCampaign

Hade Zanta – The Conscript Rewriting the Foundations of African Literature Episode 3This episode of the Eritrawi Podcast In this final episode of Hade Zanta – The Conscript, the story follows Tuquabo as he returns home after surviving the brutality of colonial war.But return does not mean restoration.The village he longed for is no longer the one he left. His mother is gone. The rhythms of daily life continue, but he cannot re-enter them as he once did. The war does not end at the battlefield—it persists in the body, in memory, and in the subtle fractures between people.This episode explores the quiet aftermath of conflict: the invisible distance between survivor and community, the failure of reintegration, and the way trauma embeds itself into ordinary life. What appears as normality is, in fact, a system quietly altered.Through Tuquabo’s experience, the narrative expands the definition of loss. The true casualties of colonialism are not only counted in deaths, but in disrupted families, altered identities, and the generational transmission of psychological fracture.This is not a story of return.This is a story of what remains.#Eritrea #HadeZanta #TheConscript #AfricanHistory #Colonialism #PostColonial #EritreanHistory #HistoricalNarratives #DecolonizeHistory #Podcast #Storytelling

This episode of the Eritrawi Podcast begins a three part series on one of the earliest and most overlooked works of African literature, Hade Zanta The Conscript, written in 1927 by Ghebreyesus Hailu in Tigrinya and later translated into English.Predating and challenging the commonly accepted timeline of African literature, this novel was long overlooked by Western academia. It follows an Eritrean ascari forced to fight for the Italian colonial army in Libya, not just as a victim of empire, but as someone made to function within it.This episode examines how Hailu exposes the deeper logic of colonialism, a system that does not only dominate from the outside, but reshapes the inner world of the oppressed, turning survival into complicity.Blending modernist prose with traditional oral poetry, The Conscript breaks away from linear Western storytelling, creating a recursive, layered narrative rooted in African verbal traditions. The result is not just a story, but a structural critique, a novel that rewires the form itself to reveal the mechanics of power.This is not simply forgotten literature.This is early African intellectual resistance.#Eritrea #AfricanLiterature #TheConscript #HadeZanta #DecolonizeKnowledge #History #Podcast #EritrawiPodcast #Colonialism #AfricanHistory

This episode on Eritrawi Podcast explores the evolution of literacy and print culture in Eritrea through the lens of early printed materials, private letters, and recent preservation efforts.Drawing on the work of historian Dr. Massimo Zaccaria and the Research and Documentation Center in Asmara, we examine a major digitization project that documented over 750 local titles printed between 1867 and 1941. Using a self-reliant, low-tech approach, this initiative demonstrates how cultural heritage can be preserved without dependence on external funding.The episode also traces a critical shift in written culture during the early 20th century. Military service in Libya exposed Eritrean askaris to new forms of communication, accelerating the use of private letters and photography. For the first time, individuals from subordinate social groups began documenting personal experiences in their own voices.These letters and printed materials mark a transition away from purely religious and administrative texts toward a more personal, lived archive one that allows us to reconstruct everyday life, emotion, and social dynamics in colonial Eritrea.Together, these sources reveal how fragile documents, often produced on cheap materials and nearly lost to time, have become essential tools for understanding the social and cultural history of Eritrea

This episode on Eritrawi PodcastIn the early 20th century, automobiles arrived in Eritrea as foreign machines, designed in Europe and built for completely different roads and conditions.But in Eritrea, something remarkable happened.Eritrean mechanics did not simply repair these vehicles.They reinvented them.Inside small garages in Asmara and across the country, Eritrean mechanics learned to:• Retune complex diesel injection pumps without factory specifications• Rebuild shock absorbers by heat-treating fatigued springs• Fabricate custom steel adapter plates by hand• Reroute cooling systems and redesign engine layouts• Install completely different engines into foreign vehiclesA DAF bus might run on a Fiat 619 engine.A broken truck might leave the garage stronger than when it arrived.Without spare parts, manuals, or formal engineering training, Eritrean mechanics transformed imported machines into hybrid creations of local ingenuity.By the 1950s and 1960s, Eritrean mechanics became the most respected transport engineers in the Horn of Africa.Trucks from Sudan and across the region were routinely brought to Eritrea for repair.The automobile in Eritrea ceased to be a European machine.It became something new.A living composite of Eritrean ingenuity.#Eritrea#AfricanHistory#MechanicalEngineering#Asmara#HornOfAfrica#AutomotiveHistory#EngineeringGenius#HistoryDocumentary#Innovation#IndustrialHistory

This episode of Eritrawi Podcast uncovers the extraordinary and nearly forgotten story of Fessehatsion Beyene, an Eritrean pilot whose life collided with Fascist Italy, colonial Somalia, and the racial laws of the 1930s.Through archival records, military files, and official decrees, we trace his journey from decorated colonial soldier to political liability and the legal battle over his son, Claudio Ricucci.At the center of this story is a brutal paradox: a Black officer who served the regime, yet was denied paternal authority over his own child because of race. The very documents meant to suppress his rights are the only reason we know his name today.This is a story about empire, identity, loyalty, exile and the human cost of racial hierarchy.History tried to file him away. The archive refused.

Before oil. Before global tech supply chains. There was pearls — a commodity that shaped empires, trade networks, and individual destinies.In this episode, we uncover the story of Al Nahari, an Eritrean pearl merchant from Massawa who wasn’t just successful, he was a global strategist long before “globalization” had a name. Traveling to Paris in 1924, investing in early aviation like Air Orient (a precursor to Air France), navigating colonial taxation, and moving capital through Aden to evade predatory levies, Al Nahari operated with agency and vision.But his success collided with world events: the Great Depression crushed luxury markets, the advent of cultured pearls from Japan obliterated natural pearl prices (from £2,000,000 to £62,000), and WWII forced European governments to seize and absorb private assets. As if that weren’t enough, later colonial-era fiction recast him as a stereotype in Secrets of the Red Sea, erasing his brilliance from the narrative.This episode is about globalization from below, how local actors shaped global markets, and why Eritreans must tell their own stories as history continues to be told by others.Eritrean history, Red Sea, pearl trade, Al Nahari, colonial history, globalization, pearl economy, Air Orient, Air France precursor, cultured pearls, Great Depression, UAE pearling industry, narrative reclamation, hidden history, African global actorsSources & Further ReadingThe Pearl of the Red Sea — Red Sea Beaconhttps://redseabeacon.com/the-pearl-of-the-red-sea/Aqil K., Pearl Industry in the UAE Region (1869–1938): Its Construction, Reproduction and Decline — Academia.eduhttps://www.academia.edu/37377642/Aqil_K_2018_PEARL_INDUSTRY_IN_THE_UAE_REGION_IN_1869_1938_ITS_CONSTRUCTION_REPRODUCTION_AND_DECLINESecrets of the Red Sea — Archive.org (fictionalized portrayal)https://archive.org/details/secretsofredsea0000henr/page/4/mode/2up

For decades, the civilization of the Northern Horn of Africa has been explained through an external lens, attributed to South Arabian immigrants rather than to indigenous African societies. This interpretation did not emerge from evidence alone, but from long-standing Euro-centric assumptions that struggled to recognize African authorship and innovation.This episode challenges that narrative using linguistic and epigraphic evidence. Ancient inscriptions from the Northern Horn show clear, independent developments, such as vocalization systems, structural grammatical changes, and long-form administrative and legal writing that are absent in South Arabian counterparts. These features point to local innovation rather than cultural borrowing.The episode also revisits the Queen of Sheba tradition, questioning why her kingdom is reflexively placed in Arabia when African geography, archaeology, and material culture fit the evidence equally, if not more convincingly. Rather than a one-way story of diffusion, the Red Sea emerges as a shared cultural space in which influence may have flowed eastward from Africa to Arabia.By foregrounding material evidence over inherited assumptions, this episode reclaims the indigenous roots of Northern Horn of Africa history and restores creative ownership to the people who built its civilizations.References to some work belowREFLECTIONS ON THE ORIGINS OF THE ETHIOPIAN CIVILIZATION by Ephraim Isaac

Adulis, Conclusion, Chapter 7.The political economy of the ancient port city of Adulis in the Northern Horn of Africa during the Classical Age (1000 BCE–700 CE). The author argues against the prevailing Aksumite model, which asserts that Aksum dominated the regional world economy, instead proposing the Adulis model, which positions Adulis as an autonomous center within a network of power dynamics. The research supports this new model by analyzing extensive material data, including the hierarchical built forms at Adulis, the concentration of ancient coins suggesting Adulis was a tribute collector, and its strategic role in war elephant production and the aromatics trade. Furthermore, the work aligns with Du Bois’s observations, seeking to correct colonial distortions in scholarship and introduce new methodologies, such as integrating GIS, 3D modeling, and oral traditions to reinterpret the region's history. The dissertation ultimately provides significant new data and theoretical contributions toward understanding this critical region.Referenceshttps://www.adulites.com/https://scholarworks.umass.edu/entities/publication/6c43531e-c4e4-49d3-9a9b-ed7063f13765#ForYou #Ad #Eritrea #AfricanHistory #AncientAfrica #EsatAfrica #hornofafrica

Production Of War Elephants at Adulis Chapter 5: Adulis was the primary center for the production of African war elephants (Laxodonata cyclotis) used by major polities during the classical era. The analysis first details how these highly intelligent, non-domesticated animals required a resource-intensive, cooperative process involving specialized mahouts, making capture and training more practical than breeding. Supporting this central assertion, the text examines newly developed taxonomic analysis identifying the specific forest elephant species utilized in combat, which was once abundant in the Adulis region. Further archaeological and material evidence—including ivory artifacts, elephant-skin-wrapped mummies, and protective graduated masonry architecture—is presented to confirm the physical presence and extensive use of these animals at the site. This perspective is reinforced by textual sources, such as the Monumentum Adulitanum, which document the Ptolemies’ reliance on Adulis for their military elephant supply and logistics. Finally, the source places this production within the broader context of the regional political economy, exploring the elephant’s heroic symbolic importance in local origin myths and its strategic role in historical battles like Raphia.Referenceshttps://www.adulites.com/https://scholarworks.umass.edu/entities/publication/6c43531e-c4e4-49d3-9a9b-ed7063f13765#ForYou #Ad #Eritrea #AfricanHistory #AncientAfrica #EsatAfrica #hornofafrica

Energetics Study At Adulis Chapter 3:A study aimed at determining whether the ancient city of Adulis functioned as an independent economic center or merely a periphery of the Aksumite world. The methodology relies heavily on energetics studies, which quantify the labor time (Person-Days) invested in construction to deduce household wealth and social stratification. Researchers utilized advanced Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software to calculate the complex volumetric data of thirty-nine structures built using the site’s unique Graduated Masonry technique, which employed three distinct wall grades (A, B, and C) to communicate status. The analysis confirms a sharp difference in effort between large public structures (temples and the Court House) and private residences, reflecting mandatory community labor obligations. Ultimately, the data demonstrates a continuous, multi-tiered hierarchy of wealth spanning elite, middle, and lower classes, leading to the conclusion that Adulis was a significant center rather than a mere outpost.Referenceshttps://www.adulites.com/https://scholarworks.umass.edu/entities/publication/6c43531e-c4e4-49d3-9a9b-ed7063f13765#ForYou #Ad #Eritrea #AfricanHistory #AncientAfrica #EsatAfrica #hornofafrica

Adulis: Modeling a Classical African Political Economy Chapter 1 Adulis: Modeling a Classical African Political Economy is from a 2019 doctoral dissertation by Daniel T. Habtemichael focused on modeling the local political economy of the ancient port city of Adulis in the Northern Horn of Africa between 1000 BCE and 700 ACE. The core research objective is to challenge the traditional view that Adulis was merely a periphery of the Aksumite world by proposing and testing an alternative hypothesis that Adulis was an independent political and economic center. The author uses energetics analysis of Adulis's built forms and artifacts, combined with textual and ethnohistorical evidence, to assess household wealth and the city's role in interregional trade networks, specifically those involving aromatics and war elephants. Ultimately, the dissertation aims to advance the understanding of African history on its own terms, aligning with the perspective of scholars like W.E.B. Du Bois, by thoroughly examining Adulis's complex social organization and strategic position in the Red Sea and Mediterranean trade spheres.References https://www.adulites.com/https://scholarworks.umass.edu/entities/publication/6c43531e-c4e4-49d3-9a9b-ed7063f13765

Eritrea, Gura Company Town: The Social History of a Wartime Planning Experiment, "focusing on the social history and planning of a company town named Gura in Eritrea, East Africa, during World War II. It examines the social dynamics, culture, and various forms of security and insecurity experienced by the American, Italian, and native employees of the Farwest Aircraft Company at this remote location. Details everything from the differential wage scale of employees to the formation of social cliques and associations within the isolated community, understanding how isolated men establish a social balance in a foreign environment while confronting issues of caste, class, and paternalism by contract.