���such being the partial character of prevailing opinion, even when resting on true foundation, every opinion which embodies somewhat of the portion of truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be considered precious, with whatever amount of error and confusion that truth may be blended�     Ibid, p104

Introductory remark

The only stable foundation for a just reliance on our thought is the steady habit of correcting and completing our opinion by collating with those of others in carrying it into practice, without shutting any light which can be thrown upon the subject matter from any quarter. This must be the guiding evolutionary process of our thoughts and knowledge. In light of the aforementioned premises and hoping this will be a fascinating relief and potentially tell us much �topic of debate,� I will focus tightly on two political manifestations that help to the evolution of the nationhood of Eritrea.

In this essay the �Eritrean nationality� and �Eritrean identity� will undergo into a factor analysis along with the relatively important variables such as �common experience� and �common history�. Furthermore, it is quintessential to show the linkage between the rise of Eritrean nationalism and the emergence of Eritrean statehood. In this diacritical analysis, whether I do it well or not, it will lead us to far more debate to comprehend the essence of the issue and subsequently to the conclusion of having a common understanding to the history of our army struggle as well as to our peculiar �Eritrean identity�.

Because, the army struggle is one of the foundations of our common history, Yosief Ghebrehiwet pushed me in our last debate, to go behind the appearance of our army struggle to get its� essence and show him if such common experience took place in our army struggle. His skepticism on whether we had a �common experience� to create our �common identity� was a challenge to me and other compatriots, who had gone through that experience. Though that common experience had certain lapses (an interval of careless decline) that slow to the discourse of our common experience, it is my firm believe that, at the end of the day it was attested by the outcome of the common goal, the �Eritrean independence.� In any case, to show the consonance of the contextual concepts and its� practical application to the evolvement of Eritrean common experience, I will try to approach metaphysically by simply starting with fixed definitions of the terms to its various attributes at the same time dialectically aiming to understand those terms correctly, their interconnections in all our argument. It is my sincere believe that this approach will avoid �formal thinking� that often has the propensity of misleading to understand the cause of events in all its� facets. Therefore, I will try to show the correlations of historical backgrounds, psychological perceptions, and ideological merit of the issue at hand with rational reconstruction to have a comprehensive understanding.

Eritrean Nationalism

Nationalism is an ideology that hold, that a nation is the fundamental organic unit for human social life. It refers to both political doctrine and collective action by political and social movements on behalf of a specific nation. It implies with bounded ness, continuity, and encompassing diversity. In short nationalism is an ideology in which social reality is conceived in terms of nationhood. Nationalism has two relatively benign definitions (a) It is the process of seeking to identify behavioral entity of the nation, and therefore to pursue certain political and cultural goals on behalf of it. (b) It is a sentiment of loyalty towards a nation which is shared by the people. Therefore a nation is a psychological characteristic what individuals identify with.

Nationalism in itself has inherent sovereignty with its own rational and consciously intended social order. Now myself, walking on this tip-toe of political description, I will try to link the historical, political, and psychological elements bounded to the social reality that conceive to the nationhood of Eritrea.

A- History as a factor:

Unlike the modern European states which are emerged after the �treaty of Westphalia� in 1648 and recognize each others sovereignty and territorial boundry, the African nations including �Eritrea� are formed by the partition of colonizers. From this historical orientation, the inscribed people who live within the prescribed land become to be identified to the �prescript ional name� of the land given by the colonizers. Hence, in our case all the ethnic groups inscribed within the land of �Eritrea� became to be known as �Eritrean.� Irrespective their individual identity �Eritrea� became their common identity and consequently the psychology of belonging took its roots. As a result of this historical phenomenon, the Eritrean people have seen �Eritrean nationalism� as a positive force and as antidotal to colonialism. In other words the quintessence of Eritrean nationalism was anti-colonialism. This analysis is part of the historical evolvement and the creation of common identity that leads to the evolvement of �common experience,� which we will see later in the experience of Ghedli.

On the other hand, Eritrea like the other African countries was considered a land to be exploited. When the Italians came to Eritrea it was with the intention to exploit the resources of the land. But, whether the land had a resource or not is another thing which will be discovered after they settled to the land. Without going too far, colonialism came with their evil political intentions convolved to economic exploitation, political oppression, and social injustice. For Eritrean this became a philosophical and moral justification for action, for rebellion, which gave rise to �Eritrean nationalism� and to �Independence�. The later was the greatest achievement and it was an unprecedented collective fulfillment. The former which is nationalism, was a process in its political term, a process of struggle in the formation of a nation and nation building.

B- Psychology as a factor

Though, it became axiomatic for modern thinkers to condemn the nation and its corollary terms �nationalism� and  �nation state� as a classic of modern society, nothing can deter to the natural process and the consciousness of the concerned people to the formation of  �national identity.� National consciousness is psychological consciousness. I am stating this fact knowing that there will be some, who could try to argue from that prospect, especially our brothers from the south. We are also reminded that, the late Emperor Hailesselassie had retorted back then, that he needs the �land Eritrea rather than the people,� something he learned from his predecessors - the European colonizers, to undermine the aspiration of the Eritrean people. I don�t have any doubt that this convulsive remark was one of the conditions to the moving Eritrean energy �the Eritrean common psychological resilience.�

From my experience, I have observed two basic tenets of informal psychological values that contribute to our common identity (a) pivotal interpersonal value � shared inner perceptions. They help each other in dire need due to perceptions of being together as part of one identity (Eritrean) irrespective to their differences. We always defend our common external aspect of dignity that is, any thing that despises the common identity (Eritrean). (b) Confrontational value - the ability to undertake revolutions and uprising against common enemy though we are muted now when it comes to our internal common enemy. Simply, because (i) we didn�t build yet a common experience against the regime of Asmara. (ii) The Eritrean people didn�t recuperate from the fatigue of the army struggle and senseless border conflict (iii) Lack of enlightenment to the vision of �building a nation.�

Within the above psychological order, some other psychological needs to be evolved side by side to contribute to the essence of common Eritrean identity - the needs of common safety and security, the needs to actualize the common selfhood (reflected in the spirit of nationhood). All these are rooted to the abstract psychological ingredients of Eritrean psychic such as (a) the imagined attachment to the territory (b) the feeling of categorical membership (c) the impersonal association to the land. By virtue of the connective ness of these components of psychological factors, my argument presuppose a broader concept that treats Eritrean community as a generic component of human association and moral psychology that contribute to Eritrean nationalism as a complex social phenomenon.

C- Political Ideology as a factor:

We are all aware, more or less, acquainted with the fact that the pursuit of political liberation and social justice brought forth the modern concept of nation-state as a community of citizens established to guarantee natural rights across a �unified dominion.� It is also fact, that the emergency of rationalism as a prominent philosophical orientation brought a reasonable cognition to the conscious collective will of �civic nationalism.� The Eritrean nationalism at its outset was embodied to these two rational political endeavor �civic nationalism� and �unified dominion�. To justify this argument, one has to refer to the student movement, labor movement of the 50s, political activist, and leaders proponent to the ideas (the WalWal and Abdelkadir Kebire�etc). Though this politico-ideology had taken decades to permeate to the public conscience, which was dictated by the interference of the international community at that time, the psychological resilience of Eritrean people gave rise to the emergence of our army struggle as a last resort to liberate �Eritrean nationalism,� from the barrel of the gun. War as means of political process to achieve �political independence� was accepted despite all the odds we have witnessed during our army struggle .To my understanding, the army struggle had a �binary mission,� (i) to fulfill the historical requirement (ii) to call an end to the social inequality and injustice where means and ends are dialectically calibrated in a historically grounded fashion. On the other hand, the mission had one simple political principle which had congruence on its political cause and national unity. By that I mean, there was a national unity to that �political cause� - to the �quest of Eritrean independence.�

Of course, no one will argue, that the army struggle was started with clear political platform until early 1970s. The army has nothing in their mind except to fight the �established enemy� � the Ethiopian army, until 1971 when ELF started to promulgate a �national democratic programs.� To my knowledge EPLF hadn�t any debated �political program� endorsed by the rank and file till early 1977, though they had a slogan of �new democracy� borrowed from the Chinese revolution without formal endorsement in a legitimate congress or conference. This way or that, my argument is not to narrate the history of our army struggle, but to establish the politico-ideology component of Eritrean nationalism, while I opted to differ history to historians of our young generation. Hence Eritrean nationalism has an ideological basis to exist as oppose to the Ethiopian regime of that era - and was practically founded on acts of sacrifice and memorial.

The concept of �National Identity� and �Common Experience�

Identity is an abstract and composite notion which sums over many aspects of who we are, what and how we feel. It is analytical tool rather than phenomenological reality. Nonetheless, there is certainly some phenomenological sense of self-recognition that is related in the continuity of identity. Identity is an embodied experience which is fundamental to our sense of self.

In socio-political term, common experience means relating to, reflecting or adapting to diverse in which citizen can perceive and solve public problem. Common experience leads to equal considerations of different conceptions of the good and expand the options of choice.

Because national Identity is an ever changing concept, influenced by external and internal manipulation of polity�s collective memory, it is my firm believe, that the current national identity is the outcome of the collective experience of our army struggle. The identity of our being Eritrean in performance became the elements of common experience. We have seen how both �common identity� and �common experience� interplay to define the Eritrean nationalism in its pragmatic fashion. Although the question of unity and fixity of identities as against their shiftiness, multiplicity, and relativity has been a subject of debate among academicians, the current Eritrean organic identity will hold as it is, at least with my generation � a generation who bleed for it.

Of course, identity is not to be conceived as permanent and static category, but rather a process in all its dynamism and contradictions, similar to the evolvement of Eritrean national identity which took more than a century to reach its current reality. I can not predict what the future hold, but the coming generation will act in the way the world dynamism dictate them.

Common identity and common experience are observable so also measurable

As Hall (1968) indicated �identities are fashioned in discourse in a specific historical within specific discursive formations and practices.� When I try to clarify its� use I often find that its etymological regard has heuristic value. However, the Eritrean identity was identified earlier in the Eritro-psycho-dynamic analysis as the embodiment to Eritrean nationalism. Because, nationalism and identity have inter-dependent descriptions, it is intriguing to segregate each other for the general public to comprehend. But, in a simplistic way, I will try to show how the pragmatic essence of nationalism brought common experience and in turn how that common experience create the observable common identity.

Aside the organic formation of the state Eritrea, let us glance back the recent history of the Eritrean people in general and the �ghedli itself� in particular during the 70s as an example to establish my argument to my compatriot Yosief, and how the killing and suffering was a �common denominator� in the life of Eritrean people. If we internally and subliminally observe for the time being, the massacre of Eritrean people at �Una� in Sahal, the massacre at �Hirgigo� in Semhar, the massacre at �Omhajer� in Gash, the massacre at �Weki-duba� in Hamassien,�..etc, virtually in all the demographic population of the �organic unit Eritrea,� it all tells about the �common experience� from the assault of the Ethiopian army. What about the bombardment virtually on every conceivable Eritrean village? Oh yes! it was the common experience of Eritrean people. Oh yes! It was because; the enemy had observed our �common identity� that we became the target of the surely indiscriminative assault of Ethiopian army. The same can be said, but not in the same manner to the anguish of Eritrean people inside Ethiopia during Haileslassie and Mengstu.

As an outcome of this common experience we had seen the influx of Eritrean youngsters of my generation to join the two liberation fronts in thousands, to the extent the organizations with their limited resources and logistics had hard time to absorb .It was a historical turning point that shows the magnitude in its quantifiable image of the common experience in its abstract mathematical calculations. Our common experience had positive and negative discourses that influence �the half time� as in chemistry to determine the life span of our Ghedli. The lack of progress beyond the consciousness of political independence and the intermittent civil wars had prolonged our struggle for independence. On the other hand, our leaders saw politics as an instrument that nurtures the growth of power. Hence, politics in the army struggle begets competition for power. But to the contrary, history attested that, the Eritrean common identity had never been challenged by the radical doubt of common sense. I consider the above negative experience as variables outside our control that does not influence our common identity but some how dragged our common goal.

Further more, the army struggle was not only a notion in search, or struggling for, identity, dignity, and independence, but also people imbued with common experience of domination and exploitation asserting their claim in struggle .Independence as a common goal and common experience achieved the promised certitude within the context of foreign domination.

conclusion

National identity had been one of the principal forces in shaping the course of our history. It will still remain as the principal force in building and rebuilding our nation even within the next generation, as its dynamism unfold the secrets of life and its relationship. It is my intuitive believe that, the Eritrean dynamism will continue in reinventing a new political order with new ideological basis to stride to the next stage of historical identity � a �constructive Eritrean nationalism.� Constructive nationalism is defined as having explicit and peculiar character in which the interest of the �nation� and the �people� take priority over all other interests and values. Constructive nationalism also implies �state building� and �nation building� which includes, the creation of a set of institutions, drafting a frame work of governance, and laying conducive economic infrastructures. Eritrea today is functioning by try and error without institutions for over a decade since independence. Therefore, our current struggle should focus towards this goal by removing the current state machine and correcting our own political dysfunction as people.

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