socio-economic transformations in liberated and the impact on eritrea peasant women
This article was written by members of the Eritrean Women's Organization of the Eritrean Popular Liberation Front (EPLF).
Eritrea has been ruled by successive colonizers since the last century. Consequently, its socio-economic structure and development has been tailored to the interests of the various intruders. In colonial Eritrea today, there obtains an articulation of the capitalist and feudal modes of production, the latter being predominant. More than eighty percent of the population is composed of peasants engaged in subsistence agricultural production and nomadism.
Forms of land ownership
Since the feudal mode of production evolved without entailing structural changes in the traditional land-holding system, the classical bi-polar class division of society into landlord and tenant does not exist in the strict sense. In giving a brief description of the traditional land-holding system, it is important to underline that land is owned by the males only. The peasant woman has access to land ownership only in so far as she is a wife .
Diesa (communal or village ownership). This is the prevalent system of land tenure. Every member of the village community has the same rights to use the land. The diesa land is divided into different categories according to its fertility. Land of each quality is redistributed, at least theoretically, among the village members periodically (generally every five to eight years).
Meriet Rest! (family ownership). Here only the members of the extended family have the rights of user. This land is not subject to sale without the consent of all the male members of the family.
State lands. This comprises large tracts of fertile lands confiscated by the colonial regimes from the people. They are not subject to sale and are leased mainly to agricultural capitalists and rich farmers and, at times, to landless peasants.
Tribal ownership. In the lowland areas where nomadism prevails we find more pronounced feudal relationships. The land is theoretically owned by the entire tribe, but an aristocratic class of dominant families exacts heavy dues and services from the pastoral peoples. In the semi-nomadic areas, they have appropriated sizeable amounts of land and a serflandlord relationship exists.
Feudal relations of production are also found in the diesa and meriet resti where landless and poor peasants have been forced into feudal relations with a handful of village dignitaries and political appointees of the colonial regimes. Evolving over the years, this process involved the delaying or freezing by village chiefs of land redistribution in the diesa for as many as forty years in some areas, thus preventing the eligible newly-wed members of the village from land holding. The phenomenon of absentee land ownership also developed since those who migrated to the cities still retained their portion of land and leased these to either the landless poor or poor peasants within a feudal relationship. Another big landowner in the diesa and meriet resti is the church, which owns a substantial part of the fertile village land. This has been greatly enlarged since Ethiopia's colonization of Eritrea .
These same processes have led to a stratification of the peasantry into the landless and poor peasants who are in the majority and the middle and rich peasants who own land and farm implements in varying quantity. To these we must add the poor farm labourers (mostly seasonal workers) who work in the big agricultural enterprises owned mostly by foreign capitalists.
Women in traditional society
The peasant woman is not entitled to land ownership under any of the forms of the land tenure system. She has no right to participate in the redistribution of the land in the diesa and no right of consultation in the sale of the meriet resti
eritrea peasant women
land. In case of divorce, she is not entitled to use the communal or family land if she is without children. Neither does she get any of the family property in divorce and in some areas half of her dowry that her parents initially paid. Women working as farm labourers in capitalist agriculture are the most exploited. They are paid less than half of what their male counterparts get for the same job.
In addition, the sexual division of labour within the family relagates her to the most arduous jobs. She spends the whole day working heavily in the farms alongside her husband. At the end of the day, she goes home ahead of him and begins another cycle of domestic work. In addition, women peasants engage in small scale supplementary activities such as weaving cotton and making clothing for the household.
To this should be added the humiliation she is forced to suffer under the patriarchal culture where she is seen as subordinate and subservient to man. In patriarchal and semi-feudal society, marriage, which is influenced by economic reasons, is arranged without consulting the future bride at all. As for divorce, this is totally the man's prerogative
EPLF's position on the women question
The EPLF believes that the social emancipation of women cannot be seen separately from the question of the emancipation of the entire society from class oppression. Thus great emphasis is given to their participation in the ongoing national democratic revolution in all spheres. For participation of women in the armed struggle in all fields, i.e. combat role, social production, etc., would not only guarantee equality of women but also deal heavy blows to male prejudices and woman-denigrating feudalist myths.
To realize this, however, favourable ground had to be prepared, the political consciousness of women raised so that they would be able to surmount backward ideological barriers cemented by ages of patriarchal and feudal culture. The EPLF accordingly exerted a lot of effort along these lines. This has met with considerable success. Women are today participating in the struggle and have formed their own organizations at home and abroad.
Today no less than about 20% of the EPLF fighters are women. Women fighters are involved in all aspects of social production. They are engaged in agricultural and handicraft industry, they work in machine shops, electrical workshops, weapons repair etc... They participate actively in military operations. In the EPLF, there is no work that is reserved for men only. The EPLF also expends much effort to increase the political consciousness of women fighters taking into account their disadvantageous social background. Hence they are given priority to go to the Front's Cadre School.
Women in the liberated areas
The main point that needs to be emphasized here is that the equitable redistribution of land is one of the central themes of the EPLF. And the social emancipation of the exploited masses cannot be isolated from the question of ownership of means of production (land and farm implements in this case) directly affecting their lives. The confiscation of the land owned by the colonial state and the eradication of feudalism, the distribution of land to the landless peasants, the political participation of the overwhelming masses (i.e. the poor and landless peasants) in running their own village affairs assumes therefore a primary importance.
And what must be underlined here is that the Eritrean woman is no longer considered as subordinate to the man, but has an equal right, equal say in land redistribution and in the newly set up people's assemblies. In fact, in the land reform that is being carried out, distribution of land is made no more on household but on an individual basis. Because of such a modification in the rules of land redistribution, women have been able to receive an equal share of land. Women are also not only allowed to attend but actually do participate actively in the village assemblies and in all the social and political activities (land reform, overthrow of feudal political power... etc.) of the village communities.
In addition the EPLF has promulgated a marriage law as of 1978 abolishing forced and child marriages. Divorce no longer depends only on the will and whims of the man and upholds equal division of family property with protection rights for children.
Women have further formed their own organizations in the liberated areas in Eritrea as well as abroad. These organizations are proving as valuable vehicles for drawing many more women into the revolutionary stream, for combatting illiteracy among their ranks, for raising the political consciousness of women members, developing their leadership abilities... etc., which would ultimately guarantee the consolidation and advance of the above gains.
The struggle for the economic and social liberation of women is one and the same as the struggle for class emancipation. A case in point of how this is integrated in the liberated areas is the struggle of the peasant men and women against the feudalists in Afabet. In 1977 the poor peasant organizations in Afabet and its surroundings, where the tribal type of land holding theoretically existed but a few feudalists have appropriated large lands, began to struggle for land reform under the slogan of "land to the tiller".
The front directly intervened in taking the feudal lands and distributing them to the landless serfs in collaboration with the People's Assembly there. One feudal lord, who had 45 serfs working on his land, began to organize the other feudalists, the rich merchants and religious leaders to fight against the mass organizations. The People's Assembly which led the struggle against the feudalists, was composed of 37 poor peasants and serfs, 7 workers, 20 women of poor peasant origin, 7 representatives of the youth organization - 4 girls and 3 boys - and 2 middle peasants (73 in all).
Understanding the traditional and religious view against the equality of women (especially in Islam), the feudalists began to agitate against the participation of women in the People's Assembly in order to rally support against the People's Assembly and its struggle for land redistribution. On May 28th, 1978, they met at the local mosque and began to preach: "As if Afabet has no men, 24 women now sit in the People's Assembly. Abomination!!! It is against the Sharia (the islamic law) for women to talk in public, to open their veils, to leave their families and go to work alone. Our culture is being destroyed, and our land is being given to people who have not worked for it!" In order to invoke tribal feelings they shouted: "Our tribal land, our forefathers' land is being given to peasants from other tribes. Fight against this abominable People's Assembly".
This reactionary feudal demonstration united the poor men and women, and they fought together for their class interests under the slogans: "Equality of women in land distribution! ..Our struggle is class based not tribal! ... the People's Assembly is the guarantor of our rights!!" etc.. At the end they totally isolated the feudalists who were humiliated. This clearly demonstrated to the poor peasants that the struggle for emancipation of women is inseparable from the struggle for economic - class - emancipation against the feudal class.