Tigray’s Achilles’ Hill

A prelude 

Tigray is the heartland of the historical Aksumite Empire. In its Golden Era Aksum was a superpower of the era. The Persian religious leader Mani in the 3rd C. A.D. mentions Aksum as one of the superpowers of the time along Rome, China and Persia. At the time Aksum was minting her own gold and silver coins; this shows the truth of her power and riches.

Today Tigray is located in northern Ethiopia. It is bordered by Eritrea, Sudan, Amhara and Afar. Tigrayans are inhabitants of northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. The spread of their settlement spans from the Red Sea in the East to the Sudanese border in the West. For an academic reading on the topic the study by Nyssen of Ghent University entitled “Western Tigray in 117 historical and 33 ethno-linguistic maps (1607-2014)” is available online. 

Tigray also hosts the Negash mosque, which is the oldest mosque in Africa, built by close companions of the Prophet Mohammad himself. They came to Aksum escaping the persecution in their own lands. This is known by believers as the First Hijira. As such Negash mosque is much revered by believers. 

Tigrigna is the language of Tigrayans and it uses its own script adopted from the Ge’ez script, which is a very close relative of Tigrigna and both are creation of Tigrayans. Ge’ez was the main language of Aksumite Empire. Today it is used only in the Orthodox Tewahdo Church, just like the Latin is used in the Catholic Church. Tigrigna was spoken in Aksum at least by the second half of the first millennium A.D. A 6th C. Greek merchant traveller Cosmas Indicopleustes records the tribe Tigretes. (Munro-Hay, Aksum, 187) 

   

Historical Tigray 

The first Tigrigna writing was found in today’s Eritrea and dates from the thirteenth century. It is a code of local administrative law. Historical Tigray included today’s Eritrea. Eritrea and Tigray share a lot of common history. They both were the heartland of the Aksumite Empire. And they even share common pre-Aksumite history and culture. (Phillipson, Foundations of an African Civilisation.) 

Before the territory was taken by Italian colonizers and christened Eritrea, it was known as Medri Bahri, meaning Land of the Sea, because it boarders the Red Sea to the east. The Tigray kingdom was divided into Medri Bahri (Today’s Eritrea) and Tigray by the new Amhara kings in the 14th C. Alvarez, who came to the area in the 16th C. as part of the Portuguese diplomatic missionary, testifies to this fact. (Alvarez, Narrative of Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia, p. 53. 1883 ed.) Today Tigrigna is spoken both in Tigray and Eritrea. Other languages like Tigre, Afar, Saho, Kunama etc. too are spoken in this area.

The people of Tigray are inheritors of a long and unique history. They have been administering themselves and even greatly contributed to the birth and growth of medieval and modern Ethiopia. (This is the birth of Tigray’s Achilles Hill as well; it will get clearer as you read further.) I will give you an extended quote from chapter seven of Donald Levin’s, Greater Ethiopia:

The achievements of Aksum can be identified as specifically Tigrayan contribution to Ethiopian nationhood, for present day Tigrayans are the direct descendants of the inhabitants of the Aksum plateau, and their language, Tigrinya, was already spoken in Aksum by the second half of the first millennium A.D. A major bequest of the ancestral Tigrayans to Amhara culture was a national script. I use this ambiguous term advisedly, for they created a national script in three senses. 

They developed the Ethiopic script, an indigenous form of writing that made possible the elaboration of a Great Tradition in Ethiopia and the formation of a stratum of literati. 

They also created a national script in a dramaturgic sense. By this I refer to the set of motifs and directives that orient every societal community. Like the script of the playactor, the societal script provides a sense of the actor’s identity, indications of significant past experiences, and guidelines for future actions. 

Finally, as a major work in the Great Tradition and principal repository of the societal script, they created a particular hallowed literary script, the Kibre Negest. 

Kibre Negest means Glory of Kings. It narrates the search for true sources of the glory of kings. It tells its discovery that the sources are the Tabernacle of Zion and the seed of King Solomon, which through Queen Sheba and her son from King Solomon, King Minilik the First, who stole the Ark of the Covenant from Jerusalem, Ethiopia gets to possess the true sources of the glory of kings. Accordingly, Aksum inherited the Ark of the Covenant and a Solomonic blood line. (To this day it is the belief of Orthodox Tewahido Christians that the Ark of the Covenant is in Aksum. As a result, Aksum is considered a Holly city by believers. In the current war more than 800 people died in Aksum defending the Church that hosts the Ark from the invading forces, this testifies to the strength of this believe.) Coming back to the Kibre Negest, it seems for Levin, the Tigrayan literati of the time managed to own a dignified national identity and solve their identity crisis. Kibre Negest is a book much revered by the people to this day. 

Many argue that the Kibre Negest is just a document used by the Amhara kings, who made the claim to descend from the Solomonic dynasty of Aksumite kings, justifying their usurpation of the throne from the ‘non-Aksumite’ kings of Zagwe (the Zagwe dynasty rose after the fall of Aksum and continued much of the Aksumite legacy). But Levin argues that this document is not just simply about installing a dynasty and that many evidences contradict this interpretation. For instance, the time of the last redaction of Kibre Negest is believed to be around 1320, fifty years after the Solomonic usurpation, when the position of the Amahara kings was already secured. More importantly the redactors of this work were not Amharas but Tigrayans and their patron was no Amhara but a Tigrayan lord named Ya’ibike Igzi. This lord was against the new Amhara kings and fought against King Amde Siyon. It seems the Tigrayan literati were building their own national narration using religious symbols and legends: a Tigray centric Ethiopia, a Tigrayan Ethiopia with Aksumite legacy.

So the Tigrayan literati weaved in the kibre Negest two central symbolic complexes that defined their national aspiration: Solomonic genealogy and the Orthodox Tewahido (Monophysite) Church. After power fell to the hands of the Amhara kings further to the south, they adopted these symbols, along with the Tigrayans’ Aksumite legacy, and used it to build another Amhara centric Ethiopia, the Ethiopia which you know today. The later day Tigrayans remained seeing this Ethiopia as the one that was their creation, and this exact point is their Achilles Hill. It stunted Tigrayan national self-awareness and growth. To this day Tigrayans are paying for it. 

Tigray in modern Ethiopia 

To keep it short, I will fast forward to the start of Ethiopian modern history in the 19th C. Following many centuries of feudal rule and decline of culture, the Tigrayans have bought in to the Amhara centric Ethiopia and the usurped Solomonic line. That means the Amhara have accomplished a grand psychological assimilation of Tigrayans. Tigrayans no longer tried to weave a respectable national identity like the literati of a few centuries ago did when they were redacting the Kibre Negest. Instead Tigrayans have fallen under Amhara psychological dominance and accepted the Shoan-Amharised Ethiopia as something that represents them, as something that could be a representative of their identity.  

Sadly, this was far from the truth and was only a product of one, limited national awareness of the populace; two, the nobility who had visions of ruling an empire; and finally, the clergy who saw the glory of their religion in connection with the Ethiopian empire. But the Amhara never had any illusions about the kind of Ethiopia they wanted, i.e. Amharised Ethiopia. 

The Tigrayan nobility were satisfied as long as they maintained their relative autonomy and authority. But the Amhara kings did manage to subvert the Tigrayan nobility by marriage. For instance, Emperror Haileselassie’s families were married off to descendants of Emperor Yohannes the 4th, Tigray’s last emperor who succeeded in unifying Tigrayan nobility under him in the 19th C.  

Sowing divisions and making sure Tigrayan nobility remain disunited was the other tool. Again, if we take an example from Emperor Haileselassie, we find him playing well the division between the two claimants to the throne of Yohannes, the Gugsa and Mengesha houses. 

The Amharas accepted people only after they commit cultural suicide. (Young, Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia, 47). The Amhara nobility have no qualms about betraying Ethiopia, if it’s not their kind of Ethiopia. Autonomy wasn’t something that pacified them. When the last powerful Tigrayan Emperor, Yohannes the 4th, was in control of Ethiopia, Minilik was engaged in traitorous deals with Italy who wanted to take parts of Ethiopia. ‘According to one Italian estimate, a total of 189,000 weapons were imported into Shoa from Italian Red Sea ports alone between 1885 and 1895, and most of them were acquired by Menelik.’ (Young, Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia, 44) This pattern is not limited to historical relics; the current ruling group around Abiy Ahmed took control of power by conspiring with outside forces. They betrayed Ethiopia in order to end the national federal system and bring back the unitary state building i.e. Amharised Ethiopia. Now the chicken has come home to roost as Ethiopia is being challenged by Egypt around the construction of the dam on the Nile.  

To go back to the historical narration, after Yohannes’s death at the battle of Metema fighting against Sudan’s Mehadists in 1989, Minilik took over power and signed off Medri Bahri to Italy, and Italy named it Eritrea. Emperor Yohannes and Tigrayan nobility under him have defeated both Egypt, twice, and Italy, once, in Medri Bahri and had frustrated their advances. 

Even after the battle of Adwa when Tigrayan forces led by Raesi Alula and Raesi Mengesha delivered a decisive blow to the Italian army and guaranteed a victory (see: The Battle of Adwa: Tigrayan Army Uses Envelopment, Frontal Attack To Annihilate Italian Forces, Infantry, Nov-Dec 2011, V. 100 No.5, pp 23-25), Minilik ordered their forces to stop chasing the Italians out of Medri Bahri. He had no intention of seeing united Tigrayans with access to the sea. The kind of Ethiopia he was building didn’t include united Tigrayans with access to the sea. 

But all this wasn’t enough to awaken the Tigrayans to their true national interest and to the terrible plans that the Amharas harbored for them. Even after many decades of ruthless oppressive Shoan-Amhara rule, Tigrayan elders could only ask why the Shoans were inflicting so much suffering on them. They saw themselves only as oppressed citizens. They thought a rule of law was possible. It didn’t occur to them to think that the Ethiopia they have accepted could never accept them and could never deal with them under the umbrella of laws. They failed to see a nation doesn’t have a place in an empire. Ironically, an empire they gladly sacrifice their life to maintain.   

The First Woyane, revolution in darkness

Woyane is a Tigrigna word for revolution, particularly, an uprising against oppression. Reading the testimony of the leader of The First Woyane (1941-1947), Blata Hailemariam Reda, in a biographical book prepared in Tigrigna (Ghereb Arena Woyane Tigray) by his son Kassa Hailemariam, you will find the revolutionaries sense of identity cemented with Ethiopia.

Centuries of teaching by the Orthodox Tewahedo Church about Ethiopia’s place in God’s plan has defined their sense of identity. Their immense respect for their forefathers and their Aksumite legacy has been transferred to the Amharised Ethiopia, with them not heeding to the transformation. Like any other traditional people, religion played a decisive role in shaping their national sense. In the above mentioned book when Blata Hailemariam recalls important days, he mentions them in what Saint’s or Angel’s day they happened, he also talks about how they spent the night in church attending prayer etc.  The peasants who were the main force in the revolution had keen sense of religion, justice and equality. Above all, they know these can materialize only through their traditional self-administrations, which they were denied by King Haileselassie who just returned from his exile. For five years they were fighting the Italian occupiers while the king was enjoying his exile in London. No one respects a runaway king. 

At the start of the war the Tigrayans have been fighting the invading Italian forces for 7 months by themselves, since the time the Italians started crossing the Mereb, while the king was in Addis Ababa and his army nowhere in the war fronts. The king came at the last minute for what seems to be a photo opportunity and runaway. Before he runaway, there was an order to shoot at traitors who run. And the Tigrayans (especially the Raya people, because the rout of retreat for traitors was through their lands) were firing at any runaways, the king was no exception. Because of this he did harbor great enmity towards them. When he returned with the help of the British, he was harsh towards these people. He came with vengeance and levied high taxes and appointed his chosen governors and took away their self-rule. They rose up in the First Woyane. 

With all this determination for self-rule, they did not see the necessity of full independence, i.e. sovereignty. They weren’t aware of the fact that their sense of being an Ethiopian had nothing to do with the Amaharas’ sense of being an Ethiopian. They were proud of being Tigrayan Ethiopians. When opportunity came in their congress at Mai Derho by way of British messengers, they failed to capitalize on it. When the British asked them if they wanted to unite with their brothers in Eritrea and form their own new nation, oppositions were heard and they discussed amongst themselves how they were fighting for justice and self-rule and not separation from Ethiopia. British military cooperation with Ethiopia at the time and her standing alongside Ethiopian army that was preparing to start attacks didn’t help matters.    

As confusing as the British were the Tigrayans too weren’t ready. Erlich says Tigrayanism was only a slogan in their revolution, not a program to fulfill, and this Tigrayan self-awareness was not separable from Ethiopianism. (Erlich, Tigrayan Nationalism', pp. 197-8.)  Finally with the help of British army on the land and aerial bombardments, King Haileselassie was saved and just as before him Minilik has annexed western Tigray to Begemeder (Gondar, today) Hailesselasie too took away Kobo from southern Tigray and annexed it to Wollo, both Gondar and Wollo are Amhara lands. Taking lands wasn’t the only thing they shared, they both made sure Tigray stayed backward and impoverished. 

The Second Woyane, the darkness continues   

This continued policy of oppression and impoverishment gave birth to The Second Woyane. It started in 1974 in the wilderness of western Tigray by 11 people, mostly university students; this was the birth of TPLF, the party that led the Second Woyane. These students were active participants in the then Hialesselasie the First University students’ political activism. They are students who were abhorred by the luxurious life of the nobles and the king and the unbearable suffering of the poor farmers who were carrying the nobles. The students at the time were influenced by socialist thoughts; this was doomed to happen as USA was the main ally of the Emperor. 

What made Tigray’s suffering all the more concerning at the time is that, alleviating it wasn’t part of the Emperor’s plan. In fact when a natural disaster befalls the people, it was given a helping hand by the imperial government:

Drought precipitated famine in northern Ethiopia in 1972, but the underlying causes were uneven patterns of economic growth, inappropriate development plans, and a complete lack of concern on the part of the government for the welfare of the country's peasants. Indeed, the famine occurred at a time when the country had food supplies that remained undistributed, causing people to starve to death in the midst of plenty. (Young, Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia, 56)

Again this is not just limited to historical relics. In the current war people of Tigray are being made to starve amid plenty. The difference is that this time there is no drought; it’s just that farmers are forbidden from farming by invading armies. 

To go back, Jonathan Dimbelby, reporting for the BBC at the time of Haileselassie, shocked the world with his video recorded report of this hidden famine. This reporting was critical in the fall of the absolute monarch who was responsible for this and much more suffering inflicted on the people. The group who overthrew the monarch, the military junta that eventually got under the control of Mengistu, changed their title but not the plan of ruling by impoverishing. This is so because the new elites that took power from the feudal powers didn’t change the goal of assimilation and unitary state building. Another drought was made to turn into a devastating famine under this military junta. The Second Woyane was getting strong and the students were by this time professionals leading successful guerrilla warfare. The military dictatorship didn’t want to hear anything about self-determination or democratic rule. It was consumed with unitary state building, just like the monarchy before it. Since such a project was a thing of the past, the military dictatorship got more ruthless with desperation and took drastic actions in the name of resettlements:

The rationale for this seemingly irrational act was military and political: most of the sites were located along access routes used by the Oromo Liberation Front in its war against the government. Thus, not only would the Tigrayan rebels in the north be deprived of their base of peasant support, but so would the Oromo rebels in the south. Moving people around became another way to prosecute a war. Amhara imperialism simply had evolved into a more sophisticated form. A look at the placement of resettlement sites on a map reveals a pattern strikingly similar to the military expeditions of Menelik in the late nineteenth century. (Kaplan, Surrender or Starve, Ch. 3)

This systematic continuation of impoverishment and deprivation is blamed on ‘scarcity of resources’ in Tigray by those whose love for Ethiopia has blinded them. In economic terms this excuse is meaningless. More realistically the economic transformation and natural healing Tigray experienced after TPLF took state power puts this excuse to the garbage bin where it belongs.   

But the TPLF was a victim of Tigray’s Achilles Hill too i.e. they mistook Ethiopia as their own. They too were psychologically assimilated. They weren’t against a united Ethiopia, if nations were guaranteed self-determination. If they had understood Ethiopia truly and ignored the contradictions, then this means they didn’t care for nationalism. For the leadership nationalism was second to their socialist ideology. In fact they are in public record claiming their national call was only tactical, not strategic goal. And so, either because of their socialist perspectives or love for Ethiopia, independence wasn’t pursued.   

On the other hand the new imperialists in Addis Ababa wearing a socialist mask were continuing the old policy of annihilating Tigray. When drought hit Tigray in 1984/85, it was given a helping hand like always. Even peasants with irrigations were forcibly removed from their lands, their crops burnt by government soldiers, and resettled in malaria ridden western Ethiopian low lands with practically no provisions. Kaplan quoting a study by Cultural Survival testifies to this fact. (See: Kaplan, Surrender or Starve)    

Solomon Enquai in his book Tigray: The Ecstasy and Agony reminds us how the military dictatorship led by Mengistu excluded Tigray from its first 10 year economic plan citing the same excuse that Tigray lacked any natural resources to develop. Solomon wanders if electricity was supposed to grow on trees. 

Tigray today, finally awakening 

Today Tigray is back on the news as a place of war and looming starvation. TPLF’s leadership retreated back to the wilderness after it was ousted by military operation. On June 28, 2021 they entered Mekele, the capital of Tigray, after starting Operation Alula, named after Emperor Yohannes’s famouse general, and gaining rapid victories over enemy forces. 

The invading armies of Ethiopia and Eritrea have committed grave crimes against the people of Tigray. Tigray is looted. The UN and other organizations are reporting the crimes and the lootings. The same old policy of impoverishing Tigray was back on the table, same old story.

Finally, it was starting to look like the TPLF’s leadership has been cured of their Achilles Hill, as they were apologizing for their mistakes. Tigrayans have at the end realized there is no room for a nation in an empire. Many were waiting for the day when they will be called to vote in a referendum. Thanks to modern media and communications, there is no confusion on what the struggle is about: national independence. At least that’s the dominant sentiment.  

The crystallization of Tigrayan nationalism in the minds of Tigrayans is captured in one simple sentence by one rape victim. She told the journalist verbatim, ‘the reason that I am raped by Ethiopian soldiers is because I am not an Ethiopian. It is because I am Tigrayan.’ 

But in a sudden twist of events TPLF started sidelining other stakeholders and dominating the decision making process right after they regained control of Mekelle. They made a series of decisions that badly damaged the momentum of the struggle and made sure that total victory would remain only as daydreaming. People’s morale was badly hurt. In the end they signed a deal with the Ethiopian government in Pretoria and made the whole struggle seem to be one long nightmare none would have wished to experience in the first place.  

The betrayal and the wasted opportunity would seem set to make Tigray pay dearly for decades to come. 

Bibliography

Ali Sourou Abdel-Aziz. (Nov-Dec 2011). The Battle of Adwa: Tigrayan Army Uses Envelopment, Frontal Attack to Annihilate Italian Forces. Infantry, 100 (5), 23-25

Alvarez, Francisco. (1881). Narrative of Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia During the Years 1520-1527. (Lord Staney of Alderley, Trans.).  London: Hakluyt Society. 

Erlich, H. (1981). Tigrayan Nationalism, British Involvement and Haile-Selassie's Emerging Absolutism-Northern Ethiopia, 1941-1943', Asian and African Studies, 15(2).

Kaplan, Robert D. (2008). Surrender or Starve: Travels in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea. New York: Vintage Books.

Kassa Hailemariam: ካሳ ሃይለማርያም (2010/2017) ገረብ ዓረና ወያነ ትግራይ።

Levin, Donald. (1974). Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society. Chicago: UCP.

Munro-Hay, Stuart. (1991). Aksum, An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press. 

Nyssen, J. (2023) Western Tigray in 165 historical and 33 ethno-linguistic maps (1475-2014). Version 7.1. Ghent (Belgium): Ghent University, Department of Geography. Zenodo, 226 p. https://doi.org/10.5381/zenodo.6554937 

Phillipson, David W. (2012). Foundations of an African Civilisation, Aksum & the northern Horn 1000 BC - AD 1300. Woodbridge: James Currey.

Solomon Enqaui. Tigray: The Ecstasy and Agony. 

Young, John. (1997). Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia: The Tigray People's Liberation Front, 1975-1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.