RIP pfdj… my heartfelt condolences to the goons!
The Biblical story of Samson; sprung to mind somehow as IA was blabbering about the other day… desperately trying to rehypnotise the nation into docile adherence to its tyrannical rule… the thing is much like Samson, after his hair was shaven, IA was no longer in command of his faculties that managed to put a lid over every single one of his blunders…and believe me it is not for want of his wants to do so! In his interview with his own media outlet in his own language he was reduced to blabbering incoherent old man who has seized to mean anything to anyone.
I am sorry but he really did come across as a senile man whose pre-existing psychopathic maladjustment was probably made worse by his unfortunate illness (Cerebral Malaria… and unfortunate for Eritrea that is)… and his wilful abuse of alcohol…
People ask so many questions about why things have gone wrong for Eritrea, they try to blame the organisational structure of EPLF and the nature of the Eritrean society… they also analyse post conflict societies… post post colonial societies and many more theories… I say at the bottom of every ill that we as a people have had the misfortune of experiencing… at the heart of every opportunity we missed out on and in the middle of all calamitous disasters that have befallen us is Isaias Afewerki, the author and perfector of Eritrea’s fall from a shining hope to the very definition of a tragic disaster!
Many years of observation and testimonies from those who know him well attest to the fact that IA is a confirmed psychopath who is incapable of experiencing or fully comprehending the normal range of human emotions. He is completely without conscience and without remorse, will do anything at all to achieve his goals or desires, and, sees the rest of humanity and particularly us Eritreans as simple pawns in his power games. True to nature and through the years IA has managed to conceal this by coordinating external emotions like facial expressions and other body languages (e.g. his tears at the funeral of Ali Said), however as the years take their toll and as those that had a buffer effect were removed one after the other his lack of ability to comprehend the other’s emotions and portray the right emotional behavior is becoming rather bare and the effect multiplies as an Eritrean after another wakes up to the reality of this evil man’s reign of terror.
His Paranoia induced rigidity of beliefs means he is incapable of feeling self-doubt, and hence never seriously questions these beliefs. So even when he is faced with a stark reality that is contrary to his beliefs (e.g. the Eritrean youth fleeing their country by the droves escaping the reality of his rule)… he is still incapable of questioning his ways… he is never wrong!… the explanation is always out there in the wrong that someone else is committing! In any case any inner tension that is caused by the dissonance between his rigidly held beliefs and the implications in reality is probably drowned out by his excessive drinking… and that is the source whence all of Eritrea’s bitter spring of reality is flowing: the deviant nature of Issias Afwerki.
But can one man, however evil be blamed for evil at a macro social level? I think he can…
While most logical people tend to avoid paranoid individuals because of their often overwhelming suspicion and fear of others, paranoids have a remarkable capacity for enslaving less critical minds: young people (the ypfdj types), the psychologically deficient (those who dangle IA pictures from their necks and even foreheads!), and those who have been victimized by other pathological egotists e.g. women with violent authoritarian husbands and ex husbands. Such a victim finds himself agreeing with a skewed worldview, and any disagreement is limited to minor points.
As well as being a paranoid psychopath who abuses alcohol (and may be suffering the impacts of cerebral malaria), I believe Issias Afworki has a spellbinding power on the above categories of individuals to which many of his supporters belong. Spellbinders such as IA learn early enough in life the power of their ability to make people see and experience the world in a manner similar to their own. And this spellbound following of a paranoid psychotic is what forms the basis of pfdj support which forms the basis of the ideology that is driving our Eritrea to destruction. How often have we watched, listened to and witnessed the illogical, immoral thinking of pfdjites, who are really the products of the triumph of the IA’s evil over whatever is left of his conscience and wisdom.
Under normal circumstances (in a healthy society where there is healthy debate and self and other criticism is acceptable), the spellbinding but pathological thinking such as IA would have been met with criticism that would counter its implications and stifle it from having a macro societal impact; however Eritrea’s long struggle for independence and the culture of the liberation front that has dominated that period and the nature of such struggles as well as the deliberate engineering (soul engineering) to maintain the post independence society being ruled by culturally backward and intellectually limited rulers has resulted a conducive atmosphere where IA’s malfunctioning brain and his spellbinding nature have become a societal tragedy …
So where does this leave the rest of us Eritreans? and particularly the so called ‘silent majority’, the goons and the facilitators of IA’s pfdj?
Those who have studied the implications of living under systems such as the one the IA has instituted in Eritrea, have identified two main issues: the intelligent individuals being targeted by psychopaths and their system and the normal people under their control. Over time, powerful psychopaths who ruled nations or societies tend to directly or indirectly destroy and eliminate individuals who have high enough level of intelligence if those individuals did not join them.
With the elimination of such individuals, the normal people (or common individuals) would not become too aware of devastations of the system as they only see what was being brought to them, such as on TV ERI.
The purpose of September 18, 2001 and Eraero (disappearance of reformists and free media), the dismantling of the university and all other academic/intellectual institutions worthy of the name, the interference in religious institutions and even business enterprises and the undermining of elders and traditional leaders, is all serving the same purpose of creating a society purged off of any brain that thinks… all the ‘ministers’ and ‘military leaders’ all the ‘regional administrators’ and all the ‘ambassadors’ serve a single purpose: eliminating interference from the reality that doesn’t fall in line with the product of his skewed world view and his ideology that has become the scourge of Eritrea.
The only people that IA has a use for are those who are able to concoct lies and twisted truths and promote them or those that help with the elimination of those who are able to discern between the truth, the twisted truth and the outright lies to become the source of disinformation themselves (we all recognise them as they are the only ones allowed to speak about anything in our Eritrea today).
The sad news is that most Eritreans (inside the country and in the diaspora) want a quiet life (after Eritrea’s turbulent recent past) a simple life and a simple understanding of reality. This is ideal for psychopaths such as IA to take advantage of. He uses whatever means necessary to keep the people in the state of ignorance. Those who want to acquire information, and particularly information sensitive enough for the system, would be given the appropriate disinformation. If for some mysterious reason, and by some mysterious miracle, some of us wriggle out and slither away (the fish that wouldn’t sink!) from the ‘soul engeneering project of pfdj’ and tell each other jokes, poems, songs etc about reality, then pfdj simply consider that someone must be responsible for this, some external enemy (CIA, woyanie etc), or some media outlets abroad orchestrated by some journalists (Martin Plaut, Lenard Vincent, Dan Connel… you know that list don’t you?). To counter these voices pfdj unleashes…their own joke tellers, singers, poets and their own band of propagandists on the world… this is why Thomas Mountain (Wedi Gobo) was telling us about a dinner reception at Molober Restaurant and an overnight stay at Enda-Korea ‘luxury appartments, for the protesting soldiers, following the Forto incidents of January 21, 2013… and that is good news!
Issias Afwerki is not just loosing credibility; he is fast running out of material for his smoke and mirror, reality averting show… he is running out of songs, dance routines, jingoistic poems and displays of bravado to maintain surreality. Unnamed graves in the Egypt-Israeli borders, empty caves in the Sinai desert and floppy fishing boats and bloated bodies washed ashore are piercing the alternative reality that he so carefully engineered. As the veil is lifted off a young Eritrean after another, who considered him their president… the only cry on their lips now is: ‘Down, down dictator!’ and the commander in chief who used to once be revered and respected is now nothing but a blabbering senile old man who is desperately trying to finish what he has started… but with the gradual awakening of many his ‘soul engineering project’ is doomed… RIP pfdj and good riddance too!
Selam
19-02-2013
