Eritrea and the borrowed Arab identity
Posted: 06 Mar 2025, 18:29
(Taken from:
The self-humiliating Eritreans through the Arabic connection
The self-humiliating Eritreans through the Arabic connection Quote of the moment:
“You cannot get tired of love but you get tired of fear”; Carlos Santana. Confession: I don’t know about you but I am a universal human being)
There are about 22 Arabic countries around (Keren’s information) and 48 Muslim majority countries overall. Many countries in the world have Moslems that relate to the Koran, which is written in Arabic. The question is how they relate to Arabic based on this reality. In the Arabic countries, the native language is Arabic and they genuinely and appropriately use it for national language irrespective of the Koran’s linguistic format. The fact remains that majority Moslem societies only relate to Arabic through the Koran, nothing for otherwise. We will see this down the line in the process and I will concretely substantiate my argument that we artificially relate to Arabic more than any other Moslem societies in the world. Please challenge me on the merit not on your emotion!
Check this out:
Pakistan (97% Moslems) uses Urdu and English as its national language.
Bangladesh (89% Moslems) uses Bengali and English as its national language.
Nigeria (50% Moslems) uses English as its national language.
Turkey (99.8% Moslems) uses Turkish as its national language.
Iran (98%// Moslems) uses Persian as its national language.
Afghanistan (99% Moslems) uses Pashto and Dari Urdu as its national language.
Malaysia (61%// Moslems) uses Malay as its national language.
Uzbekistan (88%// Moslems) uses Uzbek as its national language.
Kazxakistan (57%// Moslems) uses Kazakh and Russian as its national language.
Niger (90%// Moslems) uses French as its national language.
Burkinafasso (52%// Moslems) uses French as its national language.
Mali (90%// Moslems) uses French as its national language.
Senegal (94% Moslems) uses French as its national language.
Guinea (89%// Moslems) uses French as its national language.
Sieraleone (60%// Moslems) uses English as its national language.
Gambia (90%// Moslems) uses English as its national language.
Sudan (97%//Moslems) uses Arabic and English as its national languages.
Somalia (99%// Moslems) uses Arabic and Somali as its national languages.
Djibouti (94%// Moslems) uses Arabic and French as its national languages.
Libya (96.6 Moslems) use Arabic because they are native Arabs. So does Tunisia.
Morocco: Morocco is an Arab-Islamic country located in North Africa. The two official languages are Modern Standard Arabic and Berber. Moroccan Arabic (known as Darija) is the spoken native vernacular. The languages ofprestige in Morocco are Arabic in its Classical and Modern Standard Forms and the French language, the latter of which serves as a second languagefor many Moroccans. There is a general agreement that Standard Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, and Berber are the national languages.”
Yet, we know that a democratically elected MORSI of Egypt was overthrown when he tried to dictate the society with diehard Islamic tendencies. The Moslem majority rejected him because they understood the problem of mixing religion with politics. This dictatorship did not work in many Moslem dominated countries, thus the Egyptians quickly stopped it from messing up their society.
Comment: Eritrea is not registered in the list of countries with majority Moslem population but they say that it is divided equally between Moslems and Christians (roughly 50% each). Looking at the list of all countries with majority Moslem population, one cannot help noticing that they all use their own or colonial languages for national language with the exception of our neighbors Djibouti and Somalia.
Why Arabic in Djibouti and Somalia?
Considering Arabic language as native in Sudan, I tend to exclude the Sudanese from this discussion because it is logical for them to use it as a national language.
Djibouti and Somalia are the only exceptions in the list that use Arabic as their national language.
“Djibouti is a multilingual country. According to Ethnologue, the majority of the population speaks Somali (297,200 speakers) or Afar(99,200 speakers) as a first language, which are the mother tonguesof the Somali and Afar ethnic groups, respectively. Both languages belong to the larger Afro-Asiatic family.“ Further, “The languages ofDjibouti include Arabic and French (official), and Somali and Afar (primary)”. While they stay consistent with other societies in using a colonial language (French), they sideline their native languages for the sake of Arabic in so far as the national language is concerned. This is unique compared to the rest of the Moslem world. This country is at least 94% Moslem and the people may not mind using Arabic because of the common religion for all, though I still consider this situation as the only one that respects a foreign language more than the native languages. Djibouti respects a colonial language like many other colonized Moslems in the world and the Arabic more than its indigenous Somali and Afar languages. Let them figure it out, it is none of my business! I, however, believe that the people of this country may be in harmony on the usage of Arabic as a national language because the society is more or less religiously [deleted] (almost all are Moslems).
Somalia (99%// Moslems) uses Arabic and Somali for its national languages. This society speaks only one language and it is almost fully Moslem in region. Their choice of Arabic for a national language along their native Somali appears okay to me. They have their language as a national language at the same importance level of Arabic. They chose to go with Arabic instead of with Italian or English (colonial languages) and I kind of justify the choice as something logically defendable. They only have one language any way and they use it as a national language appropriately. I don’t think this society has a problem with this as it so seems to be.The difference of the Somalian approach and other Moslems’ is that Somalians did not consider their colonial languages as important as either their native Somali or the Arabic. Somalia may then be one of the few societies that rejects colonial languages and that uses Arabic instead, for a national language at equal level of significance with Somali. In their situation, no native language is undermined and adding Arabic in the list of their national languages does not contradict the dignity of the people at all.
Eritrea’s unique connection with Arabic
Research says that none of the non-Arab Moslem dominated countries in the world use ARABIC for a national language except Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti. Yet the Somalians only speak Somali and are all Moslems and also have their native language for a national language along with Arabic. One more time, they have no other languages to consider for a national language except Somali and they chose Arabic as well because of their religiously [deleted] society (all Moslems).There is no conflict of interest here in my opinion and you can not accuse the society for choosing Arabic instead of the colonial languages for Italian, English and Arabic were all foreign to them that picking one does not undermine their native Somali.
Djibouti is so far the only society that sidelines its native languages (Somali and Afar) in favor of a colonial language (French) and the foreign Arabic.
Eritrea, however, rejects the colonial languages Amharic and Italian acknowledging a foreign language ARABIC as important as Tigrigna but more important than the rest of our languages including the popular TIGRE. There is a serious contradiction here unlike elsewhere in the world. This is a unique phenomenon only practiced in Eritrea.
Our country therefore stands alone with Djibouti (94% Moslem) for undermining its native languages in favor of Arabic yet with about 50% or less Moslem population. We are the only country that accepted Arabic for no justifiable reason because of dictatorship from our few Moslem elites that do not represent their communities. It is self-degrading without valid excuses. All this given, I do believe we are the only people that complicate our relationship and kill the society’s life by alternating between Tigrigna and Arabic in meetings. No other society practices this nonsense! We should therefore replace Arabic with Tigre, the Eritrean native to get out of this self-imposed entrapment! I declare that the Holy Koran was misused in Eritrea for the first time in history where Arabic became a national language suppressing most of our languages for no convincing reason in complete opposite to how the majority Moslem countries relate with the Holy Koran.Something is wrong here that needs a serious attention of the Eritrean people to rectify. Eritrean languages in general Tigre included are discriminated in their motherland in favor of the foreigner Arabic in the name of the Holy Koran unlike elsewhere on this planet. Arabic did not stop being a national language in a place where it is not indigenous but also allowed to complicate our life by interfering in our communication unnecessarily and illegally stealing half of our society’s essentialism. We need to debate on this and save our society from the imposed contradiction that cannot help us in any way. Let us fight for Tigre, the legitimate Eritrean language that deserves equal status as Tigrigna: let us fight to replace the Arabic by our Tigre and save the society from degrading itself and dragging its life without any justification. We need to respect the right of any Eritrean to associate with any society in the world but Arabic is not more important than any of our languages and specially Tigre to us Eritreans. It is irrelevant to our society and therefore we have no reason to respect it more than ours. We should relate to the Holy Koran like how the entire Moslem societies of the world relate to it because it does not make sense for us to invent a special relationship with Arabic at the expense of self-disrespect and our own languages and specially Tigre (popularity wise only not because it was better than our other languages from the minority ethnic groups).
To finalize this, I have a question that must be answered by individuals in the other side of the fence: Why should I respect Arabic more than Tigre, Kunama, and Saho etc. and why should it be our national language? Please convince us through debate not through sentiment, anger and silence! Should we have a problem here, let a referendum decide between Tigre and Arabic in our country and resolve this debacle once and for all.
Dawit (Geez) Vs. Koran (Arabic) as a matter of consistency.
If Arabic has to be a national language because of the Holy Koran should we then make Geez a national language because the DAWIT was written in Geez? My answer is YES! You better justify this if you want to be consistent. Eritreans cannot be double standard here. Our Moslem population must allow the Geez for a national language should they accept Arabic for one in order to be coherent and the Christians must consider this to secure their equality in the country. Should religion dictate the validity of our national languages, we should make Arabic and Geez the national languages of Eritrea because of the Arabic connection to the Holy Koran and the Geez connection to the Holy Dawit.
This is a genuine question because Geez is the mother of our most popular languages where as Arabic is irrelevant and foreign. The compromise here must land us accepting Arabic and Geez for our national languages should we decide to accept Arabic as one. Instead though, we will be better off making Tigrigna and Tigre our national languages but if few elites have the right to impose Arabic on us, I fight back for my freedom to impose Geez on the society. Let us mess it up by changing everything the hard way should we stay committed to Arabic (making Geez a national language as well). The advocates of Arabic should zip their mouth in the process of Eritreans making Geez their national language and should in fact support this proposal because they cannot have the cake and eat it too. Yet, we would be the first society on earth doing this inconvenient nonsense.
In conclusion; there is no doubt that some Eritreans have been isolated by few spoilers of unity to search for another identity in response. But they should fight back with the good majority to stop the few dictators from affecting us as a unit rather than identifying with societies that discriminate Africans through the ARABIC language. They should glorify and defend their original values rather than detaching from in favor of an alien society and language. Once again, I feel sorry for the people suffering from the cause of this problem but I cannot justify their desperate approach that only exasperates the problem. We can build the confidence of our minorities together through genuine approach and let us start doing it right now.
Down with linguistic dictatorship in Eritrea. Down with artificial identification imposed on Eritreans by few elites that don’t represent their ethnic groups.Down with individuals that pollute politics with religion and ethnicity. Down with the self degrading mentality through irrational attachment to societies that have the history of enslaving colored people including us, the East Africans.
Long live the indigenous Eritrean languages and democracy!!
https://archive.assenna.com/the-self-hu ... nt-page-6/
========
The self-humiliating Eritreans through the Arabic connection
The self-humiliating Eritreans through the Arabic connection Quote of the moment:
“You cannot get tired of love but you get tired of fear”; Carlos Santana. Confession: I don’t know about you but I am a universal human being)
There are about 22 Arabic countries around (Keren’s information) and 48 Muslim majority countries overall. Many countries in the world have Moslems that relate to the Koran, which is written in Arabic. The question is how they relate to Arabic based on this reality. In the Arabic countries, the native language is Arabic and they genuinely and appropriately use it for national language irrespective of the Koran’s linguistic format. The fact remains that majority Moslem societies only relate to Arabic through the Koran, nothing for otherwise. We will see this down the line in the process and I will concretely substantiate my argument that we artificially relate to Arabic more than any other Moslem societies in the world. Please challenge me on the merit not on your emotion!
Check this out:
Pakistan (97% Moslems) uses Urdu and English as its national language.
Bangladesh (89% Moslems) uses Bengali and English as its national language.
Nigeria (50% Moslems) uses English as its national language.
Turkey (99.8% Moslems) uses Turkish as its national language.
Iran (98%// Moslems) uses Persian as its national language.
Afghanistan (99% Moslems) uses Pashto and Dari Urdu as its national language.
Malaysia (61%// Moslems) uses Malay as its national language.
Uzbekistan (88%// Moslems) uses Uzbek as its national language.
Kazxakistan (57%// Moslems) uses Kazakh and Russian as its national language.
Niger (90%// Moslems) uses French as its national language.
Burkinafasso (52%// Moslems) uses French as its national language.
Mali (90%// Moslems) uses French as its national language.
Senegal (94% Moslems) uses French as its national language.
Guinea (89%// Moslems) uses French as its national language.
Sieraleone (60%// Moslems) uses English as its national language.
Gambia (90%// Moslems) uses English as its national language.
Sudan (97%//Moslems) uses Arabic and English as its national languages.
Somalia (99%// Moslems) uses Arabic and Somali as its national languages.
Djibouti (94%// Moslems) uses Arabic and French as its national languages.
Libya (96.6 Moslems) use Arabic because they are native Arabs. So does Tunisia.
Morocco: Morocco is an Arab-Islamic country located in North Africa. The two official languages are Modern Standard Arabic and Berber. Moroccan Arabic (known as Darija) is the spoken native vernacular. The languages ofprestige in Morocco are Arabic in its Classical and Modern Standard Forms and the French language, the latter of which serves as a second languagefor many Moroccans. There is a general agreement that Standard Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, and Berber are the national languages.”
Yet, we know that a democratically elected MORSI of Egypt was overthrown when he tried to dictate the society with diehard Islamic tendencies. The Moslem majority rejected him because they understood the problem of mixing religion with politics. This dictatorship did not work in many Moslem dominated countries, thus the Egyptians quickly stopped it from messing up their society.
Comment: Eritrea is not registered in the list of countries with majority Moslem population but they say that it is divided equally between Moslems and Christians (roughly 50% each). Looking at the list of all countries with majority Moslem population, one cannot help noticing that they all use their own or colonial languages for national language with the exception of our neighbors Djibouti and Somalia.
Why Arabic in Djibouti and Somalia?
Considering Arabic language as native in Sudan, I tend to exclude the Sudanese from this discussion because it is logical for them to use it as a national language.
Djibouti and Somalia are the only exceptions in the list that use Arabic as their national language.
“Djibouti is a multilingual country. According to Ethnologue, the majority of the population speaks Somali (297,200 speakers) or Afar(99,200 speakers) as a first language, which are the mother tonguesof the Somali and Afar ethnic groups, respectively. Both languages belong to the larger Afro-Asiatic family.“ Further, “The languages ofDjibouti include Arabic and French (official), and Somali and Afar (primary)”. While they stay consistent with other societies in using a colonial language (French), they sideline their native languages for the sake of Arabic in so far as the national language is concerned. This is unique compared to the rest of the Moslem world. This country is at least 94% Moslem and the people may not mind using Arabic because of the common religion for all, though I still consider this situation as the only one that respects a foreign language more than the native languages. Djibouti respects a colonial language like many other colonized Moslems in the world and the Arabic more than its indigenous Somali and Afar languages. Let them figure it out, it is none of my business! I, however, believe that the people of this country may be in harmony on the usage of Arabic as a national language because the society is more or less religiously [deleted] (almost all are Moslems).
Somalia (99%// Moslems) uses Arabic and Somali for its national languages. This society speaks only one language and it is almost fully Moslem in region. Their choice of Arabic for a national language along their native Somali appears okay to me. They have their language as a national language at the same importance level of Arabic. They chose to go with Arabic instead of with Italian or English (colonial languages) and I kind of justify the choice as something logically defendable. They only have one language any way and they use it as a national language appropriately. I don’t think this society has a problem with this as it so seems to be.The difference of the Somalian approach and other Moslems’ is that Somalians did not consider their colonial languages as important as either their native Somali or the Arabic. Somalia may then be one of the few societies that rejects colonial languages and that uses Arabic instead, for a national language at equal level of significance with Somali. In their situation, no native language is undermined and adding Arabic in the list of their national languages does not contradict the dignity of the people at all.
Eritrea’s unique connection with Arabic
Research says that none of the non-Arab Moslem dominated countries in the world use ARABIC for a national language except Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti. Yet the Somalians only speak Somali and are all Moslems and also have their native language for a national language along with Arabic. One more time, they have no other languages to consider for a national language except Somali and they chose Arabic as well because of their religiously [deleted] society (all Moslems).There is no conflict of interest here in my opinion and you can not accuse the society for choosing Arabic instead of the colonial languages for Italian, English and Arabic were all foreign to them that picking one does not undermine their native Somali.
Djibouti is so far the only society that sidelines its native languages (Somali and Afar) in favor of a colonial language (French) and the foreign Arabic.
Eritrea, however, rejects the colonial languages Amharic and Italian acknowledging a foreign language ARABIC as important as Tigrigna but more important than the rest of our languages including the popular TIGRE. There is a serious contradiction here unlike elsewhere in the world. This is a unique phenomenon only practiced in Eritrea.
Our country therefore stands alone with Djibouti (94% Moslem) for undermining its native languages in favor of Arabic yet with about 50% or less Moslem population. We are the only country that accepted Arabic for no justifiable reason because of dictatorship from our few Moslem elites that do not represent their communities. It is self-degrading without valid excuses. All this given, I do believe we are the only people that complicate our relationship and kill the society’s life by alternating between Tigrigna and Arabic in meetings. No other society practices this nonsense! We should therefore replace Arabic with Tigre, the Eritrean native to get out of this self-imposed entrapment! I declare that the Holy Koran was misused in Eritrea for the first time in history where Arabic became a national language suppressing most of our languages for no convincing reason in complete opposite to how the majority Moslem countries relate with the Holy Koran.Something is wrong here that needs a serious attention of the Eritrean people to rectify. Eritrean languages in general Tigre included are discriminated in their motherland in favor of the foreigner Arabic in the name of the Holy Koran unlike elsewhere on this planet. Arabic did not stop being a national language in a place where it is not indigenous but also allowed to complicate our life by interfering in our communication unnecessarily and illegally stealing half of our society’s essentialism. We need to debate on this and save our society from the imposed contradiction that cannot help us in any way. Let us fight for Tigre, the legitimate Eritrean language that deserves equal status as Tigrigna: let us fight to replace the Arabic by our Tigre and save the society from degrading itself and dragging its life without any justification. We need to respect the right of any Eritrean to associate with any society in the world but Arabic is not more important than any of our languages and specially Tigre to us Eritreans. It is irrelevant to our society and therefore we have no reason to respect it more than ours. We should relate to the Holy Koran like how the entire Moslem societies of the world relate to it because it does not make sense for us to invent a special relationship with Arabic at the expense of self-disrespect and our own languages and specially Tigre (popularity wise only not because it was better than our other languages from the minority ethnic groups).
To finalize this, I have a question that must be answered by individuals in the other side of the fence: Why should I respect Arabic more than Tigre, Kunama, and Saho etc. and why should it be our national language? Please convince us through debate not through sentiment, anger and silence! Should we have a problem here, let a referendum decide between Tigre and Arabic in our country and resolve this debacle once and for all.
Dawit (Geez) Vs. Koran (Arabic) as a matter of consistency.
If Arabic has to be a national language because of the Holy Koran should we then make Geez a national language because the DAWIT was written in Geez? My answer is YES! You better justify this if you want to be consistent. Eritreans cannot be double standard here. Our Moslem population must allow the Geez for a national language should they accept Arabic for one in order to be coherent and the Christians must consider this to secure their equality in the country. Should religion dictate the validity of our national languages, we should make Arabic and Geez the national languages of Eritrea because of the Arabic connection to the Holy Koran and the Geez connection to the Holy Dawit.
This is a genuine question because Geez is the mother of our most popular languages where as Arabic is irrelevant and foreign. The compromise here must land us accepting Arabic and Geez for our national languages should we decide to accept Arabic as one. Instead though, we will be better off making Tigrigna and Tigre our national languages but if few elites have the right to impose Arabic on us, I fight back for my freedom to impose Geez on the society. Let us mess it up by changing everything the hard way should we stay committed to Arabic (making Geez a national language as well). The advocates of Arabic should zip their mouth in the process of Eritreans making Geez their national language and should in fact support this proposal because they cannot have the cake and eat it too. Yet, we would be the first society on earth doing this inconvenient nonsense.
In conclusion; there is no doubt that some Eritreans have been isolated by few spoilers of unity to search for another identity in response. But they should fight back with the good majority to stop the few dictators from affecting us as a unit rather than identifying with societies that discriminate Africans through the ARABIC language. They should glorify and defend their original values rather than detaching from in favor of an alien society and language. Once again, I feel sorry for the people suffering from the cause of this problem but I cannot justify their desperate approach that only exasperates the problem. We can build the confidence of our minorities together through genuine approach and let us start doing it right now.
Down with linguistic dictatorship in Eritrea. Down with artificial identification imposed on Eritreans by few elites that don’t represent their ethnic groups.Down with individuals that pollute politics with religion and ethnicity. Down with the self degrading mentality through irrational attachment to societies that have the history of enslaving colored people including us, the East Africans.
Long live the indigenous Eritrean languages and democracy!!
https://archive.assenna.com/the-self-hu ... nt-page-6/
========
