Customer Reviews

The Challenge Road: Women and the Eritrean Revolution

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i have read this book recently on a trip to Eritrea. it gives a prespective on the conflict with Ethiopia which is egnored by most historians in their sweeping tales of battles and generals. the eritrean freedom fighters were 30% of the troops on the eritrean side and this is the story of the why, were and hows of this. plus it has many of the goverment charters in dealing with the gender issues of this young country. a must for people interested in the role of women in combat.

The Eritrean struggle for independence and justice is an inspiring one, oddly (or maybe not so oddly) ignored by the West and even the rest of Africa. The ultimately successful conflict against not just Ethiopian imperialism but centuries-old traditions, prejudices and abuse covers the entire panoply of religious, political and social issues. This book necessarilly deals with the efforts to emancipate women who fought side-by-side with men for 30 years. The progressive attitude taken by the EPLF in this regard is indeed extraordinary, and the fact that this tiny nation, awash in a sea of semi-feudalism dating back hundreds of years, would take on such deeply ingrained biases in the first place is a testament to their vision for a post-victory Eritrea. But the question remains as to why this country is not used as a model for what the rest of Africa could be, and sadly, it has occurred to me that it's in the West's best interest to keep Africans dependent on foreign largesse. This in no way absolves Africans from their own manifest failures, nor should we ignore Eritrea's at-times all-too-American predeliction for violence and war as a resolution to its problems.

Still, this book, with its interviews and description of pre-victory Eritrean attitudes towards women (the book was written in 1990, a year before the Mengistu regime's collapse)is a good addition to anyone's collection of books on Third World revolutionary movements.