The Other Side of Eritrea

The Difficult Years: Eritrea and the Great War (1914–1922)

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

From Warriors to Urban Dwellers

This episode of the Eritrawi Podcast examines how Italian colonial rule reshaped Eritrea through military-driven urban planning between 1890 and 1941. Cities were not built for organic growth, but for control, designed around fortifications, surveillance, and strategic dominance. At the center of this system were the askaris, indigenous soldiers positioned as a buffer class between a small European elite and the wider colonized population. Through spatial segregation, racial zoning, and controlled urban design, colonial authorities transformed Eritrea into a laboratory of social engineering. This episode explores how power was embedded into the physical structure of cities, how loyalty was manufactured through military and economic incentives, and how these systems contributed to the long-term formation of Eritrean identity. Uoldelul Chelati Dirar's From Warriors to Urban Dwellers Ascari and the Military Factor in the Urban Development of Colonial Eritrea #Eritrea #Asmara #AfricanHistory #Colonialism #ItalianColonialism #Askari #EastAfrica #UrbanHistory #DecolonizeHistory #HornOfAfrica #EritreanHistory #HistoryPodcast #HiddenHistory #AfricanStudies #ColonialArchitecture #ModernHistory

Hade Zanta – The Conscript Rewriting the Foundations of African Literature Episode 3

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

Hade Zanta – The Conscript Rewriting the Foundations of African Literature Episode 2

Hade Zanta – The Conscript Rewriting the Foundations of African Literature Episode 2 This episode of the Eritrawi Podcast follows Tuquabo, an Eritrean ascari navigating the psychological reality of colonial warfare. Forced into a system built on control, violence, and obedience, he begins to confront a deeper conflict not on the battlefield but within himself.As the campaign intensifies, Tuquabo recognizes the humanity of the men he is ordered to fight while losing faith in the authority that commands him. In a harsh desert environment where survival is uncertain, the real struggle becomes internal holding onto identity, memory, and moral clarity under relentless pressure.This episode explores how power operates not only through force but through control of perception and how resistance can exist silently in thought, in memory, and in small acts of humanity that refuse to disappear.#EritrawiPodcast #Eritrea #HornOfAfrica #AfricanHistory #ColonialHistory #DecolonizeHistory #HiddenHistory #Ascari #ItalianColonialism #LibyaHistory #NorthAfrica #EastAfrica #AfricanStories #UntoldHistory #HistoricalNarrative #WarAndMemory #PsychologyOfWar #HumanityInWar #Resistance #MentalResilience #Identity #OralTradition #AfricanLiterature #TheConscript #GhebreyesusHailu

Hade Zanta – The Conscript: Rewriting the Foundations of African Literature

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