Eritrea as a country was administered by the Italians starting from 1885. In 1885, the Italians entered Masawa, a port city of Eritrea, and in1890 they officially declared that Eritrea is a colony of Italy and they made Asmara the capital city. Now before this period [1890], Italy had also tried to occupy Ethiopia. They went to Adwa which is a place in Ethiopia and the Ethiopians fought and defeated the Italy, and they expelled Italy from Ethiopia and the Italians came back to Eritrea.
The Ethiopians were following them but when they realized that the Italians were already in Eritrea, they didn't continue defeating and killing the Italians. Why didn't they do that? Because they knew that the Eritreans were a sovereign country and they said that once the Italians are in someone's border, they went back to their own country. So Eritrea remains to be the colony of Italy until 1941. In 1941, Italy defeated by the British army during the Second World War and the British administration took over Eritrea having the role of a protectorate and the British administration actually stayed until 1952.
In 1952, by the arbitration of the British army and a UN resolution, Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia, a federal government was established between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1952. The head of the federal government was Haile Selasie, the Emperor of Ethiopia. The federal governance was working in favor of Ethiopia and not Eritrea. So having noticed this, the Eritreans started to wage a movement for independence from the 1950s. In 1958 there was a student movement, workers movement, all seeking for independence but when they realized that the achievement of independence through peaceful movement was not possible, the Eritreans started the struggle.
In 1962, the Emperor abolished the federation and annexed Eritrea to Ethiopia by force. But a year previous (1961), the Eritrean struggle had already started. After fighting for 30 years we won our independence in 1991. Eventually, the party in power in Ethiopia had supported the independence of Eritrea; and actually we did not only win our independence through our own struggle but we had also conducted a referendum asking people to vote for independence and to everyone's surprise, 99.8% of the people voted for independence and officially in 1993 we became an independent and sovereign state. So basically speaking we're different because we belong to two different countries.
Tell me about the coffee ceremony in Eritrea
Selam: The coffee ceremony in our country uses family gathering so when everybody gets back from work everybody will have a coffee ceremony after eating lunch so that they can sit down and chat and have fun. In Eritrea, we have the traditional coffee-making kit, which is a bit different from that in Ethiopia, particularly the pot. The pot in Ethiopia has two opening, one outlet and the other inlet; ours is one and serves both uses. We use popcorn and some cookies.
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"What You did't Know"
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