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AbstractThe "history" of the women of Eritrea is a composite of images and narratives that presents them as symbols of the land viewed through the lenses of colonial writers, anticolonial activists, and postcolonial nationalists. These portrayals have tended to deflect a deeper understanding of their lived histories, distorting their actual experiences under colonial rule (1890-1941), during the decolonization period (1941-51), and the era of Ethiopian rule (1952-91). In both the colonial and postcolonial periods, the images constructed by ruling elites mask the harsh realities of women's unmet aspirations of democratic citizenship, justice, and equality under the law, a tendency that has continued since the country's independence in 1993 through the palimpsestic gendered narratives of elites in the nation and diaspora. This article challenges these iconic remembrances to reconstruct the lived historical experiences of the multiethnic, multireligious, and multifaceted women of Eritrea.

Victor T. Le Vine, professor emeritus of political science, analyst, and commentator, died on May 7, 2010, after a brief illness. Le Vine, an only son, was born in Berlin in 1928. His family fled Nazi Germany and lived in France until they immigrated to the United States in 1938. A polyglot, fluent in French, German, and Russian, he was a rigorous researcher, a dedicated teacher, and an encyclopedic repository of classical works in politics, history, literature, and music. He mentored hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students in his 47 years as an academic and was known for using his multilingual skills and photographic memory to make every class lecture come alive—at times accompanying them with his vivid newspaper clippings that he collected from his travels. In his classroom, the politics of the postcolonial world were peppered with vignettes of his experiences as a participant observer in the heyday of Africa's decolonization. He shared with his students the emergence of the political systems of diverse countries such as Benin, Cameroon, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Eritrea, Ghana, France, Israel, the PRC, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Zaire (DRC).

This is an attempt to assess Eritrea's democratic


prospects in light of

its political experience since 1993 as a sovereign state. I readily concede


that it is too early to make a definitive assessment; yet,

just as a child's

first few years are extraordinarily critical in helping to determine its


subsequent intellectual, physical, and moral development, so can a

new nation cumulate experiences that help set it firmly on its feet and


give it the capacity for yet more positive growth. Further, there is

no denying the force of genetic and environmental factors in the

development of both children and states: what they inherit from the

past, as well as the circumstances of their creation, and experiences of


infancy, all contribute to what they will become. I have no wish to

stretch the metaphor further; my point is that a detached analysis of

Eritrea's political inheritance and the forces and key events since
its

formal independence can give, at least, a preliminary reading on its

prospects. Thus, I intend to argue that these first five years have been


marked by pragmatic policy-formation and decision-making which,

taken as a whole, warrant a cautious optimism about the country's


democratic future.