The Eritrean Muslim League and Political Mobilization during the Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation (1952–62)

The Eritrean Muslim League and Political Mobilization during the Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation (1952–62)
Joseph L. Venosa
African Conflict & Peacebuilding Review, Volume 3, Number 1, Spring
2013, pp. 27-55 (Article)
Published by Indiana University Press
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/african_conflict_and_peacebuilding_review/v003/3.1.venosa.html

ABSTRACT: This paper argues that as the Ethiopian government’s

efforts to compromise Eritrean sovereignty increased

throughout the period of the Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation

(1952–62), the regional Islamic leadership and community

activists within the Eritrean Muslim League (EML), the

country’s oldest and largest nationalist organization, played

an increasingly dominant role in arguing for the protection of

Muslim rights. In the process, activists influenced the growing

nationalist movement by using the legacy of Islam to justify

both the political and cultural autonomy of Eritrean society.

Using previously overlooked archival sources, Muslim League

publications, secondary literature, and interviews with activists

from the period in question, this article attempts to revise

current understandings about how the implementation and

steady erosion of the Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation influenced

the course of political and cultural activism among Eritrea’s

Muslim communities. It discusses some of the ways that

federation-era nationalists within the League embraced interreligious

cooperation as a means of addressing perceived injustices

and as way of building broad political support.