It is in the geopolitical sphere of influence, and political events in Sudan have a big impact on the horn. So it is worthy of discussionSudan’s not in the Horn
The Horn of Africa Current Events Thread
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thatrapsfan
Superstar
Culturally and politically it isSudan’s not in the Horn
Like Guyana being Caribbean.
thatrapsfan
Superstar
My grandmother was born in a small town called Teseney close to the Sudan border, people go back and forth all the time. Thats why she can speak and write arabic even though she's christian. She is from the Tigre ethnic group and they (Tigre/Beja) live in both Eritrea and Sudan. We have a lot of links with them, especially people in the lowland parts of western Eritrea
thatrapsfan
Superstar
yes and sudan has sheltered a lot of eritrean refugees, even going back all the way to eritrean civil wars when shaebia pushed jebha out of eritrea into sudan, many of them still live there til this day. My uncle was high ranking jebha officer and his oldest daughter was born there. Towns like Kassala are eritrean strongholds
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
Culturally and politically it is
How so? Sudan is Arab. If Sudan is culturally similar to the Horn, so is Egypt and Yemen.
thatrapsfan
Superstar
See above, their commonalites with Eritrea in particular are significant, through their shared border. They are also clearly in the same Red Sea/Horn geopolitical sphere, hence this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubKEbGQQYCcHow so? Sudan is Arab. If Sudan is culturally similar to the Horn, so is Egypt and Yemen.
Do note that I am not saying Sudan is only tied to the Horn. Its a huge country with countless ethnic groups, and influenced by all regions its proximate too ( and by the broader Arab world too).
As for Yemen, I would actually make the case Somalia and Yemen are very much in the same sphere and their cultural commonalties are even more significant than those between Somalia and Sudan ( especially in South Yemen). My grandfather and father both were born there, they wear similar clothes, eat similar food, and both countiries have centuries of migration flows in both directions. Its silly to think a country that is a 30 minute boat ride away from Djibouti and a little longer from Berbera and Bossaso is not tied to it. This is another debate though
thatrapsfan
Superstar
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
See above, their commonalites with Eritrea in particular are significant, through their shared border. They are also clearly in the same Red Sea/Horn geopolitical sphere, hence this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubKEbGQQYCc
Do note that I am not saying Sudan is only tied to the Horn. Its a huge country with countless ethnic groups, and influenced by all regions its proximate too ( and by the broader Arab world too).
As for Yemen, I would actually make the case Somalia and Yemen are very much in the same sphere and their cultural commonalties are even more significant than those between Somalia and Sudan ( especially in South Yemen). My grandfather and father both were born there, they wear similar clothes, eat similar food, and both countiries have centuries of migration flows in both directions. Its silly to think a country that is a 30 minute boat ride away from Djibouti and a little longer from Berbera and Bossaso is not tied to it. This is another debate though
I find geopolitical/cultural categorizations fascinating
I think I’d exclude Sudan from the Horn because it’s not in the Horn and it’s an Arab-speaking country.
Of course interactions between Nubia and Aksum, as well as Mahdist Sudan and Ethiopia just before and after Menelik II should be noted.
thatrapsfan
Superstar
Fair enough.
Here is a good read on Sudans musical influence on the Horn.
You Need to Hear This Mixtape of Vintage, Golden Era Sudanese Music
@JDH tell us more about the Eritrean civil war. Is it true the highlanders hijacked the revolution?
This is a touchy and very complicated subject, I dont feel like I can do it justice by just typing a quick post on here. Neither do I know everything about the situation. And also you are gonna get 100 different stories depending on who you ask.
But basically yeah, that is how a lot of lowlanders and muslims feel (especially people that are ex-jebha), they are the ones who started the revolution and feel it was hijacked by the predominantly orthodox christian tigrinya speaking highlanders. And with the way eritrea has developed since independence it has given more credibility to their opposition. EPLF was a splinter-group that seperated from ELF and created their own movement and was dominated by Tigrinya people. Personally I always thought it was weird since they were fighting for the same thing, but ideological differences, fear of eritrea turning into a sharia-state and typical power hungry african zero-sum cut-throat politics were some factors playing a part. Others say that ELF was too weak and undisciplined anyway and would have never been able to defeat Derg, and honestly I think there might be some truth to that. There is a lot of old documents, articles and other stuff on the internet from that time-period that you can read, its alot so i never got into most of it.
may 24th was eritrean independence day and there was a big protest in dc against the eritrean government. As u can see a lot of ppl were waving the blue flag. The blue flag was the flag eritrea had during the federation between ethiopia and eritrea, so when haile selassie dissolved the federation and annexed eritrea and the eritrean independence movement started that was the flag they had, since it was the flag of federated eritrea at the time. Since ELF was the original independence movement that flag came to be seen as the ELF flag, even til this day ppl that are on that side of the camp or are anti-EPLF use that flag instead of the official eritrean flag, since they see it as EPLF's flag. So there is still some bad blood (mostly among the older generation) and they see Shaebia as traitors for hijacking the movement that they started and they see themselves as the real freedom fighters for the people of Eritrea.
@thatrapsfan
This site has some older documents from that time period. Not sure how much it says about the civil war specifically though
Anti-Revisionism in Eritrea – Index Page
This site has some older documents from that time period. Not sure how much it says about the civil war specifically though
Anti-Revisionism in Eritrea – Index Page
This is a touchy and very complicated subject, I dont feel like I can do it justice by just typing a quick post on here. Neither do I know everything about the situation. And also you are gonna get 100 different stories depending on who you ask.
But basically yeah, that is how a lot of lowlanders and muslims feel (especially people that are ex-jebha), they are the ones who started the revolution and feel it was hijacked by the predominantly orthodox christian tigrinya speaking highlanders. And with the way eritrea has developed since independence it has given more credibility to their opposition. EPLF was a splinter-group that seperated from ELF and created their own movement and was dominated by Tigrinya people. Personally I always thought it was weird since they were fighting for the same thing, but ideological differences, fear of eritrea turning into a sharia-state and typical power hungry african zero-sum cut-throat politics were some factors playing a part. Others say that ELF was too weak and undisciplined anyway and would have never been able to defeat Derg, and honestly I think there might be some truth to that. There is a lot of old documents, articles and other stuff on the internet from that time-period that you can read, its alot so i never got into most of it.
may 24th was eritrean independence day and there was a big protest in dc against the eritrean government. As u can see a lot of ppl were waving the blue flag. The blue flag was the flag eritrea had during the federation between ethiopia and eritrea, so when haile selassie dissolved the federation and annexed eritrea and the eritrean independence movement started that was the flag they had, since it was the flag of federated eritrea at the time. Since ELF was the original independence movement that flag came to be seen as the ELF flag, even til this day ppl that are on that side of the camp or are anti-EPLF use that flag instead of the official eritrean flag, since they see it as EPLF's flag. So there is still some bad blood (mostly among the older generation) and they see Shaebia as traitors for hijacking the movement that they started and they see themselves as the real freedom fighters for the people of Eritrea.
Yeah I read about this in a really good book regarding the split and war. Also, I read that Kassala was a part of Eritrea so that might explain things there.
But it makes me wonder, had Selassie never annexed Eritrea and instead transitioned into a federated state and simply kept the throne for cultural purposes, could a war have even happened? ELF has a point in being the first independence fighters, but a lot of that was on the grounds of not wanting to be ruled over by a Christian king which played into the hands of Egypt (Nile politics) whom were among the many Arab benefactors of the ELF movement.