Eritreans in France supporting the national team, Tour De France, 2015aka new exiles
the large group of youth who left the country illegally known as the new exiles can be politically divided roughly into three groups: opposition of EPLF, supporters of EPLF joining the YPFDJ and individuals with only loose political affiliations or non-affiliation at all.
Twenty-one years after its independence, the Eritrean state is in a steady decline. The country’s people suffer from chronic shortages of drinking water, electricity, fuel, and basic consumer goods. Adult Eritreans are forced to serve in the military or the national service for indefinite time periods, which forces thousands to flee the country every month and join the diaspora[1]
‘During the struggle, the EPLF [Eritrean People’s Liberation Front] did not receive support from the Eastern Bloc, which sided with the Marxist Ethiopian Dergue regime, or from Western governments due to its ideological orientation. This led to the emergence of two structural characteristics of the Eritrean regime: the insistence of self-reliance coupled with a deep mistrust towards the international community (including foreign donors) and the instrumentalization of the diaspora as a funding resource.’[2]
one-third of the state’s budget is derived from remittances. This is done by coercion, since vital services such as the extension of passports are subject to tax payment, and by appeals to the diaspora’s long-distance nationalism, fueled through festivals, seminars, and EriTV broadcasts
Furthermore all adult Eritreans were asked to contribute 2 per cent of their annual incomes to the Eritrean state. This contribution is still paid by Eritreans in diaspora, including many who are in open opposition with the current government
The diaspora tax was applied to people of Eritrean origin who had been naturalized by their host countries but were still considered as nationals by the Eritrean government and were thus supposed to pay.[1] as a form of transnational citizenship or diasporic citizenship[3]
In December 2011, the UN Security Council expanded the sanctions of 2009 through UN Resolution 2023, which demands that the Eritrean government stops using its diaspora tax to destabilize the Horn region and ceases to apply coercion in collecting the money[1]
From 1998 to 2000 a devastating border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia evolved, during which the diaspora made significant financial contributions amounting to $142.9 million
the diaspora has proved to be the most constant and indispensable funding source of the regime. Eritrea has never published a state budget and there are no precise data on the exact amount of remittances. Accordingly, the World Bank’s Annual Remittances Data and IMF’s Balance of Payment Statistics include no data for Eritrea. However, Eritreans who had access to government data reported that remittances contribute about one-third to the government’s budget. The IMF stated in 2004 that monetary transfers from the Diaspora are the largest source of foreign currency, and amounts to approximately 37% of the GDP, adding that such high levels of diaspora financing are extraordinary. A Comoros-related World Bank Report also remarks that in Africa, Eritrea is the country that depends most on remittances, followed by the Comoros.
In addition, diaspora Eritreans send private remittances to relatives at home, which serves the regime in two ways: first, the diaspora carries the burden of alimenting the Eritrean population, which is prevented from making a living due to decade-long recruitment of its breadwinners into the national service. Second, the regime profits in monetary terms from these remittances, which can either be made through the PFDJ-owned Himbol Financial Services at an extremely unfavorable exchange rate or through a labyrinthine hawala system, which is also dominated by the PFDJ, but grants more favorable exchange rates..., thus, stabilizing the system directly as subsidies for the state and indirectly through private social security networks. Interestingly, these strategies are similar to those applied by the Cuban Castro-government after the disintegration of the Eastern bloc
Thereby, scholars point to the crucial role of parents in shaping their children’s identity by teaching them Eritrean values and Eritrean culture and socializing them accordingly[2]
...the Eritrean decisive past and to reveal its influence on the promotion and preservation of national consciousness, identity and belonging within the diaspora youth[2]
Concerning politics of belonging of diaspora individuals and their homeland relation, ‘long-distant nationalism’ (Anderson, 1992) is an important aspect, or indeed a political project, which strengthens the feeling of belonging to the distant home[2]
Conrad reveals that such ‘stories about Eritrean heroism as well as the wrongdoings the Eritrean has suffered yet not succumbed to’ (Conrad, 2006, 6) are particularly important to those born and/or raised in the diaspora in order to form their relationship to the ancestral origin.[2]
In 2004 it created the Young PFDJ to indoctrinate diaspora youth living in democratic countries
Their main reason to participate the conference is to meet other second-generation Eritreans to whom they feel close to since they grew up in the diaspora too and thus may have experienced similar issues. However, Zerai mentioned that the participants of the YPFDJ conference in Switzerland only comprised of roughly one third young Eritreans grown up in the diaspora, while the rest were older Eritreans in their mid-thirties or above or Eritreans of the more recent immigration generation[2]
On the other hand, several study participants criticized that the conferences leave little room for critical discussions but rather transmit the ideologies of the former generation.[2]
the rise of nationalism in Eritrea and the ways in which Eritrean festivals are used to promote political unity among diaspora members
Eritrean festivals provide powerful examples of the ways in which symbols are used to mobilize the diaspora, binding people to an imagined Eritrean nation without borders.
"Festival Erәtra" is the oldest festival celebrated by Eritreans in diaspora. Indeed, unlike the Independence Day and the Martyrs’ Day, it was established long before the end of the liberation struggle. It was started in 1974 by diasporic Eritreans in Bologna in order to collect funds for the struggle
Historical links between the two countries affect Eritrean-Ethiopian relations in the diaspora. Most Eritreans I met at Dahlak, for example, could understand or even speak Amharic.
Other opportunities for second-generation Eritreans to engage with their roots, their affinity to Eritrea, and their “Eritrean-ness” are presented by journeys to Eritrea...Diaspora tourism provides an opportunity for individuals with migration backgrounds to directly experience the localities of their ancestral homes and so engage with their origin[4]
Most second-generation Eritreans prefer clubs where there are more diaspora Eritreans than Asmarinos, the local people from Asmara. They believe that they have more in common with diaspora peers, such as preferring the same western music or sharing common values and interests, whereas locals would be quite different[4]
Coles and Timothy argue that diaspora tourism plays a key role in the construction of a diaspora identity, and Conrad claims “that the journeys to Eritrea make most youngsters aware that something like an Eritrean ‘exile’ or ‘diaspora culture’ in its own right exists at all”[4]
Samia Tecle, ayoung Eritrean academic raised in Canada, examines how the government’s efforts to institutionalize feelings of belonging in the diaspora have generated a rift between the post-independence generations growing up in Eritrea and those born abroad[1]...While the state presents itself as inclusive and welcoming towards the diaspora youth, it shows its ugly face to the young generation inside Eritrea, which is exploited through the practice of indefinite national service, thrown into jail, shot by border commandos while trying to flee, or left to their fate as victims of human trafficking. Jennifer Riggan calls this phenomenon ‘Eritrea’s version of graduated sovereignty’, in which the state disciplines its subjects inside the country in order to groom a docile labor force, and simultaneously cultivates the loyalty of the diaspora in pleasurable ways while reminding it of its duties towards the nation.51 This results in a hierarchy of citizenship where diaspora Eritreans enjoy a higher status than locals, which increases the esteem in which they hold the nation state and makes them ‘more than happy to do what the sovereign asks of them… at the expense of the captive citizens inside Eritrea’.52 Accordingly, there is a deep rift between the thousands of newly arriving refugees and those who grew up away from their homeland, including sharp differences vis-à-vis the perception of reality: ‘Some mourn what has become of the country while others celebrate blissfully[1]
Eritreans from diaspora visiting their homeland sometimes informally referred by locals as "Foreign" or "Beles". Beles is a type of seasonal tuna fruit that bears fruit every summer, the same season the members of the diaspora returning home during the summer as tourists.[5]
The present economic and political situation in Eritrea and the stability reached in Milan has diminished the probability that Eritreans in the Diaspora will return to Eritrea to live. Nevertheless, many people in this Diaspora community return to Eritrea for holidays at least every two years. The Eritrean summer returnees invest in Eritrea by becoming its tourists.[5]
Eritrean diaspora practices of shopping and consuming is meant not only to indicate their increasing prosperity to their kin or to perform status though the disposal of wealth, but also to convey 'Italia-ness' to their family and strangers, indicating their integration into the host society; Italy. The gifts taken home and the commodity items displayed are also a means of dissociation from the past and from Eritrea.[5]
Here Eritrea as a place, a physical place, lived and experienced by those who did not leave, becomes a place in mind for the members of the diaspora who return for tourism and holiday-making. Nevertheless, the individualism shown in their leisure practices clashes with the daily experiences of Eritreans at home,[5]
The Eritrean state has a strong and sophisticated record of engagement with its diaspora that goes back for several decades[3]
Diaspora communities were organized by leaders in Eritrea to serve the nationalist cause[6]
The Eritrean diaspora has long played a vital role through its economic support for and political activities on behalf of Eritrea.[7]
Eritreans in the diaspora around the globe (but particularly in North America and Europe) have participated in homeland politics in significant ways[7]
Eritreans in diaspora to show how diasporas are using the Internet in politically innovative ways that challenge conventional relations of citizenship and sovereignty...The Eritrean diaspora stands out for its early engagement with computer-mediated communications even before the worldwide web and for the long-running websites it has established[3]
New communications technologies are not simply tools used by diasporas to communicate across distances, however. My research suggests that digital media are profoundly changing the experience of diaspora and therefore transforming what diasporas are and how they behave.[3]
New communications technologies are not simply tools used by diasporas to communicate across distances, however. My research suggests that digital media are profoundly changing the experience of diaspora and therefore transforming what diasporas are and how they behave. The creation of a war memorial online by members of the Eritrean diaspora is an example that reveals the growing political significance of diasporas as non-state actors located outside the territory of the nation who not only participate in homeland politics but are changing the ways national politics are understood and conducted. There is a tectonic shift under way, the dimensions and dynamics of which are as yet unclear. I argue that political power is being created and contested in new ways by diasporas using the Internet to construct new forms and spaces of political activism[3]
Cyberspace is a medium that helps diasporas overcome distances that separate members from one another and that separate the diaspora from its homeland[7]
Yet despite the steady rise of dissenting voices in diaspora since then and posters who criticize the harsh political culture developed by the EPLF and expanded throughout society by the Isaias regime, few personal testimonials have been unleashed.[6]
This voluntary engagement in relations of sovereignty with the Eritrean state from overseas suggests a dimension of citizenship that might best be understood as ‘emotional citizenship’. That is, Eritreans in diaspora in North America and Europe are for the most part legally citizens of the countries where they reside and earn their living, but they are emotionally pushed and pulled into Eritrea’s national politics. Their sense of themselves is intertwined with Eritrea’s destiny as a nation even if they have no intention of living there[7]
