Those who advocate compromise are labeled traitors because the polarized attitude permits absolutely no deviation from the extremist position . The most successful ethnic mobilizers concentrate on the youth of the society, and make sure that children s minds are filled with hostile images long before a member of the out-group is encountered . During the first part of the last century, ethnicity was under the threat of modernism and Marxism but it survived that threat almost unscathed. Liberalism as well as revolutionary socialism assumed that as human beings moved from a primitive, tribal stage of social organization to complex industrial and post-industrial structures, the primordial dimensions of ethnicity could simply become obsolete . However, Western scholarship has been, in the words of a prominent social scientist, shocked and dismayed with the apparent increase of utterly intransigent resurgence of modern-time ethnicity backed by the resources of States and political parties.
Material motive is central objective of elites in pursuit of power, privilege and wealth.
Language itself is a material motive. Access to the State, which is the major employer and depository of all wealth in the Third World, gives open access to power, material benefits and privileges to those strategically positioned groups working through nepotistic networks. The experiences in Africa appear to be replete with glaring examples of such sad saga of the post-liberation era. The Amharas were The Ethiopians . In regard to Eritrea, and in spite of the presence of manipulative and powerful bad leaders and teachers amidst us, we still wish to believe that our people have not descended to that low level.