The Impoverishment of the African Red Sea Littoral, 1640–1945

Steven Serels

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783319941653
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia africana

The African Red Sea Littoral, currently divided between Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti, is one of the poorest regions in the world. But the pastoralist communities indigenous to this region were not always poor—historically, they had access to a variety of resources that allowed them to prosper in the harsh, arid environment. This access was mediated by a robust moral economy of pastoralism that acted as a social safety net. Steven Serels charts the erosion of this moral economy, a slow-moving process that began during the Little Ice Age mega-drought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and continued through the devastating famines of the twentieth century. By examining mass sedentarization after the Second World War as merely the latest manifestation of an inter-generational environmental and economic crisis, this book offers an innovative lens for understanding poverty in northeastern Africa.

© The Author(s) 2018

S. SerelsThe Impoverishment of the African Red Sea Littoral, 1640–1945Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94165-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Becoming Poor

Steven Serels¹

(1)

Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Regionalstudien, Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

End Abstract

The rains in the African Red Sea Littoral (ARSL) failed throughout the Second World War. Rains here are normally scarce. The ARSL is the arid and semi-arid northeastern section of the Horn of Africa that is bound in the west by the Sudanese Nile, the Atbara River, and the Ethiopian/Eritrean highlands, and in the east by the southern half of the Red Sea and the northern half of the Gulf of Tadjoura . Under normal conditions, this region has enough rain to allow for plentiful pastures. However, conditions in the early 1940s were not normal. Year after year, the drought persisted and life became even harsher. Nonetheless, the drying of the land was not total. Water continued to annually flood the torrential rivers that traverse the region. These rivers are fed by the rains in the neighboring highlands of Eritrea and Ethiopia, and these rains did not stop. The limited supply of surface water that flowed down these rivers was a life saver. It allowed pastures to grow along the riverbanks and in the river beds when the floods subsided. Local pastoralist communities also used this water to irrigate fields and grow part of their subsistence. Unfortunately, drought also fosters the formation of locust swarms. In 1943, nearly three years into the drought, a swarm emerged in Northeastern Eritrea and then migrated north into Eastern Sudan. The swarm devoured everything, including the limited vegetation watered by the torrential rivers. When it passed, almost nothing was left.¹ With no pastures and no residual fodder from cultivation, pastoralists all along the ARSL had no way to save their herds. Animals died in large numbers. The losses were so severe that many pastoralists would never be able to restock.² With the death of their animals, dearth turned to famine.

The pastoralist communities that reside in Eastern Sudan and Northeastern Eritrea were already struggling to survive when the locusts arrived. Many of them did not have the resources to weather the drought even in its early years. Staying in the countryside to tend to their animals meant starving. The only way to avoid famine was to migrate to Port Sudan, whose economy was rapidly expanding as a result of the British war effort. Port traffic increased rapidly in the early stages of the war and job opportunities seemed plentiful. Pastoralists who had previously shunned the city migrated in large numbers, causing the population to swell by about 40 percent between 1940 and 1942.³ Unfortunately, this boom was short-lived. By the time the locusts had arrived, the British military’s regional focus had shifted away from the Horn of Africa to Libya. Military resources had been reallocated away from Port Sudan and the economy of the port had quickly contracted. Demand for the casual labor provided by pastoralist had dried up. Though there was no work, conditions in the city were nonetheless more promising than in the countryside.⁴ For starving pastoralist refugees, staying in the countryside meant certain death. At least in the city there was hope.

During the 1943 famine, pastoralists in Eastern Sudan and Northeastern Eritrea starved even though grain markets remained well stocked. Pastoral products have only ever made up a small part of the diets of pastoralists from this region. Traditionally, meat was rarely eaten. Butter, milk, and cheese were important parts of pastoralist cuisine, but grain made up the bulk of the caloric intake of pastoralists throughout the ARSL. The most common dish was sorghum porridge prepared with salt and either water or milk. In Tu-Bedawi, the language of the Beja of Eastern Sudan, this dish is called o’tom. Though diets throughout the ARSL have recently become more diverse, this dish is still widely eaten.⁵ In 1943, sorghum was plentiful throughout the region and yet there was also widespread starvation. Pastoralists could not buy the grain they needed. They had become too poor to afford to eat. Those that died were killed by poverty.

A drought like this should not have been deadly. Droughts are normal in the ARSL. Rainfall is variable. There are good years and bad years. It is normal for there to be a succession of bad years. It is also normal for droughts and locust plagues to coincide. Inadequate rainfall lays the groundwork for the formation of locust swarms. As the ground dries and vegetation cover shrinks, hoppers are forced into close proximity to each other. Physically touching each other induces hormonal changes that cause hoppers to change into their gregarious form that swarms and devours everything. These negative environmental conditions are just part of the harsh reality of living in the ARSL. The pastoralist communities from this region have, over centuries, developed their economic and social practices in relation to this harsh reality. These practices had to help these communities weather the normal negative environmental conditions, just as they had to help them profit from the positive ones. The power of these practices eroded as pastoralist communities sunk into poverty. By the Second World War, these communities could get by only during favorable periods. Their poverty meant that they lacked access to the resources necessary to survive even normal unfavorable environmental conditions. Living through a drought is expensive. It often necessitates the expenditure of money, the using up of reserves and the sale of goods—all tactics that, by definition, are unavailable to the poor.

This book examines the history of the impoverishment of ARSL pastoralist communities. These communities were not always poor. They were once crucial players in the vibrant economy of the broader Southern Red Sea Region (SRSR). Maritime winds in the Red Sea south of the 19°N parallel are controlled by the Indian Ocean monsoons and therefore have a distinct seasonality that facilitates open water sailing. North of the 19°N parallel, the winds reflect meteorological patterns in the Mediterranean basin and, therefore, blow from the northwest throughout the year. Maritime communication in this region was traditionally limited because ships traveling north had to navigate along the coast in order to catch sea-breezes and the region near the shore is hard to navigate as a result of numerous shoals and coral reefs capable of beaching or damaging ships.⁶ The intensive maritime links south of the 19°N parallel extended inland over the extensive networks of caravan roads that led from the ports of the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to important inland markets and productive centers in Sudan, Ethiopia , Yemen, and Arabia. As a result, the SRSR includes the Yemeni mountains, the Ethiopian highlands, the Somali Ogaden Plateau, the Awash River Valley, the Sudanese Nile up to the historically impassable second cataract, and Western Arabia, the site of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina (Map 1.1). Historically, the various communities in the SRSR worked together to harness local environmental conditions to develop and sustain a closely linked, multifaceted socio-economic system that transcended ethnic, linguistic, and political divides. Though this system produced wealth and stability, its dismantling has led to poverty, suffering, and political instability. The story of the impoverishment of ARSL pastoralist communities is the story of the decline of the SRSR socio-economic system.

Map 1.1

The Southern Red Sea Region

During its Golden Age, the SRSR socio-system was shaped by the interplay of the natural environment and Islamic religious practices. The Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina are located in Western Arabia. All Muslims are required, if they are able, to participate in the hajj to Mecca once in their lifetime and many pilgrims choose to travel to Medina. This requirement has maintained human populations in Western Arabia far in excess of the carrying capacity of the land. Less than two percent of modern-day Saudi Arabia is considered potentially arable because there is insufficient surface water to support cultivation outside of a limited number of oases and mountain valleys.⁷ The low agricultural potential of Western Arabia ensured that both the local population and the thousands of pilgrims that came every year were, traditionally, dependent on grain imports. The ready demand for surplus grain encouraged intensive cultivation of fertile land in neighboring regions. Though much of the SRSR is arid or semi-arid, there is sufficient precipitation at high elevations to support agriculture in the highlands of Ethiopia and in Yemen. In addition, rain in the Ethiopian highlands feeds the Nile and a number of other torrential rivers that flow through neighboring lowland regions. The banks of these rivers were historically sites of intensive grain cultivation.⁸ These grain surpluses, supplemented by routine imports of grain from elsewhere in the Indian Ocean World, fueled the regional grain trade and allowed for further economic specialization. A number of niche economic activities became entrenched, such as pearl diving and cloth weaving. This specialization increased inter-communal dependence and allowed for the development of complex states in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Yemen.⁹ The circulation of goods, people, and ideas that underpinned this system was made possible, in no small part, by the ARSL pastoralist communities that controlled transportation between Red Sea ports and the productive centers and major markets in Nilotic Su...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Becoming Poor
• 2. Survival by Conversion, 1640–1840
• 3. Divided and Conquered, 1840–1883
• 4. War, Disease, Famine, Destruction, 1883–1893
• 5. An Unequal Recovery, 1893–1913
• 6. The Cost of Living Becomes Unaffordable, 1913–1945
• 7. Conclusion: Being Poor
• Back Matter